Four Signs Your Party is About to Wipe.

Told by a former adventurer who’s seen it all go wrong.

In advance of Bardic Planet’s review of The Light Fanatics by A_Morningstar—known to some as the Wandering Bard —I thought it prudent to prepare my dear readers with tales from my own past adventures.

The Light Fanatics—a fantasy novel hewn from the real-world tabletop RPG Invictus—follows a noble family cursed and blessed in equal measure with status, magic, and the legacy of their deceased patriarch’s hidden war with Dragon Cultists and other shadowy forces.

My adventures were not so grand.

Still, I picked up some insights before settling down to become your Bard-In-Chief.

Indeed, I have observed many adventuring parties in my time—brave men, bold women, creatures of questionable origin, abysmal odours, and even worse judgement.

Most are dead.

Not by fate. Not by some grand design—but by a series of entirely avoidable decisions.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the moment a party seals its fate. It is rarely dramatic. Often, it is profoundly stupid.

Allow me to educate you.

The First Sign: The Party Splits.

You’d think it obvious—splitting the party is a bad idea. It’s apparent. I mean, why form a party at all if you were going to split?

That blessed synergy of damage dealer, defensive tank, healer, and scout cannot be maintained without everyone working together.

You’d think everyone knows this.

I am here to tell you—they do not.

Strategy? Bah.

Signalling? A four-letter word… admittedly, with slightly more letters.

Confidence. Brute and blind. That is all you need.

Listen well, dear reader. When you detect the signs of a party aiming to split—to “cover more ground” and “find the secrets within faster”—ensure that you cover ground as well.

Back the way you came.

They are doomed. There is nothing you can do to save them.

The tank will discover—quite suddenly—that he cannot defend against a tripwire that sends the walls of the chamber grinding inward. Armour is of limited use when the room itself wishes you dead.

The healer will learn that one cannot mend one’s own decapitation—particularly when no one was present to warn her about the ceiling-mounted scything mechanism.

The rogue—ah, the rogue—will remain hidden for a time. Quite an impressive amount of time, in fact. Long enough to grow confident. Long enough to grow hungry.

Hunger, you see, is louder than stealth.

It is also, tragically, louder than the soft, triumphant squeaking of the dungeon’s resident rat—an ancient, battle-scarred creature known locally (and entirely by itself) as Skitter the Unyielding.

This whiskered strategist has already located the rogue’s rations, appraised their nutritional value, and dragged them away with the grim determination of a veteran reclaiming spoils from a fallen foe.

By the time the rogue realises his pack is lighter, Skitter is perched atop a stalagmite like a tiny, furry warlord—chewing brazenly, maintaining unwavering eye contact, and radiating a smug, tyrannical satisfaction.

As for the swordsman, the red mage, or whatever hybrid abomination the party insisted would “scale well into late game”—they will die exactly as they lived:

Overextended. Underprepared.

And, most damning of all—alone.

The Second Sign: “It’ll Be Fine.”

There exists, in every doomed party, a moment.

A quiet one.

Subtle. Unassuming. Easily missed—if you lack the proper training.

It arrives just after the plan has been proposed. Just after the risks have been raised. Just after the final, fragile thread of reason has made its case and been collectively ignored.

And then—someone says it.

‘It’ll be fine.’

It will not be fine.

This phrase is not reassurance.

It is surrender.

It is the sound of a mind closing itself to consequence. A declaration that reality is, at best, a suggestion—and at worst, an inconvenience to be dismissed.

I have heard it uttered before:

• before opening doors that were very clearly breathing,
• before stepping into rooms that asked, politely, that we do no such thing,
• before touching objects that hummed with the promise of immediate and irreversible regret.

Each time—without exception—it was not fine.

The tank says it before charging.

The rogue says it before touching.

The mage says it before experimenting. (A spell last tested during the Age of Regrettable Decisions)

The healer says nothing at all—because she has already realised what the others have not.

Listen carefully, dear reader. When you hear those words spoken—when confidence rises in inverse proportion to wisdom—take note.

You are not witnessing bravery.

You are witnessing the precise moment a party decides that consequences are optional.

They are not.

The Third Sign: The Rogue Touches It.

There are, in this world, objects that should not be touched.

Ancient relics. Whispering artefacts. Items described—quite explicitly—as cursed.

These are not subtle warnings. They are, in fact, remarkably clear.

And yet…

The rogue touches it.

Not cautiously.

Not reluctantly.

But with the quiet confidence of one who believes themselves exempt from consequence.

You may protest. You may reason. You may even, in rare cases, attempt to physically restrain them.

This will not help.

For the rogue is driven by a force older than logic, deeper than fear, and far more powerful than self-preservation:

Curiosity.

It begins innocently enough.

A glow. A hum. A faint whisper promising power, knowledge, or—most dangerously—loot.

The rogue leans closer.

The party hesitates.

The healer senses something is wrong.

The tank says, ‘Wait.’

The mage begins a sentence that will never be finished.

And the rogue—

touches it.

What follows is rarely immediate.

That is the true cruelty of it.

The trap does not always spring.

The curse does not always strike.

Instead, there is a pause.

A dreadful, suffocating pause in which the rogue turns—smirking—and says something along the lines of:

‘See? It was—’

IT WAS NOT FINE! (Please refer back to the second sign.)

Listen carefully, dear reader. When a warning is given clearly, repeatedly, and without ambiguity—and is ignored regardless—you are no longer witnessing poor decision-making.

You are witnessing natural selection with a dagger and a lockpick.

The Fourth Sign: The Dungeon Master Smiles.

Before we proceed, dear reader, it is worth noting that even Skitter the Unyielding grows still at such moments.

Rats, after all, know when the trap has already sprung.

There is another moment—rare, fleeting, and often misunderstood—when all pretense falls away.

No more plans.

No more arguments.

No more ‘it’ll be fine.’

The dice have been cast. The artefact has been touched. The party has, in every conceivable way, sealed its fate.

And then—

The Dungeon Master smiles.

Not broadly.

Not theatrically.

No—this is not the grin of a villain.

It is far worse.

It is small.

Measured.

Professional.

The kind of smile worn by one who has already calculated the outcome… and found it satisfactory.

You will not notice it at first.

Few do.

The tank is still speaking.

The rogue is still defending their decision.

The mage is still explaining—gods help them.

And the healer…

The healer has gone very quiet.

Because the healer has seen it.

They always do.

They have recognised, with dreadful clarity, that the world has stopped reacting…

…and has instead begun resolving.

There will be no warning.

No correction.

No sudden mercy.

Only consequence—applied cleanly, efficiently, and without appeal.

A failed roll.

A triggered effect.

A cascade.

The party will not fall all at once.

That would be kindness.

Instead, they will collapse piece by piece—each realising, in turn, that the moment of failure did not occur now…

…but several decisions ago.

Listen carefully, dear reader. When the Dungeon Master smiles—when the world itself seems to pause, take note, and proceed with quiet certainty—you are no longer in danger.

You are already dead.

Final Word:

And so we return, at last, toThe Light Fanatics—a tale of family. Not the gentle sort, bound by comfort and shared memory, but one forged in legacy, expectation, and the quiet weight of decisions made long before the story ever begins.

Each of them stands apart—distinct in talent, temperament, and the peculiar gifts that set them above lesser men. And yet, for all their differences, they are bound by the same inheritance: a name, a burden, and the lingering shadow of a patriarch who waged wars in silence and kept secrets even from those he claimed to protect.

Those secrets do not stay buried.

They press inward. They shape choices. They narrow paths.

And as I have so generously demonstrated, there are only so many ways such paths can end.

I had intended to deliver my full assessment today. Alas some stories resist haste. Some demand to be seen in full before judgement is passed.

Next week, we shall see which signs they heed… and which they ignore.

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