I’ve been DMing a multi-actual-year campaign bringing a party from level 1 to as close to 20 as I can.
 
The party consists of a dwarf barbarian-fighter, a tiefling alchemist-gunslinger-rogue, a half-elf bard, a yewheart, a treant, druid, a tortle cleric, who died heroically and was replaced by a warforged evocation wizard.
 
Cut to the middle of the campaign. The party has found a zealot barbarian floating on driftwood out in the open sea while traveling to a rumored island, not found on any charts.
 
This is how the zealot barb came into the game, and also how I introduced warforged when the Eberron supplement was released for 5e.
 
The party is somewhere around level 11-12.
 
The party saves the island and befriends the warforged inhabitants. The warforged sent an emissary back to the mainland to establish a port for their sky ships. The zealot barbarian “accidentally” raids a farmer’s property and eats a chicken.
 
He is guilt stricken and spends some downtime using his gold to acquire several hundred chickens to deliver to the farmer.
 
The chickens quickly overrun the town and the nearby forest. They are actually considered invasive after several months.
 
The zealot finds a chicken he likes and tries to befriend and train it. Several sessions and levels later, the zealot gets the druid to awaken the chicken. They find a local blacksmith and have him craft armor and weapons for the chicken that they named, Stabby.
 
The warforged emissary begins work on a skyport and tells the party of rumors of an old Warforged sky ship lost centuries ago during storms off of the coast of Waterdeep.
 
He tells them that if they find the ship and the big arcane crystal that powers it, and maybe we can make you a new one.
 
So the party sets off, with an armored chicken along for the ride.
 
The cleric using Find the Path leads them right to a Slaad warren. They leave Stabby the chicken to protect the cart and horses.
 
They attempt to sneak through warren. And fail.
 
The gunslinger fires a gun in a cave system, echoing. Hundreds of slaad now alerted to their presence
They engage in some combat and start cutting through the humanoid toad monsters.
 
The party is doing fairly well for itself when a Glabrezu shows up. The party collectively craps their pants but he goes down pretty quick with focus fire tactics. They escape the warrens, having noped the hell out of there.
 
Just when they think they are in the clear, the glabrezu returns.
 
Druid with the transport via plants for the win.
 
They were forced to leave the chicken and the wagon. Literally a year later in real time and like eight months in game pass.
 
The zealot has had a repentance arc. The party is engaged against a new threat to all of Sword Coast. A demon army.
 
The party has called in some old favors. Warforged Island is sending airships and riflemen.
 
The zealot asks the cleric to cast sending to Stabby, the chicken.
 
Stabby is pissed he’s been left in the forest for months.
 
The cleric tells Zealot the chicken is fine and happy.
 
The demon army is advancing through High Forest.
 
There is about to be a problem for the druid's progenitor, the Mother Tree.
 
The party makes haste. Cleric has successful use of Divine Intervention and banishes something like five hundred demons.
 
All that’s left are the generals.
 
A baalor, a marilith, and a homebrewed corrupted fey treant now turned demon.
 
The corrupted treant is trying to corrupt Mother Tree.
 
Marilith sees cleric banish several hundred demons. He’s a threat. She teleports behind him, standing by himself anyway.
 
He gets the full brunt of her attacks. Dies in two rounds.
 
The fight is close, but the party ultimately defeats generals, but the corrupted treant escapes.
 
They bury the dead and mourn their losses then return home.
 
They meet a warforged wizard, out searching the world for lost warforged.
 
He joins the party, why not.
 
The skyport is pretty much finished.
 
“Hey did you guys ever find that downed airship?”

Oh crap…we forgot
 
There might be lost warforged on it!
 
The wizard is all about it.
 
They transport via plants and the wizard uses diplomacy to tell the slaad to bring party to their boss.
 
They’re going to try to bargain with a glabrezu. The second part of the cave system is much different.
The walls transition from jagged and rough to extremely smooth polished stone. It opens up into a large gallery full of petrified people and creatures. They all have slightly cracked necks.
 
The druid doesn’t notice and casts greater restoration. Kills a man. Oops. The party keeps exploring and finds an old crashed airship in a cavern.
 
The wall by airship seems collapsed and there are dozens of five foot holes in the ceiling.
 
Standing in the center of the cavern the party calls out to the glabrezu to bargain. After a few moments a shadowy mass moves from the recesses of the cavern. It moves into the light…

it’s a beholder.
 
The party hates me.
 
Thing is, this content was designed for like, the party being level 12-ish. Now I have to supe it up. So I make the beholder a paragon, in a state of flux between life and undeath.
 
It’s basically a death tyrant and a beholder that keeps shifting between both in the throes of its insanity.
 
It has two HP pools, two sets of legendary actions, five legendary resists, and control of its eye rays because I think removing the randomness makes for a more dangerous and interesting creature.
 
The beholder is also feeding off of the power crystals for the sky ship, it was powered up anyway in the original encounter, which is why he’s stuck in a state of flux.
 
And dropping out of the ceiling is…the glabrezu with a great hammer that lets him sort of earth-bend.
 
The beholder starts blasting the party with eye rays and is doing a lot of damage. Glabrezu is basically a glass cannon, and goes down pretty quickly. It turns out the glabrezu is the beholder’s servant and is bound to the chamber. Before it dies the glabrezu is teleported and reforms at summoning circle.
 
The glabrezu uses totally-not-Gideon to cast Bones of the Earth on the gunslinger, who has already taken several hits after dealing several crits. He is stuck between a pillar and the domed ceiling of the chamber and gets hit by a death ray.
 
True to the death rays name, the gunslinger is now dead.
 
The group kills the beholder and kills the glabrezu and snuffs its summoning circle.
 
The airship still technically works and the warforged crew is still on board. They find some cool treasure as well. The druid reincarnates the gunslinger. I had him roll now he’s a dope-ass blood red lizardman now.

The party figures out how to use various spells and the hammer to clear a hole in the side of the mountain to float the not-quite derelict airship out.
 
Zealot barbarian and druid both decide to go find Stabby, but separately. The druid finds the chicken
and grabs the remarkably angry chicken with weather and beats chicken armor by the neck and stabs the chicken with a dagger of venom he had.
 
Stabby…dies.
 
But the druid reincarnates, Stabby and I have him roll again on the reincarnation table.
 
Stabby is reincarnated as now a drow elf. A is pissed, confused, and terrified drow elf.
 
But the druid rolls a nat 20 to convince Stabby that the whole party is various awakened animals that have been reincarnated as various peoples. He brings Stabby the naked drow elf back to the party. He gives Stabby the dagger of venom, and the fighter-barbarian gives Stabby some gear. They want him to join the party.
 
Now I have to stat Stabby the drow elf.