Your Local Hawkmoon Good Luck Charm (Destiny)

by Ouranje , Dallas, TX, Saturday, February 07, 2015, 14:29 (3374 days ago)

(Stay tuned for a special twist ending!)

It started out as a joke, that's the funny thing.

My very first Vault of Glass raid went about as smoothly as it could possibly go without being a Hard Mode speedrun (seriously? under half an hour? what the), and that's with me having had NO MIC at the time. Thankfully I've since fixed this problem, and now happily talk to everyone probably too much during every team event.

When we got to the secret chest after the Templar (well, secret to me, I'd never heard of it), we all opened it up, and I was the only one to get an exotic-- Hawkmoon! My very first random drop exotic (my first exotic was Lucky Raspberry, because I main Hunter, so of course it was), and one that I had wanted a lot. I silently danced and spun around in circles (IN GAME OF COURSE), shooting at the ceiling with my new hand cannon, while someone in the party joked that I should give them a Hawkmoon next time.

Little did I know.

My very first Nightfall strike was Cerberus Vae III-- and I did it with just one other person, who basically carried me the whole way with the help of his Icebreaker. I honestly forget who it was, but it was either SomeOtherGuy or Guardian513, I think. But even before the awards screen came up, he was flabbergasted and dumbstruck, because all he could say was "What". Why? Because he had gotten Hawkmoon!

HAWKMOON COUNT: 1

Fast forward to another Nightfall strike: Omnigul.Now this one, hrm. I think Cruel was there, and one other person? All I remember is that, uniquely, it was the only time I've ever personally SEEN a rewards screen where all three members of a fireteam got an exotic. Me, Plan C (welllllll, alrighty then I guess!). The other two? Thunderlord, aaaaand Hawkmoon! Again! WHAT.

HAWKMOON COUNT: 2

This week, I did the Heroic and the Nightfall with Revenant and CommandrCleavage, whose names I can actually remember because it happened this week*! Winter's Run, multi-burn, easy as cake, mostly due to the preparedness of the other two. But at least I was there for a reason, because as you've probably guessed by now, the rewards screen came up, and CommandrCleavage got a particular hand cannon she's been wanting for some time now: The Last Word!

...just kidding. HAWKMOOOOOOOOOOON.

HAWKMOON COUNT: 3

Most good things come in threes. At this point, I really wondered if my streak was finally going to end, or if I would just be showering people with eagle-taloned hand cannons for the rest of my Destiny career.

Recently, you may have heard about some very altruistic people "giving away" the Gorgon Maze checkpoint so people can go grab the special chest, the same one that gave me MY Hawkmoon. Some thought of it as cheesing, some thought of it as actually fully cheating-- me? Honestly, I'm not ashamed to say I wanted to try my luck. I only rarely have a chance to run a raid with anyone, and although I plan on trying to organize a couple in the near future, it just never lines up with anyone else's group, and I am too spoiled by DBO raids to do LFGs. So I hopped in the party of one of the aforementioned very generous folks giving away the checkpoint-- after thirty minutes of trying and failing to join his fireteam, as he said would likely be the case-- and I set off trying to even GET to the chest from inside the Gorgon's Maze. I literally had no idea about being able to climb into the side of the cliff to get it like that.

Neither did one other person, apparently, who was struggling to get on the cliff landing just as much as me. We ran forward from the landing at the same time, both arriving at the chest simultaneously. He said "I've never done the Vault of Glass before, I hope I get something good." I knew that exact feeling, and not even from too long ago, so I said, "you should go ahead and open it first then. Hopefully you get something great!."

Take a wild guess.

HAWKMOON COUNT: 4

I'm fairly sure my streak is certainly over at this point, but who knows, maybe someone else will get Hawkmoon while I'm with them and I'll have to actually posit the theory that exotic drops are weighted with specific PSN screennames/gamertags being present in the party-- but I digress.

Either way, it was rewarding enough to be around for four separate Hawkmoon drops that I realistically had nothing to do with. Even if I got nothing out of this chest but shards, I'd count it as a win. But, as fate would have it, the game had something else planned for me.

"Ouranje found Gjallarhorn"

GJALLARHORN COUNT: 1

I couldn't believe it. COULD NOT BELIEVE MY LUCK, I was shouting and pumping my fist, much to the bewilderment of my girlfriend. I never thought I'd see the day, and yet here I am, part of the Wolfpack at last. I couldn't have done it without the help of a random generous redditor, but most of all, I wouldn't have even been in the know or maybe even playing this game if it weren't for all of you guys who have played with me. So thanks, DBO denizens. Sorry this got long.

(*= I have some real bad memory problems for somebody my age, so I know who I've played with, but I'm bad with names. Sorry if it sounded like you were forgettable! That's not the case, my brain just stinks.)