I've had several sessions in the last few days, all of them in my Skyrim-based campaign. My dad, brother, and cousin are playing it, playing a half-orc barbarian, tabaxi monk and dragonborn paladin respectively. There have been some character changes though.
We started at Bonestrewn Crest, where the players were captives of the Dragon Cult. Back then, my cousin was playing a Goliath fighter and my dad a Half-Elf fighter. So the Goliath breaks down the cell door, the cultists manage to knock him out and subdue the half-elf and tabaxi before they can fully escape. During this, the Goliath fails one death save, makes another, then rolls a 1. He's dead. We break for dinner and so my cousin can make a new character.
When we come back, a group of Nords attack Bonestrewn Crest and free all the prisoners, fight off another wave of cultists, and then come across a dragon. That's when my cousin's new character joins, who is his original character's stepbrother. Battle ensues, they actually manage to do a large amount of damage to it, but using my Shout mechanic instead of their normal breath weapons, he manages to knock out the paladin and monk, and he kills the half-elf. Now my dad needs a new character.
I think the next day we played again, and the surviving characters (with the one NPC) were taken to Windhelm to join the Nord army and defeat the Dragon Cult. They get there with no problems and join up, then are tasked with going undercover into the Cult to get information and all that. Now they have to head to Riften to do that. Along the way, they run into my dad's new character, the half-orc barbarian. He helps them kill some wolves who gave them some trouble, then goes to Windhelm himself to join the Nord army.
Meanwhile, the dragonborn and tabaxi manage to infiltrate the Cult and are sent to kill some trolls as a kind of initiation. To make sure they can handle it, a big, bad dragon goes with them to see them through to the end or Sovngarde. They kill both after an agonizingly long fight and the paladin's death. Luckily, the local Dragon Priest is such a badass that he can cast True Resurrection. So he does, paladin is alive again, and they're officially accepted into the Cult.
Cut back to the barbarian, he's made his way to Windhelm and joined the Nord army. He spends quite a long time learning some basic Shouts and training. Then he's sent on his first mission: clear Ustengrav. He goes with 9 guards (who were supposed to be unnamed, but he decided to name them all anyway, now they're full-flegged NPC's, those who survived anyway). That goes with relatively few problems, though they do find a strange orb. They head back to Windhelm to report the deed is done.
Now back to the paladin and monk. They're sent to investigate rumors of Daedric activity in western Skyrim and possibly obtain any power they can to give the Cult an advantage in the war. They get there, and it's an Orc stronghold being attacked by a Tanarukk. After they defeat it at the expense of most of the Orc inhabitants, they learn that Malacath has been displeased by this particular stronghold, and so he's been turning some of the inhabitants into Tanarukks who try to destroy the place. The chieftain thinks that retrieving one of Malacath's artifacts will please him, so the paladin and monk are sent to get it. They encounter some Cave Fishers and Goblins, and find the artifact but are unable to get it. Malacath tells them that for him to give it to them, they have to kill the rest of the Orcs at the stronghold. So they do.
Then they come back and get the big bad hammer (no, sadly not Volendrung) and go back the Dragon Cult to report. Their, they are told of some nearby mages who's experiments are causing problems, and they must exterminate them. They arrive at an ominous tower ruin, where some apprentice wizards are following an evil conjurer in his nefarious plans that aren't important to the plot, so I leave them out. Eventually, the monk gets knocked out and the paladin finishes off the conjurer (after single-handedly taking down a fire elemental too) and finds a whole bunch of potions. Then he waits for his monk friend to wake up. After he does, a dragon comes looking for them and tells them they must return at once. They hurry back and find out that Ustengrav has been attacked and that the Cult must retaliate.
Cut back to the barbarian now, he's returned with his entourage to Windhelm and is trying to figure out what the mysterious orb is. After heckling a shopkeeper, he barges in on some priests performing a ritual in the Temple of Talos. They tell him the orb is used to find an Elder Scroll, and after a series of questions and explanations about what Elder Scrolls are, why they're important and what they do, the barbarian decides to go after it, taking along one of the priests as a guide. Problem is, they all want to go, so he jokingly says he'll take whichever is the last standing in a tickle fight. Naturally, to be funny, I made them start tickle fighting each other, and one emerged victorious. So this priest, the barbarian, and his remaining soldiers head out after it. Of course, none of them know where to start, so the priest suggests finding a Moth Priest at the Temple of the Ancestors in the Jerall Mountains.
One thing he forgot to leave out is that the Scroll can be read by the Moth Priest, bu the orb can only be used by a high-level spellcaster. So they need to find one of those first. Not too hard, there's plenty around Skyrim, but they decide to head to Whiterun since it's closest.
Meanwhile, the paladin and monk are tasked with killing the Jarl of Riften as retaliation for Ustengrav. A little extreme, but the Dragon Cult doesn't mess around. So they head to Riften, get there in the middle of the day which isn't really the best time to perform an assassination, so they chill in some inn rooms until midnight. Then they head out. Riften is heavily patrolled due to the Thieves' Guild which recently moved in, so they have to watch out. As they approach Mistveil Keep (where the Jarl lives), they see someone on the roof. Possibly another assassin. They tell the guards that they saw someone and were coming to warn that the Jarl might be assassinated. Clever. The guards reluctantly go in and warn the Jarl. The characters sneak in and find the would-be assassin, who happens to be a member of the Thieves' Guild hired to kill the Jarl and get him out of the way so the Guild has no major opposition.
The characters try to back away but are spotted by the guards. Of course the players out-of-character decide that the guards are "annoying", so they lead them into an unoccupied room and kill them. Then they find the assassin hiding under a bed, and make an unlikely alliance to kill the Jarl together, who is guarded by 5 other guards, the court wizard and the war councilor. Battle ensues, and by the end, they kill all 8 of them at the expense of the paladin's life too (yes, he died again). Luckily, the assassin told them to go to the Temple of Mara and they could maybe help. She leaves, but I have a feeling she'll show up again.
At the Temple of Mara, the priests revive the paladin (not with True Resurrection though) and then ask them to find a lost ring belonging to Lady Mara as payment for reviving the paladin. That's where we left off for today, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow aside from the other campaign I'm starting (as a player).
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Characters: Lar-Dun Vanthaft - Human Warlock - Yawning Portal with Artymis, Moril - Tiefling Sorcerer - Dragondenn's Dragonlords, Paquinal Dalanthan - Eladrin Wizard - ShadowThorn's Out of the Abyss
Campaigns: Rod of Nankon, Darkness Reborn, Dungeonverse, Alycron - A Cosmic Horror West Marches (Co-DMing), One-on-Ones
The party Killed the mayor who turned into a massive demon. They went to the gold saucer and killed that demon to find out it was this massive hive with a gate to Avernus. The Fighter tried to show off and picked up this abyssal anchor with his bare hand to try to crush it ended up like Pippin when he picked up the Palantir in two towers, Lucky for him he didn't die outright but was saved by Anubis the Egyptian god of the dead who has marked him giving him a boon of Eyes of the grave but now he can no longer be healed magically and has to rely on his class abilities, sleeping for 8 hours and sending souls to the underworld to heal. The Pirate got help to plane shift around trying to locate the bodies of the monklocs parents ( who were killed by an NPC who they found out was really Ifrit a powerful Archfiend that was exiled from Avernus because he used to work for Bel ) to try her new resurrection spell. After a few tries, she finds the bodies of his dead father and still alive mother in Avernus held captive by Arkhan the Cruel.
So now the party has to get to Avernus, not get caught by Zariel or Tiamat, find and trade something of value to Arkhan, get the bodies back, cast Resurrection to bring the Monklocks parents back then figure out how to light an archdemon
All this and they are just about 95 % done with the campaign
Party were invited to parlay with the leader of the orcish horde, Gorzog. The horde is currently camped around Baldur's Gate and laying siege to the city. He wanted them to tell the leader of the Lord's Alliance to open up the gates of Baldur's Gate and meet the horde in glorious battle and die with honour.
They had to stage an escape as his shaman attacked them when they left the tent, proclaiming that Gorzog was wrong to reveal their number and let outsiders into the encampment. They noticed that his staff bore a black orb, very much like one they had seen from a previous setting that was being used to harvest souls for Xanthan, an ancient black dragon that had been defeated long ago.
There were simply too many orcs to defeat, but thankfully two other party members had stayed aboard their skyship, the Cloud Strider. The druid sent up a flame sphere from the ground and the Strider came to the rescue, bombarding the orc encampment to cause chaos.
The druid cast spike growth around the entrance of the warlord's tent to delay the orcs attacking them. The paladin called his celestial eagle companion (Keith!) and the three on the ground tried to grab on and be lifted to the Strider. The druid failed his dex though and was left on the ground. Gorzog stepped out of his tent and felled him with one hit, sending him crashing against the wall of thorns and to the floor, bleeding out.
The paladin yelled for Keith to descend, tied a rope around his legs and dived down, claw machine-like, and picked up the dying druid. As they were lifted to safety, he embraced his friend and cast lay on hands.
Me: Wait a minute ... you hug him back to life?
Paladin: You're damn right I do. I gotcha buddy!
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Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
During the Covid-19 crisis we have been playing on Discord. We're playing a homebrew setting called "Mawveth Chronicles" which is a post-apocalyptic dark intrusive fantasy world. It's like Mad Max and Lord of the Rings had a baby. Anyway, we've played like 23 sessions now. The characters are 4th level closing in on 5th. The playing characters have established a safehouse in the neutral zone outside of Steel City and are trying to make peace with the warring gangs who are battling over control of the sectors of the city. The gang with the most power in the struggle (controlling more sectors) is called The Cult of Abimelech and their Captain made an offer to the playing characters (The Misfit Ramblers) to trade shelter, food, and safety in the city (along with some weapons, gear, and gold) if they agree to enter into the Undercity, locate a hidden Vault, and clear the way of traps, monsters, and other threats so the gang can seize the Vault and its contents. The Misfit Ramblers are tempted but a representative of an opposing tribe called Allegewi warn that siding with The Cult and entering the Undercity would be suicide because there are unspeakable monstrosities that have taken over. Besides, the Vault is nothing more than a myth. It's been fun. I've got most of the sessions written up in narrative form on my blog.
Everything went The parties way up till they freed monklock's parents. That sent an alert to Ifrit who knows he had nothing left in his hand to manipulate the party. Knowing fighting them would only bring more problems he invites them to talk, he admits he can kill the party but it will not get him accepted back in Avernus as he used to be a general under Bel and unless he submits to Tiamat he can never go back for too long before Zariel finds him and kills him. So he gives the monklock his family business back with the promise that he will leave the plane and travel far away, but not before giving some backstory to how he first met Garland 2000 years ago and he was told to look out for heroes that could ruin his plans not thinking it was the party, once he found out he was too attacked to protecting them to actually kill them.
( I don't like my villains to only want to kill the players and not have any story growth)
So the party agrees and Ifrit leaves to a future campaign when he will pop back up, BUT not without leaving one last reminder of his power just so the party doesn't think he was too nice he killed every servant in the house and left an abattoir of gore in the basement with the saying " Have a Nice life" written in Blood Flesh with ripped off faces and intestine in the shape of a smiley face.
The players only have one stop left before the final battle starts. The Hidden continent Ahtohallan where the players will learn all truths but at the cost of what they hold dear.
Isaiah, the Hell-paladin and Perindash, the lizardman druid, set out in pursuit of the Yellow Sign. A former hideout has been burned to the ground during the recent Battle of the Dragons. A hideout located in the sewers has been cleaned out and abandoned. Isaiah decides he needs some cash to fund an assassination scheme he hasn't told anyone about. Perindash won't lend him any money, so he tries a Goodfellas-Style heist of a wagon full of tobacco. Things go south, he kills a few guys and ends up in jail. Perindash goes to the home of the owners of the burned-out warehouse, who lock him in a closet and try to unleash Intellect Devourers to eat his brain. He escapes and investigates a different warehouse owned by the same family. He finds the place occupied by the tiefling warlock, Geziziah Zorb, second-in-command of the Yellow Sign. They battle to a draw, but Perindash escapes. Regretfully., he realizes he'll need to break his unwitting ally Isaiah out of prison and bring him along as reinforcements.
The party finally makes it to Ahtohallan . While on the way all the NPC's that have close ties with the players hear a faint Siren Song that is actually the trapped Fey , Leviathan calling the party to her from the start of the adventure. Once they reach it the celebration turns to confusion as Ahtohallan is actually a massive glacier the size of a continent with one entrance as the party and their close npc's ( The fighters love a Druid that grew up with the Pirate, The Monklocks childhood friend now his boyfriend, and the Pirate's Pixie companion that was passed down to her when her mother retired) all drawn by this song enters into a massive ice dungeon created to test them. The make it to the bottom where the Siren Song echos and replays the entire backstory for the players.
Garland the hero of midgar turn war criminal was sent back in time by the king where he meets the demons that party has been dealing with telling them about the future and this group of adventurers that will kill them. setting in motion the entire campaign. All so he can become the Hero he wanted
The death of the monklocks parents, the destruction of Midgar, the violence that befell a tribe of elves in the dessert ( that the party skipped over and while they were given that quest they never did it) The madness that turned Darkwater into a vindictive pirate that tried to kill Pirate PC's father.
Garland using dark rituals to extend his life traveling to Altissia and forging the Armor and becoming General chaos the "Hero" of Altissia. A hero to a problem he created. So when his past self comes he "Kidnaps" the princess and starts the whole camping over and over and over a Cycle of Death that the players now have to stop.
The party regroups to find the NPS Frozen solid trapped in Ahtohallan. Leviathan tells them if they want to save them they must finish what they started they must kill Garland and those he corrupted, there is no turning back, Once Leviathan is freed she will take them to a now openly hostile Altissia.
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
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she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
Damn, I really dislike power gamers, But it can be saved make the bad guys intelligent if he can fly and they know he can fly they can and should aim for his wings if he is also the only one to fly and they are fight creatures that can fly like Harpies they can and should swarm him. Not to punish him because then it's not fun, but just make the world as smart as the players are
Hehehehe...... wing shots! Thank you very much for this idea. I was intending on doing realistic (vaguely) injuries so thanks!
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she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
Oh yeah. He’s gonna get mind controlled alllll the time
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she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
Can I ask how he got a 1 in charisma? It looks like you're using a sort of point buy system, but it's pretty generous to allow someone to reduce a stat to 1 to get the rest of them so high. At that point it's practically a disability. Like... I know Charisma is kind of a complicated stat to assign to a specific physical trait, but a 1 charisma sounds like it would be the equivalent of having a serious mental disorder that prevents a character from fully understanding empathy.
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
Playing Dragon Heist with my small group of my brother and my son. I set up Jarlaxle's three ships for infiltration as he kidnapped their mascot to get information from him about the group's knowledge of the Neverember treasure trove.
Well, the paladin decided to commandeer one of the ships, and ram it straight into the flagship, sinking both. It was quite spectacular. When Jarlaxle revealed himself for the first time (he had been disguised as Captain Zord this whole time), our sorcerer unleashed all of the charges of his wand of lightning bolts at him. It barely phased him. They got their buddy and ran away as fast as they could.
My campaign ended a bit ago and was the final battle. The party travel to the final battle, with Altissia involved in a massive civil war as the NPCs that are loyal to the party, is leading the city vs the corrupt royal family. The party fights their way to the castle where they fight General Chaos who they now know is Garland who was sent to the past and spent 2000 years making deals with demons. The Pirate kills Garland, the monk lock kills the court mage by tossing acid in his face and sets him on fire, The fighter kills a demon the princess summoned and they make it to the king who is a Massive Pit fiend with the Rod Of Lordly Might ( a Symbol of power to rule in the kingdom) after a long battle he is killed by the Pirate and the monklock takes the rod and to the city is now their king. The party gives the rob to the monklocks family and declares the city will now be a democracy. The party travel back to the newly brought back continent that used to protect Ahtohallan ( very confusing reasons involving time travel and breaking the time loop that Garland caused) to a celebration with their unfrozen loved ones, and NPC's they party met along the story all picked up by the now free Levathion before she returned to the water plane.
The End
Covid and playing online almost every day for 2 months they went through about 40 weeks of story. Our next campaign will start in a week or so depending on when everyone's new PC's are finished
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
Not all of DnD is in dungeons. In fact, most of it isn't. But the ghost would actually do pretty well in a dungeon, since it can phase (etherealness) through walls.
I've had several sessions in the last few days, all of them in my Skyrim-based campaign. My dad, brother, and cousin are playing it, playing a half-orc barbarian, tabaxi monk and dragonborn paladin respectively. There have been some character changes though.
We started at Bonestrewn Crest, where the players were captives of the Dragon Cult. Back then, my cousin was playing a Goliath fighter and my dad a Half-Elf fighter. So the Goliath breaks down the cell door, the cultists manage to knock him out and subdue the half-elf and tabaxi before they can fully escape. During this, the Goliath fails one death save, makes another, then rolls a 1. He's dead. We break for dinner and so my cousin can make a new character.
When we come back, a group of Nords attack Bonestrewn Crest and free all the prisoners, fight off another wave of cultists, and then come across a dragon. That's when my cousin's new character joins, who is his original character's stepbrother. Battle ensues, they actually manage to do a large amount of damage to it, but using my Shout mechanic instead of their normal breath weapons, he manages to knock out the paladin and monk, and he kills the half-elf. Now my dad needs a new character.
I think the next day we played again, and the surviving characters (with the one NPC) were taken to Windhelm to join the Nord army and defeat the Dragon Cult. They get there with no problems and join up, then are tasked with going undercover into the Cult to get information and all that. Now they have to head to Riften to do that. Along the way, they run into my dad's new character, the half-orc barbarian. He helps them kill some wolves who gave them some trouble, then goes to Windhelm himself to join the Nord army.
Meanwhile, the dragonborn and tabaxi manage to infiltrate the Cult and are sent to kill some trolls as a kind of initiation. To make sure they can handle it, a big, bad dragon goes with them to see them through to the end or Sovngarde. They kill both after an agonizingly long fight and the paladin's death. Luckily, the local Dragon Priest is such a badass that he can cast True Resurrection. So he does, paladin is alive again, and they're officially accepted into the Cult.
Cut back to the barbarian, he's made his way to Windhelm and joined the Nord army. He spends quite a long time learning some basic Shouts and training. Then he's sent on his first mission: clear Ustengrav. He goes with 9 guards (who were supposed to be unnamed, but he decided to name them all anyway, now they're full-flegged NPC's, those who survived anyway). That goes with relatively few problems, though they do find a strange orb. They head back to Windhelm to report the deed is done.
Now back to the paladin and monk. They're sent to investigate rumors of Daedric activity in western Skyrim and possibly obtain any power they can to give the Cult an advantage in the war. They get there, and it's an Orc stronghold being attacked by a Tanarukk. After they defeat it at the expense of most of the Orc inhabitants, they learn that Malacath has been displeased by this particular stronghold, and so he's been turning some of the inhabitants into Tanarukks who try to destroy the place. The chieftain thinks that retrieving one of Malacath's artifacts will please him, so the paladin and monk are sent to get it. They encounter some Cave Fishers and Goblins, and find the artifact but are unable to get it. Malacath tells them that for him to give it to them, they have to kill the rest of the Orcs at the stronghold. So they do.
Then they come back and get the big bad hammer (no, sadly not Volendrung) and go back the Dragon Cult to report. Their, they are told of some nearby mages who's experiments are causing problems, and they must exterminate them. They arrive at an ominous tower ruin, where some apprentice wizards are following an evil conjurer in his nefarious plans that aren't important to the plot, so I leave them out. Eventually, the monk gets knocked out and the paladin finishes off the conjurer (after single-handedly taking down a fire elemental too) and finds a whole bunch of potions. Then he waits for his monk friend to wake up. After he does, a dragon comes looking for them and tells them they must return at once. They hurry back and find out that Ustengrav has been attacked and that the Cult must retaliate.
Cut back to the barbarian now, he's returned with his entourage to Windhelm and is trying to figure out what the mysterious orb is. After heckling a shopkeeper, he barges in on some priests performing a ritual in the Temple of Talos. They tell him the orb is used to find an Elder Scroll, and after a series of questions and explanations about what Elder Scrolls are, why they're important and what they do, the barbarian decides to go after it, taking along one of the priests as a guide. Problem is, they all want to go, so he jokingly says he'll take whichever is the last standing in a tickle fight. Naturally, to be funny, I made them start tickle fighting each other, and one emerged victorious. So this priest, the barbarian, and his remaining soldiers head out after it. Of course, none of them know where to start, so the priest suggests finding a Moth Priest at the Temple of the Ancestors in the Jerall Mountains.
One thing he forgot to leave out is that the Scroll can be read by the Moth Priest, bu the orb can only be used by a high-level spellcaster. So they need to find one of those first. Not too hard, there's plenty around Skyrim, but they decide to head to Whiterun since it's closest.
Meanwhile, the paladin and monk are tasked with killing the Jarl of Riften as retaliation for Ustengrav. A little extreme, but the Dragon Cult doesn't mess around. So they head to Riften, get there in the middle of the day which isn't really the best time to perform an assassination, so they chill in some inn rooms until midnight. Then they head out. Riften is heavily patrolled due to the Thieves' Guild which recently moved in, so they have to watch out. As they approach Mistveil Keep (where the Jarl lives), they see someone on the roof. Possibly another assassin. They tell the guards that they saw someone and were coming to warn that the Jarl might be assassinated. Clever. The guards reluctantly go in and warn the Jarl. The characters sneak in and find the would-be assassin, who happens to be a member of the Thieves' Guild hired to kill the Jarl and get him out of the way so the Guild has no major opposition.
The characters try to back away but are spotted by the guards. Of course the players out-of-character decide that the guards are "annoying", so they lead them into an unoccupied room and kill them. Then they find the assassin hiding under a bed, and make an unlikely alliance to kill the Jarl together, who is guarded by 5 other guards, the court wizard and the war councilor. Battle ensues, and by the end, they kill all 8 of them at the expense of the paladin's life too (yes, he died again). Luckily, the assassin told them to go to the Temple of Mara and they could maybe help. She leaves, but I have a feeling she'll show up again.
At the Temple of Mara, the priests revive the paladin (not with True Resurrection though) and then ask them to find a lost ring belonging to Lady Mara as payment for reviving the paladin. That's where we left off for today, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow aside from the other campaign I'm starting (as a player).
Characters: Lar-Dun Vanthaft - Human Warlock - Yawning Portal with Artymis, Moril - Tiefling Sorcerer - Dragondenn's Dragonlords, Paquinal Dalanthan - Eladrin Wizard - ShadowThorn's Out of the Abyss
Campaigns: Rod of Nankon, Darkness Reborn, Dungeonverse, Alycron - A Cosmic Horror West Marches (Co-DMing), One-on-OnesOh Boy, what a few days it's been
The party is now level 17
The party Killed the mayor who turned into a massive demon. They went to the gold saucer and killed that demon to find out it was this massive hive with a gate to Avernus. The Fighter tried to show off and picked up this abyssal anchor with his bare hand to try to crush it ended up like Pippin when he picked up the Palantir in two towers, Lucky for him he didn't die outright but was saved by Anubis the Egyptian god of the dead who has marked him giving him a boon of Eyes of the grave but now he can no longer be healed magically and has to rely on his class abilities, sleeping for 8 hours and sending souls to the underworld to heal. The Pirate got help to plane shift around trying to locate the bodies of the monklocs parents ( who were killed by an NPC who they found out was really Ifrit a powerful Archfiend that was exiled from Avernus because he used to work for Bel ) to try her new resurrection spell. After a few tries, she finds the bodies of his dead father and still alive mother in Avernus held captive by Arkhan the Cruel.
So now the party has to get to Avernus, not get caught by Zariel or Tiamat, find and trade something of value to Arkhan, get the bodies back, cast Resurrection to bring the Monklocks parents back then figure out how to light an archdemon
All this and they are just about 95 % done with the campaign
Party were invited to parlay with the leader of the orcish horde, Gorzog. The horde is currently camped around Baldur's Gate and laying siege to the city. He wanted them to tell the leader of the Lord's Alliance to open up the gates of Baldur's Gate and meet the horde in glorious battle and die with honour.
They had to stage an escape as his shaman attacked them when they left the tent, proclaiming that Gorzog was wrong to reveal their number and let outsiders into the encampment. They noticed that his staff bore a black orb, very much like one they had seen from a previous setting that was being used to harvest souls for Xanthan, an ancient black dragon that had been defeated long ago.
There were simply too many orcs to defeat, but thankfully two other party members had stayed aboard their skyship, the Cloud Strider. The druid sent up a flame sphere from the ground and the Strider came to the rescue, bombarding the orc encampment to cause chaos.
The druid cast spike growth around the entrance of the warlord's tent to delay the orcs attacking them. The paladin called his celestial eagle companion (Keith!) and the three on the ground tried to grab on and be lifted to the Strider. The druid failed his dex though and was left on the ground. Gorzog stepped out of his tent and felled him with one hit, sending him crashing against the wall of thorns and to the floor, bleeding out.
The paladin yelled for Keith to descend, tied a rope around his legs and dived down, claw machine-like, and picked up the dying druid. As they were lifted to safety, he embraced his friend and cast lay on hands.
Me: Wait a minute ... you hug him back to life?
Paladin: You're damn right I do. I gotcha buddy!
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Never tell me the DC.
To be honest, if I ever play a Paladin, I'll flavor Lay on Hand in this way. I'll call it "hug heal" or "godly hug" or something like that.
During the Covid-19 crisis we have been playing on Discord. We're playing a homebrew setting called "Mawveth Chronicles" which is a post-apocalyptic dark intrusive fantasy world. It's like Mad Max and Lord of the Rings had a baby. Anyway, we've played like 23 sessions now. The characters are 4th level closing in on 5th. The playing characters have established a safehouse in the neutral zone outside of Steel City and are trying to make peace with the warring gangs who are battling over control of the sectors of the city. The gang with the most power in the struggle (controlling more sectors) is called The Cult of Abimelech and their Captain made an offer to the playing characters (The Misfit Ramblers) to trade shelter, food, and safety in the city (along with some weapons, gear, and gold) if they agree to enter into the Undercity, locate a hidden Vault, and clear the way of traps, monsters, and other threats so the gang can seize the Vault and its contents. The Misfit Ramblers are tempted but a representative of an opposing tribe called Allegewi warn that siding with The Cult and entering the Undercity would be suicide because there are unspeakable monstrosities that have taken over. Besides, the Vault is nothing more than a myth. It's been fun. I've got most of the sessions written up in narrative form on my blog.
Everything went The parties way up till they freed monklock's parents. That sent an alert to Ifrit who knows he had nothing left in his hand to manipulate the party. Knowing fighting them would only bring more problems he invites them to talk, he admits he can kill the party but it will not get him accepted back in Avernus as he used to be a general under Bel and unless he submits to Tiamat he can never go back for too long before Zariel finds him and kills him. So he gives the monklock his family business back with the promise that he will leave the plane and travel far away, but not before giving some backstory to how he first met Garland 2000 years ago and he was told to look out for heroes that could ruin his plans not thinking it was the party, once he found out he was too attacked to protecting them to actually kill them.
( I don't like my villains to only want to kill the players and not have any story growth)
So the party agrees and Ifrit leaves to a future campaign when he will pop back up, BUT not without leaving one last reminder of his power just so the party doesn't think he was too nice he killed every servant in the house and left an abattoir of gore in the basement with the saying " Have a Nice life" written in Blood Flesh with ripped off faces and intestine in the shape of a smiley face.
The players only have one stop left before the final battle starts. The Hidden continent Ahtohallan where the players will learn all truths but at the cost of what they hold dear.
Isaiah, the Hell-paladin and Perindash, the lizardman druid, set out in pursuit of the Yellow Sign. A former hideout has been burned to the ground during the recent Battle of the Dragons. A hideout located in the sewers has been cleaned out and abandoned. Isaiah decides he needs some cash to fund an assassination scheme he hasn't told anyone about. Perindash won't lend him any money, so he tries a Goodfellas-Style heist of a wagon full of tobacco. Things go south, he kills a few guys and ends up in jail. Perindash goes to the home of the owners of the burned-out warehouse, who lock him in a closet and try to unleash Intellect Devourers to eat his brain. He escapes and investigates a different warehouse owned by the same family. He finds the place occupied by the tiefling warlock, Geziziah Zorb, second-in-command of the Yellow Sign. They battle to a draw, but Perindash escapes. Regretfully., he realizes he'll need to break his unwitting ally Isaiah out of prison and bring him along as reinforcements.
The party finally makes it to Ahtohallan . While on the way all the NPC's that have close ties with the players hear a faint Siren Song that is actually the trapped Fey , Leviathan calling the party to her from the start of the adventure. Once they reach it the celebration turns to confusion as Ahtohallan is actually a massive glacier the size of a continent with one entrance as the party and their close npc's ( The fighters love a Druid that grew up with the Pirate, The Monklocks childhood friend now his boyfriend, and the Pirate's Pixie companion that was passed down to her when her mother retired) all drawn by this song enters into a massive ice dungeon created to test them. The make it to the bottom where the Siren Song echos and replays the entire backstory for the players.
Garland the hero of midgar turn war criminal was sent back in time by the king where he meets the demons that party has been dealing with telling them about the future and this group of adventurers that will kill them. setting in motion the entire campaign. All so he can become the Hero he wanted
The death of the monklocks parents, the destruction of Midgar, the violence that befell a tribe of elves in the dessert ( that the party skipped over and while they were given that quest they never did it) The madness that turned Darkwater into a vindictive pirate that tried to kill Pirate PC's father.
Garland using dark rituals to extend his life traveling to Altissia and forging the Armor and becoming General chaos the "Hero" of Altissia. A hero to a problem he created. So when his past self comes he "Kidnaps" the princess and starts the whole camping over and over and over a Cycle of Death that the players now have to stop.
The party regroups to find the NPS Frozen solid trapped in Ahtohallan. Leviathan tells them if they want to save them they must finish what they started they must kill Garland and those he corrupted, there is no turning back, Once Leviathan is freed she will take them to a now openly hostile Altissia.
So yesterday was the first session for some newbies, I’m dming, and all except one have never played before. I ask them the basic questions, and we start working on their characters. Most of them are fairly average, no big stat differences or anything. Those people are a Dragonborn ranger, an elf cleric, and a half elf rouge. The two outliers, however, are different. One of them because it is hilarious, another.... is goin to be a pain to dm. So the hilarious one, is a bard/barbarian halfling who has 4 wisdom and 3 int. But 18 in strength and charisma. The painful one is...... sigh. A blood hunter aaracockra with 17 in every stat. Except one. He has a one in charisma. A ONE! And the player of this character is also an outlier in the group. While asking questions: me: “Do you guys want this to be more roleplaying heavy or combat heavy?” They all said roleplay, except for that one guy. “Will you guys be power gaming?” They all said no, except for that one guy! His character has next to zero backstory, but he spent an hour looking at everyone else’s sheets to find our groups weaknesses and become the one good at those things. He spent 20 mins figuring out which species to be because he wanted one that would be powerful and provide an advantage to everything. So he chose aaracockra. So he can FRIGGIN FLY!?! So now this game is going to be soooooo much fun to dm...
she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
Damn, I really dislike power gamers, But it can be saved make the bad guys intelligent if he can fly and they know he can fly they can and should aim for his wings if he is also the only one to fly and they are fight creatures that can fly like Harpies they can and should swarm him. Not to punish him because then it's not fun, but just make the world as smart as the players are
Hehehehe...... wing shots! Thank you very much for this idea. I was intending on doing realistic (vaguely) injuries so thanks!
she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
1 Charisma, huh? Time to use a ghost!
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses
Oh yeah. He’s gonna get mind controlled alllll the time
she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
Can I ask how he got a 1 in charisma? It looks like you're using a sort of point buy system, but it's pretty generous to allow someone to reduce a stat to 1 to get the rest of them so high. At that point it's practically a disability. Like... I know Charisma is kind of a complicated stat to assign to a specific physical trait, but a 1 charisma sounds like it would be the equivalent of having a serious mental disorder that prevents a character from fully understanding empathy.
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Nope we rolled for our stats. I’m thinking of making him mute...
she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
what kind of a roll gave you a one???
Playing Dragon Heist with my small group of my brother and my son. I set up Jarlaxle's three ships for infiltration as he kidnapped their mascot to get information from him about the group's knowledge of the Neverember treasure trove.
Well, the paladin decided to commandeer one of the ships, and ram it straight into the flagship, sinking both. It was quite spectacular. When Jarlaxle revealed himself for the first time (he had been disguised as Captain Zord this whole time), our sorcerer unleashed all of the charges of his wand of lightning bolts at him. It barely phased him. They got their buddy and ran away as fast as they could.
My campaign ended a bit ago and was the final battle. The party travel to the final battle, with Altissia involved in a massive civil war as the NPCs that are loyal to the party, is leading the city vs the corrupt royal family. The party fights their way to the castle where they fight General Chaos who they now know is Garland who was sent to the past and spent 2000 years making deals with demons. The Pirate kills Garland, the monk lock kills the court mage by tossing acid in his face and sets him on fire, The fighter kills a demon the princess summoned and they make it to the king who is a Massive Pit fiend with the Rod Of Lordly Might ( a Symbol of power to rule in the kingdom) after a long battle he is killed by the Pirate and the monklock takes the rod and to the city is now their king. The party gives the rob to the monklocks family and declares the city will now be a democracy. The party travel back to the newly brought back continent that used to protect Ahtohallan ( very confusing reasons involving time travel and breaking the time loop that Garland caused) to a celebration with their unfrozen loved ones, and NPC's they party met along the story all picked up by the now free Levathion before she returned to the water plane.
The End
Covid and playing online almost every day for 2 months they went through about 40 weeks of story. Our next campaign will start in a week or so depending on when everyone's new PC's are finished
Campain start date 2/4/20 End Date 5/24/20
Cool, see how good flying is in a dungeon lol
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
Not all of DnD is in dungeons. In fact, most of it isn't. But the ghost would actually do pretty well in a dungeon, since it can phase (etherealness) through walls.
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses