I have been playing the Dragon Queen's Hoard with my three nephews (all in elementary school) and when the Dragon came out to attack the castle keep the oldest decides he wants to tame it. I tell him he can go talk to it (aaracokra so he can fly) but he will roll his persuasion at disadvantage because this adult dragon doesn't really care about a 'little bird' like him.
Cue him rolling a double nat 20. No I don't let him tame it but needless to say he convinces the dragon to leave the battlefield (he didn't really want to be there anyway) but he will have a request, or a favor to ask of him later on in return for him leaving. I felt this was a good way to maybe give them a chance to perhaps makes an ally if not friends with an adult blue dragon for later entertainment. Plus could segue pretty well into a later part of the module that involves dragon eggs. Kinda thinking of giving them a Pokemon scenario pick your one pokeball err I mean egg and get one of three dragon wyrmlings to become your fourth party member.
I feel like it should all work out but the double 20's really threw me for a loop for a moment. I look forward to giving them a chance to learn how to raise a dragon, trying to decide which chromatic dragons I should give them the option of.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Last night, half the group was missing, but the remaining two players were still willing to go. Interestingly, it was the two players I mentioned last time, the least and most "minmaxer" of the group. So I returned us to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the second session in what I'm basically setting up as interlude one-shots. I've twisted a lot of stuff to make all these adventures fit my unoriginal setting, one of which being that the Dragon Heist is taking place in the metropolitan capital of the elvish empire that they main campaign is, currently, just on the frontier outskirts of. I made it clear to the group that, should the main campaign ever go this far inland, what happens in this side campaign will have an impact. The players this session was a tiefling Feylock and a halfling courtier rogue.
As this is a new adventure, and players may be reading this, I'll be putting this all in spoilers.
The first session ended just as they'd finished combat with the warehouse kenku. A rash of really bad rolls on all sides meant that there was one kenku who was not hit once, despite three party members ganging up on him for more than one turn and even after I freely gave opportunity attacks as the monster fled. The tiefling was with the other three players last session, but was at 1 hp after the end of that fight. To get them all together, I had the absentee PCs race off after the kenku while the injured tiefling stayed behind to patch herself up and check out the warehouse, but was almost immediately interrupted by investigating city watch officers. I had them come in earlier than the adventure intended because following them provided the incoming halfling a path to the warehouse.
Hilariously, the injured character told almost the whole truth, but not quite, and kinda dug herself a bit of a pit explaining herself to the watch. Rather than searching for a lost friend, they were meeting this friend to make some kind of business deal. Fortunately, some good social skill rolls led to the watch believing her story and scratching her name off the list of suspects. They immediately left the warehouse without further investigation or prompting, but after conferring with each other and getting the halfling up to speed, they decide to speak with the city watch commander. Looking for more opportunities to get the halfling's player to roleplay more, I stated that per her background as a former functionary of this city's courts (far outlying edges of course), she'd know of the halfling watch captain whose command includes the North Ward they are in.
The captain greeted her very warmly, as an old friend might, but also chastised her for seemingly getting mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city. During their discussion, a watch officer reports that they found the missing Neverember kid (the players were meant to, but having left the site to the watch, seemed reasonable). The captain questions the lad with the players present, giving them another opportunity to get the information. They then asked the watch captain for his permission to further investigate the warehouse for clues, which allowed them to find the secret room. They didn't take anything though, instead deciding to eventually notify the captain of their finding. As they left, they came across a watch officer keeping an eye on the warehouse. They didn't like the look of him (he was a bit of a jerk), and so circled back to see the officer disappear down into the sewers.
They give him the lead for a bit before following, but end up rolling rather poorly in stealth checks. After an hour following signs of his passing, they eventually come across a ladder marked by a freshly made chalk sign. Guarding it is a small gazer, which immediately rises up to attack them. The Feylock used Sleep on a higher initiative, immediately dropping the tiny beholder. The halfling then very easily skewered the poor thing, I actually felt sorry for it. What followed was pretty dang funny. So they followed the ladder up to a cellar. There were wine racks, and those massive barrels turned onto their sides. There was lots of noise upstairs. The Feylock wanted to listen in, wanted to find a way that she could get her ear up to the roof of the cellar. The only way was to climb up onto the large barrels, using an acrobatics check to keep balance.
He rolled very poorly. There were footsteps above, and the screech of a chair being pushed back, and the sound of people bumping into each other. Some dropped a cup of ale, which drained between the slats of wood and right into the tiefling's ear. She lost her balance, and on the way down bumped the barrel off its cradle. The noise attracted attention, and a man began to head down the steps. The halfling just drops down the ladder, shutting it behind her, leaving the tiefling to her fate. The tiefling used fey presence to successfully charm the initially accusatory fellow, and convinced him that the she had been merely checking the noise herself. Of course, her sudden flight down the ladder while he was confusedly calling back that there's nothing wrong meant that the investigator realized something was up once the charm dissipated in a few seconds. The man jerked the sewage cover up, and shouted down at them that he knew her face, and soon so would the city watch.
It was getting a bit late, so the players decided to head back to the watch commander to try and get ahead of this potential problem as well as to report what else they'd found. Next time we pick this up, if it's just the absentee players, I'll have them chase the kenku and progress the story in a different way. If it's the same group, I'll continue to progress it by themselves. If it's mixed, then they'll be meeting each other at a city watch citadel, which has certain implications.
I'm enjoying this side campaign, and how the players are taking this 'character creation' seed and running with it. The group of characters has been with each other for a while already, at least enough to know each other and to have built a friendship. Their would-be adventuring dreams had been going very poorly for them however, and they were at the brink of giving up on that life entirely. That is when they ran into Volo making his rounds about the towns, hawking his book Volo's Guide to Monsters. On a whim, the group pooled their resources together and purchased themselves a copy. With the information they've gleaned from that book, they've rebounded quite spectacularly. They even manage to finally complete a quest regarding a minor goblin threat, something they'd never have been able to accomplish before. In in-game terms, the book represents them going from Level 0 Commoners to Level 1 Adventurers. It also means they've got a pokedex they can reference, which is an interesting dynamic.
While there's all sorts of things happening in my campaign, the most memorable so far was 2 sessions ago (3 weeks ago, cause we had to forgo this week, unfortunately).
Little background: It was a 2 person campaign (I'll explain in a little bit), with me now as DM (my brother was the DM until May) and my brother now as the player. I took over when we reached 15th level - we essentially leveled every session because of our experience with other kinds of games and the way we would study our material almost every day. This is our first time playing D&D, though we have plenty of RP experience, having started in January, just before Critical Role's second campaign started. At this point, we're all at 16th level, cause it's also a test campaign so we can see what the levels have to offer, what we like and don't like, etc.
I have a DMPC (because my brother was the one DMing before with his own PC) - High Elf Abjure Wizard... , and my brother has 1 PC - Human Way of the Open Hand Monk - and a secondary PC (who's actually the main in terms of RPing, as his main has little in the way of Charisma) - Wood Elf Ranger Hunter. We just got a friend to join us for the first time this session - with a Human Champion Fighter, so I figured we'd just rescue his character from some pirates, which worked out perfectly cause we were sailing from one city to another. We made it to our destination after utterly destroying these pirates.
We get to the city and split up immediately. We send the Monk out to do a little reconnaissance of the Castle we need to infiltrate to rescue someone while the rest of us go shopping because, long story short, there was as siege and we needed to get out of there asap and ended up teleporting to an unknown location with 0 resources. So, with little gold and no real supplies, we do what we can to stock up.
At night we take refuge at a tavern, of course, and do a bit of gambling. Our new Fighter friend wins quite a bit of copper for himself and we have some fun.
In the morning, my Wizard learns then prepares Disguise Self and Charm Person[/spell] (he is not a an 'optimal" build at all... on purpose) so he and a Wizard NPC we're helping out can disguise themselves as Kingsguard to get into the Castle, find out where the person we're supposed to rescue is located, and go back later to break them out. The two players, who are not included in this plan, agree to this plan. My naive self thought they would just hang out and gamble some more until they got back.
NOPE!
The Monk and Fighter (as the Ranger was elsewhere at the time... long story) choose to try and infiltrate the heavily guarded and heavily defended Castle... by themselves... even though 2 Wizards were already doing that...
"Ok, fine", I think to myself. They're going to have to roll, and I let them know up front that there is a high chance that they're going to get captured and imprisoned.
They're not scared. They both only have decent stealth, and only cause the Fighter took Medium Armor Master.
They don't care.
So, the Monk starts to run up the wall, as Monks do, and ends up taking out 3 guards silently - rolling high Stealth each time, much to my surprised delight. Of course I didn't want them to fail, but EVERYTHING was stacked against them.
Anywho, so the Monk eventually gets the Fighter up the 40 foot wall and down the other side, but going down the other side, they manage to capture some attention. No problem, they'll just hide in a tree... and they do... rolling high stealth again...
Ok, cool, fine, whatever. Now there's 6 Kingsguard (Champions) near them trying to find them. So, our brilliant (-1 to Int) Monk throws a fruit from the tree he's in to the other side of the pond, and all the guards rush over. Our Fighter believes it's time to drop out of the tree and run... on the ground... to the OTHER SIDE of the castle. He's obviously noticed and chased down. However, this gives our Monk the perfect opportunity to slip in while all the attention is on the Fighter.
While the Monk ends up slipping in and taking out Kingsguard here an there, he ends up getting quite lost... Our Fighter, on the other hand, had a good bit of a head start on the Kingsguard and is able to slip in a door that I roll is not guarded, cause they're all outside chasing him down, that he slips in and then just stands there... LIKE A SUIT OF ARMOR. Now, he had asked before and I tell him there are no other suits of armor like this in this particular hallway and make him roll a - I can't remember if it was a Deception or Performance check, but either way it was Charisma and he was not proficient in it... rolls a nat 20... Yup, so a Kingsguard looks right at him, but passes him by and goes outside, leaving our Fighter to eventually get downstairs, to the dungeon.
This Fighter ends up distracting the two guards at the bottom of the stairwell to the Dungeon and runs in such a way as to avoid notice the whole time while getting them away from their station so he can slip by... He ends up finding our quarry and is now just standing there... with no plan...
So, this is when I, such the gracious DM that I am, step in with my Wizard, who is still disguised as a Kingsguard ( there are Abjurer as well as Evoker and War Priest Kingsguard - long story.) to show up through his Dimension Door to get them both out. I have homeruled that higher level castings of Dimension Door allow for more creatures to be brought through, and so we get out of the castle to our other Wizard companion. Our Wizard NPC (Enchanter) is still disguised as a Kingsguard and leads the Fighter out the front gate. My Wizard, in the meantime, Dimension Doors our quarry outside the Castle Walls, but has to GO BACK IN to save our Monk...
So, going back to him, he has absolutely no trouble with his Stealth checks and subsequently stunning any Guards he may run into. We both roll well, and my Wizard is able to find his Monk friend and get him out.
Suffice to say, it was a wild night! Definitely at least my 2nd favorite session so far.
The Monk and Fighter (as the Ranger was elsewhere at the time... long story) choose to try and infiltrate the heavily guarded and heavily defended Castle... by themselves... even though 2 Wizards were already doing that...
"Ok, fine", I think to myself. They're going to have to roll, and I let them know up front that there is a high chance that they're going to get captured and imprisoned.
They're not scared. The Monk has decent stealth, but the Fighter definitely doesn't.
They don't care.
If this doesn't perfectly describe 50% of the player mindset, I don't know what does! Do the most interesting thing, no matter the risks... And it's so fun because of it!
Last session was weird, since I had my 4 players went two opposite directions. Two of them went down into tunnels used by a thieves' guild despite warnings of the danger, and the other two went to a bar to get information from an NPC... Suffice it to say, one group had an easy night of social ability checks, and the other-- Got ambushed by 10 thieves/assassins/thugs. Didn't go so well for them.
The two at the bar (Sorc and Monk) got a lot of information relating to one of the character's backstories. Of the four players in my game, this one had the most backstory and it was really easy to tie it into the campaign in an enticing way. The character is a dragonborn monk who was a palace guard before their brother, also a palace guard, betrayed the Kingdom for power, helping enemy groups start a coup, and killing much of the royal family. The monk has been seeking survivors for some time, and learned that the Princess is actually currently Queen of the place he used to be from. It's not a nice place anymore though, it's a twisted, burned up fortress-- run by his brother, the new King. It took a lot of nudging from the NPC to have the two of them not just head up to this place tonight, but a little bit of player meta had them waiting in the hopes that the other party members will join them soon.
After being ambushed and knocked unconscious the other two (Rogue and Druid) woke up tied to posts, held over an underground lake swimming with sharks, and surrounded by an elaborate dock structure that made up the thieves' hideout. They met the tortle in charge who, after trying to escape and realizing that an entire thieves' guild in a major city is a bit too much for just the two of them, tried to talk their way into survival. The rogue managed to use thieves' cant to earn a position of 'you owe us, but you'll live', but the Druid wasn't able to. The tortle commanded for his men and women to kill both the druid, and the guard they had come down there with, but a voice stopped them before they did. The voice asked about an NPC the party had awoken from Tomas' Temporal Tombing and hearing the answer it was looking for, had the Tortle bring them to a private area. The guard, however, was not so useful-- And was turned into chum.
The two were brought to a private quarters where a strange, heavily robed figure entered through a portal, and were asked if the NPC in question would care if they were missing. They answered yes, and the session ended with the strange man saying 'We'll see about that.'
I was not expecting them to go down into the tunnels just the two of them. The Rogue knew that this was a major, huge organization thieves' guild, and they were warned by people not to go in for fear of their safety. But they did... Then last session the Druid almost died because of a rot grub swarm, but instead of turning back they kept going. But hey, it's going to work to set up some main plot threads, so in the end it turned out! That's what you get for trying to predict players, though ;)
Yesterday's session was a bit more lackadaisical than normal because we had a big Halloween party on Saturday night, so the DM and most of the players were some combination of sleep deprived and hung over. Also the DM couldn't find his notebook.
Our larger mission requires us to visit the Druids of the Horned Wood, who will help us identify the rare plant-based reagents used in a potion that mysterious someones are using to create zombie outbreaks. However, because the DM couldn't find his notes, we conveniently learned that a band of marauding goblins is based near the town we're currently visiting and decided to go fight them off (and hopefully get some treasure in the process). In order to reach the goblin hideout, which was in the Whipitcha Mountain, we could either take the long and safe route (which would take a full day's travel), or take the short route by scaling a cliff. Our questgiver, a dwarven blacksmith named Renny Codgers, gave us some climbing gear, so the majority of the party voted to climb the cliff.
Things were going well enough until the goblins spotted us when we were halfway up; they had bungee cord-like contraptions, which they used to dive off the top of the cliff and attack us. Fortunately, with some targeted attacks to their safety ropes, we managed to kill most of them quickly. But there was one left up top, who dumped kerosene on us and then dropped a torch, setting our climbing equipment on fire! The party managed to jump over and grab one of the dangling ropes left by the bungee goblins - except for me (the wizard) and the sorcerer; we both would've fallen to our deaths if it weren't for the help of the druid, who'd cast spider climb on himself and had more mobility than the rest of us. "Why'd we agree to do this, again??" I asked the sorcerer when I finally made it to the top of the cliff. "We didn't, actually," he replied while still dangling from the rope.
At the top of the cliff we fought some more goblins, these ones mounted on Rottweilers, and dispatched them handily. Then we reached the goblin lair proper, which was a series of chambers carved into the mountain. Inside the lair we met the goblin leader, who had under his control a hill giant! He ordered the hill giant to attack our paladin, and thus the boss battle started.
This is when things started going sideways. We were in a rather cramped chamber, which made it difficult to spread out (we also had a very large party that day - eight players). This would be problematic enough with the hill giant, but to make things worse, the goblin leader started lobbing dynamite at us! With each stick he threw at us, at least one player (usually me cuz I'm a squishy wizard) would get knocked unconscious. The druid cast healing spirit, and so the combat became a bit of a farce as the still-conscious PCs would carry the unconscious PCs through the healing spirit's space like we were scanning items at a register. But it kept us alive.
One of the rangers decided that turnabout is fair play and lobbed at the goblin an explosive that I'd made earlier. He hadn't thought that action entirely through, though, because the explosive hit the crate of dynamite that had been supplying the goblin and created a MASSIVE explosion that instantly killed both the goblin leader and the hill giant. It also triggered a cave-in of the goblin hideout! We started running, dodging (or occasionally failing to dodge) falling boulders the entire time. I would have been knocked unconscious again if it weren't for a potion of false life that I'd chugged earlier. As we ran, we spotted a side passage full of treasure... but there was a very real danger that the entire cavern would collapse on us if we tarried to loot the place. I used catapult to fling a nice-looking sword at the feet of the fighter without needing to make a detour. Our other ranger decided to risk it and snatched a quiver of arrows before booking for the exit. The druid turned into a wolf; our gnome rogue, riding on the druid's back, created a lasso and snagged a fancy bowler cap. However, the rogue was knocked unconscious by a falling rock right as he reached the exit, and his hat fell off! Ranger2 ran back in at the last second to carry him out, and even managed to grab the hat before the exit collapsed entirely, Indiana Jones-style.
I used detect magic to determine that all three items we grabbed are magical - the sword and the arrows have transmutation magic, while the bowler has abjuration magic, but we don't know more than that as of now. I'm really hoping that the blacksmith pays us well for our efforts, because I had way more near-death experiences than was expected!
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
So I'm doing a homebrew/phandelver with my group and Nezznar the Black Sprider used (a very still in working order) forge of spells to power up a mask of eldritch evil and insurmountable power. My party, the Impatient Sluts as they call themselves, was having none of this and while Nezz tried by webbing up the hallway during a chase to escape our halfling paladin burn the webs and I let her make an athletics check: 17. She made it through but took 8 fire damage and her hair got frizzy and then she hit him with a Thunderous Smite Boom 13 damage when he had 11. and then our gnome bard tried to take the mask which was still clinging to his unconscious body and when it wouldn't leave his face she cut of his face with a 20 slight of hand dc which she beat easily of course. Then the rest of the party felt ill except fora goblin they adopted named Torla she was having a blast. Anyway they're going to Neverwinter soon :3
Last weekend's session was an important one. it was our ninth session and we wrapped up the first story arc. The players are all fifth level now and I am looking forward to the second story arc now that the characters are tough enough to handle some tougher situations without dying quickly.
Picking up after the fight with the otyugh, the group considered their next move as there were two unexplored directions within the old volcanic caverns. The party opted to go in a new direction where they came upon a human they identified as the Doomspeaker (an evil paladin of the cult of Baphomet) along with a minotaur priest and four goblins who appeared to be studying a massive golden door. After discussing whether to approach them diplomatically, the party’s sorcerer Zarrak decided to let his fireball do the talking. That solved the goblin problem while the rest of the party rushed in to confront the two big guys. The battle turned with the minotaur staying mobile and casting various spells to cause problems while the Doomspeaker engulfed the dwarven cleric Thud with grappling flames that burned him horribly before he was able to break free. Eventually, the party got the better of the battle and wore down the evil paladin. After that, it was not long until the minotaur priest fell as well.
The party inspected the twin golden doors. They were locked, but there was no keyhole. There was a pentagonal indention and the party knew they needed to locate a key for it so they struck off in the other direction to investigate the unexplored portion of the cavern. They came upon a temporary settlement in a large chamber where five bugbears were working frantically to assemble a crude barricade across the entrance of an unexplored far passage from the chamber. The bugbears looked roughed up and demoralized. When they saw the party, they grabbed their weapons, but did not move to attack.
Thud managed to coax an explanation out of them and found out they had indeed located the pentagonal key, but they were attacked by a powerful unseen enemy. Fearing the room and the key were cursed, they left it behind and made a run for it. Now they feared it would pursue them, hence the barricade. The party was running thin on spells and everyone had taken a good amount of damage, so the party offered the bugbears the option of simply walking away. The bugbears didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to leave and save their own skins, saying the Doomspeaker’s task was not worth dying over.
After disassembling the barricade and proceeding beyond it, the party came to an old burial area with nine small plain coffins set out in rows and three more ornate coffins behind them. Cyrus the gnome rogue let his curiosity got the better of him and he cracked one open to peer at the skeleton inside. It did not react… until Zarrak hit it with a [Tooltip Not Found] and then all the coffins burst open with nine skeletons of dwarven miners and three ghasts moved to surround the party. Thud had suspected shenanigans and was already in position to channel divinity against the undead horde. He destroyed most of the undead outright, killing six of the skeletons and turning one of the ghasts. The rest were easy enough to finish off. The party wouldn’t have stirred them all up except that they worried they might have to retreat this way and didn’t want to risk having a small army of undead on one side of them while something else pursued them from the other side.
Upon reaching the deepest chamber in the cavern, the party noticed a pentagonal inset in the wall where something had been chipped out. Red grime had been smeared on the wall, writing in goblin, “The relic is cursed. Only death is here.” There was a dark deep hole in the floor in the middle of the chamber and a dead bugbear with an arm ripped off lying face-down next to it. Another [Tooltip Not Found] into the dead bugbear “just in case” sent it toppling into the dark pit. The party worked out a way to get down to the bottom of the pit, finally deciding to lower Thud on a number of ropes they attached together. Thud descended into magical darkness and something he could not see attacked him as he dangled on a rope. He hurried back up to the room and the dead bugbear materialized above the party floating in the air. It attacked the party with its glaive while flying around for several rounds before the party got the upper hand. Facing overwhelming odds, it turned into gaseous form and faded into cracks in the wall of the cave.
With no more harassing distractions, the party was able to descend into the lower chamber and, with some searching, they retrieved the pentagonal key and returned to the sealed golden doors. They placed the key into the recess and the doors swung open with a deep grinding rumble. Putrid green fog spilled out and swept across the floor. Inside the final chamber was an ancient sealed tomb complete with a pool of bubbling blood red liquid, several demonic statues, and an altar prominently featuring a ring in the shape of a large and strange bestial skull. When the party took the ring and made to exit, a dog-headed Psoglav demon materialized and attacked. It flew around the room and used greater invisibility, but Melias the bard used dispel magic in a clutch move. Then it fired a beam from its one giant eye knocking Beelock the minotaur blood hunter back 20 feet and knocking the shadow off of him, which then came to life and attacked the party. Several dretches climbed out of the pool of red liquid to join the battle as well. During the course of the battle, it hit several other players with its shadow beam and flew around attacking with its horrible metal jaw. After a pitched battle, the party was able to turn the tide against the demon at great cost and managed to defeat it.
In the end, the party crushed the Doomspeakers cell in northeastern Tal’Dorei and brought this chapter of smuggled drugs, kidnapped villagers, demonic cults, and ancient relics to a close. It’s always hard to tell what tendrils remain of such a shadowy organization. The Ring of the Abyss is a powerful dark magic item that provides strong effects to the one who wears it. It is also something highly coveted by the Doomspeakers who remain and now it has been brought back out into the world. One has to wonder whether the hobgoblin scouts and the fleeing bugbears will fade quietly into obscurity, or if they will report back to distant superiors to explain what transpired in the volcanic cavern.
I'm satisfied with how the last session went, but we were a little pressed for time and as a result, I had to cut some corners. I had planned on the fleeing oni to make an appearance in the final battle, which would have definitely kicked up the degree of difficulty and made it last longer. In order to save time, I left it out, meaning its nasty cone of cold never got used. I may have the oni show up again later in the story. You know, loose ends and all. There were a number of magic items handed out in this final dungeon and pretty much everyone has a low-level magic item or two now. I'm probably going to hold off on doling out more of them for a while, but we will see what the future holds.
I also don't like to end a session at the end of the final fight. I prefer to have the party at least declare their next intentions so that I can work that into the beginning of the next gaming session. As it is now, I have to start the next session with, "Well what do you guys want to do now?" which puts me at a disadvantage preparation-wise. I may railroad their journey back to the nearby city where I can coax them into spreading the word of their success and also opening up opportunities to offer some of my prepared courses of action while the group decides what they wand to do next.
The next story arc is intended to take them from level five to about level ten or so with some hooks for a possible third arc as well. We're nine sessions into our campaign now and we will see what the future holds. November and December are tough months to get six adults together for a game, but I'd like to get at least one more session before the end of the year if we can.
I also don't like to end a session at the end of the final fight. I prefer to have the party at least declare their next intentions so that I can work that into the beginning of the next gaming session. As it is now, I have to start the next session with, "Well what do you guys want to do now?" which puts me at a disadvantage preparation-wise. I may railroad their journey back to the nearby city where I can coax them into spreading the word of their success and also opening up opportunities to offer some of my prepared courses of action while the group decides what they wand to do next.
Don't hesitate to just ask them. My players got out of a tight bind two sessions ago, and it ended there. I asked them to discuss in our group WhatsApp what they'd all like to do (Downtime? Sidequest? Etc.) from what they already knew about, so that we didn't have to spend time sorting out what everyone wanted to do at the top of next session. I framed it as saving time, but it was really just a benefit to me. They ended up choosing a job off of the job board they'd seen before, so I was able to prepare pretty far into that side-quest, and had more than enough content for the most recent session. :)
Let's see ... last session was two weeks ago ( work has been kicking my ass with 75 hour weeks ... ) ...
The party:
Recovered from the epic battle with BBEG ( one of the Zehnanta - a member of one of the non-human species - collectively know as the Dawn Races - who waged a war of extermination against the Human populations on the continent of Udesh 557 years ago, and which prompted the Exodus to the islands of the Crescent Archipelago which is the current campaign setting) in the subterranean catacombs.
Rune - the party's newly met Warforged companion tried to come to terms with the fact that he had just destroyed the individual creature simultaneously responsible for the creation, and destruction of his Race ( in my world the Warforged were weapons created to exterminate the humans in the time of the Dawn Wars, who themselves were destroyed by their creators when they started to become self-aware ). Or so Rune believes. Not all were destroyed, of course. Rune took the shattered central crystal from his fallen former master in hopes that somewhere down the line, he can use it to gain some answers as what happened to his race.
Climbed back up through the volcanic vents to the surface of the Island ( Shao Wei - Arcane Archer and another newly found companion - exile from the Kong'shiclan of the Zhi'Zhing Kou , the pirate clans which inhabit the fringes of the Western Seas - managed to not critically fail a climb role and almost plummet to her death - 2 of 3 death saves missed before stabilized - this time ).
Climbed the Lighthouse of Pyrdon ( Goddess of Sea, Storms, and Protection - the Lady of Storms ), and made their way into the beacon/temple at it's apex, where ...
The shades of the villagers who had given Rune a home when he had fled his masters ( self-aware, and not willing to butcher helpless humans ), and who had sacrificed themselves, and beseeched the power of the Lady of Storms to seal the island off from the rest of the world and trap the Zehnanta, after Rune had fallen in battle with the last of the Warforged still loyal to their original master ( all this happening over 500 years in the past - the party found a way to reactive Rune ), and whose souls had been carried by Rune in the central crystal of his soul disk ( bearing their souls to the temple of Pyrdon as one last duty to his friends and allies over 500 years gone ), were released into the central crystal of Pyrdon's lighthouse/temple ( after a suitably poignant farewell with Rune ), there to intercede with the Lady of Storms to lift the wards which sealed the island off from the rest of the Western Sea.
They succeeded, and the island's wards were dropped - with the raging story encircling the island dissipating for the first time in over 500 years.
As 1/2 of the key magical artifacts holding the wards in place - one of the gatestones ( with the other half being the willing souls of the villagers trapped on this plane, to hold the Zehnanta captive ) - was now released, it now opened, opening a rift in space in the middle of the temple.
With most of the party wanting to travel through the newly opened gate, the party's Ranger Allistar Reinhold made the choice to stay behind, aid the ship and crew off the island, and to continue the voyage on to the sub-continent of Ycha, there to fulfill his promise to Tochotl of the anqui tzmitl ( the hunters of ghosts ) and Piotr Vergas of the Vastari that he would accept training under the ghost hunters, both to discover why the Quequali had taken such an interest in Allister, even when he was a scout in the armies of the Thasolian Revolt against Amphalae, and to prepare for the renewed war with the Dawn Races that the Vastari fear is coming. Leaving the Ring of the Messenger with Bethany Owain ( self-trained shadow monk and bounty hunter from the port city of Ravenna ), he told her "take care of them. There is a war coming. We'll meet again, and when we do, we both need to be as good as we can be, for what it coming". DM note:Rune and Allister are the new/old characters of a single Player.
With farewells to a old companion made, and a pair of new ones in tow, the party found themselves faced with the choice of either travelling through the gate, or abandoning the Bard Deeve Antericus Eious, when Deeve foolhardy stepped through the rift into a high mountain cave in the grips of a winter storm - there to discover that there was no corresponding rift opening on the other side.
As the party decided to take the plunge and follow, Deeve attempted to use his skill with comprehend languages to decipher the ancient runic inscriptions covering every inch of the cave's interior, narrowly escaping taking backlash psychic damage from the impression of "knowledge: vast, alien, and old beyond belief - beyond your ability to comprehend".
The party sheltered in the cave against the storm until morning, when they found they were trapped high in a glacial mountain pass, dressed for the sub-tropical climate of the island they had left behind. This was especially alarming to Agekela as the reptilian nature of his species leaves him vulnerable to cold.
Ill equipped, but with no other choice, the party attempted to hike out along the mountain pass ( Agekela assuming the wildshape of a cave bear ). With nightfall catching them on the open plains, and some of their number suffering exhaustion, Deeve managed to avert disaster by his ability to create Leomunds Tiny Hut and allow the party to find warmth and protection from the elements. As she was a sailor and navigator since she was a girl Shao Wei managed to use the nighttime stars to roughly figure out where the party was, and much to their surprise they had traveled to the tropical sub-continent of Ycha, but were in high-altitude glacial passes of the Icespine Mountains.
Hiking across the bitterly cold plains, the party found the gutted corpse of a Yeti in the snow as the sun was setting. When Agekela decided to take a bite he was surprised to find the creature still warm.
Wary, the party pulled back into a defensive circle, in the nick of time, as the pack of Winter Wolves that had brought down the Yeti charged into the party, and combat ensued. With the party pulling back into a defensive circle, they fought surprisingly ( to their DM ) tactically - even going so far as to singling out the pack's leader, and concentrating on her to try and break the pack morale. Still, the breath weapon abilities of the Winter Wolves did fearsome amounts of damage to the defenders, and things looked pretty grim, until the party was unexpectedly aided, when arcs of arcane energy ( witchbolt ) tore into the wolf pack. Now flanked - and with Rune single-handedly slaying the pack's leader in a rage ( breaking the creatures neck with his bare hands, even as it unleashed the full fury of it's breath weapon into him ) - the remaining wolves fled the battle.
With the three figures - bundled against the cold in concealing white winter garments - who had come to the party's aid strode across the plain ... we drew the session to a close.
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Last night. It was fairly eventful; our cleric died and, because she's the only one that can bring fallen member's back to life, we were kind of SOL. The wizard had the bright idea to fire a lightning bolt into her chest thinking that would act as a defibrillator, and the GM was so bemused that he allowed it. So our cleric is now A-OK and with a giant fractal scar across her boobs, which has a fairly humorous story behind it. All in all, it was a good time.
Over the past couple sessions, our party fought 4 Scarecrows, a half dozen skeletons, a Nothic (again...) 4 Dire wolves and about a half dozen "regular wolves," and some sort of icy Zombie.
The fighter/warlock activated some other light-based power.
It was so bright that Strahd retreated after a turn and a half.
Oh, there were some vampire spawn there too, but they did a dead.
We flipped the lid off the coffin, the light did the rest of the work.
After that, we looted the temple, hunted down the last of the werewolves and partied...oh yeah, then we left Barovia and went to sort out some giants (which we'll deal with with the help of our slightly-too-small-for-our-party wagon).
The kingdom was at peace, ruled by the good king. The king was aided by three groups: his personal guard (the Aspects), his Right Hand (an elite fighting force), and his Left Hand (a group of adventurers with unique backgrounds and skills). Then the leader of the Left Hand, Randall, betrayed the king, along with the Aspects, killed the king and the Right Hand, and framed the other members of the Left Hand (the adventuring party) for the whole thing.
Fast forward in time. The party has traveled all over the kingdom, gaining experience and allies, and are ready to fight the Aspects. They go to the castle and battle their way through. They arrive at the Chamber of Justice, home of the Aspect of Justice and instead find me (I joined the campaign pretty late). My character, Oberon Knightwalker, is a 16th level Moon Elf Battle Master Fighter. A master combatant, Oberon was the fighting force of the Right Hand, and trained every knight and guardsman in the kingdom. During the overthrow, Oberon was drinking at his favorite tavern. Word reached him of the deaths of his companions and, knowing he couldn't face the Aspects alone, he retreated into the countryside. He was found soon afterward by the Aspect of Justice, whom he had personally trained. Telling the Aspect that treason was a coward''s game, he brought all 180 years of fighting fury on the Aspect, cutting him down in mere minutes. Oberon then took the Aspect's place, biding his time until he could muster a force that could defeat the others. And then the adventuring party came along...
Jump ahead to today's session. Our group was preparing our final assault against Randall when the now-reclaimed castle was attacked by a demonic force, consisting of three hellfire engines, one amnizu, and an army of lemures. Three of the party members, our halfing rogue, water genasi cleric, and goliath moon druid, went down onto the field, through the army of soldiers and lemures, to fight the amnizu and one of the hellfire engines. Oberon stayed behind on the battlements to help the soldiers man the ballista and the trebuchet. After the rogue was knocked unconscious by the amnizu, Oberon decided to literally fly into action, climbing onto the next trebuchet shot and riding it out over the battlefield directly into the hellfire engine (he used his boots of levitation to safely stop and slow his own fall). Then after the moon druid (in the form of an earth elemental) buried the hellfire engine, and the cleric cured him of blindness brought on by the amnizu, Oberon diced the devil to pieces.
After the devil was down, Oberon chugged a potion of speed (granting him haste) and proceeded to wreck all three hellfire engines (with the assistance of the rogue).
The point of the story is, sometimes it's fun to have a group of ridiculous characters face dangerous high-level enemies and then just go ham XD
Have been playing D&D for less than a year, and only recently have turned it into a semi-regular thing. I DM in one campaign, and one of my players in that campaign recently started his own, of which the last session was the one I will tell the tale. The tale of the first PC death I have witnessed.
The setting is one where civilisation was nearly destroyed by a great flood 200 years ago. What’s left of society lives on whatever small landmass remains in the world. Recently, a tome with some wizard’s research was found, with a possible way to reverse the effects of the flood and restore the land, allegedly to be found in the wizard’s old habitat, a tower on an island at the edge of the map. The king of one of the remaining states assembles a team to go to this tower. That team being the player characters. There’s my Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Bard with a Charlatan background, Ximeno Ferlucci. Then there’s Benedict, a Neutral Good Duergar Tempest Cleric inspired by Moby Dick’s captain Ahab. And finally, there’s Miaq the Chaotic Neutral Tabaxi Monk. Basically what happens if you mix M’aiq the Liar and Big Head from the Elder Scrolls. Miaq always carried a book around, which allegedly contained the word of the mad god he worshipped. The book was a strange artefact. Text would randomly appear in it, but Miaq would also write in it himself, or even cross things out. My character once took a look at it and was both confused and intrigued by its contents.
Miaq had a personal quest in finding a special fork, the Fork of Horripilation (yes, also from the Elder Scrolls). So he’d constantly ask people about the Fork, try to inspect every fork in taverns, etc.
Which brings us to last session, session three. The party is at the island where the wizard’s tower is located, and they’re doing some side quests to level up before taking on the main quest, so to speak. The trio have taken up this quest involving a kooky farmer whose goats keep disappearing. The reward: the Fork of Horripilation. The quest: kill the goat thief. Said goat thief: A mothertruckin’ Chimera. We’ve spent the second session going through some encounters in the desert, leading up to the Chimera’s lair. Session three begins with the party having had a long rest near the lair, and planning their attack. They’ve come prepared, having bought a couple of Resist Fire and Healing potions. We knew the risk we were taking here, challenging this thing with three level 3 characters. Between the Chimera’s multiattack and Fire Breath, they could each be wiped out in one or two rounds. Especially Miaq, who had an AC of 15 and only 18 max HP, would have to have a lot of luck on his side to survive this.
Still, the encounter starts out quite positively. We manage to ambush the Chimera, getting a surprise round in. We manage to hit the Chimera hard in the first couple of rounds, making good use of our abilities. Bless, Bardic Inspiration, Thunderwaves, Dissonant Whispers, Vicious Mockery, Flurry of Blows, the goods. Aside from that, the DM had some unlucky rolls, so the Chimera was barely hitting us, if it all.
Of course, as we learned the hard way, the battle isn’t over until it’s over. The Chimera starts hitting more consistently, and hitting HARD. Despite my best efforts to keep everyone’s health up, we’re getting to a point where the Chimera can take us down with one or two good hits, and we’re not sure how many rounds of damage the creature is going to take before it drops. Miaq decides he needs to do something drastic, and jumps on top of the Chimera. The Chimera then decides it’s done with our shit and flies away. Miaq falls off, only to be attacked by the Chimera. The beast gets in three solid hits, and basically tears our beloved, crazy cat monk to shreds. Ximeno and Benedict decide it’s time to leave and do so, though not before Ximeno snatches Miaq’s book.
They run through the desert, mourning their lost companion. They kill some Fire Snakes and get back to the town where their ship is moored.
They’re just on time to witness a ritualistic execution of a Fir Bolg, who’s accused of murder, the backup character the DM has given to Miaq’s player for the rest of the session (at the end, the player said he was gonna think of another character). Our characters decide to intervene (though there really was no reason for them to, besides the meta-reason that it’s a PC) and it ends up with Benedict participating in a trial by combat. Ximeno, being a gambler, makes a bet with the captain of the party’s ship, for all of his money. Benedict basically curbstomps his opponent, Ximeno gets rich, and the Fir Bolg gains his freedom. There’s some more shenanigans following that, but nothing really noteworthy.
I’m going to miss Miaq, he was a fun character, despite only lasting three sessions. We were thinking of putting the book into a Warforged at some point, but we’ll see what the player comes up with.
So, currently running two campaigns. Both are set in my homebrew world which I have readily Frakensteined on parts of official content (Barovia is a territory that is, currently, cut off by the mists. The whole Sword Coast has been tacked on as well. Most gods have the same names but I've redone many of them. The names are just for familiarity for players.) Running Curse of Strahd, about half way through.
Wall of text incoming.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD; if you’re a player, shoo! Don’t ruin this for yourself.
Quick background from my homebrew: The Primordials are an ancient, and malevolent race that exists beyond the edge of existence. They've invaded once, destroying numerous worlds and slaying several gods. The gods managed to slay a few, and imprison others. One of the most insidious of the Primordials was Vrosshe'raj, the Many Faced One. He appeared as numerous different Primordials, attacking in different manors and seeming to be slain. It wasn't until the gods managed to drive this Primordials into the same place that it became clear they were in fact all parts of one terrifying entity. They managed to tear off pieces of him, and eventually, imprison him within the Amber Temple, in a massive amber sarcophagus (on a third floor I've added, above the library) and his numerous identities in the smaller ones scattered around the temple.
Quick Background For My Characters:
Casey, the female human ranger, is from the kingdom of Gallicus (Roman Empire styled, city states; was once THE ruling empire before it collapsed) and was slated for an arranged marriage. She fled and lived with her hand maidens brother. During her time she saw the ravages that the warring city states brought upon the populace. She vowed to end it by unifying Gallicus. But first she's going to become immortal. She's seen what happens when strong rulers die, and the weak bicker over the left overs.
Hawkens, the female halfling barbarian, is from a small, wild section of the massive forests of Qu'los; an area not much large than a square kilometer called the Blood Wilds. Her tribe battled against two other tribes in this area. She's grown up a violent, and wild individual relishing in the gore, chaos, and violence of battle. Still, she maintains stiff loyalty to her friends, and tribe.
Nexus, the male tiefling wizard/cleric is from Azmodar, the ruined tiefling kingdom. Azmodar is a charred wasteland, where most live in near poverty. Magic is strictly controlled, believed to be a taint from the devil pact (which is now abohorred; the tieflings despise their devil nature, mostly) They have a council that selects children to be trained and Nexus's parents paid no expense to get him to the assesment but he was turned away. In tiefling culture this has never not lead to exile or death as villages are known to riot and lynch unregulated spell casters (the council is fully aware of this reality) Upon returning home, his family home is burned down and his parents killed. Nexus uses his magic to escape, and flees. His goal to return to Azmodar, slay the council and overthrow
Rollo, half-orc bard, was raised by a human mother and an orc father in the Stonemarch (not uncommon, Orcs in my world are very accepting as long as you can pull your weight, and defend yourself and your family, you are welcome) When he was young, she was killed and he was captured in an Ogre raid which lead to him being sold into slavery and raised as a gladiator. He's purchased by a circus troupe who use him to fight large animals ( bears, tigers etc) for show. This circus got lost in the mists, wandered up in Barovia, and was promptly wiped out by the wild man, with Rollo narrowly escaping. By chance, he met Rictavio whom tended his wounds and brought him to Vallaki, where he met the party. His goal is actually the party; he has longed for the companionship of a clan, something he sees in his newfound compatriots.
So, this long intro was necessary. The PCs have befriended Rudolph (whom is the ally) and met up with Ezmerelda; both are travelling with them. They’d just defeated Baba Lysaga (and captured her travelling hut which they’ve managed to convert to their own use) Strahd ambushes them, as he does, but this time during the fight a Roc swoops in and carries off Ezmerelda. Strahd, himself surprised by this, actually backs off and the PCs chase the Roc to the Amber Temple. With Rictavio pushing them onwards, they enter the temple.
So the PCs are exploring the Amber Temple, and rather greedily taking the gifts from the sarcophagi. Rollo is the exception; the only gift he takes is true sight and it’s mostly on accident. Also, his character already had the flaw so I counted this as if he hadn’t taken a gift (you’ll see why shortly) The others went crazy, grabbing most of the gifts. They use these gifts to muck most of the fights. During this time, the Arcanoloth had slipped out of the statue and stalking them, tossing out spells periodically to harass them. They can’t manage to pin it down but continue searching. They breach the vault, clear it, and move on to the room beyond and fight the vampire spawn. (They had the holy symbol so this fight was a wash with the gifts and Rudolph)
During this, the Arcanoloth slipped behind them and hurled another fireball. Hawkens, frustrated and angry, tries frantically to find the stupid thing, and manages to resist finger of death. Rollo and Casey follow him and, Rollo having true sight, sees the thing and tackles it to the ground. Hawkens jumps atop the now exposed creature, and before it can cast Dimension Door, breaks it’s jaw. The three of them then precede to torture this thing for reasons.
Meanwhile, Rudolph and Nexus are checking out the other gifts. By this time, Nexus was regretting taking the gifts so quickly (he’d just converted to Pelor, and so was still struggling with his newfound religion and lust for power. In fact, as punishment, using the sun power from the holy symbol cost double charges) Rudolph finds the vampyr coffin and immediately goes to destroy it (using the explosives he’d had from his cart; it’s never actually listed but since Esmerralda’s cart was rigged with explosives I figured he’d have them to) and they destroy it. Nexus goes one further, deciding to go with his god and uses the gifts to destroy the other two. Thus redeeming himself in the eyes of Pelor!
They relink with the others, chastise them for their disgusting behavior, and Rudolph mercy kills the arcanoloth. They proceed up the stairs, pausing in the library, before entering my added third floor: the Tome of Amber.
Inside is a giant 50ft by 100ft slab of amber. Resting against it is an unconscious Ezmeralda, with Rahadin beside. He, briefly, explains the Amber Temple and the evil they’ve allowed into their bodies. He introduces himself, and Rollo tries to convince him to turn on Strahd, suggesting he should ascend him. Rahadin of course refuses, questioning Rollo’s loyalty and striking a nerve when he points to his “monster parent.” Before they can act they each black out.
So, this next bit didn’t happen all at once; I jumped from character to character periodically, so it was all interwoven. But, for ease, I’m going to put each characters sections here.
Rollo woke up moments later with Rudolph standing over him. He too had blacked out for an unknown period of time; Rahadin was gone and so were the others. They checked on Ezmerelda and then Rollo sensed a vile presence inside the tomb. He casts detect thoughts on ezmerelda, and sees the day she and Rudolph had their falling out. At the end of the season, she turns, sees him and then snaps awake. After, he, rather interestingly, cast Detect Thoughts and on the tomb was sucked into the mind of this thing. He saw flashes from the lives of Strahd, Rahadin, Baba Lysaga, Sergei, one of the guards that slew Strahd, Strahd’s parents, so on. He barely managed to break the spell as he was pulled deeper and deeper, seeing flashes of events from hundreds of years before. (My world is VERY young) He comes back, and can now see all of these memories floating in the amber. He tries to locate his friends, but can’t. He pulls out his bag pipes and starts playing a song from his childhood.
Nexus awakens inside of the chamber from his childhood, where the council judged. He sees himself seated in the head chair, older and bristling with power. He gets flashbacks of him returning to Azmodar, slaughtering the council, and taking over. He sees himself judging the remaining magic users harshly, eliminating all but the most powerful. Eventually the numbers dwindles from a few hundred to a few dozen. He then sees himself judging children, and deeming all of them to be unworthy. Nexus also sees his “future” self without religion; he has forsaken Pelor. Nexus refuses instantly, and blinks out. When he does, he basically blinked between synapses in the primordials mind; he can see all of these millions of memories everywhere. He starts to pray. Well praying, he hears bagpipes in the distance and focuses on them asking Pelor to guide him. His holy symbol flares and outside Rollo sees his friend in the jumble of memories. He casts detect thoughts, connects with Nexus, and pulls him out.
Hawkens awakes in his home forest. She explores a little, and finds a trail of corpses stuck to trees and mutilated; all clearly those of his opposing tribes. Her excitement peaked, she follows towards where her village would have been and the bodies pile up. However, reaching her village she begins to see her peoples bodies and upon reaching her home, her families. The door bursts open and a future version of herself, still marked with the multitude of “gifts” steps out, carrying the blood spear as well. She howls and charges, and Hawkens responds in kind but is hopelessly outmatched. She hears the bagpipes, gaining advantage, and manages to make some ground but is still simply outclassed. She refuses to give in, and the moment before her alternate self strikes the death blow, she appears in the amber to Rollo and Nexus who again uses Detect Thoughts. She falls through the grass and into Nexus’s arms. Rudolph rushes over to provide healing.
Casey awakens in a throne room, her families throne room although it’s been redecorated in the old Gallicean style. One hundred elite praetorian guard line each wall, and at the end she sits on the throne. In a prior adventure, a library (also corrupted by the primoridals) delivered her a book that told the “history of gallicus” but it went beyond current time into the future where an immortal queen would rise, lead an army of madness and chaos across the world, and conquer it all. She would drown the world in insanity, and when the gods tries to intervene, she repulsed them. Casey saw images of herself doing this; returning to Gallicus, taking her families army, and crushing everyone in her path. She stormed the elven kingdoms and burned the forest of Qu’los to the ground, and had the mountains of the Dwarven Tri Holds literally mined till they collapsed. And when the gods descended to rid their world of this evil, she repulsed them. Casey struggled to handle her feelings, but upon hearing the bag pipes, began to follow them. They lead her along the path she’d taken to escape her families palace in her youth, eventually reaching the servants exit. As she swung open the door, Rollo used Detect thoughts and she stepped out into the room with the others.
The PCs had little time for a reunion, as they blacked out again and woek up INSIDE the amber. They could see Ruldoph and Ezmeralda trying to get inside. Stepping from the amber was the alternate versions of themselves, and much to the PCs (and especially their players) concern they’d lost their gifts (except Rollo)
What my PCs didn’t know was that every time they took a gift, they made their alternate versions stronger. Since Rollo only took the one gift, and it in fact didn’t change him as a person, he was unaffected. However the others had become so corrupted that these Amber versions of themselves were incredibly dangerous (obviously toned down from Casey’s solo fighting gods but still, very strong) I had stat increases, additional actions, spells, legendary actions all tied to a checklist of whick gifts they took so this was a monster fight. The one boon they had was that Amber Hawkens kept all the damage that Hawkens had dealth (which was huge because Amber Hawkens was pushing 200 HP)
The fight was grueling, Amber Casey opened with her only cast of conjure volley to chunk the whole party. Amber Nexus split the party with ice wall and Amber Hawkens dove in head first, as one does. Hawkens (the real one) went after Amber Nexus, well Nexus and Casey took on Amber Hawkens. Rollo solo tango’d with Casey.
Im very proud of Rollo’s player; he was very smart. He used darkness (his actual last spell slot) and then abused his true sight, forcing Amber Casey to stay inside and fight him with disadvantage. He pinned her their most of the fight, negating her dark ranger fighting style and the heavy damage she could dish out. Having designed her, there’s no way they win this fight without him. And honestly, there’s no way they escape the Amber Tomb because I wasn’t even sure how they were going to get out of there when I put them in. The Detect Thoughts thing was a spark of genius and I ran with it.
Hawkens smashed her way through the ice wall and tore into Amber Nexus. She suffered A LOT of damage, resisting ANOTHER finger of death, and passing no less than FOUR saving throws at DC 17, to barely survive and take down the Amber version of his spell slinging friend.
The other fair poorly, with Nexus getting knocked unconscious quickly and Casey barely able to hold off Amber Hawkens onslaught. Hawkens rushes over to Rollo, who had to drop the darkness spell to use heat metal on Amber Hawkens for the disadvantage, and drops Casey just as she finishes off Rollo.
So now Hawkens and Casey are the only ones standing against Amber Hawkens (AC 21, nearly 200 HP, although not at this point, 3 attacks a turn with sneak attack and 1d6 radiant dmg; all of this taken from the PC version, but also with a bunch of the gifts) Casey switched to healing, trying to keep herself and Hawkens up. Amber Hawkens crits her, and drops her. Hawkens is again battling against Amber Hawkens, whom has a string of terrible rolls and actually loses the blood spear; forcing her to draw her scimitar. Things still are looking grim; Voz, the god of death whom Casey owes a debt, steps in to save Casey from death, but she’s still unconscious. Rollo makes his final death saving throw, with 2 successes and 2 fails and manages to roll his first 20 of the adventure (new character, his last one died) Getting to his feet he heals Nexus, whom was about to make his last chance death save. Amber Hawkens finishes Hawkens, and then rushes Rollo dropping him.
With a last ditch effort, Nexus uses his signature spell Fireball. (Frequently, Hawkens would be in the middle of the enemy and Nexus would toss the fireball on top of her, knowing she’d likely dodge with her high dex; it’s honestly a thing now that Hawkens actually has most of her hair missing and the remainder is charred) Amber Hawkens, who has advantage of dex saves, double 1s it. (I house rule that a critical fail on the saving throw is the same as a critical damage; it almost never comes up but it’s fun when it does) taking a HUGE amount of damage and finally toppling.
Nexus heals up the party. They notice that the evil presence is gone (back to sleep) but now need to escape a room of hard amber, which they realize is running out of oxygen. Eventually, they try the door from the robe of many things; which works and they step out into the air. Rudolph and Ezmeralda use spells/potions to top the party up best they can.
With Ezmeralda saved, the PCs now have to figure out how they’re going to get all their treasure from the vault outside and back to civilization. (They also haven’t thought about being trapped in Barovia, with no where to cash this stuff. Good thing they have a walking house…
Sorry for the long post but I was rather proud of this little addition, and unfortunately, it required a lot of back story given how personal it was for each PC.
Not super elaborate, but our party had just engaged with, I'm assuming, 2 Earth Elementals. Since my Hexblade rolled shitty initiative, I was next to last to attack. My original plan was to drop a Shatter spell, but since everyone else was engaged directly with them, I decided to avoid "collateral damage" (even though I felt like the rest of my team could take it.) But, in the last battle, I killed our Druid's Owl familiar with a Thunderstep escape. So, maybe she's a little trigger shy, and goes to the tried and true Pact Blade.
Went in with the 2-handed sword, and rolled dirty 21 to hit, rolled a d10 for 10+5 = 15 damage.
We learned that our adversaries, cultists to the dead god Ruedi, were last seen headed to the dwarven city of Slewug with large quantities of the zopai flower - a rare flower that is the crucial ingredient to the poison they've been using to turn entire towns into zombies. We surmised that they were going to try to turn the whole city undead and raced to intercept them. By entreating the help of a local high-level druid, we managed to transport via plants and get to Slewug in a fraction of the time it would normally take - though whether we beat the cultists there or not, we didn't know.
Once at Slewug, we decided the best course of action was to speak to the king (King Brass Bilsky) and inform him of the danger his city faced. I used charm person to expedite our way through customs and into Slewug proper; it is an impressive city built in concentric rings that got smaller as they went down into the earth, and the locals used both funicular trains and wyverns to get from one level to another. In addition, all around were aqueducts that carried molten metals from one area of the city to the other as part of their extensive metalworking industry.
We learned that King Brass was at a meeting in the mercantile exchange, so we managed to smooth-talk our way in using more charm person slots on the guards outside. Once inside, we went looking for the king - well, the paladin (Sir Lowell) and I did, while the sorcerer and the ranger went to check out the buffet. As luck would have it, the ranger (Mr. Hector Diversey) ran into King Brass at the macaroni'n'cheese bar. Somehow Mr. Diversey accidentally challenged King Brass to an eating contest. (Having an 9 INT will do that I suppose.) And so they started plowing through various dishes of gourmet macaroni'n'cheese. Partway through the contest, Mr. Diversey had the unfortunate discovery that he is allergic to shellfish and went into anaphylaxis. (One of the dishes had crab in it.) However, his desire to impress King Brass was so strong, Mr. Diversey performed an impromptu tracheotomy on himself so he could still breathe. (Much to my horror, as the only character with actual medical training.) King Brass was indeed impressed - and also disgusted and confused an horrified, so he forfeit the contest. We then explained why we were there, and he granted us permission to review their customs records to see if anyone had arrived with a large shipment of flowers recently; he also gave us a royal writ that would allow us to search the premises of local businesses if we needed to.
After reviewing the records, we determined that the cultists had likely already arrived and taken the zopai flowers to a local flower shop to avoid suspicion. The shop was closed when we arrived, and my rat familiar couldn't find a way in, even when we tried to maintenance tunnel behind the shop. However, we could hear people speaking in Undercommon inside the shop, so we busted the door in and found two individuals inside: a goth half-elf woman, and a man wearing a leather mask and carrying a scythe - presumably the General of the Scythe, the leader of the cult. The General gave the woman a vial of something (we guessed the zombie poison) and told her to run, and the battle was joined! Unfortunately, she was a warlock and used Misty Escape as soon as we hit her. Sir Lowell, Mr. Diversey, and our sorcerer Mr. Richmond engaged the General in battle while I ran out to the main street to try to catch the woman before she escaped. The General, however, cast a fire spell that shattered several other vials of poison that were in the flower shop; he then tossed a handful of zopai flowers on the flames and disappeared. Noxious smoke started billowing out of the shop; I failed the resulting Con save and took massive Con damage, reducing my max HP to ONE! The smoke continued to spread, affecting the employees of neighboring shops; we surmised that anyone who died as a result of the smoke would come back as a zombie.
Sir Lowell and Mr. Diversey chased after the woman with the vial, who was shimmying up the track of a funicular train, while Mr. Richmond and I tried to get the fire under control and get people out of the affected area. The woman hopped onto a cart that was floating along an aqueduct of molten metal; Mr. Diversey hopped onto another cart behind her, but Sir Lowell missed his jump and fell back down. As the aqueduct carried them past our level of the city, we saw the woman hit Mr. Diversey with an eldritch blast and drop him, as he was already damaged from his self-tracheotomy and also the battle with the General.
Now, as a Lawful Neutral character, normally I take a very utilitarian view towards morality - while trying to control the fire, I actually sacrificed two employees inside a shop because I figured the risk of the smoke spreading to the entire city and turning everyone into zombies was too great to delay shutting the shop in an attempt to rescue them. But my character has become very fond of Mr. Diversey as of late, so I decided to risk it and leapt onto the cart behind him to save him. It was, apparently, unnecessary, as he rolled a nat 20 on his next death save and popped back up, plugging the woman with another arrow. I managed to get the killing blow, though, using catapult to fling some of the molten metal at her.
We then realized we had to retrieve that vial she was carrying, as it was apparently reactive to fire and the aqueduct was carrying us towards some decidedly fiery metalworks. Mr. Diversey tried to hop over to her cart, failed, and fell off. I knew better than to risk such a feat with my damaged Con score, so I took out my rat familiar, who'd been hanging out in my pocket, and used catapult to fling him into the woman's cart. It was a ratapult, if you will. He successfully retrieved the vial and hopped off the aqueduct to safety, and I followed behind - only to land at the feet of the dastardly General of the Scythe! He stomped on my poor rat and took the vial before disappearing again. The bastard.
But at least we stopped the zombification of the entire city!
I have been playing the Dragon Queen's Hoard with my three nephews (all in elementary school) and when the Dragon came out to attack the castle keep the oldest decides he wants to tame it. I tell him he can go talk to it (aaracokra so he can fly) but he will roll his persuasion at disadvantage because this adult dragon doesn't really care about a 'little bird' like him.
Cue him rolling a double nat 20. No I don't let him tame it but needless to say he convinces the dragon to leave the battlefield (he didn't really want to be there anyway) but he will have a request, or a favor to ask of him later on in return for him leaving. I felt this was a good way to maybe give them a chance to perhaps makes an ally if not friends with an adult blue dragon for later entertainment. Plus could segue pretty well into a later part of the module that involves dragon eggs. Kinda thinking of giving them a Pokemon scenario pick your one pokeball err I mean egg and get one of three dragon wyrmlings to become your fourth party member.
I feel like it should all work out but the double 20's really threw me for a loop for a moment. I look forward to giving them a chance to learn how to raise a dragon, trying to decide which chromatic dragons I should give them the option of.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Last night, half the group was missing, but the remaining two players were still willing to go. Interestingly, it was the two players I mentioned last time, the least and most "minmaxer" of the group. So I returned us to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the second session in what I'm basically setting up as interlude one-shots. I've twisted a lot of stuff to make all these adventures fit my
unoriginal setting, one of which being that the Dragon Heist is taking place in the metropolitan capital of the elvish empire that they main campaign is, currently, just on the frontier outskirts of. I made it clear to the group that, should the main campaign ever go this far inland, what happens in this side campaign will have an impact. The players this session was a tiefling Feylock and a halfling courtier rogue.As this is a new adventure, and players may be reading this, I'll be putting this all in spoilers.
The first session ended just as they'd finished combat with the warehouse kenku. A rash of really bad rolls on all sides meant that there was one kenku who was not hit once, despite three party members ganging up on him for more than one turn and even after I freely gave opportunity attacks as the monster fled. The tiefling was with the other three players last session, but was at 1 hp after the end of that fight. To get them all together, I had the absentee PCs race off after the kenku while the injured tiefling stayed behind to patch herself up and check out the warehouse, but was almost immediately interrupted by investigating city watch officers. I had them come in earlier than the adventure intended because following them provided the incoming halfling a path to the warehouse.
Hilariously, the injured character told almost the whole truth, but not quite, and kinda dug herself a bit of a pit explaining herself to the watch. Rather than searching for a lost friend, they were meeting this friend to make some kind of business deal. Fortunately, some good social skill rolls led to the watch believing her story and scratching her name off the list of suspects. They immediately left the warehouse without further investigation or prompting, but after conferring with each other and getting the halfling up to speed, they decide to speak with the city watch commander. Looking for more opportunities to get the halfling's player to roleplay more, I stated that per her background as a former functionary of this city's courts (far outlying edges of course), she'd know of the halfling watch captain whose command includes the North Ward they are in.
The captain greeted her very warmly, as an old friend might, but also chastised her for seemingly getting mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city. During their discussion, a watch officer reports that they found the missing Neverember kid (the players were meant to, but having left the site to the watch, seemed reasonable). The captain questions the lad with the players present, giving them another opportunity to get the information. They then asked the watch captain for his permission to further investigate the warehouse for clues, which allowed them to find the secret room. They didn't take anything though, instead deciding to eventually notify the captain of their finding. As they left, they came across a watch officer keeping an eye on the warehouse. They didn't like the look of him (he was a bit of a jerk), and so circled back to see the officer disappear down into the sewers.
They give him the lead for a bit before following, but end up rolling rather poorly in stealth checks. After an hour following signs of his passing, they eventually come across a ladder marked by a freshly made chalk sign. Guarding it is a small gazer, which immediately rises up to attack them. The Feylock used Sleep on a higher initiative, immediately dropping the tiny beholder. The halfling then very easily skewered the poor thing, I actually felt sorry for it. What followed was pretty dang funny. So they followed the ladder up to a cellar. There were wine racks, and those massive barrels turned onto their sides. There was lots of noise upstairs. The Feylock wanted to listen in, wanted to find a way that she could get her ear up to the roof of the cellar. The only way was to climb up onto the large barrels, using an acrobatics check to keep balance.
He rolled very poorly. There were footsteps above, and the screech of a chair being pushed back, and the sound of people bumping into each other. Some dropped a cup of ale, which drained between the slats of wood and right into the tiefling's ear. She lost her balance, and on the way down bumped the barrel off its cradle. The noise attracted attention, and a man began to head down the steps. The halfling just drops down the ladder, shutting it behind her, leaving the tiefling to her fate. The tiefling used fey presence to successfully charm the initially accusatory fellow, and convinced him that the she had been merely checking the noise herself. Of course, her sudden flight down the ladder while he was confusedly calling back that there's nothing wrong meant that the investigator realized something was up once the charm dissipated in a few seconds. The man jerked the sewage cover up, and shouted down at them that he knew her face, and soon so would the city watch.
It was getting a bit late, so the players decided to head back to the watch commander to try and get ahead of this potential problem as well as to report what else they'd found. Next time we pick this up, if it's just the absentee players, I'll have them chase the kenku and progress the story in a different way. If it's the same group, I'll continue to progress it by themselves. If it's mixed, then they'll be meeting each other at a city watch citadel, which has certain implications.
I'm enjoying this side campaign, and how the players are taking this 'character creation' seed and running with it. The group of characters has been with each other for a while already, at least enough to know each other and to have built a friendship. Their would-be adventuring dreams had been going very poorly for them however, and they were at the brink of giving up on that life entirely. That is when they ran into Volo making his rounds about the towns, hawking his book Volo's Guide to Monsters. On a whim, the group pooled their resources together and purchased themselves a copy. With the information they've gleaned from that book, they've rebounded quite spectacularly. They even manage to finally complete a quest regarding a minor goblin threat, something they'd never have been able to accomplish before. In in-game terms, the book represents them going from Level 0 Commoners to Level 1 Adventurers. It also means they've got a pokedex they can reference, which is an interesting dynamic.
While there's all sorts of things happening in my campaign, the most memorable so far was 2 sessions ago (3 weeks ago, cause we had to forgo this week, unfortunately).
Little background: It was a 2 person campaign (I'll explain in a little bit), with me now as DM (my brother was the DM until May) and my brother now as the player. I took over when we reached 15th level - we essentially leveled every session because of our experience with other kinds of games and the way we would study our material almost every day. This is our first time playing D&D, though we have plenty of RP experience, having started in January, just before Critical Role's second campaign started. At this point, we're all at 16th level, cause it's also a test campaign so we can see what the levels have to offer, what we like and don't like, etc.
I have a DMPC (because my brother was the one DMing before with his own PC) - High Elf Abjure Wizard... , and my brother has 1 PC - Human Way of the Open Hand Monk - and a secondary PC (who's actually the main in terms of RPing, as his main has little in the way of Charisma) - Wood Elf Ranger Hunter. We just got a friend to join us for the first time this session - with a Human Champion Fighter, so I figured we'd just rescue his character from some pirates, which worked out perfectly cause we were sailing from one city to another. We made it to our destination after utterly destroying these pirates.
We get to the city and split up immediately. We send the Monk out to do a little reconnaissance of the Castle we need to infiltrate to rescue someone while the rest of us go shopping because, long story short, there was as siege and we needed to get out of there asap and ended up teleporting to an unknown location with 0 resources. So, with little gold and no real supplies, we do what we can to stock up.
At night we take refuge at a tavern, of course, and do a bit of gambling. Our new Fighter friend wins quite a bit of copper for himself and we have some fun.
In the morning, my Wizard learns then prepares Disguise Self and Charm Person[/spell] (he is not a an 'optimal" build at all... on purpose) so he and a Wizard NPC we're helping out can disguise themselves as Kingsguard to get into the Castle, find out where the person we're supposed to rescue is located, and go back later to break them out. The two players, who are not included in this plan, agree to this plan. My naive self thought they would just hang out and gamble some more until they got back.
NOPE!
The Monk and Fighter (as the Ranger was elsewhere at the time... long story) choose to try and infiltrate the heavily guarded and heavily defended Castle... by themselves... even though 2 Wizards were already doing that...
"Ok, fine", I think to myself. They're going to have to roll, and I let them know up front that there is a high chance that they're going to get captured and imprisoned.
They're not scared. They both only have decent stealth, and only cause the Fighter took Medium Armor Master.
They don't care.
So, the Monk starts to run up the wall, as Monks do, and ends up taking out 3 guards silently - rolling high Stealth each time, much to my surprised delight. Of course I didn't want them to fail, but EVERYTHING was stacked against them.
Anywho, so the Monk eventually gets the Fighter up the 40 foot wall and down the other side, but going down the other side, they manage to capture some attention. No problem, they'll just hide in a tree... and they do... rolling high stealth again...
Ok, cool, fine, whatever. Now there's 6 Kingsguard (Champions) near them trying to find them. So, our brilliant (-1 to Int) Monk throws a fruit from the tree he's in to the other side of the pond, and all the guards rush over. Our Fighter believes it's time to drop out of the tree and run... on the ground... to the OTHER SIDE of the castle. He's obviously noticed and chased down. However, this gives our Monk the perfect opportunity to slip in while all the attention is on the Fighter.
While the Monk ends up slipping in and taking out Kingsguard here an there, he ends up getting quite lost... Our Fighter, on the other hand, had a good bit of a head start on the Kingsguard and is able to slip in a door that I roll is not guarded, cause they're all outside chasing him down, that he slips in and then just stands there... LIKE A SUIT OF ARMOR. Now, he had asked before and I tell him there are no other suits of armor like this in this particular hallway and make him roll a - I can't remember if it was a Deception or Performance check, but either way it was Charisma and he was not proficient in it... rolls a nat 20... Yup, so a Kingsguard looks right at him, but passes him by and goes outside, leaving our Fighter to eventually get downstairs, to the dungeon.
This Fighter ends up distracting the two guards at the bottom of the stairwell to the Dungeon and runs in such a way as to avoid notice the whole time while getting them away from their station so he can slip by... He ends up finding our quarry and is now just standing there... with no plan...
So, this is when I, such the gracious DM that I am, step in with my Wizard, who is still disguised as a Kingsguard ( there are Abjurer as well as Evoker and War Priest Kingsguard - long story.) to show up through his Dimension Door to get them both out. I have homeruled that higher level castings of Dimension Door allow for more creatures to be brought through, and so we get out of the castle to our other Wizard companion. Our Wizard NPC (Enchanter) is still disguised as a Kingsguard and leads the Fighter out the front gate. My Wizard, in the meantime, Dimension Doors our quarry outside the Castle Walls, but has to GO BACK IN to save our Monk...
So, going back to him, he has absolutely no trouble with his Stealth checks and subsequently stunning any Guards he may run into. We both roll well, and my Wizard is able to find his Monk friend and get him out.
Suffice to say, it was a wild night! Definitely at least my 2nd favorite session so far.
If this doesn't perfectly describe 50% of the player mindset, I don't know what does! Do the most interesting thing, no matter the risks... And it's so fun because of it!
Last session was weird, since I had my 4 players went two opposite directions. Two of them went down into tunnels used by a thieves' guild despite warnings of the danger, and the other two went to a bar to get information from an NPC... Suffice it to say, one group had an easy night of social ability checks, and the other-- Got ambushed by 10 thieves/assassins/thugs. Didn't go so well for them.
So the party is:
Dragonborn Open Hand Monk 7
HB Race Wild Magic Sorc 6 / Tempest Cleric 1
Halfling Arcane Trickster 7
Genasi HB subclass Druid 7
The two at the bar (Sorc and Monk) got a lot of information relating to one of the character's backstories. Of the four players in my game, this one had the most backstory and it was really easy to tie it into the campaign in an enticing way. The character is a dragonborn monk who was a palace guard before their brother, also a palace guard, betrayed the Kingdom for power, helping enemy groups start a coup, and killing much of the royal family. The monk has been seeking survivors for some time, and learned that the Princess is actually currently Queen of the place he used to be from. It's not a nice place anymore though, it's a twisted, burned up fortress-- run by his brother, the new King. It took a lot of nudging from the NPC to have the two of them not just head up to this place tonight, but a little bit of player meta had them waiting in the hopes that the other party members will join them soon.
After being ambushed and knocked unconscious the other two (Rogue and Druid) woke up tied to posts, held over an underground lake swimming with sharks, and surrounded by an elaborate dock structure that made up the thieves' hideout. They met the tortle in charge who, after trying to escape and realizing that an entire thieves' guild in a major city is a bit too much for just the two of them, tried to talk their way into survival. The rogue managed to use thieves' cant to earn a position of 'you owe us, but you'll live', but the Druid wasn't able to. The tortle commanded for his men and women to kill both the druid, and the guard they had come down there with, but a voice stopped them before they did. The voice asked about an NPC the party had awoken from Tomas' Temporal Tombing and hearing the answer it was looking for, had the Tortle bring them to a private area. The guard, however, was not so useful-- And was turned into chum.
The two were brought to a private quarters where a strange, heavily robed figure entered through a portal, and were asked if the NPC in question would care if they were missing. They answered yes, and the session ended with the strange man saying 'We'll see about that.'
I was not expecting them to go down into the tunnels just the two of them. The Rogue knew that this was a major, huge organization thieves' guild, and they were warned by people not to go in for fear of their safety. But they did... Then last session the Druid almost died because of a rot grub swarm, but instead of turning back they kept going. But hey, it's going to work to set up some main plot threads, so in the end it turned out! That's what you get for trying to predict players, though ;)
Yesterday's session was a bit more lackadaisical than normal because we had a big Halloween party on Saturday night, so the DM and most of the players were some combination of sleep deprived and hung over. Also the DM couldn't find his notebook.
Our larger mission requires us to visit the Druids of the Horned Wood, who will help us identify the rare plant-based reagents used in a potion that mysterious someones are using to create zombie outbreaks. However, because the DM couldn't find his notes, we conveniently learned that a band of marauding goblins is based near the town we're currently visiting and decided to go fight them off (and hopefully get some treasure in the process). In order to reach the goblin hideout, which was in the Whipitcha Mountain, we could either take the long and safe route (which would take a full day's travel), or take the short route by scaling a cliff. Our questgiver, a dwarven blacksmith named Renny Codgers, gave us some climbing gear, so the majority of the party voted to climb the cliff.
Things were going well enough until the goblins spotted us when we were halfway up; they had bungee cord-like contraptions, which they used to dive off the top of the cliff and attack us. Fortunately, with some targeted attacks to their safety ropes, we managed to kill most of them quickly. But there was one left up top, who dumped kerosene on us and then dropped a torch, setting our climbing equipment on fire! The party managed to jump over and grab one of the dangling ropes left by the bungee goblins - except for me (the wizard) and the sorcerer; we both would've fallen to our deaths if it weren't for the help of the druid, who'd cast spider climb on himself and had more mobility than the rest of us. "Why'd we agree to do this, again??" I asked the sorcerer when I finally made it to the top of the cliff. "We didn't, actually," he replied while still dangling from the rope.
At the top of the cliff we fought some more goblins, these ones mounted on Rottweilers, and dispatched them handily. Then we reached the goblin lair proper, which was a series of chambers carved into the mountain. Inside the lair we met the goblin leader, who had under his control a hill giant! He ordered the hill giant to attack our paladin, and thus the boss battle started.
This is when things started going sideways. We were in a rather cramped chamber, which made it difficult to spread out (we also had a very large party that day - eight players). This would be problematic enough with the hill giant, but to make things worse, the goblin leader started lobbing dynamite at us! With each stick he threw at us, at least one player (usually me cuz I'm a squishy wizard) would get knocked unconscious. The druid cast healing spirit, and so the combat became a bit of a farce as the still-conscious PCs would carry the unconscious PCs through the healing spirit's space like we were scanning items at a register. But it kept us alive.
One of the rangers decided that turnabout is fair play and lobbed at the goblin an explosive that I'd made earlier. He hadn't thought that action entirely through, though, because the explosive hit the crate of dynamite that had been supplying the goblin and created a MASSIVE explosion that instantly killed both the goblin leader and the hill giant. It also triggered a cave-in of the goblin hideout! We started running, dodging (or occasionally failing to dodge) falling boulders the entire time. I would have been knocked unconscious again if it weren't for a potion of false life that I'd chugged earlier. As we ran, we spotted a side passage full of treasure... but there was a very real danger that the entire cavern would collapse on us if we tarried to loot the place. I used catapult to fling a nice-looking sword at the feet of the fighter without needing to make a detour. Our other ranger decided to risk it and snatched a quiver of arrows before booking for the exit. The druid turned into a wolf; our gnome rogue, riding on the druid's back, created a lasso and snagged a fancy bowler cap. However, the rogue was knocked unconscious by a falling rock right as he reached the exit, and his hat fell off! Ranger2 ran back in at the last second to carry him out, and even managed to grab the hat before the exit collapsed entirely, Indiana Jones-style.
I used detect magic to determine that all three items we grabbed are magical - the sword and the arrows have transmutation magic, while the bowler has abjuration magic, but we don't know more than that as of now. I'm really hoping that the blacksmith pays us well for our efforts, because I had way more near-death experiences than was expected!
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
So I'm doing a homebrew/phandelver with my group and Nezznar the Black Sprider used (a very still in working order) forge of spells to power up a mask of eldritch evil and insurmountable power. My party, the Impatient Sluts as they call themselves, was having none of this and while Nezz tried by webbing up the hallway during a chase to escape our halfling paladin burn the webs and I let her make an athletics check: 17. She made it through but took 8 fire damage and her hair got frizzy and then she hit him with a Thunderous Smite Boom 13 damage when he had 11. and then our gnome bard tried to take the mask which was still clinging to his unconscious body and when it wouldn't leave his face she cut of his face with a 20 slight of hand dc which she beat easily of course. Then the rest of the party felt ill except fora goblin they adopted named Torla she was having a blast. Anyway they're going to Neverwinter soon :3
Last weekend's session was an important one. it was our ninth session and we wrapped up the first story arc. The players are all fifth level now and I am looking forward to the second story arc now that the characters are tough enough to handle some tougher situations without dying quickly.
Picking up after the fight with the otyugh, the group considered their next move as there were two unexplored directions within the old volcanic caverns. The party opted to go in a new direction where they came upon a human they identified as the Doomspeaker (an evil paladin of the cult of Baphomet) along with a minotaur priest and four goblins who appeared to be studying a massive golden door. After discussing whether to approach them diplomatically, the party’s sorcerer Zarrak decided to let his fireball do the talking. That solved the goblin problem while the rest of the party rushed in to confront the two big guys. The battle turned with the minotaur staying mobile and casting various spells to cause problems while the Doomspeaker engulfed the dwarven cleric Thud with grappling flames that burned him horribly before he was able to break free. Eventually, the party got the better of the battle and wore down the evil paladin. After that, it was not long until the minotaur priest fell as well.
The party inspected the twin golden doors. They were locked, but there was no keyhole. There was a pentagonal indention and the party knew they needed to locate a key for it so they struck off in the other direction to investigate the unexplored portion of the cavern. They came upon a temporary settlement in a large chamber where five bugbears were working frantically to assemble a crude barricade across the entrance of an unexplored far passage from the chamber. The bugbears looked roughed up and demoralized. When they saw the party, they grabbed their weapons, but did not move to attack.
Thud managed to coax an explanation out of them and found out they had indeed located the pentagonal key, but they were attacked by a powerful unseen enemy. Fearing the room and the key were cursed, they left it behind and made a run for it. Now they feared it would pursue them, hence the barricade. The party was running thin on spells and everyone had taken a good amount of damage, so the party offered the bugbears the option of simply walking away. The bugbears didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to leave and save their own skins, saying the Doomspeaker’s task was not worth dying over.
After disassembling the barricade and proceeding beyond it, the party came to an old burial area with nine small plain coffins set out in rows and three more ornate coffins behind them. Cyrus the gnome rogue let his curiosity got the better of him and he cracked one open to peer at the skeleton inside. It did not react… until Zarrak hit it with a [Tooltip Not Found] and then all the coffins burst open with nine skeletons of dwarven miners and three ghasts moved to surround the party. Thud had suspected shenanigans and was already in position to channel divinity against the undead horde. He destroyed most of the undead outright, killing six of the skeletons and turning one of the ghasts. The rest were easy enough to finish off. The party wouldn’t have stirred them all up except that they worried they might have to retreat this way and didn’t want to risk having a small army of undead on one side of them while something else pursued them from the other side.
Upon reaching the deepest chamber in the cavern, the party noticed a pentagonal inset in the wall where something had been chipped out. Red grime had been smeared on the wall, writing in goblin, “The relic is cursed. Only death is here.” There was a dark deep hole in the floor in the middle of the chamber and a dead bugbear with an arm ripped off lying face-down next to it. Another [Tooltip Not Found] into the dead bugbear “just in case” sent it toppling into the dark pit. The party worked out a way to get down to the bottom of the pit, finally deciding to lower Thud on a number of ropes they attached together. Thud descended into magical darkness and something he could not see attacked him as he dangled on a rope. He hurried back up to the room and the dead bugbear materialized above the party floating in the air. It attacked the party with its glaive while flying around for several rounds before the party got the upper hand. Facing overwhelming odds, it turned into gaseous form and faded into cracks in the wall of the cave.
With no more harassing distractions, the party was able to descend into the lower chamber and, with some searching, they retrieved the pentagonal key and returned to the sealed golden doors. They placed the key into the recess and the doors swung open with a deep grinding rumble. Putrid green fog spilled out and swept across the floor. Inside the final chamber was an ancient sealed tomb complete with a pool of bubbling blood red liquid, several demonic statues, and an altar prominently featuring a ring in the shape of a large and strange bestial skull. When the party took the ring and made to exit, a dog-headed Psoglav demon materialized and attacked. It flew around the room and used greater invisibility, but Melias the bard used dispel magic in a clutch move. Then it fired a beam from its one giant eye knocking Beelock the minotaur blood hunter back 20 feet and knocking the shadow off of him, which then came to life and attacked the party. Several dretches climbed out of the pool of red liquid to join the battle as well. During the course of the battle, it hit several other players with its shadow beam and flew around attacking with its horrible metal jaw. After a pitched battle, the party was able to turn the tide against the demon at great cost and managed to defeat it.
In the end, the party crushed the Doomspeakers cell in northeastern Tal’Dorei and brought this chapter of smuggled drugs, kidnapped villagers, demonic cults, and ancient relics to a close. It’s always hard to tell what tendrils remain of such a shadowy organization. The Ring of the Abyss is a powerful dark magic item that provides strong effects to the one who wears it. It is also something highly coveted by the Doomspeakers who remain and now it has been brought back out into the world. One has to wonder whether the hobgoblin scouts and the fleeing bugbears will fade quietly into obscurity, or if they will report back to distant superiors to explain what transpired in the volcanic cavern.
I'm satisfied with how the last session went, but we were a little pressed for time and as a result, I had to cut some corners. I had planned on the fleeing oni to make an appearance in the final battle, which would have definitely kicked up the degree of difficulty and made it last longer. In order to save time, I left it out, meaning its nasty cone of cold never got used. I may have the oni show up again later in the story. You know, loose ends and all. There were a number of magic items handed out in this final dungeon and pretty much everyone has a low-level magic item or two now. I'm probably going to hold off on doling out more of them for a while, but we will see what the future holds.
I also don't like to end a session at the end of the final fight. I prefer to have the party at least declare their next intentions so that I can work that into the beginning of the next gaming session. As it is now, I have to start the next session with, "Well what do you guys want to do now?" which puts me at a disadvantage preparation-wise. I may railroad their journey back to the nearby city where I can coax them into spreading the word of their success and also opening up opportunities to offer some of my prepared courses of action while the group decides what they wand to do next.
The next story arc is intended to take them from level five to about level ten or so with some hooks for a possible third arc as well. We're nine sessions into our campaign now and we will see what the future holds. November and December are tough months to get six adults together for a game, but I'd like to get at least one more session before the end of the year if we can.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Don't hesitate to just ask them. My players got out of a tight bind two sessions ago, and it ended there. I asked them to discuss in our group WhatsApp what they'd all like to do (Downtime? Sidequest? Etc.) from what they already knew about, so that we didn't have to spend time sorting out what everyone wanted to do at the top of next session. I framed it as saving time, but it was really just a benefit to me. They ended up choosing a job off of the job board they'd seen before, so I was able to prepare pretty far into that side-quest, and had more than enough content for the most recent session. :)
Let's see ... last session was two weeks ago ( work has been kicking my ass with 75 hour weeks ... ) ...
The party:
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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Last night. It was fairly eventful; our cleric died and, because she's the only one that can bring fallen member's back to life, we were kind of SOL. The wizard had the bright idea to fire a lightning bolt into her chest thinking that would act as a defibrillator, and the GM was so bemused that he allowed it. So our cleric is now A-OK and with a giant fractal scar across her boobs, which has a fairly humorous story behind it. All in all, it was a good time.
"The Epic Level Handbook wasn't that bad, guys.
Guys, pls."
Over the past couple sessions, our party fought 4 Scarecrows, a half dozen skeletons, a Nothic (again...) 4 Dire wolves and about a half dozen "regular wolves," and some sort of icy Zombie.
Yeah, it was the Halloween themed chapter. :)
Well, our last session went pretty great.
We found Strahd.
I activated the symbol of ravenkind.
The wizard cast dawn.
The fighter/warlock activated some other light-based power.
It was so bright that Strahd retreated after a turn and a half.
Oh, there were some vampire spawn there too, but they did a dead.
We flipped the lid off the coffin, the light did the rest of the work.
After that, we looted the temple, hunted down the last of the werewolves and partied...oh yeah, then we left Barovia and went to sort out some giants (which we'll deal with with the help of our slightly-too-small-for-our-party wagon).
Alright, so hear's the set-up for the campaign:
The kingdom was at peace, ruled by the good king. The king was aided by three groups: his personal guard (the Aspects), his Right Hand (an elite fighting force), and his Left Hand (a group of adventurers with unique backgrounds and skills). Then the leader of the Left Hand, Randall, betrayed the king, along with the Aspects, killed the king and the Right Hand, and framed the other members of the Left Hand (the adventuring party) for the whole thing.
Fast forward in time. The party has traveled all over the kingdom, gaining experience and allies, and are ready to fight the Aspects. They go to the castle and battle their way through. They arrive at the Chamber of Justice, home of the Aspect of Justice and instead find me (I joined the campaign pretty late). My character, Oberon Knightwalker, is a 16th level Moon Elf Battle Master Fighter. A master combatant, Oberon was the fighting force of the Right Hand, and trained every knight and guardsman in the kingdom. During the overthrow, Oberon was drinking at his favorite tavern. Word reached him of the deaths of his companions and, knowing he couldn't face the Aspects alone, he retreated into the countryside. He was found soon afterward by the Aspect of Justice, whom he had personally trained. Telling the Aspect that treason was a coward''s game, he brought all 180 years of fighting fury on the Aspect, cutting him down in mere minutes. Oberon then took the Aspect's place, biding his time until he could muster a force that could defeat the others. And then the adventuring party came along...
Jump ahead to today's session. Our group was preparing our final assault against Randall when the now-reclaimed castle was attacked by a demonic force, consisting of three hellfire engines, one amnizu, and an army of lemures. Three of the party members, our halfing rogue, water genasi cleric, and goliath moon druid, went down onto the field, through the army of soldiers and lemures, to fight the amnizu and one of the hellfire engines. Oberon stayed behind on the battlements to help the soldiers man the ballista and the trebuchet. After the rogue was knocked unconscious by the amnizu, Oberon decided to literally fly into action, climbing onto the next trebuchet shot and riding it out over the battlefield directly into the hellfire engine (he used his boots of levitation to safely stop and slow his own fall). Then after the moon druid (in the form of an earth elemental) buried the hellfire engine, and the cleric cured him of blindness brought on by the amnizu, Oberon diced the devil to pieces.
After the devil was down, Oberon chugged a potion of speed (granting him haste) and proceeded to wreck all three hellfire engines (with the assistance of the rogue).
The point of the story is, sometimes it's fun to have a group of ridiculous characters face dangerous high-level enemies and then just go ham XD
Have been playing D&D for less than a year, and only recently have turned it into a semi-regular thing. I DM in one campaign, and one of my players in that campaign recently started his own, of which the last session was the one I will tell the tale. The tale of the first PC death I have witnessed.
The setting is one where civilisation was nearly destroyed by a great flood 200 years ago. What’s left of society lives on whatever small landmass remains in the world. Recently, a tome with some wizard’s research was found, with a possible way to reverse the effects of the flood and restore the land, allegedly to be found in the wizard’s old habitat, a tower on an island at the edge of the map. The king of one of the remaining states assembles a team to go to this tower. That team being the player characters. There’s my Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Bard with a Charlatan background, Ximeno Ferlucci. Then there’s Benedict, a Neutral Good Duergar Tempest Cleric inspired by Moby Dick’s captain Ahab. And finally, there’s Miaq the Chaotic Neutral Tabaxi Monk. Basically what happens if you mix M’aiq the Liar and Big Head from the Elder Scrolls. Miaq always carried a book around, which allegedly contained the word of the mad god he worshipped. The book was a strange artefact. Text would randomly appear in it, but Miaq would also write in it himself, or even cross things out. My character once took a look at it and was both confused and intrigued by its contents.
Miaq had a personal quest in finding a special fork, the Fork of Horripilation (yes, also from the Elder Scrolls). So he’d constantly ask people about the Fork, try to inspect every fork in taverns, etc.
Which brings us to last session, session three. The party is at the island where the wizard’s tower is located, and they’re doing some side quests to level up before taking on the main quest, so to speak. The trio have taken up this quest involving a kooky farmer whose goats keep disappearing. The reward: the Fork of Horripilation. The quest: kill the goat thief. Said goat thief: A mothertruckin’ Chimera. We’ve spent the second session going through some encounters in the desert, leading up to the Chimera’s lair. Session three begins with the party having had a long rest near the lair, and planning their attack. They’ve come prepared, having bought a couple of Resist Fire and Healing potions. We knew the risk we were taking here, challenging this thing with three level 3 characters. Between the Chimera’s multiattack and Fire Breath, they could each be wiped out in one or two rounds. Especially Miaq, who had an AC of 15 and only 18 max HP, would have to have a lot of luck on his side to survive this.
Still, the encounter starts out quite positively. We manage to ambush the Chimera, getting a surprise round in. We manage to hit the Chimera hard in the first couple of rounds, making good use of our abilities. Bless, Bardic Inspiration, Thunderwaves, Dissonant Whispers, Vicious Mockery, Flurry of Blows, the goods. Aside from that, the DM had some unlucky rolls, so the Chimera was barely hitting us, if it all.
Of course, as we learned the hard way, the battle isn’t over until it’s over. The Chimera starts hitting more consistently, and hitting HARD. Despite my best efforts to keep everyone’s health up, we’re getting to a point where the Chimera can take us down with one or two good hits, and we’re not sure how many rounds of damage the creature is going to take before it drops. Miaq decides he needs to do something drastic, and jumps on top of the Chimera. The Chimera then decides it’s done with our shit and flies away. Miaq falls off, only to be attacked by the Chimera. The beast gets in three solid hits, and basically tears our beloved, crazy cat monk to shreds. Ximeno and Benedict decide it’s time to leave and do so, though not before Ximeno snatches Miaq’s book.
They run through the desert, mourning their lost companion. They kill some Fire Snakes and get back to the town where their ship is moored.
They’re just on time to witness a ritualistic execution of a Fir Bolg, who’s accused of murder, the backup character the DM has given to Miaq’s player for the rest of the session (at the end, the player said he was gonna think of another character). Our characters decide to intervene (though there really was no reason for them to, besides the meta-reason that it’s a PC) and it ends up with Benedict participating in a trial by combat. Ximeno, being a gambler, makes a bet with the captain of the party’s ship, for all of his money. Benedict basically curbstomps his opponent, Ximeno gets rich, and the Fir Bolg gains his freedom. There’s some more shenanigans following that, but nothing really noteworthy.
I’m going to miss Miaq, he was a fun character, despite only lasting three sessions. We were thinking of putting the book into a Warforged at some point, but we’ll see what the player comes up with.
XD
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So, currently running two campaigns. Both are set in my homebrew world which I have readily Frakensteined on parts of official content (Barovia is a territory that is, currently, cut off by the mists. The whole Sword Coast has been tacked on as well. Most gods have the same names but I've redone many of them. The names are just for familiarity for players.) Running Curse of Strahd, about half way through.
Wall of text incoming.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD; if you’re a player, shoo! Don’t ruin this for yourself.
Quick background from my homebrew: The Primordials are an ancient, and malevolent race that exists beyond the edge of existence. They've invaded once, destroying numerous worlds and slaying several gods. The gods managed to slay a few, and imprison others. One of the most insidious of the Primordials was Vrosshe'raj, the Many Faced One. He appeared as numerous different Primordials, attacking in different manors and seeming to be slain. It wasn't until the gods managed to drive this Primordials into the same place that it became clear they were in fact all parts of one terrifying entity. They managed to tear off pieces of him, and eventually, imprison him within the Amber Temple, in a massive amber sarcophagus (on a third floor I've added, above the library) and his numerous identities in the smaller ones scattered around the temple.
Quick Background For My Characters:
Casey, the female human ranger, is from the kingdom of Gallicus (Roman Empire styled, city states; was once THE ruling empire before it collapsed) and was slated for an arranged marriage. She fled and lived with her hand maidens brother. During her time she saw the ravages that the warring city states brought upon the populace. She vowed to end it by unifying Gallicus. But first she's going to become immortal. She's seen what happens when strong rulers die, and the weak bicker over the left overs.
Hawkens, the female halfling barbarian, is from a small, wild section of the massive forests of Qu'los; an area not much large than a square kilometer called the Blood Wilds. Her tribe battled against two other tribes in this area. She's grown up a violent, and wild individual relishing in the gore, chaos, and violence of battle. Still, she maintains stiff loyalty to her friends, and tribe.
Nexus, the male tiefling wizard/cleric is from Azmodar, the ruined tiefling kingdom. Azmodar is a charred wasteland, where most live in near poverty. Magic is strictly controlled, believed to be a taint from the devil pact (which is now abohorred; the tieflings despise their devil nature, mostly) They have a council that selects children to be trained and Nexus's parents paid no expense to get him to the assesment but he was turned away. In tiefling culture this has never not lead to exile or death as villages are known to riot and lynch unregulated spell casters (the council is fully aware of this reality) Upon returning home, his family home is burned down and his parents killed. Nexus uses his magic to escape, and flees. His goal to return to Azmodar, slay the council and overthrow
Rollo, half-orc bard, was raised by a human mother and an orc father in the Stonemarch (not uncommon, Orcs in my world are very accepting as long as you can pull your weight, and defend yourself and your family, you are welcome) When he was young, she was killed and he was captured in an Ogre raid which lead to him being sold into slavery and raised as a gladiator. He's purchased by a circus troupe who use him to fight large animals ( bears, tigers etc) for show. This circus got lost in the mists, wandered up in Barovia, and was promptly wiped out by the wild man, with Rollo narrowly escaping. By chance, he met Rictavio whom tended his wounds and brought him to Vallaki, where he met the party. His goal is actually the party; he has longed for the companionship of a clan, something he sees in his newfound compatriots.
So, this long intro was necessary. The PCs have befriended Rudolph (whom is the ally) and met up with Ezmerelda; both are travelling with them. They’d just defeated Baba Lysaga (and captured her travelling hut which they’ve managed to convert to their own use) Strahd ambushes them, as he does, but this time during the fight a Roc swoops in and carries off Ezmerelda. Strahd, himself surprised by this, actually backs off and the PCs chase the Roc to the Amber Temple. With Rictavio pushing them onwards, they enter the temple.
So the PCs are exploring the Amber Temple, and rather greedily taking the gifts from the sarcophagi. Rollo is the exception; the only gift he takes is true sight and it’s mostly on accident. Also, his character already had the flaw so I counted this as if he hadn’t taken a gift (you’ll see why shortly) The others went crazy, grabbing most of the gifts. They use these gifts to muck most of the fights. During this time, the Arcanoloth had slipped out of the statue and stalking them, tossing out spells periodically to harass them. They can’t manage to pin it down but continue searching. They breach the vault, clear it, and move on to the room beyond and fight the vampire spawn. (They had the holy symbol so this fight was a wash with the gifts and Rudolph)
During this, the Arcanoloth slipped behind them and hurled another fireball. Hawkens, frustrated and angry, tries frantically to find the stupid thing, and manages to resist finger of death. Rollo and Casey follow him and, Rollo having true sight, sees the thing and tackles it to the ground. Hawkens jumps atop the now exposed creature, and before it can cast Dimension Door, breaks it’s jaw. The three of them then precede to torture this thing for reasons.
Meanwhile, Rudolph and Nexus are checking out the other gifts. By this time, Nexus was regretting taking the gifts so quickly (he’d just converted to Pelor, and so was still struggling with his newfound religion and lust for power. In fact, as punishment, using the sun power from the holy symbol cost double charges) Rudolph finds the vampyr coffin and immediately goes to destroy it (using the explosives he’d had from his cart; it’s never actually listed but since Esmerralda’s cart was rigged with explosives I figured he’d have them to) and they destroy it. Nexus goes one further, deciding to go with his god and uses the gifts to destroy the other two. Thus redeeming himself in the eyes of Pelor!
They relink with the others, chastise them for their disgusting behavior, and Rudolph mercy kills the arcanoloth. They proceed up the stairs, pausing in the library, before entering my added third floor: the Tome of Amber.
Inside is a giant 50ft by 100ft slab of amber. Resting against it is an unconscious Ezmeralda, with Rahadin beside. He, briefly, explains the Amber Temple and the evil they’ve allowed into their bodies. He introduces himself, and Rollo tries to convince him to turn on Strahd, suggesting he should ascend him. Rahadin of course refuses, questioning Rollo’s loyalty and striking a nerve when he points to his “monster parent.” Before they can act they each black out.
So, this next bit didn’t happen all at once; I jumped from character to character periodically, so it was all interwoven. But, for ease, I’m going to put each characters sections here.
Rollo woke up moments later with Rudolph standing over him. He too had blacked out for an unknown period of time; Rahadin was gone and so were the others. They checked on Ezmerelda and then Rollo sensed a vile presence inside the tomb. He casts detect thoughts on ezmerelda, and sees the day she and Rudolph had their falling out. At the end of the season, she turns, sees him and then snaps awake. After, he, rather interestingly, cast Detect Thoughts and on the tomb was sucked into the mind of this thing. He saw flashes from the lives of Strahd, Rahadin, Baba Lysaga, Sergei, one of the guards that slew Strahd, Strahd’s parents, so on. He barely managed to break the spell as he was pulled deeper and deeper, seeing flashes of events from hundreds of years before. (My world is VERY young) He comes back, and can now see all of these memories floating in the amber. He tries to locate his friends, but can’t. He pulls out his bag pipes and starts playing a song from his childhood.
Nexus awakens inside of the chamber from his childhood, where the council judged. He sees himself seated in the head chair, older and bristling with power. He gets flashbacks of him returning to Azmodar, slaughtering the council, and taking over. He sees himself judging the remaining magic users harshly, eliminating all but the most powerful. Eventually the numbers dwindles from a few hundred to a few dozen. He then sees himself judging children, and deeming all of them to be unworthy. Nexus also sees his “future” self without religion; he has forsaken Pelor. Nexus refuses instantly, and blinks out. When he does, he basically blinked between synapses in the primordials mind; he can see all of these millions of memories everywhere. He starts to pray. Well praying, he hears bagpipes in the distance and focuses on them asking Pelor to guide him. His holy symbol flares and outside Rollo sees his friend in the jumble of memories. He casts detect thoughts, connects with Nexus, and pulls him out.
Hawkens awakes in his home forest. She explores a little, and finds a trail of corpses stuck to trees and mutilated; all clearly those of his opposing tribes. Her excitement peaked, she follows towards where her village would have been and the bodies pile up. However, reaching her village she begins to see her peoples bodies and upon reaching her home, her families. The door bursts open and a future version of herself, still marked with the multitude of “gifts” steps out, carrying the blood spear as well. She howls and charges, and Hawkens responds in kind but is hopelessly outmatched. She hears the bagpipes, gaining advantage, and manages to make some ground but is still simply outclassed. She refuses to give in, and the moment before her alternate self strikes the death blow, she appears in the amber to Rollo and Nexus who again uses Detect Thoughts. She falls through the grass and into Nexus’s arms. Rudolph rushes over to provide healing.
Casey awakens in a throne room, her families throne room although it’s been redecorated in the old Gallicean style. One hundred elite praetorian guard line each wall, and at the end she sits on the throne. In a prior adventure, a library (also corrupted by the primoridals) delivered her a book that told the “history of gallicus” but it went beyond current time into the future where an immortal queen would rise, lead an army of madness and chaos across the world, and conquer it all. She would drown the world in insanity, and when the gods tries to intervene, she repulsed them. Casey saw images of herself doing this; returning to Gallicus, taking her families army, and crushing everyone in her path. She stormed the elven kingdoms and burned the forest of Qu’los to the ground, and had the mountains of the Dwarven Tri Holds literally mined till they collapsed. And when the gods descended to rid their world of this evil, she repulsed them. Casey struggled to handle her feelings, but upon hearing the bag pipes, began to follow them. They lead her along the path she’d taken to escape her families palace in her youth, eventually reaching the servants exit. As she swung open the door, Rollo used Detect thoughts and she stepped out into the room with the others.
The PCs had little time for a reunion, as they blacked out again and woek up INSIDE the amber. They could see Ruldoph and Ezmeralda trying to get inside. Stepping from the amber was the alternate versions of themselves, and much to the PCs (and especially their players) concern they’d lost their gifts (except Rollo)
What my PCs didn’t know was that every time they took a gift, they made their alternate versions stronger. Since Rollo only took the one gift, and it in fact didn’t change him as a person, he was unaffected. However the others had become so corrupted that these Amber versions of themselves were incredibly dangerous (obviously toned down from Casey’s solo fighting gods but still, very strong) I had stat increases, additional actions, spells, legendary actions all tied to a checklist of whick gifts they took so this was a monster fight. The one boon they had was that Amber Hawkens kept all the damage that Hawkens had dealth (which was huge because Amber Hawkens was pushing 200 HP)
The fight was grueling, Amber Casey opened with her only cast of conjure volley to chunk the whole party. Amber Nexus split the party with ice wall and Amber Hawkens dove in head first, as one does. Hawkens (the real one) went after Amber Nexus, well Nexus and Casey took on Amber Hawkens. Rollo solo tango’d with Casey.
Im very proud of Rollo’s player; he was very smart. He used darkness (his actual last spell slot) and then abused his true sight, forcing Amber Casey to stay inside and fight him with disadvantage. He pinned her their most of the fight, negating her dark ranger fighting style and the heavy damage she could dish out. Having designed her, there’s no way they win this fight without him. And honestly, there’s no way they escape the Amber Tomb because I wasn’t even sure how they were going to get out of there when I put them in. The Detect Thoughts thing was a spark of genius and I ran with it.
Hawkens smashed her way through the ice wall and tore into Amber Nexus. She suffered A LOT of damage, resisting ANOTHER finger of death, and passing no less than FOUR saving throws at DC 17, to barely survive and take down the Amber version of his spell slinging friend.
The other fair poorly, with Nexus getting knocked unconscious quickly and Casey barely able to hold off Amber Hawkens onslaught. Hawkens rushes over to Rollo, who had to drop the darkness spell to use heat metal on Amber Hawkens for the disadvantage, and drops Casey just as she finishes off Rollo.
So now Hawkens and Casey are the only ones standing against Amber Hawkens (AC 21, nearly 200 HP, although not at this point, 3 attacks a turn with sneak attack and 1d6 radiant dmg; all of this taken from the PC version, but also with a bunch of the gifts) Casey switched to healing, trying to keep herself and Hawkens up. Amber Hawkens crits her, and drops her. Hawkens is again battling against Amber Hawkens, whom has a string of terrible rolls and actually loses the blood spear; forcing her to draw her scimitar. Things still are looking grim; Voz, the god of death whom Casey owes a debt, steps in to save Casey from death, but she’s still unconscious. Rollo makes his final death saving throw, with 2 successes and 2 fails and manages to roll his first 20 of the adventure (new character, his last one died) Getting to his feet he heals Nexus, whom was about to make his last chance death save. Amber Hawkens finishes Hawkens, and then rushes Rollo dropping him.
With a last ditch effort, Nexus uses his signature spell Fireball. (Frequently, Hawkens would be in the middle of the enemy and Nexus would toss the fireball on top of her, knowing she’d likely dodge with her high dex; it’s honestly a thing now that Hawkens actually has most of her hair missing and the remainder is charred) Amber Hawkens, who has advantage of dex saves, double 1s it. (I house rule that a critical fail on the saving throw is the same as a critical damage; it almost never comes up but it’s fun when it does) taking a HUGE amount of damage and finally toppling.
Nexus heals up the party. They notice that the evil presence is gone (back to sleep) but now need to escape a room of hard amber, which they realize is running out of oxygen. Eventually, they try the door from the robe of many things; which works and they step out into the air. Rudolph and Ezmeralda use spells/potions to top the party up best they can.
With Ezmeralda saved, the PCs now have to figure out how they’re going to get all their treasure from the vault outside and back to civilization. (They also haven’t thought about being trapped in Barovia, with no where to cash this stuff. Good thing they have a walking house…
Sorry for the long post but I was rather proud of this little addition, and unfortunately, it required a lot of back story given how personal it was for each PC.
Not super elaborate, but our party had just engaged with, I'm assuming, 2 Earth Elementals. Since my Hexblade rolled shitty initiative, I was next to last to attack. My original plan was to drop a Shatter spell, but since everyone else was engaged directly with them, I decided to avoid "collateral damage" (even though I felt like the rest of my team could take it.) But, in the last battle, I killed our Druid's Owl familiar with a Thunderstep escape. So, maybe she's a little trigger shy, and goes to the tried and true Pact Blade.
Went in with the 2-handed sword, and rolled dirty 21 to hit, rolled a d10 for 10+5 = 15 damage.
Second attack, Nat 20. Added Eldritch Smite - 2d10 + 8d8 +10 = 60 damage.
Not bad to drop 75 points in one round, and kill that thing. Guess I'm glad I didn't go with Shatter.
Smites on top of critical hits sure feel good.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This past session was a fun one!
We learned that our adversaries, cultists to the dead god Ruedi, were last seen headed to the dwarven city of Slewug with large quantities of the zopai flower - a rare flower that is the crucial ingredient to the poison they've been using to turn entire towns into zombies. We surmised that they were going to try to turn the whole city undead and raced to intercept them. By entreating the help of a local high-level druid, we managed to transport via plants and get to Slewug in a fraction of the time it would normally take - though whether we beat the cultists there or not, we didn't know.
Once at Slewug, we decided the best course of action was to speak to the king (King Brass Bilsky) and inform him of the danger his city faced. I used charm person to expedite our way through customs and into Slewug proper; it is an impressive city built in concentric rings that got smaller as they went down into the earth, and the locals used both funicular trains and wyverns to get from one level to another. In addition, all around were aqueducts that carried molten metals from one area of the city to the other as part of their extensive metalworking industry.
We learned that King Brass was at a meeting in the mercantile exchange, so we managed to smooth-talk our way in using more charm person slots on the guards outside. Once inside, we went looking for the king - well, the paladin (Sir Lowell) and I did, while the sorcerer and the ranger went to check out the buffet. As luck would have it, the ranger (Mr. Hector Diversey) ran into King Brass at the macaroni'n'cheese bar. Somehow Mr. Diversey accidentally challenged King Brass to an eating contest. (Having an 9 INT will do that I suppose.) And so they started plowing through various dishes of gourmet macaroni'n'cheese. Partway through the contest, Mr. Diversey had the unfortunate discovery that he is allergic to shellfish and went into anaphylaxis. (One of the dishes had crab in it.) However, his desire to impress King Brass was so strong, Mr. Diversey performed an impromptu tracheotomy on himself so he could still breathe. (Much to my horror, as the only character with actual medical training.) King Brass was indeed impressed - and also disgusted and confused an horrified, so he forfeit the contest. We then explained why we were there, and he granted us permission to review their customs records to see if anyone had arrived with a large shipment of flowers recently; he also gave us a royal writ that would allow us to search the premises of local businesses if we needed to.
After reviewing the records, we determined that the cultists had likely already arrived and taken the zopai flowers to a local flower shop to avoid suspicion. The shop was closed when we arrived, and my rat familiar couldn't find a way in, even when we tried to maintenance tunnel behind the shop. However, we could hear people speaking in Undercommon inside the shop, so we busted the door in and found two individuals inside: a goth half-elf woman, and a man wearing a leather mask and carrying a scythe - presumably the General of the Scythe, the leader of the cult. The General gave the woman a vial of something (we guessed the zombie poison) and told her to run, and the battle was joined! Unfortunately, she was a warlock and used Misty Escape as soon as we hit her. Sir Lowell, Mr. Diversey, and our sorcerer Mr. Richmond engaged the General in battle while I ran out to the main street to try to catch the woman before she escaped. The General, however, cast a fire spell that shattered several other vials of poison that were in the flower shop; he then tossed a handful of zopai flowers on the flames and disappeared. Noxious smoke started billowing out of the shop; I failed the resulting Con save and took massive Con damage, reducing my max HP to ONE! The smoke continued to spread, affecting the employees of neighboring shops; we surmised that anyone who died as a result of the smoke would come back as a zombie.
Sir Lowell and Mr. Diversey chased after the woman with the vial, who was shimmying up the track of a funicular train, while Mr. Richmond and I tried to get the fire under control and get people out of the affected area. The woman hopped onto a cart that was floating along an aqueduct of molten metal; Mr. Diversey hopped onto another cart behind her, but Sir Lowell missed his jump and fell back down. As the aqueduct carried them past our level of the city, we saw the woman hit Mr. Diversey with an eldritch blast and drop him, as he was already damaged from his self-tracheotomy and also the battle with the General.
Now, as a Lawful Neutral character, normally I take a very utilitarian view towards morality - while trying to control the fire, I actually sacrificed two employees inside a shop because I figured the risk of the smoke spreading to the entire city and turning everyone into zombies was too great to delay shutting the shop in an attempt to rescue them. But my character has become very fond of Mr. Diversey as of late, so I decided to risk it and leapt onto the cart behind him to save him. It was, apparently, unnecessary, as he rolled a nat 20 on his next death save and popped back up, plugging the woman with another arrow. I managed to get the killing blow, though, using catapult to fling some of the molten metal at her.
We then realized we had to retrieve that vial she was carrying, as it was apparently reactive to fire and the aqueduct was carrying us towards some decidedly fiery metalworks. Mr. Diversey tried to hop over to her cart, failed, and fell off. I knew better than to risk such a feat with my damaged Con score, so I took out my rat familiar, who'd been hanging out in my pocket, and used catapult to fling him into the woman's cart. It was a ratapult, if you will. He successfully retrieved the vial and hopped off the aqueduct to safety, and I followed behind - only to land at the feet of the dastardly General of the Scythe! He stomped on my poor rat and took the vial before disappearing again. The bastard.
But at least we stopped the zombification of the entire city!
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"