Y'know, when I wrote up a background for my character, I didn't think it would come up in the game proper. I was so naive then...

Our patron had sent word to my wood elf rogue, Rake Stillwind, that a new power had risen in his village and supplanted the elders. This worried Rake immensely and he returned to his village with his adventuring party in tow. Where the village had once been small and based on communal living values, he found the size of the village had doubled and a caste system had developed among the populace. The new head of the village was a handsome dragonborn with a small army of creatures to enforce his will. We got in easily enough, were welcomed into the Main Hall by the dragonborn, fed fine food and sent on our way to find Rake's mother. An elder made contact with us and explained that a small underground resistance had formed, with Rake's mother as one of the leaders. Plans were in motion and our arrival was fortuitous. We set off to find Rake's mother.

As we walked through the outer ring of the village, we noticed the guard patrols. Each unit was made up of a goliath, a dragonborn, a kenku, and a kobold. These would certainly be trouble. We just had no idea how much. Eventually, we make contact with Mother Stillwind and a plan is solidified: a coordinated strike on the enforcers and the head dragonborn with us as the tip of the spear. We set ourselves on the first patrol to cross our paths on the way to the heart of the village. The goliath and the dragonborn were tough, as we expected. The kobold cleric(!) and the rogue monk kenku (!!) were quite unexpected. We shed some blood. They shed more.

So we get to the village center and the head dragonborn has three patrol units on his front line. We unleash everything on everyone. Rake goes down after a glorious critical hit sneak attack on a goliath (48 points of damage!), and the cleric picks him up off the ground while casting a healing spell on him. "Get up! We're not done yet!" he yells. We whittle down the front line and the head dragonborn starts getting involved. He's not taking damage like he should be, and his saving throw rolls are unbelievable high. He should have been disintegrated. He should have been immolated. But he wasn't, and he's laughing at us now.

One of our clerics starts to parlay with the head dragonborn, and Rake is quietly fuming. Rake doesn't want to strike a deal. Rake wants to kill this guy and put his head on a pike at the front gate. But when Rake goes invisible (Boon of the Night Spirit, how I love ya), this f***ing dragonborn can still see him. What is going on!?!?!

Our second cleric gets near the dragonborn, still trying to parlay, and the dragonborn grabs him. As the cleric looks on, the dragonborn's eyes begin to glow red and his outer shell EXPLODES. Damage all around and when the smoke clears, there is a very handsome, finely dressed man standing there smiling. He introduces himself. It's Asmodeus, and we are clearly outmatched. He begins to bargain from his place of strength, promising to leave the village if the party will only sign his contract. Since we've ruined one of his plans, he wants us to sign off on taking no action against him the next time we meet. And Rake is still fuming. Asmodeus makes a lot of offers, many variations on the original deal. Then he really goes to work. He says that, since we've killed one of his most faithful servants, he'll make a deal with one of us: He'll leave the village and never return if one of us agrees to be his servant for a limited amount of time. And Rake realizes what he has to do. He's gotten everyone into this mess, and there's no way he's going to let the rest of the party put themselves under the thumb of Asmodeus for any amount of time. He approaches Asmodeus and agrees to sign the contract. Asmodeus makes good on his promise to leave, taking his minions with him. The sounds of pitched battles raging throughout the village cease immediately. Rake's village is saved, but his soul is likely forfeit.

Friends and neighbors, I have honestly not done this session justice. It was the most epic 6 hours we've played to date, and I can honestly say that I was only half-roleplaying Rake's anger, sadness, and determination to end this. I could feel myself shaking as I stood at the table, surveying the battlefield and weighing options. I could feel Rake's hopelessness as he signed the contract, and on the drive home I kept thinking, "Oh poor Rake. What have we done?"

tl;dr We've got the most amazing DM an adventuring party could ask for, and he's going to utterly destroy my character. And I'm grateful to be along for the ride.

I'm DMing Curse of Strahd, so spoilers below.

My story involves my group's Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign, so spoilers for that adventure below.

Then for this morning's campaign (a homebrew that uses the Lost Mine of Phandelver as the hook to form the group and get us going into the main adventure, so more spoiler warnings for adventure materials), I had one of those legendary paladin damage dealing experiences that you hear whispered around d&d circles from time to time.

 Yeah, paladins really are something else in 5E. I've seen Joe Manganiello do 100-200 damage criticals with Arkhan before, but with my history of crap attack rolls, I never imagined my paladin would ever get his time to shine. I hadn't even used divine smite before this session, since I only had 3 spell slots and I was always saving them for boss fights. I had planned on using them for this epic fight before I knew rnjesus would bless me, but this just made it that much better. People fear monsters; monsters fear paladins.

Tonight was a night of highs and lows.

My four players are escorting one NPC that is hopeless in combat and have another NPC with them that has been a DPR godsend.  Now, and this is important to note, I like small to medium groups so I frequently use NPCs to fill gaps and I find it is more interesting to let the group do the rolls for the NPCs they are allied with. They are trying to get across a river without back tracking to the bridge, I anticipated this and wanted to make it more interesting than alright back track to the narrow bit before the lake and wade across instead of back tracking damned near all the way back to town. I planned a skill challenge around fighting the tide of the river with a consequence of a low enough roll triggers taking a plunge and getting cut on a sharp rock, if blood hit the water then it would trigger a piranha attack using a group of Swarm of Quippers equal to the number of players after three more full rounds of initiative. This was intended to herd the players at the very end and introduce some drama in the form of urgency, I expected either getting out of the water just as the little chompers hit the shore hot on their heels or, at the worst, maybe a single round of 4d6 attacks to give them a sense of the old that could have gone badly. Good intentions, the merits of various methods of paving, and so on and so forth.

So, the overly cautions Fighter (I have no clue what instilled this trait in him) starts to wade out, checking the depth as he goes and we figure out pretty soon that the current gets faster and the depth increases the further out you go. The group feels this is definitely not a simple wade across the river, continue travel scenario. The river is only 50ft across though, so it can't be that bad, right? It is probably going to get easier the closer we get to the other side once we are past the middle too, that just makes sense, we got this!

Turn 1 once they accept the skill challenge has the Fighter up first and he is trying to help the hopeless NPC across with pretty good success, the 7ft tall Firbolg Druid is trying to help the other two players that are both kind of small across and is making easy work of it this far in, and then the DPR prodigy NPC rolls a 1 and promptly, to the awe of even the Russian judge, performs a perfectly executed inverted triple-twist faceplant into the gently lapping shallows. This set the stage for the trap to be sprung much earlier than I had supposed was likely. Piranha attack on round 5!

Turn 2 finds the Fighter holding his own, not making the best progress, but keeping Hopeless afloat and out of trouble. The Firbolg decides to dive after the clumsy NPC, so our Wizard and Ranger start to fend for themselves. The Wizard does decently and the Ranger cuts swiftly through the water, wondering why she didn't just swim for herself to begin with. Unfortunately, the Druid rolls a 6 total and scrapes his shoulder while swimming after the downed NPC and doesn't make it to him to be of much help. We agree not to let the Wizard roll for the NPC this time as even the Fighter with the bad dice luck could roll better than her.... and the Fighter rolls a 1. Down the prodigy goes again, tumbling head over heels against the rocks. The current carries him farther from the group and helps speed up the trap by a round as we find out Mr. Fancy Pants has only watched others swim prior to today and had simply assumed it would be easy based on his inexperienced observations. Piranha attack on round 4!

Turn 3 begins with skepticism and the Fighter loses some ground to the current, but makes a little forward progress, he is right at halfway across. The Druid catches up to the NPC, falling down current, but making a little progress in going across. The Druid rolls for the NPC this round and he actually does pretty good, but not before the Ranger and the Wizard both roll 1s and decide that just now is the perfect time to debate the most beneficial hair care products in a very heated, cat clawingly way. Piranha attack happening NOW!

Turn 4 starts our with the Fighter tossing Hopeless toward the shore, rolling decently well for movement, an dodging an attack. The Druid takes minimal damage and catches back up to the rest of the group with his movement. The Wizard, Ranger, and FP all hold their own, but none are very impressive. Now that her journey is her own, the Wizard rolls for Hopeless and gets a Nat 20. She makes it to shore instantly and proudly proclaims, "I never said I couldn't take care of myself," upon setting foot on dry land. 

Turn 5 sees everyone make some progress while getting a little torn up, but the Ranger makes it across. While everyone else is floundering she takes the opportunity to slap Hopeless. 

Turn 6 sees everyone get progressively more torn up while making some good progress. The Wizard and FP make it across, FP takes a moment to bless his luck while the Wizard spends her time cursing at Hopeless.

Turn 7 isn't halfway complete before everyone is on dry land and then the Ranger thinks about shooting an arrow at the fish from the safety of the shore... at which point the entire group realizes that no one made an attack against the piranhas the entire time... and then curses at Hopeless as they tend to FP's wounds. 

We laughed, Hopeless cried, FP guided them to their destination, and then almost everyone went to talk to the quest NPC.

After briefly speaking with the locals as a group, during which the Druid miserably failed a Performance check to relay the story of a past triumph and lost much respect for the group in the eyes of those assembled, the majority of our heroes spent their evening in deep talks with this sage and discerned next to nothing via the questions they chose to ask.

Meanwhile, the Fighter chose to forgo a meeting with one of this land's elders, damned to hell and back be the facts that this was likely the only chance he would ever have to seek her counsel and that she be rumored to have the ability to see the fates of all men. Instead, he got drunk with some strangers around a campfire. He rolled a Nat 20 on Performance and told a tale that led the locals to believe him to be a Warrior Prince, they thought him benevolent to befriend and protect those such as he traveled with, several even pledged to stand by this man if ever they had the chance to stand in the shadow of greatness.

We had an appropriately wintery session last night!

The session started in the immediate aftermath of the one before; while we had gotten the fire in the dwarven city contained, there was still noxious zombification smoke in the affected stores. We warned the fire brigade of the danger before they went in, assuming they were professionals and would be able to handle it. But then... they didn't come out. I went up to the front window of the store they'd entered and peered in - but couldn't see anything through the thick smoke. I turned back to the rest of the party and said, "There's no one in there!" - then with a CRASH a zombie hand smashed through the window and grabbed me!

Kris, our fighter, and the ranger Slag ran up to help me get free of the zombie's grip with minimal damage. However, we were now in danger of that poison smoke, and Kris took some brutal Con damage from it. There were a total of twenty zombies, all told, between the members of the fire brigade and the store employees that hadn't made it out in time - but they were bottled up in the store with only one exit, so we were able to control the situation fairly well. Mr. Richmond, the sorcerer, used sleet storm to slow the horde down so only one or two zombies could reach us at a time, allowing our martial characters to pick them off easily. The sleet storm also scrubbed the air of the poison smoke, allowing us more freedom of movement. I started running up, blasting the horde with burning hands, then retreating back to a safe distance; Mr. Richmond dropped the sleet storm and hit the whole horde with a couple more AOE spells. Though it took a while, thanks to the zombies' Undead Fortitude, we mopped them up with minimal further casualties. (I got the final hit, taking out the final three at once with one more burning hands.)

Once the zombies were all taken care of, we met up with representatives from the local Church of Pelor, who allowed us use of their infirmary to heal up. While we were bandaging ourselves up, King Brass met up with us to discuss the situation. We explained that we knew who was responsible - the General of the Scythe - but unfortunately we had no idea where he had fled to, and he had entered the city under a false name so it would be next to impossible to track him. King Brass suggested a solution: we could speak to the King On The Mountain, an ancestral spirit/deity who watched over the city and provided wisdom and guidance to those worthy of receiving it. We were outfitted with cold-weather apparel, climbing gear, and ice skates, and King Brass himself led the expedition up to the peak of the mountain, providing magical assistance when needed.

At the peak of the mountain we found a stone altar with an archway behind it leading to a temple. King Brass explained that he could not go with us into the temple, because "there can be only one King On The Mountain." However, he explained what we would have to do: we would have to defeat the King On The Mountain in a danbein competition - danbein being a traditional dwarven sport much like hurling except on ice. Fortunately, our dwarf cleric, Lady Torgga Ironfist, was captain of her high school danbein team! So she was able to provide us guidance.

Inside the temple was a skating rink, and on the far side was an archway like the one we came through; we laced up our ice skates and started warming up on the ice when a voice boomed, "What do you request of the King Of The Mountain?" We explained that we were seeking the answers to our questions. "If you complete this challenge, you will find the answers you seek," said the voice. "If you fail, you will die." With a mighty crack, the ice rink shifted and sank - it was no longer a level pool, but a frozen waterfall! We went slip-sliding down the ice, dodging (or failing to dodge) jagged rocks that stick through the ice. As we flew down the ice slide, danbein balls appeared before those of us who have sticks. (Not all of us (e.g. me) were successful in crafting a danbein stick.) Torgga explained that they have to use the stick to pick up the ball, then hurl the ball at the colored icicles that are overhead. Some players were successful; some were not. I used good ol' catapult to assist the players who missed - and was rewarded for my altruism with more damage from the rocks that I failed to dodge. -_-

Though we're battered and bruised by the time we reach the bottom of the waterfall (Mr. Richmond and I both go down at one point, but are healed by our companions), we successfully completed the challenge. At the bottom of the waterfall was that same archway we saw on the far side of the rink; we looked around and realized we were back on the skating rink, and behind us was the entrance to the temple, just like when we first arrived. We went through the archway on the far side of the rink and fond a well-muscled, tattooed dwarf tending a campfire in front of a humble wood cabin - he is The King On The Mountain. "I can give you my blessing and my wisdom," he said. "I will answer one question about my mountains."

We asked where the General of the Scythe was, and he smiled. "Fortunately for you, he is still on my mountain. I will show you." The King On The Mountain tossed some magic herbs onto the fire, and it showed us a vision: the General was sitting at a table in a small cabin, nursing a cup of tea. The door to the cabin opened, and Maister Weimar - a cleric of Nerull whom we'd met previously - joined the General, who offered him a second cup of tea. While Maister Weimar had maintained that he was on the same side as us and also wanted to stop the zombie plague, most of the party had been suspicious, and this vision at first seemed to validate their suspicions. But as we eavesdropped on the conversation, we realized that Weimar had been telling the truth all along: he was there to stop the General, who was his old companion, either by convincing him to stop his efforts or (if that failed) by force. But! Treachery! The General had poisoned Weimar's tea!

As Weimar's lifeless body slumped to the ground, the General rose to leave, and we frantically asked The King On The Mountain how to get to him. He pointed at the door to his own cabin. "You can reach him through there."

Our other ranger, Mr. Diversey, was incensed that The King On The Mountain hadn't mentioned this earlier and had some strong words to share about it. When we tried to open the door to the cabin, it was locked - Mr. Diversey had insulted The King On The Mountain, and so he had barred our access. Though it took a bit of convincing, finally we got Mr. Diversey to apologize, and The King On The Mountain opened the path for us. We stepped through the door and found ourselves transported to the General's cabin. Half the party went to check on Weimar's body, while the other half bolted for the door.

Right outside was the General, who turned, surprised to see us. "Were you there the entire time?" he asked. We explained that we had seen and heard everything. "Well, if I had known I'd have company, I would have brought more friends," the General said. "But as it is, I have only the one." He made an arcane gesture, and from the snow beneath him burst a pair of giant, skeletal wings! It was an undead dragon!

And that's where the session ended. What a cliffhanger!

My character just died after playing him for about 2 years now. Killed by his own comrade after he was caught red handed (Literally and figuratively) after killing two children. No one knew why but all he said was "They were Evil" and since even divine magic had shown  they weren't (and they actually weren't, it was his patron whom he serves feverishly who told him that she is famished and he had the choice to either do the evil thing or risk his patron, a Lich, his grand mother, the one who gave him a proper life, to die). 

My character wasn't by any means evil. He had a great fear of dying yet in our running campaign he had fell the most in the shortest amount of time (the other players had played their character for almost 3 years) My character tried to be the the wise one and stop  the others from doing the stupid things they do and end up in trouble however he still he enjoyed seeing them grow and change. With all honesty, he caused a several problems himself and was always to himself 2 party fights. In the end, the one who ran away from death, death finally caught up to him.

Race: Half elf

Name: Victor Vol

Class: 3 life Cleric/ 7 Undying warlock

2016 - 2018 at the age of 45

Cause of death: Killed by 3 eldritch blasts at point blank. Total damage dealt 60 damage (crit) my total hp was 53. 

These violent delights have violent ends.

Our Druid died yesterday. We were playing Storm King's Thunder, but he had had the character for a year. Ironically, he died only after the battle.

Frost giants and winter wolves were attacking, and we were doing brilliantly. Dodging attacks, dealing massive amounts of damage, taking down giants. But then one of them scored a crit on the Druid. 62 points of damage brought him down. He used Relentless Endurance, and things seemed well after he drank a healing potion. But then of course another critical. He was 1 point away from massive damage, but the giants and wolves mostly ignored him. 

Then things spiralled out of control. Our monk went down, and we used all healing on him. The Druid had failed two death saves. All of our damage managed to finally kill a giant (in only four turns, I must add) and as everyone was getting up, the Druid failed his final save. He rolled a nine.

Rest in probably not peace. 

Kil, NE half-orc Druid 6. 2017-18

Last session was a big one. The first story arc ended and the party had to pick their direction for the second arc. Several plot hooks dangled for them to bite at as they chose their path.

 A few thoughts as DM:

1. I had prepped a handful of different plot hooks, some major, some minor. I wasn't sure which ones would be more interesting to the party. I'm not concerned about it because they all intertwine and by taking a pass on one or more right now, they will remain present and dormant and show up again later.
2. Because the session before ended abruptly as the BBEG was defeated (a player had to leave right away), we were not able to establish what came next. I try to avid this in general as it makes it tougher for me to prep for my next session. In this case, I couldn't even lean on the players to pick a direction because none of them had been laid out for them to choose from.
3. This session was story heavy and action light. As a result, I burned through a lot more content than i expected i would have. I don't say this as a problem, but in my mind, we went through about two sessions worth of bullet points. Almost a year into my campaign and I still have lots of work to do on pacing.
4. The character whose backstory I had the least amount of info on has a history with a blue dragon that had been written long before this reveal. I had no idea. I will definitely find a way to tie this into the larger story.
5. Players never cease to surprise me with unexpected approaches to problems and situations.

About me: I am a relatively new DM, hosted my 6th session in my own home brew world this past weekend. Player buy-in and development has been amazing. Story development has been constantly evolving and going swimmingly.

Pre-empt to last session: Orcs/Tieflings largely eliminated by 40 year purge of "evil races" by extremely zealous religious organization. Ruler of nearby kingdoms son has been kidnapped and several towns have been obliterated by a long ago usurped royal who is seeking revenge for the death of his family and has turned to darker powers. Remaining orc's and tieflings were forced to flee into the desert and go into hiding to prevent annihilation. Party was traversing the desert with a band of friendly orcs hoping to find the last free stronghold of the orcs rumored to be somewhere deep within the desert. One of the players is a half-orc who's father is the leader of the stronghold. After much trepidation the party found the stronghold, met with the orcs there and made many fast friends including a Lamassu who was guarding the gate and requested donations of food and gold for the poor which the player's happily gave. After a few social encounter's one of the PC's noticed a shadowed figure flitting among the city. The player's followed him and confirmed he was trying to sabotage the cities defensive positions. It was revealed that he was a member of this religious forces which sought to exterminate all orcs and tieflings. After an interesting interrogation they found out that a large army was on it's way to take the city and end the beastly races. Once it was established that evacuation was not a viable option the party chose to stand and fight with the city against a clearly overwhelming force. The leader of this force a man known only as "The fist of the heavens" (A crazy buff paladin with mass resurrection and spirit lances that are devastating). They briefly parlayed only to realize that the terms of surrender meant that the non-orc/tiefling population would be spared, but all others would be executed without mercy.

The battle began, balistas, infantry with large ladders (Think helms deep) and battering rams began to siege the city. The players fought well with help from their allies and it began to look as if the tide of the battle was turning in their favor. That is when the fist of the heavens resurrected many of his fallen warriors that had already penetrated the city walls. This immediately turned the battle upside down as the players fought for their very lives. Many falling unconscious only to be revived in the face of near death. Finally the group rogue got a natural 20 on a sneak attack against the fist of the heavens piercing his holy shield and ending him with a bolt between the eyes. The tide of the battle quickly turned as the religious forces began retreating with their leader destroyed. But the victory was bitter-sweet, as the kind Lamassu and many orc/tiefling allies had been killed during the conflict. The group stood in the blood and dust of the battle, broken and utterly out of options(TOTALLY TAPPED). They looked on as many of their new friends were dead of dying around them, trying fruitlessly to help them, or, atleast ease their passing. As the sun set on the terribly hot desert day, gazing upon the destruction they had wrought. They all sat on the high city walls they had defended with their lives and knew that they would never quite be the same ever again.

Last session, 2 of our party decided to pee on a couple of Fire Elementals...

Quote from Mike_Rowe >>

Last session, 2 of our party decided to pee on a couple of Fire Elementals...

I don't expect that was well-received.

Its like a bad joke, a fighter, a warlock and ranger walk into a death trap. Level 4 on the cusp of level 5, sure of themselves and their might.

So it was late, and the three of us walk through tunnels of fungus, following a weird rythmic pounding. Oo a cute gramaphone looking fungus lets get closer we thought. The beat changed and all that fungus started moving toward us filaments flailing.

On the plus side we really played our lack of nature proficiency and characters lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of dnd creatures well. On the downside when the map was drawn out in  stone floor / fungus / and us, with the stone floor and us being lost in a sea of fungus? We were boned. We guessed about 100+ of the little shrooms were backed up through the caverns. The last few moments before we began to be turned into fertiliser were spent asking 'Anyone got any AoE?' Next time... Next time.

I did a Christmas-themed one shot for an off-group when my main one couldn't make it. So my party essentially went through the movie "Krampus." It ended up being a nine-hour adventure filled with demonic toy soldiers, a jack-in-the-box straight out of nightmares, evil gingerbread men, and a 2-hour show down with the big guy himself, Krampus. My favorite part? The fight with the gingerbread-men. 

The party went in to the kitchen to find one of the ovens open, and four trays of gingerbread men on two island-bar type counters in the kitchen, two trays per counter, about five feet away from each other, with a cup next to each tray containing hot chocolate with a candy cane sticking out of it. By this point, they've learned to be suspicious of everything, so they slowly move up to and start inspecting the gingerbread men. When nothing really happens, the dwarven fighter picks up one of the gingerbread men...who immediately starts shrieking.

Dwarf fighter drops the gingerbread man in surprise, as all the other gingerbread men get up from their trays. Roll initiative, dwarf fighter goes first. Chucks two of the trays at the other pair. I, being an avid believer in both "rule of cool" and "creative problem solving," have the little horrors make dex saves - of the 12, only 4 pass. The others went along for the ride when the trays were thrown, got smashed against the wall, and dang near died (these were high AC, low HP creatures).

The Centaur fighter then takes this moment to run up and swing his hammer at two of the gingerbread men that dodged the trays. Misses with all his attacks. Gingerbread men get their turn - they all rush to the hot chocolate, drawing the candy canes to reveal that all the candy canes have been sharpened into tiny shivs. Two swing at the dwarf, two at the centaur, while the other 8 had to spend all their movement just getting back up to the cups to fetch their weapons, and as such weren't able to do anything.

The two swinging at the Dwarf completely miss with all of their attacks (they attack twice each). Two swing at the centaur, and the centaur says, "Ha, like their puny little candy canes can get through my armor!" He has an AC of 18. I roll the attacks, and the lowest roll was a 17+4, one of the four being a crit. Just 1d4 damage each, but still. Poor centaur's pride was shattered as these little satanic cookies leap off the counter and start stabbing him, hanging from the candy canes that have currently punched holes through his plate armor, all the while cackling maniacally.

The look on his face was priceless. The Gingerbread men didn't last much a full round - AoEs/magic missiles from the druid and Warlock put an end to that, but the Centaur got so upset that he got stabbed that he ditched his plate entirely - to be fair, that centaur had been the main punching bag for the entire session, and had been complaining (in character mind you, he wasn't ACTUALLY complaining) that at this point, he'd stand a better chance dodging if he took the armor off. So he did.

The very next fight, they faced Krampus himself. The Centaur, with his AC of 12 because no armor, Krampus with a +9 to hit. Centaur did not get hit once. Turns out he was right, he was better off without it!

My next (2) stories involve the homebrew I'm currently DMing for my Friday group (the same group I played an Eladrin fighter in for the Waterdeep campaign). For clarity sake for future posts I might make, I think I'll start this off with a brief explanation of my current groups. I presently have 3 groups, which for simplicity I will name the Friday group, the Saturday group, and the Sunday group, based on the day we usually meet. The Friday group consists of me and 5 newly acquired friends I made looking for a group to play with on this site. We switch between 3 different campaigns; one a homebrew DMed by myself, a homebrew DMed by the original DM that our group formed around, and the Waterdeep campaign mentioned in a previous post DMed by another member of our group. We set it up this way so that everyone could have a chance to be both DM and a player, and so those of using doing homebrew stuff can take a break to create more content without having to put our sessions on hold. The Saturday group is composed of me, my sister, 3 of my closest friends, and 2 of their friends, with me again serving as DM in the same homebrew setting as I run for my Friday group, but with a different story. This group only meets once a month due to the difficulty of getting our schedules to line up, so I won't be posting about it much, but I do hope to at some point. Finally my Sunday group is composed of myself and 5 other people I found on this site. This is the Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign I mentioned last time, in which I play a half-orc oath of redemption paladin.

Anyway, with that introduction out of the way, on to my main post. So as I said earlier, this post is about the homebrew I DM for my Friday group. Now I'm entirely new to DMing, and even more so to homebrew stuff, so this has been a wild ride for me. My Saturday group is largely composed of first time players, with no prior roleplay or tabletop experience, so they're usually pretty tame and easy to lead off in certain directions, making my job easy (at least for now, though I hope they get more creative as they gain confidence in their playing). My Friday group, on the other hand, is much more experienced with this game, and watch more Critical Role than even I do, so they're very good at forcing me to think on my toes. Even so, it's also possible to get one over on a group of over thinkers, which can lead to a lot of fun for a DM. This post involved 2 stories (the first which took place during our 2nd session, the second during our 3rd), the first of which highlights the pure insanity involving a player acting in a way I hadn't anticipated, while the second highlights the fun that surprising your party can have.

The 2nd session of my campaign started off normal enough. Having just returned to the Adventurer's Guild after finding a group of missing cave spelunkers and dealing with the ogres nesting in the cave they had been exploring, the group decided upon they next quest; a (what they thought would be) simple quest to clear out a goblin infestation in a village to the north. Realizing it would take several days on foot to reach the village, the party suggested buying horses, sending the paladin worshiper of Tyr to ask the local stables what the going rate is. Being that the paladin was a worshiper of Tyr, god of Law and Justice, imagine my shock and horror when, upon realizing that he couldn't afford to buy or rent a horse, the paladin drew his battleax and proceeded to threaten the stable hand! 

What followed was 2.5 hours of derailment while I had to quickly organize a crime scene investigation, interviews, and eventual sentencing for the party's paladin. The paladin, seeing that it was a he-said-she-said with himself and the stable hand as the only witnesses (the party sent him alone for this, so could not corroborate), thought he would come out on top; especially since his character is the son of a very powerful noble in my setting (though he was hiding his true identity at this point). During the interview, however, the wizard of the party (a spunky, talkative and cheery gnome) revealed to the guard that the paladin had broken the quest board at the Guild in the 1st session, as his introduction to the party was him throwing his hammer at the fighter to get his attention, crashing into the quest board that the fighter had been standing in front of in the process. This had been a sore spot for the guild clerk for some time, who rightfully really quite dislikes the paladin and his antics at this point. She and several other witnesses at the guild were quick to support this evidence and drag his name through the mud. The rest of the party, thinking hard on his past actions, realized the only positive thing they could really say about the paladin was that he'd been a big help in killing the ogres in session 1.

With a charge of destruction of property (from the guild quest board incident) now added to the attempted armed robbery, and even his own party giving the guard reason to suspect his guilt, the paladin was eventually found guilty. Luckily for the group he is the son of a noble, so he was able to get his bail paid and out of jail before things got really bogged down, but it was definitely a surprise for me. Speaking to the player afterwards, we realized he hadn't been aware that Tyr was the god of law/justice, and that his character was acting in this way to try disguising his true identity. After needing his family to pay his way out of jail, though, he greatly angered his father, whose single condition for his son adventuring being that he not besmirch the family name. With his father warning him he only had one last chance before he was forcing him to return home, and Tyr sending him not so subtle hints that he wasn't happy with his actions (cracks appearing in his holy symbol and his "silver hand of Tyr" tarnishing with no amount of cleaning being able to reverse the effect), the paladin went through a mini redemption arc in session 3. He revealed his true identity (sort of) to the party, went to the local temple of worship to apologize to Tyr, took the Oath of the Ancients, and is currently trying to help the village attacked by goblins with the tax problem caused by the goblins stealing the crops they use to pay taxes with.

At this point I'll switch to story 2, with last week's session, session 3. At this point the group has crossed through a region of forest known as the Ravenforest twice, as the main north-south road they needed to travel to/from Yellowseed (the village being attacked by goblins) runs through the forest. With the godsight that his familiar apparently has, the wizard was able to spot the wood elves that inhabit the forest watching them, as they do all trespassers of their woods. With their successful history checks, the group learned that the elves largely leave people traveling on the roads alone, but will kill those who wander off the trails into the forest, or who kill the animals in the forest for sport.

Choosing to leave them be, the party headed through the woods, before being attacked first by a cave bear, and later a pack of wolves. Then on their way back, an owlbear attacked the group, all in around the same area of the forest. With his familiars eyesight, the wizard was able to see that in all 3 cases, the animals came charging straight at them from somewhere deep in the forest, pinpointed on them like they were being directed at them. Speaking with NPCs back in town revealed that the main roads were usually fairly safe to travel on, but recently creatures that normally don't stray out of the deeper parts of the forest have been increasingly harassing travelers. They also learned that cave bears and owlbears aren't seen very frequently in this area.

Finally, while attempting to negotiate the tax problem of Yellowseed with the reigning lord of the area, he again brought up the increased monster activity, and seeing that the party was made of adventurers, asked them to investigate the reason behind this occurrence, with the money they would have been paid for completing the quest going instead to pay of the village's debt.

At that point we called the session for the night, but in our post session talks, the party started spinning ideas behind what the cause could be. Given what they know about the elves, they've taken to believing that they've gotten fed up with sharing even the roads at this point, and are now directing the animals in the forest to harass travelers in order to take back the forest entirely. The only problem being that at one point, the wolves managed to knock the cleric unconscious and started dragging her body away through the forest, but when the group rushed off the trails to kill the wolves and retrieve her... the elves did not intervene. The party tried rationalizing this by thinking that not killing anyone themselves abstains the elves from being seen as guilty, but really now... Killing the stragglers like the party leaves no witnesses, which is better for the elves in that case, and a truth detection spell will reveal their guilt with herding animals just as much as them killing people personally. So the party is stuck.

As the DM, though, I am absolutely loving the confusion. All of the ideas they've been giving me with their speculations are a really nice bonus, but what I'm most excited about is revealing the true culprit, which they could not possibly guess at this point. Some of the most fun being a DM is to set up an air of mystery behind a villain working behind the scenes, watching your players try to unravel it, but being totally unprepared for what they actually find. I can't wait until next session to give the big reveal!

I will sum my last session up pretty succinctly.  Critical hit sneak attack to the groin of a young green dragon.  That poor poor dear.  The dragon even had to deal with a train of zombies clawing at him at the same time.  The dragon did not come out on top.

I'm running a homebrew campaign for a group of my friends. Their line-up changes depending on who's playing that day, but the main characters are as follows, all at level 9:

• Daedric the Flamewrought, LG Human Paladin: always tired Group Dad who is doing his best to guide the CN characters towards the Light Side
• Pabu Usuniku, NG Tabaxi Ranger: Daedric's Platonic Life Partner, somewhat reckless Group Mom
• Arsys, CN Half-Elf Warlock: essentially a socially stunted orphaned teenager whose only friends until recently were his pet mouse and the voices in his head
• Lily, CN Wood Elf Druid: see above, except the voices were the faeries who raised her after stealing her from her parents
• Geg, Son of Greg, CN Dragonborn Fighter: son of a great warrior who is forging his own path by... also becoming a great warrior
• Core, NG Human Cleric: the Queen's Forgemaster, an eccentric tinkerer-type
• Hadari, N Eladrin Arcane Archer: Arsys' loyal manservant/travel companion, who is probably not a revenant but is definitely undead

The session before this one, Daedric, Pabu, Arsys, Lily, and Core had been traveling toward a small town called Willain that had been reporting a lot of missing people, mostly women and children. This session, they arrived in Willain and were immediately taken to the Town Hall, where Lord and Lady Willain had gathered the friends and families of the missing townsfolk so that the party could ask questions, etc. Once they were introduced, Daedric calmly cast Zone of Truth, which none of the NPCs saved against. Throughout the interview session, Arsys and Lily outed one of the gathered townspeople as an abusive parent, Daedric intimidated an NPC named Muriel into revealing that she knew what was taking the children, Pabu had learned everything there was to know about an overly-chatty old man, and Core spent some time muttering to himself about a Lie Detecting Device (his player was absent so I was piloting him).

As it turned out, Muriel knew what was taking the townspeople because she had managed to get her son back; a fae lord had been sending his goblinoid minions to trick young parents and teenagers into giving away their children or younger siblings. At this point Daedric's player looks down at my David Bowie t-shirt, and then gives me the most deadpan stare I've ever received. The teenage NPC Tana then gives them a copy of the book her friends had been passing around, which essentially is the novelization of the movie Labyrinth. Yes, parts of this campaign were modeled after my favorite Jim Henson movie. Because why not.

After investigating the bedroom that the Lord's children had gone missing from, the party headed north towards the forest where Muriel had pointed them. Daedric is growing increasingly impatient as this all goes on, because the party is trying to get back to the capital city in time to join the Princess Consort on a diplomatic mission to a mysterious neighboring country, and he really wants to go. Of course, they run into some guards who have captured one of the "goblins" that have been taking the children, so they stop to interrogate it. This culminates in them, on a hunch, casting Remove Curse on it, which turns the goblin back into a teenager. They are horrified when he talks and has seemingly the mentality and maturity of a four year old, which is how old this NPC was when he was whisked away to Elphyme. Arsys, who is more concerned with making sure that the child doesn't go home to bad parents than he is with time constraints, insists on escorting the child all the way across town to his home, where he is reunited with his tearful mother.

They decided they probably would need help from other holy people if all of the folks they ended up rescuing needed curses removed, so they make another detour to the temple of the Triptych, where a priestess pledges their services and a safe haven for any rescued women or children who don't have a secure home to return to. The priestess also slips Daedric a couple of healing potions.

It's a good thing she does, too: after passing through a gate into Elphyme, catching some goblin-children, and spending an indeterminate amount of time trying to navigate a labyrinthine forest path, the party comes across a dysirian guarding what appears to be a simple cobblestone wall. Daedric attempts to charm their way past, but despite his maxed-out CHA fails to persuade it to step aside. So, naturally, respecting its dedication to its duties, he challenges it to a duel. Arsys and Lily trust that he knows what he's doing and thus decide to spend some time trying to communicate with the goblins that have been following and watching them, Pabu respects Daedric's Lawful Stupid tendencies and immediately begins planning an attack/exit strategy for when it inevitably smashes him to paste, and Core is on the outskirts of the Labyrinth guarding the goblins they have captured and restored to humanity and thus has no idea what's going on.

Due to Daedric's player being a dedicated min-maxer, several excellent rolls on his part, a hammer that could be charged up to Call Lightning, and using up all his remaining spell slots on smiting, Daedric managed to deal over 2/3 of the dysirian's HP max in damage before it reduced him to 7 HP and knocked him prone, at which point Lily sneakily hid her Call Lightning spell behind Daedric's and did additional damage to it. Arsys saw Daedric on the ground and thought the dysirian had killed him, so he responded by Blighting the crap out of it. It's currently decomposing in front of a wall that they know is magical but don't know how to pass through.

They are approximately 20% through the dungeon and have at least two more minibosses to fight before the final boss, and their paladin is out of spells and hit dice. Here's hoping I don't roll too well next week.

Our last session was just one giant boss battle! We'd finally caught up to the Big Bad, the General of the Scythe, atop a snowy mountain peak, but before we could apprehend him he summoned a giant dragon skeleton!

The battle was tough, not the least because the layout of the battlefield encouraged us to clump together. And then we got blasted with the skele-dragon's breath weapon. =_= But we survived and learned from our mistake, and for the rest of the fight we were much more tactical in our movment. Unfortunately, the General managed to escape using a flying mount he summoned - and he triggered a massive avalanche as he did so!

Once again, my wizard was hoisted over the ranger's shoulder like a sack of potatoes as we escaped; we had to jump a large crevasse in the ice as we did so, and a couple of us almost didn't make it. As we scrambled to the other side, the skele-dragon landed in front of us! I guess it wasn't buried in the avalanche after all. But it was already weakened from our previous fight, so we managed to take it down.

Maybe next time we'll finally catch that dastardly General.