The party spied on the Big Evil ( a Royal Enforcer) and his right hand (who is captain of the royal guard) who said the princess of the kingdom was kidnaped so they set off to rescue her they do so rather easily ( as they said too easy) when the druid uses a one-time magic item to cast Banishment on a monster sending it off to another plane never to return.
Now the party are in the capital city at the castle about to have breakfast with the Big evil his right hand and the royal family who may or may not know or care what they are doing
Party comp: level 9 characters, Totem Barbarian (wolf/eagle), Shadow Monk/GOO Lock, College of Etymology Bard (homebrew), Circle of the Land Druid, Light Doman Cleric, and a Mastermind Rogue.
The party had regrouped after a difficult fight with a Kua-Toa Archpries, Hydra, Giant Crocodile, Giant Crab, Water Elemental, and Krake Spawn. They retreated, after killing everything but the Krake Spawn, to a nearby Dwarven Hold. This hold had closed it's massive gates and almost didn't let them in, it turns out that the Planar Rift that was over the lake they just retreated from has been a bane for this settlement. After some time they gathered a small contingency of Dwarves to help them. 4 fighters, 3 archers, and 3 casters.
As they approached the lake again they noticed that the weather had gotten treacherous, howling winds, sleet, hail, snow, bitter cold, and random lighting bolts launching at them. The Krake Spawn was showing it's real power, and had the company of four Water Elementals as guards on the shore of the lake. The area was heavily obscured due to the weather, but it seemed to be contained to just the lake, so the party set up ranks on the shore and took to dispatching the Elementals. They did so with ease, only to watch as a Wall of Ice appeared along the shore, impeding their advance to attack the Krake Spawn proper.
The Druid turns into a Giant Eagle and flies the Monk/Lock over the lake where they both realize the weather is so bad that flight inside the storm is impossible. The party decides to ascend the ice wall and brave the bitter storm, the Krake Spawn had been waiting for this. As they scaled the wall, it approached, almost hidden due to the storm and being underwater, and lashed out at them with it's 8 attacks. The party was being thrashed, they couldn't come up with a way to win. They continued to fight none the less, and came up with some nifty tricks to try, but with the storm they were at a serious disadvantage.
The Bard was playing an ancient artifact Bardic Instrument, a tool to close the rifts, this whole time. Something was prohibiting the rift from closing, and as she try to figure out what was happening there was a booming voice inside their head. There was a Kraken that had found the rift on it's side and took offense to the Krake Spawn, calling it an abomination and requesting the party kill it, with the Kraken's aid. The storm abated and a massive Kraken tentacle reached through the rift, grabbed the Krake Spawn and tried to crush it. The Krake Spawn managed to escape, though not without being hurt badly. With the aid of the Kraken the party killed the Krake Spawn, but there was a much bigger problem now...the Kraken had decided to try to open the rift larger so it could move into this world.
With almost no hesitation the Monk/Lock, Aloxyis, used her abilities to Shadow Step and Misty Step to the large tentacle. She removed some Wyvern Poison from her pouch and was set to stab the Kraken's tentacle with it. While she did this Vistra played her instrument again, trying to force the portal closed, and was becoming successful. Her counterpart, a romantic interest who held the dulcimer, the ocarina's counterpart, stood in the same location as Vistra, but in the Etheral plane, and they played the Song of Closing together. This caused the rift to slam shut, severing the tentacle with Aloxyis on it still.
The tentacle dropped into the water, the weight of the tentacle and the pressure of the water pinning Aloxyis. She struggled against this, failing twice to break free as she plunged deeper in to the freezing water. Mhurren, the Barbarian, and Karanna, the Druid, raced off to rescue her, Karanna summoning crocodiles to aid in the effort. As Aloxyis sank deeper she used her last breath, and the last of her energy to cast Spider Climb and extricated herself from the tentacle, only to fall unconscious shortly after. Mhurren and his crocodile mount caught up to Aloxyis moments later and raced her to shore. Grugg, the Cleric caught up to them and cast Spare the Dying on her and they made their way to the rest of the party.
With every effort they attempted to revive Aloxyis, CPR, spells, prayers, and herbs, they tried. When Aloxyis's spirit was on the brink she felt the tug, part of her wanting peace and to find answers to questions that she knew she'd find in the afterlife, and part of her feeling the efforts of her friends and allies. She relinquished and gave herself over to Kelemvore and joined him in the Fugue, her life fading in front of her friends...
My DM loves playing into my Tabaxi background and letting me do cat-like things. During our last session, he let me run around the castle chasing feathers from birds (well, Kenku), and then gave me a clockwork toy to play with. The clockwork toy actually had something important to tell the group and to make me stop playing with it for long enough, our Bard had to cast a spell on me to make me scared of it. Roleplaying THAT was fun!
I then promptly threatened to leave a hairball in our Bard's shoe. :)
I think one of my players broke the game..So the party is currently visiting a Mage Tower/ Prision where all the mages are magically lobotomized. While exploring the tower they run into the Druids long lost father who somehow still has his mind. They had a plan.....They were going to cause a distraction and sneak him out, Unfortunately, the party Goliath who is of this mindset that any form of slavery is wrong found a staff that can control all the mages in the tower and smashed it over his knee. So now they are on the top floor of the prison with guards coming upstairs and the rest of the players looking at him like WTF.
Last session was great! The party, currently within a duergar city in the underdark, were set to fight in a small arena tournament that evening. They spent the day information gathering about their opponents. That evening, the team of three players faced off against two duergar and a stone giant, who they were able to defeat relatively straightforwardly. Then in the final, they faced a team of three drow who used more advanced tactics. The party was still able to win, but the battle was much closer. They also met an albino tiefling in the marketplace who has some high-quality items and deals in information who gave them a mission to find out more about why the duergar are entertaining a hobgoblin general lately. Then the party found out about the city's history, including an ongoing struggle with a mind flayer colony and a suspected secret weapon that was meant to turn the tide of the battle.
Intrigue and action and I was able to let out some information about a larger story going on.
The party Goliath who is of this mindset that any form of slavery is wrong...
This is a recurring theme in my campaign as well. Two of the characters have backgrounds that involve either being a slave or a captive. Because of that, they tend to go out of their way to help victims and smash slavers. It has created an interesting dynamic where they currently are in the underdark because pretty much every society they know about (drow, duergar, hobgoblins, mind flayers) use slaves or captives in some way. It definitely muddies the waters in terms of who are the good guys. Moral conflicts make fun backdrops to stories.
I was playing a one shot DND/Warhammer oneshot. I had made an Ork barbarian who’s tribe was destroyed by Tau. After quite a few misadventures, it ended with us holding a cyborg skull with the instructions for destroying a black hole. Our Space Marine was holding the skull to sell it to the highest bidder. The Tau offered the most and as he was passing them the skull, I sniped their leader and rolled a crit. He fell, dead, as the rest of the Tau shot at me simultaneously. My allies in the Blood Angels and Ork forces started shooting at the Tau, and after some insane rolls, I ended up hijacking a space ship, and years later the Tau and Necrons won the war. In 2 hours, I had started a Universal War and become a hated outcast from the galaxy.
Last session, I made a quick one-shot with a world I designed due to a lack of players. The theme was Feudal Japan, but with the various cultures being themed (so Roman theme, Imperial China theme, Viking Theme, Celestial Theme, Demon Theme, Devil Theme ect). Long story short the Emperor of these territories died, and decided the way to decide his successor was to make them do it the way he became emperor: by conquering the other provinces. This launched the massive island into chaos as the various provinces launched campaigns to take the country.
With that said, the Green Hills (where the innocent halflings live - the evil Ghostwise halflings live on the other side of the island) hasn't been so active in the war. They've mostly been defensive against the Wild Sands (or the Arabian Province), and have a ceasefire with Demon Crest (literal Demons live there) and Heaven's Fields (Celestial theme). Now, the halflings may be lazy, but they aren't stupid. There's a fort in the North watching the Demon Crest Borders.
So, this fort has this centipede and bat infestation. The players, a disavowed Orc Chieftain and an Elvish Ranger, were at the fort. The Orc seeks to regain his honor after his son kicked him out of the tribe, so he is a wandering Ronin. The Elf is from the Elvish Region (which is actually at peace with the Halflings), and is just there.
Every time a centipede crawls on the players, I would roll. If the roll was low, there would be a thing that happened. So the players interacted, and the Fort's Orcish cook made what can tentatively be described as "food" - orcs eat just about anything they can find and this one was no exception. The poor elf made a con save and had to throw up after she learned what was actually in the food (I forget what it was).
The orc dueled the Captain of the Fort, and almost won. Funny thing is that they were both Fighter Battle Master, but the captain was higher level - he lost because it was first to hit three times. The Ninja Drow serving the Fort humiliated the poor elf in a shooting match (she split the elf's arrow twice).
Eventually, the orc threw one of the centipedes to the ground and the low roll occurred. And so, it began. The centipede wasn't a centipede. It was a Quasit. And so were many of the other centipedes. Seeing their cover blown, the Quasits all transformed and attacked the soldiers, who basically panicked for several rounds. The poor elf was trapped in a fear status for most of the fight (kept bad rolls). The Orc Fighter wrecked the poor Quasits (on account of me forgetting about the resistant to nonmagic weapons). The battle ended soon after it began, and the fort was reduced to half of its soldiers, many of whom were unable to stand or fight. The session ended there, but I planned more. I'll say it was a rousing success, even the elf's player loved it.
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At every session, I say, "Everyone's here, except Waluigi."
My DM seems to have an obsession with the dice. He apparently hates passive perception and made us roll perception to see the brightly colored paintings in a brightly lit room. It's annoying, but I'm having fun.
Anyway, last session was the first session where all 8 of us or so were finally together. We have three dwarf clerics, one of whom apparently thinks he's a rogue (i'll get to that later), two halfling rangers who think they are rogues. Well one halfling, the other is what I call a three-quarterling. He's half-elf, half-halfling, and all moron, I'll get him too in a minute. There's a tiefling who I think might be an actual rogue. There's a quote-un-quote volumptuous elf barbarian who thinks she's a ranger, and myself, Mason Macen Masin, a half-orc barbarian who thinks he's a monk. Or a half-orc monk whos' trying not to be a barbarian, take your pick.
We ended the previous session at the top of a very very very tall spiral stair case. When we ventured to the bottom, we found a hidden garden, which we later found out they really were growing weed down there. We all split up into pairs to explore the garden , the elf barbarian and I going off together. In the farthest corner of the garden we ran into a random hippogriff. The elf had previously cast speak with animals to talk with some snakes who gave us some exposition. The spell was still active and she just asks the hippogriff if it wants to be friends it's just says sure. So now we have a pet tagalong hippogriff, because why not.
*deep inhale*
MEANWHILE four of our party, all of the one's who think they're rogues are just butchering a carnivorous plant together beccause it kind of sort of "attacked" one of them. The garden didn't like that, and a mushroom man steps out of his mushroom home next to the elf and I and asks us if somebody killed a plant. In-character we didn't know what it was talking about and tried to grill it for information, but it doesn't want anything to do with us because someone killed one of the plants in the garden.
Who should join us right then but the three-quarterling... who had been off killing one of the plants. IMMEDIATELY upon seeing the mushroom man (a mycenid I think it's called) he draws his sword and is about to attack the mycenid because he wants to harvest the creature for shrooms. I grab him by his shirt collar and literally drag his ass back out of the dungeon at the orders of the DM's wife, who I swear is the only sane one in our party. The mycenid was understandably pissed at us after this and warned us "the guardian is coming!" before retreating to his mushroom home.
We just managed to gather all of the stragglers and retreat from the garden before "the guardian" showed up to kick our asses. Never found out what the guardian actually was, but we did gather some useful herbs and exposition so the trip wasn't a waste of time.
We returned to the level of the dungeon we had cleared out the previous session and found a magical forcefield preventing us from going up a flight of stairs. Everyone looked at me and stepped back, way back, because they had heard about happens when I punch things, see I've got these kind of overpowered gauntlets that do the damage of a greatsword, plus my unarmed damage, plus another dice of damage when I use one of the guantlet's charges, which is taken from the life force of defeated enemies. Previous session I punched a duregar so hard he smeared the wall behind him without alerting any of his friends in the same room. So understandably the rest of the party pulled back to the minimum safe distance. I steadied my self, ready to punch through the barrier, but it's a crit fail and all the damage is reflected back at me.
Cursing in orcish, because this is not the first time this has happened, I follow the rest of the party to find another way up while the three-quarterling tries to seduce the wall (sigh). We find a shrine on the level and actually put together a rather ingenious idea. Using some of the herbs we had collected in the garden, we cook up a bowl of delicious food and present as a burnt offering to the god enshrined there. The DM wasn't expecting that, but it worked out well for us. The god ate the food, and gave us directions to another area of the dungeon where we found yet another door we couldn't open!
We split up again, the elf, hippogriff, and I get into a fight with some more duregar. The DM's wife and her partner run in to help us but after they see us completely tear the enemies apart they're all like, "you know what, you got this." At our table if you kill an enemy, you get to describe how you kill them, so I re-enacted a scene from The Raid and bash the dwarf's head against the wall five times on the way down. Did I mention I had been enlarged to the size of an ogre from a magical hallway, so kind of overkill.
*deep inhale*
MEANWHILE the three-quarterling and the cleric who thinks he's a rogue find themselves in a room with three haggard old women surrounding a sealed deck of cards. Pretty sure they were hags, BUT WE NEVER FOUND OUT, because without so much as a by-your-leave, the dwarf just swipes the Deck of Many Things from the table. I knew exactly what it was and I was warning him not to because I know nothing good comes from the Deck of Many Things. The DM was stunned, the hags were stunned, looked at eachother and then teleported out of the room cackling "Good luck!" So yeah, that happened.
After a lot of role playing and situations with difficult moral decisions, I'm giving my players a little break. They have a cave with some evil monsters to kill to make a town safe again. No moral quandaries, no surprise role playing, no twists and turns...just a straightforward few fights to flex their new level 12 muscles.
Last session I had to send the spirit direwolf of the barbarian down to assure everyone that yes, really, just go kick in the door and kill some monsters and have some fun. Because they kept worrying about and looking for complications.
It was kind of funny, but I appreciate their caution even if it's my fault. :D
After infiltrating a wizard college to steal a powerful artifact, the heroes found themselves faced with a series of magical traps. One, a young human wizard, perished after falling from a shifting wall into a pit of spikes. His player rolled up a new character, a Gollum-inspired rogue...who promptly fell to his death attempting to chase the party's goblin, who'd split with the artifact, across the city's rooftops.
My players hit part 1 of their BBEG showdown, inside of an enchanted forge built on a volcano.
They thought it was going well, until a cunning use of grasping vine tossed the ranger into one of the lava pits I had set up as an environmental hazard. The damage was almost enough to kill him outright, and the party started to panic. So the barbarian (slightly inexperienced with D&D, but it fits the character) decided she was going to jump into the lava and pull him out. Of course she hadn't told anyone she was down to only 20hp and jumping into lava was a reeeeeaally bad idea. So with two party members stuck in lava and dying, their tactics went out the window and their focus turned to not letting their friends die. And in a moment of pure DMing evil, I counterspelled their best effort to levitate the ranger out of danger (one player literally grabbed the BBEG mini and hurled him out of genuine annoyance, it was great).
So as the cackling villain escaped, the party poured heals on the barb, hoping that they could get her enough HP back to survive the next turn of lava damage. Then they waited as I rolled the damage...and I was 3hp short of putting her back unconscious! The relief and delight in the room was palpable as the two characters emerged from the lava still (just) alive.
I'm not sure whether the players love me or hate me. And that, I believe, is the DMing sweet spot.
The party's Goliath got arrested while the others finished their mission of getting the Druid's father out of his deep cover. Soon the Big Bad (who is in full plate head to toe with only their eyes showing ) made a deal with the Goliath to get a large Crystal in exchange for his freedom. While the Ranger/Theif stole some things the leader of his guild needs. So far things are back on track and they are in the home stretch as everyone's stories are coming to an end and after they do this final fetch quest they are in the endgame. It took this long for them to ask the question " Are we helping the Bad guys?" .... yes...yes they are
Found a cave and got told by our caravan leader to investigate. Me dragonborn bard, dwarf cleric dwarf barb and gnome wizard. We enter fight a phase spider and some undead durergar with a bit of a bat motif going. Also sets off a trap that nearly kills me and collapses the way in. Loot a home brewed cloak of the bat from a chest near the tougher undead durergar sets off a few alarm bells but leave it unidentified for now.
Find another way out only problem is there is a 90ft wide abyss in the way. Wizard sends his familiar out to get help and we play the waiting game and wizard identified the cloak. My idea I use cloak to fly over and carry a rope over and tie off to the remains of the bridge. Wizard earlier in campaign took knot tying lessons to give him advantage on any knot related skill checks so he wants to cloak. Counter proposal by me I fly over with rope and gnome in the bag of holding he for some reason declined and insisted on the cloak. So off he goes and attuned to it and immediately feels uneasy wearing it so hes probably cursed. He flies over and sets up a rope spanning the distance. Barbarian goes first uses our last bit of rope to create a harness incase he falls and begins his attempt to cross. High strength and constitution rolls means he crosses no issue.
However me and the cleric are now trapped on one side of the ravine with no way of getting the harness. I have a moment of genius and remember winning a tournament earlier in the campaign by killing a giant polar bear and I got its skin as a reward. So I ask to tie the polar bears legs together over the rope so the bear skin hangs underneath like a hammock. DM agrees but says it will be a high DC DeX check I roll a nat 20 so it works makes me roll strength to drag myself and my hammock of supreme style across gets half way asks for a con check to see if I get tired I ask instead just to take a break in my hammock so there I am having a nice relaxing dangle over a very deep chasm in my bear skin hammock. Rest over make it across we all congratulate me then cleric pipes up asking how he gets across. Crap forgot the cleric again.
Decided to have a little fun after Rise of Tiamat, after the party successfully kept her from ravaging the world. I bumped them all immediately to level 20, then homebrewed a little run in with a couple of demon lords. Background: 4 party members, an Aarokockra Ranger, Half-Orc Barbarian, High Elf Bladesinger, and Half-Elf Bard/Cleric monstrosity. I came up with a story hook about the Nine Hells being thrown into chaos from the summoning ritual, and the demons had an upper hand in the Blood War from an artifact called the Chaos Seed, which Demogorgon had planted and would totally consume Avernus if it weren't stopped. Asmodeus himself recruited them. They had to navigate their way through Baphomet's maze and fight him with some zombie minotaur underlings, and then they fought Demogorgon by himself.
The Demogorgon fight, however, was the fun part. I came up with a d100 table that I rolled every round, and the chaos seed would cause something to happen. Spells would just completely fail, a different spell would cast than what they wanted, people would change places or weapons, and towards the end the wizard and ranger had to swap spell slots. They did end up winning, but it was fairly intense, especially when one of their healing spells accidentally almost fully healed Demogorgon.
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Ready to DM and chew bubblegum. And I'm alllll outta bubblegum.
Kellen Rivian(Level 12 Lore Bard)- Ghosts of Saltmarsh (cbaer8)
Ruven Gilrel (Level 4 Bladesinger)- The Shattered Obelisk
Last session was great. Sent my players stranded on a new island after a kraken attack and they met some neat creatures that were.. a bit chaotic and playful. The creatures would sometimes fight and next turn randomly run away to go sit by the fire and eat. Had flying flowers eating birds which also flew backwards.
Players found and activated an airship which one character Arc is in process of unfolding. Which includes that player being the captain by blood right.
Party is currently unsure what to do with the other ship, it's crew or the creatures which are slaves and some of those are the airship old crew. Lots of chaos going on between the players so it's been a lot of fun to listen to the banter.
A quick overview of the current campaign I am in. It's a custom setting with Norse tie ins. Our party consisted of six characters, but one had to drop out for a bit due to schooling. We have my character, which is a winged tiefling paladin, a human fighter, a changeling bard, a hill dwarf monk, a half-elf ranger with a giant squirrel as a companion, and a skeleton rogue that's was traveling with our Cleric before these adventures began. Our friend that had to go on hiatus plays an Aasimar Cleric. We've been tasked with healing a wound to Yggdrasill(The world tree) caused by Nidhogg.
Now onto the recap from our last session. Our party, after having said goodbye to our cleric, made it's way Northwest over some mountains. We entered an area called the Frost North and head to find a place to stay for the night. Luckily one of our members spotted a cave in the mountainside. We made our way in there to bed down and get some rest. Our changeling is currently in the form of an over confident drangonborn named Nagrin. The liked how the cave echoed so they yelled down it a few times. Thankfully this didn't cause any problems as we were able to finish the short rest in piece. The following morning, our monk noticed a bunch of small creatures would go by the mouth of the cave, but refused to enter. Most of us thought nothing of it until we all heard a loud smashing from deep in the cave. Quickly exiting and hiding nearby, we say a mountain giant exit the cave we were just in and lumber on it's way (The DM rolled poorly for it's perception check which probably saved our hides.) On the second second night of rest, snow began to fall. My character is from one of the towns to the far south and had never seen snow before. So one her watch, she was easily distracted by it (I rolled a horrible perception check, which is the usual for my character.) The following day, while making this last leg of our trip through the mountains, My character tried to catch snow flakes on their tongue. They ended up tripping over a rock and falling face first into the snow. After that, we finally made it off the mountains and found a small cabin surrounded by a small field of flowers. We were looking for two types of flowers for a necromancer that we had befriended and had hoped we found one or both of them. Sadly we didn't. So we decided to check the cabin out. Our rogue picked the lock with ease and we entered. Once inside, we fanned out and searched the house. Somehow our monk and bard decided to see who was better at cooking. My character ignored this for the most part as she went up some stares to search a loft. This only contained a giant bed. To which my character promptly laid down on. Our rogue searched a study and found a self writing quill along with a keystone. Eventually we all tasted the food made by our bard and monk. Both looked great, but the monk's food was actually edible as well. Some of our characters got sick off of the bards food and threw up outside the cabin. After that, we decided to bed down for the night (my character not sharing the fact that there was a giant bed upstairs to which she claimed for herself.) The next morning we all woke up and went outside, only to find out that the cabin had magically moved during the night. And that's where we left off. Our next session is tonight and I can't wait to see what happens.
Our party just finished a campaign that we've been running since October.
Setting: Homebrew world where elves are long gone, and other races (human, dwarves, tabaxi, bird-people, and snake-guys) all have seperate kingdoms.
Party: Dwarf Paladin (Serious family issues and my character), Shady snake Rogue (secret issues no one knows about), Firbolg Druid (Agoraphobic, at least, meeting our party was the first time he'd been away from home), and a warforged warlock chef (will cook anything- fed my character an orc rump roast)
Campaign: Searching for a Dwarf King's court wizard because apparently he is a closet necromancer who is helping this shady group of necromancers in exchange for an undead army to take out the dwarven kingdom. Goal: stop said wizard before all things go to hell in a hand basket.
Backstory: My paladin is a paladin of vengeance who's soul purpose is to find and destroy the ones responsible for banishing his family and tearing his family apart. Throughout the campaign, my paladin has become the only tank in the party. Along with this, I managed to find a legendary war hammer along the way that allows me to just about one hit kill anything that isn't a serious threat. Add to the fact that as a paladin, I have two attacks for every action, and with the haste spell I acquired late campaign, my DM allowed my dwarf to perform 4 melee attacks every turn with his One-punch-esque warhammer he named "Gwyneth". And to this the fact that I have a tendency to pick up anything i find as shiny or fun looking- which led to an instance of my paladin finding and selling an ultra rare metal ore to a blacksmith for a set of plate armor with resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing damage (giving my character an AC well above the limits of most enemies). Add to this my paladin's natural plus 4 bonus to all saving throws, and resistance to poisons. Did I mention I was the only tank?
Set Scene: After many months on the road of our party searching for this evil mage, we finally catch up to him- only to find him ransacking a dwarven city- the dwarf city where the love interest of my paladin and our party's warlock (yes, it is the same love interest... made for some interesting sessions) happens to live. So all hell breaks loose in a mad dash to save Alice (said love interest), and the party fights through an entire city besieged by zombies just to get to this guy.
The moment: We reach the Necromancer, and with one turn of haste left, My dwarf paladin rushes up taking opportunity attacks from all sides (only one hits), and wail on this poor defenseless mage who isn't paying attention. One turn and four attacks with advantage later, main boss is down... or so we thought. Haste cooldown begins, and the rest of the party begin mopping up surrounding enemies, when main villain pops a quick potion... and he's back in the fight. Necromancer turns to my character, and the DM says, "make a wisdom saving throw". To which I reply "ok". I have a negative wisdom modifier, and unless I roll damn well, even my plus 4 bonus will not save me. Indeed, I fail the wisdom saving throw. The DM describes as the necromancer right in front of me begins chanting, and a strange feeling falls over my paladin, and as the spell ends, my paladin falls under his control- the necromancer then whispers one command to me "Kill your friends". The DM explains that for the next 8 hours, or the necromancer dies, I am compelled to follow this order to best of my ability, and attack the rest of the party as if they had killed my mother. Which fits in oh so well with a dwarf who has never met his mother due to some serious family issues, and would definitely be the one thing that would enrage him beyond rationality.
So my dwarf paladin who is the only tank in the group, who still has not used most of his spell slots (because I save all my slots for any SHTF moments), who has an AC too high for most of the party to hit unless they make a seriously high roll, who has resistance to most types of damage, who still hasn't touched any healing potions or his healing spells, and who has just recast haste on himself raising his AC even higher and giving him four melee attacks per turn, turns to the closest party member, our warlock, with an enraged snarl on his face. I tell the rest of the players "this is so much fun". The warlock tells the rest of the party to run... and all hell breaks loose.
Spoiler alert: after realizing that they wouldn't be able to beat my paladin, the party decided to ignore me and in a last ditch effort, went straight for the necromancer. While I nearly killing the party, they killed the necromancer. and ended the compulsion spell just in time.
This ended up with some after session conversation about the party having to make contingency plans for the possibility of my character going mad, or going evil, or being controlled, because as it turns out, My dwarf Paladin was a bigger threat to the world than the main campaigns villain. 'Justice League Doom', anyone?
There was also the moment following this fight where our warlock who can disguise at will ran around as the Dwarf Cities king, and all the fun that came with that. Culminating in my nearly killing the party a second time.
Scene: After clearing the city , we decided to go back and kill this giant Humanicentipede type thing that was sitting in the basement of the City's castle. A gnome mage npc who rejoined the group gave our druid a bag of pellets that when burst, would release 15 cubic meters of water in the immediate vicinity with extreme force. He told the druid that two of pellets applied oh so carefully to the Undead behemoths head would likely instantly kill it.
What follows is a scene of much sorrow as the druid summons a flock of small birds, and giving them a pellet each, commands them to dive bomb into the mouth of the undead behemoth. Picture that scene from Independance day, except with tiny birds- but with very similar odds of success. None of the birds succeed, although some do land in its mouth but the pellets fail to burst. The sacrifice of the swallows is a gallant tale and will be sung about in taverns for centuries.
Enter again my paladin, who volunteered to take the behemoth out himself in the first place. Druid hands me the entire bag of pellets, after which, I rush in and with a flurry of divinely inspired attacks (We refer to this moment as divine because of my four attacks, two were natural twenties, which allowed me to make 2 more melee attacks due to a feat I grabbed during character creation- as to which lets me make a bonus attack when I roll a critical attack, which I had only managed to do once or twice before in the entire campaign) and knock this behemoth to the ground. Next round, after this thing fails its save to get up, I wrangle my way up this creatures body to its head, shove the entire bag of water pellets into it's mouth, and give a good smack with my warhammer, which hits. I proceed to instantly release 18,000 cubic meters of water into an enclosed cavern whilst blowing this undead behemoth to kingdom come. I succeed on my saving throw to not be blown back into the ceiling, which would likely have killed me, and succeed on my saving throw to take a breath, giving me several minutes of air before I drown in the now completely filled basement cavern.
Ultimately no one in the party died, although the rogue was a round away from drowning- which led to us all making jokes about him as he sat coughing up water. "Looks like you can't hold your drink", "By the way, hate to bring it up, but did you know your makeup is running", "You've had enough to drink for one day". Nothing like near death by the same party member twice in one day to really bring a party together.
Currently writing the next session for my group so can't say anything about that.
But! Have to say that I really enjoy reading the stories posted here. One of my favorite threads. Keep it up and thank you for posting your adventures!
Last session, the party met with the duergar king and accepted a mission to investigate a scouting party who had not returned on time and. If possible, they were to bring the scouts back. This scouting party had been sent to investigate a known illithid area. The party had never run into mind flayers, or any very intelligent enemies up to this point. It was a lot of fun to play tactically without worrying about metagaming.
The party came across the four duergar scouts quietly eating rations around a campfire. The scouts’ reactions were dulled, and they seemed not altogether present. When the party got close, the scouts attacked. In the first round of combat, the players struck down one scout, though they were not entirely sure they wanted to fight them at all. At the end of the first round of combat, the problem became clear as a mind flayer presented itself and used its psychic blast to stun two party members.
This was a big problem for the stunned PCs, but it got even worse when the head of the dead duergar cracked open and an intellect devourer popped out to attack and mind-wipe the stunned Blood Hunter, dropping his intelligence to 0. The cleric and the sorcerer were able to drive the mind flayer back with fire magic while the bard used dimension door to blink to safety with the stunned PC. A second dead duergar cracked open to reveal another intellect devourer, though it was dispatched before it could do any serious damage.
In the end, the injured mind flayer retreated to the ethereal plane with a bounty of newfound knowledge about the characters and some of their weaknesses. With the mind flayer on another plane, the last duergar dropped to his knees holding his head and screaming in agony. The players took the hint and stopped attacking to stabilize him and return to the duergar city. Despite not achieving a complete combat victory, the overall mission was a bigger success than I expected going in and now the party has met the enemy and the enemy has met them.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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Pretty eventful
The party spied on the Big Evil ( a Royal Enforcer) and his right hand (who is captain of the royal guard) who said the princess of the kingdom was kidnaped so they set off to rescue her they do so rather easily ( as they said too easy) when the druid uses a one-time magic item to cast Banishment on a monster sending it off to another plane never to return.
Now the party are in the capital city at the castle about to have breakfast with the Big evil his right hand and the royal family who may or may not know or care what they are doing
Party comp: level 9 characters, Totem Barbarian (wolf/eagle), Shadow Monk/GOO Lock, College of Etymology Bard (homebrew), Circle of the Land Druid, Light Doman Cleric, and a Mastermind Rogue.
The party had regrouped after a difficult fight with a Kua-Toa Archpries, Hydra, Giant Crocodile, Giant Crab, Water Elemental, and Krake Spawn. They retreated, after killing everything but the Krake Spawn, to a nearby Dwarven Hold. This hold had closed it's massive gates and almost didn't let them in, it turns out that the Planar Rift that was over the lake they just retreated from has been a bane for this settlement. After some time they gathered a small contingency of Dwarves to help them. 4 fighters, 3 archers, and 3 casters.
As they approached the lake again they noticed that the weather had gotten treacherous, howling winds, sleet, hail, snow, bitter cold, and random lighting bolts launching at them. The Krake Spawn was showing it's real power, and had the company of four Water Elementals as guards on the shore of the lake. The area was heavily obscured due to the weather, but it seemed to be contained to just the lake, so the party set up ranks on the shore and took to dispatching the Elementals. They did so with ease, only to watch as a Wall of Ice appeared along the shore, impeding their advance to attack the Krake Spawn proper.
The Druid turns into a Giant Eagle and flies the Monk/Lock over the lake where they both realize the weather is so bad that flight inside the storm is impossible. The party decides to ascend the ice wall and brave the bitter storm, the Krake Spawn had been waiting for this. As they scaled the wall, it approached, almost hidden due to the storm and being underwater, and lashed out at them with it's 8 attacks. The party was being thrashed, they couldn't come up with a way to win. They continued to fight none the less, and came up with some nifty tricks to try, but with the storm they were at a serious disadvantage.
The Bard was playing an ancient artifact Bardic Instrument, a tool to close the rifts, this whole time. Something was prohibiting the rift from closing, and as she try to figure out what was happening there was a booming voice inside their head. There was a Kraken that had found the rift on it's side and took offense to the Krake Spawn, calling it an abomination and requesting the party kill it, with the Kraken's aid. The storm abated and a massive Kraken tentacle reached through the rift, grabbed the Krake Spawn and tried to crush it. The Krake Spawn managed to escape, though not without being hurt badly. With the aid of the Kraken the party killed the Krake Spawn, but there was a much bigger problem now...the Kraken had decided to try to open the rift larger so it could move into this world.
With almost no hesitation the Monk/Lock, Aloxyis, used her abilities to Shadow Step and Misty Step to the large tentacle. She removed some Wyvern Poison from her pouch and was set to stab the Kraken's tentacle with it. While she did this Vistra played her instrument again, trying to force the portal closed, and was becoming successful. Her counterpart, a romantic interest who held the dulcimer, the ocarina's counterpart, stood in the same location as Vistra, but in the Etheral plane, and they played the Song of Closing together. This caused the rift to slam shut, severing the tentacle with Aloxyis on it still.
The tentacle dropped into the water, the weight of the tentacle and the pressure of the water pinning Aloxyis. She struggled against this, failing twice to break free as she plunged deeper in to the freezing water. Mhurren, the Barbarian, and Karanna, the Druid, raced off to rescue her, Karanna summoning crocodiles to aid in the effort. As Aloxyis sank deeper she used her last breath, and the last of her energy to cast Spider Climb and extricated herself from the tentacle, only to fall unconscious shortly after. Mhurren and his crocodile mount caught up to Aloxyis moments later and raced her to shore. Grugg, the Cleric caught up to them and cast Spare the Dying on her and they made their way to the rest of the party.
With every effort they attempted to revive Aloxyis, CPR, spells, prayers, and herbs, they tried. When Aloxyis's spirit was on the brink she felt the tug, part of her wanting peace and to find answers to questions that she knew she'd find in the afterlife, and part of her feeling the efforts of her friends and allies. She relinquished and gave herself over to Kelemvore and joined him in the Fugue, her life fading in front of her friends...
My DM loves playing into my Tabaxi background and letting me do cat-like things. During our last session, he let me run around the castle chasing feathers from birds (well, Kenku), and then gave me a clockwork toy to play with. The clockwork toy actually had something important to tell the group and to make me stop playing with it for long enough, our Bard had to cast a spell on me to make me scared of it. Roleplaying THAT was fun!
I then promptly threatened to leave a hairball in our Bard's shoe. :)
I think one of my players broke the game..So the party is currently visiting a Mage Tower/ Prision where all the mages are magically lobotomized. While exploring the tower they run into the Druids long lost father who somehow still has his mind. They had a plan.....They were going to cause a distraction and sneak him out, Unfortunately, the party Goliath who is of this mindset that any form of slavery is wrong found a staff that can control all the mages in the tower and smashed it over his knee. So now they are on the top floor of the prison with guards coming upstairs and the rest of the players looking at him like WTF.
Last session was great! The party, currently within a duergar city in the underdark, were set to fight in a small arena tournament that evening. They spent the day information gathering about their opponents. That evening, the team of three players faced off against two duergar and a stone giant, who they were able to defeat relatively straightforwardly. Then in the final, they faced a team of three drow who used more advanced tactics. The party was still able to win, but the battle was much closer. They also met an albino tiefling in the marketplace who has some high-quality items and deals in information who gave them a mission to find out more about why the duergar are entertaining a hobgoblin general lately. Then the party found out about the city's history, including an ongoing struggle with a mind flayer colony and a suspected secret weapon that was meant to turn the tide of the battle.
Intrigue and action and I was able to let out some information about a larger story going on.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This is a recurring theme in my campaign as well. Two of the characters have backgrounds that involve either being a slave or a captive. Because of that, they tend to go out of their way to help victims and smash slavers. It has created an interesting dynamic where they currently are in the underdark because pretty much every society they know about (drow, duergar, hobgoblins, mind flayers) use slaves or captives in some way. It definitely muddies the waters in terms of who are the good guys. Moral conflicts make fun backdrops to stories.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I was playing a one shot DND/Warhammer oneshot. I had made an Ork barbarian who’s tribe was destroyed by Tau. After quite a few misadventures, it ended with us holding a cyborg skull with the instructions for destroying a black hole. Our Space Marine was holding the skull to sell it to the highest bidder. The Tau offered the most and as he was passing them the skull, I sniped their leader and rolled a crit. He fell, dead, as the rest of the Tau shot at me simultaneously. My allies in the Blood Angels and Ork forces started shooting at the Tau, and after some insane rolls, I ended up hijacking a space ship, and years later the Tau and Necrons won the war. In 2 hours, I had started a Universal War and become a hated outcast from the galaxy.
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Last session, I made a quick one-shot with a world I designed due to a lack of players. The theme was Feudal Japan, but with the various cultures being themed (so Roman theme, Imperial China theme, Viking Theme, Celestial Theme, Demon Theme, Devil Theme ect). Long story short the Emperor of these territories died, and decided the way to decide his successor was to make them do it the way he became emperor: by conquering the other provinces. This launched the massive island into chaos as the various provinces launched campaigns to take the country.
With that said, the Green Hills (where the innocent halflings live - the evil Ghostwise halflings live on the other side of the island) hasn't been so active in the war. They've mostly been defensive against the Wild Sands (or the Arabian Province), and have a ceasefire with Demon Crest (literal Demons live there) and Heaven's Fields (Celestial theme). Now, the halflings may be lazy, but they aren't stupid. There's a fort in the North watching the Demon Crest Borders.
So, this fort has this centipede and bat infestation. The players, a disavowed Orc Chieftain and an Elvish Ranger, were at the fort. The Orc seeks to regain his honor after his son kicked him out of the tribe, so he is a wandering Ronin. The Elf is from the Elvish Region (which is actually at peace with the Halflings), and is just there.
Every time a centipede crawls on the players, I would roll. If the roll was low, there would be a thing that happened. So the players interacted, and the Fort's Orcish cook made what can tentatively be described as "food" - orcs eat just about anything they can find and this one was no exception. The poor elf made a con save and had to throw up after she learned what was actually in the food (I forget what it was).
The orc dueled the Captain of the Fort, and almost won. Funny thing is that they were both Fighter Battle Master, but the captain was higher level - he lost because it was first to hit three times. The Ninja Drow serving the Fort humiliated the poor elf in a shooting match (she split the elf's arrow twice).
Eventually, the orc threw one of the centipedes to the ground and the low roll occurred. And so, it began. The centipede wasn't a centipede. It was a Quasit. And so were many of the other centipedes. Seeing their cover blown, the Quasits all transformed and attacked the soldiers, who basically panicked for several rounds. The poor elf was trapped in a fear status for most of the fight (kept bad rolls). The Orc Fighter wrecked the poor Quasits (on account of me forgetting about the resistant to nonmagic weapons). The battle ended soon after it began, and the fort was reduced to half of its soldiers, many of whom were unable to stand or fight. The session ended there, but I planned more. I'll say it was a rousing success, even the elf's player loved it.
At every session, I say, "Everyone's here, except Waluigi."
My DM seems to have an obsession with the dice. He apparently hates passive perception and made us roll perception to see the brightly colored paintings in a brightly lit room. It's annoying, but I'm having fun.
Anyway, last session was the first session where all 8 of us or so were finally together. We have three dwarf clerics, one of whom apparently thinks he's a rogue (i'll get to that later), two halfling rangers who think they are rogues. Well one halfling, the other is what I call a three-quarterling. He's half-elf, half-halfling, and all moron, I'll get him too in a minute. There's a tiefling who I think might be an actual rogue. There's a quote-un-quote volumptuous elf barbarian who thinks she's a ranger, and myself, Mason Macen Masin, a half-orc barbarian who thinks he's a monk. Or a half-orc monk whos' trying not to be a barbarian, take your pick.
We ended the previous session at the top of a very very very tall spiral stair case. When we ventured to the bottom, we found a hidden garden, which we later found out they really were growing weed down there. We all split up into pairs to explore the garden , the elf barbarian and I going off together. In the farthest corner of the garden we ran into a random hippogriff. The elf had previously cast speak with animals to talk with some snakes who gave us some exposition. The spell was still active and she just asks the hippogriff if it wants to be friends it's just says sure. So now we have a pet tagalong hippogriff, because why not.
*deep inhale*
MEANWHILE four of our party, all of the one's who think they're rogues are just butchering a carnivorous plant together beccause it kind of sort of "attacked" one of them. The garden didn't like that, and a mushroom man steps out of his mushroom home next to the elf and I and asks us if somebody killed a plant. In-character we didn't know what it was talking about and tried to grill it for information, but it doesn't want anything to do with us because someone killed one of the plants in the garden.
Who should join us right then but the three-quarterling... who had been off killing one of the plants. IMMEDIATELY upon seeing the mushroom man (a mycenid I think it's called) he draws his sword and is about to attack the mycenid because he wants to harvest the creature for shrooms. I grab him by his shirt collar and literally drag his ass back out of the dungeon at the orders of the DM's wife, who I swear is the only sane one in our party. The mycenid was understandably pissed at us after this and warned us "the guardian is coming!" before retreating to his mushroom home.
We just managed to gather all of the stragglers and retreat from the garden before "the guardian" showed up to kick our asses. Never found out what the guardian actually was, but we did gather some useful herbs and exposition so the trip wasn't a waste of time.
We returned to the level of the dungeon we had cleared out the previous session and found a magical forcefield preventing us from going up a flight of stairs. Everyone looked at me and stepped back, way back, because they had heard about happens when I punch things, see I've got these kind of overpowered gauntlets that do the damage of a greatsword, plus my unarmed damage, plus another dice of damage when I use one of the guantlet's charges, which is taken from the life force of defeated enemies. Previous session I punched a duregar so hard he smeared the wall behind him without alerting any of his friends in the same room. So understandably the rest of the party pulled back to the minimum safe distance. I steadied my self, ready to punch through the barrier, but it's a crit fail and all the damage is reflected back at me.
Cursing in orcish, because this is not the first time this has happened, I follow the rest of the party to find another way up while the three-quarterling tries to seduce the wall (sigh). We find a shrine on the level and actually put together a rather ingenious idea. Using some of the herbs we had collected in the garden, we cook up a bowl of delicious food and present as a burnt offering to the god enshrined there. The DM wasn't expecting that, but it worked out well for us. The god ate the food, and gave us directions to another area of the dungeon where we found yet another door we couldn't open!
We split up again, the elf, hippogriff, and I get into a fight with some more duregar. The DM's wife and her partner run in to help us but after they see us completely tear the enemies apart they're all like, "you know what, you got this." At our table if you kill an enemy, you get to describe how you kill them, so I re-enacted a scene from The Raid and bash the dwarf's head against the wall five times on the way down. Did I mention I had been enlarged to the size of an ogre from a magical hallway, so kind of overkill.
*deep inhale*
MEANWHILE the three-quarterling and the cleric who thinks he's a rogue find themselves in a room with three haggard old women surrounding a sealed deck of cards. Pretty sure they were hags, BUT WE NEVER FOUND OUT, because without so much as a by-your-leave, the dwarf just swipes the Deck of Many Things from the table. I knew exactly what it was and I was warning him not to because I know nothing good comes from the Deck of Many Things. The DM was stunned, the hags were stunned, looked at eachother and then teleported out of the room cackling "Good luck!" So yeah, that happened.
And that's where we ended the session.
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InsiderAfter a lot of role playing and situations with difficult moral decisions, I'm giving my players a little break. They have a cave with some evil monsters to kill to make a town safe again. No moral quandaries, no surprise role playing, no twists and turns...just a straightforward few fights to flex their new level 12 muscles.
Last session I had to send the spirit direwolf of the barbarian down to assure everyone that yes, really, just go kick in the door and kill some monsters and have some fun. Because they kept worrying about and looking for complications.
It was kind of funny, but I appreciate their caution even if it's my fault. :D
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Bloody.
After infiltrating a wizard college to steal a powerful artifact, the heroes found themselves faced with a series of magical traps. One, a young human wizard, perished after falling from a shifting wall into a pit of spikes. His player rolled up a new character, a Gollum-inspired rogue...who promptly fell to his death attempting to chase the party's goblin, who'd split with the artifact, across the city's rooftops.
Rest in peace...and maybe swap those dice.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
My players hit part 1 of their BBEG showdown, inside of an enchanted forge built on a volcano.
They thought it was going well, until a cunning use of grasping vine tossed the ranger into one of the lava pits I had set up as an environmental hazard. The damage was almost enough to kill him outright, and the party started to panic. So the barbarian (slightly inexperienced with D&D, but it fits the character) decided she was going to jump into the lava and pull him out. Of course she hadn't told anyone she was down to only 20hp and jumping into lava was a reeeeeaally bad idea. So with two party members stuck in lava and dying, their tactics went out the window and their focus turned to not letting their friends die. And in a moment of pure DMing evil, I counterspelled their best effort to levitate the ranger out of danger (one player literally grabbed the BBEG mini and hurled him out of genuine annoyance, it was great).
So as the cackling villain escaped, the party poured heals on the barb, hoping that they could get her enough HP back to survive the next turn of lava damage. Then they waited as I rolled the damage...and I was 3hp short of putting her back unconscious! The relief and delight in the room was palpable as the two characters emerged from the lava still (just) alive.
I'm not sure whether the players love me or hate me. And that, I believe, is the DMing sweet spot.
The party's Goliath got arrested while the others finished their mission of getting the Druid's father out of his deep cover. Soon the Big Bad (who is in full plate head to toe with only their eyes showing ) made a deal with the Goliath to get a large Crystal in exchange for his freedom. While the Ranger/Theif stole some things the leader of his guild needs. So far things are back on track and they are in the home stretch as everyone's stories are coming to an end and after they do this final fetch quest they are in the endgame. It took this long for them to ask the question " Are we helping the Bad guys?" .... yes...yes they are
Found a cave and got told by our caravan leader to investigate. Me dragonborn bard, dwarf cleric dwarf barb and gnome wizard. We enter fight a phase spider and some undead durergar with a bit of a bat motif going. Also sets off a trap that nearly kills me and collapses the way in. Loot a home brewed cloak of the bat from a chest near the tougher undead durergar sets off a few alarm bells but leave it unidentified for now.
Find another way out only problem is there is a 90ft wide abyss in the way. Wizard sends his familiar out to get help and we play the waiting game and wizard identified the cloak. My idea I use cloak to fly over and carry a rope over and tie off to the remains of the bridge. Wizard earlier in campaign took knot tying lessons to give him advantage on any knot related skill checks so he wants to cloak. Counter proposal by me I fly over with rope and gnome in the bag of holding he for some reason declined and insisted on the cloak. So off he goes and attuned to it and immediately feels uneasy wearing it so hes probably cursed. He flies over and sets up a rope spanning the distance. Barbarian goes first uses our last bit of rope to create a harness incase he falls and begins his attempt to cross. High strength and constitution rolls means he crosses no issue.
However me and the cleric are now trapped on one side of the ravine with no way of getting the harness. I have a moment of genius and remember winning a tournament earlier in the campaign by killing a giant polar bear and I got its skin as a reward. So I ask to tie the polar bears legs together over the rope so the bear skin hangs underneath like a hammock. DM agrees but says it will be a high DC DeX check I roll a nat 20 so it works makes me roll strength to drag myself and my hammock of supreme style across gets half way asks for a con check to see if I get tired I ask instead just to take a break in my hammock so there I am having a nice relaxing dangle over a very deep chasm in my bear skin hammock. Rest over make it across we all congratulate me then cleric pipes up asking how he gets across. Crap forgot the cleric again.
Decided to have a little fun after Rise of Tiamat, after the party successfully kept her from ravaging the world. I bumped them all immediately to level 20, then homebrewed a little run in with a couple of demon lords. Background: 4 party members, an Aarokockra Ranger, Half-Orc Barbarian, High Elf Bladesinger, and Half-Elf Bard/Cleric monstrosity. I came up with a story hook about the Nine Hells being thrown into chaos from the summoning ritual, and the demons had an upper hand in the Blood War from an artifact called the Chaos Seed, which Demogorgon had planted and would totally consume Avernus if it weren't stopped. Asmodeus himself recruited them. They had to navigate their way through Baphomet's maze and fight him with some zombie minotaur underlings, and then they fought Demogorgon by himself.
The Demogorgon fight, however, was the fun part. I came up with a d100 table that I rolled every round, and the chaos seed would cause something to happen. Spells would just completely fail, a different spell would cast than what they wanted, people would change places or weapons, and towards the end the wizard and ranger had to swap spell slots. They did end up winning, but it was fairly intense, especially when one of their healing spells accidentally almost fully healed Demogorgon.
Ready to DM and chew bubblegum. And I'm alllll outta bubblegum.
Kellen Rivian (Level 12 Lore Bard)- Ghosts of Saltmarsh (cbaer8)
Ruven Gilrel (Level 4 Bladesinger)- The Shattered Obelisk
Last session was great. Sent my players stranded on a new island after a kraken attack and they met some neat creatures that were.. a bit chaotic and playful. The creatures would sometimes fight and next turn randomly run away to go sit by the fire and eat. Had flying flowers eating birds which also flew backwards.
Players found and activated an airship which one character Arc is in process of unfolding. Which includes that player being the captain by blood right.
Party is currently unsure what to do with the other ship, it's crew or the creatures which are slaves and some of those are the airship old crew. Lots of chaos going on between the players so it's been a lot of fun to listen to the banter.
A quick overview of the current campaign I am in. It's a custom setting with Norse tie ins. Our party consisted of six characters, but one had to drop out for a bit due to schooling. We have my character, which is a winged tiefling paladin, a human fighter, a changeling bard, a hill dwarf monk, a half-elf ranger with a giant squirrel as a companion, and a skeleton rogue that's was traveling with our Cleric before these adventures began. Our friend that had to go on hiatus plays an Aasimar Cleric. We've been tasked with healing a wound to Yggdrasill(The world tree) caused by Nidhogg.
Now onto the recap from our last session. Our party, after having said goodbye to our cleric, made it's way Northwest over some mountains. We entered an area called the Frost North and head to find a place to stay for the night. Luckily one of our members spotted a cave in the mountainside. We made our way in there to bed down and get some rest. Our changeling is currently in the form of an over confident drangonborn named Nagrin. The liked how the cave echoed so they yelled down it a few times. Thankfully this didn't cause any problems as we were able to finish the short rest in piece. The following morning, our monk noticed a bunch of small creatures would go by the mouth of the cave, but refused to enter. Most of us thought nothing of it until we all heard a loud smashing from deep in the cave. Quickly exiting and hiding nearby, we say a mountain giant exit the cave we were just in and lumber on it's way (The DM rolled poorly for it's perception check which probably saved our hides.) On the second second night of rest, snow began to fall. My character is from one of the towns to the far south and had never seen snow before. So one her watch, she was easily distracted by it (I rolled a horrible perception check, which is the usual for my character.) The following day, while making this last leg of our trip through the mountains, My character tried to catch snow flakes on their tongue. They ended up tripping over a rock and falling face first into the snow. After that, we finally made it off the mountains and found a small cabin surrounded by a small field of flowers. We were looking for two types of flowers for a necromancer that we had befriended and had hoped we found one or both of them. Sadly we didn't. So we decided to check the cabin out. Our rogue picked the lock with ease and we entered. Once inside, we fanned out and searched the house. Somehow our monk and bard decided to see who was better at cooking. My character ignored this for the most part as she went up some stares to search a loft. This only contained a giant bed. To which my character promptly laid down on. Our rogue searched a study and found a self writing quill along with a keystone. Eventually we all tasted the food made by our bard and monk. Both looked great, but the monk's food was actually edible as well. Some of our characters got sick off of the bards food and threw up outside the cabin. After that, we decided to bed down for the night (my character not sharing the fact that there was a giant bed upstairs to which she claimed for herself.) The next morning we all woke up and went outside, only to find out that the cabin had magically moved during the night. And that's where we left off. Our next session is tonight and I can't wait to see what happens.
Our party just finished a campaign that we've been running since October.
Setting: Homebrew world where elves are long gone, and other races (human, dwarves, tabaxi, bird-people, and snake-guys) all have seperate kingdoms.
Party: Dwarf Paladin (Serious family issues and my character), Shady snake Rogue (secret issues no one knows about), Firbolg Druid (Agoraphobic, at least, meeting our party was the first time he'd been away from home), and a warforged warlock chef (will cook anything- fed my character an orc rump roast)
Campaign: Searching for a Dwarf King's court wizard because apparently he is a closet necromancer who is helping this shady group of necromancers in exchange for an undead army to take out the dwarven kingdom. Goal: stop said wizard before all things go to hell in a hand basket.
Backstory: My paladin is a paladin of vengeance who's soul purpose is to find and destroy the ones responsible for banishing his family and tearing his family apart. Throughout the campaign, my paladin has become the only tank in the party. Along with this, I managed to find a legendary war hammer along the way that allows me to just about one hit kill anything that isn't a serious threat. Add to the fact that as a paladin, I have two attacks for every action, and with the haste spell I acquired late campaign, my DM allowed my dwarf to perform 4 melee attacks every turn with his One-punch-esque warhammer he named "Gwyneth". And to this the fact that I have a tendency to pick up anything i find as shiny or fun looking- which led to an instance of my paladin finding and selling an ultra rare metal ore to a blacksmith for a set of plate armor with resistance to piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing damage (giving my character an AC well above the limits of most enemies). Add to this my paladin's natural plus 4 bonus to all saving throws, and resistance to poisons. Did I mention I was the only tank?
Set Scene: After many months on the road of our party searching for this evil mage, we finally catch up to him- only to find him ransacking a dwarven city- the dwarf city where the love interest of my paladin and our party's warlock (yes, it is the same love interest... made for some interesting sessions) happens to live. So all hell breaks loose in a mad dash to save Alice (said love interest), and the party fights through an entire city besieged by zombies just to get to this guy.
The moment: We reach the Necromancer, and with one turn of haste left, My dwarf paladin rushes up taking opportunity attacks from all sides (only one hits), and wail on this poor defenseless mage who isn't paying attention. One turn and four attacks with advantage later, main boss is down... or so we thought. Haste cooldown begins, and the rest of the party begin mopping up surrounding enemies, when main villain pops a quick potion... and he's back in the fight. Necromancer turns to my character, and the DM says, "make a wisdom saving throw". To which I reply "ok". I have a negative wisdom modifier, and unless I roll damn well, even my plus 4 bonus will not save me. Indeed, I fail the wisdom saving throw. The DM describes as the necromancer right in front of me begins chanting, and a strange feeling falls over my paladin, and as the spell ends, my paladin falls under his control- the necromancer then whispers one command to me "Kill your friends". The DM explains that for the next 8 hours, or the necromancer dies, I am compelled to follow this order to best of my ability, and attack the rest of the party as if they had killed my mother. Which fits in oh so well with a dwarf who has never met his mother due to some serious family issues, and would definitely be the one thing that would enrage him beyond rationality.
So my dwarf paladin who is the only tank in the group, who still has not used most of his spell slots (because I save all my slots for any SHTF moments), who has an AC too high for most of the party to hit unless they make a seriously high roll, who has resistance to most types of damage, who still hasn't touched any healing potions or his healing spells, and who has just recast haste on himself raising his AC even higher and giving him four melee attacks per turn, turns to the closest party member, our warlock, with an enraged snarl on his face. I tell the rest of the players "this is so much fun". The warlock tells the rest of the party to run... and all hell breaks loose.
Spoiler alert: after realizing that they wouldn't be able to beat my paladin, the party decided to ignore me and in a last ditch effort, went straight for the necromancer. While I nearly killing the party, they killed the necromancer. and ended the compulsion spell just in time.
This ended up with some after session conversation about the party having to make contingency plans for the possibility of my character going mad, or going evil, or being controlled, because as it turns out, My dwarf Paladin was a bigger threat to the world than the main campaigns villain. 'Justice League Doom', anyone?
There was also the moment following this fight where our warlock who can disguise at will ran around as the Dwarf Cities king, and all the fun that came with that. Culminating in my nearly killing the party a second time.
Scene: After clearing the city , we decided to go back and kill this giant Humanicentipede type thing that was sitting in the basement of the City's castle. A gnome mage npc who rejoined the group gave our druid a bag of pellets that when burst, would release 15 cubic meters of water in the immediate vicinity with extreme force. He told the druid that two of pellets applied oh so carefully to the Undead behemoths head would likely instantly kill it.
What follows is a scene of much sorrow as the druid summons a flock of small birds, and giving them a pellet each, commands them to dive bomb into the mouth of the undead behemoth. Picture that scene from Independance day, except with tiny birds- but with very similar odds of success. None of the birds succeed, although some do land in its mouth but the pellets fail to burst. The sacrifice of the swallows is a gallant tale and will be sung about in taverns for centuries.
Enter again my paladin, who volunteered to take the behemoth out himself in the first place. Druid hands me the entire bag of pellets, after which, I rush in and with a flurry of divinely inspired attacks (We refer to this moment as divine because of my four attacks, two were natural twenties, which allowed me to make 2 more melee attacks due to a feat I grabbed during character creation- as to which lets me make a bonus attack when I roll a critical attack, which I had only managed to do once or twice before in the entire campaign) and knock this behemoth to the ground. Next round, after this thing fails its save to get up, I wrangle my way up this creatures body to its head, shove the entire bag of water pellets into it's mouth, and give a good smack with my warhammer, which hits. I proceed to instantly release 18,000 cubic meters of water into an enclosed cavern whilst blowing this undead behemoth to kingdom come. I succeed on my saving throw to not be blown back into the ceiling, which would likely have killed me, and succeed on my saving throw to take a breath, giving me several minutes of air before I drown in the now completely filled basement cavern.
Ultimately no one in the party died, although the rogue was a round away from drowning- which led to us all making jokes about him as he sat coughing up water. "Looks like you can't hold your drink", "By the way, hate to bring it up, but did you know your makeup is running", "You've had enough to drink for one day". Nothing like near death by the same party member twice in one day to really bring a party together.
Currently writing the next session for my group so can't say anything about that.
But! Have to say that I really enjoy reading the stories posted here. One of my favorite threads. Keep it up and thank you for posting your adventures!
Last session, the party met with the duergar king and accepted a mission to investigate a scouting party who had not returned on time and. If possible, they were to bring the scouts back. This scouting party had been sent to investigate a known illithid area. The party had never run into mind flayers, or any very intelligent enemies up to this point. It was a lot of fun to play tactically without worrying about metagaming.
The party came across the four duergar scouts quietly eating rations around a campfire. The scouts’ reactions were dulled, and they seemed not altogether present. When the party got close, the scouts attacked. In the first round of combat, the players struck down one scout, though they were not entirely sure they wanted to fight them at all. At the end of the first round of combat, the problem became clear as a mind flayer presented itself and used its psychic blast to stun two party members.
This was a big problem for the stunned PCs, but it got even worse when the head of the dead duergar cracked open and an intellect devourer popped out to attack and mind-wipe the stunned Blood Hunter, dropping his intelligence to 0. The cleric and the sorcerer were able to drive the mind flayer back with fire magic while the bard used dimension door to blink to safety with the stunned PC. A second dead duergar cracked open to reveal another intellect devourer, though it was dispatched before it could do any serious damage.
In the end, the injured mind flayer retreated to the ethereal plane with a bounty of newfound knowledge about the characters and some of their weaknesses. With the mind flayer on another plane, the last duergar dropped to his knees holding his head and screaming in agony. The players took the hint and stopped attacking to stabilize him and return to the duergar city. Despite not achieving a complete combat victory, the overall mission was a bigger success than I expected going in and now the party has met the enemy and the enemy has met them.
"Not all those who wander are lost"