Had an amazing session this weekend. Quick backstory: I introduced my wife, SiL, other SiL, and her husband BiL into D&D a month or so ago. I had never played or DM'd at the time either. We picked up the Starter and Essentials kits, and jumped into Lost Mines with the pre-written characters. Everyone had a great time, and then for scheduling reasons and because we live in 2 different cities we didn't play for a while.
So this weekend we finally got to play again. Rather than waste any more time with the pre-written characters, we rolled up some new ones and started Icespire Peak. I've been buying sourcebooks on DnDB like crazy, so we had tons of options to choose from, and I think everyone was really happy with their characters. We ended up with a Tabaxi Monk / Open Hand, Human Fighter / Samurai, Half-Elf Sorceress / Draconic, and an Aasimar Cleric / Life Domain. I honestly thought they would all get bored AF with character creation, but they all got super into it and were thrilled when they got to level up and got new features. We did all of the character creation on my iPad through DnDB, and then printed them.
Okay so we jump into Icespire, except I wanted to have some fun with it. So I actually started them on the Abandoned Festival from Encounter of the Week. I threw them in at the point where someone is investigating the paper statue, and it erupts in flame. I treated the encounter as if they were level 11, but they were level 1, so two characters died right there. The other two made it one round of combat with the three Horned Devils, and that was it. I was sure to take everyone's character sheets when they died, but didn't rip them up so as not to waste paper printing new ones. I really wanted to rip them though.
Suddenly they all snap awake, and find themselves at a table in a tavern. A server boy comes to take their order, at which point I inform them that they have no money. Server boy calls the bouncer, who kicks them out. They now realize that they are in Phandalin, in need of money, and because they didn't fight the bouncer, he points them to the local job board. Thus our adventure begins.
They did go back and try to fight the bouncer, as well as question the server, trying to figure out what happened to them and how they got there from the festival. I let them carry on for a bit, but then I decided to be a good DM and inform them that this event happened outside the written adventure and no one would be able to give them more info. I actually regret doing that, but I didn't have a plan. I'll have to fix that situation later, to tie the intro into the campaign more holistically. I do intend for them to "return" to the festival (I view it as a flash-forward, it hasn't happened yet), but not until they are much higher level. In the meantime, I plan to have characters drop subtle hints like the 3 components to make gunpowder.
We played for probably 12 hours in total, they finished off the first 3 quests, got up to level 4, and everyone is stoked to play again in a few weeks.
Also on their second or third time leaving the inn in Phandalin, there was a goose in the road. Unrelated, just thought they should know there was a goose.
So this was our first session in our new campaign, and my first time as a player in a large group (ive DMed this whole group for about a year, and 2 of them ive been playing with since i started D&D). I am playing a chaotic neutral half-elf swords bard. The rest of the party are: half-elf paladin, halfling rogue, wood elf ranger, dragonborn sorcerer, and 2 NPCs (another dragonborn and a human boy). We are all 3rd level and working as mercenaries for a merchant convoy.
3 days into our journey, we are stopped by the sight of two men chopping up a tree that has fallen accross the road. When the caravan leader approached to talk to them, they turned and cut him down, and with that a whole band of "bandits" (they were well armed and had 2 spellcasters) emerged from hiding on all sides of the caravan. What followed was a chaotic, widespread battle, which took place the whole length of the caravan. I charged 4 swordsmen by myself, using defensive flourish and dual weilding to kill 2 and severely wounding two others (who were then finished off by the sorcerer and the boy), though i got hit by one crit. The paladin did a crit with her lance with thundering smite, impaling one of the axmen and, by dm ruling, blowing his corpse to tiny bits. The ranger killed 1 spellcaster and two swordsmen by herself (she was bringing up the rear of the caravan), the rogue took on some archers from behind cover with her shortbow, the sorcerer killed one with a firebolt, the npc dragonborn took down two, and i one-hit the remaining spellcaster with a crit on a blade flourish with my rapier, but not before he had burned one of our wagons. We ended the session there, with one prisoner to interrogate, a burned wagon to fix, and 14 dead enemies to search for information. Also, we got a lot of roleplaying in (though i spent a lot of it drunk).
The rogue player didn't show up, which I hope was just a scheduling conflict and not annoyance over the last game session where everything he tried went wrong. The bard was on a business trip, but got back in time to catch the end of the session. So it was mainly the druid and the monk on a road trip. The party went very slowly because one of their new NPCs is an old lady wizard who walks with a cane, and they said they were okay with going slow (and didn't think of buying a vehicle.) They had two encounters, and those went fairly easily for them and now they are sleeping at the inn of a village where they hope to acquire something useful for their quest. (Sadly, they will discover someone has beat them to it. They should not have waited for the pet shop to open and ought to have bought transportation. I don;t think it has sunk in yet that their quest has a time limit and might not be as easy as they are assuming.)
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
I play a water elf monk (quasi-homebrew race); though there are two of us in the party, water elves are rare in the game's setting, as several decades ago there was a catastrophe that wiped out most of them. While the party was chilling in our local watering hole after completing our latest job, our siren bard struck up conversation with another water elf, Leeward, who was in the band playing at the venue that night. She said, "You're a water elf? I know some water elves! Come on over, you should talk to them!" It was just as awkward as you're imagining. We talked a little bit about our most recent employer, Sir Nie Banders, a chemist. We mentioned that Sir Nie was something of a cheapskate, to which Leeward replied, "Yeah, all rich people are like that, aren't they?" Of course, we were under the impression that Sir Nie, despite having been knighted for past service to the kingdom, was actually of modest means. When we interrogated Leeward a bit about how he knew that Sir Nie was wealthy, he was slim with the evidence; it seemed to be mostly an assumption on his part. We were planning on following up with Sir Nie on an unrelated matter anyway, so we figured we'd just observe his business a little more closely next time we visited him.
The rest of the evening was uneventful; eventually Leeward left with the other members of his band, and the party went to bed in our rented suite. The next morning we were woken by the town constables pounding on our door. Rizzo, a half-elf pirate, answered the door, and the constable asked if we'd recently been hired by one Sir Nie Banders. She answered to the affirmative, and then he asked if there were any water elves in the group, which she also confirmed. (Lying is against the pirate code.) The constable asked us to step outside; Oonderteau, the other water elf in the party, and I did with great reluctance. The constable looked Oondertau over and dismissed him; then he looked at me and noticed a button missing from my shirt. That missing button had been found at the crime scene of Sir Nie Banders's brutal murder! I was promptly arrested on suspicion of robbery and murder, and the rest of the party detained as suspected accomplices.
Some of us tried to break out of jail, but that ended disastrously; so disastrously that Rizzo died in a hail of crossbow bolts. So now we have to cool our heels until our court appearance. Obviously that dastardly Leeward and his band is behind this (he'd given me an enthusiastic hug when we met in the bar, which must be when he stole my button). He's definitely on our shit list... assuming we're able to get out of jail.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
An old friend came in from out of town. I was at the FLGS getting a copy of Azul to play at Thanksgiving and she was looking at dice sets and came over and said "We should play D&D!" Well, you never have to ask me twice. We grabbed our other friend Jill, who said she'd never played before and started rolling up characters. My friend made a half-orc barbarian named Three-Axe Johnson who wore a bear skull codpiece that he could play like a xylophone and Jill made a Dwarf Warlock who sold his soul to the Devil for the power to destroy his neighbors, whom he hated violently (Jill really got into that part). I started them at level 3, so the warlock also had an imp named Screwtape who sat on his chest and watched him sleep at night, just in case he stopped breathing and Screwtape could drag his soul down to hell.
The two of them recovered a stolen shipment of gunpowder from a band of hobgoblins and then signed aboard a battleship on a dragon-hunting expedition that, alas, actually found a dragon which wiped out the whole ship and plunged our anti-heroes into the frigid ocean. But on the plus side, Jill liked it so much that we're going to videoconference a game next week. It might be a new regular thing! And Jill's man was hovering around looking curious. I bet we'll get him converted too, sooner or later.
So this was our first session in our new campaign, and my first time as a player in a large group (ive DMed this whole group for about a year, and 2 of them ive been playing with since i started D&D). I am playing a chaotic neutral half-elf swords bard. The rest of the party are: half-elf paladin, halfling rogue, wood elf ranger, dragonborn sorcerer, and 2 NPCs (another dragonborn and a human boy). We are all 3rd level and working as mercenaries for a merchant convoy.
3 days into our journey, we are stopped by the sight of two men chopping up a tree that has fallen accross the road. When the caravan leader approached to talk to them, they turned and cut him down, and with that a whole band of "bandits" (they were well armed and had 2 spellcasters) emerged from hiding on all sides of the caravan. What followed was a chaotic, widespread battle, which took place the whole length of the caravan. I charged 4 swordsmen by myself, using defensive flourish and dual weilding to kill 2 and severely wounding two others (who were then finished off by the sorcerer and the boy), though i got hit by one crit. The paladin did a crit with her lance with thundering smite, impaling one of the axmen and, by dm ruling, blowing his corpse to tiny bits. The ranger killed 1 spellcaster and two swordsmen by herself (she was bringing up the rear of the caravan), the rogue took on some archers from behind cover with her shortbow, the sorcerer killed one with a firebolt, the npc dragonborn took down two, and i one-hit the remaining spellcaster with a crit on a blade flourish with my rapier, but not before he had burned one of our wagons. We ended the session there, with one prisoner to interrogate, a burned wagon to fix, and 14 dead enemies to search for information. Also, we got a lot of roleplaying in (though i spent a lot of it drunk).
I searched the bodies and found nothing of value, while the rogue scouted for more bandits and the rest of the party made camp. The paladin tried to interrogate the prisoner, but learned nothing. It was at that point that our sixth player (he couldnt make it last week), playing a gnome wizard, showed up. He's a bit of a murder hobo, so next thing we know we've beaten him into submission and tied him up too. I then interrogate the prisoner privately, and persuade him to be friendly with me and tell me what i want to know. I learned that the bandits were a gang that worked for a beholder overlord, and that the boy in our party was a mutant who was once very high up in this organization. Afterwards, i interrogated the gnome (while my halfling friend held a knife to his throat in case he tried to cast a spell), and soon won him over to the party (and my personal service) through a promise of gold. After lying about all this to the rest of the party, i confronted the boy at night, and learned that he was dedicated to the destruction of the beholder (and all evil, in a sort of Deathnote kind of way), but had many similar experiences to me, including having no childhood memories. We'll see where that goes.
Later on we reached our destination, got our reward, and went to the tavern. I played a gig and earned us all free room and board, as well as 15 gp for me, while the halfling rogue picked pockets and and got 25 gp (we split the profits). After the show, we got a job from the city watch to investigate the disappearances of some patrols, and the 2 dragonborn talked about religion and literature.
My past session was extremely frustrating. I'm playing a support divine soul sorcerer, and we had a big battle that lasted for the whole session. I spent the entire session "tanking" some undead guardians with my shield spell (and some misty steps) while the fighter, paladin and rogue focus-fired a high AC BBEG. I'd have been buffing them if I could get monsters off me so I could hold concentration. They didn't come to my aid until I pulled my shortsword and dagger and started melee fighting them (sitting on 12 hp@ level 4) to try and get them off. I took no fewer than three melee attacks every round (sometimes more) for the entire session.
After it was all over, everyone was congratulating themselves on how great their tactics were and the level of team-work we had. I...wasn't feeling it.
We leveled to to 5, and I now have third level spells. I've decided that instead of what I had planned on, I am going with spirit guardians because if I'm going to need to defend myself...I will be good at it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
in the first a player was trying a new character, their last one died in the session before. DM allowed him to turn an unimportant NPC into a character. This session was ideally the last before a break, and he really wanted to get some backstory in. So without telling anyone why he took a moment to sneak into another NPCs home. We were flabbergasted when he critical hit the NPC with a headshot without warning (surprise this character is evil). We were even more shocked when the hit NPC stands up and reveals its a fairly high level Devil. So while everyone else was a block away, he is fighting for his life, only surviving because he got to a public space and the devil was no ready to reveal itself.
In the other session with a different group we just started up a new campaign and our first fight was a bloodbath. One player died, we lost 2 of 3 NPC allies, only one member of our party was conscious, but we lost the one thing we needed to end the fight with to “win” so now we are out 500 of a potential 600 gold reward. Mistakes were made on everyone’s part. But it highlights the importance of picking your opening positions, remembering that at level 1 many key abilities are not available such as a Rouge’s Disengage, and that Bandit Captains are no joke against low level parties.
Session I DM'd last week. The party arrived at an Underdark merchant town where they gather the leaders to warn them of a coming threat they fled from the another village that was destroyed. Thanks to a unique item the group is given they have new hope to achieving their goal, but are extra cautious their enemies are closer to them then they thought. And the night ended with the group departing to their next destination, but not without a confrontation with a hungry Xorn who they convince to go to the merchant town where there is more gems to eat.
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
My party and I were experimenting with a Homebrew armor system that lowers AC and gives damage reduction, at the cost of armor having durability, which was awesome.
We're running through Decent into Avernus right now so the DM can be ready to run it for a less experienced group. Our party consists of a human transmutation wizard, a dwarven life cleric, a human ancestoral guardian barbarian, and a human witch hunter fighter(that's me).
We managed to clear the first dungeon by the hair of our backs, my armor had maybe two hit points left and the cleric's shield had already been broken. But now we're casing a suspicious figure and are the proud owners of a pirate ship(that we are refitting to serve as a cargo ship), a public bath house, and a large secret underground chamber(that took far too long to clean up).
Just had a great session, flowed really well and everyone had a lot of fun. Very rough notes follow.
Players ran into Venomfang on the way to Cragmaw castle, noting several arrows sticking out from him. He was too proud to talk about being attacked and said it was a lousy lair and that they were the worst slaves ever (in the last session they had persuaded him to scout the castle for them under the pretence that they thought it would be a fitting lair for a dragon such as he). Still, he said he would stay at the castle if they cleared it out.
Approaching the main entrance, they decided to skirt around the ramparts to find another entrance in case of sentries. They found a passage and successfully removed the entryway door from its hinges.
They arrived in the castle kitchen and Galifregan convinced the goblins and Yegg inside that he was a delivery dwarf. They were able to fool Yegg, the head chef who terrorised the kitchen goblins, into approaching the trap door. Maudagalur pulled him down and killed him. The seven kitchen goblins all made a dash for freedom as a result.
The party decided to lay on a banquet in the kitchen goblins’ stead, lacing the food with pure alcohol and glass to deal with the castle inhabitants. When they rang the dinner bell, 20 goblins filled the banquet hall, along with four hobgoblins. 12 goblins passed out from drinking, but the hobgoblins stayed conscious.
Galifregan cartwheeled into the hall, masquerading as an acrobat. The goblins all cheered. Maudagalur joined in, whilst Valeth waited with her bow and arrow primed. Galifregan then persuaded the hobgoblins and goblins to hand him their daggers and knives so that he could juggle. Once he had collected them, the party attacked.
Galifregan felled many goblins by throwing knives into the throng, whilst Valeth picked off two hobgoblins with her bow. Maudagalur fought in close quarters with the other two hobgoblins. One he was able to slice in two, the other tried to tackle him only for him to flip them into one of the banquet tables before finishing them off. The surviving goblins ran away.
The party now find themselves in a room full of dead goblins and hobgoblins, ready to head deeper into Cragmaw castle ...
Really great session, the players were all miming out their actions together, the banquet hall battle was chaotic with food and fists flying everywhere. We didn't get very far into Cragmaw Castle but we all checked to see the next available date for venturing further in!
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Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Short session this week. Later that night (moving right in from the last session) at the bar, a mysterious dragonborn walked in, and tried to stop my show. I, being completely drunk, insulted him until he left. We then went to witness an execution of some rebels. When i interviewed them, the 2 humans said they had no memories, and the strange construct spoke of his mission from his creators to kill me, and then broke loose, sucking the life force out of a guard. He was then killed after a brief combat by a tall mysterious man, who introduced himself as Balshazar (the beholder crime lord behind the previous attack on our caravan) and then had the guards take us prisoner, leading us to an audience with the duke.
Last session was a special one shot. A break between campaigns as we switch DMs and return to an older unfinished campaign. The one shot was used to introduce the backstory of a new character who will be joining us.
This is a group where one of the players in the last session of a previous campaign had accidentally uncovered a Rakshasa, and subsequently almost killed by it. Both lived but now we know if we ever pick that campaign up again there will be a Rakshasa after that character.
In this one-shot, the same player as a completely different character unintentionally forced a Rakshasa to reveal itself and fight us. It was intended to be a one-sided slaughter as most of the characters we were playing were intended to be one use only, but Rakshasa don’t really deal that much direct damage and due to time constraints chose to flee.
So now our group has the option to play the occasional side story where we are hunted down one by one until only the character joining the main game is left, to continue a game of cat and mouse with a vengeful fiend with a new group of allies.
Our last session ended ominously with our obnoxiously French chef character being menaced by a revenant...who he had killed previously.
When we resumed, the revenant tried to attack...but our town was fortified with divine magic, so the revenant just started chucking rocks at our warlock chef from the border.
The revenant...did a surprising amount of damage with those rocks. So our culinary caster ran back to rally us, and we attempted to slay the revenant.
A hilarious series of bad roles resulted in the four of us failing to hit this lone rock-chucker...the revenant just bobbed and weaved around our strikes, and managed to keep nailing our French warlock in the skull with rocks. It took the divine intervention of a holy warrior to kill this ONE low level revenant.
Then, we took a rest at an inn, the lady who owned the joint told us her son had gone out hunting, but hadn't been back for some time. Just then, the son comes crawling out from the forest, covered in blood and screaming. Some burrowing monster explodes from the earth, grabs the poor guy, and digs back underground. My spring eladrin paladin jumps straight INTO the hole without question, much to the dismay of my morally-neutral party. But with the eladrin racial Misty Step, I teleport the victim from the clutches of the monster, and the rest of the party hauls him out from the hole with rope. Our badass half-orc fighter takes out the monster by severing its legs.
The lady who owns the inn is so grateful for saving her son, she let's us feast for free, which let's us stockpile our provisions for the main quest.
In short...not much achieved, but damned entertaining.
Okay I love this thread so here’s my hat in the ring. I run a very very homebrewed version of the Waterdeep books, I’ve basically completely changed the story and things play out differently. The party is a total of 9 character players +2 NPCs. The players are as follows
Arthur a triton Bard of the college of whispers, Burt a flesh golem berserker Barbarian, Anya a half elf circle of the Shepard Druid (she’ll be important in a minute here), Stella a high elf college of lore bard, Loaf golem made of bread (long story) wild magic sorcerer, Rango a lizardfolk fighter gunslinger, Alazura a half-orc paladin of conquest, Kassandra a Aasamar divine soul sorcerer, and Amelia a Tabaxi hexblade warlock. The NPCs are Amber a forest gnome monster hunter ranger, and Igor the Kobold school of Abjuration Wizard, who helped make Burt.
At the present point in the story, Anyas player is currently her sister Aspen (also a Druid but is circle of the moon) Igor is a stone statue due to a Medusa, and Amber, Loaf, and Kassandra are all at the trollskull manor
whilst traveling in a dungeon Aspen Stella and Arthur split off from Burt Amelia Rango and Alazura (which as we all know splitting the party is a bad idea) whilst the 4 is fighting a bugbear and a beholder zombie Aspen Stella And Arthur are fighting a group of drow 2 of which are under the influence of a Int devourer. Now the bards HATE drow so they’re fully focused on them, up til the Int devs come out everything is fine. Soon enough while the Bards are focused on the drow, a Int dev finds its way into Aspen, Arthur removes it a few turns later and kills it, though the deed is done Aspen is dead. At the same time else where in the world Anya wakes up from having a dream of her sisters death and rushes to Waterdeep to find her. When she finally finds Aspen it’s the same way she awning her dream so she stuffs the body in the bag of holding, disguises herself as her sister, and pretends to be her sister for awhile. The party groups back up before too long and the adventure continues until the one member who knew Aspen best, Burt, picks up that something is wrong. He lifts her by her leg and asks “what name” and points to himself as this whole time she referred to him as big fella, through a check she remembered his name was mentioned as Burt. Burt then pulls Igor out of his bag of holding as he is a statue. He points. “Name.” As no one had particularly mentioned him and she had not seen him, she was at a loss. At this point Burt goes “Where is Aspen” she stutters and points to her bag on the ground. She then explains her name is actually Anya and that she’s Aspens sister and pretended to be Aspen to see if they were the cause of her sisters death. The body is pulled from the bag, Members of the party cry sad of the loss of their friend.
I have lots of stories especially from this crew of people, might post more here in the future
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Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
At the end of the previous session, the party fought a random encounter with giant spiders and took away their breakfast, an unknown, unconscious person wrapped in a spider cocoon. They then reached the farm village of Greenville, after dark, and checked into the Cowbell Inn.
This session began in the early morning, as they were awakened by a thumping noise. Cocoon Man, whom they had carried in as luggage to avoid paying his boarding fee, was awake and demanding to be set free. Once out of the cocoon, he introduced himself as Hubert Pumpernickel, the local schoolmaster. Hubert had been taking his students on a nature walk when the spiders attacked. He had attempted to hold off the beasts, telling the children to get help. They had run off singing, "School's out, school's out, Teacher threw the fools out!" And that was the last thing he remembered.
Hubert answered the party's questions about the town and directions. They then went downstairs to have breakfast and listen to rumors, learning that two of the townsfolk were mixed up with bad company: that the local cleric opposed their royal quest to fly to the City of the Sky Gods: and that the sheriff had recently been transformed into a duck by the wanted rogue wizard Jasper Featherstone, and still had duck feet.
Proceeding to the stable to look at the flying Eaveswurms they had come to buy (Usually tiny dragon birds, a wizard had blown them up to draft horse size with an unstable experimental growth potion earlier, and the party had been in conflict with some before.) the party discovered that a rival party of other Champions of the Festival had already been there and bought all but one: what's more, the rival party's thief had stolen back the money they had paid for them. The angry stablemaster told the party that if they got back that 2000gp from the thieves, they were welcome to all the flying Eaveswurms and the magical animal-control bridles they wore.
Tipped off that one of the rival party members was the sheriff's young daughter, they went to the sheriff next. Unable to ride out with his duck feet, he gave them all deputy's badges, and a few other useful items around the jail, in return for the promise that they would go after the rivals and bring his daughter home. The party then took part in their favorite pastime...shopping. XD
The party headed East, on the trail of the thieves. On the way our of town, they immediately hit a random encounter, rolled to be...a coatl. (Whaaat? For level 0-5?) Since it was lawful good, I went ahead with it, watching the party with trepidation as they prepared to lay a can of whoopass on the 'flying snake' they saw flitting through the trees. Fortunately, one decided to try to talk to it and see if it spoke Draconic like the Eaveswurms did.
The coatl, named Evalor, chatted with them politely, and they decided to ask it to come along with them, rolling a 20 persuasion. >.< So it did...briefly. Shortly afterward they had another encounter with a herd of 15 wild boars. Evalor, appalled at the violence, departed as the party made a LOT of chopped pork.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
The party were tasked with travelling to a dwarvern stronghold to negotiate a mining contract, which would aid the Lord's Alliance's supply lines in the upcoming war against the orcish horde.
Travelling by skyship, all characters enjoyed a pleasant journey aboard the Cloud Strider, crewed by the gnomes Captain Kellen, No-Hat and the very excitable Badger. They soon found out that Badger had manipulated the moon stones used to fuel the ship into also powering a cannon hidden in the bow of the ship, unbeknownst to the captain.
After a long rest and a hearty breakfast of bacon and coffee, the party noticed a Ruby-coloured vessel fast approaching. The vessel pulled alongside and it's captain, a large, jewel-laden man invited them to trade, introducing himself as Zadim the Decadent. Seeing the several armed crewmen flanking him, the party told him to move on. Zadim flashed a grin and said he must insist. With that, his men leapt aboard Cloud Strider and attacked!
The players fought bravely but noticed that Zadim was impervious to all of their attacks. He boarded, grabbed Galifregan the dwarf and held him over the side. "You should have traded!" he grinned. The party lay down their weapons and successfully persuaded Zadim to return to his ship and they would join him. As his men watched them, Galifregan shouted in gnomish "Badger, boom!". The Cloud Strider banked and before Zadim could react, his ship was engulfed in a purple roaring wave of energy from the cannon. Before he was swallowed by the blast, the party saw his face change into that of a tiger before his ship sank beneath the clouds...
They reached their destination after setting down to kick the surrendering pirates, and successfully negotiated a contract not with the dwarves, but with the deep gnomes who work in the mines for a considerably better deal. Whether the dwarves will be happy about this or not we will find out.
A great, 6-hour session. We had one new player who joined who has always wanted to play after getting into critical role. He said it was everything he had hoped for. 😁 This is the second one shot with this group which is a loose campaign. It is my first time writing a campaign and I am really happy that all the players are getting into the story!
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Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
The party were tasked with travelling to a dwarvern stronghold to negotiate a mining contract, which would aid the Lord's Alliance's supply lines in the upcoming war against the orcish horde.
Travelling by skyship, all characters enjoyed a pleasant journey aboard the Cloud Strider, crewed by the gnomes Captain Kellen, No-Hat and the very excitable Badger. They soon found out that Badger had manipulated the moon stones used to fuel the ship into also powering a cannon hidden in the bow of the ship, unbeknownst to the captain.
After a long rest and a hearty breakfast of bacon and coffee, the party noticed a Ruby-coloured vessel fast approaching. The vessel pulled alongside and it's captain, a large, jewel-laden man invited them to trade, introducing himself as Zadim the Decadent. Seeing the several armed crewmen flanking him, the party told him to move on. Zadim flashed a grin and said he must insist. With that, his men leapt aboard Cloud Strider and attacked!
The players fought bravely but noticed that Zadim was impervious to all of their attacks. He boarded, grabbed Galifregan the dwarf and held him over the side. "You should have traded!" he grinned. The party lay down their weapons and successfully persuaded Zadim to return to his ship and they would join him. As his men watched them, Galifregan shouted in gnomish "Badger, boom!". The Cloud Strider banked and before Zadim could react, his ship was engulfed in a purple roaring wave of energy from the cannon. Before he was swallowed by the blast, the party saw his face change into that of a tiger before his ship sank beneath the clouds...
They reached their destination after setting down to kick the surrendering pirates, and successfully negotiated a contract not with the dwarves, but with the deep gnomes who work in the mines for a considerably better deal. Whether the dwarves will be happy about this or not we will find out.
A great, 6-hour session. We had one new player who joined who has always wanted to play after getting into critical role. He said it was everything he had hoped for. 😁 This is the second one shot with this group which is a loose campaign. It is my first time writing a campaign and I am really happy that all the players are getting into the story!
Now THAT's an awesome story moment. Hot dang!
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Had an amazing session this weekend. Quick backstory: I introduced my wife, SiL, other SiL, and her husband BiL into D&D a month or so ago. I had never played or DM'd at the time either. We picked up the Starter and Essentials kits, and jumped into Lost Mines with the pre-written characters. Everyone had a great time, and then for scheduling reasons and because we live in 2 different cities we didn't play for a while.
So this weekend we finally got to play again. Rather than waste any more time with the pre-written characters, we rolled up some new ones and started Icespire Peak. I've been buying sourcebooks on DnDB like crazy, so we had tons of options to choose from, and I think everyone was really happy with their characters. We ended up with a Tabaxi Monk / Open Hand, Human Fighter / Samurai, Half-Elf Sorceress / Draconic, and an Aasimar Cleric / Life Domain. I honestly thought they would all get bored AF with character creation, but they all got super into it and were thrilled when they got to level up and got new features. We did all of the character creation on my iPad through DnDB, and then printed them.
Okay so we jump into Icespire, except I wanted to have some fun with it. So I actually started them on the Abandoned Festival from Encounter of the Week. I threw them in at the point where someone is investigating the paper statue, and it erupts in flame. I treated the encounter as if they were level 11, but they were level 1, so two characters died right there. The other two made it one round of combat with the three Horned Devils, and that was it. I was sure to take everyone's character sheets when they died, but didn't rip them up so as not to waste paper printing new ones. I really wanted to rip them though.
Suddenly they all snap awake, and find themselves at a table in a tavern. A server boy comes to take their order, at which point I inform them that they have no money. Server boy calls the bouncer, who kicks them out. They now realize that they are in Phandalin, in need of money, and because they didn't fight the bouncer, he points them to the local job board. Thus our adventure begins.
They did go back and try to fight the bouncer, as well as question the server, trying to figure out what happened to them and how they got there from the festival. I let them carry on for a bit, but then I decided to be a good DM and inform them that this event happened outside the written adventure and no one would be able to give them more info. I actually regret doing that, but I didn't have a plan. I'll have to fix that situation later, to tie the intro into the campaign more holistically. I do intend for them to "return" to the festival (I view it as a flash-forward, it hasn't happened yet), but not until they are much higher level. In the meantime, I plan to have characters drop subtle hints like the 3 components to make gunpowder.
We played for probably 12 hours in total, they finished off the first 3 quests, got up to level 4, and everyone is stoked to play again in a few weeks.
Also on their second or third time leaving the inn in Phandalin, there was a goose in the road. Unrelated, just thought they should know there was a goose.
So this was our first session in our new campaign, and my first time as a player in a large group (ive DMed this whole group for about a year, and 2 of them ive been playing with since i started D&D). I am playing a chaotic neutral half-elf swords bard. The rest of the party are: half-elf paladin, halfling rogue, wood elf ranger, dragonborn sorcerer, and 2 NPCs (another dragonborn and a human boy). We are all 3rd level and working as mercenaries for a merchant convoy.
3 days into our journey, we are stopped by the sight of two men chopping up a tree that has fallen accross the road. When the caravan leader approached to talk to them, they turned and cut him down, and with that a whole band of "bandits" (they were well armed and had 2 spellcasters) emerged from hiding on all sides of the caravan. What followed was a chaotic, widespread battle, which took place the whole length of the caravan. I charged 4 swordsmen by myself, using defensive flourish and dual weilding to kill 2 and severely wounding two others (who were then finished off by the sorcerer and the boy), though i got hit by one crit. The paladin did a crit with her lance with thundering smite, impaling one of the axmen and, by dm ruling, blowing his corpse to tiny bits. The ranger killed 1 spellcaster and two swordsmen by herself (she was bringing up the rear of the caravan), the rogue took on some archers from behind cover with her shortbow, the sorcerer killed one with a firebolt, the npc dragonborn took down two, and i one-hit the remaining spellcaster with a crit on a blade flourish with my rapier, but not before he had burned one of our wagons. We ended the session there, with one prisoner to interrogate, a burned wagon to fix, and 14 dead enemies to search for information. Also, we got a lot of roleplaying in (though i spent a lot of it drunk).
The rogue player didn't show up, which I hope was just a scheduling conflict and not annoyance over the last game session where everything he tried went wrong. The bard was on a business trip, but got back in time to catch the end of the session. So it was mainly the druid and the monk on a road trip. The party went very slowly because one of their new NPCs is an old lady wizard who walks with a cane, and they said they were okay with going slow (and didn't think of buying a vehicle.) They had two encounters, and those went fairly easily for them and now they are sleeping at the inn of a village where they hope to acquire something useful for their quest. (Sadly, they will discover someone has beat them to it. They should not have waited for the pet shop to open and ought to have bought transportation. I don;t think it has sunk in yet that their quest has a time limit and might not be as easy as they are assuming.)
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
I've been framed for murder!
I play a water elf monk (quasi-homebrew race); though there are two of us in the party, water elves are rare in the game's setting, as several decades ago there was a catastrophe that wiped out most of them. While the party was chilling in our local watering hole after completing our latest job, our siren bard struck up conversation with another water elf, Leeward, who was in the band playing at the venue that night. She said, "You're a water elf? I know some water elves! Come on over, you should talk to them!" It was just as awkward as you're imagining. We talked a little bit about our most recent employer, Sir Nie Banders, a chemist. We mentioned that Sir Nie was something of a cheapskate, to which Leeward replied, "Yeah, all rich people are like that, aren't they?" Of course, we were under the impression that Sir Nie, despite having been knighted for past service to the kingdom, was actually of modest means. When we interrogated Leeward a bit about how he knew that Sir Nie was wealthy, he was slim with the evidence; it seemed to be mostly an assumption on his part. We were planning on following up with Sir Nie on an unrelated matter anyway, so we figured we'd just observe his business a little more closely next time we visited him.
The rest of the evening was uneventful; eventually Leeward left with the other members of his band, and the party went to bed in our rented suite. The next morning we were woken by the town constables pounding on our door. Rizzo, a half-elf pirate, answered the door, and the constable asked if we'd recently been hired by one Sir Nie Banders. She answered to the affirmative, and then he asked if there were any water elves in the group, which she also confirmed. (Lying is against the pirate code.) The constable asked us to step outside; Oonderteau, the other water elf in the party, and I did with great reluctance. The constable looked Oondertau over and dismissed him; then he looked at me and noticed a button missing from my shirt. That missing button had been found at the crime scene of Sir Nie Banders's brutal murder! I was promptly arrested on suspicion of robbery and murder, and the rest of the party detained as suspected accomplices.
Some of us tried to break out of jail, but that ended disastrously; so disastrously that Rizzo died in a hail of crossbow bolts. So now we have to cool our heels until our court appearance. Obviously that dastardly Leeward and his band is behind this (he'd given me an enthusiastic hug when we met in the bar, which must be when he stole my button). He's definitely on our shit list... assuming we're able to get out of jail.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
An old friend came in from out of town. I was at the FLGS getting a copy of Azul to play at Thanksgiving and she was looking at dice sets and came over and said "We should play D&D!" Well, you never have to ask me twice. We grabbed our other friend Jill, who said she'd never played before and started rolling up characters. My friend made a half-orc barbarian named Three-Axe Johnson who wore a bear skull codpiece that he could play like a xylophone and Jill made a Dwarf Warlock who sold his soul to the Devil for the power to destroy his neighbors, whom he hated violently (Jill really got into that part). I started them at level 3, so the warlock also had an imp named Screwtape who sat on his chest and watched him sleep at night, just in case he stopped breathing and Screwtape could drag his soul down to hell.
The two of them recovered a stolen shipment of gunpowder from a band of hobgoblins and then signed aboard a battleship on a dragon-hunting expedition that, alas, actually found a dragon which wiped out the whole ship and plunged our anti-heroes into the frigid ocean. But on the plus side, Jill liked it so much that we're going to videoconference a game next week. It might be a new regular thing! And Jill's man was hovering around looking curious. I bet we'll get him converted too, sooner or later.
I searched the bodies and found nothing of value, while the rogue scouted for more bandits and the rest of the party made camp. The paladin tried to interrogate the prisoner, but learned nothing. It was at that point that our sixth player (he couldnt make it last week), playing a gnome wizard, showed up. He's a bit of a murder hobo, so next thing we know we've beaten him into submission and tied him up too. I then interrogate the prisoner privately, and persuade him to be friendly with me and tell me what i want to know. I learned that the bandits were a gang that worked for a beholder overlord, and that the boy in our party was a mutant who was once very high up in this organization. Afterwards, i interrogated the gnome (while my halfling friend held a knife to his throat in case he tried to cast a spell), and soon won him over to the party (and my personal service) through a promise of gold. After lying about all this to the rest of the party, i confronted the boy at night, and learned that he was dedicated to the destruction of the beholder (and all evil, in a sort of Deathnote kind of way), but had many similar experiences to me, including having no childhood memories. We'll see where that goes.
Later on we reached our destination, got our reward, and went to the tavern. I played a gig and earned us all free room and board, as well as 15 gp for me, while the halfling rogue picked pockets and and got 25 gp (we split the profits). After the show, we got a job from the city watch to investigate the disappearances of some patrols, and the 2 dragonborn talked about religion and literature.
My past session was extremely frustrating. I'm playing a support divine soul sorcerer, and we had a big battle that lasted for the whole session. I spent the entire session "tanking" some undead guardians with my shield spell (and some misty steps) while the fighter, paladin and rogue focus-fired a high AC BBEG. I'd have been buffing them if I could get monsters off me so I could hold concentration. They didn't come to my aid until I pulled my shortsword and dagger and started melee fighting them (sitting on 12 hp@ level 4) to try and get them off. I took no fewer than three melee attacks every round (sometimes more) for the entire session.
After it was all over, everyone was congratulating themselves on how great their tactics were and the level of team-work we had. I...wasn't feeling it.
We leveled to to 5, and I now have third level spells. I've decided that instead of what I had planned on, I am going with spirit guardians because if I'm going to need to defend myself...I will be good at it.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Two sessions last week.
in the first a player was trying a new character, their last one died in the session before. DM allowed him to turn an unimportant NPC into a character. This session was ideally the last before a break, and he really wanted to get some backstory in. So without telling anyone why he took a moment to sneak into another NPCs home. We were flabbergasted when he critical hit the NPC with a headshot without warning (surprise this character is evil). We were even more shocked when the hit NPC stands up and reveals its a fairly high level Devil. So while everyone else was a block away, he is fighting for his life, only surviving because he got to a public space and the devil was no ready to reveal itself.
In the other session with a different group we just started up a new campaign and our first fight was a bloodbath. One player died, we lost 2 of 3 NPC allies, only one member of our party was conscious, but we lost the one thing we needed to end the fight with to “win” so now we are out 500 of a potential 600 gold reward. Mistakes were made on everyone’s part. But it highlights the importance of picking your opening positions, remembering that at level 1 many key abilities are not available such as a Rouge’s Disengage, and that Bandit Captains are no joke against low level parties.
Session I DM'd last week. The party arrived at an Underdark merchant town where they gather the leaders to warn them of a coming threat they fled from the another village that was destroyed. Thanks to a unique item the group is given they have new hope to achieving their goal, but are extra cautious their enemies are closer to them then they thought. And the night ended with the group departing to their next destination, but not without a confrontation with a hungry Xorn who they convince to go to the merchant town where there is more gems to eat.
My players chased a slave trader who was running away from them on horse back..... as 7 T-rexes. Because Conjure woodland, that's how.
Born under the watch of something from the furthest corners of the far realms.... It knows all.... it sees all... and it asks: "What is it that you want to see?"... and my answer is... ALL"
The rouge nearly died too a skeletal pirate.
The clerics player fell asleep.
The blood hunter set the pirate ship on fire, with the rouge still on it.
No one worked together.
They said it was fun.....
Ill take their word for it an plan another session for them.
Current game- Pelegos: Singularity
Game world- Thad'thra, homebrew
Role- DM
Players- Maro: Light Cleric, Rivqah: Feind Warlock, Kortek: Artillerist Artificer
Plot: Uncover a conspiracy and truth behind the Dragon, Blasphemy, and the light of the kingdom that was stollen. Drenching Baranara into shadow.
My party and I were experimenting with a Homebrew armor system that lowers AC and gives damage reduction, at the cost of armor having durability, which was awesome.
We're running through Decent into Avernus right now so the DM can be ready to run it for a less experienced group. Our party consists of a human transmutation wizard, a dwarven life cleric, a human ancestoral guardian barbarian, and a human witch hunter fighter(that's me).
We managed to clear the first dungeon by the hair of our backs, my armor had maybe two hit points left and the cleric's shield had already been broken. But now we're casing a suspicious figure and are the proud owners of a pirate ship(that we are refitting to serve as a cargo ship), a public bath house, and a large secret underground chamber(that took far too long to clean up).
Just had a great session, flowed really well and everyone had a lot of fun. Very rough notes follow.
Players ran into Venomfang on the way to Cragmaw castle, noting several arrows sticking out from him. He was too proud to talk about being attacked and said it was a lousy lair and that they were the worst slaves ever (in the last session they had persuaded him to scout the castle for them under the pretence that they thought it would be a fitting lair for a dragon such as he). Still, he said he would stay at the castle if they cleared it out.
Approaching the main entrance, they decided to skirt around the ramparts to find another entrance in case of sentries. They found a passage and successfully removed the entryway door from its hinges.
They arrived in the castle kitchen and Galifregan convinced the goblins and Yegg inside that he was a delivery dwarf. They were able to fool Yegg, the head chef who terrorised the kitchen goblins, into approaching the trap door. Maudagalur pulled him down and killed him. The seven kitchen goblins all made a dash for freedom as a result.
The party decided to lay on a banquet in the kitchen goblins’ stead, lacing the food with pure alcohol and glass to deal with the castle inhabitants. When they rang the dinner bell, 20 goblins filled the banquet hall, along with four hobgoblins. 12 goblins passed out from drinking, but the hobgoblins stayed conscious.
Galifregan cartwheeled into the hall, masquerading as an acrobat. The goblins all cheered. Maudagalur joined in, whilst Valeth waited with her bow and arrow primed. Galifregan then persuaded the hobgoblins and goblins to hand him their daggers and knives so that he could juggle. Once he had collected them, the party attacked.
Galifregan felled many goblins by throwing knives into the throng, whilst Valeth picked off two hobgoblins with her bow. Maudagalur fought in close quarters with the other two hobgoblins. One he was able to slice in two, the other tried to tackle him only for him to flip them into one of the banquet tables before finishing them off. The surviving goblins ran away.
The party now find themselves in a room full of dead goblins and hobgoblins, ready to head deeper into Cragmaw castle ...
Really great session, the players were all miming out their actions together, the banquet hall battle was chaotic with food and fists flying everywhere. We didn't get very far into Cragmaw Castle but we all checked to see the next available date for venturing further in!
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Never tell me the DC.
Short session this week. Later that night (moving right in from the last session) at the bar, a mysterious dragonborn walked in, and tried to stop my show. I, being completely drunk, insulted him until he left. We then went to witness an execution of some rebels. When i interviewed them, the 2 humans said they had no memories, and the strange construct spoke of his mission from his creators to kill me, and then broke loose, sucking the life force out of a guard. He was then killed after a brief combat by a tall mysterious man, who introduced himself as Balshazar (the beholder crime lord behind the previous attack on our caravan) and then had the guards take us prisoner, leading us to an audience with the duke.
Last session was a special one shot. A break between campaigns as we switch DMs and return to an older unfinished campaign. The one shot was used to introduce the backstory of a new character who will be joining us.
This is a group where one of the players in the last session of a previous campaign had accidentally uncovered a Rakshasa, and subsequently almost killed by it. Both lived but now we know if we ever pick that campaign up again there will be a Rakshasa after that character.
In this one-shot, the same player as a completely different character unintentionally forced a Rakshasa to reveal itself and fight us. It was intended to be a one-sided slaughter as most of the characters we were playing were intended to be one use only, but Rakshasa don’t really deal that much direct damage and due to time constraints chose to flee.
So now our group has the option to play the occasional side story where we are hunted down one by one until only the character joining the main game is left, to continue a game of cat and mouse with a vengeful fiend with a new group of allies.
Our last session ended ominously with our obnoxiously French chef character being menaced by a revenant...who he had killed previously.
When we resumed, the revenant tried to attack...but our town was fortified with divine magic, so the revenant just started chucking rocks at our warlock chef from the border.
The revenant...did a surprising amount of damage with those rocks. So our culinary caster ran back to rally us, and we attempted to slay the revenant.
A hilarious series of bad roles resulted in the four of us failing to hit this lone rock-chucker...the revenant just bobbed and weaved around our strikes, and managed to keep nailing our French warlock in the skull with rocks. It took the divine intervention of a holy warrior to kill this ONE low level revenant.
Then, we took a rest at an inn, the lady who owned the joint told us her son had gone out hunting, but hadn't been back for some time. Just then, the son comes crawling out from the forest, covered in blood and screaming. Some burrowing monster explodes from the earth, grabs the poor guy, and digs back underground. My spring eladrin paladin jumps straight INTO the hole without question, much to the dismay of my morally-neutral party. But with the eladrin racial Misty Step, I teleport the victim from the clutches of the monster, and the rest of the party hauls him out from the hole with rope. Our badass half-orc fighter takes out the monster by severing its legs.
The lady who owns the inn is so grateful for saving her son, she let's us feast for free, which let's us stockpile our provisions for the main quest.
In short...not much achieved, but damned entertaining.
Okay I love this thread so here’s my hat in the ring. I run a very very homebrewed version of the Waterdeep books, I’ve basically completely changed the story and things play out differently. The party is a total of 9 character players +2 NPCs. The players are as follows
Arthur a triton Bard of the college of whispers, Burt a flesh golem berserker Barbarian, Anya a half elf circle of the Shepard Druid (she’ll be important in a minute here), Stella a high elf college of lore bard, Loaf golem made of bread (long story) wild magic sorcerer, Rango a lizardfolk fighter gunslinger, Alazura a half-orc paladin of conquest, Kassandra a Aasamar divine soul sorcerer, and Amelia a Tabaxi hexblade warlock. The NPCs are Amber a forest gnome monster hunter ranger, and Igor the Kobold school of Abjuration Wizard, who helped make Burt.
At the present point in the story, Anyas player is currently her sister Aspen (also a Druid but is circle of the moon) Igor is a stone statue due to a Medusa, and Amber, Loaf, and Kassandra are all at the trollskull manor
whilst traveling in a dungeon Aspen Stella and Arthur split off from Burt Amelia Rango and Alazura (which as we all know splitting the party is a bad idea) whilst the 4 is fighting a bugbear and a beholder zombie Aspen Stella And Arthur are fighting a group of drow 2 of which are under the influence of a Int devourer. Now the bards HATE drow so they’re fully focused on them, up til the Int devs come out everything is fine. Soon enough while the Bards are focused on the drow, a Int dev finds its way into Aspen, Arthur removes it a few turns later and kills it, though the deed is done Aspen is dead. At the same time else where in the world Anya wakes up from having a dream of her sisters death and rushes to Waterdeep to find her. When she finally finds Aspen it’s the same way she awning her dream so she stuffs the body in the bag of holding, disguises herself as her sister, and pretends to be her sister for awhile. The party groups back up before too long and the adventure continues until the one member who knew Aspen best, Burt, picks up that something is wrong. He lifts her by her leg and asks “what name” and points to himself as this whole time she referred to him as big fella, through a check she remembered his name was mentioned as Burt. Burt then pulls Igor out of his bag of holding as he is a statue. He points. “Name.” As no one had particularly mentioned him and she had not seen him, she was at a loss. At this point Burt goes “Where is Aspen” she stutters and points to her bag on the ground. She then explains her name is actually Anya and that she’s Aspens sister and pretended to be Aspen to see if they were the cause of her sisters death. The body is pulled from the bag, Members of the party cry sad of the loss of their friend.
I have lots of stories especially from this crew of people, might post more here in the future
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
At the end of the previous session, the party fought a random encounter with giant spiders and took away their breakfast, an unknown, unconscious person wrapped in a spider cocoon. They then reached the farm village of Greenville, after dark, and checked into the Cowbell Inn.
This session began in the early morning, as they were awakened by a thumping noise. Cocoon Man, whom they had carried in as luggage to avoid paying his boarding fee, was awake and demanding to be set free. Once out of the cocoon, he introduced himself as Hubert Pumpernickel, the local schoolmaster. Hubert had been taking his students on a nature walk when the spiders attacked. He had attempted to hold off the beasts, telling the children to get help. They had run off singing, "School's out, school's out, Teacher threw the fools out!" And that was the last thing he remembered.
Hubert answered the party's questions about the town and directions. They then went downstairs to have breakfast and listen to rumors, learning that two of the townsfolk were mixed up with bad company: that the local cleric opposed their royal quest to fly to the City of the Sky Gods: and that the sheriff had recently been transformed into a duck by the wanted rogue wizard Jasper Featherstone, and still had duck feet.
Proceeding to the stable to look at the flying Eaveswurms they had come to buy (Usually tiny dragon birds, a wizard had blown them up to draft horse size with an unstable experimental growth potion earlier, and the party had been in conflict with some before.) the party discovered that a rival party of other Champions of the Festival had already been there and bought all but one: what's more, the rival party's thief had stolen back the money they had paid for them. The angry stablemaster told the party that if they got back that 2000gp from the thieves, they were welcome to all the flying Eaveswurms and the magical animal-control bridles they wore.
Tipped off that one of the rival party members was the sheriff's young daughter, they went to the sheriff next. Unable to ride out with his duck feet, he gave them all deputy's badges, and a few other useful items around the jail, in return for the promise that they would go after the rivals and bring his daughter home. The party then took part in their favorite pastime...shopping. XD
The party headed East, on the trail of the thieves. On the way our of town, they immediately hit a random encounter, rolled to be...a coatl. (Whaaat? For level 0-5?) Since it was lawful good, I went ahead with it, watching the party with trepidation as they prepared to lay a can of whoopass on the 'flying snake' they saw flitting through the trees. Fortunately, one decided to try to talk to it and see if it spoke Draconic like the Eaveswurms did.
The coatl, named Evalor, chatted with them politely, and they decided to ask it to come along with them, rolling a 20 persuasion. >.< So it did...briefly. Shortly afterward they had another encounter with a herd of 15 wild boars. Evalor, appalled at the violence, departed as the party made a LOT of chopped pork.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
The party were tasked with travelling to a dwarvern stronghold to negotiate a mining contract, which would aid the Lord's Alliance's supply lines in the upcoming war against the orcish horde.
Travelling by skyship, all characters enjoyed a pleasant journey aboard the Cloud Strider, crewed by the gnomes Captain Kellen, No-Hat and the very excitable Badger. They soon found out that Badger had manipulated the moon stones used to fuel the ship into also powering a cannon hidden in the bow of the ship, unbeknownst to the captain.
After a long rest and a hearty breakfast of bacon and coffee, the party noticed a Ruby-coloured vessel fast approaching. The vessel pulled alongside and it's captain, a large, jewel-laden man invited them to trade, introducing himself as Zadim the Decadent. Seeing the several armed crewmen flanking him, the party told him to move on. Zadim flashed a grin and said he must insist. With that, his men leapt aboard Cloud Strider and attacked!
The players fought bravely but noticed that Zadim was impervious to all of their attacks. He boarded, grabbed Galifregan the dwarf and held him over the side. "You should have traded!" he grinned. The party lay down their weapons and successfully persuaded Zadim to return to his ship and they would join him. As his men watched them, Galifregan shouted in gnomish "Badger, boom!". The Cloud Strider banked and before Zadim could react, his ship was engulfed in a purple roaring wave of energy from the cannon. Before he was swallowed by the blast, the party saw his face change into that of a tiger before his ship sank beneath the clouds...
They reached their destination after setting down to kick the surrendering pirates, and successfully negotiated a contract not with the dwarves, but with the deep gnomes who work in the mines for a considerably better deal. Whether the dwarves will be happy about this or not we will find out.
A great, 6-hour session. We had one new player who joined who has always wanted to play after getting into critical role. He said it was everything he had hoped for. 😁 This is the second one shot with this group which is a loose campaign. It is my first time writing a campaign and I am really happy that all the players are getting into the story!
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Never tell me the DC.
Now THAT's an awesome story moment. Hot dang!