I'll keep that in mind. They're not on Giovanni's keelboat, they have a sailing ship. The ship actually is Gio's, but it was in for repairs in Port Montgomery and he was just using the keelboat to get to Port Montgomery. I didn't know that about keelboats though, so thanks.
If you're wondering why, it's because I did a pregame oneshot with Giovanni's player (the most experienced DM in the group) as a practice session, and I wanted an excuse to not give him access to a full crew.
After setting off a Thunderwave in a small space last week (not my doing... *cough*itwasthebard*cough*), the party decided they wanted to take a long rest in a crypt since we're all running out of spells and most of the party is still a little squishy, even at level 5. My Paladin and our Artificer were doing OK but some of the others were pretty hurt.
Yeah, that Thunderwave just kept the encounters coming. I think we're 3 hours in our attempted long rest and had 3 groups of enemies? This may not end well... fun, but very chaotic.
I said I'd give a rundown of yesterday's session, so here we go. Strap in, this is going to be a long one (which is odd because out of game the session only lasted about three hours or so).
The Players: Giovanni Durrade: A young, cocky tiefling rogue/bloodhunter. Believed to have been murdered by his sister 10 years ago. Lori Afki: A tiefling tempest cleric. Actually Meredith Beaumont, the daughter of a wealthy merchant who ran away from her engagement to Captain Joseph W. Terrence of the Wellbyrn Royal Navy. Karc: An aaracockra arcane trickster rogue. Sold into slavery by his parents as a baby, Karc was rescued by a half-orc pirate captain, herself a former slave, at the age of 12. The sole survivor of his crew, most of whom were killed by a rival ship. Baruuq: An aasimar monk of the four elements. Compelled by his angel to travel the world in search of his destiny. Received a letter from E.S., but was unable to attend the meeting as his ship was delayed. Mariz: An Air Genasi hexlock whom Gio met at the open air market in Port Montgomery. Did not receive a letter from E.S. Sir Not Appearing in This Session: Our human fighter forgot we were meeting, and missed the session. I said that the character stayed on the ship the whole time for some reason Me: The Dungeon Master. A noob with high ambitions and absolutely no idea how to acheive them. Let's resume.
We open not in the fantasy world, but instead looking from the outside in, as a group of players realizes "Oh crap, we never named the ship." What we decided was that the players would figure out a real name eventually, and in the mean time I'd roll something in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Something like "The Twilight Wanderer" or "The Dandy Devil." You know, something cool enough to be a credible ship name but forgettable enough to easily replace. The name I rolled was neither of those things. It was both too lame to be credible and probably too weird to replace. What I rolled was "The Dawn Shark."
Back in Starkarrow, the Dawn Shark pulls into harbor in Port Montgomery. Waiting for them is a strange man holding a letter from E.S. He explains that his name is Baruuq, and that his ship had been delayed, causing him to miss the meeting. The players spend some time in town, not really doing much, just looking around. Lori buys some jewelry for her horns. Giovanni meets another newcomer, an air genasi by the name of Mariz. He didn't receive a letter, but he seems nice enough, so Gio invites him into the group. Meanwhile, our rouge just became an arcane trickster, but the player is new and doesn't understand that he doesn't need to buy individual spell components. So he goes out looking for some red sand. I say that he finds some lying around in a back alley, and "Back alley sand" is now a running joke in our group. He realizes he can just buy a focus, and he jokes about using a magic rock, to which another player points out the existence of crystal focuses, so he buys one.
The players are now ready to set out to sea, but they are soon stopped by a naval ship. With little explanation, Lori tries to find a place to hide. The captain, Captain Joseph William Terrence explains that he is looking for pirates. The players say that they don't know where there are any, but Terrence pushes, and Gio admits he used to be a pirate. The captain looks even more pompous and arrogant now than he did before. He then reveals his true purpose: he's looking for his fiancee. A tiefling woman named Meredith Beaumont. Gio quickly realizes who he's looking for and lies to the captain. The Captain seems to believe him. Then I roll a perception check. And I say to Lori's player "Joseph's eyes brush over your hiding spot, pausing on it for a moment. For a split second, you seem to see his eyes fix directly on you." Joseph goes back to his ship, the HMS Victory, and they sail away.
Not long after, the Dawn Shark is attacked by four koalinth. The party works together, managing to fight off the goblinoids, despite taking a fair amount of damage. 2 merfolk surface, and speak to Giovanni (forgot to mention, Gio was raised by merfolk after his sister tried to kill him. Long story.) The party learns that the koalinth have established an outpost near the merfolk's village. They agree to go to the outpost and drive away the koalinths (they were all granted a swimming speed by E.S. Yes, even the aaracockra.) They learn that there are 11 koalinth in the cave, including one seargant. They quickly decide "Hell no" and use magic to create a cave in. The cleric and warlock both roll well enough that I say that they manage to kill all but one of the koalinth, who quickly tells them that the koalinth are trying to conquer the merfolk. The party returns to the merfolk village and collect the reward. But when they go back to the Dawn Shark, their eyes behold a startling sight.
Captain Terrence is on the ship, waiting for them. He sees them in the water, and demands that they hand over Lori. Gio climbs onto the edge of the ship, grabs his rapier, and stabs out the Captain's eyeball. The party climb onto the ship to face off against Terrence's men. One of the goons manages to grab Lori and almost brings her back to the ship. But then Baruuq quickly takes out the device the sailors used to get onto the ship, knocking the goon into the water, still holding Lori. After a lengthy fight, the party ends up on the Victory, ready to free Lori, when Gio tells his second in command, Morgan (an NPC) to ready the cannons. As a counter, the goon holds a knife against Lori's throat. Eventually, a well timed kick to the goon's head causes him to drop both the knife and Lori, and the party returns to the Dawn Shark, leaving Joseph behind, barely hearing his declaration of vengeance.
The party returns to Port Montgomery, where they are invited to a party by Billy McGee (the pirate from the end of session one) as an apology for getting off on the wrong foot. They go to the party, on Billy's ship, The Peacock, and they quickly meet Billy. Billy insults Giovanni in order to goad him into a non-lethal, mostly friendly dual, which Gio wins. Gio then gets absolutely hammered and passes out. Shortly thereafter, Billy learns of what happened to Lori, and offers her a deal. He will provide her with a security detail if the party agrees to do him a favor at some point. The party quickly agrees. Billy also takes the group to his apartment, where he informs them why he is so interested in them. There is a new up and coming pirate captain named Josephina Dorian, the Blood Raven. She is brutal and ruthless, even by the standards of her field. Billy explains that he'd much rather be fighting with the party than against them. Billy returns with the party to... well, the party... and announces a toast. To the party. This toast is suddenly cut short when Billy is shot in the back with a poisoned arrow. He survives, but is badly injured. He immediately cashes in the favor the party owes him: find out who tried to kill him.
Again, somehow this session only lasted three hours. *shrugs*
Well, first roleplay session for those players I talked about a while ago... HOLY CRUD was this hilarious. The cleric tried flirting with the NPCs (who were married) and then gave the ranger ptsd flashbacks. The halfing got drunk, like, the entire time, and the aarakockra killed what was sposed to be a semi-major character. On accident.
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she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
First 2 hours of the session was arduous as it took us a while to reach a creepy location that we realised as a party we couldn't fight so turned back...
...so after a quick break, our rogue gets revenge on the DM by seducing a maid at the manor we were staying at and making her roleplay the whole thing ;)
Supposedly the DM is giving them an opportunity to rescue Sky. Just in case though, I've got my backup character...
Welp, ended up not needing the backup character :'D
The session started off with our Minotaur Barbarian, Mirdrin, having Sky in a grapple as the party figured out why to do with her. A bit of inter-party chaos later, and Mirdrin ended up grappling our sorcerer--Lem--in his other arm, so now you've got a Minotaur with a Tiefling Bard in one arm and an Elf Sorcerer in the other. Lem didn't know (or didn't believe) Sky had been taken over by an Intellect Devourer and was like "It's Sky! Watch! Sky, we're lovers, right~?"
For the last several sessions, Lem had been (manipulatively) claiming Sky was her lover out of the blue--but unbeknownst(?) to the rest of the party, Sky had a bit of a crush on Lem anyway. So the Intellect Devourer was like "Yeah sure I'll reveal that crush if that's what it takes to get out of this." Insert jokes about this being a love triangle between the minotaur and the two grappled ladies. DM leaves the table to get alcohol. DJ pulls up "Days of our Lives" tracks.
The Intellect Devourer had enough of this soap opera and hopped to Mirdrin's head instead, leaving Sky's body brainless.
Sky woke up in a dark room. As the brainfog cleared, she saw before her a devil woman with a strong family resemblance. The devil cursed Sky for letting those inferior abyssal creatures capture her, but offered a deal: Sky could return to life, but she would be bound to expunge these demons from the Material Plane. Recognizing the devil as her maternal grandmother, Fierna, Sky hesitated--but her goals weren't complete yet. She wanted to be a hero, to catch Tymora's eye--and heroes don't die like this.
Sky took the deal, and returned to consciousness as the rest of the party was debating what to do with Mirdin acting so strange. She has no memory of events after falling off a roof, and thinks the "deal" was a concussion dream, but she'll find out the truth soon. She just took a level in Warlock.
Well, we worked hard, we levelled up and now it was time to fight Acererak.
Then the bard cancelled.
Also the wizard.
Luckily, there were still four of us: the aasimar barbarian, the warforged fighter/warlock, the human monk and myself, the goliath cleric.
The fight started out fairly well. Barbarian won initiative as per usual and got some good hits...whereupon Acererak put him in a maze. Now the barbarian's a nice guy and undoubtedly the crunchy moral centre of our party, but he also has an intelligence of 10, meaning that he needed a 20 to get out of the maze. He wasn't coming back any time soon. I did my best to keep the monk and fightlock up, but the battle against the space fetus earlier left me quite drained. Soon, the monk and the fighter both fell and only I remained against the lich.
I looked the monster in the eye and with the help of my Cool Hat (tm) caused my warhammer to burst into flames. I said, 'oh no, we're not done here' and used my last level 3 spell slot to cast mass healing word on my comrades. They died immediately after, but that's one less death saving throw to worry about, right?
The lich cast some spell at me, but I persevered. Turns out sticking far away kept me relatively healthy. I swung my warhammer with all my might and left a mighty crack in the lich's skull. He was so close to death, but he was still floating over me, ready to strike the killing blow.
Unfortunately for him, my Cool Hat (tm) isn't an ordinary hat. It's a Helm of Brilliance. As a goliath, I didn't care much for magic items and as such hadn't used it much, but it has several useful abilities. One of them is that I do 1d8 radiant damage to undead when I'm within a certain distance of them. With a sudden pained screech, a pulse of light finally unbound the lich, rendering him little more than dust in the wind. I used my last two spell slots to give the fightlock and monk enough hp to stand and once the barbarian returned to us, we rested and prepared to return to Maelstrom, where the queen of the storm giants was now revived and waiting for us.
Now we're in Acheron, where we have to track down our rogue, who is now the god of war and convince him to join us so we can use his magic sword to kill the Raven Queen before she takes back her throne in the Shadowfell and unmakes all of reality. Oh, and the modron march is going to happen soon...and it was kind of my fault that the rogue ran away in the first place, so that'll be fun.
So I had set this 2nd session my brother and friend to be more roleplay heavy at the beginning. You know meet the locals and introduce them to DMPC that thet choose bring with them on a quest, before they go over to the next quest where they will have to fight a manticore. But surprisingly, my buddy's barbarian, Hogar, was able to bribe the creature into leaving the area.
Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken. Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing. Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan. Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer. Plays god on Saturdays.
Our party had encountered a golem in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, one who had lost their master and now could not cast spells.
"I will turn him into a backpack!" cried our Eldritch Knight Fighter, who is an obsessed with forging.
Our party more-or-less dogpiles on top of the golem, dismantling its arms and legs (our Arcane Trickster Rogue was a bit conflicted for the golem and felt sorry for it).
Realizing that this golem is HEAVY, even without the arms or legs, we decide to take it back topside, to the Yawning Portal tavern.
"Why do you all keep bringing stuff back here?" says Durnan, the owner of the tavern.
We convince Durnan to look after the golem, and even charge admission for people to look at it (our party Cleric tries to put a hidden message on a check-in sheet to see the golem, which means that all signers become devoted followers of Tyr. Durnan repeatedly tears up the sheet until the Cleric relents).
Back into the Undermountain dungeon, our Fighter encounters a room filled with three manticores...which he correctly identifies with a Natural Twenty roll, and proceeds to nail the door to the room shut.
My Genie Warlock locates a room with a petrified creatures holding a box, with acid floating in the air above as if by magic. Our Arcane Trickster Rogue uses her "mage hand" to open the box...and inside is a withered heart. Disturbed yet curious, my Warlock wraps the heart in cloth and hides it inside his genie vessel.
Not able to go anywhere else anytime soon, our party psyches itself up into slaying the room filled with manticores.
Our Arcane Trickster Rogue goes first; "Disengaging" to avoid the manticore swipes and blasting them with a "Thunderwave", doing solid damage to the group.
Our Fighter decides it would be a brilliant idea to GRAPPLE one of the manticores...the manticore gets pissed, and tries to sting the Fighter, but the Fighter activates his "Shield" spell, thus taking no damage due to his incredibly high AC.
Laughing, the Fighter says, "YOU SEE?! THEY CAN'T KILL YOU IF YOU GET THEM IN A HEADLOCK!"
Our War Cleric activates "Spirit Guardians", providing some much need crowd-control, while the Rogue takes some rough damage from a pissed-off manticore. My Warlock hits the manticore with two beams of "Eldritch Blast"; with the "Repelling Blast" invocation, I knock that creature back 20ft to the corner of the room, giving the Rogue some breathing room.
She puts it to good use; delivering a critical hit on a Sneak Attack on the manticore our Fighter is grappling, severing it's head from it's neck with her rapier, leaving our Fighter holding a manticore head.
Angered by the death of its kin, the manticore in the corner of the room moves in to avenge them...but the Polearm Master Cleric whacks it with a combination of melee + Spirit Guardians. My Warlock takes retaliatory damage, which is a critical hit from the manticore...!
Thankfully, the damage rolls low, but my Warlock is looking pretty bad. They blast the manticore, imploding their chest and slaying the beast.
The final manticore is in a blood frenzy, but our still-alive party piles on the damage, the Rogue in particular dealing heavy-damage. My Warlock finishes the job, angrily charging the manticore and delivering a cheesy "Kamehameha" with an Eldritch Blast that disintegrates the monster.
Our party gets some decent loot, thinking that the fight went surprisingly well.
for basic introductions my party consisted of a dragon-born rouge, Human Druid, Half-Orc Bardbarian (barbarian and bard) and a human fighter. Currently they where all level 3 and as the story progressed they where trying to retrieve an ancient artefact that belonged to Odin, if you had it there was a 30ft radius around you of permanent dead magic. Currently A group of goblins had stolen it from the village of Valhalla and the group was told by the mayor to retrieve the artefact for 500 gold coins. They where currently looking for money to repay a dept to the devil (a story for another time) So they accepted and headed for Goblin Gargon a valley where Goblins took cover and traded with each other. Going there would be counted as suicide as if you were not a goblin they would attack you... Almost 200 of them. But the party had an idea you see about 7 sessions ago I introduced a Goblin Bard (Genny) that our bardbarian (Gorge) was good friends with. They went back to Genny and persuaded her to sneak in to the valley and steal the artefact. I didn't tell them then but Genny had a -3 to stealth So of they went with Genny to the Goblin Gargon and then things just went down hill. Genny found the artefact and stole it buttt all of the goblins saw this. 13 of the goblins made attacks on Genny, Gorge saw this and to rescue her he used his rage and charged in to attack the goblins, our human fighter (Mace) also attacked the goblins. Our dragon-born rouge (dark wing) wasn't interested and just tried stealing the artefact.... nat 20 he did it with out anyone noticing. So while the rest of the party was fighting he just went back to Valhalla and took all 500 gp for himself
I am in a game where we are running through dragonheist and are level 3 and on the second s round of sidequests. The ranger in the party is a member of both the Xanathar guild (the DM allowed it) and the Zhentarim. My wizard is a member of the Harpers, and managed to obtain the spell detect thoughts. The ranger had been acting fishy, stealing from the party, keeping info to himself, etc. I decided to use my new spell, and learned that Franc wanted to speak to Nihiloon, who is a mind flayer that is part of the Xanathar guild, who you encounter fairly early on. The spell ended, but he said that he didn't want us to judge him for what he did, and that was why he kept secrets. When I pressed the matter, he threatened me, so I cast hold person to buy a few rounds to get away. I holed up in my tower, but he broke the trapdoor, weapons drawn, so I cast charm person on him to settle the situation peacefully. The party rogue is on my side, and the cleric was out for the session. After I left, he set some of the rungs in the ladder that goes to my tavern to break when I stepped on them, as well as spilling ball bearings in my tower and library. I gave the ball bearings to the rogue, and commissioned a metal ladder and trapdoor so the ranger can't ruin it again. I slept in the basement after setting up a "trap" to spill water on the first person to enter, as well as making a loud noise. The ranger, of course, set a snare outside the basement door, which I found before it caught me. The rogue and I have agreed to keep an eye on him. Both the rogue and I suspect the ranger of being in the Xanathar Guild, but won't act unless the ranger get gets violent or until we have evidence of his misdeeds. We received a way to move the module forward once the cleric returns, but until then, he ranger had better cover his tracks completely
I DM a campaign based around Ghosts of Saltmarsch, but moved to northern Sword Coast in Forgotten Realms. After the the intro part where the PC get hold of the house and are based as resident problem solvers in the village I went on to develop the story.
A tad lazy I picked Slaark's Crown, but I couldn't leave it at point-sign-to-evil-critters-lair so I envisioned that the crafty Slaark wanted better weapons than orc-gear for his flunkies. Then I noticed his pet Doppleganger(Zin) which is supposedly used to create a surprise attack in the final encounter. Now I had a start; Zin would infiltrate the village to find a way to buy good weapons. But what would be the hook to get the PC to the lair? Well, the merchant Solmore has a niece on her way to visit who are kidnapped by Slaarks gang and up for ransom (to pay for the weapons. Irony). Now Zin has two jobs, negotiate the ransom pay and then use the money to buy the weapons.
Enter the PC. They are called to Solmores and given the task to find the niece. This is a great chance to prove themselves so they start asking questions and get to know the village. (Did you know there´s a slow witted boy doing wood crafts all day near by the gate? He sees all comes and goings. Etc.). By some crafty sleuth work they nail down Zin and capture the Doppelganger who reveals the path to Slaarks lair. Despite their guile Zin manages to escape, but they find the lair and rescues the niece anyway.
Slaark is no more, but Zin is annoyed over the loss of his cushy job and an employer. Many turns later (while PC was busy killing various monsters and being duped by good Drow and their surface dwelling illusionist relative to appear as their hired muscle to escape bad Drow coming close to their settlement) he´s back in the village over-watching a drug operation selling Kammarth (renamed Sliverthought to not raise suspicion) as an entertainment and business enhancing drug to the upper class. An enterprising merchant House of bad Drow, pretending to be Svirfneblin with the help of Zins skills, has created a deal with a business in the village by offering juicy profits which then turned into the drug trade for an even better margin. The foolish humans are ecstatic while Zin collects information and spreads gossip about the PC failed exploits in wait for the final assault on the village and enslavement of all.
At the moment the PC has realised that most people are looking askew at them. (They hired 10 local sailors to man their ship - 8 died by monster attacks. They have hidden away coffins of gold to escape tax. Excellent stuff for Zin to pretend to be someone else and bad talk them over) By a stroke of luck the Wood Elf Ranger notices the yellow powder on one of the dealers hand (a local thief) is Kammarth and they confronted him and his mate over it. They were deflated over the revelation that it was Drow stuff and the PC has been working up the supply chain. Initially everyone has expressed remorse over their deeds and being aghast over involvement with wicked Drow.
The question is now whether greed and corruption will trump the PC or not? Zins contingency plan is that it´s simply the Svirfneblin who buys it from "good" Drow in good faith and there´s nothing untoward with that. Except addiction of course...The PC then has to ferret out the real Drow which lurk back in their Underdark warehouse and has only used their agents in the form of half orcs slaves which are present in the village as suppliers.
In the meanwhile the good Drow has noticed something odd is going on since the spot they used for their ruse is now busy with bad Drow activity going to the surface. Will they call in their relative to investigate and maybe even support the PC? Maybe the Half Orc agents can be turned given the chance? Are the half Orcs actually a dormant strike team with an opportunity mission to take out the PC? It all depends.
Our party was in the process of getting our memories back when our warlock decided it would be a good idea to kill all of the major beings in the world. We had a whole planning session about how we were going to go to the Hells, then the Abyss, then Mount Celestia. We were going to tell the devils, demons, and angels that we had a plan to kill the other two types of creatures, and they just had to go somewhere. Once they all were there, they would fight to the death. Once they all were dead, we would step in as world leaders. Then, the session ended.
Our level 11 party is totally going to die today...
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I'll keep that in mind. They're not on Giovanni's keelboat, they have a sailing ship. The ship actually is Gio's, but it was in for repairs in Port Montgomery and he was just using the keelboat to get to Port Montgomery. I didn't know that about keelboats though, so thanks.
If you're wondering why, it's because I did a pregame oneshot with Giovanni's player (the most experienced DM in the group) as a practice session, and I wanted an excuse to not give him access to a full crew.
After setting off a Thunderwave in a small space last week (not my doing... *cough*itwasthebard*cough*), the party decided they wanted to take a long rest in a crypt since we're all running out of spells and most of the party is still a little squishy, even at level 5. My Paladin and our Artificer were doing OK but some of the others were pretty hurt.
Yeah, that Thunderwave just kept the encounters coming. I think we're 3 hours in our attempted long rest and had 3 groups of enemies? This may not end well... fun, but very chaotic.
I said I'd give a rundown of yesterday's session, so here we go. Strap in, this is going to be a long one (which is odd because out of game the session only lasted about three hours or so).
The Players:
Giovanni Durrade: A young, cocky tiefling rogue/bloodhunter. Believed to have been murdered by his sister 10 years ago.
Lori Afki: A tiefling tempest cleric. Actually Meredith Beaumont, the daughter of a wealthy merchant who ran away from her engagement to Captain Joseph W. Terrence of the Wellbyrn Royal Navy.
Karc: An aaracockra arcane trickster rogue. Sold into slavery by his parents as a baby, Karc was rescued by a half-orc pirate captain, herself a former slave, at the age of 12. The sole survivor of his crew, most of whom were killed by a rival ship.
Baruuq: An aasimar monk of the four elements. Compelled by his angel to travel the world in search of his destiny. Received a letter from E.S., but was unable to attend the meeting as his ship was delayed.
Mariz: An Air Genasi hexlock whom Gio met at the open air market in Port Montgomery. Did not receive a letter from E.S.
Sir Not Appearing in This Session: Our human fighter forgot we were meeting, and missed the session. I said that the character stayed on the ship the whole time for some reason
Me: The Dungeon Master. A noob with high ambitions and absolutely no idea how to acheive them. Let's resume.
We open not in the fantasy world, but instead looking from the outside in, as a group of players realizes "Oh crap, we never named the ship." What we decided was that the players would figure out a real name eventually, and in the mean time I'd roll something in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Something like "The Twilight Wanderer" or "The Dandy Devil." You know, something cool enough to be a credible ship name but forgettable enough to easily replace. The name I rolled was neither of those things. It was both too lame to be credible and probably too weird to replace. What I rolled was "The Dawn Shark."
Back in Starkarrow, the Dawn Shark pulls into harbor in Port Montgomery. Waiting for them is a strange man holding a letter from E.S. He explains that his name is Baruuq, and that his ship had been delayed, causing him to miss the meeting. The players spend some time in town, not really doing much, just looking around. Lori buys some jewelry for her horns. Giovanni meets another newcomer, an air genasi by the name of Mariz. He didn't receive a letter, but he seems nice enough, so Gio invites him into the group. Meanwhile, our rouge just became an arcane trickster, but the player is new and doesn't understand that he doesn't need to buy individual spell components. So he goes out looking for some red sand. I say that he finds some lying around in a back alley, and "Back alley sand" is now a running joke in our group. He realizes he can just buy a focus, and he jokes about using a magic rock, to which another player points out the existence of crystal focuses, so he buys one.
The players are now ready to set out to sea, but they are soon stopped by a naval ship. With little explanation, Lori tries to find a place to hide. The captain, Captain Joseph William Terrence explains that he is looking for pirates. The players say that they don't know where there are any, but Terrence pushes, and Gio admits he used to be a pirate. The captain looks even more pompous and arrogant now than he did before. He then reveals his true purpose: he's looking for his fiancee. A tiefling woman named Meredith Beaumont. Gio quickly realizes who he's looking for and lies to the captain. The Captain seems to believe him. Then I roll a perception check. And I say to Lori's player "Joseph's eyes brush over your hiding spot, pausing on it for a moment. For a split second, you seem to see his eyes fix directly on you." Joseph goes back to his ship, the HMS Victory, and they sail away.
Not long after, the Dawn Shark is attacked by four koalinth. The party works together, managing to fight off the goblinoids, despite taking a fair amount of damage. 2 merfolk surface, and speak to Giovanni (forgot to mention, Gio was raised by merfolk after his sister tried to kill him. Long story.) The party learns that the koalinth have established an outpost near the merfolk's village. They agree to go to the outpost and drive away the koalinths (they were all granted a swimming speed by E.S. Yes, even the aaracockra.) They learn that there are 11 koalinth in the cave, including one seargant. They quickly decide "Hell no" and use magic to create a cave in. The cleric and warlock both roll well enough that I say that they manage to kill all but one of the koalinth, who quickly tells them that the koalinth are trying to conquer the merfolk. The party returns to the merfolk village and collect the reward. But when they go back to the Dawn Shark, their eyes behold a startling sight.
Captain Terrence is on the ship, waiting for them. He sees them in the water, and demands that they hand over Lori. Gio climbs onto the edge of the ship, grabs his rapier, and stabs out the Captain's eyeball. The party climb onto the ship to face off against Terrence's men. One of the goons manages to grab Lori and almost brings her back to the ship. But then Baruuq quickly takes out the device the sailors used to get onto the ship, knocking the goon into the water, still holding Lori. After a lengthy fight, the party ends up on the Victory, ready to free Lori, when Gio tells his second in command, Morgan (an NPC) to ready the cannons. As a counter, the goon holds a knife against Lori's throat. Eventually, a well timed kick to the goon's head causes him to drop both the knife and Lori, and the party returns to the Dawn Shark, leaving Joseph behind, barely hearing his declaration of vengeance.
The party returns to Port Montgomery, where they are invited to a party by Billy McGee (the pirate from the end of session one) as an apology for getting off on the wrong foot. They go to the party, on Billy's ship, The Peacock, and they quickly meet Billy. Billy insults Giovanni in order to goad him into a non-lethal, mostly friendly dual, which Gio wins. Gio then gets absolutely hammered and passes out. Shortly thereafter, Billy learns of what happened to Lori, and offers her a deal. He will provide her with a security detail if the party agrees to do him a favor at some point. The party quickly agrees. Billy also takes the group to his apartment, where he informs them why he is so interested in them. There is a new up and coming pirate captain named Josephina Dorian, the Blood Raven. She is brutal and ruthless, even by the standards of her field. Billy explains that he'd much rather be fighting with the party than against them. Billy returns with the party to... well, the party... and announces a toast. To the party. This toast is suddenly cut short when Billy is shot in the back with a poisoned arrow. He survives, but is badly injured. He immediately cashes in the favor the party owes him: find out who tried to kill him.
Again, somehow this session only lasted three hours. *shrugs*
Oh yeah, also, Giovanni's holding on to Captain Terrence's eye... for... some reason.
Well, first roleplay session for those players I talked about a while ago... HOLY CRUD was this hilarious. The cleric tried flirting with the NPCs (who were married) and then gave the ranger ptsd flashbacks. The halfing got drunk, like, the entire time, and the aarakockra killed what was sposed to be a semi-major character. On accident.
she/it pronouns
I watch. I wait. I listen. I like roleplaying games. Avid fan of messed up homebrew and horror rpgs. Lancer>dnd5e, go read Kill Six Billion Demons. I will shoot you with my transgenderification beam pew pew
First 2 hours of the session was arduous as it took us a while to reach a creepy location that we realised as a party we couldn't fight so turned back...
...so after a quick break, our rogue gets revenge on the DM by seducing a maid at the manor we were staying at and making her roleplay the whole thing ;)
Welp, ended up not needing the backup character :'D
The session started off with our Minotaur Barbarian, Mirdrin, having Sky in a grapple as the party figured out why to do with her. A bit of inter-party chaos later, and Mirdrin ended up grappling our sorcerer--Lem--in his other arm, so now you've got a Minotaur with a Tiefling Bard in one arm and an Elf Sorcerer in the other. Lem didn't know (or didn't believe) Sky had been taken over by an Intellect Devourer and was like "It's Sky! Watch! Sky, we're lovers, right~?"
For the last several sessions, Lem had been (manipulatively) claiming Sky was her lover out of the blue--but unbeknownst(?) to the rest of the party, Sky had a bit of a crush on Lem anyway. So the Intellect Devourer was like "Yeah sure I'll reveal that crush if that's what it takes to get out of this." Insert jokes about this being a love triangle between the minotaur and the two grappled ladies. DM leaves the table to get alcohol. DJ pulls up "Days of our Lives" tracks.
The Intellect Devourer had enough of this soap opera and hopped to Mirdrin's head instead, leaving Sky's body brainless.
Sky woke up in a dark room. As the brainfog cleared, she saw before her a devil woman with a strong family resemblance. The devil cursed Sky for letting those inferior abyssal creatures capture her, but offered a deal: Sky could return to life, but she would be bound to expunge these demons from the Material Plane. Recognizing the devil as her maternal grandmother, Fierna, Sky hesitated--but her goals weren't complete yet. She wanted to be a hero, to catch Tymora's eye--and heroes don't die like this.
Sky took the deal, and returned to consciousness as the rest of the party was debating what to do with Mirdin acting so strange. She has no memory of events after falling off a roof, and thinks the "deal" was a concussion dream, but she'll find out the truth soon. She just took a level in Warlock.
Well, we worked hard, we levelled up and now it was time to fight Acererak.
Then the bard cancelled.
Also the wizard.
Luckily, there were still four of us: the aasimar barbarian, the warforged fighter/warlock, the human monk and myself, the goliath cleric.
The fight started out fairly well. Barbarian won initiative as per usual and got some good hits...whereupon Acererak put him in a maze. Now the barbarian's a nice guy and undoubtedly the crunchy moral centre of our party, but he also has an intelligence of 10, meaning that he needed a 20 to get out of the maze. He wasn't coming back any time soon. I did my best to keep the monk and fightlock up, but the battle against the space fetus earlier left me quite drained. Soon, the monk and the fighter both fell and only I remained against the lich.
I looked the monster in the eye and with the help of my Cool Hat (tm) caused my warhammer to burst into flames. I said, 'oh no, we're not done here' and used my last level 3 spell slot to cast mass healing word on my comrades. They died immediately after, but that's one less death saving throw to worry about, right?
The lich cast some spell at me, but I persevered. Turns out sticking far away kept me relatively healthy. I swung my warhammer with all my might and left a mighty crack in the lich's skull. He was so close to death, but he was still floating over me, ready to strike the killing blow.
Unfortunately for him, my Cool Hat (tm) isn't an ordinary hat. It's a Helm of Brilliance. As a goliath, I didn't care much for magic items and as such hadn't used it much, but it has several useful abilities. One of them is that I do 1d8 radiant damage to undead when I'm within a certain distance of them. With a sudden pained screech, a pulse of light finally unbound the lich, rendering him little more than dust in the wind. I used my last two spell slots to give the fightlock and monk enough hp to stand and once the barbarian returned to us, we rested and prepared to return to Maelstrom, where the queen of the storm giants was now revived and waiting for us.
Now we're in Acheron, where we have to track down our rogue, who is now the god of war and convince him to join us so we can use his magic sword to kill the Raven Queen before she takes back her throne in the Shadowfell and unmakes all of reality. Oh, and the modron march is going to happen soon...and it was kind of my fault that the rogue ran away in the first place, so that'll be fun.
So I had set this 2nd session my brother and friend to be more roleplay heavy at the beginning. You know meet the locals and introduce them to DMPC that thet choose bring with them on a quest, before they go over to the next quest where they will have to fight a manticore. But surprisingly, my buddy's barbarian, Hogar, was able to bribe the creature into leaving the area.
That must have been a really fun session for you, GiantNerdGuy!
Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken.
Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing.
Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan.
Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer.
Plays god on Saturdays.
Our party had encountered a golem in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, one who had lost their master and now could not cast spells.
"I will turn him into a backpack!" cried our Eldritch Knight Fighter, who is an obsessed with forging.
Our party more-or-less dogpiles on top of the golem, dismantling its arms and legs (our Arcane Trickster Rogue was a bit conflicted for the golem and felt sorry for it).
Realizing that this golem is HEAVY, even without the arms or legs, we decide to take it back topside, to the Yawning Portal tavern.
"Why do you all keep bringing stuff back here?" says Durnan, the owner of the tavern.
We convince Durnan to look after the golem, and even charge admission for people to look at it (our party Cleric tries to put a hidden message on a check-in sheet to see the golem, which means that all signers become devoted followers of Tyr. Durnan repeatedly tears up the sheet until the Cleric relents).
Back into the Undermountain dungeon, our Fighter encounters a room filled with three manticores...which he correctly identifies with a Natural Twenty roll, and proceeds to nail the door to the room shut.
My Genie Warlock locates a room with a petrified creatures holding a box, with acid floating in the air above as if by magic. Our Arcane Trickster Rogue uses her "mage hand" to open the box...and inside is a withered heart. Disturbed yet curious, my Warlock wraps the heart in cloth and hides it inside his genie vessel.
Not able to go anywhere else anytime soon, our party psyches itself up into slaying the room filled with manticores.
Our Arcane Trickster Rogue goes first; "Disengaging" to avoid the manticore swipes and blasting them with a "Thunderwave", doing solid damage to the group.
Our Fighter decides it would be a brilliant idea to GRAPPLE one of the manticores...the manticore gets pissed, and tries to sting the Fighter, but the Fighter activates his "Shield" spell, thus taking no damage due to his incredibly high AC.
Laughing, the Fighter says, "YOU SEE?! THEY CAN'T KILL YOU IF YOU GET THEM IN A HEADLOCK!"
Our War Cleric activates "Spirit Guardians", providing some much need crowd-control, while the Rogue takes some rough damage from a pissed-off manticore. My Warlock hits the manticore with two beams of "Eldritch Blast"; with the "Repelling Blast" invocation, I knock that creature back 20ft to the corner of the room, giving the Rogue some breathing room.
She puts it to good use; delivering a critical hit on a Sneak Attack on the manticore our Fighter is grappling, severing it's head from it's neck with her rapier, leaving our Fighter holding a manticore head.
Angered by the death of its kin, the manticore in the corner of the room moves in to avenge them...but the Polearm Master Cleric whacks it with a combination of melee + Spirit Guardians. My Warlock takes retaliatory damage, which is a critical hit from the manticore...!
Thankfully, the damage rolls low, but my Warlock is looking pretty bad. They blast the manticore, imploding their chest and slaying the beast.
The final manticore is in a blood frenzy, but our still-alive party piles on the damage, the Rogue in particular dealing heavy-damage. My Warlock finishes the job, angrily charging the manticore and delivering a cheesy "Kamehameha" with an Eldritch Blast that disintegrates the monster.
Our party gets some decent loot, thinking that the fight went surprisingly well.
Ah, yes, the Shield Guardian in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, right?
My party found that one in Undermountain with the control amulet, and it survived all the way down to level 23.
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
my party had a birthday party. for the Dragonborn. it was epic.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
My Last Campaign was a bit chaotic
for basic introductions my party consisted of a dragon-born rouge, Human Druid, Half-Orc Bardbarian (barbarian and bard) and a human fighter. Currently they where all level 3 and as the story progressed they where trying to retrieve an ancient artefact that belonged to Odin, if you had it there was a 30ft radius around you of permanent dead magic. Currently A group of goblins had stolen it from the village of Valhalla and the group was told by the mayor to retrieve the artefact for 500 gold coins. They where currently looking for money to repay a dept to the devil (a story for another time) So they accepted and headed for Goblin Gargon a valley where Goblins took cover and traded with each other. Going there would be counted as suicide as if you were not a goblin they would attack you... Almost 200 of them. But the party had an idea you see about 7 sessions ago I introduced a Goblin Bard (Genny) that our bardbarian (Gorge) was good friends with. They went back to Genny and persuaded her to sneak in to the valley and steal the artefact. I didn't tell them then but Genny had a -3 to stealth So of they went with Genny to the Goblin Gargon and then things just went down hill. Genny found the artefact and stole it buttt all of the goblins saw this. 13 of the goblins made attacks on Genny, Gorge saw this and to rescue her he used his rage and charged in to attack the goblins, our human fighter (Mace) also attacked the goblins. Our dragon-born rouge (dark wing) wasn't interested and just tried stealing the artefact.... nat 20 he did it with out anyone noticing. So while the rest of the party was fighting he just went back to Valhalla and took all 500 gp for himself
I am in a game where we are running through dragonheist and are level 3 and on the second s round of sidequests. The ranger in the party is a member of both the Xanathar guild (the DM allowed it) and the Zhentarim. My wizard is a member of the Harpers, and managed to obtain the spell detect thoughts. The ranger had been acting fishy, stealing from the party, keeping info to himself, etc. I decided to use my new spell, and learned that Franc wanted to speak to Nihiloon, who is a mind flayer that is part of the Xanathar guild, who you encounter fairly early on. The spell ended, but he said that he didn't want us to judge him for what he did, and that was why he kept secrets. When I pressed the matter, he threatened me, so I cast hold person to buy a few rounds to get away. I holed up in my tower, but he broke the trapdoor, weapons drawn, so I cast charm person on him to settle the situation peacefully. The party rogue is on my side, and the cleric was out for the session. After I left, he set some of the rungs in the ladder that goes to my tavern to break when I stepped on them, as well as spilling ball bearings in my tower and library. I gave the ball bearings to the rogue, and commissioned a metal ladder and trapdoor so the ranger can't ruin it again. I slept in the basement after setting up a "trap" to spill water on the first person to enter, as well as making a loud noise. The ranger, of course, set a snare outside the basement door, which I found before it caught me. The rogue and I have agreed to keep an eye on him. Both the rogue and I suspect the ranger of being in the Xanathar Guild, but won't act unless the ranger get gets violent or until we have evidence of his misdeeds. We received a way to move the module forward once the cleric returns, but until then, he ranger had better cover his tracks completely
I exist, and I guess so does this
My party encountered a necromancer who tricked them into going into a crypt and recovering a Talisman of Ultimate Evil for her.
I DM a campaign based around Ghosts of Saltmarsch, but moved to northern Sword Coast in Forgotten Realms. After the the intro part where the PC get hold of the house and are based as resident problem solvers in the village I went on to develop the story.
A tad lazy I picked Slaark's Crown, but I couldn't leave it at point-sign-to-evil-critters-lair so I envisioned that the crafty Slaark wanted better weapons than orc-gear for his flunkies. Then I noticed his pet Doppleganger(Zin) which is supposedly used to create a surprise attack in the final encounter. Now I had a start; Zin would infiltrate the village to find a way to buy good weapons. But what would be the hook to get the PC to the lair? Well, the merchant Solmore has a niece on her way to visit who are kidnapped by Slaarks gang and up for ransom (to pay for the weapons. Irony). Now Zin has two jobs, negotiate the ransom pay and then use the money to buy the weapons.
Enter the PC. They are called to Solmores and given the task to find the niece. This is a great chance to prove themselves so they start asking questions and get to know the village. (Did you know there´s a slow witted boy doing wood crafts all day near by the gate? He sees all comes and goings. Etc.). By some crafty sleuth work they nail down Zin and capture the Doppelganger who reveals the path to Slaarks lair. Despite their guile Zin manages to escape, but they find the lair and rescues the niece anyway.
Slaark is no more, but Zin is annoyed over the loss of his cushy job and an employer. Many turns later (while PC was busy killing various monsters and being duped by good Drow and their surface dwelling illusionist relative to appear as their hired muscle to escape bad Drow coming close to their settlement) he´s back in the village over-watching a drug operation selling Kammarth (renamed Sliverthought to not raise suspicion) as an entertainment and business enhancing drug to the upper class. An enterprising merchant House of bad Drow, pretending to be Svirfneblin with the help of Zins skills, has created a deal with a business in the village by offering juicy profits which then turned into the drug trade for an even better margin. The foolish humans are ecstatic while Zin collects information and spreads gossip about the PC failed exploits in wait for the final assault on the village and enslavement of all.
At the moment the PC has realised that most people are looking askew at them. (They hired 10 local sailors to man their ship - 8 died by monster attacks. They have hidden away coffins of gold to escape tax. Excellent stuff for Zin to pretend to be someone else and bad talk them over) By a stroke of luck the Wood Elf Ranger notices the yellow powder on one of the dealers hand (a local thief) is Kammarth and they confronted him and his mate over it. They were deflated over the revelation that it was Drow stuff and the PC has been working up the supply chain. Initially everyone has expressed remorse over their deeds and being aghast over involvement with wicked Drow.
The question is now whether greed and corruption will trump the PC or not? Zins contingency plan is that it´s simply the Svirfneblin who buys it from "good" Drow in good faith and there´s nothing untoward with that. Except addiction of course...The PC then has to ferret out the real Drow which lurk back in their Underdark warehouse and has only used their agents in the form of half orcs slaves which are present in the village as suppliers.
In the meanwhile the good Drow has noticed something odd is going on since the spot they used for their ruse is now busy with bad Drow activity going to the surface. Will they call in their relative to investigate and maybe even support the PC? Maybe the Half Orc agents can be turned given the chance? Are the half Orcs actually a dormant strike team with an opportunity mission to take out the PC? It all depends.
To be continued.
our wizard crit with a shadow blade and one shot the mini boss
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Elder Oblex vs. one level 4 land druid with a laser rifle.
Land druid won, somehow.
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Our party was in the process of getting our memories back when our warlock decided it would be a good idea to kill all of the major beings in the world. We had a whole planning session about how we were going to go to the Hells, then the Abyss, then Mount Celestia. We were going to tell the devils, demons, and angels that we had a plan to kill the other two types of creatures, and they just had to go somewhere. Once they all were there, they would fight to the death. Once they all were dead, we would step in as world leaders. Then, the session ended.
Our level 11 party is totally going to die today...
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