Potential spoilers for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (idk how much is homebrew from my DM and how much is module but tagging all of it just to make sure).

So my group just had their third session of our hard mode campaign. We started off as level one characters with no memories who woke up in a dungeon and learned that we were captured and experimented on and have these devices in our heads that run through our whole nervous system. We are now level three in the first town we stumbled upon and are trying to figure out who we are, where we are and how to deal with the strange devices inside of us. We are comprised of a Variant Human Phantom Rogue named Dan, a Variant Human Echo Knight Fighter named Magnus, A Variant Human Hexblade Warlock named Alabastor(me), a Pallid Elf Circle of Dreams Druid named Gwendolyn, and a Forest Gnome Abjuration Wizard named Briziver.

Last session our Fighter couldn’t make it due to RL obligations, so we decided to take a detour from the main goal of heading towards the capital of the land we find ourselves in to deal with a local bandit problem. Our Druid decided to wildshape into a horse and our Wizard used an illusion to create a cart driver so we could pretend to be a caravan to lure out the bandits. Instead we lured out three high level assassins. They got a surprise round on us, killed our real horse and took our Druid to half health and then in the first round of combat our Rogue and Druid went down. 

My Hexblade saw this assassin just down someone in one hit in front of him and decided to try and protect his downed ally by casting Darkness. This freaked out the assassin who tried to enter the cart as he was not expecting that. Meanwhile, the Wizard just looked at the situation and decided to just become straight up Gaara and grab people with Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp. So I was walking around with my aura of darkness, spouting out creepy lines like I was a demonic serial killer while the Wizard was restraining people so I could envelope them in darkness while casting Inflict wounds for big damage or Ray of Frost to slow them and continually engulf them in darkness.

One assassin did manage to barely escape, but I so brutally killed one of them by shooting an icicle right through his chest that my DM told me to make an intimidation check to see if I scared the other assassin into submission. I rolled so high that the remaining assassin fell unconscious due to utter terror. After that, our group decided to retreat back to the town before moving forward.

No one died but it got very dicey. Our Druid was almost killed outright and only survived due to a couple temp hp. All in all it was a good if brutal session.

The campaign in a nutshell: my party has to save 24 kids after they're abducted by shadows. 

The last two sessions had them seek shelter in an inn. As they try to sleep, they hear crying children in the vents, coming from somewhere within the inn. The female inn-keeper is gone and as they investigate the basement, they discover a hole in the wall that leads them to a dungeon filled with rats and suspicious witch-like stuff.
In the last session they eventually caught up to the witch and she brought their shadows to life, bringing them the most challenging and longest fight so far. That was very exciting.

In the last session they ventured down into the dungeon, where they finally found four kids and the inn-keeper. Surprisingly the party wasn't expecting this at all, so that made me glad! While the cleric tended the inn-keeper's wounds, the other three talked to the children until one of them mentions that the witch and the inn-keeper brought them food. Immediately they ran back to confront the inn-keeper, but she swore to have been tied up the last couple of weeks. The cleric took her side and managed to convince the rest that she was being used to somehow change the shape of the witch. 
The fighter goliath broke down the doors and with the kids, they went back upstairs. A burning kitchen was in their way, but they survived that without too much problems until they ended up, back in the earlier boss room, where an invisible green hag was waiting for them. After a short talk, the fight began.

The fight itself wasn't too thrilling (which someone on this forum warned me about), but at least they did it and defeated her without casualties. As they just kinda smashed her to a pulp, she tried to escape through the door, but as she opened the door she stopped in surprise until she was shot by an arrow and died on the floor.
In hindsight this would've been an awesome cliff hanger for the end of the session, but I kinda forgot that was a possibility, so the party knows it's an elf they've met before.

Yet another character left the party. They're down from eight to five, and it's a strange dynamic. They're all Level 4.

• Gnome Rogue
• Human Rogue
• [Homebrew Race] Barbarian
• Tortle Fighter (Pacifist)
• Elf Ranger

No healers, no combat spellcasters... we'll see how this goes.

And the other players haven't left the group, but their characters have reasons for leaving for a bit.

My most recent session was probably the most intense yet. The party was fighting a gnoll war band, and the sorcerer, who was 60 feet away from everyone else, got dropped to 0 hp. Thanks to the gnoll's rampage, it dropped her to two failures instantly. The sorcerer went right after the gnoll. If she failed the death save, she would die, and they wouldn't be able to resurrect her until at least level 9. She barely passed with a 12. 

We recently played Session #13 of our ongoing Discord campaign. It's called the Saga of the Twisted Rune and takes place in the Forgotten Realms during 1486 right after the War of the Silver Marches. 

In the last session, they killed their Orc prisoner who tried to escape and then entered the ancient Gnome catacombs called "The Tomb of the Warriors." They were confronted right away by a Tomb Tapper. We had to end the session mid-combat. 

Alright so my party went into a castle in a dream landscape. One player was outside the castle looting a keep. One player started griefing the castle with it’s own cannon while another player was next. The noise from that attracted the beholder who gave an offer to the players. The players declined and fought the beholder meanwhile the one looting ran to the castle to try to get the flag (the goal is to get the flag in the castle and bring it to a location). As they fought the beholder, the beholder shot a paralyzing ray at one player, and then promptly a death ray, which paralyzed the player and made them take 66 damage. The barbarian got hit by a disintegration ray and was reduced to 2 hit points. The beholder began to retreat to a location for a better edge in combat which just so happened to be where the other player was. The other player secured the flag  and went into a daern’s instant fortress for safety. The beholder disintegrated a part of the fort but it was too late and the player used conjures from conjure animals to carry the flag over to where it needed to be. The players awoke from the dream however oddly with the gear they got. They see off in the distance weird blurs and a cloud of dark magic swirling over a town.

Party met 'The Kraken Society' today. The Society did the following to the party:

• Invaded the parties dreams and looked through their memories.
• Kidnapped and cursed an NPC one of the party members didn't like
• Kept the party in a locked room with 2 creepy tentacley things (Skum) until the party agreed to the Societies demands
• The leader failed 2 deceptions checks against the party in order to not seem completely evil
• The party were told to join the society and wear cursed magic rings that always revealed the parties location to the society at all times or be killed

Now the party have a history of not taking threats well, even the calmer members of the group tended to fight back when an enemy threatens them. I spent about an hour prior attuning the balance, making sure when the party inevitably blast their way out, they have options to flee or take out as much of the operation as possible. I also created possible future encounters with the Society trying to get revenge. The party get there, the leader speaks to them, I gave him a structured dialogue that started with asking nicely, followed by bribery, then blackmail, then threats, then physical force.

The party goes and joins the Society, I didn't even reach the blackmail stage of negotiations before they accepted. They want access to their resources and consider the rings to be a 'necessary evil'. Of course, I'm sure this will lead to numerous hijinks... once I think of them...

Quote from Doug_Booshaka >>

Party met 'The Kraken Society' today. The Society did the following to the party:

• Invaded the parties dreams and looked through their memories.
• Kidnapped and cursed an NPC one of the party members didn't like
• Kept the party in a locked room with 2 creepy tentacley things (Skum) until the party agreed to the Societies demands
• The leader failed 2 deceptions checks against the party in order to not seem completely evil
• The party were told to join the society and wear cursed magic rings that always revealed the parties location to the society at all times or be killed

Now the party have a history of not taking threats well, even the calmer members of the group tended to fight back when an enemy threatens them. I spent about an hour prior attuning the balance, making sure when the party inevitably blast their way out, they have options to flee or take out as much of the operation as possible. I also created possible future encounters with the Society trying to get revenge. The party get there, the leader speaks to them, I gave him a structured dialogue that started with asking nicely, followed by bribery, then blackmail, then threats, then physical force.

The party goes and joins the Society, I didn't even reach the blackmail stage of negotiations before they accepted. They want access to their resources and consider the rings to be a 'necessary evil'. Of course, I'm sure this will lead to numerous hijinks... once I think of them...

 

 I see you used a monster from the ghosts of salt marsh campaign book. Were currently playing that and its the players first serious adventure, so it was likely that would do bad so now they cant even get past area 1 of the haunted house because there is an ogre waiting for them and they keep getting k.o and im the dungeon master with the most impossible of lucky rolls for my monster and i dont know why.

SO we have an abbreviated session 0 to set some guidelines and the players jumped into my homebrewed world.  They are all relatively experienced and 3 of the 4 work pretty hard to RP their characters well, so I decided to add an initial encounter to "test the waters" of the group in combat.  I started them at level 3, Teifling Paladin, Tabaxi Wizard, Arakocra Ranger and Kobold Rogue.  (Races were of the list I provided and they are NOT min/maxing)

Midway through the fight, Paladin is getting hammered (his AC is 19 and the bloody monsters were getting awesome rolls) Roll for the bigger Orc's second attack on him....nat 20.  I check the character sheet and IF this attack hits, as a crit, his character is dead, as in dead, not unconscious.  The rest of the party will follow, with certainty, I can see, SOOOO, it's amiss.  (being DM means you can kill or not kill as you see fit sometimes)

With a better feel for how the party can/will fight (the Wizard is a teenager and "froze" for the firts 2 rounds of combat, having never BEEN in an actual fight before) I did some random encounter rolls as they headed for their first point of interest.  Didn't have to "save" anyone by lying about rolls, and managed to pretty much milk them dry of resource by bedtime (Wizard was down to 2 spell slots, Paladin's LoH and spells spent, Ranger out of spells, lol)  I considered a roaming monster to interrupt their sleep, but the players were discussing (with great concern) their fears of being interrupted.  I normally don't leave them quite THAT bereft of resources before allowing a rest, but I wanted to push them so I can better plan encounters coming up.

Lesson learned as a DM: An initial encounter that won't have much impact on the campaign itself might be a good idea for RP heavy, non-optimized groups.  I set the encounter, based on our other groups, where we've put a fair bit of consideration and planning into making our characters as competent and fght-ready as we could.  The reduced optimizations(lower to-hit or spell save) and the RP side (a frightened Wizard, who carries a fair bit of the groups BOOM factor) meant they were NOT going to handle the monsters as effectively as I had thought.

Karen Nightwalker doesn't exist it can't hurt you.

Karen Nightwalker:

Yeah so my campaign is derailed by heavy RNG turning a reality warping Karen named Ka Ren into a nightwalker, but I have figured out a new route that will be much more cool! By the way, all the posts on here I have made are from one continuous campaign. My last session is hard to explain but if people want it, they can have it.

The PCs snuck up on the Ghaunadaurs cult camp despite being freaked out by the eerie fog, rotten smells and child laughter wafting through. When they finally found some enemies to engage they were happier, but the various tricks the foes employed frustrated them. Yet, four rounds of intense fighting later the evil Wiz catched a hike with his winged demon and escaped. Now they just need to escape the malign influence of the sacrificial pit and find what they really were there for; the portal to Evermeet.

So we have this guy last session, we'll call him 'Lucky', naming him ironically of course. The party are fighting a bunch of Crag Cat's and his go comes up. Also we normally use the dice roller in the VTT and I'm one of those DM's who likes adding special punishments for when players or NPC's roll 1's.

Me: "Lucky, roll for perception as you're in front" (I make party members roll for perception if their passive isn't good enough), Lucky rolls a 1. "Wow, you're so distracted today, you forgot to tie your shoes this morning, you trip and fall over just as a bunch of crag cats emerge from the bushes"

Lucky's first turn of combat, stands up, makes an attack roll, rolls a 1. "Wow, you really should have tied those shoes, down you go again".

Lucky's second turn of combat, this time they have advantage as their enemy is prone. Rolls a 1 and 14 on the first attack and a 18 and 1 on the second attack. On the enemies next turn they manage to both crit against Lucky and knock him prone (Again!)

Lucky's third turn of combat. Another player says "Look, this is why I don't user Virtual rollers, cause their not really random and shit like this happens, use physical dice instead". "Okay" Lucky says, rolling his physical dice for his first attack roll "I got a 1" (Chat fills with numerous lol's and wtf's). On his 2nd attack roll he gets a seventeen and kills the last enemy.

Later another party member points out "Hey, he didn't get a punishment for rolling a 1". Lucky sighs. I say "Tell you what Lucky, roll a d20". Lucky rolls and gets a 20. "YEESSSSS!" he shouts. "Don't be too happy, the punishment for rolling a 1 was that one of the crag cats slashed open your coin pouch. The number you just rolled is how many gold coins fell out before you noticed"

TL;DR Guy rolls 4 1's out of 6 throws using the VTT dice roller. He switches to physical dice and immediately rolls a 1 again. After the fight he rolls for how many coins he lost from his pouch and rolled a 20.

So yesterday, the PCs tried to infiltrate a Drow fortress, either invisible or disguised as Drow... I had multiple encounters and units throughout the complex and the PCs essentially wandered into two encounters at once and when questioned why they were there, the only individual that could speak said that the King had sent them... but there was no king... lol 

Roll initiative...

So the PCs faced a Fire Giant, a Fire giant Dreadnaught, a Drow mage and several drow soldiers... Had they not been such a large group at such a level, I think I would have had a TPK on my hands... there was 5 moments of unconsciousness throughout the fight and there are only six players. 

Good times :)

I wasn't going to post because 2 days later, I am still angry, but hopefully, there's a lesson in here for DMs.

The session was bad in general, lots of technical difficulties on my computer (we're playing via the forge-vtt due to covid) which put me in a grouchy mood to begin with.  So we finally get things working (very edge case issue with WebGL...as a sysadmin, I did NOT feel like doing my job so that I could play D&D on my day off...there were also network issues that factored into other issue I was seeing).

So we get into the action, and we end up fighting some undead.  The DM decided to "spice things up" though, and tossed in a ghost.  Of course, I bombed my save, and aged 40 years, out in the middle of the BFE.  Now, to be clear, I am the /only/ player in my party who's provided goals, motivations and story hooks to the DM, who's taken liberal advantage with them....he is very much tied to my character. 

My motivations are pretty much destroyed by being aged by 40 years, and we have the very unfortunate situation where...I no longer want to /play/ this character because the DM thought permanently altering it without my consent was a good idea.  The DM was extremely shocked when I said I wanted to roll a new character; frankly this is a serious problem for him because he's very much tied to my character.  He keeps saying "This isn't permanent, there are ways you can fix this." 

But, the only thing I hate /more/ than having my character permanently altered...is retcons and mary sue plot armor.  Mentally, it seriously breaks things for me to "just undo things".  Adventuring /should/ be dangerous.  My character /should/ pay the price for a dangerous lifestyle.  I on the other hand, as a player, do not have to keep invested in a character when he is in my eyes, maimed.  The character goes to shady acres and drinks his liver into a coma, and there's no need for me to roleplay that out.  I'm not interested in playing a 60 year old character, and I don't want to feel like choices don't have consequences....so really, there is no fixing this.

Now, I am stuck with a character that last week was alive for me and now is a bag of mechanics that I can't get rid of.  The DM was quite right when he pointed out to me that the age on my character sheet is /just a number/.  Yep.  It is.  But congratulations on reducing the one person in the group who tried to RP his character to...just a character sheet and collection of stats and abilities.  It's a very frustrating situation all the way around.  My DM's unhappy because he knows he has an angry player on his hands and wasn't prepared for his age stunt to go over like a lead balloon.  The party is unhappy because they know I feel my character's been broken, and isn't fixable story wise.

So the lesson here to DMs is, make sure your players are going to be on-board with permanent changes to their character.  Because my DM has known me since 1997, we've played D&D together since then through 2e, 3e, 4e and now 5e...and was completely taken by surprise that this was a /major/ problem for me.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

I wasn't going to post because 2 days later, I am still angry, but hopefully, there's a lesson in here for DMs.

The session was bad in general, lots of technical difficulties on my computer (we're playing via the forge-vtt due to covid) which put me in a grouchy mood to begin with.  So we finally get things working (very edge case issue with WebGL...as a sysadmin, I did NOT feel like doing my job so that I could play D&D on my day off...there were also network issues that factored into other issue I was seeing).

So we get into the action, and we end up fighting some undead.  The DM decided to "spice things up" though, and tossed in a ghost.  Of course, I bombed my save, and aged 40 years, out in the middle of the BFE.  Now, to be clear, I am the /only/ player in my party who's provided goals, motivations and story hooks to the DM, who's taken liberal advantage with them....he is very much tied to my character. 

My motivations are pretty much destroyed by being aged by 40 years, and we have the very unfortunate situation where...I no longer want to /play/ this character because the DM thought permanently altering it without my consent was a good idea.  The DM was extremely shocked when I said I wanted to roll a new character; frankly this is a serious problem for him because he's very much tied to my character.  He keeps saying "This isn't permanent, there are ways you can fix this." 

But, the only thing I hate /more/ than having my character permanently altered...is retcons and mary sue plot armor.  Mentally, it seriously breaks things for me to "just undo things".  Adventuring /should/ be dangerous.  My character /should/ pay the price for a dangerous lifestyle.  I on the other hand, as a player, do not have to keep invested in a character when he is in my eyes, maimed.  The character goes to shady acres and drinks his liver into a coma, and there's no need for me to roleplay that out.  I'm not interested in playing a 60 year old character, and I don't want to feel like choices don't have consequences....so really, there is no fixing this.

Now, I am stuck with a character that last week was alive for me and now is a bag of mechanics that I can't get rid of.  The DM was quite right when he pointed out to me that the age on my character sheet is /just a number/.  Yep.  It is.  But congratulations on reducing the one person in the group who tried to RP his character to...just a character sheet and collection of stats and abilities.  It's a very frustrating situation all the way around.  My DM's unhappy because he knows he has an angry player on his hands and wasn't prepared for his age stunt to go over like a lead balloon.  The party is unhappy because they know I feel my character's been broken, and isn't fixable story wise.

So the lesson here to DMs is, make sure your players are going to be on-board with permanent changes to their character.  Because my DM has known me since 1997, we've played D&D together since then through 2e, 3e, 4e and now 5e...and was completely taken by surprise that this was a /major/ problem for me.

I know what that's like. My DM recently made one of my PCs leave the campaign without talking to me or telling the party why.

I'm a bit behind on writing these up, but I just finished this one.

Players:
Orion the Traitor: A human rogue from the city of Dartsford who has a habit of betraying the organizations he's part of once they are no longer useful to him. He currently works for a network of assassins and spies called the Black Mask.
Sylran Greyhope: A wood elf druid that was frozen in time for 90 years. He's hoping to find atonement after accidentally causing the destruction of his village. He’s a fierce enemy of the Sorcerer-kings, who are responsible for many of his troubles.
Clerania Clearwater: A half-elf storm sorcerer from the quaint town of Goldenfield. After she unintentionally caused the death of her younger brother, she set out to seek answers about why the kingdom of Galoron invaded her village. She was taught in the ways of sorcery by a kindly elder named Corrane.
Melanie Boylen: A half-elf bard that was exiled from her secluded village because of her differences. She was taken in by a halfling named Jarvis, who owned a small tavern. After Jarvis fell ill, she took on jobs to acquire enough money to pay for medicine.

The group's sleep that night was short and troubled. They awoke early, dreary and tired, but they were determined to get most of the way to the Forest of Shadow before they slept again. After they introduced him to Orion, Sar was ready to guide them, but they hadn’t yet told him their destination. When Sylran told him that they were heading towards the Forest of Shadow, the thri-kreen warned them that the forest was deadly, and that none who entered returned alive.

Sylran responded that it was a risk they were willing to take, and they needed to reach the grove at the heart of the forest. Sar nodded, then told them that they could reach the edge of the Forest of Shadow in a few hours if they traveled quickly. Clerania asked Sar if he understood that they might not make it out alive, but Sar replied that he faced death every day. Clerania responded that they would do their best to protect him if they were in danger.

After a few hours of travel without encountering any threats, Sar suddenly told them to get down. As they fell flat behind a dune, a chimera swooped over their heads a mere twenty feet above, heading west. Sylran deduced that it was the same chimera that they heard had attacked Adranax. Clerania was rueful that it was probably going to attack Adranax again, but she knew that if they tried to help, they would only get themselves killed. 

After another couple of hours, they could make out the faint outline of the Forest of Shadow on the horizon, looming like an ominous cloud of darkness. Sar seemed to have known the lay of the land, since they hadn’t seen any other creatures since the chimera. But on the horizon, they saw something that looked like a flickering flame. As they watched, it moved closer and closer to them, like a burning sun stitched on a tapestry of shadows. 

Sar drew his double-bladed spear, Sylran readied moonbeam, and Orion clenched his shortswords tightly in his hands. As it drew closer, they could make out the shape of a serpentine figure, clutching a spear in both hands, flames emanating from its scaly hide.

The creature charged at them, spear pointed in front of it. Behind it, Orion saw a swarm of minuscule creatures that looked like yellow lizards with red spots and wings. 

As soon as they got within range, Sylran cast moonbeam, enveloping the swarm and the flaming serpent in a circle of radiant luminescence. Clerania then followed up with a magic missile, darts of arcane energy piercing the blazing skin of the serpentine figure. However, the swarm of flying lizards counterattacked, collectively letting loose a torrent of flames from their maws. 

The serpentine creature charged at Sylran, stabbing him with its spear, the point of the weapon glowing red-hot. As the spear pierced his stomach, the wood elf fell to the ground, unconscious. 

Sar retaliated by stabbing at the creature with his double-bladed spear, nicking its shoulder, while Melanie quickly got Sylran back up on his feet with a cure wounds spell. Orion identified the serpentine creature as a salamander, a being of elemental fire, and the swarm as a swarm of firegills, small creatures that usually dwelled in swamps or marshes but are attracted by fire elementals. 

Orion slashed at the salamander with his shortsword, +1, piercing its skin. Then he swiped at it with his mundane shortsword, but the weapon didn’t seem to be as effective as he would have thought it would be.

Sylran wildshaped into a brown bear, and rushed at it, mauling it with his claw and his bite, but again, the attacks seemed surprisingly ineffective, and his fur was singed where he had touched the salamander. Clerania followed up with a 2nd-level magic missile, targeting the salamander with three and the firegills with one. In retaliation, the firegills breathed another burst of flame from their maws, engulfing the group.

Then the salamander stabbed at Sar, hitting the thri-kreen with its spear, and it swiped at Sylran with its tail, but the wildshaped druid dodged the attack. Sar counterattacked, slashing once more with his spear, but the blow glanced off the salamander’s thick hide. Melanie quickly chugged a healing potion, erasing her blemishes, before she cast a 2nd-level cure wounds on Orion.

The cocky human then skewered the salamander on his blades, killing it, before Sylran dispersed the swarm with a well-placed ice knife. The group quickly moved on, not wanting to attract more enemies.

As they rode towards the Forest of Shadows, now a faint grey smudge on the horizon, the group decided to share with each other the letters they each had gotten from Mark Ranson. However, Orion hadn’t gotten a letter from the man. Instead, one of his superiors in the Black Mask, someone known as Shadowmantle, had told him about the job offering.

When Clerania, Sylran, and Melanie shared their vague messages, Orion ultimately decided to trust them and he showed them the letter. However, he tore off the bottom portion so that they wouldn’t know who it was from. Clerania felt betrayed after reading the letter, since Orion had been ordered to kill the rest of them, if necessary. However, Orion told the group that they were his friends, and he wouldn’t kill them, even if he had to lie to the Black Mask.

The group then began a discussion about whether they were in support of the Sorcerer-kings or not. They hadn’t really played a large role in Melanie’s life, so she didn’t have an opinion on them one way or the other. Orion, even though the Black Mask was an uneasy ally of the Sorcerer-kings, said that he disagreed with the Sorcerer-kings’ ideals, and that he had only allied himself with the Black Mask to help achieve his own goals. What those goals were, though, he didn’t say. 

After another hour of travel, the group finally arrived at the edge of the Forest of Shadow. But just as Sylran suggested they enter the forest, a sharp pain cut through the wood elf’s back, seeming to suck his life from his body as he slumped to the ground. “No,” a sharp voice hissed. “This ends now.”

A cruel grin upon his insectoid face and an obsidian-black dagger in his hand, Sar advanced towards the rest of the group. As the traitor closed in, Orion charged towards him, and Melanie healed Sylran. However, Sar simply stabbed the wood elf again before slicing at Orion with a brutal swing of his dagger. Clerania cast create bonfire to slow the thri-kreen, but Sar dodged the sudden conflagration before knocking Clerania unconscious with a flurry of strikes. Things were looking bleak for the heroes.

But then Melanie healed Sylran with a cure wounds, bringing him stumbling to his feet. The wood elf wildshaped into a tiger, pouncing on Sar and pinning him to the ground. Wearily, Clerania stumbled back to her feet. But just as the group was about to finish him off, a half dozen soldiers teleported into the fray. At the back, watching the battle unfold, stood a tall and pale figure dressed in regal garb. A black wand hung at his waist and a golden crown sat upon his head.

Sar quickly scrambled to his feet and ran over to the man, taking his hand. Together, they disappeared in a flash. But the battle was not yet over.

The soldiers fired off a round of arrows, tearing into flesh. In retaliation, Sylran mauled a warrior with his claws, Clerania incinerated one with a fire bolt, and Melanie knocked three to their feet with earth tremor as Orion raced into the fray. The remaining soldiers managed to revert Sylran back to his elven form with brutal stabs of their spears, but Clerania and Orion quickly subdued the rest.

But this time, there were no cheers. No sighs of relief. They had won, but they had lost. Because now the Sorcerer-kings knew exactly who they were.

some highlights "your blinded you cant see your reflection" ,"its made of smoke  have fun killing it with life stealing magic" "hello me and me and other me whats going on here"

in this session i pit the party against two creatures (one was a was a bear with jagged reflective skin and the other a big blob of smoke that can make fire blades based of the expression "its all smoke and mirrors") the first quote is halfway through the fight telling the player they cant be effected by demoni reflection because they got blinded by the smoke dude the third was the party casted life drain on the smoke monster and the third is when they got swallowed by the bear and transported to the plane of mirrors