We had one of the best sessions we've had last night.

The Ranger's backstory is linked into the Cleric's; he was a smuggler who helped ferry her across the border and out of danger - but what she didn't know is that he had to betray his crew in the process and leave them to either die or be captured.
Cut to our session, where one of his old crew shows up on his door. She's on the run, scared that their old bosses will kill her. Although she blames him for everything and figures he owes her, she can't escape without his help. She needs a token of nobility to get past the guards and flee - the sort of token the Cleric had when they helped her cross the border. So the Ranger has a dilemma: he steals from the Cleric to save his old friend, or he abandons his old friend to her almost certain death for the second time - and proves her right that he is a cowardly traitor. The Ranger decides that he can't live with turning away from her a second time and agrees.
From a DM's perspective the dice performed to perfection: the Ranger sneaks into the Cleric's room with some amazing stealth/slight of hand rolls. Just as he's turning to leave he rolls a Nat 1 for his last stealth check and trips over her bed and wakes her. The Cleric naturally wonders what is going-on and although she doesn't trust him she lets him go (in the process thanking him for watching over her in a beautifully RPed moment that had the rest of us in bits).
Returning to his friend, the Ranger realises that he is falling in love with the Cleric and backs-out of the deal, despite having already stolen what he needed. His friend curses him and leaves - but the Ranger is left wondering what to do with the ring he stole from the Cleric and what he would say to her.
Cue the Cleric waking in the morning wondering where her ring has gone - and the Ranger trying to sneak it back into her room and failing miserably. Suddenly he's no longer trusted by the group as they think he's stealing from them and he's feeling like he's lost out on the feelings he wanted from her.
The rest of the session is him desperately trying his best to prove his worth to her again.

Honestly, role-played superbly by my players I have to say. Running with the story isn't something they always do but this time they knocked the character development stakes out of the park.

So last session the party finally hunted down a pirate that they had been trying to find for about 3 sessions.

A new player joined the party at the beginning of the session, and the RP that followed was great. When the party find a stowaway on the boat and almost go straight to fighting until it turns out the stowaway is a scared tiefling following whispers in her head (GOO warlock). After a week or so of sailing and almost attacking a passing by merchant ship hoping it was the pirates, they find the pirate ship and start attacking, having killed most of the crew with longbows/ranged spells and avoiding most damage,  a well placed sickening radiance from the wizard around the boat meant that they were stuck. With not enough crew to sail the boat out of the radius and only the main fighting force left, the pirates jumped ship and swam the remaining 40 or so feet by this point. Having climbed onto the boat and engaging in melee, the session came to a close. On wednesday we will be finding out how the remainder of the battle goes

Well they managed to win the battle. One party member (wizard) unconscious on 2 failed saving death saving throws before spare the dying, and the other 4 members were all on single digits (fighter, paladin, 2 warlocks). Then a bit of arguing about loot (or a lot) and some shopping for the rest of the session

Still learning the in's and out of 5th edition.

My son has a huge interest in d&d and after he literally memorized every 2ed and 3rd ed books i have he wanted to play badly.

So my last section was at a local card shop with him we learned the system together.  He's a fighter tiefling with issues with city guards, i played a halfling rogue. ((If their is a kender template please point me to it?))

We're at the beginning portion of the waterdeep campaign, first encounter practically killed everyone. I survived unscathed ended up drunk and far richer then before the night started. Damn god like troll!

So this is a story about how you can almost kill your party of level 5 players by overestimating their knowledge of  Vampire Mythology.

 The party is made up a Circle of the forest Druid, A Novice Theif, a young Bard,   A Goliath fighter, a Life Domain Cleric, and a 10-year-old barbarian who is a cross between Vanelope von sweets and Venom (a long back story we do not have time for).

The Party makes camp by a forest just as nightfall starts an Elf stagger out clearly beat up, covered in blood with blood and gore on his sword.  He tells them about how his team was attacked last night thoe he didn't see who or what attacked them, and he just escaped after 24 hours Druid talks to the trees in the forest and finds out a strange mist has shown up and something is attacking merchants. The Druid wild shapes and travels to the center of the forest ALONE. She sees a lot of rats, bats, and large black wolves all hanging out by a cave entrance ( Red Flag 1) She decides to talk to them this doesn't go well and they attack, as she calls for help the party rush to her aid. they kill the wolves who turn to dust upon death ( Red flag 2) They ender the vampire lair find it soaked with blood and gore and  the queen posing as a peasant girl and cowering in a corner of an empty room ( Red Flag 3) The Goliath pushes two wood doors open to reveal  Fresh Graves and coffins. The battle is one of the hardest they fought because they didn't realize this was a trap till it was way too late and they were all in 3 different rooms with a Charmed NPC who was under the queen's control and the one who killed his team,   What saved the party was the sheer dumb luck of trapping a majority of the vampires in the room their coffins were in, casting Daylight and setting stuff on fire, trapping the Vampire Queen in the main room where she died soon after charming two party members and knocking out the NPC after he Bit the Bard. 

I love my players but they usually come to the right answer think it's too simple and get themselves in a mess like this

My last session?

I got to psychologically traumatize most of the party.

Our Sorcerer has been playing with some dice carved from an Eladrin's bones.  She knows this.  That Eladrin is an NPC currently attached to the party.  HE has TOLD her that the magic she is so addicted to in those dice is HIS.  She still hadn't given him the dice back.  After her last time rolling his bones, he'd had enough.  So he decided in this last session to get his revenge and curse her with a nightmare of his own design.  It was gruesome, and extremely realistic, because he knows exactly what it feels like to have pieces of yourself cut away in order to 'make something pretty'.

At the same time, another of the party decided to contact their Devil Grandfather (in our campaign, the price of this is that those around you might suffer hell-spawned visions if they don't pass their Wisdom save).  I didn't expect him to be doing this, but I figured 'eh, the DC isn't that high, it shouldn't be too bad.  Naturally... it was that bad.  Only ONE of my player characters did not have one of these visions.

Needless to say, the Monk and the Cleric ended up having these visions, and two of the party now have Phobias that will be an absolute delight for me to torment them with.  xD

My table finally entered the Lost Mine of Phandelver.  I had a TON of NPCs to go along side my PCs, and I changed the content significantly as written in the campaign module.  Upon entering the mine, Gundren & Tharden realize that their other brother, Nundro, was dead.  His body had been picked clean of flesh, save for his skull and the flesh covered by his boots of springing & striding.  However, the source of this was a cave troll from Ultimate Bestiary's Revenge of the Horde.  There was so many characters against the troll that he didn't last long, but I had Sildar leave with the Rockseekers to bury Nundro and escort them back to Phandalin.

So, my list of PCs are all lvl 4: dragonborn Paladin, half-orc Barbarian, dwarf fighter, high elf Ranger, high elf Sorcerer, and a tiefling rogue.  My NPCs are Gulgarthos from the Lost Minotaur enounter by James Haek, an Aasimar Cleric that I had created that spawned from the statue of the Dying Unicorn encounter also by James Haek, Glasstaff from the LMoP module, and Droop, who I have applied the UA Sidekick template to.  He also got the final shot on the troll as he rode atop the shoulders of the dragonborn Paladin who couldn't see very well in the cave.  It was quite comical, as he rolls with disadvantage every time, but still hit to like a 19 or 20.

Anyway, that's the small army that's invading the Mine.  As they are exploring, Nezznar appears from behind and puts a blade to Droop's throat as his band of bugbears approach the party.  Two other "Nezznar's" appear beside him, and I have all 3 of them speak in unison as they welcome the adventurers and thanks them in advance for helping them relight the Forge of Spells.  The party negotiate, and ask some clever questions while rolling really good on their persuasion.  If you've DM'd LMoP, you know that Nezznar is a wuss.  I won't reveal what changes I've made to him or what is with the 2 clones he has yet, but I had to give him a good enough reason to leave the Underdark and to fine the Forge.  He reveals that he has a parchment that on it is written the tool that he can use to destroy his sister, who is his obvious rival if you know much about Drow society, but that the writing can only be revealed by placing the scroll in the fires of the Forge.  This led the party to actually agreeing to help Nezznar with his prospective plot hook (I couldn't believe it!!)

So, the very large group proceed to the Temple of Dumathoin.  Note that I completely swapped and changed up the map as presented in the module.  The Forge is a large open fire pit, so to speak, but obviously not on fire any more.  It sits before the massive stature of Dumathoin, and a water wheel with an empty water channel help operate bellows.  Also in the room is a single skeleton of a wizard.  Mormesk is a ghost (not a wraith in my campaign) and he awakens with the presence of the party.  He ends up possessing Glasstaff who runs and places Mormesk's skull on the fire pit, which explodes in a fireball that consumes Glasstaff physically. The end product is that he becomes a Flameskull Skeleton that I found in the homebrew monsters on this site.  Currently, the party is engaged in the combat, and we had to end it there, but it's been great!  No matter how I prepare for encounters, I am always pleasantly surprised by how my table approaches what I throw at them.

My next update will hopefully have the conclusion to LMoP as a module and set the course for the next leg of adventure!

My tiefling warlock married a froglok. Spent time looking up frog anatomy. Now I'm answering uncomfortable questions from the other players. XD

Quote from BySavras >>

My tiefling warlock married a froglok. Spent time looking up frog anatomy. Now I'm answering uncomfortable questions from the other players. XD

 Oh we need to hear more about this lol

So I started my tournament idea.  It went awesome.  Characters were invested, people enjoyed the fights.
Two of my characters did not make it to the semi finals, but 3 did.  That will be next session.  (They get to fight each other.  At the same time.  Should be fun.  :D)

But what I'm super proud of is that one of my less confident players had a blast, and she got comfortable!  Which was sort of the point of the whole thing - boosting the confidence of players and characters alike.  She made it to the semi-finals and she thought she would be out in round 1.  So she's SUPER stoked.  I'm very glad about that.

Then they just have to figure out who is the unlucky winner that has to face the NPC they all like and fear.  :D

Our campaign as been going through 2 "fast forwards in time" where my Character ends up each time thousands of years in the futur( because the DM and i are the only two left from the original campaign, and since its a Homebrewed world, we figured, "well why not continue going forward" even though the other members changed each time for various reasons)

So now in this current "timeline" its a mix of Diesel/Cyberpunk, 40k, Spelljammer and of course good ol' magic.

And our crew who bought a cheap ship (still a nice Junk type light corvette) has taken a job to go to one of the habitats ( The universe was shattered with all the planes merged togheter, with only the Astral Plane and Material plane still kinda whole, but intertwinned in places...)

After a week of travel we encountered a Space Hulk( those who plays 40k knows what i'm talking about), For those who don't know, a Space Hulk is a GIGANTIC amalgamation of Ships wrecks, asteroids, planetary crusts from destroyed worlds, its like a Floating Mega Dungeon that can hold untold treasures, byt its also inhabited by dark horrors...

So we decide of course to sent in a scouting party ( my Paladin/Hexblade-Master at Arms and the Clockwork Wizard Gith/Engineer), while the others stay on board...

Of course, there was a surprise, as We encountered a World eater Berzerker, our ship got into a space fight with an enemy Corvette, that was pummeling them with their weapons, WHILE a Planar breach opened in the Cargo Hold and 6 Elementals started to run amok our ship( think Aliens from...Alien, but with ice covered bodies and icy blood..)

So 3 fights at the same time...

Our Ship Captain in a "Possesed by Chtullu" fit ordered to ram the freaking Corvette( our ship was a "repurposed" Orc ship, so with a Steel maw in the front to grapple other ships with a railgun cannon in its maw and a heavely armored front) Into the Space Hulk...

At this point we were all like O_O, but with some lucky rolls, not only our ship was mostly unscathed, but it managed to grapple the other ship and shot at point blank range with the rail weapon, tearing it in half...

The crew inside managed to contain and kill the Ice Aliens and we killed the berzerker...

Now our ship needs repairs, there's still an enemy scout shuttle somewhere around that our Radiant Sun Monk/Figther Pilot is going after, while our crew is divided in two, cause we found what might be a functioning Carrier ship embedded in the Hulks mass, that we might put back online and take for ourselfs, but with other Berzerkers lurking around...

Oh and everything is on a time schedule, cause we have no idea when this thing is going to translate back to the Astral Plane ( for now we're in the material Plane)...

Our campaign is a hard exploration campaign, with the gritty realism ruleset. We are on the hunt for scraps of knowledge that might allow for the reproduction of orium, an alloy used in the magic items of ancient cultures, but was lost in the Orium Wars between these civillisations. 

So I, a half-elf abjurer known as Alaran Pyeson, a Ranger, a cleric of Chauntea, a paladin of protection, a lore seeking bard and a champion fighter were, following a long series of investigations and research expeditions, on the way to a sub-tropical region that may just host such secrets. 

As the session started, we had just set off from the town where this information was dug up. And heading through a cave-riddled canyon, we ran head first into a few speed bumps. The first was a sudden realisation that we had forgotten to restock on food. A rookie error, in our fifteenth session. The second was weather, our bard used druidcraft to predict a ferocious rainstorm. And the third was knowledge of a sizable horde of goblinoids mustering into a warband under some hobgoblin with a real hatred for a bunch of LG/NG adventurers...

The lack of food wasn't crippling, the ranger and cleric could provide a decent meal between them. The storm though, hit us hard. Our sight was limited to 30ft, the thunder gave us disadvantage on listening checks and the heavy rain made the centre of the canyon into an overflowing river, and the ground around our feet into a swamp. The limited sight and hearing saw us stumble into no less than four encounters with equally disoriented goblin groups. Sapping away several hit die and spell slots, they put the fighter through the ringer, 2 remaininghit die (of 7) left him in a slightly worse way than we would like. And that was the first day. Recovering a few spell slots and finding the materials for a healing potion helped, but it was rough. 

The second day we managed to happen upon the main goblin camp, thankfully, we weren't spotted. We decided that going around was too slow, and too dangerous. The perimeter was patrolled a lot, and the passage was narrow at this point. I scouted out with arcane eye, picking out patrol patterns and finding the largest congregation of gobbos. Right in the middle, gathered around a large bonfire. We couldn't hope to take them on.

The cleric and I came up with a plan to scatter this group, and it featured the canvas tents and an assassination.starting a small fire in a tent filled with bags of flour was easy enough for the sneaky ranger. Even so, he delayed the action until he was sent an all systems go signal by my psuedodragon familiar. I, meanwhile, was using mold earth to maneuver the contents of the latrene to the top.they were then washed downhill to wash around the goblin's feet. The last member of the group taking part in this plan was the bard, filling half a dozen cauldrons of stew with poisons and sprinkling powerful irritants on various beasts in nearby pens. The cleric gave the starting signal, the bonfire turning an angry red, and a booming voice, decrying the warlord. Moments later, the flour sacks detonated and destroyed the millstones, setting off agitated wolves and wargs as we slipped away. Hours later, I used arcane eye to look at the camp and spied the warlord, head mounted on a pike even as those few lieutenants and captains began infighting and jockeying for power.

All told, a successful day.

The session before, we had come to an outpost in a militaristic Eladrin (dmg style. the seasonal ones are the Fey of the Great Southern Forest, which acts as this world's Feywild, modeled after the Heroes of The Feywild lore from 4e) nation, from whence hails out party's Eldritch Knight Fighter, Luftkapitan Aegnor Gotleib. We quickly found that this outpost was in the spreading territory of an ettercap infestation, and most of the soldiers stationed there had died. We got those survivors out, fought some ettercaps, and recouped in the air. 

This session: 

We open on the deck of the airship we have on loan from the Eladrin nation, as my Gnomish rogue alchemist, Dresden Nuada Diarmuid Odrhain Mac Mannanan Woodsheart of Frostburrow, is dissecting an ettercap, distilling the poison fluid, and studying the material of the web-making organs, hoping to be able to duplicate and synthesise one or both. He is being aided by my wife's Goliath Druid/Ranger, Thumi Stormstalker. 

We are able to distill the poison, but we won't be able to synthesise it. We think we may be able to synthesise the webbing, but we use all of it in the process of figuring that out. 

That settled, we set to planning, and dump the ettercap remains overboard. The soldiers tell us that a pixie came to them for help weeks ago, and that their captain took the best men of the fort with him to investigate, and none returned. Dresden rolls baller extreme on the lore check, and is an expert on ettercaps, and thus knows that ettercaps despise the fey. 

We decide to send Maeve, Dresden's familiar, currently in owl form, into the forest to find this pixie if we can. We find the pixie, wrapped in webbing on a tree. I call Maeve back, she avoids the webs in the canopy a second time, and returns. We decide that the best plan is to have Thumi turn into a spider, and deliver a solvent that I immediately set to work crafting with my new-found knowledge of how the ettercap webbing works, free the pixie, and bring her back, all carried by Maeve. 

We ready ourselves to be within range to deploy immediately and extract them if things go wrong, finish the solvent, put it in a small vial Maeve can carry, and send them down. 

Thumi makes some Goodberries, and then turns into a spider, gets on Maeve's back, and they dive into the forest, narrowly making the dex save to not get webbed. Thumi gets on the webs, so that she will know if anything starts coming their way, while Maeve tries, fails, tries again, fails, and finally succeeds to unstopper the solvent and splash it on the webbing, barely avoiding spilling it uselessly on the ground. All this movement from a bird near the pixie has alerted a nearby ettercap, who starts rushing toward them. Thumi leaves animal form, Goodberrys the pixie, gets her the rest of the way unstuck, and then turns back into a spider and the three of them get out of the forest, making two more dex saves. 

Good luck and planning has netted us a Pixie ally, and we're all back on the airship. We talk it over, and decide to burn the forest in a ring around the infestation, and kill as many dark things as we can. We patrol using the airship, pixie, and Maeve, Thumi casts Create Water a couple times to control the spread of the flame, and finally we spot a group of survivor ettercaps running out of the forest near the fort, and Dresden suggest dropping down and dealing with them, because he is always itching for a real fight. 

Someone thinks to ask the Pixie what she has to help us, if anything, and she notes that she has polymorph. 

So, the GM, wanting to give his gf a chance to try out playing if she wants, offers to let her play the polymorphed-into-a-giant-ape version of Sinjin the Aasimar Revenant Monster Slayer Ranger (companion NPC for our tiny little three player group), and she eagerly agrees. So, we set down, and set up to receive these terrified spidermen with open stabby arms, and she plays giant ape sinjin, squashing ettercaps with reckless abandon, while the rest of us stab, shoot, enspell, and otherwise make their last day as bad as possible. 

At the end, we hang around to make sure the fire doesn't spread further than intended, using another Create Water. Luckily it's still so early in spring that the forest outside of the infested area isn't particularly dry, and a handful of successful nature and survival checks, as well as some "crew checks" by our air captain, bring us success in our endeavor. 

We jump forward from there a short ways, to a time when it is safe to walk in the ruin of this forest, because out diminutive new friend has told us of a magic stone the Fey in this place were guarding. Some investigation occurs, and we determine that the Ettercaps were influenced to come to this place where Ettercaps had never been seen before, perhaps with the goal of their corrupting pressence breaking the seal, which is the magic stone, with an old church built around it. 

Now, we've had dealings with such stones before. Our first session involved a necromancer defiling and breaking one as part of the ritual of lichdom, in the high mountain from which Dresden and Thumi both hail. This is the same necromancer that murdered Dresden's ship crew to use them as undead thralls in a duel with some other sorcerer, igniting Dresden's whole character arc. 

A few sessions and days later, we encountered a town on our way down the mountain toward the river that would take us to the lowland trade port of Ettindale, that was besieged by zombies and skeletons, and found and killed a necromancer in their church, who had defiled the church and it's alter, which we only later realized was probably also a seal. 

So, now we need to figure a way to get the pixie more allies to help her rebuild the church, and protect the seal, and find out how widespread this conspiracy of necromancers is. Do they all serve the necromancer we killed, whose phylactery was taken away by an invisible flying servant before we could react properly? Does he serve a greater evil? Are they trying to release an army of fiends upon the world, which is what the seals prevent from happening again, or weaken the seals enough to gain power from it, or something else? 

We end the session with a host of new questions, a handful of new allies and tools/knowledge, and an increased sense of unease about the mysteries we've been chasing. 

TL;DR - I was traveling IRL and didn't know if I'd make a session so the DM asked me what I do. We had completed a skills contest and were celebrating with Frogloks at their village having won. I basically said I'd perform some illusion tricks for the village and drink their most toxic stuff (I rolled mediocre on con saves). The DM replied, "you may or may not have gotten married."  

I leaned into this quite a bit. I said I got married and wrote detailed back stories of what happened, what events led my new husband to lead him to decide to marry me, why I married him, how his friends and family reacted and how my patron reacted. I wrote it all up as a dramedy of sorts, maybe 5k+ words in total (I write short fiction on the side).

It's become a fun part of my character in the two sessions since. I like to lean into anything that is flavorful and fun even if optional and a bit odd.

My table’s LMoP campaign came to a great end. Mormesk/Glasstaff the Flameskull skeleton was vanquished. My iteration of Nezznar and the clone-doppelgängers were betrayed by my party’s Ranger in his attempt to force the Black Spider to engage the skeleton army that was clamoring at the temple’s door.  And our party’s sorcerer fried a dozen skeletons with her scroll of lightning bolt. The real kicker was the Tiefling Rogue who rigged a trap to break the eyes of the Statue of Dumathoin in order to bring it down. As the DM I set the DC at 20, but she rolled to a 17 with her sleight of hand. I ruled that she got the trap set but it wasn’t done correctly. I lobbed a d6, landing on 5, and said the party had 5 minutes to haul it out of the main mining hall. When the trap sprung, the entire mine collapsed, not just the temple. 

So where most LMoP campaigns end with a cleared, functioning mining operation, well my table has 2 very unhappy Rockseeker brothers to deal as their brother seemed to have died for nothing and there plans to strike it big have been ruined. Also, the Black Spider is very pissed at them for completely destroying the forge. 

It's been a while since I've posted on this forum, so I hope you like this one.

So, I've been a DM for about half a year now, and I've never really had that one person that does something super ridiculous, with some consequences, they fail, and get mad at me. Oh how I've been lucky before.

So my player rolled a 20 on finding a city watch guard, so there was a police rally across the street, makes sense. So we also got a new player that day, and he was rouge. So I introduced him by having him get thrown out of a tavern for not paying his tab, so the he joined the party to earn some money (Dragon Heist). So my new player, and the most disruptive player in the party decide to meet up with the rest of the party. They meet up, and the disruptive one decides, "You know what. I'll kill him." , so he decides to initiate combat on the new player. Remember that police rally right across the street, yeah he got arrested. He claimed he didn't want to initiate combat, and I should be more careful when having my players initiate combat. Now one thing he said before he tried attacking was, "I was just joking, but okay." , Which meant he was in the wrong, but didn't want to admit it!

He got a fine from the guards for assaulting a citizen, got mad at me, party defended me. He blasted my phone so much that day after the session, how I was a Bad DM. Next day, we met at school, we made up, had him pay a slightly lower fine, and everything went okay, the party was nice enough to pay off his fine for him, which was pretty nice, then they all decided to do the quest they had decided on doing 2 days ago. 

So yeah, that was my session, it was nice in the beginning, not so nice in the end. This experience kind of gave me the confidence to tell my players, NO, when needed, thanks for reading.

Well ah, I kind of accidentally convinced our guide through the underdark that she was better off making her own way home (by way of the fact that we're going to keep doing dumb things) and then the rogue got eaten by a purple worm. He hasn't been completely devoured, but it'll be fun to unpack, that's for sure.

On my Sunday stream the group had just finished taking care of a Mummy and two Bastet Temple Cats. That in itself was hilarity as one of the players couldn't stop the charming effect of the feline. The character almost went unconscious from holding on to the kitty while it took attacks with advantage. Once the battle had finished they decided to explore, as adventurers are wont to do.

The room where the mummy came from had a strange stone construction in it that, with no guilt, I stole almost directly from Stargate. While exploring one of the players simply walked up and put their finger into the purple magical energy that was contained in the stone circle and promptly vanished. The rest of the group spent a little more time exploring before another character touches the magical energy and, as with the first, promptly vanished. So now I have the two guy players whisked away to some strange place, the four ladies are in this dangerous temple...what was that about splitting the party?

The ladies decide to go and explore the stone device they found earlier, their thinking is the guys got sent to another part of the temple. They remembered that the device could go up as well as down, they decided to descend which is how they found the mummy. This time they decided to take it all the way to the top, it worked like an elevator however, they had to turn part of the floor to cause it to rise and fall. As they ascended they past the original hallway they used to get to this device they noticed that there was some resistance, so they put a bit of effort into their work and kept going. Eventually the resistance stopped, only for them to find out they had sprung a trap as large spiked came down from the ceiling and impaled three of the ladies. Knocking one of them unconscious, they  made haste to stabilize her, and noticed that the elevator was resetting, and came to rest at the original hallway they had taken.

While the ladies tried to figure out their next move, the guys found themselves rather bored in the tent they'd set up. While waiting for something to happen, they were rewarded, as they heard strange noises outside their tent. Looking out they saw some garishly colored wagons and strange horses with long necks and oddly misshapen backs pulling them. One of them called out and watched as the sands took on the shape of humanoids and these humanoids crossed the desert toward them with little effort. After a brief conversation, the two guys were escorted to the wagon train and placed in one where they saw four dark skinned people chained to one side. The two party members were told they'd get food and drink shortly, but not to share with the slaves.

The ladies figured it was about time to investigate the portal, much to their surprise when they manipulated the portal, it spun. Sixteen symbols, sixteen differently colored energies, and no clue where their friends had gone to. They eventually finished marking down the colors and symbols and resolved to go through the same symbol/color that their friends had. Finding themselves in the same desert scene as their friends had been introduced to the ladies watched as a wagon train started to pull away from them. There was indication that their friends were probably on that train and the ladies set to chasing them. However, following wagons in the sands of a desert, on foot, proved to be difficult as they soon found. Calling out to the wagon, they managed to get the attention of...something.

Strange leathery humanoids came out of the desert and a man who seemed to be in charge confronted them. After a brief exchange the ladies were lifted up on sand and carried along, the strange magic of this man allowing him to use the sand as a means of transportation. They were unceremoniously tossed into a wagon, where they too found themselves in the company of slaves. One of the players took great offense to this and started to vow that she would release and save all the slaves right then. After a bit of time the wagon train stopped and the party was reunited just as they were met by the strange man who could manipulate the sands. He called himself Mikahl and explained that they were all to head to the palace, his brother's home. 

In the palace the group learned that the Lich they were chasing was called a Shadow Fiend in this realm. They also learned that slavery was common place, and even more so if there was a battle. The losers would be captured and placed into slavery, it was a recognized practice and even as abhorrent as the party may feel it was, this was the culture they now existed in. As another shock the ladies found that they were considered to almost be less than the slaves in this culture. The Sultan explained that the party should start to recognize the differences in the culture if they are to stay. He offered them rooms in the palace, and offered to find information on the Shadow Fiend. 

In our most recent game, in another divergence from the main campaign, the party stopped off at the noble parents of the Wizard and Rogue (brother and sister) to check in on their sick mother. It turns out she has been cursed and is slowly dying. They start investigating their father's good friend as he seems suspiciously close to the family. Sneaking into his room they discover a diary that indicts him as the leader of the local thieves guild - but not necessarily proving his guilt in their mother's illness.

The rogue, being the typically rash type, decides to march in on their father and his friend to confront them. Unfortunately, earlier in the campaign she picked-up a cursed set of armor that causes her to fall in love with someone whenever she fails a persuasion/intimidation attempt. Once again, the dice landed perfectly, and as she is in the process of demanding an explanation she goes from bad cop to very very 'friendly' cop in the space of a single minute. Fearing himself discovered, the Guildmaster attempts to flee and the party engage him - bringing him down and capturing him despite the obvious confusion of the rogue.

Seeking help with the curse on their mother, the party is sent to another noble implicated by the Guildmaster's diary - a noblewoman that supposedly specialises in curses.

Rather than sneaking in, they instead decide to be diplomatic and approach her more directly, discovering in the process that she is in fact a Drow masquerading as a High Elf to infiltrate the high society of the city. Striking a bargain with the party, she agrees to help with their mother, but gives them a cursed item to give to the Guildmaster (seeking to usurp him at some point) as payment. Sensing the issue with the rogue's armor the Drow also strikes another deal with the wizard: she will remove the curse from his sister's armor, but the effect will be transferred to him - he will be cursed to be in love with the Drow woman for eternity, and they will become immediately betrothed. He decides to agree out of concern for his sister, and accepts the marriage proposal.

Of course, returning to the Guildmaster, the now de-cursed rogue asks for a few minutes alone with him in a room for a rather different purpose to before...(fade to black)

I've DM'ed for about half a year, but this was the first session I would truly consider my own. The party consisted mainly of close friends, and I had written the adventure (a lv. 5 Ravnica one shot) entirely on my own.

So let's set the scene. The party were arrested by the Azorius for the murder of an Azorius official, something they had not actually done. The players were; an elf ranger of the Selesnya (very hippie), a human Undying warlock of the Golgari (who had a very extensive backstory tied into MtG lore, he was an avid player), a human way of shadows monk of house Dimir currently infiltrating the Boros, and a loxodon way of open palm monk of the Orzhov (he was an enforcer, and always talked like a Godfather-type mafia). The party did not know each other, and had no connection beyond being all accused of the same crime.

So the story started in an Azorius prison. After a short introduction, they were delivered food. Everyone but Tony discovered a note hidden under the food that said "The power will go out in a few hours. When it does, the doors will open. Meet me in the Rakdos circus in precinct 6. -a friend". So the party decided to wait it out. Everyone except Tony, who started planning his escape. He got nowhere. When the doors opened, the party spilled out in the corridors, and immediately banded together. The elf was a follower, the warlock was smart enough to stick with a party, and the monks were both very social. This led to the worst prison escape I have ever seen. The way of shadows monk decided to cast Darkness to avoid the guards <insert puffin forest joke>. It did have the intended effect, but resulted in half an hour of the party just fumbling around in the dark trying to get their bearings. 

Now, the note they had gotten had described two exits. They picked the one with the least guards (seemingly), and ran there. They got there in one piece, but didn't realize that this exit only led to the first floor of the facility, which meant even more guards. They, of course, managed to pick the most elaborate route, which led them to an auditorium, where a precognitive mage was rehearsing a presentation. The shadows monk immediately got wrecked by the mages "Glimpse the Temporal Flow" ability (4d8 damage without save, and a chance for stun), and they decided to be smart for once, luring her into the back room they just left, where they unleashed hell on her. They loot her, and take a look at the presentation she was preparing. The ranger makes a miserable INT check, and gets a headache from the weirdness. Tony somehow manages to do even worse (2 with a -2 modifier), and doesn't even manage to read it. The warlock finally makes sense of it, just a debate on the ethics of using divination to prevent crimes. Now they just had to get through a waiting room full of civilians. That was easy, since the shadows monk just cast Pass without a trace, it basically became Skyrim with 100 stealth.

Having escaped the prison, they needed to get to the circus without getting caught. The Golgari warlock used his background feat to lead them quickly across the city, and they staid over night at a Kraul outpost, where they got really drunk. This was the first time I got to use my homebrewed drunk system. The result was straight out of How I met Your Mother, with two of the players waking up in a Mat'Selesnya temple, having forgotten everything from the night before, and apparently stolen a pineapple from the Living Guildpact's office. 

The players met up at the circus. Now, I'm no Matt Mercer, but I feel like I did a good job describing the performance. Flames everywhere, spiked wheels, acrobats throw themselves into the air and slide down along pillars. As time goes on, the performance gets steadily more violent. When they entered the circus, I had everyone roll a wisdom save. Everyone failed except the shadows monk, and now he's the only one who realizes that things are getting more violent than they should be. He manages to wake up the warlock and ranger, but Tony the Tusk is still enraptured. The biggest event was an illusionist show, where smoke filled the circus. In the smoke, they see silhouettes of Ravnica's founders battling. The battle ends with a massive demon (Rakdos) winning, and standing over his fallen enemies. The shadow monk is starting to realize something is seriously wrong, since even the Azorius soldier they're sitting next to applauds wildly when Azor is killed by Rakdos. Suddenly, Everything goes silent, and the ringleader slowly walks into the circus. A massive Master of Cruelties demon (I desired him as "A massive man, at least twice the size of Tony, dressed entirely in black, bloodstained leather, and wearing a disturbingly realistic demon mask"). He screams at the top of his lungs "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?" the audience screams louder than ever, the player who plays Tony does an awesome job roleplaying it like a crazy sports fan. The demon continues: "DO YOU WANT MORE?" more screaming "LORD RAKDOS WILL GIVE YOU MORE!!!" He reaches a massive hand into the audience, and grabs a random guy, lifting him up by the head with one hand. "BLOOD!" with the one hand, he crushes the poor man's head. "FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!". I was afraid this would get a bit corny, but based on the player's reactions, they are fully into it. Awe, and a fair bit of shock. Violence breaks out amidst the audience. Tony succeeds his wisdom check. He's still engaged in the show, but at least he's not violent, and the players start to slowly drag him out.

We had to end it there, but I still think this was the best session I've ever DM'ed for.