My last session saw the end of my groups Curse of Strahd campaign.
My story does contain a lot of spoilers though so for anyone playing CoS, or going to play CoS in the future, skip to the summary below.
So some quick background for the campaign.
The group consisted of a Paladin, Druid and my Hunter (Keth), who had all been lured to Ravenloft as the module demands. During the course of our 'stay' in Barovia, my character started to go slightly mad, and (due to his personal flaw of having an unreasoning hatred for his enemies) made a pact with the Archfey. The plan was to end up at level 10 as a Hunter (7)/Warlock (3), so that my character could create a Pact of the Blade bond with his father's ceremonial silver dagger (which in true stereotypical backstory fashion, was the last remaining item linking my character to his all dead family). The character's tie to this weapon caused him to make many stupid choices, often turning his back on enemies to recover his dagger if he ever dropped it, etc. Never was it more costly than during the fight with Baba Lysaga, when the choice to RP properly backfired and I was hit with a Finger of Death spell, insta-killing Keth and throwing all my plans for my character out the window.
So after the death of my original character, I rolled up a Half Elf (Dusk Elf + Vistani mix, to tie in with the setting) Cleric (called Priest) to act as a stop gap until he could help the group bring Keth back to life. After a lot of investigating, the only option we could figure out was travelling to the Amber Temple, where we had heard from Kasimir (the leader of the Dusk Elves in Barovia) that we would be able to find the power to bring Keth back to the land of the living.
Unfortunately, while in the Amber Temple, Priest picked up a cursed staff, which gave him the character flaw "I crave more power" after I failed a WIS save. For those of you familiar with the Amber Temple... EVERY DAMN ROOM IN THERE GIVES YOU SPECIAL POWERS... so needless to say I spent the next 15 minutes going room to room and collecting all the various Dark Gifts on offer. After I had accepted one of the various "gifts" from the temple (giving me the ability to cast Cone of Cold at will 7 times), I failed a CHA save, and had to shift my alignment from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil. DM let me keep on playing the character as long as I RP'd him properly... which I was fine with, as Chaotic Evil isn't Chaotic Stupid, and I was able to go through as I would... just showing a little less mercy to enemies and reveling in the new power I wielded.
This did mean, however, that after a fight with a particularly troublesome group of witches, and then found the gift which allowed us to return people back from the dead, that I decided expend the first use of my Cone of Cold ability... targeting Kasimir and the rest of my group. In the end, I killed the Paladin and Kasimir, and after a long and brutal battle with the Druid, I was finally defeated thanks to a particularly low damage roll on Cone of Cold, and the Druid's ability to heal themselves while shape-shifted as a Dire Bear.
Having survived the treachery of Priest, the Druid quickly ran to accept the gift of resurrection from the Temple... and then failed their CHA save. Turning Evil, and turning her back on her (now dead) party. The DM, ran with a minor epilogue... where the Druid went through every room of the Amber Temple collecting the gifts, and then walked right in the front door of Castle Ravenloft to defeat Strahd... with the rest of us finding out about this victory as we were being welcomed to Valhalla.
In summary for those avoiding spoilers. My character alignment shifted from CG to CE, after which I role played my character beautifully... leading to a TPK and the premature end of our campaign after 2 years. I still feel bad about it now, and that was over 2 weeks ago.
Our last session began with being hauled into court for the brutal assault and robbery of our former employer, Sir Nie Banders. We had a court-appointed attorney, but he wasn't what you'd call competent. (He really wants to go into contract law but, he explained, "You gotta start somewhere, and SOMEONE has to defend you!") Various members of the party were called to the stand for direct and cross examination, while the rest of us whispered advice to our hapless attorney. ("You should object - he's badgering the witness!")
Our siren bard, Vivienne, comported herself very well, unsurprisingly. She has a rather, ah, dismissive attitude towards everyone who isn't her, but no one could doubt that she was telling the truth even if she was being kinda *****y about it. Our drow (or is he??) warlock, Rolan, was a little cagier; it was clear he was hiding something because he didn't want to give any information about how long he'd been working with our crew, nor much else about his personal history. Then I took the stand (water elf monk/ranger); I was the prime suspect, as witnesses claimed to have seen a water elf fleeing Sir Nie's premises, and one of my shirt buttons was found at the crime scene. I have a 9 CHA, but I'm also constitutionally incapable of ceding an argument, so I spent a lot of time back-talking the attorneys and the judge and being a general condescending *******. Though I think I made some good points: it wouldn't be at all unusual for my button to be found at my former place of employment; that doesn't mean I lost it there in the commission of a crime; I also explained the situation with that nefarious other water elf, Leeward, who we're convinced framed me. When the prosecution pointed out that the Riptide Tavern, where we met Leeward, doesn't have a license for live musical performances, and therefore our story of meeting a band there was suspect, I snarked back, "What? You mean the Riptide was holding illegal music performances? You better go arrest them right now!" The court was not amused.
Next called to the stand was our warforged druid/monk, VG-10. In our campaign setting, warforged are not a known or established entity; it was only recently that our party learned that VG-10 wasn't some one-off construct created by an eccentric wizard, and we haven't shared that knowledge with anyone else. The prosecution's line of argument with VG-10 was that, as a construct, he could be ordered to do something and have no recollection of it, so his testimony that everyone in the party had spent a quiet night at the Riptide before returning to our hotel room was suspect. Well, we then hit on the idea that we could turn this argument back on the prosecution: if they were arguing that VG-10 was a mere construct, then he shouldn't even be prosecutable because he's effectively chattel property, not a person. We didn't personally believe this of VG-10, but we figured it was the best chance to get him off the hook. ("Morally suspect but legally brilliant, like all best court arguments," as the DM put it.) Though the judge considered this motion, ultimately he ruled that VG-10's behavior clearly demonstrated a level of sentience and free will that rendered him legally culpable for his actions. (VG-10 had mixed feelings about this turn of events, to put it lightly.)
At some point during the witness examinations, one of our other former employers, Captain Shuscrev, entered the courtroom and sat down in the gallery. As he did, Rolan experienced a strange vision: instead of his normal appearance, he saw Captain Shuscrev as a black mass of tentacles with a shadowy, red-eyed figure at it center. Then he blinked, and Shuscrev appeared as his normal self, a red-headed dwarf. No one else noticed anything amiss.
When the bulk of the witness testimony was over, it wasn't really clear whether we'd successfully argued our innocence - though it wasn't quite as much of a disaster as we'd initially feared. But then Captain Shuscrev stood, exited the gallery, and reentered pushing a wheelchair with Sir Nie Banders in it! (Cue gasps and murmurs throughout the court.) He had not been killed, just very severely wounded, and he was now miraculously well enough to take the stand and testify. His testimony was decisive: we had not attacked him, nor had we robbed him; instead, his assailants were a gang of... orcs? What???
Due to prevailing and widespread anti-orc sentiment, everyone took this testimony at face value and all charges against us were dismissed. We went back to Sir Nie's home with him and Captain Shuscrev, where it was revealed that the Sir Nie who testified was an imposter - a changeling or someone who could use Disguise Self, paid by Shuscrev to testify on our behalf. The real Sir Nie was still alive, but comatose; Shuscrev was also paying for his care. Grateful as we were for his intervention, we still took Shuscrev to task about throwing the orcish community under the bus - especially since in the past he's been an ally to them. He explained that the orcish community in the city was already in immediate danger - so much so, pinning a crime on them in order to free us was more important because he needed our help to save the community.
The orc community in this city is largely refugees from one particular clan that has been persecuted by the orc leader on their native island; the city government has been in the process of building essentially a big ghetto to house them all. Shuscrev confirmed our previous suspicions that this ghetto was a giant trap, bankrolled and masterminded by the very orc leader who had expelled the refugees in the first place. The orc leader has sent several of his agents to close the trap and slaughter the refugees; we were to intercept these agents and stop them before they could reach the city.
It was a two days' ride to the harbor town where the agents had made landfall. On the way, we stopped at an inn that I'd visited before, run by an orc whom I'm friends with. As we caught up, I explained the situation, and he reminded me that I shouldn't assume all members of the orc tyrant's tribe agree with him, or are unable to be persuaded. It was a point well taken! Vivienne performed for the patrons and unintentionally picked up a goblin groupie, while Rolan practiced his Orcish; he was the only party member fluent in it, and would have to serve as interpreter. The next day, we reached the outskirts of town, where we discovered a lynch mob planning to hang the orc agents - though this was just more anti-orc prejudice, and not because of any actual crimes they'd committed. We immediately intervened, and the combat took much longer than normal because we didn't want to indiscriminately slaughter all the villagers - even if they were violent racists. But we did slay the ringleader, and the orc agents managed the killing blows on his goons.
Next session we'll hopefully be able to convince these agents not to carry out their boss's orders!
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
The climax of my last session involved one of the party using a Mind Spike to venture into the mind of a Mindwitness to retrieve some necessary information. The core mechanic of this was very simple, just a series of contested mental ability checks as the intruder tried to find what they were looking for and the mindwitness tried to evict them from its brain, but the narrative wrapper involved each of them constructing psychic metaphors to achieve their goals, the details of which I used to determine which ability score each would roll.
It seemed to go over well: the player said she had a lot of fun with it, and I had fun running the encounter. Psychic mumbo-jumbo is eventually going to be a major theme of the campaign, so it's something I'll certainly come back to.
Nephew had the day off of school and came over unexpectedly. I had some free time and he wanted to play D&D. I didn't have anything prepared so I took a hook from the city quest ideas in Dragon Heist. There's a rich halfling family who are trying to find their son, who's run away and joined a wererat gang.
We did the meeting and my nephew and I kept "yes, and"-ing each other until the one-paragraph idea spiraled into a sort of riff on The Big Lebowski, where Dasher Snobeedle, the runaway, fakes his own kidnapping to try and get the reward money out of his parents. One of the wererats cuts off their toe and another brings it, along with a ransom note to the Snobeedle residence. My nephew, a druid, turned into a giant scorpion, stung the courier to death and made off with the ransom money. I honestly have no idea what his plan is from here, but it's getting a little complicated, so I think I have to write some stuff down because he's coming back for Thanksgiving.
We were playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and we scared the ever-living crap out of a large group of cultists. We combined Improved Minor Illusion, Dancing Lights, Firebolt, and Silent Image(at various points) to create a fake Death Tyrant.
Our Party(3rd Level) Salor D'viron, Draconic Bloodline(Black) Sorcerer Baenre, Mastermind Rogue Baldrik, Cleric of the god of Alcohol Ink Splatter, Wizard of Illusion
New campaign started proper last night. First time I've been a player for over a year. Party: Human Hexblade Warlock (me), Aasimar Sorcerer, Gnome Cleric, Halfling Paladin.
Getting to the end of our journey escorting a trade caravan, we are suddenly confronted by a strange being (BBEG) that wants to destroy the world. Classic. After a brief skirmish, we realise that we're hopelessly outmatched and decide to run - only to be blocked in our tracks by a divine barrier. The BBEG - confused - stops attacking for a moment.
Now, up to this point, I've been rolling terribly. Almost all of my dice rolls have been less than 10. But I think, sack it - I'm going to take this guy head-on. So I turn around and proclaim that I was the one who created the barrier and I'll do even more crazy-ass divine magic unless he allows us to leave. The BBEG asks "Why would you trap yourselves in here with me?" My instant response (in true Rorschach style): "I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me!!" Intimidation check. Natural 20. Mic drop.
The BBEG stares at my character, laughs nervously, and backs-up a bit. "You know what? I don't think I will kill you after all..."
I dunno if I prevented a TPK or just allowed the DM a narrative excuse for him not to kill us, but man...it was the moment of the night. XD
This session, we were led in front of the Duke, who wanted us (as third-party adventurers, rather than his owm guards) to rid the city sewers of their rat-man infestation, which he wants to keep secret from his people. We went in and fought our way out of an ambush, but not before our guide was killed. A long, dangerous dungeon crawl lies before us.
However, we also discovered that Balthazar and the dragonborn i previously insulted are the duke's top advisors. We'll see where that leads...
The players were at the very end of Death House. I was using This guide on improving Death House, which makes a few improvements, but namely making Elisabeth Durst (I called her Elisabeth Wachter Durst for some callback later) the villain, and made Gustav Durst and Margaret, the nursemaid, more victims. The last session ended on the "One must die" scene.
The players debated a while what to do, as the chanting grew louder. Eventually, they decided to flee. No one in the party are brutes, so they struggled a while with opening the portcullis, but the halfling eventually made it with a nat 20. Cue Walter, remade as an abomination of flesh, blood and rot, rising from the water. The battle wend fine, two of the players nearly dying, and one being consumed whole, but they did beat the monster, putting Walter to rest. Now, they had to escape as the dungeon collapsed around them. The elf got hit by a pillar, but the other halfling got him out with a natural 20. Lots of those this session. As he uncovered the secret exit, the eladrin was trapped, unconscious, under the statue of Strahd. He survived, and, after a nerve wracking escape through the burning house, they got out in the rain, overjoyed about being out of that hell.
Short trip through town, meeting the night hag, not suspecting a thing, being outraged at the ridiculous prices.
They met Ismark and, after learning a lot about the land from him, they accepted his offer for housing for the night. I introduced Ireena, and the players learned that Kolyan was dead. Here is where it went south. Being the kind and benevolent DM that I am, I had given the players a home-brewed magic item based on the necklace of prayer beads that allows them to cast Raise Dead once, and Greater Restoration twice. Just to give them a bit more survivability until they meet the Abbot. Now, Kolyan has only been dead for two days. Raise Dead has a time limit of 10 days.
Half hour of furious debate later, they offer to resurrect Kolyan. Both Ireena and Ismark at first thinks they're talking about necromancy, but after some talk, Ismark gives them permission (and eternal grattitude, assuming it works) to cast the spell on Kolyan. Ireena left earlier, dismissing the spell as worthless, as "the gods have no power in Barovia". The casting begins. As the eladrin casts the spell, I have both him and I roll a d20. If I roll 1, the resurrection will go awry. I roll an 11. If he rolls less than 5, the spell might do something else. He rolls 4. I describe how Kolyan wakes up, screaming, and, after composing himself, there's a heartwarming reunion in the family. We had to end it there, and the PCs all go to bed in the guest rooms.
I haven't done anything with the eladrin's unfortunate roll... Yet.
The bard had to work and the thief didn't make it again, so it was the monk, the druid, the druid playing the bard (he had her character sheet, the bard's player is his RL wife) and their faithful NPC companions.
On the trail of the thieves who stole the flying Eaveswurm mounts they had planned to buy, when last seen, our heroes had just made stir-fry meat out of a horde of 15 wild boars that had attacked them. They spent the rest of the morning cheerfully skinning, butchering, and de-tusking the 15 pig corpses. The monk also sent Zippy, his undead parrot sidekick, back to the town to tell the stablemaster about the pork fiesta available on the outskirts of town, and the stablemaster brought the remaining Eaveswurm to feast on chopped pig, and took the bones to feed the mastiffs, so now he owes the players a small favor.
The party had a quiet journey, but due to their late start (pig skinning takes time) they only got halfway to the next town before nightfall, and camped by a river. During the first watch, a giant scorpion came hunting to the camp. (A bit rough on the small level 2-3 party!) It first attacked Borkhil, the little old lady Dwarf NPC wizard, hitting with both claws and sting, doing 45 damage to the 13hp character. (RIP, Borkhil!) Sensing a dangerous foe, the monk sent Zippy out to search for Evalor, the coatl they had befriended in the previous session, in hope that she would come to their assistance.
There was a true nail-biter of a battle, with the NPC kenku cleric throwing heals every round, the monk managing to knock the scorpion prone once, the scorpion rolling nat 20s (seriously) on all its saving throws against the druid panther's pounces and the bard's mockery, and the painfully missed absent rogue and dead wizard. Finally the bard had a good crossbow roll, finishing off the mostly monk-battered scorpion.
The party, true to form, salvaged the scorpion's venom sack and several plates of exoskeleton. (The druid has hopes of getting custom armor made.) The rest of the night passed without incident, apart from the NPC kenku cleric finding an old, engraved silver short sword. The monk traded her the spyglass he had found aboard a derelict ship earlier for it. The kenku only cared that the spyglass was a cooler toy than the pretty sword, and the monk apparently forgot how much a spyglass costs, in the hope that the sword will turn out to be magical. (Evalor finally turned up in the morning to see if they had survived.)
They now have 19 days left to find a means to fly to the sky city, and to get to the top of Mount Escalus when it passes over at the nearest point.
In the afternoon, they reached the town of Blax, basically a lumber and mining camp with a sawmill and refinery. They stopped in at the business office, and the monk flashed his Deputy's badge and asked about the thieves. They had come the previous day, refused to help the town with their hobgoblin problem, and looked at an old lifting platform that used to take offerings of ore to the sky city. Unable to make the platform work for them, Team Thief had left, and it was only discovered later that they had vandalized the platform and stolen some of its parts.
Intrigued, the monk asked about the hobgoblins. The sawmill was on high alert because the hobgoblins on the nearby mountain had suddenly started stealing lumber from them. The party decided to take a break from their pursuit to check it out. They had the sawmill leave out a pile of newly-cut boards, and hid nearby to watch what happened. After dark, ten hobgoblins emerged from the forest and began taking the boards. The monk jumped out of hiding with his deputy badge and ordered them to stop and come along quietly. The intimidation roll failed, and a hobgoblin threw a board at his head (7 points damage), as they all ran off with the lumber. The druid attempted to Thorn Whip the last one back, but missed, and the monk attempted to tackle him, but was straight-armed. (At his point I realized my inexperienced players thought Hobgoblins were just little creatures, and I explained and showed them a picture from the monster manual, after which they chose not to pursue the hobgoblins into the forest.)
Having lost another pile of lumber and failed miserably in hobgoblin hunting, the party made no friends in Blax that day.
They now have 18 days to find a way to fly to the sky city.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Our most recent session started right where the previous one had left off: the party had just saved three orcs from being lynched by bigoted townsfolk. We knew that the orcs were agents of the chief of the Mal'Shakar clan, and had traveled to the mainland from their native island (also called Mal'Shakar) on his orders; we assumed they were there to inflict some sort of harm on the orc refugees who had been fleeing the Mal'Shakar chief's persecution, and we hoped to convince them not to harm the refugees.
Ironically, the lynch mob did most of the work for us. The orc agents told Rolan, our "drow" warlock who was serving as interpreter, that they were going to return to their ship and sail back to Mal'Shakar; they'd inform their chief that the residents of the mainland were extremely hostile to all orcs. We figured that would mean that the Mal'Shakar chief would give up on his attempts to persecute the refugees under the assumption that the mainland citizens would do the work for him. (But that also made us very anxious to return back to G-rash Bay, the gnome city that is the economic hub of the area and where most of the refugees are located, to make sure they were safe. While we assumed our boss Captain Shuscrev would do his best to protect them from any hateful acts, he's not all-powerful (we think).) We offered to escort the orc agents back to their ship, which was anchored in the harbor of the very town that they'd just been run out of. Hopefully the townsfolk who remained would not be as violently racist as the group we'd just dispatched!
We made it through town without incident, but when we reached the harbor, the dock to reach the orcs' ship was closed off and under guard. Rolan and our siren bard, Vivienne, used a combination of smooth-talking and a little illusion magic to convince the guard to let us through to the boat, but the guards were really dragging ass as they unlocked the gate and escorted us down the dock - because, we soon discovered, they were attempting to stall for time as their compatriots raided the orcs' ship!
Combat broke out as we tried to stop the guards from pillaging the ship. It turned out their commanding officer, despite having the appearance of a periwigged old man, was a reasonably powerful spellcaster, so that gave us some trouble. However, we found that a strategy of shoving the guards into the water was very effective, so we were not too hard pressed, and we reclaimed the ship. Unfortunately, we'd left our horses at the other end of the harbor, so we asked the orcs if they could take us partway back to G-rash Bay and drop us off at the town we'd stayed at the night before, where we could procure more horses. They agreed, and we sailed into the night; however, their boat wasn't really meant to carry so many people on it, so there wasn't enough room for us to properly rest, and by the time they dropped us off at the town we were exhausted.
We went back to the inn owned by my orc friend, Calivari, who gave us the strongest coffee he had and a room, where we slept most of the day - except for our warforged druid/monk, VG-10, who stood watch. While we were all sleeping, there was a knock on the door, and when VG-10 answered he discovered the goblin groupie who had become infatuated with Vivienne the last time we came through town. The goblin tried wooing Vivienne once again, presenting her with the reddest shell that he could find as a gift, but she told him in no uncertain terms that she was uninterested and that he should leave her alone. After our long rest was complete, I (water elf monk/ranger) opened the door to find a crude little diorama made from refuse on the doorstep - yet another tribute from the goblin. Feeling jealously protective of Vivienne, whom I have a crush on, I smashed the diorama with my foot - only to get pricked by a needle hidden inside it. When Rolan heard my cry of pain, he came over to ask what was wrong... and my crush on Vivienne was forgotten as I was smitten by Rolan! The goblin had apparently devised the diorama as a love potion trap, and I had failed my Con save. Lucky for Rolan, who already had something of a crush on me.
So we'll see how this turn of events plays out.
Romcom hi-jinks notwithstanding, when we went to the dining area, Calivari was nowhere to be seen. We asked the busboy where he was, and the busboy informed us that he'd been rounded up by the constabulary from G-Rash bay, who were taking in all local orcs to be "registered" and to determine if they were "problematic" - a turn of events we were indirectly responsible for, since we were falsely accused of a violent crime and managed to get the charges dropped only by blaming the crime on a gang of orcs instead. (It was our boss's idea, not ours.) We ran to the local stable, hired a carriage and a team of horses, and raced off after the prison transport wagon. Our hairless tabaxi monk, Joe, gave the horses a little bit of his "juice" to help them run faster, and with that chemical assistance we managed to catch up. We went full Red Dead Redemption 2, with Joe hopping onto the prison transport and attacking the two constables while the rest of us targeted the wagon wheels. One of the constables was killed outright; the other was incapacitated when we destroyed two of the wheels and crashed the wagon. (The carriage pole snapped as it flipped, allowing the horses to escape unharmed.) In short order we opened the transport cage and got Calivari out, as well as another orc who'd been rounded up.
When Calivari came to his senses, however, he surveyed the damage, looked at me, and said with horror, "Haefalmere, what have you done?"
I DM a game over Discord for some friends. Last session we added two new players. The first was voted in and the runner up heard about the campaign from our mutual friends and decided to join. The relevant characters (people who made it) are Lucius Pike: a tiefling paladin of Tyr whose father was murdered by the Black Hats, a thieves guild that ousted the Xanathar guild and essentially rules Waterdeep, Reggie (Reginald): a human monk who lost his hearing in a storm and then sunk into alcoholism, Bayu, the first new player: an air genasi rogue/sorcerer multiclass with a criminal background who eventually mostly turned himself around, and Embri, the second new player: an aasimar warlock of the celestial who got separated from her family by the Black Hats. The relevant NPC's are Zara: a tiefling whose class remains unknown who works at Helga's, a tavern, and is the love interest of Lucius Pike, Frankie: a goliath barbarian who has been with the party since the beginning and they recently found out that he was the son of a noble, Helga: the owner of Helga's tavern (duh), and Bacon: an imp the party captured in the first session and that has become something of a party pet.
The game starts off with Bayu and Embri in Helga's. The tavern has a few patrons, but with it being morning isn't overly crowded. Kenku sit in the seats against the wall and Bayu having lived in the city knows that said kenku are known for being notorious pickpockets. Bayu decides to try and rob the kenku, he fails horribly on the first roll. Bayu casts light on his hand and blinds the kenku. Bayu runs for the door but is caught by Lucius Pike who just came down from the tavern's upstairs, which the party has been staying in. Lucius scolds him, but then the kenku regains its sight and points to Reggie, who is standing beside Lucius in the tavern doorway, the kenku exclaims "You!" and Reggie realizes this is one of the kenku he beat up and "mugged" (he returned the stolen goods to their owners). With this, the kenku in the tavern make their way towards the trio. Meanwhile, Frankie stands up and also starts his way towards the party. A kenku slams a bottle over Frankie's head and with that Initiative is rolled.
Reggie makes his way towards the corner booth where the party usually sits. The kenku attack with as much force as they can muster, but due to bad rolls do very little damage to anyone but themselves. As the fight draws to an end a lone kenku wielding a greatsword shouts "For the glory of the raven" (one of the people who helped bandits take over the starting city) attacks Frankie and then tries to run, but falls face-first onto the table it tried jumping over. Seeing itself surrounded and knowing it's injured it caws out "Not telling you nuthin" three times. The party after knocking out the last kenku drag their unconscious forms over to a different corner booth and what few kenku didn't participate in the fight rush out. Bayu loots their bodies and finds two coin purses, the tip of a cane, and a "golden" dagger. Reggie notices this, but at the time does nothing.
The group gets in some good inter-group RP and Lucius, due to flirting with Embri, (is) graciously agrees to (manhandled into) go(ing) on a date with Zara. Frankie informs them that Jorg, a leader of the bandits who took over the city, is leaving today come midnight. Zara recruits Bayu and Embri into the revolution. Embri returns to the bar. Bayu decides to play songs in the tavern and manages to haggle Helga into giving him a free room, that he has to share with the rest of the party (he had to leave soon ooc). Reggie sends Bacon to go momentarily steal the golden dagger from Bayu after finding out Bacon can turn invisible. Bacon succeeds and Reggie inspects the dagger, however, Bayu realizes the dagger is in Reggie's hands and makes his way over. Reggie identifies that the dagger is pyrite and tells Bayu such, but Bayu just wants it because it's a cool dagger. Reggie returns the dagger. Lucius makes his way to the shrine of Tyr to repair his holy symbol which cracked after he made some questionable decisions. Embri questions Zara as to what the revolution does and what her part in it would be.
Lucius finds the shrine of Tyr utterly desecrated, crude graffiti, broken stones, uncleaned. He enters and finds the inside looks much better than the outside. A worn statue of Tyr stands towards the center of the shrine. Lucius gets his prayer supplies ready and is met by an old dwarf who proclaims himself to be a holy man of Tyr. The dwarf reassures him that Tyr will forgive him and regales him with a tale of the mistake that got his holy symbol to crack. The dwarfs adventuring party was being pursued by mind flayers and rather than face them they entered a drow city and escaped in the ensuing chaos, he laments his decision and proclaims that he would change it if he could. Lucius now reassured goes back to his prayers and towards the end of them is interrupted by a voice proclaiming that the temple of Lolth is a much better place to worship. He turns around and comes face to face with a drow who "helped" them fight off some thugs last session. The two argue over their religious differences and in the end, the drow uses a spell to turn the statue temporarily blue to antagonize Lucius. Lucius doesn't go for the bait and the drow explains that the shrine of Lolth is extorting protection money from the shrine of Tyr. Realizing that she won't get a rise from Lucius the drow leaves. Lucius looks down to see his holy symbol is repaired.
Reggie goes to the wizard, Fizzleworth's, tower and asks him if he could put the current magic item he's making on hold to build him some kind of bracers to turn his unarmed strikes magical. The wizard agrees but charges him full price for the old magic item with the "discounted" price applying to the new magic item. Reggie and Lucius return to the Tavern and they have a discussion about the gods as Reggie has decided to turn a new leaf and the two eventually decide on him turning to the worship of Mystra. Reggie gives Bacon some ale and Bacon sends glares at Embri, as she is an aasimar. Embri glares back and upon it being pointed out by Lucius's player that sending Bacon a flirty glance would freak him out she does so. Bacon understandable starts having a mental breakdown as he realizes "Those aren't angry eyes." Lucius and Zara go on a date. Session ends.
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call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
Hi. I don't have a big story to tell. My group hasn't played consecutively in a near year, since our game master has been 'bUsY' all school year so far, but the last time I was there I recall that:
Our team, consisting of about 5-6 people, had just put together all of their gold to buy this huge fortress from the mayor of a town that's name eludes me. The only problem is apparently they may or may not have been a little short on cash, and now there's tax collectors that are supposed to come every once in a while to get money from them, which doesn't exist?
So then they had this town official they were trying to deal with, trying to wriggle out of the impending debt they were going to have, and then next thing I know my character wakes up after recovering from a sickness (me being away because of them always playing on times I can't), walking outside to piles of goblin corpses strewn all about, my friends nowhere to be found, and a fortress with a flaming caved in roof, after one of them decided to cast a fireball or something.
So yeah, that's all I recall.
Now apparently the next session we're going to have, thanks to 3-4 sessions I missed during the summer, we now also own a giant turtle with a house on top of it?
No clue what those guys do, all I know is homebrew is in excess over there.
And uh yeah. Hope that was enjoyable to someone. Bye.
Our party has just secured a Mad Max-style automobile to help us cross a wasteland in Avernus without becoming irreversibly exhausted. One of our players had to assume control of the Tabaxi rogue while absent from this session, so our Human monk offered to do so.
The Tabaxi opted to drive the vehicle, our Dwarf paladin took the harpoon seat, the monk took the passenger seat with our Fire Genasi wizard, and my Halfling cleric sat in the back to get his exhaustion back down.
After many hours, we encounter two canine-demons riding motorcycles in the distance, closing in on us. The halfling cleric alerts the group, and throws a Fireball at these marauders...with very little effect.
Instead, when they draw close enough, my halfling casts "Thorn Whip", and successfully yanks the demon off his motorcycle, basically removing him from combat. One down; one to go.
The remaining demon LEAPS from his bike and lands right in front of my halfling on the rear bumper, and my halfling starts shouting for the party to do something.
Meanwhile, our Tabaxi rogue is having trouble handling the vehicle. Smoke is coming from the front engine, making it hard to see. The demon casts some kind of Grease-like spell, which blinds our Tabaxi. Our DM requests that the Tabaxi rolls two d20's for vehicle handling.
Two natural 1's.
Our vehicle flips and crashes. The demon is dead, thankfully, but the vehicle is wrecked, and we are stranded in the Avernus wasteland with heavy damage. We decide to hide inside a bag we have (a pocket dimension), and wait until we rest up.
My halfling decides to peek outside the bag after we rest to see if everything is okay outside. He discovers that the bag is now on another vehicle, this one much bigger than we've seen, and there are Redcaps operating engines and machines. Not safe.
We devise a plan; my Light cleric halfling casts "Faerie Fire", and our Sun Soul monk blasts the affected ones, while our dwarf paladin mops up the rest.
It starts out alright...we get two of the five Redcaps, and our Fire Genasi wizard even manages to "Animate Dead" two of them (which he calls "Dead Caps).
But our monk and my halfling become frenzied by some ability the Redcaps have, and we starts attacking randomly...even our comrades.
I, uh...."Inflict Wounds" at our monk, and...well, he doesn't survive. My cleric is devastated for what he accidentally did, and our party is now trapped in a massive demonic war-machine speeding through the wasteland.
Characters: Level 4 Human Fighter (Champion) and level 4 Human Rogue (Assassin)
- This time characters cleared a cave filled with 3 Orcs, 3 Lizardfolks and 4 Ogres
- It was basic dungeon crawl
- Most fun moments were combat encounters when Ogres were tricked with noise, hiding and otherwise angering them. One of the Ogres got stuck in narrow hallway. (GM played Ogres as very stupid creatures)
A short and not too productive session...the rogue had a family obligation and couldn't come, the druid and bard had an appointment and arrived quite late, and I had somewhere to be afterward, so we could not run overtime, ending up with less than an hour and a half to play.
The party decided to get back on the trail of the thieves, leaving Blax and heading east along the road. They came to a river, where they were ambushed by 9 Sahuagin, who claimed to be collecting taxes for the Bandit Prince. It was an exciting battle full of Thunderwaves, and since this was the third party of the Prince's bandits they have killed, they are seriously on Bandit Naughty List. Afterward, the party took a short rest (and skinned their opponents, as usual) and proceeded, coming to a fork in the road. They had almost decided to go north when the druid remembered rolling Survival for tracking, and found evidence that the thieves had actually gone south. They proceeded to follow until they came to a spot where there were bloodstains and signs of a struggle in the road...plus, they randomly rolled another combat encounter in that space.
I randomly rolled giant spiders, which we all thought was uninteresting, and we decided to leave the game there (time was up anyway) and let me prepare a more interesting encounter to start off the next session.
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Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) WoodElf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2 Last Tree StandingTabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1 Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Xanster the Chainlock and Three-Axe Johnson are exploring the Tower of Shades, former seat of power of the Dragon Overlord. They find a side passage that Xanster, with his dwarven eye for stonework thinks was scratched out of the main passageway through solid rock, over millennia , by something using only their fingers.
Xanster the Chainlock tells Screwtape the Imp to scout the passageway. Screwtape says, "I got a bad feeling about this, boss." Xanster chews him out in the most vulgar terms and tells him to do what he's told. As Xanster watches through Screwtape's eyes, I do a Blair Witch-style description of the imp creeping through the tunnel and into the chamber I've named The Bone Garden. Screwtape looks around, taking in the bone mosaics on the wall and the bone sculptures scattered around the floor. He hears a rattling behind him, looks, but only sees more bones. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a glow. He moves towards it and sees that it's coming from the fabled Helm of Brilliance! He turns to go back, sees a flash of the monster, screams "oh, shit!" and then goes radio silent. At the opening of the passageway, Three-Axe and Xanster hear a disgusting wet munching sound.
And that's where we ended it.
I don't know what they're going to do next, but I'm kind of hoping they stay out of the passageway. They had some chunks taken out of them in the last fight, and I'm not sure they're ready to go up against Skeleton Key, the mad guardian.
Also, at some point soon, they'll actually be traveling to Hell, so they'll see Screwtape again. I have to think about what that reunion is going to look like.
Restarted an old campaign that we had put on hold to give the DM a break. Brought in a new player to the campaign and one of the previous player made a new character
Started at the inn we were staying at on the tail end of a big fight so we were a little worse for wear. DM gets us started with this creepy multi-part dream sequence hinting at connections between our Shadow monk, wild sorcerer, new character monster hunter ranger, and a threat from our cleric's past. Meanwhile our halfling rouge is at the bar getting drunk when this female NPC, introduced in our last session of this campaign almost a year ago who had an unhealthy appetite for our rouge, walks in and charms him to walking away with her.
By this point our characters have been awoken from their sleep and disturbed to the point rush down to check their rouge and find him gone. They rush out into the streets and find him about 100 feet away and going further.
This is where our DM's plans began to go off the rail. It had been his intention for their to be a chase scene, using it as an opportunity to introduce our characters to our new ranger who is hunting the NPC who is a succubus. As a note for you DMs out there, when you want a chase scene involving a mid-level monk then 100ft is nothing. So our characters dash and manage to avoid the obstacles and over the course of two turns reach them.
So does our new ranger who begins attacking the disguised succubus, shouting that she's a monster. However our characters have "some" history with the woman and no history with this guy who just suddenly starts attacking, so of course the logical course of action would be to help the woman.
One round into combat the ranger is stunned on the ground, half his hp gone and struggling to warn us of the danger, and IRL the player and DM are morbidly joking about creating a new character. Fortunately our Knowledge Cleric had a few tricks up his sleeve. Before combat he had used the Knowledge Domain channel divinity to read the ranger's thoughts so he knows that the ranger "believes' the woman is a succubus. On the clerics turn (because clerics always go last) he gambles on command to "Transform" and wins.
The succubus is revealed and we stop killing the ranger. She gets away, but now we can continue with character introductions.
Well, my last session went pretty good. My party is finally realizing that teamwork makes the dream work. They are halfway through the mines of Phandelver so it's making a good pace.
Nice developments are that my bard has learned a spell that calms down my Barbarian when he goes into an uncontrollable rage if he sees a demon.
ps; a bit of a dick DM cuz I put in a few demons here and there
Great fun, we completed the remainder of Cragmaw Castle. Our paladin has a goblin friend, Oogion, who was captured a few sessions ago. He is dead set on getting him back (and, out of character, says "Tom, I swear, if you kill Oogion then I'm not playing anymore.").
The party had previously snuck in via a back passageway, finding themselves in the kitchen. After dealing with Yeemik and the kitchen goblins fled, they decided that they would lay on a banquet (they poured as much alcohol as they could find into all of the food). There followed an epic brawl when the goblins who just about remained conscious were taken out by the party rushing out from the kitchen.
They head through the barracks and into the goblin shrine, where the grick takes them by surprise. They manage to take care of it easily enough, but when the paladin sees the goblins taunting him from the other side of the room, he sees red.
"Foul goblins, I will cut you down!"
"Why don't you come over here and say that?"
The paladin sprints forward, despite the other two party members trying to stop him ... and the ceiling collapses on top of him.
Once he has been dug out, the party ascend to the top of a tower and find a barred wooden door. The paladin edges it open and hears something breathing weakly inside.
"Is anyone in there?"
*Oogion voice* "Who ... is it."
At this point, all the players around the table sit bolt upright.
"...Oogion?"
"...Maudagalur? You-you came for me?"
The paladin bursts into the room to find Oogion tied up in the corner. "Oogion, of course I came back for you, I will always come back for you!"
Reunited with their friend, they climbed onto the roof and shot an arrow over to King Krol's chambers, his tower being slightly lower than the roof they were on. Krol came to the window to investigate the sound of the noise and the rogue took a pot-shot with her bow, rolling a critical hit. As Krol staggered backwards (most of his health wiped out), the party ziplined down using crowbars and caught the king unaware. The paladin and the rogue carried out perfect superhero landings, the dwarf crashed into the four-poster bed, which ensnared him and Krol.
After a very speedy encounter the king had been killed, they then got the drop on the shapeshifter, who was interrogating Gundren in a side room (because I forgot he was being held in Krol's chambers). Gundren thanked them for rescuing him and they are now heading back to Phandalin.
I think that's the last D&D session of 2019. I have really loved getting into dming this year (we started this campaign in February after my wife bought the starter set for me). Just the side quests and Wave Echo Cave remaining, then I'm not sure where we'll go next. One of my best friends gave me Tyranny of Dragons, so that might be a meaty option after Lost Mines, otherwise I might write something into an open campaign and let this group have some fun after their dealings with the Black Spider.
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Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
For reference the party for this story is built like this 2 bards college of a lore and a college of whispers, profane soul bloodhunter, Divine soul sorcerer, monster slayer Ranger, Abjuration wizard (NPC), tempest domain cleric, Berserker barbarian (who hops in during the second half of this story) and they were presently working with a Halfling blood hunter/ bard/ rogue/ fighter (npc) lvl 16 they met whilst trying to find a yuan-ti the party is 8th level
My last session began with them finishing a fight they started last session against a yuan-ti Anathema who had murdered a shop keeper. They were close to killing it, but it was its turn and it used it’s divine word spell both the bards succeeded their save thankfully, both were right below 30. The Wizard failed his though keeping his distance was only below 40. And everyone else was pretty ok off, except for the Blood hunter. From the battle and some poor rolls she was down to 14 health. She rolled... base 3. The blood hunter died right there, the halfling shot her frost covered dagger into the throat of the yuan ti, one of the bards poured his dragon slayer long sword and psychic blades onto the yuan- ti and the other bard carved through its heads with her rapier, slaying it. The cleric quickly ran over and cast revivify bringing the bloodhunter back to life. Whilst she was down her gains pulsed a deep black color until she was revived and the color faded from her veins. Not thinking much of it for then they went back to the surface with a head of the yuanti as a trophy. The bloodhunter got a visit from her god, Eris. They then took a long rest, collected some supplies and then noticed 4 distant shapes flying towards the city.
soon enough they discovered them to be dragons, they gathered in the town square and rolled initiative. The fight was tense, a young black dragon, a young red dragon and two wyvrens. The npc halfling returned a couple turns in. The bloodhunter got enlarged by the wizard and they went to work Through out the fight both bards went down though one got knocked to zero twice and the bloodhunter went down twice as well, the second taking 2 death fails from the wyvern. She rolled her death save and died AGAIN the scorcerer took out both the dragons with a well placed lighting bolt and they finished of the wyverns. The divine soul scorcerer ran over to revive the bloodhunter, only to find black veins once again, which shortly disappeared after she was revived
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Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you
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My last session saw the end of my groups Curse of Strahd campaign.
My story does contain a lot of spoilers though so for anyone playing CoS, or going to play CoS in the future, skip to the summary below.
So some quick background for the campaign.
The group consisted of a Paladin, Druid and my Hunter (Keth), who had all been lured to Ravenloft as the module demands. During the course of our 'stay' in Barovia, my character started to go slightly mad, and (due to his personal flaw of having an unreasoning hatred for his enemies) made a pact with the Archfey. The plan was to end up at level 10 as a Hunter (7)/Warlock (3), so that my character could create a Pact of the Blade bond with his father's ceremonial silver dagger (which in true stereotypical backstory fashion, was the last remaining item linking my character to his all dead family). The character's tie to this weapon caused him to make many stupid choices, often turning his back on enemies to recover his dagger if he ever dropped it, etc. Never was it more costly than during the fight with Baba Lysaga, when the choice to RP properly backfired and I was hit with a Finger of Death spell, insta-killing Keth and throwing all my plans for my character out the window.
So after the death of my original character, I rolled up a Half Elf (Dusk Elf + Vistani mix, to tie in with the setting) Cleric (called Priest) to act as a stop gap until he could help the group bring Keth back to life. After a lot of investigating, the only option we could figure out was travelling to the Amber Temple, where we had heard from Kasimir (the leader of the Dusk Elves in Barovia) that we would be able to find the power to bring Keth back to the land of the living.
Unfortunately, while in the Amber Temple, Priest picked up a cursed staff, which gave him the character flaw "I crave more power" after I failed a WIS save. For those of you familiar with the Amber Temple... EVERY DAMN ROOM IN THERE GIVES YOU SPECIAL POWERS... so needless to say I spent the next 15 minutes going room to room and collecting all the various Dark Gifts on offer. After I had accepted one of the various "gifts" from the temple (giving me the ability to cast Cone of Cold at will 7 times), I failed a CHA save, and had to shift my alignment from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Evil. DM let me keep on playing the character as long as I RP'd him properly... which I was fine with, as Chaotic Evil isn't Chaotic Stupid, and I was able to go through as I would... just showing a little less mercy to enemies and reveling in the new power I wielded.
This did mean, however, that after a fight with a particularly troublesome group of witches, and then found the gift which allowed us to return people back from the dead, that I decided expend the first use of my Cone of Cold ability... targeting Kasimir and the rest of my group. In the end, I killed the Paladin and Kasimir, and after a long and brutal battle with the Druid, I was finally defeated thanks to a particularly low damage roll on Cone of Cold, and the Druid's ability to heal themselves while shape-shifted as a Dire Bear.
Having survived the treachery of Priest, the Druid quickly ran to accept the gift of resurrection from the Temple... and then failed their CHA save. Turning Evil, and turning her back on her (now dead) party. The DM, ran with a minor epilogue... where the Druid went through every room of the Amber Temple collecting the gifts, and then walked right in the front door of Castle Ravenloft to defeat Strahd... with the rest of us finding out about this victory as we were being welcomed to Valhalla.
In summary for those avoiding spoilers. My character alignment shifted from CG to CE, after which I role played my character beautifully... leading to a TPK and the premature end of our campaign after 2 years. I still feel bad about it now, and that was over 2 weeks ago.
Our last session began with being hauled into court for the brutal assault and robbery of our former employer, Sir Nie Banders. We had a court-appointed attorney, but he wasn't what you'd call competent. (He really wants to go into contract law but, he explained, "You gotta start somewhere, and SOMEONE has to defend you!") Various members of the party were called to the stand for direct and cross examination, while the rest of us whispered advice to our hapless attorney. ("You should object - he's badgering the witness!")
Our siren bard, Vivienne, comported herself very well, unsurprisingly. She has a rather, ah, dismissive attitude towards everyone who isn't her, but no one could doubt that she was telling the truth even if she was being kinda *****y about it. Our drow (or is he??) warlock, Rolan, was a little cagier; it was clear he was hiding something because he didn't want to give any information about how long he'd been working with our crew, nor much else about his personal history. Then I took the stand (water elf monk/ranger); I was the prime suspect, as witnesses claimed to have seen a water elf fleeing Sir Nie's premises, and one of my shirt buttons was found at the crime scene. I have a 9 CHA, but I'm also constitutionally incapable of ceding an argument, so I spent a lot of time back-talking the attorneys and the judge and being a general condescending *******. Though I think I made some good points: it wouldn't be at all unusual for my button to be found at my former place of employment; that doesn't mean I lost it there in the commission of a crime; I also explained the situation with that nefarious other water elf, Leeward, who we're convinced framed me. When the prosecution pointed out that the Riptide Tavern, where we met Leeward, doesn't have a license for live musical performances, and therefore our story of meeting a band there was suspect, I snarked back, "What? You mean the Riptide was holding illegal music performances? You better go arrest them right now!" The court was not amused.
Next called to the stand was our warforged druid/monk, VG-10. In our campaign setting, warforged are not a known or established entity; it was only recently that our party learned that VG-10 wasn't some one-off construct created by an eccentric wizard, and we haven't shared that knowledge with anyone else. The prosecution's line of argument with VG-10 was that, as a construct, he could be ordered to do something and have no recollection of it, so his testimony that everyone in the party had spent a quiet night at the Riptide before returning to our hotel room was suspect. Well, we then hit on the idea that we could turn this argument back on the prosecution: if they were arguing that VG-10 was a mere construct, then he shouldn't even be prosecutable because he's effectively chattel property, not a person. We didn't personally believe this of VG-10, but we figured it was the best chance to get him off the hook. ("Morally suspect but legally brilliant, like all best court arguments," as the DM put it.) Though the judge considered this motion, ultimately he ruled that VG-10's behavior clearly demonstrated a level of sentience and free will that rendered him legally culpable for his actions. (VG-10 had mixed feelings about this turn of events, to put it lightly.)
At some point during the witness examinations, one of our other former employers, Captain Shuscrev, entered the courtroom and sat down in the gallery. As he did, Rolan experienced a strange vision: instead of his normal appearance, he saw Captain Shuscrev as a black mass of tentacles with a shadowy, red-eyed figure at it center. Then he blinked, and Shuscrev appeared as his normal self, a red-headed dwarf. No one else noticed anything amiss.
When the bulk of the witness testimony was over, it wasn't really clear whether we'd successfully argued our innocence - though it wasn't quite as much of a disaster as we'd initially feared. But then Captain Shuscrev stood, exited the gallery, and reentered pushing a wheelchair with Sir Nie Banders in it! (Cue gasps and murmurs throughout the court.) He had not been killed, just very severely wounded, and he was now miraculously well enough to take the stand and testify. His testimony was decisive: we had not attacked him, nor had we robbed him; instead, his assailants were a gang of... orcs? What???
Due to prevailing and widespread anti-orc sentiment, everyone took this testimony at face value and all charges against us were dismissed. We went back to Sir Nie's home with him and Captain Shuscrev, where it was revealed that the Sir Nie who testified was an imposter - a changeling or someone who could use Disguise Self, paid by Shuscrev to testify on our behalf. The real Sir Nie was still alive, but comatose; Shuscrev was also paying for his care. Grateful as we were for his intervention, we still took Shuscrev to task about throwing the orcish community under the bus - especially since in the past he's been an ally to them. He explained that the orcish community in the city was already in immediate danger - so much so, pinning a crime on them in order to free us was more important because he needed our help to save the community.
The orc community in this city is largely refugees from one particular clan that has been persecuted by the orc leader on their native island; the city government has been in the process of building essentially a big ghetto to house them all. Shuscrev confirmed our previous suspicions that this ghetto was a giant trap, bankrolled and masterminded by the very orc leader who had expelled the refugees in the first place. The orc leader has sent several of his agents to close the trap and slaughter the refugees; we were to intercept these agents and stop them before they could reach the city.
It was a two days' ride to the harbor town where the agents had made landfall. On the way, we stopped at an inn that I'd visited before, run by an orc whom I'm friends with. As we caught up, I explained the situation, and he reminded me that I shouldn't assume all members of the orc tyrant's tribe agree with him, or are unable to be persuaded. It was a point well taken! Vivienne performed for the patrons and unintentionally picked up a goblin groupie, while Rolan practiced his Orcish; he was the only party member fluent in it, and would have to serve as interpreter. The next day, we reached the outskirts of town, where we discovered a lynch mob planning to hang the orc agents - though this was just more anti-orc prejudice, and not because of any actual crimes they'd committed. We immediately intervened, and the combat took much longer than normal because we didn't want to indiscriminately slaughter all the villagers - even if they were violent racists. But we did slay the ringleader, and the orc agents managed the killing blows on his goons.
Next session we'll hopefully be able to convince these agents not to carry out their boss's orders!
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
The climax of my last session involved one of the party using a Mind Spike to venture into the mind of a Mindwitness to retrieve some necessary information. The core mechanic of this was very simple, just a series of contested mental ability checks as the intruder tried to find what they were looking for and the mindwitness tried to evict them from its brain, but the narrative wrapper involved each of them constructing psychic metaphors to achieve their goals, the details of which I used to determine which ability score each would roll.
It seemed to go over well: the player said she had a lot of fun with it, and I had fun running the encounter. Psychic mumbo-jumbo is eventually going to be a major theme of the campaign, so it's something I'll certainly come back to.
Nephew had the day off of school and came over unexpectedly. I had some free time and he wanted to play D&D. I didn't have anything prepared so I took a hook from the city quest ideas in Dragon Heist. There's a rich halfling family who are trying to find their son, who's run away and joined a wererat gang.
We did the meeting and my nephew and I kept "yes, and"-ing each other until the one-paragraph idea spiraled into a sort of riff on The Big Lebowski, where Dasher Snobeedle, the runaway, fakes his own kidnapping to try and get the reward money out of his parents. One of the wererats cuts off their toe and another brings it, along with a ransom note to the Snobeedle residence. My nephew, a druid, turned into a giant scorpion, stung the courier to death and made off with the ransom money. I honestly have no idea what his plan is from here, but it's getting a little complicated, so I think I have to write some stuff down because he's coming back for Thanksgiving.
We were playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and we scared the ever-living crap out of a large group of cultists. We combined Improved Minor Illusion, Dancing Lights, Firebolt, and Silent Image(at various points) to create a fake Death Tyrant.
Our Party(3rd Level)
Salor D'viron, Draconic Bloodline(Black) Sorcerer
Baenre, Mastermind Rogue
Baldrik, Cleric of the god of Alcohol
Ink Splatter, Wizard of Illusion
New campaign started proper last night. First time I've been a player for over a year.
Party: Human Hexblade Warlock (me), Aasimar Sorcerer, Gnome Cleric, Halfling Paladin.
Getting to the end of our journey escorting a trade caravan, we are suddenly confronted by a strange being (BBEG) that wants to destroy the world. Classic. After a brief skirmish, we realise that we're hopelessly outmatched and decide to run - only to be blocked in our tracks by a divine barrier. The BBEG - confused - stops attacking for a moment.
Now, up to this point, I've been rolling terribly. Almost all of my dice rolls have been less than 10. But I think, sack it - I'm going to take this guy head-on. So I turn around and proclaim that I was the one who created the barrier and I'll do even more crazy-ass divine magic unless he allows us to leave. The BBEG asks "Why would you trap yourselves in here with me?"
My instant response (in true Rorschach style): "I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me!!"
Intimidation check. Natural 20. Mic drop.
The BBEG stares at my character, laughs nervously, and backs-up a bit. "You know what? I don't think I will kill you after all..."
I dunno if I prevented a TPK or just allowed the DM a narrative excuse for him not to kill us, but man...it was the moment of the night. XD
This session, we were led in front of the Duke, who wanted us (as third-party adventurers, rather than his owm guards) to rid the city sewers of their rat-man infestation, which he wants to keep secret from his people. We went in and fought our way out of an ambush, but not before our guide was killed. A long, dangerous dungeon crawl lies before us.
However, we also discovered that Balthazar and the dragonborn i previously insulted are the duke's top advisors. We'll see where that leads...
The players were at the very end of Death House. I was using This guide on improving Death House, which makes a few improvements, but namely making Elisabeth Durst (I called her Elisabeth Wachter Durst for some callback later) the villain, and made Gustav Durst and Margaret, the nursemaid, more victims. The last session ended on the "One must die" scene.
The players debated a while what to do, as the chanting grew louder. Eventually, they decided to flee. No one in the party are brutes, so they struggled a while with opening the portcullis, but the halfling eventually made it with a nat 20. Cue Walter, remade as an abomination of flesh, blood and rot, rising from the water. The battle wend fine, two of the players nearly dying, and one being consumed whole, but they did beat the monster, putting Walter to rest. Now, they had to escape as the dungeon collapsed around them. The elf got hit by a pillar, but the other halfling got him out with a natural 20. Lots of those this session. As he uncovered the secret exit, the eladrin was trapped, unconscious, under the statue of Strahd. He survived, and, after a nerve wracking escape through the burning house, they got out in the rain, overjoyed about being out of that hell.
Short trip through town, meeting the night hag, not suspecting a thing, being outraged at the ridiculous prices.
They met Ismark and, after learning a lot about the land from him, they accepted his offer for housing for the night. I introduced Ireena, and the players learned that Kolyan was dead. Here is where it went south. Being the kind and benevolent DM that I am, I had given the players a home-brewed magic item based on the necklace of prayer beads that allows them to cast Raise Dead once, and Greater Restoration twice. Just to give them a bit more survivability until they meet the Abbot. Now, Kolyan has only been dead for two days. Raise Dead has a time limit of 10 days.
Half hour of furious debate later, they offer to resurrect Kolyan. Both Ireena and Ismark at first thinks they're talking about necromancy, but after some talk, Ismark gives them permission (and eternal grattitude, assuming it works) to cast the spell on Kolyan. Ireena left earlier, dismissing the spell as worthless, as "the gods have no power in Barovia". The casting begins. As the eladrin casts the spell, I have both him and I roll a d20. If I roll 1, the resurrection will go awry. I roll an 11. If he rolls less than 5, the spell might do something else. He rolls 4. I describe how Kolyan wakes up, screaming, and, after composing himself, there's a heartwarming reunion in the family. We had to end it there, and the PCs all go to bed in the guest rooms.
I haven't done anything with the eladrin's unfortunate roll... Yet.
The bard had to work and the thief didn't make it again, so it was the monk, the druid, the druid playing the bard (he had her character sheet, the bard's player is his RL wife) and their faithful NPC companions.
On the trail of the thieves who stole the flying Eaveswurm mounts they had planned to buy, when last seen, our heroes had just made stir-fry meat out of a horde of 15 wild boars that had attacked them. They spent the rest of the morning cheerfully skinning, butchering, and de-tusking the 15 pig corpses. The monk also sent Zippy, his undead parrot sidekick, back to the town to tell the stablemaster about the pork fiesta available on the outskirts of town, and the stablemaster brought the remaining Eaveswurm to feast on chopped pig, and took the bones to feed the mastiffs, so now he owes the players a small favor.
The party had a quiet journey, but due to their late start (pig skinning takes time) they only got halfway to the next town before nightfall, and camped by a river. During the first watch, a giant scorpion came hunting to the camp. (A bit rough on the small level 2-3 party!) It first attacked Borkhil, the little old lady Dwarf NPC wizard, hitting with both claws and sting, doing 45 damage to the 13hp character. (RIP, Borkhil!) Sensing a dangerous foe, the monk sent Zippy out to search for Evalor, the coatl they had befriended in the previous session, in hope that she would come to their assistance.
There was a true nail-biter of a battle, with the NPC kenku cleric throwing heals every round, the monk managing to knock the scorpion prone once, the scorpion rolling nat 20s (seriously) on all its saving throws against the druid panther's pounces and the bard's mockery, and the painfully missed absent rogue and dead wizard. Finally the bard had a good crossbow roll, finishing off the mostly monk-battered scorpion.
The party, true to form, salvaged the scorpion's venom sack and several plates of exoskeleton. (The druid has hopes of getting custom armor made.) The rest of the night passed without incident, apart from the NPC kenku cleric finding an old, engraved silver short sword. The monk traded her the spyglass he had found aboard a derelict ship earlier for it. The kenku only cared that the spyglass was a cooler toy than the pretty sword, and the monk apparently forgot how much a spyglass costs, in the hope that the sword will turn out to be magical. (Evalor finally turned up in the morning to see if they had survived.)
They now have 19 days left to find a means to fly to the sky city, and to get to the top of Mount Escalus when it passes over at the nearest point.
In the afternoon, they reached the town of Blax, basically a lumber and mining camp with a sawmill and refinery. They stopped in at the business office, and the monk flashed his Deputy's badge and asked about the thieves. They had come the previous day, refused to help the town with their hobgoblin problem, and looked at an old lifting platform that used to take offerings of ore to the sky city. Unable to make the platform work for them, Team Thief had left, and it was only discovered later that they had vandalized the platform and stolen some of its parts.
Intrigued, the monk asked about the hobgoblins. The sawmill was on high alert because the hobgoblins on the nearby mountain had suddenly started stealing lumber from them. The party decided to take a break from their pursuit to check it out. They had the sawmill leave out a pile of newly-cut boards, and hid nearby to watch what happened. After dark, ten hobgoblins emerged from the forest and began taking the boards. The monk jumped out of hiding with his deputy badge and ordered them to stop and come along quietly. The intimidation roll failed, and a hobgoblin threw a board at his head (7 points damage), as they all ran off with the lumber. The druid attempted to Thorn Whip the last one back, but missed, and the monk attempted to tackle him, but was straight-armed. (At his point I realized my inexperienced players thought Hobgoblins were just little creatures, and I explained and showed them a picture from the monster manual, after which they chose not to pursue the hobgoblins into the forest.)
Having lost another pile of lumber and failed miserably in hobgoblin hunting, the party made no friends in Blax that day.
They now have 18 days to find a way to fly to the sky city.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Our most recent session started right where the previous one had left off: the party had just saved three orcs from being lynched by bigoted townsfolk. We knew that the orcs were agents of the chief of the Mal'Shakar clan, and had traveled to the mainland from their native island (also called Mal'Shakar) on his orders; we assumed they were there to inflict some sort of harm on the orc refugees who had been fleeing the Mal'Shakar chief's persecution, and we hoped to convince them not to harm the refugees.
Ironically, the lynch mob did most of the work for us. The orc agents told Rolan, our "drow" warlock who was serving as interpreter, that they were going to return to their ship and sail back to Mal'Shakar; they'd inform their chief that the residents of the mainland were extremely hostile to all orcs. We figured that would mean that the Mal'Shakar chief would give up on his attempts to persecute the refugees under the assumption that the mainland citizens would do the work for him. (But that also made us very anxious to return back to G-rash Bay, the gnome city that is the economic hub of the area and where most of the refugees are located, to make sure they were safe. While we assumed our boss Captain Shuscrev would do his best to protect them from any hateful acts, he's not all-powerful (we think).) We offered to escort the orc agents back to their ship, which was anchored in the harbor of the very town that they'd just been run out of. Hopefully the townsfolk who remained would not be as violently racist as the group we'd just dispatched!
We made it through town without incident, but when we reached the harbor, the dock to reach the orcs' ship was closed off and under guard. Rolan and our siren bard, Vivienne, used a combination of smooth-talking and a little illusion magic to convince the guard to let us through to the boat, but the guards were really dragging ass as they unlocked the gate and escorted us down the dock - because, we soon discovered, they were attempting to stall for time as their compatriots raided the orcs' ship!
Combat broke out as we tried to stop the guards from pillaging the ship. It turned out their commanding officer, despite having the appearance of a periwigged old man, was a reasonably powerful spellcaster, so that gave us some trouble. However, we found that a strategy of shoving the guards into the water was very effective, so we were not too hard pressed, and we reclaimed the ship. Unfortunately, we'd left our horses at the other end of the harbor, so we asked the orcs if they could take us partway back to G-rash Bay and drop us off at the town we'd stayed at the night before, where we could procure more horses. They agreed, and we sailed into the night; however, their boat wasn't really meant to carry so many people on it, so there wasn't enough room for us to properly rest, and by the time they dropped us off at the town we were exhausted.
We went back to the inn owned by my orc friend, Calivari, who gave us the strongest coffee he had and a room, where we slept most of the day - except for our warforged druid/monk, VG-10, who stood watch. While we were all sleeping, there was a knock on the door, and when VG-10 answered he discovered the goblin groupie who had become infatuated with Vivienne the last time we came through town. The goblin tried wooing Vivienne once again, presenting her with the reddest shell that he could find as a gift, but she told him in no uncertain terms that she was uninterested and that he should leave her alone. After our long rest was complete, I (water elf monk/ranger) opened the door to find a crude little diorama made from refuse on the doorstep - yet another tribute from the goblin. Feeling jealously protective of Vivienne, whom I have a crush on, I smashed the diorama with my foot - only to get pricked by a needle hidden inside it. When Rolan heard my cry of pain, he came over to ask what was wrong... and my crush on Vivienne was forgotten as I was smitten by Rolan! The goblin had apparently devised the diorama as a love potion trap, and I had failed my Con save. Lucky for Rolan, who already had something of a crush on me.
So we'll see how this turn of events plays out.
Romcom hi-jinks notwithstanding, when we went to the dining area, Calivari was nowhere to be seen. We asked the busboy where he was, and the busboy informed us that he'd been rounded up by the constabulary from G-Rash bay, who were taking in all local orcs to be "registered" and to determine if they were "problematic" - a turn of events we were indirectly responsible for, since we were falsely accused of a violent crime and managed to get the charges dropped only by blaming the crime on a gang of orcs instead. (It was our boss's idea, not ours.) We ran to the local stable, hired a carriage and a team of horses, and raced off after the prison transport wagon. Our hairless tabaxi monk, Joe, gave the horses a little bit of his "juice" to help them run faster, and with that chemical assistance we managed to catch up. We went full Red Dead Redemption 2, with Joe hopping onto the prison transport and attacking the two constables while the rest of us targeted the wagon wheels. One of the constables was killed outright; the other was incapacitated when we destroyed two of the wheels and crashed the wagon. (The carriage pole snapped as it flipped, allowing the horses to escape unharmed.) In short order we opened the transport cage and got Calivari out, as well as another orc who'd been rounded up.
When Calivari came to his senses, however, he surveyed the damage, looked at me, and said with horror, "Haefalmere, what have you done?"
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I DM a game over Discord for some friends. Last session we added two new players. The first was voted in and the runner up heard about the campaign from our mutual friends and decided to join. The relevant characters (people who made it) are Lucius Pike: a tiefling paladin of Tyr whose father was murdered by the Black Hats, a thieves guild that ousted the Xanathar guild and essentially rules Waterdeep, Reggie (Reginald): a human monk who lost his hearing in a storm and then sunk into alcoholism, Bayu, the first new player: an air genasi rogue/sorcerer multiclass with a criminal background who eventually mostly turned himself around, and Embri, the second new player: an aasimar warlock of the celestial who got separated from her family by the Black Hats. The relevant NPC's are Zara: a tiefling whose class remains unknown who works at Helga's, a tavern, and is the love interest of Lucius Pike, Frankie: a goliath barbarian who has been with the party since the beginning and they recently found out that he was the son of a noble, Helga: the owner of Helga's tavern (duh), and Bacon: an imp the party captured in the first session and that has become something of a party pet.
The game starts off with Bayu and Embri in Helga's. The tavern has a few patrons, but with it being morning isn't overly crowded. Kenku sit in the seats against the wall and Bayu having lived in the city knows that said kenku are known for being notorious pickpockets. Bayu decides to try and rob the kenku, he fails horribly on the first roll. Bayu casts light on his hand and blinds the kenku. Bayu runs for the door but is caught by Lucius Pike who just came down from the tavern's upstairs, which the party has been staying in. Lucius scolds him, but then the kenku regains its sight and points to Reggie, who is standing beside Lucius in the tavern doorway, the kenku exclaims "You!" and Reggie realizes this is one of the kenku he beat up and "mugged" (he returned the stolen goods to their owners). With this, the kenku in the tavern make their way towards the trio. Meanwhile, Frankie stands up and also starts his way towards the party. A kenku slams a bottle over Frankie's head and with that Initiative is rolled.
Reggie makes his way towards the corner booth where the party usually sits. The kenku attack with as much force as they can muster, but due to bad rolls do very little damage to anyone but themselves. As the fight draws to an end a lone kenku wielding a greatsword shouts "For the glory of the raven" (one of the people who helped bandits take over the starting city) attacks Frankie and then tries to run, but falls face-first onto the table it tried jumping over. Seeing itself surrounded and knowing it's injured it caws out "Not telling you nuthin" three times. The party after knocking out the last kenku drag their unconscious forms over to a different corner booth and what few kenku didn't participate in the fight rush out. Bayu loots their bodies and finds two coin purses, the tip of a cane, and a "golden" dagger. Reggie notices this, but at the time does nothing.
The group gets in some good inter-group RP and Lucius, due to flirting with Embri, (is) graciously agrees to (manhandled into) go(ing) on a date with Zara. Frankie informs them that Jorg, a leader of the bandits who took over the city, is leaving today come midnight. Zara recruits Bayu and Embri into the revolution. Embri returns to the bar. Bayu decides to play songs in the tavern and manages to haggle Helga into giving him a free room, that he has to share with the rest of the party (he had to leave soon ooc). Reggie sends Bacon to go momentarily steal the golden dagger from Bayu after finding out Bacon can turn invisible. Bacon succeeds and Reggie inspects the dagger, however, Bayu realizes the dagger is in Reggie's hands and makes his way over. Reggie identifies that the dagger is pyrite and tells Bayu such, but Bayu just wants it because it's a cool dagger. Reggie returns the dagger. Lucius makes his way to the shrine of Tyr to repair his holy symbol which cracked after he made some questionable decisions. Embri questions Zara as to what the revolution does and what her part in it would be.
Lucius finds the shrine of Tyr utterly desecrated, crude graffiti, broken stones, uncleaned. He enters and finds the inside looks much better than the outside. A worn statue of Tyr stands towards the center of the shrine. Lucius gets his prayer supplies ready and is met by an old dwarf who proclaims himself to be a holy man of Tyr. The dwarf reassures him that Tyr will forgive him and regales him with a tale of the mistake that got his holy symbol to crack. The dwarfs adventuring party was being pursued by mind flayers and rather than face them they entered a drow city and escaped in the ensuing chaos, he laments his decision and proclaims that he would change it if he could. Lucius now reassured goes back to his prayers and towards the end of them is interrupted by a voice proclaiming that the temple of Lolth is a much better place to worship. He turns around and comes face to face with a drow who "helped" them fight off some thugs last session. The two argue over their religious differences and in the end, the drow uses a spell to turn the statue temporarily blue to antagonize Lucius. Lucius doesn't go for the bait and the drow explains that the shrine of Lolth is extorting protection money from the shrine of Tyr. Realizing that she won't get a rise from Lucius the drow leaves. Lucius looks down to see his holy symbol is repaired.
Reggie goes to the wizard, Fizzleworth's, tower and asks him if he could put the current magic item he's making on hold to build him some kind of bracers to turn his unarmed strikes magical. The wizard agrees but charges him full price for the old magic item with the "discounted" price applying to the new magic item. Reggie and Lucius return to the Tavern and they have a discussion about the gods as Reggie has decided to turn a new leaf and the two eventually decide on him turning to the worship of Mystra. Reggie gives Bacon some ale and Bacon sends glares at Embri, as she is an aasimar. Embri glares back and upon it being pointed out by Lucius's player that sending Bacon a flirty glance would freak him out she does so. Bacon understandable starts having a mental breakdown as he realizes "Those aren't angry eyes." Lucius and Zara go on a date. Session ends.
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
Hi. I don't have a big story to tell. My group hasn't played consecutively in a near year, since our game master has been 'bUsY' all school year so far, but the last time I was there I recall that:
Our team, consisting of about 5-6 people, had just put together all of their gold to buy this huge fortress from the mayor of a town that's name eludes me. The only problem is apparently they may or may not have been a little short on cash, and now there's tax collectors that are supposed to come every once in a while to get money from them, which doesn't exist?
So then they had this town official they were trying to deal with, trying to wriggle out of the impending debt they were going to have, and then next thing I know my character wakes up after recovering from a sickness (me being away because of them always playing on times I can't), walking outside to piles of goblin corpses strewn all about, my friends nowhere to be found, and a fortress with a flaming caved in roof, after one of them decided to cast a fireball or something.
So yeah, that's all I recall.
Now apparently the next session we're going to have, thanks to 3-4 sessions I missed during the summer, we now also own a giant turtle with a house on top of it?
No clue what those guys do, all I know is homebrew is in excess over there.
And uh yeah. Hope that was enjoyable to someone. Bye.
Epik Berm, the amateur Game Master.
Our party has just secured a Mad Max-style automobile to help us cross a wasteland in Avernus without becoming irreversibly exhausted. One of our players had to assume control of the Tabaxi rogue while absent from this session, so our Human monk offered to do so.
The Tabaxi opted to drive the vehicle, our Dwarf paladin took the harpoon seat, the monk took the passenger seat with our Fire Genasi wizard, and my Halfling cleric sat in the back to get his exhaustion back down.
After many hours, we encounter two canine-demons riding motorcycles in the distance, closing in on us. The halfling cleric alerts the group, and throws a Fireball at these marauders...with very little effect.
Instead, when they draw close enough, my halfling casts "Thorn Whip", and successfully yanks the demon off his motorcycle, basically removing him from combat. One down; one to go.
The remaining demon LEAPS from his bike and lands right in front of my halfling on the rear bumper, and my halfling starts shouting for the party to do something.
Meanwhile, our Tabaxi rogue is having trouble handling the vehicle. Smoke is coming from the front engine, making it hard to see. The demon casts some kind of Grease-like spell, which blinds our Tabaxi. Our DM requests that the Tabaxi rolls two d20's for vehicle handling.
Two natural 1's.
Our vehicle flips and crashes. The demon is dead, thankfully, but the vehicle is wrecked, and we are stranded in the Avernus wasteland with heavy damage. We decide to hide inside a bag we have (a pocket dimension), and wait until we rest up.
My halfling decides to peek outside the bag after we rest to see if everything is okay outside. He discovers that the bag is now on another vehicle, this one much bigger than we've seen, and there are Redcaps operating engines and machines. Not safe.
We devise a plan; my Light cleric halfling casts "Faerie Fire", and our Sun Soul monk blasts the affected ones, while our dwarf paladin mops up the rest.
It starts out alright...we get two of the five Redcaps, and our Fire Genasi wizard even manages to "Animate Dead" two of them (which he calls "Dead Caps).
But our monk and my halfling become frenzied by some ability the Redcaps have, and we starts attacking randomly...even our comrades.
I, uh...."Inflict Wounds" at our monk, and...well, he doesn't survive. My cleric is devastated for what he accidentally did, and our party is now trapped in a massive demonic war-machine speeding through the wasteland.
Campaign 1, 7th session:
Characters: Level 4 Human Fighter (Champion) and level 4 Human Rogue (Assassin)
- This time characters cleared a cave filled with 3 Orcs, 3 Lizardfolks and 4 Ogres
- It was basic dungeon crawl
- Most fun moments were combat encounters when Ogres were tricked with noise, hiding and otherwise angering them. One of the Ogres got stuck in narrow hallway. (GM played Ogres as very stupid creatures)
- After dungeon crawl characters bought mounts
A short and not too productive session...the rogue had a family obligation and couldn't come, the druid and bard had an appointment and arrived quite late, and I had somewhere to be afterward, so we could not run overtime, ending up with less than an hour and a half to play.
The party decided to get back on the trail of the thieves, leaving Blax and heading east along the road. They came to a river, where they were ambushed by 9 Sahuagin, who claimed to be collecting taxes for the Bandit Prince. It was an exciting battle full of Thunderwaves, and since this was the third party of the Prince's bandits they have killed, they are seriously on Bandit Naughty List. Afterward, the party took a short rest (and skinned their opponents, as usual) and proceeded, coming to a fork in the road. They had almost decided to go north when the druid remembered rolling Survival for tracking, and found evidence that the thieves had actually gone south. They proceeded to follow until they came to a spot where there were bloodstains and signs of a struggle in the road...plus, they randomly rolled another combat encounter in that space.
I randomly rolled giant spiders, which we all thought was uninteresting, and we decided to leave the game there (time was up anyway) and let me prepare a more interesting encounter to start off the next session.
Edeleth Treesong (Aldalire) Wood Elf Druid lvl 8 Talaveroth Sub 2
Last Tree Standing Tabaxi Ranger, Chef and Hoardsperson lvl 5, Company of the Dragon Team 1
Choir Kenku Cleric, Tempest Domain, lvl 11, Descent Into Avernus Test Drive
Poinki Goblin Paladin, Redemption, lvl 5, Tales from Talaveroth
Lyrika Nyx Satyr Bard lvl 1, The Six Kingdoms of Talia
Xanster the Chainlock and Three-Axe Johnson are exploring the Tower of Shades, former seat of power of the Dragon Overlord. They find a side passage that Xanster, with his dwarven eye for stonework thinks was scratched out of the main passageway through solid rock, over millennia , by something using only their fingers.
Xanster the Chainlock tells Screwtape the Imp to scout the passageway. Screwtape says, "I got a bad feeling about this, boss." Xanster chews him out in the most vulgar terms and tells him to do what he's told. As Xanster watches through Screwtape's eyes, I do a Blair Witch-style description of the imp creeping through the tunnel and into the chamber I've named The Bone Garden. Screwtape looks around, taking in the bone mosaics on the wall and the bone sculptures scattered around the floor. He hears a rattling behind him, looks, but only sees more bones. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a glow. He moves towards it and sees that it's coming from the fabled Helm of Brilliance! He turns to go back, sees a flash of the monster, screams "oh, shit!" and then goes radio silent. At the opening of the passageway, Three-Axe and Xanster hear a disgusting wet munching sound.
And that's where we ended it.
I don't know what they're going to do next, but I'm kind of hoping they stay out of the passageway. They had some chunks taken out of them in the last fight, and I'm not sure they're ready to go up against Skeleton Key, the mad guardian.
Also, at some point soon, they'll actually be traveling to Hell, so they'll see Screwtape again. I have to think about what that reunion is going to look like.
Restarted an old campaign that we had put on hold to give the DM a break. Brought in a new player to the campaign and one of the previous player made a new character
Started at the inn we were staying at on the tail end of a big fight so we were a little worse for wear. DM gets us started with this creepy multi-part dream sequence hinting at connections between our Shadow monk, wild sorcerer, new character monster hunter ranger, and a threat from our cleric's past. Meanwhile our halfling rouge is at the bar getting drunk when this female NPC, introduced in our last session of this campaign almost a year ago who had an unhealthy appetite for our rouge, walks in and charms him to walking away with her.
By this point our characters have been awoken from their sleep and disturbed to the point rush down to check their rouge and find him gone. They rush out into the streets and find him about 100 feet away and going further.
This is where our DM's plans began to go off the rail. It had been his intention for their to be a chase scene, using it as an opportunity to introduce our characters to our new ranger who is hunting the NPC who is a succubus. As a note for you DMs out there, when you want a chase scene involving a mid-level monk then 100ft is nothing. So our characters dash and manage to avoid the obstacles and over the course of two turns reach them.
So does our new ranger who begins attacking the disguised succubus, shouting that she's a monster. However our characters have "some" history with the woman and no history with this guy who just suddenly starts attacking, so of course the logical course of action would be to help the woman.
One round into combat the ranger is stunned on the ground, half his hp gone and struggling to warn us of the danger, and IRL the player and DM are morbidly joking about creating a new character. Fortunately our Knowledge Cleric had a few tricks up his sleeve. Before combat he had used the Knowledge Domain channel divinity to read the ranger's thoughts so he knows that the ranger "believes' the woman is a succubus. On the clerics turn (because clerics always go last) he gambles on command to "Transform" and wins.
The succubus is revealed and we stop killing the ranger. She gets away, but now we can continue with character introductions.
Well, my last session went pretty good. My party is finally realizing that teamwork makes the dream work. They are halfway through the mines of Phandelver so it's making a good pace.
Nice developments are that my bard has learned a spell that calms down my Barbarian when he goes into an uncontrollable rage if he sees a demon.
ps; a bit of a dick DM cuz I put in a few demons here and there
Great fun, we completed the remainder of Cragmaw Castle. Our paladin has a goblin friend, Oogion, who was captured a few sessions ago. He is dead set on getting him back (and, out of character, says "Tom, I swear, if you kill Oogion then I'm not playing anymore.").
The party had previously snuck in via a back passageway, finding themselves in the kitchen. After dealing with Yeemik and the kitchen goblins fled, they decided that they would lay on a banquet (they poured as much alcohol as they could find into all of the food). There followed an epic brawl when the goblins who just about remained conscious were taken out by the party rushing out from the kitchen.
They head through the barracks and into the goblin shrine, where the grick takes them by surprise. They manage to take care of it easily enough, but when the paladin sees the goblins taunting him from the other side of the room, he sees red.
"Foul goblins, I will cut you down!"
"Why don't you come over here and say that?"
The paladin sprints forward, despite the other two party members trying to stop him ... and the ceiling collapses on top of him.
Once he has been dug out, the party ascend to the top of a tower and find a barred wooden door. The paladin edges it open and hears something breathing weakly inside.
"Is anyone in there?"
*Oogion voice* "Who ... is it."
At this point, all the players around the table sit bolt upright.
"...Oogion?"
"...Maudagalur? You-you came for me?"
The paladin bursts into the room to find Oogion tied up in the corner. "Oogion, of course I came back for you, I will always come back for you!"
Reunited with their friend, they climbed onto the roof and shot an arrow over to King Krol's chambers, his tower being slightly lower than the roof they were on. Krol came to the window to investigate the sound of the noise and the rogue took a pot-shot with her bow, rolling a critical hit. As Krol staggered backwards (most of his health wiped out), the party ziplined down using crowbars and caught the king unaware. The paladin and the rogue carried out perfect superhero landings, the dwarf crashed into the four-poster bed, which ensnared him and Krol.
After a very speedy encounter the king had been killed, they then got the drop on the shapeshifter, who was interrogating Gundren in a side room (because I forgot he was being held in Krol's chambers). Gundren thanked them for rescuing him and they are now heading back to Phandalin.
I think that's the last D&D session of 2019. I have really loved getting into dming this year (we started this campaign in February after my wife bought the starter set for me). Just the side quests and Wave Echo Cave remaining, then I'm not sure where we'll go next. One of my best friends gave me Tyranny of Dragons, so that might be a meaty option after Lost Mines, otherwise I might write something into an open campaign and let this group have some fun after their dealings with the Black Spider.
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Never tell me the DC.
For reference the party for this story is built like this 2 bards college of a lore and a college of whispers, profane soul bloodhunter, Divine soul sorcerer, monster slayer Ranger, Abjuration wizard (NPC), tempest domain cleric, Berserker barbarian (who hops in during the second half of this story) and they were presently working with a Halfling blood hunter/ bard/ rogue/ fighter (npc) lvl 16 they met whilst trying to find a yuan-ti the party is 8th level
My last session began with them finishing a fight they started last session against a yuan-ti Anathema who had murdered a shop keeper. They were close to killing it, but it was its turn and it used it’s divine word spell both the bards succeeded their save thankfully, both were right below 30. The Wizard failed his though keeping his distance was only below 40. And everyone else was pretty ok off, except for the Blood hunter. From the battle and some poor rolls she was down to 14 health. She rolled... base 3. The blood hunter died right there, the halfling shot her frost covered dagger into the throat of the yuan ti, one of the bards poured his dragon slayer long sword and psychic blades onto the yuan- ti and the other bard carved through its heads with her rapier, slaying it. The cleric quickly ran over and cast revivify bringing the bloodhunter back to life. Whilst she was down her gains pulsed a deep black color until she was revived and the color faded from her veins. Not thinking much of it for then they went back to the surface with a head of the yuanti as a trophy. The bloodhunter got a visit from her god, Eris. They then took a long rest, collected some supplies and then noticed 4 distant shapes flying towards the city.
soon enough they discovered them to be dragons, they gathered in the town square and rolled initiative. The fight was tense, a young black dragon, a young red dragon and two wyvrens. The npc halfling returned a couple turns in. The bloodhunter got enlarged by the wizard and they went to work Through out the fight both bards went down though one got knocked to zero twice and the bloodhunter went down twice as well, the second taking 2 death fails from the wyvern. She rolled her death save and died AGAIN the scorcerer took out both the dragons with a well placed lighting bolt and they finished of the wyverns. The divine soul scorcerer ran over to revive the bloodhunter, only to find black veins once again, which shortly disappeared after she was revived
Bardic Inspiration is just someone believing in you, and I believe in you