Last night was sort of the big payoff for my character's story arc, so I want to talk about it a bit...

My character is Vokhaar, aka "Quitter" (Vokhaar is just the goblin word for Quitter, using an online fantasy translator). He's a goblin bard who ran away from home in the swamps because he was tired of a life of pillaging and being treated as disposable canon fodder, instead just wanting to perform and play music. Goblin religion dictates that all Goblins are destined to be slaves, and when they die instead of any kind of afterlife dictated by their actions, they just become slaves to Maglubiyet. This is largely why goblins are the way they are... there's no incentive to be anything but selfish in life, because everyone gets punished the same regardless of the life they lead. He resents this belief, but still wholeheartedly believes that no other Gods will accept a Goblin, simply because he was told that all throughout life.

This grows into a hatred of slavery in general, and really takes a turn when he meets a Deep Gnome freedom fighter and Cleric of Ilmater (long-running D&D god of Sacrifice who's pretty clearly a Jesus allegory). Traditionally, goblins hate and fear Gnomes, but meeting her makes him realize it's all just superstition... which also has him questioning what other "facts" he was raised on that were just lies and misunderstandings used to control others. There's a lot that goes on there, but ultimately the two fall in love and Quitter becomes a Celestial Warlock in service of Ilmater (he doesn't have the patience to be a proper Cleric, or the strength to be a Paladin).

However, as he travels he actually meets some of his family members who also fled the swamps because a plague was spreading across the land. However, a powerful Hobgoblin general arrived, offering medicine to treat the plague, but enslaved those who accepted aid. He starts to build a goblinoid army, readying to take over the nearby human kingdoms which were ready to go to war with each other after the Prince and Princess of each respective kingdom went missing. Any goblin, Hobgoblin, or Bugbear that resisted was tortured or outright slaughtered to keep the rest in line. Not really having a plan on what to do, he still resolves to return to the swamps to try and do something to help his family.

Through a series of bad rolls on the way into the swamp, however, we managed to screw up on both stealth and land vehicles in a way that put us in a fight with an Ancient Black Dragon that lived in the swamp, and which the goblins living there treated as an unkillable force of nature, straight up abandoning entire villages if it ever goes near them. It's a rough fight, but we're all pretty high level by this point in the game, and we manage to kill it, our Half-Orc fighter hitting it with a Sentinel opportunity attack every time it tries to just flee (the swamp is difficult terrain, so if it managed to take off we'd pretty much have no way of catching up to it). When we manage to find its horde Quitter finally has an idea of how he can save his people...

Strapping the creature's giant, rotting head to the top of their wagon, he leads a procession into the Hobgoblin stronghold, using Illusions, a Bag of Tricks, and other tricks to turn the whole thing into a full-on Prince Ali musical number. Marching through the streets and throwing gold and trinkets from the Dragon's horde into the swarming crowd of goblins... conveniently providing cover for the Rogue and Way of Shadow monk in the part to sneak in and start releasing slaves. He marches right up to the General's cabin, showing off the Black Dragon skull, proclaiming that the General is too weak to be the leader, and even using an illusion to make it seem like the Black Dragon skull is leaping off to attack him, making the General show fear if only for a moment in front of his followers. This blow to his pride is enough to get him to agree to a one-on-one duel with Quitter (as opposed to just ordering all the goblinoids to swarm us).

The fight is rough, since Quitter really isn't built for one-on-one combat, being mostly a support character. But he makes a point of showing off the spells and abilities granted to him as a Celestial Warlock, showing all the goblinoids present that a Goblin can be accepted by the other Gods and that they don't have to live their lives planning only to become slaves to Maglubiyet in the afterlife. He makes the final blow using a Goblin Scimitar crafted by his father years ago (which, incidentally, is just a discarded soldier's short sword that was roughly hammered  into a scimitar form), and which at this point has been enchanted by an artificer and turned into his pact weapon... using the Booming Blade cantrip he learned as Warlock.

In the end he was declared the new Chief of this massive horde of goblinoids.  The remaining slaves were freed, and going through the General's records and supplies they realized that there was no plague at all... the Hobgoblins were simply putting poison in the Goblins' water supply, and offering treatment that was just the anti toxin. As well the missing Prince and Princess were abducted by the General to stir distrust and violence among the human kingdoms, weakening them so he could swoop in after the fact to take over.

This would normally be a good place to end a character's story, but he still has work to do traveling with his companions. Now he has to decide who to leave in charge of the horde before leaving, and the group needs to escort the prince and Princess back to the neighboring kingdom to stop the oncoming war.

A lot of plot happened in the last game! And some fun RPing too.

Our latest session started with the party having "liberated" my orc friend, Calivari, from police custody; the local government was rounding up all orcs and bringing them in for "registration," but in reality they're being sent to a recently built ghetto that was bankrolled by the tyrannical leader of the orc homeland, Mal'Shakar Kyuzo. However, Calivari was not at all happy to have been rescued. "Those were my friends," he said of the dead constables. "They would have treated me well." Despite my (water elf monk/ranger) insistence that going to G-rash Bay was a death sentence, he refused to join us. "I don't want to live my life as a fugitive," he insisted. "That sort of chaos and uncertainty isn't for me." He decided to continue on to G-rash Bay on foot, to turn himself in.

I was absolutely furious; as a youth, I'd tried to start an abolitionist movement in my home city, which allowed slavery, and had been disastrously unsuccessful. Now once again my efforts at fighting for justice were for naught. Rolan ("drow" warlock) did his best to comfort me as the rest of the party removed the bodies of the constables and the wrecked police wagon from the road, burning the lot to hide the evidence. As I made some repairs to the wheel of our carriage (finally feeling useful and competent again), Rolan used sending to update our boss, Captain Shuscrev, on the status of our mission. At least we'd successfully convinced the Mal'Shakar agents to return to their homeland, so our mission was, technically, a success. In response, Cpt. Shuscrev ordered us to meet him at the home of the alchemist Sir Nie Banders.

Sir Nie was still recuperating from the assault that he'd suffered some weeks ago, but he was in better condition. In the meantime, Cpt. Shuscrev had turned his home into a base of operations; when we arrived, crewmen were scurrying all about the place to carry out the captain's orders. We learned that Mal'Shakar Kyuzo had, upon being thwarted (by us) in his plans to attack the refugees subtly, resorted to open hostilities and was sailing with his navy towards G-rash bay to bombard the ghetto. While the local government had just as dim an opinion of the refugees as Kyuzo did, they still didn't want an orcish navy attacking the city, so they'd commissioned Cpt. Shuscrev as a privateer to head off the attacking fleet. We were to sail as part of his crew on his ship, the Claymore.

We had a day or so before weighing anchor, so we decided to speak with the port authority, Commodore Portia. A month or so ago we'd recovered a ship whose crew had been stricken with disease and turned it in to the port authority; now that the ship was almost out of quarantine, we hoped to convince Cdre. Portia to award the ship to us as a prize. There was a line of people to speak to the commodore, but Vivienne (siren bard) bullied her way to the front. Fisticuffs almost broke out with some people who didn't like us cutting ahead, but we managed to avoid violence, and we were brought into the commodore's office. Cdre. Portia was an amiable enough fellow; he promised us the ship - if we could recover a magic harp that he'd been searching for. This harp, crafted by the finest Andalusian artificers, had the ability to "make the blood of sailors boil," though we never bothered to clarify if he meant that literally or figuratively. A potent item, either way! It was lost fifty years ago, when the captain who last possessed it went down with his ship. Blagg Baldrick (dwarf barbarian) made some inquiries with Cdre. Portia's secretary, who dug up the record of the lost ship's intended route; it had been sailing from the city of Jelorian to G-rash Bay. Jelorian wasn't far from the childhood home of Oondertau (water elf wizard), who helped Blagg identify the most likely place that the ship went down - a particularly hazardous stretch of sea called the Maryellen Strait, long rumored to be haunted.

We asked Cpt. Shuscrev if he could possibly make a detour to the Maryellen Strait, so we could make a diving expedition. It was not far from his planned patrol, so he agreed to get us close, but he did not want to sail into the strait itself; he'd lend us one of the boats and wait a set amount of time for us, "unless I see a Mal'Shakar caravel, or I see another ship that's out for my head." Fair enough! We had enough aquatic members of the party that we weren't too worried about getting stranded in the ocean. We also spent a good amount of time procuring the necessary equipment and ingredients to create potions of water breathing, since Sir Nie wasn't yet healed enough to make them for us.

As we sailed on the Claymore towards Maryellen Strait, we asked Cpt. Shuscrev about his beef with Mal'Shakar Kyuzo, which seemed to go beyond simply disapproving of the tyrant's treatment of his subjects. And then he (super casually, btw) dropped a bombshell: he hated Kyuzo because Kyuzo was responsible for trapping him "this form." Shuscrev was not a dwarf at all, but an ancient, extra-planar being. "So... you're an alien??" I asked, gobsmacked. I had long held the crackpot theory that ancient aliens had founded civilizations on Avalon (the name of our world), and here was living proof that I was right! Inexplicably, the rest of the party wasn't nearly as excited as I was. Cpt. Shuscrev confirmed that he was indeed an alien, one of many who had visited our world, and he said there were conflicts between these entities that had been going on for millennia; it seems his feud with Kyuzo was part of one.

We finally reached the edge of Maryellen Strait, where we loaded our gear into one of the Claymore's boats and set off. Once we were in the strait proper, Vivienne hopped into the water and asked a nearby fish if it had seen any sunken ships. It confirmed that it had; those who needed it downed their potions of water breathing, and we followed the fish to the shipwreck. (Those of us with swim speeds trailed ropes that the landlubbers held on to, so they wouldn't have to struggle to keep up.) It was difficult to tell how long ago the ship sank, so we weren't certain whether it was the ship we were looking for, but it was worth investigating nonetheless. We entered through a large hole in the side, and were surprised to find that the hold had an air pocket at the top. Before our eyes, the water in the hold began to drain; we turned, and the hole in the ship was no longer to be seen; we heard the cries of seagulls, and we realized we were on a ghost ship! Ascending to the deck, we spoke with several of the passengers that milled about, and determined that we were on a civilian transport headed to Andalus; one passenger in particular, a comely woman in a white dress and a jeweled necklace, mentioned that she was going to visit her husband, who had been fighting in the Andalusian civil war. The war was recently over, and she could be reunited with her love. Oondertau and I blanched; we both knew the war she was referring to had happened centuries ago. 

Suddenly, a storm overtook us with supernatural speed, and the woman in the white dress grew solemn. "We're not going to make it to Andalus, are we?" she asked. 

"No," I said. "You never did make it."

"And neither will you!" the woman in the white dress shrieked, revealing her spectral nature. The other passengers took on the appearance of bloated, drowned corpses, and they set upon us. We managed to pick off all the drowned passengers with relative ease, but it took a while to figure out that the woman in the white dress could be permanently destroyed only by fire or radiant damage.

When we finally defeated the ghost woman, the sea rushed back up over us, and we found ourselves at the bottom of the ocean, the ship once again a sunken wreck. Though we knew this wasn't the ship we were looking for, we decided to search it anyway to see if there was anything else of value. Bobeg (goblin rogue/artificer) and Blagg found a cache of gems to split amongst the party; meanwhile, Oonderteau and I discovered the skeletal remains of the woman in the white dress, the jeweled necklace still glinting from around her neck. We gathered up her bones and gave her as best a burial as we could, using her necklace as a grave marker. As we were working, I noticed out of the corner of my eye Rolan frantically gesturing; their potions of water breathing had expired! Oonderteau and I rushed over and used our shape water racial ability to create an air pocket for our party members before they drowned. Apparently time had passed at an accelerated pace while we were aboard the ghost ship, and we realized we had no idea how long we'd actually been down here - clearly a lot longer than we'd thought. Rolan used sending to once again check in with Cpt. Shuscrev, who reassured us that he was still waiting for us, and would remain for another few hours. 

Vivienne decided to seek out a smarter creature than a fish to ask if there were any more wrecks around; after a bit of searching she found an octopus, whom she brought back to our air pocket. Blagg had cast speak with animals as a ritual, so he was able to have a more in-depth conversation with the octopus than Vivienne would have. The octopus was very curious about our magical air pocket, but he affirmed that there weren't any other wrecks in the area besides the one we'd already found. Disheartened, we decided to return to the Claymore. Rolan cast water breathing on the landlubbers and we returned to the surface - though, while no one was looking, Joe (tabaxi monk) stole the necklace from the woman in the white dress's grave.

Back aboard the Claymore, Rolan and I went up to the crow's nest. Rolan asked me about my fascination with aliens, and I explained how, during my centuries of exploring the coasts I'd discovered evidence of ancient aliens: sunken ruins and beautiful, mysterious artifacts. Then he made a shocking revelation: he was, technically, an alien, himself! He was not a drow after all - he merely resembled one, by complete coincidence. He was from another realm, and about fifty years ago he'd suddenly woken up in our world with no idea of how he'd arrived. "I've spent four goddamn centuries looking for aliens and now I'm surrounded by them!" was my shocked reply. 

Just then, Blagg shouted up to us from the deck, "Hey Haefalmere, you're gonna get really excited about what I'm gonna tell you!"

"I'm already excited!" I shouted back down. "Did you know Rolan is an alien, too?!"

"You're about to meet a lot more of them!" Blagg replied. He had been talking to the aged quartermaster of the Claymore, who revealed he had served under the captain that last owned the magic harp; he knew where that captain's treasure cache was, on an island that was long rumored to be a hotbed of extraplanar activity. Now we had a fresh lead on where to find the harp.

When last seen, the intrepid band of newbie heroes was still on the trail of thieves who had stolen the flying mounts they needed to get to the sky city, but the trail had come to an end at signs of a struggle and bloodstains.

The druid and bard heard rustling in the tree branches above.  The rogue threw a rock into the trees with disadvantage (still got an 18 or something) and hit something that hissed angrily. 

What I had prepared for: after fighting the giant constrictor snake, the party would investigate the site, and find clues that would lead them to the Bandit Prince's camp.

What happened: The party decided to simply walk away from the snake...it did not pursue them, and they kept following the road south, despite seeing no more trail of the thieves. (I hinted that they had not looked for evidence of where the thieves had gone, and they briefly considered going back, then said Nahhh... ) They decided that whatever had happened, Team Thief had probably flown away on the flying mounts. The next morning they encountered a pair of lizardfolk hunters.  At first the party was very excited about the combat (the bard is very near to leveling) but at the last moment the monk decided to chat with the lizardfolk first, just in case. They did not speak common, but he spoke Draconic.  He asked if they were more of the Bandit Prince's 'tax collectors,' like the bandit parties they had fought earlier.  The lizardfolk denied it, and after the monk asked a few more good questions, the lizardfolk told them the story of Prince Bellar, that he had been an actual elf prince in the Elven city of Ado Vandor, until he had been accused of murdering his brother and gone on the run, assembling his bandits.

Excited, the party saw that Ado Vandor was where this road was taking them, and made a day and a half's journey to the elf city.

Ado Vandor was mostly in the treetops with no apparent way up, and the elves wandering around on the actual ground had a little fun messing with the party when they asked about how to get up there. After they flashed their deputy badges, the elves became more cooperative. They not only added to the information about the bandit prince, but they showed the party which tree trunk to knock on to have the elevator lowered for them.

Now the party does what the party does best--SHOPPING! The bard went to the armorer and spent pretty much all his gold on a breast plate and shield.  Since this is an elvish town with proud artisans, the elf offered to customize the armor, and the bard had it engraved with a motif of roses, musical notes, and kittens. The druid brought out his giant scorpion exoskeleton and sahuagin hides and asked for a breastplate to be made for him. The armorer agreed to do so, though would not use the hides (We do not make armor from the skins of sentient beings here.) The druid was disappointed to hear that making the custom armor would cost the same as buying a metal breastplate, and he did not have enough gold.  The armorer kindly said that it would take three days to fashion the armor, and he would start with a down payment, and the druid would have 30 days to pick up the armor or sacrifice the deposit and the armor. He agreed.

While they were doing this, the rogue (who is developing a hatred for gnomes) looked for a gnome wandering below on the ground and (stealth nat 20 and 19 to hit) dropped a furball on it from his Bag of Tricks. It transformed into a giant badger on contact, flattening the gnome. As people ran to help the gnome, the rogue had the badger run away into the forest, crashing into every gnome it saw on the way out. But at least the rogue did not set fire to the city as he suggested. (He likes to suggest setting fire to stuff, usually infuriating the druid.)

The Monk asked about what other kind of stores they had, and I said, "Well, it's an elf city, so you know, they have an armor shop, a weapons shop, tailors, art studios, antique shops..."

His eyes lit up as he headed for the antique shop and asked what they sold there.  I told him old furniture and weapons and Elvish glassware.  He asked the proprietor if there were any magical items, so I totally-random-rolled three. The first was a Potion of Heroics which was offered at the bargain price of 100 gp. He passed. The second was Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments (AKA Harold's Purple Crayon Paint Pot), a steal at only 600gp. Never got to Item 3--the whole party pooled their money to see if they could get the paints. They have way too much money for their level, because at the beginning of the campaign, I was accidentally rolling on the hoard table instead of the individual table, in case you are wondering.

But after the armor purchases, they could not swing it, and decided to spend a couple of days looking for minor quests and battles to make some more money while waiting for the druid's new armor.

They headed for the tavern where the bard was pleasantly surprised to be immediately hired to sing. In a previous tavern, getting free room and board depended on the quality of the performance and he had rolled a three. But that was in a small farming town, and THIS time was in a culture-friendly Elf city after he had won the Bard competition in the main city's festival. Bard rolled a Nat 20 while the halfling rogue danced along with a performance roll of 21, so they killed it and listeners flung gold at them. (All their rolls in the tavern were amazing.) The rogue then did some gambling and won four out of five hands for a tidy profit. (The only one he lost, he had only bet all his copper on.) The monk and druid listened around and heard some useful rumors: that there's a lost shrine in the nearby swamp, and that Bluetongue the Pirate claimed he buried his treasure near Harpy Bay, but had lost the map.  (The players HAVE the treasure map, never tried to dig it up.)

They now have only 15 days to find a way to fly to the city. I helpfully suggested that horses would cut their traveling time in half, and they enthusiastically spent their tavern money on a wagon and draft horses.

So my latest game is me (37yr old), my 14yr old son (DM) and his 3 friends (all 14), I am only playing the campaign to help my son along (which is a good job really). This happened over two nights and they all stayed over at my house (yay!)
So the past month or so I have been trying to tell him that he needs to prepare, look things up, have encounters ready. Well he didn't, he winged the whole thing and it didn't turn out too bad(ish) he will be preparing for the next session.

Yes I know familiars do not work as described (neither did my son until I explained it later in the game, he allowed me to keep my spoils!)

Me - lvl 1 Barbarian (rolled really good stats)

G - lvl 1 Warlock (thinks he is a pokemon monster, has a monkey familiar! << again DM didn't know has allowed it though for flavour)

S - lvl 1 Ranger (really doesn't like the warlock)

C - lvl 1 Rogue (quite needs to work on RP, but solid dice rolls)

A - lvl 1 can't remember his class and he was only there on friday night

We all sort of bump into each other in the forest G sends his familiar over to get a better look at S (9ft Dragonborn), S kills familiar as "it looked aggresive!" keeps body in cloak, G curls up in a ball crying (character not RL, warlock is an animal lover! (when this gets explained shortly when he summons second monkey, nickname given of Monkey ****er!)). I appear introduce myself S offers to sell me monkey, I buy it and due to my proficiency with leather tools turn it into a nice hat! C turns up, G summons 2nd monkey. We get attacked by bandits, 2nd monkey doesnt last long I claim corpse and stick it in my bag waiting for another to turn it into a pair of monkey paws! 
Defeating the bandits nets us a tidy haul of loot (too much for our level, did explain this to son later that night) and we head onto town, informed by guard that there is a crappy hotel that people enter but never leave and screaming can be heard at all hours of the day (hello plot hook 1), however some of the party are in need of rest and we want to sell our loot, so we take directions to a blacksmith, potion shop and hotel, which are all in a nice little complex with a magic pet store and a fighting arena!
Pet shop catches my eye as the have a flaming monkey in the window, I am curious so go in and apparently it turns out flaming monkeys are hot when they are alive, but when they die the enchantment that makes them flamey carries on just without the heat! Sweet a new hat, I could then turn the old hat into my second glove! 25GP, done I say thats when the monkey ****er comes in and tells the shopkeeper my plan, monkey is no longer for sale, shopkeeper gets agitated and flames start coming out of his eyes, monkey lunges for me and I react (with a nat 20) catch monkey mid air, snap its neck, take 3 fire damage before dropping 25GP on the counter and walking out with my soon to be new hat!

G is now calming the shopkeeper down and  talking to him, shopkeeper is telling him about the hotel (plot hook 1 pt 2) and how there could be a reward in it for us if we clear it out, he offers 20gp each and G will get a pet hellhound. S is already planning to sell its corpse!
Head to the blacksmith and sell our loot, blacksmith offers me a 75% and everyone else a 50% discount on his wares if we clear the hotel (plot hook 1 pt 3).
The potionshop gives me 10 healing potions for a bag of pink powder that we found on the bandits and asked us to grab some more ingredients for her and she would mix us up something good if we cleared the hotel (plot hook 1 pt 4).
Head to the arena and book in for a fight, I am fighting their champion the fight didn't last long as my new hat gave me a power surge that doubled my damage and killed the guy! (my son came up with that, we now have a second plot hook, which is tied to the third plot hook). The guy who runs the arena gives us our winnings (everyone bet on me, so did I) and asks where I got the hat from, I told him I made it out of a flaming monkey corpse that I brought in the pet shop, the same pet shop that burned down 10years ago and doesnt exist apparently! He is concerned about the hat and the pet shop (plot hook 2 and 3) and thinks it is all linked to the hotel (plot hook 1 pt 5)
With my winnings I treat everyone to a night in the fancy hotel where we all sleep soundly and wake up the next morning, except for A, turns out he was abducted in the night (good way to explain the fact that he couldnt stay over Saturday night), so we investigate and find a small girl "locked" in a wardrobe (the warlock opened it with eldritch blast!) She tells us how her dad woke in the night hearing animal noises and hid her in the wardrobe, she heard screams and hasnt seen her parents since! We investigate A's room, claw marks on the floor leading back to the wardrobe the little girl had been in, and something has been dragged out from under the bed! We follow the tracks in the mud leading all the way to the hotel and start investigating, the first room I find an enchanted dagger (no one has identify grrrr) and get attacked by 2 suits of black Animated Armour, I break them and claim an enchanted longsword and S grabs the other longsword, next room more random finds and 2 more suits of animated armour this time silver, again I manage to loot one of the enchanted swords and swap it with S so that I have a matching pair of swords to go with the dagger I found (Black, with a purplish glow and dark oak handles). We ended there as I am old and tired and there is only so much time I can spend with a group of 14yr old hyperactives I can put up with!

I spent about 3 hours on Sunday afternoon explaining all of this to my son, as he hadn't taken enough notes. He has now written it all down and is doing some research into common/uncommon magical items, he is trying to figure out exactly what it is my hat does! And he now knows that familiars do not work that way, but he is letting me keep the corpses/gloves anyway lol 
He is also letting me take a homebrew totem at 3rd level, Path of the Monkey Totem not because it fits the theme, but because it will mess with G!
I am also going to help him with his prep and conveniently forget everything for game night lol Can't wait until Xmas day and he opens some new books lol

My most recent session was pure role playing

we started the session with leveling up our 2 bards cleric bloodhunter and wizard to level 9, their druid barbarian paladin fighter 2 sorcerers and ranger either weren’t there or hadn’t been in enough fights to level up 

members at the session were our 2 bards, Arthur and Stella our blood hunter Delphia our cleric Slurmp, the wizard Igor the Druid Anya and the barbarian Burt Arthur took a level in warlock hexblade at the start of the session everyone else took one in their same class. 

We we started with them talking to the city guard and Learal Silverhand about the dragons they just finished off in the middle of town. Igor was carving them up and taking their parts Arthur spoke to Learal and they discussed the possibility that the city’s dragon ward may be gone. Learal promised them compensation and left to do her work. The party went to their tavern and fell asleep

when they awoke in the morning, Stella being an elf was first up, and began practicing her music in her and Arthur’s shared room, about 5 minutes before Arthur woke up, a lady with a purple cloak and long curled black hair appeared on the foot of Arthur’s bed, reading a black covered book. Stella cleared her throat and the lady looked up. “Oh hello, lovely to see yo again!” She says  Stella gives a puzzled look. “ I don’t believe we’ve met to my knowledge...” Stella says carefully The lady looks back at her book “Well no, not officially though I was here the other day to make a deal with your dragon borne friend (the bloodhunter) so I believe I saw you then and your handsome little friend here. The name is Eris by the way.” Stella then asks “So why are you here?” Eris turns another page and goes “Well your handsome friend here has a deal to make in about... 5 minutes I’d guess?” A look of jealousy crosses Stella’s face. Eris notes this and gives a small chuckle “Don’t worry, I’m not ‘making moves’ on your man here I’m just-“ Eris gets cut off as Stella hits her hand on her bed post and yell “He is NOT ‘my man.’” And hits her hand so hard she sprains her thumb as well as wakes just about everyone in the building up Eris waves her hand and Stella’s thumb is healed as she gives a sigh and says “just don’t do that again, I won’t help you again” she closes her book and turns her attention to the now awake Arthur. The Druid, meanwhile is positioning herself at the keyhole of the door to listen in along with the cleric and bloodhunter. The bloodhunter soon recognizes the voice. Eris proceeds to speak to Arthur “Hello again young triton. I’m here to offer to you new abilities and powers beyond your comprehension blah, blah, blah really this is just formality. However this is in exchange for your service when I am in need of it.” Arthur gives her a look and inquires “What would this entail?” Eris thinks for a moment “For example, request for you to acquire something for me or, well I do suppose I often have people that I just tend not to like. Most of my tasks are a murder now that I think about it. Mayhaps I should rebrand” she waves her hand as though to shrug it off and asks if he accepts. At this point Stella storms out of the room tripping over the Druid on her way out as a loud thud is then heard, and the bloodhunter waves at Eris sitting on the foot of the bed still. Arthur agrees to the deal and a small shadow travels from Eris’ hand and into Arthur as they shake hands. Stella, with Anya in tow, heads to the pier and begins to put on a show with Anya transforming into a puppy and doing tricks to assist. The party receives their compensation from Learal of 1000 gold pieces and Arthur suggests to give some of it to their friend Durnan as due to the ongoings in town, the yawning portal has gotten a little messed up. The party gives 510 gold to Durnan who thanks Arthur and tell him that more than enough to start refurbishing. Arthur goes to find Stella on the pier but as he arrives she and Anya dimension door away to perform elsewhere. The group has a impromptu meeting to figure out how they can improve their equipment in preparation for the places they will soon have to leave for. Afterwards, Arthur heads up stair and uses the card Eris gave him in a previous session to summon a conference with Eris he is transported to what looks like the same location but looking out the window he figures out he is presently on the astral plane. In front of him is a table with a muffin and a coffee on one side and the same on the other, except Eris is eating her muffin. “I always love these things, you mortals, come up with the best food.” She wipes her mouth with her napkin and picks up her coffee “This on the other hand, it’s a little to bitter for my taste” she waves her hand and it changes to a sparkling liquid. “There, much better. So what do you need me for?” Arthur then begins to talk about the ongoings in the world and that the party soon has to leave to find items that will help them save the world from the evils that threaten it, as well as find more out about what is going on. He then continues “Basically, where is a good place to start, that is easy.” Eris chuckles and says “Easy is subjective, easy for me is snapping my fingers and this go bye bye. So anything. But for you well I’ll give you the ones most likely not to get you killed right off.” Eris lists off a handful of places which includes Arthur’s home, the undersea kingdom of Atlan. Arthur thanks her for her time and Eris leaves with a promise of seeing them soon. Arthur reappears in he and Stella’s room and asks her to come with him. Everyone is heading to bed and he with Stella goes down to Igor’s workshop in their basement and asks him to activate the new teleportation circle to send him and Stella to the sea palace Igor agrees and walks over to send them off. Arthur and Stella are immediately met with shimmering colors and Arthur sees his mom sitting in the corner, sewing. She drops her supplies and rushes over to Arthur and give him a big hug as they begin to catch up on recent events.

Our last session was the "season finale" before we go on a break for winter holidays. It was a good ol' fashioned dungeon crawl, and it ended with quite the cliffhanger.

We started on the Claymore, having just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to find a magic harp that was supposedly lost in a shipwreck fifty years ago. Crumstow, the elderly quartermaster, shared some intelligence that led us to believe the harp was actually on an island known for lots of extraplanar activity. Vivienne, our siren bard, approached Capt. Shuscrev and started buttering him up, asking him if he could do this one teensy-weensy favor of bringing us to the island.

"You mean a favor besides the favor I just did for you?" he asked with a healthy share of skepticism.

"And we're so grateful for it," Vivienne gushed. "You're such a great captain, and you've been so accommodating, and we appreciate everything you've done for us. We'll certainly repay you in any way we can!"

As Vivienne continued to soften up the captain, the rest of us (both in character and out of character) came to realize that she wasn't exaggerating very much; despite giving an initial impression of being a brutal, dangerous captain, Shuscrev had in fact been nothing but honest and steadfast in his actions and had done a lot to support us. (Maybe... the real magic harp is the extradimensional alien captains we met along the way.) However, it seemed that we had finally pushed his generosity too far. He insisted that the island was far too dangerous for him to risk going close with the Claymore. Nor was he willing to loan us a boat, like he did last time, because he was certain it would be a loss; he had no confidence that we would return. After a good amount of haggling, however, we gave him the gems we'd recovered from the previous shipwreck as collateral for a rowboat, and he relented. However, he gave us one final warning: the aliens that visit that island were known for "recruiting" Avalonians as foot soldiers in their long-running conflicts, and we would suffer that same fate if we weren't careful.

The Claymore set sail for the accursed island; I (water elf monk/ranger) went up to the crow's nest to gauge the weather, and noticed that a storm was fast approaching; we would have a very narrow window within which to make our expedition. When the Claymore came as close to the island as Shuscrev dared, we set off in our rowboat over the increasingly choppy seas. Crumstow had told us that the secret entrance to the treasure cache was on the north side of the island, so that's where we headed; as we did, I used my Horizon Walker ranger ability to sense for the presence of interdimensional portals. There was one - on the south end of the island. Instead of changing plans at the last minute, however, we decided to continue searching the north end of the island. It was no easy task; this side was almost entirely sheer cliff face. Finally, however, we spotted a ledge about 20 feet above the water with an unlit brazier perched atop it.

Joe (tabaxi monk) scurried up the cliff with a rope in tow. The cliffs were covered with thick, slimy vines that resembled tentacles; it seemed the interdimensional portal's presence had a corrupting effect on the nearby vegetation. But Joe was able to tie off the rope securely, we weighed anchor, and after a bit of struggle everyone manage to climb up to the ledge. While we were climbing, Joe fiddled with the brazier; when he lit it with a bit of flint and steel, the vines on the cliff face recoiled away, revealing a hidden cave. It was the entrance Crumstow had told us about!

Eagerly we went inside to find a large chamber with even more of those tentacle-y vines roping across the floor. We sensed danger and hesitated - or, at least, most of us did. Blagg (dwarf barbarian) strode on in and simply stepped over the vines - and that was when some gross (and distinctly O'Keeffian) plant monsters attacked! There were several of these monsters, which popped up whenever any of us came too close to their feeler tentacles. Blagg deliberately flushed most of them up himself, knowing he could survive the brunt of their attacks; Joe tried scurrying along the ceiling to avoid them entirely, but still got ensnared by one when he reached the other end of the chamber. Overall, though, we made short work of them.

We proceeded further into the cave system and came to another chamber, smaller than the first, where we encountered two well-armed orcs - and a neogi master, whom we promptly nicknamed "Ol' Dickneck." I surmised that the neogi was mind-controlling the orcs and directed people to focus their attacks on it. However, when Ol' Dickneck fell, the orcs simply cried with anguish and rage at the sight of their master dying; they were not magically charmed after all, and so they continued their attacks until we slew them as well. Examining their equipment, we realized that they were wearing the emblem of the Mal'Shakar tribe - the tribe that was threatening to attack G-rash Bay! I concluded that Mal'Shakar Kyuzo must be in league with an alien conspiracy, or perhaps was being mind-controlled by aliens. But to what end?

With greater caution we peeked into the next chamber of the cave system and saw a phalanx of fifteen nothics crouching, silent and unmoving, in the center of the space, facing the door on the far end so their backs were to us. After a bit of whispered strategizing, we crept into the room and fanned out along the walls. Once everyone was in place, Rolen ("drow" warlock) cast hunger of Hadar on all of the nothics; the room was small enough that the vast majority of it was taken up by the spell, with only a crescent of safe footing that was occupied by us. I hit them with a thunderwave immediately after, and Oonderteau (water elf wizard) followed with a fireball. That combo wiped out the whole phalanx in one round! 

Feeling pretty good about how we handled that last situation, we piled up the bodies to one side of the room and decided to take a short rest before continuing on. Before we could rest, however, we heard a voice coming through the door on the far side of the camber - a voice that spoke in Deep Speech, and had the distinct lisp associated with tusks. Bobeg (goblin rogue/artificer) and I, who could both speak Deep Speech, crept through the door and down the passage, towards the source of the voices. The passage ended at a large balcony that overlooked a large pool of dark water, with only a thin strip of dry land encircling it. At the far end of the pool was a large ship that had capsized, exposing its hull and keel. On the hull was painted a large glyph, and I realized that shipwreck was in fact the interdimensional portal I'd sensed earlier. On the surface of the pool, a finely-dressed orc bearing the Mal'Shakar emblem stood in a small boat laden with goods; he was speaking with an aboleth, though we could not hear the slimy monster's side of the conversation - it communicated telepathically.

"Thank you for your generosity - we will not need the rest of the cache," the orc (whom I suspect was Mal'Shakar Kyuzo himself) said. "What you have given will already prove quite useful." He then rowed through the portal on the hull of the upturned ship. Bobeg and I crept back, apparently unseen, to report what we'd seen to the rest of the party. Before we could come up with a plan, however, several of us felt the probing presence of the aboleth in our brains! Most of us managed to resist the creature's psychic influence. Blagg, however, could not, and before any of us could restrain him he hurried down the passage to the aboleth's pool, the rest of us frantically trying to catch up. When we had all reached the balcony above the pool, two giant toadlike monsters emerged from their hiding places and attacked! As we struggled to fight them off in the cramped quarters of the balcony, Blagg, still under the aboleth's thrall, pushed Rolen and Bobeg into the pool. I was driven into a panic at seeing Rolen endangered, so against my better sense I jumped in after them and engaged the aboleth in melee combat all by my lonesome. My foolhardy actions allowed Bobeg to get to shore and deploy his artillery, while Rolen (as unwilling to leave me in danger as I was to leave him) tread water from a short distance and fired off his spells.

Meanwhile, on the balcony, Vivienne slapped Blagg across the face and snapped him back to his senses. VG-10 turned into a deinonychus, and poor Joe was swallowed whole by one of the toad monsters. It was a harrowing battle, and both Joe and I nearly died. After a pitched battle, only the aboleth remained of our foes. Blagg took up his spear and leapt off the balcony, plunging the spear deep into the aboleth's brain and slaying the fearsome beast! Thus he avenged himself.

We took a moment to catch our breath. However, as Rolen, Blagg, and I climbed out of the water, we realized our skin was turning translucent; we'd been diseased by the aboleth's slimy tentacles! Quickly we returned to the water and tried to form a new plan of action. Before we could decide, however, we heard the clear notes of a harp - and we were struck by a debilitating pain as we felt our blood begin to boil! (Turns out the phrase was meant literally after all.) Emerging from their hiding place in the hold of the upturned ship was that dastardly water elf Leeward, who'd framed me for assault and burglary, and his accomplices! "Thanks for doing all the hard work for us, fellas," he said with a smirk.

Blind with pain and rage, we tried to rush at him even in our weakened state, but he simply strummed the harp again, and the world turned to black as we succumbed to our wounds... for now.

I'm currently doing an Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus Campaign, so warning there may be some spoilers here.

The players are all level 3 and are as follows:

 A Hobgoblin Necromancer Wizard named Lorag Rend with an Abyssal Chicken familiar name ICU. He used to work in Candlekeep and wishes to return there as soon as possible. (He doesn't know that the campaign takes them there soon) Lorag wields a silvered skull flail that he stole from the corpse of a master of souls (high-leveled Myrkul cultist) and has 2 skeleton servants that do all that he says. His skeletons are named Birch and Krenks, and they recently lost their brother, Milch. His silvered skull flail functions as an arcane focus, and deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage on a hit, requiring attunement.

A Feral Tiefling Arcane Trickster Rogue named Miraak'Bal, who currently is using a longbow and the Aim ability that the Class Feature Variants gives rogues. He is a antihero like character, and recently stole a whole keg of smokepowder from a smokepowder shop in Baldur's Gate. He now is methodically planning on dropping it on a building in Baldur's Gate to destroy it.

A Half-Elf (half-drow) Redemption Paladin, Irsu Bakafre. He wields a +1 Greatsword named Justice and is the son of one of my player's former characters, a level 30 conquest paladin Henenu Bakafre, who completed Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage, destroyed Undermountain, destroyed a cult to Asmodeus, and most of Menzoberranzan. My Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus takes place in 1529 DR, so I did a small summary of what have happened in the past 30ish years.

A Verdan Whispers Bard, Kalo Lathi. Kalo wields a rapier and uses her Psychic Blades to terrorize people's psyche, while simultaneously slaying bleeding foes with Vicious Mockery, killing them with harsh words. She is well known throughout taverns in Baldur's Gate, often preforms in them in order for a free room for a night, and she always seems happy and nice until you offend her, when she then destroys your body and mind all at once.

Xanster the Chainlock and Three-Axe Johnson are back in action!  Having leapt through a dimensional portal into Hell, and escaped from a doomed demon scuttletank, our heroes are reunited with Screwtape the Imp, now Lieutenant Screwtape of the 13th Ideological Hygiene Division, aboard the Infernal Supermachine Harrower.  

In order to find information on their missing comrades, the duo infiltrate the officers' club.  Xanster, using his potent sexual wiles and a suicidal insistence on buying rounds for the bar on his infernal patron's tab, manages to learn that his friends are being held in the Priory of Lament (a big Hellraiser cube thingy floating on the horizon).  In order to break them out, Xanster and Three-Axe will have to assemble a crack squadron of elite extraplanar mercenaries.  But in order to pay the mercenaries, they're going to need a buttload of soul coins.  

I'm thinking train robbery.

Back after our holiday break!

First thing, our monk told me he had made a new character, because he had rolled up his original monk before he really understood the class.  So the Half-Elf monk decided to retire and his place in the party was taken by his half-sister, the wood elf monk. He started her at first level, and I said, 'It's okay, you can bump her up to level three like most of the party' until I saw the stats he rolled (not one under 13, with a 20 dex) I then I said yeah, start that baby at level 1. (He is usually really unlucky with in-game dice rolls, so I wasn't going to quibble over his stats.)

Bard's player couldn't make it (won't next week either) so her husband the druid's player ran both character sheets. I had no idea where the characters were going next, and managed this session by random encounters and moving one event from its intended area to here.

So, when we last met, our heroes were leaving the Elf town of Ado Vandor. They have 15 days left to find a way to fly to the sky city. They have lost the trail of the thieves with the flying mounts.

They look at their map and say, "Hey, we're close to that town called Sanity.  Let's go see what that's all about." And they set off with their new horse and wagon.

Near the edge of town, the players were waved down by a man beside the road, with a huge wagon loaded with ore. He said he had been repairing the harness when wolves spooked his horses, and he would split the profits if the party could help him get his ore to the refinery on the north side of town. They agreed, but the wagon was too heavy for their horses. "I have an idea," the man said. "My cousin is a wizard, and he gave me some special transformation scrolls. If you agree, I can transform you into horses and you can help pull."

The halfling thief agreed, in fact he took a fuzzball from his Bag of Tricks and (with his usual amazing luck) got a Giant Elk to help pull. He was horsed and harnessed beside the druid.  The druid helpfully changed himself, using Wild Shape. The bard was left behind to watch the party's own wagon. The monk refused to be transformed, but the old man had a private word with her aside from the party (involving a charm spell) and she changed her mind and was added to the wagon team. As he walked back to the wagon, he patted the druid on the shoulder in a friendly way, but the druid saved vs the charm spell and knew something was up. He decided to stay a horse for now and see what happened.  He tried to warn the thief with a nip, but the thief failed to understand and nipped back. (BTW, yeah, I know, don't rules-lawyer me about multiple concentration spells, please. XD This wizard is special.)

Eventually, the druid ran out of Wild Shape time, and joined the man on the wagon.  He pulled up to an ore refinery and went inside to arrange for the delivery.  A teenage elf came out and drove the wagon to the unloading area, chatting with the druid.  "Nice horses, these," the boy said. "Actually, two of them are enchanted people," the druid informed him.  "What?" said the kid. "But we just paid that guy 400 gold for the entire rig!" 

Deciding that this problem was way above his pay grade, the kid got the manager, who sent for the sheriff, who was...a ghost. "It was that darned Jasper Featherstone!" the ghost sheriff fumed. "He's always trolling us because magic is banned in this town!" Jasper Featherstone is the rogue wizard who has been on the bounty boards, the same one who left the sheriff of Blaxx with duck feet. The druid shows his Blaxx deputy badge, and the sheriff makes sure that the druid is allowed to leave with his transformed friends and their own real horses. Druid asks if there is anyone in Sanity who can take the spell off. "Of course not! That nonsense is banned. There is no magic in Sanity," says the ghost sheriff.

So the party rejoins the bard and they head back to the elf city of Ado Vandor. The thief has threatened to go on a murderous horse rampage and stomp everyone in sight, so the druid keeps him harnessed to the wagon with his elk. They are stopped by another band of the bandit prince's 'tax collectors.' The thief rolls a nat 20 initiative, but so does the dragonborn bandit leader. After a blast of fiery breath at the two non-horses in the party, the harnessed horse thief and his elk charge the bandits, hitting all but one and knocking two prone. (The one who is not hit is a halfling whose grin gets bigger and bigger as he evades the next three attacks against him.) Eventually, the thief is reduced to zero HP and transforms back.

They finally win the battle. (There is a perception roll: nobody but the monk notices that the thief's ears are now oddly long, sharp and hairy, but she is still a horse and can't say anything about it.)

Not too far down the road, they notice a very large hollow tree.  The thief decides to go inside it.  He finds a trap door and recklessly goes down into it. Inside a very small room are two bandits and an elf kid tied to a chair. The bandits pull daggers, but the thief convinces them that he was sent to check on how they are doing. After some conversation, he learns that the kid is being hidden here until the Bandit Prince gets a ransom for him.

When the bandits complain about being hungry and demand that the thief tell the bandit quartermaster to bring them some grub and booze, the thief says, "Oh, yeah, I have food for you." First he gives them the strange roots he stole from the goblin kitchen. "That's not food!" Then he tried the potatoes he stole from I-don't-remember-where. "They're RAW!" Finally the bandits accept the giant crab legs the Halfling pocketed at the royal banquet...a week ago. It won't have time to disagree with them.

With the bandits distracted with breaking open expired crab legs, the thief grabs the kid, chair and all, and heaves him up the trap door, where the listening druid is waiting to grab him.  The thief takes two daggers in the back and turns to fight, with the druid casting Thorn Whip and the bard issuing Vicious Mockery from above, and the horse-monk geting in some grazing time, since she can't fit in the tree.

When the bandits are disposed of, they untie the kid, who lets them know his father is the mayor of Ado Vandor. 

Next session, the players will be rewarded with gold, local respect and discounts, and with information that will, with any luck, send them to a map area that is prepared and ready for them.

They now have fourteen days left to find a way to the sky city. Monk: "Hey, maybe we better start getting serious about this..."

Last session was a NYE one-off. We all made up level 10 characters for a space-based adventure. The players were myself and my wife (both of us new to D&D), the other two players were first-timers. One of our newbies is a druid, and she rolls a nat20 on the very first encounter to use geas on a zombie that happens to be the captain of the ship we're exploring. The"zombies" have a fungal infestation, so controlling the captain controls the horde. The DM probably shouldn't have let this go on, but we ended up taking over a couple planets with almost no resistance before we had to end the game. An interesting intro to the game for our newbies, even if it wasn't very exciting, essentially playing in God mode.

I started a one-shot with some family including my sister who had never played before. I told them to be as serious or goofy as possible with the characters since we were testing avrae on discord at the same time. the other players made a half-orc monk, a tielfing ranger, and a goblin bard who used bagpipes and somehow in the first hour turned into a mob boss. My sister on the other hand, who knows nothing of dnd, made "guy fieri but he's a dwarf cleric." From there we began running the "burial mound of the ulteez" one shot that I found online and though we didn't get very far due to the avrae testing, my sister did manage to successfully stealth inside a small broken tree trunk that they then begin to use to sneak around bandits. The dwarf cleric (still somehow hidden in this rotted tree trunk, also for some reason just assumed they could pull a collapsible bike out of thin air and so this image was born from the aftermath:

in my friends campaign we are running decent into avernus havnig a lot of fun with it

One of the two games I am in played our first combat session since we hit level 5.  The last session we'd had with combat...didn't go well for me.  My group had left me (divine sorcerer) hung out to dry and I blew threw most of my spell slots casting shield every round with 3 monsters beating on me.  I /had/ been planning to take fireball at 5.  Instead, I decided that I might need to protect myself.

Fast forward to tonights game.  We're fighting a necromancer, in a graveyard.  When we start, the DM says, now remember, I'm not throwing anything at you that you shouldn't be able to defeat.  Necromancer summons something like 15 undead, we start off completely surrounded at close range.  This time the group was arrayed around me so the DM could not get at me easily.  The group (and DM) is used to me buffing and healing, being a general supporter, I rarely do much damage.  I break out my new toy, Spirit Guardians.  DM rolls his saves, fails spectacularly...every creature failed and ate 11 radiant on round one on every mob.  Round two, I dropped 5 of them on my turn.  DM was not pleased, reinfocements came.  More spirit guardians, plus a guiding bolt to the face of one of his bigger undead.  Advantage let the GWF crit on him, and he was down.  By round four, the second wave was dead, and only the necro remains.  the last two rounds, the DM tried hard to get at me, and actually hit me twice, but I made my conc saves, so Spirit Guardians rolls on, and I still have all my level 2 spell slots and a third level slot.

We had to break for the evening, because one of our players had to leave, so we saved, and will finish the fight next session.  The look on our DM's face when the punching bag support caster said no to his encounter is worth whatever retribution I have coming.  I'll likely never get a set up like this again, but for this one session, my support sorcerer was the king of battle.

I dont know Its hard to remember 4 months ago

The bard had to work.

The rogue had to be out of town.

The druid was worried about the upcoming snowstorm and didn't want to drive.

I tried to call the monk and tell him not to come, but he didn't pick up his phone (he doesn't a lot) and at game time he walked into the library. So we just chatted about D&D and anime for an hour and ate leftover snacks from the morning book discussion group. He decided he wants his old monk back instead of the new one, and asked if he can just revamp the stats and stuff now that he knows what he's doing. I said yeah. And we pondered the future fate of the previous monk's newly-rolled sister, who is still transformed into a horse.

Ah, well.

I'm the DM in my campaign, so I'll just describe how the entire session went from my angle.

The players are my good friends who I've known for a while, and we just started back up after a 3 week break for the holidays. There's a Dragonborn Astral Self Monk, a Forge Cleric Shifter, and an Aberrant Tiefling Sorcerer. I like to call them the Horny Squad because all of them have sets of epic horns and they're all the subject of slight racial discrimination in the country they're in. The dragonborn and shifters in my world have history of hatred and war with the country they're adventuring in. As for the tiefling, his aberrant mind features take the form of vaguely shark/fish like features, which kinda makes him look like a Triton at first glance. Tritons are seldom seen in that part of the world, and most of them view him as if he were a 6'7 black man in the middle of Tokyo. But I digress..

The session began with them finishing up a short rest deep in the catacombs underneath a major city. These catacombs were once a subterranean fortress for the primarily gnome and halfling militia that occupied that portion of the nation, but it was soon developed upon and became an actual settlement after a while. The inhabitants built upwards, until the town became a sort of... towering shanty-shack of buildings upon buildings upon towers upon buildings, for lack of a better phrase, but the fortress had been converted into a burial crypt (think of the Paris Catacombs). Some time in the last 100 years, the Arcane University in the city had greenlit experiments in the catacombs, which eventually resulted in a large explosion, several tremors, and a permanent bluish-pink mist that hangs in the air of the crypt and the lower slum areas... But I digress again. 

They were relaxing after fighting some ****ed up necromancy-infused gelatinous cube, and as per usual, the Sorcerer decided to look for loot. The Cleric opted to help, and they found a broken weapon (still usable as a mace or club) with some story significance. After regaining their wits, they moved out of the hidden room and into the halls once again. The Cleric had summoned a skeleton that we decided was named Theodore, and he made Theodore the party's scout. Theo here had successfully escaped the red-hot anger of a swarm of Living Burning Hands that had recently scorched the hell out of a bunch of researchers... But since he can't talk, he could only really like, strongly urge that the room was dangerous and filled with hot things. After like 5 minutes of trying to make Theo mime out that the room was filled with giant flaming hands, the sorcerer literally said "what, is the room filled with giant flaming hands or some shit?" and I just clapped vigorously and pointed at him over and over. They didn't believe me.

They eventually decided that "Hey, the room is filled with fire enemies, lets use this alchemy jug to douse them." I'll be honest, I don't think it would have worked , but they ruined it anyway, so I didn't have to worry about it. The monk tried to use her astral arms to slowly dampen the floor of the room (I guess they didn't figure that they could float and wouldn't have been hurt by that. Granted, They didn't ask and I didn't mention it, so I guess they couldn't have known), but before she could, the sorcerer tried to sneak into the room and loot it. He rolled a 4, and the door loudly creaked open, fell off the hinge, and made a loud echoey "boom". I sort of modded the LBHs to have blindsense  on top of darkvision, so they swarmed the doorway like spiders, slowly creeping around it, showing that they were sensitive to sound. The sorcerer managed to cast Disguise Self and then passed a stealth check, which allowed him to disguise himself as a burning hand and sneak past them and loot the room. He found a detect magic wand. 

The monk's attempt to douse the room and the now-fire covered doorway failed. She got a natural one, and football chucked the alchemy jug to the end of the room, and the hands heard the loud sound it made, and proceeded to swarm to where it landed. They went inside the room and figured "well our original plan is over, so lets just beat them to death".

They managed to beat them all, though the monk took heavy damage.  They searched the room and found some notes about the origin of the burning hands (alchemical/arcane experiments) and some lore stuff. We wrapped it up with them taking another short rest in the dungeon. 

Fun time this week!  Three-Axe Johnson and Xanster the Chainlock got into their first nitro-burning, fuel-injected Avernus hell-chase!  And because I watch more movies than the players do, I got to indulge myself and rip off bits from Kelly's Heroes, Mortal Engines, The Italian Job, Fury Road, Fast Five, and a few others.

As the demon armies in the area retreat before an oncoming infernal assault, Three-Axe and Xanster decide to hit a demonic supercrawler (A tank the size of a football stadium) and steal the soul coins from its fuel depot/bank.  The crawler must travel through a narrow series of canyons to avoid the even larger Infernal Supermachine Harrower (a tank the size of Barcelona).  The heroes find a spot where it is possible to drive their modified Demon Grinder off a cliff and jump it onto the top level of the supercrawler as it passes.  From there, they plow through the flight deck, down through three levels of internal hallways, running down demons and forcing a pursuing vehicle through an exterior wall where it plunges to its destruction.  They attach a tow chain to the vault, rip it off its moorings and drag it behind them like a wrecking ball.  They crash through the ground level vehicle bay, leaking screaming ghosts from a ruptured furnace and find their way onto a path out of the canyons, with a bunch of demon vehicles in hot pursuit.  Three-Axe climbs onto the back of the Grinder and starts throwing junk from the toolbox at the pursuers, leading one bike rider to wipe out and flip his bike, 80's action movie style.  He then gets a javelin in the leg from a passenger on the other bike.  Not liking their odds, Xanster turns the vehicle head-on towards a fire tornado.  Three-Axe climbs into the toolbox for cover and Xanster rolls up the windows.  Most of the demons wipe, but one guy rolled two 20's in a row, then an 18, then another 20, so I had to give him something.  He crashes into the grinder and both vehicles flip and roll.  After an hour or two waiting out a sandstorm, the heroes dig their way out, find no sign of their pursuers and make their way back to the Harrower, dragging the vault of coins behind them.  Next week, they use the soul coins to pay off mercenaries to help them break into a prison.

Just one question.... how many axes does Johnson have?

If the answer is three, I will be seriously disappointed. 

Three-Axe Johnson is the best name I've heard in ages.

My party almost died last session after being warned four times to not come any closer to a small village they were coming upon, they did and a bolt was sent out their way, hitting one of them. They were warned once more then our bard/ warlock rolled up, cast Maximilian’s earthan grasp on the one thing he could identify the location of, and then the whole party got hit by a fire storm spell and a battle ensued. Half the party almost died throughout the battle, but they finished off the people in the small village. At that point, chirping was heard in 3 small huts in the south where they found 3 baby Kenku and 5 baby lizardfolk, now orphaned