Made a classic DM blunder: wrote two absolute stone-cold killer scenes. They went beautifully in-game. Roleplay - CHECK; Exploration - CHECK!
Completely biffed the fight scene. Bad guys got horrendously lucky on damage; players smartly ran away, but once they got away, we had to end early. Looking back, I could have kept things in play if I really hustled; they were in Sigil, they could have walked into a potion shop or bumped into an angel and gotten some healz and kept fighting, but I just didn’t go for it, so now what could have been a killer session ended up being useful, but wordy and more focused on NPCs.
Not exactly my last session, since we're on break until 6, but I had a great role playing heart-to-heart in character with our bard who's sad he's half demon and was hoping the BBEG was going to help fix that until he found out he was the BBEG.
In her backstory, she was replaced by some sort of doppelganger and driven off into exile. Becoming a thief to survive and eventually falling into the adventurer life when the campaign started.
After a chain of events that lead to us killing the mastermind before these events long before the DM expected, the doppelganger realized that her strings had been cut and was planning on going rogue, selling off all of the property owned by my character's family to get a large sum of gold and planning to throw it all at a big auction where an ancient evil book, basically the necronomicon, was going to be sold.
The party decided to rob the tower that book was held in to keep it out of the doppelgangers hand. But, unknown to us thanks to a nat 1 roll I rolled on a 1d100 at some point, the doppelganger knew we were in the city, and a spy of hers saw us enter the tower and not come out. (We used magic to flee the scene of the crime.)
So come to this session. The party wakes up and and has received an invitation to a debut showing of a new opera called A Walk To Remember. This immediately made my rogue uncomfortable because that exile of hers I mentioned before involved her being magically compelled to walk away from her home city for days until her body gave out. Short version, was a very traumatizing experience for her at 12 years old.
We show up, curious what this is all about, and the opera very quickly is obviously a stylized retelling of her parents falling in love and her early life. And when it gets to the titular walk, the villain reveals herself. We refuse to cooperate and give her the evil book so we fight of course.
The fight was basically a heavily reskinned beholder. The boss had an antimagic cone thing facing wherever she was looking at the end of her turn. There were several living doll things, each that could attack us with their own attacks on their turn. But the boss could also use legendary actions to target the party with beholder eye beam moves, each doll having its own beam. They were flavored after different things, one was a 'stagehand' one was a conductor, one a writer etc.
We eventually win, though the boss nearly turned the tide with a psychic scream spell that the sorcerer was able to counterspell.
I didn't get the killing blow, but I did get a few good crits in. And now my rogue no longer has to hide who she is as that chapter of her life is put to rest.
Is a civil war coming to the pirate city of Bilgewater? The once ruler of Bilgewater, Gangplank, the Reaver King, and the island natives Buhru gather their supporters to take on the pirate queen Miss Fortune for control of the city while the Zoo Crew (the players) are stuck in the middle. Which side does the crew take or is it time to leave the Bilgewater and move on to Saltmarsh.
I expect this to be a heavy role-playing session as the party will discuss if they should get involved. The party knows Miss Fortune and has worked with her in the past, though not always on amicable terms still they have witnessed her benevolent rule of the city. The rumors of Gangplank had circled around the game for several months now always mention the once ruler is in hiding after a failed assassination attempt by Miss Fortune nearly killed him. Recently the party has been approached by Gangplank and the Buhru to join his side for the upcoming civil war and the party 'politely' declined his offer. Now the party is reconsidering who they trust, Gangplank, and help retake the city or alert, Miss Fortune of the Rever King return, as they have taken the time to learn more about these two rulers and what may be best for Bilgewater.
Given this group's history, I'm guessing they will leave the island and head off to Saltmarsh, which I've planned so far. If not...well that takes things in a whole new direction as I will have to create a major, major political theme adventure.
Well, the players did as I hope and left the island. I gave them enough threatening warning from the two factions that it would be best if they left and made it so the party was being followed throughout town on this 'last day' in Bilgewater. Taking this warning to heart the party boarded the ship, The Hyena, early just to signal to the factions that they were in fact leaving town.
To make the trip to Saltmarsh a little more exciting I ran an old DDB Encounter of the Week (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/441-encounter-of-the-week-sharkfin-shipwreck) that was all Skill Challenges. A storm was spotted on the horizon and the crew of the Hyena needed to prepare the ship. Upon waking up the players from their sleep the crew asked them for help securing the ship.
This was the first Skill Challenge and thankfully the EotW laid out all the types of checks a player can make making it easier for their character to help. With some incredible high to mid 20's checks, the players successfully passed the check and help the crew of the Hyena get ready for the storm.
The second Skill Challenge was to help the crew keep the ship afloat during the storm. This is where things got a little trickier, where the first Challenge outlined all the ways the party could help the crew, the second Challenge had a few suggestions but mostly the intention was the players needed to come up with their own ideas. The group struggled to come up with ideas that fit in the Skill Challenge box to the point where some of their ideas were not really DC measurable or the player put them in a position that on their turn it was a skill to save themself from harm than helping the crew. So, I did my best to judicate their ideas a give them a chance in the challenge but it just came down to struggling with ideas that would help the challenge all the while a third of the players did actions that could not help resulting in failure of the challenge which meant the storm crashed the ship upon a reef.
With the shipwreck, the characters were rendered unconscious only to awake on the reef surrounded by Sahuagin.
End Session.
Side note: I'm not sure I'm a fan of skill challenges. They occur in rare instances where I think they could fit well with the narrative, in this case, it was a part of the EotW, but I think I just do not run them properly on the mechanic side to help the players find skills that can be used in the challenge.
Our last session only last an hour due to one players poor internet and another having to work a lot later than usual.
In that time however, the party lost 1000 gold (About 20% of their current funds) gambling in the high rollers suite at a Casino.
There was also an interesting discussion where they met a group of Dragon Slayers who are planning to kill the Ancient Green Dragon Elaacrimalicros (My proudest name-pronouncing accomplishment in-game). My party is level 9, and the Dragon Slayers consist of 3 Scout's, a beefed up Archer and an Evoker. The players are intelligent enough to know that the dragon will wipe the floor with them. However the Fighter has low wisdom and is obsessed with killing dragons and the Ranger has a personal reason for wanting the dragon dead. Which means both the players of said characters have to rp their characters like the following "Oh yeah, lets kill this thing, the hoard will make us rich!" and "I can finally get revenge, nothing will stop me", whilst ooc going "Oh shit, we're all gonna die" and "DM, when I said I wanted to fight a dragon, I meant a young one".
Of course, there are magic items out in the world that can help take out a dragon. But knowing my party, they'll likely rush in without preparing. This is going to be fun :D
The Drow Civil War campaign is on pause, but the Generals Campaign took a dramatic turn when I switched places with one of the players and let him DM!
It comes to the attention of Dwarven High Command that the goblins of the Ruby Hills are working on a super weapon that could challenge the primacy of Dwarven artillery, the backbone of the Kingdom’s entire defense posture! Worse, the factory for the weapon is dug into the cliff faces of a ravine and connected by a series of cable cars, leaving them immune to artillery fire.
With no time to tunnel in and no political will for the bloodbath that would result from a conventional assault, the 53rd Fusiliers and Elven Task Force Arrowhead must stage a daring commando raid - rappelling down the cliff face and capturing a beachhead in a lightning strike before commandeering the cable car system to gain access to the factory.
After dynamiting the production line, we set to work gathering intelligence and learn to our consternation that the goblins have been receiving technical assistance from a group of duergar with whom the dwarves had lost contact, forcing us to go on a spy mission through the Underdark.
I was really impressed with how well thought out the whole storyline was. The nephew’s DMing style, like mine, unsurprisingly, is heavy on story and fast and loose with dice. But he’ll evolve his style over time and he has great instincts. We all had a lot of fun.
After many moons I have finally stopped being a forever DM and become a most-of-the-time DM.
I decided to take the plunge and play a Kenku, I thought it'd be hard but you just have to try think of sound effects that represent what you want to say, like a cockerels crow when you're waking someone up. I also decided to make my min-maxy DM cringe by making a ranger who: doesn't wear armour, dumped strength but wields a battleaxe and instead of a component pouch, has a dirty sack full of the material components for most of the spells he'll learn. Although this sounds ridiculous, I plan on taking druidic warrior at level 2 and multiclassing into monk at level 3 for unarmored defence.
Our party's job is to find some spy before he escapes the city. Now where would a spy looking to escape a city go to: the train station, the stables, the ports? Fighter: "If I was on the run, I'd probably hide out in a brothel" DM: "..."
So we split the party into those who wanted to go to the brothel and those who didn't. Strangely the Fighter didn't want to go to the brothel, but the Bard (figures) and the Warlock were all for it. Now the player of the Bard had been a wizard in my campaign, who despite being 'Lawful Neutral' decided to launch a fireball through the front doors of a tavern during the lunch rush, so he had a bit of a reputation. The Warlock was playing a character who ate rocks and could probably be described as 'Chaotic Stupid'. In said Brothel, they discover that the spy isn't there (shock), but they do see some thug being a bit rough with one of the girls. And how do the two deal with it.
Bard: "Hey, we should kill that guy" Warlock: "Eldritch Blast!" DM: "..."
So the rest of the party arrive to find the Bard and Warlock running away from a bunch of guards, the rest of the party decide to try the docks. The Portmaster recognises our description and we learn which boat is on. But before that can happen, the Brothel Guards appear and are hungry for revenge. Unfortunately the Paladin lost internet at this point and as he hadn't sent his Character Sheet to the DM, the DM decided he would 'Guard the PortMaster'. We were up against 1 thug and 4 bandits armed with flails and crossbows, the Bard was downed in one shot, the Fighter had left to secure the boat, leaving me, the Warlock and the Sorcerer to deal with the rest. This is when I began to regret making a character whose main attack had a +1 modifier and didn't wear armour. Now the Sorcerer was frustrated ic by what he saw as incompetence by the Bard and the fact he had to save him. However when it became apparent that his character had a fair chance of being killed, he was now frustrated ooc.
Sorcerer: "I've spent too long working on this character to have it killed in session 1" Bard: "It's a game, it isn't real, don't get upset" Sorcerer: "2 weeks I spent working out the history with DM to incorporate it into the lore, if my character dies here, I'm leaving the campaign!" Bard: "It's a ga-a-me!" DM: "..."
Thankfully in the following rounds we got some high numbers on the damage rolls and managed to avoid a LOT of attacks (Not sure if the DM fudged the rolls, but I wouldn't blame him) for us to pull through. Then came a revelation.
Fighter: "Why did you even kill that guy at the brothel?" Bard: "I purposely designed this character to just do stupid stuff and just be really lucky. My characters usually die session 1 of the DM's campaigns anyway, so I have plenty of back-up characters and can afford to be reckless." DM: "..."
Despite that, I had fun. It felt good to play for once and I'm happy it'll carry on bi-weekly.
This last week I was tired and sick; not really a surprise given my autoimmune disorders, but frustrating nonetheless. I also had an early doctor’s appointment the next day, so I decided to run the sort introduction to the side campaign I purchased specifically for this kind of situation. It’s mostly a hack-and-slash combat style, with mechanics set up similar to a video game. For example, when a monster dies, it erupts into a shower of coins.
We had fun. One player wasn’t feeling well, and couldn’t join us, but since I’m leveling the party up manually, it wasn’t a huge deal. Most of the short session was taken up by explaining the mechanics, but we did get a fun combat in at the end. I discovered that I’m going to have to increase the number/difficulty of monsters, as we have two Battle Masters and a monk, each of whom has a million attacks apiece, plus a druid and an artificer.
The campaign is called The Cube, and I recommend trying it. It’s set up so it can be a self-contained campaign, or inserted into an existing one as a number of side quests. It’s available from DMs Guild, and from the blog The Level Up Corner. It’s easy to run, fun to play, has a neat story, and goes all the way from level one to level twenty, and it’s a fantastic break for me, since it cuts the amount of prep I have to do by about 75%, but still feels like a polished story. This way, we can still play every week, even if I’m not feeling well.
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I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
We started a new D&D campaign on Discord. It's western themed. Instead of Forgotten Realms, I'm returning to Mystara. The campaign takes place in the Savage Baronies. They characters have arrived in the frontier wild west town of Wisptown and are exploring the town a little. So far not much has happened. But it looks like things are going to go from 0 to 60 next session.
As a player, my nephew DMing. I played a bard who gets caught up in a terrifying plot by an ambitious ruler to collaborate with a colony of myconoids invading a small territory. It was fun. He's a natural storyteller and I love watching that develop.
As a DM, another chapter in the Drow Civil War. This time however, a real treat: I was joined by the NIECES! They've never been all that interested in D&D, but once they realized that I wouldn't stop them from killing each other, they have become big fans of the entire drow concept. Interestingly, the two older ones both still wanted to play big tough fighter guys. The youngest (and most murdery) is the sole lady of the group, with the privileges and responsibilities of command - assuming she doesn't get murdered.
The War has entered its middle stages and it's weird side quest time. Some of the House members are exploring the Necropolis of the Drow in order to find powerful artifacts and keep them out of the enemies' hands. This bunch have a different mission.
Erelhei-Cinlu has the Pitchy Flow. Menzo has Lake Donigarten. Carved from the stalactites suspended above the bottomless Demonweb Pit, my homebrew city of Zijdespin needs a source of potable water for the population. In an act of communal problem-solving almost unimaginable in a Chaotic Evil society, the drow city built a pipeline to the Underdark trading city of Zondernaam, a gnome enclave built to harvest the water from the Secret Sea. Each of the Houses agreed it was in their best interest not to have to rely on the Priesthood's magic as their sole source of water. But neither would they leave themselves unprotected from the possibility of betrayal by another house, of course! So each house has, by treaty, a right to send "observers" to "inspect" the pump house in Zondernaam. Which means that all of the top 5 or 6 houses have observers there at all times, scheming and counter-scheming.
Enter Lady Moon of House Køkk (and retinue). She has arrived in Zondernaam with orders to make contact with House Køkk's man on the inside - a deep gnome named Vorlin Kenlock - and start creating havoc for the other houses with an eye to controlling the pump house (and thus the water supply of the city) or to prevent it from being controlled by the enemy.
On arrival though, Kenlock immediately informs them that the pump house has been attacked. No one is left alive and no one saw the killers. Several irreplaceable pieces of machinery have been stolen and until they are recovered, no water can flow to Zijdespin. News is certain to spread, but Lady Moon is first to know. She investigates at the scene and finds muddy footprints - webbed muddy footprints. It's the freakin' Kuo-toa! How did they get past the Crab Maze (stolen from Candlekeep Mysteries)? No time to figure that out now.
Leaping into action, Lady Moon tells her servants to go steal her a boat. The rogue (whose character name I don't remember) commandeers a small steam sidewheeler and they battle the giant crabs out through the maze and into open water. After hours of searching the crystal clear waters of the Sea, they beach themselves on the shore of the Kuo-toa settlement and start murderin'. And that's where we had to leave it.
I had a player, who constantly does silly stuff, suffer a big consequence today.
I didn't want to have his character die from this, because it wouldn't have been fun afterwards. Even for him saying he doesn't care if his character dies, this guy has kind of been the comic relief of the party and we can always expect him to do something silly, so the party plans for such contingencies. So it would not have been fun for anyone, even me, for him to bring out his backup character yet. This one needs more story.
So he decides to cannonball off a 100+ foot waterfall instead of trying the slick, but much safer path carved into the cave wall down to the bottom. He lands his cannonball well enough. Two others slip and fall into the pool with some bruises.
So there needs to be a consequence for this clearly foolish action. So a baby giant kraken thinks he's the next meal and starts pulling him under the water. The party doesn't hesitate to save him once they realize what's happening. The dominatrix of the party manages to snag him with her rope of entanglement, so now it's a tug of war over his character's unconscious body. They manage to hurt the kraken now and it being a baby cuts its losses and runs, literally biting off his leg and retreats to the watery depths. The party barely manages to save him and he's now unconscious for the rest of the session ( ended not very long after this).
Honestly I'm very excited to see how it will roleplay out, and the player is also excited about the potential new tools he could possibly create or have made to help him now "I need to find an artificer now!" He and the rest of the party are now more invested in this character living to tell his story now. His character will die eventually some day, probably for another silly reason, but now they will be more involved and affected by however it happens.
After a couple weeks of stalling because of player absences, our Underdark campaign finally got back underway.
Representing House Xilonodel of T'lindhet, the party boarded a barge and began the dangerous journey up the Shrieker River to the Kuo-toa city of Loop Ugluk, intending to establish trade relations with a contact there from the merchant caste.
At one point, they saw a spectral battle taking place between ghostly forces on opposite banks of the river, a drow army on one side and a duergar battalion on the other. Arcs of magical energy and glowing arrows crisscrossed the air above the river, as an echo of a battle from centuries ago played out again thanks to the weird energy of the faerzress. The namesake shrieker mushrooms along the banks of the river screamed out in alarm, agitated by the warring phantoms. Noting that the spectral combatants didn't seem to be aware of the boat or anything else, the barge kept going, before the shriekers could attract something more tangible.
As they passed through an area of tall blackened zurkhwood mushrooms known as the Lightless Forest, clouds of flying insects became thicker, louder, and larger. Eventually, swarms of biting flies began to attack the group, threatening to overwhelm the crew unless dealt with. Thinking quickly, the drow sorceress commanded two of her companions to raise their barge-poles, and she cast a web between them, creating a sort of web-tent from which to weather the insect assault. This did help to slow and thin the attacking swarms, but fire magic was forbidden due to the risk to the barge and crew if the webs were to ignite.
As the fight continued, Giant Toads began to surface and eat some of the insects, although there was a worry that they might turn towards the party if they were angered or hungry for something more substantial. As usual, the shoreside shrieker mushrooms began their wailing, and eventually attracted the attention of what appeared to be a giant mouldy beholder? The wizard did not want that thing getting any closer to the boat, so he fired off a magic missile barrage, which caused the orb to explode into a cloud of poisonous spores. Fortunately, only some bugs and frogs were caught in the blast, and after wrapping up the combat, they elected to get out of there quickly before anything more deadly showed up.
After arriving at the Kuo-toa shrine city, they met with Prince-Bishop Poolgup, leader of the merchant caste and priest of a new god of trade and acquisition, Vogolgol the Greed-father. The merchants were part of a religious sect that was starting to rise in power, although the other castes still tended to worship the traditional Seamother. Poolgup gave them a tour of the above-water market, and they were able to discuss the mutually beneficial trade opportunities that this region of the Underdark was once known for, before the surface rebellion drove the drow and crin'ti from Dambrath and shut down the lucrative surface route. It was agreed that the fishfolk would provide moss wine, sweet reed, and pearls in exchange for gold and silver coinage. The kuo-toa also had an interest in receiving Duergar Fireball liquor. It was agreed that trading in slaves, despite being profitable, would benefit Poolgup and Xilonodel's competitors too much, so trade agreements centered around the food, wine, and currency deals.
They settled in at a pavilion for guests, and tried to ignore the constant chanting and frequent sacrifices that characterized the locale.
(Now I have to see if I can come up with some kind of interesting encounters for the journey back down the river...)
Last session, my Warforged's beef with Xanathar's guild came to a head after a previous PC died to one of their mind flayers. We got a tip that there was two XG outposts, and after having found the answer to the passcode on a dead guild member's body, managed to avoid the poison traps set for us. Encountered the leader, asked if they were the leader, and then shot him in his spider face with a revolver. Combat lasted the remaining two hours not because of any uncertainty between the party, but because there was 29 tokens on the battlefield. (6 PC's, one revenant NPC, a Steel Defender and a mount, vs 20 XG members.Casualties: 20 XG members, and the non-com warlock learned not to get too close while invisible to the enemy, as my artificer has grenades. But he lived.
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"I am a machine, built to make more machines, so that those machines would go and fight your wars for you against the ultimate evil. I was not made by some heavenly deity ruling on high, but by a man's hands, with man's tools, and a man's will.I know that man's name, and I know that man's fate. I do not worship him, for he sought no worship from his creation, only that I follow his will.And thus you and I fulfil our respective duties to those who made us." -Constructor Tertius (Warforged)
Well, the players did as I hope and left the island. I gave them enough threatening warning from the two factions that it would be best if they left and made it so the party was being followed throughout town on this 'last day' in Bilgewater. Taking this warning to heart the party boarded the ship, The Hyena, early just to signal to the factions that they were in fact leaving town.
To make the trip to Saltmarsh a little more exciting I ran an old DDB Encounter of the Week (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/441-encounter-of-the-week-sharkfin-shipwreck) that was all Skill Challenges. A storm was spotted on the horizon and the crew of the Hyena needed to prepare the ship. Upon waking up the players from their sleep the crew asked them for help securing the ship.
This was the first Skill Challenge and thankfully the EotW laid out all the types of checks a player can make making it easier for their character to help. With some incredible high to mid 20's checks, the players successfully passed the check and help the crew of the Hyena get ready for the storm.
The second Skill Challenge was to help the crew keep the ship afloat during the storm. This is where things got a little trickier, where the first Challenge outlined all the ways the party could help the crew, the second Challenge had a few suggestions but mostly the intention was the players needed to come up with their own ideas. The group struggled to come up with ideas that fit in the Skill Challenge box to the point where some of their ideas were not really DC measurable or the player put them in a position that on their turn it was a skill to save themself from harm than helping the crew. So, I did my best to judicate their ideas a give them a chance in the challenge but it just came down to struggling with ideas that would help the challenge all the while a third of the players did actions that could not help resulting in failure of the challenge which meant the storm crashed the ship upon a reef.
With the shipwreck, the characters were rendered unconscious only to awake on the reef surrounded by Sahuagin.
End Session.
Side note: I'm not sure I'm a fan of skill challenges. They occur in rare instances where I think they could fit well with the narrative, in this case, it was a part of the EotW, but I think I just do not run them properly on the mechanic side to help the players find skills that can be used in the challenge.
There was a time constraint for this game so we only got in an hour and a half of playtime. Still, it was enough to move things along in the EotW.
The party had been captured by Sahuagin and taken to their undersea lair and stripped of all their armor, weapons, and gear. There are two mages (Wizard, Warlock, and Ranger) so they were not 100% helpless in this situation. The party is given the choice of dying in jail or be entertainment for the Sahuagin Barron (Razorfang [No idea how many Tazerface jokes came from that.]) and fight for their lives in a series of arena battles.
Surprisingly enough the party did not give too much of a protest to be used as entertainment given their situation, though EofW does railroad the players either die in prison or fight.
The first battle in the proving grounds was pretty simple two Veterans and four commoners who had swords and clubs respectively. The party though still without armor was given clubs as means of offensive capabilities besides the mages.
The battle was swift lasting only a few rounds the Monk of the party used Stunning Strike on one of the Veterans so that helped half the heavy damage dealers to which the Ranger and Monk just whaled Veteran. From a distance, the Warlock and Wizard whittled down the other Veteran with their various available spells. Now, that is not to say the party did not take any damage, they did, a lot. The non-stunned Veteran got off a few hits on the Ranger but the Monk high AC made it more of a challenge even though it can three attacks a turn. The commoners could not hit anything which did not save their lives as the party cracked their skulls quick enough making commoners having no impact on the outcome of the battle.
I gave some incentive for the party to fight this opposing force. I had the captain of The Hyena (the name of the ship from the previous game) and her first mate whom the party had formed a friendship with dead in this proving grounds as if they had a chance to fight for freedom and lost. This emotional connection got the party right into the fight and not to think otherwise.
Once the fight in the proving grounds had concluded the party was given a short rest which they used to spend some hit dice as well as the warlock casting Healing Light. Before moving on to the next fight the party was given their gear back. The party did not try to escape as there were fifteen Sahuagin guards watching them knowing they were outnumbered.
Having that gear was good as the main event to fight Barron Razorfang beasts was a fight in a twelve-deep pool against two Hunter Sharks and a Giant Shark. Lucky enough the party had potions of underwater breathing (given as a reward from a past adventure) which gave them an edge moving deep under the water while still able to use their weapons and spells. The Hunter Sharks got a few bites in thanks to Blood Frenzy giving advantage on attack rolls. In retaliation, the party unleashed a lot of spells, Ice Knife and Shatter that did a lot of damage all around, as the Ranger used Hunters Mark to put some extra damage By the time the second round was over both Hunter Sharks were killed but the Giant Shark was still going strong.
During these two rounds, the Rogue of the group had been using her hand crossbow (with Crossbow Expert feat) to taking shots at the giant shark who was having problems navigating around the Hunter Sharks. Now that the other sharks were dead the Giant Shark made a charge at the Rogue with its jaws wide open ready to take a bit out of this annoying barnical.
And that is where I ended the session because time was up.
Me and my party where in a magics academy because we were looking for someone who had been kidnapped and bring them back to their mother in another city. We had been let into the school because we managed to get an invite from a powerful wizard (if i remember correctly), we had explored the whole premise except this one room, surprise, it had a secret door which led to a hidden, broken, forgotten section of the school, it had weird glowing plants which could talk as well. The rooms where all the same, broken chairs and tables, dust and cobwebs, the usual stuff. but then, we finally got to this one room and we burst forward, inside, there were multiple people under some sort of protection spell so we couldn't touch them (i tested this by trying to punch them) and we found our kidnapped victim.
Turns out, one of the teachers at the school was the kidnapper, we let him have his big ending speech before charging head first at him. We did alot of damage in the beginning but soon it was his turn, he did some magic spell i can't remember because i'm a barbarian, i don't need to know magic, and it did 33 damage if we failed our con save (16 if we did save), baring in mind i only had 49 hp (and failed my con save) at the time because i forgot to heal myself because i was not prepared for this, so i would be dead in the second turn if we didn't kill him. One of our party members actually got 'knocked unconsiouse' because they were a low level (oof).
We continued to fight him (i had pitiful roles) and soon it was his turn, i may have saved my con save but i only had 16 hp left anyway, so i got 'knocked unconsious' and i was freaking out because i didn't know how death saving throws work and i was desperatly trying to tell this to the DM (still never got a clear answer) and the party continued, most got 'knocked unconsious' expcet for the other barbarian with an insane amount of constitution who lived. They kill the BBEG, thank lord.
We then had a long rest and that got me back to full health and i wouldn't have to roll death saving throws, me and this one other guy who are fairly on the chaotic side of the spectrum were pissed and decided to do some illegal stuff with the wizard who was just barly alive (brutal murder) and we got our kidnapped victim and left. We returned them to their mother who was very gratful and the town payed us all 150 gold (although i gave 50 to the mother because she was poor).
The party then went to a tavern, drunk some alcohol, ate some good meat and went to sleep.
(i would also like to point out that everyone got a magical item from this adventure, i would've gotten the Amulet of Health, i think it was called, but that made me super buff so they replaced it with , which suited me because my character did like to drink alot of alcohol but kinda sad i lost the Amulet of Health, and i had to homebrew the Amulet of the Drunkard because otherwise you would have to pay for it not sure if homebrewing it is legal but whatever.)
Anyway, in the morning, a mysterious guy turned up at the tavern, offered us a quest if we meet up with him later in the woods, and that is where the new session will begin.
This week we had a short session, as I had another doctor’s appointment the next day. We had one absence, as well as introducing a new player to the party. Two PCs had been infected with lycanthropy during the fight last week.
The PCs had just killed three werewolves, which they ran into on their way back to town from a fetch quest. As they were examining the bodies and the strange arrows in their backs, a fairy (yes, a literal fairy with wings) comes out of the darkness, introduces himself, and asks if the two half-orc hunters he’s been following belong to the party. So at this point, the hunters, who had been staying out of sight to assess the situation, come tromping out of the underbrush, and bellow, “YOU HAVE STOLEN OUR KILLS! WE DEMAND RECOMPENSE!” I had to pause for a drink of water, as my Orc Voice is pretty painful, and all the players start reaching for their D20s, expecting to roll initiative. “YOU MUST REPLACE THE PELTS YOU HAVE DESTROYED! YOU HAVE ONE WEEK TO PROCURE THREE WEREWOLF PELTS, AT WHICH TIME YOU WILL BE CONTACTED BY A COURIER! IF YOU FAIL OR REFUSE, YOU WILL PAY IN BLOOD!!” The two sisters go tromping off into the dark forest, and I take another drink of water.
One character, angry that these two half-orcs apparently just watched while the party fought the werewolves that they (the half-orc sisters) had been tracking, wanted to chase down and kill them. The rest of the party managed to prevent him from charging off into the midnight forest after them, reminding him that the Remove Curse spell doesn’t work if you’re dead. They finally made it back to the city of Moonpools late at night, and spent the night. The next day, they split up: three went to the wizard who had hired them three or four sessions ago (this was supposed to be a short side quest for one session, while a couple of players were absent), and two went to the market for supplies and to find a carpenter to fix their cart properly.
This is where I discovered that I had completely forgotten to prep anything except the character/quest introduction. I had been extremely ill for the last few weeks, due to my autoimmune disorders, so I had nothing ready for the wizard, the market, or the cathedral to Sehanine Moonbow where they would likely go for curse removal. I have a lot of work ahead of me this week!
There was a time constraint for this game so we only got in an hour and a half of playtime. Still, it was enough to move things along in the EotW.
The party had been captured by Sahuagin and taken to their undersea lair and stripped of all their armor, weapons, and gear. There are two mages (Wizard, Warlock, and Ranger) so they were not 100% helpless in this situation. The party is given the choice of dying in jail or be entertainment for the Sahuagin Barron (Razorfang [No idea how many Tazerface jokes came from that.]) and fight for their lives in a series of arena battles.
Surprisingly enough the party did not give too much of a protest to be used as entertainment given their situation, though EofW does railroad the players either die in prison or fight.
The first battle in the proving grounds was pretty simple two Veterans and four commoners who had swords and clubs respectively. The party though still without armor was given clubs as means of offensive capabilities besides the mages.
The battle was swift lasting only a few rounds the Monk of the party used Stunning Strike on one of the Veterans so that helped half the heavy damage dealers to which the Ranger and Monk just whaled Veteran. From a distance, the Warlock and Wizard whittled down the other Veteran with their various available spells. Now, that is not to say the party did not take any damage, they did, a lot. The non-stunned Veteran got off a few hits on the Ranger but the Monk high AC made it more of a challenge even though it can three attacks a turn. The commoners could not hit anything which did not save their lives as the party cracked their skulls quick enough making commoners having no impact on the outcome of the battle.
I gave some incentive for the party to fight this opposing force. I had the captain of The Hyena (the name of the ship from the previous game) and her first mate whom the party had formed a friendship with dead in this proving grounds as if they had a chance to fight for freedom and lost. This emotional connection got the party right into the fight and not to think otherwise.
Once the fight in the proving grounds had concluded the party was given a short rest which they used to spend some hit dice as well as the warlock casting Healing Light. Before moving on to the next fight the party was given their gear back. The party did not try to escape as there were fifteen Sahuagin guards watching them knowing they were outnumbered.
Having that gear was good as the main event to fight Barron Razorfang beasts was a fight in a twelve-deep pool against two Hunter Sharks and a Giant Shark. Lucky enough the party had potions of underwater breathing (given as a reward from a past adventure) which gave them an edge moving deep under the water while still able to use their weapons and spells. The Hunter Sharks got a few bites in thanks to Blood Frenzy giving advantage on attack rolls. In retaliation, the party unleashed a lot of spells, Ice Knife and Shatter that did a lot of damage all around, as the Ranger used Hunters Mark to put some extra damage By the time the second round was over both Hunter Sharks were killed but the Giant Shark was still going strong.
During these two rounds, the Rogue of the group had been using her hand crossbow (with Crossbow Expert feat) to taking shots at the giant shark who was having problems navigating around the Hunter Sharks. Now that the other sharks were dead the Giant Shark made a charge at the Rogue with its jaws wide open ready to take a bit out of this annoying barnical.
And that is where I ended the session because time was up.
Giant Shark is about to attack the Rogue.
Perfect Cliffhanger.
I rolled a 1.
Perfect week-long cliffhanger a giant shark about to attack the rogue and I rolled a 1.
And it pretty much went downhill from there the monk kept on Stunning Strike the Giant Shark while the rest of the party took it down.
As victors of the battle, the Sahuagin Barron let the party go without any hassle. Leaving the undersea lair of the Sahuagin the party found themselves on the western edge of the Sword Coast. The warlock used his hawk familiar to scout the area and it found the High Road about a half day's journey. Once they reached the High Road the party went south to reach Saltmarsh based on the directions they were given the port city was found just past Waterdeep to meet their mentor. They went south. Coming to the crossroad where High Road meets the Long Road the party came to a campground where people from all over who are traveling on the road would gather for a night's rest.
The wizard popped Leomund’s Tiny Hut and everyone took a rest while the monk visited the community fire. Spending time at the fire the monk learned that Saltmarsh was in the opposite direction from which they are going. As it turned out the directions they were given were completely wrong as Saltmarsh is nowhere near Waterdeep. Since the party was closer to Waterdeep it was decided they would journey there and visit Blackstaff tower where the wizard was from.
Once in Waterdeep, the visit to Blackstaff tower was uneventful. The wizard meets with his old instructor and talked about the past but also gets a message to their mentor in Saltmarsh because the party was two months late from their intended arrival. The response they got back was "Get your a$$ to Saltmarsh." Taking that message to heart the party planned on setting out to Saltmarsh the next day but first, they have some things to do.
Tasked to the wizard he needed to find the proper directions to Saltmarsh, while the ranger, monk when to buy some horses and associated gear. The warlock bought a map, a world map so from this point out they would have a better idea where they are in the region. The rogue sold some hydra, blood, and teeth plus white dragon wyrmling blood and used the gold acquired to pay for the horses.
With the 'grocery' list completed the party left Waterdeep and set off for their journey to Saltmarsh.
In a side campaign with a different group we were a team of 4 L3 characters hired to investigate a ruin for possible magical artifacts. the last session 2 of the players couldn't show so the 2 of us left went anyway. I played a L2 Ranger(Druidic warrior)/L1 draconic sorcerer, my partner was also a ranger (but an archer with CBE and 2 had crossbows strapped to his wrists) 2/ Warlock 1. to get to the ruin we were taking a fishing boat that would drop us off at the shore a few hours walk away. first we had to stop a school of large fish from capsizing the boat. I kept suing ray of frost to freeze the water in the middle in front of the boat to drive the fish out from under and to the sides while my partner was using the anchor to try to make splashes on one side to drive the fish away while the crew were using the oars on both sides to drive the fish away. my partner actually managed to hook 3 fish in the process. Once we got to the shore and were dropped off we started for where the ruin was supposed to be. Along the way we found a campsite of a group that had come this way before but we both failed our rolls to tell how long before. but at least we knew there might be folks there ahead of us so we could prepare when we got there, the place had several stone buildings along the shore with what looked like more submerged out in the ocean beyond the shore. We also spotted a scout in an upper floor window. when the scout disappeared we snuck down to the rocks at the bottom of the hill we were on top of and hid there. Using my magic stones cantrip and his mage hand cantrip we were able to get 3 members of the party to show while we stayed hidden. then using message we were able to negotiate a deal with them to split the town they got what ever they found in the buildings on one side while we got the stuff from the other. so far so good we then had to expose ourselves to get to our side of the town. when the other party saw it was only 2 of us they had second thoughts but that was later. we were able to search the first building and found a 2 rings of water breathing so we each took one, a rod that could be locked in place even in open air, and a rope of climbing. by then it was getting dark so we set up camp in the building. sadly the other group had decided that they were strong enough to take us out and tried to sneak up and dump a barrel of oil into the first floor of our building. I was on watch and saw them light a torch to throw into set the oil on fire. I got initiative and used a ray of frost to put out the torch then ran downstairs to deal with anyone trying to come through the windows and door. My partner stayed upstairs shooting out an upstairs window at targets below trying to light another torch or two. he hit one person but the other was able to get the torch lit and threw it in but it landed in a place the oil hadn't spread to yet and I was able to grab it and toss it into a stone sink where it wouldn't set the oil on fire. Our foes were finally able to get a torch into the oil the next round as my partner took out the person he had hit while the other dived through the window and lit a torch tossing it into the oil. then he pulled his sword and charged at me. meanwhile I had run to the door where two members of the opposition were hacking at it with axes. getting there I caste Thunderwave blowing the door open, putting out the flames on the oil, killing one of the foes at the door with damage and splinters from the door and severely wounding the other while knocking the guy running up behind me off his feet and into the oil. stepping out I saw a sixth member of the foe's party at the edge of the building and stepping between him and the injured foe outside I cast a second thunderwave spell killing the injured foe and sending the sixth one out into view of my partner upstairs who finished him off. stepping back inside the last member surrendered and under interrogation told us what they had found and then showed us where it was. so we took it (12 +1 Arrows, a +1 Dagger and set of bird engraved pipes. He also warned us that as it was nearing midnight we needed to evacuate the ruin as at midnight a sunken bell magically sounded and sea ghouls came into the village attacking and eating anything living. we decided to follow his advice and were able to take him with us and find a hidden depression about half a mile away back in the forest behind the ruin and spend the rest of the night there safely. in the morning we went back to the ruin briefly finding tracks where the sea ghouls had dragged the bodies we eft into the ocean but had left everything else. I was also able to pick up a corroded (locked fully open) but usable spyglass. Searching the rest of the buildings we found nothing more but were able to test the rings and find they allowed water breathing ability. we then decided to return to where the fishermen had dropped us off and would pick us up if we were ready when they returned. we took the prisoner with us.
My players finally arrived in Waterdeep and spent the whole session roleplaying it up. We'll probably spend 3-4 more pure roleplaying sessions there, my players really love the social pillar.
They have two major agendas:
- Find out more about House Brauns role as possible regional drug lords and perhaps connections to Zhentarim. House Braun will host a summer ball in a couple of weeks, but have a really nasty house mage, and they need to find ways to deal with that.
- Psionics has awoken again after 400 years, and they have spotted undead Illithids escaping on some kind of flying squid-shell ship. There is rumors of flying ships from old Lantan and Nethereil myths, and they need to find out more about that. Heavy research at the Academy of the Arcane will follow. (And yes, I can hopefully send them to Wildspace for some serious Spelljamming in a couple of levels :-) ).
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Made a classic DM blunder: wrote two absolute stone-cold killer scenes. They went beautifully in-game. Roleplay - CHECK; Exploration - CHECK!
Completely biffed the fight scene. Bad guys got horrendously lucky on damage; players smartly ran away, but once they got away, we had to end early. Looking back, I could have kept things in play if I really hustled; they were in Sigil, they could have walked into a potion shop or bumped into an angel and gotten some healz and kept fighting, but I just didn’t go for it, so now what could have been a killer session ended up being useful, but wordy and more focused on NPCs.
Not exactly my last session, since we're on break until 6, but I had a great role playing heart-to-heart in character with our bard who's sad he's half demon and was hoping the BBEG was going to help fix that until he found out he was the BBEG.
Last session was a big one for my character.
In her backstory, she was replaced by some sort of doppelganger and driven off into exile. Becoming a thief to survive and eventually falling into the adventurer life when the campaign started.
After a chain of events that lead to us killing the mastermind before these events long before the DM expected, the doppelganger realized that her strings had been cut and was planning on going rogue, selling off all of the property owned by my character's family to get a large sum of gold and planning to throw it all at a big auction where an ancient evil book, basically the necronomicon, was going to be sold.
The party decided to rob the tower that book was held in to keep it out of the doppelgangers hand. But, unknown to us thanks to a nat 1 roll I rolled on a 1d100 at some point, the doppelganger knew we were in the city, and a spy of hers saw us enter the tower and not come out. (We used magic to flee the scene of the crime.)
So come to this session. The party wakes up and and has received an invitation to a debut showing of a new opera called A Walk To Remember. This immediately made my rogue uncomfortable because that exile of hers I mentioned before involved her being magically compelled to walk away from her home city for days until her body gave out. Short version, was a very traumatizing experience for her at 12 years old.
We show up, curious what this is all about, and the opera very quickly is obviously a stylized retelling of her parents falling in love and her early life. And when it gets to the titular walk, the villain reveals herself. We refuse to cooperate and give her the evil book so we fight of course.
The fight was basically a heavily reskinned beholder. The boss had an antimagic cone thing facing wherever she was looking at the end of her turn. There were several living doll things, each that could attack us with their own attacks on their turn. But the boss could also use legendary actions to target the party with beholder eye beam moves, each doll having its own beam. They were flavored after different things, one was a 'stagehand' one was a conductor, one a writer etc.
We eventually win, though the boss nearly turned the tide with a psychic scream spell that the sorcerer was able to counterspell.
I didn't get the killing blow, but I did get a few good crits in. And now my rogue no longer has to hide who she is as that chapter of her life is put to rest.
Setup:
Well, the players did as I hope and left the island. I gave them enough threatening warning from the two factions that it would be best if they left and made it so the party was being followed throughout town on this 'last day' in Bilgewater. Taking this warning to heart the party boarded the ship, The Hyena, early just to signal to the factions that they were in fact leaving town.
To make the trip to Saltmarsh a little more exciting I ran an old DDB Encounter of the Week (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/441-encounter-of-the-week-sharkfin-shipwreck) that was all Skill Challenges. A storm was spotted on the horizon and the crew of the Hyena needed to prepare the ship. Upon waking up the players from their sleep the crew asked them for help securing the ship.
This was the first Skill Challenge and thankfully the EotW laid out all the types of checks a player can make making it easier for their character to help. With some incredible high to mid 20's checks, the players successfully passed the check and help the crew of the Hyena get ready for the storm.
The second Skill Challenge was to help the crew keep the ship afloat during the storm. This is where things got a little trickier, where the first Challenge outlined all the ways the party could help the crew, the second Challenge had a few suggestions but mostly the intention was the players needed to come up with their own ideas. The group struggled to come up with ideas that fit in the Skill Challenge box to the point where some of their ideas were not really DC measurable or the player put them in a position that on their turn it was a skill to save themself from harm than helping the crew. So, I did my best to judicate their ideas a give them a chance in the challenge but it just came down to struggling with ideas that would help the challenge all the while a third of the players did actions that could not help resulting in failure of the challenge which meant the storm crashed the ship upon a reef.
With the shipwreck, the characters were rendered unconscious only to awake on the reef surrounded by Sahuagin.
End Session.
Side note: I'm not sure I'm a fan of skill challenges. They occur in rare instances where I think they could fit well with the narrative, in this case, it was a part of the EotW, but I think I just do not run them properly on the mechanic side to help the players find skills that can be used in the challenge.
Though the result was what I was hoping for, shipwreck, as in the next session I'm running is the sequel to this EotW with https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/485-encounter-of-the-week-coral-colosseum
in one of our last sessions I challenged one of the villains to a rap battle and i was actually allowed to do it! Better yet i beat him!
Don't have a good day, have a great day.
Our last session only last an hour due to one players poor internet and another having to work a lot later than usual.
In that time however, the party lost 1000 gold (About 20% of their current funds) gambling in the high rollers suite at a Casino.
There was also an interesting discussion where they met a group of Dragon Slayers who are planning to kill the Ancient Green Dragon Elaacrimalicros (My proudest name-pronouncing accomplishment in-game). My party is level 9, and the Dragon Slayers consist of 3 Scout's, a beefed up Archer and an Evoker. The players are intelligent enough to know that the dragon will wipe the floor with them. However the Fighter has low wisdom and is obsessed with killing dragons and the Ranger has a personal reason for wanting the dragon dead. Which means both the players of said characters have to rp their characters like the following "Oh yeah, lets kill this thing, the hoard will make us rich!" and "I can finally get revenge, nothing will stop me", whilst ooc going "Oh shit, we're all gonna die" and "DM, when I said I wanted to fight a dragon, I meant a young one".
Of course, there are magic items out in the world that can help take out a dragon. But knowing my party, they'll likely rush in without preparing. This is going to be fun :D
The Drow Civil War campaign is on pause, but the Generals Campaign took a dramatic turn when I switched places with one of the players and let him DM!
It comes to the attention of Dwarven High Command that the goblins of the Ruby Hills are working on a super weapon that could challenge the primacy of Dwarven artillery, the backbone of the Kingdom’s entire defense posture! Worse, the factory for the weapon is dug into the cliff faces of a ravine and connected by a series of cable cars, leaving them immune to artillery fire.
With no time to tunnel in and no political will for the bloodbath that would result from a conventional assault, the 53rd Fusiliers and Elven Task Force Arrowhead must stage a daring commando raid - rappelling down the cliff face and capturing a beachhead in a lightning strike before commandeering the cable car system to gain access to the factory.
After dynamiting the production line, we set to work gathering intelligence and learn to our consternation that the goblins have been receiving technical assistance from a group of duergar with whom the dwarves had lost contact, forcing us to go on a spy mission through the Underdark.
I was really impressed with how well thought out the whole storyline was. The nephew’s DMing style, like mine, unsurprisingly, is heavy on story and fast and loose with dice. But he’ll evolve his style over time and he has great instincts. We all had a lot of fun.
After many moons I have finally stopped being a forever DM and become a most-of-the-time DM.
I decided to take the plunge and play a Kenku, I thought it'd be hard but you just have to try think of sound effects that represent what you want to say, like a cockerels crow when you're waking someone up. I also decided to make my min-maxy DM cringe by making a ranger who: doesn't wear armour, dumped strength but wields a battleaxe and instead of a component pouch, has a dirty sack full of the material components for most of the spells he'll learn. Although this sounds ridiculous, I plan on taking druidic warrior at level 2 and multiclassing into monk at level 3 for unarmored defence.
Our party's job is to find some spy before he escapes the city. Now where would a spy looking to escape a city go to: the train station, the stables, the ports?
Fighter: "If I was on the run, I'd probably hide out in a brothel"
DM: "..."
So we split the party into those who wanted to go to the brothel and those who didn't. Strangely the Fighter didn't want to go to the brothel, but the Bard (figures) and the Warlock were all for it. Now the player of the Bard had been a wizard in my campaign, who despite being 'Lawful Neutral' decided to launch a fireball through the front doors of a tavern during the lunch rush, so he had a bit of a reputation. The Warlock was playing a character who ate rocks and could probably be described as 'Chaotic Stupid'. In said Brothel, they discover that the spy isn't there (shock), but they do see some thug being a bit rough with one of the girls. And how do the two deal with it.
Bard: "Hey, we should kill that guy"
Warlock: "Eldritch Blast!"
DM: "..."
So the rest of the party arrive to find the Bard and Warlock running away from a bunch of guards, the rest of the party decide to try the docks. The Portmaster recognises our description and we learn which boat is on. But before that can happen, the Brothel Guards appear and are hungry for revenge. Unfortunately the Paladin lost internet at this point and as he hadn't sent his Character Sheet to the DM, the DM decided he would 'Guard the PortMaster'. We were up against 1 thug and 4 bandits armed with flails and crossbows, the Bard was downed in one shot, the Fighter had left to secure the boat, leaving me, the Warlock and the Sorcerer to deal with the rest. This is when I began to regret making a character whose main attack had a +1 modifier and didn't wear armour. Now the Sorcerer was frustrated ic by what he saw as incompetence by the Bard and the fact he had to save him. However when it became apparent that his character had a fair chance of being killed, he was now frustrated ooc.
Sorcerer: "I've spent too long working on this character to have it killed in session 1"
Bard: "It's a game, it isn't real, don't get upset"
Sorcerer: "2 weeks I spent working out the history with DM to incorporate it into the lore, if my character dies here, I'm leaving the campaign!"
Bard: "It's a ga-a-me!"
DM: "..."
Thankfully in the following rounds we got some high numbers on the damage rolls and managed to avoid a LOT of attacks (Not sure if the DM fudged the rolls, but I wouldn't blame him) for us to pull through. Then came a revelation.
Fighter: "Why did you even kill that guy at the brothel?"
Bard: "I purposely designed this character to just do stupid stuff and just be really lucky. My characters usually die session 1 of the DM's campaigns anyway, so I have plenty of back-up characters and can afford to be reckless."
DM: "..."
Despite that, I had fun. It felt good to play for once and I'm happy it'll carry on bi-weekly.
This last week I was tired and sick; not really a surprise given my autoimmune disorders, but frustrating nonetheless. I also had an early doctor’s appointment the next day, so I decided to run the sort introduction to the side campaign I purchased specifically for this kind of situation. It’s mostly a hack-and-slash combat style, with mechanics set up similar to a video game. For example, when a monster dies, it erupts into a shower of coins.
We had fun. One player wasn’t feeling well, and couldn’t join us, but since I’m leveling the party up manually, it wasn’t a huge deal. Most of the short session was taken up by explaining the mechanics, but we did get a fun combat in at the end. I discovered that I’m going to have to increase the number/difficulty of monsters, as we have two Battle Masters and a monk, each of whom has a million attacks apiece, plus a druid and an artificer.
The campaign is called The Cube, and I recommend trying it. It’s set up so it can be a self-contained campaign, or inserted into an existing one as a number of side quests. It’s available from DMs Guild, and from the blog The Level Up Corner. It’s easy to run, fun to play, has a neat story, and goes all the way from level one to level twenty, and it’s a fantastic break for me, since it cuts the amount of prep I have to do by about 75%, but still feels like a polished story. This way, we can still play every week, even if I’m not feeling well.
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
We started a new D&D campaign on Discord. It's western themed. Instead of Forgotten Realms, I'm returning to Mystara. The campaign takes place in the Savage Baronies. They characters have arrived in the frontier wild west town of Wisptown and are exploring the town a little. So far not much has happened. But it looks like things are going to go from 0 to 60 next session.
More info on my blog: here.
As a player, my nephew DMing. I played a bard who gets caught up in a terrifying plot by an ambitious ruler to collaborate with a colony of myconoids invading a small territory. It was fun. He's a natural storyteller and I love watching that develop.
As a DM, another chapter in the Drow Civil War. This time however, a real treat: I was joined by the NIECES! They've never been all that interested in D&D, but once they realized that I wouldn't stop them from killing each other, they have become big fans of the entire drow concept. Interestingly, the two older ones both still wanted to play big tough fighter guys. The youngest (and most murdery) is the sole lady of the group, with the privileges and responsibilities of command - assuming she doesn't get murdered.
The War has entered its middle stages and it's weird side quest time. Some of the House members are exploring the Necropolis of the Drow in order to find powerful artifacts and keep them out of the enemies' hands. This bunch have a different mission.
Erelhei-Cinlu has the Pitchy Flow. Menzo has Lake Donigarten. Carved from the stalactites suspended above the bottomless Demonweb Pit, my homebrew city of Zijdespin needs a source of potable water for the population. In an act of communal problem-solving almost unimaginable in a Chaotic Evil society, the drow city built a pipeline to the Underdark trading city of Zondernaam, a gnome enclave built to harvest the water from the Secret Sea. Each of the Houses agreed it was in their best interest not to have to rely on the Priesthood's magic as their sole source of water. But neither would they leave themselves unprotected from the possibility of betrayal by another house, of course! So each house has, by treaty, a right to send "observers" to "inspect" the pump house in Zondernaam. Which means that all of the top 5 or 6 houses have observers there at all times, scheming and counter-scheming.
Enter Lady Moon of House Køkk (and retinue). She has arrived in Zondernaam with orders to make contact with House Køkk's man on the inside - a deep gnome named Vorlin Kenlock - and start creating havoc for the other houses with an eye to controlling the pump house (and thus the water supply of the city) or to prevent it from being controlled by the enemy.
On arrival though, Kenlock immediately informs them that the pump house has been attacked. No one is left alive and no one saw the killers. Several irreplaceable pieces of machinery have been stolen and until they are recovered, no water can flow to Zijdespin. News is certain to spread, but Lady Moon is first to know. She investigates at the scene and finds muddy footprints - webbed muddy footprints. It's the freakin' Kuo-toa! How did they get past the Crab Maze (stolen from Candlekeep Mysteries)? No time to figure that out now.
Leaping into action, Lady Moon tells her servants to go steal her a boat. The rogue (whose character name I don't remember) commandeers a small steam sidewheeler and they battle the giant crabs out through the maze and into open water. After hours of searching the crystal clear waters of the Sea, they beach themselves on the shore of the Kuo-toa settlement and start murderin'. And that's where we had to leave it.
To be continued...
I had a player, who constantly does silly stuff, suffer a big consequence today.
I didn't want to have his character die from this, because it wouldn't have been fun afterwards. Even for him saying he doesn't care if his character dies, this guy has kind of been the comic relief of the party and we can always expect him to do something silly, so the party plans for such contingencies. So it would not have been fun for anyone, even me, for him to bring out his backup character yet. This one needs more story.
So he decides to cannonball off a 100+ foot waterfall instead of trying the slick, but much safer path carved into the cave wall down to the bottom. He lands his cannonball well enough. Two others slip and fall into the pool with some bruises.
So there needs to be a consequence for this clearly foolish action. So a baby giant kraken thinks he's the next meal and starts pulling him under the water. The party doesn't hesitate to save him once they realize what's happening. The dominatrix of the party manages to snag him with her rope of entanglement, so now it's a tug of war over his character's unconscious body. They manage to hurt the kraken now and it being a baby cuts its losses and runs, literally biting off his leg and retreats to the watery depths. The party barely manages to save him and he's now unconscious for the rest of the session ( ended not very long after this).
Honestly I'm very excited to see how it will roleplay out, and the player is also excited about the potential new tools he could possibly create or have made to help him now "I need to find an artificer now!" He and the rest of the party are now more invested in this character living to tell his story now. His character will die eventually some day, probably for another silly reason, but now they will be more involved and affected by however it happens.
Here's the full session log if anyone would like.
Family Traditions [Campaign Log] COMPLETED
Cursed Islands [Campaign Log] COMPLETED
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward
After a couple weeks of stalling because of player absences, our Underdark campaign finally got back underway.
Representing House Xilonodel of T'lindhet, the party boarded a barge and began the dangerous journey up the Shrieker River to the Kuo-toa city of Loop Ugluk, intending to establish trade relations with a contact there from the merchant caste.
At one point, they saw a spectral battle taking place between ghostly forces on opposite banks of the river, a drow army on one side and a duergar battalion on the other. Arcs of magical energy and glowing arrows crisscrossed the air above the river, as an echo of a battle from centuries ago played out again thanks to the weird energy of the faerzress. The namesake shrieker mushrooms along the banks of the river screamed out in alarm, agitated by the warring phantoms. Noting that the spectral combatants didn't seem to be aware of the boat or anything else, the barge kept going, before the shriekers could attract something more tangible.
As they passed through an area of tall blackened zurkhwood mushrooms known as the Lightless Forest, clouds of flying insects became thicker, louder, and larger. Eventually, swarms of biting flies began to attack the group, threatening to overwhelm the crew unless dealt with. Thinking quickly, the drow sorceress commanded two of her companions to raise their barge-poles, and she cast a web between them, creating a sort of web-tent from which to weather the insect assault. This did help to slow and thin the attacking swarms, but fire magic was forbidden due to the risk to the barge and crew if the webs were to ignite.
As the fight continued, Giant Toads began to surface and eat some of the insects, although there was a worry that they might turn towards the party if they were angered or hungry for something more substantial. As usual, the shoreside shrieker mushrooms began their wailing, and eventually attracted the attention of what appeared to be a giant mouldy beholder? The wizard did not want that thing getting any closer to the boat, so he fired off a magic missile barrage, which caused the orb to explode into a cloud of poisonous spores. Fortunately, only some bugs and frogs were caught in the blast, and after wrapping up the combat, they elected to get out of there quickly before anything more deadly showed up.
After arriving at the Kuo-toa shrine city, they met with Prince-Bishop Poolgup, leader of the merchant caste and priest of a new god of trade and acquisition, Vogolgol the Greed-father. The merchants were part of a religious sect that was starting to rise in power, although the other castes still tended to worship the traditional Seamother. Poolgup gave them a tour of the above-water market, and they were able to discuss the mutually beneficial trade opportunities that this region of the Underdark was once known for, before the surface rebellion drove the drow and crin'ti from Dambrath and shut down the lucrative surface route. It was agreed that the fishfolk would provide moss wine, sweet reed, and pearls in exchange for gold and silver coinage. The kuo-toa also had an interest in receiving Duergar Fireball liquor. It was agreed that trading in slaves, despite being profitable, would benefit Poolgup and Xilonodel's competitors too much, so trade agreements centered around the food, wine, and currency deals.
They settled in at a pavilion for guests, and tried to ignore the constant chanting and frequent sacrifices that characterized the locale.
(Now I have to see if I can come up with some kind of interesting encounters for the journey back down the river...)
All generalizations are false.
Last session, my Warforged's beef with Xanathar's guild came to a head after a previous PC died to one of their mind flayers. We got a tip that there was two XG outposts, and after having found the answer to the passcode on a dead guild member's body, managed to avoid the poison traps set for us. Encountered the leader, asked if they were the leader, and then shot him in his spider face with a revolver. Combat lasted the remaining two hours not because of any uncertainty between the party, but because there was 29 tokens on the battlefield. (6 PC's, one revenant NPC, a Steel Defender and a mount, vs 20 XG members.Casualties: 20 XG members, and the non-com warlock learned not to get too close while invisible to the enemy, as my artificer has grenades. But he lived.
"I am a machine, built to make more machines, so that those machines would go and fight your wars for you against the ultimate evil. I was not made by some heavenly deity ruling on high, but by a man's hands, with man's tools, and a man's will.I know that man's name, and I know that man's fate. I do not worship him, for he sought no worship from his creation, only that I follow his will.And thus you and I fulfil our respective duties to those who made us."
-Constructor Tertius (Warforged)
There was a time constraint for this game so we only got in an hour and a half of playtime. Still, it was enough to move things along in the EotW.
The party had been captured by Sahuagin and taken to their undersea lair and stripped of all their armor, weapons, and gear. There are two mages (Wizard, Warlock, and Ranger) so they were not 100% helpless in this situation. The party is given the choice of dying in jail or be entertainment for the Sahuagin Barron (Razorfang [No idea how many Tazerface jokes came from that.]) and fight for their lives in a series of arena battles.
Surprisingly enough the party did not give too much of a protest to be used as entertainment given their situation, though EofW does railroad the players either die in prison or fight.
The first battle in the proving grounds was pretty simple two Veterans and four commoners who had swords and clubs respectively. The party though still without armor was given clubs as means of offensive capabilities besides the mages.
The battle was swift lasting only a few rounds the Monk of the party used Stunning Strike on one of the Veterans so that helped half the heavy damage dealers to which the Ranger and Monk just whaled Veteran. From a distance, the Warlock and Wizard whittled down the other Veteran with their various available spells. Now, that is not to say the party did not take any damage, they did, a lot. The non-stunned Veteran got off a few hits on the Ranger but the Monk high AC made it more of a challenge even though it can three attacks a turn. The commoners could not hit anything which did not save their lives as the party cracked their skulls quick enough making commoners having no impact on the outcome of the battle.
I gave some incentive for the party to fight this opposing force. I had the captain of The Hyena (the name of the ship from the previous game) and her first mate whom the party had formed a friendship with dead in this proving grounds as if they had a chance to fight for freedom and lost. This emotional connection got the party right into the fight and not to think otherwise.
Once the fight in the proving grounds had concluded the party was given a short rest which they used to spend some hit dice as well as the warlock casting Healing Light. Before moving on to the next fight the party was given their gear back. The party did not try to escape as there were fifteen Sahuagin guards watching them knowing they were outnumbered.
Having that gear was good as the main event to fight Barron Razorfang beasts was a fight in a twelve-deep pool against two Hunter Sharks and a Giant Shark. Lucky enough the party had potions of underwater breathing (given as a reward from a past adventure) which gave them an edge moving deep under the water while still able to use their weapons and spells. The Hunter Sharks got a few bites in thanks to Blood Frenzy giving advantage on attack rolls. In retaliation, the party unleashed a lot of spells, Ice Knife and Shatter that did a lot of damage all around, as the Ranger used Hunters Mark to put some extra damage By the time the second round was over both Hunter Sharks were killed but the Giant Shark was still going strong.
During these two rounds, the Rogue of the group had been using her hand crossbow (with Crossbow Expert feat) to taking shots at the giant shark who was having problems navigating around the Hunter Sharks. Now that the other sharks were dead the Giant Shark made a charge at the Rogue with its jaws wide open ready to take a bit out of this annoying barnical.
And that is where I ended the session because time was up.
Giant Shark is about to attack the Rogue.
Perfect Cliffhanger.
It was pretty good!
Me and my party where in a magics academy because we were looking for someone who had been kidnapped and bring them back to their mother in another city. We had been let into the school because we managed to get an invite from a powerful wizard (if i remember correctly), we had explored the whole premise except this one room, surprise, it had a secret door which led to a hidden, broken, forgotten section of the school, it had weird glowing plants which could talk as well. The rooms where all the same, broken chairs and tables, dust and cobwebs, the usual stuff. but then, we finally got to this one room and we burst forward, inside, there were multiple people under some sort of protection spell so we couldn't touch them (i tested this by trying to punch them) and we found our kidnapped victim.
Turns out, one of the teachers at the school was the kidnapper, we let him have his big ending speech before charging head first at him. We did alot of damage in the beginning but soon it was his turn, he did some magic spell i can't remember because i'm a barbarian, i don't need to know magic, and it did 33 damage if we failed our con save (16 if we did save), baring in mind i only had 49 hp (and failed my con save) at the time because i forgot to heal myself because i was not prepared for this, so i would be dead in the second turn if we didn't kill him. One of our party members actually got 'knocked unconsiouse' because they were a low level (oof).
We continued to fight him (i had pitiful roles) and soon it was his turn, i may have saved my con save but i only had 16 hp left anyway, so i got 'knocked unconsious' and i was freaking out because i didn't know how death saving throws work and i was desperatly trying to tell this to the DM (still never got a clear answer) and the party continued, most got 'knocked unconsious' expcet for the other barbarian with an insane amount of constitution who lived. They kill the BBEG, thank lord.
We then had a long rest and that got me back to full health and i wouldn't have to roll death saving throws, me and this one other guy who are fairly on the chaotic side of the spectrum were pissed and decided to do some illegal stuff with the wizard who was just barly alive (
brutal murder) and we got our kidnapped victim and left. We returned them to their mother who was very gratful and the town payed us all 150 gold (although i gave 50 to the mother because she was poor).The party then went to a tavern, drunk some alcohol, ate some good meat and went to sleep.
(i would also like to point out that everyone got a magical item from this adventure, i would've gotten the Amulet of Health, i think it was called, but that made me super buff so they replaced it with , which suited me because my character did like to drink alot of alcohol but kinda sad i lost the Amulet of Health, and i had to homebrew the Amulet of the Drunkard because otherwise you would have to pay for it
not sure if homebrewing it is legal but whatever.)Anyway, in the morning, a mysterious guy turned up at the tavern, offered us a quest if we meet up with him later in the woods, and that is where the new session will begin.
This week we had a short session, as I had another doctor’s appointment the next day. We had one absence, as well as introducing a new player to the party. Two PCs had been infected with lycanthropy during the fight last week.
The PCs had just killed three werewolves, which they ran into on their way back to town from a fetch quest. As they were examining the bodies and the strange arrows in their backs, a fairy (yes, a literal fairy with wings) comes out of the darkness, introduces himself, and asks if the two half-orc hunters he’s been following belong to the party. So at this point, the hunters, who had been staying out of sight to assess the situation, come tromping out of the underbrush, and bellow, “YOU HAVE STOLEN OUR KILLS! WE DEMAND RECOMPENSE!” I had to pause for a drink of water, as my Orc Voice is pretty painful, and all the players start reaching for their D20s, expecting to roll initiative. “YOU MUST REPLACE THE PELTS YOU HAVE DESTROYED! YOU HAVE ONE WEEK TO PROCURE THREE WEREWOLF PELTS, AT WHICH TIME YOU WILL BE CONTACTED BY A COURIER! IF YOU FAIL OR REFUSE, YOU WILL PAY IN BLOOD!!” The two sisters go tromping off into the dark forest, and I take another drink of water.
One character, angry that these two half-orcs apparently just watched while the party fought the werewolves that they (the half-orc sisters) had been tracking, wanted to chase down and kill them. The rest of the party managed to prevent him from charging off into the midnight forest after them, reminding him that the Remove Curse spell doesn’t work if you’re dead. They finally made it back to the city of Moonpools late at night, and spent the night. The next day, they split up: three went to the wizard who had hired them three or four sessions ago (this was supposed to be a short side quest for one session, while a couple of players were absent), and two went to the market for supplies and to find a carpenter to fix their cart properly.
This is where I discovered that I had completely forgotten to prep anything except the character/quest introduction. I had been extremely ill for the last few weeks, due to my autoimmune disorders, so I had nothing ready for the wizard, the market, or the cathedral to Sehanine Moonbow where they would likely go for curse removal. I have a lot of work ahead of me this week!
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
I rolled a 1.
Perfect week-long cliffhanger a giant shark about to attack the rogue and I rolled a 1.
And it pretty much went downhill from there the monk kept on Stunning Strike the Giant Shark while the rest of the party took it down.
As victors of the battle, the Sahuagin Barron let the party go without any hassle. Leaving the undersea lair of the Sahuagin the party found themselves on the western edge of the Sword Coast. The warlock used his hawk familiar to scout the area and it found the High Road about a half day's journey. Once they reached the High Road the party went south to reach Saltmarsh based on the directions they were given the port city was found just past Waterdeep to meet their mentor. They went south. Coming to the crossroad where High Road meets the Long Road the party came to a campground where people from all over who are traveling on the road would gather for a night's rest.
The wizard popped Leomund’s Tiny Hut and everyone took a rest while the monk visited the community fire. Spending time at the fire the monk learned that Saltmarsh was in the opposite direction from which they are going. As it turned out the directions they were given were completely wrong as Saltmarsh is nowhere near Waterdeep. Since the party was closer to Waterdeep it was decided they would journey there and visit Blackstaff tower where the wizard was from.
Once in Waterdeep, the visit to Blackstaff tower was uneventful. The wizard meets with his old instructor and talked about the past but also gets a message to their mentor in Saltmarsh because the party was two months late from their intended arrival. The response they got back was "Get your a$$ to Saltmarsh." Taking that message to heart the party planned on setting out to Saltmarsh the next day but first, they have some things to do.
Tasked to the wizard he needed to find the proper directions to Saltmarsh, while the ranger, monk when to buy some horses and associated gear. The warlock bought a map, a world map so from this point out they would have a better idea where they are in the region. The rogue sold some hydra, blood, and teeth plus white dragon wyrmling blood and used the gold acquired to pay for the horses.
With the 'grocery' list completed the party left Waterdeep and set off for their journey to Saltmarsh.
In a side campaign with a different group we were a team of 4 L3 characters hired to investigate a ruin for possible magical artifacts. the last session 2 of the players couldn't show so the 2 of us left went anyway. I played a L2 Ranger(Druidic warrior)/L1 draconic sorcerer, my partner was also a ranger (but an archer with CBE and 2 had crossbows strapped to his wrists) 2/ Warlock 1. to get to the ruin we were taking a fishing boat that would drop us off at the shore a few hours walk away. first we had to stop a school of large fish from capsizing the boat. I kept suing ray of frost to freeze the water in the middle in front of the boat to drive the fish out from under and to the sides while my partner was using the anchor to try to make splashes on one side to drive the fish away while the crew were using the oars on both sides to drive the fish away. my partner actually managed to hook 3 fish in the process. Once we got to the shore and were dropped off we started for where the ruin was supposed to be. Along the way we found a campsite of a group that had come this way before but we both failed our rolls to tell how long before. but at least we knew there might be folks there ahead of us so we could prepare when we got there, the place had several stone buildings along the shore with what looked like more submerged out in the ocean beyond the shore. We also spotted a scout in an upper floor window. when the scout disappeared we snuck down to the rocks at the bottom of the hill we were on top of and hid there. Using my magic stones cantrip and his mage hand cantrip we were able to get 3 members of the party to show while we stayed hidden. then using message we were able to negotiate a deal with them to split the town they got what ever they found in the buildings on one side while we got the stuff from the other. so far so good we then had to expose ourselves to get to our side of the town. when the other party saw it was only 2 of us they had second thoughts but that was later. we were able to search the first building and found a 2 rings of water breathing so we each took one, a rod that could be locked in place even in open air, and a rope of climbing. by then it was getting dark so we set up camp in the building. sadly the other group had decided that they were strong enough to take us out and tried to sneak up and dump a barrel of oil into the first floor of our building. I was on watch and saw them light a torch to throw into set the oil on fire. I got initiative and used a ray of frost to put out the torch then ran downstairs to deal with anyone trying to come through the windows and door. My partner stayed upstairs shooting out an upstairs window at targets below trying to light another torch or two. he hit one person but the other was able to get the torch lit and threw it in but it landed in a place the oil hadn't spread to yet and I was able to grab it and toss it into a stone sink where it wouldn't set the oil on fire. Our foes were finally able to get a torch into the oil the next round as my partner took out the person he had hit while the other dived through the window and lit a torch tossing it into the oil. then he pulled his sword and charged at me. meanwhile I had run to the door where two members of the opposition were hacking at it with axes. getting there I caste Thunderwave blowing the door open, putting out the flames on the oil, killing one of the foes at the door with damage and splinters from the door and severely wounding the other while knocking the guy running up behind me off his feet and into the oil. stepping out I saw a sixth member of the foe's party at the edge of the building and stepping between him and the injured foe outside I cast a second thunderwave spell killing the injured foe and sending the sixth one out into view of my partner upstairs who finished him off. stepping back inside the last member surrendered and under interrogation told us what they had found and then showed us where it was. so we took it (12 +1 Arrows, a +1 Dagger and set of bird engraved pipes. He also warned us that as it was nearing midnight we needed to evacuate the ruin as at midnight a sunken bell magically sounded and sea ghouls came into the village attacking and eating anything living. we decided to follow his advice and were able to take him with us and find a hidden depression about half a mile away back in the forest behind the ruin and spend the rest of the night there safely. in the morning we went back to the ruin briefly finding tracks where the sea ghouls had dragged the bodies we eft into the ocean but had left everything else. I was also able to pick up a corroded (locked fully open) but usable spyglass. Searching the rest of the buildings we found nothing more but were able to test the rings and find they allowed water breathing ability. we then decided to return to where the fishermen had dropped us off and would pick us up if we were ready when they returned. we took the prisoner with us.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
My players finally arrived in Waterdeep and spent the whole session roleplaying it up. We'll probably spend 3-4 more pure roleplaying sessions there, my players really love the social pillar.
They have two major agendas:
- Find out more about House Brauns role as possible regional drug lords and perhaps connections to Zhentarim. House Braun will host a summer ball in a couple of weeks, but have a really nasty house mage, and they need to find ways to deal with that.
- Psionics has awoken again after 400 years, and they have spotted undead Illithids escaping on some kind of flying squid-shell ship. There is rumors of flying ships from old Lantan and Nethereil myths, and they need to find out more about that. Heavy research at the Academy of the Arcane will follow. (And yes, I can hopefully send them to Wildspace for some serious Spelljamming in a couple of levels :-) ).