Always interesting ideas and surprises from my group, doing Saltmarsh. One of the players, barbarian, is impulsive and likes to cause trouble. He walked into a room of six skeletons and was immediately surrounded. Instead of rushing in, one of the others ran in, pulled the barbarian out of the room (STR check), and the other two barred the door. They then argued about the barbarian's stupidity and recklessness.
Finally returned to the Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign (we’re all theater kids and had rehearsal every day for like two months, so no time for dnd until NOW!!)
The party arrived back at their Waffle House home base to find it much more reinforced and better off than it was when they left, but with a hastily made SOS in waffles and syrup in the sand on the sidewalk in front of the building, done to trick the Amazon drones flying by that the survivors inside weren’t actually well off, and therefore that there was no reason to destroy them for not being dependent on Amazon.
They entered their old home to find everyone- Luscious Locks Lexius, Peter, and their assortment of guests- sitting at tables, and in the middle of the floor, Jonathan M. Maplehaus, the CEO of Waffle House and the man who’s been communicating with one of the Bards of the party, promoting him to manager and then regional manager, expecting him to make his WH the strongest he could.
Maplehaus was very disappointed in the Bard because he had abandoned his post, but the party calmed him down and explained their situation. Maplehaus then explained that no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t fire the Bard, because he needs as many employees as he can get. He broke the news that this Waffle House was the last one standing. All the others had been taken over by zombies.
The party took in this information, shared what they knew, and began formulating a plan. They knew who their main target is: Jeff Bezos. They’re sure he’s been making the zombies more powerful, and they don’t fully know why (and now I REALLY need to write a villain monologue, yayyy!!!!!). They counted all of their resources (themselves, the guests they’ve been harboring at the WH, LLL, Peter, Robert Snake, Organ Ism, and the mysterious Brenda from HR [the other last surviving WH employee]), decided on a good split, and went to bed.
Before sleeping, several characters prayed to their respective gods (Pholtus, The Moon, the Christian God, the Mormon God, and Buddy Rizer), some receiving good signs, some bad, and some none. There were a couple of heart-to-hearts, between the two Bards and between one Bard and the Blood Hunter. And there was a prophetic dream. The Blood Hunter, whose mother was either cursed or insane, had a dream of death, and knew it would come true because her mother knew that she was going to die before she did. The dream consisted of a strange fog, but it couldn’t be fog because it was the wrong color, and a beating human heart.
As the party slept, some peacefully, some fitfully, a strange, discolored fog filled the Waffle House. Those whose choking didn’t wake them fell unconscious, and that’s where we ended the session >:)
I’m VERY excited for next session but I’m going to have to think long and hard about how I’m going to pull it off. Ah well, we shall see…
We were on a long trajectory starting at 3rd level and geared to end in an epic level conclusion... which was a bit ambitious given we had a continuous influx of regular players due to schedule changes in personal lives etc. I only had one player throughout the group's over a year "lifetime" that was there from the beginning of the campaign.
Long ago in the time of 2e I had a character, who along with his fellow adventurers achieved epic levels themselves (in my day... you could achieve up to level 30! haha), defeating a demon lord and gaining possession of both the hand and eye of Vecna. My character bonded with both, not only becoming incredibly powerful, but he also turned evil and went insane... and thus was retired to the world of NPC/BBEG. NOW... in the world I created this character has become a deity of sorts, the only evil Halfling god. Truth is he is not a god, he is just that same character who fancies himself a god, but he is worshiped by some here in this world.
BRIEF HISTORY: Long ago a great war was waged between the realms of Elves and Dwarves and those of Dragons and Giants. Humans, split into factions, were largely divided, being creatures of both selfishness and compassion. The “demi-human” races of goblinoids and orc tended to follow their greed joining forces with those promising wealth and power... the Dragons and Giants. The forces of Elves, Dwarves and Humans, were far less powerful than the Dragons and Giants, but what they lacked in individual power, they made up for in number and ingenuity. Together they forged powerful artifacts to combat their enemies. These artifacts were divided among the races equally so there would be balance among them. (Much like the rings of power in Lord of the Rings).
...Much time passes and this history become legend. Our hero, while looting a tomb, finds a broken great sword of wonderous craft and decides to take it for himself. Later he finds out that this was once one of the forementioned artifacts and must have it mended to help fight a growing evil in the land. Our real quest begins.
There were lots of twists and turns, they became outlaws in one land after freeing a king's dragon and fled by ship towards the dwarven lands in hopes to have the sword mended by their master smiths. We ended our last session with the group stuck on a ship surrounded by a ton of zombies and zombie shark infested waters after surviving a magical storm summoned by one of the emerging great evils, an evil wizard seeking to stop them and gain the artifacts for himself.
The story was to reach it's climax when the players find that the various evil forces that have been growing were all puppets of this insane halfling "god" whom they would have to face. Would they defeat him? If so, what would they do with the hand and eye of Vecna? Time would have told. *shrug*
I may need to aim lower next time. It would be great if I could find a good solid group that would stick together for the long haul.
We had a final session where the DM brought back PCs that had left but as NPCs...two as plants that turned out to be evil and two we had to save. Also, we knew one player's pet frog had to be a demon, and yes it was...I finally got to kill it. Just prior to that battle, we went against another (NPC) party in a sports game and kicked their butts. Phantom steed for the win.
Had a session of tavern mini-games and other competitions.
Our Paladin won a spar, Barbarian lost at arm wrestling to a deceptively strong woman, the warlock did pretty well at darts, and my Artificer won at dice and horse racing (and got a +1 to animal handling with horses as the reward) ... next session is the drinking contest. :D
My last session went very well! The party leveled up to 3rd Level and they saved a Stone Giant baby from some Orcs who planned on raising it to be an evil guard of their keep that in construction!
Well, you wanted some interesting info, so not my last session, but surely my most "ice-bath" experience as a TTRPG player. Ok so here's a big text, hope you enjoy it:
I was playing Storm King's Thunder for around 16 months... And so my lvl 11 character, Markus Wulfenhauer, died. You're gonna say -"that's pretty common, bro"- and yeah, you're not wrong, but the problem was that he was virtually invicible.
Let me explain, these were Markus' stats: STR 20 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 20 at lvl 11.
He started out as a Fiend Warlock, at around level 8 he died and had his soul trapped in a limbo because of Asmodeus (patron), but he was revived and bit by a werebear druid, changing into a werebear himself. Werebears are immune to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical, increasing his STR to 19. He was also wearing a belt of dwarvenkind and a ring of warmth,making him also resistant to poison and cold damage. And after being revived he changed his class to an Oath of Ancients paladin of Selûne, deity of the Werebears. So he was also resistant to damage from spells with Aura of Warding and immune to disease and being frightened. And two sessions later he got a scale mail made of Blue Dragon Scails, granting him resistance to lightning.
And being a paladin he also had his CHA modifier as a bonus on saves, in this case +5. Not mentioning his AC of 19.
In the end he was beheaded by Baba Yaga, the reason was that he didn't want to submit to an evil being trying to order him around again after he spent years as a grey-evil-chaotic character with the finally having the chance to redeem himself and be good for the first time. To sum it all up from there the party saved his soul and freed it into the Neverwinter Woods where he had found so many moments of joy before entering Asmodeus' service. The end.
So he died while having resistances to: Lightning Poison Cold Damage from spells And immunity to: Non-mag Bludgeoning Non-mag piercing Non-mag slashing Disease Frightened
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“If you define yourself by the power to take life, the desire to dominate, to possess...then you have nothing.”
So, we've done session zero and one for a D&D OSR (think basic D&D) which is running an airship campaign We landed on the original planet (think sand dunes and sand storms with underground buildings) that started making airships centuries (at least) ago. We checked out one of the museums (think airship graveyard). We collecting rumors in a tavern too.
My Magic user's (they didn't call them wizards 40+ years ago) spell book (level 1) is random, and I got pretty lucky with my rolls (detect magic, enlarge/reduce, faerie fire, and it comes with read magic). We found a giant physically trapped in a tavern (he's too large to exit) but I have a possible magical solution if I can figure his language out. Wish me luck.
We did a oneshot murder(s) mystery on a cruise. Sadly though I really didn’t get to do much of anything. It’s not that I wasn’t included; everyone just had better spells than me. They all had ways to cure the victims poison(s), had disguise, invisibility and wildshape to hide, and had so many broken combos in combat that I was better off guiding bolting rather than hex/eldritch blasting. I guess I should go back to my sorcerer or sorlock instead of my warlock.
I love to hear about other people's campaigns, the crazy things players do, or crazier things that DMs throw at them. ...So share with me what happened at your most recent session! What was your favorite moment? Where did the game leave off? Did you find any cool magic items? Did someone (gulp) die?!
So, before starting there's a little background to add: 1) The party had to assault a smugglers warehouse and steal their boat, as there weren't any passengers boat then, and we had to hurry 2) In order to get a easier fight, we convinced a dragonborn clan of blacksmits to assault with us (beginning from the fact that said smugglers also threaten and collect "taxes" from said blacksmiths
> The assault went quite good: The cleric and the sorcerer attacked from a side, me (wizard) and the rouge went from the other; our character didn't knew of another person in the building: a new player that joined the campaing, and so his character was tied on a column
> as the cleric and sorcerer pressed from the west, I and the rouge pressed from the east; seeing the inner deck where a couple of boats were; as I proposed, we went in from the second floor (the blacksmits brought ladders, and we get inside from the balconies)
> on the lower deck there were two enemy mages, one of which casted "fly" over himself and flew up, ready to cast a fireball on the cleric/sorcerer next turn... but I was next, I misty stepped over him, and used booming blade on him, causing his concentration to drop... as both of us fall iin the water; I then used the rest of my movement to climb on a boat (tabaxi's climbing speed)
>the other mage, seeing how everyone was getting brutally slain attempted to misty step away; but got counterspelled by be
>meanwhile, the new character casted darkness on himself, and with devil sight and an halebard, was a really scary black point of death, adding the occasional eldritch blasts that we saw getting out; but from the fear, at least everyone noticed that said thing was interested only against the smugglers
[...] quick foward when every enemy died or surrended; we looted bit of stuff: the rouge wanted only a captain hat, the new guy met the kid that follow us and straight up decided to keep the 50GP the kid found in a barrel instead of splitting with him (side note: both me and the cleric hate that kid since he was the reason my character lost a leg; later got regrew tanks to a temple priest); I found a little box with pixie drugs and a wopping 30Platinum, the sorcerer got several shipping infos and the cleric collected one of the mages book (the other straight up drown and blew under water because of the booming blade)
> After we sailed, us now-5, the kid and my wizard bodyguard (in coma) I remember a little detail... a sailor NPC gave us the smugglers warehouse because he was interested in the boat... and no one of us actually know how to sail... that's a problem for the next-session us
Since my last post in this thread, our Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign has had 4 more sessions, and our finale is in three days.
After that last cliffhanger, the party fought off half-zombie rogue surgeons who were trying to dissect healthy people for a cure to zombie-ism, ran each other over with an ambulance, and powered up an Amazon robot that they've had since the first session. They made a hard decision that episode, learned that the Paladin had actually indirectly started the Zombie Apocalypse, and decided to split up with their NPC allies, sending them to Washington state (with the Amazon drone as a navigator), where the Amazon headquarters are located, while the party road-tripped to Boston to reconnect with old contacts of the Ranger.
On the way to Boston, my players decided to spend half of the session having their characters reveal truths and discuss emotions under a Zone of Truth, which is why I love them so much. In Boston, they met up with the Ranger's old friends, lore dumped to them, and got a plan in order. They visited the Pfizer lab that the Paladin used to work at, and searched around for clues as to the reason for the apocalypse starting, while the Paladin worked on a cure using the zombie surgeons' research as a start, while one Bard and the Druid, along with the Ranger's sister, stayed behind as a safety net.
The next session, hearing gunshots outside from the gang leader that brought them to the laboratory, the party members who were there found themselves surrounded by amazon drones. The Bard and Druid who were back in the gang's safehouse had a conversation over magically modified walkie-talkie with their allies in Washington and discovered that the Amazon robot they had awakened had a microphone and had discovered the party's location during a previous conversation. Those being threatened by drones negotiated directly with Jeff Bezos himself, and discovered that he was in charge of the last remaining fully functioning city, and that he could either take them there for their own safety, or kill them immediately. The party decided to allow themselves to be taken, and while they were being flown across the country in cages suspended beneath the drones, they had conversations with each other, the Bard's bribed angel sponsor, and a hawk.
As the majority of the party arrived in the sparkling, though weirdly uniform, walled metropolis of Seattle, the Bard and Druid back in Boston received a Sending spell from the captured party, made a makeshift rocket wheelchair for the Ranger's sister, and set off to find a mode of transportation that could take them quickly to save everyone. One remaining, slightly damaged drone locked its sights on the group, and they (the Bard, Druid, Ranger's sister in a rocket wheelchair, and the pyromanic member of the gang they were staying with) engaged in combat, during which the Bard and gang member managed to get the drone low enough to pull off its weapon (essentially a Fireball gun) and aim it at the drone itself, exploding it and catching all of them in the blast, knocking them all unconscious. After a tense minute of rolling death saves in order for everyone, the Druid got a Nat 20 and revived the Bard, who revived the Ranger's sister, but sadly the remaining character had fully died and no one present had revivify (nor would they want to waste it on them). They miraculously found a perfectly functional helicopter in the middle of the street, and with the Druid's helicopter proficiency (made canon due to previous events), they set off.
In Washington, the captured people in the party were thrown in a holding cell with all of their NPC allies who had previously been captured. There they learned that Brenda from HR was secretly a dragon, and that they were waiting for "orientation", something that clearly brainwashed the civilians and workers of this new, Amazon-controlled Seattle. The party made a ridiculous plan, faking the Paladin's death, calling over guards to open the door and remove the body, and, while the door was open, send three people out under an invisibility cloak (with high DC acrobatics and stealth checks to ensure they all stayed under), and they luckily, though persuasion checks, managed to get the Cleric out of there too, as an NPC convinced the mind-addled guard that he'd need help carrying the Paladin's body.
And so the now completely split up party went on different, very informative paths. Those under the invisibility cloaks made it to the lobby of the building they were in, where the Bard announced herself as a daughter of the Tandens, putting a lot of attention on her. Those heading to the medical center (the Paladin and Cleric), learned more about the layout of the building, and almost got "orientation-ed" when the doctor realized that they hadn't already undergone the process. They managed to escape, as the Druid and Bard in the helicopter arrived, Bard hanging 50 feet under the helicopter from the Team Bonding Sweater and therefore getting landed on and injured when the helicopter descended. The two finagled their way into the lobby of the building, understood that everyone in the city was essentially Feeblemind-ed, and started a revolt against Jeff Bezos, with catchy slogans and everything. As the horde of now enraged Amazon employees ran through the streets, the party reconnected, freeing everyone in the holding cell before they could go through orientation, and setting their eyes upon the previously discovered room full of drones with syringes and a large tank of familiar looking liquid, which must be the zombie-creating medicine the Paladin began the end of the world with, which they now want to replace with the cure the Paladin made. During all this, the Bard who is the daughter of the oil barons the Tandens snuck away to go find and speak to her parents.
Next session, the party will try to save the world. Who knows if they'll succeed.
I’ll keep this brief considering how long my posts tend to be on this thread lol.
Yesterday was the final session of the over-a-year-long Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign (and boy am I wiped out from DMing it)
Essentially, after a horrible plan that involved one of the bards pretending to kill the rogue (and not letting anyone else in on it), the rest of the party got their crap together. The other bard, after a long, lore-drop-y conversation with her parents, cornered Jeff Bezos, pretended to be a god (complete with Light, Call Lightning, Thaumaturgy, and the yes, and-ing of the other party members), to convince him to hold off launching his final wave of “zombie juice”.
the paladin, who snuck his way into the lab, began to work on the cure as above, attack drones armed with fireball and with a pushing projectile began to try to eliminate the “gods” endangering Bezos. Combat began, the fake killed rogue came back to life as feign death wore off since the bard who cast it actually died.
Drones were destroyed, guards were intimidated into calling off the rest of them, and Jeff Bezos was dropped off the side of the tallest building in Seattle. Gods were spoken to, parents slapped in the face, first kisses kissed, and a magical gilded wheelchair dropped from the sky as thousands of drones, now filled with the cure to zombieism, soared in all directions across the orange, sun-setting sky.
We finished with gifts (I got everyone dice, the rogue player made everyone personalized cards with everyone’s character and colors that represent them, and the paladin player got everyone pins representing their class), paper plate awards (done through a “most likely to” google form with a free response section at the end), and epilogues (briefly done at the table with the promise of either a call or written ones in the group chat later on).
and now I guess I’m supposed to like live my life or something? I need a new campaign immediately I can’t imagine not having another session to run
In an OSR running skycrawl (think basic d&d with sky ships), A sand golem (or something similar) was inhabiting a fountain in a plaza so we took our skyship, and started handing our giant crewmember barrels of dirty water (used to wash ships), and he filled the fountain from the air. last time approached, it attacked us, but this time, it must have been wet or in the fountain. we figured out how to open the entrance in the fountain (used read magic since there was magical writing), went down to treasure hunt, and a half drenched (weakened) sand golem attacked us which we defeated with some difficulty (level 1). So far, we found a power core (from some sort of steam ship), a feather fall scroll (level 1) and an alchemy manual. We also found some magical locks we might be able to get past with some prep, just maybe.
We also met an old, decrepit wizard beforehand who agreed to trade a 2nd level fog spell (really it's sand because it's a sand world) for faerie fire (level) one but need 2 days to scribe it. I don't actually want the level 2 spell (can't use it for 2 levels), but it might be good to trade or scribe later. I wanted Identify but he doesn't have it. I have 2 or 3 items that need to be identified: hourglass pendant, gloves, and ornamental dagger, but the dagger i think only has magic writing (a riddle) on it--I don't think the dagger is magical itself.
My group was promised several hundred platinum to clear out some ruins. Should have known it would be next to impossible. We got through the fleshy pit section that kept calling us to fall to our doom. Then we teleported to a forest in the cave where my imp rolled a nat 20 on pumping the diluted acid well that got us the “key” we needed. Finally we teleported back where we discovered the lock was restraining two beholders.
I probably should have cast Crown of Stars before going into what was likely the final battle, but I’m still not sure if the antimagic field would have destroyed or suppressed them. Can someone verify that for me?
Anyway, the poor 12 year old barbarian ended up charmed, paralyzed, almost pit to sleep and eventually petrified. He got a swing in at least, but i get the feeling he was more frustrated than having fun. Also, the one guy had no ranged weapons at all, so all he could do was run towards it. And the rouge was just standing there trying to hide. Plus the Cleric had to go for awhile but came back only to he paralyzed. I dodged a disintegrating beam after i hit with my CoS, but got hit with a levitating beam and was trapped in the magic field with nothing but my crossbow at disadvantage.
That’s when I had to leave as it was past game over time. Anything i should have done differently?
We're playing through Vecna: Eve of Ruin and we're on Session #9. I've done a major overhaul on the adventure. Vecna is seeking to become one of the Ancient Brethren in my telling of the story. Last session, the heroes went to the Infinite Staircase and met Nafas who provides them with a way to begin their quest for the artifact that is a central focus in the adventure. Essentially they are using the Infinite Staircase instead of the spot in Sigil as introduced in the adventure book.
As DM, the last session I hosted was my favorite. The party finally met the BBEG and they were terrified, which makes a DM feel good when your villains are feared. One of my players tried summoning something called mahoraga due to a subclass, and it killed him off. (Don't worry me and the actual player both planned to kill off his character because the homebrew surrounding his subclass was messy and he wanted to perfect it). This action established two credible threats to the world, the party got a map so they have more free reign on what they want to do, and they had a pretty good bossfight where one of the other PCs got to kill of his rival. (Sadly another one died due to robot wounds). Thanks for reading
In my last several sessions I finally broke out of forever DM and got to be a player for the first time basically ever. This week we had to some how get into a castle to stop the assassination of a king but the guards wouldn't let us in. Eventually, one after another, we got in the castle (me being last because lack of sleep). One climbed onto the roof using rope trick, another climbed in the back window, 3 others were able sneak in through the guard's quarters. And I just walked in with a ludicrously high Stealth check (dirty 20). Now, next session, our party has to somehow get to the throne room and stop the assassination.
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Hello There. I am a worldbuilder and proud DM that is creating a huge world called Eldredom. I'm pouring many hours into it and I may make some things later...
Okay, so last session I DMed, my party finally came head to head with the BBEG of the current arc: an Adult Green Dragon named Yānwù, the Poet of Poison. Yānwù had been pulling every single string since they've arrived in the empire the arc takes place in, and played them for fools on multiple occasions. This included manipulating events to turn one of the Barbarians into an enemy of state, forcing them to sneak across the kingdom. Needless to say, the party REALLY wants their get back on Yānwù.
Now she'd manipulated them to emerge into a theater with the Emperor of the kingdom in attendence, as well as the woman Yānwù had been using as a scapegoat for her plans and Yānwù herself in human form. The party invokes a 'Right to Imperial Trial', which basically let's them request the Emperor act as their judge to get a pardon for the crime (the crime was actually committed), which was basically their only out of this situation. Well, turns out Yānwù had made this a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation: if they lose the trial, they're exiled and unable to further interfere in her plans. They win, they've exposed the Emperor has a murderous, corrupt noble as his right hand he was unaware of, and even if they expose Yānwù herself, she can, and does, spin it as furthering the Emperor's incompetence that he didn't realize both his most trusted advisors were villains (to note, the Emperor is actually a very good ruler, Yānwù is just...well, a GREEN DRAGON). All the while exposing several state secrets over the course of the trial in an attempt to turn the kingdom against the Emperor and plunge it into unrest. This was just her backup plan if her main plans of destroying the means to save the Emperor's life in the long term and arranging for a Gold Dragon to be tortured until he went home and brought his flight back for revenge were foiled, which the party had already done.
Well, the party won the trial, and proceeded to say 'heck no' and give several impassioned speeches to the crowd to counter Yānwù's speeches...and get THREE NAT 20S IN A ROW. Yeah, the table was CHEERING at that point as the audience turned against Yānwù and she was distracted long enough for their NPC ally to get the Emperor away from her.
Yānwù, however, in her own words 'has so many cards she has yet to play' as she transforms into her true form, murders all the Emperor's guards in a fog cloud, and reveals herself to be a high ranking member of the cult the party has been dealing with as the main villains of the overall myth arc of the campaign. At this point, she proceeds to tell every innocent civilian in the theater that if any of them moves, she kills them, allowing her to weaponize being surrounded by innocent civilians against the party. This included forcing the party to purposefully fail their saving throw against her Breath Weapon or she'd aim it at the audience instead, and landing in the audience so they can't use anything with an AOE against her.
My party loves this, because this is the exact way they expect a Green Dragon to play, and is presently trying to figure out how to turn the tables and get Yānwù or the crowd away from each other so they can go all out against the dragon they've spent the entire arc being manipulated by. Looking forwards to the next session.
Oh, and one of the Barbarians spent all of this dressed as a woman because the party disguised themselves to sneak through the city, and he forgot to take his off.
We're playing through Vecna: Eve of Ruin and we're on Session #9. I've done a major overhaul on the adventure. Vecna is seeking to become one of the Ancient Brethren in my telling of the story. Last session, the heroes went to the Infinite Staircase and met Nafas who provides them with a way to begin their quest for the artifact that is a central focus in the adventure. Essentially they are using the Infinite Staircase instead of the spot in Sigil as introduced in the adventure book.
I understood some of those words
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Always interesting ideas and surprises from my group, doing Saltmarsh. One of the players, barbarian, is impulsive and likes to cause trouble. He walked into a room of six skeletons and was immediately surrounded. Instead of rushing in, one of the others ran in, pulled the barbarian out of the room (STR check), and the other two barred the door. They then argued about the barbarian's stupidity and recklessness.
Finally returned to the Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign (we’re all theater kids and had rehearsal every day for like two months, so no time for dnd until NOW!!)
The party arrived back at their Waffle House home base to find it much more reinforced and better off than it was when they left, but with a hastily made SOS in waffles and syrup in the sand on the sidewalk in front of the building, done to trick the Amazon drones flying by that the survivors inside weren’t actually well off, and therefore that there was no reason to destroy them for not being dependent on Amazon.
They entered their old home to find everyone- Luscious Locks Lexius, Peter, and their assortment of guests- sitting at tables, and in the middle of the floor, Jonathan M. Maplehaus, the CEO of Waffle House and the man who’s been communicating with one of the Bards of the party, promoting him to manager and then regional manager, expecting him to make his WH the strongest he could.
Maplehaus was very disappointed in the Bard because he had abandoned his post, but the party calmed him down and explained their situation. Maplehaus then explained that no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t fire the Bard, because he needs as many employees as he can get. He broke the news that this Waffle House was the last one standing. All the others had been taken over by zombies.
The party took in this information, shared what they knew, and began formulating a plan. They knew who their main target is: Jeff Bezos. They’re sure he’s been making the zombies more powerful, and they don’t fully know why (and now I REALLY need to write a villain monologue, yayyy!!!!!). They counted all of their resources (themselves, the guests they’ve been harboring at the WH, LLL, Peter, Robert Snake, Organ Ism, and the mysterious Brenda from HR [the other last surviving WH employee]), decided on a good split, and went to bed.
Before sleeping, several characters prayed to their respective gods (Pholtus, The Moon, the Christian God, the Mormon God, and Buddy Rizer), some receiving good signs, some bad, and some none. There were a couple of heart-to-hearts, between the two Bards and between one Bard and the Blood Hunter. And there was a prophetic dream. The Blood Hunter, whose mother was either cursed or insane, had a dream of death, and knew it would come true because her mother knew that she was going to die before she did. The dream consisted of a strange fog, but it couldn’t be fog because it was the wrong color, and a beating human heart.
As the party slept, some peacefully, some fitfully, a strange, discolored fog filled the Waffle House. Those whose choking didn’t wake them fell unconscious, and that’s where we ended the session >:)
I’m VERY excited for next session but I’m going to have to think long and hard about how I’m going to pull it off. Ah well, we shall see…
:)
Sadly, incomplete.
We were on a long trajectory starting at 3rd level and geared to end in an epic level conclusion... which was a bit ambitious given we had a continuous influx of regular players due to schedule changes in personal lives etc. I only had one player throughout the group's over a year "lifetime" that was there from the beginning of the campaign.
Long ago in the time of 2e I had a character, who along with his fellow adventurers achieved epic levels themselves (in my day... you could achieve up to level 30! haha), defeating a demon lord and gaining possession of both the hand and eye of Vecna. My character bonded with both, not only becoming incredibly powerful, but he also turned evil and went insane... and thus was retired to the world of NPC/BBEG.
NOW... in the world I created this character has become a deity of sorts, the only evil Halfling god. Truth is he is not a god, he is just that same character who fancies himself a god, but he is worshiped by some here in this world.
BRIEF HISTORY: Long ago a great war was waged between the realms of Elves and Dwarves and those of Dragons and Giants. Humans, split into factions, were largely divided, being creatures of both selfishness and compassion. The “demi-human” races of goblinoids and orc tended to follow their greed joining forces with those promising wealth and power... the Dragons and Giants. The forces of Elves, Dwarves and Humans, were far less powerful than the Dragons and Giants, but what they lacked in individual power, they made up for in number and ingenuity. Together they forged powerful artifacts to combat their enemies. These artifacts were divided among the races equally so there would be balance among them. (Much like the rings of power in Lord of the Rings).
...Much time passes and this history become legend. Our hero, while looting a tomb, finds a broken great sword of wonderous craft and decides to take it for himself. Later he finds out that this was once one of the forementioned artifacts and must have it mended to help fight a growing evil in the land. Our real quest begins.
There were lots of twists and turns, they became outlaws in one land after freeing a king's dragon and fled by ship towards the dwarven lands in hopes to have the sword mended by their master smiths. We ended our last session with the group stuck on a ship surrounded by a ton of zombies and zombie shark infested waters after surviving a magical storm summoned by one of the emerging great evils, an evil wizard seeking to stop them and gain the artifacts for himself.
The story was to reach it's climax when the players find that the various evil forces that have been growing were all puppets of this insane halfling "god" whom they would have to face. Would they defeat him? If so, what would they do with the hand and eye of Vecna? Time would have told. *shrug*
I may need to aim lower next time. It would be great if I could find a good solid group that would stick together for the long haul.
The Art Wizard of Oaktown
We had a final session where the DM brought back PCs that had left but as NPCs...two as plants that turned out to be evil and two we had to save. Also, we knew one player's pet frog had to be a demon, and yes it was...I finally got to kill it. Just prior to that battle, we went against another (NPC) party in a sports game and kicked their butts. Phantom steed for the win.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
Had a session of tavern mini-games and other competitions.
Our Paladin won a spar, Barbarian lost at arm wrestling to a deceptively strong woman, the warlock did pretty well at darts, and my Artificer won at dice and horse racing (and got a +1 to animal handling with horses as the reward) ... next session is the drinking contest. :D
All generalizations are false.
My last session went very well! The party leveled up to 3rd Level and they saved a Stone Giant baby from some Orcs who planned on raising it to be an evil guard of their keep that in construction!
Well, you wanted some interesting info, so not my last session, but surely my most "ice-bath" experience as a TTRPG player. Ok so here's a big text, hope you enjoy it:
I was playing Storm King's Thunder for around 16 months... And so my lvl 11 character, Markus Wulfenhauer, died. You're gonna say -"that's pretty common, bro"- and yeah, you're not wrong, but the problem was that he was virtually invicible.
Let me explain, these were Markus' stats:
STR 20 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 20 at lvl 11.
He started out as a Fiend Warlock, at around level 8 he died and had his soul trapped in a limbo because of Asmodeus (patron), but he was revived and bit by a werebear druid, changing into a werebear himself. Werebears are immune to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical, increasing his STR to 19. He was also wearing a belt of dwarvenkind and a ring of warmth, making him also resistant to poison and cold damage.
And after being revived he changed his class to an Oath of Ancients paladin of Selûne, deity of the Werebears. So he was also resistant to damage from spells with Aura of Warding and immune to disease and being frightened. And two sessions later he got a scale mail made of Blue Dragon Scails, granting him resistance to lightning.
And being a paladin he also had his CHA modifier as a bonus on saves, in this case +5. Not mentioning his AC of 19.
In the end he was beheaded by Baba Yaga, the reason was that he didn't want to submit to an evil being trying to order him around again after he spent years as a grey-evil-chaotic character with the finally having the chance to redeem himself and be good for the first time.
To sum it all up from there the party saved his soul and freed it into the Neverwinter Woods where he had found so many moments of joy before entering Asmodeus' service.
The end.
So he died while having resistances to:
Lightning
Poison
Cold
Damage from spells
And immunity to:
Non-mag Bludgeoning
Non-mag piercing
Non-mag slashing
Disease
Frightened
“If you define yourself by the power to take life, the desire to dominate, to possess...then you have nothing.”
Characters:
Jóni Dawnbrow | Mountain Dwarf Battle Master | LVL. 3
Atherhiwion "Jehan" Oakmane | Wood Elf Circle of the Moon Druid | LVL. 5
RIP Markus Wulfenhauer | Variant Human Oath Of Ancients Paladin | LVL. 11
So, we've done session zero and one for a D&D OSR (think basic D&D) which is running an airship campaign We landed on the original planet (think sand dunes and sand storms with underground buildings) that started making airships centuries (at least) ago. We checked out one of the museums (think airship graveyard). We collecting rumors in a tavern too.
My Magic user's (they didn't call them wizards 40+ years ago) spell book (level 1) is random, and I got pretty lucky with my rolls (detect magic, enlarge/reduce, faerie fire, and it comes with read magic). We found a giant physically trapped in a tavern (he's too large to exit) but I have a possible magical solution if I can figure his language out. Wish me luck.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
We did a oneshot murder(s) mystery on a cruise. Sadly though I really didn’t get to do much of anything. It’s not that I wasn’t included; everyone just had better spells than me. They all had ways to cure the victims poison(s), had disguise, invisibility and wildshape to hide, and had so many broken combos in combat that I was better off guiding bolting rather than hex/eldritch blasting. I guess I should go back to my sorcerer or sorlock instead of my warlock.
So, before starting there's a little background to add:
1) The party had to assault a smugglers warehouse and steal their boat, as there weren't any passengers boat then, and we had to hurry
2) In order to get a easier fight, we convinced a dragonborn clan of blacksmits to assault with us (beginning from the fact that said smugglers also threaten and collect "taxes" from said blacksmiths
> The assault went quite good: The cleric and the sorcerer attacked from a side, me (wizard) and the rouge went from the other; our character didn't knew of another person in the building: a new player that joined the campaing, and so his character was tied on a column
> as the cleric and sorcerer pressed from the west, I and the rouge pressed from the east; seeing the inner deck where a couple of boats were; as I proposed, we went in from the second floor (the blacksmits brought ladders, and we get inside from the balconies)
> on the lower deck there were two enemy mages, one of which casted "fly" over himself and flew up, ready to cast a fireball on the cleric/sorcerer next turn... but I was next, I misty stepped over him, and used booming blade on him, causing his concentration to drop... as both of us fall iin the water; I then used the rest of my movement to climb on a boat (tabaxi's climbing speed)
>the other mage, seeing how everyone was getting brutally slain attempted to misty step away; but got counterspelled by be
>meanwhile, the new character casted darkness on himself, and with devil sight and an halebard, was a really scary black point of death, adding the occasional eldritch blasts that we saw getting out; but from the fear, at least everyone noticed that said thing was interested only against the smugglers
[...] quick foward when every enemy died or surrended; we looted bit of stuff: the rouge wanted only a captain hat, the new guy met the kid that follow us and straight up decided to keep the 50GP the kid found in a barrel instead of splitting with him (side note: both me and the cleric hate that kid since he was the reason my character lost a leg; later got regrew tanks to a temple priest); I found a little box with pixie drugs and a wopping 30Platinum, the sorcerer got several shipping infos and the cleric collected one of the mages book (the other straight up drown and blew under water because of the booming blade)
> After we sailed, us now-5, the kid and my wizard bodyguard (in coma) I remember a little detail... a sailor NPC gave us the smugglers warehouse because he was interested in the boat... and no one of us actually know how to sail... that's a problem for the next-session us
We don't talk about Kobo...
Since my last post in this thread, our Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign has had 4 more sessions, and our finale is in three days.
After that last cliffhanger, the party fought off half-zombie rogue surgeons who were trying to dissect healthy people for a cure to zombie-ism, ran each other over with an ambulance, and powered up an Amazon robot that they've had since the first session. They made a hard decision that episode, learned that the Paladin had actually indirectly started the Zombie Apocalypse, and decided to split up with their NPC allies, sending them to Washington state (with the Amazon drone as a navigator), where the Amazon headquarters are located, while the party road-tripped to Boston to reconnect with old contacts of the Ranger.
On the way to Boston, my players decided to spend half of the session having their characters reveal truths and discuss emotions under a Zone of Truth, which is why I love them so much. In Boston, they met up with the Ranger's old friends, lore dumped to them, and got a plan in order. They visited the Pfizer lab that the Paladin used to work at, and searched around for clues as to the reason for the apocalypse starting, while the Paladin worked on a cure using the zombie surgeons' research as a start, while one Bard and the Druid, along with the Ranger's sister, stayed behind as a safety net.
The next session, hearing gunshots outside from the gang leader that brought them to the laboratory, the party members who were there found themselves surrounded by amazon drones. The Bard and Druid who were back in the gang's safehouse had a conversation over magically modified walkie-talkie with their allies in Washington and discovered that the Amazon robot they had awakened had a microphone and had discovered the party's location during a previous conversation. Those being threatened by drones negotiated directly with Jeff Bezos himself, and discovered that he was in charge of the last remaining fully functioning city, and that he could either take them there for their own safety, or kill them immediately. The party decided to allow themselves to be taken, and while they were being flown across the country in cages suspended beneath the drones, they had conversations with each other, the Bard's bribed angel sponsor, and a hawk.
As the majority of the party arrived in the sparkling, though weirdly uniform, walled metropolis of Seattle, the Bard and Druid back in Boston received a Sending spell from the captured party, made a makeshift rocket wheelchair for the Ranger's sister, and set off to find a mode of transportation that could take them quickly to save everyone. One remaining, slightly damaged drone locked its sights on the group, and they (the Bard, Druid, Ranger's sister in a rocket wheelchair, and the pyromanic member of the gang they were staying with) engaged in combat, during which the Bard and gang member managed to get the drone low enough to pull off its weapon (essentially a Fireball gun) and aim it at the drone itself, exploding it and catching all of them in the blast, knocking them all unconscious. After a tense minute of rolling death saves in order for everyone, the Druid got a Nat 20 and revived the Bard, who revived the Ranger's sister, but sadly the remaining character had fully died and no one present had revivify (nor would they want to waste it on them). They miraculously found a perfectly functional helicopter in the middle of the street, and with the Druid's helicopter proficiency (made canon due to previous events), they set off.
In Washington, the captured people in the party were thrown in a holding cell with all of their NPC allies who had previously been captured. There they learned that Brenda from HR was secretly a dragon, and that they were waiting for "orientation", something that clearly brainwashed the civilians and workers of this new, Amazon-controlled Seattle. The party made a ridiculous plan, faking the Paladin's death, calling over guards to open the door and remove the body, and, while the door was open, send three people out under an invisibility cloak (with high DC acrobatics and stealth checks to ensure they all stayed under), and they luckily, though persuasion checks, managed to get the Cleric out of there too, as an NPC convinced the mind-addled guard that he'd need help carrying the Paladin's body.
And so the now completely split up party went on different, very informative paths. Those under the invisibility cloaks made it to the lobby of the building they were in, where the Bard announced herself as a daughter of the Tandens, putting a lot of attention on her. Those heading to the medical center (the Paladin and Cleric), learned more about the layout of the building, and almost got "orientation-ed" when the doctor realized that they hadn't already undergone the process. They managed to escape, as the Druid and Bard in the helicopter arrived, Bard hanging 50 feet under the helicopter from the Team Bonding Sweater and therefore getting landed on and injured when the helicopter descended. The two finagled their way into the lobby of the building, understood that everyone in the city was essentially Feeblemind-ed, and started a revolt against Jeff Bezos, with catchy slogans and everything. As the horde of now enraged Amazon employees ran through the streets, the party reconnected, freeing everyone in the holding cell before they could go through orientation, and setting their eyes upon the previously discovered room full of drones with syringes and a large tank of familiar looking liquid, which must be the zombie-creating medicine the Paladin began the end of the world with, which they now want to replace with the cure the Paladin made. During all this, the Bard who is the daughter of the oil barons the Tandens snuck away to go find and speak to her parents.
Next session, the party will try to save the world. Who knows if they'll succeed.
:)
I’ll keep this brief considering how long my posts tend to be on this thread lol.
Yesterday was the final session of the over-a-year-long Modern Day Zombie Apocalypse campaign (and boy am I wiped out from DMing it)
Essentially, after a horrible plan that involved one of the bards pretending to kill the rogue (and not letting anyone else in on it), the rest of the party got their crap together. The other bard, after a long, lore-drop-y conversation with her parents, cornered Jeff Bezos, pretended to be a god (complete with Light, Call Lightning, Thaumaturgy, and the yes, and-ing of the other party members), to convince him to hold off launching his final wave of “zombie juice”.
the paladin, who snuck his way into the lab, began to work on the cure as above, attack drones armed with fireball and with a pushing projectile began to try to eliminate the “gods” endangering Bezos. Combat began, the fake killed rogue came back to life as feign death wore off since the bard who cast it actually died.
Drones were destroyed, guards were intimidated into calling off the rest of them, and Jeff Bezos was dropped off the side of the tallest building in Seattle. Gods were spoken to, parents slapped in the face, first kisses kissed, and a magical gilded wheelchair dropped from the sky as thousands of drones, now filled with the cure to zombieism, soared in all directions across the orange, sun-setting sky.
We finished with gifts (I got everyone dice, the rogue player made everyone personalized cards with everyone’s character and colors that represent them, and the paladin player got everyone pins representing their class), paper plate awards (done through a “most likely to” google form with a free response section at the end), and epilogues (briefly done at the table with the promise of either a call or written ones in the group chat later on).
and now I guess I’m supposed to like live my life or something? I need a new campaign immediately I can’t imagine not having another session to run
:)
In an OSR running skycrawl (think basic d&d with sky ships), A sand golem (or something similar) was inhabiting a fountain in a plaza so we took our skyship, and started handing our giant crewmember barrels of dirty water (used to wash ships), and he filled the fountain from the air. last time approached, it attacked us, but this time, it must have been wet or in the fountain. we figured out how to open the entrance in the fountain (used read magic since there was magical writing), went down to treasure hunt, and a half drenched (weakened) sand golem attacked us which we defeated with some difficulty (level 1). So far, we found a power core (from some sort of steam ship), a feather fall scroll (level 1) and an alchemy manual. We also found some magical locks we might be able to get past with some prep, just maybe.
We also met an old, decrepit wizard beforehand who agreed to trade a 2nd level fog spell (really it's sand because it's a sand world) for faerie fire (level) one but need 2 days to scribe it. I don't actually want the level 2 spell (can't use it for 2 levels), but it might be good to trade or scribe later. I wanted Identify but he doesn't have it. I have 2 or 3 items that need to be identified: hourglass pendant, gloves, and ornamental dagger, but the dagger i think only has magic writing (a riddle) on it--I don't think the dagger is magical itself.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
My group was promised several hundred platinum to clear out some ruins. Should have known it would be next to impossible. We got through the fleshy pit section that kept calling us to fall to our doom. Then we teleported to a forest in the cave where my imp rolled a nat 20 on pumping the diluted acid well that got us the “key” we needed. Finally we teleported back where we discovered the lock was restraining two beholders.
I probably should have cast Crown of Stars before going into what was likely the final battle, but I’m still not sure if the antimagic field would have destroyed or suppressed them. Can someone verify that for me?
Anyway, the poor 12 year old barbarian ended up charmed, paralyzed, almost pit to sleep and eventually petrified. He got a swing in at least, but i get the feeling he was more frustrated than having fun. Also, the one guy had no ranged weapons at all, so all he could do was run towards it. And the rouge was just standing there trying to hide. Plus the Cleric had to go for awhile but came back only to he paralyzed. I dodged a disintegrating beam after i hit with my CoS, but got hit with a levitating beam and was trapped in the magic field with nothing but my crossbow at disadvantage.
That’s when I had to leave as it was past game over time. Anything i should have done differently?
www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/Actionsparda_127096180.pdf
We're playing through Vecna: Eve of Ruin and we're on Session #9. I've done a major overhaul on the adventure. Vecna is seeking to become one of the Ancient Brethren in my telling of the story. Last session, the heroes went to the Infinite Staircase and met Nafas who provides them with a way to begin their quest for the artifact that is a central focus in the adventure. Essentially they are using the Infinite Staircase instead of the spot in Sigil as introduced in the adventure book.
As DM, the last session I hosted was my favorite. The party finally met the BBEG and they were terrified, which makes a DM feel good when your villains are feared. One of my players tried summoning something called mahoraga due to a subclass, and it killed him off. (Don't worry me and the actual player both planned to kill off his character because the homebrew surrounding his subclass was messy and he wanted to perfect it). This action established two credible threats to the world, the party got a map so they have more free reign on what they want to do, and they had a pretty good bossfight where one of the other PCs got to kill of his rival. (Sadly another one died due to robot wounds). Thanks for reading
In my last several sessions I finally broke out of forever DM and got to be a player for the first time basically ever. This week we had to some how get into a castle to stop the assassination of a king but the guards wouldn't let us in. Eventually, one after another, we got in the castle (me being last because lack of sleep). One climbed onto the roof using rope trick, another climbed in the back window, 3 others were able sneak in through the guard's quarters. And I just walked in with a ludicrously high Stealth check (dirty 20). Now, next session, our party has to somehow get to the throne room and stop the assassination.
Hello There. I am a worldbuilder and proud DM that is creating a huge world called Eldredom. I'm pouring many hours into it and I may make some things later...
Oh, you're the distraction team so the king can be assassinated!
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
Okay, so last session I DMed, my party finally came head to head with the BBEG of the current arc: an Adult Green Dragon named Yānwù, the Poet of Poison. Yānwù had been pulling every single string since they've arrived in the empire the arc takes place in, and played them for fools on multiple occasions. This included manipulating events to turn one of the Barbarians into an enemy of state, forcing them to sneak across the kingdom. Needless to say, the party REALLY wants their get back on Yānwù.
Now she'd manipulated them to emerge into a theater with the Emperor of the kingdom in attendence, as well as the woman Yānwù had been using as a scapegoat for her plans and Yānwù herself in human form. The party invokes a 'Right to Imperial Trial', which basically let's them request the Emperor act as their judge to get a pardon for the crime (the crime was actually committed), which was basically their only out of this situation. Well, turns out Yānwù had made this a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation: if they lose the trial, they're exiled and unable to further interfere in her plans. They win, they've exposed the Emperor has a murderous, corrupt noble as his right hand he was unaware of, and even if they expose Yānwù herself, she can, and does, spin it as furthering the Emperor's incompetence that he didn't realize both his most trusted advisors were villains (to note, the Emperor is actually a very good ruler, Yānwù is just...well, a GREEN DRAGON). All the while exposing several state secrets over the course of the trial in an attempt to turn the kingdom against the Emperor and plunge it into unrest. This was just her backup plan if her main plans of destroying the means to save the Emperor's life in the long term and arranging for a Gold Dragon to be tortured until he went home and brought his flight back for revenge were foiled, which the party had already done.
Well, the party won the trial, and proceeded to say 'heck no' and give several impassioned speeches to the crowd to counter Yānwù's speeches...and get THREE NAT 20S IN A ROW. Yeah, the table was CHEERING at that point as the audience turned against Yānwù and she was distracted long enough for their NPC ally to get the Emperor away from her.
Yānwù, however, in her own words 'has so many cards she has yet to play' as she transforms into her true form, murders all the Emperor's guards in a fog cloud, and reveals herself to be a high ranking member of the cult the party has been dealing with as the main villains of the overall myth arc of the campaign. At this point, she proceeds to tell every innocent civilian in the theater that if any of them moves, she kills them, allowing her to weaponize being surrounded by innocent civilians against the party. This included forcing the party to purposefully fail their saving throw against her Breath Weapon or she'd aim it at the audience instead, and landing in the audience so they can't use anything with an AOE against her.
My party loves this, because this is the exact way they expect a Green Dragon to play, and is presently trying to figure out how to turn the tables and get Yānwù or the crowd away from each other so they can go all out against the dragon they've spent the entire arc being manipulated by. Looking forwards to the next session.
Oh, and one of the Barbarians spent all of this dressed as a woman because the party disguised themselves to sneak through the city, and he forgot to take his off.
I understood some of those words