So, long post, this covers a large part of our most recent campaign. It wasnt the main quest but rather something that happened with the male, half human half "something else" warlock.

Dm said we can do the normal character creation but to leave some part of our backstory "blank" so he could have fun with it. We all agreed to do it and the "half something else" was the obvious plot hook for the DM.

So basically, some warlock "lore" highlights to keep in mind:

>Warlock - doesnt like his powers, got them (fiendish) after he made a deal with a powerful devil. Warlock attempted to get into bard school but failed, which led to a bout of serious depression that prompted the devil to appear and bargain for his soul (Note: warlock was also drunk and 16 when he made the deal).

>During the course of the campaign, on his 19th birthday, the warlock beat a music demon in a battle of music (think Tenacious D but with violins) and won the demons magical violin that could play any song with the precision and beauty that the players heart desires.
Note: warlock was horrible, still won somehow. Cleric became suspicious, as clerics do. Went to local church with a local sorcerer to identify what this violin really is (wanted to do it on holy ground, to be safe).
Turns out, the violin once belonged to a literal angel of music. Party figures that is why the demon sucked at using it, and the human half is what's allowing the warlock to use it (Nothing evil about it, no twist later). Party cannot seem to figure out why the demon would use it if he sucked at using it.

>Some time later, campaign progressed - warlock meets a lovely female, half-elf paladin that is part of a Paladin Order in the local city which is now the "main base" of the party as well. The two hit it off and whenever the warlock wasnt hanging with her/helping her help the less fortunate, he was busy composing new songs for her (which always succeeded at being gorgeous, warlock player even found violin music to play as he rp'd). PS: no one suspected the violin of being magical, it looked completely ordinary.

>Warlock meets an older, more powerful warlock and the two start talking. Party Warlock was hoping to get advice on how to better assist his friends. The older one made jokes on the strange whims of his patron which confused the Party Warlock because his patron had never made a single request of him, ever.
Older Warlock grew quiet at this and summoned his familiar. Familiar gave one look at Party Warlock and froze in fear before managing to utter something in an infernal language (warlock doesnt speak it). Older Warlock grew white, said his goodbyes and promptly fled the city without clearing his belongings out of the tavern.
Cleric grew VERY concerned after hearing this. Clerics patron God was hesitant to speak about the Party Warlock but ultimately said "he is a good and decent person, he is your friend without any doubts". Cleric was now EXCEPTIONALLY concerned but didnt know of what or why but knew it involved the warlock (not metagaming or anything, her character was just a worrier).

> Weeks go by as party goes on numerous dungeon delves, looking for ancient dragon bones to perform a ritual (main quest). Every time they come back the Warlock and Paladin are stuck to eachother like glue and he constantly helps her in her duties to tend to the sick. feed the hungry and even play with orphans.

>Warlock comes out of his room one day, smelling of high quality aftershave and thanked the rest of the party for "gifting" it to him (no one in the party knows what he is talking about). After a romantic evening, the warlock and paladin are officially dating

> One day, she was escorting the local alchemist to the forest to go mushroom picking. Warlock went with her. Soon a group of criminals ambushed them, a group of criminals that were upset with the Paladin Order for hindering crime in the city. They wanted to hurt the Paladin. Lets just say, when the leader began talking of how he was going to torture the paladin, the sky started turning red.

>DM: "Warlock Player, he cares about her right?"
Warlock Player: "Yes."
DM: "On a scale of 1-10, how angry are you in character right now."
Warlock Player: "11. Angriest I have ever been".
DM: "Does your character love her?"
Warlock Player *WITH 0 HESITATION*: "Yes."

> DM begins to describe how the sky turns red and the trees around the trio of the warlock/paladin/alchemist literally start to grow gray and the leaves change colour as they fall. The warlock's eyes glow a red-orange as anger overtakes him and he releases a gutteral roar that causes the mountains nearby to start shaking. DM describes chaos breaking out in the city as literal flaming meteors start falling out of the sky, into the forest.

>Party-wide WTF with jaws hitting the floor (we were lvl 8 at the time).

>DM describes how fiery meteors begin ripping holes in reality where they fall and armies of flaming demons swarm into the now dead forest, charging straight at the bandits, leaving the trio safe. DM describes as literal thousands of demons surround them and just keep swarming, some of them clad in hellfire armour and some even flying skeletal steeds above them in the air.

>DM describes to the warlock how he begins collapsing as he hears the bloodcurdling screams of the bandits as demons begin feasting on them and ripping them to shreds.

>Female Paladin carried warlock back to tavern, but was clearly shaken, not even the cleric could help her.

>Party readies themselves for massive battle against the paladins who surely wont let something like this stand, but the battle never comes.

>Turns out, the female paladin, in conjunction with an eyewitness report of the local bishop who was witness to the cleric's conversation with her Patron God, managed to convince the Paladins that the party/warlock was not evil. They did not even know about the demons, only that someone REALLY powerful was causing chaos. The fact that the warlock used his powers so scarcely meant that no one (including female paladin) even knew he was a warlock.

>Some paladin members did not agree and successfully argued that the female paladin be kicked out of the order as she was "compromised" by someone with clearly evil powers and that she could serve as a spy. Paladin was heart broken but went with the decision.

>Female Paladin was shaken up by what she saw and one very heartbreaking RP later the Warlock came to a conclusion; the only way to keep her would be to cease being a warlock and get his soul back.

>Warlock went (ALONE, WITH NONE OF US KNOWING) to the Paladins and informed them of his plan and if he succeeded he wanted them to take her back into the order. Thank Goodness he had good rolls because they agreed.

>What followed was a massive sidequest that could easily have been its own campaign (and was in some cases). Warlock discovered the name of his own patron, made a deal with the fae to give them copies of the music he wrote (on paper) in exchange for safe passage to the infernal realm. He learned more about his own powers through books etc. to avoid ever summoning more demons like that or possibly sinking any more mountains, although he never managed to call forth that much power again.

>ALL the above led to one of the most WTF plottwists/behind the scenes things i have ever experienced in a campaign.

>Party finds the Devil patron, Kil'nuath, in a castle completely devoid of traps or enemies. This devils power literally dripped from the walls as they entered.

>Party cautiously made its way up to the throne room and the DM makes IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS it very clear that we *cannot* fight this thing.

>Party, much to clerics delight, gets the hint and begin talking to the patron in an attempt to discover more about him and what they might say/offer to get their friends soul back.

>Nothing works. Not the violin and not even a soul swap (barbarian suggested taking his).

>The entire time, the demon was looking away from the party with his hand on his face, peering at the warlock only through his fingers and the corners of his eye.

>IRL players are getting frustrated, we cant get through to this thing and we know the DM doesnt want us to fight it.

>Warlock, in character, finally just had enough and just asks "WHY NOT?"

>DM describes how this impossibly ancient and powerful creature slowly shifts its body as it leans forward and looks at the warlock with such unimaginable anguish and pain in its surprisingly handsome face. "If I gave it back to you, you wont be safe anymore," the devil answered.

>DM describes the devil getting up and walking around the party to peer out of the balcony over the hellscape before it, standing head and shoulders above the 7.7foot tall barbarian.

>The DM describes to us how the Devil assumes a posture, the same weary and just "tired of it all" posture the Warlock assumed after he woke up from the whole demon summoning thing, and he just says "You have your mothers eyes, you know."

>Queue the ENTIRE party (warlock included) start freaking out as this crazy powerful Devil, with his own kingdom in hell, is the Warlocks father.

>We ended up talking to him and it turns out that he cant give the warlock his soul back simply because of how many other demons would end up wanting it for themselves. The warlocks father managed to keep him hidden for a very long time, but after seeing his son so depressed he believed that he had to step in to stop his son from taking his own life (and condemning his to hell).

>He hates hell and doesnt want his only son to end up in it, even if it means that one day he might never see him again.

>Also, that magical violin belonged to the warlocks father. Since it was still dangerous and he didnt want to be seen just randomly giving out gifts to random mortals, he disguised himself as a music demon and intentionally lost to his son in order to give him something precious on his birthday. Turns out, demons CAN use the violin, its just that the devil wanted to lose so badly in his heart that the violin obliged.

>The warlocks father was also watching his son making moves on the paladin and decided to try and help him out. He didnt know much about flirting but remembered that the warlocks mother loved a specific type of aftershave and tasked a local familiar to deliver said aftershave to his sons room (remember the old warlock encounter?). Turns out, he was so happy when his son kissed the paladin he almost started a war with a neighboring demon kingdom purely through how loud he cheered.

>Turns out that the entire demon summoning fiasco wasnt the warlocks fault *at all*. The warlocks father was busy at the time and just suddenly felt his sons overwhelming desire to protect the one he loves. The warlocks father, taking 2 seconds to read the situation realized his son and his son's (obviously) future wife were under attack and proceeded to respond in a purely reasonable manner. Its completely coincidental that said "reasonable manner" included his entire part of the army of hell consisting of several *millions* of combat demons and the only reason he stopped short of invading the entirety of the mortal realm was because he saw that he had scared his sons wife and he would one day hope to meet her in a friendly manner.

>So, long story short... warlock completed rest of campaign as a bard after his power was taken back and settled down with paladin (fully accepted back into order, she knows what he is). They had twins. Grampa visits often and now that his sons soul is safe, was able to get back together with his wife.

Perhaps this story isnt as amazing to you, but the wtfactor and how these seemingly random encounters tied together was big wow for us.
Thank you for reading. Also, how to make text green?

Fast and Furious Elves of the Dessarin Valley 11/18 session Summary 

This week, the ranger is not present but everyone else is. I provide “in game narrative” to explain this: As the players started fighting in the temple, they used message stones to call over their friends who were watching over the Coma - Gnome.  Comma gnome had woke up and everyone except the ranger made their way to the temple and found them in the cellars beneath it.

The party works their way through the metal walled maze and eventually find the secret door that leads to the bare-rock tunnel with stairs leading down. The Warlock’s familiar fly’s ahead and sets off the shrieker that is in the medium sized cavern with the two tunnels going off in different directions. The Shriker is attacked and silenced.  

As the players try to decide if the shrieker is edible, or if it might have any hallucinogenic properties, they are attacked by two Shadow Fey Enforcers who head the shrieker and snuck down the passage. The warlock detects them before they are able to attack, but since they are in shadowy tunnels, the Shadow Fey are really able to take advantage of their Shadow Traveler action. Shortly after the melee starts, the Enforces  blip out and end up out of sight further down the tunnel. As the fight continues, two other enforcers join into the attack.

Eventually 3 of the enforces are downed, and one blips out…. Party follows one of the mud-filled tunnels, and discovers the cells in the wall, with the desiccated corpse of a townsperson. They eventually get to the larger dry cavern where a red summoning circle is carved in the floor. The Shadow Fey Enforcer is standing in the middle of it, and makes an obscene gesture that transcends culture and language, and then fades away.

The fighter tries to set a trap on the summoning circle so if someone returns, they are captured. But since he only has proficiency in survival and the ranger is not present, I tell him his little rabbit snare is set, but probably won’t be effective against a full sized humanoid. 

They search the cavern, and  find a chest buried in the far end of the cavern… Bard manages to pick the lock, and they find a bunch of gold, and a magic item… They learn that it is magic because the Gnome-cleric casts detect magic, and then claims the Brooch of Shielding as their own.  After this, they also find the key for the trunk that was hidden in the dirt at the entryway to the cave. LOL.

They make their way back to the main floor of the temple and then to the 2nd floor.  First they encounter 7 zombies in the first big room on the 2nd floor… Having 2 clerics really went a long way in bringing down the zombies… the “zero hit points becomes 1” mechanic had the party reeling for a movement before they settled on the Clerics doing radiant damage on the final blow. I make a big deal about how all the zombies seem to be wearing clothing of local farmers and townsfolk… though they don’t recognize anyone. They ask if any of the zombies look like Beru… the Free ones operative they were sent to find. Nope. sorry.

A couple rooms later , they are set upon by a large number of Darklings, who swarm-attack the party in the torture chamber.  Not gonna lie, the exploding darklings blinding people around them when they die is pretty fun, though a shocking number of the characters made their savings throws and were NOT blinded. Oh well!

Now they head into Abramo’s chambers… They note all the religious stuff that has been weirdly and obsessively defiled. The fight with the darklings was not quiet, and I had the head Priest, Abramo retreat behind the secret door.  Party discovers the door, and then spends a lot of time trying to burn and attack their way through the door.  They finally burst in, and enter the room, at which time Abramo casts Silence.  Fighter makes a B-line for Abramo and starts pummeling him.  After the third cleric with silence spell, they kind of understand the tactical priorities here.  (I wonder if any of the clerics are paying attention and might consider adding silence to their spell list?  Probably not. )

Abramo fails his Con-save and the silence spell is dispelled. A shocking amount of damage is dealt to Abramo after the silence spell is lifted, and this time he casts Banishment on the fighter! Boom!  Goodbye Fighter. I pause for a moment to describe the gray endless demiplane that the fighter now inhabits. 

Back to the fight, the Warlock has landed an eldritch blast, but it is the Bard who finishes off the evil cleric after landing a 2 damage point vicious mockery. 

Fighter blips back into the material plane, and then complains that the bard got his kill. 

The girl in the cage is rescued after they take the keyring off of the cleric’s belt! They ask if the girl is Beru… I appreciate their focus on adventure goals… but no. It is not Beru. It's Cirilli Finla, the daughter of the shopkeeper! 

The little back story and conflicting accounts from  the stableman and the shopkeeper family about what happened to the daughter really set this moment up well.  “I KNEW IT!” Shouts the warlock! “The shopkeepers were cultits!”  

Cirilli explains how she and her family had been kidnapped, and the rest of her family was mind-controlled by the shadow fey, but somehow she resisted, and she has been held prisoner here ever since by Abramo. She goes over and kicks Abramos corpse and spits on it.

That's it!  That's a wrap. See you next time when we will loot the cleric's room, return to the Slumbering Serpent in, and figure out how to find the Cult’s lair!

Fast and Furious Elves of the Dessarin Valley 10/27 session Summary (Part 2)

The party puts together a plan of action as evening descends. They are going to raid the temple, and figure out what is what! The Fighter is a winged Fey'ri (Elven Tiefling) and He is going to fly over the walls, carrying the other party members over one at a time… The warlock’s familiar will throw eggs at the guards on patrol… Two sets of a guard & wolf, circling the grounds, roughly equidistant, out of each other’s line of site. The familiar tries to draw them back towards the kennels, while the Bard tries to pick the lock.  This is where the plan goes off the rails… The front doors of the temple are barred from within… there is no lock to pick… frantically they ask about windows… which, curiously enough, there are none. The party briefly consider trying to leave and come back some other time, but decide that its now or never… so now its time to start making strength checks and weapons attacks on the door. 

The sound draws the attention of the guards, who rush around the corner of the building and start to attack. The first wolf and guard go down pretty quickly, and the party thinks “that isn’t so bad” but another 3 guards and another wolf round the corner and attack.  Things get a little bit dicey but All’s well that ends well. They defeat the guards and finish breaking down the door.

After a brief search through the main hall of the temple they open a doorway that leads to the head priestess chambers. She has  heard the noise and has been lying in wait.  Silence spells are cast, casters are flummoxed, and fighter pins the priestess to the wall, and breaks their concentration with their multiple great sword attacks. She starts screaming at them about their leader who shall kill them all… typical reinfield rant stuff,  at which point bard viciously mocks, warlock eldritch blasts ‘em, and the clerics do their radiant damage cantrips & no more priestess.

They find a trap door leading to the cellar, which leads to some weird spiky walled Metal maze/dungeon thing… and of course there is a Huge-ass (Ogre sized) Shade Fey guardian in the maze, instead of a minotaur.  Which they defeat.

That's it. End of session. See you next week.

Get a new group together, me (dm), my wife (Bard), my roommate (wizard), and a couple online friends (barb and rogue)

Make characters and start playing

nervous having basically all my loved ones meet together

session one my roommate's character accidentally destroys a knife that was important of the online friend's character

time skip 2 sessions

players are back in town, turning in a quest and taking a rest there

barb wanted to hang out and drink ale to celebrate

gets blown off by everyone else as they had different things to do

feelsbad.jpeg

when everyone goes to sleep, wizard takes the hilt of barb's Dagger and goes to local blacksmith, using their kenku mimicry to make blueprints to get it reforged

howcute.png

next session

start the game out with wizard and barb waking up first

wizard presents the reforged Dagger to barb

barb hugs wizard

"I thought I didn't have friends in this party. You've proved me wrong"

trynottocry,cryalot.png

I'm a first time DM of a group of first time players. We've been playing almost every week for 4 years, but play has been pretty unimaginative (both their creative solutions and my plot ideas :P). This was the first time when I genuinely thought "wow, these guys have come up with something I'm genuinely scared of"

They 'acquired' a Knife of Stolen Resistance (see below) a couple of months earlier. They had to fulfil a contract with a devil to kill a superior so he could get a promotion. They waited until the target was isolated, cast Sleep, and then Silence. They then used the knife and held him down for a few minutes before realising that there were probably torture devices nearby to keep in him place while he soundlessly screamed in agony.

After 10 minutes he died, and they planted some barbed devil spines to frame another devil for the murder, before robbing the body and leaving.

(They're now heading to Celestia to ask their god for a favour; I can't figure out if killing this devil is a good thing, or if the god will have to sit them down and have a talk)

Knife of Stolen Resistance
Using an action, you carve a single infernal rune into the flesh of an unconscious Beast, Celestial, Dragon, Fey, or Giant with this knife. Over the next 10 minutes the creature dies an agonizing death that can't be prevented short of the Wish spell. If the creature has any resistances or immunities, you gain those resistances and immunities until the creature dies or a Wish spell is used to save the creature. The knife's power can't be used again until you finish a long rest.
(The party saw this being used on a devil previously so in-world it would work on the target)

Be the Coven - three witches

Live in a swamp

Maiden, Mother, Crone

Crone dies

Mother promoted to Crone, Maiden promoted to Mother

Need to find a Maiden

Travel to a nearby village at edge of swamp, recruit among the youngsters

Come with us, be a witch, powers beyond your dreams, freedom from drudgery of marrying some farmer and popping out kids to work the fields

Maiden acquired

Back to swamp, start teaching her witchcraft

First thing we need to do is get her a familiar

Raven? Snake?

No, she wants a kitty

Acquire a black cat from the village

Conduct the ritual, cat is now her familiar

Start teaching other forms of witchcraft, but the cat is very mischevious

First day, it knocks over a jar of eye of newt, it shatters all over the floor

Tries to eat the eyes while the Witches tidy up, manages to get one down, then vomits on the rug

Put it in a cage, finish cleaning, back to lessons

Second day, it chases the Mother's familiar (a raven) around the house

Crone opens a window so the raven can escape, cat jumps out the window too, gets in the swamp

Runs back in covered in mud, hides under a bed meowing angrily

Eventually comes back out to vomit on the rug

Put it in a cage, finish cleaning, back to lessons

Third day, kitten figures out how to unlatch the cage and escape somehow

Gets onto kitchen bench and tips a jar of flour off a shelf

Cat now covered in flour, looks white

Blonde Maiden witch sits at table, pointing at the cat and scream/crying

Dark-haired Crone sits beside her, tries to comfort Maiden

White cat sits at other end of the table smirking back at her

My party is fighting cultists. My character is a cleric. The cult leader tells her "Cast aside your false god and join us!" and holds out his hand. My character takes his hand.

And casts Inflict Wounds at 3rd level.

So for some context just so the extremely outlandish parts of this story make sense, we are playing a very high magic modified 5e campaign. Level cap is increased to 40, we have lots of magic items and crazy builds, and our average encounter has way more HP than a typical boss fight.

So, we just finished killing what our DM called an uber boss that attacked the city we were in. This monstrosity was known as the Chaotic Beast of Rot. It had 10k hp and 50k temp hp. Among a bunch of disease type traits that aren't relevant for this story. We scavenge what we can from the remains and get his heart as a crafting material. One of the parties' pet spider is the one to collect it. DM has it make a save against a super disease that would kill any normal mortal instantly on a fail. Spider succeeds so in character we notice nothing amiss.

One of the warlocks decides to offer the heart up to his patron, Rakdos, to earn favor. So he does so. Rakdos appears in person to collect it, trusting his subordinate a bit too much if you ask me. Now, the trigger for needing to make the save is just touching it with your bare hands. So, with nobody knowing in character how deadly this thing is, nobody warns Rakdos about this. He grabs the heart with his bare hand and...

He fails the save.

Now, for any normal mortal, this would be instant death, like I said. But Rakdos is a lord of the abyss with infernal constitution and fortitude. So, rather than die instantly, he gets to suffer for a while first. He starts talking about how the warlock has doomed him and lashes out. The warlock, very confused in character offers him a potion to try to help. Rakdos accepts, but the warlock accidentally gives him the wrong potion and not the one he meant to.

Rakdos just drank a potion of dragon's majesty. For those that don't know, this potion transforms the drinker into an adult dragon for 1 hour but specifically states that you don't get the lair or legendary actions or resistances. So, Rakdos, now thoroughly enraged, starts attacking us and it's time to roll initiative. Of the relevant characters to this story, the first one up is our Assassin rogue. Who just so happens to have a vorpal sword.

So, the rogue walks up, swings, assassin trait activates giving him a guaranteed crit. You know what happens to a creature if you crit it with a vorpal weapon? It loses its head, and unless it can survive without its head or it has legendary actions or resistances, it dies instantly. Now remember how the potion specifically says you don't get those? Yeah, Rakdos just drops dead. DM rules that, because of the disease, he stays dead and can't regenerate once the hour wears off and he returns to his true form. So, we now have a warlock with a dead patron, Rakdos is dead, and we gained a level. For good measure, my character, a warlock that serves the goddess of death, offered up Rakdos' soul to her right after. So he's permanently dead now. There is nothing that can bring him back as his soul will not be free, even if it's willing.

Tonight the party fought two flaming skulls that the BBEG left the party to deal with. The fight drags on for a while but eventually the skulls’ HP drops to zero. The human fighter and satyr bard gloat over the skulls, while I think to myself ”They don’t have any holy water or way to dispel curses, this isn’t over” Then, the bard gets cheeky and decides to take a leak on the skulls to add insult to injury. That’s when a lightbulb goes off in my head. I tell the party “Hey, flaming skulls usually have to die by holy water, and satyrs are fae, so….maybe his piss has the quality of holy water?” The party bursts into laughter, they get to kill an enemy in the most embarrassing way.

RAW? Probably not, but I thought it was a funny way to end the session

[Players present include Elf-Cleric, Bard, Warlock, and Paladin. Previously the elf-cleric and fighter went missing (i.e. they weren’t present for the session).... Now the gnome-cleric, ranger and fighter players aren’t present.]

When last we left them, the Players had finished up fighting zombies in hidden tunnels beneath the Golden Grain Inn. But apparently during the zombie fight, our cleric-gnome got scratched or something and fell into a comma. In story, the ranger carries the coma-gnome out of the cavern and back up to a room in the Golden Grain, and barricade themselves in.

So bard, warlock and paladin continue through the tunnels, where they find a life sized statue of a creepy looking elf dude, and their elf cleric, bound and gagged at the foot of the statue. The cleric doesn’t know what happened… He was waiting with the fighter in their room… the fighter was still out cold from the Goose hydra attack. The elf-cleric had some food and drink brought up to him, and eating and drinking the food is the last thing he remembers.  Then he woke up down here, tied up.

Party travels through the tunnel system… always turning left.   It brings them to another empty chamber with a half built summoning circle on a raised dias. 

Bard: What is a dias? 

Me: Like a stage?  

Bard: I climb up and do the macarena

Me: A large dark shadow is summoned from the shadow plane…  Roll a performance check! 

Bard [rolls, and looks at me expectantly]

Me: it doesn’t seem to like your performance… and blows a raspberry at you and disappears. It seems the barriers between the planes in this room are really thin. I’d be careful.

They continue going left, and end up in a dead end, where a room has a bunch of piled up dirt in the corner… like the excavation of the tunnels is incomplete, or just stopped.  Their search of the dirt pile releases 4 Detached shadows… as the fight begins, there seems to be some confusion… between  the “Shadow Fey” that attacked them, and these shadows. I struggle to make myself understood.

Eventually the detached shadows are killed, even though their strength draining attacks did a number our our recently freed elf-cleric.

They go back and take a different branch of the tunnels, and end up in a room with a Giant Shadow Asp, which attacks. Unlucky cleric is poisoned. Bard viscously mocks the snake and it eventually dies. They discover three empty chests behind a piece of rotting fabric, and spend a lot of time doing perception checks to see if they are mimics.  I guess I kind of have a reputation as a DM with lots of Mimics. This doesn’t make me sad.  But in this case there are no mimics.

They return to the cellar, which they don't search, and then to the first floor of the tavern. Still nobody around.  Head to 2nd floor and search, where they find the innkeeper tied up in another room, and all the dead bodies they had left behind are somehow missing?! The evidence of the fight is there, but the shadow fey bodies, and the human who looked like a cleric? those bodies are gone!  

The Innkeeper says he was attacked when he was downstairs. Innkeeper is asking where his cook is?  Says he doesn’t know anything about how the Elf Cleric ended up tied up in the basement. (Party fails to follow up on why there are secret tunnels behind a secret door in the basement). 

Everyone (including ranger and Coma Gnome goes down to the first floor and party keeps watch in shifts, until sun-up.  Everyone is now long rested.  Inn Keeper says he is afraid to leave, but wants the party to notify the constable – maybe the constable can help find your missing fighter friend and my cook. Party presses him about their fighter friend… Innkeeper insists they saw the big blue tiefling looking dude with wings walk out under his own power with the cleric.. But since the cleric was tied up, maybe it was some kind of magic, or illusion or something?

Party accepts this. Betram offers to make some breakfast for the party.  Party is suspicious and insists they watch him make it.  Betram shows them the eggs and salted pork shoulder that he cuts the bacon from, and gets an unopened bottle of “breakfast wine.”  Party is convinced the food is unadulterated. Eats. Ranger heads up to the room carrying the coma-gnome, and will wait there, while the party heads out to the constable.

Constable seems very interested in the events of the evening, but says that he has no information for them. Perhaps the party should maybe look for their fighter friend in Yartar, if he was seen leaving the inn, and saying he was headed there.  When pressed about missing friends Owen and Beru, the constable suggests that he doesn’t know anything about this, but a lot of trouble seems to be following the party and their friends…maybe they should leave town.  Two other flunkies show up to add weight to constables' words. 

Party nervously leaves…

They decide  to go talk to the mayor. Trever Stouthand answers the door and demands to know what their business is.  Eventually the mayor agrees to see them. Mayor reveals that he is worried about what's going on and is looking into it, but he doesn’t have any information about Beru or Own or the missing fighter, or the disappearing corpses in the Golden grain Inn.  The mayor says he trusts the party, and asks them to take a message stone connected to one that he has, and let him know as soon as they learn anything. 

Party knows that one of the people they killed last night was wearing the regalia of the local temple… so they decide to go check out the temple. The gardener of the temple grounds is very rude to them in the courtyard. They see the wolves in the kennels behind the temple, and then they head into the main chamber of the temple.

They are greeted by one of the temple's leaders,  Misha Devi. Party says “We think one of your clerics attacked us last night. We are worried he might be under the control of unnatural forces." They are suggesting that maybe a single cleric might be suborned …. Not accusing the whole temple of being corrupt or anything like that.

Mishah asks if there is a body she can try and identify, but the party says the body is missing. Misha asks how they know it was a cleric from this temple, and they point out the robes and clothes and regalia.  Misha suddenly gasps and says… “That might explain it.  We had a break-in several months ago… It seemed like very little was taken… but several robes and ceremonial pieces of clothing were stolen… maybe whoever attacked you was related to that break in. Did you see the wolves outside? They are trained guard-wolves that we had brought in in the wake of the break in.  This is all very disturbing. Maybe the break-in happened so they could imitate us? Please let me know if I can do anything to help!" Party mentions missing fighter, but Misha indicates they haven’t seen or heard anything.

Next they stop by the stables to check on the coma-gnomes riding capybara.

The owner of the stables, Killian assures the party their capybara is fine and brings them out to check on it. He is shocked to hear about what happened at the Golden Grain. Doesn’t know anything about shadow elves or clerics attacking people.  Says he is worried about Owen and Beru who have been missing for a week. And tells the party that his neighbors who run the general store have been acting very suspicious. They all disappeared for about a week, and then they returned, except their teenage daughter was not with them, and they don’t seem to want to talk about her. He is worried about her. He also says that two strangers have moved in across the street from the Mayor’s residence. Party asks how many people have gone missing, and Killian says at least 5 or 6 families.

Party goes to the general store, and starts pointedly asking about people going missing… Jameson Finla treats them kindly, but says he doesn’t really know anything… Owen and Beru went missing a month or so ago. The Party asks explicitly about when HIS family went missing, and asks where his daughter is!

Jameson gets mad and asks “Have you been talking to that drunken lech, Killian?  He’s been spreading rumors about my family… if you must know, my daughter got married to a man in Yartar. We spent the week there celebrating the marriage and then returned home. To be honest, I always felt Killian paid way too much attention to my daughter.  My sons and I would catch him looking at her unsavory  ways.” Party is horrified and can’t wait to leave. 

Party decides to follow up on the two new elves that moved in across the street from the Mayor.  The two elves are reluctant to talk with the party at first but when they mention they were attacked and that they killed shadow elves and a cleric, and that their friend was tied up in tunnels beneath the golden grain, the pair reveals that they are working with the mayor to find out what has happened.  They say they have suspected something weird going on beneath the golden grain in… “You found hidden tunnels? Secret doors leading into your rooms!  This seems to confirm our suspicion that  Bertram is at the heart of this conspiracy!" The elves point out that if there is a secret passageways into rooms, and secret tunnels where elf-cleric was tied up (with a life sized statue of a shadow fey?!?) connected to the Golden Grain’s basement, then Betram HAS to know something. Party is kind of horrified that they have left coma-gnome and ranger alone in a room at the Golden Grain Inn.  They hurriedly say goodbye to the Elven couple (yeah… they are a couple) and use the message stone to tell the mayor they know about his buddies from his army days, and that they are now working with them.  Mayor sends back that if the two elves trust the party, then he  trusts the party.

Party bursts into the Golden grain where Betram is alone in the common room.  Party demands to know where Ranger and coma-gnome are. Betram says they are up in their room… he hasn’t heard from them since the party left, and indicates that the inn has been deserted, and he still hasn’t heard from his cook. 

Party nods warily… goes upstairs and grabs the ranger and gnome, and tells Betram that they are going to head to Yartar to look for their missing fighter friend. Betram nods and waves goodbye, and wishes them luck. 

The party then goes directly to the Slumbering Serpent Inn and gets a couple of rooms…

(to be continued)

(Also, bonus points for any Old school GM's who recognize the original module that I have reskinned.)

I just started DMing, and I finally got to use a "ticking clock" trap.

Some backstory, in the last session the party tried to kill a witch, and it went very badly. Instead of killing them, she enslaved them. They are being controlled by modified fireball necklaces, if they take them off they get a face full of (level 6) fireball.

They are off to do a quest for her (nor important), when I describe a completely unrelated tunnel off to the side of the road.

They sneak in, being cautious the whole way. At the end of the hallway is a single chamber, with lots of harmless treasures. Their is also a mural, and 4 status. In the center of the room is a pillar with a button. 2 skeletons cling to the pedestal, still clawing for the button.

They check for traps. I tell them that there is indeed a trap. They poke at the treasures, and find nothing. They say "screw it!" And press the button. The elf was smart enough to be standing outside before the button was pressed, so when the door slammed shut, they were on the other side. The 2 half orks weren't so lucky.

I timed it perfectly! They pressed the button and instantly the mission impossible theam starts playing. Then comes out the 30 second timer, and the fun begins.

If you don't already know how this works, every time they press the button the timer restarts. When the timer hits zero, the door opens, letting them walk out.

They spent damn near 20 minutes restarting the timer on my phone again and again as they desperately re arranged the status again and again to no avail.

So they start trying to brute force the door, getting further than I was comfortable with, putting a hole in it (at DC 21!), before I threatened them with exhaustion. But then Thrasher gets the bright idea to try and blow open the door with the fireball necklace. He jut got it off, when it went off. Somehow they both made the dex save and didn't die. But still, half of 11d6 is going to hurt.

Then the timer goes off, and the door opens, and they take their treasures and leave.

I couldn't have planned it better myself.

I shouldn't be too surprised, last week I got thrasher to drink napalm... AND acid! It's a fun group.

Be me, the DM of a 5e game

Be the party, consisting of Elf Cleric, Half-Elf Sorcerer, Triton Barbarian, Human Monk, Hexblood Ranger and Genasi Soul Knife Rogue

They are playing for months on real life and more than a month of in game time, having slayed young dragons, hydras, powerful warriors, etc...

The Cleric used a potion that had a wild magic side effect more than a day ago in game time

She aged up 10 years

She had short hair, so I just said that her hair looked much longer since 10 years doesn't really age an elf's looks

Because of the same potion, her hair fell off for 24 hours

Around 36 hours later in game time, she awoke up with long hair again becuase of the age up and decided to try to braid it instead of finding a hairdresser

Thinking nothing of it, I ask for a Sleight of Hand check

She rolls an 11 and I say that it looks amateurish

The monk has a higher Sleight of Hand modifier and decides to try to help it look better

He rolls a 7 and the hair gets all tangled on itself

Cleric doesn't want the hair cut

Cleric tries to fix it

She rolls a 5

She jokes that she tied her hands onto the hair

I roll with it because I think that its funny

The Sorcerer player wasn't present

I control the Sorcerer and roll Sleight of Hand for him trying to help

I roll a 10

It doesn't get worse but it isn't enough to untie Cleric's hands

Barbarian's turn trying to help

He rolls a 4

Barbarian also ties his hands onto the hair

Ranger and Rogue run some errands on the middle of the night and Ranger only finishes his Long Rest now

The Ranger finally has a go at it

He rolls a 22

Everyone cheers as he unties everyone's hands

Ranger tries to braid the Cleric's hair properly

He rolls a 6 and ties his own hands on it

Cleric tries again to fix her own hair

She rolls a 5

Cleric's hands are tied once again

They wait for Rogue to awake up from his Long Rest since he started it 1 hour after the Ranger

Rogue agrees to untie their hands

He rolls a 22

Everyone cheers as he unties everyone's hands

Rogue also tries to braid it properly

He rolls an 8

Rogue rolls his subclass' psychic dice

He rolls a 2, turning it onto a 10

We are back at square one

I allow him to spend a 2nd psychic die since the subclass doesn't say that he can only use 1

Rogue rolls an 8, turning it onto a 18

After 40 irl minutes, and 6 different people trying to help, Cleric's hair is finally braided

Be the party, consisting of LE Ranger, CG Sorc, LN Ftr, NG Bard

High level, have adventured together for many years in game and about a year and a half IRL.

Have returned to the mortal realm after spending some time in the outer planes

Homeland full of whispers, rumours, of war and terror in the South

Refugees speak of a conjured army of elementals laying waste to civilisation

A Conjurer is apparently behind it all

Obvious plot hook is obvious - to the South we go!

Journey long but not very arduous, random encounters with a herd of Bulettes resulting in lengthy argument about pronouncing boo-lay vs buh-let

Pass through several kingdoms, principalities, duchies, etc

Reach the northern border of the one currently at war with the Conjurer

Travel to the capital city, speak to the Council of Barons and offer our help to defend the city against the advancing elemental army

Council rejects our help - don't trust us

Hang around anyway, not sure what to do next

Next morning, the elemental army is at the gates

Be us, holding one of the walls against various small and medium sized air elementals - doing what we can to support the town guard

Below us is a large main gate, holding for now

Across the fields outside the city, a massive earth elemental is advancing, carrying a palanquin bearing the flag of the Conjurer - a weeping red eye on a field of black

The earth elemental throws a huge boulder at the gate, smashing the bar holding it closed

Guards hold the gate back

Sorceror in our party dispels the elemental

Palanquin falls, and a slender figure in a robe of deep black burst out from behind the curtains, arms raised, shadows coiled around his arms and legs giving him the appearance of a powerful physique

He bursts through the gate, looking around with face twisted in anxiety

Guards and commonfolk flee from the Conjurer

Ranger slides down a rope

Fighter does the overhead chopping greatsword version of a superhero landing

Conjurer takes damage, DM describes it as part of the shadows around him being shredded away

"Where is she," cries the Conjurer, "where is my lost love?!"

Bard casting debuffs, Sorceror prepping to counterspell, meleeers meleeing

Conjurer casts a quickened decoy spell, doesn't even try to counter-counter-spell, then some kind of wave motion spell, throwing the meleeers out through the gates, shaking the walls and knocking the Sorceror off the edge

Bard tries to stall

"Wait, please," she says "Stop the fighting, who is this lost love?"

"Once we walked together under the moonlight," the Conjurer replies, "but now she is gone from me, I will bring this world down in ruins to find her!"

Random town guard fires crossbow at Conjurers back

"Wait!" cries the Bard

More crossbows go off, the Conjurer screams and calls up a huge air elemental which vortexes the shit out of the guards and buildings

Conjurer turns into a puff of mist and flies towards the meeting hall of the Council of Barons

Party pursues

Lose him

Into the meeting hall, no one around, ask a functionary seated behind a small wall in a waiting area if she's seen anything

Before she can answer, the Conjurer bursts through the door, throws party aside, beats and/or grapples with misty shadow tentacles, stunning blows etc

He approaches the reception area, question we can't hear due to the ringing in our ears, the woman points towards the meeting chambers

Conjurer leaves the room, Sorceror struggles out of crack in the wall where a tentacle had jammed him

Fighter and Ranger free from where they were grappled, pull Bard out from under a pile of rubble

Guess we have to follow this lunatic, but why is he even doing this?

Follow him through the meeting hall of the Council, saving people where we can, getting the occasional hit in

Conjurer doing some damage to us too, and summoning elementals to delay us while he continues his rampage

No XP because summoning spells are part of his CR? WTF DM, this is bullshit

Try to talk to him as well, find out what destroying the city (and other countries) has to do with finding his lost love

Not much sense out of him

Fighting a fire elemental, rescuing random bystanders from the burning building, lose track of the Conjurer

Sorceror takes to the skies to try and find him

Signs that might be of interest in a temple on a low hill in centre of city - an elemental vortex and fireballs going off

We go that way

Arrive at the temple, walls and ceiling are half collapsed, but it's otherwise quiet

Force our way through small gap

Sneak through the darkness, overhear voices

Look through doorway

Conjurer calmer now

Man wearing the robes of the Healing Order explaining something to the Conjurer, but we can't hear what he's saying

Bard steps through the door

"Please, why all this horror and death? Where is your lost love?"

Conjurer stares sadly at the Bard

"How can you truly know what it is to lose someone, you are like a child compared to me..."

Does something magic

Bard sees mental images of years of happy life, lives all those years in a single heartbeat

Youth in a monastery, learning the secrets of the outer planes

Meeting a villager girl, spending time with her

First love, romance blooms

Misunderstandings and fights, teenage angst, poetry in the rain

A wedding, a family

Growing old together

the Conjurer's studies slowly take him in dark directions, looking for eternal life

Positive energy plane should enable that, surely?

Laboratory accident, the wife is killed

Conjurer bereft, loses his mind, blames himself (fair) but must make it right

First few times he tries to get Resurrection spells, he's turned away for not being pure of heart

Explodes in rage after third rejection, destroys a temple, then the city in which it stood as the locals try to fight him

Cycle of misunderstandings and fighting turns into raising an army and crushing city after city, looking for someone who will resurrect the wife

Emotional impact of these events hits Bard, she collapses onto a nearby couch, presumably used for treating patients of the Healing Order

Lies on her side crying while the Conjurer looks on helplessly

Read the last sentence of each section

So in the 1st time in a long time i was roleplaying with my brother as the gm. It was just me and him. I was a vampire hunter trying to kill dracula. Bewarned for me and my bro are really silly. Homebrew system btw.

Here's what happened.

be vampire hunter in the wild west.

wanna kill dracula

go into town and shouts "i have your son as a hostage dracula!" In the middle of the street.

it's a lie. I don't even know if dracula has kids.

people look at me weird

i lie and say it's performance art to save face

they walk away in a hurry.

i hear dracula is in forest.

i try to take carriage.

no money.

i tell carriage driver to look at "the dead woman across the street"

he looks and sees nothing.

i kick the driver out and ride away.

i set up camp near the forest.

see owl

"hi owl"

owl flys away

"stupid owl"

owl turns 360 and continues flying away.

i head into the forest

see wolves

tries to take a different path

more wolves

shoot at wolves

wolves run at me

i climb up a tree

wolves leave after a while

i walk more in the forest

gm decides to make me roll strength to see if i stub my foot.

-roll nat 20+2

I literally break a small rock with my foot

foot fine tho.

sound of broken rock attracts wolves

throw my limited amount of dynamite at them.

blows up wolves along with my toes.

take charred wolf meat just in case.

turns out the wolves are magical and regenerate

wolves are on top of me and start kicking my ass

near death i decide for a laugh to roll to suduce the wolves. low roll with low charisma.

but makes bro laugh so to continue the joke he rolls for the wolves to seduce me.

nat 20.

now have 6 wolf wives now.

find a mansion.

opens door.

it's the movie set for hotel transvenia.

"why are you here" director says

"to kill dracula"

"Why do you want to kill adam sandler"

"No not adam sandler! Dracula!"

"he plays dracula!"

"no i mean the real dracula"

director sees wolves

"hey we need wolves! Want to be a star?"

"hell yeah!"

gives up search for dracula.

me and bro agree it should end there. You can't unfuck the dog.

Hi All, I started DMing a campaign for my Daughter (age 11) and my Twin Cousins (turning 12 next month). I wanted to just share things that I've noticed, some frustrations I've had as well as the fun surprises. This entire campaign is a homebrew, based of a world that I've built heavily inspired on lots of fantasy works I grew up with (such as ASOIAF, FF, TSE2, Berserk, DS, etc.) The original campaign idea for this world, I scrapped as I felt it would be a little too adult for the kids. So I decided to do a campaign that was set in the rich past for this world. It starts with narrator, basically a historian who is writing about a period of history that through his research actually happened differently than what is the common understanding (mainly because of the existence of our PCs).

The kids are playing these characters

Jameson the Ebon (Cousin 1), A Wanderer Black Dragonborn Fighter

Grielle (Daughter), A Tiefling Acolyte Druid

Geovanti (Cousin 2), A Charlatan Tiefling Ranger

((Grielle and Geovanti are Fraternal Twins, Brother and Sister))

I have a loose idea for this campaign to be separated by chapters. The first chapter is "The Strife of Blood and Cheese"

"My first location of the three, occurs in the year 336 AC, two years after Andulian III took the crown from his deceased cousin Valian IV. Only three years after the Third Yarnal War, a war that killed many a smallfolk, leaving children with no fathers, and fathers with no sons. It is a time of unrest and the main cause that Aundlian III’s coronation took so long to occur. Peasant revolts and mobs strike many lands and radicalists gain footholds in local politics. With strife, comes mercenaries, those who were not paid from the Yarnal War looking to make money doing the only thing they know how to do, fight and survive.

We open our first act, in the Sarok Province, at the Castle Elkfort, lead by the Old Lord Balder Saraman. He has hired the three to act as body guards for him and his esteemed guest, a mysterious merchant who seems to hail from the East. How far east, no one knows. Lord Balder and his guest are traveling to Goldspire to witness the Coronation of King Andulian III. But trouble is afoot and not all is at it seems. I call this Chapter, 1: The Strife of Blood & Cheese."

Session 1 Started Off with some trepidation and what seemed to be a lack of focus. The kids all have a magnanimous imagination, asking how certain spells work without actually reading the text, being too creative with how they could use certain spells to "destroy everything." I was worried this was going to be a murder hobo fest.

They also seem to be less interested in the RolePlaying aspect - playing this more like a video game. In this first chapter at the Elkfort there were numerous amounts of NPCs that they could interact with, to learn more lore, get items, and maybe some hints into who this mysterious merchant is. But alas, they push forward and convince the noble lord to leave right away. They are ready for the story to begin. To teach a lesson that they should be more inquisitive, I had one of the NPCs run out to them before they left and gave them a gift. I had the NPC explain that he would have more if they came and talk to them, to give them the sense that they could have had a better reward. Geovanti is given a sprig of mistletoe so he can cast Goodberry.

They decide to take the Noble and his guest through the quickest way possible and sure enough they are beset by Bandits. 4 bandits in total with a 5th hidden one that I planted for a story beat that they missed. I make note to them that all the bandits they start fighting are all wearing Red and Yellow tunics but they don't put two and two together.

The combat was fun and interesting and they all seemingly fit their roles well to start out with. Grielle decided not to use any of her spells or wild shape yet. Jameson gets on the front lines and attacks with ferocity and doesn't take any damage due to his high AC (which he will forget about later). Geovanti does a great job using distance and sniping enemies and all three seem to have some tactical wit.

The noble is killed by a crossbow bolt and the mysterious merchant is missing. They find a wounded guard who informs them that a couple of bandits grabbed the merchant and dragged him eastward into the Goblin Forest.

They move into the forest and they get their first lesson that how they move is important. They are clumsy and moving fast and they stumble upon some wolves. Grielle trying to avoid combat uses a spell - Speak with Animals to try and talk to the wolf. As much as I enjoyed this creativity, the conversation between her and the wolf is not fruitful - she believes she can command the wolf, and despite my many hints that the wolf does not want to be commanded, she pesters the wolf enough to start another combat.

Unfortunately, right of the bat the wolf calls for reinforcements and a new wolf appears and Crits Grielle unconscious. I should make the note that I'm using a CR calculator and this combat was considered to be easy. Jameson and Geovanti are able to dispatch the wolves and stabilize Grielle. Geovanti is able to cast Goodberry from the sprig of mistletoe and he feeds it to Grielle to get her back up. That was a rough second encounter but they don't seem discouraged. We end the session there.

Takeaways that I had from the session was the importance of making clues very obvious and to not expect them to be as inquisitive as I thought they would be.

If you guys like this let me know and I'll post what happens next session. If you have any comments or criticisms or ideas on how I should move forward, I'm all ears. Also if anyone is interested in seeing the world, I have a massive document with maps, history, and royal family tree I can post. Thanks

Be me, playing DnD 5e as an albino Drow barbarian

was ostracized and enslaved by fellow drow for being different and fled the Underdark to the surface

new player joins the group, new adventurer joins the party

Drow Cleric, priest of Lolth

Wants to convert creatures of all races to Lolth worship

Don't trust him but agree to keep him around as cannon fodder if he doesn't try that on me

Later on, two rooms into a dungeon

Cleric and tabaxi sorcerer scouted ahead

Sorc triggered a 20ft pit trap, cleric pulled her out with rope

Barb catches up, sorc immediately announces she's converted to Lolth worship

Pissed off but whatever

Cleric starts raving about the virtues of Lolth, tries to charm me into also converting

That does it

Attempt to push cleric into the hole

19 athletics check vs 11 saving throw

Cleric falls into hole, left with 2hp at the bottom

Sorc is pissed, fires crossbow at me

Hits but only deals 1 damage

atp the rest of the party have caught up but don't get involved

Attempt to throw sorc back into the hole

Another success

Sorc drops to 0 on impact

jump over the hole and end combat

cleric has to use 2 spell slots to heal them both up

rest of the party pulls them out and we continue like nothing happened

Cleric doesn't try to convert me again

The players are kind of a mess today… Elven Cleric and Fighter are not here.  Gnome Cleric is. Some crazy story-hoop-jumping is necessary to set this up.

As the party stands over the corps of the huge Goose Hydra, the Fighter Free slumps to the ground and falls unconscious. Apparently the Honk Attack that the goose made last session had some linger effects on the fighter even though he passed his savings throw.

While the party is trying to figure out what to do with the Fighter, a Capabara comes racing down the evermore road, with a gnome on its back!  The Gnome cleric has caught up with the party!  They build a stretcher and haul the comatose fighter into Calling horns. It is about 2 hour before sunset, and they need to find a safe place to sleep in the village… a place where they can stash their unconscious fighter… The elven cleric plans to watch over the sleeping fighter while the rest of the characters search through the village.

Party sees Calling horn map and quickly skips the first few building saying “that one looks like a big one, lets go there!” The Golden Grain Inn.  Nice!

Party enters the main room. I let them know that the  Zhentarim  agent in Tribaor had indicated that his  Zhentarim counterpart in calling horn  is the proprietor of the golen grain in… a man named Bertram Beswill.  Party introduces themselves and asks if he is Betram. 

Betram is friendly and helpful, and the Bard casually mentioned that His buddies from the Free ones have gone missing, and does Betram know Owen and Beru?  I have party notice that Betram is surprised by this information… “Oh… I didn’t know they were associated with those bandits… that's interesting.”  Bard looks worried and asks out of game:  “ooops… was I not supposed to say that?! 

Betram continues. “I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks.”   I mention that the people in the common room are starting to give the bard dirty looks.

The Bard decides to flip them off(!?!) Yeah. that caught me by surprise too. So now an Ornery looking man lurches to his feet and NOW its REALLY a party. Hard words and harder looks are thrown back and forth, but eventually the ranger smooths things over before things get violent.

Party agrees that The Elven Cleric and the unconscious fighter need to go up to their room, while rest of party goes out to look for the farmstead where Own lives. The party negotiates a 4 day rate for the room, and after they take unconscious fighter upstairs, Betram helpfully provides directions to Owen’s farmstead. 

The party passes the sleeping serpent inn, and the woman out front hails them. They talk briefly, and Belba lets the party know that she likes them a lot, but they haven’t been around for a week or so, and she is worried about them. She confides with the party that several people have gone missing and there seem to be many strangers in the village lately, which is good for business, but concerning nonetheless.

Party thanks her and makes their way to the Owen farmstead.  Barn doors are hanging wide open but doors of house are locked. The bard fancies themselves good with a lockpick so they pick the lock and go inside, where the find things mostly deserted… left over food scraps suggest nobody has been around for a couple of weeks.  They find a bunch of tore up floorboards in one bedroom, and begin searching around in the other bedrooms for other hidden places.  They find a hidden compartment in the other bedroom, and detect a poison needle trap, which they disengage, before pulling back the floorboards, revealing a small cubbyhole containing the cipher book!  The party keeps asking if it is going to get dark soon, and indicate that they definitely don’t want to ask the neighbors about the missing Free ones… they just want to get back to the sleeping serpent before dark!  They are worried about vampires!

Party returns to the Golden Grain, where Betrand tells them that their friends have left.  Party is dumbfounded. What?!

Yeah… your unconscious friend seems to have woken up, and he and the elf left, saying they had to get to Yartar…. They didn’t explain anything to me. They just said they had to leave quickly for Yartar, and could not stay.

Party is still dumbfounded… “What?  Wait. Were they acting strange?”

Betram tells them: "I wouldn’t know what strange is, given I don’t know them. But they seemed fine."

Uhhhhmmm… (Party starts asking questions amongst themselves about vampires being able to enter a public building without invitations? Or do they need an invitation?) I tell them that local vampire lore suggests that taverns and Inns are fair game, and vampires don’t need to be invited in… they can just enter at will.

“Hey… do you have any garlick we could buy?”  the party asks their good friend and host, Betrand. 

Betrand sells them some garlic cloves at an outrageous markup, but the bard and gnome cleric do haggle a bit… then they rush upstairs to their room.  “No… we are all staying in the same room” the party assures Betrand, who is trying to rent them a second room.

“Okay. Sleep well my lords!”

I have the party tell me their shifts for who is sleeping and who is guarding.  First shift is uneventful, but second shift has a secret compartment open up and 3 shadowy figures appear!  “Vampires! I knew it!” exclaims the party.  EXCEPT… I say… you notice that the room is very quit. Unnaturally so.  Roll for initiative, and since nobody can hear anything you will need to spend a full action trying to shake the sleeping players awake, if you want to wake them up.

The party and three shadow figures trade blows for a while, while the spell casters try and figure out if they have any spells that don’t have a verbal component. Shadow figures teleport back into the hallway outside of the secret passage. Two players open up the room door and go out into the normal hallway, outside of the spell. Paladin rushes through hidden doorway, and discovers 3 MORE shadowy figures.  One of them is a human with a mace (“Its a cleric!” I stage whisper to the party. “He must be the one who cast the silence spell.”)

Party takes the hint and the bard starts trying to stab the cleric with his rapier.  The other clieric also tries hitting him with their mace.  Eventually silence spell goes down after a failed concentration save. Two of the shadow figures go run around the long way and confront the warlock who has reatreated into the normal hallway. Warlock is really loving the use familiar spell to cast touch spells… and I’m to much of a pushover so I allowed the warlock arms-of-hadar from his Fey Dragon familiar (who of course is still wearing the black dragon skull as a hat).  I just like the idea of black tendrils of horrific energy springing out out of the faerie dragon… it may not be RAW…but its okay at this table. 

The Bard uses Corwn of Madness and gets the cleric to start attacking the angry dude from downstairs… who was one of the first shadowy figures to enter the room.  Eventually the angry dude and several of the shadowy figures, along with the cleric are killed, and several of the other shadowy figures seem to teleport in and out of the shadows, successfully fleeing. 

Party searches the corpses and I describe eleven fey like creatures with darky shadowy skin.. Not drow, per say, but… something… else! “Shadow Fey?!” my party courses at me.

“yeah… sure. Lets call them Shadow Fey. That’s probably what they are.”

I explain that the cleric is wearing the vestments of the holy order of Merikka, the Elven goddess of forests, and patron saint of rangers.  

“You killed the ranger-goddesses cleric!  YOU ARE SOO IN TROUBLE!! Why did you do that”  Screams the Ranger!

“I DIDN”T KNOW.” responds the bard

“Its because you got in a fight with them downstairs, when you flipped them off! This is Your fault! Now what are we gonna do!?”

Ranger is a bit frantic and upset. I explain that the attack came from via a secret passage, and maybe this wasn’t related to a near bar room brawl.   Maybe this had something to do with the Ranger’s visions in the God-wood… visions of a temple in danger?  Maybe something or someone has corrupted the temple and its cleric?”

Ranger calms down. Party agrees to go search the rest of the inn, which is oddly deserted. They bust into Betran’s private quarters and discover the trap door leading down to the basement… they ignore the normal door that goes under the rest of the tavern, and instantly want to check out the door that is barred shut.  

They start going through some rat infested, muddy tunnels with low ceilings. Gnome cleric decides they want to capture a rat, but they fail a contested grapple roll against the rat. LOL. Now they are going left at each fork and eventually make their way to…. A cavern full of zombies!!!

“Its not vampires, its Zombies!” cries the party. Combat ensues.  I really like the spring-up-with-one-hit-point-after-they-are-seemingly-killed mechanic.

Eventually the zombies are burned down, and that's all time we have for this week. Hopefully next session, they can continue exploring the tunnels beneath the Golden Grain Inn and get some answers!

While the party prepares to travel east to Calling Horn, they begin talking about what the name of their party should be.  As they still have the Warlock familiar flying around waring the young black dragon skull, the band of intrepid adventures name themselves “The Dragon Skullz”  (Yes. skullz with a “z” becasue this party is very "Metal").

The party buys supplies (Travel rations and healing potions) but decides to hang onto the diamonds, because they are easier to carry. Coma gnome is still in a comma so they buy her a weeks lodging and medical care, and head out on the highway, hoping that Cleric #1 may be able to recover and catch up.

Travel time is1 day to Yartar, and another 2 days to Calling horn. 

One the first days travel, a Free Ones scout approaches the party.  Appropriate hand signals are made identifying the Free Ones... This is the scout who was in secretly in Calling horns looking for Owen and Beru. . The basic gist of the coded communication is conveyed Verbally! Find Owen and Beru! Find the code book! The Scouts continue west on other Free One business, while  urging the party to discover what has happening in Calling Horn.

A west bound caravan on the road  brings rumors that a huge, many-headed creature has been seen around calling horns, and that children have gone missing.  

The party spends the night in Yartar, where are rumors that people in Calling Horns are  being altered  and the "changeling" can be recognized by fang marks in their throats.  Party is now convinced there are going to be vampires in Calling Horn!

The two day Journey to Yartar is eventful, as the party discovers a band of orcs, who recognizes “The Dragon Skullz" and are suitably impressed. They weren’t part of the "Forge of fury" war band, but word has (and Red Mushroom bread) of the Dragon Skullz  has spread rapidly throughout the Blood Fang tribe. The Orcs are friendly and wish the party well.   Later that night at camp, one of the Orcs approaches the camp and asks to sit down and chat for a bit.  The orc is really interested in Free, and the two spend most of the night trading battle stories around the camp fire.

The next day, the party is attacked by a pack of Gremlins,  Later a well-to-do looking merchant traveling west claims to have been in Calling Horn. He says that there isn’t anything wrong with the town… not really. He believes that the recent sickness that swept through the village is driving the rumors but there is nothing really to worry about, as the sickness doesn't seem contagious.

About an hour outside of Calling horn, the party is set upon by a Goose Hydra!  This huge multi headed beast looks and sounds like a goose… a really big one.  The party gets off a lot of damage but as each head dies, two grow back! The party concentrates their attacks on the body, and eventually the Goose hydra is about to die.  It does its Legendary Honk attack, which can put characters to sleep… but Every character makes their savings throw!  No effect! Party continues to deal heavy damage to the Goose hydra, and finally it collapses to the ground. 

That's it… 1 more hour's travel time and the party will arrive at their destination. Next week… Calling Horn! Wherein the party goes up Against the Cult of the Shadow Fey… (Definitely not a reskinned version of the classic AD&D N1 module!)

The Forgotten Realms village of Calling Horn, which looks *nothing* like the Greyhawk village of Orlane

Against the Cult of the Shadow Fey....

Five of the party members sit atop the carcass of a dead Black Dragon, which they slew last week.  A search through the dragon’s hoard reveals the two magic globes that the grey dwarves had sent them to get, as well as 25 of the “Shadow-slayer” weapons that the orcs need, and about 250 Gold and 10 very large diamonds.

They pack everything up and then, before they leave they make a series of survival checks to see if they are able to recover any of the Dragon scales for armor, any dragon innards for various magic components, and Teeth and claws for adornment purposes. The fighter isn’t present, as he is back with the coma-gnome, otherwise I am sure he would have asked to take his favorite type of trophy.

There is some back and forth amongst the party about how many weapons they are going to tell the dwarves they found.  The two good aligned characters (ranger and cleric) castigate the warlock and bard about lying about how many they found. The paladin is staying out of it. Eventually they agree to tell the dwarves exactly how many weapons they found, rather than trying to get “extras”.  They remember that they need to bring the dragon head with them as proof that they did in fact kill it and not just drive it off.  So now they have the Fairy dragon familiar wearing the Black Dragon skull as they return to the Dwarves.

Dwarves are very pleased by the party's success. Surprised even.  They give the party 5 extra Shadow-slayer weapons, so that each of the martial characters in the party will have their own Shadow-blade.  Now they get to decide if they are going to sneak out and leave with all of the weapons, or deliver the requested number of Long swords, Battle axes and great swords to the orcs. They opt to stick with their bargain, in hopes of getting the blood-fang tribe of orcs as a long term ally for the free ones.

The five party members hook up with the fighter and the Coma-gnome.  Coma-gnome is still asleep (AKA the player couldn’t make it again.)  But the fighter is eager to get up to no good.

They emerge in the “orc” level of the Forge of fury, where the Shaman confronts them, demanding the weapons. Since I couldn't not remember this orc's name, she has now become “Sharon the Shaman.”  The party hesitates because their bargain wasn’t with her, but was rather with the Ogre Chieftain. Sharon Continues to berate them, at which point the Orc Lieutenant whom they had originally parlayed with in the temple shows up, yells at Sharon, and urges the party to follow him to the Chieftain's chambers.

The Chieftain seems relieved to see them. The bard tries to bargain, saying “You have to leave the area and *then* we can give you the weapons...” 

The chieftain laughs and says he has no intention of staying around here, but he needs the weapons in hand right now… “The political situation has gotten a bit dicey, and I have some who would simply kill you and take the weapons. Whereas I am an ogre of my word, and I will send you on your way peacefully, but you need to be leaving sooner rather than later, and you need to deliver those weapons to me right now.”

 The bard switches tactics and asks if the bloodfang tribe will be willing to ally with The Free Ones against the sun elves.  The chieftain says of course his band would be a willing ally, but he can’t speak for the other chieftains of his tribe… he can try and convince them…. He sniffs dramatically, and waggles his eyebrows at the comatose gnome’s backpack “…it would be easier if I have  some *Gifts* that I could use to help convince the other chieftains. 

The party gets the hint and unpacks all of the gnome's Hallucinogenic Red Mushroom bread.  Ogre nods and has his guards take the bread. “Now begone. It is time you left, so I can begin my own preparations to get these smelly brutes out of hear and headed in the right direction.” 

The Party is halfway out the door when the warlock asks “What about those two prisoners?  Can you free them?”  The ogre laughs… “You killed the captain who was responsible for ransoming them. Nobody here wants to deal with them. Take them. They are yours.” To which the warlock responds “Cool, now we have slaves!” To which the Ranger responds. “Not cool! Not cool at all!”  Ranger player is shooting eye-daggers at the warlock player.”  The warlock player is taken aback… “I was just kidding” but the ranger player isn’t having it. “That is NOT something to joke about.”

I am really impressed by the ranger. Inspiration point will be given later. Warlock was just kidding, but I was very pleased that the ranger smacked that shit down so I didn’t have to.  The party gathers up the now freed prisoners and offers to escort them to Triboar.

The party talks briefly of putting the coma-gnome in the bag of holding, but I assure them that will end badly. Fighter agrees to make a little baby papoose and carry the gnome around on his chest as they travel back to Triboar. Somewhere along the road to Triboar, Coma-gnome’s capybara catches up with the party.

As they travel south on the great road, there are a series of benign encounters including a merchant with tales of a large warparty of Orcs traveling east.  Party brags “yeah… we did that.” to which the merchant laughs and calls them braggarts.  “There is no way you were responsible for getting those orcs to leave. There must have been a hundred of them!" The disdainful merchant travels on, but the party asks the ex-prisoners to tell the Triboar mayor what happened, and the former prisoners readily agree.

Party makes it back to Tribaor, where the Mayor gives them a lot of thanks, and a promissory note of payment of 1000 Gold, if after 3 months the Orc warband has not returned… “I can’t just give you the reward right now… what if the Orcs come back? You understand how this works. But if you return in 3 months and the Orc's still are not around, Your reward will be yours.

Back at the Inn where the Zhentarim agent is proprietor, the party discovers that a sealed message from The Free Ones awaits them: To all active agents traveling along the Evermore Way: Free One agents Owen and Beru, of the villager of Calling Horn have been missing for 2 weeks. A covert scouting party has found their farmstead sitting abandoned. Please travel with maxim speed to Calling Horn and investigate. Engage with the local townsfolk, but don't give away your FreeOnes affiliation. Discover what has happened to Owen and Beru. Of utmost importance is the Free Ones cipher book, which allows agents to send and receive coded messages. If that book falls into the wrong hands, our entire communication network in the Dessarin Valley may be compromised. Recover that book!

Looks like the party is finally going to head off to Calling Horn! 

(To Be Continued.)

Act 0 - The Exposition

–Be me, playing good ol’ Rogue in Pathfinder 1e

–Be not me, THE bard, alcoholic Magus (eldritch archer), War Priest, Witch, 

–Arcanist, and the DMNPC Magus (spell dancer)

–Party fucked.exe

–I've made a deal with demigod-like creature to save the party

–I have one week to kill someone for that demigod-like creature, or my head will roll

–We are four days later and without progress

–Once THE bard of the party casted suggestion on himself to convince himself he could steer a boat and we were stupid enough to get on board

–Whole party invested ONE skill point in Swim after that

–Drunk Magus is always drunk, as he has a homebrew magic (cursed) bottle making infinite amounts of alcohol, which gets progressively stronger the longer he drinks from it. He has bonuses to attack rolls when he is drunk because of deal with DM

–All of that will be relevant at some point in the story

Act 1 - Drowning Man

–Things happened and our headcount is reduced to 3 plus DMNPC

–We struck a deal with aspiring crime lord for information about whereabouts of my assassination target

–Deal includes escorting us to a place, where we’ll meet a person with further intel

–They take us on a boat, give us some fishing rods and tells us to pretend we are fishing as a cover

–We decide to roll a die on what we can fish out. It’s a corpse. We loot it and throw it back into water.

–We arrive at our destination

–Our escort tells us we need to dive into the hidden passage under the water, and swim for a long while, but not to worry, there is a pocket of air mid trough

–Thatwasnotapartofthefuckingdeal.mp3

–Our escort does not understand what we have problem with and will not offer us alternate way in

–With no other option available, we decide to take a swim

–I try to dive through the tunnel

–I drown

–The War Priest tries to dive through the tunnel

–He drowns

–The DMNCP tries to dive through the tunnel

–She drowns

–Drunk Magus fishes us all out to the surface

–This cycle repeats for about 30 minutes and only insane swim rolls of Drunk Magus are keeping us alive

–Finally, we all made it through the tunnel, with bunch of HP wasted on drowning

–The only way forward is through the ladder and hatch to the room above

It is almost impossible to scout the room, but we know someone is inside

–We decide to commence violence

–We shrink Drunk Magus with Reduce spell and shove him into my bag of holding to reduce the time it’ll take us to get into the room, hoping that element of surprise will help us win this quickly

–It did not

Act 2 - They are Clerics, not healers

–The room is full of cages, dead bodies and torture devices

–We take it as affirmation that people in the room, two Clerics and two Barbarians, are in fact evil and beyond negotiations with someone bursting into their hideout

–We burst into the room, feeling confident

–And then the clerics start blasting

–First, the I get cursed, getting -6 penalty to dex

–Then, the Magus fails save against Poison spell

–Basically he has to make a con save each turn to end the effect, losing some con for each fail

–A little context on our Magus - he has an ability that lets him roll for random effect each time he shoots a bow. One effect is very loud noise. At the very first encounter he was a part of, many months ago, he did rolled it, luring half of dungeon into a fight

–Now, with 1 Con left, he uses this ability as last act of defiance

–The result is the same loud noise. He has lured two more rooms worth of Rogues to the fight, then proceeded to fail his last Con save and die as result

–WeAreFucked.mp4

–Then the Mague rolls an honorary save, checking if he’d succeed should he had one more try

–He proceed to roll nat 20 

–DM.exe has stopped responding

–After a long while, the DM decides to spare him, but as he was drinking from his cursed bottle in his final moments (because of course he did), he traded his very blood for a booze, making him, an alcoholic, immune to the alcohol.

–He is still on 1 Con tho

–We proceed to barely win the fight, knocking few enemies unconscious

–We put unconscious into cages, with hope of interrogating them when they’ll wake up

Act 3 - Every man for himself

–I, the rogue, would very like to get rid of the dex-damaging curse. The Magus would very like to get more Con

–Also, the Magus is starting to realize that he can no longer tell the difference between alcohol and water - he chugs from his bottle for minutes, charging the damned thing up

–He asks the rest of the party, with desperation in his eyes, if the bottle stopped working.

–We proceed to pour a little of “booze” to the mouth of unconscious rouge, who happens to be a Drow

–He dies immediately

–Some roleplaying later, the rest of enemies starts to wake

–The I start to question the other Rogue, also a Drow, learning that they mistook us for law officials, here to punish them for their crimes

–We start to realize that these people are wanted for causing mayhem in the city and there would be a big prize for bringing proof of their death

–We decide to let the rouge out of cage and have more civilized conversation at the table

–Now, imagine the following scene

–In some underground torture room, two Rogues are trying to negotiate their way out of mess they’ve caused. One hides a dagger behind his back, the other - potion of invisibility

–We learn that one of the clerics have a scroll of Remove Curse that he could use on one of us - price would be letting them go

–We also learn that whole enemy group was pretty racist about the Drows and it goes without saying, their relation is not the best

–The clerics are causing a scene and it makes the I distracted for a bit

–The Drow takes the chance, chugs his potion and despite our best attempts to stop him, escapes leaving clerics to their fate

–We are forced to negotiate with the clerics

–The I and the Magus are starting to argue who gets to have his curse removed

–He has 5 max HP

–My dex is slightly lower

–I proceed to ignore the logic and fight tooth and nail for that scroll

–I promise Clerics their freedom and help with leaving the city, as they are wanted here

–I’m lying, but they don’t need to know that

–The War Priest gets shocked by my words and ask me for a private talk

–I agree

–He starts talking about how those are really evil people, cause of numerous problems and we simply cannot let them go free

–I consider pros and cons of ignoring the only moral backbone this party currently have

–I agree to not let the clerics free, but comment that I consider this a debt to be paid later

–War Priest agrees

–In the meantime, my mistake of leaving Magus unattended with Clerics results in deal between them I am unaware of

–The clerics present us their final offer - an elaborate plan that will ensure their safety in this transaction

–Realizing I cannot get rid of my curse without breaking a word given to War Priest, I decide to execute the clerics

–Seeing this, Magus screams “DEAL!” and all of the sudden, everything becomes black

–In now surrounding us magical darkness, I stab one of the clerics, the other one removes curse from Magus, increasing his max HP a lot

–The cleric then tried to escape, but Magus has none of it and kills him on spot

–The darkness disappears, revealing the final outcome of our shenanigans - two dead clerics, de-cursed Magus, still cursed I and DMNPC holding a blade at Magus throat

–After deciding that no one else will die today, the session ends

–DM says to Magus “by the way, what you just did counts as an evil action”

–Magus calmly responds “I’m done fucking around”

–The War Priest dies in the next room and I refuse to elaborate

Be me

Very rich noble

Filthy drunk peasant soils clothing

Demand reparations

Challenge to a duel

Next day, peasant didn't run

He's a Bard

He starts playing

Be me

Be CN catfolk bard.

Be stuck in a nation that isn't too kind to beastfolk.

Passing through village with Adventurer's guild.

Go to adventurer's guild for work.

Only job they have for me is 'rat extermination'.

Job offers 5 copper. Not per rat. Just 5 flat.

"Job with a free lunch!" says guild clerk with a sneer.

WellFuckYouToo.jpg

"Fine I'll take it."

Get to home with rats.

Old lady lives there.

She's nice but poor.

Apparently she's a hoarder because a cursory look inside shows over 200 goddamn rats!

WTF! 5 Coppers for this?!

Fine.

Use Minor Illusion to throw my voice into the cellar to mimic a lion's roar.

Roll 19 Performance, not bad!

RAT TSUNAMI FLOODS OUT OF OLD LADY'S HOUSE INTO THE STREET!

Not a single rat left in the home.

Lady looks nonplussed but is grateful the rats are gone. Signs my completion document to get paid.

Strut to the guild for my 5 coppers feeling like the most dashing motherfucker around while the entire rest of the village now has a rat problem.

Buy cheap wine with the easiest 5 coppers ever earned.