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.

be me, dwarf monk in introductory pathfinder 2e group doing menace under otari

be not me, chanterelle mushroom leshy druid, animated paintbrush poppet investigator (don't ask)
get to a room with a statue that offers us a reward for solving his riddle
it's one of those "find which of these 9 identical objects isn't actually identical using a seesaw that breaks after two uses" puzzles
be us, a group lacking the brain power to actually figure out the logic required to obtain the correct answer
figure we can just about narrow it down to two of the nine objects, and have a 50:50 chance of success, if we start by putting 4 of the objects on one side, 4 on the other, and set one aside
my monk declares his lucky number to be three, so the third item is the one that doesn't go on the seesaw
the seesaw balances, item #3 is the one we're looking for
be us, unable to believe what just happened
be the DM, facepalm for a solid 30 seconds

Whether or not "don't use too much of your brain" is a good lesson for The Short Monarchs to have learned remains to be seen.

House Rules to know-1: all Pathfinder campaigns take place in the same world, so what happens in one affects the next. 2: haflings don’t exist and have all been replaced by Goblins as a core race due to rule 1.

• Be me. DM
• Be playing Wrath of the Righteous
• Be not me: catfolk arcanist who’s SO done with this shit but can be bribed along with pickled food items, rogue goblin wearing chef outfit whose signature move is a dick shot with a magic tea kettle, overly trusting human paladin with no wisdom, second human paladin who thinks he’s actually a god whose current patron is an ascended cat from a previous game, and a human skald with bagpipes. Because fuck stealth.
• Leading an army of paladins to reclaim a city. Somehow the Goblin is in charge of the army.
• Be in canyon
• Be facing prepared Dretch army.
• Goblin’s Plan: Go around on narrow path to get to commander, signal paladin army with Ghost Sound from the arcanist, in the sound of a dragon’s flatulence.
• Sneak.exe
• See Incubus is leading the Dretch army
• Goblin goes in for the kettle bonk, gets glitterdusted for efforts
• Initiative.roll
• Goblin casts grease,
• Incubus lands on ass
• Catfolk casts Ghost Sound as prearranged.
• EVERYONE but skald and paladin army waiting for signal fails will save.
• TacoBellDragon.mp3
• Goblin remembers one round later, bluffs the Incubus into thinking there’s a Gold Dragon with the party.
• Roll Nat 20 Bluff
• Incubus thinks Dragon is real.
• Dretch army panics
• Paladin army attacks.
• Rout in 1 round of combat.
• MFW party bypasses entire army engagement by the power of the Taco Bell Dragon

Per rules of the house, this is now canonical history in all future games and will be taught in history classes.

This is NOT the most bullshit thing they’ve done.

edit: formatting

be me

level 3 Goliath Fighter

be not me, Avian Mage, Goblin Ranger, Aasimar Paladin and half elf sorcerer

Party is traveling through a forest, searching for a goblin village we need to destroy

Ranger has Goblins as favored enemy and is using Primeval Awareness

Ranger has the goblins in her radar, then suddenly they disappear.

wtf.jpeg

DM asks us to roll perception.

Everyone fails a 17 DC check, i roll a nat 20

Goblins throw gas bombs at us.

No check, everyone just falls uncouncious

Bs but ok

Since i rolled a nat 20 i get to continue as the goblins begin to chant.

have to roll a cons check or fall uncouncious

bs 2.0 but ok

passes it, Goblin boss talks shit about me

Dm makes me do another perception check

Little goblin sneaks up on me and tries to gas me

wins another cons check

Kill little goblin, get pumped up to fight the goblinoids till my party wakes up

DM says the goblins throws a dozen bombs at me, no check

stare at screen blankly while DM calls end of session

This story has become a running joke with my group and has jokingly made it so I am no longer allowed to play dumb characters

be me
normally the face of the party, one of the few active decision-makers in our games
be my partner
an almost forever DM
(they switch with one other person who has hella burnout so it was mostly just them at the time)
A new Pathfinder campaign is about to start in 2019 where we are testing some Online features to better play as a group
Partner challenges me to build a character for the upcoming game their way (Minmaxy with few active story elements)
Itissoon.jpeg
proceeds to make catfolk rouge murderhobo with bonkers dps and hella speed but dumb as a sack of rocks
feelsgood.png
Start of the campaign, DM is running their version of Pool of Radiance
DM hands out legacy loots that grow with characters as they level
heckyafunloots.mp3
gets into meat of the session, DM points party at "Missing Persons" posters
woosh, no one takes the bait
party does find "Kill goblins for 1 silver/day" poster
squintyeyes.mp4
me thinks/tells partner while muted from the party: silver a day is basically what any halfway decent laborer made in town why kill gabos so cheap for something so dangerous?
itsatrap.gif
me: says nothing as character wouldn't care about the money and just wants to kill gabos
Party meets up with Nice Old Wizard TM at broken-off mage tower for gabo killing
Wizard looking at us, a lvl 8 party of adventures with hella magic gear, up and down: "You are way more equipped than the normal people who answer my ad, you understand it's A Silver, A Day, right?"
squintyeyes.mp4
me thinks/tells partner while muted from the party: ya this is definitely a trap
again says nothing as character wouldn't care/realize
The party agrees and off we go to the cave Nice Old Wizard TM sent us to
Goblin slaying = success
Fight goes well until we invade gabo base,
Fighting is a bit much for one character, he goes outside
No more turns for that player
squintyeyes.mp4
again say nothing as character wouldn't care
Finish fight inside
We head back out to find all those goblins we killed being revived, our friend has been fascinated and is currently being tied up with his magic items being stripped from him,
Shockedpikachumeme.png
We put the goblins back down killing off all but one of the necromancers and save friend! Success!
Wizard player charms remaining necro to get information from him about why they are here
Necro explains The Plot TM
Necros were sent to steal magic items
Also sent to kidnap people to make into slaves to be sent back to the broken tower for digging out Mythdranor
me thinks/tells partner while muted from the party: Ah now my party shall realize it was a trap!
Party: OH NO! We must warn the Nice Old Wizard TM! He could be in Danger!
Facepalmwithpartnerlaughingmaniacallyinthebackground.mp4

There were a LOT of instances of this in the campaign, basically, every trap my partner set out for the party, they fell for and then some, when we reached the stopping point for that game my partner and the rest of the party jokingly banned me from playing dumb characters to make sure that didn't happen again.

• Be DM to 4 first-timers. Level 1 Easter oneshot that progresses to level 2. Wagon delivery + Easter Egg Hunt. Can only be hosted online due to separate cities.
• 2 players reuse PCs from a different unfinished oneshot, other 2 creates from scratch.
• Check character details for reused PCs, guide the ones starting from scratch.
• Be in Discord voice channel with 3rd and 4th player. It is now 4's turn for character generation.
• 4 is sick, but with enough strength and time to be in the call.
• Makes Minotaur Paladin for purpose of being a big beefy guy with Lay on Hands and Divine Smite. Greatsword & Maul but without Shield.
• Now to roll stats. Players don't have physical dice so digital will have to do, but needs transparency by sending proof of roll (via screenshots with timestamp)
• 17, 18, 16... Pretty high... But maybe it'll be a 12 or 11 next.
• Player takes a few more seconds to send, maybe because they're sick and sensitive to the screen?
• You hear muttering, "ah, shoot, too low, wait, lemme reroll..."
• EXCUSE ME, WHAT?!
• 3 and I catch 4 in the moment. 4 admits to rerolling from the start to get high af scores to fill the needed stats of Paladin.
• sigh in misplaced pity while 3 chuckles at the reasoning.
• Allow the first three rolls... But say that "something will be done" about this.
• Skip to last quarter of the oneshot. PCs are now level 2 and heading to a clearing with a plateau. No sign of goblins or bandits anywhere.
• Wagon/cart starts to creak from the weight, but isn't gonna break anytime soon. Plateau has a second 'wagon' just sitting in the midle of it. Bait has been planted
• Minotaur goes up the plateau alone: "No ambushes... I wanna bring it back to the group." Bait has been taken.
• Me/DM: "Like drag it or what?"
• Minotaur: "I'll lift it up and carry it with two hands." Rolls successful Athletics
• Hook, Line, and Sinker
• Me, making attack roll with advantage: "Does 19 hit your AC?"
• Minotaur: "Huh? Yes... Why?"
• Narrate the scene playing out as the 2nd wagon is revealed to be a Mimic. It chomps on the Paladin's hands and grapples it. Take damage.
• Paladin roleplays screaming in pain and panic. Rest of the group spend a round getting up to the same high plateau as Paladin tries to headbutt Mimic and fails to break from Grapple throughout the combat.
• Combat ends with Mimic dead and Minotaur at 1/4 health and a bunch of banter/scolding from the fellow party members.
• Gain satisfaction at the "compensation". Prolly not the most ethical DM behavior but oh well. Implement rule from now on of making them use either Discord bot dice or Owlbear, no more Google Dice.

Edit:

• Eventually gain trust again and allow "reroll stats, but as a whole set" rule for future PCs. Adjust the rule as you mull it over some more and wonder whether you should keep it or use either Point-Buy or Standard Array instead.