D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

Session 58 of my Neverwinter/Sword Coast campaign. 10th level drow evoker wizard, human genie warlock, half orc vengeance paladin.

The characters are infiltrating a sunken castle in a swamp occupied by a warband of orcs. The orcs are allied with sinister nobles. The characters are trying to unravel and thwart their schemes.

The session started with a combat against a wraith, the spirit of the lord of the castle. The wraith had slain an orc and raised a specter from its corpse. The warlock countered by casting danse macabre, which rather hilariously raised the orc as a zombie (as well as several skeletons from the surrounding swamp). So the orc's spirit was fighting its body. Only in D&D!

Even crazier, the paladin landed a crit on the wraith. The paladin wields a sword of nine lives, which extracts the soul of anyone it crits. Technically, undead are immune, but that violates my Rule of Cool. So the soul of the lord of the castle ended up in the sword of the paladin. It gave them safe passage past the undead, the castle's layout (including secret passages), and intel on where the orcs were located.

The warlock scouted around while invisible. The orcs had three squads scattered throughout the castle. In the center was a surly ettin, which guarded a room occupied by a minor noble. The noble was there as a not-prisoner, while the orc leader schemed with the major nobles at a castle at the nearby town. One of ours for one of yours. Of course, the players didn't know that. They simply knew she was there--but not why.

The ettin began arguing with itself. One of the orcs laughed at the spectacle, which the ettin didn't take kindly to. It attacked the orc, picking it up and smashing it into the walls. The characters used the chaos to kill a different orc, sneak into the noble's room, and take out her bodyguard. Meanwhile, the other orcs in the castle were drawn by the sound of the ruckus.

We stopped there.

Next session: Ettin!

 

[Zardnaar]

Session 0. Ended up with.

Goliath Champion
Dragonborn Dragon Sorcerer (Blue)
Firbolg Mercy Monk.
Bearfolk Druid (Circle of Stone)
Winterfolk Halfling Swords bard.

 

[Blue]

Very bittersweet, as we had a fantastic finish to a multi-year D&D 5e campaign set in Theros, which is the M:tG Ancient Greek analog. The DM really leaned heavily into the theme of that, and it worked wonderfully. Including escaping from the underworld in our own mythic journey. Gods, oracles, trickery, Titans, prophecy - everything we need.

Our leader, Ember, an Anvilwrought devotee of Purphoros (God of the Forge), who became a living woman.
Spyros "Scrufflechin", a Satyr hunter, wander, and friend sworn to Nylea (Goddess of the Hunt).
Acastus, chef, mage, faithful to Athreos (God of Passage).
Zeno, detective and defender, blessed by Helios (God of the Sun).
Phedra, drow oracle of Persephone.
and especially Psarasa, Triton disciple of Thassa (God of the Seas), reborn from an old body to a new one.

So raise your glasses to The Everliving, champions of the gods who saved the world from being unmade by the Titans and the machinations of Phenax, the god of deception.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

The Adventure: Session 2 of my 13th Age campaign. Eyes of the Stone Thief (retitled "The Devourer" for my campaign.) I've retooled the adventure so it spans levels 1 through 10.

The Characters: 1st Level. Human Occultist, Human Swashbuckler (third-party variant Rogue), Minotaur Savage (third-party variant Barbarian), Woold Elf Bard, Dark Elf Chaos Mage.

The Situation: The characters are strangers to each other, all of them passing through a frontier town called Hardcrag. Previously, a gang of bandits tried to assassinate the characters in their beds. The characters killed all dozen killers, leaving the inn strewn with bodies. My intent was to have the fight continue into the streets, all through the town, in an epic scene reminiscent of 13 Assassins or Seven Samurai. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go that way. Instead of the players exiting the inn, they holed up inside when challenged. So this session's battle felt a fair amount like last session's, with the characters cutting down bandits left and right.

On the bright side, everyone got to do some cool moves. The Chaos Mage spent his icon roll with the Lich King to come back to consciousness after being knocked out.

There was a bit of a "should we team up or not" vibe going on. But the Bard discovered that every bandit had a "wanted poster" with an illustration, description, and name of each of them. So they were all being targeted for assassination. But why?

Interrogation revealed that the leader of the bandits was holed up the home of a local merchant, an ally of the Minotaur Savage. And that the mysterious person(s) who hired the bandits was in the fortified stockade that acted as the town's center of government. And that the bandits had been teleported into town, arriving in a cave system behind a waterfall. A waterfall in town? Yeah, we'll get to that next session.

Next session: Behind the waterfall...

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Very bittersweet, as we had a fantastic finish to a multi-year D&D 5e campaign set in Theros, which is the M:tG Ancient Greek analog. The DM really leaned heavily into the theme of that, and it worked wonderfully. Including escaping from the underworld in our own mythic journey. Gods, oracles, trickery, Titans, prophecy - everything we need.

Our leader, Ember, an Anvilwrought devotee of Purphoros (God of the Forge), who became a living woman.
Spyros "Scrufflechin", a Satyr hunter, wander, and friend sworn to Nylea (Goddess of the Hunt).
Acastus, chef, mage, faithful to Athreos (God of Passage).
Zeno, detective and defender, blessed by Helios (God of the Sun).
Phedra, drow oracle of Persephone.
and especially Psarasa, Triton disciple of Thassa (God of the Seas), reborn from an old body to a new one.

So raise your glasses to The Everliving, champions of the gods who saved the world from being unmade by the Titans and the machinations of Phenax, the god of deception.

Great stuff! What level did you reach?

 

[Blue]

Great stuff! What level did you reach?

We got to 13th. The DM and one player are a couple and they are expecting a baby in a few weeks, so the 3rd Act of the campaign was somewhat compressed to get us to a conclusion. But it was done in a way that made a lot of in-world sense, and we were all on-board for the real reason, so it didn't feel shorted.

 

[Richards]

In tonight's Ghourmand Vale session, the PCs:

• Were hired to rescue a kidnapped member of the thieves guild our rogue once worked with (5,000 gp reward for the attempt, another 5,000 gp for successful retrieval of the kidnapping victim)
• Headed to the place the ransom was to be delivered, scouted it out (via my sorcerer's grackle familiar), saw five guards in the abandoned watch tower and a roving griffon 100 feet in the air
• Had the archer shoot the griffon (one shot through the eye and it was dead, plummeting to the courtyard below), which was the sorcerer's signal to dimension door the others to the rooftop
• Slew the guards fairly easily, then a fighter who entered the courtyard to see what was going on
• Four PCs entered the building and found a way downstairs, while the elf archer, our shield guardian, and the paladin's celestial pegasus checked out thumping noises from the stables (which turned out to be a trained chimera, who rotated out aerial guard duties with the griffon)
• The chimera was slain fairly quickly, while the other four PCs had a bit tougher time slaying a purple worm which had burrowed up from below (the bugger made two Reflex saves against my sorcerer's three maximized lightning bolt spells, but the third did full damage!).
• Found the kidnapped victim and another thieves guild member in a room filled with brown mold; apparently the other guy (who'd originally been sent to rescue the first guy) tried using a wand of burning hands against the mold and found out too late that was the exact wrong approach, as they were both now dead and the mold had doubled in size
• Killed the brown mold with cold spells
• Looted the stiffs of the guard's we'd slain, and will be exploring the underground passageway from which the purple worm tunneled up in our next gaming session session

So, by getting themselves killed, the thieves guild members cost us a second 5,000 gp! Some people just have no consideration....

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

The Adventure: Session 3 of my 13th Age campaign. Eyes of the Stone Thief (retitled "The Devourer" for my campaign.) I've retooled the adventure so it spans levels 1 through 10.

The Characters: 1st Level. Human Occultist, Human Swashbuckler (third-party variant Rogue), Minotaur Savage (third-party variant Barbarian), Woold Elf Bard, Dark Elf Chaos Mage.

The Situation: A warband of bandits/assassins/marauders have taken over a small town. They all have one goal: kill the player characters. The characters are strangers to each other and have no idea why they're being targeted. For now, they are focused on survival. Rather than fight their way through the streets, the characters have decided to sneak through the "abandoned" caverns beneath the city, which they believe will lead them to the steading where the marauders are holding captives.

This was a short session for a variety of reasons. The characters passed through the blessed pool/waterfall at the center of town. The healing waters gave them all of their recoveries back. Then they entered the cavern system. I pulled out the map of the Great Warrens from King of the Trollhaunt Warrens. I really like that map and have been wanting to use it for a long time. The players realized this wasn't going to be the "shortcut" they were hoping for.

The minotaur's player asked if his minotaur-ness could help him navigate the warrens. Naturally! That's a great 13th Age-style question. Following his lead, the characters went deeper into the warrens.

These caverns were once the lair of a goblin tribe, before they were cleared out and the town founded on the crag above. Bones of the dead still littered the caverns. In one chamber, the characters came across a giant mound of skulls of the goblin's victims. One of the skulls began talking to the Chaos Mage. See, he had rolled an icon relationship with the Lich King and got a 5. He spent that roll last session to bring himself back from the dead. As a result, the Lich King sensed his presence and has begun waking the dead in this cavern to get his revenge on the character. After some threatening chatter from the skull, the spirits of the dead rose from the mound and engulfed the characters. It was a fight against incorporeal spirits. When it was over, the characters moved deeper into the caverns.

Next session: Our group, which plays remotely, will all be coming together for some in-person play. Yeah, it's a dude weekend in Mexico. Can't wait!

 

[Richards]

In yesterday's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign session, in an adventure called "The Bride of Kapoona," the PCs:

• Ran into a group of 24 axebeaks in the morning and slew about half of them before moving around them and leaving the rest alone
• Rode past a fortified orc fortress where they heard a gong sounding three times and noticed the massive gates were opening, revealing a bound drow woman being sacrificed to a giant banded lizard who had been roused from his hole in the ground some 200 feet away
• Rode their "bonehead" (pachycephalosaurus) mounts towards the orc fortress (they were 500 feet away at the start of the encounter), while casting prep spells
• Had the half-orc cleric/paladin (who rides an air element warhorse) dash in to rescue the drow woman (as his mount is so much faster than the others), only to have her scream in terror as she thought he was Death (having never seen a horse - especially not one made of clouds - she thought he rode a scaleless lizard, so basically a zombie of some type; not sharing any language at all between the two of them, communication was somewhat problematic, but he got her settled down eventually)
• Started attacking the lizard once they got into range, while the half-orc untied the woman and shunted her inside his extradimensional lamp, all while the orc rangers on the walls attacked the air element warhorse with javelins
• Noticed the orc barbarians and warriors were abandoning the walls, to head to the ankylosaur pens to ride out in combat to aid their "god," the giant banded lizard Kapoona, as some of them pushed close the right door so the ankylosaurs could get past (the doors open inwards, lining up with the stone building (barracks) upon which the gong sits, so Kapoona can't enter the rest of the fortress after devouring his sacrifice)
• Had the dwarf cleric create a wall of stone as a vertical ramp leading from the ground just outside the fortress to the top of the stone building with the gong, which prevented the ankylosaurs from getting out of the fortress and also kept the left door from being able to close (and reopening the right door still would block the ankylosaurs)
• Took out the orcs on the walls and the gong building with chain lightning and thunder strike spells (the latter being the flame strike equivalent of a cleric who worships the God of the Air)
• Once Kapoona was slain, told the remaining orcs (via tongues spells; the half-orc was raised by humans and doesn't speak Orcish) they were taking the drow sacrifice and the other three male drow the orcs had captured and kept in cages inside the fortress, but they'd let the rest of the orcs live - and they'd best start rethinking their views on living sacrifices, or they might be back to wipe the rest of them out (they won't; they're on a continent-wide journey to the Forbidden Lands, but the orcs don't need to know that)
• Left the remaining orc barbarians in a physical confrontation to decide which of them was the new leader since the old one had been slain by chain lightning spells

By the way, in this campaign, the drow are the progenitor race of the elves, and these jungle drow were chaotic neutral, not chaotic evil. (The orcs were chaotic evil.)

And the PCs all leveled up to 15th at the end of the game session.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

In tonight's "Ghourmand Vale" game session, the PCs:

• Camped out overnight in the abandoned guard station from last session, then explored the underground ruins they'd seen through the hole burrowed by the purple worm they slew
• Found a dead-end set of chambers with a gray ooze in it and left; the ooze opted not to follow
• Met up with undead cleric of Boccob (God of Knowledge, whom my sorcerer worships), who indicated we were to don magical bracelets sitting on the plinths of statues
• Each donned a bracelet and advanced through a set of double doors into a hidden library of Boccob, filled with shelves of books and undead attendants
• Were each fed a magical cup of liquid which gave a temporary +2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Constitution while we were in the library (it was an aid to studying)
• Were approached by the head librarian, an undead cleric who asked if our Pelorian paladin (Harlan) was our leader
• Told Harlan about a prophecy concerning the cessation of all magic and how it could be stopped by finding the secret spell hidden in the staff of Darvax, which he wanted us to go on a quest to find
• Once Harlan agreed, allowed the librarian to cast a geas/quest on Harlan to find and fetch the secret spell
• Followed Harlan into a secret room off the library (which he was led to by his bracelet), and he came back out with a book in his hands, which majorly ticked off the librarian who demanded we put it back and start on our quest (and who ignored Harlan when he explained the bracelet led him to the secret spell that quickly)
• Gathered together so the halfling rogue could place the thieves' coil (a teleportation rope) around all five PCs, because at this point we were ready to leave all this nonsense behind us
• Got attacked by the librarian using a blasphemy spell, but our druid had a prepared action to cast wall of thorns around us, keeping us safe for the round we were all dazed (no save)
• Teleported back up two levels to the stables, where we got on our mounts and headed back to Ghourmand Vale (a full day's ride) - after first fetching the dead bodies of the two men we had been hired to rescue last adventure

Apparently (explained by the DM after the session was over), the librarian was an accidental lich, the book with the secret spell in it (a loose page stuck in the book) was his phylactery (which we took with us and will destroy once we've read it), the whole prophecy was a hoax (that the librarian insisted was real, but which meant there was no way to complete the quest in any case, although that doesn't explain the loose page in the book/phylactery). The only real good thing about the adventure was that my son realized the guy we had been hired to rescue last adventure, but who was already dead when we showed up, could be reincarnated so we could still earn the 5,000 gp bonus reward for bringing him back alive. One resurrection spell later, the dead human Guildmaster was a living half-elf Guildmaster, and we were still ahead 4,000 gp after spending 1,000 gp on the cost of the reincarnation spell.

As my son put it, that "adventure" was all style, no substance. What was the point of a gray ooze that was just going to ignore us? Why build a hidden library of Boccob, a god followed by one of the PCs (mine), and then be surprised we weren't automatically attacking the undead there? How did the "accidental lich" occur, and how did he end up with a book as his phylactery - and why was the thing he was looking for in his phylactery without him ever noticing? The map was cool, and the magic fountain of "study water" was cool, but the rest of it was a real head scratcher. And we kind of ticked off the DM's wife (one of our players), who I think was offended we didn't like his "adventure."

Oh well, the DM and I will chat about it at work tomorrow, as usual, and maybe I'll get a better idea at what he was shooting for with this one.