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Author Topic: My D&D campaign  (Read 93764 times)
Alex
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« on: July 23, 2017, 04:11:57 PM »

I've been recording the (mis)adventurers of my D&D group on a blog. No idea if it will interest anyone here or not, but I thought I'd stick it up anyway. It was supposed to be a short summary but ended up being a lot longer than was intended.

The Tale Of The Band Of The Icky Hand. The First Instalment.

We had our first online session of D&D tonight. It started with the party wandering into a somewhat run down and poor village, but with an unusually impressive temple and an inn. To my surprise, the party wanted to check out the temple first of all, and the alcohol later. If they had stuck to this plan the adventure would have been a lot shorter, but I'll explain more about that later.

The party consists of Cadmus, a human cleric of Lathander, the god of the Morning played by Kristi, Valeria a human rogue played by Tina and Zolis the Narcoleptic Wizard played by Anders. Zolis has a raven as a pet familiar which as it turns out enjoys meat that has been left hanging for a while.

Spending some time in the inn, they found the locals a very cliquey bunch, with only the barman (Sillas) being talkative. He alluded to something bad happening with the village, but didn't want to go into details, suggesting instead that they talk to the local priest, Father Morgan instead. Zolis was attempting to press him for more information when things suddenly got dramatic (DUH DUH DUH type music).

The door to the inn slammed open and a villager staggered in and told everyone that another person had been attacked outside the village. Led by Sillas a group of villagers headed out into the rain and dark and the party followed. On the edge of the village, a figure in a dark cloak stopped everyone, asked what had happened and asked Sillas to bring the party to see him afterward. Aways outside the village they found a dead body, torn up in some savage attack amid references to hellhounds and summoned demons. A stretcher was hurridly made and the remains returned to the village accompanied by the distant howling of wolves... or perhaps something more sinister.

Returning to the village, the body was taken inside the temple, while the party was escorted to see Father Morgan in his room at the back of the temple. Sillas was dismissed and sent back to the inn while Morgan told the group of an evil that had been plaguing the village and was the reason for its current state of decline by scaring off all the merchants who used to pass through it. The village had for decades suffered under the shadow of this warlock until a child went missing. Father Morgan had gathered up the village (except for Sillas who was out of town collecting supplies) and stormed the warlock's lair before killing him. They hadn't taken any of the treasures the warlock no doubt had stored, fearing it was cursed, but the old man's spirit had sought vengeance regardless, in the form of a pack of hellhounds that had been attacking the village ever since.

The party rested overnight, although I guess Zolis didn't get as much rest as everyone else (again, more about this later). In the morning Sillas had prepared a breakfast for the group before they headed out. The group talked about heading to the temple to investigate the cellars beneath it (which really, really would have cut the adventure short) on hearing the current temple was built on the ruins of at least two older temples (one to Torm, which fell into disrepair and one to Mystral destroyed when that got died) then rebuilt when the village was much wealthier and dedicated to no particular deity but available for anyone to worship at, However in order to make it to the farm and back during daylight hours the party decided to skip the temple and head to the warlock's lair, an old farm some 4 to 6 hours walk away. Father Morgan (who the party did not quite trust) came to see them off and give them his blessing.

The rains that had been falling for the past six weeks finally let up allowing the party to enjoy the day as much as is possible. Val spotted something shining at the roadside and guessed it was something gold. Turns out she was right. It was a ring. The ring was attached to a hand. The hand, however, wasn't attached to anything else and had been lying for several days. Cadmus retrieved the ring, getting slightly icky in the process (first bad smell picked up, several days dead person). Examining the ground nearby the only other thing anyone found was lots of dog leavings. No one decided to search through that, fortunately, or that would have been bad smell number two. Anyway, Cadmus retrieved the wedding ring and found an inscription on the inside. She kept it to hopefully return to the husband and gave the hand a roadside burial.

A little while later, with only a few seconds warning a pair of dogs leapt out of the undergrowth and attacked the party. Zolis figured it was only two dogs and him helping would give the party an unfair advantage. He attempted to make some hot dogs via burning hands and then figured that was cheating so after having a couple of chunks ripped out of his legs decided he would sit this one out and go for a sleep instead. Left to their own devices Val and Cadmus killed the animals and with some magical healing managed to wake up Zolis before he bled to death. Well, when I say Val and Cadmus killed the dogs Val mostly killed them (one with a fairly spectacular shot that went right down the dog's throat and out the out end while Cadmus swung her mace dangerously close to Zolis's head. Possibly to make sure he was really sleeping.

Examing the bodies, the dogs showed no particular signs of being demonic, unless you count demons normally look malnurished. The party started putting two and two together at this point. Val decided to pull her used crossbow bolts out of the corpses and reuse them (bad smell number 2).

Continuing on they could see a farm in the distance, where Anton the Warlock had lived. A drystone wall surrounded the farm, with the gate having been knocked down when the mob stormed it. Zolin sent his raven into fly around the farm and report anything interesting. It came back to tell him that there were two buildings and a human hanging from a tree. The bird was sent back in to get more details on the man. It was gone a suspiciously long time but eventually returned bringing its master back a present of an eyeball, having saved the tastiest morsal for him and dropped it in his hand. Zolis decided to let the bird eat the eyeball itself, but forgot to put it on the ground first so his hand got a bit messy when that burst (bad smell number 3). A familiar may be an intelligent animal but it is still an animal.

Eventually the party decided to enter the farm and check the body themselves. Obviously, it had been hanging there a while. If this was indeed Anton the Warlock, apparently he died disguised as a farmer. Thinking that leaving the body hanging was disrespectful, they cut it down. Made a bit of a mess and splashed a bit when it hit the ground though. Enter bad smell number four.

Next, the party decided to investigate the whitewashed farmhouse. The door had been kicked in and the room inside (a kitchen) bore signs of a struggle and the remains of a book which had been used to try and start a fire. Two doors led from the kitchen. The first one went into a well-furnished bedroom with an ornately carved wooden chest. On one wall was painted the holy symbol of Lathander, the very god that by sheer coincidence Cadmus follows (I'd actually thought Kristi had gone with Torm as her god when I wrote this part of the adventure) Val demonstrated her skill with a lock pick and quickly had it open. Although the chest was quite sizable (about a meter wide and half that deep) all it had in it was a carved wooden mask. While the ladies decided not to touch it with a barge pole Zolis decided to cast detect magic on it. He let out a scream and passed out. The women continued talking about how to handle the mask until they noticed him passed out beside them and decided to pour some cold water on him to wake him up.

On waking up, Zolis decided to stop messing around and before anyone could stop him, grabbed the mask and put it on. And promptly passed out as waves of magical energy overwhelmed his senses. Cadmus and Val watched as the mask sunk into his skin and vanished. They searched the room but found no other treasure unless you count the robe Cadmus decided to help herself to.

Shruggling their shoulders the women grabbed a foot each and dragging Zolis's limp body to the next room, which turned out to be an indoor outhouse. They decided not to search this, thus avoiding bad smell number five, at least for the moment.

Dragging Zolis again it was decided to check out the barn. As they approached they could see although the doors were shut a hole just about the right size for a dog to get through had been chewed out of the door. Val snuck in, unnoticed by even the dog's keen senses and spotted four fully grown dogs of a similar type to the ones they'd fought earlier, although with four pups. None of them looked especially demonic either. She slipped outside to share this information with Cadmus, and then just as silently went back inside to see if she could spot the missing girl. Alas there was no sign unless she was hiding inside the kennel, or the muscular and rather hairy arm one of the dogs was chewing on belonged to her, so Val moving like a shadow went back outside to talk to Cadmus again.

About this time ZoliS struggled back to the waking world and started to ask what was happening. The women berated him a little bit for putting on the mask and then all debated on how to deal with the dogs inside. I had expected the group to do what adventuring parties normally do and burn the thing to the ground (unless it's a sci-fi game, in which case you take off and nuke the site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure after all. Or its a Call of Cthulhu game. In which case you've all gone mad already, and you only get to burn things down if you happen to develop pyromania), but instead, the loud debating let the hungry animals inside know that there was food outside. The dogs could only squeeze out of the hole one at a time, which was lucky for the party and prevented them from from being overwhelmed.

The first dog out leaped at the closest target, which happened to be... Zolis. Going somewhat literally for the jugular Zolis apparently decided since he was able to sit out the last fight, he'd be fine to sit out this one too. Cadmus swung her heavy mace and almost managed to take Zolin's head off. Seriously, if she was using a bladed weapon Zolin would never need to shave again. She did, however, manage to get some healing to the prone Zolis who awoke to find two dogs fighting the rest of the party while standing over his body. He immediently pulled his dagger out and went for the soft unbellys of the dogs. And missed. Then he missed some more. When he did manage to get a hit in, it was fairly spectacular, gutting one of the dogs from throat to belly. He also found out there is one slight drawback to cutting an animal open while standing beneath it. Bad smell number five may have been delayed but you knew it was coming.

After the rest of the ravenous dogs had been disposed of the group limped low on health and healing into the barn. Despite a full search, they could find no sign of the girl. They did decide to take the puppies though.

Deciding on one last search before returning to the village (can you guess which room they decided to search?). Let's just say Cadmus got bad smell number seven all the way up to her elbow and leave it at that. They also went and searched the bedroom again. Looking in the wardrope Cadmus failed to find any treasure hidden beneath the bag of gold she lifted up.

The party washed themselves off as best they could using a bucket of water from the well, but let's face it, you need a lot more than just water to get rid of those smells.

Stumbling and feeling half dead the party took the long walk all the way back to the village. They had decided that Anton had been killed by a lynch mob rather than the fight that Father Morgan had told them about and had a few questions they wanted to ask him. Anton certainly did not appear to be the fearsome evil spellcaster he had been made out to be. The only possible things that might make him a bad guy would be the strange mask or if he had kidnapped the girl.

Still mostly dead and with little or no spells remaining the party marched immiediently to the temple to confront Father Morgan. Interupting his service the party demanded answers but happened to mention they'd brought the puppies back. At this Father Morgan changed from being caught on the back foot, to going into a rage and demanding the spawn of the devil dogs be destroyed right then and there. When the party refused he unleashed a spray of fire at them. Zolis bravely decided to shield the puppies by throwing himself in the way of the fire and taking plenty of damage in the process. Having contributed to the fight, he decided once again to sleep for the rest of it. Casting another spell, Morgan attempted to use it to weaken Val, but he was so enraged he was unable to land a blow on her before the spell dissipated. Meanwhile Kristi swung her heavy mace at the back of his head. A critical miss saw her mace fly out of her hands, smash through the church window and into Sillas's tavern next door, which did at least bring him running (unknown to the party). The next turn she pulled out her light crossbow, pulled the trigger and heard a couple of noises with sounds like TWANG! and SPITANG as the springs on her crossbow burst out of the draw mechanism (yup, second critical miss in a row. Garry, you might not be playing with us, but I feel you are here in spirit).

Father Morgan then played his last trump card. Spewing out more magic words in a frenzy, he attempted to put everyone in the church to sleep. Zolis, of course, had a head start here, but Val collapsed and decided to join him. Out of spells Morgan now turned around, drew his dagger and went to finish off the last person still standing. Cadmus. Out of weapons she quickly grabbed Zolis's light crossbow. It was of a somewhat unfamiliar design though and her first shot went wide, as did her second, all the while stepping back to avoid the wild dagger slashes from the maniacal priest.

Boy, this post is going on longer than I thought. Oooh, does this count as a tension break?

Eventually, a lucky strike from Morgan sunk into Cadmus's torso and she too decided a sleep would be nice on the floor. Just as she passed out, Sillas ran in and seeing the priest about to deliver the coup de grace, clubbed him on the back of the head knocking him just as unconscious as everyone else.

When the party awoke, they were alive (which is handy for them and me as this isn't supposed to be an undead campaign), but tied up. Everyone was back in the inn, and across the other side of the room was Father Morgan, also tied up, but also gagged and struggling violently to escape.

Sillas demanded to know why the party had marched in and attacked the most respected man in the village. When they tried to tell their story, Sillas demanded proof that Father Morgan had done anything wrong. The party suggested they check the cellars beneath the temple at which Morgan's struggles became even more violent. Sillas removed the temple keys from him and took the party (hands still tied up) along with a small escort to the temple. They unlocked the trap door and went down into the darkness. In the second room, they found the missing girl, who told them Morgan had kidnapped her and told her that he was going to blame Anton for her disappearance. Sillas released the young girl and took her back to her family, while the party explored the cellers finding many exciting papers, records of taxes paid, births, deaths and marriages and so on, but despite their best efforts, they could find no magical items in the house.

Returning to the inn the party decided they really, really needed to sleep. Sillas gave them rooms for free and said he'd speak to them in the morning. Until then, Father Morgan would be left tied up and for good measure locked in the fruit cellar until they could decide what to do with him.

In the morning the four had a conference. The party wanted Sillas to take the reins of leadership for the village. He'd shown himself to be a take-charge kind of guy a couple of times now, but he told them he wasn't sure he wanted to stay in a village where people had been so willing to lynch an innocent man. He was no judge to give Morgan a trial and no executioner to carry out a sentence. They have no jail in the village to imprison him and no lord was interested in claiming ownership over such a small and unprofitable village. Eventually, it was agreed to transport him to the nearest city (four days walk away). Sillas even agreed to drive them there in his wagon making the trip much faster.

And with that, the first session came to a close. Oh, and the grateful villagers had done their best to wash the group's clothes while they slept
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 02:53:14 PM by Dark Alex » Logged

But do you understand That none of this will matter Nothing can take your pain away
Alex
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1556
Posts: 12605



« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2017, 04:13:47 PM »

Part Two Of The Tale Of The Band Of The Icky Hand. Part 2.

The second session started off in the morning with the party waking up, still bearing many of the wounds from their previous adventure. Sillas suggested if they wanted to deliver their prisoner alive they should leave before anyone else in the village awoke. Dragging him out of the cellar, they loaded him onto Sillas's cart and then once Sillas had collected some pieces of paper they headed off for the bright lights of the nearest city. Sillas had never been more than half a days journey away from the village and was excited to be travelling a whole two days from the place he was born.

The road eastward out of the village was considerably rougher than the one they entered in, but the party bounced about on the cart, with Val (Tina) doing her best to count the bag of coins they had found in the dead hermits house. When the group stopped for lunch, the ungagged their prisoner to give him some water. On hearing some giggling from the woods, Val & Cadmus (Kristi) went to investigate, while Zolis (Anders) and Sillas stayed with the wagon. Unable to see where the laughing was coming from Val turned round to head back to the cart and was promptly hit in the back of the head by an acorn and more laughter. Looking around she couldn't couldn't find her assilant. On seeing the commotion, Zolis and Sallis decided to come over and investigate, while Val and Cadmus decided to return to the wagon to re-gag Father Morgan. Unluckily for the team Morgan had just enough time to memorize one spell before they got there. This would have consequences later.

Zolis now found himself the target of a hail of acorns. He responded by picking one up and throwing it back, but on rolling a natural 20 scored a direct, critical hit on one of the fairys tormenting the group and instantly made himself a target for their tricks. He went to walk away only to find his shoe laces were tied together. When he sat down with his back against a tree to untie them, the farie dumped a load of rain water right down his back. By now the other two had got back from the wagon and a short debate on wither or not to investigate the forest ended with the party deciding to beat a hasty retreat, leaving the fae as the victors of the Battle Of Muddy Road East.

Of course the fae's revenge was not quite over yet.

As evening faded into dusk, the party decided to make camp. Val volunteered for first watch while a meal was prepared. Zolis was violently sick after discovering the drink in his water skin had been transformed into horse urine. All his rations were now decayed and moldy. Luckily Cadmus's magic was able to save enough of his food to provide a rudimentry meal.

Of course the fae's revenge on Zolis still isn't quite over yet, but more of that in a future session...

Everyone settled down for a sleep, but Morgan was wriggling about in the cart trying to catch Val's attention. She ungaged him only for him to to demand food and water which she provided, feeding him and leaving his hands and feet tied (clever girl). Once he had finished however he declared he needed the toilet. Val untied his feet, he climbed down off the cart and walked to a tree, but with his hands still bound demanded she either untied his hands or she'd have to come over and hold it for him. Deciding that was above and beyond the call of duty she tied a rope around his neck and untied his hands (again clever, but...). This allowed Father Morgan to cast the one spell he was able to memorize earlier, Sleep. Val succumed to its effects and collapsed. However, even if this hadn't happened, Morgan did have a second escape plan where his pet familiar (that the party never knew about), a rat would have chewed through his ropes and allowed him to escape. It would have been pretty difficult for the party to deliver him to the city, but not impossible.

The next day, the weather wasn't quite as warm but was still a nice day as the party woke up to find Val passed out in the middle of the camp ground and all their food and water gone. Having no tracking skills the group decided it had no choice but continue on to Asbravn in the hopes of finding more out about the mysterious mask that had melded to Zolis's face.

They'd been travelling for a couple of hours when up ahead they came across a large group of men menacing a lone traveller. The party immediently jumped off the cart and Val snuck up behind the bandits, only to stand on a twig at the last second and alert the group to their presence. Immediently a wild melee broke out. Zolis had a short sword plunged into his gut and decided to sleep through the rest of the fight. Val decided to join him, but fell headfirst onto Zolis headbutting him between the legs. The traveller meanwhile was fighting three of the bandits at once, and although seriously wounded and near death by the end, managed to dispose of them while his pet dog (or possibly wolf) took out another bandit. The party managed to work its way through the rest until a lone crossbowman ontop of a nearby rise was left as the sole opponent. The two groups combined managed to take him down. The traveller introduced himself as Kano and thanked the party, and answered their questions although his answers were very short and offered no additional information. They got that he was a hunter heading east, before he mounted his steed and rode off along the road to Karlsberg. Meanwhile the party looted the bodies, loading rusty weapons and bloodied armour onto the cart. Checking the bandit's camp they found a warrior tied up. Freeing him he introduced himself as a fighter called Zagan who had been ambused by the bandits and tied up while they decided if they could ransom him or not. He offered to join the party.as thanks for rescuing him and they once again continued once Cadmus had healed up a few wounds.

Finally the city hove into view. The party started to pass many farmers and merchants on the way to town. They stopped a patrol of Red Cloaks (local militia) and told them about the bandits and the escaped prisoner and were asked to make a report to the watch house once they got to the city.

Something Sillas said to the group made them ask him about his intentions once they got to the city. He told them he had brought the deeds for his inn and was planning on selling it and learning how to use a sword before taking up the life of an adventurer.

Eventually the group reached the city gates and were a little surprised to be assessed for taxes (if they think this was bad, wait until they return from a dungeon laden down with gold and gems. Governments take a dim view of people causing havoc with the economy like that and like to tax it very heavily in my world). The arms and armour they were carrying in the cart got them assessed as arms dealers which I think came as quite some shock to the party.

When they finally got inside the party headed off to the nearest inn where Zolis proceeded to get really, really drunk while attempting to translate the partially burned book they found earlier. The rest of the group spend the afternoon making a report to the watch house, who took all the details and then filed everything in the bin. By the time they finished there, most places were closing so they headed back to the inn to find out what Zolis had discoverd. Unfortunately a very drunk Zolis wasn't terribly coherant and the group would have to wait for the next day to get any information from him at the earliest. They did however overhear rumours of problems with Goblins to the north and made a note of this to possibly investigate it in the future.

The next day started with a trip to the market carrying the weapons and armour looted off the bandits. The leatherworker they approached complained about the battle damage and blood stains on the leather, and offered them a low price, expecting them to haggle. When the party accepted the offer he quickly agreed with a smile. They got a better deal from an armourer where they managed to offload the weapons and shields they'd obtained, but still the lack of haggling left them poorer than they might have been otherwise.

Next followed a trip to the local temple to Lathander. The ranking priestess listened to their concerns and (after someone ran back to the inn to retrieve the book and Zolis) read through the burned book. Concerned by what she had learned she offered to let the party study the temple archives to see if they could find out anything about these masks. Or if the party would help clear the area around a monestary to the north of a Goblin problem she would have her acolytes do the research for the party. Since the party had been planning on heading that way anyway they readily agreed and signed on as caravan guards with a merchant heading that way the next day, on the one condition (after looking at Zolis), that the party turned up with clear and sober heads.

Everyone behaved themselves that night and were ready bright and early the next day for the next stage of their adventure.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 02:53:38 PM by Dark Alex » Logged

But do you understand That none of this will matter Nothing can take your pain away
ER
B-Movie Kraken
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The sleep of reasoner breeds monsters. (sic)


« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2017, 08:16:21 AM »

I enjoyed reading that, Alex. You made it seem like a short story rather than a synopsis. Nicely done!
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What does not kill me makes me stranger.
Alex
B-Movie Kraken
*****

Karma: 1556
Posts: 12605



« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2017, 04:30:06 PM »

The Tale Of The Band Of The Icky Hand. Part 3.


Our third session begain where the last one ended (oddly enough). Cadmus, Zolis and Val had earned enough experience to go up a level. Zagan however was lagging a bit behind. Anyway, on with the adventure!

The party met up with their new employer, a merchant by the name of Belash who had a habit of saying "hey" in every sentence and had an endless fund of stories of old adventures and misadventures in the mercantile world. Around lunch time he noticed that the weather looked like it was going to take a turn for the worse with a storm rolling in. Not long after that, an eagle eyed Cadmus (Kristi) spotted a lone figure observing them from a distance. Belash checked him out with his telescope (which is an unknown item to the party and indeed most of the rest of the world). Although the light was starting to fail, he could see it was a Goblin watching them.

Expecting an attack at any time, Belash ordered the caravan to make all best speed to the rest house in the hope of spending a safe and secure night. As the group were travelling through a narrow pass a small force of Goblins ambushed them. Although they were quickly disposed of, two more Goblins were watching the attack from the top of a nearby cliff and assessing the abilities of the group. Deeming them no more of a threat than any other caravan (i.e. no flashy fireball spells etc). the caravan was allowed to proceed into the main trap. DUH DUH DUH (que dramatic music). Zagan (Soren) did attempt to climb up the cliff to attack them, but the wet mud defied his climbing ability. Oh, and Zolis (Anders) managed to fall unconscious. Seriously, that guy should just walk around with a mattress strapped to his back for when he passes out.

Continuing on, the group could see their destination whenever the sky was lit up by lightning. It was less than half a mile to go. Val (Tina), glanced over her shoulder only to see a pack of Goblins mounted on Wargs coming up behind them. The animals started to panic and everyone tried to push at top speed for the safety promised by the walled Monestary. Goblins hidden at the side of the road fired arrows at the group (and accidently killed one of the mules), but the harried group made it to the imagined safety ahead and the doors were slammed behind them.

Exactly as the Goblin leaders had planned.

Once inside, they discovered Goblins had been herding caravans to the monestary for several days now and they were running low on supplies. Belash generously offered to sell some of his cargo of food at just a snip over cost to the other merchants in the compound. If the Goblin plan to was to starve them into submission, they had just given the defenders about a months worth of food.

Inside around 60 people were scattered around, with almost 2/3rds of them being guards or priests and the rest being unarmed civilians. The guards were manning the narrow window slots with bows and crossbows, although ammunition for them was perilously low. The group made themselves familiar with their temporary new home, but after a while an alarm bell was rung, and the shout went out that the Goblins were coming over the wall!

Looking out from one of the two towers, Val and Zolis could see that only a small part of the thousands strong horde that surrounded them was attacking. One of the defenders took an arrow in the eye and Zagan picked up the fallen mans crossbow to continue firing. The defenders laid down all the firepower they could and eventually broke the attack (each attack wave lasted a random number of turns), but the guards were left with only 2 or 3 shots each to fight off the next wave.

A second attack followed soon after, which left only the party with any ranged weapons. The rest of the combatents took up positions around the enterence to the main building and prepared to defend it with their lifes. Val and Zolis stayed up in a tower to sound the alarm and pepper the attacks with their crossbows. Unfortunately no one had carried out any maintenance on their crossbows and doubtless rusting from being out in the bad weather (i.e. they kept rolling critical fumbles) they found their weapons kept breaking. Especially Val's.

When the third wave came it was with a battering ram. Val and Zolis had climbed down a rope to collect a few precious arrows and bolts and had to quickly flee back up it when the attack came. It crashed through the outer gates, and made short work of the inner doors. Standing behind a barricade made of benches and whatever else could be found the defenders bravely stood their ground. Zagan stood in the middle of the doorway, his great sword hewing Goblins in twain all around him. The guards around him were pushed back a bit, but he stood like a rock with the tide swirling around him. Everyone was aided by Cadmus casting spells to help their morale. On the towers, Val and Zolis saw a group of pony sized giant spiders with Goblins riding on the back. Once deadly accurate crossbow fire had killed two of the riders the others decided to creep back behind the cover of the wall (although the party didn't know it they had just killed a couple of tribal leaders which would lead to the Goblins fighting each other later and cut down the number of waves of attackers they would have to face. The Goblins failed to break the line of defenders and ultimately had to retreat again.

Clerics moved through the defenders healing up wounds. Only a few minor injuries had been sustained, but the supply of healing was limited and the night was just beginning.

The next attack was a little different. The Goblin horde started chanting a name, Kazak. A seven foot tall mound of fur and muscle (a Bugbear), stepped up into the courtyard and roared a defiant challange to the defenders. Zagan accepted and a single combat begain.

Raising his greatsword high, he charged in and with a mighty swing almost cut Kazan's shield arm off. Left almost dead it looked like the champiin of the Goblin horde would be dead in seconds. His return strike was feeble and easily dodged. Overconfidence however was almost Zagan's downfall as he swung wildly and missed, not only did he miss but he lost his grip on his weapon and it sailed through the air. In return Kazak's morning star crashed into Zagan's chest leaving him as nearly dead as his opponent. Staggering to the side Zagan managed to pick up his weapon and dodge an attack that would have left him dead had it connected, Kazak's powerful swing had however left him open for a counter strike and this time Zagan did not miss, cutting the head off the Bugbear with the last of his strength. A howl of dispair came up from the Goblin host and a couple of cleric's helped Zagan back inside and healed him up. The defenders were heartened however by their champions victory and would fight the next wave with renewed vigour. Having been fighting for several hours though the party was feeling less energised, some suffering from fatigue.

More attacks followed, each one closer than the others to breaking the defenders and each time their was less and less healing to return people to fighting fitness available. Sheer exhaustian overtook fatigue leaving some barely able to walk. Zagan managed to get his greatsword stuck in the barricade and was forced back, unable to retrieve his weapon. He managed to pick a weapon up off a fallen defender but was much less effective with it. Having ran out of spells Cadmus went to the other tower to use his crossbow on the thronging horde below just as Val and Zolis ran out of ammunition. Realising the situation was dire and they might not last long, Zolis summoned his pet familiar the raven, wrote a message on a scrap of paper before tying it to its leg and sending the bird back to Asbravn to seek aid.

Out of ammunition, spells and healing it was now just a question of would the Goblins break before they overrun the defenders. With their numbers thinning out and unable to hold a stable line, Goblins started to break through the line. Civilians too slow to flee were cut down, but it was only a trickle of Goblins breaking through and they never managed to turn it into a flood. Near death, Zagan limped off to find Cadmus for any precious healing he might have available and to make a last stand in the tower, however at that point the Goblins morale finally broke. They turned and fled. Exhausted and unable to stay awake any longer (the group all failed fortitude checks), they fell into a fitful sleep.

They were awoken by excited shouts and screams. Groggily staggering to their feet and aware they could not survive another attack, they prepared to die, only to find out the Goblins had disappeared with the rising of the sun. Going out to investigate they could see piles of dead Goblins not only inside the walls, but outside too. Whatever force had bound them together had been unable to keep them together after the last attack and they had fell to fighting each other. A trail of bodies marked out where a fighting retreat had taken place.

It had been a long exhausting night, but the party had survived to face another day.

Overall, this was a less satisfying adventure to run that the other two, but the group had asked me to run an adventure on Tuesday night after Sunday's so I had limited time to prepare it. They did feel at times that the Goblin horde was going to overrun them, which is good, but overall the fight had went on a bit longer (75% of the session was them fighting off waves of Goblin attackers), but I didn't have quite as much time as I am used to to properly sort everything out. Next game is a week on Thursday and I just need to know if the party is going to continue to the north with their employer or decide to pursue the broken Goblins into the woods and try to take out the leaders or do something else entirely different.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2019, 05:30:20 AM by Dark Alex » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2017, 04:49:40 PM »

I enjoyed reading that, Alex. You made it seem like a short story rather than a synopsis. Nicely done!

May I also add my congratulations, and may you continue to post the adventures of your adventurers here at his website.
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« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2017, 03:05:27 AM »

Glad people are enjoying it. I'd be tempted to ask if anyone here wanted to join in playing, but I suspect the time difference for most people would mean it wouldn't work. Currently sitting debating on the nature of the big bad, or even if there will be a big bad at all.
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« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2017, 07:07:35 AM »

Love it! I've read part 1 so far (about to read the rest). Loved the two consecutive crit misses lol! Sounds exactly like one of my 2nd ed characters.

re: beginning of part 2: "the Battle Of Muddy Road East"

Bwhahahaha! Great stuff!

If you do consider additional players, please let me (us all) know.

Questions about potential players:

What software do you use to play online? Skype for voice? Rolld20 for the game/sheets?
What version of the game are you playing?
What is the player starting level? Class/race restrictions, etc.
What days do you normally schedule and what time zone/what times do you normally play?

I've been interested in finding an online D&D game to play, if schedules and time frames would work out. I have a few character concepts in mind (depending on which version of the game it is) that could work with this party make-up.

Let me know if this is a possibility. If only partial schedules can synch up, I wouldn't mind drifting in and out of the story (role playing explanation: she's got personal wizard business lol).
« Last Edit: August 08, 2017, 09:50:12 AM by clockworkcanary » Logged

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« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2017, 02:47:29 PM »

We play 3 / 3/.5 edition, as its the one I have the most books for. Its set in the Forgotten Realms. I do a little bit of house rules, just to avoid meta gaming too much. We play using the Roll d20 site and a program called Discord for voice comms. Normally we play Sunday nights from 17:00PM to around 21:30PM(ish) all GMT since the players are either based in the UK or Denmark. I do have room for a couple more players so I'd be happy to let you join in if you want. At the moment, you would start at 2nd level. Anything from the Players Handbook is acceptable, if you want something else though just run it past me first. I am generally pretty flexable on these things and I do have a mechanism that allows people who can't play every session to join in (you have a curse on you that causes you to fade in and out of existance).

Requests to play an epic level dragon are unlikely to get a yes though. Mindflayers are my favourite villains though, and I may look on them more favouribly. :P

At the moment we have a front rank fighter with a two handed weapon obsession, a narcaleptic wizard who wants to become an archmage, a cleric who wants to become a Divine Arcanist and a Rogue who wants to become a Shadowdancer with various good alignments (which I don't understand as all my own characters tend to have a Neutral Morally Flexible alignment).

If you do decide to join in, just register on the Roll d20 site if you haven't already and send me your email address so I can invite you to the game. If our times don't work out with your there are a lot of other D&D group looking for players on the Roll D20 site (mostly playing 5th edition). If you need any of the books, my friends do have a website where apparently you can download pretty much any D&D book, although I prefer having the paper versions myself.

There isn't a game this weekend as my half brother and sister are visiting, but we should be playing next on Sunday 13th.
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« Reply #8 on: August 03, 2017, 03:15:57 PM »

Ah, reminds me of the kinda stories I found in 'Knights of the Dinner Table.'...without the rank absurdity. I miss that absurdity...
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« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2017, 03:45:42 PM »

I messaged ya about playing :)
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« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2017, 07:51:39 AM »

Looks like we have a 5th party member who will be joining on Sunday. Anyone who can guess who his in game character is before than can have some free Karma.
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« Reply #11 on: August 08, 2017, 04:38:52 PM »

Aside

An armoured man wandered around the city, wondering where his friends were now and how he could find them. For three days he'd been asking questions all over the city and found no trace of them. In a city where merchants, farmers and bravos came and went every day no one paid attention to another small group of them.

As he walked down the roughly cobbled street, past a shadowed alleyway someone tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around to see a familiar figure. Of average height, but broad shouldered with a wide brimmed hat keeping his face in shadow and a travel stained cloak that had seen many repairs wrapped around him. In a deep voice the figure said

“I have heard you’ve been asking around for some people I am also looking for. If you find them, tell them Kano wants to make a trade. I will find them sooner or later.”

With that he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared from sight.

Before the man could do anything a raven with a piece of paper tied to its leg landed on his shoulder. He untied the message, it read “We are at the Monastery to Lathander half way between Asbravn and Hluthvar, besieged by an army of Goblins. Please send help immediently! - Zolis”

Well at least he knew now where his friends were. If only he could get to them in time!
« Last Edit: August 01, 2018, 12:08:11 PM by Dark Alex » Logged

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« Reply #12 on: August 08, 2017, 08:01:22 PM »

The party consists of Cadmus, a human cleric of Lathander, the god of the Morning played by Kristi, Valeria a human rogue played by Tina and Zolis the Narcaleptic Wizard played by Anders.

You have a D&D group with TWO females?  That's like two females more than most D&D groups I've been to have!

;)
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Chainsawmidget
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« Reply #13 on: August 08, 2017, 09:56:16 PM »

Quote
Anyone who can guess who his in game character is before than can have some free Karma.
A multi-class Bard/Barbarian Orc with a high charisma who's spent his skill points on  Specialized Weapons Proficiency: cat-tied-to-a-stick. 

Pretty sure it's that. 
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Alex
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« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2017, 02:05:36 PM »

Part Four of the tale of The Band Of The Icky Hand

Tonights adventure begain with the party staring out over a sea of dead Goblin bodies. Evidently the horde had fallen to infighting when the attacks were unsuccessful and not realising how close they were to breaking the defenders.

The party assisted with piling up the dead Goblins to be burned and collected up ammunition from the dead to restock their supplies, when Zolis got a message from his familiar. He was returning and bringing help. About half an hour later they saw a figure riding up to the Monastery with the raven on his shoulder. He looked strangely familiar. Sillas (now being played by Dave, a guy from Badmovies.org), having sold his father’s inn (with his permission) had invested in a suit of armour and some weapons then came looking for his friends. Asking if he could join them as a fellow adventurer he was welcomed back.

The group filled Sillas in on what had happened since they had parted, He then went out to look at the Goblin bodies and see if he could find out what direction the survivors fled in. All around him the defenders were piling up bodies and finishing off wounded Goblins (I was a little surprised that they didn't interrogate any of the Goblins).

While he was doing that, the rest of the group were approached by the First Dawnbringer. He thanked them profusely and gave them a bad full of items he hoped would be useful to the group. Some of them were magical, but he couldn't tell them what they did. The bag contained a pair of very expensive looking daggers with silver hilts, a thick leather belt embossed with dwarvish runes, 3 potions of Cure Light Wounds, Ring, Gem, Clear Marble, 1 Thunderstone and 5 Shriek Rocks. The group asked if they could have a letter from the Dawnbringer confirming that they had helped defeat the Goblins, something he was only too glad to provide. Not only that but the letter could be shown at any temple to Lathander and it requested that the local priesthood provide any assistance they could to the bearer. Before anyone could stop him Zolis dived in the bag grabbed the ring and put it on. Val pulled the bag away from him before he could experiment any further.

The rest of the day was spent piling up more bodies while the slain defenders were given a more proper funeral.

The next day the party sent off, following the direction the Goblins had came from. Although Sillas had training as a tracker a blind man could have followed the trail the Goblins had left. A trail of bodies marked where at least one tribe of Goblins had conducted a fighting retreat. The woods grew more silent and the trees more twisted the deeper the party went into the woods.

Eventually the party came to a sudden halt. The trees ended around the edge of a wide bowl shaped depression. Although no trees grew within the pit there was a vast forest of Goblin tents. The stink coming from it was overpowering, but there was no sign of anything living other than a swarm of insects. Working their way down the muddy edge into the pit the group started to explore. Dead bodies of various races littered the area. Picking their way through the mess, the party found a cave. As the party discussed the best way to enter unnoticed, Zolis wandered off and walked inside. A guard Goblin screached and ran off raising the alarm as the wizard entered. The rest of the group ran in and tried to kill the Goblin but he escaped into the darkness. Various noises echoed through the caves, but the party were unable to tell where they were coming from.

Zolis cast light on a crossbow bolt to provide some illumination and they ventured into the darkness. The floor slopped down steeply. As they moved in they could sort out the noises. From one direction they could hear chanting, while from another yelling. The group moved towards the yelling and in the dark stumbled onto a barricade manned by Goblins. Charging into battle Sillas found himself up against the biggest of the Goblins. A powerful blow that would have felled any normal Goblin merely seemed to get him very angry and he set about Sillas with his battleaxe.

Cadmus made a stand beside Sillas while Val ran off into the dark swiping wildly trying to hit a Goblin in the hope one was out there, but didn't find anything until Zolis moved in closer and the light revealed another couple of the green skinned creatures.

She was surprised though when a Goblin ran up beside her and started fighting the other Goblins. She repaid him by sinking her dagger into his back. He turned around and in broken common said "No, no fight kill others".

With their strange ally the group managed to take down the Goblins. In fact Zolis was finding it so easy, he decided to fire his crossbow at a giant spider on a web some distance behind the barricade. Convinced that spiders hated light, Zolis fired the bolt with the light spell on it straight at the spider. It sunk deep into one of its eyes. In return the spider leapt from its web, sunk its fangs deep into Zolis's chest and pumped him full of venom. Feeling that his work here was done Zolis decided to sleep for the rest of the fight. It helped that since the parties only light source was now buried deep in the head of a spider that it went all dark. Luckily Cadmus had a Light spell available Cadmus cast a healing spell to wake him back up, then splatted the spiders head open with a mighty blow from her mace, which since she'd spent the rest of the fight missing anything she swung it at. The last of the Goblins were finished off, and the last survivor, the one who had been helping them pointed to his chest and said “Gromag… no fight no kill. Help Gromag find Tarash and you can take Goblin treasure.” The party hastily agreed and Sillas helped himself to the battleaxe the Goblin had been using against him as a trophy.

The party examined the "treasure" heap the Goblins had amassed which consisted mostly of food that had went off, rich silks that had mouldered in the damp cave, a 20 foot tall painting that Goblins had… improved. They did find a chest filled with silver coins, one that was too heavy for anyone to lift, although the whole team working together could lift it with some difficulty. Sorting through the assorted boxes, crates and wagons looted off the merchants they had raided the group found a serviceable wagon. Increasingly though Gromag was getting more and more agitated “Help find Tarash now, treasure later.” Following the sound of the chanting the group found another group of Goblins led by some sort of female Goblin spell caster. Gromag ran up and embraced her, then turned round and told the party “Tarash found, go now take treasure.” Finding things somewhat easier than expected the party went back to the treasure room. Had they went a little bit further into Tarash’s room they would have seen an altar to the Goblins dark god with a pile of sacrificed human bodies lying behind it, but returning for the treasure they managed to drag a wagon to the cave mouth. Getting it out the cave proved a bit of a challenge but with some ropes and Sillas’s horse they managed to get it up the slope and out of the cave. The next challenge was getting the wagon up the very muddy edge of the depression. A few hours of pulling crates to pieces and making a wooden track for the wagon to go up solved this issue. By this time it was starting to get dark. The party moved into the woods far enough to get away from the smell of the Goblin encampment.

Unfortunately they had left the leaders (Gromag and Tarash) of the Goblin horde alive. While they had extracted a promise from them not to attack any more merchants that quite frankly was a worthless concession on the part of the green skins. Even as the party was retrieving the Goblin treasure they were regaining control over the survivors, especially since the party had killed the opposition for them. The party also missed a rift to a demonic plane. So I have another possible group of recurring villains that might return in the future. The area will certainly suffer from Goblin attacks again in the future and perhaps they will go looking for other allies to help them.

Anyway, the party set a watch, Sillas taking the first. It passed quietly enough and then Val took over. After a couple of hours her keen ears picked up the sound of someone walking towards them. A figure carrying a lantern walked into the camp. It was a tall man with a well groomed goatee and dressed in a smart dark tunic and trousers with knee high leather boots. Val awoke Sillas and the man invited the party to play cards with him to pass the time. They turned him down and he simply shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way. Val and Sillas were convinced he was some sort of devil and had they played and lost, they’d have lost their souls too.

They will never know the truth (evil chuckle).

Eventually the party made it back to the road and the Monastery. Welcomed as heroes the were given rooms to rest in and were a bit surprised when a feast was laid on for them where they were feted. In the middle of the feast the group announced they were donating 10% of their haul of treasure to the Monastery, and managed to change the remaining silver to gold to make it much easier for them to carry. Zolis drank until he passed out, Cadmus got friendly with a serving maid and disappeared. Sillas after years of working in a tavern decided to stick to water, but Val had a few. Exhausted from the days labours and well fed, the party slept well. The next day, everyone woke up refreshed and happy.

Except for Zolis. That man really can’t handle his alcohol. He had a raging hangover and was throwing up everywhere.

The group headed back down the road towards Asbravn to collect their reward. Every bump and rut in the road felt like an earthquake to Zolis. The only thing that distracted them on the trip was a lone figure striding along the road. As he got closer they could see it was in very fancy looking clothes, but when they got even closer they could see the figure was a skeleton wearing velvet clothes and a tri-corner hat with a large feather on the top. Zolis jumped off the moving wagon, fell over and threw up again. The skeleton kept on walking. Zolis tried getting in front of it, and it just stepped around him and kept going. Cadmus slept through most of this and by the time he was woken up the cart was some distance from the figure. Eventually Zolis got bored of trying to get its attention and returned to the cart.

(Quick note, the skeleton comes from a previous game where the GM lovingly crafted a recurring villain to menace the party. In our first encounter he had Hold Person cast on him and then got this throat cut. In order to hide the crime the party wizard who liked to dabble in a bit of abracadaver animated the body and told him to go for a walk. Now whenever I am running a game of D&D he gets a cameo as he still wanders, damned to eternally walk the earth).

The journey continued with the group discussing modifications they could make to the cart (think in terms of a medieval Mad Max) and all went well until the party reached the town and were assessed for taxes again. This time, carrying a stock of magical items the party found themselves facing a demand for 107 gold. While most of the party was willing to pay (somewhat reluctantly it has to be said), but Zolis flew into a rage at the thought of paying out so much money for items when he didn’t know what they did. The party tried sneaking a couple of people in leaving the cart outside, but the assessor had been so incensed by Zolis earlier that he was keeping an eye out for them and ordered the town guards not to let them in without paying the full price. Eventually Zolis had to give in, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth and the party got inside. Out of all the enemies the group had encountered so far and the number of times Zolis had been near death it is somewhat strange that his sworn enemy is a taxman.

After quite some delay finally the party got inside and headed to the Temple of Lathander. Dawnbringer Valeria welcomed them warmly and having already heard from the Monastery of the parties endevours she gratefully rewarded the party. However on the information about the Mask she could provide little. Nothing in the Temple’s archives had related directly to it, however they did get a reference to another tome, the Book of Skelos (I am a REH fan) which the clergy of Lathander had a copy of, but in a temple in another city (Teziir) about a weeks travel by horse.

Zolis then wanted to learn some new spells so he could identify the magic items they had collected. Unfortunately he was told this would mean dealing with the Red Wizards of Thay who have an enclave in the city and had uncut the other wizards prices, driving them out of business.

And with that, we ended the session for the night.

This session was slightly more disorganised that usual. I'd been out all day and Kristi was super tired and had to go sleep so I was making dinner and entertaining our guests at the same time, but I think everyone had fun anyway. Just about to calculate XP's but I think some of the party will have hit third level. Mind you, I was surprised when the XP's for the battle at the Monastery didn't level up the survivors. Although I had two weeks to write the adventure I wasn't 100% on what the party was going to do so I had to write a couple of possible different scenarios.

Still can't believe they missed the demonic rift.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2019, 08:34:34 AM by Dark Alex » Logged

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