D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[kenada]

We had a couple of hilarious moments with treasure. The thief was determined to dig up the yard in front of the building where they’d defeated some dark creepers. He knew the soil had been disturbed, so he figured there must be something down there. There was (a chest).

He gets the chest and starts checking it for traps. The barbarian comes over.

Barbarian: Here, let me help you with that. flips the top open of the unlocked chest

The chest had a ring, a bowl, and a rolled up parchment. The thief took the ring and started showing off how cool it was, and he gave the parchment to the priest (must have assumed it was a scroll).

Priest: reads parchment It’s a deed to a manor and the surrounding lands.
Thief: GODDAMMIT! You’re a duke now! You got the best treasure. This ring doesn’t even have any gemstones.
Barbarian: Actually, I think that would make you a count.

 

[Manbearcat]

Rough.

@darkbard and his wife's first Blades' Crew (Cult) ended (about 16 sessions) with one of the two PCs being cast into a Spirit Well to kill the demon that was possessing her (thus killing her as well). The other PC (they were at Wanted Level 4 now) went into Ironhook Prison as a life sentence right after that (Arrest result came up on Entanglements).

So they decided that they would start anew with the fiction that came from a Longterm Project (Downtime) whereby one of their primary Cohorts (Dreamghost) snuck into The Church/Orphanage of the Weeping Lady and absconded with a young child (arcane prodigy) that was going to be sacrificed by the Church to their dark goddess (the Governer of Duskvol from a long, long, long time ago) in effort to bring her back and have her reclaim Duskvol.

Dreamghost was in the Deathlands with the child when all hell broke loose with the Crew and this led to a huge rift between her and her twin sister Brokenmoon. So now, the remnants of the original Crew (The Cult of the Shrouded Queen - a Raven Queen like Death figure) were going to be one of the two primary rivals (along with the Church/Orphanage of the the Weeping Lady) of Dreamghost and Stella (the little girl that Dreamghost saved). The new Crew was going to be Vigilantes (Sean Nittner supplement).

Their first Score was to get another street urchin child (also an arcane prodigy) who was captured by the Church that captured Stella and was about to be sacrificed to the Weeping Lady (the capture happened in the prior game and the sacrifice Clock was going to start the first loop of this Crew's play).

Multiple action resolution results (including complications) during Information Gathering yielded the following:

* The sacrifice was going to take place in a haunted petrified wood off of a canal in Sixtowers (across the street from the old ruined courthouse which would have been a perfect location for an overwatch sniper if the Crew would have spent Coin to buy an asset!). This was haunted by a Magnitude 3 Ghost of the Wood.

* The sacrifice was actually going to be Stella's mother and not the child. Why would that be? Stella hadn't seen her mother since she was very little.

* The Tier 2 Church (this was punching well above the belt of the Tier 0 Crew...but its doable in Blades) had multiple assets there for the hanging; 3 machete-wielding adepts (there to deal with the Ghost of the Wood if it manifested), 3 laborers (with sidearms), and 1 Ritualist.


Well. First move in the Score went horrifically (they were assaulting via the canal). Dreamghost was using her Compel move to call out the Ghost of the Wood and compel it to service. 2 Stress for that. They did a Group move for this so they could deploy each of their 3d6 for Attune. If anyone gets a 1-3 result, the leader of the Group move eats 1 Stress.

Somehow...someway....they both couldn't get better than a 3 on either 3d6. 6d6 and nothing but 3 or less! So, this went from the possibility of:

* Magnitude 3 (higher than the Tier of their opposition) Ghost in their service.

* 2 Stress.

To:

* Desperate Complication.

* 4 Stress.

It literally felt like we all got sucked into the Event Horizon of a Black Hole where all hope for this brand new Crew and their burgeoning story would be lost to a singularity of suck.

And that is pretty much what happened. They both already had some stress from the Info Gathering Loop.

Its a trap; the mother being sacrificed was just to get Stella and Dreamghost to come after her (this was a complication from the last Info Gathering move when Stella was interfacing with some ritual glyphs at the site before the Score). The Ritualist pulled a long-gun with electroplasmic shells to stun Stella to re-capture her.

Dreamghost stressed out of the scene on a Resistance Roll against a machete-wielding adept tackling her to the ground and getting top position.

Stella stressed out of the scene trying to help Dreamghost.

So...the story of Stella and Dreamghost was very short-lived. Dreamghost killed. Stella sacrificed.

Yikes.

The next game we play will either be an Inspector game investigating child abductions and sacrifices in Duskvol (a True Detective vibe - Inspectors is also a Blades supplement) or perhaps The Between (or The Between but not set in Victorian London...rather using that ruleset for Duskvol to investigate these crimes as Inspectors). Or a 4e game. Or a My Life With Master game. Or something else. Unclear at this point.

We're all recovering from the Friday night gut-punch we endured!

 

[ECMO3]

Just as the title says, I want to hear about your latest session of DnD, or any other game really.

Be as detailed or as brief as you like!

Party of 4
4th level Tiefling Artificer
4th level Goblin Monk
4th level half Drow Warlock
1 Rogue/3 Rune Knight human (me)

The key take away from this is I had horrible attack and skill rolls, but I did not get hit at all and my 16AC is not that great. The rest of the party had more "normal" luck both hitting and getting hit more.

We actually started in the middle of combat with two Fey bug creatures (I think they are called meanlocks). They were damaged already, so was most of the party but I was at full. At the start I was using Giant Might already.

We finished the battle in 2 turns. On my turn I tried to grapple and failed rolling with advantage I got a natual 1 and a 4. I have a +7 athletics and still was beat. The rest of the party killed them before we I went again.

We were exploring a deserted town, explored a graveyard, a couple buildings. Found some loot and a magic ring and then we went to the main building.

This building had many rooms in it, we found some notes and journals which helped us understand what happened in the town. We also got in 2 more fights with a total of 4 more of the meanlocks, 3 in the first fight and a bigger one in the second. In the first fight I hit one with a thrown dagger on my first turn, that would be my only hit of the day. I was frightened on my second turn so I decided to skip fighting and light a lantern because these things hate light (we figured that out in the first fight). 2 of them attacked me and missed. We finished them off in a couple turns. I threw off my fear and went with an unarmed strike (I have unarmed fighting style and tavern brawler) and rolled a 3 which was an adjusted 8 with my +5. The other party members killed it.

We went methodically through all the rooms finding more clues as to what happened to the town. We ran into the big one upstairs. Uneventful fight. I rolled a nat 1 on my first attack, and then used giants might as a Bonus. Second turn I went pulled a Rapier and went in for a sneak attack and rolled a 2. The rest of the party killed it.

Our Artificer figured out what had happened and we think we need to leave and go to a mine. At this time we debated long rest or short rest. I had used all my runes (which come back on SR) and all my giants might (which come back on LR). The party eventually decided on a long rest. We barracaded ourselves in and set some traps and "rested". I put "rested"in quotes because most of us (3 out of 4) had nightmares and other things happened and actually awoke with a level of exhaustion. That is where we ended

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Party of four:

• 4th level Human Warlock
• 4th level Half-elf Rogue
• 4th level Warforged Fighter
• 4th level Halfling Sorcerer

Previous session
The previous session, they had arrived at the Temple of Tuurn. They were accompanying a scholar named Valora and were protecting her as she carried a mysterious golden egg in which she believed was something of great value. They met up with her superior; an old scholar named Master Kelran. He opened the golden egg and confirmed them they had the key to Labyrinth in their hands. It is an object that allows instant transportation to Labyrinth; the deepest and most secret part of the former headquarters of the Halls of Scholar that was destroyed in a world-ending cataclysm years ago. Rumors were that the grandmaster of the order had managed, through self-sacrifice, to safeguard it as everything else was turned to dust.

This session
It went very well!

The players spent the evening doing some downtime activities at the temple. The Halfling Sorcerer went walking outside and a voice spoke in his mind, warning him that someone was after him. The Half-Elf Rogue went to hide gold in a stash under a rock. The Warforged Fighter went to look through the travelers amassed around the temple for someone that would be willing to part with incense. The Warlock spent the night working with Valora and Master Kelran trying to solve the enigma of the Key.

The following morning, they were woken up by the clamor of people making their way outside of the temple. Guzrad the Eyeless, the most revered of the Nomad Clerics would give the morning prayer to the travel idol, Peregri. The Nomad Clerics made two lines to keep people out of his path. Guzrad, a hobgoblin, came out of the temple in a long white robe and slowly made his way through the crowd, shaking hands, meeting people, giving words of encouragement. As he passed by the party, he whispered words of things he shouldn't know about to each one.

He told the Sorcerer that this was a gift for his friend as he gave him two blocks of incense wrapped in cloth. He told the Rogue not to worry, that nobody saw her and that her gold was safe. He told the Warlock that the word she would look for would be KA.

He proceeded to the hill. Gave a sermon. Everyone felt the warmth of Peregri's embrace and for the party, it took the form of some dices of Bardic Inspiration.

A few hours after, they reconvened with the two scolars. Master Kelran exclaimed that he was one rune away from solving the enigma of the key but that he went through every scroll he had, he did not know the missing rune. The Warlock proposed KA as the appropriate rune. It worked and the key activated.

The players agreed to scout the Labyrinth in case of danger. Once made safe, the scholars would join them and would share some of the magic secrets of the Vault with the party as a reward.

They activated the key and were transported to Labyrinth. A series of tall rooms made of pale blue bricks with blue torches flickering. Glass windows gave view on the Astral Sea and the players quickly understood that Labyrinth was now a minuscule self-contained plane floating in the Astral Sea. They slowly explored through about a third of the dungeon; they found traces of books being burned, smeared with ink or torn to shreds. They also saw traces of unholy green flames and cracks running along walls and structural components of the Labyrinth. Finally, they found the place to be exceptionally clean and tidy even though no one is supposed to have visited it in over thirty years.

As they made their way back from one wing, they heard a clacking noise, and rushing to meet it, they came face to face with a Flameskull and two flanking Skeletons. The fight being in a corridor, it made the Flameskull very efficient with its Flaming Sphere and two Fire Rays per turn. They took alot of damage, but defeated the threat and agreed to take a short rest.

We'll resume the rest of the exploration in a few weeks.

Thoughts
Overall, it went very well. The last two sessions only had one combat encounter and the game leaned pretty hard towards travel and social encounters with a bit too much exposition. This changed the tone nicely to a good room by room crawl with plenty of mystery. It also ties nicely with hooks to two other storylines I have planned. I'm very much taking the approach of where I'm offering my players half a dozen hooks at a time and let them face these shorter and local quests instead of the usual world-saving epics. Also, the Labyrinth and its vault lends itself to some interesting rewards...

Finally, I'm planting a seed for a later reveal. We might never get there. But this is the first time my players are exploring it; they will not find any trace of the Grandmaster that allegedly sacrificed himself. But he's secretly dormant in a secret room. Loneliness and despair over thirty years turned him to madness. He's only part way through a ritual to attain lichdom (which I decided takes some time). If they come again later, they might catch him outside of his secret room. I'll give hints of decay (falling hairs, gaunt, pale skin) that may increase with each meeting. If we get to higher levels, I will most likely homebrew a lower CR lich.

 

[Weiley31]

Party of Two duo Campaign: Both of my buddies, first time DND players now with like three or four weeks under their belts since starting. One Elven(Dark Elf) Warlock and one Half-Elf Ranger. Both now level 4 after leveling up at the end of the session before.

I'm skipping the prior session before, because for now I wanted to talk about the one highlight of yesterday's session that involved a flashback of my buddy's Warlock character. Short PDF version of the session before that was, two major fights, the Ranger scoring a Crit Hit kill on a Warg boss after it hit the Ranger pc for 20 hp/half his overall total, and a whole situation involving fending off a zerg rush of bandits while covering an Arch-Druid NPC who had to cast a ritual to clear the field.

Context: Anywho, said prior session before the current one yesterday ended with a Flashback sequence which explained how the Ranger and his Panther animal companion met.(he's a revised ranger beast conclave.) So my buddy who played the Warlock, was kinda saddened he didn't get a flashback sequence. So I rectified that by having yesterday's session start off with a full on flashback sequence for the Warlock. The Ranger player "guest starred" in it by playing the role of a Sidekick/Survivor stat block NPC. That way both players wouldn't feel left out or one just sat there watching me and warlock player rp some.

So the scene started off with the Warlock character in the hall of his Arcane Society's library, studying and crap. Then one of the more well known and tenured Arch Brothers of his order, Merrimus, stopped by and had a light chat with the Warlock player and role playing insured. The Sidekick/Survivor npc came in and a small rivalry/competition played out between the Warlock pc and said npc. Of course the Warlock won and my buddy managed to score a high enough roll on his Persuasion roll to be able to convince Merrimus to take the Warlock pc as his apprentice. The DC was set at 25. My bud rolled an 18+4(proficient in Persuasion+the 3 point bonus that was auto added on because Merrimus held the Warlock pc's skills in high regard. He hit EXACTLY 25 after all bonuses and what not were calculated.)

The entire thing was one big wholesome moment between a student and master with a great amount of respect between both characters. So Merrimus agreed to let the Warlock pc to join him in his main studies later in the day to continue the discussion, but that it's probably best that everybody get some food to eat. Merrimus leaves the room. The Warlock pc then proceeds to follow him out the closed door that leads out of the library.

Upon doing so, the Warlock pc found himself in an absolute blackness and "falling" down into a deep abyss.


I play up the resulting moment and visuals up to the hilt: Alien language that sounded distant and keeps on growing louder and LOUDER as the Warlock pc just keeps spiraling downward and downward and how the absolute chaos of madness is drilling through his skull. My buddy is just staring at me flabbergasted as his look continues to go "uh......whhhhaaat" as I go on describing everything. Finally, the Warlock pc stops "falling" and finds himself standing before a Black Pyramid, which layed upon a Sea of Diamonds as a truly unearthly/bizarre Pink/Purple alien sky is above this alien scene. And then, right before the end of it all, the Red Eye of the Black Pyramid opened and stared at the Warlock pc.

It is at this point, he woke up from his dream as the character had fallen asleep/tranced during his turn on watch at the duo's campsite.

I then tell the Warlock player, this has not been the first time this dream/vision has happened to him. As a Halloween "treat" and a result of the dream, the Warlock pc gained the UA Arcanist feat. The Ranger pc, as his Halloween "treat" got the Dual Wielder feat since his fighting style is two weapon fighting. modified it a bit by allow it to give a +1 to Dex while swapping out the last part of the feat with the last part of the Revenant Blade feat.

On the car ride home afterwards, my buddy(Warlock pc) just couldn't stop talking about how much it was such a curveball from the left field and how he loved absolutely every minute of it. And that he can't wait to see how this whole Black Pyramid turns out.

Editor's Note: my buddy is playing as a Great Old One Warlock.

The rest of the session afterwards was standard fare: They reported an investigation result back to the Marshal, they got gold (650 and 670 after splitting and a bonus roll) and some exposition on what will be happening next from there. Both pcs also gained the use of the Adventuring Company concepts/submechanic from the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem 3pp setting and both players just loved that. Four points total were gained due to the events of the prior session before.

Next session is probably downtime and gold spending with rping until the week is up: that's when the group skill challenge event will happen.

 

[ECMO3]

Party of 4
Human Divine Soul Sorcerer 13
Kobold Swashbuckler 13
Elf Swashbuckler 8/Bard 5
Goblin Rogue1/Fey Wanderer Ranger12 (me

Started off near the entrance to a Dragon's lair, a pile of Dragon minions around us, low on spells and about half on hit points. We had just defeated the minions and driven the Dragon off along with his Elf rider (they went into a pool and escaped) at high cost. We decided to forgo a short rest while we searched the rest of the layer looking for the dragon (we did not want the Dragon to heal). I did use my 100 goodberries left over from last night to heal the party completely, but we were still nearly tapped on spells.

We eventually found the Dragon and Rider and the fight started again. He breathed poision, which unfortunately does not work with Absorb elements or Evasion. In 2 turns he took down the Kobold and the rest of us reeling. We hit him pretty hard though too and he fled, as in left the lair. We divied up his hoard which was dissapointing considering his size, the DM gave some excuse about having multiple Lairs and this was only one. We freed some of his captives.

At this point we were concerned about being ambushed on the road by the Dragon and we made the captives agree to fight with us. I did not trust them so I cast detect thoughts on the leader (telepathic feat). based on his thoughts it turns out they were more scared of the dragon than us and would join with the dragon out of fear if he fought us on the road. I telepathically messaged the Kobold and asked if I should kill one of them to make an example and ensure they are more scared of us than the Dragon. He said no, so we let them live. Turns out we did not get ambushed anyway.

Then we leveled to the levels shown above. I took 12th level in Ranger and picked up gift of the Gem Dragon feat, putting Fizban's Treasury to good use less than a week after release and boosting my Wisdom to 18.

We went to talk to some council we are working with and they gave us two options, go to Thay as an emmisary or go try to rescue a deserter from the bad guys. We chose the latter and ended up in a town with a maze and a tower. We have to go through the maze to a tower. We tried flying over the maze but that did not work, it is magical and we needed to go through it.

As we entered the Maze I cast speak with plants to try to get their advice and they did not talk back to me at all. So we started wandering aimlessly through this maze. We found several interesting areas. First a pool with a gem (Garnet?) in it. The sorcerer mage-handed out of the pool and 4 lobster looking things attacked. My comment was "these look easy" and they were not too tough but they did do quite a bit of damage. If they hit they grappled with no save and then you had to save or be poisioned and paralyzed on your turn. I was lucky I was only hit twice. The first time I made my save and misty stepped out of it, the second I used telekinetic reprisal (yes Fizban!) and broke the grapple as a reaction. Other party members fared worse.

After the Lobsters we found a Doa cooking tea on a rock. He trappled us and then started to poision us with gas. I used summon fey to charm him and convince him to let us go. We got another gem of some sort there.

Next we found a path with plants on each side with pearls in them. We waited unitl we were on the oter side and then mage handed one of the diamonds away. The plants came to life and attacked. The Kobold and Sorcerer fled, then the plants went and even though we were already through the path they could reach the Rogue/bard, they grappled him with a tentacle, stunning him in the process. On my turn I cut the tentacle, grappled the bard and dragged him out of the area.

Next we found an area with some cyclops and goats. I used speak with animals to ask the goats how to get to the tower. They had no idea. The cyclopses did not know either. They wanted to engage us in a rock-throwing competition. They threw a boulder, my Goblin has a girdle of Giant Strength so I picked up a boulder and threw it, but it did not match their throw. Then I drank a poition of growth to increase my size and threw it again with the sorcerer helping with mage hand and we beat them. We got another gem of some sort.

The last place we came to before the session ended wqas a place with 4 animated suits of armor. They went down easy, but as they went down they spawned more. After 4 or 5 turns we had like 13 we were fighting and we startd searching for 2 rounds looking for other answers. In the end we got near the exit and just decided to make Custer's stand after a few more turns one of the suits was defeated and another gem appeared. I Nimble escape disengaged grab the gem and ran, others followed.

That is where we ended the session, we are hoping eventually we grab enough gems and that gets us out of the maze.

 

[ECMO3]

Just as the title says, I want to hear about your latest session of DnD, or any other game really.

Be as detailed or as brief as you like!

Party of 6
7th level shifter Genie Warlock
7th level Elf Diviner Wizard
7th level Human Paladin
7th level Goliath Dervish Barbarian
7th level Tiefling Assasin Rogue
5/2 level Half Elf Scout Rogue/Twilight Cleric (me)

We started in a town that had just been destroyed by a Rampaging Dragon. We killed the Dragon last session saving some (a few?) townspeople. The Dragon had been ravaging the countryside and destroyed 6 other towns before getting to this one.

We promptly left to go to another town the Dragon had previously been where our Warlock owns a tavern. This other town is also governed by an evil cult and our purpose was two-fold. Check on the business and townsfolk and eliminate the cult and kill its ruler. We got to this second town and it was about half destroyed. On the good side the keep where the cult lived was leveled, the Dragon apparantly solved our cult problem. Luckily the tavern escaped damage and the townsfolk that survived were huddled in the tavern. After checking them out our wizard cast arcane eye and had it go check out the cultist keep, entering through the dungeon below. He found evidence that the leader escaped but many of the cultists were dead inside along with several townspeople.

With no leads we daprted, getting in a boat and sailing across the lake to a river head in search of a treasure we heard about before all the unpleasantness with the dragon sidetracked us. We got to the mouth of the river and got into a fight with some Harpys, a Water Wierd and a Slaad. The fight was not too dificult.

This is where we ended for the evening.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Party of 6
7th level shifter Genie Warlock
7th level Elf Diviner Wizard
7th level Human Paladin
7th level Goliath Dervish Barbarian
7th level Tiefling Assasin Rogue
5/2 level Half Elf Scout Rogue/Twilight Cleric (me)

We started in a town that had just been destroyed by a Rampaging Dragon. We killed the Dragon last session saving some (a few?) townspeople. The Dragon had been ravaging the countryside and destroyed 6 other towns before getting to this one.

We promptly left to go to another town the Dragon had previously been where our Warlock owns a tavern. This other town is also governed by an evil cult and our purpose was two-fold. Check on the business and townsfolk and eliminate the cult and kill its ruler. We got to this second town and it was about half destroyed. On the good side the keep where the cult lived was leveled, the Dragon apparantly solved our cult problem. Luckily the tavern escaped damage and the townsfolk that survived were huddled in the tavern. After checking them out our wizard cast arcane eye and had it go check out the cultist keep, entering through the dungeon below. He found evidence that the leader escaped but many of the cultists were dead inside along with several townspeople.

With no leads we daprted, getting in a boat and sailing across the lake to a river head in search of a treasure we heard about before all the unpleasantness with the dragon sidetracked us. We got to the mouth of the river and got into a fight with some Harpys, a Water Wierd and a Slaad. The fight was not too dificult.

This is where we ended for the evening.

Hey, I enjoy reading these recaps, but you don’t need to quote me every time. I prefer to catch up on this thread every once in a while.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

31st session of my Neverwinter campaign. Three 6th level characters: half-orc vengeance paladin, human genie warlock, drow evoker wizard. Previously, they'd thwarted a mind flayer and wrecked his hideout. In this session they needed to decide what to do next. There were several plot threads which I dangled in front of them.

Ultimately, they decided to rob a noble's manor. The warlock is part of a thieves' guild, and her player is eager to go a heistin'.

This particular manor once belonged to the adoptive family of the paladin. That family was murdered under mysterious circumstances. The paladin is now discovering that his family's holdings in Neverwinter have been taken over by another noble family. He wants to learn who these nobles are and what they're up to.

I was unsure the direction the session would go, so I hadn't prepared yet for this scenario. I asked to pause for ten minutes, consulted my notes, pulled a map from Dragon Heist, and came back with a plan.

The manor has become the party pad of the noble's Paris Hilton-like daughter, so the characters entered into a debauched house party -- the D&D equivalent of Baz Luhrman's Great Gatsby. They interacted with the noble daughter, reconnoitered the manor, and lifted some valuables from the cloak room.

Short session and I called it there.

Next session: Breaking the law!

 

[el-remmen]

It was another great one. November was looking dicey for us actually scheduling a session, but we found four hours to play a shorter session yesterday (normally we play 5 hour sessions).

The entire session took place outside a troll hole. A place Wendall the Singing Trolls unwelcome relatives were holed up, that also served as the short cut to where the PCs had figured out their friend (the sage that hired them for their first adventure and whose letter drew them back to this area) was hiding out - having gone there to hide from the cultists in town, but then getting trapped there by the trolls.

We left off with the PCs trying to sneak past the opening to find a place to hide and rest until dawn, when they figured the knightly suitor and his men-at-arms would arrive and could be coaxed into fighting the trolls. Unfortunately, Rollo the barbarian botched his stealth check and a troll came out to investigate. The party scattered and hid, using the shadow of trees and ducking behind cliffs. What followed was a cat and mouse game, as the bard/wizard used minor illusion to create a panther so the troll might think an animal had made the noise. The troll quickly figured out it was not real. When it disappeared and another appeared ten feet over, the troll got paranoid that a wizard was about, so he called his brother out of the hole. Thron the druid then wildshaped into a panther and ran out, causing confusion. The trolls were sure it was a trick and ignored the third panther, considering it was an illusion too, but then bickering when one insisted that unlike the others, this one actually smelled like a panther.

This allowed the druid to slink away, hoping to draw them off. But by now the trolls were close to the trees where Rollo was hiding, and smelling him turned as if to attack, though one was sure it had spotted the party ranger/sorcerer who had climbed up to an overlooking bluff.

The wild fight that ensued got off to a rocky start as the players seemed unable to roll higher than a 6 and the druid pounced at a troll in panther form, only to get grappled, rended and bitten - changing back to human form. This also happened to the barbarian, but luckily both were able to break free before getting ground to paste.

Keep in mind these are all for whom a campaign like this is a first, so they didn't even know what a troll looks like, let alone its vulnerabilities! After Rollo did a sick amount of damage to a troll and its wounds started closing they got worried, but when Alston cast a flame bolt, the trolls got really mad, which gave them a clue that fire was the key EXCEPT it also drove the trolls into a rage.

Eventually, they killed one of the trolls, but the other one made it back into the cave entrance and the party did not want to follow it in there, so instead they found a place to hide, try to take a short rest, and wait for either more trolls to emerge or the knight and his men to arrive. Eventually dawn arrived without more trolls, but first the girl who was in love with Wendall the singing troll shows up, ahead of the soldiers, explaining that when she found out her potential suitor was hunting the trolls and the PCs, she came out into the fens - but when she ran into Wendall (who she has never seen before) she freaked out at how big and scary he looked, which made him feel like he was being being made fun of, so he started chasing her, just as the soldiers arrived to see it. The girl took off and felt regretful. Soon after the knight and his men arrived, having driven off Wendall and there was something of a standoff outside the trollhole.

At first no trolls emerged, but Alston cast fog cloud above the gulch to help block out the sun enough to draw the trolls out, which worked - but Uncles Feester and Fooster turned out to a single giant two-headed troll! The other troll also eventually came out.

It was a mess of the fight, but in time the men-at-arms were all killed, the knight surrendered and was knocked out - and the party killed both trolls with some healthy applications of fire bolt, chromatic orb, and melf's acid arrow. It took 15 rounds total.

We left it there.

What the above description misses out on was all the fun climbing up and around the bluffs surrounding the troll hole, including pushing people off to fall (this happened to two men-at-arms and the party ranger - the barbarian also jumped down from 20 feet up onto someone, which was cool - taking damage in the process) and the near drowning of the half-plate garbed knight (which led to his surrender).

Below are a couple of pics of the DIY scenery I set up. . . . I think the next session should mostly be wrap-up and traveling back to Saltmarsh.