Thank you!
I've realised I've fallen behind on posting these; there are a couple more I'll be posting shortly.
Cheers!
D&D 5E D&D Encounters: Hoard of the Dragon Queen (spoilers, complete! 18 sessions)
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Thank you!
I've realised I've fallen behind on posting these; there are a couple more I'll be posting shortly.
Cheers!
We had our lowest attendance for D&D Encounters this week – a mere 30 players – although I expect numbers will rebound somewhat next week as several players return from birthday parties and the like. We were also missing two Dungeon Masters – as it happened, from the tables who were missing most of the players – so we merged those two tables and Sam ran them through a D&D Expeditions adventure instead, for which I’ve heard a lot of praise of his DMing.My own table was down to five players this week; one player has dropped out because they want to do other things during these evenings, another just couldn’t make it but should be back next week. We’d left the adventure about half-way through Episode 3, with the group having just dealt with Cyanwrath. They returned to the ambush drake’s chamber to have a short rest.
At this point, I needed to determine if they’d be disturbed while resting. A large part of that decision came down to the pacing of the adventure. Did they need a rest? Absolutely, they did. It’s not like they were just having one because they felt like it; they were having one because if they continued in their current state, they’d most likely die. I also considered whether Cyanwrath would be disturbed or if anyone else would notice; given the layout of the dungeon, this seemed unlikely. So, the group were able to rest undisturbed.
If, on the other hand, they were doing it merely to “game” the system, I would have disturbed their short rest with a wandering monster. However, I’m very aware of the flow of the adventure; if a group really needs to rest, then I’ll likely allow it.
Continuing on, they discovered the hatchery where the eggs were stored. They also discovered the Roper that guarded the eggs. (Yes, carefully studying the area tends to eliminate those nasty surprises). I’m very glad to report that the group then negotiated with the Roper, offering it fresh meat to let them past. The adventure suggests offering meat from the supplies the cultists have for the drakes, but the group had walked right past that room. Instead, they offered the bodies of the cultists they’d killed. (Waste not, want not?) The roper was somewhat dubious of the plan, but eventually they talked it into it. And named it Steve.
Kobolds attacked the party at the end of the negotiation, but it fared poorly for the kobolds, despite their use of glue and fire pots, by this stage, the group were very familiar with how to fight kobolds. The group debated on what to do with the eggs, but eventually settled on destroying them. Once this was done, they returned to Cyanwrath’s chamber and took the other route, which led to a chimney in the caves, with a rope ladder attached.
This lead to Mondath’s room, one of the Cult leaders. She was not pleased to see them, and – after calling for aid from the guards – attacked. This is one of those encounters I wish I’d run better; although she’s not a particularly important NPC, she deserved better than just being used as another monster. Dialogue with the players would have made her more than just a faceless cultist, but instead I played it merely as a really challenging combat encounter. It was complicated for the players by them not all being there at the beginning of combat; because they had to climb up the ladder, I only allowed one to enter each round. Despite that, they were able to eventually defeat Mondath and her guards.
The group discovered papers detailing the plans of the cult to move their treasure north – towards some person named Naerytar, or at least that’s what they concluded. They then went through the chambers of the caves they hadn’t yet explored, although there was little there for them to find.
With the group now knowing the destination of the treasure, the group were ready to leave Greenest and meet up with Leosin, the monk they’d rescued, in Elturel, where they could decide on their next moves.
With this session, my group left the safe harbours of the D&D Encounters program and wandered into the murky waters of Casual play. All of which means that I’ve stopped ignoring the pacing guidelines of the D&D Encounters version of Hoard (which would have had us going for a few more weeks in any case), and are now working from the adventure text directly. And probably ignoring parts of that instead. The actual sessions remain at 90-120 minutes in length, as we’re still doing them in our Encounters slots. Other groups were still completing Episode 3 (or still in Episode 2). We had about 36 people taking part in the game overall.This session was rather unusual in that a large part of it dealt with the transition from the first stage of the adventure (Greenest and the Cultist Camp) into the second major stage of the adventure – the road trip north. The group needed to travel to Elturel to meet up with Leosin and his friend, Ontharr Frume, learn the details of what they needed to do, and then get to Baldur’s Gate where they could join the cultist’s caravan and head north, trying to track down the location of the heart of the cult.
All of which meant that a large part of the session saw the players not really making many choices, but instead just sitting there listening to me talking at them. It’s by far my least favourite way of running D&D sessions, and there were time for a few good character moments (Josh’s PC has a wife in Baldur’s Gate, so they had enough time for a visit there), but those moments were few and far between. The role-playing between Onthar, Leosin and the PCs as their mission was described was really flat – a problem I often have with these scenes. The players recognise that they’re about to have something necessary explained to them, and their interaction with the NPCs won’t do all that much, so they just sit back and listen to it than properly interacting with their patrons.
This may, of course, be a flaw in the way I run games, for certainly I’m not the strongest role-player out there. (Story and Rules Knowledge are my strong points). However, it’s also hard for players, especially when they don’t have a great grasp of the game world and their places in it. The fourth episode of Hoard is designed to – as much as anything else – introduce the variety of the Forgotten Realms to the players, so over the next few sessions I hope to improve the role-playing opportunities for the group, particularly in ways that the group finds relevant to the development of their characters.
So, the first half of the session saw the characters get some new equipment and better armour. They were also charged with the duty of catching up with the cultists’ wagons and infiltrating the caravan so they could accompany the cultists north and discover (a) where it was going and (b) what the cult wanted with all that treasure anyway.
The cultists attached their wagons to a greater caravan with two or three other merchants also travelling north, as it’s much safer in the Realms to travel in numbers. The players gained positions as guards with the other merchants in the caravan, except for Paul’s character, who, in his first session, was unknown to the cultists. (Paul has been gaming with me for several years now, but he’d been on holiday for the last couple of months and this was his first session of Hoard). Paul’s character instead joined up as a guard for the cultists directly. The adventure gives a nice amount of detail on the merchants, but doesn’t really detail the leader of the cultists accompanying the caravan that well; we ended up calling him Cultist Bob. A few of the players probably thought the name was a reference to Blackadder (it’s been one I’ve used before), but actually it was more a Doctor Who reference. (Angel Bob, from The Time of Angels in particular).
A couple of days after the caravan set out, it came across a pair of women setting up camp beside the road. Both were stunningly beautiful, and Cultist Bob was quite taken by them; he got Paul to see what they wanted, and the two women soon set themselves about ingratiating themselves with both the cultist and Paul.
No, this wasn’t suspicious at all!
That night, Paul was summoned by Cultist Bob to investigate something happening outside the camp; which proved to be one of the women lying unconscious on the ground. Paul investigated, only to discover that she was merely feigning her unconsciousness. She leapt up and attacked, and soon rendered Paul unconscious. The other players, having been alerted that something was going on, were prevented from helping Paul by a sudden attack from Cultist Bob – and he was proving himself strong and dangerous in combat!
A couple of the players were able to avoid Cultist Bob, and ran to help Paul, who was making death saving throws (mostly successfully), and were surprised to find that Paul was coming towards them – and even more surprised when he attacked them! Soon there were two combats underway, and Cultist Bob and Paul were doing some serious damage to the characters. However, it wasn’t all going their way – eventually the players were able to overcome them, at which point the real Cultist appeared out of his tent, wanting to know what was going on, and the other characters found Paul unconscious hidden near a log.
Yes, the entire business was the work of two doppelgangers!
I’m actually rather pleased with how it played out; the players were kept confused and guessing at what was going on. Was Paul dominated? What was Cultist Bob up to? And it ended with a good explanation as to what had happened – good closure, which I appreciate.
The next session I’ll be giving more definition to the NPCs accompanying the group. Jesse, Tim and Michael have been hired by Lai Angesstun, a gold dwarf who is very interested in money, whilst Josh and Danielle have been hired by Edhelri Lewel, a moon elf who is transporting fine wood. Preparing more for those characters to do in reaction to the events that will occur is going to be important to bringing this part of the Realms to life!
There’s a lot of creativity required from the Dungeon Master when running this stage of the adventure, which is aided by preparation. I’ve been a bit distracted of late, so I haven’t been able to prepare as much as I really should be doing. Thus, for this session, I kept things fairly simple as the adventurers continued to accompany the cultist’s wagon up the Sword Coast towards Waterdeep.
It doesn’t help that running enjoyable wilderness adventures is hard. The typical way of presenting one – as is done in this adventure – is to provide a random encounter table and a few set encounters. However, rolling on random encounter tables for each day of travel (the adventure actually notes that rolling every hour is overkill) tends to not give the most memorable game experiences. These days, I find it better to select encounters with an eye for building excitement and pacing.
What happened this session? I rolled a few random encounters.
The session was elevated by the players, in particular by Lewis, who was back after being absent last week. We determined that his ranger had been hired as a bodyguard of one of the other merchants in the caravan, and he quickly set about destroying the relationship between the two of them. Merchants, when they hire bodyguards, rather want their hirelings to follow their orders (and protect them). It gets a lot more difficult when the bodyguard is a player character doing exactly what he wants to.
The first random encounter was an attack by spiders and ettercaps. In a random forest. Which wasn’t on the map before this encounter, and probably won’t be there ever again. It’s actually a perfectly fine encounter, but as someone who thinks of the Forgotten Realms as an incredibly detailed setting, that kind of hand-waving details feels wrong to me. (It isn’t; it’s totally reasonable; it just feels wrong). We’re not using miniatures at the moment, so I wasn’t faced with the problem of setting up a path through a dark, tangled forest with spiders and ettercaps coming out of the foliage. All I had to do was describe it. I had the attack come from both sides of the path, although some of the players thought it was all coming from the one side. (I’m not sure if that was me describing it badly, or the players not paying attention). In any case, what we got was a tough, entertaining fight. Both Tim and Michael got webbed, Paul’s rogue spent his time running from one side of the caravan to the other, taking advantage of the cover to sneak attack the spiders, and Josh discovering that he was being attacked by all the remaining monsters after Danielle used misty step to get out of there and Tim created a globe of darkness centred on himself and ran off. Thankfully, Josh has a really high AC, so he was able to withstand their attacks.
During the attack, Lewis had his panther accompany his merchant towards safety. Lewis has a completely different view of the intelligence of his panther than my own. In Lewis’s world, the panther is probably more intelligent than most of the other party members. (This, it must be said, is probably not that high a bar to reach). Meanwhile, in my world, Lewis’s panther is an animal that knows a few tricks. At some point, I probably should work out exactly what it can do, which would include reading the rules, but it hadn’t previously been that important. This looks like it is changing.
Anyway, with the ettercaps dead, Lewis and Paul went on a scouting trip to discover their lair and get any loot from it. This they were able to do, but they discovered even more ettercaps and spiders in the lair. So they came back, and the players had a short discussion about clearing it out, eventually deciding not to abandon the caravan. Just as well!
And then Lewis returned to his employer, who was furious with him for abandoning her. Lewis tried to explain that he’d left the panther, but she wasn’t having any of that. Why hadn’t he asked permission before he walked off into the forest? This was the moment when I expected Lewis to apologise to his employer. He didn’t. Instead, he tried to intimidate her. This didn’t work very well; she ended up sacking him. Every so often, it’s nice to have a few NPCs that will stand up to the players!
This led Lewis without an employer in the caravan. Paul came up with the answer: he’d hire him as an extra guard for the cultists. Cultist Bob was fine with this, continuing on with the relaxed relationship between the cultists and the adventurers. The group considered whether or not Lewis would be known to the cultists, but as his ranger had been absent for the session where they infiltrated the camp, it was reasonable to use him as a guard.
A couple of days later in the journey, the group got attacked by Perytons. The Peryton is a strange beast, and one that I’m not really familiar with. Which, of course, led to a fairly forgettable encounter as basically Jesse spotted the Perytons as they were still airborne, then everyone used ranged attacks to take most them down before they reached the group.
It wasn’t completely forgettable though, thanks to Danielle using ray of frost to slow down one of the Perytons so that only one actually made it to attack Jesse (and then missed him). After that, the last one tried to get away, only to discover that long bows have an astonishing range, especially when you’ve got a longbow-wielding ranger wielding one. That’s Lewis, by the way.
After the Perytons were dead, Lewis wanted to track them back to their lair. I’m beginning to detect a theme here. Unfortunately, flying stag-birds don’t leave much in the way of tracks. (And Lewis realised that leaving the caravan for a day or more might be a bad idea). There are lots of times when tracking monsters back to their lair is a really, really good idea, but those times haven’t come yet in this adventure.
The last encounter of the session was a role-playing one, when the group met a gnome that wanted to join the caravan when they reached a wayside inn. This is actually one of the set encounters in the adventure, but it was slightly complicated by my having lent the book to another DM who hasn’t been able to get a full copy of the adventure yet. So, though I knew there was a gnome joining the group, little unimportant things like his name were sadly forgotten.
That said, I have a lot of trouble with names in any case. There are reasons I’m referring to everyone by their actual names rather than their PC names. (Even that is often an achievement. Just ask Sondra how long it was before I managed to get her name right!)
So, I managed to run an encounter where the gnome completely failed to introduce himself to the party. He did buy drinks for everyone, allowing us to have some amusing role-playing. Lewis was pretty active here, but the bulk of my attention was taken with Josh and Danielle.
Danielle is playing a tiefling sorcerer, as far as I remember, but her previous character was a gnome rogue. And, for some reason (probably related to character names), I have continued to think she is a gnome rogue, despite the fact that she casts spells and stuff. Thus, the gnome talking to her as a fellow gnome doesn’t make all that much sense in retrospect.
However, he did manage to ingratiate him with the PCs. (It’s amazing how players like their characters being bought alcohol, even when there’s no “real” drinking going on). So, for next session I’ll find out what his name is and have him properly introduce himself. He’s proving a lot more memorable to role-play than the rest of the NPCs on this trip, let me tell you!
So far, the journey has encompassed about 12 days of the 60 days it’s meant to take. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll need to up the pace before the group lose track of what the real storyline is.
It doesn’t help that running enjoyable wilderness adventures is hard. The typical way of presenting one – as is done in this adventure – is to provide a random encounter table and a few set encounters. However, rolling on random encounter tables for each day of travel (the adventure actually notes that rolling every hour is overkill) tends to not give the most memorable game experiences. These days, I find it better to select encounters with an eye for building excitement and pacing.
What happened this session? I rolled a few random encounters.
The session was elevated by the players, in particular by Lewis, who was back after being absent last week. We determined that his ranger had been hired as a bodyguard of one of the other merchants in the caravan, and he quickly set about destroying the relationship between the two of them. Merchants, when they hire bodyguards, rather want their hirelings to follow their orders (and protect them). It gets a lot more difficult when the bodyguard is a player character doing exactly what he wants to.
The first random encounter was an attack by spiders and ettercaps. In a random forest. Which wasn’t on the map before this encounter, and probably won’t be there ever again. It’s actually a perfectly fine encounter, but as someone who thinks of the Forgotten Realms as an incredibly detailed setting, that kind of hand-waving details feels wrong to me. (It isn’t; it’s totally reasonable; it just feels wrong). We’re not using miniatures at the moment, so I wasn’t faced with the problem of setting up a path through a dark, tangled forest with spiders and ettercaps coming out of the foliage. All I had to do was describe it. I had the attack come from both sides of the path, although some of the players thought it was all coming from the one side. (I’m not sure if that was me describing it badly, or the players not paying attention). In any case, what we got was a tough, entertaining fight. Both Tim and Michael got webbed, Paul’s rogue spent his time running from one side of the caravan to the other, taking advantage of the cover to sneak attack the spiders, and Josh discovering that he was being attacked by all the remaining monsters after Danielle used misty step to get out of there and Tim created a globe of darkness centred on himself and ran off. Thankfully, Josh has a really high AC, so he was able to withstand their attacks.
During the attack, Lewis had his panther accompany his merchant towards safety. Lewis has a completely different view of the intelligence of his panther than my own. In Lewis’s world, the panther is probably more intelligent than most of the other party members. (This, it must be said, is probably not that high a bar to reach). Meanwhile, in my world, Lewis’s panther is an animal that knows a few tricks. At some point, I probably should work out exactly what it can do, which would include reading the rules, but it hadn’t previously been that important. This looks like it is changing.
Anyway, with the ettercaps dead, Lewis and Paul went on a scouting trip to discover their lair and get any loot from it. This they were able to do, but they discovered even more ettercaps and spiders in the lair. So they came back, and the players had a short discussion about clearing it out, eventually deciding not to abandon the caravan. Just as well!
And then Lewis returned to his employer, who was furious with him for abandoning her. Lewis tried to explain that he’d left the panther, but she wasn’t having any of that. Why hadn’t he asked permission before he walked off into the forest? This was the moment when I expected Lewis to apologise to his employer. He didn’t. Instead, he tried to intimidate her. This didn’t work very well; she ended up sacking him. Every so often, it’s nice to have a few NPCs that will stand up to the players!
This led Lewis without an employer in the caravan. Paul came up with the answer: he’d hire him as an extra guard for the cultists. Cultist Bob was fine with this, continuing on with the relaxed relationship between the cultists and the adventurers. The group considered whether or not Lewis would be known to the cultists, but as his ranger had been absent for the session where they infiltrated the camp, it was reasonable to use him as a guard.
A couple of days later in the journey, the group got attacked by Perytons. The Peryton is a strange beast, and one that I’m not really familiar with. Which, of course, led to a fairly forgettable encounter as basically Jesse spotted the Perytons as they were still airborne, then everyone used ranged attacks to take most them down before they reached the group.
It wasn’t completely forgettable though, thanks to Danielle using ray of frost to slow down one of the Perytons so that only one actually made it to attack Jesse (and then missed him). After that, the last one tried to get away, only to discover that long bows have an astonishing range, especially when you’ve got a longbow-wielding ranger wielding one. That’s Lewis, by the way.
After the Perytons were dead, Lewis wanted to track them back to their lair. I’m beginning to detect a theme here. Unfortunately, flying stag-birds don’t leave much in the way of tracks. (And Lewis realised that leaving the caravan for a day or more might be a bad idea). There are lots of times when tracking monsters back to their lair is a really, really good idea, but those times haven’t come yet in this adventure.
The last encounter of the session was a role-playing one, when the group met a gnome that wanted to join the caravan when they reached a wayside inn. This is actually one of the set encounters in the adventure, but it was slightly complicated by my having lent the book to another DM who hasn’t been able to get a full copy of the adventure yet. So, though I knew there was a gnome joining the group, little unimportant things like his name were sadly forgotten.
That said, I have a lot of trouble with names in any case. There are reasons I’m referring to everyone by their actual names rather than their PC names. (Even that is often an achievement. Just ask Sondra how long it was before I managed to get her name right!)
So, I managed to run an encounter where the gnome completely failed to introduce himself to the party. He did buy drinks for everyone, allowing us to have some amusing role-playing. Lewis was pretty active here, but the bulk of my attention was taken with Josh and Danielle.
Danielle is playing a tiefling sorcerer, as far as I remember, but her previous character was a gnome rogue. And, for some reason (probably related to character names), I have continued to think she is a gnome rogue, despite the fact that she casts spells and stuff. Thus, the gnome talking to her as a fellow gnome doesn’t make all that much sense in retrospect.
However, he did manage to ingratiate him with the PCs. (It’s amazing how players like their characters being bought alcohol, even when there’s no “real” drinking going on). So, for next session I’ll find out what his name is and have him properly introduce himself. He’s proving a lot more memorable to role-play than the rest of the NPCs on this trip, let me tell you!
So far, the journey has encompassed about 12 days of the 60 days it’s meant to take. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll need to up the pace before the group lose track of what the real storyline is.
This session saw the characters proceeding northwards with the caravan, spending a day in Daggerford, and ingratiating themselves with the cultists. I had a full table this week, with seven players and myself as DM. All in all, we had slightly above 30 players participating this week at Good Games Ballarat.
My session focused a little more on role-playing and story this time around. I used the opportunity of the group arriving in Daggerford to tell tales of the Scourge of the Sword Coast heroes, which pleased Danielle and Josh no end, as they’d played through that campaign earlier in the year. I used Sir Isteval, the patron of that previous adventure, to interact with a few characters who were members of the Lords Alliance (which is about half the table), allowing them to feel that they weren’t alone in this adventure, as well as giving them some much needed support. In particular, Sir Isteval was able to reequip the player characters. As a result, most of the fighters now have plate mail armour and so will be significantly more durable in a fight.
Meanwhile, I properly introduced the gnome who joined them last session as Janma Gleamsilver, a female gnome who proved to be both nosy and charming. She proved particularly interested in what was going on with the cultists’ wagons, and especially in a new traveller who had joined the group, a human male who showed signs of a tattooed scalp he kept hidden beneath a woollen cap. (Which, because it was amusing, I described as a deerstalker). Her primary interactions were with Danielle and Josh, but she was curious about all the group.
Paul and Lewis, who were travelling with the cultists, noted the interest of Janma in the new traveller, but proved no more able to have a civil conversation with him than Janma, although he spent a lot of time in conversation with Cultist Bob.
Was Janma one of the Harpers? She was inquisitive enough for them, although she got on pretty well with Paul (who is a member of the Zhentarim).
Speaking of Harpers, once the group was on the road again, they came across a human man, buried up to his neck in the middle of the road. The wagon masters were all in favour of leaving him there, as they didn’t want to be set upon by bandits (who had presumably buried him), but the group persuaded them that they could learn more about the bandits by interrogating the stranger. So the caravan stopped for a few hours as they dug out the stranger. He proved to be a member of the Harpers. He explained that he’d been buried by his jilted bride’s in-laws, who had proven to be bandits (which is why he didn’t marry the girl). The group invited him to travel with them to Waterdeep, which he gratefully accepted.
Action was provided for the session by the group coming across a merchant’s wagon being attacked by particularly savage gnolls. I played this encounter beginning at fairly long range, which permitted the archers in the party to fully appreciate their skills (even if the gnolls did not think likewise). Lewis, in particular was pretty happy to just cut down the gnolls as they raced towards the group.
I’m quite happy to let the archers dominate the occasional battle. They can have a hard time of it during dungeon crawls when everything is at close quarters!
During this stage of the trip, one of the cultist wagon-drivers began paying a lot of attention to Danielle’s character; it seemed he recognised her from Greenest! A couple of nights later, the cultists attempted to get rid of Danielle in a night-attack, but they were stopped and killed by the group. Their bodies were hidden, and the session ended with Cultist Bob ordering Paul and Lewis to find those responsible. Paul and Lewis were extremely enthusiastic about the order, but proved extremely poor at actually finding the murderers!
The caravan continues north…
My session focused a little more on role-playing and story this time around. I used the opportunity of the group arriving in Daggerford to tell tales of the Scourge of the Sword Coast heroes, which pleased Danielle and Josh no end, as they’d played through that campaign earlier in the year. I used Sir Isteval, the patron of that previous adventure, to interact with a few characters who were members of the Lords Alliance (which is about half the table), allowing them to feel that they weren’t alone in this adventure, as well as giving them some much needed support. In particular, Sir Isteval was able to reequip the player characters. As a result, most of the fighters now have plate mail armour and so will be significantly more durable in a fight.
Meanwhile, I properly introduced the gnome who joined them last session as Janma Gleamsilver, a female gnome who proved to be both nosy and charming. She proved particularly interested in what was going on with the cultists’ wagons, and especially in a new traveller who had joined the group, a human male who showed signs of a tattooed scalp he kept hidden beneath a woollen cap. (Which, because it was amusing, I described as a deerstalker). Her primary interactions were with Danielle and Josh, but she was curious about all the group.
Paul and Lewis, who were travelling with the cultists, noted the interest of Janma in the new traveller, but proved no more able to have a civil conversation with him than Janma, although he spent a lot of time in conversation with Cultist Bob.
Was Janma one of the Harpers? She was inquisitive enough for them, although she got on pretty well with Paul (who is a member of the Zhentarim).
Speaking of Harpers, once the group was on the road again, they came across a human man, buried up to his neck in the middle of the road. The wagon masters were all in favour of leaving him there, as they didn’t want to be set upon by bandits (who had presumably buried him), but the group persuaded them that they could learn more about the bandits by interrogating the stranger. So the caravan stopped for a few hours as they dug out the stranger. He proved to be a member of the Harpers. He explained that he’d been buried by his jilted bride’s in-laws, who had proven to be bandits (which is why he didn’t marry the girl). The group invited him to travel with them to Waterdeep, which he gratefully accepted.
Action was provided for the session by the group coming across a merchant’s wagon being attacked by particularly savage gnolls. I played this encounter beginning at fairly long range, which permitted the archers in the party to fully appreciate their skills (even if the gnolls did not think likewise). Lewis, in particular was pretty happy to just cut down the gnolls as they raced towards the group.
I’m quite happy to let the archers dominate the occasional battle. They can have a hard time of it during dungeon crawls when everything is at close quarters!
During this stage of the trip, one of the cultist wagon-drivers began paying a lot of attention to Danielle’s character; it seemed he recognised her from Greenest! A couple of nights later, the cultists attempted to get rid of Danielle in a night-attack, but they were stopped and killed by the group. Their bodies were hidden, and the session ended with Cultist Bob ordering Paul and Lewis to find those responsible. Paul and Lewis were extremely enthusiastic about the order, but proved extremely poor at actually finding the murderers!
The caravan continues north…
This week saw the lowest turn-out since this season began, primarily due to a rather major convention (PAX) being run down in Melbourne, as well as illnesses afflicting several players. We had only 25 players – I expect numbers to rebound next week significantly.
My own table continued to accompany the caravan north towards Waterdeep. I’ve cut out a lot of the intervening space – well, skipped over it – so they were reaching the end of their journey. As we progress through the adventure, I’m getting more comfortable with role-playing the characters. Janma Gleamsilver, the gnome who joined them a couple of sessions ago, is forming a good relationship with both Vanilla (Danielle) and Mordechai (Josh). She began the session by joining them for breakfast, and saving them from a dangerous trap that had been added to Vanilla’s food – a bone ring that would uncurl and perforate her insides if eaten. Janma asked to meet the characters that evening, leaving them with their breakfast.
Mordechai gave his bowl of porridge to one of the cultists, who was later seen pouring it into the fire, making the players even more paranoid.
That night, Janma revealed that they were on the same side; she’d also been sent to deal with the cultists. What she really needed was to discover what they were carrying and where they were going. Adran (Lewis) used his magic to send a squirrel in to check the cultists’ wagons, who returned with the news that there were a lot of barrels holding wool – probably to protect the valuables. They informed Janma of this, and she was grateful for the knowledge, although she also really wanted to know where the cultists were going.
Phosphorous (Paul) and Adran, both employed by the cultists, spent a large part of the next day’s travel trying to talk to the woollen-hatted human who was travelling with Cultist Bob, but they had no luck there. Phosphorous was able to get more information from Cultist Bob; he’d get instructions from their leader once in Waterdeep. Phosphorous tried to persuade Cultist Bob to take Adran and him along, but Cultist Bob did not seem amenable to that idea.
The weather turned foul that day, and the group were extremely happy to reach an inn at the end of the day’s travel. They were less happy to discover that the inn was booked out by a quartet of nobles. The group provoked a fight, and discovered that the nobles had superior weapon skills, but eventually were able to subdue them; two were killed, the others captured. The innkeeper was aghast by what had happened, but wisely was silent.
Further investigation revealed odd items on the nobles – disguise kits, extra signet rings and a poisoner’s kit. Interrogation revealed that the “nobles” were, in fact, assassins. The group wasted little time in persuading Cultist Bob that the assassins had been responsible for the death of the cultists last session (they’d tried to kill Vanilla, only to be killed themselves and their bodies hidden). Cultist Bob then killed the two remaining assassins. The party was relieved; they had been quite disconcerted by the threats the assassins had made against them, especially those that pointed out that the Assassin’s Guild in Waterdeep would come after them… and they had the magic to find them!
A couple of days later, Vanilla found herself accused of murder! It seemed that another of the cultists had been killed, although who did it was unknown. Danielle came up with the defence that she was “a murderer, not the murderer”, which amused us all greatly. The wagon master was less than amused at the incident, but as there was no proof that Vanilla had did it, the cultists were not allowed to kill her. Tensions were running high as the caravan finally reached Waterdeep.
With the arrival in Waterdeep, the merchants had reached their destinations. The players were thanked and paid, and were now ready to plan their next moves. We’ll likely spend a bit of time role-playing in Waterdeep next session, but after that they’ll attempt to follow the cultists further north. What awaits them there?
My own table continued to accompany the caravan north towards Waterdeep. I’ve cut out a lot of the intervening space – well, skipped over it – so they were reaching the end of their journey. As we progress through the adventure, I’m getting more comfortable with role-playing the characters. Janma Gleamsilver, the gnome who joined them a couple of sessions ago, is forming a good relationship with both Vanilla (Danielle) and Mordechai (Josh). She began the session by joining them for breakfast, and saving them from a dangerous trap that had been added to Vanilla’s food – a bone ring that would uncurl and perforate her insides if eaten. Janma asked to meet the characters that evening, leaving them with their breakfast.
Mordechai gave his bowl of porridge to one of the cultists, who was later seen pouring it into the fire, making the players even more paranoid.
That night, Janma revealed that they were on the same side; she’d also been sent to deal with the cultists. What she really needed was to discover what they were carrying and where they were going. Adran (Lewis) used his magic to send a squirrel in to check the cultists’ wagons, who returned with the news that there were a lot of barrels holding wool – probably to protect the valuables. They informed Janma of this, and she was grateful for the knowledge, although she also really wanted to know where the cultists were going.
Phosphorous (Paul) and Adran, both employed by the cultists, spent a large part of the next day’s travel trying to talk to the woollen-hatted human who was travelling with Cultist Bob, but they had no luck there. Phosphorous was able to get more information from Cultist Bob; he’d get instructions from their leader once in Waterdeep. Phosphorous tried to persuade Cultist Bob to take Adran and him along, but Cultist Bob did not seem amenable to that idea.
The weather turned foul that day, and the group were extremely happy to reach an inn at the end of the day’s travel. They were less happy to discover that the inn was booked out by a quartet of nobles. The group provoked a fight, and discovered that the nobles had superior weapon skills, but eventually were able to subdue them; two were killed, the others captured. The innkeeper was aghast by what had happened, but wisely was silent.
Further investigation revealed odd items on the nobles – disguise kits, extra signet rings and a poisoner’s kit. Interrogation revealed that the “nobles” were, in fact, assassins. The group wasted little time in persuading Cultist Bob that the assassins had been responsible for the death of the cultists last session (they’d tried to kill Vanilla, only to be killed themselves and their bodies hidden). Cultist Bob then killed the two remaining assassins. The party was relieved; they had been quite disconcerted by the threats the assassins had made against them, especially those that pointed out that the Assassin’s Guild in Waterdeep would come after them… and they had the magic to find them!
A couple of days later, Vanilla found herself accused of murder! It seemed that another of the cultists had been killed, although who did it was unknown. Danielle came up with the defence that she was “a murderer, not the murderer”, which amused us all greatly. The wagon master was less than amused at the incident, but as there was no proof that Vanilla had did it, the cultists were not allowed to kill her. Tensions were running high as the caravan finally reached Waterdeep.
With the arrival in Waterdeep, the merchants had reached their destinations. The players were thanked and paid, and were now ready to plan their next moves. We’ll likely spend a bit of time role-playing in Waterdeep next session, but after that they’ll attempt to follow the cultists further north. What awaits them there?
We had a couple of DMs missing for this session, but thankfully we were able to cover every table, even though it meant that Paul was DMing Lee’s group rather than playing on my table. Josh also did superb work DMing his regular 7.30pm table as well as filling in for our other Josh at 5.30pm. My own table was full, except for Paul, but we were still down a few players overall – about 30ish were present for this week.
This session saw the group following the cultists out of Waterdeep and to a work camp near Neverwinter, a journey of about a ten-day. There wasn’t as much role-playing and shopping in Waterdeep as I expected, with the group moving on pretty quickly to joining the caravan the cultists were travelling with as guards. The caravan was pretty small, in fact – about twelve guards in all, which meant that the player characters with Janma made up more than half the guards! The cultists were not particularly happy to see the party again, although Mordechai (Josh) was trying to disguise himself.
The journey was an excellent time to throw some more monsters at the group – both for the XP as well as demonstrating exactly how dangerous this part of the world could be.
Ogres came first and, a couple of days later, trolls. The players did really well at defeating the threats, although they killed a few of the other guards protecting the caravan. The fight against the trolls was made much easier by two of the characters able to fling fire bolts at the trolls and thus negating their ability to regenerate. They gained a good deal of respect from the other members of the caravan thereby.
Eventually, the group came to the end of their journey – a work camp near Neverwinter. The camp was run by a half-orc with the improbable name of Bog Luck, who quickly took charge of the unloading of the wagons. The players were very interested in where the cultists’ treasure would be taken, and were somewhat bemused to see their crates locked in a secure area by the half-orc. That night, Lewis and Tim went skulking, trying to work out a way into the secured area. As they did so, they became aware of the sound of movement within. However, the door – which could only be opened from the outside – was still locked. What was going on?
They decided to find Bog Luck to get him to admit them to the strongroom. He refused, blustering that there could be no-one there, especially as all the noises had stopped by the time he arrived. The group appealed to the leader of their caravan, an old soldier who was well respected in the camp, and he agreed with them and forced Bog Luck to open the strongroom.
There was no-one inside, but the pair couldn’t find the cultists’ boxes. What they did find was a secret trapdoor leading to a tunnel!
Before they got a chance to follow it, one of the cultists, who had been holding a grudge since the murder of his friend a few days back, attacked the pair. The cultist was no match for them, and soon enough all of the party were ready to continue onwards, following the secret tunnel to wherever it might lead.
There was a good amount of role-playing and investigation in the later sections of tonight’s session. This brings us to the end of Episode 5 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. We’ll be returning to some site-based adventures in the next few sessions.
This session saw the group following the cultists out of Waterdeep and to a work camp near Neverwinter, a journey of about a ten-day. There wasn’t as much role-playing and shopping in Waterdeep as I expected, with the group moving on pretty quickly to joining the caravan the cultists were travelling with as guards. The caravan was pretty small, in fact – about twelve guards in all, which meant that the player characters with Janma made up more than half the guards! The cultists were not particularly happy to see the party again, although Mordechai (Josh) was trying to disguise himself.
The journey was an excellent time to throw some more monsters at the group – both for the XP as well as demonstrating exactly how dangerous this part of the world could be.
Ogres came first and, a couple of days later, trolls. The players did really well at defeating the threats, although they killed a few of the other guards protecting the caravan. The fight against the trolls was made much easier by two of the characters able to fling fire bolts at the trolls and thus negating their ability to regenerate. They gained a good deal of respect from the other members of the caravan thereby.
Eventually, the group came to the end of their journey – a work camp near Neverwinter. The camp was run by a half-orc with the improbable name of Bog Luck, who quickly took charge of the unloading of the wagons. The players were very interested in where the cultists’ treasure would be taken, and were somewhat bemused to see their crates locked in a secure area by the half-orc. That night, Lewis and Tim went skulking, trying to work out a way into the secured area. As they did so, they became aware of the sound of movement within. However, the door – which could only be opened from the outside – was still locked. What was going on?
They decided to find Bog Luck to get him to admit them to the strongroom. He refused, blustering that there could be no-one there, especially as all the noises had stopped by the time he arrived. The group appealed to the leader of their caravan, an old soldier who was well respected in the camp, and he agreed with them and forced Bog Luck to open the strongroom.
There was no-one inside, but the pair couldn’t find the cultists’ boxes. What they did find was a secret trapdoor leading to a tunnel!
Before they got a chance to follow it, one of the cultists, who had been holding a grudge since the murder of his friend a few days back, attacked the pair. The cultist was no match for them, and soon enough all of the party were ready to continue onwards, following the secret tunnel to wherever it might lead.
There was a good amount of role-playing and investigation in the later sections of tonight’s session. This brings us to the end of Episode 5 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. We’ll be returning to some site-based adventures in the next few sessions.
This session, my players followed the tunnel they’d discovered during the last session through to the Mere of Dead Men, a large salt-water marsh that sits between Waterdeep and Neverwinter, created when a wizard caused the land to become flooded to win a battle many centuries ago. I let the players know of its origins as they made their way through its stinking surrounds. After a day’s travel, they came upon an empty camp from which the lizardfolk had taken the treasure over the water to their lair. With night closing in, they set up watch and camped on the raised stone slab which was one of the only dry bits of land about.
Phosphorous (Paul) was on watch when the lizardfolk returned, paddling their canoes into the shore. He alerted the rest of the characters and they ambushed the unsuspecting lizardfolk. There was some talk of capturing them, but it was quickly forgotten by the spell-casters who were happily flinging around damaging spells, and the archers likewise were unable to take non-lethal shots. Despite this, the group were still able to capture one of the lizardfolk, who quickly forgave them killing all his friends (they had been bullying him), because he saw them as the potential liberators of his folk from the cruel bullywugs!
Bullywugs? It seemed that the cultists had a base in a nearby castle where they’d got both bullywugs and lizardfolk working for them. The bullywugs were oppressing the lizardfolk, so the lizardfolk wanted the bullywugs stopped. It’s quite likely the lizardfolk would be disappointed by what occurred.
The next day, the group moved off to the castle, where their friend got them past the initial lizardfolk and bullywug guards, and they settled into some serious “get the cultists” action. For the most part, they sneaked around, finding small groups of cultists and killing them. They avoided the bullywugs for the most part, dashing the hopes of the lizardfolk. (Actually, I think I didn’t really express to them how much the lizardfolk wanted the bullywugs gone instead of the cultists. Oh, well!)
The cultists, on the other hand, were having a very bad day.
The players were very interested to find the leader of the cultists, but she wasn’t in residence, although they discovered notes in her chamber detailing a magical portal beneath the castle and directions on how to use it.
The major battle happened at the end of the session, where they came across a great hall where the cultists were sorting through the treasures they’d accumulated – although there were fewer treasures than the group expected. Perhaps they’d already been taken through the portal? The cultists put up as much as a fight as they could, but the players had surprised them and took full advantage of the situation. The group reassured the kitchen staff that they weren’t here to kill them, and exulted in finally having found a lot of gold. There were a couple of questions about who the treasure actually belonged to, but returning it seemed somewhat infeasible at the present time.
So ended the session. This was the first part of episode six, which I estimate will take three of our 2-hour sessions to complete. There are probably between six and eight sessions left in the adventure, which means we should complete Hoard sometime in the New Year. I’ve been looking through Rise of Tiamat, and it looks like a very enjoyable adventure, albeit one that makes a lot of demands on the Dungeon Master. I’m planning to run that adventure after Hoard, although it does make the timing a little tricky as we move into the next season. It may be possible to have a couple of longer session to enable us to finish it in time. I guess we’ll see!
Phosphorous (Paul) was on watch when the lizardfolk returned, paddling their canoes into the shore. He alerted the rest of the characters and they ambushed the unsuspecting lizardfolk. There was some talk of capturing them, but it was quickly forgotten by the spell-casters who were happily flinging around damaging spells, and the archers likewise were unable to take non-lethal shots. Despite this, the group were still able to capture one of the lizardfolk, who quickly forgave them killing all his friends (they had been bullying him), because he saw them as the potential liberators of his folk from the cruel bullywugs!
Bullywugs? It seemed that the cultists had a base in a nearby castle where they’d got both bullywugs and lizardfolk working for them. The bullywugs were oppressing the lizardfolk, so the lizardfolk wanted the bullywugs stopped. It’s quite likely the lizardfolk would be disappointed by what occurred.
The next day, the group moved off to the castle, where their friend got them past the initial lizardfolk and bullywug guards, and they settled into some serious “get the cultists” action. For the most part, they sneaked around, finding small groups of cultists and killing them. They avoided the bullywugs for the most part, dashing the hopes of the lizardfolk. (Actually, I think I didn’t really express to them how much the lizardfolk wanted the bullywugs gone instead of the cultists. Oh, well!)
The cultists, on the other hand, were having a very bad day.
The players were very interested to find the leader of the cultists, but she wasn’t in residence, although they discovered notes in her chamber detailing a magical portal beneath the castle and directions on how to use it.
The major battle happened at the end of the session, where they came across a great hall where the cultists were sorting through the treasures they’d accumulated – although there were fewer treasures than the group expected. Perhaps they’d already been taken through the portal? The cultists put up as much as a fight as they could, but the players had surprised them and took full advantage of the situation. The group reassured the kitchen staff that they weren’t here to kill them, and exulted in finally having found a lot of gold. There were a couple of questions about who the treasure actually belonged to, but returning it seemed somewhat infeasible at the present time.
So ended the session. This was the first part of episode six, which I estimate will take three of our 2-hour sessions to complete. There are probably between six and eight sessions left in the adventure, which means we should complete Hoard sometime in the New Year. I’ve been looking through Rise of Tiamat, and it looks like a very enjoyable adventure, albeit one that makes a lot of demands on the Dungeon Master. I’m planning to run that adventure after Hoard, although it does make the timing a little tricky as we move into the next season. It may be possible to have a couple of longer session to enable us to finish it in time. I guess we’ll see!
Things have been pretty busy around here as we reach the end of the year, so I’ve fallen a little behind with updating my reports. Here’s a combined session report for sessions 13 & 14 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, which brought my group to the end of Episode 6.
We finished the last session with the group having cleared out most of the cultists from Castle Naerytar, except for the central keep, although they didn’t know this at the time. Their initial explorations in the thirteenth session concentrated around the north-west tower, which had been used as bedchambers for most of the cultists they’d already killed in the main hall. They also discovered the stairs down to the caves below the castle, but they chose not to explore them yet.
From the tower, they were able to see into the inner courtyard, where a number of guard drakes were on watch. The window didn’t give a good vantage point for archery, although that didn’t stop Adran (Lewis) from trying; leaning out the window with someone holding onto him didn’t seem like quite the easiest way to fight them.
At this point, the group saw a couple of cultists leaving the central tower and walking towards the great hall. Most of the players raced downstairs to intercept them; others dallied a bit and Adran finally decided that climbing down the wall was a preferable way of getting there. Neither of the cultists knew what hit them as the party’s rogues ambushed them once they entered the hall. Lewis discovered that getting to the bottom of the tower just made him the only target the guard drakes could attack! Much hilarity ensued, with drakes chasing party members around the courtyards, while some of the more mischievous players barred the doors to the Great Hall, preventing the fleeing members from returning to safety! (Cue Yakety Sax).
Eventually, the group got serious again and slew the drakes. They then focused their attention on the central tower. The cultists within had locked the door, so rather than trying to pick it, they decided that climbing the tower and getting through the open top, which had been converted to an observatory, a much better idea. It was, too, although it was great seeing Adran failing his Athletics rolls to climb it rather spectacularly. We were much amused when he used a climber’s kit to anchor himself 20 feet up, only to realise it would only stop him falling more than 30 feet… he promptly fell back down at that point.
The first to the top put a rope down to allow everyone to climb up, only to be attacked by gargoyles as he did so. During the battle, one more character entered the combat each round, although the first up was rather savaged by the gargoyles by the time the last arrived!
With the gargoyles defeated, the group perceived a slow hand-clap from nearby: Dralmorrer Borngray, the leader of the cultists in the castle, had been much amused by their battle. He taunted the group and finally attacked along with the rest of his cultists. Unfortunately for Borngray, the party was nowhere near as depleted as he’d hoped, and soon the cultists were dead and the party were looting their corpses. And that is where we ended the thirteenth session.
The fourteenth session saw the party actually heed the cries of Snapjaw, the lizardfolk who had led them here in the first place, as the group confronted the bullywugs. The bullywugs and their leader, Pharblex Splattergoo (see awesome picture) had realised the cultists had been defeated, and in the time when the party had rested after defeating Borngray, had taken control of the remainder of the castle. Their moment of glory had come!
Alas for Pharblex, it was a very short moment of glory as the bullywugs were slaughtered by the party, who, by this stage, had some extremely powerful magics at their command.
The remainder of the session was spent exploring the caves beneath the castle. There wasn’t that much here – a few stray bullywugs and giant frogs, for the most part. A gray ooze was avoided (along with its treasure; sorry, guys!) and the group found the magic portal they’d learnt about in Rezmir’s chambers pretty easily.
One thing gave them trouble: retrieving the treasure that Pharblex had in his underground lair, which was protected by a number of traps. The group were dreadful at disarming the traps, and eventually set them off with magic that allowed them to remain outside the room; they then fled from all the spores that erupted from the chest after it was opened. After having a rest, they returned to find the spores settled, but the chest was empty! I pointed out they’d gotten quite a bit of loot from Borngray, and they prepared to step through the portal to what they feared was the lair of a black dragon, having seen it through the telescope in the observatory…
And that could wait for the next session!
We finished the last session with the group having cleared out most of the cultists from Castle Naerytar, except for the central keep, although they didn’t know this at the time. Their initial explorations in the thirteenth session concentrated around the north-west tower, which had been used as bedchambers for most of the cultists they’d already killed in the main hall. They also discovered the stairs down to the caves below the castle, but they chose not to explore them yet.
From the tower, they were able to see into the inner courtyard, where a number of guard drakes were on watch. The window didn’t give a good vantage point for archery, although that didn’t stop Adran (Lewis) from trying; leaning out the window with someone holding onto him didn’t seem like quite the easiest way to fight them.
At this point, the group saw a couple of cultists leaving the central tower and walking towards the great hall. Most of the players raced downstairs to intercept them; others dallied a bit and Adran finally decided that climbing down the wall was a preferable way of getting there. Neither of the cultists knew what hit them as the party’s rogues ambushed them once they entered the hall. Lewis discovered that getting to the bottom of the tower just made him the only target the guard drakes could attack! Much hilarity ensued, with drakes chasing party members around the courtyards, while some of the more mischievous players barred the doors to the Great Hall, preventing the fleeing members from returning to safety! (Cue Yakety Sax).
Eventually, the group got serious again and slew the drakes. They then focused their attention on the central tower. The cultists within had locked the door, so rather than trying to pick it, they decided that climbing the tower and getting through the open top, which had been converted to an observatory, a much better idea. It was, too, although it was great seeing Adran failing his Athletics rolls to climb it rather spectacularly. We were much amused when he used a climber’s kit to anchor himself 20 feet up, only to realise it would only stop him falling more than 30 feet… he promptly fell back down at that point.
The first to the top put a rope down to allow everyone to climb up, only to be attacked by gargoyles as he did so. During the battle, one more character entered the combat each round, although the first up was rather savaged by the gargoyles by the time the last arrived!
With the gargoyles defeated, the group perceived a slow hand-clap from nearby: Dralmorrer Borngray, the leader of the cultists in the castle, had been much amused by their battle. He taunted the group and finally attacked along with the rest of his cultists. Unfortunately for Borngray, the party was nowhere near as depleted as he’d hoped, and soon the cultists were dead and the party were looting their corpses. And that is where we ended the thirteenth session.
The fourteenth session saw the party actually heed the cries of Snapjaw, the lizardfolk who had led them here in the first place, as the group confronted the bullywugs. The bullywugs and their leader, Pharblex Splattergoo (see awesome picture) had realised the cultists had been defeated, and in the time when the party had rested after defeating Borngray, had taken control of the remainder of the castle. Their moment of glory had come!
Alas for Pharblex, it was a very short moment of glory as the bullywugs were slaughtered by the party, who, by this stage, had some extremely powerful magics at their command.
The remainder of the session was spent exploring the caves beneath the castle. There wasn’t that much here – a few stray bullywugs and giant frogs, for the most part. A gray ooze was avoided (along with its treasure; sorry, guys!) and the group found the magic portal they’d learnt about in Rezmir’s chambers pretty easily.
One thing gave them trouble: retrieving the treasure that Pharblex had in his underground lair, which was protected by a number of traps. The group were dreadful at disarming the traps, and eventually set them off with magic that allowed them to remain outside the room; they then fled from all the spores that erupted from the chest after it was opened. After having a rest, they returned to find the spores settled, but the chest was empty! I pointed out they’d gotten quite a bit of loot from Borngray, and they prepared to step through the portal to what they feared was the lair of a black dragon, having seen it through the telescope in the observatory…
And that could wait for the next session!
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Pharblex Splattergoo and Bog Luck: the spirit of Douglas Adams lives on.
Curious as to your material. Are you running this "out of the book" with the various vignettes basically spelled out there (and then there was an inn with assassins disguised as nobles...). Are you only using part of it? Does it give some scope for options or improvisation?
Curious as to your material. Are you running this "out of the book" with the various vignettes basically spelled out there (and then there was an inn with assassins disguised as nobles...). Are you only using part of it? Does it give some scope for options or improvisation?
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