D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[doctorbadwolf]

Hoooooboy.

Eberron. The last one I posted about with the Sahuagin was my buddy’s campaign. Last night was Eberron, which I run.

It’s a somewhat rotating cast,

Spoiler

so;

Vidanya ir’Rogachyova of Karrnath, Vengeance Paladin of The Blood of Vol, sometime mercenary, Knight of The Onyx Skull, disaster lesbian. Good kid with anger issues.

Ocuthim (short for a long draconic name) Flamebright, Kobold Evocation Wizard of the 4th Circle. On a quest to avenge his murdered gold dragon mentor

Gwen (short for long Gaelic name), Firbolg Bard of the College of Glamour, oddly Druidic, from a culture of lorekeepers. Wife of Dougal. Group skeptic.

Dougal, Firbolg Blade Bard, axethrower, former spy, from a culture of Gatekeepers with a Scottish inspiration. Has a cool claymore style greatsword with branchlike crossguard.

Hiro, Bugbear ranger of the Shadow Marches, from a village build into the branches of great swamp trees, champion of the ancient Ferret spirits (swarmkeeper ranger). Failed merchant. Has an heirloom great axe whose head looks like a flying ferret, which is a bane to aberrations and monstrosities, and can be thrown with a returning property, on a limited basis.

And 2 NPC companions.

Khalid Al’Ghurab, Shadar-Kai monk, former gladiator, former mercenary of Drooam, private investigator, best friend and sometime teacher of Vidanya.

Inigo, a Halfling Ranger of Cyran and Talenta parentage, and his fastieth mount. Really good cook, cooks for the group often. Expert marksman with a magically enhanced bow that mechanically is a longbow that doesn’t have the heavy property.

We started off with some Downtime in Sharn, which I had told them would be the case. Lots of research, some carousing, Hiro sold fish snacks outside of drinking establishments. They also divied out the loot from the tower that they cleared out last adventure. About 600g worth of loot each. Not bad for level 6.

They gained clues that the emerald claw was funding a dig site in northern Talenta. Since the claw is an old enemy and has ties to the dragon that murdered Ocuthim’s mentor, the party headed there quick, and brought along Inigo, since he knows the area.

They arrived at the dig site too late. The Emerald Claw terrorists had already killed two people, injured others, and left with the lead archeologist’s journal and an ancient artifact from the House of Vol.

The party pursued, and came upon them in the tall grass. The war wizard Dal Azbara (legendary, CR 6 or so, drain life+disengage with shadow blade attacks, Mage Armor, legendary actions: animate dead, command undead to move or attack, call more basic undead up from the grave dirt, re-animate a fallen undead) had the service of 3 Karrnathi Skeleton Knights, as well as two of her long time companions; the Paladins of Vol, Sir Berald (heavy weapons and armor) and Dame Uldrana (Light Armor mounted archer), and had raised some 100 year old war dead (4 regular skeletons). A deadly fight!

The fight had to be paused on Tuesday, but we picked it back up on Friday. Finishing the fight, nearly everyone was down to a couple spell slots, most were low on HP, and Dal Azbara was running. Berald has died twice, Uldrana had grabbed Azbara on to her horse, and Gwen had commanded the horse to “sit!”

Ocuthim hit them with a Fireball, and the fight was finally done.

Vidanya rode her Steed over to Azbara to make sure she was dead, and realized that Azbara had set a deadly contingency upon her own demise, that would kill most living creatures within a 1 mile sphere.

Uldrana (the enemy archer who is still alive bc she made her Dex save vs fireball) yells at Vidanya to ask her if she knows the Rites, and Vidanya realizes that this is a ritual of transformation into lichdom. Azbara set a contingency to kill everything within 1 mile of her corpse so she could become a lich, and Uldrana is asking if she knows how to stop it.

Vidanya does, and calls her allies to her, leaving Dougal and Inigo outside the circle she is drawing around Azbara, to deal with the undead that keep climbing out of the earth.

part two later, gotta work.

 

[Eis]

Had a great session last night in our Ravnica game. I am pretty sure that's the longest combat I have ever been involved in at 16 rounds and it was a near TPK of our 10th level group. The bad guy wizard was inside a big glorpy creature and we couldn't physically target him. We finally drove him out of it but our party was on the way out the door because we were looking rough. We found out afterwards that we had the big creature down to ONE hitpoint out of 676!

 

[Zardnaar]

Well they killed an adult blue dragon (level 8). Now they want to go investigate a plot hook from a previous adventure.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hoooooboy.

Eberron. The last one I posted about with the Sahuagin was my buddy’s campaign. Last night was Eberron, which I run.

It’s a somewhat rotating cast,

Spoiler

so;

Vidanya ir’Rogachyova of Karrnath, Vengeance Paladin of The Blood of Vol, sometime mercenary, Knight of The Onyx Skull, disaster lesbian. Good kid with anger issues.

Ocuthim (short for a long draconic name) Flamebright, Kobold Evocation Wizard of the 4th Circle. On a quest to avenge his murdered gold dragon mentor

Gwen (short for long Gaelic name), Firbolg Bard of the College of Glamour, oddly Druidic, from a culture of lorekeepers. Wife of Dougal. Group skeptic.

Dougal, Firbolg Blade Bard, axethrower, former spy, from a culture of Gatekeepers with a Scottish inspiration. Has a cool claymore style greatsword with branchlike crossguard.

Hiro, Bugbear ranger of the Shadow Marches, from a village build into the branches of great swamp trees, champion of the ancient Ferret spirits (swarmkeeper ranger). Failed merchant. Has an heirloom great axe whose head looks like a flying ferret, which is a bane to aberrations and monstrosities, and can be thrown with a returning property, on a limited basis.

And 2 NPC companions.

Khalid Al’Ghurab, Shadar-Kai monk, former gladiator, former mercenary of Drooam, private investigator, best friend and sometime teacher of Vidanya.

Inigo, a Halfling Ranger of Cyran and Talenta parentage, and his fastieth mount. Really good cook, cooks for the group often. Expert marksman with a magically enhanced bow that mechanically is a longbow that doesn’t have the heavy property.

We started off with some Downtime in Sharn, which I had told them would be the case. Lots of research, some carousing, Hiro sold fish snacks outside of drinking establishments. They also divied out the loot from the tower that they cleared out last adventure. About 600g worth of loot each. Not bad for level 6.

They gained clues that the emerald claw was funding a dig site in northern Talenta. Since the claw is an old enemy and has ties to the dragon that murdered Ocuthim’s mentor, the party headed there quick, and brought along Inigo, since he knows the area.

They arrived at the dig site too late. The Emerald Claw terrorists had already killed two people, injured others, and left with the lead archeologist’s journal and an ancient artifact from the House of Vol.

The party pursued, and came upon them in the tall grass. The war wizard Dal Azbara (legendary, CR 6 or so, drain life+disengage with shadow blade attacks, Mage Armor, legendary actions: animate dead, command undead to move or attack, call more basic undead up from the grave dirt, re-animate a fallen undead) had the service of 3 Karrnathi Skeleton Knights, as well as two of her long time companions; the Paladins of Vol, Sir Berald (heavy weapons and armor) and Dame Uldrana (Light Armor mounted archer), and had raised some 100 year old war dead (4 regular skeletons). A deadly fight!

The fight had to be paused on Tuesday, but we picked it back up on Friday. Finishing the fight, nearly everyone was down to a couple spell slots, most were low on HP, and Dal Azbara was running. Berald has died twice, Uldrana had grabbed Azbara on to her horse, and Gwen had commanded the horse to “sit!”

Ocuthim hit them with a Fireball, and the fight was finally done.

Vidanya rode her Steed over to Azbara to make sure she was dead, and realized that Azbara had set a deadly contingency upon her own demise, that would kill most living creatures within a 1 mile sphere.

Uldrana (the enemy archer who is still alive bc she made her Dex save vs fireball) yells at Vidanya to ask her if she knows the Rites, and Vidanya realizes that this is a ritual of transformation into lichdom. Azbara set a contingency to kill everything within 1 mile of her corpse so she could become a lich, and Uldrana is asking if she knows how to stop it.

Vidanya does, and calls her allies to her, leaving Dougal and Inigo outside the circle she is drawing around Azbara, to deal with the undead that keep climbing out of the earth.

part two later, gotta work.

Okay, so the undead keep coming up from the ground in groups of 2-6, with a planned large ogre zombie planned for 3 rounds into the ritual. Every turn, I roll a d6, and on a 4+ more undead rise up the next turn.
One mistake I made here was, I should have given Dougal 2 turns per round at this point, because his turns were pretty short, and the ritual turns were longer due to talking out what people wanted to try to do and working out what checks to use. Basically, I was running a skill challenge in initiative, with a PC and an NPC fighting a battle in the same initiative. Other than Dougal's long wait between turns, it went off really well.

So, I told Vidanya that she needed 4 roles filled in the ritual, and she needed an arcanist, and she needed Khalid's help with translating ancient Vaes Shadar (the language the ritual was in). So, there would be 4 roles, each standing at a compass point. She needed a Signer, a Cryer, a Cup-Bearer, and a Seeker. Between all of us, (as I always let the players decide what parts of a skill challenge even are, what they mean, etc. "What is the challenge or complication you face unexpectedly while trying to drop off the decoy chest at the vault?", etc. ) we worked out the four roles and what Ocuthim needed to do as the arcanist.

Signer. Vidanya. Leads the ritual, assigns the other roles, draws the circle and sigils and the compass circles. (smaller circles that intersect the main circle, where the 4 roles stand)

Cryer. Gwen. Calls out the chant that brings all participants into focus. (we played AFI's Strength Through Wounding, here. "Through our bleeding, we are one" seems appropriate for Blood of Vol rituals) Gwen and I together had the rad idea of her basically doing the equivelent of a work song, like blacksmiths and other craftsfolk used, to guide the timing and pacing of the ritual, and keep everyone focused and in the zone.

Cup-Bearer was Uldrana (the mounted archer who they had been fighting. she dind't wanna die any more than anyone else did). Set the Altar and the Bowl, and project her will upon the offered blood of the participants to enact the ritual.

Seeker. Hiro. Normally this would be a role that a layperson fills, serving as the avatar of the community. We worked out that he would essentially guide the ritualists through the spaces between planes, to find a path to funnel the negative energy and the soul of Dal Azbara, hopefully to harmlessly dissipate both.

Ocuthim, the Arcanist. Not normally a role in such rites, but required here to shut down the contigency and basically do a dispel magic style effect as part of the ritual, without triggering a failsafe against such efforts.

Khalid stood next to Vidanya. Vidanya stabbed her holy obsidian sword into the ground next to her, acting as a focus and anchor, drew the circle around the body of Dal Azbara, and the sigils and compass circles, and called the roles. Each took their place, and as Vidanya closed the circle, Uldrana cut her arm and called upon the other participants to offer their divine power for the good of all. Everyone followed suit, a couple having to make Wisdom checks to overcome a deep reluctance to cut themselves.

Turn by turn, I asked them what they were giving to the ritual, and asked them if they would spend resources to do more, boost their checks, or give a benefit to someone else. Meanwhile Dougal and Inigo kept the undead off their butts. OH, and Nadia, Vidanya's Steed. She trampled several undead. Also, I'd let Vidanya take control of a Karrnathi undead by spending a spell slot and making a spell attack against Dal Azbara's spell save DC, which she beat.

Vidanya steadied faltering participants, especially Uldrana who was quite shaken by learning that her friend (and maybe lover?) had been willing to murder her and Berald in order to attain lichdom rather than truly die. Over the rounds, Uldrana more and more looked to Vidanya for guidance and strength. (Persuasion, and Religion, checks)

Hiro sought the paths between planes, and strategised how to best use them. Insight and Perception.

Gwen performed, and used her bardic power to help those outside the ritual.

Ocuthim disabled Azbara's two magic items that were fueling her contigency, and then work on a more "now disarm the bomb itself" level. Arcana, Riddle (a custom skill), and an opposed spellcasting check.

Partway through, I described the blood they'd spilt as gathering itself upon the crystaline latticework of the ritual archetecture that formed from the compass points and the sigils, forming complex geometry throughout the circle and round it. Hiro anchored them with his magical axe physically while anchoring his own attunement to it in the metaphysical space they'd entered to find the path down which to syphon the negative energy of the spell they were stopping. His axe was opposite Vidanya's sword, each on the wielder's right hand side as they faced eachother at North and South.
Uldrana caused the latticework to resonate in accompaniment to Gwen's singing and bandore playing. Like harp strings set to resonate by opposing magnets rather than by plucking, creating a harmonious drone under the steady rhythm and melody of the ritual music.
Ocuthim disabled one item, then the contingency effect, then the second item, at one point creating 4 circles around the body inside the greater circle, each with a small aperture facing one of the compass points, creating a symbolic maze, and guiding energy into the maze to be lost and dissipate, or be "tricked" into going where Hiro guided it.

Hiro found a way to ground the negative energy in a recursive loop back to Mabar, but ground the spiritual energy of the various trapped souls powering the undead back to Dollurh where the dead belong.

A lot of esoteric fantasy-techno-babble later, I ask Vidanya how she closes the circle. She says with her sword, so I work with her to describe how she steps into the circle as she pulls her obsidian Sword of The Seeker from the earth, and then plunges it into Dal Azbara's heart, and then steps back into her place. Khalid replaces Vidanya's blade with his spiked chain, which is made of a sort of solid shadow made into obsidian, and he spends all his remaining ki to cause it to resonate with the leyline latticework so that it anchors where the sword no longer is.

The last elements of the spells spiral throughout the circle, grounded by planar bindings, trapped in symbolic laberynth, as Dal Azbara's body rises ten feet into the air. The souls of the dead begin to be pulled into the circle as well. The malign spirit of the karrnathi undead laughs as it is returned to Mabar, Dal Azbara's spirit screams in rage as it is pulled to dollurh, and Sir Berald's soul departs last.

He manages to stand within the circle, and face Vidanya, and tells her that he can see now that the Emerald Claw was lied to, tricked into beleiving that only by serving the Queen of Night could they break the bonds of death. He shares a look with Uldrana, who nods agreement. He tells Vidanya, "I would serve you, in death, if you wish. I can wait for a time in the plains of Dollurh, before oblivion takes me. Call upon me, and I will aid you. But first, you must see why. You must see what only the dead may see." And he reached his spectral arms out, one behind to the vortext between planes, and one to her forhead.

And Vidanya sees from his perspective, sees herself with black and red feathered wings stretched out behind her, a crown of shadow like a halo above her head, and then she sees herself in the air, in flight, her sword reshaping itself into a spear with a line of blood red through the center of it's midnight shape. She sees her Steed in the air beside her, also winged now, and her Second, Khalid, leaping from Nadia's back, a smaller spear leaping from his hand in the same downward arc as hers, a trail of shadow stretching from his spear to his hand, just like hers. She sees their spears streaking toward the vague shape of a roaring monstrosity greater than the imagination can hold, and her vision clears, and Sir Berald salutes her with is spectral blade, and departs.

The lines of blood outlined power flare with radiant light, as white and black light burn out of Azbara and the sword that has pierced her, and the ritual ends. Vidanya's blade has a thin line of pure blood red through it's center, and Khalid's spiked chain has somehow melted itself into a spear in his hand. The undead have all crumbled, and the sun shines, untroubled, upon the northern Talenta Plains.

Some tension breaking talk of loot and a winded and exhausted conversation between Gwen and Vidanya later, we end the session, and I let every one know that they have leveled up to level 7.


I think the next adventure is gonna be a bit less epic. take a breather from that level of tension and stakes.

 

[jasper]

Session before last the pcs sold an Imp's Outhouse. (I still trying to figure out why the Dollar Tree had outhouse as an Easter basket stuffer.) Last session did not go. I arrived early but my headache got worst so I cancelled the session. Another DM pick up my regular group.

 

[Nebin]

As a player, Ran a Fighter in my daughters group as a "Special Guest Star". I wasn't back stabbed by her BF, which is an improvement from last time.
It was an intrigue type game, fun.

 

[prabe]

Erkonin #2, Session #13 (5E)

The party, having defeated the gnoll army, made their way back to the city, meeting a force of guardsmen/soldiers about halfway there. In the city, they asked after a vessel going down the river and found out there was one leaving in six days' time.

While they were waiting, they learned some things about a very ancient dragon in one character's past. They acquired some spells. They signed up as couriers to the port city at the mouth of the river (two cities down).

Right before they would have left, they were approached by the captain of the guard, with a report of disappearances in a working-class neighborhood (including a couple guardsmen). The party went to the neighborhood, found a bit of a trail leading into the storm-drains and followed it.

In the storm drains they were ambushed by some ghouls. Because four-fifths of the party are elves, this was not the threat it might have been.

They continued back-tracking the ghouls, past another ambush that included a couple ghasts and even a couple specters, and found a junction with lots of rubble in it, as well as a passel of ghouls, some ghasts, and at least a few specters.

They'll be fighting their way into that junction starting next session.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

The 5 player characters are 12th level in a Forgotten Realms-set mash up of Storm King's Thunder and Tyranny of Dragons/Scales of War/Dragonlance. Everything that follows makes more sense if you're familiar with SKT.

The Zhentarim are masterminding the giant attacks on the North via a captive Hekaton. Manshoon, leader of the Zhentarim, takes the form of an army of clones in continual telepathic communication with one another. In the previous adventure the players finally figured out that they're facing multiple Manshoons. Unfortunately for me, the CR12 Archmage stat block I've been using for Manshoon folds like a wet paper bag. In two combats he has literally not gotten off a single spell before the PCs have taken him out. Plus I'm just not very good at running high-level spellcasters; I've already got my hands full with all the other monsters.

The most recent session was the PC's third session in Ironslag, the fire giant lair. They had snuck all the way in undetected and located Duke Zalto, the fire giant chief, and his wife. They attempted to parley. Unfortunately, Zalto wanted only battle and blood--and he was getting plenty of that making war on behalf of the Zhentarim. However, the giants have a longstanding hatred of dragons and the Duke was intrigued by the PCs offer to make war upon Tiamat's Cult of the Dragon. He said he would consider their offer...if they survived Manshoon's ambush that he, Zalto, had just led them into.

The fight took place on the lowest level of Ironslag--mostly in the dining hall and elevator area. Manshoon arrived on the elevator with two hobgoblin warlord bodyguards and a pair of invisible stalkers. In the dining hall, four shadar-kai in employ of the Zhentarim attacked. Zalto, so as to not appear traitorous, threw his two hell hounds and a pair of fire giant blacksmiths into the mix. On the player side, they had an allied NPC elf bladesinger and elf warlock (the latter being a captive princess held in Zalto's maul). So, yeah, a lot going on there.

I presumed the villains would wipe the floor with the PCs--Manshoon is getting sick of their antics and wasn't planning to pull any punches. But once again the players beat his initiative and took him out before he cast a single spell, thanks to the combined efforts of the beastmaster ranger and vengeance paladin. The halfling bard continued to annoy with counterspell, cutting words, and shield. The shadow sorcerer made clever use of banishment to get the elf warlock out of the maul. The elf bladesinger got off steel wind strike and did some serious damage to the shadar-kai--what a badass spell. And the arcane trickster rogue, played by a good lateral thinker, sent the elevator back up the shaft to split the enemy forces.

The battle took 3 hours to almost (but not quite) finish. The PCs held up surprisingly well, but have blown most of their high level spell slots. At the very end, one of them attacked Zalto, effectively snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

What the players are about to learn is there's a second Manshoon at Ironslag. And he's pissed.

Next session should be the grand finale with the PCs up against Manshoon and the Zhents plus Zalto and his family. It's gonna get ugly.

 

[Richards]

Wednesday's session was interesting. This is our second campaign set in the same homebrewed game world and last session the players (but not the PCs) discovered this campaign is also set in the same time frame as the previous campaign. So there's a good chance events that occurred in the first campaign will, as they unfold, affect the current campaign. It's going to be an interesting lesson in preventing metagame knowledge from spilling over into the current batch of PCs, who know nothing of the events to come (although the players all do).

Johnathan

 

[atanakar]

Great!

The characters now have all the bread crumbs to understand that a neighbouring baron payed to assassinate their father (also a baron), tried to have them killed several times, payed mercenaries to block an important trade route to deprive their barony from important income. Now I just have to sit back, relax and watch how they will resolve this problem.