dungeons-dragons-demons

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 19 - New Years Eve Dragon Adventure

We got a little enthusiasm from the youngest today, who exclaimed “Get the dices, get the dices” while I was setting up. Cue S giving her younger brother a miniature lecture on the correct plural for polyhedrals. Somehow managed to keep attention even though we started with “You’re travelling with a merchant caravan for a few days, do you want to buy anything?”.

Capitalism ensued for a little while, the group attaining health potions and an elixir that grants advantage on consitution and dexterity saves. Can’t imagine why they might need that...

Marla was given a gift from her family by the visiting Garret Locke. A custom mace crafted at the behest of her siblings and magically enchanted.

Knell’s Bell

You have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon.

When you attack a creature and roll a 20 on the attack roll, the mace releases a sonorous tone. You and up to 5 other creatures of your choice that can hear you within 60 feet regain hit points equal to 1d4 + your Wisdom modifier.

Proficiency with a mace allows you to add your proficiency bonus to the attack roll for any attack you make with it.

She was very pleased.

The next day on the road, Fight Party stumbled across the site of a dragon attack. A trading convoy that had been half frozen, torn apart and had much of its goods stolen by a white dragon.

At the behest of a portly man in a red coat named Kerris Nole they decided to detour down towards the town of Selborn. They managed to successfully mine the town for information and even intimidated some caravan guards into giving up their decision to turn on their employers.

They discovered that generations ago this area was beset by a white dragon name Lavina, the Blizzard Mistress, who’s lair was somewhere in the Titan’s Spine mountain range. The group headed into the mountains, electing not to climb up a sheer rock face and instead go through the troll tunnels nearby.

Somehow Marla was able to convince the trolls that they should help them against the dragon. They sent ‘Grelsh’ with the team to fight the dragon, figuring that if the dragon dies they won’t have to give it tribute any more.

They traveled through a series of icy tunnels, Grelsh bashing through the many ice walls between them and the lair. The noise they made on the way meant they were soon met by the voice of a young white dragon, daring them to enter her lair.

They were very impressed by the dragon lair. I was required to field a series of questions about how I made it before we could continue.

So the fight with the dragon began. A few rounds of hit and run tactics which culminated in a few critical hits from the team. The dragon let out a loud screech and something guttural and draconic before diving into the ice, taking several opportunity attacks on its way.

The team was left with a few moments alone, Marla chose to ask the troll if it knew what the dragon said before it left. Grelsh responded with ‘said mother, said help’.

They were then met with the sound of an angry white dragon screeching “Varvex, idiot child, what have you brought into my domain!?” before the true Lavina, Blizzard Mistress showed herself.

S was not happy to see her. “Daddy I’m scared, can we pause for a second?”

Violence ensued.

Cave walls were climbed, spells were slung. Lavina made good use of her Frightful Presence to stop everyone from piling on top of her. Grelsh was quickly torn to pieces, apparently betraying dragons is a bad idea.

Flames were used to temporarily contain the beast, but she responded by using her cold breath to break the circle and take a chunk out of Marla. She just barely made her save with the help of the elixir, taking 27 damage in one hit... and managing to keep concentration anyway.

Another round of critical hits immediately followed the downing of the group’s new ranger friend. Dropping Lavina from standing a chance to nearly dead in a very short period of time. Fight party decided to focus down, Marla having read earlier that white dragons are especially vengeful.

In the final moments a combination of spiritual weapon and sacred flame brought Lavina within a few hit points of death. Bearyl charged in for the kill, going reckless to ensure the last few points went through. S declared that Bearyl’s killing blow was the tearing apart of the dragon’s neck.

The Blizzard Mistress fell and the party set to looting the hoard. As we were packing up S realised something but wasn’t sure if Marla would realise it.

She rolled an intelligence check, for 18.

White dragons are intensely vengeful... they just killed the mother of a white dragon... and it got away... oh.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 18 - Beer Party

Very short session this time.

Marla and the rest of Fight Party lie disheveled at the site of their victory, barely able to move. Word spreads from the defenders outside the town to those on the inside. The group is approached by the leader of north bridge village and told that they will be preparing a feast. In the mean time they are directed towards the town’s largest tavern, to pass on news of the town’s safety and also get some free drinks.

(Don’t they look excited. You’d never guess they were both dancing two minutes later.)

Once they were told the town was starting to celebrate and Marla (who is a grown up) was being given mugs of ale, S (who is not a grown up) did her best impression of a drinking grown up.

Grown ups, it is important that you know that tipping beer upside down above your head, dancing back and forth and yelling “beer party” is how you drink alcohol. Just in case you were doing it wrong.

During the festivities, during which S and D both did exceptionally good role playing as ‘increasingly drunk adventurers’, Marla needed to make a perception check. Even with disadvantage she noticed the swarm of cats watching her from the corner of the feast, which quickly disappeared round a corner when she looked their way.

Rounding the corner with a disastrous attempt at being stealthy, Marla came face to face with a group of cats, one of which turned into the ranger of her family’s estate, Garret Locke. Garret is a moon druid swarmkeeper ranger who likes to transform into and be surrounded by cats, he’s also a feline shifter, because ALL the cats. His cats are all named Pixie (just like our cat) which S and D both found hilarious.

Garrett joined them at the feast before noticing Bearyl’s claws were dirty and untended to. Upon being interrogated about Bearyl’s claws Marla admitted that she had last cleaned out the bears claws “days and days ago”. S did a wonderful job of miming going through her pack and finding the brushes and picks at the very bottom because she hadn’t been using them.

Admonishments out of the way Garrett informed the group that Marla’s family wanted to see her, and suggested they accompany the merchant caravan heading that way. They agreed to leave with them in the morning...

... next session: We get to see what the kids think a hangover looks like.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 17 - Fight Party vs The Iron Golem

I might have spent a little longer preparing this session than I normally would. Made the decision to trim down the battle mats so that they can rest nicely on one half of the D&D table, not the neatest job in the world but definitely easier than trying to unroll and lay flat something that is almost the size of the table.

So, Fight Party are using their merronoloth skiff to fly straight to north bridge in hopes that they get there before the iron golem. When they get close enough to see the town they find the locals have set up some defenses against the approaching iron golem. They also know that those defenses will not stop the giant automaton, so they’re there just in time.

The information they got from Kwalish allows them to attack the golem as if its AC were a little lower and gives them insight on how to overheat the thing. Apparently the iron golem has vents on the back of each of its arms and legs that help it channel the power of fire damage. Lose one of those and it can’t absorb fire, lose another and it can’t nullify fire damage, lose a third and it can’t resist fire damage. With all four damaged or blocked it becomes vulnerable to fire damage.

The group started by landing their skiff, which was losing power, off to one side. Marla deciding to draw attention away from the people defending the town. Doran Doran however, decided that he was heading straight for the guards to let them know what was happening.

The early battle went very well. Being forewarned about the golem’s immunity to non-magical damage, Marla used her newfound forge cleric powers to imbue her mace with divine magical power. This allowed her to engage in her favourite activity, ‘smacking bad guys with a mace’. Canon remembered how this fight went last time and came out of the gates with a Ray of Enfeeblement, which was not resisted against for several turns, this meant the golem’s physical attacks were doing half damage. That and Bearyl’s raging resistance meant the automaton put out way less damage than it could have during the fight.

One of the guards on the ridge got a lucky shot with a crossbow. My decision regarding the guards was that since they only had mundane weapons they present a distraction to the golem, but not a threat. However, a natural 20 is always fun to reward, even for background mooks, so a natural 20 for the guards meant ‘the crossbow bolt flies through the air and lodges into one of the vents, jamming it up’.

This reminded S that the vents existed and got her very excited. Bearyl spent her turn attacking with disadvantage trying to claw at one of the leg vents. Marla cast Create Water to try and block up one of the vents, wouldn’t work as written so I had her roll a wisdom check to see if she could influence the angle of the created water enough to funnel it into a vent. It worked, meaning the group had in a few rounds taken the iron golem from a fire absorbing monster to something that could be burned.

So Marla got to use one of her brand spanking new level 4 spells. Wall of Fire, complete with pink-red divine fire spell effect.

The iron golem took a little bit of a beating from the wall of fire, suffering two turns of damage before it charged out of the fire and managed to kill some of the town guards. Another lucky shot from the other guards in retaliation took it from being damageable by fire to being vulnerable, and Marla reacted.

The cleric rushed forward to Doran Doran chanting under her breath as she laid hands on his sword, causing it to burst with magical fire. His next couple of attacks took advantage of the extra fire damage, drawing the iron golem to the brink of death. In a last ditch effort to survive, the iron golem used its poison breath on most of the party. Doran was already hurt and couldn’t survive the blast despite making the save, Marla rolled low and took the full brunt, also falling unconscious.

Canon was unsure how to proceed, he could get Marla up or he could try and take down the golem. S told me out of character that he should take down the golem. A couple of rounds of touch and go death saves and some fire damage from Canon finally downed the Iron Golem. Canon immediately used his recently acquired paladin skills to get Marla on her feet, Marla immediately healed Doran Doran.

So Fight Party emerge victorious, having defeated the threat looming above their heads for some time. But what happens next?

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

A New Spellbook

In honour of madam’s transition from Life to Forge Cleric, I decided to upgrade her spell cards. Instead of printing them out according to what she needed I elected to just print ALL the cleric spells and keep hold of the extras. I use this site to print out spell cards. They’re not the prettiest things in the world but they’re pretty clear to read.

The things that aren’t spells I’ve printed out either as custom magic the gathering cards or using Tintagel’s templates for magic set editor. The result is a series of cards that I slipped into a card binder in her favourite colour.

I found a neat ornamental version of Lathander’s holy symbol online and my wife traced it onto the binder with pencil and then sharpie.S was beyond over-joyed with the customised book of spells.

She was even pleased with the slap-dash level cards, which are literally just index cards coloured in the same colour as that level’s cards.

The first page covers her spell preparation rules and her cleric abilities. The next few pages are her wizard ritual spells, cleric cantrips and space for her prepared spells. The cleric spells are then laid out by level and then alphabetically, allowing her to flip through them and select her spells.

S has already chosen her spells for the next session, and I imagine this book is going to take a trip to school for show and tell at some point in the near future. She’s such a nerd and I love her for it.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 16 (b) - Kwalish and the Platinum Anvil

So finally the group made it to Kwalish’s Laboratory. What they found inside was a vast array of tinkering and inventors tools. Most striking of all, a gnomish body frozen still, turned to glass like all the others in Daone Gloine. Behind the glass figure was another tank, similar in construction to those they found in the monastery, with a brain floating inside it.

I opted to go with a variation on the ‘meeting kwalish’ options given in the adventure, for a couple of reasons. First, I want Kwalish to stick around as someone they can possibly visit in future and maybe get a quest or two from. Two, I wanted a good way to switch Marla from Life domain to the Forge domain. Forge domain is more suited to her preferred play-style and playing out Kwalish as a wizard turned Artificer allows me to introduce something that has that kind of thematic shift.

The Kwalish-brain in a jar loudly asks the party who they are as they enter and immediately begins lamenting the long period of time he has been cooped up in his laboratory. He continues to ramble about how he failed to protect his laboratory on the planar craft, how he failed to keep his laboratory in Daone Gloine safe and how he failed to deal with the gorgon in Daone Gloine.

Eventually Marla interrupted Kwalish’s self-deprecating rant. She let him know that the rest of his expedition was still alive in their own brain jars... except the one in the vault. So Kwalish and Marla had a good laugh when they collectively figure out that the brain in the monastery’s vault must have belong to the bone devil who drove him from that place.

Kwalish was confused to find that since he’d been forced out the planar ship had transitioned from laboratory to monastery and now apparently to library. He was a little disappointed to here that his wonderful apparatus was being referred to by the group as a ‘crab-marine’. After a few minutes of back and forth, Kwalish asked the group if any of them were particularly aligned to creation or engineering. He needed a way of getting his brain out of the jar he was now stuck in.

Marla let Kwalish know that she was a spell caster and a follower of Lathander. Kwalish suggested that Marla pray at his platinum anvil, a holy relic of Moradin which allowed him to transition his arcane abilities into those of Artifice. He suggested that there was a type of divine power that could be accessed in the overlap between Moradin and Lathander’s domains.

Marla agreed to try and help Kwalish, digging deeper into his lab to find the anvil. When she found it, gigantic, gleaming platinum filigreed with ornate gold runes. It radiated the heat of a forge but did not feel like it would burn. She laid her hand on the anvil, which felt like it was on fire but did not caused her hand to recoil. She felt the urge to close her eyes and did.

Her vision filled with gold and pink flame and Lathander in her golden form descended to have a chat with her on the anvil. They talked about her dedication to healing... and how she more often solved problems with her mace. They talked about invention and creation, the rebirth of ideas and the rebirth of motivations. Marla agreed to undergo a rebirth, a new dawn for her powers to help others in a way more suited to her abilities.

When she took her hand away from the anvil Marla’s hand was engulfed in pink flames, which rapidly spread over her entire body and burned her away, leaving a pile of ash. S legitimately asked me for a second if that was the end of Marla (though a lot calmer than when she’s nearly died). A bright flash of light revealed Marla standing there good as new, her mace wreathed in divine pink fire.

A newly minted level 7 Forge Cleric.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 16 (a) - 3 Hours of Fight Party

One short rest and all their hit dice after the encounter with the clockwork kraken, the group begins by investigating the coffin that contains the soupy remains of a kenku cultist.

The scraps of language Marla was able to coax out of the former high priest amounted to a plea to be released and an offer of information. S immediately asked to speak to me out of character and asked if she wanted to be let out or killed. (Which seemed like a pretty quick leap of logic, morbid child.) An insight check let her know that the kenku wanted to be unplugged, which Marla and Doran proceeded to do without gathering any information at all.

That done, the party searched the garage for anything of use, looting a lot of valuable tinkering materials for the bag of holding and finding an apparatus of kwalish. Canon successfully deciphered the instructions for operating it and they dutifully continued into the lower part of the city, submerged beneath the acidic slime.

They decided to call this ‘The Crab-marine’

A natural 1 for Marla’s perception meant that she pretty much could not parse the under-slime scenes at all, leaving Doran Doran (who is a tortle) to point out the glass scenes laid out on the streets and the glowing orbs that would transport the group into their combat encounters for the day.

First combat encounter brought them through a magic orb to a peaceful meadow, three unicorns wandering around and shedding beautiful light out around them. After failing a perception check, S demanded to see the pawn more closely to see what Marla had missed. She then announced in a distressed voice “It’s a skeleton... that’s not a unicorn.”

We then had a brief chat about the fact that she knows that they’re weird but Marla doesn’t. To her credit she shook off the skeleton aspect entirely and had Marla ask the unicorns in celestial if they could pass through to the exit. Since they were actually Nightmares and not Unicorns, they responded poorly to the language of angels and violence ensued.

The combat continued pretty smoothly, with nightmares spending a decent amount of time disappearing into the ethereal plane to keep the party on edge. We eventually came to the climax of the fight. The last nightmare reappearing between them and the exit, I describe it as being on its last legs. Doran Doran can’t get close enough to attack... so D decides that after running most of the distance he wants to throw his shield. I figure ‘rule of cool’ and say yes, “But you won’t get to add your proficiency and the damage won’t-” “I got a 20!”

Well, alrighty then. Cue the dramatic description of Doran Doran dropping his sword as he runs forward, rapidly unstrapping his shield and throwing it with all his strength like Captain America in a turtle shell.

They emerged back into the ‘crab-marine’ and made their way to the next inter-planar space, this one was a graveyard filled with pumpkins. I’m quite pleased with the designed of this one. On initiative 20 each pumpkin pulled up a corpse and animated it into a zombie with the ghoul stat block (meanwhile the zombies rolled 7, making the distinction between zombies appearing and zombies attacking easier to notice). S and D noticed after only a few rounds that they would get continually more zombies if they didn’t also deal with the (10AC, 5HP) pumpkins. She had the Bear eating pumpkins pretty quickly.

S also remembered that she is a cleric and can Turn Undead.

This scene here was a lot less scary when only two of those zombies weren’t supernaturally terrified of the cleric. It was also much less scary the following turn when after most of the zombies fled they took 29 fire damage from a fireball. The only thing that made it’s save was a pumpkin (14 is higher than 5).

And I think I’ll leave the meeting with Kwalish for the next post.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 15 - Fight Party and the Clockwork Kraken

After a tumultuous week welcoming a new kitten into the house and a couple of false starts, we managed to sit down for a game. A longer one than usual, even if S complained bitterly when it was over.

“I’ve decided what to call our group.”

“You have a name for your adventuring party?”

“Yeah, we’re called ‘Fight’ because we fight things.”

“So your party is called-”

“Fight Party.”

As if they didn’t already have murder hobo tendencies.

At least they’re excited.

They started this session, awaking from their long rest and their full realisation of their Level 6 power. Gearbox had apparently spent the night rewiring and moving things in the control room to better suit his plans to convert it into a place of knowledge and study.

The group are directed towards a Merronoloth skiff which, after a hilarious sequence of rolls they managed to slam into the ground a few times before getting off into the air. Covering in around 4 hours what would have taken days on foot and arrive in short order at their destination: the lost city of Daoine Gloine.

An ancient city lined with towers and dotted with many large buildings, with a shimmering green barrier blocking off the lower levels and streets. Enough towers fallen to make their way around the city.

As they moved through the fallen areas they were ambushed by a pair of metallic tentacles which appeared from floating disks just like the kind the grand master used to attack them the previous day. Both Doran and Marla were knocked from their paths and ended up in contact with the barrier. As it turns out, the barrier is not a barrier but the exterior surface of an enormous quantity of acidic slime which quickly attempted to engulf and digest the members of Fight Party.

Some rather impressive athleticism from the resident fighter managed to get him free, but the rest of the group had to pitch in to free the cleric. In the mean time she took an awful lot of acid damage and chose to expend one of her second level slots on a boosted cure wounds, bringing her nearly to full.

An investigation of the various statues did not reveal the hidden path to the glass-petrifying medusa. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing for this group, but they did decide to investigate where the plume of smoke was coming from. They found their way over to the garage, where Marla could see shapes moving inside and hear a slippery clicking noise.

Throwing caution to the wind the group charged into the garage to find a mechanical kraken, its numerous tentacles spreading across the floor and through a small selection of teleportation rings. The fight was particularly tough because I remembered the clockwork kraken’s resistances and arbitrarily decided it could grant itself advantage by having it’s tentacles flank targets.

The day was won, however, as they managed to tear through the tentacles and Doran Doran charged through the chaos to jam his sword through the eye-socket of the clockwork kraken and thrash the blade around inside until the gears stopped working. 

(I’m not sure if I should be proud of or worried about how well the children come up with killing blow descriptions.)

(I’m told later that afternoon S described cracking eggs as ‘like breaking the skulls of her enemies’. Might be leaning towards worried.)

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 14 - Wherein I Make a 6 Year Old Cry

(No pictures today. We played theater of the mind style for a change and I did not think to pick up my phone.)

The Grand Master fell, the monks dispersed, the vault lay ahead. The group headed over to the vault and found their way blocked by a bridge of floating disks that shifted out of the way when they approached. Their modron friend Gearbox commented that there was some sort of energy coming from the room ‘over there’ and they headed for the control room.

In the control room they found a dozen floating brains in jars, obviously in charge of controlling the monastery’s functions. Marla demanded access to the vault. She offered to duel the brains for access to the vault, they responded that they are brains and could not duel. She instead threatened to unplug the brains, getting them to reveal that they control the bridge.

Gearbox pointed out that he could probably take over the monastery if the group could get him hooked up properly. They were successful and Gearbox giddily declares that they can access the vault and that he can now turn the monastery into something good... perhaps a library.

Marla says she’ll come back and unplug him when they’re done in the vault.

They head to the vault and find ALL sorts of monetary wealth. I left off a couple of pieces of loot that they don’t really need and wouldn’t be as excited by as more grown up players. (I’m not sure I want S getting excited about a Manual of Flesh Golems, for instance.)

Among all the gems, tinkering tools, gold, silver and other useful bits and pieces, they find enough of Kwalish’s notes to make Garrett happy. He asks Marla if he can take the majority back to the Cartophile and let him know Gearbox won’t be coming back.

This is about the point S realises Gearbox intends to stay here and not travel with the group forever, and gets teary. We have a discussion about how maybe Gearbox wants to stay which mostly ends in her still convinced she’s going to unplug him afterward.

The last couple of things in the vault are a brain in a jar and a leather journal bound in chains and jars. S rolls a dice while declaring she’s going to yank the book free with brute strength, natural 20. She frees the book from the chains and the engines of the vault fail, the vault tilts as the sound of stuttering engines clues them into what’s about to happen. They escape back to the monastery proper and the vault collapses somewhere below and explodes angrily.

Back at the control room, Gearbox congratulates the group on getting hold of what they need to go ahead. He lets them know that the damage caused by the crashing vault means that he will definitely have to stay to keep the engines cycling correctly, because otherwise the whole craft will crash into the mountainside and explode. S was incredibly conflicted at this point, torn between wanting to keep Gearbox around and not wanting to destroy what could be something good.

I let her roll a Persuasion check to convince Gearbox to escape with them, she rolled an 18. I could have called this either way... I chose the better roleplaying option.

“... I’ll come with you if you think it’s best Marla. Whatever you decide.”

“... You should stay here and make a library.”

“You’ll come back and visit me?”

“I’d like that very much.” S sobbing into my shoulder.

What followed was a discussion of what they should name the library and plans for how they would get the group up the mountain. We eventually determined that the options for the name were all terrible jokes and that a Merronoloth skiff would help them get to their destination much quicker. They agreed to spend the night in the control room, spending a little more time with Gearbox before they continued their quest.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 13 - The Grand Master Falls

Technically session 14, but the session before this ended up being clearing out a single room without taking any damage or expending any resources, so didn’t really add up to much. The party has quietly gone up to level 6 though, which amounts to not very much besides a few extra hit points.

“I’ve decided where I want to go. This pink area with the big tower... I hope the master isn’t there.”

No such luck there kiddo. This session they encountered the Grand Master of the Monastery of the Distressed Body. Watched from the balcony by a dozen faceless monks, they encountered the throned Grand Master. His demand for the group to serve him with either their bodies or their minds was met with the same response Marla has to everyone that threatens her. 

“No, we’re going to fight you instead.”

Oh. And did I mention that S went to a vikings and dragons party in the morning, so is decked out in assorted paper weaponry and dressed like a viking for this session? D did most of his rolling while also brandishing a sword.

Pretty much the entire session was taken up by the fight with the Grand Master and his two orc bodyguards. S got to use her new janky little spiritual weapon mini I made for her and D got to land the killing blow on the Grand Master.

“How do you want to finish the fight?”

“Like this! Hyah! Bash!”

With the grand master defeated, our heroes discover that the massive bone devil is nothing of the sort. He’s actually a smaller devil piloting a mechanical suit inside the bone devil. They have managed to find out that Kwalish’ notes are contained within the monastery’s vault and have resolved to head there in there next session.

We’ll see if they remember to do some looting, first.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 12 - Crit-Fishing

It has been over two weeks since our last session. The chaos of school starting back up and the fact that demons will sometimes live up to their name conspired to delay things a fair bit. But, back to it!

It has been so long since the last session that S first of all suggested fighting the sphynx she managed to talk her way passed already. Instead she sent her familiar out to investigate the ominous hovering platform coming towards them from the floating island ahead. The group took a ride over to the floating island and its network of half corridor, half room, half town, crash site turned monastery.

They met the faceless monks, and failed their perception checks to notice their facelessness.

D bowed out early this evening, a little over-tired and unable to really concentrate. Leaving S alone to guide an entire party of adventurers plus the two tag-alongs.

Given the options of ‘go to see the Grand Master of the Monastery of the Distressed Body’ or ‘wander around and explore a bit’... guess which option S went for.

If you guessed either you’d be wrong. She chose to split the party. Marla, Bearyl and Garrett headed towards the Grand Master and Doran, Canon and Gearbox went exploring.

That is until Doran rolled a 20 perception and heard screaming coming from the leatherworks, which prompted the group to reconvene to investigate. They found a man strapped to a metal table, five robed monks chanting and leaning over him, cutting at the sides of his face. This time she had no problem seeing the boney-sinewy faces of the faceless monks.

“You shouldn’t take his face off if he doesn’t like it!”

“Who are you to tell us we cannot add to the ranks of the immured brothers?”

“You and me are gonna have a battle, now.”

Gearbox and Garrett elected to stay outside and avoid fighting the men with no faces, leaving the party proper to deal with the monks themselves. Canon rolled highest initiative and opened the fight by critically eldritch blasting one of the monks into oblivion. Bearyl charged in next, followed by Doran.

Marla switched from her ‘bookish’ miniature to her ‘battle’ miniature. Which S described as Marla tucking away her ritual book and slinging her shield over her arm, as sparkling magic swirls around her and her hair gets a little longer and she grows a little taller and stronger. She has taken the fact that she ended up with two miniatures and turned it into her own personal She-Ra style magical girl transformation for her Cleric.

So Marla comes in swinging with her mace rather than casting spells from a distance, which I assumed was her forgetting about her spells. It turns out, my six year old daughter is already fishing for advantage in combat, she was trying to give Doran and Bearyl flanking opportunities.

Over the course of this fight, Doran (being a champion, who crits on a 19) got 3 critical hits. One on his first attack, turning a faceless monk into a lifeless monk in the blink of an eye.

The other two criticals were on the elder monk, and both as a result of S positioning the group for flanking bonuses. One of the attacks would even have been a critical with disadvantage instead of advantage.

Doran Doran singled handedly dished out more than 3/4 of the Elder’s hit points in damage in one round of combat. I asked S how she she wanted the finishing blow to go. She opted to bisect him from the top of the skull and straight through the middle. Which was a gruesome thing to hear a 6 year old describe but also kind of awesome.

S finished out the session by healing the prisoner who was having his face removed and freeing him from his chains. Can’t wait to see what they plan to do now that they know this place is super creepy.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 11 - Exposition, Climbing and a Riddle

Reminder: because we’ve reached the point where I’m going to be referring to where they’re up to in the module. I’m running the kids through Lost Laboratory of Kwalish. Their future includes faceless monks, devils, lasers and slime. And today we played outside.

At the end of last session, set against the backdrop of a renewed rain storm, the group made their way to the home of the Cartophile. When Marla declared that she was on a mission to find him so that she could further locate Kwalish, he offered them room for the night and promised to talk to them in the morning.

During the night everyone got their suitably epic fifth level benefits. Before going to bed, Marla set out her ritual book and burned through some of her components to reconjure her familiar. In the time since she was last summoned S has decided that Myla and Marla is a little hard to say, so the familiar is now named Lovey.

The Cartophile explained to Marla that Kwalish was an unparalleled artificer who hadn’t been seen in over a hundred years. He relayed to them that Kwalish was part of an expedition to locate Doaine Gloine (which I mangled the pronunciation of, I’m sure). Their best bet was going to be to follow in the footsteps of that expedition, heading for the ruins of a crashed planar ship in the mountains.

S rolled an intelligence check to see if she knew what that was.

1 .... Marla stares blankly at the Cartophile until he explains a little bit about D&D’s planes.

The group was given the opportunity to have access to maps that would lead them basically exactly where they want to go, at the cost of taking one of the Cartophiles hirelings with them. They elected to take two.

Garrett Levistusson and Gearbox the Modron are accompanying the group at least as far as the Monastery. They declined the offer to bring along a box full of vampire.

On their way through the mountains they came upon a section of path that was thin, inclined and liable to crumble and turn to dust. A natural 20 on an investigation allowed two members of the group to get through with relative ease, knowing which stones were most likely to shift. Bearyl rolled athletics to try and brute force claw her way up, digging into the stone if it dared shift beneath her. Rolling with disadvantage due to carrying Marla and Lovey. Two 17s.

Doran Doran decides to take the strength based approach, jamming his sword into the stone and basically using his magical weapon as an over-sized piton to climb up. A natural 20 on this roll made this a rather fun moment, where the tortle fighter just yanked his way up the side of the mountain, barely breaking a sweat.

The last bit of interaction for the session was the encounter with the Sphinx. Half expecting S would want to fight the thing, I gave her a chance to see it from a distance. She immediately took it up on the offer of riddling their way past. The sphinx demanded that in order to pass they would need to tell her something she didn’t know, and ask her a question she can’t answer. (According to the module, failed attempts pay a toll in the form of lowered ability scores. I dropped that requirement for the kids.)

“What does the Iron Golem that attacked Northbridge look like.”

Solid attempt. She knows the Sphinx has been here and wasn’t at the fight with the golem. Unfortunately the sphinx is pegged as being extremely knowledgeable, so was able to answer that it was silver or grey, likely rusted in appearance with a large weapon and a smaller head. S was impressed but not happy, “She’s so smart.”

“I can speak other languages.” My clever 6 year old suddenly remembers. “I sing in Celestial ‘Do you know anything personal about me?’” 

And this is so very clever. I am a proud daddy. Unfortunately the Sphinx speaks all languages and rolled a natural 20 on an investigation to determine something personal about Marla.

They eventually, with a couple of skill checks to put her in a good mood and get a hint from daddy, stumbled upon the idea of a logical paradox. Having won free passage passed the sphinx, the session ends. With S begging to keep playing.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 10 - Cleaning Up

Having barely defeated a troll in the last session, we begin this session with Canon immediately sitting down and attempting to get a short rest. Warlocks need their spell slots.

While Canon sat in the corner trying to have magic, After spending several minutes trying to tidy up with a branch Marla set about investigating the troll’s cave. It has two troll sized bed rolls, two large looking dog bed looking things and a giant chest.

An 18 on a strength check allowed her to crack open the giant iron bound chest which it turns out was full of cloth, and bones and scraps of wet meaty stuff. Seems like the trolls were keeping their scraps in here. Both kids’ roll Investigation: S gets a natural 20, D gets a natural 1.

Doran Doran: Looks like bones in there.

Marla: Also this sack... this satchel and.... this bone wand.

So then Marla sat down with her ritual book to identify the wand. I dread to think what use S is going to make of a Wand of Scowls but I’m sure it will come in useful at some point.

Worth noting at this point that every time S decided that they were doing something that took some time I mentally ticked down a timer and eventually started asking for Perception checks to hear what was coming.

“I rolled a natural 1....”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Eventually enough time passed and S rolled high enough that she heard another troll and two wolves approaching the cave. The group decided that they were going to stage an ambush. Bearyl his behind the cave entrance, Canon posted himself up in a corner. Marla and Doran both hid behind the troll’s chest.

Stealth Checks: Everyone got under 10 except Doran Doran... who was next to the natural 1 from Marla. Marla braces too hard on the chest they’re hiding behind and manages to knock it over just as the troll arrives.

The melee fighters immediately jump into action, rushing in to start hacking away at the troll’s replenishing health supply. Proud to say that S seemed to have learned some lessons from the last fight, not rushing straight in and instead choosing to fire off cantrips at the troll for the first few rounds.

She also yelled to Canon that they needed fire when the troll began regenerating. Canon was a little preoccupied dealing with the wolves, which rush him when he opened with an eldritch blast at them. After a few round he was able to take them out with his dagger, freeing him to unleash Scorching Rays on the troll.

The troll eventually tried to flee the battle but was cut down by Doran Doran and then immolated by Canon’s Burning Hands. Bearyl feasted on cooked troll meat. The rain began to fall. I switched the background music over to a thunderstorm and asked them who was leading their climb up the mountain. It turns out just the sound of a thunderstorm in the background prompts young kids to say they’re cold and wet and complain about the climb... which was a neat bit of role playing I’m not sure she even noticed she was doing.

They eventually made their way up over some rocky crests and found themselves at the home of the Cartophile. Who I’ve decided lives in a sort of travelers way station. Which makes sense for his having a small cadre of people he can send with you on the quest he gives and also gave me an opportunity to give the group a long rest so they can actually level up to level 5.

While we were RPing some back and forth between Marla (who keeps trying to invent burgers in D&D) and Gearbox (a modron who according to a spur of the moment decision speak very very quickly) S decided that her dice tray was not enough of a dice rolling aid. So she grabbed a part of D’s train set and made herself a dice roller.

Next session: Exposition and Breakfast, at least.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Commercial Break 2

The demons were especially demonic today, so we mutually agreed, for the sake of my sanity and their characters’ lives, to postpone our next session until the morning.

But, I still feel like typing and taking pictures of things so lets do another commercial. Stay tuned for pictures or miniatures and my personal endorsement of a couple of fun websites.

You may have spotted in earlier sessions of the kids’ game I was using print outs of nice looking but relatively generic forests and roads. I made those using Inkarnate. Its a web based map making tool that as much effort to use as you feel like putting into it. A few minutes using the free features is honestly enough for a serviceable area map if you want something just a little bit better than a sketch.

Second website that I’m sure I’ve mentioned is DnDBeyond. This website is a lifesaver and without it I would not be able to run the campaign I’m currently running. S might just about be able to run through making a character step by step and can definitely have input on how she levels it up... but D definitely can’t. The party has 4 characters, all of whom need to be kept track of and if I had to do that with pen and paper I’m not sure I could. On top of that I also get a lot of mileage out of their Encounter Builder, which lets me set the difficulty of their fights without having to do any actual maths.

On to the minis! What follows will be some pretty pictures of miniatures, followed by links to where I got them and what they are. (Wherever possible links on this blog will probably be referral links, because why not?)

Marla Fier - S’s Character. Cleric of the Life Domain, Blessed of Lathander. She who negotiates with everyone but merchants. “I bop it with my mace.” (Diva the Blessed, 25th Reaper Anniversary from Miniature Heroes)

Bearyl - Barbarian. Path of the Zealot. Not pictured, Bearyl’s necklace that marks this particularly angry bears as also being a devotee of Lathander... somehow. “I didn’t know Bearyl could rage!” (Dire Bear, Reaper Dark Heaven Legends from Miniature Heroes)

Canon - Warforged warlock. Specialties include shooting things at a distance and not being asked questions about the vaguely fiendish glow coming from beneath his dark wooden plating. “Canon should use Witchbolt!” (Robot Assistant, Chronoscope from Miniature Heroes)

Doran Doran - D’s character. Fighter. Champion. Swings a magic sword. Good at killing things. “Doran is a turtle. He lives in D and D.” (Turdle Adventurers, Fat Dragon Games via 3D Makerworks on Etsy.)

Also these guys, in various states of painted, primed and one “painted” by S. This set was probably a little pricey considering I only really needed one. But the print quality was about what I expected and having a few more things to paint was definitely worth the extra cash.

Finally for anyone playing along at home, the minis from Dark Sword Miniatures have still not arrived. Six weeks and counting.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Leveling Up and Miniature Upgrades

So the gang defeated a troll on their way up the mountain, and while they won’t necessarily get to rest before the end of their next session, they have rolled for and picked out all their level 5 stuff anyway.

Level 5 means splashy spells and Extra Attacks! S is most excited about getting a 4th cantrip: Toll the Dead. We also reprinted her cantrips in pink, so that we can use yellow gems for spell slots later.

So, the replacement Tortle figures I had 3d printed and sent from America did indeed arrive before the other ones. (Most info I’ve got out of Dark Sword with regards to the first ones is basically ‘postage is crazy sometimes’, so I won’t hold my breath.)

Doran Doran finally gets his upgrade to legitimate 28mm miniature, and he looks pretty nice if I do so say so myself. So now the gangs all here, miniatures for the whole party and soon to be sporting the awesome power of level 5.

Since I ordered a set of 6 tortle figures and S promised to be nice with my brushes and listen to my guidance... we had painting class.

S was actually very good about listening and did a pretty decent job with the priming coat. She did get a little bit distracted with other things after a while, but she did pretty well over all.

Not bad at all.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

There’s only five types of tumblr DnD content:

TAZ/Critical Role/insert actual play fandom here

Pretty dice (must eat)

Actual DnD campaign advice

Tired™️ DM memes

Monster fucking.