Tyranny of Dragons, Session 14 - Carnath Roadhouse

After a brief rest amid the splendors of Waterdeep, our plucky band of heroes found themselves heading north once more, once again disguised as humble guards protecting Dragon Cultists who were disguised as a humble road construction crew.  The Lords of Waterdeep had set out to repair the long abandoned north road, which used to allow passage through a massive swampy mire.

On the road to the roadhouse, the party came upon a large stretch of roadway filled with quicksand. This sort of thing had happened a few times along the road, which did pass through a swamp after all.  Skirting the edge of the quicksand, the party quickly learned that this quicksand was dug by bullywugs who had cleverly lain in ambush.

The surprise was total, with the necromancer Gilgamesh taking a beating, outnumbered by the slimy creatures.  At one point he was down to his last death save.

Wizard down - scramble the medics!

But no one could get to him, everyone locked in savage melee with the remaining bullywugs.

Fortunately, his death saves went well, and he managed to stabilize before bleeding out.  Once the rest of the bullywugs and giant frogs were dispatched, the medics patched him up toot sweet.

They had freed lizardman slaves, fought an army of undead, fought through bullywug ambushes, and now finally found themselves at a safe rest-stop: The Carnath Roadhouse.

Let's just pause for a moment to get the Patrick Swayze jokes out of the way once and for all, okay?

Everybody done?  Good.

The Roadhouse was a rough structure built on the only dry patch of land for miles, and served as the construction hub for the project.  Poking around a bit, the party found a secret basement, with a long tunnel that lead off into the swamps where it emerged...right in the center of a kobold work camp! Clearly the work of the Cult of the Dragon.  The noise and approaching light of the party had warned the kobolds, who set about defending their camp with a fervor based more in faith than in skill.  The fight was short and bloody, but two kobolds escaped to warn...well, the party wasn't about to wait to find out.

Hurt, wet, muddy, with their cover blown and with their resources depleted, the party elected to move off a ways into the swamp and camp to rest and recuperate.

And that's where we left the session.  That's also where this narrative trails off.  Your humble blogger has two too many irons in his fire right now, and the D&D sessions are going to have to take the hit.  As you can tell from the increasing infrequency of this portion of the blog, it's been getting harder and harder to make the sessions.  Rather than string the group, and you, along, it's time to put this story to rest.

Tyranny of Dragons, Session 13 - The City of Splendours

Again, this is a summary of a session in which your humble blogger did not participate.  For those following the story, these notes are cribbed from those of the DM.

The chapter begins deep within the heart of the great northern city of Waterdeep. The party was residing at Carlon Amofel's warehouse , HQ of the "Great Northern Equipment and Portage Co."  Earlier in the day they had tracked and tailed the Dragon Cultists and the treasure stolen from the village of Greenest to a similar warehouse across town owned by the treacherous (and now very dead) Aravan Foxtraveller.  They learned that Foxtraveller had recently acquired a building contract with the Lords of Waterdeep to re-build the Great Northern Highway between Waterdeep and Neverwinter. This highway has been abandoned after years of disuse and neglect.  In the last few years it had been swallowed up massive coastal swamp lands, collectively known as "The Mere of Dead Men."  As its name suggests, a area with the reputation for being haunted by dead men and other ghastly things, and that's not mention the ancient Black Dragon known as EbonDeath who calls the place home.

Spreading inquiries around town, and lubricating tongues with gold, the party learned that the Cultists were once again disguising their stolen treasure and hiding in plain site...only this time as road laborers hiding the loot inside crates marked "ACME Road Building Supplies".

Before anyone could make any major decisions, the party was paid a visit by a mysterious and gruff dwarf claiming to represent none other than Lord Arthagast Uhrilbinther, a migh mucky-muck within the city political scene. As it turns out, he is the very man Grim rescued from the slave pens of the Dragon Cult outside Greenest. Arthagast had long been a member of the Lord's Alliance, a secret political group run by wealthy merchants all across Faerun, whose goals and agendas are probably for the good and protection of all society.  This group is backed by large, powerful and sometimes ruthless private militias that "help and assist" in carrying out the Lord's Alliances decrees.  Also present at this gathering was Arthagast's wife, the Lady Remila Haventree, head of the Waterdeep cell of Harpers, her second lieutenant, Lady Elia and the party's old friend Leosin the Monk. Also present were a few other familiar faces...including the Paladin Ontharr Frume, representing The Order of The Gauntlet and The Ranger Stannis Longstepper representing the Emerald Enclave.

Long story short:  Arthagast proposed an alliance among the groups, "The Council Quiet", dedicated to stomping out the Cult of the Dragon.  Said proposal was readily accepted by all present.  And so as the first meeting of The Council Quiet got underway, it's first order of business was to induct everyone present - even the party - with full voting rights! The second order of business was whether or not to include Jamna Gleamsilver, a member of the Zhentarim, in the Council.

To secure the vote in her favor of inclusion within the council, Jamna told the Council of two of the identities of high ranking members of the Cult of the Dragon.  This council, collectively known as "Wrymspeakers", consists of five members (each representing the five colors of the evil chromatic dragons) who run the day-today operations of the vile Cult of the Dragon.

Achievement unlocked!  The party now uncovered the three out of five identities behind the leadership of the Cult of the Dragon.

Your first mission as field members of the Council Quiet was to continue following the Cultists and the stolen treasure to the Cult's final hoarding lair, and if given the opportunity, determine the identities of the final two members of the Cult's leadership, AND...if at all possible eliminate any of the Wrymspeakers as opportunities avail.

In order to carry out this mission, the party donned guises as hired guards "protecting" the road laborers transporting their construction and road building supplies north. And so once again the group found themselves on the road...only this time travelling through a known haunted swamp land hundreds of leagues round.

Over the 10-day trek through the swamp, this new caravan was constantly bombarded by the ever-present threats of the haunted mere. They were nearly overrun by an ancient army of the undead, stopped to parley with a group of lizardfolk slavers only to be ambushed by a massive force of vile bullywugs and their man-swallowing giant frogs...all the while ensuring the safety of the stolen treasure AND protecting the very cultists the party had sworn an oath to destroy! Oh, the irony of it all!

Where o' where can this crazy caravan of stolen treasure be headed?  Stay tuned...

Tyranny of Dragons, Session 12 - Chaotic Absent

Full disclosure:  Gaming and posting has taken a back seat over the last few months due to boring work issues.  The following recap is based off of the incomplete notes and recollections of the rest of the party, but mostly from a recap provided by our long-suffering and under-appreciated DM.  We will return to more in-depth reporting in Session 15.

When last we left our plucky heroes they had just defeated the obviously insane death wizard, Lucius Malvern, deep in the crypts below his stately but spider-infested manor.  Grim, the party archer, had located an ancient Summoning Stone and attempted to take it up for closer examination, but sentient artifact rejected his advances and instead sang a sweet siren song to the dark half-demon wizard Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh, long interested in arts he insisted are more gray than black, needed no siren song, and quickly snatched up the stone which promptly the poor wizard's willpower.  Mordred, half-orc holy warrior, leaped to pull the stone from Gilgamesh's grasp in a vain attempt to disrupt the stone's sway over Gilgamesh.  Instead, the stone lashed out in a powerful arcane blast that knocked out not only Gilgamesh, but the elven fighter Yolo as well.

(Perhaps not coincidentally, the two characters knocked out by the stone were the two characters controlled by players not in attendance.)

The human cleric Aramis and paladin Mordred rushed to dump the stone into the extra-planar space of a Bag of Holding also found in the crypt.  The group then gathered up their dying comrades and fled the vile crypt dedicated to the worship of the demon Bhaal.  They fled to the sanctuary of Torm's Holy Chapel where the group was able to rest heal their critical wounds.

Now that they had accomplished their major goals of acquiring the Summoning Stone, claiming the Tome of Bhaal, discovering the fate of the two Malvern brothers/wizards and the fate of the Dragonspear Militia scouts, and dealing with the sudden but inevitable betrayal of the dragon cult's Capt. Alphonse and his men...the group decided to hot foot it back to their current employer, Captain Von Derffle, back in Dragonspear Castle.

They didn't make it far.  Just outside the entrance to the crypt, they found yet another of Cult of the Dragon emissaries besieging Malvern Mansion.  This group was led by the Drow Blademaster, Aravan Foxtraveller.  Aravan and his cultist emissaries tried to relieve the party of the ancient Summoning Stone artifact, through threats at first, but not for long.  Moments into the bargaining process, a shadowy Priestess travelling with Aravan revealed herself to be none other than...Frulam Mondath!

Remember her?  The party had captured her way back in Greenest.

She had escaped the dungeons beneath Greenest Keep and returned to plague the party, as all good villains do.  Another epic battle ensued, one in which the impressive Karren went toe-to-toe with the Drow Blademaster and skewering him with the blade of his spear "Fury".  Once Frulam and the new cultist emissaries were dispatched, the party made its way safely back to Dragonspear castle.

Note that the way to Dragonspear Castle was safe, but the castle itself?  Not so much.  Cultist reinforcements had arrived during the group's little side trek, meaning that the death of Captain Alphonse didn't buy the party as much security as they had hoped.  The new leader of the cult on this little journey north proved to be a Red Wizard of Thay, known as Azbarra Jos and he had a new Dragon Cultist commandeer at his side, Malak Rasheed.

With tensions still running high, the party, the cultists and the caravan left Dragonspear Castle and set out on the final leg of the journey to Waterdeep.  But of course there were still a few surprises on this last leg...First, the party was introduced to Jamna Gleamsilver, a gnome informant for the Zhentarim, who in turn apprised the party of a suspected poisoning attempt in the groups' morning oatmeal, and then murdered a cultist guard in cold blood during an "information gathering" trip into the covered cultist's wagons...this of course led to the party being accused of murder...luckily cooler heads prevailed and it was determined that the guard "fell" onto his own sword after a night of heavy drinking...seriously it could happen.

And with all that the group finally arrived in Waterdeep! The members of the party said their goodbyes to the caravaners at large, and...Grim and Jamna set off across the city to continue following the cultist's treasure wagons.  Mordred and Karren set off to the Holy Church of Torm, while Yolo, Gilgamesh and Aramis went...shopping.  All with the promise of returning to meet Carlon Amofel back at his warehouse later that evening...

Session 11 - Beneath Malvern Manor

When last we left our band of plucky heroes they had descended below the depths of Malvern Manor in an attempt to locate a powerful artifact.  At last, a second dungeon to warm the cockles of this old gamer's heart.

Yolo and Gilgamesh elected to sit out the initial foray into the dungeon where the party easily handled a small squad of ghouls and purple molds.  The party returned to the surface and escorted them to a small chapel of Torm where the group made a solid attempt at a long rest.  The night was interrupted by four robed figures passing by the party's rest area and deeper into the cave.  Yolo, as a elf requiring no sleep and little rest, was on watch, followed the squad through the halls and through a massive cavern filled top to bottom with spiders and webs.  The only was through was to sneak into a small cage and descend into a tunnel that bypassed most of the cavern.  Too far from help, Yolo returned and let the rest of his friends catch up on their sleep.

Lower right - sacred chapel of Torm for all your long rest needs.
The large open cavern is chock a block filled with spiders and webs of all sizes.

All together now, the party penetrated beyond the spider hall - most likely the source for the spiders that had taken over the surface portion of Malvern Manor - and squeezed through a narrow hall into a room filled with several large rodents and swarms of lesser vermin feasting on a corpse.  Yolo leaped into the fore, and engaged all of the giant vermin almost single handedly.  Bottled up in the hallway, the rest of the party shrieked like grade school girls at a slumber party as they swatted ineffectually at the swarms.

Beyond the spider cavern.  Yolo single handedly slays a swarm
of four giant rats while the rest of the party struggles with a few small
swarms of normal rats and bats.

The giant rats took advantage of their superior numbers to tear Yolo to shreds.  (Read:  Four giant rats attacking with advantage for several rounds guarantees a few critical hits.  Yolo took five crits in two rounds.)  Without the timely intervention of the half-orc paladin, Mordred, and his potent healing, Yolo might not have survived his fight.  Which is all part of the plan, as a standard fighter, Yolo's job is to take punishment and serve as a damage soak while the heavy hitters work their literal magic.

A brief look at the corpse revealed the last of the missing guardsmen, but no clues to the mysterious interlopers.

The next cavern in the complex proved to be a mushroom forest filled with deadly fungi of every variety.  While each species on it's own would be easy to deal with, having all of them in close proximity made for quite a conundrum.  You couldn't fight the violent ones without triggering the ones that spew poison spores.  You couldn't sneak past the ones that shrieking in bright light without getting too close to the ones that reach out and grab you.  After puzzling over spells that might help, the crew hit on an easy solution - a silence spell and dousing all artificial light.  The inhuman members of the party relied on infravision to escort their human friends out of the cave.

The next room proved to be the last - a large tomb inhabited by the surviving Malvern Brother, Lucius, and his undead minions consisting of two zombie ogres, a dozen human zombies, and a few skeletons.  In a case of mistaken identity, the necromancer assumed that the party was sent by the Dragon Cult to kill him, and was angry that the Cult had betrayed him.  Through a rage spittle filled rant, it became clear that this fellow was holding out hope that the Cult would resurrect a Dracolich, per the terms of his agreement, and their attempt to craft a hoard large enough to bring Tiamat to Faerun was simply not kosher in his book.

The final confrontation with a betrayed Dragon Cult leader,
and his zombie ogre, zombie, and skeletal servants.
The colorful circles in the south chamber show the
mushroom maze of death.

Whoever he was, he wasted no time in summoning more skeletal reinforcements from the mushroom maze - their arrival preceded by a piercing wail from the shriekers in the previous room.  The party elected to wipe out the crazed necromancer's minons first - they were closest to the party after all.  Once they were dispatched, Lucius went down hard and fast.

And that's when the real trouble began...

Session 10 - Spider Manor

Having been hired by the shining hero, Captain Von Der Fule of Candlekeep to investigate the missing wizard brothers, Mordecai and Lucius Malvern, the party finds itself on a slight rise overlooking Malvern Manor.  But something is amiss!  Ain't it always?

Three sides of the manor are covered in thick, ropy webs, and a figure stands along the approach to the manor - one fingerless hand stretched out in the universal gesture of "Halt!", the other hand pointing back along the roadway.  A corpse, staked to the earth, and flayed of every inch of skin, it is an appalling sight.  It's also a warning the party refuses to heed.

Using the standard party tactic of hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle, they essentially assaulted Malvern Manor in a SWAT style raid.  On the porch they get slapped around by giant spiders that pack a punch but lack staying power - one hit and they drop.  The largest spider teleported back and forth, landing a few blows before being gutted at range by a highly accurate Grim the rogue.

Inside, the party lured a pair of starving guard dogs into a bathroom using a day's rations, and then barred the three headed beasts inside.  The ground floor echoed with bestial howls from the basement, and a thumping and moaning from the floor above.  Searching the living area for clues revealed...

Upstairs the party found a pair of nice bedrooms, one of which contained a starving, eyeless, fingerless, and tongueless brother, crazed beyond all sanity.  No attempts at first aid or magic healing could mend the wretches severed mind.  The party did find a journal written by  one of the Malvern Brothers that pointed the way to a hole to hell in the backyard of the manor.

The top floor was given over to four summoning circles that the party dared not touch.

The stairs down led to a small landing, flooded by six inches of water.  The water, the howls, and the dank oppression led the party back upstairs - nothing could be worth all that trouble.

The last thing to investigate - the back altar - would have to wait for the next session.

Session 9 - The New Guy

Two days after the slaad attack and assassination attempt, the caravan is startled by the approach of a half orc paladin astride a mighty charger.  Mordred, his name, a paladin in service to the Church of Torm, his profession.  He immediately approaches Aramis, the party's cleric and fellow servant of Torm, and inquires about riding with the caravan to Candlekeep where he is slated to meet friends in pursuit of a second caravan the cult is using the move The Great Hoard northwards. He proved to have been sent by Ontharr Frume, a member of the Order of the Gauntlet and an ally of Leosin the Monk.  

Jeb, the wagon train master, is a skeptic until Mordred offers a sword to replace those lost in recent adventures and notes that he will pay his own way.  At the sound of a free hired guard, Jeb changes his tune and welcomes the big ugly brute.

Gilgamesh and Mordred, the new guy.

The last of the perytons proved to be the toughest, only dying at the thunderous hand of the party mage, Gilgamesh, who cast a booming shatter spell.  The spell blasted the peryton into a cloud of feathers and gore, but also badly damaged the cultists cart it happened to be sitting on at the time.  The rear half of the wagon broke apart, spilling gold and loot along the road.

Aftermath of the peryton attack

While doing this and travelling ever deeper into the forest, your group was set upon by horribly mutated goblins and a great ogre abomination.  It was during this attack that Capt. Alphonse and his men broke a oath of their own by turning on the group and launching an attack against them.  But as it turned out, it was the Captain and his men that paid the deadly final price, being wiped out to a man!
And with that, the party stumbled out of the forest mists to crest a small hill overlooking a beautiful high mountain valley with a crystal blue glacial lake at one end and a most impressive Malvern Manor at it's shore.  From a distance, the house appeared...hazy.  And not in a good way.
A deeper investigation would have to wait for the next session...

In an effort to distance himself from the party members who have repeatedly blown their cover, Yolo takes a morning to make nice with Captain Alphonse, the leader of the cult on this road trip, at the next day's breakfast.  "Yo man, why those guys on the spice truck got it in for you?  All those stories, all the bad blood.  Don't you worry, bro. Things get tight, I got your back."  He's kind of a laid-back surf elf.  You know the type.  Alphonse wasn't sure what to make of it, but given that his 24 man team is down to 16, he didn't dare make yet more enemies on this trip.  Yolo was left with the distinct impression that Alphonse didn't want any help, but accepted he might need it.

Later that day, Perytons attacked the caravan.  Peryton's for those of you that missed that episode of National Geographic: Faerun, are half-stags and half birds of prey given to ripping out and eating the still beating hearts of their victims.  The foul birds swooped down from the sky, and lit into the caravan with a vengeance.  Aramis nuked one with holy fire, and Karren let fly the Dragonspear, felling another.  Meanwhile, Grim shanked a cultist in the confusion and successfully blamed a peryton for the death.  Yolo tried to assist by "accidentally" hitting a pair of cultists with friendly fire, to no avail.  



As the cultists scrambled to collect the gold and valuables, Karren made move to retrieve the Dragonspear, only to find it in the hands of Alphonse, the leader of the cult on this trek.  Yolo quickly negotiated a truce between the spice merchants (Karren, Aramis, and Gilgamesh), and the cult leader.  Karren gets the spear, and no more funny business until the gates of Waterdeep.  Down five more cultists following the attack, and with the loss of a wagon, the cult consolidated down to four wagons.

The next day, the wagon train halted for a moment at an odd sight.  A man buried up to his neck on the roadside - the standard punishment for oathbreakers in these parts.  The cleric and paladins refused to leave a man in this state and their trust paid off.  The poor soul proved to be Carlin Amenfall, Karren's contact with the Harpers.  In front of the crowd, Carlin claimed to have broken off an engagement rather than marry into a family of brigands.  Later, in private, he confessed to have been travelling with a loot caravan three days ahead of us, but there the cult found him out and left him neck deep in roadway.  He had left word.with the sleeping dragon innkeeper that he knows where a powerful artifact is, some sort of summoning stones, but the arrival of the slaads prevented the message from being delivered.

Two days later... Dragonspear Castle.  The first truly safe haven in weeks.

There, everyone was introduced to the garrison commander, the garrulous and slightly boastful Captain William Von Der Fule!  As the caravan at large settled in for a couple days of guarded rest, Capt. VonDerFule hired the party, as well as Capt. Alphonse and a few cultists , to travel a few hours into the nearby forbidding Great Northern Forrest to locate two of his lost patrols and check upon two wizardly brother allies, Mordecai and Lucius Malvern.  The two had recently gone missing.

Session 8 - Slaad Clown Faces, Part Two

Way behind on these write-ups.  Time is tight, and given the choice between actual gaming and talking about gaming on the internet, I'll take the former over the latter any day.  What do you think I am, some sort of RPG.net degenerate?

When last we left our plucky heroes, they had barely escaped nasty fight with a family of slaads with their lives.  In the aftermath of the fight, Grim the Rogue managed to secure the deed to the Sleeping Dragon Inn, and then retired to Beyd's Portable Watering Hole (a mobile tavern for the 14 wagon caravan) with Yolo the elven fighter for a nice comy rest.  Gilgamesh the tiefling necromancer and Karren the dragonborn fighter elected to sleep inside the inn's main room for the night - to better keep an eye on the known cultists abed upstairs.  The stench of the recently slain slaad would keep them alert enough to respond rapidly to an attempted assassination attempt by one of the cultists.

Big mistake on the part of the cultists.  The assassins - whose crossbow bolts from the dark shadows missed by a wide mark - fled for the safety of the upstairs room, but were quickly cut down by an enraged necromancer who had managed enough of a short rest to warm up a spell or two.

The scuffle alerted the rest of the wagon train to strange doings, and after long minutes of recriminations and counter recriminations, the wagon master had enough.  "We're leaving this accursed Inn in ten minutes!" he thundered.  And so the party, the cultists, and the story lumbered onwards towards the first safe rest in long weeks at a little place called Candlekeep.

Session 8 - Slaad Clown Faces, Part One

Finally getting caught up on a backlog of posts.  Just way too many irons in the fires.  Too many fires, too, come to think of it.

When last we left our plucky heroes, they were heading north, ten days out of Baldur's Gate, and still a month away from Waterdeep.  The dragonborn paladin's cover had been blown in a fight with raiding hobgoblins, which should make for some complications down the road.

The lead wagon on day ten belonged to the Cult, and a chance broken wheel caused their load to spill out all over the roadside - gold and gems.  The party quickly arrived, warned the caravan master he should keep a sharp eye on that wagon, and noted a guard from another wagon's eye light up as he spotted the treasure.  The cultists quickly scooped up the gold, including an embossed chalice they had stolen from Greenest back in Session 1, and waved off all attempts at help.

That night the weather turned foul, but the caravan was slated for a brief stop at a lonely inn way out in the wilderness.  They entered to make arrangements, but found an apologetic tavern keeper trying to shoo them out the door as five foppish noblemen taunted the rough edged travelers.  While the party didn't want a fight, they refused to back down and quit the dry confines of the tavern.

As everybody geared up for a fight, the noblemen showed their true colors.  The leader's skin split down the middle like a snake shedding its skin, and a massive slaad burst forth. His four friends, and the poor tavernkeep, also burst at the chest as baby slaads leaped forth.

Turns out slaad regenerate and are immune to most magic based and all elemental based attacks.  Which meant round after round of pummeling the big daddy.  Karren nuked most of the babies with a blast of electric breath.  The guards from other wagons were of no use - they ran and hid.  Just as the fight started to look like a quick one, Grim made an almost fatal error.  In an effort to hid behind the bar, the better to shoot from ambush and triple his damage, he unwittingly called the attention of a second slaad hiding in the kitchen.

Nothing for it then, Grim commenced dancing all around the tavern, leaping on tables, shooting from behind anything he could.  Gilgamesh dove into the fray with his little knife and 12 HP, just for a bit, but what a bit.  He had a melee attack spell that nuked the Daddy slaad's regeneration just long enough for the party to put it down once and for all.

Momma slaad fought the good fight, but now outnumbered and unable to score enough damage to bring down the key damage soak for the party (Yolo the meat shield sword and board fighter), her doom was inevitable.

Coming soon:  Session 8, Part Two

Session 7 - The Journey Begins

In which the party attempts to discover where exactly the Cult of the Dragon is shipping their stolen treasure and what they plan to do with that treasure.

Our plucky heroes are heading north amidst a small caravan led by an experienced dwarven wagon driver. That is, the caravan boss is a dwarf, not a guy with experience driving wagons of dwarven manufacture.  Yolo the fighter and Grim the archer signed on as guardsmen working for the ale merchant Beyd Sechepol.  The cleric Aramis, Gilgamesh the death mage, and the half dragon paladin Karren bought a merchant's wagon of their own along with a selection of spices in an effort to travel in disguise so as not to tip off the cultists who are also travelling in disguise.

The 40-day trek north to Waterdeep started off uneventfully, but the early days out of Baldur's Gate mean a trip through a massive haunted plain called the Fields of the Dead! Three days into the trek, the caravan stumbled across a band of Ushanti Hobgoblins ambushing a lone merchant's wagon. As fate would have it, the two party wagons - that is the wagons manned by the party, not wagons built for parties - were the lead wagons of the caravan and hence were the first to respond.  Alas, despite dispatching the hobgoblin raiders, the party was too late to save the ambushed merchants.

During the hobgoblin attack, the fight was visited by an ancient grieving elvish ghost, seeking her long lost husband...to no avail.  She ignored most of the party and hobgoblins unless attacked - she sucked the soul out of the one hobgoblin that tried - focusing on the elf, Yolo.  She begged him for aid in finding her husband and escaping her manipulative father.  No one could help, so she wandered off into the plains.

After the fight, one of the cultists caught Karren alone and muttered that he knew who the half-dragon was and that the cult was watching him.  How did he know?  Probably the powerful magic spear that Karren wielded in the fight - it perfectly matched a spear taken from the blue dragonborn leader, Cyanwraith.  Should have kept that weapon under wraps.

In the morning, the camp was visited by an epic "Golden Stag" of yore. Not able to pass up a chance of capturing such a legendary beast, a few members of the group tracked and followed the great stag deep into the forrest only to find the stag transformed into an ancient elvish druid with some rather dire "warnings" of what may come to pass...  Realizing the aged elf was the previous nights specters' long lost husband, the group re-united the two, thereby earning a valuable reward - a rare wand of Detect Magic.

Session 6 - Missed Opportunity

Couldn't make it to this session.  It's been a busy few weeks, and these write-ups are getting way behind.  All I can tell you is that the party fought an ogre, and joined a north bound caravan containing a dozen wagons including five cultist wagons hauling a small treasure horde up to Waterdeep.   The party split up, with Yolo and Grim hiring on to guard a mobile tavern set to service the rest of the caravan, and the rest of the party buying a spice wagon to go incognito.  The plan is to spend the 40-day journey north investigating the cultists, whittling down their numbers, and just sort of keeping tabs on them.

Tyrrany of Dragons - A Fluid Situation

Last session saw our band of adventurers complete their scouting/invasion of the Cult of the Dragon's local cavern headquarters.  In addition to slaying the local warlord and his pet roper, they captured low level boss-cleric Frulam Mondath.  At the cost of one party member, second line dwarven fighter Henry St. John.

Back at the local Greenest Keep, the party met up with two messengers looking for the recently rescued monk, Leosin.  They delivered reports of the cult heading north towards Baldur's Gate by way of two different roads.  The loot collected from the region had been split into two separate wagon trains disguised as traders, one of which was led by the local cult head honcho, a half-black dragon called Rezmir.  Also, one of the messenger's guards was an elven fighter conveniently willing to hook up with the party (read: my new character).

Before picking one of the two trains to pursue, the party opted to descend to the Keep's dungeon for a quick interrogation of the captured cleric, Frulam.  Their first question was a collective, "Wait, you're a woman?"  Bear in mind, that the party had encountered Frulam multiple times, and our DM had consistently described and referred to Frulam as a crusty old dude - with matching crusty old dude miniature.  This week our DM brought along the official WotC DM's screen for the campaign which includes helpful pictures of the major NPCs.  Turns out that crusty old spittle flecked crackpot is actually a hot young chick, possibly of some sort of elven descent.

More like, Whore of the Dragon Queen, amirite?

Apparently WotC changed Frulam's gender at least once during the writing and editing, and a few of the pronouns slipped through the cracks.  During the prisoner questioning some players went with the retro-active gender switch, and some stuck with the new and improved female Frulam, to much confusion.  Either way, Frulam was a tough nut to crack.  She tried to charm the mage, failed miserably, and shut the heck up.  Part of me thinks Frulam disguised herself as a crusty old guy knowing that the resultant confusion would throw off pursuit/focus on the questioning.  Despite some solid intimidation rolls, we didn't really know what questions to ask, so we didn't score any useful intel.

Setting out cross-country to intercept and way-lay the inland wagon train, our heroes stopped for the night at a crowded caravanserai at a river crossing.  Two other groups of travelers had already claimed the best sleeping patches, so the party elected to set up in the lower right of the lavishly prepared battleground...er, non at all suspicious campsite.

Recognizing the heavy hand of meta-gaming pointing to an obvious ambush, the characters set to investigating the group on the left.  (The group on the right wanted to be left alone and posed less of a threat over on the other side of the river.)  The left hand group consisted of a fat, jovial spice merchant named Aioli with six or so guards.  After sharing a meal, buying a rather nice road mess kit, and surreptitiously scouting the contents of the trader's two wagons, (the flat green things), the party set watch and made camp.

To no one's surprise Aioli was actually a hired hit man whose squad ambushed the party in dead of night.  Aioli had flavored the evening's meal with his special poisoned Aioli Sauce, but no one succumbed, and battle was joined.  Turns out the second group on the right was also hired hit men, and they joined battle as well.

It didn't go well for Aioli, his guards, or the un-named grouchy folks from the other side of the river.  The party has enough area effect attacks to handle the low level mooks, and the spell-casters kept picking the wrong targets - they kept using the wrong spells on people with the best saving throws, things like charming high Wisdom characters, or hitting high Dex characters with area-effect spells.

The wagons had to be left behind, but not before a thorough looting, and the finding of more intelligence:

We're going to need a folder to start tracking the paperwork.

And that was the end of a late night.  We got started late, and by the time everybody sat down at the table, all we really had time for was one session of RP and one combat.  The longer than normal gab session to start the session gave me time to start decorating the campaign note folder with some lovely junior-high doodles, though...

Also, my character was too dumb to help
with the interrogation of Frulam Mondath

Tyranny of Dragons - Take Three

The Cult of the Dragon has (so far) claimed two victims at our table.  Somebody is sending reinforcements in the form of a big dumb elven fighter named Yolo Ellsolor.  Ellsolor is a Quenyan word that roughly translates to moonsurfer.  Yolo is a diminutive, actually an anagram for an elvish phrase that means, "This might be pretty stupid, but I'm totally doing it anyway, bro."

His battle cry is his first name.

Never had much truck with elvish characters in the past, but D5D has warmed me up to the idea of a fighter with some magical ability.  Taking a high elf gives you a free cantrip, and minor illusion is just too much fun.  You can use it as often as you like, so Yolo here tends to pass the long dull moments of his life by "summoning" his pet monkey, Mister Nannerpants, as a travelling companion.  Mister Nannerpants is quite the rascal - can't wait to inflict him on the other players.

Tyranny of Dragons - The Boneyard

A running tally of those heroes fallen in their quest to prevent Faerun's Cult of the Dragon from ushering in a new dark age by summoning the dread god Tiamat.

• Raane, half-elf illusionist - fell from the walls of Greenest Keep while attempting to sneak out to save The Mill from arson.
• Henry St. John - dwarven warrior - eaten by a roper deep in the bowels of the Cult's lair near Greenest.

Note:  This post will be updated each time a character meets their maker.

Tyranny of Dragons - Vengeance and Death

With apologies for the cell phone pic.

When last we left our band of plucky heroes, they had captured the leader of the attack on Greenest, the mad cleric Frulam Mondath.  A quick scan of his office revealed a significant intelligence coup; the group had discovered marching order to head west to the coast and then north to Waterdeep, as well as detailed numbers of troops and supplies.

Risking discovery, the team pulled in their rear-guard, the archer Grim, and paused for a short rest.  Knowing that they would only get one shot at disrupting the plans of the Cult of the Dragon here in their base of operations, they elected to penetrate still deeper into the cavern despite being short on healing and spells.

Gilgamesh, the death mage, descended the rope ladder leading down into the pit trap within Mondath's lair to scout ahead.  The rest of the team fully bound up Frulam and stuffed him in his own trunk.  Down a short passage, Gilgamesh observed the great half-blue dragon (or is that blue half-dragon?) Cyanwrath at prayer within a large chapel to Tiamat.  Henry St. John, the dwarf, would have taken on 'that big blue bastard' by himself, but the rest of the team never considered leaving without dispatching Big blue.

Somehow they managed to sneak the whole party into the chapel and ambush the terrible dragon warrior, and his two aides standing off to the side.  The fight was fierce and terrible, but never in doubt.  Although he fought well, Cyanwrath fell to the combined might of the party - the coup de grace delivered by Henry's twin hammerblows.  Vengeance at last...okay, it had only been a week game time, but it felt like months.  Henry's satisfaction would be as short lived as Henry himself.

A small trapped chest held loot, but Grim solved that problem by using a pilfered key.  What might have been a fatal acid trap was safely bypassed.

dun Dun DUN...foreshadowing!

Still not smart enough to quit while the quitting was good, the party descended yet another flight of stairs to a large cavern with two large depressions separated by a rocky ridge.  The smaller of the holes looked empty, and the larger held two ambush drakes among a group of stalactites and three dragon eggs.  Grim made short work of the drakes from above, leaving an open shot at the dragon eggs.

Wasting no time Henry and Karren the half-dragon paladin descended into the egg hatchery, springing a kobold ambush.  Two blighters hurled casks of tarry glue while the other two hurled molokobold cocktails: whooosh!  The glue didn't stop the two heroes for long, though.  The two strongest party members yanked themselves free. While the rest of the party made short work of the kobolds, Henry advanced on the nearest dragon egg.

"Who want's a black dragon omelette," the dwarf asked.  A bad choice of last words.

More like passive aggressive perception amirite? 

Splattering the dragon egg awoke a massive roper guardian who immediately grabbed the unsuspecting dwarf and reeled him into a massive set of chompers.  What the party had thought was another stalactite was in fact a ravenous beast trained to eat anyone who touched the eggs.  The party fought valiantly, Grim in particular dealing massive amounts of damage.  Alas, to no avail.

Not shown, massive puddle
of tar-glue blocking the stairs.

Although they were able to stay out of reach of the towering monster, they just couldn't get to Henry in time.  Aramis dove into the pit, trying to distract the beast, get close enough to Henry to lay down some healing magic, anything.  But the cleric's heroism just couldn't overcome a series of really, really poor consitution checks by the dwarf (two critical failures, ouch).

Cue sad trombone

Saddened by the loss of their plucky friend, the party at last decided that they had delved too deep.  Ain't that always the way?  They gathered up their friends remains, their captive cleric, and returned to Greenest to turn over the intel to the proper authorities.







And now you know why the header of this blog looks the way it does this week.

Tyranny of Dragons Actual Plays

As I've mentioned before, one advantage to playing a pre-packaged rpg campaign is the opportunity it opens up to swap war stories with fellow players who have been through the same meat-grinder. Also mentioned repeatedly has been my group's adventures, mis- and otherwise, along the Tyranny of Dragons campaign.  To expedite the process for the rest of the world, here's a list of actual plays found through a quick search on the old googlescope.  If you know of one that isn't included here, let me know and I'll try to add it.

Here's a whole mess of links to the first session of each campaign, the first session because not all these blogs have indices.  If the first one grabs you, you'll have to poke around these sites to find the rest of the actual plays yourself.  Also, a few of these are first session write-ups only.  You will be warned where possible.

I'll include brief notes where possible so you can avoid the frustrated wannabe fiction authors droning on about weather and internal monologues and other such tediums.  For the most part, you're on your own, as I don't have time to read and critique each and every one of these.

Actual Plays

• Ameron at DungeonsMaster.com - Written from a DM perspective
• Detect Magic, The Blog
• Dicemonkey
• Doctor Strangeroll
• Epic Words
• Fang Wiki
• Geek Dad/Adventurer's League
• Loremaster - First session writeup only
• Merrics Musings
• The Most Unread Blog. Ever.
• RadTrad RPG - Podcast
• Slight Misplay
• Strand Gamers - Podcast
• Twenty Sided Store
• Wizards.com Messageboard Thread 1
• War In A Box - Shameless plug!

Advice for DMs

• Hack and Slash - Detailed review and advice for "fixing" the campaign as written
• Kobold Press
• LevelCapped - Actual Play written by a DM who admits his mistakes and gives advice for how to avoid them.
• Sly Flourish

New Year's Party

Day late and a gold coin short, here's a shot of the full lineup of the party standing between Faerun and a so-far vaguely draconic but unspecified threat.

Karran, Gilgamesh, Aramis, Henry, and Grim

On the one hand, if the fate of the Realms lies in the hands of these bozos, Faerun is in big trouble.  On the other hand, all of Faerunian history indicates that a number of Mary Sues, Blackstaves, and Elminsters will be there to pick up the pieces if they fail...so it's all good.

[Late edit:  These figures are all from Reaper.  Here are the names and SKU numbers from left to right: Golanth the Half Dragon Warrior (3463), Elnith the Astral Reaver Monk (03540), Templar Knight* (2330), Asgeir Redbeard (02971), Mason Thornwarden the Ranger (03500).

*The shield on this figure has been filed smooth.  It originally comes with a large Templar cross molded onto it.]

Tyranny of Dragons Party - Yours Truly

The most colorful member of the party, in more ways than one, must be my character, a dwarven tank named Henry St. John.  He actually dual wields two light hammers, but the figure came with a hammer and axe.  The axe went to yesterday's dragon-born paladin, and the dragon-born's mace got plugged into the fist of this dwarf.

He's big, bold, brash, and loud.  A typical dwarf - straight ahead fighter, even if he isn't the most effective.  Dual wielding light hammers gimps warriors in fifth edition, but the rules are a lot more forgiving than previous editions, and I've never been a min-maxer kind of guy anyway.

Fighting Fire With Fire

Sometimes it takes a dragon to beat a dragon.  The toughest character in our party running the Tyranny of Dragons gauntlet is the dragonborn warrior, Karran.  This paladin is a white-dragon blooded tank of a hero.  Unlike the three previous characters in the party, the guy playing this character didn't go with a dark color palette.

He went with white on white.

All right to make this work, I tried a bluish undertone for the 'skin' portions of the figure, and a yellowish undertone for the armor.  In retrospect, those would have looked better reversed.  This guy looks more like a blue dragon to me.

Once again, the shield served as a way to provide an additional splash of color.  No idea what the player wanted for the shield, but a nice tribal dragon emblem seemed appropriate.

That weird looking axe is an artifact of an ill conceived weapon swap.  The character wields a big old axe, and the figure comes with a couple of sword options and a mace option.  I stole an axe from a dwarf (see tomorrow's post), and tacked it onto the swords' dragon wing hilt.  It's bulky, but it seems to work.

Sic Semper Tyrannis Draconis

Aramis, cleric of Helm, tank-slash-healbot extraordinaire, and all around good guy.  He has been instrumental in cracking the tyranny of dragons campaign.  

Fifth edition clerics seem like a hard class to play.  They have so many options at every level of the game, there's a lot to track at every stage of the game.  The guy who runs our cleric is very good at his job, he saves the buffs for the right time, and always seems to have heal slots available when needed.

His color choice?  Not so much.  He asked for black and silver, which is fine and all, but the party already has a black archer, a dark mage, and now a dark cleric - we're seriously running the risk of looking like the bad guys here.  This figure also needed something to break up the monochrome, and that's where the shield saved me.

For those not in the know, that's the symbol of the Forgotten Realms' deity, Helm.  A splash of blue background helps provide a nice contrast with the rest of the figure.

Tyranny of Dragons - Zero Dark Thirty, FR Style

We got bin Laden Frulahm Mondath!

I think that's his name.  He's one of the high ranking priests of the Cult of the Dragon that's been causing such trouble in northern Faerun of late.  Let me back up to the middle...

When last we left our plucky band of heroes (a band that really needs a name) , they had just infiltrated a large cave complex being used by the cult as...well, no one really knew, that's why the band was in there in the first place.

Having dealt with the door guards, our resident archer felt ill and elected to stay behind and guard our backs by watching the cave mouth.  (Read: Dan couldn't make the game.)  His loss would be sorely felt.  Just around the first corner of the cave, we knew there was a patch of shrooms that, if mixed properly, would give the human and dragon-born darkvision.  Alas, said shroom garden was being tended by two flying kobolds and a big bastard of a lizard beast.

Henry St. John barged right on down a slippery slope rather than take the stairs and proceeded to beat the holy living nine hells out of the lizard beast, while the rest of the party variously shot down the kobolds, and fell face first into the mushroom patch, which stirred up poison spores.  The resultant hallucinations knocked the dragon born tank right out of the fight.  Which would have proven disastrous in the face of kobold reinforcements, except for a well placed shatter spell cast by the death mage - that one spell knocked every last one of the little blighters dead.

Bumper sticker often seen on the
wagons of Forgotten Realms hippies!

Time for some stealth.  Not our fortay.  Our party located a large temple, and opted not to disrupt the ongoing ceremony (Coexist!), the midnight meat locker, and the meat delivery service.  Valuable intel all, but we decided to retreat to a secondary tunnel near the entrance rather than follow the meat delivery wagon - whatever they are delivering the meat to looks like it punches out of our weight class.  Perhaps some other time.

The side tunnel proved to be a guard barracks.  One ambush, fortified by a very useful bless spell from the good cleric Aramis, stopped all but one of the guards from alerting the big bossman.  Unfortunately, one was all it took.  We chased that cowardly bugger right into the lair of Frulah Mondath himself.

Frulah was well prepared, having healed up the tattle-tale guard, and also having cast some weird protection spell that summoned four ghostly cavorting demons - each of which stood as the corner of a spell of protection that caused heavy damage to all who approached the slavering and ranting cleric.  A decent archer sure would have come in handy right about then.

That crazy cleric wound up putting two members of the nameless party down hard before the dwarf could konk him on the head hard enough to put him out of action.  If the party didn't have two healers, somebody could have gotten killed in the encounter.  As it was, the party tied up the fanatic, looted the room, naturally, and high-tailed it out of the cave with valuable intel and a high ranking prisoner to boot.

All in all, it was a good day of dungeon delving.