Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
Those of y’all who check out my daily blog entries over on my hub site [internutter (dot) org] will know that I’m playing me some D&D on alternate Fridays. For those of you who don’t… then I’ll share the whole tale.
I’ve joined a D&D group associated with Beloved’s workplace and I take along my eldest, known to the Interwebs as Mayhem. He’s just starting into the game and is following the rule of cool. Me? I’m Chaotic Nuisance and consider it my duty to (a) do the mandatory Monty Python quote per sesh and (b) break the DM at some point.
Also in the party are my Brother-in-law and one of his coworkers. Let’s call them M and S for brevity and protection.
S plays a Dwarf Warlock (M) who’s a descendent of their previous characters.
M is playing an edgelord-esque Changeling Ranger (F) with a pet Stirge we collectively named Tinkerbell. Nobody knows that she’s a Changeling, since they’re incredibly rare in these parts.
Mayhem decides on a Tortle Monk in the Drunken Master discipline because a combined rule of cool and rule of funny.
My Chaotic Nuisance ass rolls up a Bugbear Cleric who follows Lathander and decides on Pollyanna levels of optimism and enthusiasm for good.
We’re playing Storm King’s Thunder.
Session One:
Things get off to a rolling start with an abandoned town and one of our players [S was absent] blackout drunk in M’s wagon. The church bell is ringing, but it’s not a pattern familiar to the Cleric.
M wanders off elsewhere as their character’s allergic to churches while Mayhem and I check out the church.
O noes! Gerblins are playing with the bellpull. One’s riding the rope and the other one is helping them ride
Big fluffy boi takes mild offense and attempts to correct them
Mayhem’s Tortle wants to play and fucking leaps onto the bellpull… and accidentally kills the gerblin on the rope.
One quick Spare the Dying with a side of Cure Wounds, two Gerblins run off into the wilderness.
We spend hours dicking around looking at empty farms and houses
Including a visit to the inn, which has huge rocks in it
And one survivor, who’s in the Mercantile party when we’re in the helping hands.
Picture it. One terrified Human lady alone in an abandoned town and her hiding place is uncovered by: A Bugbear, a Tortle, and whatever the hell M is.
And when my dude smiles nervously, he looks a lot like this:
Yeah. No wonder she ran off. But she did tell us that Giants were responsible for all the rocks all over the place.
We go investigate the mill because the Tortle ran off there looking for booze [despite having a jug of alchemy]
Two more Gerblins, which my boi greets with a spiel that includes “be at peace”.
One Gerblin convert, the other shoots the ranger, who sends her pet to drain the unfortunate archer dry.
Session Two:
S attends, this time, and wakes up hungover to behold an empty town with rocks in it
My boi is stoked, he has a new little brother in the converted Gerblin
S is bamboozled and M is just shaking her head at all this. Mayhem’s Tortle is just along for the ride.
We continue to explore the town
Convert Gerblin (CG) Insists on wanting a baptism but we have a job to do
During the survey of the wreckage, S gets a flying cat as a pet
It’s getting dark and CG is distracted by a bunch of other Gerblins playing Chase in a pumpkin field
Mayhem and I go play tag with the Gerblins while M&S explore the nearby house
The game of tag is played with pumpkins on their heads, so my boy hollows out one and joins.
Some other Gerblins in a nearby tower start shooting at Mayhem and my oblivious asses.
M&S lay waste to the guys in the tower, and CG loses his faith.
Reluctant slaughter, and furry pollyanna’s first and (so far) only kill.
Then there’s another fight in the town square, in the dark against four Worgs and a bunch of archers in the night
We retreat to the safety of the inn, though S needs a quick Spare the Dying
We’re in deep, deep shit.
Session Three:
My dude is running out of spell slots by now, so we fortify and prepare
Mayhem hides, so does S. M alights on one of the boulders and we wait
The end result of the fight with the Gerblins is - 6 dead, two survivors. CG and the one my dude saved in the belltower earlier, the Revived Gerblin (RG)
They piss-bolt
We lay out the Gerblins in the churchyard and then cook up some Worg Stew because we have two dead Worgs and few other resources. [We later learn that Worg shouldn’t be edible but whatevs]
During this, the Mercantiles turn up. They get greeted by S the Dwarf, Mayhem the Tortle, and my nervous Bugbear ass.
Weapons are drawn.
Hostilities are eventually forestalled and their Half-Elf leader, X, flat-out tells my boi “Stop trying to befriend everyone you meet!”
I greet this message from my DM with a resolve to be even more Pollyanna than ever. All over the landscape.
The lady from the Inn returns from her place of hiding and vouches for us. Yay.
We decide not to be murder hobos against these guys, and S swings a deal where we go to the keep and help them take over the entire town for their lord. Tomorrow.
Mayhem gets these guys fall-down drunk
M decides to cause some shit in the ranks by imitating X, and attempting to subdue the Mercantile Lass (ML) or cause shit in the attempt
ML feigns being sound asleep. She wasn’t. Greets apparent-X with a knife to the throat and “I’m growing sick of your advances.”
We all plea for smooth jazz at this point. In-between laughing our guts up.
S goes out to talk to the horses - who are not fantastic fonts of information
M backs off from ML and threatens her life. Then exits her room.
M transforms into ML, plays rough with X, and tells him: “My room. Five minutes. Pretend it’s your second visit there. I will be.”
Following all this setup, M transforms into one of the Mercantile dudes
We all make popcorn anticipating how this will play out…
DM: “There is a high-pitched scream in the night. She really was tired of his advances.”
This is only going to descend into further chaos because I’m planning a pre-dawn simul-heist where my dude looks after all the other dead Gerblins littering the landscape.
Plus, if I get the chance, he’s going to drop a TERRIBLE pick-up line on ML just because she was nice to him instead of terrified.
Stay tuned for Session Four.
Session Four!
My immediate plns to pull a meta joke are foiled because we picked up at the scream in the night. Fun.
S and M group together, nearly fucking their stealth checks to whisper about what’s going on. Nobody’s looked to see,
They immediately realise things are going to be fucked when the Humans work out what went down. They go to wake up the rest of the crew.
Another sneak-fest. They wake up Mayhem and I. Or at least, they plan to. Tortle wakes up, gets told to wake up my boi
Turns out, he’s a sound sleeper.
Get woken up by a headbutt, take the opportunity to add some history flavour
Meet upstairs with another stealth check comedy round, discuss potential trouble. Decide to tie and gag the Mercantile dudes.
Fourth fucking stealth comedy round. We have six dudes to waylay without causing trouble.
S and my boi actually manage the first couple of dudes.
M and Tortle futz the second of their dudes. Tortle does automatic suckerpunch
Fortunately, the rest of the dudes are that firkin drunk
This happens twice over, with S finally helping M and Tortle do up the last guy.
Fucking fifth stealth check back upstairs, we finally bust open ML’s room
Discover dead X, ML goneski
Fuck.
We figure on at least warning the keep now that the plan is foiled. The only problem is getting across a 15-foot gap in the bridge.
M just fucking flies over with the winged boots and sets up the rope for everyone else. Slight problem - we used half of it to tie up the dudes. Rope’s a little unstable because splicing.
S tries to cross. 150lb Dwarf decides to walk a slack rope
Cue Benny Hill music
Fails Dex check one, gets Dex save to grab the rope. M attempts to assist.
Fucked scores twice, S goes tumbling into the water.
Attempted climbing the structural shit on the correct side of the water
Meanwhile, Tortle leaps across and ends up embedded in the bridge
Fucks the scores again, can’t make it
S swims to the other side, barely makes it.
My boi tries to lower the drawbridge, realises that it’s a two-person job, and jogs back to fetch M
Get the drawbridge down, recover S, and realise that the Tortle is completely unsupervised.
Fucking RUN to the bridge and S decides to walk the rope again.
WHY?
Slips and falls, but this time M assists and gets him over.
After watching the shenanigans, my dude fucking shimmies
Makes it.
Finally go through the door and FUCK a stealth check
Alert the guards who go for their swords
This time it actually works. They relax
We tell the whole story about the Mercantile lot
They were expecting that
Turns out the leading lady of the keep died in the attack. Fucking WHOOPS. Well that’s why she can’t communicate. Mystery solved.
We’re then told to go to the caverns and fetch the people back
We argue job much easier with a replacement bridge.
We use a table and some pitons to do that, and we get a tagalong guard
We steal the Mercantile lot’s horses by gathering some carrots and carving some pumpkins into carrot-esque shapes
I manage… something… long and cylindrical.
“This is a penis.” lol
Horses stolen we head on off to the caverns where the people fled.
Lots of hints that the peeps were there.
We leave the horses and pets outside and go in.
I cast light on the shield and take the lead
Tortle: “Echo!”
Roll for initiative.
Two ogres plus goblins on the ledges. It’s a rough fight. Real rough.
We barely make it through that
Tagalong NO help
She does reveal that none of these mobs should be there.
