Sunday, June 28, 2015

Dungeons and Dragons! (Part 1)

Today we played DnD! It was at Ye Olde Raven House.  I bought snacks, Boyle was Dungeon Master, and Molly, (Jolly) Eric, Harper, John and I played. 

It all started with us at sea, sailing along the southern coast of Some Continent Yet To Be Named.  It was a dark and stormy night, and my character, Ulfgar Orebreaker, of the Orebreaker Clan, the Royal Hill Dwarf House that controls the gold trade in the lands to the north, was down in his bunk, counting the thousands of precious gold coins in his possession.  Then suddenly, a giant tentacle rose from the depths and split the ship in two!  This delighted to no end John's character, a gnome warlock named Nory who used to be an academic before throwing his career away to become a disciple of Cthulu.   He is now convinced the world is ending.

The ship sank into the depths, and Ulfgar was only able to save 25 of his precious gold coins.  Seemingly the sole survivors of the ship, our adventuring party washed up on an unfamiliar shoreline, in what later turned out to be much farther to the south than we thought we were, leading us to believe we spent several days floating upon the sea.  That we all survived is a seemingly miraculous event, one that we each attribute to different forces. 

After taking stock of our new situation, we suddenly found ourselves in a pitched battle with several dog-sized crabs, one of which Nory the Fanatic convinced to leave us along using his dark mental powers.  The others we cooked and ate, being starving. 

We then headed into the nearby forest, where we found ourselves set upon by wood goblins, who proved not too much trouble, especially since Molly's Half-Orc Fighter Henk (our Tank) had ridiculous rolls and killed pretty much everything in one go.  Eric's bard, who is mostly useless and who's name Ulfgar has not bothered to learn, climbed a tree and spotted some civilization in the distance, so we headed in that direction.  We made camp for the night, and Harper's Dragonborn Paladin Dragon Man met a nice tree who offered to watch over us while we slept.

In the morning, the tree gave the Party a quicker route to the mostly human settlement, which he seemed very cross about on account of the humans there loving to cut down trees.  We made our way there, and Ulfgar Orebreaker and his friends were given a warm welcome, on account of the illustrious Orebreaker name.  Once there, we learned the the place we had found ourselves in was called Bahah, after Lord Bahah, who lived inside a heavily guarded compound that dominated the surrounding edifices.  Asking Lord Bahah if he had any need for the services of an adventuring party, it turned out that his son had disappeared, and the nanny watching over him had been murdered and horribly mutilated.  Lord Bahah seemed generally unconcerned with this development, but his distraught trophy wife offered us one thousand gold to rescue her son and return him to her, which, after some unsuccessful attempts at bartering for more, we accepted. 

It was around this time that Nory the Fanatic of Cthulu remembered that Bahah Blast is a popular and addictive street drug in the North, and many of the details about the compound confirm that this was the place from which it originates. 

After receiving some trail rations and a meal, we set out along the trail of the missing son, Jack.  (During this time of rest, we heard many servants voice a desire not to see young Jack Bahah returned, which was curious!)  After following the trail for not too long, Henk the Tank was almost crushed between two swinging logs, but thanks to Molly's fantastic rolling skills, was able to jump to safety.  The party was attacked by four goblins, who we made quick work of, thanks in no small part to a magic missile Ulfgar split upon three of the four, allowing his companions to take out each of them with their subsequent attacks.  We found upon their bodies markings that Nory the Servant of Dark Lord Cthulu identified as denoting Bhaal, a Goblin God of Death, but no treasure of note. 
Next we came upon a tripwire, and saw goblins hiding in the distance, but Dragon Man raised his bloody greatsword, which scared them off, and we just walked over the tripwire and continued on our way. 

A ways on we found a door hidden in a forest, which lead us down to into a cavern.  Ulfar cast light upon Dragon Man's greatsword, since he was the only party member without darkvision. The cavern traveled down a ways at a height of about five feet before opening up into higher ceilings, then split off along two pathways.  We chose the one to the left, and Henk the Tank got lodged in a pit trap, but we were able to pull him (her?) out of it and continue on our way.  Turning a corner, we bumped into two goblin guards and their warpig, but we killed them rather quickly, thanks to Henk and Dragon Man not messing around. 

Up ahead we heard voices, so we sent off the Useless Bard to see what was there, and he reported back to us, using Ulfgar's messaging spell, the presence of goblins and some kind of human voice inside. 

Not wanting to mess around anymore, we charged in to do battle, and discovered— Jack the Boy was the leader of the Goblin Horde!  He was covered in his Nanny's blood and whispering to his Teddy Bear! 

The Goblins attacked us on his orders, and The Teddy Bear jumped to life with glowing red eyes, ran up to our Tank, Henk, and cast fear on him (her?), which was too bad because Henk find all monstrous things adorable. 

Realizing this was no time to mess around, Ulfgar Orebreaker, of the Orebreaker Clan, cast his second and final Magic Missile of the day on the Teddy Bear, and instantly killed it.  (This turned out to be super lucky, because Magic Missile was apparently just about the only thing that could get through its defenses and/or cause damage, and it was the most powerful thing in the room.)  The Teddy Bear morphed into some kind of evil insect thing and melted. 

The Party made short work of the remaining goblins.  The Useless Bard was almost useful when he grappled the kid, but Dragon Man stepped in and all but sliced the little bastard in half.  However, the tiny jerk was still alive!  Confident we were dealing with some bad business here, Ulfgar firebolted the little monster dead. 

Then we looted the place. 

Unfortunately, Molly chose this moment to stop rolling like a boss and totally whiffed on getting us anything good. 

So there we are standing, surrounded by bodies, short on treasure, and having freshly killed the kid we had promised a drug kingpin we would bring back alive, wondering what to do next.  Cliffhanger!