Writer's Block?

Early last week I had made a resolution to myself to write a thousand words a day.  I had been getting pretty lax in terms of writing activity and I had wanted to make some kind of commitment to get myself going again.  And for about six days, I did it!  I got a lot of writing done, and finished off two chapters of the thing I am working on now. 

And then I started trying to write the next chapter, and I just had nothing.  It wasn't that I wasn't feeling like writing.  Far from it!  In fact, I was sitting down every night, but one, for hours, and trying to figure out what to write next.  But nothing was coming.  I ended up spending all that time doing research to what I wanted to eventually write.  I suppose I could have knocked out some words on the two or so short stories I have in the mix, but I just didn't feel like it.  I had felt all this momentum building up in the days before on the main thing, and working on something else would have felt like putting that on the back burner.  Besides, those things had stalled too; shifting focus to those would have meant still banging my head against a wall, it would just be a different wall. 

I wonder, then, if this is writer's block, or at least a version of it.  It's not that I don't want to write, or that I am being lazy.  It is just that the ideas are not yet there for what I want to do, what feels right when I put it on the page.  It's like I have to wait for my subconscious to catch up to what I want to work on.  Its annoying, because honestly I would rather be typing.  When I do enough typing, I find that I actually like it, the sensation of your self melting away and becoming merely the flow of words and sentence structures building themselves invisibly inside the cavern of the mind as your hands glide intuitively over the keyboard.  I want to get back to that.  Why can't I? 

Hurry up, brain!

Dungeons and Dragons! (Part 7)

Today we played DnD!

So, to start off with, the party members went their separate ways and took care of some personal business.

Hank-now-Hannah when to a swinging swingers party and hung out with Sir Elton and some dude thought he totally recognized her but she totally lied her way out of admitting she was some dude he once knew in the Lionheart Kingdom.  Also, while chatting with some people, they let slip to Hannah that Matthew Makana the Wizard was a bit of a loose cannon and any day now he would do something terrible while hopped up on Bahah Blast.  Foreshadowing!

Nory made some deals to try to get some adorable toys made of his Dread Lord Cthulu at a toy store, (called, I think, Alan and Annie’s?) but when the guy tried to get him to poach an apprentice from a rival toy store (definitely called Poppa’s Toys), Nory decided it was a much better toy store and he would just get his dolls made there instead. 

Ulfgar met up with the Sultan bearing gifts, and scored some sweet commissions in banking for the Orebreaker Clan, but had to sweeten the deal by getting his adventuring party by taking out the crime syndicate living in the sewers, who were not the Thieves’ Guild at all, because the Thieves’ Guild is very respectable.   

Dragon Man tried to kill some rich people who almost ran someone over, but then his nemesis, Superdragon, showed up, wearing a red cloak of flight and pledging to protect the wealthy from the ravages of the court system.  Dragon Man knew he was outmatched so he slinked off in shame, like he would. 

Battle Bard played music at a party but not that well, and thus failed to pick up any chicks. 

When everyone returned to the hotel room, Ulfgar laid out what happened in his meeting with the Sultan, and then the party spent an hour arguing over whether or not the crime syndicate living the sewers may in fact be evil, or whether or not they should just run off and try to kill the insanely powerful wizard they got hired for a measly thousand gold to take out.  Dragon Man, the Bard, and Hannah went out into town to ask around to determine if the crime syndicate that lived in the sewers was actually evil and worth taking out, or if they were a merry band who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor like Dragon Man seemed to think they were for some reason.  (Maybe being butthurt after his encounter with Superdragon and having to run away with his tail between his legs?)  On the way, Dragon Man and the Bard got threatened by some Bahah Goons, angry that Makana was still alive, but Dragon Man just insulted them and they continued on their way.

Well, what do you know?  It turned out the crime syndicate living in the sewers were a band of rapists and murderers!  The party members came back and maybe kinda accepted that they should just do like Ulfgar said already. 

The next morning they headed into the sewers.  And, as soon as they touched down, they were immediately attacked by vile mutants hiding in the shadows.  Dragon Man got overwhelmed and went down after one round.  Then, the rest of the party came down and made short work of the mutants, though Battle Bard had to grapple with some tentacle-thing living in the sewer waters. 

Continuing on, they came to an alcove, where a treasure chest was upon an island of stone, and a woman, who claimed her name was Amanda and who looked like an adventurer, urging them to go open the treasure chest, which she insisted she had just come down here to find and open, because people totally share loot with random other adventurers they meet in the sewers. 

Dragon Man jumped across to open it, but oh well, it turned out it wasn’t a treasure chest at all but was actually a mimic and it started trying to eat him.  Battle Bard jumped over and started trying to fight the mimic as well, while Ulfgar, who smelled a rat, sent a firebolt at Amanda and told her to back off.  Amanda replied with a spell that, thanks to Ulfgar failing the super-easy Wisdom Saving Throw, dropped him to zero hit points and he dropped, literally. 

Hannah gave Ulfgar a potion which got him back on his feet so he could hurl a Scorching Ray at the not very nice Amanda, who didn’t like that very much and ran off.  When the rest of the party finished off the mimic, they all made fun of Ulfgar for attacking the nice adventuring lady, which made Ulfgar feel like an idiot, even though out-of-game we learned that Amanda was actually a Swamp Hag or something which means he was actually right and the party was wrong and they should really stop questioning him all the time. 

They then continued on and after Hannah having a bit of an issue with a trap, they decided that maybe they had to go back because the party was pretty worn out at this point.  Ulfgar decided, perhaps out of annoyance with seeming to do everything wrong, to just go just a little bit up ahead before turning back to investigate a dead body lying in the water.

Well, that turned out not to be such a hot idea.  He immediately got attacked by some kind of water current creature and was knocked into the sewer water unconscious, lying beneath its bulk.

Fortunately, the party was able to rush in and attack the creature and, thanks to Dragon Man scoring a critical hit and deciding to unload all of his Smite Evils for the day, (who knew Dragon Man could Smite Evil?) was able to kill the creature in one round.  Then the party was able to drag Ulfgar out of the water, revive him, and get out of there.

They went to one of the public baths, got cleaned up, and took the rest of the day off to recuperate. 

The next day, they headed back down again, with Ulfgar in the lead to use his quarter staff to investigate stones for traps.  They immediately got beset by mutant creatures again, and had to fight them off, though this time no one went down for the count. 

Continuing on, they got past the trap that gave Hannah problems last time, and then crossed over to a side passage with a bridge, but everyone decided just to jump across rather than risk the bridge being trapped.  Then they went up a passage, which lead into a hallway where Hannah heard whispering coming from up ahead, around a corner. 

They had the Bard rush around the corner and set off a Thunderwave, but nobody was there.  Drat.  They continued on, until the passage opened up and into a room with a fountain pushing out green water, where they were set upon by more mutants, including one of enormous size.  The mutants seemed to have been drinking sewer water which had over time either killed them off, deformed them, or turned them into hulking monstrosities. 

Mutants!  Told you they were evil!

Eventually, the party was able to defeat the mutants, and recovered quite a bit of money from the fountain.  Then they headed back up, realizing from the details of the room that this was the main residence of the sewer people.  They returned to the baths, and then went back to their hotel rooms for some nice meals and some rest and relaxation.  Ulfgar sent a letter to the Sultan, giving him an update on their exploits. 

The next day, the Sultan called the party, which Ulfgar had taken to calling the Golden Party, to his residence.  On their way in, he party overhead some cryptic words between the Sultan and someone who seemed to be a dwarf, but no one in the party could give them any significance. 

The Sultan thanked them for dealing with the sewer people, and said that this would smooth things over for the Orebreakers to move their banking business into the city.  However, the Sultan’s secret backers had a request that he wished to pass on to the party, which was that the backers really wanted a tower.  A nice, white tower.  Makana had to go, basically, was the thing.  Didn’t have to die, just go.  The party understood.

Then, when the party went back to the Hotel, who was in the bar, but Makana!  Talking to girls!  Showing them tricks!  Like making one of them disappear!  He was on Bahah Blast though, so instead of making her turn invisible, he actually made her disintegrate.  Finally, he had done something terrible!  The party had an excuse to throw down!

The whole woman being disintegrated thing basically sent the bar into an uproar, so Makana tried to get out of there.  When he saw the Golden Party, he was super happy to see his buddies, and invited them to come back to his castle.  The party, having seen what just happened, acted like they were still his buddies, and agreed. 

And then Makana tried to teleport them all. 

Uh-oh.

Some of the party?  They arrived where Makana was.  Some of them didn’t.  They were in strange rooms they had never seen before. 

Cliffhanger!

Dungeons and Dragons (Part 6)

Okay, so, on Sunday we played DnD again.  We played for a while, but, like the last session, it still ended up being mostly a roleplaying session.  But what a roleplaying session it was!  Plot twists were had!  Character was revealed!  Discord was sown!  Genders were changed!

So, the Party last left off after a night of revelry in the city of Sana Bell, on their way to the city of Ispep.  The next morning, the Party was able to pack up and leave without further incident.  In fact, the trip to Ispep from Sana Bell was completely without incident, and soon the party found themselves on the outskirts of Ispep. 

Now, the city of Ispep is built upon a large island in the middle of a great lake.  Villages dot the banks of the lake.  Ferries and barges carry people and supplies to Ispep from these villages—however, livestock and wagons are forbidden to cross over.  Ispep seems to be the domain mostly of a ruling elite and those supporting them; it does not seem that Ispep could support itself under siege. 

The Party found lodgings for their wagons and livestock, with the cost of housing Dragon Man’s horse being waived due to his folk hero status.  They made their way to the banks, and booked passage on a vessel carrying food to Ispep, opting not to wait for the ferry, under the principal that if they were going to this town to kill someone (the Wizard Makana)  they maybe didn’t want to draw too much attention to themselves. 

When the vessel was halfway across, it was suddenly attacked by a horde of fish people, eight warriors and a female sorcerer, as well as two great white sharks under her command.  The eight warriors boarded the vessel, and began beating the sailors and attempting to throw them overboard.  Battle Bard, Henk the Tank, and Dragon Man jumped into melee, and began working their way through the fish warriors.  Nory ran about, firing at the warriors from between the crates.  Ulfgar climbed onto the crates, and began working to contain the creatures in the water.  He started by hurtling a Scorching Ray at the Sorceress.  Then, when one of the warriors knocked a sailor into the water, and a shark went to eat him, Ulfgar hurled his second Scorching Ray at the shark, killing it at once.  In return, the sorceress tried to take control of Ulfgar’s mind, but failed.  Then Nory tried to attack her, and for his efforts got his mind taken over, making him see visions of the great tentacles of Cthulu rising out of the water, convincing him that everything was all right and there was no need to keep fighting!  Ulfgar’s next Scorching Ray at the sorceress was a complete whiff, but the final one all but killed her, and a final Magic Missile took her out for good.  (He also threw a Magic Missile at the second shark.)  Meanwhile, Henk got knocked into the water by a fish person warrior, but was able to clamor onto the remains of the shark Ulfgar killed, and from there make his way back onto the barge. 

By the time Ulfgar killed the sorceress, the melee fighters had killed enough of the fish people that the ones who still lived beat a retreat into the waters.  Then the party looted the bodies and threw them overboard.  To retrieve the sorceress’ body, the Bard had to enchant Henk to fly after it, and almost would have lost the corpse to a shark if Ulfgar hadn’t (at Henk’s request), hurled a Magic Missile at it. 

Fish people taken care of, with the loss of only a couple of sailors lives (hey, you can’t save everybody), the ship came to dock on Ispep, and  the bigger party members helped the remaining sailors unload their product.  A weird beach bum type fellow was wandering about, interacting and generally being friendly and dudely with people, and soon he was talking with members of the party, to whom he introduced himself as Mattie.  He asked where the party was from, and Ulfgar, who had wanted to keep a low profile while in the city, gave a vague description of where they had come from, and the towns through which they had passed.  Nevertheless, when Ulfgar mentioned that they had passed through Bahah, Mattie grew very excited, but denied ever doing Bahah Blast (not too convincingly).  Ulfgar, then, revealed that he was an Orebreaker, and when it turned out that Mattie had heard of the Orebreakers, Ulfgar decided to give up on trying keeping a low profile.  How someone like this Mattie character had ever heard of the Orebreakers was beyond him!  Mattie offered to take the Party to the finest inn in town, the Tonhill, and so hopped inside his magical carriage pulled by imaginary horses and drove the Party there.

Arriving at Tonhill, Ulfgar went off to make reservations.  He talked to the gnome named Tonhill who ran Tonhill, and convinced him that he was an Orebreaker here on official Orebreaker business, and that his compatriots were his staff, and then rented out three of the establishment’s finest rooms.  He also mentioned that Dragon Man on was on his staff, which turned out not to have the desired effect upon Tonhill.  It turned out that, while Dragon Man might be a folk hero to the common folk, to the members of high society, he was considered a nefarious outlaw.  Ulfgar tried to insist to Tonhill that Dragon Man was his employee, and thus no danger to anyone at the moment, but Tonhill didn’t buy it, and sent servants to notify the city guard.  (The guards later showed up but were unsuccessful in discovering Dragon Man, much to their relief.)

Ulfgar then wrote a letter to the Sultan of Ispep, explaining that he was an Orebreaker here on business, and requested an audience with the Sultan, and gave the letter to Tonhill to have delivered. 

Ulfgar came back and gave keys to the others to their room, and left them to drink while going to his own room.  Most of them decided to spend some time in the Tonhill bar with Mattie, except for Nory, who went off to wander the city.  There he went to a tailor and a toymaker’s, where he commissioned himself dolls made in the image of Cthulu, had a miniature suit made for his familiar, and a matching suit made for himself.  Then he went to a library and checked out a book, for purposes that were surely not nefarious.

Ulfgar got a bath drawn while this was happening, and drank good ale while soaking, and finally felt like a proper Orebreaker again for the first time in ages. 

When the bath was done, he sent the personal servant assigned to him, Robert, to go off and collect his “staff” who were on hand.  The Party members came to Ulfgar’s room, wondering what all this “staff” bullshit was. 

Ulfgar apologized straight away for the staff bullshit, explaining that it was all a ruse to bolster his standing as an Orebreaker in town on official business, and give the Party some cover for whatever actions it was up too.  He also explained that Dragon Man was not exactly popular with the hoi polloi in Ispep, so he should maybe keep a low profile maybe, which Dragon Man strangely relented to. 

The Bard expressed some interest in playing in the Tonhill Inn Bar, so Ulfgar sent the servant Robert off to convince Tonhill the Gnome to let Orebreaker’s Bard play.  He also paid Robert a platinum piece to keep his mouth shut about everything that had been said in the room, which Robert was happy to do on account of Dragon Man having killed the guy who previously held his job (thus opening up the position for Robert). 

Henk also took this opportunity to announce that he wanted to be called Hannah from now on and to be treated as a woman.  Oh, and also, she worshipped Cthulu now.

Ulfgar was a little concerned about this whole worshipping Cthulu thing.  Nory’s pet god didn’t actually seem like a very decent god for proper folk to be worshiping.  Not because of the whole worshippers suddenly deciding to be women or anything!  No, ha ha!  Because of the whole tentacles for a mouth thing!  I mean, what kind of god does that, am I right?

So, the party went down to watch the performances before the Bard played, and then the Bard played, and he played very well, which was a relief.  Neither the Bard nor Ulfgar wanted the Bard to come off poorly at this moment. 

During the performance, Ulfgar spoke with some elves from a rival banking family, who were wary of the idea of competition from the Orebreaker clan, but Ulfgar assured them that the Orebreakers were not interested in expanding into the area at the moment.  (At the moment!)  Then, Ulfgar went over to chat with their guide Mattie, where it turned out that Mattie’s full name was Mattie MAKANA, and he was, in some respects, a wizard of this area. 

Gulp. 

Ulfgar then tried to relay this information to Dragon Man, as Dragon Man was, nominally, a Paladin, to see if he could detect whether Mattie Makana was evil or not. 

All Dragon Man turned up was that one of the other inn residents was a vampire.  So Dragon Man bought him a beer.  For is what Paladins do for creatures of the night. 

Later, Mattie was speaking with Henk no Hannah and mentioned that he lived in the tall white tower in town.  Henk no Hannah, as usual, seemed completely confused about what this meant.

The bartender during the evening was a skanky Tiefling.  After the fine musical performance given by the bard, given despite wearing his Gauntlets of Ogre Power, he succeeded in bedding that Tiefling. 

The next morning, Ulfgar learned that the Sultan of Ispep would see him on the following day.  So the members of the party went off to take care of various personal business.  Ulfgar went to various libraries to investigate Mattie Makana and Cthulu.  He turned up nothing on Cthulu, and learned that Mattie was the son of one of the founders of the local Wizard’s Academy.  He began to have doubts that the man his party had been hired to kill by a drug lord was actually evil, and resolved to investigate further before taking any concrete action. 

Henk no Hannah and the Bard went to a Capes and Cordial, a shop run by a very flashy fellow by the name of Sir Elton.  The Bard bought a magnificent cape.  Henk no Hannah bought a potion that turned him (her?) fully into a woman, becoming Hannah and only Hannah once and for all. 

Nory did some more Cthulu scheming, I’m sure, but I can’t remember what exactly. 

Dragon Man probably drank and hated people and, I don’t know, hung out with vampires or something.  You know, whatever Paladins do. 

Also, bits that couldn’t be fit in any particular place:  Mattie Makana has lots of descriptions of adventures that sound, out of game, like Matthew McConaughey  movies.  He also seems to teleport across time and dimensions quite a bit, and is definitely capable of moving between the Planes, which is Next Level.  He also has a serious Bahah Blast addiction that he is really not particularly good at hiding.  Also, Ulfgar spent a lot of down time reading books on the history of Ispep, so that he has a solid base of knowledge when speaking to the Sultan. 

That’s all I remember!

Dungeons and Dragons (Part 5)

Today we played Dungeons and Dragons and everyone was there!

So, when last we left off, the party was heading back to the town of Tek.  Dungeon Master Boyle backtracked a bit for the purposes of roleplaying, and so Ranger Stephen guided them over the desert, ensuring that they made the crossing without any difficulty.  On the way, Becky and Steven asked if Becky could join the Party, and the party allowed for it. 

Returning to the residence of the mayor, the party presented the 19 gnoll heads that they recovered, particularly the white one of the Gnoll Spellcaster, who Ranger Steven confirmed had been the source of the creation of the gnolls.  The mayor rewarded them with 2000 gold. 

Then the part set about splitting up all the loot.  The bard kept the awesome lute, as well as the Gauntlets of Ogre Power.  He magnanimously gave the goggles of darkvision to Dragon Man, the only party member for whom such a feat was not innate, and they split the scrolls of cure wounds between them, as they are the only party members who could cast such spells.  Ulfgar took the Wand of Frost, which allows him cast Ray of Frost as many times as he wants.  However, its boost to ice spells is of little use to him, as he possesses no ice spells.  He also hung on to the jewelry the party discovered, since they can’t sell any of that in Tek.  The party returned the lightning bow to Becky, as they figured they should endeavor to keep her family on their good side.

As it happened, Becky’s mother was not allowing for Becky to go off adventuring with the party, so she became stuck training further with her father (which was probably for the best).  Ulfgar asked if there was any way in which the information of Steven’s monster manual could be passed along to them, and Steven stated that he would have Becky recopy it over the next month as a part of her training, and if they returned this way one month from now a copy would be waiting for them.  Ulfgar thanked Steven for this boon and resolved to return after such a time. 

Nory at this time requested that they be allowed to rest and recuperate for 5 days in Tek, which the rest of the party agreed to.  During this time, Nory recopied his book of Dark Eldritch Arcana, and presented the copy to Becky, evangelizing to her of the greatness of Cthulu and the certainty of his eventual awakening, and Becky was quite enthusiastic to learn of this.  (This is probably not for the best.) 

The rest of the party purchased various minor supplies during this time, and then after five days they left Tek, heading west towards the city of Sana Bell.  On the way, they saw smoke rising in the distance, a sign they took as ominous.  The Battle Bard, with his doubled strength, used his sweet lute to cast flight upon Ulfgar, and the dwarf flew off to see what the deal was.

And it was Orcs!  Nasty filthy Orcs, eight of them, were raiding a small village on the outskirts of Tek!  Ulfgar flew backs a ways to his party, informed them of the situation and to make haste to battle, then flew back to make battle as quickly as he could. 

Ulfgar set off a pair of firebolts before the rest of the party arrived, and got hit by a pair of javelins for his troubles.  When his party arrived, they went to war with the Orcs, and very quickly the party started taking on damage in a manner they hadn’t in the past.  The Bard, for all his new found strength, turned out to still have a bit of a glass jaw, and soon went down for the count.  Henk did some serious Tanking as well. 

Perhaps it was finally winning a convert to Cthulu putting a bit of pep in his step, but for whatever reason Nory started kicking ass like he hadn’t ever before.  The party might well of fallen if it had not been for his cunning strategic use of his Dark Arts, especially once a powerful Orc Chief arose from a barn, flipping a coin and bellowing in joy at the prospect of killing the party. 

After a long, drawn out skirmish, a mixture of attacks from Dragon Man and Hank, plus a series of scorching rays from the still flying Ulfgar, managed to weakened the Orc Chief sufficiently that his last remaining underling turned on him and beheaded him, so that at least as he died he could die as the Chief of his Orc tribe. 

The party put out the fires and looted the Orc bodies.  Ulfgar used the Wand of Frost to put out the fires lit in the huts, and then piled up the ransacked Orc corpses and firebolted them into a blaze.  He and Battle Bard tried various magical and diplomatic means to learn from where the Orc had come, and got answers ranging from ‘nowhere’ to ‘everywhere,’ and decided that peasants are stupid (as are their livestock).  While the Battle Bard was walking around, Nory’s familiar, who had flown off on his own, retrieved the Orc Chief’s coin and made sure it fell into the Bard’s hands.  Wouldn’t you know it, the coin turned about to be sacred to Cthulu!  (Not that the Orc Chief knew this: at least that’s what the familiar told Nory.)

The party elected to spend the night in the village, since everyone was pretty much spent after that battle, and headed out in the morning.  The rest of their journey to Sana Bell was uneventful, until they reached Sana Bell’s gates.  There, they met a guard who knew Henk, a human named Jean who claimed they served together under King Acron Lionheart, an employment that ended at the time of King Acron’s assassination.  Jean then related that King Acron had been killed by a Drow, one who matched, when Jean described him, the appearance of the Drow that the party had passed several weeks ago, a fact that Dragon Man then baldly stated, because Dragon Man has no tack.

Ulfgar tried to sweet talk Jean the guard, to befriend him and allow them to pass into the town, but when Henk mentioned that they were a party of adventurers, Jean became unreasonably hostile, and refused to grant the party entrance to Sana Bell.  Ulfgar tried pointing out that he was, in fact, a member of the illustrious Orebreaker clan, but Jean insolently refused to take the high born dwarf at his word.  The nerve!  Ulfgar then offered to bribe the idiot guard, to the tune of one gold coin, and only one gold coin, because that was all a loser like Jean was worth.  When Jean refused, the party left the gate, with Ulfgar seething, and began to travel around the town. 

The party quickly came upon another gate, and gained entrance at that one.  The guard there let them know that Jean was new, and everyone hated him, and when it was mentioned that one of the party was Dragon Man, it was revealed that Dragon Man was, in fact, a kind of folk hero in the area, his deeds of violence and slaughter in years past having over time transmogrified into folk tales of daring do. 

The party entered the city, with word spreading of the appearance of Dragon Man, and Battle Bard took the opportunity to go about singing songs of his companion, to further sauce the city for their residence.  The party gained rooms at the finer of the two inns in Sana Bell, and made many purchases (such as more healing potions).  Ulfgar sat down to a fine meal, speaking with Henk about his time as a king’s guard, a subject Henk was quite reticent to engage in.  While, Dragon Man entertained the townsfolk at the bar, Nory sneaked off, bought some canvas, and made a makeshift sign to preach of the glories of Cthulu to the children of the city. 

While Nory was doing this, Jean came into the bar.  Dragon Man and Ulfgar eyed him angrily, still holding a grudge, until finally Dragon Man started something, and Ulfgar joined in.  It turned out Jean hated adventurers because one slept with his wife one time, so Ulfgar congratulated Jean’s wife for making such a sensible decision, so Jean charged Ulfgar and yanked.  At. His.  Beard. 

Ulfgar pushed the vile cretin away as Dragon Man punched him in the face.  A short fight broke out, but almost as soon as it began, Jean had a heart attack.  Ulfgar walked by and got off one final insult before the obviously horrible person expired.  And the townspeople lifted his body up and threw it out into the street.  They surely weren’t going to blame the death on Dragon Man!

Ulfgar went back to his meal, feeling a little bad about all that, but not that bad.  You just don’t pull a dwarf’s beard. 

Around this time, as the body of Jean was being thrown out into the street, the Battle Bard showed up and found Nory preaching about Cthulu in the street.  Entering the bar, Ulfgar, who had never heard of Cthulu, was unconcerned, but Henk went outside, where he saw the little Cthulu familiar of Nory’s and thought it was just adorable!  He joined in making little Cthulu masks with the children.  Eventually, Henk asked if there was some literature about Cthulu that he could read, and Nory became incredibly defensive and closed up shop. 

Ulfgar finished eating and went up to bed, hardly realizing how quickly and surely his party members were being tempted by Ineluctable Darkness and Evil. 

He slept all right. 

Dungeons and Dragons (Part 4)

So, on Thursday, in a make up session for the previous Sunday that got canceled because someone had a party he just had to go to in honor of what would have been his grandparents 75^th Anniversary that allowed him to reconnect with family he hadn’t seen in over half a decade, we played DnD!

When we last left our heroes they had just reached a cliff face and were taking a short rest before heading off to find and kill a horde of gnolls.  Suddenly and inexplicably, and yet in perfect attunement with his character, Dragon Man purloined the magic riddle ball that Ulfgar had stolen earlier in the day, and decided he wanted nothing more than to sit there and play with it.  (Out of Game: Harper didn’t show.)

The rest of the party decided to just get on with it, and started exploring the forest after resting in the underside of the cliffs.

Coming to a log across a river with alligators in it, the party sent across the Bard with a rope, which allowed Nory, Becky, and Ulfgar to across over easily as Henk held the other end taught.  Then Henk attempted to cross without benefit of the rope, but fell in!  But as that rope was tied about him, the party was able to pull him back onto the log, and Henk climbed the rest of the way to safety.  The alligators didn’t get him! 

 They found, shortly thereafter, a temple, but less of a temple than a fancy fortified fortress, with towers at each of the four corners, and gnolls pacing along the front on guard.  Cautious that there might be reinforcements waiting within should these exterior gnolls come under attack, the party opted to attempt a more discrete entrance, and sent the Thoroughly Useless Bard off to investigate.  The Bard found a sewage grating.  He returned with the party, who collectively managed to pry the grating loose and begin traveling up the drain.  Coming into an open sewer beneath a system of latrines, the party discovered the corpse, not of a gnoll, but of a small goblin!  Confused as to his presence, Ulfgar turned the body over, finding it partially digested.  However, due to the overwhelming stench of the place, he failed to notice the enormous carnivorous slug directly above him, and was immediately attacked. 

After the party did away with the slug, they found an ancient dwarven pendant made of diamonds and gold.  Unfortunately, the latrines were too thin for most of the party to fit through, so they had to turn back the way they had come. 

The grate being a bust for entrance, the party decided to get on with it and attack the front entrance.  Utilizing a pincer attack, with Ulfgar and Nory standing at angles to either side to prevent escape and the melee fighters rushing into combat, the party made short work of the guards, and were happy to see the arrival of zero reinforcements.  Stupid gnolls.

The party found the giant front doors of the temple unguarded, and entered.  Fighting off some hyenas in the front room and on the first floor of the tower located to their left, they made their way to the second (and last) floor of the tower, and took a short rest to recuperate.  While resting, Henk found an ok longsword remaining in what used to be the room’s armory. 

Heading back down, a little refreshed, they entered the tower on the right.  There, they found a human statue defaced with a gnoll head, the distant sound of laughter, and some writing along the bottom.  When Ulfgar tried reading it, it turned out to be mystic ruins! And Henk and Useless Bard fell to the ground laughing!  Leaving only Ulfgar (on his last spells), Nory (not exactly rolling the best), and Becky the Wonder Girl (a 0-level character) on their feet! 

A trio of gnolls scampered down the stairs and, finding Henk collapsed at the foot of them, followed gnoll nature and immediately started attacking him while he was down.  (Good Tanking, Hank.  Good Tanking.)  That left Ulfgar and Nory free to hurl spells at the gnolls until Useless Bard and Henk could get to their feet. 

By the end of the fight, while the gnolls lay headless upon the ground, (the sacks the party carried for gnoll heads were neigh fit for bursting), most of the party’s spells were cast and, as it was late, the party opted to bed down in the second floor of the tower they had taken a short rest in. 

But it was not to be!  During Nory’s shift, a horde of gnolls burst in and started attacking the party!  Including the lightning firer from the night before!  Revealed, not to be Becky the Wonder Girl’s father, but a gnoll in dark vision goggles innately capable of great speed! 

The fight was not going well.  Quickly, Becky was dying on the floor, and Nory was on his last legs.  But, once the the melee gnolls had been taken care of, Ulfgar was able to get off his last two Scorching Rays on the Archer, allowing Henk the Severely Depleted Tank and the Useless Bard to finish him off with the aid of the Useless Bard’s invisibility spells.  While they finished him off, Nory did his Nory thing and coaxed Becky back from the edge with sweet nothings of the Unfathomable Terrors Waiting on the Edge of Madness, and Becky returned to the land of the living perky and quick. 

Upon the Archer Gnoll they found a magic bow that fired electricity and a pair of goggles of dark vision.  The Bard took the goggles; the Tank took the bow.

Now, with Nory a hop away from joining Becky down and out, and Becky not ever being too far from the edge herself, and Henk having been thoroughly a Tank throughout the now many encounters, the party was looking pretty rough, and Ulfgar, lawful good as he is, suggested a tactical retreat to the woods, as one more attempted long rest getting interrupted may well have meant curtains for some of the party.  The Useless Bard argued for further investigation, and so cast invisibility on himself, and went off to scout the rest of the castle. 

On his travel, the Useless Bard discovered a library, a room full of bats, a pathway into dungeons, and a pair of magical white gloves that suddenly all but doubled his strength.  Returning to the party with the confidence of a Bajah Blast addict, the Bard related the contents of his search (forgetting to mention the sweet gloves) and proclaimed that the party should once again attempt to rest here for the night, as there were no gnolls left above ground. 

Ulfgar, being that kind of cautious bred by innumerable generations of nobility, the kind that keeps the commerce flowing and your friends living, suggested they once again make way for the woods, as they had no idea what calamities might await them in the dungeons below, or what could come from out of them while they rested. 

Ulgar and the suddenly impertinent peasant Bard argued about this, then argued some more, while Nory and Henk, I don’t know, stared at the walls and drooled or something.  They argued so long, that the gnolls that were sleeping in the part of the temple that the hopped up yet STILL THOROUGHLY USELESS BARD HAD FAILED TO SEARCH woke up and headed off into the woods.  This lead to even more arguing between the obviously right whycantyouallseethat dwarf and the no-good-pinheaded-whywontyoulistentoreason Bard, until the gnolls actually returned, the worse for wear and covered in scorch marks.  (‘Uh oh’, thought Nory, who was the first to put together what this meant.)

The gnolls were holding court in the courtyard below, so, the party, who couldn’t actually deal with much hand to hand combat now, opted to rain spells and lighting bow blasts down on them from above, with the Bard guarding the way up with Henk’s new longsword. 

Due to the element of surprise and the benefits of ranged attacks from above, plus the Bard’s new found ability to kick ass in melee, the Party bested the worse-for-wear gnolls without taking on any casualties.  It was here that Nory pointed out that the gnolls had probably encountered Dragon Man, and, well, they had returned.  So. 

As he was really the only party member still standing, the party sent the Bard off to find Dragon Man while they nursed their wounds.  Traveling back to the log they originally traversed, the Bard found Dragon Man in bad shape, but was able to stabilize his condition, proving himself to finally be, a Useful Bard. 

Returning to the party, they, finally confident that there weren’t, in fact, more gnolls waiting in the wings, went up to the tower and bedded down for the night. 

In the morning, fully refreshed, the party did some more exploring.  They played a huge organ located on the second floor of the entrance side, which revealed some Sweet Loot.  This organ playing failed to produce further monsters, so they party headed down into the dungeon. 

First, they found the latrines.  Then, a hallway from rooms.  Mostly, these were empty, but in one they found a cache of healing spells, which they gave to the Bard for the time being, and some gold.  In the final room, they found a path to a lower level of dungeon, and a defaced alter to good gods.  (Also, there was a dusty desk with a non-dusty spot matching the pendant found clutched in the hand of the half-eaten goblin.  So that’s where he got that from!) 

Here, Becky read from her father’s monster manual, that hyenas are often turned into gnolls by a master gnoll spellcaster, and the menace of the gnolls can really only be ended by killing this original magician.  Taking this into consideration, Ulfgar asked Becky to watch the entrance way, and come warn them if further gnoll reinforcements  came.  But really, he had a feeling now that maybe her dad was not coming home, and he didn’t want to bring the Widow Lynch home two corpses.  Plus, Becky was pretty useless in a fight. 

Down they went, into the second layer of Dungeon.  And there they found a forking path, passing along the sides of a solitary tomb.  And before the tomb stood a statue, and it was not defaced.  The Bard, who had only so recently stopped being useless, counseled fear, for whatever kept the gnolls from defacing this statues would surely be a danger to them.  At this, three spirits emerged as smoke from crevices of the statue, and stood guard at the tomb. 

It was at this point that Ulfgar remembered that gnolls are pretty rude dudes, and he was, in fact, a pretty good guy, with the blood of Gold Dragons coursing through his veins. 

He walked up to the spirits and said, what’s up?

The spirits explained that they were in fact super good guy guardian spirits.  Ulfgar explained that he was Ulfgar Orebreaker, of the Orebreaker Clan (perhaps you’ve heard of us), and was, in fact, also a super good guy, and was with his buddies here to Defeat Evil and Chew Bubble Gum, but they were all out of bubble gum, so maybe these awesome guardian spirits would like to show them where the bad guys were?

The Good Guy Guardian Spirits appreciated that Respectful Paraphrase In Honor of Rowdy Roddy Piper (RIP), and took the party straight to the evil Bad Guy Gnoll’s layer. 

That’s right.  Ulfgar is so high class that guardian spirits give him the guided tour.

The entrance to the Gnoll Boss’ layer was a hole in the wall, and it was cold inside.  In fact, it was ice-cold.  The Newly Buff Bard and Henk the Tank went down first, but slipped and fell on top of each other in the path that forked to the left, colliding in a pile of icicles.  Ulfgar, being a proper fire-loving, gold-dragon-descended dwarf, used his hand axe to help in grappling down the right-side corridor, while other two climbed back up and hurled themselves down that corridor, with Nory skating right behind them. 

They glided into a giant chamber covered in ice.  An Icy Gnoll Lord wielding a Magical Icicle Wand stood before them, with the ancient ranger Stephen Lynch held captive.  As the first of their party entered, The Gnoll Lord cast the seemingly ancient ranger in a giant block of ice, as if to save him for a sacrifice to his dark god, then turned to face our heroes. 

The party made some attacks that the Gnoll Lord seemed to merely shrug off.  Then, right as Ulfgar entered, being all careful and cautious, this Ice Maven unleashed a Cone of Coldness.  Despite being in the back, Ulfgar took the worst of it. (Perhaps because of his fiery nature?  Perhaps because he was the only to fail his saving throw?)  The Party continued attacking the Gnoll Lord, until Ulfgar, finding a clearing, cast Scorching Ray upon the Snowbeast.  Despite only two of the three bolts finding their mark, the Gnoll seemed to be disproportionately affected by the spell.  Realizing the danger posed by the short sorcerer, the Gnoll Lord focused his next attack Ulfgar, and it hit.

Ulfgar, for the first time in the adventure, was not looking so hot.  One more attack like that last one might well be the end of him.  ‘Oh, Bard who is not useless, I could surely use some inspiration right now,’ he called.  And the Bard, after making his own attack, granted such inspiration!

And with the aid of that inspiration, Ulfgar’s next Scorching Ray was the Scorching Ray to End All Scorching Rays, and the Icy Gnoll Lord fell in a blaze of fire.  [Out of Game:  I made all three attacks thanks to the inspiration D6 boosting my third attack above the threshold, allowing me to deal 25 damage, which doubled due to the Gnolls weakness to fire to 50 DAMAGE.  All told I did 70 damage over two rounds of combat, which is probably the high point of my entire life at this point.]

After that is was pretty much a cleanup operation.  Ulfgar used Burning Hands to melt the ice block Steven the Ancient Ranger was stuck in, and he was reunited with his daughter (who really wanted to keep his lightning bow).   The Loot consisted of the icicle wand, a magical instrument with five bonus spells a day (no really, Eric rolled for that somehow), and a whole bunch of gold. 

The Party left with the reunited Lynches, their new Magical Items, (well, the Bard’s new magical items, since he wanted to keep all of them), and nineteen Gnoll heads.  They picked up the recovering Dragon Man, made it back to their pack animals, traversed the desert, returned to the city and were rewarded for those Gnoll head to the tune of 1900 gold. 

But how will the party split that loot?  Will they let Dragon Man have any of it?  Will the Bard keep all the magic items because the other party members who could make use of them prefer to stare at walls and drool?  Tune in tomorrow, for a fun-filled extra-roleplaying edition of Dungeons and Dragons!  5th Edition, nerds!