Erol - Snippet of a Wizard

Erol settled himself on the windows edge of the his room at the Elfsong Tavern overlooking the city of Baldur’s Gate, and sighed, wondering how he had gotten himself into this mess.

With the information he had been given, the curse he’d purchased and placed on the silver comb, with the paige he’d paid to take the comb directly to Duke Portyr, he should be rolling in gold right now, not running for his life. But who was it that had talked?

People would have to be questioned. Betrayal could not be allowed to go unpunished.

He took a long pull of his wine, letting the ruby liquid languor on his tongue before swallowing. Westgate Ruby wasn’t the best wine, but any little bit of alcohol that could dull the anger in his head would help. Not that his elvish blood would let him remain drunk long.

Well, can’t be helped now. Erol poured the remainder of the wine to the ground below, then dropped the clay goblet and watched it smash on the cobble. He liked to hear that sound, the breaking of fired clay. He wondered if the fingers of those who had turned on him would sound similar when he broke them off.

The above is the beginning of the backstory for my Elf Wizard, Erol Odrelel Maglnerdh in our new campaign: Descent Into Avernus.

Campaign journals will be uploaded after the play sessions, as is normal when i'm a player.

«§øùl¡ë»

Stat Block

Erol Odrelel Maglnerdh

Lawful Evil Gray Elf Wizard 1;
Medium Humanoid (elf); CR 1;
HD 1d4+2 HP 6; Init +2; Spd 30ft; AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14;
BAB +0; Grp -1; Atk -1 melee (1d4-1 dagger) or +2 ranged (1d8/x3 longbow);
SA Arcane Spellcaster, Summon Familiar (bat), Immunity to magic sleep effects, +2 save vs Enchantment spells or effects, Low-light Vision;
SQ WP(Elf)(longsword, rapier, longbow, shortbow);
SV F +2, R +2, W +4; S 9 D 15 C 14 I 19 W 14 K 12.
Skills and Feats:

• Concentration +6,
• Know(Arcana) +8,
• Know(Dungeoneering) +8,
• Know(History) +8,
• Know(The Planes) +8,
• Listen +7,
• Spellcraft +8.
• Scribe Scroll
• Alacritous Cogitation^(CM37*)

Spells - DC 14 + SL

• Cantrips (3) - All from PHB
• Level 1 (2; 1 from class, +4 from ability)
• Burning Hands
• Charm Person
• Grease
• Mage Armor
• Ray of Enfeeblement
• Summon Monster I

Gear - Spellbook, (2) daggers, Elvish Longbow (family heirloom), Quiver (20 arrows), backpack w/ Waterskin, rations (1 day), bedroll, sack, flint & steel, candles (10), map case, parchment (3), ink, ink pen, spell component pouch
*Complete Mage pg 37

Read more...

Teaching D&D to Matthias and Stephanie

I wanted to play a game with my family on the weekends the kids are home from their dad's. Since Anna plays Wardancer in our Shadowrun game I thought it would be fun to continue some Shadowrun at home, so as not to switch rulesets on her, but the overly complicated character generation of SR was daunting when I sat down with Matthias, my 14yo stepson. So, taking a feather from the cap of Dungeon Craft, I had he and Stephanie (my wife) roll up super-fast characters.

Choose ability scores on a net +7, don't worry about the scores, they're never used anyway. Just assign the modifiers. (This is based on the pregen characters from the box set of D&D5E, where all premades have a net +7 modifier score)

Pick an occupation from a random list. Stephanie picked conman, Matthias picked warrior.

I assigned them equipment, a leather shirt and a short sword. I put them on the road, the warrior became a city guard, the conman his prisoner for breaking the law.

Boom. Character creation done, playing, in less than 10 minutes.

I set them up with a common situation, on the road to the next city that actually has a jail, they come upon a coach beset with bandits. The bandits are just finishing up, and when they see a city guard they take off, a young woman over their shoulder.

Matt and Stephanie go to see what is going on, and find a man with his head bleeding. Matt tries to offer aid, but the man yells that they took  his daughter! go find them!

Stephanie asks to be cut free so she can help, the guard says no. He pulls her through the brush until they hear arguing, the woman is berating the men. Matt tries to sneak up and watch, Stephanie bursts through the brush and falls to the ground, hollering that she is being chased and needs someone to help her.

The bandits distracted, the woman takes off. One bandit chases, the other advances on Stephanie. Matt steps out and knocks the man out with a headbutt.

Stephanie scoots over and cuts herself free. She says they have to go after the woman. Matt insists that they have to go to the city. She tackles him and tries to tie him to a tree, but he breaks free. She runs off into the forest, but instead of trying to follow the woman, backtracks to the road.

Matt gets hopelessly turned around and lost for several hours.

Stephanie finds the man on the road, and wants to rob him. She has the sword of the bandit. The man pulls a small knife and attacks, she rolls max damage and kills him dead.

She rifles through the carriage, taking some nice clothing and a signet ring, and heads back to town, a new ploy brewing.

Matt is lost for hours, finds a stream, follows it, is attacked by a boar, barely manages to kill it, eats, climbs a tree, finds the direction back to his town, and returns.

Stephanie gets a room at the Inn, Matt has to explain to his guard captain how he lost a prisoner.

The next day, Stephanie heads out, back on the road, to the city.

Matt takes a leisure start, sleeps in, has mead for breakfast, grabs his horse and then heads back out to the woods to see if he can find the woman. He gets hopelessly lost again, this time wandering into the village of cannibal goblins. He is attacked, has his legs badly cut up by goblin daggers, tied, and thrown into a hut. He manages to break the terrible ropes of the goblins, smashes through the side of the hut Koolaid Man style, grabs his horse and takes off before the goblins can get him again.

Stephanie makes it to the city, dressed and disguised in men's clothes, passing as a man, and shows the signet around until she finds someone who recognizes it and gives her directions to the estate. She shows up there, bearing the terrible news of the death of the master, offering to watch the house while they go look for the daughter, which is shot down, but she is offered a pallet in the barn to sleep on. She manages to convince the stable boy to steal borrow her some things from the house to sell, and kidnap him and go with her on her adventure.

Matt makes it back to the road, and decides to see what he can find in the city. He is almost dead, and it shows when he gets to the city. The guards direct him to the temple district, and he wanders into the temple of Pelor, the Sun God. The priest is empathetic, but asks him if he is a follower of Pelor. When he says no, they name a healing sum greater than he has, but tell him if he enters into service of Pelor they will heal him and give him a place to belong (he will become a cleric of Pelor).

+++

After testing out the super-fast character creation process, I love it. two characters, less than 10 minutes, straight into play. All skill checks were just ability checks, with target numbers reasonable and made up in my head. This for sure won't work for Shadowrun, where you are expected to be an expert in your field from the beginning. But for D&D, works great.

Props to Professor Dungeon Master from Dungeon Craft on his simplified rules. Watch his videos for some great content. Like, Share, Subscribe.

Happy gaming!

Read more...

Shadowrun is Awesome, Part II

Meanwhile, as I am getting fitted into the security rig, team 2 has found the subject. A man lays on a gurney, attached to a multitude of machines. They just start piling the machinery on top of the cart, unplugging from the wall jacks, but leaving it intact, just in case one of these things is keeping the poor bastard alive.

I get the rig on and fire up the monitors. Everything is red. Reinforcements inbound, we have like 2 minutes, and there are guards heading right for team 2. Some decker bakas tries to bounce me out of the securinet, but a couple data spikes feed back into their decks and they're smoked. Two guards come out of a break room, and our team is pushed into a firefight. I radio to the twos to wrap up and burn out, and dump the rig to help out my team.

I can hear assault rifle fire coming from the hall, but drekk is a blur, as the mage and the gunslinger rip the two guards to shreds. I drop the last one on the way out with my Doby, and we head out the door, team 2 right on our heels, wheeling the gurney and all the med tech.

We throw the gear in the van and burn out, passing Badges that were going to bleed us, and meet back at the needle. Johnson seems impressed that we have a live subject with the prototype.

That was a good day.

Read more...

The Awakening of Prince Silverfish

Here's the situation: Fantasy D&D, Homebrew setting.
Our heroes:

Tarek, Male Human Cleric 5 - Former advisor to the king of Demacia, when the king died and his tyrannical son took the throne, Tarek fled. He seeks to raise an army and overthrow the king, freeing the people of Demacia.
Skye, Female Garganutan Sorcerer 5 - Raised in an orphanage, she seeks her orphan-brother Rodrey, who left when he was of age to make a name and send for Skye. She is 16 and released, she hasn't heard from him in months.
Dominic, Male Wood Elf Rogue 5 - Son of the Captain of the Guard of his home country, and playmate of the prince. The prince is a seer that received a vision of a growing evil and sent Dominic to investigate.

Our heroes began their journey as guards on a caravan headed for Silverfish, the metropolitan capitol of County Pots Arcana. On their journey they interrupted a kobold trying to make a deal with ratmen. They did not learn what the deal was, only saw a kobold amidst many ratmen.

Once they arrived in the city they began investigating their various tasks. Through divination they discovered that the rising evil is a black dragon named Boldrainissbirrag, the Deathlord, and he is amassing a treasure hoarde using dragonborn and kobolds as his loyal emissaries. His motivation is greed. He has installed his dragonborn in society and the local Silverfish government, and in the royal court. He seeks to take over power of the region and wage war on the dragons of the North and East.

While tracking Rodrey, Skye discovered a city where goblinkin have tried to civilize themselves, crafting goods similar to Native American jewelry and pottery. They needed a merchant that could go to the city to trade their goods, and made a deal with Rodrey. He started as a slave, but showed a shrewd sense of business and worked his way into a trusted position.

They met with him as he was in negotiations with a local businessman, on the council of the Merchant Guild. They also got their first sight of a black dragonborn female, a Contessa, though they haven't gotten her name.

The party, in researching the kobolds' connection to the dragon, discovered a local magic shop keeper that had a breakin, and they tracked the little beasties into the sewer undercity. There they encountered a "poop-witch" (a woman that lived in a cistern in the sewer) that offered them a deal... steal the child of an oathbreaker, and pour a potion of Stone to Flesh on a man in the castle gardens, and she will give them a great magical item for each quest. They agreed.

Tonight we started here: They have retrieved the stolen items and returned them to the shopkeeper, but upon returning to their rooms discovered that they had been ransacked. Luckily they didn't have much, so kept it on them in their packs. They went to the local temple for a divination to discover who had done such a thing to their rooms, and were told by a local priest that the bishop is missing! So they went to see, and he was there in the room, but acting strangely. He teleported away, and they spoke to the high priest, who did the scrying for them, learning that a black dragonborn had done the b&e, and also focusing on the bishop, to find him chained and in the clutches of a Barlgura demon!! The Barlgura tells the bishop that he is going to shift to the temple and desicrate it, so the party runs back and fights the demon and his minions, then tortures him for information, learning that the bishop is being held in the Abyss.

They put that to the side for a moment and go to pour the potion on the man in the castle garden. Upon releasing him they discover he is Prince Caelum Silverfish, heir to the throne, stoned some 150 years ago during a coupe gone wrong after he killed his older brother and tried to overthrow his father. Now he wants the party's help in restoring him to his rightful place on the throne, in exchange for soldiers to assist in Tarek's designs to overthrow the new king, and to fight off the dragon.

All very exciting, they are having a great time. I find that I need a better system for organizing common NPCs, especially since we only get to play about once a month or so.

How are your current games going? Leave a comment below.

Read more...

Into the dark, my friends.

We've had a few hiatus, -- babysitter issues, work conflicts, and one player was so confused by the character creation process that he backed out entirely. Ah, 3.5, we love to hate to love you -- but its coming around.

Last time, the party was told of a local boy gone wandering off into the woods and hasn't come back. They joined the search party and set off. One of the party is a ranger, and managed to track the boy's steps until they crossed with a lot of strange prints, much like large mouse prints, but somewhat different. They followed them and came to a clearing in the forest where standing stones jutted from the ground in some strange ruinous formation, and under one that was partially toppled, they found a stone door and an entrance to an underground complex.
It was dark inside, and they had to make use of torches and lanterns, and they have searched the first three rooms, been poisoned, diseased, fought large rats, and a strange creature that was immune to fire and had damage resistance.
Since it is their first game, they know nothing about any of these creatures, so the Lemur Devil was a real challenge. They made some good attempts, by dousing it in oil and igniting it, but didn't know until that point that it had fire immunity. The cleric did decent tank work, but in the end they ran, recovered, and hit it hard with missile weapons as it burst through the door, finally dealing enough damage to put it down.
That's where we ended for the night. Its going good so far.

Read more...

"Would you like to join my party?"

I was out for a week before I needed a game. I went where I used to go, only to discover they moved the building. It was in the same parking lot, but not where I was expecting. I didn't really notice a lot of additional space, just a different setup.
They had -no- game postings.
none.
and their RPG section looked like it was being stripped out.
It was.
And they close at 8pm on Saturday night. wtf? What gaming store closes at 8pm on a Saturday? Bard's Quest did it right. Open 'till midnight on Friday and Saturday nights.
So on to the next one.
A better faire, they had two 5e games going, so I dropped into that one at the end of the first episode of Horde of the Dragon Queen.
But one is not enough, and playing is insufficient when you've been running almost every day for 5 long years.
on to craigslist.
I found two posts for lfg, and contacted them both. Now we have a game, because the first person has friends.
I have five players for a Level 1 homebrew 3.5 campaign (the books I still have laying around), and I am happy.
I have five players that have NEVER played before.
That might take some thought. Where do you start? There are so many small changes, borrowings, house rules... what do you teach new players?
I decided to stick to the base rules. no house rules, just right out of the book. That way they can learn the correct way to play and there won't be confusion, because we can just look it up if there's a question.
Tonite is the first game: my players are ready, my story is ready, and it will be great.
Wish me luck.

Read more...

Sage's moment of Triumph

I set up an encounter to push my heroes a little. Have them think it over. Make them work for victory. They're 5th level now, and I wanted to kinda worry them.

I had an ambient youth run up and had a datapad to my wife's hero, a small flying assassin droid named T1-NK, and tell her that he was paid to deliver the message.

The datapad told her that someone knew why they were there and wanted the heroes to meet him on such and such landing pad at 0200 (yes, its mostly a twist out of DoD e3. i was rewriting it and keeping some of the elements to assist in flow).

So the party decides that they will scout the landing pad out early and just send in the assassin droid, not all of them. The kel-dor scout goes in 2 hrs early to an empty landing pad and passes thru the atmosphere shield, locking his magnetic boots to the outside to watch.

Time goes by.

A well dressed man in a uniform enters and stands on the landing pad, gazing out at the glow of the planet before him.

Tee-One enters a few minutes later, alone.

The man hears the doors and turns, smug, but is slightly startled when he realizes the droid is alone. He was expecting more. "Well, no matter," he says, "We'll catch up with your companions later. Now. Drop your weapons and... float down to the deck." At which time ten heavy stormtroopers enter behind her and line up pointing their blasters at her back.

Tee-One drops her blaster. A small panel on her back opens and from a spring loaded launcher flies a thermal detonator, landing right center of the group of storm troopers. One bloody mist cloud later, the storm troopers have been decimated and the commander stands stupidly slack jawed.

Tee-One, without missing a beat, "You had some information for me?"

Read more...