Don’t believe I’ve posted this yet… anyway I would like y’all to meet the greatest band of all time! The Timothy Scratchers!!
In one of my recent D&D sessions, I snuck into an enemy camp. Within this camp was a section of about a hundred Kobolds that worked for the Cult we were trying to stop. I convinced 5 of these kobolds that they could be free and have a better life! So, as I was leaving the camp they followed close behind. Once we were all outside of the camp they wondered what they could do. I suggested they go out into the world and create a good name for themselves, and so they settled on becoming a band. The name I created being, “The Timothy Scratchers” because one of the five was named Scratch and another was named Timothy; they both wanted the band named after them. I, a bard, then created small wooden flutes for each of them. Once they were given the flutes they began playing the intro and ending music to our campaign, Into the Forest we Go
My DM has been describing each opening and credits as a small, 8 bit video game gif. (which I think is AWESOME) Now The Timothy Scratchers are always described playing their flutes somewhere within the gif as the credits roll.
I’ve never made a gif before and I’ve never done pixel art before… but I am really happy with how it turned out!!!
I got the no D&D blues :(
Was very excited for the session but stuff happened.
So how do you feel better when you have no D&D?
Just curious and trying to get ideas
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) began their journey back through the Sunless Citadel towards the Rat's Nest, dragging along an unconscious Meepo and dragon wyrmling Calcryx in tow. They accidentally alerted the lax Kobold Gang guards on their way out and had to convince them that the party hasn't found Calcryx yet - they're just going on a break to recover and rest back at the ratfolk town.
After leaving the citadel, they walked back through the caverns towards the Rat's Nest. They enlisted church priest Lulu and her sister Candice for help with housing, feeding, and tending to Calcryx, and it seems that they were able to calm the once-hostile wyrmling for now. The group was then reunited with Deku, who had been transported back to the Rat's Nest by his Rat King holy symbol when he fell unconscious in the citadel, and his brother Boak offered them his new item enchantment services if they come across any more enchantment formulae on their journey. The party then left Meepo at the Rat's Nest to think about making better career choices than staying in the Kobold Gang, before heading back to the Sunless Citadel.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
The party reach the Sunless Citadel after walking through the caverns for a few uneventful hours. The bodies of goblins slain in battle in the first room have now been removed and cleaned up since when they first arrived here. Forced to go through Meepo and Calcryx's old room in the Kobold Gang territory before moving through neutral ground to reach the Goblin Gang again, they run into one of the kobold guards from before.
He greets them, now standing at a post outside the guardroom. Valas confirms that they're back from their rest and ready to keep looking for Calcryx, and the guard cheerfully says that he'll let Yusdrayl know that they're back from their break and resuming their search. Thanking him, the party briskly continues on.
As they casually pass through the rooms they'd been through over the previous two days, they suddenly begin to hear the distant sound of a door shutting from a room away. Concerned, they start to quieten their movements and sneak through, checking the old trapped doors to see if they've been reactivated. Lugs puts the rotted robe he took from the troll onto his club to act as a fake humanoid silhouette, and waves it through a crack in the door to the first Goblin Gang guard post room - immediately, an arrow shoots through the fabric from behind the low wall in the hallway beyond. The party scrambles to hide out of the view of the doorway. Taking aim from his hiding place in a pile of rubble and old bones, Lurk takes the guard out with one arrow, assassin style. They continue to sneak through; however, Valas steps on an old caltrop and lets out a muffled yelp, while Deku's loud armour clunks noisily with every step despite his light ratfolk feet. They hear the sound of another door closing from around the corner, then another more muffled one shortly after.
Continuing around the corner in the S-shaped guard post room, Lurk gets low to the ground and tries to peer through the crack under the door they think they heard the nose from, but he only sees pitch black. With his proper drow darkvision, Valas has a try, and sees the bottom of barrels and hessian sacks as though it's a storeroom; however, he doesn't see any creatures inside. The party realises that, last time they were here, they went through other rooms nearby (as this room connects to the dungeon where they found the kobold gang members and Deku, and a hallway connecting to the guard room where they interrogated a goblin gang member, as well as to Calcryx's room) but missed this one; they suspect it might connect to the hallway of pillars and haze-producing sconces Lurk had briefly explored, and that their previous route must have circumvented this storeroom to reach the hallway a longer way. The door to the room of barrels is unlocked and free of traps, so they go inside.
Shelves and crates of barrels, jars, and sacks of food and drink fill up most of the small room, with makeshift labels written in Goblin. Aelia tests one of the taps on the barrels and it confirms her suspicions that it's just more of the Goblin Gang's goon* inside - far too sour for her more refined and expensive taste. Disappointed with it, she tips the heavy barrel over and it lazily rolls away. Lugs, joining in, picks up another barrel of goon and smashes it on the ground, splitting the wooden sides and spilling a puddle of goon on the floor. They make a bit of a mess and a racket, not finding anything of note. Lugs gleefully talks in Grung to Aelia, who just can't understand him.
On the other side of the room is another door, and, as expected, it opens up to the hallway full of dragon artwork on the walls and a thick violet haze from sconces on the pillars. Suddenly, another arrow flies toward them, with Aelia managing to dodge it at the last second, and spotting figures at the other end of the hallway through the fog. Lugs slams the door shut again. The group agrees that Deku and Lugs will make a distraction, while the rest of them go the other way around to the hazy hallway through Calcryx's old room. Lugs wiggles his fake humanoid figure through the doorway again, and again another arrow is shot through the fabric at the first sign of movement.
After going around the other way, Lurk sneakily ducks behind a pillar in the hallway. Valas follows in behind him, but walks too far out into the middle of the hall, an arrow suddenly embedding itself in the pillar beside him. Their ambushers at the other end turn out to be four goblins led by a taller and more heavily armed hobgoblin, who grunts in frustration at his missed shot. With a quick command from him, the other goblins unleash more of their readied arrows at the lone drow. He deflects one with a wave of his hand, conjuring up a magic shield of shimmering translucent light to deflect it, but another arrow hits him in the leg before he can react. Valas immediately regrets his decision to walk right into the middle of the hallway. The rest of the party gets excited, realising that this hobgoblin must be the leader of the Goblin Gang they'd heard about.
In retaliation, Valas uses his Tides of Chaos ability to make a true Chaos Bolt shot at the hobgoblin. The bolt erratically zips towards its target, turning into a hot beam of fire that strikes the hobgoblin square in the chest, before zipping onto the next target and changing from a fiery bolt into a spray of purple poison. The hobgoblin leader panics and tries to pat out the burning fires on himself, while the goblin bandit behind him screeches and gurgles in pain as the poison liquid bubbles on his face and he falls, dead.
Having unleashed one of his stronger spells, Valas feels the familiar bubbling surge of chaotic magic well up inside of him. Before he can calm down, with the sudden and big puff of an indigo-coloured smoke cloud, his body instantly transforms into a terracotta pot containing a healthy pink larkspur plant, falling from mid-air to the stone ground and clumsily landing on its clay pot base with a thunk.
In the heat of battle, Aelia joins the fray next and casts Toll The Dead on the hobgoblin, as he screams and clutches his burnt hands over his ears in pain from the ghostly bell before collapsing. From behind his pillar, Lurk peeks out and snipes another goblin with his bow and arrows, like a slow motion Skyrim headshot. Terrified to see his fellow goblin gang members and his hobgoblin squad leader fall so quickly, one of the remaining goblins shouts "oh lord, oh lord!" in Common and throws open the door behind them, backing inside while shooting an arrow wide in his panic. In the room beyond, they can see at least four more armed goblins ready inside. As the party members advance forward down the foggy hallway, they see that there's over a dozen more goblins inside, looking like there's bandits similar to the ones they've fought before, as well as weaker-looking trainees waiting to act as backup.
From the thick of the large but crowded hall - which is filled with tents and fire pits, lit by pots of glowing fungi and moss, and with a high ceiling resembling a chapel - comes a goblin standing out from the rest, with a blue-tipped mohawk and a sleeveless leather jacket, running towards the party.
She puffs up her chest and, in Common, yells, "get the fuck out of our territory, assholes!" in a voice booming three times louder than any normal person, echoing around the chapel hall. She whips out a spell scroll from a utility belt pocket, unrolling it and quickly casting the spell Faerie Fire. As the scroll burns up in a flush of magical magenta embers, a dome of light pulses out from the ground where the party members are all congregated in the hallway in front of the door. Deku, the only one unable to leap out of the way in time, lights up with an acidic green glow that makes him an easy target to spot. Arrows fired at him, luckily, are deflected off his large suit of armour this time.
He stays towards the back of the group in the hallway where he feels most safe, wary of how he got hurt last time he was in the Sunless Citadel. Knitting his brows and squeezing his eyes shut in concentration, he casts a Bless spell on Lugs, Lurk, and Valas, boosting their reflexes and accuracy. Meanwhile, a puff of that same indigo smoke is released from the pot plant and envelopes it. As the smoke clears, Valas stands up as his normal drow self, sheepishly saying, "... yeah... I'm back..."
Deku breathes a sigh of relief, having been in a confused panic about Valas' fate. Another goblin, still left from their hallway ambush, tries to run past and shot Valas with his arrow as he flanks them - though Lurk swiftly takes him out with another well-aimed arrow. Feeling like he has to pull out all the stops for this fight, Valas chooses to use his Tides of Chaos ability again to harness the wave of his overflowing magic and aim another powerful true shot of Chaos Bolt at the goblin with the mohawk. The beam of light zigzags towards her, erupting into flame once again at the last second, and rapidly burning her to death as she shrieks. Like a chain reaction, the Chaos Bolt then jumps from her body, and its shape flickers and changes into an icy spear as it arcs towards another goblin nearby. The wave of wild magic pushed over the brink of what he can handle crackles over Valas' body like electricity over his skin once again, though, when it subsides, he's relieved to look and feel no different aside from a harsh tickle in his throat.
Suddenly, a door on the other side of the chapel is kicked wide open. Out comes a big hobgoblin in gaudy silver splint armour with a fancy crest painted on the chest, and the torso moulded to look like a muscular six-pack. He stands a head taller than two more hobgoblins behind him, dressed in plainer chain mail, and all are armed with shields, longbows, and longswords. His voice naturally rough and booming, he yells that the party will pay for fucking up his territory and his gang members.
Pointing at their assailants, he barks, "get 'em, Ripper!" as another one of those small tree-like monsters they fought outside the Sunless Citadel at the start of their adventure - a twig blight - scurries out from behind him, gnashing its wooden teeth, though it doesn't get very far on its short legs. The other hobgoblins charge out from behind him as well, one clashing with Lugs almost immediately. Lugs flies into a strength-amplifying rage, swinging his club overhead at the hobgoblin towering over him, but the hobgoblin puffs out his chest and deflects it with his very strong and bouncy buff pecs. An intern shoots an arrow at Lugs, and Lugs also puffs out his buff frog chest so the arrow harmlessly snaps against his impenetrable wall of muscles. This is the ultimate contest of strength.
From the side, Aelia unleashes a Burning Hands spell, killing another three goblin bandits and interns with a sweeping sheet of fire from her fingertips. Amidst all of the commotion, one of the interns croaks "Grenl!", breaking away to try and drag the mohawk goblin's burnt body out of the fray.
The large hobgoblin in shining armour - most certainly the gang's leader - charges forward furiously like a bull, swinging his longsword with both hands down on Lugs. Blinded by fury, Lugs only feels half of the pain, still standing strong despite the heavy blow of the sword to his shoulder...
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I've realised that I should mention to non-Australians:
* goon = box wine (very cheap wine that comes in a tapped bag (the goon sack) inside a cardboard box)
Our party ran into a magical door that influenced us to walk inside despite it obviously being dangerous. Krodzen was the only one to resist it, and managed to get the others to snap out of it, but he was then volunteered to be blindfolded, tied up, and sent through the door to see if the mental manipulation would last after he walked in. It did. He nearly died. It was pretty fun!
Not gonna get into how we pissed off a bronze dragon, but...
Level 6 Barbarian: “Sure, you might kill me, o great Bronze Dragon, and by the way, that would be a great way to die, as opposed to choking on a fish bone or something, but know this. You kill me, and I’ll be reincarnated, preferably as an elk. And I’ll come for you. Every elk in the world, in fact, will have a personal vendetta... against you.”
*rolls intimidation check of 22*
DM: Okay... now I gotta figure out how an adult bronze dragon is intimidated by a potential future threat... of elk.
You all have traveled a long way from home, leaving your assigned planets to be a part of a colonization project on one of the recently conquered planets the Alternian Empire has claimed as their own. It took you about half a sweep to reach the last leg of your destination. You and several others look at each other anxiously as you wait in either your room or at your stations for it to start. An announcement blares overhead after everyone has been confirmed to be in their rooms or a secure area, “Attention all civilians and personnel, we are approaching Jump-gate Iota for an intergalactic leap. Our new home awaits beyond it as well as any trials the new world brings with it! Let us not let our Empire nor or Condesence down. GLORY FOR ALTERNIA!!!”
Outside the ship as the announcement was made, the ship approaches a massive metal ring, a few combative vessels near to protect it. The command deck send a transmission to the Jump-gate operatives, “Jump-gate Iota 7-4-Niner, this is the AE Fortuna Major requesting permission for a jump.” “Stand by for clearance Fortuna.” There was a pause, the Fortuna Major slowing down her approach to wait for the response and they got it, “AE Fortuna Major, clearance is granted, you may begin your approach, send the coordinates for the jump.” “Roger Jump-gate Iota 7-4-Niner, Fortuna Major out.” The ship continued its approach, getting to the center of the ring as the ring powers up, slowly filling up with a blue-white light save for the very center of the space. Electrical currents jump and leap at the ship as it goes to the point, getting more intense until, BAM! The ship launches itself at hyperspeed like a bullet through a sniper rifle. The ship sped until it hit the outskirts of the moon of its destination. But… something was off.
Meanwhile, the Command deck was trying to hail the forward base on the moon’s surface. It took a while, but they got a response, even if it was heavily filled with static. “This is the Fortuna Major calling FOB Delta-Theta-o-Six, do you copy?” “Fizzzzz …---… fizzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” “Fortuna Major calling FOB Delta-Theta-o-Six, do you copy?” “Fizz we fizzzzzzzz don’t fizzzzzzzzzz not fizzzzzzz fuck fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….” “FOB Delta-Theta-o-Six we can’t hear you, can you repeat?” “Fizz turn back fizzzzzz danger fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!” just as the last transmission was heard, the ship drifted closer to the moon, only to see the danger mentioned. A strange was close to the moon’s base and the vessel that was supposed to meet up with them was firing at the strange vessel. Smaller vessels, fighter crafts, from both ships were fighting and the moon’s base’s cannons were firing at the enemy spacecraft. Fuck, this ship wasn’t prepared for this, it’s a settler ship, not a combative vessel! The only guns it has are ones for dispersing meteors for god’s sake!
The smaller fighters spotted their ship and went straight for them. The captain threw the alarm and starting shouting commands for both the shields and whatever battlestations this vessel had. He was a former military commander and he was not going down like this! “All personnel, report to battle stations. All personnel report to battle stations,” it was on repeat over head as heavy armored footsteps pounded on the ship’s walkways. The civilians were all being guided now to the only place onboard that had escape pods.
Be able to handle your things. We will try to help out but hey, we can't do everything :/
Understand things, or not! Experienced players and newcomers alike are wanted! Anyone can join!
Have time. We mostly do it at Fridays, around the night (for me, a Brazilian), so if you live in America (the continent), that's good! If not, maybe we can see another way to do it!
Play as a tank. Barbarian, Behemoth, Berserker, anything else with a B or not, if you got the beefy muscles and raw power with a spice of intimidation, that's just what we need!
If you're interested, message me and I'll reply AS SOON as I can!
