#snddnd

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 12 - Crit-Fishing

It has been over two weeks since our last session. The chaos of school starting back up and the fact that demons will sometimes live up to their name conspired to delay things a fair bit. But, back to it!

It has been so long since the last session that S first of all suggested fighting the sphynx she managed to talk her way passed already. Instead she sent her familiar out to investigate the ominous hovering platform coming towards them from the floating island ahead. The group took a ride over to the floating island and its network of half corridor, half room, half town, crash site turned monastery.

They met the faceless monks, and failed their perception checks to notice their facelessness.

D bowed out early this evening, a little over-tired and unable to really concentrate. Leaving S alone to guide an entire party of adventurers plus the two tag-alongs.

Given the options of ‘go to see the Grand Master of the Monastery of the Distressed Body’ or ‘wander around and explore a bit’... guess which option S went for.

If you guessed either you’d be wrong. She chose to split the party. Marla, Bearyl and Garrett headed towards the Grand Master and Doran, Canon and Gearbox went exploring.

That is until Doran rolled a 20 perception and heard screaming coming from the leatherworks, which prompted the group to reconvene to investigate. They found a man strapped to a metal table, five robed monks chanting and leaning over him, cutting at the sides of his face. This time she had no problem seeing the boney-sinewy faces of the faceless monks.

“You shouldn’t take his face off if he doesn’t like it!”

“Who are you to tell us we cannot add to the ranks of the immured brothers?”

“You and me are gonna have a battle, now.”

Gearbox and Garrett elected to stay outside and avoid fighting the men with no faces, leaving the party proper to deal with the monks themselves. Canon rolled highest initiative and opened the fight by critically eldritch blasting one of the monks into oblivion. Bearyl charged in next, followed by Doran.

Marla switched from her ‘bookish’ miniature to her ‘battle’ miniature. Which S described as Marla tucking away her ritual book and slinging her shield over her arm, as sparkling magic swirls around her and her hair gets a little longer and she grows a little taller and stronger. She has taken the fact that she ended up with two miniatures and turned it into her own personal She-Ra style magical girl transformation for her Cleric.

So Marla comes in swinging with her mace rather than casting spells from a distance, which I assumed was her forgetting about her spells. It turns out, my six year old daughter is already fishing for advantage in combat, she was trying to give Doran and Bearyl flanking opportunities.

Over the course of this fight, Doran (being a champion, who crits on a 19) got 3 critical hits. One on his first attack, turning a faceless monk into a lifeless monk in the blink of an eye.

The other two criticals were on the elder monk, and both as a result of S positioning the group for flanking bonuses. One of the attacks would even have been a critical with disadvantage instead of advantage.

Doran Doran singled handedly dished out more than 3/4 of the Elder’s hit points in damage in one round of combat. I asked S how she she wanted the finishing blow to go. She opted to bisect him from the top of the skull and straight through the middle. Which was a gruesome thing to hear a 6 year old describe but also kind of awesome.

S finished out the session by healing the prisoner who was having his face removed and freeing him from his chains. Can’t wait to see what they plan to do now that they know this place is super creepy.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 13 - The Grand Master Falls

Technically session 14, but the session before this ended up being clearing out a single room without taking any damage or expending any resources, so didn’t really add up to much. The party has quietly gone up to level 6 though, which amounts to not very much besides a few extra hit points.

“I’ve decided where I want to go. This pink area with the big tower... I hope the master isn’t there.”

No such luck there kiddo. This session they encountered the Grand Master of the Monastery of the Distressed Body. Watched from the balcony by a dozen faceless monks, they encountered the throned Grand Master. His demand for the group to serve him with either their bodies or their minds was met with the same response Marla has to everyone that threatens her. 

“No, we’re going to fight you instead.”

Oh. And did I mention that S went to a vikings and dragons party in the morning, so is decked out in assorted paper weaponry and dressed like a viking for this session? D did most of his rolling while also brandishing a sword.

Pretty much the entire session was taken up by the fight with the Grand Master and his two orc bodyguards. S got to use her new janky little spiritual weapon mini I made for her and D got to land the killing blow on the Grand Master.

“How do you want to finish the fight?”

“Like this! Hyah! Bash!”

With the grand master defeated, our heroes discover that the massive bone devil is nothing of the sort. He’s actually a smaller devil piloting a mechanical suit inside the bone devil. They have managed to find out that Kwalish’ notes are contained within the monastery’s vault and have resolved to head there in there next session.

We’ll see if they remember to do some looting, first.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 07 - Put Down the Devil

Today’s session began with a rather long winded explanation of how big Canon’s tent is and how she was going to gather firewood for dinner.

It then devolved into a... lets call it a heated discussion about what she was allowed to do with the remains of the defeated poachers. I have no idea why I had to talk a six year old out of gleeful cannibalism but this is the life I apparently live. We eventually came to a compromise that Bearyl would eat the poachers and the party would eat the poachers’ trained bear.

When I asked S if she was planning on eating their clothes and weapons, we got round to the topic of searching the bodies. They got a Potion of Healing, a Potion of Rage (rage like a barbarian for 1d6+1 rounds), two scrolls of Tenser’s Floating Disk and a handful of swords and two bows. They also found two notes. One was a note from someone in North Bridge Village assuring the poaching band that their ‘prettiest’ member was still welcome in town to trade raptors and pack beasts but nothing ‘exotic’. The other was a call for specific ingredients from ‘The Order of the Hidden Throne’.

S was immediately excited by the sound of this cult because she immediately connected it to the Abyssal prophecy she found over two weeks ago. Her excitement turned to righteous indignation when she read that one of the ingredients they were after was ‘The Heart of a Great and Noble Beast’.

“We need to find these people and tell them that they shouldn’t kill my bear. Then hurt them.”

So off they went to deal with the cultists who deigned to interfere with their bear friend. They successfully navigated the forest to find the temple ruins they were doing their no doubt nefarious things in. A failed attempt at sneaking up on one of them leads into S loudly demanding to know why they sent a letter to the poachers, didn’t they know they were hurting people!?

Naturally this triggered the cultists to begin their ritual immediately. Several rounds of poor rolls meant the group could only hear what was happening and were barely able to interrupt the ritual at all. Once the cultists had summoned what they thought would be a glorious leader, they promptly lost most of their vitality and were reduced to a state of catatonic prayer. Meanwhile the party gets to deal with a Barbed Devil, which is resistant to non-magical weapons and has a load of other nasty tricks to boot.

Worth noting that D was extremely tired and very checked out this session so the increased peril bothered him not a bit.

A pretty decent Religion check told Marla that this ‘Barbed Devil’ would take less damage from non-magical attacks. S and I talked about what was magical and what wasn’t and she correctly identified that her lump of metal on a stick was not magical but Doran Doran’s Longsword +1 and her Spiritual Weapon both were. All good, on to viciously attacking my kids’ characters.

“It’s the Devil’s turn. He has three attacks.”

“Oh no! We’re all going to die.” Head tilting towards the sky in dramatic despair... before complaining that she only gets one attack.

The Barbed Devil put in some good work. It lashed out with its multi-attack at the vicious magical weapon wielding fighter in its face, intent on knocking the tortle down so it could safely maneouver around to hurl fireballs at the others. Unfortunately said fighter was being piloted by the six year old, who remembered both his Action Surge and his Second Wind, keeping him on his feet long enough to use his Potion of Rage.

“Alright so Doran Doran downs the golden frothy liquid and his teeth begin to bare themselves, froth forms at the side of his mouth and his eyes turn blood red. He deals more damage with strength based attacks and has advantage on strength checks.”

“He does a strength check.”

“Ok, what does he do?”

“He shoves the devil onto its back.”

Cue a contest strength check to see if the Tortle Fighter can shove the Barbed Devil to the ground...

The Barbed Devil went over. Canon’s witchbolt kept frying. Bearyl got advantage on her Bite and Maul. Marla got advantage with her Spiritual Weapon and on her Inflict Wounds. The Barbed Devil went down.

S immediately asked if she could learn how to do that ritual herself, so she could summon something to go after her enemies. Not a worrying instinct at all.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

S&D’s D&D - Session 01

Friday after school, still sweaty from football club, S is absolutely thrilled to see the D&D stuff set out. Additionally by this point D has been adding “I want to play now, we need S” to every conversation for the previous two hours.

So we started out with a quick explanation of the rules, how health points work, what spell slots are and how as a cleric she has to prepare spells. She very solemnly pretended to pray to Lathander and then picked out her cleric spells by a method that I can only describe as ‘6 year old instinct’.

I decided to run through the Road to Baldur’s Gate series purely because I have never actually DMed before and I didn’t really feel like creating something from whole cloth.

They fought with a pair of thugs posing as Waterdhavian Guards. I was worried I hadn’t really done anything to make their party competitive or stop them from being squishy level 1 creatures. S’s cleric Marla immediately blew one of her spell slots on cure wounds as soon as Doran Doran suffered the tiniest scratch, however.  They were basically unscathed throughout the entire affair.

Honestly this session turned out to be so engrossing we forgot to actually eat the food we had set aside and ended up needing to have a late night snack.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 15 - Fight Party and the Clockwork Kraken

After a tumultuous week welcoming a new kitten into the house and a couple of false starts, we managed to sit down for a game. A longer one than usual, even if S complained bitterly when it was over.

“I’ve decided what to call our group.”

“You have a name for your adventuring party?”

“Yeah, we’re called ‘Fight’ because we fight things.”

“So your party is called-”

“Fight Party.”

As if they didn’t already have murder hobo tendencies.

At least they’re excited.

They started this session, awaking from their long rest and their full realisation of their Level 6 power. Gearbox had apparently spent the night rewiring and moving things in the control room to better suit his plans to convert it into a place of knowledge and study.

The group are directed towards a Merronoloth skiff which, after a hilarious sequence of rolls they managed to slam into the ground a few times before getting off into the air. Covering in around 4 hours what would have taken days on foot and arrive in short order at their destination: the lost city of Daoine Gloine.

An ancient city lined with towers and dotted with many large buildings, with a shimmering green barrier blocking off the lower levels and streets. Enough towers fallen to make their way around the city.

As they moved through the fallen areas they were ambushed by a pair of metallic tentacles which appeared from floating disks just like the kind the grand master used to attack them the previous day. Both Doran and Marla were knocked from their paths and ended up in contact with the barrier. As it turns out, the barrier is not a barrier but the exterior surface of an enormous quantity of acidic slime which quickly attempted to engulf and digest the members of Fight Party.

Some rather impressive athleticism from the resident fighter managed to get him free, but the rest of the group had to pitch in to free the cleric. In the mean time she took an awful lot of acid damage and chose to expend one of her second level slots on a boosted cure wounds, bringing her nearly to full.

An investigation of the various statues did not reveal the hidden path to the glass-petrifying medusa. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing for this group, but they did decide to investigate where the plume of smoke was coming from. They found their way over to the garage, where Marla could see shapes moving inside and hear a slippery clicking noise.

Throwing caution to the wind the group charged into the garage to find a mechanical kraken, its numerous tentacles spreading across the floor and through a small selection of teleportation rings. The fight was particularly tough because I remembered the clockwork kraken’s resistances and arbitrarily decided it could grant itself advantage by having it’s tentacles flank targets.

The day was won, however, as they managed to tear through the tentacles and Doran Doran charged through the chaos to jam his sword through the eye-socket of the clockwork kraken and thrash the blade around inside until the gears stopped working. 

(I’m not sure if I should be proud of or worried about how well the children come up with killing blow descriptions.)

(I’m told later that afternoon S described cracking eggs as ‘like breaking the skulls of her enemies’. Might be leaning towards worried.)

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 14 - Wherein I Make a 6 Year Old Cry

(No pictures today. We played theater of the mind style for a change and I did not think to pick up my phone.)

The Grand Master fell, the monks dispersed, the vault lay ahead. The group headed over to the vault and found their way blocked by a bridge of floating disks that shifted out of the way when they approached. Their modron friend Gearbox commented that there was some sort of energy coming from the room ‘over there’ and they headed for the control room.

In the control room they found a dozen floating brains in jars, obviously in charge of controlling the monastery’s functions. Marla demanded access to the vault. She offered to duel the brains for access to the vault, they responded that they are brains and could not duel. She instead threatened to unplug the brains, getting them to reveal that they control the bridge.

Gearbox pointed out that he could probably take over the monastery if the group could get him hooked up properly. They were successful and Gearbox giddily declares that they can access the vault and that he can now turn the monastery into something good... perhaps a library.

Marla says she’ll come back and unplug him when they’re done in the vault.

They head to the vault and find ALL sorts of monetary wealth. I left off a couple of pieces of loot that they don’t really need and wouldn’t be as excited by as more grown up players. (I’m not sure I want S getting excited about a Manual of Flesh Golems, for instance.)

Among all the gems, tinkering tools, gold, silver and other useful bits and pieces, they find enough of Kwalish’s notes to make Garrett happy. He asks Marla if he can take the majority back to the Cartophile and let him know Gearbox won’t be coming back.

This is about the point S realises Gearbox intends to stay here and not travel with the group forever, and gets teary. We have a discussion about how maybe Gearbox wants to stay which mostly ends in her still convinced she’s going to unplug him afterward.

The last couple of things in the vault are a brain in a jar and a leather journal bound in chains and jars. S rolls a dice while declaring she’s going to yank the book free with brute strength, natural 20. She frees the book from the chains and the engines of the vault fail, the vault tilts as the sound of stuttering engines clues them into what’s about to happen. They escape back to the monastery proper and the vault collapses somewhere below and explodes angrily.

Back at the control room, Gearbox congratulates the group on getting hold of what they need to go ahead. He lets them know that the damage caused by the crashing vault means that he will definitely have to stay to keep the engines cycling correctly, because otherwise the whole craft will crash into the mountainside and explode. S was incredibly conflicted at this point, torn between wanting to keep Gearbox around and not wanting to destroy what could be something good.

I let her roll a Persuasion check to convince Gearbox to escape with them, she rolled an 18. I could have called this either way... I chose the better roleplaying option.

“... I’ll come with you if you think it’s best Marla. Whatever you decide.”

“... You should stay here and make a library.”

“You’ll come back and visit me?”

“I’d like that very much.” S sobbing into my shoulder.

What followed was a discussion of what they should name the library and plans for how they would get the group up the mountain. We eventually determined that the options for the name were all terrible jokes and that a Merronoloth skiff would help them get to their destination much quicker. They agreed to spend the night in the control room, spending a little more time with Gearbox before they continued their quest.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 11 - Exposition, Climbing and a Riddle

Reminder: because we’ve reached the point where I’m going to be referring to where they’re up to in the module. I’m running the kids through Lost Laboratory of Kwalish. Their future includes faceless monks, devils, lasers and slime. And today we played outside.

At the end of last session, set against the backdrop of a renewed rain storm, the group made their way to the home of the Cartophile. When Marla declared that she was on a mission to find him so that she could further locate Kwalish, he offered them room for the night and promised to talk to them in the morning.

During the night everyone got their suitably epic fifth level benefits. Before going to bed, Marla set out her ritual book and burned through some of her components to reconjure her familiar. In the time since she was last summoned S has decided that Myla and Marla is a little hard to say, so the familiar is now named Lovey.

The Cartophile explained to Marla that Kwalish was an unparalleled artificer who hadn’t been seen in over a hundred years. He relayed to them that Kwalish was part of an expedition to locate Doaine Gloine (which I mangled the pronunciation of, I’m sure). Their best bet was going to be to follow in the footsteps of that expedition, heading for the ruins of a crashed planar ship in the mountains.

S rolled an intelligence check to see if she knew what that was.

1 .... Marla stares blankly at the Cartophile until he explains a little bit about D&D’s planes.

The group was given the opportunity to have access to maps that would lead them basically exactly where they want to go, at the cost of taking one of the Cartophiles hirelings with them. They elected to take two.

Garrett Levistusson and Gearbox the Modron are accompanying the group at least as far as the Monastery. They declined the offer to bring along a box full of vampire.

On their way through the mountains they came upon a section of path that was thin, inclined and liable to crumble and turn to dust. A natural 20 on an investigation allowed two members of the group to get through with relative ease, knowing which stones were most likely to shift. Bearyl rolled athletics to try and brute force claw her way up, digging into the stone if it dared shift beneath her. Rolling with disadvantage due to carrying Marla and Lovey. Two 17s.

Doran Doran decides to take the strength based approach, jamming his sword into the stone and basically using his magical weapon as an over-sized piton to climb up. A natural 20 on this roll made this a rather fun moment, where the tortle fighter just yanked his way up the side of the mountain, barely breaking a sweat.

The last bit of interaction for the session was the encounter with the Sphinx. Half expecting S would want to fight the thing, I gave her a chance to see it from a distance. She immediately took it up on the offer of riddling their way past. The sphinx demanded that in order to pass they would need to tell her something she didn’t know, and ask her a question she can’t answer. (According to the module, failed attempts pay a toll in the form of lowered ability scores. I dropped that requirement for the kids.)

“What does the Iron Golem that attacked Northbridge look like.”

Solid attempt. She knows the Sphinx has been here and wasn’t at the fight with the golem. Unfortunately the sphinx is pegged as being extremely knowledgeable, so was able to answer that it was silver or grey, likely rusted in appearance with a large weapon and a smaller head. S was impressed but not happy, “She’s so smart.”

“I can speak other languages.” My clever 6 year old suddenly remembers. “I sing in Celestial ‘Do you know anything personal about me?’” 

And this is so very clever. I am a proud daddy. Unfortunately the Sphinx speaks all languages and rolled a natural 20 on an investigation to determine something personal about Marla.

They eventually, with a couple of skill checks to put her in a good mood and get a hint from daddy, stumbled upon the idea of a logical paradox. Having won free passage passed the sphinx, the session ends. With S begging to keep playing.

[dungeons-dragons-demons]

Session 10 - Cleaning Up

Having barely defeated a troll in the last session, we begin this session with Canon immediately sitting down and attempting to get a short rest. Warlocks need their spell slots.

While Canon sat in the corner trying to have magic, After spending several minutes trying to tidy up with a branch Marla set about investigating the troll’s cave. It has two troll sized bed rolls, two large looking dog bed looking things and a giant chest.

An 18 on a strength check allowed her to crack open the giant iron bound chest which it turns out was full of cloth, and bones and scraps of wet meaty stuff. Seems like the trolls were keeping their scraps in here. Both kids’ roll Investigation: S gets a natural 20, D gets a natural 1.

Doran Doran: Looks like bones in there.

Marla: Also this sack... this satchel and.... this bone wand.

So then Marla sat down with her ritual book to identify the wand. I dread to think what use S is going to make of a Wand of Scowls but I’m sure it will come in useful at some point.

Worth noting at this point that every time S decided that they were doing something that took some time I mentally ticked down a timer and eventually started asking for Perception checks to hear what was coming.

“I rolled a natural 1....”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Eventually enough time passed and S rolled high enough that she heard another troll and two wolves approaching the cave. The group decided that they were going to stage an ambush. Bearyl his behind the cave entrance, Canon posted himself up in a corner. Marla and Doran both hid behind the troll’s chest.

Stealth Checks: Everyone got under 10 except Doran Doran... who was next to the natural 1 from Marla. Marla braces too hard on the chest they’re hiding behind and manages to knock it over just as the troll arrives.

The melee fighters immediately jump into action, rushing in to start hacking away at the troll’s replenishing health supply. Proud to say that S seemed to have learned some lessons from the last fight, not rushing straight in and instead choosing to fire off cantrips at the troll for the first few rounds.

She also yelled to Canon that they needed fire when the troll began regenerating. Canon was a little preoccupied dealing with the wolves, which rush him when he opened with an eldritch blast at them. After a few round he was able to take them out with his dagger, freeing him to unleash Scorching Rays on the troll.

The troll eventually tried to flee the battle but was cut down by Doran Doran and then immolated by Canon’s Burning Hands. Bearyl feasted on cooked troll meat. The rain began to fall. I switched the background music over to a thunderstorm and asked them who was leading their climb up the mountain. It turns out just the sound of a thunderstorm in the background prompts young kids to say they’re cold and wet and complain about the climb... which was a neat bit of role playing I’m not sure she even noticed she was doing.

They eventually made their way up over some rocky crests and found themselves at the home of the Cartophile. Who I’ve decided lives in a sort of travelers way station. Which makes sense for his having a small cadre of people he can send with you on the quest he gives and also gave me an opportunity to give the group a long rest so they can actually level up to level 5.

While we were RPing some back and forth between Marla (who keeps trying to invent burgers in D&D) and Gearbox (a modron who according to a spur of the moment decision speak very very quickly) S decided that her dice tray was not enough of a dice rolling aid. So she grabbed a part of D’s train set and made herself a dice roller.

Next session: Exposition and Breakfast, at least.