The Campaign Diary Megapost

Due to my own neglect, I am going to give you a comprehensive write-up of our first couple of sessions.  I haven't been able to run as often as I had planned, due in large part to the fact that I overextended myself in the months leading up to taking the LSAT in September (how do law students play D&D, if at all?  Are they chill and go full escapism, or are they the worst rules lawyers?).  Many campaigns I have played in have died under these circumstances, but I am doing everything I can to avoid that since I'm quite fond of my players.  We're on a temporary hiatus until I can go all-in prepping good adventures for them (first weekend of October - we can do it!)

Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to our player characters (setting write-ups and character profiles to come soon!)

• Casimir Delavert, Half-Elf Paladin (played by Bill)
• Elzameer Wright, Half-Elf Bard (played by Norah)
• Page Greenleaf, Human Rogue (played by Mike)
• Gront Rishnog, Half-Orc Barbarian (played by Justin)
• Brunhilda Skarsgaard, Human Fighter (played by Jess)

All but strangers, Casimir, Elzameer, Gront and Brunhilda were on the road to Abranel, the Port of the Westerlands, seeking fresh work in the cosmopolitan center of the continent of Ebereon.  Upon reaching the fishing village of Seastead, they were informed by a peasant that Abranel has imposed a curfew in the nighttime hours - no one in, no one out, save for emergencies or caravans subject to inspection - due to the encroachment of monstrous humanoids.  Along with the curfew, a bounty system has been instituted; a fair trade of severed body parts for hard currency.  Knowing that they would not reach Abranel in time, and seeing as how Seastead boasted an inn that could put them up for the night, they made their way for a warm meal and bed.   

Not long after, the village blacksmith burst in to inform the locals that the granaries had been plundered by bandits, and the party was pressed into service.  After outflanking an ambush set up by the bandits' scouts and defeating them, the party set themselves on the bandit camp in the Red Forest.  They captured the bandit leader, Caedmaer, and killed all but two of his goons, who broke and ran into the forest after their fates were all but sealed.  Their prisoner, the grain and a treasure chest returned to an ecstatic and grateful Seastead hauled in on the bandits' horses.

Along the way in all of this, the party encountered a pack of goblins eating up a pile of grain in the hills.  They killed all but one, named Zibam, who they learned had journeyed across the continent from the Dragonhearth Mountains.  Something was outstripping the area of food and other necessities, and after a long trek the goblins found their way on the other side of the Green Sea.  Turning to the party for his continued survival (and some preaching of the gospel of Obad Hai from Casimir, the paladin), Zibam joined as an NPC.

After a celebration in Seastead (and a summary execution of Caedmaer, who was hanging from a tree the following morning), the bandits' horses brought them quickly to the gates of Abranel, with a bag of goblin ears and a bounty letter in hand.  What is going on across the Green Sea?  Why are goblins and other beasts encroaching on Western Ebereon?  And why are peasants being driven to brigandage for their survival?

Meanwhile....

Page Greenleaf had just returned to his forest hideout from the town of Webstar, where he struck a deal with a half-orc "spice merchant" named Azuumuk to offload 50 pounds of premium Red Forest Pipeweed, to find his entire operation ransacked.  The burlap sack of herbs was dragged off through the forest, leaving marks in the fresh mud from a recent rainstorm.  Following the trail, a wolf attacked him, but after climbing a tree and doing some quick thinking he sent a fire arrow down into the brush, severely burning the wolf and causing it to flee.  Resuming his search, he descended into a gully with a rocky ridge at the far end of it.  Failing to move stealthily, he alerted two kobolds to his presence.  They ganged up on him, and he managed to kill one before the other got the drop on him and Page fell unconscious from shock.  We awoke in a jail cell an unknown amount of time later, bandaged and aching.  He peered out of the small, barred window to find that he was in Abranel.  "Azuumuk is going to be pissed..."

After some healing from a Cleric of St. Cuthbert, Page was taken from his cell into a palatial office belonging to a former criminal contact of his, a human rogue named Miros Brasi.  It turns out that Miros has worked his way into government (now officially the Minister for Internal Security), finding that a man of his talents could find legitimacy and safety in the world of diplomacy and espionage.

Miros revealed that the unconscious Page had been taken in by the kobolds, only to be rescued shortly thereafter by a team of "exterminators" (adventurers seeking bounties for monstrous humanoids) who happened to be tracking down that very clutch of kobolds.  It wasn't hard to sniff out why Page had been there (Red Forest Pipeweed is rather skunky), and he was taken into custody.  Miros made Page an offer: work for Abranel and your legal troubles will remain safely at bay.

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Approaching Abranel, the traveling party encountered a major backup of wagon traffic and grumpy merchants to boot.  As the party made their way to the city gate, they found that Abranel was carefully inspecting incoming wagons due to the approaching Feast of Highhollow, a commemoration of the Treaty of Highhollow which ended the Last Great War, a conflict nearly a millennium ago which shaped the world order as they know it.  The Last Great War was fought mainly between the Dwarvish Empire and the Kingdom of the Elves, and was a protracted stalemate which only ended after Dwarvish troops crossed into human-majority territory and Abranel intervened (mostly diplomatically) to forge a peace based around economic interdependence.

The party set themselves up in the Blue Whale Inn, and promptly took their bag of goblin ears to City Hall for their bounty.  To fill the day, Gront and Brunhilda made their way to the docks to find gambling.  This was successful trip which led them to the seedy sailors' dive called the Sunken Kraken, where they found the game of Fingers, whereby one player's hand with fingers splayed open is set against a wall while another throws knives to try to get the blade as close to the hand in between each of the fingers without harming the owner of said hand.  Gront and Brunhilda each take turns, one winning the entire pot and the other dealing a d6 of damage.

Casimir spent his downtime with Zibam, teaching him the Common tongue and preaching the word of Obad-Hai.  Elzameer took to the streets to gather rumors, yielding a few pieces of information:

• The Dwarvish Empire has recently appointed an Elf as their new archmage.  Loyal dwarves grumble at the prospect of an outsider being in such a high position (the archmage is the head of the Mage's School at the Dwarvish War College), while Elves are happy to know that the Dwarvish Overlord, Greri, acknowledges the superior arcane skills of the Elves, who boast the most comprehensive magical university in all of Ebereon.
• Local businesses are being extorted by a faction known only as "The Treasury", which has grown more brazen as economic conditions in the Westerlands have faltered.
• The Prince of Nordvald, the appointed deputy of Overlord Greri, will be attending the Feast of Highhollow with a retinue of knights; the Elves are sending representatives from all of their fiefdoms, but it isn't clear who will be of the highest rank.

The day otherwise passes uneventfully.  Early the next morning, the party is awoken by couriers from City Hall; Miros Brasi wishes to speak with "the Heroes of Seastead", and that they should bring their "goblinoid friend."  At this meeting, the party is informed in the vaguest of terms that the Peace of Highhollow is growing ever shakier and that nothing must go wrong at this year's feast.  The encroachment is worse that most are aware, with several locations within the city being quietly cordoned off due to infestations.  The party is offered great rewards if they work as exterminators, having proven themselves more than capable after saving Seastead's granaries.  The party is introduced to Page Greenleaf, who is assigned to aid them in any way he can.  The party is given a list of known issues in and around the city:

• An abandoned building in the Orcish quarter, Azash
• A cavern system under the docks
• A defiled crypt outside the city
• A tribe of lizards harassing wagon trains on the road to Abranel

The party agrees to this and decides to start on problems within the city.  They make their way to Azash, a strongly Orcish community which amounts to a slum in the eastern portion of Abranel.  A two story residence has been sealed off by the measly city guard.  The party quickly gets to work; entering on the ground level, they find the boarded up building to be crawling with kobolds.  The rotting structure is rendered blood-logged as they fight their way through room by room, but strange details catch their eye along the way.  On the ground floor, a symbol has been crudely scratched into the wall, depicting a curved dagger with a blade resembling a dragon's talon.  Upstairs, they find a mutilated corpse in ochre-yellow silk robes lying in a bed, its face eaten away, and around its neck is an amulet featuring the same symbol.  In another room upstairs they find a blood-stained altar room with a silver dagger of similar design, along with papers written in an unknown language.  In the basement they find where the kobolds have been burrowing into the building and seal it up the best they can.  With the structure cleared, the party leaves the city guard both impressed and ashamed.

Exhausted, the party returns to the Blue Whale Inn.  While the rest of the party unwinds in preparation for descending into the caverns next, Elzameer takes the documents they found and declares her intention to prepare Comprehend Languages for the following day.

And that's where we left off.  I am looking forward to picking this back up with my players, and I have had ample time to figure out where we go from there.  I do hope that the caverns prove a dungeon crawl worth writing about in detail!

Session Zero

It has been over a year since I've run D&D for anyone, and it had been years before that.  My tools are rusty and my skills are blunted, but the act of scraping those tools back into service will also sharpen those skills which are so integral to not only our bi-weekly Nerd Poker, but in oh so many other aspects of life.

And so begins what hopefully will be a rewarding D&D campaign, not just for me but especially for my players.  Finding a consistent group large enough to make the work that Game Mastering entails worth it can be tricky, especially now that most of us are real life adults with jobs and schedules and responsibilities.

Three out of five of my players are essentially new to D&D; one played under me for one session a year ago, and another has played a bit of different systems which are hard to compare to D&D 5th Edition.  The third is completely new to this, and that's as exciting in itself as having a chance to whet the role-playing whistles of the others.  I am confident that once the dice start rolling that I can live up to his enthusiasm!

So today we all gathered for Session Zero, a planning session that precedes Session One so that everyone can benefit from creating their characters all together, whether they collude or not.  It was also a chance for them to ask me about the setting I've drawn up (and 1/5 had actually read the handout I had typed up and sent out online a couple weeks ago, which worked out perfectly since it gave me a chance to read it to them and have it fresh in their minds).  The questions they asked helped me to flesh out some of the grey areas in my world's history and social structure, which was immensely helpful.

They got to think about where they fit in the world at large, and not necessarily with each other.  There's no guarantee that these adventurers would know one another; in fact, it's probably for the best that they don't.

The idea that they don't necessarily know each other is really the best way to go when you are talking about 1st level characters.  1st level characters would have no adventuring backstory to speak of - the most my players brought to the table is a brief story as to why they've taken up the task in the first place, and those stories are great.  I will save sharing this for another date.  A prepackaged backstory is all well and good for higher level starts, but the beauty of level 1 is that backstories are earned rather than written.  

As we wrapped up and I began to set the stage for session one, the most I gave to them for certain is that "Work has dried up in Uscos, and you have just crossed into the outer territory of Abranel, the world's trading city and the nearest place that may promise a living."  For all they know, they're just murder-hoboes crossing paths for the first time.  Session one will initiate the party.

So who are these travelers?  Here are the player characters for The Rivers of Dragonhearth:

• Gront Rishnog, a Half-Orc barbarian - played by Justin
• Brunhilda Skarsgaard, a Human fighter - played by Jess
• Casimir Delavert, a Half-Elf paladin - played by Bill
• Elzameer Wright, a Half-Elf bard - played by Norah
• Page Greenleaf, a Human rogue - played by Mike

I will save you details on each of them until we begin playing.  All player characters are a work in progress, and name-rank-and-serial-number is all that is needed for now.  They have the beginnings of personalities, but nothing needs to be written in stone until the dice start rolling and monsters start dying.  In their heads (as well as mine) it's only theory at this point, but action will be the measure of what works and what can change.

My friend Bill, who is not only one of the best Game Masters I've played under (and I've played under some phenomenal Game Masters in my day, and occasionally still do even if it means a road trip) but also one of my players, routinely keeps campaign blogs to share After Action Reports and campaign lore.  This is my attempt to do the same.  This will be a clearing house for musings, history, society and game stories from this D&D campaign: The Rivers of Dragonhearth.

Character creation took from Noon until 2:30, and since I had set an end time of 4pm I decided to save content for our first full session - not only to avoid Draconis Interruptus, but also to begin soaking in all of the information I have on my players and their characters so I can begin factoring that in to my thinking.  We reconvene on July 10th, and the virtue of Session Zero is that they will be ready to hit the ground running with a general sense of who they are.  My job will be to make it all worth it for them, and I can finally say that I feel up to the task!