Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 6: Anal Beads of the Underdark

First, I'd like to apologize to anyone that this slightly-immature post title offends. My players wanted it this way, and it is strangely story related.
Secondly, I'd like to apologize to anyone that had to Google what anal beads are.

Now, to get on with the show!
Our players this week were Saito, Sabah, Trinity, and a-slew-of-NPCs-because-no-one-else-was-able-to-make-it.

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To begin, the party had just defeated the warforged and were taking a rest.
At the same time, Saito had recovered from being ill and asked the flumphs for directions to his allies. They were more than happy to oblige.

Saito arrived in the room that the spectator was guarding and did his damnedest to convince it to allow him to pass, but it wasn't having any.
Then Trinity showed up and tried to help, leading to both of them being locked out.
Thankfully, the rest of the party had finished patching their wounds and decided to exit the forge chamber.

Reunited at this point, the party decided to try to get more answers from the beholder about who arrived, when they left, and if they took anything. From this, the learned that:

• the intruder was a friend, yet not a friend, to Vecna
• they killed the second spectator that was down there (hence the gas spore)
• they had arrived about two zemf (14 days or so) ago
• they left with some warforged, one of which was exceptionally large

After that hullabaloo, the party decided to head back into the tunnels.

But not before Trinity gave the parting shot "Screw Vecna!" and flipped the beholder off.

It became irritated, but neither of its eye-beams affected her before they rounded the corner.

Lucky for her, the spectator had to guard that chamber.

Once again in the branching tunnels of this world's equivalent of the Underdark, the party decided to try the tunnel directly across from themselves.

Down that path, they discovered a chamber with a single stalactite.

Not wanting a repeat incident with darkmantles, Trinity threw an arm from one of the warforged at the thing.

And it broke.

Because sometimes a stalactite is just a stalactite.

It was at this point that Saito's ears started to bleed.

Hazmi, resident necromancer and medicine student, gave him a one over and recognized this as signs of an oncoming madness that tended to befall those that stayed underground too long.

Saito was slightly worried, but bandaged his ears and soldiered on.

With a little bit of snooping, the party found that there was a narrow tunnel in the back of this chamber. Everyone could fit, but they would have to crawl through.

Ever the brave one, Trinity decided to head in first.

Sabah was close behind.
Saito saw Hazmi's nose turn into a carrot.

Once Trinity finished the crawl, everything went black.

Because sometimes darkmantles ambush their prey.

To make matters worse, the thing used its darkness aura, leaving Sabah in the dark too.

Thankfully, they were able to alert Saito that something was wrong.

Thinking quickly, he secured a rope to himself and crawled the tunnel, his plan to drag the other two back with him.

Trinity successfully removed the darkmantle from her head, but was still in pitch blackness.
However, she lost dear Squidsy in the exchange. Truly tragic.

This is when the anal bead reference becomes relevant.

Sabah grabbed Trinity and Saito grabbed Sabah.

He then gave the signal to pull.

Sabah didn't duck in time and knocked herself silly, but Trinity was able to contort herself quickly for removal.

The whole effect... well... yeah.

Anyway, thus extricated, the party healed Sabah and began lobbing spells down the tunnel.

Eventually, the darkness aura stopped.

The thing was dead!

But no one, not even the vindictive Trinity, wanted to return down the tunnel.

Thus, they tried another branch from earlier.
It was around this time that Sabah noticed that everyone's faces appeared to be covered in bark, thanks to her traumatic head injury and the curse of the tunnels.
Saito also noticed that everyone's faces had become similar to those of anthropomorphic snow people. Carrot noses, coal eyes - the works.

This branch led them to an ancient chamber that appeared to be a place where the dead were prepared for burial. Several slabs still had bodies on them.

"Fool me once" thought Sabah, who used turn undead.

The three skeletons in the room failed their saves and went screaming from the room.

Now properly secured, the party searched the room.

Not much was found here, though they did discover two paths leading down, further into the darkness.

Also, Trinity replaced Squidsy with Baelzabone, a tiefling skull from one of the slabs.
And the madness of the underworld made it speak to her.

A collective "yeah, no" later and they were back in town.

We then engaged in down time activities for one week worth of time.

The goblins came to make peace with the village during that time, which was well received by all.

Sabah researched more about Vecna.

Saito researched more about the making of the warforged in the temple.

Trinity made some perfume and came out slightly ahead in selling them.
And then the caravan palace arrived...

And that concludes the first adventure for this campaign.

Pretty amusing overall.

At this point, I've given the players the option to start new characters if they so desire, or they can continue on with the same folk for the next part. So far, only Saito seems like he'll be out of the running, but we shall see.

Either way, we are advancing past 3rd level and we will pick back up at 4th level.

It is still in the air as to whether or not we will have our weekly meet-up on Sunday. It seems rather shaky, however, given that Saturday is the 4th.

On that note, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day!

Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :D

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 5

Hello, lovely readers!

This last weekend's gaming session was remarkably brief-seeming. Some folks had some car trouble, so we had a late start. We played some Adventure Time Munchkin to pass the time (Trinity was closest to 10 when we stopped).

Then, once we actually got started, we had a difficult time staying focused (I recorded the audio of the session to use for these notes, and they ran around 140 minutes; we only advanced something like 20 minutes in game time).

For this week, every PC except Saito was present.

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Last time, the heroes had just encountered Juju, the flumph, and were headed to his little hole in the tunnels below the caves.

Once they entered "Flumphy Town," as it is now called, Trinity buried herself in flumphs and Squidsy confirmed her location for the rest of the party.

Saito took ill from the spores that he had inhaled in the other room and began retching. The flumphs told the party they would take care of him.
Around the time that he took sick, Cara, Ulic, and Trinity all began to have strange feelings in their heads.

The party, sans Saito, then returned to the main chamber and began discussing how to proceed - explore the remaining tunnel, return to the "warforged fun room" and see what else might be hidden there, or charge headlong at whatever remained in the "scary tunnel."

First, they had Hazmi cast light on a stone and throw it down the "falling rocks" tunnel.
To discover that the rocks had already fallen.
The tunnel was choked with boulders and rubble, blocking the path further down.

Next, they decided to return to the "warforged fun room" to see what might remain there.
Ulic used his divine sense feature - and found that the only thing he could detect there was himself.
Eos checked for traps - and found nothing.
Cara looked around for identifying marks - and found nothing.

Then the looting began.
Several PCs walked away with some coinage, and Ulic discovered a carved horn wand of some sort.
Which Trinity desperately wanted.
After smashing the fountain in frustration, Ulic decided she could hang on to the wand for a little while if she promised to not be so smash happy.
And she agreed.
And carried through on the agreement.
She also said the incredibly innuendo-y "Trinity expects more bones" when I brought up the subject of giving her too many nice things. Some laughs.

Happily sated on their looting, the party returned to the room that was filled with fungi.
One of the shriekers cried out, and Ulic allowed Trinity a temporary grace period on her vow of non-smashing.
A rousing game of "Wack a Mold" ensued.

Once that was done, and the party couldn't find anything else in the room, they continued on into the tunnel opposite the one they had entered.
Cara, Trinity, and Ulic experienced a strange phenomenon at this point: as if in a dream, they saw a blurry humanoid figure approach them and attack. They were only slightly unsettled by this, as Cara explained it was probably due to the spores they had inhaled earlier.

This next room was smaller than the last, and something was floating just beyond their light.
Those with darkvision, however, saw what it was: a true beholder.
To be specific, a spectator.
Ulic knew from experience that these monsters weren't necessarily hostile, though they would guard something until their death.

So, the party approached it.
Several members were shocked that it could speak to them.
Ulic decided to act on his knowledge and asked it what it was guarding.

And what a great question to ask a spectator, a type of magical guardian that just loves to talk about that kind of thing.
It revealed to them that it was guarding a secret for Vecna (whose holy symbol was on the scary warforged) and could only allow followers of that deity to pass it.
This sparked several different things:

• The party asked when the last time a follower of Vecna came through here was, and it told them it was about a week ago
• They said that couldn't be true, as that faith was wiped out ages ago
• The spectator described to them a person that matched the vision that Cara, Ulic, and Trinity had had
• Trinity got the bright idea to impersonate a follower of Vecna to try to pass, but failed to convince the spectator. This was probably due to the holy symbol of Beory emblazoned on her head
• Then Cara decided to do something truly clever: she used her fey presence feature to charm the spectator, then used persuasion to let them pass - and it went for it!

With that bit of good luck under their belts, they proceeded into the next, and final, chamber.

In here, they found what amounts to a "warforged birthing chamber" with nine alcoves, only three of which were currently occupied.

The room was in pristine condition, despite the general ruin of the rest of the temple.

After discussing their options and asking me SEVERAL questions, Trinity decided to try two things:

First, she would climb into one of the charging stations to see what would happen.

She made a Constitution saving throw and... nothing happened. Because nothing would have happened. There was a deliciously tense moment when she rolled the die though :)

Next, she wanted to try to evict one of the warforged and hope that it imprinted to her like a duckling.

With Hazmi and Ulic ready to tie it up when she pulled it out, she let loose.

The party was able to secure it quickly, but then things turned ugly.

The other two warforged had awoken, and the third began to strain against its ropes.

Eos, who had been hidden, had readied his action to attack anything hostile that might have moved. His sneak attack hit and dealt good damage to one of the machines.

Sabah likewise had prepared an action, flinging fire at the warforged in the ropes. Her spell, however, shed off its metallic hide like water on a duck's back.

Then combat began in earnest.

The fighting was brutal. Both Sabah and Hazmi retreated into the hallway: Hazmi because of his personality, Sabah because she was being beaten savagely.

Eos and Cara were having a hard time hitting the warforged, rapier and spells glancing off their metal hide.

Ulic, however, was able to deal the most damage to them, using his claymore to slay one and then greatly cripple the other two.

Hazmi's expended all of his spell slots to cast magic missiles, but the damage he dealt was probably critical in the party's survival.

At one point, Trinity decided to punch a warforged for NO. APPARENT. REASON (To put this into perspective, her unarmed strikes deal 4 damage, while her warhammer deals ~8 damage). However, she did score a critical with the hit, so that was worth a laugh at least.

At one point, Cara was knocked unconscious and Sabah ran to her rescue. However, she was knocked out in turn just after stabilizing her friend.

After several turns of brutal, agonizing combat, the party prevailed. Cara was stable but unconscious, and Sabah required medical attention to avoid slipping closer to death.

The party decided to take a rest here to refresh their spirits, splint broken bones, and prepare to trek back to the spectator.

During the rest, Trinity found a +1 spear that was hiding in an alcove, and Ulic identified his wand as a wand of web that he then attuned himself to.

And that is how the fifth session ended.

Actually, looking at it, there really was quite a bit covered.

Now, for our next trick: how are we going to reunite the party with a beholder in the way?

Later this week, I'll add another link to the psionics update project.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 4: The Great Hand War

Greetings, one and all!
Today, we have a real treat for you. And, if you thought that the third session was insane, then you'll be blown away by the things that happened during the fourth one!

This session included returning cast members Hazmi, Trinity, Saito, Sabah, and Eos, and introduced the tiefling paladin Ulic and the human fae warlock Cara.

Prepare yourselves for a long one.

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When last we left off, the party was at the bottom of the great chasm in the cave, having just been "volun-told" to take care of the warforged problem for the goblins.

It was then that the party realized that they were in the presence of a goblin: Haa the Tall.
A long discussion of what to do with him ensued. Some party members wanted to slay and/or torch him, while the majority thought that restraining him and leaving him at the bottom of the chasm for their return would work better.
Then Haa spoke, and everyone discovered that Eos is a changeling.

With this new fact brought to light, the party started to discuss their options: leave the tunnels and have the goblins fight their own war, or carry through with their plans to destroy the warforged. The debate went on for some time, and someone (I can't remember who currently, but quite probably Saito) used the line "That's fine - we'll be dead!" when the thought of what might happen to Rosewood if they failed was brought up. Finally, the consensus reached was to delve deeper and crush the metal menace once and for all.

Sabah decided to do some scouting while the party figured out what tunnel they wanted to travel down. She discovered several branches ahead, as the natural caverns at this point were labyrinthine. When she joined back to the group, they decided to venture forth on a nearly-straight course.

At the juncture that Sabah had left off her reconnaissance, they had to once again decide which path to take. Saito tried listening down the tunnels to help aid the decision making process, but all he could hear was Hazmi breathing heavily in his ear. (More on this later.)
And, as Javier had done the day before, Sabah thought that decision making by using spells would be a good choice.
She lobbed a fireball from her produce flame spell down a tunnel, and...

Struck a freaking carrion crawler.

Combat ensued. Obviously.

Meanwhile, Cara and Ulic had just fallen down a steep hole that dropped them in a tunnel adjacent to the party. More on that later.

The crawler climbed up a nearby wall and was making attempts to attack the party from that vantage.
Thankfully, Eos had become hidden earlier. He fired an arrow using his sneak attack and scored a very solid hit.
Then, Trinity mulled over a choice to throw her hammers or to try to leap to the thing. Finally, she settled on a called shot (house rule: disadvantage on the attack roll, but can roll damage twice and use better result) against the things legs, hoping to knock it down. Remarkably, she hit with both hammers and knocked the bug from the ceiling.

Hearing the sounds of combat, Ulic and Cara approached, weapons drawn.

Saito saw his opportunity and charged in, swinging both of his swords. The crawler was able to strike with its tentacles, but Saito's elemental metabolism protected him from the poison. Thus engaged, he slashed and hacked at the beast's hide.
Hazmi's turn came and he used his highly reliable ray of frost cantrip. But missed!
Sabah was next, and still had flames from her cantrip to lob. She threw one and dealt nearly minimal damage. Such is the fickle roll of the dice.

The carrion crawler was next to act, and continued its assault against Saito. However, with his keen reflexes, he was able to dodge the tentacles and avoid the thing's maw.

Unfortunately, combat became slightly distracted at this point, as Trinity really really reallllllly wanted to try something, but there was no way that Eos couldn't kill the crawler during his turn.

Eventually, Eos decided to use the Hide action and try for another sneak attack if the need arose.
Trinity then charged the thing and was bit. However, she succeeded at the (athletics) check to grapple the beast and leapt on to its back, resulting in an impromptu rodeo.

It was this moment when Cara and Ulic arrived, weapons at the ready. They saw the group surrounding the carrion crawler, the warforged riding it. Great first impression material.

Saito finished the thing with a piercing stab through its brain, ending Trinity's joy ride.

The party and the strange newcomers had a quick chat as to why each was down in the tunnel: the party was seeking to end the warforged threat, and the others had been sent on an archaeological expedition.
It was then that Trinity had her most shining moment yet: she remembered the piece of warforged "skull" that they had gathered, and asked the researcher what she could make of it.

Looking it over, Cara recognized the original holy symbol as having belonged to the death cults of Nerull, a god long-dead from the Reckoning Wars. Specifically, she said that the symbol was "old as balls." Which was met with many a guffaw.

I believe there was a statement of the warforged posing a true threat, to which (I believe it was) Trinity responded "They won't for long." So blood (oil?) thirsty that one (I really need to take better notes for my quotes).

The now fully-assembled party took a short rest to exchange notes and patch their wounds.
Eos has remained hidden this entire time and has change his appearance, as a bit of trivia.

When the party started to leave and Trinity called to Eos that they were doing so, Ulic began to wonder about her sanity. A brief explanation that Eos was in fact not imaginary helped put him at ease.

As they traveled back the way that they had come from, they passed a room that had a single stalactite (that wasn't there before, but no one bothers to remember what the DM says).
It was then that the party heard someone fall behind them.

Turning, they found a darkmantle wrapped around Eos' head. It had dropped him to 0 hit points with a critical hit. In short order, they slew the thing, pulled it from his head, and forced a healing potion down his throat. No death saving throws needed.
It also is important to note that Eos had taken on the appearance of a tiefling, thereby giving the phrase "social chameleon" a whole new meaning.

Trinity, gods bless her, decided to turn the darkmantle's corpse into a hand puppet, much to Sabah's chagrin. Thus was born Squidsy.
There was a bit of discussion as to how this would affect her efficacy as a warrior and why she would even bother to do it. Eos put a rather fine point on the matter: "I have a goblin vertebra with me so that I can make a sheath out of the bones of my fallen foes. A darkmantle hand puppet is just fine!" This may have been brought on in a spat of vindictiveness, but was pretty justifiable just the same.

Eos then had a bright idea and took Ulic aside, splitting the party temporarily. They went back to the carrion crawler and he harvested some of its tentacle venom to use at a later time. In short order, the group was reunited and on the move once more.

This time, they backtracked a short distance and took another path in a fork that they had previously ignored. Saito tried again to listen for signs of imminent threats, but was thwarted once more by Hazmi's heavy breathing. After a good laugh, they then chose their path.
Their current trail led them to a vast chamber that was quite obviously built rather than naturally formed.
The wall to their left had the ruins of four statues lined along it, the floor had a moldy, threadbare carpet leading to the opposite wall. The whole thing had the feeling of a grand temple.

Trinity, the eternal instigator, decided she wanted to charge the first statue and knock it into the others.
Eos' cry to hold fell on selective robotic ears.
Thankfully, Trinity's Strength check wasn't quite good enough to knock the thing over.
However, she did trigger an ancient spear trap and narrowly missed getting impaled by it.

Now, with more caution, the party proceeded towards the far wall. No traps were found, but the other wall held four different tunnels, each marked with goblin script.

Until this time, the party had had no means to read such things.
Then Cara came along, actually able to read the marks that the goblins had left.

The tunnels were marked (left to right) "floating jellyfish things," "falling rocks," "I don't know," and "scary things."
The party was at a loss as to how to proceed exactly. They didn't think that the first two tunnels would be worth a look, and that the "scary things" were probably what they were after.
One last time, Saito decided to listen to the tunnels. This time, however, he made sure to have Hazmi standing a good ten feet away. And actually heard some motion down one of the tunnels! (This may turn into some sort of running gag, by the way. I apologize in advance.)
Eos decided to scout ahead to the "I don't know" room and see what had confused the goblins.

Inside, he found a fountain that hadn't been running in untold years and mounds of dead humanoids. The bodies were aged beyond recognition in many instances, but were much more recent than the structure they were stored in. Quietly, he returned to the party.

Then he said the greatest thing he could have said: "It's a warforged fun room."

That was all Trinity needed. She charged in and threw a stone at the bodies to make sure they were dead.
Then almost every single corpse hand detached from its body and began to chase her.

The party saw her swiftly approaching, then Eos and Saito hatched a brilliant plan: they would lure the hands down the "scary things" tunnel and then use Saito's pass without trace ability, turn off the magical lights they carried to vanish, and hurl a lit torch into the room, thereby siccing the hands on whatever else was down the hall.
And the plan worked! (The +10 to [stealth] checks made it so that the only way to fail against the claws' passive perception was to roll a 1. No one did.)

The other room was filled with shriekers, violet fungus, and a single gas spore (which, sadly, Cara identified).

But none of that mattered.
"The Great Hand War" had begun.

The claws and fungi clashed, slaying each other in a glorious display of player ingenuity the likes of which I have never seen.
The gas spore exploded, taking many hands out with it.
Fungi died, hands were destroyed.
Utter madness.

Eventually, the dust settled, but the party remained hidden, knowing that the cries of the shriekers would lure something to the room.

And, sure as the rain falls, something did arrive.
A lone flumph.

The party members signaled to each other to remain quiet, but the flumph was able to pick up on some of their thoughts.
Once it was obvious it posed no threat to the party, Cara, Trinity, and Ulic approached it and inhaled some spores.
The flumph revealed that it was called Juju, and most everyone instantly like him.
After some discussion about the nature of what may lay further down the tunnel, it was decided that Juju would bring the party to what is now notoriously called "Flumphy Town" to allow them to rest.
Trinity, gods bless her, instantly turned from savage killer to docile kitten when she started interacting with Juju. She now has plans to make a snuggle pile of flumphs.

And that is where we ended the session: being taken down to Flumphy Town.

As all DMs know, things get strange when players get involved with your best laid plans.
Two encounters mashed into a single, psychotic, improbable mishap that lead to what is probably going to be one of my favorite gaming stories for years to come.
I once read somewhere that a DM should be a fan of the PCs. And after that display of incredible, insane, dumb luck, I can't help but cheer these affable murderhobos on.

Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 3: The Legend of Haa the Tall

Hello again, dear readers!
Sorry for the late update, but better now than never, I suppose :)
Also, Javier's player dropped out of our game. So, no more fae pact warlock :/ Or, at least, not in the same capacity...

When last we left things, the second half of the party had just returned to the cave to try to best the goblins. And possibly the carrion crawler.

For this session, the party consisted of Trinity, Saito, Eos, Sabah, and Hazmi.

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Due to not being with the party proper, I had to run a brief mini-adventure for Sabah. Nothing much to it: she woke up to Angus (the head of the militia) pounding on her door, snapping her out of a bad ganja hangover. Then, blearily, she made her way to the caves from the previous day and caught up to the party. When she finally caught up, she tapped Hazmi on the shoulder.
He was still deaf at the time.
Hence the scream. (And, in a very "Xenoblade Chronicles" way, she actually changed the future o.O)

United at last, the party continued their search for the goblin hideout in the tunnels.
Much of nothing happened, as the warrens were currently unoccupied.
While in a mess hall, Trinity picked up a chair to use later. Because improvised weapon shenanigans.

Finally, the party arrived at a passage that was lined with several holes and terminated in a space that they would have to squeeze through.
Eos volunteered to scout ahead.
Because that has turned out so well thus far.

There was some discussion about how he would be seeing things in the tunnels, as warforged don't have darkvision and Hazmi's light spell was currently cast on his shrunken head arcane focus. But, eventually, Eos was convinced to take the light with him, just to be safe.
Once he entered the chamber at the end of the passage, he came upon a brilliant idea: throw an arrow into the darkness to get a sense of what was in here.

As one might expect, the results were awesome:

• the goblin drumming stopped
• nothing could be heard for several minutes
• Eos pulled out the shrunken head light
• goblins everywhere

The party ended up placing a table between them and the soon-to-be-dead Eos.

But not so fast!

Using his ninja-like reflexes and his knowledge of Indiana Jones, Eos made a daring power slide under the table, just as the fighters set it in place.

Now, reunited the party prepared to fight through the narrow window that had just been made.

But what's this!

The goblins had crept up on them, using the holes in the tunnel that connected to the rest of the warren.

The party was now trapped between two large groups of goblins.

Well, this is typically where a TPK would occur, but OH NO. Not for these stalwart lunatics.

With a well-timed diplomacy roll, Hazmi was able to give the group some time, laying down his weapons and offering surrender.

Saito followed suit, as did Sabah.

Thankfully, the goblins still hadn't noticed Eos in the back of the group.

Then, a very long discussion on the merits of knocking out Trinity to avoid further confrontation happened.

After a moment, she decided to play along in the negotiations (though, much thought toward killing the goblins in their sleep was expressed).

Calling upon her ancient nemesis, she said aloud "The carrion crawler - it killed your brethren."

Being a skeptical sort of DM when it comes to something that wild, I let her roll the dice.

Natural 20.

We needed to take a milkshake break to get our heads back on after that one.

Though not completely trusting the party, the goblins saw that they had a potential ally (and slave army) with their new captives.
Apparently, the goblins had been raiding Rosewood to gain supplies to fight a war against some "scary warforged," as one goblin put it.

While this explanation for motivations was going on, by the way, Eos slipped into the back (using a natural 20 himself [my god, twice in one session...]), made sure he wasn't observed, and changed his appearance to be that of a large, earless goblin.
This only bodes well.

Eventually, the troupe arrived at a back chamber where the goblins had been preparing to wage a battle against their robotic foes.
And, due to popular demand at the table, one particular bugbear became smitten with Eos' current form.
That is all I have to say on the subject.

Anyway, the goblins finished their war chants and marched everyone back to the great chasm near the entrance to the cave. Then, they produced some ropes and everyone rappelled down the wall, landing safely on the cave floor.

Eos, that brave fool, was quickly assigned to a goblin scouting squad and sent down a tunnel away from the rest of the party.
Seriously, how often does this party get split?

Alternating the action back and forth, here is roughly what happened:

• Eos' goblin squad immediately found a warforged, but changelings don't have darkvision
• the other party marched
• Eos swung for the warforged, but missed due to darkness
• the other party marched on
• something hit Eos, but then he grabbed hold of it and began to grapple the warforged
• the other party continued their march
• some more scuffling and blade work by Eos and his opponent, with blows being traded
• the other party finally met a warforged, though only Sabah could see it. Thinking quickly, she cast produce flame and combat ensued
• with a bit of a scuffle, Eos was able to attack and finish the thing, calling out "Haa!" in a very hearing-impaired way, thereby gaining the legendary title of "Haa the Tall"
• one magic missile spell from Hazmi and a neat trip-attack combo by Trinity later and the warforged's head exploded on the ground

The party that had splatted the warforged head took a moment to see if there were any identifying marks on it.

Thankfully, that is a feature that all warforged are made with - a holy symbol on their foreheads.

The mark on this one was defiled, but was still recognizable as from an ancient religion predating the Reckoning Wars.

Further research would be necessary.

The goblins called the day a success and retreated back to the chasm floor. Here, the party discussed the ways that guerrilla warfare was a losing strategy down in the tunnels.

Then, seeing the light, the goblins told them that if they wanted to fight the warforged, they were more than welcome to.

Sabah is quoted as saying "Was I just volunteered for a suicide mission?"

To which Eos responded "Haa!"

And that's where that session ended.

Folks gained milestones and intrigue was had.

Next time, what will become of our heroes?

Will they fall in the darkness?

Or will they uncover truths best kept hidden?

Find out in the next thrilling episode of "The Legend of Haa the Tall!"

...

Or something like that.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :D

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 2

Alright, when last we left off, the party was recovering from a brutal fight against a carrion crawler.

For this session, the party consisted of Trinity, Saito, Eos (whose default disguise is that of a warforged), and Hazmi.

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After a night of recovery, the commander/bartender gathered the party members up for a bit of good news (nice and early): a shipment of supplies for the militia had just come in from Grandfield, and they would be allotted four healing potions. Trinity ended up holding onto them for the group.

Trinity, a vengeful fire burning in her heart, led the charge back to the caves in the woods.

The party entered the caves once more and took a look around.
The blood, splinters, and shrapnel of the previous day's fights still littered the floor.

After a lengthy debate fueled by Trinity's desire to slay the carrion crawler once and for all, the party decided that pursuing the goblins was the more prudent course. However, she did pick up a boulder to lug around, as she had been wanting to throw it at the carrion crawler the other day.
Thankfully, after the first session's debacle with eldritch blast, they had a pretty good idea of which tunnel to travel down.

They marched for some time, Trinity at the lead, boulder in hand.
Eventually they came to a wide chasm, the light from Hazmi's arcane focus too little to pierce the depths. The path split here, left and right.
In a moment of ingenuity, they placed Trinity's boulder on the left fork to act as an ambush deterrent, and explored to the right.

The path eventually led to a broad landing, but nothing else. Eos looked for any sign of a secret door, and was perplexed that there was nothing.
Disheartened by the dead-end, the party returned to the fork.

After re-positioning the boulder, our heroes continued on the left fork.
This path went into some tunnels for a little while, but eventually opened onto a chamber where a pool was being created by two streams.
Uncertain of the location of the goblins, they spent some time looking around.
And, instead of enemies, they found treasure! Some copper and silver bits had found their way into the streams, as well as a set of carved bone dice.
However, there was still no sign of the raiders.

The party took another moment to discuss their course of action before deciding to look at the landing again.

This time, Trinity's sharp eyes found a cleverly disguised wooden panel that opened onto a tunnel. She, of course, kicked it down and threw her boulder down the stairs that followed.

This not only shattered any pretense of stealth, but also deafened Hazmi.

Undaunted, the party continued down the way, Saito helping Hazmi navigate without his hearing.

At the bottom of the stairs, they found a primitive bone-chime alarm that the goblins had rigged. With a little effort, they were able to no only disarm it.
This floor was carved from the rock, with much more uniform tunnels and doorways. And, yet again, there was a divide in their path.
The boulder was placed on the right path, and the bone chimes were rigged to help alert them to ambushes. Now ready, the entered the room on the left.

The chamber was filled with half-eaten and rotted carcasses of the various animals that had been stolen. The place stunk.
With a little searching, a humanoid body was found. Trinity threw another carcass onto it, to check if it was still moving or some sort of trap. Thankfully, nothing of that sort happend. However, it appeared that the body was fused to some sort of armor...
Saito took a closer look and discovered that the armor was the sort found on warforged.
Sufficiently creeped out, the party returned to the divide, but not before Saito grabbed a small piece to examine later.

This time, however, Trinity was unable to lift her boulder, the exhaustion of lugging it around finally catching up to her. She was a bit upset about that, but soldiered on just the same.

The tunnels eventually opened onto a grand edifice, some sort of nexus to the tunnels the goblins had built. The chamber echoed with the pounding of war drums.
There were two obvious tunnels, and the one opposite their entrance was glowing softly, as if a fire were at the other end.

Eos, enterprising scout and master of stealth, decided to check out the source of the glow.
He discovered a forge the goblins were operating. Two of the small thieves were sharpening scimitars at that exact moment.
Then, three arrows sailed past Eos' head. Thanks to all of the noise they had been making, a few of the goblins had taken up arms.
Eos decided to beat it back to the party and ended up having another arrow catch him square in the back.

Combat eventually broke out, but was handled quickly enough. A few magic missiles from Hazmi helped to even the playing field, while the fighters continued to do what they do best. However, it was Eos that truly shined during combat, his rapier slaying three of the five goblins with a single thrust.

After the fight, there was a scream from Hazmi - he had stayed back in the main chamber and was still deaf.

Eos then walked over to Trinity, grabbed a healing potion, and chugged it.

And, that's where we ended the second session!
What became of Hazmi?
What was the thing they found back in the meat room?
And how will the other half of the party ever catch up?

All this and more answered when we game next!
Due to Sunday being Mothers' Day and some other scheduling troubles, we won't be meeting this week.
On the plus side, that means you, our readers, are caught up with us. Another plus is that this will allow me time to work on and upload some homebrew stuff for your critiquing and usage.

So, until we meet again, may the dice fall in your favor :)

Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 1

To begin, the campaign is set in a world of my own invention: Praerus. (If I find the time and ability, I will update the campaign guide and upload it for everyone's perusal.) It is a world inhabited solely by humans, "demi-humans," and warforged. The exact details of how everything got this way are involved and include some mysteries, so I'll just leave it at this brief tidbit for now.

For information on the characters, go here (the character info page, also located at top).

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Session 1

Our heroes this time were Javier, Sabah, Trinity, and Hazmi.

The town of Rosewood (a trade hub located at the joining of two rivers) has been troubled by goblin raids of late. Livestock and supplies have been stolen from farms on the outskirts. The town militia (PCs) have received orders to put a stop to the problem.

Despite the urgency of this matter, Javier still woke up around noon.

Once the party was assembled, they set out to track down the goblins. Thanks to Javier's tracking skills, this was easily done. A slight hiccup occurred while trying to sneak up on the goblins when Javier stepped down on a rather noisy twig.

Javier climbed a nearby tree (this is all in a forest near town) to get a better look at what was going on. S/he saw a few goblins, all of which had their weapons drawn and were ready to fight their pursuers.

Outside the goblin's hideout, a scuffle ensued with some of the raiders that were late to return to base.

Everything seemed to be going well for the party (except Javier, who can track goblins but can't hit them with eldritch blasts apparently :/) when one of the goblins gave a whistle.

Some of the bushes animated- twig blights that the goblins had fed and made into allies.

The party was now boxed in by the twig blights and the goblins, turning the tables a little.

However, with some well-placed spells from the casters and hammer attacks by Trinity, the enemy's assault was once again broken, and two of the remaining goblins were able to retreat into their cave.

After a moment to catch their collective breaths (and to have Javier climb down the tree), the party resumed the hunt.

They entered the cave, Hazmi and Sabah using their own methods to produce light.

The entry chamber was largely devoid of any signs of life, with a few large rocks scattered here and there.

Opposite the entrance, there were two different tunnels the goblins could have gone down.

After some discussion and attempted tracking, Javier had the idea to fire an eldritch blast down one of the tunnels to see what might be down that way.

A carrion crawler.

An over-sized, paralytic-tentacled centipede.

Sabah, who was standing at the entrance to that particular tunnel, took the first attack. Thankfully, her shield prevented the paralyzing touch of the tendrils from hitting home. However, she still took damage from a bite attack.

Trinity threw her throwing hammers, hoping to blind the thing. However, she only managed to upset it. She then charged the beasty.

Hazmi used ray of cold and magic missile to good effect during the fight, helping to level the playing field.

Javier's luck with eldritch blast continued, either missing or rolling little on damage.

The carrion crawler, seeing the fighter as a greater threat to itself than the cleric, moved to engage. It missed once again with the tentacle attack, but struck a critical hit with its bite, dropping Trinity in a single attack.

At this moment, Javier's luck turned around, his/er eldritch blast scoring a solid hit.

Battered and nearly dead, the two sides ended up retreating - the party out of the cave (Trinity in tow), and the crawler back into its hole.

Deciding that the party was ill-informed and under-equipped for this mission by their superiors, they returned to Rosewood to lick their wounds, rest, and gripe at their commander (the pub owner, of course).

And that's it for the first session. It was pretty brief, but everyone had some fun. Some of the players had some complaints/mild confusion (a problem when moving from one edition of a game to another), but with a little digging into the rules, we were able to clarify things.

Tomorrow, I'll upload the second session. After that, everyone will be caught up with our current status.

Until then, may the dice fall in your favor :)