Session Three: That Went Well

Alternate title: You'd Think a Wizard Would Be More Dangerous in a Fight

It's skull-crackin' time!

Well, almost. First, and what seems to be becoming a habit of my players, our Elvish fighter's player decided he didn't like me using clips on a Beast: the Primordial Storyteller's screen for DnD, so he got me this really nice four panel fold out with removable sheet slots. Add that to my Tiefling player getting us a series of dry erase boards w/pre-printed underlying terrain (which I was able to use this session right away), and I'm really just getting spoiled anymore. But they don't have to do anything like that at all. I'd be happy drawing on printer paper with crayons and using coins as miniatures if it meant we could keep our campaign going. 

Also, our half-orc player decided that we should have themed days, and this session was kigu day! Not owning one, I had to order a Cthulu-kigu a few days before the session and got to enjoy the look on people's faces when I had the hood up. So we had Cthulhu, a rainbow unicorn, and Snorlax at the table, along with an elf-eared Tiefling player and then our actual elf player just being there. Gosh, why do you have to ruin our fun, always?? Just kidding. He helped me swap out a car battery (by which I mean he did all the work) after the session, so it's totally fine. 

Because I'd prepared for everything for this session before last, we only went a week between games instead of our normal two. This also put our games on a better Sunday for me personally than normal, due to minimal morning obligations AND it was a daylight savings time weekend so an extra hour of sleep had me bright eyed & bushy tailed for it. 

At the stopping point for last time, the party agreed to deal with the Redbrand ruffians for Lezard's sheriff, Elspeth. Gabriel had retrieved his new dragon's blood-infused axe (shit, did we remember the extra damage on that or...? Pretty sure we did...) and the party was ready to head on over to the Sleeping Giant taphouse to have a few words with the brigands. 

Showing up, several Redbrands were lounging outside of the taphouse, half drunk already and spoiling for a fight. Immediately they started taunting our band of sometimes-do-wells with insults and insinuations that the only thing keeping them safe is Lezard. The party had a little debate on how to handle this, so I just kept going off-script with remarks about their demon whore and equally not nice things about the rest of the group. Gabriel had enough of the shit talking (and Lenneth was ready to throw down) so when Laucian stepped forward, I had a Redbrand in the backfield draw his crossbow bolt and take aim. This was meant to be fairly light combat. I didn't give the Redbrands names since they weren't important, but Gabriel needed to know so we went with peanut butter brands, like Skippy and Jiff. The party did well smacking these fools down, killing two, sleeping one, and one escaping (Laucian missed an attack of opportunity). The sleeping one was awakened via Lenneth's quarterstaff meeting his forehead. 

A few intimidation rolls later, and the ruffian filled in some blanks. Not all the ones the party wanted, like about his rough childhood or who touched him in his no no spots, but the ones that more or less mattered, like about how if he talked, "the Glasstaff" would do worse than kill him. That led the party into a lot of speculation as to who or what that referred. They decided to take this guy to Elspeth and let her pass along the information to Lezard, in return for a later reward. Laucian split with the party when they did this, to go and try to force Sildar Hallwinter to join the group in storming Tresendar Manor, where the ruffian said the Redbrands made their lair. 

I... Actually did not expect that. So I made Laucian come up with a compelling argument and whatnot. Which worked out in the party's favor, ish, later on. Not the least of which revolved around Sildar getting the killing blow on the white dragon wyrmling in session one. But a team of five is more effective than a team of four, and when you don't know what kind of a hornet's nest you're going to kick over... 

The party left the sheriff and headed east to the ruins of the Tresendar Manor. A half hour of searching (game time) led to a partially concealed entrance to the basement of the manor. Heading inside, the party found themselves in a chamber with a pair of staircases, a large amount of kegs and barrels, and a cistern of fresh drinking water. They spent probably twenty minutes here. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. Lenneth was incredibly concerned about the water (side note: don't wear a Cthulhu-kigu if you have a water feature, your players will be paranoid), checking it with her quarterstaff until she felt something, at which time she had Bessie hold onto her in case she was pulled in. She found someone's bug out bag with clothing and some treasure inside. Gabriel wanted to check out the kegs and barrels, and Bessie warned everyone to be super quiet, just in case. Whole party rolled fantastic on Stealth, so when they found the door that led into a small room, I declared they could listen to see what was on the other side. 

Deducing it was Redbrands, the party decided Lenneth would rush in, drop Thunderwave, and they'd clean up. So Gabriel boots open the door for her, Thunderwave hits ruffians hard and a third one less hard, then the party runs in and guts everything, Gabriel and Laucian bisected a guy. There was blood and guts everywhere. I threw up in my mouth a little. 

Right, so they moved on, heading north through a hall and Besiljka's spidey sense starting tingling, indicating that there was probably a trap near. Everyone rolled and, once again, Lenneth had high roll. We decided she could hear the echo differently on the stone and Bessie could see where scuffs from footsteps weren't where they should be in a normal hall. They figured out the pit trap and Gabriel had the brilliant idea to fly over to the doorway at the end of the hall, drive a piton into the wall, and use rope as sort of a handhold. Totally worked out. Much impressed. They'd have needed to succeed on some checks either way. but this lowered the DC ridiculously to avoid triggering the trap or falling into it. 

Reaching the end of the hallway, they came upon the Tresendar family crypts, complete with Mr Skellymens. It has been insisted that all skeletons are based upon Skeletor, so the combat was replete with MERRRRH! and the frontline fighters built a wall behind which Lenneth just poked at the skeletons with her quarterstaff. One of the skeletons went full out Three Stooges and hit dem bones next to him, before getting dusted himself. It wasn't an exciting combat round but it sure was hilarious to me. 

Defeating the skeletons and moving to the East, the party stumbled across a couple of degenerate Redbrands holding a lady and her two children in slave pens. Besiljka took umbrage at this especially, charging in to murderhobo these a-holes. For some reason, even though the Redbrands didn't really have that high of AC overall, the party had a lot of issues connecting with attacks, and even two of them took way longer than it should have to put down. Regardless, you swing enough axes and all the trees in the forest will fall. 

Killing the Redbrands and rescuing the captives, the party learned that they were Mirna Dendrar, and her two children. Her husband had recently been murdered by the Redbrands (per the drunken villagers in the inn, previous session) and dumped somewhere. She doesn't know much about the Redbrands plans, but her son told the party that they're definitely being led by a wizard, and that he had "hairy, pointy eared" bodyguards protecting him. There was some back and forth about what to do with the trio after this. Sildar was put forth to escort them back, or they could just sit and wait for the party, but (and reminding the party to tell them about the pit trap) they decided to head back to town on their own knowing the way should be clear. Obviously being slave-bait, they didn't have any reward to offer but Mirna told the party about her family's ruined shop in Thundertree, and a family heirloom hidden there if they ever make it out that way. 

Continuing to clear out the basement/cellar/caverny type place, the party had a lot of dialogue on how to proceed and I really love how much my players debate things, and also how paranoid they get. Noting a smaller room to the east of a passage, they found the Redbrand armory. Now, the initial response was "what can we steal?" so in cases like this, as well as in many generic enemies, I usually point out that the weapons aren't high quality or aren't worth porting out. Not because I want to keep the party from walking around with a dozen shortswords (have at it!) but because I know they'll quickly get bogged down. So I just described the volume of the weapons either hinting at a lot more Redbrands down in the cellar, or that they were planning on an aggressive expansion. Both work well for -this line has been redacted to prevent you from knowing anything-. Lacking any explosives, the party just moved on. Dead men don't need swords. Or do they? -looks at the skeletons suspiciously-

Oh, look, a hall that isn't trapped! But they weren't taking any chances, so as soon as their passage from the armory entered into the cavern proper and opened into a new room (a workshop with lots of packing materials and... some beaver pelts), the entire party immediately wanted to start doing some Perception rolls to find shit. That's when we all began to realize that maybe the Tiefling, because they do that kind of shit, was cheating since Lenneth makes -way- more Perception checks at high numbers than anyone else. The short and skinny of it is that the party knew there was some secret shit in the room. They rolled to figure out more shit, blew that shit, and were gonna ignore the shit, but Lenneth's player would absolutely not let it go. And thus, did they find the secret door, and with no way to actually open it (that was stacked against them - spoiler alert; there was no level from that side) they decided to do a combined strength test to just bust through and... Well, I set the bar pretty high but they still managed to Koolaid-man right on through. OH YEAH!!!

A staircase later and they were sneaky snaking into the chambers of the Glasstaff, infamous leader of the Redbrands and -gasp- actually Sildar Hallwinter's contact, Iarno Albrek. The cad! He'd decided to say "screw it" and lead the ruffians despite being a member of the Lord's Alliance because.... Reasons. The party engaged, and I expected a real fight here, but to be honest, I also didn't expect the party to get there so soon and, well, the wizard just could not stand up to the combined might of our heroes. Once his HP dropped to a third of his starting total, he surrendered, and started squealing like a pig about what he as doing with the Redbrands, organizing them as more than just brigands, and of course about the mysterious Devkarin knows as the Black Spider. Who is, again spoiler alert, neither black nor a spider, I'm afraid. Iarno did relay more information on the Wave Echo Cavern, and something called the Forge of Spells which is important to the Black Spider. The party knocked him cold and left him in Sildar's care, after looting his stuff for treasures, with Lenneth taking his staff (which is made of glass, yes). They also found a vaguely threatening note to Iarno;

“Lord Albrek – My spies in Neverwinter tell me that Lezard’s little harlot is due to arrive in Phandalin, along with her escorts. They may be helping the dwarves as well. Capture them if you can, kill them if you must, but don’t allow them to upset our plans or arrive at the wedding in time. See that any items of interest on them are delivered to me with haste. I’m counting on you, Iarno. Don’t disappoint me. -N”

So now another player has entered into the mix. Oooh. 

Because the party went in a different way than planned, the next chamber they encountered was almost anticlimactic with a dead rat (I didn't initially tell them it was the Glasstaff's familiar, I just described it as twitching and then demonstrated how a dead rat twitches physically). 

And then it got fun. They found a history book so I got to talk a little more about the mine, the Forge of Spells, and the Lightbringer - a mace of immense value created there and then lost. 

THAT WILL BE IMPORTANT IN THE FUTURE

But it was also fun because they found some alchemical reagents, including nightshade, which Lenneth immediately wanted. So, of course, Gabriel had to start questioning her about the party's dead (and wolf-eaten) rogue. Interparty roleplaying is so much fun for me, but especially with this particular group because we're all just so effing hilarious. And their banter made me chuckle hardcore. 

Really, I have no complaints about this group, despite having planned for a party of five (damn, Neve Campbell could have been our warlock, if she didn't end up having her powers bound at the end of The Craft) and I look forward to every session, even if I might bitch about it sometimes. I haven't yet, but I do reserve the right to bitch later. 

 That's where we decided to end due to time. There's still -some- area left to explore unless the party calls it and heads back into town. I did warn them that Iarno was not the biggest threat in the area at all, and I think they're worried I might pull out another dragon but, I mean, really, randomly having a black dragon wyrmling rolling around in a human-filled cave that isn't already eating humans would be kind of ridiculous so they're just being paranoid, right?

 -insert maniacal cackling here-