The Party Strikes Back

This is part of a series. Click here to go to part 1.

Calendar start and finish: November 27

Players:

Nizan - Human Mystic

Morgan - Elf Ranger

Malger Zoilus, Human Thief

Patrice Longfellow II - Human Thief

Passerose "Rose" - Human Cleric (Exorcist)

Meriel - Human Cleric (Undead Slayer)

A group of entirely new players, except for Malger, who is the last surviving member of the original expedition, met up in an alley in Muntberg. The party described themselves before hiring three henchmen, one of whom was a dog.

Nizan (played by Keldo's player) was determined to recover the corpses of the previous group of characters. Fortunately, there was a large trail of blood leading deeper into the dungeon. The party encountered some giant centipedes, conveniently dispatched using ranged attacks. Much farther in, the party found what looked like a ruined laboratory. Listening at the door, they heard small creatures speaking an unknown language, and they figured they were kobolds. They planned an impressive strategy of attack (thanks to Meriel's idea to use the lab table as a blockade) and threw open the door with the kobolds on the other side. They surprised them, killing three before they had a chance to act. On their turn, all thirteen kobolds immediately ran away. The party suspected a flank, and so barricaded themselves into the room (having learned about iron spikes thanks to the previous session). The kobolds never attacked.

Sam pushed into their room, where the trail of blood ended. Inside, they found the dead bodies of their old characters, stripped of weapons and valuables. Fortunately, they were able to recover their map, crumpled in a ball in a pocket. Nizan gleefully smoothed it out and decided to head into the lower levels of the dungeon.

The party headed east, to the room with six pillars. This time, the party decided to stand on the bronze plaques at the foot of the pillars. Each player received a different memory, played back in their minds, of various events from Dwimmermount's history. They didn't make much of it before heading down the stairs to level 2.

At the foot of the stairs on this new floor, the party encountered six black skeletons. Determined to survive, the party threw everything they had at the monsters, ultimately overcoming them, but at the loss of Meriel, the new cleric, and Nizan the mystic. Fortunately, I remembered how death saving throws work. Meriel stayed alive (rolling a natural 20 no less) but Nizan required more healing. At the hands of the cleric, he rolled very high on the Tampering with Mortality table, coming to his senses with no lasting injuries. At that point, the party called it a night and headed home.

Behind the Screen

What a mess.

I always don't like having more than five players at the table. This week we had 6. Two of the players were falling in love and only wanted to talk to each other. Two of the players don't particularly like D&D but enjoy the social aspect, and the last two players love D&D completely.

This session felt extremely disorganized; the players all arrived at different times, with the final people being the ones who brought the food. Many breaks were taken to create a large bowl of nachos that were shared by everyone, which was thoughtful and delicious, but it greatly disrupted play.

The journey continues in part 5.