NDT Session 13: I pity the thouls

 Wolfskull lair

The fight continued. The goblin king hacked at Rurik’s giant snake form causing him to revert to his usual dwarfish self and the fog cloud to dissipate. However, Rurik got his revenge by launching a thunder wave which dispatched most of the kings bodyguards.

Finally, a volley of magic missiles struck the king, killing him. Namfoodle the Magnificent had returned at last! 

Bait did some corpse desecration and the remaining goblins in the lair quickly surrender once they realised the situation they were in. 

However, the party were slightly put out that they only found one prisoner - an old lady with the rather on the nose name of Babushka. The other prisoners have been taken to Xitaqa, wherever that was.

Namfoodle had returned from delivering the messages to his gnome clansmen in the mines to the north saying they were having problems with orcs (something the rest already knew from their talks with the elves).

Aengus and Droop stayed with the old lady whilst the rest of the party explored the area that Bait only knew as the guest quarters. After evading some traps and giant ferrets the group entered a room containing 3 very odd hobgoblins, which move to attack. 

After a dangerous fight the party prevailed and could explore the room.

 DM notes: Namfoodle had been absent for a number of sessions so I decided he had gone off to see the gnomes in the mines whilst the party were wandering around the forest.

I’m considering moving Xitaqa as I think my group are a bit annoyed at having to keep going back and forth.

NDT session 12: More goblins

The Wolfskull lair, Dymrak forest 

As the party were finishing off the fight with the goblin and wolf guards, an old friend appeared - it was Snake/Xianta who had found Aengus and Droop at the entrance to the lair. They helped to finish off the party’s remaining foes in relatively short order.

Snake was slightly confused by there being another friendly goblin (Bait) and was also upset by the death of Aimiir. 

Following Bait’s lead the group decided to confront Kloss, the goblin king in his throne room.

was guarded by a large group of goblins who immediately moved to attack the party. 

A fog cloud shrouds the goblin king’s room 

Bait charged into the fray casting Sanctuary on himself , which disrupted the goblin horde. Rurik cast a fog cloud to confuse matters and then changed into a giant snake w

A number of goblins fell as Kloss himself entered the fray.

To be continued

Things that I like that are actually rubbish: D&D

 Content warning: swears, ranting

So D&D. It’s great. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson practically invented a hobby with it. And also greatly inspired another hobby - video games. It brings socially awkward people like myself out of their shells. You get to roll lots of funny looking dice. Brilliant.

But it is rubbish. I mean, it’s a bit like shooting a fish in a barrel but let’s get it out of the way.

Your favourite edition of D&D is rubbish. My favourite edition of D&D is rubbish. Our least favourite editions of D&D are rubbish. And that retro-clone over there is rubbish too. And that re-imagining rule set is probably rubbish too.

Armour class: rubbish

Hit points: rubbish

Unarmed combat rules… terrible, utter dog-crap, rubbish

hardly ever getting to use a D12: rubbish.

Loads of mostly identical humanoid monsters except with slightly different hit points: rubbish.

Players books that are mostly just lists of spells and powers you will never use: rubbish.

DM guides that are mostly just a list of magic items you will never use: rubbish.

Let’s face it, the only D&D books that were likely to get the majority of the content used were the old Basic sets covering levels 1-3. And even they had spells nobody ever used - come on how many times have you cast Hold Portal?

Old D&D was rubbish with all it’s fuck you rules - you’ve been poisoned, you’re dead; you’ve been paralysed and you can’t do anything for an hour; you’ve finally gained a level but now you’ve been energy drained, tough shit. Oh and if you are a women your weak. And if your a Demi-human your much better than a human except if you get to high level, which nobody ever does. And loads of it is needlessly racist.

Newer versions are rubbish because you actively have to try to die and all the monsters have so many hit points they take ages to die without being challenging. And most adventures are just rooms of monsters that attack you. Also, the only way you were expected to play is to walk through a dungeon fighting stronger things*

3/3.5 D&D was rubbish with its 5 billion character options that are mostly shite, its monster stats that are 5 pages long, it’s pointless being anything other than a spell-caster, you spend 3 hours trying to work out how to move your character.

4e was rubbish because nobody wanted to play it and you needed an app to make the character.

5th edition just gives up trying to make sense, has no rules for exploring, doesn’t tell you how to make an adventure, the absolute worst official adventures.  And new 5th edition doubles down on that.

And the Tomb of Horrors. Absolutely the worst type of DMs are trying to beat the Players, let’s cheat to make sure your spells don’t work, kind of bullshit design. Utterly rubbish so let’s rerelease it every 5 years.

Still owlbears are pretty good.

* the dungeon may be in fact a house, city, castle or even a forest but it’s basically all just a dungeon. Ok 4th edition was meant to be different I think, but I never played it at high level.

NDT Session 11: More Goblins

A Petrified Forest within the Dymrak Forest

Present: Rurik and Glimmer (plus Droop)

The group had arrived at a petrified forest, presumably caused by some ancient curse, that was said to be the home of the Wolfskull goblins.

After travelling along a creepy trail they heard a group of goblins and wolves approaching. The party successfully hid themselves and ambushed the patrol.

The party gained some unexpected assistance from another goblin, who seemed quite handy with a whip. The Wolgskull’s were quickly dispatched. 

The newcomer turned out to be a renegade Wolfskull called Bait who was seeking revenge on Kloss the King of the Wolfskulls. He decided to join forces with the party.

Bait led the group to the Wolfskull lair which was formerly a copse of tree surrounded by a black stream. 

The party crossed the bridge into the lair where they were attacked some goblin guards and a wolf. A couple of the guards ran off deeper into the lair.

The remaining wolf and goblins were quickly despatched, mainly by a moonbeam spell from Rurik but more wolves kept arriving from deeper in the lair. The guards had obviously started releasing them from pens within.

To be continued.

NDT Session 10: None more black

 Island of lost dreams

The party quickly dispatched the remaining skeletons and healed themselves up.

The only thing of interested in the room was another ladder leading down to a lower level. Aiimir grabbed the ladder and suffered an electric shock, which also caused him to fall to the lower level.

The rest of the group successfully made their way down without injuring themselves, revealing a passageway to another door. No sounds could be heard so Aimiir, not learning from his earlier mistake flung open the door.

A large black chamber was revealed. The blackest room they had ever seen. In front of them was a large black mirror that showed a distorted reflection from which a winged stone creature emerged. Simultaneously, a poison dart trap was triggered by the door opening causing Aengus to fall asleep.

The gargoyle proved to be a tough opponent and managed to kill Aimiir before Rurik could wildshspe into a snake and constrict it. Rurik, Glimmer, and eventually awoken Aengus managed to destroy the gargoyle. Glimmer retrieved Vlack’s two-handed sword from Aimiir’s corpse and used it to smash the mirror, which seemed to lift the curse on the island.

The apologetic Pixies gave the party some healing potions as recompense for the trouble they had caused whilst cursed and promised to make amends with the elves.

Back on the mainland the group decided to head south to continue the goblin hunt instead of north to help the gnomes. One of the elves lead them to the edge of a petrified forest where the wolf-skulls were said to live.

To be continued….

DM notes: I had decided that with only 4 wounded characters, a single gargoyle would provide enough trouble to them, which proved to be the case.

Aimiir’s player was rather foolhardy and unfortunate with death saves (a natural 1) so a new character will be joining next time. Along with hopefully the return of Snake and possible Namfoodle. 

NDT session 9: Island in the Dreams

 Dymrak Forest

The party woke, slightly shaken by the shadow attack but continued following the wolf tracks, which were growing fainter with the passing days. Droop suggested that they seemed to be heading into Red Blade territory, which confused the party slightly.

Just as the party was losing the trail they came across a group of three Elves. They said they could help the party find the wolfskulls in return for a favour. They were slightly reticent about what was troubling them but eventually revealed they had been attacked by pixies.

They elves the party to their camp on the Lake of Lost Dreams. There was an island in the lake that was taboo to their tribe where the pixies lived. The pixies had stolen a valuable statue from the elves. It turned out that the elves had been given the statue by the gnomes the party had messages for.

The elves and the party built a raft and the party (minus Droop who was left with the elves) sailed to the island. On the way they were attacked by pesky invisible pixies but fought them off.

On the island the party found an old building, possibly a temple to an unknown god, the stolen statue was outside but  a ladder down to a lower level was discovered where a clattering sound could be heard. Exploration revealed a room of skeletons, which a combat was begun.

To be continued

DM notes: pixies with daggers turned out to be real glass cannons with dex 22 and advantage from being invisible meaning they almost always hit and caused loads of damage before they were killed.

I vastly reduced the number of skeletons as 5e clerics lack the repeating turn undead of BECMI clerics.

Vampires: the blathering

 Inspired by a comment from The Guvnor on The Gaming Tavern, I’ve been thinking about Ravenloft and The Known World aka Mystara. Although this post then rambles off in a totally different direction. Probably too much caffeine.

There are two regions in the known world where Vampires are said to be prevalent - Glantri and Karameikos. 

In both cases, the vampires seem to have been introduced in the Gazetteers. Glantri didn’t seem to have much in the way of a description before then, apart from Castle Amber and the odd mention in other modules.

However, a province ruled by vampires fits as part of the country and indeed you could easily set Curse of Strahd there with only minor tweaking.

Karameikos on the other hand is an odd beast. Vampires fit in quite well with the cod-eastern-european culture. But very few published adventures set in the country have them. There’s everybody’s favourite Goth Hobgoblin*, King Vlack in Nights Dark Terror. There may be actual vampires in other adventures but on the whole Karameikos is a bit of a low-level adventurer place for tangling with Vampires. Lycanthropes, there’s loads of, right from the original description of Threshold. vampires, not so much.

So what’s the point of this blog then? I don’t know. Except… maybe there could be a better Known World!

There are strong thematic links between Glantri and Karameikos… but they are nowhere near each other. So in a better known world they would be much closer. 

Glantri also has similarities to Darokin so that would be nearby. That’s is the Byzantine empire so that could be the other way. Just get rid of all the slavery stuff *shudder*. Ylarum and Ethangar would be beyond that.

Hmmm, so basically, I’ve come up with a plan to just put all these places in medieval Europe. Averoigne could actually be part of the known world** and all the racist bits could be lost in translation.

So anyway, I seem to have started a new series of posts on the theme: things that I like that are actually rubbish.

* go on name another 

** the known world needs more weird horror.