Campaign Logs/D&D/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 9

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In our last session, our intrepid adventurers had begun their task of searching for six specific books in the lair of the wizard Castanamir. They had been hired by Chakos of House Cadryenne, a drow elf, to accomplish this task. As there would be many spoilers even just giving a brief recap of what happened last week, I’m going to save that for after the break. This week both Muse and Theo were missing so it was just Rachel and RJ playing and thus just Morgraen, Riordan, Lavinia, and Rurik. Spoilers: There are definitely spoilers for the old AD&D module, C3: The Lost Island of Castanamir, below the break.

My GM comments, as usual, are in [italics and brackets].

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Campaign Logs/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 8

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After a week’s hiatus due to too many missing players, we picked up our 5th Edition D&D Side Quest campaign again. In our last session, the party had returned from their harrowing and deadly misadventures beyond the Moon Door. They returned successfully and completed their task for Rowena Greyraven, turning over the recovered topaz to her. Prior to that, they obtained a new patron for their adventures…the drow elf Chakos of House Cadryenne. Their new job was to pass through one of the valley’s portals to the home of an ancient wizard, Castanamir, and recover six books for the drow. The six books include (author in parens):

  • Oculum Percussum (no author listed). This translates from Draconic as The Piercing Eye
  • Portal Magicks (Castanamir)
  • One Thousand and One Planes Parallel (Bulukiya Scheher)
  • The Blazing Eye (Caven Mardish)
  • His Dark Materia (Trahere)
  • The Parallax Veil (Gerro Zelaz)

None of these books are familiar to the characters.

So after a bath, some shopping, a night’s rest, and a couple of excellent meals, the party headed out to meet Chakos. Escorted by some of the drow’s hobgoblin allies, the party entered a new cave where Chakos led them to The Archway. The Archway is the name of this particular portal and was little more than a stone archway filled with flat black nothingness. Passing through, they were assaulted by a strong storm and immediately set off to see shelter. A shaft, with a spiral stairway leading down, was soon discovered and investigated. At the bottom was a short hallway that led to another archway that was pretty much identical in look and design to The Archway.

The party stepped through and that is where we pick up with this session below the break. Muse was missing and so Grim and Callie were also missing. RJ and Theo were back and so Lavinia, Ruri, and Aelwulf were back along with Theo’s new character, Vondal (a mountain dwarf wizard). My GM comments, as usual, are in [italics and brackets]. Spoilers: There are spoilers for the old AD&D module, C3: The Lost Island of Castanamir, below the break.

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Campaign Logs/D&D/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 7

Posted on by daHeadRat / 3 Comments

For our last two and half sessions or so, our intrepid adventurers have been in the land beyond the Moon Door. They’ve narrowly survived a rat infested inn (and demon possessed beast of a queen rat). Their luck did not hold quite as well when they encountered a vampire residing on a ship docked at the village’s pier. Half the party was slain. Then the party were subjected to the hospitality of the townfolk of Tepes and narrowly escaped the mob and then the wolves of the wood and even the vampire again…not without the loss of one more comrade, however. As we ended the last session, the party…sans Bulwein…had just passed through (and slammed shut) the Moon Door before the vampire could thin their ranks even more.

In this session, both RJ and Theo were missing and so it was a “girls’ night” of D&D with just Muse and Rachel playing. We also got started about an hour or so later than normal so it was a short session. This meant that Callie, Grim, Morgraen, and the currently unconscious Riordan all found themselves in a dark corridor on the “right” side of the Moon Door. As Grim summoned up some magical light, they found that Aelwulf, Lavinia, and Rurik had not appeared through the door. Concerned about the goblins that had always been found in this compound before, the conscious trio decided to make all due haste for the exit and then for Hell’s Haven.

As usual, my GM comments are in [brackets and italics].

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Campaign Logs/D&D/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 6

Posted on by daHeadRat / 3 Comments

Wow…I never really expected we’d have six sessions of this campaign under our belts by this time. This was supposed to have been the alternate campaign but it has become (and will remain) our primary campaign through at least the end of the year. I also never would have dreamed that we’d have four PC deaths by the sixth session. Yep, we had another one in this session.

When we last left our heroes, their numbers had been cut in half by the predations of a vampire! The survivors–Callie, Grim, and Lavinia–had fled to the temple below the Silvery Eel Inn, hoping that the wolves chasing them on behalf of the vampire could not open the flagstone trapdoor. After briefly mourning their fallen companions–Ander, Aramil, and Gurdis–they collapsed, physically and emotionally exhausted, and succumbed to the peaceful embrace of sleep.

Muse had to miss this session and so Callie and Grim were missing. Rachel was back and so that meant that Morgraen and Riordan would also be back. RJ created Rurik, a mountain dwarf wizard, to replace Ander and Theo brought in the “viking” cousins Aelwulf, a human fighter, and Bulwein, a human cleric, to replace his fallen characters. This meant that Lavinia was the only PC that had been played in the prior session and I pick up with what happened below the break. My GM comments, as always, are in [brackets and italics].

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D&D/General

The Side Quest: Popcorn Initiative

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I admit it. I’m a lazy GM. I don’t enjoy tracking things like hit points or initiative or the like. It is probably one of the reasons why I like Savage Worlds so much. It is also why we adapted the Savage Worlds card initiative system for our 5e D&D games. However, we have been trying out something new in the last couple of sessions of our Side Quest campaign. We have been using the Popcorn Initiative system from the Angry DM.

In a nutshell, everyone rolls initiative at the start of a combat. Whoever gets the highest result goes first. They then pick who goes next who then picks who goes after them and so on. Whoever goes last in the round then picks who goes first in the following round.  It has been well received by the players in the game and I like it as well for a few reasons.

First, it appeals to my lazy nature. Like the Savage Worlds card system, it eliminates having to track and manage the initiative order from round to round. Yes, we have to keep track of who has and hasn’t gone but, as you’ll see, we have an easy fix for that. To be honest, with the changes that 5e has made to initiative and actions (e.g., eliminating changes in initiative order due to delaying and readying), this alone really wouldn’t be enough of a reason for me to switch.

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Campaign Logs/D&D/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 5

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This session was quite a doozy but I’m getting ahead of myself

In our last session, the party had traveled through the “Moon Door” and had discovered the small town of Tepes in, presumably, a different plane of existence. They took shelter for the night in the only building that appeared inhabited, the Silvery Eel Inn. Here, they encountered a night of horror and rats that culminated in a harrowing battle against a pony-sized rat. They defeated this monstrosity just as a massive way of regular-size rats was about to wash over half of the party. The death of the “queen” rat also resulted in the death of all of the other rats in (and below) the inn. This is where we pick up things below the break.

Rachel missed this session and so Riordan and Morgraen were missing. Theo joined us again after having missed the last couple of sessions and so Aramil and Gurdis rejoined the group. Because of the various comings and goings of the players, we are just “hand-waving” all of this. Characters simply will or will not be involved based on player availability. It will be the responsibility of each player to keep up with the happenings of sessions that they miss…plus we recap our prior session at the start of each session anyways.

As usual, any GM comments are in [italics and brackets].

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General

The Side Quest Session 4

Posted on by daHeadRat / 2 Comments

Due to scheduling issues where we’ll be missing at least one player for the next few sessions, it looks like The Side Quest is going to be our regular game for a bit. We picked up with it again in our last session after taking a couple of weeks off. When we last left our heroes, they had gained employment with Rowena Greyraven, a mysterious woman seeking a topaz that was beyond one of the valley’s magical doors. She had provided a key to the “Moon Door” and the party had found the door. Passed through it, they found themselves in a whole new place (presumably a different plane) and discovered a town, albeit with no one on the streets. At the Silvery Eel Inn, they learned a little about this town and new place and acquired rooms for the night. As we ended the last session, they were settling down for the night.

For this session, we had all but one of the same players from the last session. Unfortunately, Jeremy’s schedule is going to keep him from playing anymore. So Muse, Rachel, and RJ picked up where they had left off with Callie and Grim, Morgraen and Riordan, and Ander and Lavinia respectively. There are potential spoilers for the adventure, “Rats in the Walls,” from Knockspell #4 but, to be honest, it was more inspirational for this session than run by the book so to speak. Of course, not having really looked at the adventure in almost a month was a big contributor to that. My GM comments, as usual, are in [italics and brackets].

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Campaign Logs/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 3 (Part 2)

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When we last left our, um, heroes, they had spent a fine evening at Hell’s Haven and had gained something of a patron in Rowena Greyraven. With something of a little quest to perform, they had set off to visit Chumley in the hopes of learning more about the valley’s special doors and thus getting a step closer to recovering the topaz, behind the Moon Door, that Rowena was seeking.

As they strolled through the valley towards the ogre’s cave, those who had already met Chumley and promised to keep the secret of his alter ego. Entering the cave, the noise of their interactions got the ogre’s attention and he came out as Crunch. However, upon seeing who was visiting, he invited everyone in for tea but refused to serve scones as Callie, Riordan, and company had led to more learning of his secret life.

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Campaign Logs/The Side Quest

The Side Quest Session 3 (Part 1)

Posted on by daHeadRat / 4 Comments

Because of scheduling in the prior week and upcoming weeks, we played The Side Quest campaign in our last session even though we had a nearly full table. Jeremy played his first session with us and had a nice little backstory for his character, Ulfgar, that fit well with the game. Essentially, Ulfgar was seeking a book about his clan’s genealogy that had been stolen by some adventures and had, or so it was rumored, ended up in a secret library at Hell’s Haven. It is so nice to have players who work a new character right into the ongoing story and premise! As has been the pattern with our other sessions with The Side Quest (all two of them), the first half of the session was dominated by interaction and roleplaying while the second half was dominated by combat and dungeon-crawling.

This was also our first session with The Side Quest where I had to deal with the coming and going of the characters. In our first session, RJ, Theo, and Todd played. In our second session, Muse, Rachel, and Theo played. In our third session, Jeremy, Muse, Rachel, and RJ played. In the future, we’ll probably just handwave a lot of this but I tried to have it all make sense in this session.

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Administrative/D&D/The Lonely Coast Campaign/The Side Quest

House Rules for 5th Edition and Some Changes

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We had a break from gaming last week as too many people had other plans for the long holiday weekend (Labor Day in the US). So no session recap. Instead, here’s the house rules that we’ve been using for our 5e game…all subject to change of course. But first…a bit of news.

We won’t be playing next week so tonight, even though we’ll have almost a full table, we’re going to play the Side Quest again. We also will have a new player, Jeremy, joining us. He’ll be playing Ulfgar Ironfist, a dwarven fighter. It also sounds like Todd may have to bow out from playing on a regular basis. We might have another person interested in joining as well.

We’re also going to be dropping the Starter Set campaign and the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure. To be honest, if we don’t play a campaign for awhile, I start to lose interest in it…especially if it is one that I’m not heavily invested in in terms of time and effort. Lost Mines kind of falls into that category as–other than the beginning at Crellar’s Trading Post–I really hadn’t done much to change or flesh it out yet.

Instead, we’ll continue with The Side Quest when we don’t have a “quorum” of players (the minimum number to be determined later) and we’ll be starting a new campaign soon. It’ll will be based on the excellent little mini-setting, The Lonely Coast, from Raging Swan Press. I’ll, of course, be changing, adding, and subtracting to make it my own. After a little “poll” on our forums this week, it looks like the campaign will be a heroic fantasy campaign with multiple locales to explore and intrigue to get caught up in with a pinch of ancient civilizations, a dash of swaggering-mercenary attitude, a splash of humor, and a subtle hint of good old-fashioned swords and sorcery.

Damn…I started to ramble. Better get back on topic. Our house rules are below the break.

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