Sickness in Newbieville
Hoo boy. It's been a bit, hasn't it?
I've had the flu. I don't mean I caught a cold and called it "the flu," I mean I had full-on achy-shaky feverish flu for like a week. Finally starting to feel a little better, so I'm trying to check off some stale to-do list items, which includes this blog. Today, we'll get you caught up on the Newbieville campaign.
There was no game this past Sunday (due to the aforementioned flu) but we did have a session the weekend prior. If you recall from the previous session report, we've only managed to get two players started (others ghosted me), so we had a party of two PCs: a dragonborn hermit sorcerer named Belwarum and an elf outlander rogue named Tika.
This time around, after a bit of effort to replace the AWOL players, we added a couple of newer newbies, who produced a gnome outlander bard named Zaaz and a human noble monk named Lady Elka Atlas. Unfortunately, Tika's player wasn't able to make this session, but at least that only put us down to three players instead of down to one!
Zaaz and Lady Elka each (separately) arrived in town and had a look around, taking a bit more of a tour than the original party members had done, which was a nice chance to introduce more of the village to the players. They got a rundown of every building, and in particular Zaaz spoke a bit with the woman coordinating all the carpentry work while Elka hit up the bakery for a nice, gooey cinnamon roll. Eventually, they both hit up the Smokey River Inn and met Belwarum, who was there taking some time off from the harrowing morning in which she and Tika had almost died trying to clear the ruins on the outskirts of town.
Happy to have some extra sets of hands, Belwarum (with Tika "taking time off" while her player was absent) led the group of three back to the ruins to finish the job. Frankly, most of the structure had been cleared already. The only ground-floor room that hadn't been checked yet was a corner chamber that housed the upward spiral stairs into the tower. One floor up into said tower was a cracked stone-tile floor and some oily rocks on the far side. Lady Elka was wary of the cracks, but rolled poorly to ascertain the safety of the floor. Zaaz went to inspect the oily rocks, which turned out to actually be a gray ooze.
This encounter got interesting. Zaaz, a gnome, was too light to cause the cracked floor to collapse on his own. However, after the ooze dropped him in one hit, it advanced from its place along the wall straight toward the stairs where the other PCs were standing. Now the cracked portion of the floor is supporting both a gnome and a slime, and that put it over the edge. They both fall 10 feet, dealing 3 damage to the ooze and giving Zaaz his first death saving throw failure.
Long story short, Belwarum made use of his fresh new 2nd-level pool of HP to jump down and do some first aid on Zaaz while Lady Elka solo'd the ooze — first with darts, then eventually with fists. (Then she realized she hadn't bought any "adventuring clothes" and had to wait for Zaaz to wake up before she could get any prestidigitation cleaning of her noble outfit.)
After a couple of hours of resting (first for Zaaz to wake up, then for him to spend a hit die), the group went up the stairs further to the top of the tower, where they found exactly what they expected to find: a giant spider. The spider was quick, and bit Lady Elkar. Thanks to making her save against the poison and me rolling 3 on 2d8 for said poison, she was left with a single hit point, allowing her to retaliate with a stab and a facepunch. Belwarum finally saw fit to spend a spell slot, blasting out a point-blank magic missile and finishing off the spider, which was the final challenge of this mission.
Astute readers will notice that this means poor Zaaz has done literally nothing for the whole mission. But not to worry! He still got paid.
The group went back to the municipal building for payment, and decided to take the rest of the day off again. They earned enough XP that the two new faces reached 2nd level, and Belwarum is getting close to 3rd level. That's where we ended the session.
What comes next? Well, in the time since the last session, I've found someone else interested in learning (along with their significant other who wants to "re-learn" after a long hiatus). It's not confirmed, but we might expand the party to six, which would give us a nice buffer against absences. Either way, though, it's time for the next phase of the story, in which the PCs begin to exercise some additional autonomy.
I don't have all the details worked out yet, but Belwarum's hermit background includes a "discovery" which we've decided was a revolutionary medical discovery involving a particular herb for better healing potions. Given that the local herbalist is just about to move into town, this seems like a nice next step. Making a connection there will give them a reason to delve deeper into the forest (probably to find some special plants), where they will discover an entrance into a dungeon that they can explore on their own initiative and start finding treasure instead of working for others.
Also, the renovation of the wizard's tower can begin, which will mean importing stone, which I think I might use as a means of introducing a villain of some sort. Stay tuned for more developments there.
That's it for this post. Hopefully I can get some more content up soon, as I catch up on my flu-derailed life. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
I've had the flu. I don't mean I caught a cold and called it "the flu," I mean I had full-on achy-shaky feverish flu for like a week. Finally starting to feel a little better, so I'm trying to check off some stale to-do list items, which includes this blog. Today, we'll get you caught up on the Newbieville campaign.
There was no game this past Sunday (due to the aforementioned flu) but we did have a session the weekend prior. If you recall from the previous session report, we've only managed to get two players started (others ghosted me), so we had a party of two PCs: a dragonborn hermit sorcerer named Belwarum and an elf outlander rogue named Tika.
This time around, after a bit of effort to replace the AWOL players, we added a couple of newer newbies, who produced a gnome outlander bard named Zaaz and a human noble monk named Lady Elka Atlas. Unfortunately, Tika's player wasn't able to make this session, but at least that only put us down to three players instead of down to one!
Zaaz and Lady Elka each (separately) arrived in town and had a look around, taking a bit more of a tour than the original party members had done, which was a nice chance to introduce more of the village to the players. They got a rundown of every building, and in particular Zaaz spoke a bit with the woman coordinating all the carpentry work while Elka hit up the bakery for a nice, gooey cinnamon roll. Eventually, they both hit up the Smokey River Inn and met Belwarum, who was there taking some time off from the harrowing morning in which she and Tika had almost died trying to clear the ruins on the outskirts of town.
Happy to have some extra sets of hands, Belwarum (with Tika "taking time off" while her player was absent) led the group of three back to the ruins to finish the job. Frankly, most of the structure had been cleared already. The only ground-floor room that hadn't been checked yet was a corner chamber that housed the upward spiral stairs into the tower. One floor up into said tower was a cracked stone-tile floor and some oily rocks on the far side. Lady Elka was wary of the cracks, but rolled poorly to ascertain the safety of the floor. Zaaz went to inspect the oily rocks, which turned out to actually be a gray ooze.
This encounter got interesting. Zaaz, a gnome, was too light to cause the cracked floor to collapse on his own. However, after the ooze dropped him in one hit, it advanced from its place along the wall straight toward the stairs where the other PCs were standing. Now the cracked portion of the floor is supporting both a gnome and a slime, and that put it over the edge. They both fall 10 feet, dealing 3 damage to the ooze and giving Zaaz his first death saving throw failure.
Long story short, Belwarum made use of his fresh new 2nd-level pool of HP to jump down and do some first aid on Zaaz while Lady Elka solo'd the ooze — first with darts, then eventually with fists. (Then she realized she hadn't bought any "adventuring clothes" and had to wait for Zaaz to wake up before she could get any prestidigitation cleaning of her noble outfit.)
After a couple of hours of resting (first for Zaaz to wake up, then for him to spend a hit die), the group went up the stairs further to the top of the tower, where they found exactly what they expected to find: a giant spider. The spider was quick, and bit Lady Elkar. Thanks to making her save against the poison and me rolling 3 on 2d8 for said poison, she was left with a single hit point, allowing her to retaliate with a stab and a facepunch. Belwarum finally saw fit to spend a spell slot, blasting out a point-blank magic missile and finishing off the spider, which was the final challenge of this mission.
Astute readers will notice that this means poor Zaaz has done literally nothing for the whole mission. But not to worry! He still got paid.
The group went back to the municipal building for payment, and decided to take the rest of the day off again. They earned enough XP that the two new faces reached 2nd level, and Belwarum is getting close to 3rd level. That's where we ended the session.
What comes next? Well, in the time since the last session, I've found someone else interested in learning (along with their significant other who wants to "re-learn" after a long hiatus). It's not confirmed, but we might expand the party to six, which would give us a nice buffer against absences. Either way, though, it's time for the next phase of the story, in which the PCs begin to exercise some additional autonomy.
I don't have all the details worked out yet, but Belwarum's hermit background includes a "discovery" which we've decided was a revolutionary medical discovery involving a particular herb for better healing potions. Given that the local herbalist is just about to move into town, this seems like a nice next step. Making a connection there will give them a reason to delve deeper into the forest (probably to find some special plants), where they will discover an entrance into a dungeon that they can explore on their own initiative and start finding treasure instead of working for others.
Also, the renovation of the wizard's tower can begin, which will mean importing stone, which I think I might use as a means of introducing a villain of some sort. Stay tuned for more developments there.
That's it for this post. Hopefully I can get some more content up soon, as I catch up on my flu-derailed life. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
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