The Heroes of Newbieville
Hello again, readers! Yesterday was the third gameplay session of my Welcome to Newbieville campaign, and I think we're starting to get into a groove! (If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check out this post. For a recap of the prior session, check out this post.) Let's dive in.
There's been a little bit more participant shake-up since last time. Another player dropped out (the one playing Zaaz the gnomish bard) and a fresh newbie joined in. So here's the party roster at this point, in order of appearance:
Belwarum — Blue dragonborn, former hermit, and brass-dragon-blooded sorcerer. He/him.
Tika — Elf, formerly a wilderness-wandering outlander, now a rogue. She/her.
Lady Elka — Human noble, now a sword-and-fist monk, likes the local cinnamon rolls. She/her.
Grog — Orc (remember, my setting doesn't have "half-orcs" and the orcs are just another type of normal person), ex-soldier, now a barbarian. He/him.
Our story picks up the evening after the prior crew had finished their Very First Adventure and gotten paid by the receptionist at the village's municipal building. Bel, Tika, and Elka are drinking, doing some accounting with their payments, and wondering where Zaaz ran off to. Meanwhile, Grog is riding into town on the back of a cart owned by the herbalist who's been foreshadowed to be moving in any day now. Introductions are made, and upon arrival the herbalist and her assistant go to unload their cart while Grog heads to the Smokey River Inn to get a drink and see about finding some adventuring work.
Naturally, I guide Grog to the only table full of adventurers (the other players), and after a few minutes of chatter, the herbalist and her assistant show up as well. Recognizing Grog, they pull up a couple of chairs and learn that Belwarum wants to talk about his herbalism discovery from his hermit background. The next morning, the whole group goes to the newly-opened herbalism shop and a loose agreement is struck: the party will venture into the forest to harvest a particular herb, which the herbalist will either purchase from them for her own stock, or make into healing potions on the cheap.
They have a new adventure to begin!
Going into the forest, they are eventually ambushed by wolves, which turned into lunch for the group. Shortly thereafter, they discovered some sort of old, abandoned shrine. Wisely starting with some recon, they saw through the windows that the main chamber had been claimed as a nest by a group of cockatrices. This time the players got to do the ambushing, which they felt pretty good about. They also went into the basement and fought several skeletons, but to their dismay, there was no treasure in the coffins. They were all convinced there just HAD to be loot here.
Then they found the secret door.
Two of them realized that there was some unaccounted-for space in the floor plan, and some searching led to a secret door, which revealed a tiny room with a spiral staircase headed down. Underground, there was a large, ornate door and a small, ordinary door. They surmised that the big door probably held well-guarded treasure, so they checked the small door first. Turns out it goes Very Far Down, into a larger dungeon complex. I haven't actually created that dungeon yet, so I was very lucky that their reaction was "Ugh, let's clear the other room before we mess with that huge complex."
They were right about the contents of the room: there was a treasure chest guarded by two suits of armor, which they correctly guessed would animate and attack them. It was a tough fight: every single character was at some point reduced to 0 HP, but thankfully never all at the same time. Eventually, after a bloody fight and a successful disarming of the poison gas trap on the treasure chest, the party was rewarded with their first real loot!
They got some cash, an extra-fancy/valuable breastplate, some precious stones (two of which just happen to be appropriate for use as spell components), a magic sword, and a magic ring. This is where I explained how magic items work: if they can find someone who can cast the Identify spell, then they can learn exactly what the magic items do. They can also figure it out themselves with an hour of downtime, but in the event that the item is cursed, they'll be stuck with it — the safe way is casting Identify, which they decided is what they would probably go for.
Unfortunately, the only spellcaster in the group is Belwarum, whose class spell list does not include Identify. However, the session ended with the party gaining enough XP for almost everyone to level up (Grog to 2nd, Bel and Tika to 3rd), which meant (among other things) that Tika could choose her roguish archetype. When I pointed out that the Arcane Trickster option would include the ability to learn Identify, she seemed happy to take the opportunity.
Thus, the party — battered and tired, but growing in power and experience — headed back to the village to rest and to ogle their first treasure haul, which ended the session. It was really great to have a full party of four finally at the table all at once, and they seem to be really enjoying the game so far. Remember, if you'd like to help cover the cost of the materials I'm supplying for the newbies to use, you can do so here.
That's it for today. I promise I'll try to produce some more content besides just Newbieville summaries soon! In the meantime, take care of each other, okay?
There's been a little bit more participant shake-up since last time. Another player dropped out (the one playing Zaaz the gnomish bard) and a fresh newbie joined in. So here's the party roster at this point, in order of appearance:
Belwarum — Blue dragonborn, former hermit, and brass-dragon-blooded sorcerer. He/him.
Tika — Elf, formerly a wilderness-wandering outlander, now a rogue. She/her.
Lady Elka — Human noble, now a sword-and-fist monk, likes the local cinnamon rolls. She/her.
Grog — Orc (remember, my setting doesn't have "half-orcs" and the orcs are just another type of normal person), ex-soldier, now a barbarian. He/him.
Our story picks up the evening after the prior crew had finished their Very First Adventure and gotten paid by the receptionist at the village's municipal building. Bel, Tika, and Elka are drinking, doing some accounting with their payments, and wondering where Zaaz ran off to. Meanwhile, Grog is riding into town on the back of a cart owned by the herbalist who's been foreshadowed to be moving in any day now. Introductions are made, and upon arrival the herbalist and her assistant go to unload their cart while Grog heads to the Smokey River Inn to get a drink and see about finding some adventuring work.
Naturally, I guide Grog to the only table full of adventurers (the other players), and after a few minutes of chatter, the herbalist and her assistant show up as well. Recognizing Grog, they pull up a couple of chairs and learn that Belwarum wants to talk about his herbalism discovery from his hermit background. The next morning, the whole group goes to the newly-opened herbalism shop and a loose agreement is struck: the party will venture into the forest to harvest a particular herb, which the herbalist will either purchase from them for her own stock, or make into healing potions on the cheap.
They have a new adventure to begin!
Going into the forest, they are eventually ambushed by wolves, which turned into lunch for the group. Shortly thereafter, they discovered some sort of old, abandoned shrine. Wisely starting with some recon, they saw through the windows that the main chamber had been claimed as a nest by a group of cockatrices. This time the players got to do the ambushing, which they felt pretty good about. They also went into the basement and fought several skeletons, but to their dismay, there was no treasure in the coffins. They were all convinced there just HAD to be loot here.
Then they found the secret door.
Two of them realized that there was some unaccounted-for space in the floor plan, and some searching led to a secret door, which revealed a tiny room with a spiral staircase headed down. Underground, there was a large, ornate door and a small, ordinary door. They surmised that the big door probably held well-guarded treasure, so they checked the small door first. Turns out it goes Very Far Down, into a larger dungeon complex. I haven't actually created that dungeon yet, so I was very lucky that their reaction was "Ugh, let's clear the other room before we mess with that huge complex."
They were right about the contents of the room: there was a treasure chest guarded by two suits of armor, which they correctly guessed would animate and attack them. It was a tough fight: every single character was at some point reduced to 0 HP, but thankfully never all at the same time. Eventually, after a bloody fight and a successful disarming of the poison gas trap on the treasure chest, the party was rewarded with their first real loot!
They got some cash, an extra-fancy/valuable breastplate, some precious stones (two of which just happen to be appropriate for use as spell components), a magic sword, and a magic ring. This is where I explained how magic items work: if they can find someone who can cast the Identify spell, then they can learn exactly what the magic items do. They can also figure it out themselves with an hour of downtime, but in the event that the item is cursed, they'll be stuck with it — the safe way is casting Identify, which they decided is what they would probably go for.
Unfortunately, the only spellcaster in the group is Belwarum, whose class spell list does not include Identify. However, the session ended with the party gaining enough XP for almost everyone to level up (Grog to 2nd, Bel and Tika to 3rd), which meant (among other things) that Tika could choose her roguish archetype. When I pointed out that the Arcane Trickster option would include the ability to learn Identify, she seemed happy to take the opportunity.
Thus, the party — battered and tired, but growing in power and experience — headed back to the village to rest and to ogle their first treasure haul, which ended the session. It was really great to have a full party of four finally at the table all at once, and they seem to be really enjoying the game so far. Remember, if you'd like to help cover the cost of the materials I'm supplying for the newbies to use, you can do so here.
That's it for today. I promise I'll try to produce some more content besides just Newbieville summaries soon! In the meantime, take care of each other, okay?
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