Find Familiar

Hello again, friends! I'm back with another session summary of my "Welcome to Newbieville" D&D  campaign. As a reminder, here's the cast of protagonists: Belwarum  — dragonborn sorcerer, hermit background Tika  — elf rogue, outlander background  (absent due to illness) Lady Elka  — human monk, noble background Sir Thorin  — dwarf paladin, noble background (absent due to illness) We left off last time with the group resting after having fruitlessly staked out the swamp hideout of the arsonists they'd defeated earlier. This week's session picked up with the following morning, which involved checking in on the bakers' reconstruction efforts and then taking a tour of the newly renovated wizard's tower. They also brought the foreman to the shrine they found previously and got an estimate of 2,000 gold pieces for restoration and remodeling. Next, they headed to the municipal building. They were given a cash reward for their work in defense of t...

Hello again, friends! I'm a day late due to all the complications wrought by a week of car trouble, but I'm back with another session summary of the "Welcome to Newbieville" D&D  campaign! Not sure what I'm talking about? Check out the beginning HERE . Here's a reminder of the player character roster: Belwarum  — dragonborn sorcerer, hermit background Tika  — elf rogue, outlander background (absent due to illness this week) Lady Elka  — human monk, noble background Sir Thorin  — dwarf paladin, noble background We left off last time with the party having cleared the dungeon that they found beneath the old shrine in the woods. This week, they returned to town to rest and sort through some of their loot from the dungeon. They also decided they'd like to finally meet the mayor in person (the knowledge of her recent meeting with Lord Davian had left them wary and suspicious), so they stopped in and were allowed a brief audience with her: an orc name...

Hello again, friends! I'm back again with the latest installment of Welcome to Newbieville , by all-newbie D&D  campaign specifically designed for teaching the game to first-time players. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read about the concept a bit HERE and check out the first session summary HERE . Here's a reminder of the current PC roster: Belwarum  — dragonborn sorcerer, hermit background Tika  — elf rogue, outlander background Lady Elka  — human monk, noble background Sir Thorin  — dwarf paladin, noble background Last time, Bel and Tika were absent, so Elka and Thorin did some scouting of a recently-discovered dungeon and nearly got themselves killed. This week, we started with a fresh new morning and the party getting up to speed with each other over breakfast. While absent and off-camera, Belwarum had spent the previous session's two days making healing potions out of the remainder of the herbs they'd gathered, and now they w...

Hello again, friends! I've got some other content coming soon, but in the meantime it's time for the latest Welcome to Newbieville  session summary! This one got dicey, but nobody died and I'm proud of my blossoming players. At the end I'll be asking for advice, but first, the summary. Let's get into it! As you may recall from the previous session , our heroes had (mostly) cleared out an abandoned shrine in the woods that they found while gathering herbs for producing healing potions. This included discovering a stairway down into a dungeon, but they retreated to the village before exploring it. Between then and now, there were some hiccups: most significantly, two players had to bail because of bad weather, leaving us with only two. Additionally, our newest recruit decided that the barbarian he tried out was too boring and wanted to change it up. With only a single session of history for Grog the orc barbarian, we decided to just ret-con that it had been Thorin...

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 t...

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 ...

After two false starts, yesterday was going to be the first session of my Newbieville D&D  campaign, in which I gather some folks who haven't had a chance to try D&D  yet and introduce them to the game with a carefully-crafted homebrew adventure. Although not everyone showed, we did manage to have some actual gameplay, so that means it's officially time to start telling the story of Newbieville here on Find Familiar ! Last week (the second false start) exactly one person showed up, so I told her how the game worked and led her through making a character. Yesterday was a slight improvement, adding a second player to the list of "folks who have actually showed up so far." I explained the game, and helped her make a character as well. Thus, we currently have a two-member party: Belwarum  is a blue dragonborn. She's also a sorcerer, powered by the bloodline of a brass dragon. Prior to becoming an adventurer, she was a hermit. Tika  is a wood elf. She...

Today's post briefly addresses a variety of topics, so let's get to it. Dragon Heist First and foremost, I don't have a session summary of my Thursday night Dragon Heist  game this week, because I wasn't there. Not long before the game, I was in a fender bender with a hit-and-run driver. I'm okay, and there's no damage to speak of, but it shook me up a bit and I needed some quiet time at home rather than a trip out to be around people. Hopefully next week I'll be able to get you up to speed. On the other hand, my wife's work schedule (and the fact that we only have one car) is complicating that particular game night, with the possible result that I'll only be able to attend partial sessions in the future. Stay tuned, but be prepared for the possibility that I might not be able to keep that up. Newbieville In other D&D  news, I've started gathering players for my newbies-only game that I've talked about before. Sadly, there are alr...

Hello! After a hiatus for the holidays, my Waterdeep: Dragon Heist  group is back together for another session, so I've got the recap for your reading pleasure! Obviously there will be spoilers, so keep that in mind. If you're reading for the first time and want to start with the first session, you can find that recap HERE . Ready? Here we go! The Party : Jabin Co Aldo  —  Tiefling  aethermage  noble (my character), one of the sons of Marco Volo. Ion Marko —  Half-orc bard entertainer, one of the sons of Marco Volo. Scritch —  Kenku monk urchin, long-time friend of Ion. Agar —  Human monk acolyte, one of the sons of Marco Volo. Skystone Bloodlake —  Tabaxi ranger guild artisan (jeweler), goes by "Sky" for short, friend and traveling companion of Agar. The Session : The previous session had ended with the survivors meeting up with Volo for the promised payment, only to have him pull a bait-and-switch and instead transfer ownership ...

Welcome back to the tale of my group's adventure through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist ! Naturally, this will contain spoilers, so if you hope to play this adventure without knowing what's coming, stop reading now. If you want to go back and read the first post in this series, you can do so HERE . Before we jump in, let's recap some characters. Also, be warned: there were character deaths in this session, so bail out if if you don't want to read about that. Here we go! The Party : Jabin Co Aldo — Tiefling aethermage noble (my character), one of the sons of Marco Volo. Ion Marko — Half-orc bard entertainer, one of the sons of Marco Volo. Scritch — Kenku monk urchin, long-time friend of Ion. Agar — Human monk acolyte, one of the sons of Marco Volo (was unnamed in the first session). Skystone Bloodlake — Tabaxi ranger guild artisan (jeweler), goes by "Sky" for short, friend and traveling companion of Agar. The NPCs : Marco Volo — Sent letters to Jabin, Ion,...

Last night's D&D  session did not go as planned. I wasn't entirely prepared, then even what preparedness I did have was thrown out the window about an hour in. Nevertheless, it seemed like the players had a fun time, and I'm not sure they even noticed the loading bar behind my eyes every time they asked a question. Today we'll take a break from the world-building stream of consciousness for an unpacking of a rather unusual (for me) gaming session. First, the backdrop: I'm running a homebrew game for a party of six. They just finished a dungeon and reached 4th level at the end of the previous session. That means they were at a sort of "checkpoint," ready to begin a new adventure arc. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy and hadn't come up with anything yet. As the day of the session dawned, I found myself beginning to panic, trying to figure out what to offer a newly un-anchored adventuring party. About three hours before the game, I did h...

Hello again! To add some variety to my content (but mainly just because I want to), I'm going to start summarizing the sessions of a D&D  campaign I'm in. My group recently played our first session of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist , and I'm super into it. Obviously, this means that these posts will be full of spoilers, so if you don't want that, then you'll want to skip both this and all future "WDDH" posts. But if you've already played it or just plain don't mind spoilers, then read on! My Character I'm going to be writing about the sessions from the perspective of my own character, so let's start there. He's a tiefling named Jabin Co Aldo, born to a prominent noble family in Waterdeep. He's the bastard child of a non-tiefling noble mother and an unknown father, so he was punted down to the absolute bottom of the noble class, getting the smallest home in the ward and sacrificing much of the social privilege normally afforded ...