A Life Full of Adventure

A character’s first adventure can really shape the path they take for their whole career. If the characters take the job cleaning rats out of the tavern’s basement, then the town may think of them as monster hunters. After a few monster hunter jobs, the characters may think of themselves as monster hunters. Alternatively, clearing the basement may just have been one job of an errand-boy type career. Perhaps it’s clear out the basement one day, and deliver a message to a town a couple dozen miles away the next day. The errand-boy job may be less interesting, but is it profitable? Speaking of profitable, was the character’s first job for a merchant? Are they then set up favorably in the merchant guild? A guild may have a wider variety of more interesting jobs. But they characters in the party would still be thought of as errand-boys.  Perhaps the first job the party took was a task for the church. Will the church outfit the party, provide blessings, and maybe even provide healing? Th...

A new character is a blank slate. You don’t want to fill that slate before even setting out on your first adventure. You want to keep room on that slate to write as much as possible about what happens. What your character experiences through play. What your character learns. What your character does.  But a goal or two does help. Even if the goal is to accumulate gold. Then many players ask themselves why? Why does this character want all this gold? That’s how you start filling the blank slate before your adventures even happen. Maybe the why is better left until later. Until you get to know the character. Until the adventure fills in some blanks. Is your goal to be the party protector? Do you need to know why? Or will you find out why during the adventure? Perhaps you find out why when that other character you protected does some great deed in the future.  Play to find out. Play to flesh out. Play to explain those short, one-liner goals. Each play is likely to bring different...

Here’s how it usually starts for me: “I’m tired of playing the magic user. Next time I want to be the brainless fighter.”  I don’t mean that I always play a magic user, but it’s an example of how I often decide what type of character I want to play in the next new game/campaign/adventure. After a while I just get sick of always having my head in books, looking for the best spell to cast in a specific situation. After playing so many magic users in a row or after playing so many rogues…I just want a change.  Clerics. Clerics, too, keep me busy a lot. It’s no wonder I wanted to be the fighter when we started rolling characters for a recent game. It’s really too bad that game didn’t take off; we had quite the group of halflings ready to take on the big world.  I know others will say we should just roll in order and play whatever character the dice decide. That’s not usually the way it works for our table. We get together, mete out the roles, and roll up some characters....

I play a lot of clerics. I know that may not be a popular position…I read a lot of blogs as well. Each deity has strictures that are just different enough to capture my attention. And they make the characters different enough so the class never quite gets old to me. Sure I take breaks, but I’m always ready to roll up a new cleric or go back to an old favorite. What the running of clerics gets me also are holidays. There are certain days of the year that are holy to the cleric or to the church. Some could even be considered a New Years Day.  These holy days, besides possibly some specific clothes and proscribed festivities, should come with an opportunity for the cleric to do some introspection. Is the cleric following the strictures of their deity? Is their focus wandering? What sort of goals should the cleric set for themselves in the coming month/season/year to get closer to their deity? Does the cleric need to renew some oaths? Those are all questions that could be asked through...

Registering as a magic user really put me in a conundrum as a player. Actually history, as well as nerd history, has multiple instances where registering a number of the population did not turn out well. The Jewish people were registered by Nazis. Mutants were registered in X-Men. The Avengers were torn apart, Captain America vs Iron Man, by the thought of being registered by the government. History, real and imagined, has taught me to be wary of registering. Memberships, on the other hand, include multiple privileges. The membership in this game gives one access to sleeping quarters, spells, components, peers, and a mentor, should the character need one.  I want to feel, in my heart of hearts, that the Game Master really plans to lean on the membership aspect of this wizard registration act. However, he has seen all the movies and read all the comic books I have, and I know he understands the potential pitfalls of making yourself known to the government. Giving yourself a number. ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Noofie -- Gnome Illusionist In one sense the party was depleted. In another, it now had wondrous items that would make further adventures all the easier. They retraced their path back to Schladel. In Berrymore, Zak was able to replace some of his missing spells from his new friend Noofie. All he needed was a new spell book of his own. There was also a philosophical discussion of what exactly evil was and how anyone could know if they were a demon in disguise or not. In Schladel they learned that the Baron currently took a position against magic users, and he was making all users register in order to practice in the city. This came after a minor mishap against the Baron’s belongings. Zak and Noofie started a philosophical discussion about registering as a wizard. Zak ultimately took the offer, as he was currently starting over his magic career. Noofie took a wait and see approach. Registering to be ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Noofie -- Gnome Illusionist The party ran into the mining camp to find the three dwarves fighting a large fire elemental. One of the dwarves was down, and Boroth was standing over him. The other dwarf fought a losing battle against fire. The party joined the battle, but things went almost as badly. Multiple party members were set on fire by the large elemental, losing all combustible materials on their person. That meant backpacks, coin pouches, arrows, clothing, hair, and a spell book. Through the fight, the party fighter took a dive into the camp’s well to try to combat the fire of the elemental. She didn’t find anything to help, but she found a strange current in the well. Otherwise, her aid was pulling up buckets of water to put out party members that had caught on fire. After the elemental had caused enough damage, Boroth, the king’s military advisor, revealed he was actually behind summoning ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Noofie -- Gnome Illusionist Boroth, the king’s military advisor, was assigned two soldiers and told to bring the party to the far reaches where the dwarves were mining before the elemental attacks started. The group hiked to a waystation 8 hours away and spent the night. On the next day, the group was attacked while crossing a stone bridge over a chasm. Stirges came flying down, and gave the party great trouble.  The group was able to overcome the stirges, with all members still alive. They continued on to the far dwarf mining site. The party explored the mining camp, which had sign of goblin habitation before it was last destroyed. They were also able to follow a mining tunnel to an unfortunate dead end. There was no sign, hidden or magical, of what caused the attacks at the end of the mining tunnel. The party turned to head back to the campsite. As they neared, they saw signs of fire and the ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Noofie -- Gnome Illusionist The party met King Orgal Stonehammer, his sister Aurelia, and his brother Kargal. The king told them the dwarves had a problem with fire elementals attacking them. The attacks had become quite deadly, and the dwarves weren’t able to leave the mountain for the last 10 years as they’ve had to deal with the elementals. The party agreed to help. To put an exclamation point on the problem, elementals attacked as the king served the party a welcome dinner. The party wanted to see the location the dwarves had been digging when the trouble started. The king agreed to send them, with a guard and guide.

We were quite surprised at how we found our new party member, and exactly what race/class he was! I kept hearing there were witches outside of town, so I kept trying to recruit village folk to go adventuring with us, figuring that’s where our new party member would come from. Begrudgingly I was forced to leave town without anyone, only to find the new guy hanging from a tree in a cage.  The DM kept letting Zak try to climb the tree and pick the lock, no matter how badly I failed. Mostly it was to find out how long it took and what zany stuff happened while I was trying, including falling from the cage, and then also standing in Thanin’s saddle while she rode to stand under the cage.  Searching for the dwarf hold entrance, we were reminded once again how out of our element these characters are. I can see the benefit of a stable of rolled up characters, and then choosing the one used to the wilderness for this particular adventure. Zak is an in-town dude. He really needs to snap...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Heading to the town of Barrymore, the party met up with a shepherd named Abould. Once it was determined there were no witches in the party, Abould offered to show them to the village.  The village contained little more than a central hall, with surrounding house and farms. The townsfolk were on watch for witches after catching on sneaking about. They stated they hung the witch in a gibbet outside of town. The townsfolk would brook no discussion on the matter. Outside of town, the party met a gnome, Newfie Fuferbissle, hanging from a tree. In one cage was the diminutive fellow while his stuff was in another cage. Zak decided it was the optimum time to try his climbing and lock-picking skills. Many tries (and one short fall to the ground) later, the gnome was free and declaring himself with the party. From the gnome’s location, the demon bridge could be seen poking out of the treetops. Past the (...

Zak intentionally practiced Pick Pocket and made a few coins without getting caught. He also spent his downtime on the trip reading A Study of the Goblin Tongue . I’ll spend character points on that language when he levels up. Not a lot else went on during the session. There was a lot of out-of-game chat, and nobody felt the need to keep on task only.  Next session we welcome back another player to the table, so the party should meet a new friend!

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune The party took a room at the Red Hawk Inn, and then decided it was time for the in-town, money spendy type thing. They got an armorer working on making dwarf sized armor out of the ankheg plates they hauled back to town. There was a bunch of resupplying of arrows, rations, and the like. A couple purchases of note included a magical lock (command word: ginger), a poison antidote, and some healing potions. There was an increased concern of the other two being able to keep the cleric alive, should they get into more trouble. They were quite unexpectedly summoned to the Baron’s house for dinner. The Baron, Elward Aramax, offered to pay the group a monthly stipend if they fixed up their keep well enough for him to billet soldiers. Fans of the subscription model, the group agreed to his offer. To help, the Baron suggested the party obtain aid from mountain dwarves known to live in the north. The party pa...

Zak did nominate Thanin for party leader, after pointing out they may be suffering a bit from lack of a leadership structure. Poor Thanin has trouble not getting all the HP knocked out of her at any given fight, but we did sort of act as if there was a party leader a couple times after the nomination. I got more practice with Find Traps and Open Locks. I’m still quite a way from leveling up this multi class half elf. I haven’t been successful with spells other than Sleep so far, and it changes the idea I have for this character. If he’s not casting Illusion spells to cover his tracks, why *does* he bother with all the work of being multi class? It was quite amazing to pile our loot together and find we had enough for the keep. I don’t think even the DM knew it was going to add up before we did it. But just because you can afford to buy a keep doesn’t mean you can afford to repair and maintain one! Let alone defend it from predators. This seems like something that will be the center of ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin– Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune Zak and Thanin ended up poisoned when last we left off. They were able to make it back to the well room before the poison gave one last painful kick to the gut and dropped them both unconscious. Ogerdan spent the night casting his last healing spells. Reginald the talking water at this point shared that he was still able to cast spells. He conjured a Leomond’s Tiny Hut for everyone in the party to rest in relative safety.  When everyone was healed up and ready to explore some more, the party went back down the stairs, followed the previous hall, and explored until they came to a ladder heading up to a trap door.  Zak took his turn checking things out for spring safety and traps at the door. Finding none, he opened it. He door opened onto a beach on an island off the keep’s coast. The island had a small rowboat, as well as its convenient location. The party closed the door and headed back to...

There is a noticeable lack of leadership on this small team. Zak is intended to be a happy-go-lucky support character, but not the face of the team. The dwarf cleric seems like a good choice for a leader, but his player seems to have decided the dwarf is also a support character. And what a support character he is! Our characters have history together, so perhaps the fighter doesn’t think she should be the party leader. Also, she’s probably a bit self conscious at her AC and HP total leading her to go down in quite a few fights. Still, it would almost be better if she hired us. Maybe I’ll suggest that.  Also, Zak is still bad at finding traps! Slime from the ceiling? Spider from a dead body? Didn’t see either of those coming! Still, I got a few more chances to practice, so I’ll be raising those skills next time I level up. Theoretically,we’ll be done with this adventure next sitting. I have a hankering for something…more.  Maybe we can dive more into these characters, or ...

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin– Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune The party’s negotiations with the werewolf pack leader did not go well. There seems to be a lack of leadership within the party itself, so there was no real plan on challenging the pack leader. A fight ensued, centered around a well that took up most of the floor of the tower. Again, Zak’s Sleep spell made the fight more manageable, once it actually went off. Before then, the fighter was dropped by a gang of werewolves. The cleric held his ground until the other wolves could slowly be felled by arrows. A couple more wolves joined the fight from the stair above, but the party survived to fight another day. The cleric had his hands full with healing spells. The well turned out to be sentient, at least the water therein, holding the personality of a bard from long, long ago. The bard had served in the keep under Lord Crest. The bard also never shut up. Zak learned many things from the talking water bar...

I think we were all done with fighting goblins. The DM had the pack leader in the next room. He gave himself up and assured us the goblins (and his ogre) would leave us alone. The rest of the night (until the end) was exploring. It’s really good to mix in the exploring after so much fighting. I still need to get better at Find/Remove Traps, as one blasted me pretty good.  I played the character a little more chaotic, and it was kind of fun. Probably not the type of fun that the other PCs feel they can rely on to watch their back, though. The fun thing about chaotic neutral is I can lean into it whenever I’m looking to spice things up. The rest of the time I can be more reasonable and reliable. The cleric held its own again. I really think he may be the best option for fighting the alpha werewolf. We’ll have to talk it over and see what the others think. I know Zak isn’t the best choice! If we can defeat the alpha wolf, it should wrap up this little adventure nicely. 

Zak – Half Elf Thief Wizard (Me) Thanin – Human Fighter Ogurdan – Dwarf Priest of Selune The party rescued a captured human from goblin (and Aarakocra) clutches. The bird man  refused to let the party tie him when he gave himself up. He asked the party to clear out the central tower for him, and also introduced his ogre friend. He said the ogre and the remaining goblins would not attack the party anymore. They holed up for a spell in a room that held the remains of the human’s previous adventuring party. There was a lot of gear in that room, and some other trinkets found hidden away. They also found a trapped locker. That wasn’t as exciting, as Zak took quite a blast. He’s got to get better working these traps! The human was blasted unconscious. It was the perfect time to go through his spellbook.  After the party was all sufficiently healed and had an adequate number of spells available, they headed for the bridge to the central tower. It was tenuous going, but everyone made ...

I like to increase thieving skills as I practice them, unless I know for sure there is something else I want to improve during downtime. In the last sitting, I mostly used Hide in Shadows and Find/Remove Traps. Once I get high enough level, I’ll be using an Invisibility spell to hide. Until then, I need to keep using and increasing this skill. We should get enough XP for me to go up to wizard level 2. That will get me 1-2 HP, and every HP is precious for this character. Also, I get a second first level spell. Sleep is great, but I do look forward to a second utility spell I can use. I like the idea of Spider Climb, but my Climb Walls is already 70%. Maybe I can brainstorm some cool ways to use Phantasmal Force. I wasn’t as good with my attack rolls, which is really what I would expect over a larger number of tries. The group fighter got a lot better, also as expected. The cleric is a beast. He really optimized his character build and the benefits of a specialty priest. That’s defini...