GC Dungeons and Dragons Intro and Part 1

I've realized this blog is also a good place to post about my ongoing Dungeons and Dragons adventures. I currently have two groups; one that meets weekly at a local game store (I will refer to this as the GC group) and one that meets monthly at a friend's house (I will refer to this second group as the AD group). Both groups are currently playing Curse of Strahd, which is interesting.

SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD WILL FOLLOW IN THESE POSTS



So this first series will focus on the weekly GC group. In this group I am playing a dragonborn barbarian named Sadun Dorgona. Sadun was born into a nomadic group of dragonborn living on the Giant's Plains on Faerun (the Forgotten Realms setting). When she came of age at 16, she became a warrior of the clan, but her inability to control her inner rage saw her cast out until she could master it. She traveled north along the trade roads until eventually she fell in with a mercenary group. The group helped the duchess of Daggerford with various problems, and eventually came to be on good terms with her. This is where our adventure begins.

The group was summoned to dinner with the duchess, and over dinner she requested our help in driving off a band of travelers that had taken up camp just outside the city gates. Unfortunately, the group had started harassing citizens going about their business, but when the guards were sent to drive them off, the same guards returned, oddly charmed by the travelers, and without doing anything to help the situation. Thus she turned to us.

Our group turned out to be more mercenary than I had expected as a player, considering the setup of us as friends, and immediately asked how much we'd be paid for this. The duchess reluctantly agreed to pay us 200 gold each (quite a lot!) to perform the task. With that, we set off to interrogate one of the guards who had been charmed by the travelers. The guard related that the leader of the travelers had told them their story, and afterwards he felt like the travelers were his own great friends, and begged us not to hurt them. My group was not well pleased by this, and left quickly, coldly shaking off the guard's pleading hands.

From here, we split into two groups; one group would go ahead and speak with the travelers, and the second would trail behind in case the first group became magically charmed (so we could hurt people). Sadun stayed in the second group along with our (chaotic evil) dragonborn fighter Balazar, our goblin paladin Gilligan, and our warlock (no longer with the group). The first group consisted of our drow cleric (whose name I currently don't recall) and a bard and rogue (neither of whom are showing up to the regular sessions at this point).

So the first group goes and demands the travelers leave. Their leader agreed on condition that they listen to his story. These two demands go back and forth for awhile but the bard and rogue were willing to listen and eventually the cleric also gave in. At this point our second party showed up, and Balazar immediately threatened to cut off the leader's fingers, and the warlock was very suspicious that the first group was already magically charmed. But we all agreed to listen to the story in the end.

The leader told us that they once rescued a prince of a far away land, and in return the prince bestowed upon them lands to live in. But the prince had recently become tyrannical. The travelers were the only people from that land able to leave, and they had come searching for heroes to help them defeat the prince's tyranny. Would we not come and be those heroes?

...No, of course not! Get out of here or we're cutting off your fingers! Was our general response. The leader kept his promise though, and the travelers immediately broke camp and began to move on. However, as he left, he told us he thought he'd be seeing more of us.

Instead of returning immediately to the city though, our group decided we didn't trust these travelers, and set camp where they had been to make sure they didn't return after we left. We set watches and proceeded to rest for the night. However, during the second watch shift, our party members on watch woke us all to say that a very thick fog had come upon us, and the shapes of the trees around us were no longer what they had been the night before. This was ominous.

Our cleric attempted to send magical dancing lights into the fog, but they disappeared without trace. Then our warlock lit a torch and stuck it into the fog. The torch was extinguished, but it was not wet at all. "That must be a low oxygen environment!" shouted Balazar. "We can't go in there or we'll suffocate!"

The fog opened up in one direction and a path lay before us. As we argued about whether to proceed, the fog started closing in behind us, forcing us onward. We soon came upon a seemingly abandoned town along the path, save for two children crying in the middle of the road, outside one house in particular, a three story affair that looked to be in ill repair.. We asked them what was wrong, and they begged for our help. "There is a monster in the basement, and our parents left and haven't returned. Please help us!" Sadun asked their names; the older girl was named Rosevald and the younger boy Thornbald. "Killing monsters brings great glory, do not fear!" and Sadun rushed to the house. Meanwhile, the rest of the group was not satisfied. "Why don't you come with us and guide us through the house?" they asked the children, but the children burst into tears, too afraid to come. So of course, our group attempts to force them to come with us. But when they reach to grab the children, the children vanish. But then the fog rolls in again, forcing the rest after me.

Sadun, not noticing the ghostly children's departure, breaks in the front door, looking for a fight, but only finds a well appointed foyer. The rest of the group comes in behind her, grumbling. We find a shield on the wall, a golden windmill on a red field. In the closet we find a number of black cloaks and a top hat. The bard picks up the top hat and puts it on. The cleric grabs a cloak, but throws it on the ground, exclaiming that it is moist, and wipes her hand on the warlock's arm, but then exclaims that there is blood on his arm where she had wiped. But the warlock can't see the blood, and nobody believes her. She throws the cloak in the fireplace where it burns up (the fire was going when we got there...) and the cloak reappears on the hook. Creepy. She asks the bard about the top hat, but he can't hear her. Or any of us. And the hat won't come off, despite us pulling on it. Desperate, he tries to cut it off with his own rapier, but only cuts the top off. Meanwhile he starts feeling as though teeth are digging into his head where the hat meets it. The goblin suggest we burn the hat too, and so we push him over towards the fireplace, but it falls off when he bends over. This place is disturbing. In another room, we find a cask of wine. When we open the tap, it pours continuously, with no sign of stopping. Our drunk of a fighter Balazar dives under the tap to drink the pouring wine, until we eventually shut it off.

We find a pantry with a dumbwaiter that goes to the next floor up. Laughing, Balazar grabs Gilligan the goblin and forces him into the dumbwaiter despite his protests, and the bard helps to winch the goblin up, as he shouts that he will arrest us.

And that is about where we ended the first session. We had a couple new players join late, and several of them haven't been back since, but it was a very interesting and eventful beginning. Definitely a fun group!