On The Road

My adventurers are finally growing up and leaving town. They're planning a trip that will take them over a month if nothing bad happens, but it's Dungeons and Dragons, so something bad will happen to them.

However, this is still a new situation for me, what do I do? How do they travel? If I let them buy a flock of pegasi, is that actually faster?

Next session is really just going to be a couple weeks of travel. They might get as far as Boarskyr Bridge, depending on what they want to do about the events of Fey Day. My favorite Faerûnian holiday.

Timekeeping

The Faerûnian calendar is extremely elaborate. I've been trying to keep track of when things are for my adventurers, and it's really hard!

It doesn't line up very well with our calendar and I can't figure out when the seasons should start to change.

The months are:

• Hammer
• Alturiak
• Ches
• Tarsakh
• Mirtul
• Kythorn
• Flamerule
• Eleasis
• Eleint
• Marpenoth
• Uktar
• Nightal

Great fantasy names. However, the solstices and equinoxes don't line up, they're all a month later than I want them to be. If Nightal is December, then the winter solstice should go between Nightal and Hammer, but it's between Hammer and Alturiak instead.
So, when does spring start? March is the third month, but it also has the vernal equinox in it. And the spring equinox is between Tarsakh and Mirtul.

It's annoying.

My players are in Ches now, I think I'm going to declare that spring is starting anyway though.

The Curse of Distraction

I've had a lot on my mind this week, so I forgot that I was supposed to run a session until about 3 hours before our usual start time. Luckily this is a filler session, but I still need to have more things ready for a filler session than I have right now.

Post-Session
 I really didn't need all that much after all. All my goals were achieved, and everyone joked around about how they're going to leave town. The Stone of Golorr has been taken, all the seeds have been planted for future fun stuff, they asked Zelifarn to come along, and let all their allies know where they were going.

Scheduling fun!

I have been focusing solely on Dungeons and Dragons for the past few weeks. Finally getting a job is great, except for insofar as it means I will need to figure out how to have a job and run my campaign.
The timing is also not great for the campaign. We just finished the Dragon Heist module, and are entering the wilds of homebrew.

The character who was supposed to be the center of the next story arc has now revealed that he won't be available for the next two sessions either, so the next one is going to be everyone preparing to leave the city, arranging who is going to take care of their bar and saying goodbye to all of their friends. 

Then we will skip the session after that.

We have already moved from Wednesdays to Tuesdays, but I think that we may scale it down to every other week.

Uncertainty in Dungeonmastering

I don't like combat in rpgs.

I know it's supposed to be fun strategizing, and blowing things up, but I do not want to spend anywhere near that much time on stuff that doesn't move the plot forward.

So, in my last session, I asked the party if fighting was deeply important for them, after setting up a fight where I would need to play 12 characters, one of them being an ancient dragon, on the side of the party.

They said no.

So we skipped the fight and let them take all their stuff. Everybody won.

So You Want To Build A Wizard?

• Who is the crazy wizard who made the door into the vault at the end of Dragon Heist?
• What madman decided to turn an aboleth into a rock that can tell you where you left your keys? 
• Who decided that to open the door you needed bagpipe music and part of a bugbear?

 Well, they're all the same person, and probably a good person to have a huge stash of weird magic stuff. I want a reason to give my players a huge pile of weird magic stuff. So, he or she has a castle or tower or workshop that the players can hit up later for cool loot.

 Possible names for this crazy wizard: Zurusorn, Xobothung, Pabrovund, Zaviduas

Zaviduas Pabrovund, Administrator of Orogoth. Orogoth seems like a good place, I know nothing about it, but it has a good wizardly sort of a name. Administrator is a strange title, but I've already demonstrated how weird this wizard is. 

Ah, I've accidentally hit on an actual title, currently Orogoth is a wizard college, they probably have administrators...

Zaviduas Pabrovund should not be one of those.

Zaviduas Pabrovund, Wizard of the Northdark Woods. It's a nice small forest near the ancestral home of one of the players, so he will be more likely to deal with his many family problems that I've been planning.

Unfortunately, Zaviduas sounds like a male name to me and all of the other villains I have planned are men. Zavidua Pabrovund sounds much more feminine though.

Zavidua Pabrovund, Wizard of the Northdark Woods is going to leave some advertising on the back of the doors in to the vault. She's not dumb, she knows adventurers are going to end up inside of the vault, but adventurers appreciate a good and tricky magic door. Maybe they will want her services.

Fool's Errands

One of my players couldn't make the last session of our game, meaning a further delay of the dungeon and the dragon waiting at the end of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

So, while everyone else went on all these fun little sidequests, Niv-Mizzet went after his idea of the third vault key, which he decided to needlessly over-complicate. The party needs a beardless dwarf to open the vault; Niv has decided that rather than getting a dwarf to shave or hiring a female dwarf to come with them, what he really needs is the skeleton of a dwarf.

If he had actually been there for the session, getting a dwarven skeleton would have been quite simple, but instead Niv now has a "skeleton guy" whom he contacted many times over the course of the five days that happened during the session.

Luckily for me, the first bit of filler was a female dwarf asking to stay with the party. For most of the time that Niv has been looking for a beardless dwarf, there has been one staying in his house.

Thank goodness for the Zhentarim.

What is the Opposite of a Murder-Hobo?

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is very well written to prevent that unfortunate playstyle known as the Murder-hobo. It is generally safe to assume that any party may devolve into running around killing anyone they meet. The best solutions are for the cities to contain effective police forces, and to be willing to stop the party.

In any town based circumstances, it's safe to assume that the party is going to break into someplace late at night to try and solve their problems. Maybe murder someone, maybe just take all their valuables, but problem solving through crime is a grand Dungeons and Dragons tradition.

My party, on the other hand, has decided to do their best to break no laws, kill no one, not even upset any law abiding people, and they're doing a remarkably good job. Wonderful though this is, the entire module assumes that the party is breaking in everywhere in the middle of the night. Instead, they walk up around noon and politely ask a few simple questions.

I appreciate the fact that they haven't killed anyone important yet, and practically haven't killed anyone. However, it is a little frustrating that they won't be able to meet the people who would only show up if they broke into people's homes and businesses.

The Life and Crimes of Pulvi Lutum

(From the Notes of Barnibus Blastwind, Criminal Investigator for the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors)

The morning after the Feast of the Moon (Nightal 1), Clerebold Biznorel found the body of his master, Lammakh Heirlarpost, in a cupboard in their shared residence after searching for the man for over an hour to serve him his breakfast.

Experienced healers estimate that Mr. Heirlarpost had been dead for three days at the time of his discovery. Unfortunately, he had also been seen by not only his staff, but by many other acquaintances during this period. Most notable is the speech he presented at the Cassalanter Estate during their gala celebrating the Feast of the Moon the night before. It is currently uncertain whether or not he was alive during any of these events, or if some sort of inter-planar effect may have altered the flow of time in this circumstance.

Unfortunately, by the time this discrepancy was noticed the body had already had Gentle Repose cast upon it, outshining any other spells that may have been cast upon it. Our attempts to interrogate Mr. Heirlarpost were not particularly productive, demonstrating only three things: he had indeed been dead during those three days, he had been thoroughly interrogated, and that the man responsible for his death was an Earth Genasi by the name of Pulvi Lutum.

We attempted several methods of divination to locate this Pulvi Lutum, none of them successful, eventually leading to the conclusion that he had acquired an Amulet of Proof Against Location and Detection. The case has been passed to the talents of bounty hunters.

Inspiration

I've been collating a Pinterest board with exciting magic items, monsters, maps, and the occasional architectural diagram. You can view it here.

 I am definitely not using everything in this campaign, and other people definitely created all of the magic items. I have already given the party the Boots Made for Walking, which were promptly given to Elephant Joe, who is now very speedy.

Welcome to the Party: Zelifarn

So, the party had a really nice chat with Zelifarn the bronze dragon, and suggested to the dragon that she should try adventuring.

She has taken their advice, and is getting ready to start adventuring, either with them or by herself. Zelifarn is going to show up, even if the party doesn't want her to join them, because she is too cool to leave behind.

I like working on paper, even though our entire campaign is going on online. I gave Zelifarn one trait for Adult Dragons so that she can be a more effective adventurer.

A Large sized creature would have some serious trouble getting into most dungeons with enough treasure that she would like to explore them.

After the Dragon Heist

Once I finish running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, I plan to keep running this game. However, I don't really like running dungeons, so the official follow-up, Waterdeep: Dungeons of the Mad Mage, is not really an option.

Dungeons are fun to play through, but a huge hassle to run in my very limited experience, and this campaign is still sort of an experiment for me so I don't want to trap the party underground from level 5 through level 20. I want to take them through a world, so I am planning some custom adventures for my players.

After the party leaves Waterdeep, we will go overland to Tavin's ancestral barony, where he will attempt to reclaim it and take vengeance on those who framed him for tax fraud. This will be a ridiculously melodramatic, Arthurian situation. I don't have a lot of details for this section of adventuring yet, although I have a large pile of strange and exotic bears to throw at them to cover for any lack of preparation.

Once they finish there, Pearl has a massive bounty in Calimshan that is only going to become more valuable as time goes by. The City of Waterdeep is extremely serious about getting Pulvi Lutum brought back to them, either to interrogate, or to at least confirm that he isn't causing them any more trouble. This sounds like it should be pretty easy, but Pulvi is a spellcaster and he has an Amulet of Proof Against Location and Detection, stolen from a Closed Lord of Waterdeep, so he cannot be found through magical means.

By the time they finish there, I should have everyone up to level 10, and so I will bring in the Big Bad.

Since the end of the Spellplague about ten years ago, the Blackstaff has been working on a method to distance the world from the Feywild and close the portals that can currently been found throughout the world. She has a lot going on, and it's really hard, but she has just made a major breakthrough and started recruiting more capable spellcasters to help with her research. Unfortunately, certain occupants of the Feywild have heard of her new efforts, and so are forming a powerful rebellion, led by a talented and crudely drawn druid.

So they will be facing as many unhappy fey creatures as possible.

Dropping a Drow

The party was stealthily making its way through the Dock Ward of Waterdeep, following Tavin who was disguised as a drunken elf.
[This was not necessary based on the module, they just decided to play dress-up.]
It was their third night of hunting for a serial killer. In the past few weeks, four drunken elves or half-elves had been beheaded in the Dock Ward. Pearl had been asked to look into the matter by the Zhentarim, and invited the party to help her with it. Everyone else just agreed that stopping serial killers is a good thing for adventurers to do.

Eventually, Tavin walked down a street, passing a half-elf named Heldar, and the rest of the party walked behind him, passing a small alley where Joe and Pearl noticed something.

There was totally a drow standing back there with his sword drawn, waiting for the party to pass and Heldar to reach the alley.

Elephant Joe quickly ran up behind the drow, tapped him on the head, and "Hey, I don't think you should do that."
[I gave him advantage on an Intimidation check for that.]
The 400lb. 8 foot tall elephant mysteriously appeared behind him, and put a heavy elephant hand on his head. The drow did the obvious thing, and dropped his sword, completely surrendering to the party. They had someone call up the City Watch, and Heldar the Half-Elf gave them each 50 gold.
[This is far too much money for anyone but player characters to be carrying around. Who are you Heldar? Why do you have over 200 gold? Why are you alone at night in a bad part of town? You should rethink some of your life choices Heldar.]

DM for MVP

Dragon Heist is designed so that the early sessions have a bunch of powerful NPCs to help keep the party alive. It felt so good to run those encounters.

As a player, I have never been in a fight where everyone else was trying not to set themselves on fire while I got in every blow against the big bad boss, and it feels great. I am a bit worried that a fight where I do everything on both sides isn't very fun for the players, but soon they'll be stronger than at least one of the NPCs I was running, and currently can only ask people to help them, and probably won't give me another chance like the ones I was given by the module.

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to be on the same side as the players in a conflict, and it reinforced for them how lame first level characters are after all their hits kept missing the goblins. It seemed like an important reminder for both of us, I needed a reminder that being the Dungeon Master is a big deal. That I can change the course of any fight however I want. My players took the lesson that they are very lame to heart, they have been avoiding fights really well for a while.

Level one is a time when the characters need the help, but now my dear little characters are up to level three, and I have plans to get them past level 10 once we finish the module. They can easily handle the things I plan on throwing at them from this point on...

Except maybe for the Ginormous Squirrel.

Experience Points

As I've mentioned, I have not played all that much Dungeons and Dragons. Nor have most of my players, except for the two behind Elephant Joe and Niv, they both used to play a lot of 3.5. Niv's player knows mountains of lore and tried to run a couple of campaigns in 2018, both of which ended pretty quickly after his players started killing each other. My characters are more than just a little bit responsible for those, but we're fine now. Elephant Joe enjoys reading modules and needs to be reminded frequently that he does not get to see this module until we finish playing through it.

Both of them have looked things up, and know things they should not know. Elephant Joe and I live together, and so we talk about my plans for after the party leaves Waterdeep, and the weird and exciting monsters I have found to hide in the wilds. Niv however, has looked up fountains of lore on the city and all the notable magic items and personages it contains. I get a lot of interesting lessons on the history of the Blackstaff during our sessions.

Part of how we are dealing with this is through their characters and roleplay. Elephant Joe is not very bright, and so he can't really tell the party any secrets and be believed. I also use him as a point to introduce new optional sidequests that I want to send the party on. Oskar was replaced by Niv partly because Oskar being so knowledgeable about this city he had never been to before made no sense, partly because the player loves making new characters, partly because he thinks that there will be a new version of the Artificer class coming out that he can upgrade to, and finally because Oskar didn't have a whole lot of story stuff to work with.

Meet the Players

 The party currently consists of four players who come regularly (one of whom is already on his second character), and a fifth who has a very busy schedule during our regular play time.

Pearl

First is Pearl, our Water Genasi rogue. She is a bounty hunter and only recently moved to Waterdeep after bouncing up and down the coast, working and looking for a place to belong. A new prospect came up that inspired her to book passage on the last ship to Calimport before winter. She seems to be happy to be stuck in Waterdeep for the winter now though.

Oskar Trueanvil

Next is Oskar Trueanvil, he has already left and been replaced by Niv, but I liked him and his vague reasons for being around. Oskar was a Dwarven cleric and sailor, he left the party after his ticket for the ship to Calimport was refunded, he's currently guarding a trade caravan on it's way to more Dwarven territories because, in the words of his player, "All Dwarves are racist, it's literally in the Player's Handbook."

Niv-Mizzet the Wizzet Lizzet

He was replaced by Niv-Mizzet, whose name and portrait are a reference I do not understand. Niv is a Human Artificer from the Field Ward of Waterdeep, an area North of the city proper, and something of a slum. For the past few years he has been studying and working in Waterdeep's own temple to Gond, referred to as The House of Inspired Hands. After Oskar left, the party went to update Volo on the search for his friend Floon, while Volo was asking Niv for help, Niv is the smartest character in the party.

Tavinend Gallous?

Tavinend Gallous has been very secretive and private. He is fairly clearly a Human Paladin of fairly high birth, and certain people in the city suspect that "Tavin" is a false name. In reality, the player behind Tavinend is really enjoying telling everyone about how Tavin was removed from power in his ancestral barony on suspicion of tax evasion. He is deciding now whether to swear an Oath of Vengeance against whoever framed him, or if he should swear an Oath of Redemption, and attempt to redeem himself and whoever took his home from him.

I only recently was told Tavin's true name, an plan to keep it private for the time being.

This leaves the best for last.

Elephant Joe Braveknight

The final regular member of the party is affectionately known as Elephant Joe. He is a Loxodon Barbarian. He was going to go to Chult after stopping in Calimshan. He heard there are some really big animals in Chult. He likes big things. His parents are Loxodon ambassadors to Waterdeep, and so he has spent most of his 60 year childhood in the city playing with noble children. Raenar Neverember is one of his old friends. For the past few years Elephant Joe has been serving in the Waterdeep Coast Guard during the summers. He thinks it is a fun job. He finds big things in the water, and then he hits them real hard.

Welcome to Waterdeep

The trouble with every story is figuring out how to begin, from there it becomes a simple matter of continuing.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist begins with all of the characters gathering together in The Yawning Portal Tavern. I was uncomfortable with just dropping the characters in the bar by themselves, and so I announced that all the characters had been staying on a boat for the past few weeks, preparing to leave the city for the wonders of Calimshan. Which served another purpose, the refund of their tickets would provide a bit more money for the extravagant city life in Waterdeep.

And my players were going to get that refund, (and then never write it down) the first big storm of the winter hit before their ship had a chance to leave port. Despite what certain Dwarves would say, the crew decided it was far to dangerous to set out, and the city closed the harbor for the winter.

So, on their second to last night of shipboard accommodations, this group of travelers set out to get a good drink and a nice meal at Waterdeep's greatest adventurer bar and commiserate over their current situation. Homelessish, and far from where they want to be.

The Adventure Begins

In 2014 I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons, it was run by a new friend of mine who wanted to experiment with the new and exotic 5th edition.

A few months later, our party's bard murdered everyone with the help of a lich, and I briefly attempted to avenge my character's death as her occasionally sentient pet hyena. That did not go well.

Since then I've been involved in a couple of one shots, or games that wanted to be full campaigns but failed, generally when all the player characters killed each other.

In October of 2018 I decided to try running a game myself. Never having read the Dungeon Master's Guide, not owning any books. It was a -great- plan. Made even better by my decision to try running the most recent version of the Tomb of Horrors. A module, which while short and very well contained, is almost entirely made up of traps and puzzles, and requires that the adventurers be a fairly high level. All things that I now know make running a game harder.

I'll come back to the Tomb of Horrors later, because it went well enough that I started prepping to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for a slightly larger group of friends over roll20. For the moment, this blog is going to be focused on that game and my ideas for what comes next.