LMOP2 – Episode 3: Stabbing What Needs to be Stabbed

Starring:

Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
Kraj as Gnob the Gnome Warlock
Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
Matt as the Gnome Cleric

With:
Mike as the DM

Author’s Note: These were supposed to be mini reviews but for obvious Kraj related reasons, this one got a bit bloated.

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – They took three hours to take out four goblins. Actually it was three goblins I think, the last one got tired and ran away.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.

Pre-session Guff

Kraj made some very pathetic excuses for missing last week due to social reasons.

Christina couldn’t make this week for social reasons.

It turns out Matt has seen all of The Last Jedi but only half of Empire Strikes Back.

I don’t think I need to say any more about any of that.

Sue Narmy

We rejoin our intrepid gnome adventurers inside the cave system that is Cragmaw Hideout. They have just laid their Triton brother to rest in the shallow stream with respect, dignity and as little effort as they could get away with. They also robbed his corpse blind in the process.

• DM Mike> So, as you stare at the corpse of your good friend Nalos…
• Gnobby> Who?
• Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo)> Good?
• Snorri> Who?
• Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo)> Friend?
• Gnob> Who?
• DM Mike> <sigh> The Triton…
• Everyone> Oh!

A shout is heard from up the tunnel followed by the very loud sound of rushing water as a large wave comes careering downstream.

Gnobby (Gary) goes for an action hero roll into the wolf cave landing Black Widow style but partially stuffs the Dex check and ends up in the cave but considerably less stylishly than planned.

Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo) (Adam) reassures everyone that he is already safely inside the wolf cave but it seems everyone didn’t particularly care.

Snorri (Jake) attempts to replicate Gnobby’s roll into the cave but stuffs it up even worse and gets caught by the wave.

Gnob (Kraj) wasn’t even in the cave because Kraj couldn’t be arsed to turn up last week and instead was sitting in the bushes outside the cave entrance where he had an excellent view of the wave exiting the cave and depositing Snorri, the naked Triton corpse and a new gnome on the soggy ground outside.

Snorri takes 4 damage from the rollin’ & tumblin’ and is knocked out. He also ends up face down in the water.

Gnob drags Snorri out of the water, mentions he has a healing potion but also mentions that he has no intention whatsoever of using it on the unconscious fighter.

Gnobby charges out of the cave, drags the Triton paladin corpse over to Snorri, places the Triton corpse hands on Snorri’s chest and beseeches the Triton’s god to let him Lay on Hands one last time.

Somewhat surprisingly that didn’t work and Gnobby disdainfully throws the Triton corpse back into the water.

Snorri passes a death save. Which is nice.

Jake made a comment about trying to mute himself when he coughed. Gary made a joke about Jake having Covid.

Yeah, that didn’t age well at all…

Gnob rolls a one on his medicine check to stabilise Snorri and makes him fail a death save. Fucking Kraj <sigh>

Gnobby flips Snorri over and jumps on his belly a few times to get the water out and then also attempts a medicine check to stabilise him, he fails the check but obviously not as badly as Kraj did. Snorri did take another death save fail from the jumping though so he is on the brink of death now.

Oops, fucking Gary <sigh>

Parss.. Parracill.. oh fuck it, as he still hasn’t added it to the D&D Beyond campaign and I don’t know how to spell it, he is Vaseline for now.

Vaseline, Matt’s new character who was washed out of the cave, turns out to be a gnome cleric and heals Snorri who gets to his feet somewhat dazed but clearly alive. Gnob high-fives Gnobby and says “Yeah, we did that!”

Play Silly Games…

Snorri wanders into the wolf cave looking for Ggnomeo but doesn’t find him; “Where for art thou Ggnomeo?!”. That wasn’t me and I am not taking the blame for it, it was Jake and Mike.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) decides to be a dick and stay hidden. Snorri wanders back out of the cave and mentions he can’t find Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) and so Gnobby joins him and they both wander back into the cave.

As they enter the wolf cave and fail to perceive Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo), Adam expresses a desire to jump out at Snorri and ‘make him shit himself’ <sigh>

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) rolls high and pounces out at Snorri shouting “I am the Grim Reaper and you should be dead!”. Snorri fails the save and defecates in his armour.

However, he also spins and attacks the ‘Grim Reaper’ with his swords and Gnobby cuts loose with an Eldritch Blast.

ROGUE DOWN!

Gnobby> I high-five Snorri and say “YES! We killed the Grim Reap… oh…”
Snorri> Idiot.

Gnobby reluctantly carries the idiot out of the cave. Snorri uses the opportunity to semi-effectively wash out his breeches in the stream but there’s still a bit of a whiff. He does however, with the aid of a natural 20, manage to convince Vaseline that it was Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) that shat himself instead.

We are now an hour unto this session and we are all still outside the cave in a considerably worse condition than we were when we arrived <sigh>.

A short rest was taken.

The Bridge of Fail

The adventurers re-enter the cave and follow ‘The Stream of Death’ past the wolf cave to the rickety bridge. Gnobby eyeballs a rocky slope to one side and perceptions that it looks climbable but dangerous.

Snorri takes a run at the scree slope, gets halfway up it and then ends up back at the bottom of it shortly after. It’s okay though, he didn’t spill his beer.

Gnobby wraps a rock in cloth to muffle it and ties it to his silk rope. He then spectacularly fails to throw it ten feet up and over the bridge.

Gnobby tries again with help from Snorri and even with advantage, still fails spectacularly.

It is swiftly realised that all of the gnomes have -1 to Strength except Gnob who has neither positive nor negative gains.

Gnobby duly passes the rope to Gnob (Kraj) and assists him. He too fails spectacularly.

After nearly ten minutes of this fuckery, Gnobby starts swearing in Abyssal and sheepishly casts Mage Hand and has it carry the rope up and over the bridge <sigh>.

The stone/rope is gently lifted up and over the bridge and lowered back to the gnomes who anchor it… or attempt to.

There was a LOT more fuckery involving backpack weights and climbing checks but frankly, living through that mess the first time was bad enough and I don’t have the mental fortitude to write down everything else. Suffice to say that a little over twenty minutes after arriving at the bridge, they all managed to be standing on top of it.

Aggressive Negotiations

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) successfully stealths into the small cave ahead and sees three goblins around a campfire and on an upper level another two goblins and a goblin leader along with the barely conscious Sildar.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) reports back and planning took place where a number of strategies were put forth and each was suitably shat on from a great height by everyone else. To be fair, most of them deserved to be shat on like Gnomeo sneaking in and catching Sildar when he is dropped, or sneakily building a bed of wolf pelts under Sildar to break his fall.

DM Mike made a number of strange noises as these plans were discussed.

Snorri proposed diplomacy and this was rejected out of hand by Adam. Matt wanted to try a stealthy Healing Word on Sildar. Adam offered to assist the stealthing at which point a slightly exasperated DM Mike asked exactly how you would assist stealthing. Adam’s reply did not win that particular argument as DM Mike felt that teaching someone to take their shoes off first was not going to cut it.

The plan was that the party would slowly approach the goblins and Gnobby would pretend to negotiate while Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sneaks further in and, at the appropriate safe word (asparagus), attempts to assassinate the goblin leader and hell would be let loose it would all go to shit, obviously.

Now, it’s important to know that as a DM, Gary doesn’t actually mind when his players spend 20 minutes on an elaborate plan but he does get somewhat exasperated when 10 seconds into the plan they revert to ‘I stab it in the dick!’ AKA Plan A. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Plan A it’s just that they waste a lot of unnecessary planning time. Consequently as a player Gary intends to stick to the damn plan. Nothing could go wrong, right? Right.

It immediately went wrong, obviously.

The reason it went wrong is because Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) stuffed the stealth check and was spotted by the goblin leader.

Still trying to stick to the plan, the party wander in to the cave trying to look like they aren’t planning on murdering everything in there. Yeemik, the goblin leader demands that they stop moving or he will drop Sildar from the ledge.

Gnobby goes with ‘I intimidate it’, a call back to the previous campaign, and fixes Yeemik with a Paddington Bear stare and both verbally and telepathically threatens to basically eat his soul. Somewhat remarkably this succeeded thanks to a high dice roll catching everyone by surprise.

Sadly Yeemik was not intimidated enough to surrender and so, still sticking to what was left of the plan after Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) fucked it, Gnobby yells “Asparagus!” and starts casting a spell at Yeemik. Roll initiative!

DM Mike rolled highest on initiative, obviously. DM Gary was starting to regret showing him where the special TTS ‘DM dice’ button was hidden.

It All Goes to Plan, Obviously

Snorri charges in and eviscerates the first unlucky goblin but misses with his second attack against the second goblin.

Yeemik is a bit confused by Gnobby’s mental intimidation and does nothing. Nothing except drop Sildar.

Oops.

Sildar hits the ground ten feet down and is now unconscious and starts bleeding out.

The rest of the goblins attack and Snorri gets shot in the face. Two more goblins shoot at Sir Gnobby (rude!) but both miss while he screams ‘Asparagus!’ back at them.

Ggnomeo (Oh Ggnomeo) shanks a second goblin, doing 15 damage to the 7hp goblin and carves his name into its chest <sigh>.

Gnobby casts Dissonant Whispers at Yeemik:

You whisper a discordant melody that only one creature of your choice within range can hear, wracking it with terrible pain. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 3d6 psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction, if available, to move as far as its speed allows away from you. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage and doesn’t have to move away.

Yeemik turns out not to be very Wisdrous and fails the save and takes 14 psychic damage, and he dies screaming while Gnobby exultantly shouts “Asparagus you birthing person copulator” and drops prone.

Vaseline (Matt) runs over and casts Cure Wounds on Sildar. Which was nice.

Gnob (Kraj), the ‘meelee’ warlock, lets loose a ranged attack with a glowing red Eldritch Blast at an upper level goblin and melts it’s face right off. Which was also nice.

Jake had an unfortunate ‘I was muted!’ incident and when he eventually recovered from that, Snorri charged towards the upper level and just made it to the top of the slope where he got shot by The Last Goblin and was knocked unconscious.

FIGHTER DOWN!

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) shoots at the The Last Goblin and misses.

Gnobby (oh Gnobby) shoots at The Last Goblin and misses.

Vaseline (oh Vaseline) medicine checks Snorri and rolls a 1 causing him to fail TWO death saves instead of one as per current house rules. I have a vision of the future! I foresee medicine kits being purchased!

Asking Last What You Should Have Asked First

I feel it is important to document the following conversation in full. This is what happens when you try and be funny. I think it also should be noted that for once Adam had absolutely nothing to do with this:

Finally

DM Mike> Kraj you feel an immense feeling of power flowing through your body…
Kraj> <evil villain laugh>
DM Mike> You feel…
Adam> Aroused?
DM Mike> <sigh>

There followed some discussion about D&D religion, the nature of both Asmodeus (known) and The Great Old One (unknown) plus the moral implications of stabbing a downed ally and then having his eternally burning soul taken by by an evil devil god and whether it was worth it.

No discussion took place on the inter-party repercussions of what just happened and we eventually got the adventure back on track.

And then Adam derailed it again.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I walk up to where Snorri’s body is, crouch Skyrim style… then stand up, then crouch again, then stand up, then crouch again, then shoot the goblin.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)’s tea-bagging of Snorri’s soulless body caused some merriment that took some time to calm down.

They have killed everything else in the cave relatively easily and really quickly so finishing off the last measly goblin should be easy to dispatch right? Riiight.

• – Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) missed his bow shot at The Last Goblin.
• – Gnobby hit The Last Goblin with an Eldritch Blast but didn’t kill it.
• – Vaseline tries a Sacred Flame at The Wounded Last Goblin but it made the save.
• – Gnob misses the The Wounded Last Goblin with an Eldritch Blast.
• – The The Wounded Last Goblin shoots Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo).

ROGUE DOWN!

The DM reminds everyone that Christmas is in two days and he would be really, really happy if we could kill this goblin before then.

Gnobby crossbows the The Finally Fucking Dead Last Goblin and finally fucking kills it. End of fight… or is it?

DM Mike> Kraj, can you make a willpower save please?

Nervous laughter abounds as Kraj fails the save and Asmodeus takes control of Gnob and has him stab Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)’s body causing him to fail a death save.

Gnobby preps his crossbow and says if Gnob does that again there’s going to be some inter-party PvP but Gnob seems to recover his senses.

Oh Mike…

The cave is looted for a few bits and bobs but in one bedroll they find a goblin baby. Vaseline convinces Gnobby not to stab it. Gnobby sighs heavily, calls everyone a bunch of cunts, picks up Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) and carries him out of the cave.

Meanwhile, Gnob decides to sacrifice the baby to Asmodeus . Vaseline attempts a grapple but misses. Gnob hesitates for a turn and Vaseline grabs the baby and legs it.

We can’t even loot a cave without turning it into a drama .

Sildar says “Remember, not all creatures are inherently evil!”. Triggered Gary threatens to quit on the spot if we are playing Woke D&D.

The adventurers finally ended up back outside the cave in a pretty messed up state.

End of session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

– Will anyone let Gnob walk behind them ever again?
– Will there be repercussions for ‘the incident’?
– Will they ever finish this fucking cave?

Tune in next week to find out!

Post Session Guff – Unwritten rules

There are certain unwritten rules for both players and the DM the first of which for each is “The DM is always right, even if they are wrong”.

The player’s unwritten rules contain some obvious ones like ‘Don’t split the party’, ‘Don’t sacrifice a downed teammate’s soul to an evil devil god’ and ‘Never make a promise you don’t intend to keep’ (more on that one next week).

Unlike the player’s rules however, the DM rules have two caveats:

• – See rule 1
• – Unless they really deserve it
• So while Mike broke unwritten DM rule number two (don’t take agency away from your players) both caveats clearly apply in the situation above as we very clearly deserve it.