Starring:
Adam as Ari/Beaver the Wizard – I’m going to use my short sword!
Jake as Kroq the Fighter – Save meh Uffo!
Chris H. as Uffo the Bard – The table might catch fire!
Matthew as Cru the Cleric – And… another seven!
Sophie as Torren the other Cleric – Are you sure you know where it is?
Henry as Darin the Rogue – I’ll find it… or you’re fucked
Chapter 1 – Secret of the Sumber Hills
The main story so far:
– A rogue member of a cult dedicated to the worship of ‘elemental earth’ tried to gain control of the town of Red Larch. He was found to be in possession of some rare trade bars from the city of Mirabar.
– A trade delegation from Mirabar went missing in the area recently. Powerful organisations want them found.
– The delegation was ambushed by the Black Earth cult and the delegates kidnapped.
– Whilst travelling with the delegate prisoners, the Black Earth cult got into a fight with the Air Cult. It isn’t known what the outcome of that was or where the delegates are now.
– The party were attacked by Air cultists and they found information on one of the bodies pointing them to the Air cult base at Feathergale Spire.
– The party investigated the valley beneath the spire and found dozens of people had been thrown off the top of it in the last few months.
– They went to the spire, admitted everything, trusted the big bad boss dude because he was nice to them, sat down for dinner and got ambushed <sigh>.
The table definitely won’t catch fire
We join our party of intrepid adventurers just after they notified the boss, Thurl Merosska, of an incoming ambush that he had set for them.
Darin and Torren had arrived at the keep entrance to find the drawbridge down and the bodies of two initiates on the floor of the entrance hall. No one else was visible so Darin stealthed into the hallway.
In the Great Hall, the Hurricane monk got things started by jumping on the table and trying to kick the bard in the head, something Darin has been wanting to do for a few weeks now.
There was a fairly lengthy discussion (when isn’t there?) about trying to intimidate the boss. You might get somewhere with that out of combat but not with these dudes. The bard eventually retaliated by casting Heat Metal on the boss, Thurl.
Due to a succession of concentration saves by Uffo and failed constitution saves by the boss, Thurl remained at disadvantage through most of the fight. It was certainly more effective than trying to intimidate the Lord Commander of the keep, surrounded by his own men, when he has just launched a fairly successful ambush on you. Just sayin.
Uffo then hid under the table. The monk got an attack of opportunity and would have critted, but for being distracted by being called a cockwomble.
Two of the Feathergale Featherwhiff Knights dramatically leapt onto the table and then failed to hit anything. This was the start of a fairly epic run of the noble-born posers not being able to hit the side of a barn whilst stood inside of it. These guys have now replaced the bandits at the bottom of the DM’s PPI table.
Ari used a Shatter that alerted everyone in the tower that shit was going down. Shatter also breaks a lot of stuff in the vicinity of it which included all the glassware on the table.
Kroq wanted to breathe fire at the Featherwhiffs and Thurl but Uffo was somewhat concerned about being under the table if it caught fire. The DM assured everyone that the table wouldn’t catch fire.
Kroq used Dragon Breath.
The table caught fire.
Technically, the brandy spilled on the table by Ari’s shatter caught fire. My conscience is clear!
Cru used an upgraded Inflict Wounds to properly fuck up the monk but she was still in the fight.
The Eagle Has Landed! Twice!
The initiates upstairs engaged with their mighty daggers! Ari got hit and was going to cast Shield until the DM pointed out it was only 4 points of damage. Another one threw a dagger at Uffo under the on-fire table and managed to hit him.
Downstairs, having been alerted by the noise of Ari’s shatter, four more initiates charged out of the side rooms towards the stairs, immediately saw Torren on the drawbridge and headed in her direction. They did not see the sneaking rogue by the door.
The entrance hall is fitted with a giant battering ram in the roof, called the Eagle. Darin couldn’t see the release for this and couldn’t move past the initiates on this turn so he hid in the corner and did nothing, waiting for them to pass by.
Torren, somewhat concerned about the onrushing horde of screaming cultists, asked Darin if he knew where the release lever was. Darin earned a ‘concise summing up of the situation’ inspiration with the reply “I’ll find it… or you’re fucked”.
The horde rushed past, the lever was found, a bonus action was used and the Eagle swung down! Anything in its path needs to make a Dex save or take 3d6 damage. It swung in a 10ft wide swathe along the length of the hall hitting all 4 initiates. Three cultists failed the save and the DM rolled two 6’s and a 5. Fuck me. They only have 9 hit points each to start with.
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said “People tend to underestimate trees. Right up until they get hit by one.”
Having just turned three initiates into paste, the Eagle reset and Darin used his action to launch it again. The final initiate failed the save, he was history! Except the DM rolled three 1’s. Well, crap.
That pretty much sums up the DMs night with the dice: all over the fucking place.
But still, nice use of tactics from the two-person tower invasion force!
Darin legged it upstairs and left Torren to deal with the last poor initiate. The DM ran him up to Torren and succeeded on a grapple, next up is an attempt the throw the cleric off the drawbridge and it is a very long way down. Oh noes! Is this the end for the trusty dwarf?!
Of course it bloody isn’t; Channel Divinity + Wrath of the Storm = 16 points of “DON’T EVER TOUCH THE TEMPEST CLERIC!” damage. He only had six points left anyway. What was left of him fell off the bridge, 400ft down to the valley below.
Save meh Uffo!
Upstairs, Ari stabbed something with a short sword. The very first thing Ari did in the game was buy it and it finally got used in the 6th session. Nice.
Adam then produced a can of baked beans and started eating them cold. This provoked a massive discussion on whether this was disgusting or not. The group were pretty evenly split on the subject, with Henry pointing out that you should only be eating cold beans if you were ‘a hobo that can’t afford a microwave’. He then noticed that they were Tesco baked beans and Adam was subject to universal derision from everybody for buying cheap shit beans when proper Heinz beans are just a few pence more. He took it well for someone who can’t go and buy an assault rifle to make us all pay.
The DM moved the Featherwhiffs on the table out of the fire and launched a full-on melee assault with them. They all missed everyone. The DM then had a Maths is Hard moment.
Kroq moved away from the monk and provoked an attack of opportunity, the monk hit him, he begged Uffo to use one of his valuable Cutting Words to reduce the attack to a miss. This would allow the fighter to get a riposte attack on the monk. Uffo caved to sustained pressure and made the monk miss. Kroq then used one of his valuable manoeuvres to attack the monk.
He missed. BWAHAHAHAH! Two resources spent to miss one monk. Nice!
Ari got into a dick-measuring contest using a shortsword and won.
Thurl finally gets going
You may have noticed no mention of the boss up until now. That’s because he also couldn’t hit for shit but that was mainly due to Uffo’s on-going Heat Metal. However he now took a step backwards from Kroq and Ari without fear of retaliation because neither had a reaction left. He then pulled out his lance (10ft reach), rolled two 17’s, and managed to hit Ari for 10 points of damage even with the disadvantage.
Ari, no longer next to the boss, now got the fuck out of dodge and went to hide in the stairwell with the rogue. Unfortunately, two initiates pursued her and while Darin killed one, the other nailed the wizard with a mighty 4 points of dagger damage. Stabby, stabby!
WIZARD DOWN!
A nice LotR reference (Fly, you fools!) earned Ari an inspiration because the DM forgot about the Firefly related penalty from last week. Shit.
Throughout all of this, poor Cru, despite getting off to a flying start with the massive Inflict Wounds, was now stuck at the end of the table where he started, having a competition with the number 3 Featherwhiff on who could miss with the most attacks. It was a fairly even contest as Cru was stuck throwing 7’s and the knight felt a 7 would be a dramatic improvement of the shit he was rolling. Cru’s spiritual weapon had also caught the whiffy blues and was not helping. Everyone else was staying the fuck away in case that shit was contagious.
Uffo got hit and finally failed a concentration check, although it was close, and the Heat Metal spell dropped from Thurl, who promptly manoeuvred around Kroq and stabbed the bard in the chest with the lance for 10 damage.
The bard then also got the fuck out of dodge, leaving Darin to run in and properly kill-steal the boss from Kroq who had done most of the hard work on him up until that point.
Kroq said that was ok because he was a team player!
Yeah, no one believed that happy horseshit.
Ding Ding!
Uffo remembered the wand, said he hadn’t forgotten it, fooled no one, cut loose and finally finished of the monk and one of the whiffy-knights. The other knight didn’t last long and the final one eventually gave up trying to hit Cru and threw himself out of the window in disgust.
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena, once said “There are some days when you just can’t hit shit. Don’t fight it, just stand in a corner, choose the Dodge action each turn and shout helpful advice to your comrades. Or abuse. Abuse works too.”
Despite the DM reminding them every week that cultists won’t talk, they still insist on trying to capture them. Fuck it, next week we’ll do a long, pointless interrogation and throw in a little morality test on what to do with the unarmed prisoner.
The rest of the tower was now empty and the group all hit level 4.
Looting was done; Thurl had a necklace that contained a detachable symbol of the Howling Hatred air cult. In his quarters they found a letter from the cult leader:
Merosska,
We are pleased to hear about the outcome of your altercation with the Black Earth cult, and we praise you for the capture of one of their prisoners. This noblewoman from Waterdeep has an interesting tale to tell, and we shall enjoy interrogating her further.
Keep a close watch on the Sacred Stone Monastery. I want to know what our enemy is planning next.
We may have a location for Riverguard Keep. Begin scouting flights immediately.
Your Beloved Queen,
Aerisi Kalinoth
There was also a map showing the suspected location of Rivergard Keep.
Various goodies were found; Darin got some Boots of Speed. Cru got KITT, a throwable light hammer +2 that should help him hit stuff. Uffo got a Hat of Disguise (I’m going to regret that) and a pipe that blows smoke monsters. Kroq got a +1 Axe called Shimmer that lights up. Ari got a necklace that automatically stabilises you when you get knocked out. It also doubles the effectiveness of hit die recovery. This now allows the DM to regularly take out the wizard without actually being in danger of killing her.
Ari finally got to look through the spyglass on the pinnacle and found it was pointed at the shimmering thing in the valley. This turned out to be an archway in the rock face that was covered by a shimmering portal. Three Feathergale Knights who had escaped the spire were seen to approach the portal one by one, offer a prayer to the heavens and walk through it.
Return to the Valley of Death
On approach to the archway, the group were met by three Feathergales and four Hurricanes.
All of the Feathergales missed everyone again and the DM sulked again. The Hurricanes proved fairly effective and the fight lasted quite a lot longer than it needed to because the group now went to the other extreme and didn’t use any resources at all <sigh>.
– Darin continued to kill-steal everything Kroq went anywhere near.
– Ari finally learned the usefulness of Misty Step and managed to stab something with the shortsword.
– Cru still couldn’t hit a damn thing despite now having a +2 to hit from KITT
– The DM sympathised.
– Uffo felt ‘not having had a go yet’ was an adequate excuse for not having done any damage.
– Torren went around introducing her battlehammer to various faces.
– Kroq ran up to things, missed them by a lot, and then watched Darin get the kills.
The adventurers approached the archway and the portal and no one actually bothered to examine the arch. Instead, Darin tried to walk through it, bounced off and took 1d6 damage. This initiated a spate of people trying random things and taking damage. Most of this seemed to be spurred on by the fact that the more they did it, the more Uffo lost his shit over them doing it. It was like a massive group troll.
The DM heartily approved.
Uffo was unimpressed.
Eventually they found a panel in the arch that held a carving of the Elemental Eye above four indentations, one of which fits the detachable symbol from Thurl’s necklace. They tried a few more things that didn’t work before realising they aren’t getting through it any time soon.
End of session.
Next time on Ten-foot Squares:
– Will they go all honest again at Riverguard Keep?
– Will the DM and Cru continue to vie for the title of Whiffy McWhiffmeister 2018?
– Will Uffo forget his name next week?
– Will they ever get the resource balance right?
Tune in next week to find out!