SKT Episode 33: Where the Fuck is Elvira?

Starring Avengers Anonymoose:

Adam as Joffrey the Schizophrenic Shape Shifter – It’s got to be just three carrots and a leek hasn’t it?
Kraj as Celdar; One With The Bush – Where the fuck is Elvira?
Jake as A.D.D.belas the Existential Philosopher – You ever wonder if you were the baddies?
Matt as Clay the One-Turn Wonder – I cast Expeditious Retreat and instead of retreating, I charge!
With:
Gary as the DM – I’m fairly sure being slapped in the face by a giant soggy tentacle counts as a distraction!
And not:
Elvira – The hero they decided they simply didn’t need.
Regulus – Because Joffrey said he would tank.

Author’s Note: The DM was having yet more heath issues and was rather sleep deprived. This was just one step on the road to potential disaster. There were plenty more! Also, the DM has bolded the frost in frost giant for reasons that will become apparent.

That Which Must Be Repeated: This campaign contains hard encounters. It is often not required for all of you to kill all of them in order to succeed!

Season Recap: Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval

– The party have saved the fortified village of Nightstone from goblins following an attack by Cloud Giants from a floating castle (that went east).

– The characters travelled to Triboar and on the way met a cloud giant called Zephyros who travels in a floating tower. He explained that the Ordning (which regulates giant society) is broken and the players are destined to fix it.

– They helped defend the town of Triboar from a fire giant attack and travelled to Everlund to bring word of the attack to the Harpers there. They were given access to the Harper’s teleportation network.

– They arrived at Goldenfields to find it under attack by Ogres, Bugbears and Goblins. Having fought off the attack they proceeded to seek allies against the giants and ended up (eventually) in Bryn Shander.

Pre-session Guff

Kraj informed the DM that his level 8 spell choice was Find Familiar. So that’s going to be unnecessarily tedious and chaotic going forwards.

The DM gave a few examples of what happened when Adam had summoned things in the past.

Kraj informed the DM that he wouldn’t be taking Find Familiar and would pick something else instead. Seems the DM succeeded on his Intimidation roll.

Adam arrived on time. I blame this for everything that followed… except for the one big thing that was clearly Jake’s fault.

The Afghanistan cluster fuck was discussed, aided by some memes in the Discord channel.

DM> Right, Matt’s not here, calling it off, see you next week!
<Matt arrives>
Jake> Perfect timing!
<laughter>
Matt> Hello! Why was my timing so perfect?
DM> I’ll tell you in the write up!
Jake> Fair warning, in about five minutes, my shopping is turning up.
DM> Oh ffs!
Matt> Fail!
Adam> <unintelligible but clearly abusive comment>
Jake> I told them to deliver it at half five!
DM> No, no, let’s sum this up: there are SEVEN days in a week, SIX of them don’t have D&D happening on them!

Jake could offer no good reason why he had chosen D&D day and D&D time for his grocery delivery beyond “Muh pizza!” which normally would actually be a great excuse but as we know in Jake’s case “Muh pizza!” is a margherita and not really pizza at all.

Kraj paid Adam a mild compliment and Adam had to think about what he said for a good few seconds thinking it was an insult.

All the player’s TTS pings shot up and turned orange, indicating an issue on the DM’s end. No por.. er, ‘data’ downloads were running but Steam was updating My Little Pony Online in the background and the DM had to reluctantly pause it.

DM> I haven’t slept properly in a good few days. This might be a short one.
Kraj> Wheeeey!
<silence>
<more silence>
<tumble-weed looked like it was about to blow across but then decided it just couldn’t be arsed and went home>
DM> That was not funny.
Kraj> Did no one else get that?! Aww!
DM> I think that was up there with “I thought you were playing a harp but it was a whistle”.

Matt embraced the abuse for having not turned up for six months and then gave Jake shit for going to pick up his shopping.

Some time later:

DM> How long does vegan shopping take to get in?
Adam> It’s got to be just three carrots and a leek hasn’t it?
Jake> Right, I’m back, sorry!
Matt> And some halloumi fries!
Adam> And Haribo!
Jake> Why do I sense some form of mockery?
DM> I’m surprised you didn’t hear it from the front door. Frankly, I’m surprised the delivery man wasn’t laughing at you too.

Interestingly the DM had no idea how to spell halloumi and has no intention of ever typing it again now that he been forced to find out.

As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “My local cleric told me I’d live ten years longer if I went vegetarian. I told him I was already two hundred and twelve and what was the point of living ten years longer if you have to eat shit all the time?! WHERE’S THE BEEF?!”

FFS Jake!

Loot from the big fight at the gate was duly looted, giving the players that were present about 500g each. The DM asked Jake to divide up the spoils but Jake couldn’t and didn’t want to try.

The DM then went and blamed the entire state of the planet today on Jake because if people could do basic maths they would realise the absolute bollocks they are being told.

They decided to keep the horn and put it on the wagon and Adam started wibbling at the DM about mounting options. The DM politely asked him to STFU as that was a ‘next week’ problem and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with bollocks tonight:

DM> <laughing> I know that’ a really bad state of mind for a DM!
Jake> Are you sure you want to do D&D?
DM> As sad it it sounds, this is currently the highlight of my week so, while I’m really not in the mood for it, we are damn well doing it anyway!

As before in both Triboar and Bryn Shander, a number of people approached the party and offered quests.

Quest 1 – Augrek, the deputy from the gate, wants then to go see her uncle in Ironmaster and get him to send some dorfs to defend Bryn Shander. They are warned to wait at the entrance to the area as non-dwarfs are not tolerated in Ironmaster.

DM> I’ve put down a quest light and for Jake’s supercomputer that can’t see the lights, I have put down a flag.
Jake> I don’t know why!
DM> You have a supercomputer but it can’t display lights?
Jake> It’s a fucking TTS thing! It’s not the computer!
Adam> I can see the lights.
Matt> <gleefully> I can see the lights and I’m running on a potato!
Adam> Clearly the only consistent thing here is the computer.
DM> I’m pretty sure I could load this up on my phone and see the lights…

Quest 2 – The sheriff approaches the party and asks them to patrol along the river following the frost giants retreat and to ensure they aren’t coming back. The adventurers (and Jake) can return when they have had an encounter with the frost giants.

The sheriff deputises the adventurers (and Jake) or at least the ones that turned up, and offers a reward for any frost giant heads they bring back. Badges are provided and they each now officially gain the title Deputy of Bryn Shander that they can put on their character sheets. Except Adam who admitted to stuffing up the city name so he is now presumably a deputy of Byrn Shindar or something similar. That’s not a bad character name actually…

Adam> So next week when Mike turns up we shall refer to everybody as Deputy.
DM> Okay, we are doing that again are we?
<Enthusiastic agreement occurred>
<spoilers, everyone forgot <sigh>>

Quest 3 – Beldora, the Harper contact, wanted the group to travel back to Hundlestone and tell another Harper with the unfortunate name of Thwip Ironbottom what transpired here. Thwip is a gnome.

It is not much of a quest but it does have a reward. It isn’t much of a reward but the DM must have accidentally forgotten to tell the players that.

Quest 4 – Sir Baric Nyleaf wanders over and calls out “You magnificent bastards! Well I’m off home because I’ve been stuck in this shit hole for far too long! Should you find yourselves in Waterdeep, be sure to look in on my old friend Sir Lanniver. He mentioned he was having some problems down there and could use the help of a few hardened adventurers such as yourselves.”

They also have a sort of quest in Fireshear but the DM, through masterfully subtle manipulation, persuaded the players not to go there until they did the patrol. The messaging was so subliminal I doubt they were even aware of it:

DM> So don’t go to fucking Fireshear yet! I mean you can, but you really shouldn’t.
Jake> Okay, so we’ll go to Hundlestone then Ironmaster then do the patrol?
<general agreement>
Adam> That decision was made really quick.
DM> Amazing isn’t it?
Jake> It’s because there’s only four of us.

Hmm. You know why!

Hundlestone

Having just arrived in Icewind Dale, they now walked back out of it and went back to Hundlestone, met Thwip Ironbottom, told him the news and were rewarded with a magical clockwork pet <redacted> that would follow them around.

Kraj> We don’t have a good history of companions trying to follow us around a map do we?
Adam> No. <a penny drops> What happened to my bushes and trees?!
<laughter>
DM> Oh, they are out there. I’m throwing this out now because it will be pertinent a bit later. You have been moving around at a fair clip so you have been difficult to track. The trees know where you are but haven’t been able to catch up to where you are because you keep moving.

~~The DM asked anyone who was interested in the clockwork <redacted> to roll a D20. No one wanted it so the group decision was to dump it on Regulus and then lie about it~~.

Everyone wanted the clockwork <redacted> and they all rolled for it. The DM rolled for Regulus and got a natural 20! Everyone else was really disappointed.

At this point it became a clockwork gnome, permanently bonded to him and seemingly indestructible. Well done everyone involved in making that happen.

Ironmaster

The dwarven city of Ironmaster is perched at the western edge of Icewind Dale, where the Shaengarne River flows into the Sea of Moving Ice. The city is nestled in a great cleft where the Shaengarne rushes to the sea. Its stone towers rise like spikes from the valley floor, and the rooms and passages of Ironmaster weave in and out of never-melting ice and the stone of the valley walls. Mining tunnels extend from the valley walls far below the tundra, providing the dwarves with an apparently limitless supply of iron.
Ironmaster is populated exclusively by dwarves. Members of other races are forbidden to set foot in Ironmaster Vale. Great stone menhirs marked with the city’s arms — a red anvil on a grey diamond standing on end — are arranged in a perimeter around the vale to warn away travellers who stray too close.

They decided to wait at a menhir instead of trespassing into the territory of the racists.

There was some Dwarf Lives Matter banter that will not be reproduced because of the wonderful free society we currently don’t live in.

The adventurers (and Jake) were now obsessed with meeting Thwip Ironbottom who was not the dwarf uncle but the gnome they met in Hundlestone literally two fucking minutes ago!

<sigh>

The uncle (why even bother with his name?) thanked them, said he would take the matter to the Ironmaster council and rewarded each of the players with a 100gp gem.

Off we went on patrol in Icewind Dale.

Patrol in Icewind Dale

Big lore fill-in section, skip if you want.

Icewind Dale has snow, ice, and freezing temperatures in abundance. The sun never rises far above the horizon even at the height of summer — and the height of summer is a fleeting thing. Winter here is long and ruthless.
Icewind Dale is surrounded by perilous terrain. The ice cliffs of the Reghed Glacier rise up in the east like prison walls. The towering, snow-capped peaks of the Spine of the World loom to the south. To the north and west, the Sea of Moving Ice churns bergs and floes in an endless tumult, like winter grinding its teeth in anticipation of its next freezing assault. Between these formidable obstacles lies windswept tundra dotted with settlements and the occasional small forest or stand of trees.
A singular mountain called Kelvin’s Cairn rises from the heart of Icewind Dale. During the summer, snow from Kelvin’s Cairn flows into three mineral-rich lakes: Maer Dualdon, Lac Dinneshere, and Redwaters. By midsummer, Icewind Dale shakes off the torpor of winter and comes forth in full flower. Grasses grow two or three feet high in the span of weeks. Birds flock to the marshes formed by the thawing soil, and reindeer calves fill out the herds that diminished in the winter.
Reghed barbarians follow the reindeer herds as they migrate across Icewind Dale, and dwarf miners haunt the caves and tunnels under Kelvin’s Cairn, rarely emerging except to trade ore for food. Most of Icewind Dale’s inhabitants, however, live in ten permanent settlements collectively known as Ten-Towns:
The walled town of Bryn Shander, which lies at the northern end of the Ten Trail, is the first stop for most visiting merchants and traders and by far the largest of the ten communities.
The hunting and fishing villages of Bremen, Targos, Termalaine, and Lonelywood line the shores of Maer Dualdon, which feeds into the Shaengarne River and holds seemingly countless numbers of knucklehead trout.
The villages of Dougan’s Hole and Good Mead stand a few miles apart on the north shore of Redwaters which, contrary to its name, sparkles emerald green during the day and silver in the evening.
The town of Easthaven and, nestled among the foothills of Kelvin’s Cairn, the villages of Caer-Dineval and Caer-Konig hug the shores of Lac Dinneshere, which freezes in winter.
The population of Ten-Towns is composed mostly of humans and dwarves, with the humans outnumbering the dwarves roughly twenty to one. In times of great peril, the leaders of Ten-Towns, known as town speakers, meet at Bryn Shander to discuss solutions to their problems. If one of the smaller settlements comes under attack by a threat too great to overcome, its inhabitants are trained to flee to Bryn Shander and take shelter behind its walls.

There are eight random encounters and the DM decided to have the players roll. Just for reference, this is what they are rolling for. Note that just because something is listed, it isn’t automatically a fight. Which is rather a good thing if they roll a 1:

1 – Ancient White Dragon
2-5 – Crag Cats
6-8 – Frost Giants
9-12 – Reghed Barbarians
13-15 – Giant Elk
16-17 – Ten Towns Scouts
19-19 – Yeti Pack
20 – Young Remorhaz

Rolling a 1 is obviously the pick of the bunch but Adam looked up a picture of a young remorhaz and rather regretted it.

Jake was the first on the list and he rolled… a 6 <sigh> Well that was two sessions of content just pissed away. Thanks Jake!

Fucker.

The adventurers (and Jake) encountered three frost giants walking along the ~~bank~~ ~~shore~~ beach of the river (we are up north after all).

Pucker Factor = 4

The DM Needs to Explain Something

Frost Giants have 15AC, 138 Hit points, get a single ranged attack that deals 28 damage or two greataxe attacks that deal 25 damage each, both types of attack have a +9 to hit. They are also CR8 which indicates that a single giant will be a threat to a party of four level 8 adventurers, however the adventurers are supposed to get through 5 or 6 encounters a day. As this is the sole encounter, they can throw everything at the giants.

Balancing combat in D&D is a bit of an art form and, from time to time, the DM gets it all wrong or the players play it all wrong. I have a fairly simple philosophy on this; if the DM fucked it up, it’s best not to let the players die because of it. However, if the players fucked it up, it is time for some memorials and a re-roll.

Right from the start of this encounter, the DM got a squirrelly feeling that something was wrong due to a few factors:

A. We only had four players.
B. The DM was really tired.
C. We were ‘winging it’ to a certain extent.
D. Kobold Fight Club was down.

The first three got us into it, the last one stopped us getting out of it. At least out of it early enough to matter. Consequently the DM had to do a bit of dancing on this one, as you will see.

Also the DM figured as these were giants from the fight at Bryn Shander they, and their armour, were a bit damaged and they had 1 less AC and 20 less HP than normal.

Roll Initiative!

DM> It seems summer in a loft conversion is not the best place to leave a dry-wipe board with writing on it. Oh well, its nothing a wet-wipe can’t fix.
Adam> Is Jake going to to fix it for you?
DM> <genuinely> That was a bit uncalled for…
Jake> <mournfully> What the…?

Initiative was rolled and that squirrelly feeling the DM had suddenly got a lot stronger. Karma from the above conversation may have played a part in the rolls with Joffrey only getting a 4 and the giants going first. This was going to hurt and so the DM attempted to mitigate it a bit:

DM> Would you like either Regulus or Elvira to have accompanied you on this journey?
Adam> <dismissively> No, they aren’t deputies!
Matt> No, we can do this!
<remember that>
Jake> Gary, in your professional opinion do you think we might need them?
DM> I genuinely have no idea… hang on, give me a sec.
Adam> Kobold Fight Club! The way I see it, if they didn’t turn up and we died, our new characters can hold it over them for the rest of the campaign!
Jake> I agree! Continue!
Kraj> There’s a good chance that me and Jake might roll better on new characters.
Jake> But I just got my Moonblade!

Some excerpts from the discussion that followed while the DM was setting up:

– A red pen for this one… red like your blood on the snow!
– Level 8 is pretty strong!
– We have all of our resources as well!
– I can throw a lot of shit at these people!
– If we are going to die, I don’t want to die to some wussed-out version!
– Its fine, we’ll live!

Abelas> I have a lot of escape. If someone without a lot of escape wants to stay by me to get teleported out..
Clay> How about you stay by me when I charge?
Abelas> I aint going anywhere near those giants!
Celdar> You can Moonblade from back here?!
Abelas> I have 42 hit points!
Celdar> I have one more!

The players that turned up declined to take along the characters of those that did not.

Joffrey> Whoever dies in this battle has to come back as a gnome though!
Abelas> Deal!
Celdar> Deal!
Clay> Deal!
DM> <muttering> Hey-Zeus Aithch fucking…
Joffrey> Right, Fireball on us yeah?

Jake spent five minutes ~~ranting~~ bemoaning the fact that he picked the most stat diverse wizard class, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he rolled spectacularly crap stats in nearly every category. He actually started arguing that he should do the same damage as a fighter since he too was in melee.. sorry ‘meelee’ (we are up north!) and the realised that full meelee damage with Fireballs was a bit stupid and that he had argued himself round in a circle and then into a big hole. Well done Jake, I lol’d. “I want the power but not the consequences!” Don’t we all?

On Me Head!

A giant throws a boulder at Joffrey and hits:

DM> That is 28 blunt damage.
<slightly shocked silence>
Celdar> <a tad unsympathetically> You did say you were going to tank!
Joffrey> I am, I can take two more of those!

The next giant threw a rock at Celdar with disadvantage due to range. The DM rolled a 20 and a 19. “Well fuck!” exclaimed the squished rogue. Celdar used uncanny dodge to halve the damage.

The last giant threw a rock at Clay with disadvantage. The DM rolled a low die of 11 but the giants get +9 to hit. It hit Clay.

Three boulders thrown, two at disadvantage, all three hit. Yeah, this was starting to look bad.

Pucker Factor 6.

Kraj> Where the fuck is Elvira?
DM> Would you like to add Elvira to this fight?
Adam> No!
Matt> No!
Kraj> Sheeeeit…
DM> Jake?
Jake> We must adventure!
DM> <sigh>
Jake> Oh <heathen deity> This is that really stupid thing that Gary always talks about! We are going to die!
Kraj> But the DM is in a great sympathetic mood!
<I actually was, otherwise this would have been much, much worse 🙂 >

Maximum Effort

DM> Clay?
Clay> I cast Expeditious retreat and instead of retreating, I charge!
Abelas> Oh Hey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist Matt!
DM> Well you aren’t going to beat them at range…
Abelas> I know, I admire the bravery!

Clay goes in hard with the Giant Slayer Battleaxe. He hit a 118HP giant for 11 damage. His second attack also hits for a further 17 damage and knocks it prone. ACTIONNNNN SUUUUUURGE!

Before Clay could make his second round of attacks, things started going a bit pear shaped:

Abelas> I have a plan!
<groans>

Clay then misses by quite a lot and then hit by quite a lot for a further 25 damage. That was a pretty damn fine first turn from the Battlemaster there. Things were looking good!

Pucker Factor = 5

DM> What are you going to do Celdar, that’s going to save the day?
Celdar> Umm…
Abelas> I’m about to do something which will either work perfectly or do nothing!

Celdar now wants to hide behind a stick-thin tree in the middle of an open plain. Because obviously, once you step behind it, the giants will have no idea whatsoever where you are, will they? <sigh>

Celdar just about made it to the tree line where there’s a bit more shrubbery. He failed the stealth check anyway. He did however, nail a sneak attack on the giant that Clay flattened despite the roll being made at disadvantage because the giant was prone. Good shot!

Celdar> Okay that is… six.. nine damage!
DM> <sounding very weary indeed> Sneak attack.
Celdar> Oh yeah!
DM> <sigh> that was the point of shooting that one in the first place!
Celdar> It was!

Hey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist.

Abelas proudly announces he is about to cast… Evards Black Tentacles!

The DM yawned.

But he was very tired.

Abelas very, very carefully measured out a 20ft sphere to hit two giants and miss Clay:

Abelas> Squirming, ebony tentacles fill a 20-foot square… OH FUCK!
<much hilarity ensues>
Abelas> Just pretend its a square!

Evard’s Black Tentacles – Squirming, ebony tentacles fill a 20-foot square on ground that you can see within range. For the duration, these tentacles turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain.

When a creature enters the affected area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, the creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 3d6 bludgeoning damage and be restrained by the tentacles until the spell ends. A creature that starts its turn in the area and is already restrained by the tentacles takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage.

A creature restrained by the tentacles can use its action to make a Strength or Dexterity check (its choice) against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself.

Restrained – A restrained creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have disadvantage. The creature has disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws.

We really should have read that Restrained bit at the time…

Abelas> Er… that’s not actually going to stop them throwing rocks…
Joffrey> <flatly> No.
Abelas> Oh well, I’m just going to keep going!
<The DM is picturing Mike’s face when he reads this bit of the write-up>

The DM marks out the tentacle are with lamp posts. Later in the session he remembered something and we got this:

Summoned and Unsummoned

Joffrey summons a fire elemental! The DM put the marginally awesome large elemental from the Monster Manual on the table. The DM then takes that one off the table when it transpires that Druid versions are a bit shittier than the actual real, proper versions.

Adam> Oh, the fire elemental can move through an opening 1 inch wide…
DM> No, no, no, no, no…
Adam> How big is a giant’s…
DM> No!

Adam proudly explains the fire elemental stats to everyone, turns into Panic Snake and has the fire elemental attack giant 1 (the one not in the tentacles) for 26 damage whilst explaining how chuffed he is that the spells scales so well.

The giant hit the fire elemental with its greataxe twice for 50 damage and unsummoned it with extreme prejudice.

<shocked silence>

Pucker Factor = 8

Well That Happened…

Giant 3, the one Clay knocked down, picked himself up and attacked Clay twice with a greataxe. The DM rolled a 10 and a 20.

DM> Oooh!
Abelas> Jey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist!
Kraj> Fuuuuck!

Clay’s AC is 18 and the giants get +9 to hit so with the crit Clay wears three greataxe attacks for 75 damage. Seventy. Five. Damage. That’ll make anyone’s eyes water.

FIGHTER DOWN!

<shocked silence>

Pucker Factor 10!

At this point we all remembered the tentacles and the fuck up happened <sigh>

What should have happened: at the start of the giant’s turn they make a save for the tentacles, they both failed the save, they both take damage from the tentacles, they are both now restrained and they both now attack with disadvantage.

What actually happened: the first giant attacked normally, then we remembered the tentacles, then they failed the save then they took the damage. And that was it.

Shit.

Sorry Matt!

Abelas> They take 17 damage each… which actually isn’t that bad! And they are restrained. Which doesn’t help Matt at all.

It actually would have helped Matt rather a lot but the tired DM missed it entirely.

News Alert: And now a short message from our commander in chief, DM Biden:

“My fellow D&Ders, as the person in charge of this operation I take full and total personal responsibility for these unfortunate events. I am responsible! But it was all ~~Trump’s~~ Ableas’ fault! C’mon man!”

The DM promptly attempts to move the second giant, only to be reminded (again) that it was restrained by Jake who read out the all of the effects of Restrained except the bit about attacking at disadvantage <sigh>

The restrained giant used its action that it was going to spend throwing a large rock at Joffrey’s face to instead try and break free. It scored a 14! Alas, Abelas finally now has a spell save of 15. It was just meant to be.

Jake> I feel Gary is going easy one us because he just one-tapped Clay!
DM> I’m actually feeling really sorry for Matt; its the first time he’s got to play in ages, he got one attack chain off and then got flattened!

The only ‘healer’ they have is Joffrey and he can’t cast heal spells in Panic Snake form and he goes just before the giants. Clay goes just after so even if Joffrey does heal Clay, a giant is highly likely to just twat him unconscious again.

Kraj became the new Christina as Jake and Adam spent approximately 17 hours planning dropping shapes and healing and concentration when it was neither of their turns. Eventually Celdar does manage a sneak attack against a giant because as the DM put it “I’m fairly sure being slapped in the face by a giant soggy tentacle counts as a distraction”.

Abelas drops a Vitriolic ~~Square~~ Sphere on all three giants. Two of the giants pissed all over the save from a great height, much to Abelas’ disgust, but he managed a 30 damage roll out of max possible 40, so that was nice.

This is not the time nor the place for an existential crisis!

The middle giant next to Clay, who now has three hit points left, drops his axe and looks like he is about to run away. Just as things are starting to go well, Jake the unadventrous has a crisis of faith and starts to question his very reason for existing:

Jake> So they’re not trying to kill us? Just FYI.
<I have no idea what this meant>
Jake> What are we doing here?
<Ah, man’s, or in this case elf’s eternal question: why are we here and what are we doing? Mybe Drikk can help us out on this one: “YOU ARE FIGHTIN’ GIANTS FOR PHAT LOOT AND MAD EXPEES, BUTTERCUP!! GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT!>
Jake> I realise that this is the wrong time to be asking this…
<Then don’t, duh>
Jake> …but why are we patrolling here? Is it just looking out for ice giants?
<I.. <sigh> first of all it is fucking FROST giants. It has been fucking FROST giants tangentially (great word!) since the start of the fucking campaign and then quite intensely for the last two fucking sessions! Secondly, maybe you should consider paying a little bit more fucking attention when the party is accepting quests from people!>

So, having got past his existential crisis of “Who am I, why am I here and why does the DM suddenly hate me so much?” Jake now moves on to another existential crisis having, apparently, completely forgotten what happened in last week’s session (and a bit of the one before) <sigh>.

Jake> You ever wonder if you were the baddies?
<The DM now has a headache to go along with the fatigue. There’s also a sizeable dent in his desk.>
DM> <deep, deep sigh>They just attacked the fucking town!
Jake> Oh yeah!

Hey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist, I’m just going to call him TLDRbelas for the rest of the campaign session… or maybe ADDbelas, yeah, that’s a good one!

DM> <with a really slight, barely perceptible trace of sarcasm> You could always run back to town, hand Bryn Shander over to the frost giants and request the griffon lady get you an air evac from the embassy. That might not go down too well with the locals that get left behind though. Oh and you’ll have to hand over all your weapons too.

Having spent his last turn becoming Panic Snake, Joffrey now sadly stops being Panic Snake. He casts Blight or some such Druidic spell (I can’t be arsed to go back and listen again!) on the upper giant. The DM rolls a 20 for the save but it still took 16 damage.

Dominwhatnow?

The upper giant fails the save and is still restrained. A glimmer of light has appeared in the darkness. The giant that dropped his axe busts out of the tentacles and runs away. The lower giant is so disgusted with him for doing this, he moves and attacks the coward! He missed with both attacks. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

The DM had been reading the section on ~~ice~~ frost giant society and felt that was justified. The added bonus was the two giants are now considered to be hostile to each other so Celdar gets a high-damage sneak attack in against the high-health lower giant.

ADDbelas drops a mediocre Fireball on all three giants and kills the runner and the upper giant.

ADDbelas> <rather pompously> To show my domination, I come out from behind my cover!
<disbelieving laughter>
Celdar> “To show my domination”?!
<more laughter>

It was now noticed that the last giant had walked into the tentacles. It was generally agreed that the giant would have seen the giant black sloppy tendrils of doom and wouldn’t have been so stupid as to walk right into them so his position was adjusted.

With only one giant left the pucker factor has subsided significantly. Clay spent yet another turn on the floor though. The last giant decided to repay ADDbelas’ pomposity with a boulder to the face but the pussy shielded instead of taking it like a ~~man~~ elf.

Celdar steps up and longbows the lone ~~ice~~ frost giant but there’s no allies next to it so no sneak attack damage:

Celdar> At the risk of being called a dick, don’t I get sneak attack from being hidden?
DM> You’re a dick!
Celdar> <sigh>
DM> <reluctantly> But yes, you are hidden and yes, you do get sneak attack damage.

ADDbelas realises that taunting something that can one-shot you on a crit was probably not the brightest idea, panics slightly and drops a 23 point Lightning Bolt on a ~~ice~~ frost giant that only had 6 hit points left. The last giant falls to the floor.

And relax.

Giant heads are chopped off and hung on the wagon and they all piled into Kraj’s bush to have some tea and eat some biscuits (short rest) and then they headed back to town.

The DM commiserated with Matt on his outstanding Matt style session. Matt pointed out that “We don’t play D&D to roll dice, we play D&D to listen to people take the piss out of Jake and Adam!”

Entitlement

On return to town they are met by a very happy sheriff who pays them 100 gold per head and rewards each of them with the title ‘Defender of Icewind Dale’. They also retain their deputy status.

The sheriff promises to spread the word of their heroism throughout Ten Towns and as long as they don’t sully their reputation, they will be treated to the highest hospitality anywhere in the region.

The next day the Speaker returns and they are granted an audience with her. She thanks them again and gifts them a letter to her aunt who is the captain of a ship called the Dancing Wave. This will allow them charter the ship for free should they A) need a ship and B) be able to find the Dancing Wave.

DM> Okay, I’ll just do a little bit of the last quest…
Adam> I have to shoot off, sorry Gary.
DM> Well fuck you, we’ll do it next week then!

End of Session.

Next time on Ten-foot Squares:

– Will Clay make more than one attack?
– Will ADDbelas remember who is is, where he is and why he is there?
– How much will they rub the ‘Deputy’ titles in Mike’s face?

Tune in next week to find out!