- Starring:
- Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
- Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
- Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
- Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
- Matt as Sea Smurf a Triton Paladin <sigh>
- With:
- Mike as the DM
Author’s Note: We took a break the previous week because the new DM was, apparently, simply too busy to run D&D. This turned out to be a good thing as the old DM was readmitted to hospital in the intervening week and had been released, once again, on the Thursday evening. All this is basically just another Gary excuse for being on drugs this session.
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.
Pre-session Guff
Gary relayed a tale of great pain and a huge suppository and how he had risen from his death bed once again to play D&D as it may be his last session as there’s a risk he will expire while doing it and why he still made a heroic effort to be there because D&D is more important than life itself!
Kraj decided not to attend D&D and went to an office Christmas party instead.
I don’t think I need to say any more about that.
Jake admitted to reinstalling Tabletop Simulator once again in the off chance that his supercomputer can now display green lights.
Trail of Destruction
Gnobby (Gary) picks up a small rock and a small chunk of wood he can whittle into a shape the size of a Rubik’s cube. The reason for this will become clear later.
A marching order was established in very short order. Gnomes… ‘short’ order… get it? Lolz!
I’m not actually on any drugs as I’m writing this so I have no excuses at all for that one, sorry!
Snorri (Jake), who has seven whole hit points, walked straight into a trap that he failed to perception. He was hoisted into the air on a rope and ended up dangling upside down.
The other gnomes immediately started planning a rescue effort, possibly by doing the ‘three gnomes in a raincoat’ trick (thanks for that Adam) but Gnobby (Gary) reacted with confidence and panache (it’s not just a brothel in Phlan darlings) and Eldritch Blasted the rope with style, daring, deadeye accuracy and maybe just a touch of impetuousness.
Snorri immediately plummeted towards the ground and, in a surprising show of accuracy from the drunken fighter, struck it squarely in the middle with his face taking two damage.
Oops.
The party keep moving and Gnobby (Gary) says he thinks he might, maybe, possibly have acted a tad rashly and makes a resolution to maybe, possibly act less rashly in future… but probably not. Snorri just thinks Gnobby saved his life.
Snorri, who has 4 hit points more than he needs immediately walks into another trap, a ten-foot deep hole <sigh> He lands prone but passes a dex check and most importantly does not spill any beer. He does take another point of damage though.
Cave Entrance of Destruction
The gnomes (and Matt) arrive at the entrance to a cave. A small steam flows from the cave and across the stream is a small group of bushes.
Kiara (Christina) momentarily channels Elvira and rolls a natural 20 on her perception check and spies a pair of goblins in the bushes on the other side of the stream. Roll initiative!
Adam (oh Adam) genuinely asked if they were ten foot squares when they obviously were not. Mike was slightly scathing in his response: “How can you tell? Because they are OBVIOUSLY FIVE FOOT SQUARES!”. Indeed.
Snorri failed the ridiculously easy stealth check but quite remarkably everyone else passed it. Gnobby (Gary) runs forward and throws his rock on the ground calling out “Siiiize of a boulder!” and then cast minor illusion and had a boulder appear which he then took cover behind.
Kiara (Christina) firebolts a goblin for a mighty one point of damage. It does serve to illuminate where the goblin is to the rest of the group though. Sadly, no wild magic occurred.
Snorri and Kiara both get shot for 5 damage each as it turns out there’s a second goblin. The attack causes Snorri to drop his beer. He screams in rage and returns fire, headshotting the offending goblin and killing him outright. Snorri then drops his bow and sprints forward.
When questioned on the validity of this tactic Snorri (Jake) explains that he is not interested in it any more and he has his scimitars which are all that he needs. Gary remains sceptical about the wisdom of this action, mainly because Gary can count squares and can clearly see how far Snorri is from the goblins and also knows how far Snorri can run. One of these numbers is importantly larger than the other.
The last goblin pops its head up and shoots at Snorri but misses. A volley of return fire from held actions then occurred; “We shall fight them in the shade!”.
Gnobby (Gary), who’s only damaging contribution to the campaign so far was to stab Kraj in the dick, let fly with an Eldritch Blast… and rolled a 1 <sigh>. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) also let loose a sneak attack and the Eldritch Blast hit the arrow causing neither to hit the goblin <sigh>. The Triton (Matt) and Kiara (Christina) also both missed. Well done everyone, well done.
The surviving goblin then rolled a 1 on its stealth check so now we could all see it. It is Snorri’s turn and he can’t make it across the river with his gnomish 25ft movement. Still, he has a bow so he can at least shoot the goblin… oh, wait.
Snorri (Jake) then brings proceedings to a halt for ten minutes when he decides to throw his scimitars at the goblin and neither Mike nor Gary have any fucking clue on how the rules work on that shoddy bunch of bolarks. Eventually the DM ruled and Snorri missed with his throw and has now quite successfully disarmed himself. At least he still has his beer… oh, wait.
Gnobby casts an Eldritch Blast while shouting “YOU OWE SNORRI A BEER!” and kills the last goblin.
End of an ‘interesting’ fight.
In a perfect example of why it is taking us so long to progress through this campaign, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) starts stabbing bushes in case there are any more hidden goblins. This goes on for a while as Gnobby exacerbated the issue by using Mage Hand to surreptitiously shake the bushes causing Ggnomeo to go ‘full strimmer’ and start shredding the entire area.
While this was amusing at the start it probably went a bit far so Gnobby cast Minor Illusion to mimic the death scream of the last goblin and called out to Ggnomeo “I think you got him brother!”. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sheathes his swords with satisfaction and victoriously low-fives Gnobby (they are gnomes so a high-five would be inappropriate).
Inner Cave Entrance of Destruction
Having reached the actual cave, Adam made a ‘your mom’ joke about the size of the cave entrance <sigh>
Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) checks the ground and finds tracks that indicate at least ten goblins occupy the cave.
- Triton (Matt)> I would like to say that I am amphibious and could potentially swim in and do a little bit of scouting.
- Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> Isn’t that like knee high water?
- <Knee high to a gnome even>
- DM Mike> If he wants to try it, he can.
- Triton> How deep is the water?
- DM Mike> It’s about a foot.
- Triton> So… I could be prone and just shuffle along?
- <silence as that sinks in>
So we then had a rather large Triton lay face down in a foot of water and flap around a bit. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) starts splashing water on him. Gnobby and Kiara share a look which speaks volumes about what these fuckwits are doing. Snorri finds another beer in his backpack and focuses on that instead.
- DM> So… ‘Magikarp’, what are you going to do?
- <laughter>
- Triton> I stand up!
- Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I keep splashing him!
- DM> <sigh>
Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) lies about the goblin tracks and tells the party there are at least 15 goblins in the cave and then offers to sneak inside. Gnobby goes and sits down in a bush. Snorri, remembering something from another life perhaps, something involving a glowing object tumbling out of a very similar cave, joins Gnobby in the bush.
Bridge of Stealth Destruction
The stream flows along the floor of a high tunnel leading back into the cave system. Just inside the main cave a smaller cave entrance is on the right occupied by three wolves chained to the wall. Further up the tunnel a ropey looking bridge crosses about ten feet above the stream and is being patrolled by a goblin sentry.
After a lengthy planning session, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) successfully sneak attacks the goblin with his longbow but only does 6 damage to the 7hp goblin who screams “INTRUDERS!” as he falls. The impact takes away his last hit point and kills him but that’s about the only good news. The three wolves immediately start barking loudly enough to be heard throughout the cave system. From somewhere near the cave entrance, a heartfelt “Fucking Ggnomeo!” is heard amongst other rather uncomplimentary comments about the rogue’s lack of rougueiness. The rest of the party head into the cave. Roll initiative!
Two of the wolves break their chains and Snorri (Jake) was stupid enough unfortunate enough to be the closest unstealthed player and, in technical canine combat terminology, got bit to fuck and gets KO’d. In the words of the legend Bill Paxton in Aliens: “You’re dogmeat pal!”.
Kiara (Christina) shot a wolf with a crossbow but missed. Snorri made a death save, which was nice. The Triton (Matt) laid hands on Snorri and healed him a bit. Gnobby (Gary) actually managed to do something useful and killed a wolf with his crossbow. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) double-dagger sneak attacked the second unchained wolf and hit it but failed to kill it (fucking Ggnomeo!). Kiara (Christina) shot a wolf with a crossbow but this time hit and killed it.
Only the third still-chained wolf remains and it is having a fit. There was some discussion about the ‘rightness’ of putting down the helpless but very noisy creature, especially as it calms down a bit and starts making puppy-eyes at the party.
The Triton and Gnobby ruthlessly end its life and move on with jaunty steps and light hearts. Gnobby then starts skinning the dead wolves.
Chim Chiminey of Destruction
There is a natural rock chimney running up the eastern wall with a pile of detritus at the base of it. Gnobby ascertains that not only are there turds in the pile but some are quite large. He then goes and explains to the rest of the party that he has found ‘turds of unusual size’ at the base of the chimney.
Now, at this point Gnobby (Gary) loses all interest in the chimney because he knows that we have a charisma heavy and strength light party and the odds of all of us climbing up anything remotely athletics related are extremely slim. I also expect DM Mike to ruthlessly exploit that fact during the campaign (I would!).
The Triton (Matt) has other ideas though and decides to climb the wall meaning A) He split the party B) He is climbing up a wall with a reasonable chance of falling off of it and C) If he does make it, he is likely to arrive at the top alone to meet whatever made the turds of unusual size.
Gnobby thoughtfully starts putting together a ‘landing pad’ of rubbish, dead skinned wolves and wolf pelts at the base of the chim chim cher-ee in case The Triton falls off.
Sadly this was not needed as The Triton successfully made it to the top of the chimney only to meet the alerted bugbear boss of the cave who surprise-attack natural-20 crits him for 36 damage instantly killing the Aqua Smurf.
TRITON DOWN!
TRITON DECEASED!
The body of The Triton then tumbles down the chimney and lands on the thoughtful but now rather redundant padding.
Much hilarity ensued.
Gnobby> <sigh> A moment, dear members of GNAMBLA, while we remember the sacrifice made by our dear friend and colleague… …<fails to remember his name> … ‘The Triton’. Okay, moment over.
Everyone immediately set about looting the corpse for everything he was carrying.
The DM points out that The Triton would have been okay if ‘fucking Ggnomeo’ hadn’t raised the alarm and alerted everything in the cave.
Matt was very concerned about who would look after his donkey. None of the rest of the party gave one single toss about the donkey.
It was agreed by the surviving party members that The Triton was clearly happiest when he was face down in the stream and thus it was agreed that was where they would leave the body. The DM enquired if this would be inside or outside the cave and the party swiftly agreed that carrying the body outside was waaaaaay too much effort and The Triton was laid to rest in the stream at the point that involved the most minimum amount of work.
End of session.
Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:
- – Will Matt’s new character be a gnome?
- – Will the party extract revenge for their fallen comrade upon the bugbear?
- – Will a lovestruck Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sing a street suss serenade, laying everybody low with a love song that he made?
Tune in next week to find out!