- Starring:
- Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
Kraj as Princess Gnob the Gnome Warlock- Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
- Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
- Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
- Matt as Vaseline the Gnome Cleric
- With:
- Mike as the DM
Author’s Note: Fairly short this week (yay!) as the fights were fairly perfunctory… unlike the social interactions <sigh>
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.
– Snorri was killed when the DM and Gary were being sarcastic while Kraj (fucking Kraj!) decided to go AFK without saying anything and then never asked the obviously important question when he got back: “Who am I stabbing and why?”
Pre-session Guff
Jake is depressed at having to cook for himself as his new postcode doesn’t exist for the delivery companies. There was much genuine sympathy… at least from the guys, I don’t think Christina was that impressed.
Jake’s new character is a Paladin who worships Lathander. The next attempted sacrifice to an evil devil god should be interesting.
Whilst waiting for DM Mike to get his PC sorted, Jake and Gary embarked upon a lengthy and detailed discussion of 7 Days to Die server settings which the others must have found simply fascinating judging by the sighs of what must have been disappointment when Mike finally interrupted to say he was ready to start the session.
Kraj decided not to turn up and not to tell anyone why he didn’t turn up. Turns out he had the sniffles and his mum said he was too poorly to attend.
He may also have had Covid.
Exposition
Some role playing takes place. It goes about as well as usual.
DM Mike recapped the previous session and Gnobby (Gary) was unfairly maligned with rolling a critical medicine fail when that was in fact, fucking Kraj first and then Vaseline (Matt) second.
Jake’s new paladin, Gnorman Nosebiter, makes his way along the road in search of his brother Snorri and runs into Lesgo and Brandon who direct him along the trail to Cragmaw Hideout. Gnorman eventually catches up to the party who are gathered outside the entrance to the cave (once again) exactly where they started two weeks ago except now two gnomes are dead and Ggnomeo is bleeding out on the floor.
Gnobby has laid out Snorri’s body and taken two beers from his backpack, one of which he placed in Snorri’s hands before enjoying a quiet moment with his lost friend and thinking dark thoughts.
When Gnorman introduces himself, Gnobby hands him a beer and says “He died as he lived… drunk”. Gnorman hands the beer back as he thinks Lathander would not approve.
Gnorman then asks Gnobby directly how his brother died and Gnobby slope-shouldered the answer onto Gnob, who was missing because Kraj had a slight cough and had neither been able to walk it the fuck off, nor indeed suck it the fuck up (Princess). Shocking really.
Vaseline (Matt), who STILL has not added his character to the D&D Beyond campaign and so will continue to be called Vaseline, attempts to tell Gnorman that his brother died honourably until DM Mike points out that is an obvious lie and requires a deception check. Gnorman insight checks Vaseline and fails to detect anything wrong with the answer. Gnobby is sure Asmodeus now has a hold on Vaseline’s soul for lying in his favour.
Gnobby then attempts to recruit Gnorman into GNAMBLA and starts to recount events so far:
- Gnobby> Potential brother, we haven’t had a lot of success finding any artifacts of Balavar… <thinks about it>… but then we haven’t really started looking yet.
- <laughter>
- Gnobby> There might be some in this cave, probably not, but we have rescued this gentleman <points at Sildar> but our friend Gundren might still be in there.
- Gnorman> I see..
- Gnobby> However, there is something quite big in the cave that has taken out…
- <Gary starts to realise where the sentence is going and tries to stop but can’t>
- Gnobby> … our previous… paladin…
- <laughter, Gary loses it>
- Gnobby> … in one… hit…
- Gnorman> Hmm…
- Gnobby> <still lost it> …and I’m just… going to shut up!
Despite the less than stellar attempt to sell the mission, Gnorman decides to join anyway.
Once More Unto The Stream of Death
The gnomes enter the cave once again with Gnorman taking the lead and Gnobby bravely bringing up the rear.
DM Mike takes pity on the party and we don’t go through the whole ‘getting onto the bridge’ thing again.
DM Mike then puts the boot in and reminds Christina that on week one as the last goblin was running away to his wife and baby, Kiara had promised that if they ran into that baby she would look after it. This turns out to be the baby that Vaseline rescued last week.
DM Mike asks if anyone wishes to remind Kiara of that promise. Jake and Matt duck the issue because they have new characters who didn’t hear it. Adam complains that Ggnomeo can barely breathe and Gnobby avoids it because he doesn’t care and thinks there’s enough drama and secrets going on anyway. Besides, how would they know this was that baby?
Ah, the first rule of DMing; they never do what you want them to do.
DM Mike attempts to guilt trip Kiara/Christina into taking the baby but Kiara gives not one toss and Vaseline retains parentship of the child.
At this point there is still no Kraj and we still didn’t know why and Gary states that if something bad has happened to Kraj he could get quite choked up and there may even be tears… for about a minute and he will then go and loot all Kraj’s stuff in 7 Days to Die. Jake, who is not at all bitter about the death of Snorri, offers to come and build a giant dick-shaped memorial on the server.
Okay, we are now over an hour into the session and we have moved from the entrance to the bridge.
ICU
At the end of the bridge they didn’t go to last week, Gnobby spots two goblins in the distance. The first one seems to be pretending not to notice the group while the second one is hiding in the shadows behind the first.
Gnobby suggests to Ggnomeo that he sneak-attack assassinate the first one to kick off proceedings. Jake/Gnorman objects to this as he might be friendly. Gnobby and Ggnomeo both sigh deeply at a perfect plan ruined by guilt-tripping morality. Planning commences.
Adam is fairly committed to just killing the goblins but Jake is absolutely sure that the goblin pretending he can’t see us is our friend. Thus, instead of launching a sudden surprise attack with advantage, Gnobby somewhat reluctantly waves at the pretending goblin to try and get its attention. DM Mike asks everyone to roll initiative <sigh>.
Apparently the goblins were pretending not to see the party in order to try and surprise them.
Fucking Jake.
So instead of Ggnomeo leading off with a surprise sneak attack for a fuck-ton of damage (imperial, not metric), Gnobby cuts loose with an Eldritch Boast that does 1 point of damage. One.
We now get a weird kind of fight where the ranged party members (everyone but Gnorman) try and shuffle around each other on the bridge while Gnorman does exactly what Snorri used to do and charges headlong into the fray.
Unfortunately, a third goblin was hiding just off the bridge and so now Gnorman was a bit fucked as the rest of the party left him to face-tank a trio of goblins while they hid around a corner in between firing variously effective attacks downrange.
The three goblins were finished off without too much fuss but at the expense of most of Gnorman’s hit points. The last goblin with only two hit points remaining was killed when Gnorman, in technical melee combat terminology ‘twatted it’, but only rolled a 1 for damage. However, Jake proudly exclaimed “It still hits for three damage though… maths, bitch!”
Oh My, What Big teeth You Have
They approach the final area of the cave which connects to the wolf den and the chimney which The Triton fell out of. Despite having just carried the goblin baby into a fight, concern was now raised about carrying the goblin baby into a fight <sigh>.
A discussion was held on what to do with the baby. A quite long discussion. Gnobby’s plan of throwing the baby into the cave first as a distraction was vetoed by the fun police paladin <sigh>
Fucking Jake.
Discussions were held on leaving it next to the water, then next to the rock which was next to a drop, then on whose fault it was that we were even having this discussion. Gary asked Future Gary to see how long this took. 8 minutes. It felt like 80.
The two gnomes with high AC had really low HP so Gnobby, who has crap AC but full HP, and who realised the logical inevitability of it all tentatively bravely stepped forward towards the cave entrance to trigger whatever the fuck was in there.
DM Mike spent twenty minutes rolling various dice for all the various crap that was in the cave. The upshot was that Gnobby’s impressive stealth roll evaded just about everything.
Sadly ‘just about’ was not good enough and having perceived two goblins in the corner Gnobby then, in technical canine combat terminology, gets ‘bit to fuck’ by a giant wolf who, as DM Mike described it, started ‘gnashing on his face’ <sigh>.
As the wolf was busy eating Gnobby’s face right off, Kiara (Christina) let loose with a held action and rolled a 1 which DM Mike said would be used to make a wild magic surge.
The gnomes are either all a bit buggered health wise or just have low HP anyway and Christina manages to roll a 0 on her first D10. Fireball is a 6 or 7 on the wild magic table. There was a tiny little bit of swearing as the odds of everyone dying suddenly went from fifty-to-one to five-to-one.
Breath was held.
Christina rolled.
Jubilation, relief and more swearing as Christina rolled a 5. Phew.
A small clockwork creature was summoned:
- DM Mike> Does anybody have a planar background?
- Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I have an edgy background!
- <groans>
- DM Mike> <muttering> …and you’ll be the first to die…
The wolf got killed by the party but it died on Gnobby’s prone body. Ggnomeo rolls an absurdly high stealth score, follows it with an absurdly high attack roll and follows that with an absurdly high damage roll and hits a goblin for almost three times its hit points.
Well Played DM
DM Mike describes sweary, rocky noises coming from the right (where the chimney is) but for some reason no one put two and two together. Gary didn’t even hear Mike say it because he was distracted by something funny but not suitable for reproduction because the world is now a better place. Just look up Lord Rotherham.
The second goblin was killed in very short order and then we spent an inordinate amount of time tactically stealthing and searching for whatever was big and killed The Triton that was obviously also hidden in the room somewhere. Except he wasn’t because he ran away down the chimney. That did not prevent the party spending twelve minutes looking for it <sigh>
I suspect Mike was secretly pissing himself laughing while all this was going on.
As soon as it became apparent that the boss Klarg had actually done a runner, Gnobby legged it outside and set off the second water trap unleashing another tidal wave down the tunnel but it was way too late, Klarg had escaped.
Gary blamed Kraj and asked if anyone disagreed. No one did.
Fucking Kraj <sigh>
The party departed the cave and, much to the consternation of Gary and Mike, on the way out Jake reminded Matt about the abandoned stored child. Matt let Jake off the hook by saying he had a post-it note stuck on his monitor so he wouldn’t forget.
The group gather themselves outside, return to the cart with some looted crates and head off to Phandalin.
Matt had to leave and Kraj couldn’t be arsed to turn up so they both missed levelling up; DING DING! LEVEL TWO!
End of session.
Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:
- – How will Gnob answer Gnorman’s questions about Snorri’s death?
- – If he tells the truth, what will Gnorman do?
- – If he lies, what will the rest of the party do?
- – What completely avoidable but now inevitable drama awaits?!
Tune in next week to find out!