The DM had a cold (it was August <sigh>) and was doing a pretty good Barry White impression. Kraj turned up late, also had a cold and outdid the DM’s voice so much that the DM had to turn his bass down to stop shit vibrating off the desk whenever Kraj was talking.
A Benjamin Encounter
After defeating Captain Squint the party left the now pirate-free Port Llast and travelled down the coast where they encountered Benjamin and Lady Miranda heading north along the High Road at some speed. Benjamin explains he won a high stakes poker game which included the deed to a nearby estate ‘Craggy Bottom’ which he gifts to the party.
Benjamin also explains they are being pursued by the Waterdeep guard (“Must dash darlings!”) over a ‘misunderstanding’ involving cheating at cards and abducting Miranda and then they take off up the road.
Benjamin> Fly Fandango! Fly like the wind!
The pursuing guard captain, who seems on quite good terms with Benjamin, stops to chat with the adventurers (and Jake) and suggests they get the deed ratified in Waterdeep.
Spoiler; they forgot to do this <sigh>.
DM> The lieutenant flushes slightly and says “Sir, I think this is Avengers Anonymoose! That one is Mister Regoolus the invulnerable! <He whispers>They say he is the chosen one sir! <some sniggering occurs> That one looks like Clay the master of battle tactics and there is Mistress Elvira who they say cannot miss! We have Celdar who is only seen when he wants to be and Joffrey ‘the strange’ who does ‘things’ with dead pigeons sir! And finally that one looks to be Abelas the master duellist who has to disguise himself as a half-arsed wizerd to avoid being constantly challenged in the street!”
Craggy Bottom
They arrived at Craggy Bottom to find a bunch of dwarven caravan guards had teamed up with some remnants from the Dandy Highwaymen and had set up a still. They were using the remarkably pure water from the nearby mountain stream to brew some high-quality alcohol.
They were also under attack by an orc tribe.
The party handily defeated the orcs and came to an agreement with the dwarves, allowing them to build an inn and a brewery on the land. In exchange the dwarves will act as guards for the ruined estate and cut the party in for a percentage of the profits from the inn/distillery.
As Adam had decided he couldn’t be bothered to turn up for D&D (I don’t think I need to say any more about that) it was also stipulated by the party that, as a condition of the lease, the inn would never be allowed to sell milk.
Clint Torres> Right, milk is off the menu lads!
<drunken cheers>
Waterdeep
Having finally arrived in Waterdeep, Abelas gets challenged to a duel in the street! The challenger, Sinjin Farquhar, is a relative of ‘Cousin Tarquin’ whom Abelas allegedly killed by cheating in a duel on a cloud giant’s tower. Abelas attempts to duel the stranger but realises fairly quickly that his tactics are somewhat lacking and promptly goes full-Rincewind and starts thunderstepping around the streets of Waterdeep whilst damaging the hapless duellist who is fruitlessly trying to chase him down.
While Abelas was successfully “DPS running away” from Farquhar, Regulus and Clay engage in a stare off with the duellist’s guards. Having taken an Abelas thunderstep without flinching they win this mini-competition handily. A certain amount of flexing and took place and the word “Rarrr!” was used extensively.
Abelas’ thunderstepping proves remarkably effective and Farqhar gets knocked out. Abelas declines to finish him off and his guards carry the unconscious duellist away. However, one of the guards promises Abelas he hasn’t heard the last of this.
Roaringhorn Estate
The party deliver Sirac to his father’s friend, Lord Rorainghorn at his estate where a party is taking place. Lord Roaringhorn turns out to be a Harper. After some discussion of events not pertinent to this campaign Sirac joins the party as a pacifist support cleric and Lord Roaringhorn gifts the party some magic items to use in their adventures. the deputies (and Mike) rolled for these. That did not turn out particularly well.
Abelas> <mournfully> I feel it should be harder to roll 4 on a d100
The DM rolled for Joffrey and got a Potion of Waterbreathing and the party thought it would be hilarious to give it to the person who needs it least instead of the Druid, so Regulus now owns it.
<sigh> We are such a bunch of <expletive deleted>s
At the party Celdar is invited to dance by a beautiful dark-haired lady calling herself Isabella. She attempts to ascertain where the group are heading next but gets nothing out of the rogue despite Regulus urging Celdar to say “Your bedroom” <sigh>. Whilst checking his pockets after the encounter, Celdar finds a wooden coin marked with the emblem of a golden goose. He couldn’t remember if he had it before or not.
Having shopped and rested, the party reunited with Harshnag and headed back up north to the Eye of the Allfather.
The second part of the Captain Squint fight took place aboard the Shady Grey, trapped in a pocket dimension. The adventurers (and Jake) defeated the undead pirate captain and obtained the means to recover his lost treasure in Port Llast.
Really Important Stuff –
This episode is brought to you from the DM’s loft…
WHICH IS HOTTER THAN THE SURFACE OF THE SUN!
This may go some way to explain the DM’s testiness this session; I hate you all AND I’m hot!
Matt and Adam both decided that family was more important than D&D. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.
Jake played Plank as Matt decided not to turn up.
Jake-Plank critted the Master at Arrrms and used a follow-up trip attack to knock him prone. Elvira was up next however and thus had to make her ranged attacks at disadvantage.
Mistakes were made…
Jake-Plank also tried to cheese a crit on the trip attack [sigh]. The DM politely corrected the player and we quickly moved on.
The Master at Arrrms summoned three sword-wraith pirates but Kraj obviously thought that was way too many and hit the first one with a main hand sneak-attack crit (ouch) and followed that up by showing off and rolling a pair of 20s for his off-hand follow up.
Overkill
noun
1. The amount by which destruction or the capacity for destruction exceeds what is necessary.
Also see: ‘Kraj once a year’.
Jake-Plank channelled Adam and spunked everything Clay had before we even got to the end boss. We then had another ‘Parlay’ lair action and one of the wraiths nearly manages to convince Plank to just give up.
Squinty the cabin boy finishes off the Master at Arrrrms with a kukri shiv to the kidneys and The Duke came out to play.
The Duke is a heavily modified DeathLock and he drops the DM’s favourite spell: Hunger of Hadar. He casts the cold black sphere of acidic tentacles on himself.
Rather surprisingly it turns out that The Duke is immune to cold and resistant to acid but he is still blinded. We then had an extended discussion in which the players felt that a room full of blindfolded people would attack each other normally and the DM felt that was utter bollocks.
The DM politely and attentively listened to Mike’s well thought out and presented argument and then ignored everything he said and ruled against. Mike is technically right on this one by the way, it’s just ‘technically right’ doesn’t overcome ‘no fucking way that happens for real’.
A certain amount of expeditious retreating took place, followed by a certain amount of attacking with disadvantage which slowed down Elvira not at all and The Duke did not last long.
Finally they came face to face with Captain Squint himself who had an AC of 21 and cast Shield the first time he was attacked. The five players seemed unhappy at having to face off against a single opponent that has the same levels of AC as they do. Shame.
What they don’t know is that Squint had a bunch of ‘once per day abilities’ and Shield was one of them so they got paranoid. That was a terrible shame too.
Abelarrrse consequently threw a lightning bolt down range that deliberately hit Old Iron Leg as well as Squint. This had consequences as Squint was pretty much forced to attack Old Iron Leg and rolled a 19 and a 20, hitting the lightning-ravaged artificer for a fuck-ton (imperial, not metric) of damage.
Despite getting off to a good start, Squint started losing the damage race and eventually succumbed to a Kraj off-hand stab and the good Captain fled to his phylactery but Old Iron Leg used his rocket boots to jet onto the quarterdeck and he put a radiant-infused fist right through the lamp.
Kraj pointed out that this was quite fitting as Regulus let the bugger out in the first place.
A ghostly scream was heard and then the fog rose and the players found themselves back in Port Llast.
And then just as quickly they found themselves back on the ship with the fog only starting to rise as the DM forgot all about the loot [sigh]. Loot was looted but the real treasure awaits next week.
Important Verbalisations –
DM> Right, so fuck you and your fucking cheese, cheese-monkey!
DM> How much damage?
Jake> Four damage?
DM> Sorry, didn’t quite catch that…
Jake> Four. four damage.
DM> Nope, still didn’t get it, it sounded like ‘four’…
Mike> I can’t actually do as low as four…
Jake> [sigh] This. This is why I don’t hit stuff with a sword.
Pirate Wraith> Look mate, why don’t you just give up? Jump overboard and swim away! You don’t want to be partied up with this bunch of losers! This fucker takes all the fun out of boss fights, this guy just can’t hit shit, this loser carries around a sword and never uses it, this one never misses, how interesting is that?! Just give up, you know you want to.
Old Iron Leg> Er… yeah, I think I agree with all that!
Jake-Plank> [sigh] what do I need to roll?
Old Iron Leg> That is the end of my go. See? I might have high armour class but I don’t do a lot… oh and er… he has disadvantage on any attacks other than at me.
Squinty> At the risk of being cheesy, and I’m not trying to be cheesy…
[Kraj immediately tires to be very cheesy indeed]
Squinty> … can I bonus action hide to offset the blind?
DM> [sigh] How do you hide in complete darkness?
Squinty> Very easily!
Old Iron Leg> He’s got an AC of 21?!
DM> [smugly] Yep!
Old Iron Leg> Wow!
DM> Yeah, that’s like cheese levels of AC, right?
Abelarrrse> Mike, how dextrous are you?
Old Iron leg> Erm…
Abelarrrse> Well, how conductive are you?
Abelarrrse> And so 25 to Squint.
DM> It’s only 12 to Captain Squint because he happens to be resistant to magic.
Abelarrrse> Fair play!
Squinty> You dirty….
Abelarrrse> Ooookay then… another lightning bolty wassisname from storm thingy.
[silence]
Abelarrrse> Er, that made sense in my head.
DM> Squinty?
Squinty> I stab him in the back and say “There’s only one Squinty!”
[Kraj rolls a 3]
Old Iron Leg> Aaaand it’s not you.
DM> I think this may be my greatest DMing session ever!
The deputies (and Mike) entered a ship-in-a-bottle pocket dimension and faced off against the evil Captain Squint! He offered them a job! They refused! They thought about it for a bit first though! A fight started!
Squint turns out to be seven souls in one body and they have to fight through the ship’s officers in turn while the Captain gets to use legendary and lair actions. Four forms are killed by the end of the session.
Really Important Stuff –
The DM has realised that he mis-numbered the write-ups and there is no episode 39. As he can’t be arsed to go back and redo the numbers he’ll have to make up an episode in the future. Maybe one where Kraj doesn’t miss, Adam isn’t intellectually challenged, Matt rolls well, Mike doesn’t over think things, Christina remembers she has two attacks, Jake (the bladsinger) uses a blade and the DM doesn’t balls up the initiative and remembers to start OBS… nah, no one would believe it.
Amazingly the DM forgot to start OBS. This is of course all Kraj’s fault as he did not remind the DM.
Mike was hoping this fight was underwater as he doesn’t have to breathe. It wasn’t but the DM did remind them that he did a deal with Joffrey at the start of the campaign that he would get them to visit the Maelstrom at some point and that place is indeed underwater.
Squint’s ship, the Shady Grey, is trapped in a pocket dimension in a bottle on the mayor’s desk. To enter it, the adventurers (and Jake) had to chant “Dead men tell no tales” three times. Normally I would snip the audio of the attempt to chant that out loud but, much like granny porn, some things simply have no place on the Internet.
We return to the gunnery test area from last week where the fight will take place on the Shady Grey, anchored just off the island. Mike was surprised to find out that the warship had indeed been there all along on the map we spent three hours on last week.
The ‘true pirates’ had to ask Yarla where the quarterdeck was [sigh]. “The blunt end” was the eventual response.
– Soul 1: Big Billy Fish is the first form they face and he gets hammered by Plank and his one remaining hit point disappears. His form wavers and becomes that of Wavey Davey, a Goblin Boss.
– Soul 2: Wavey Davey employs a proven defence technique:
Le Fleche ignores this completely and sinks two arrows into his chest and kills him. His body wavers and become the wraithlike figure of the Sailing Master.
– Soul 3: The Sailing Master makes a life-drain attack against Plank and crits. Plank tries to cheese it with absorb elements but Jake wants him to die and points out to the DM the small-print in the spell description that doesn’t mention necrotic.
Remember, snitches get stitches.
As an added insult Plank fails the Con save and those hit points are unrecoverable until his next rest. The Sailing Master apologises profusely to the party while attacking them and Old Iron Leg apologises right back whilst reluctantly punching his drinking buddy to death with fists of holy radiance. The Sailing Master passes Regulus a silver hip flask as he falls.
– Soul 4: The Quartermaster appears and is a Revenant. Due to last week’s issues between Plank and the QM, the DM thought it would be funny to put a Revenant in there with Plank as his chosen target of vengeance. It wasn’t so funny after the unrecoverable Life Drain crit the Sailing Master landed on Plank earlier. Oh well, he’ll be fine though right? Right.
Plank attempted to charge the Quartermaster but missed the entire ship with his mini and ended up in the ocean [sigh]. Mind you, the DM had spent quite some time earlier in the session trying to get minis through a door into the church so there was a lot of it going around.
Kraj forgot he had sneak attack which is kind of the whole point of rogue combat [sigh]. Plank’s epic session continued when he rolled 1 for the save against the Revenant’s Vengeful Glare and was now paralysed.
Captain Squint used the lair action of “Parlay!” and Yarla, Squinty and the Quartermaster have to spend their next turn attempting to negotiate instead of attacking. That went about as well as you would expect.
The party wear down the Revenant’s impressive pool of hit points fairly quickly and he is eventually killed by an Abelarrse Magic Missile.
Important Verbalisations –
Kraj> I fucking did remind you but you weren’t recording so you can’t prove it!
DM> Riiiight!
Mike> Nice move!
Jake> Ballsy but…
Mike> At least we know who is getting it first tonight!
DM> If you want to actually say it out loud be my guest but you lot being coordinated enough to say it together would be… interesting.
DM> Ooookay then, that actually went worse than I thought it would. Moving on…
Aggression Diminisher Yarla> True pirates my arse.
Captain Squint> So, are ye with me?!!
Abelarrse> I must say, that’s tempting!
Old Iron Leg> Er… can we just have a quick discussion about it?
DM> Le Fleche? That be French that be!
Le Fleche> Er.. fourteen.
Old Iron leg> Blimey, did you roll a two?
[Yes, Elvira rolled a 2 and still got 14 to-hit]
Mike> As we haven’t had a rest, Billy Big Fish should only be on one hit point!
[30 seconds later]
DM> Does anyone remember how many hit points Big Billy Fish has?
[group sigh]
Matt> Apologies, I’ve forgotten how to hit things!
Old Iron Leg> The next one could be… the Quartermaster?
[The DM puts the Sailing Master mini down]
Old Iron Leg> No! No! The ship… no!
DM> Yes!
Old Iron Leg> No!
DM> Yes!
Old Iron Leg> Nooo!
DM> Yes!
Old Iron Leg> Not the Sailing Master!
DM> Yes, it’s the Sailing Master!
Old Iron Leg> This is no longer fun, I’m going!
DM> The Sailing Master uses his Life Drain attack against Plank.
[The DM rolls a natural 20]
Everyone> Ooooh!
DM> Okay…uh… oh, that is 42 damage.
Everyone> Ooooh!
DM> Er… can you make a DC14 Con save for me please?
[Matt rolls a 3]
Everyone> Ooooh!
DM> Er… shit, your maximum hit points are reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken…
Everyone> Ooooh!
DM> Hang on, hang on, the wraith has ‘sunlight sensitivity’ and disadvantage on attack rolls in sunlight, which he is in, so it’s not a crit… [laughing] unless I roll another one…
[The DM rolls another crit]
Everyone> OOOOOH!!!
[The session derails for a minute or two for laughter and sympathy]
The adventurers (and Jake) partook of a test of gunnery, powder monkeying ball fetching and coconut throwing.
The powder monkeys need to race to the other end of the island and grab powder kegs from the raft. The cabin boys need to race up the cliff and grab some cannon balls. The gunners need to hit the targets when they have the powder and shot. Everyone else gets to throw coconuts at the runners to try and slow them down.
The DM thought the players would win this easily. Obviously that was his first mistake (of many). However, they did manage to win the contest (just) and were told to find Captain Squint’s ship and then repeat the phrase “Dead men tell no tales” three times.
Really Important Stuff –
A reminder of who was who for this session:
Kraj – Celdar/Squinty
Christina – Clay/Plank
Mike – Regulus/Old Iron Leg
Christina – Elvira/Le Flèche (that be French, that be!)
DM – Joffrey/Swoopy McBooty (Team MVP!)
Jake – Abelas/Abelarrse
While we all waited patiently for Adam and Matt to not bother to turn up, there was some discussion on what constitutes ‘north’. It was generally agreed that Kraj is from the north and Mike is from the north of the north and that London was obviously in the north-midlands.
The pirate team runners were Wavey Davey (Goblin, powder monkey) and Big Billy Fish (Orc, cabin boy) and they were up against Abelarrrse (Jake, powder monkey) and Squinty (Kraj, cabin boy). The DM noted that Yarla (Half-Orc, Aggression Diminisher) was trying to not be noticed by Big Billy Fish. More on that next episode.
The dastardly DM Master Gunner told the players that no magic was allowed. Jake repeatedly lamented the loss of his Misty Step for the entire session. No one else cared.
Abelarrrse took off along the beach and Chariots of Fire became a thing on Discord. Going forwards, the DM will now be spending significant amounts of time swearing at Hydra Bot because Google killed Rythm Bot. The DM is still conflicted about this. Further music this session; Eye of the Tiger, Run for the Hills, Danger Zone and Theme from Jaws.
It rapidly transpired that:
Bonus-action dashing + coconuts knocking off movement speed + falling off planks into shark infested waters = waaaaay too much maths.
The DM ruled out and then ruled back in Squinty’s ability to Uncanny Dodge coconuts as, while it was funny to rule it out, it was also rather unfair. This has never stopped the DM before so maybe he is softening in his dotage?
Jake earned an inspiration for throwing a die that completely buggered up Kraj’s ability to move his mini.
Base jumping with cannonballs became a thing and while Squinty took a few hits, he proved significantly better at it than Big Billy Fish who survived the quick way down the cliffs with one single hit point.
Wavey Davey has a 5ft per turn speed advantage over the blade-dancing wizard but he also has a lower AC so he should get hit by more coconuts. However, Ablearrrse’s utter inability to make a relatively low Dex save on the plank section turned it into a pretty close run race and the DM had to take drastic action and involve Joffrey/Snooty McBooty.
The DM started out playing the druid like a normal person would play a druid and have him shape-change into a flying ‘something’ to spy on the cannon settings of the pirate team, thus he chose a Giant Owl and had it hover some distance above the head of The Duke who was the pirate team’s gunner. However, the rest of the players thought the DM was playing the druid like Adam would play him and immediately jumped to all kinds of conclusions and started laughing.
Mike tried to calculate rather than guesstimate the ballistic arc of the second shot based on the first shot. Bonus points for effort but this is the trajectory formula for a ballistic arc without even accounting for windage:
y = h + x * tan(α) - g * x² / (2 * V₀² * cos²(α))
Old world gunnery methodology:
1. Guess the angles, fire a shot
2. Watch where shot falls
3. Adjust angles and fire for effect
Modern world gunnery methodology:
1. Have a computer guess the angles, fire a shot
2. Watch where shot falls
3. Adjust angles and fire for effect
After a pretty tense final run from the powder supply through the ‘valley of coconut doom’, Wavey Davey managed to deliver his powder charge to The Duke just ahead of Abelarrrse and The Duke carefully lined up a shot to win the match!
And then Swoopy McBooty dropped a giant-owl turd on him and he missed. Le Flèche (that be French, that be!) did not.
Important Verbalisations –
Mike> Does the minus ten feet from the coconut stack?
DM> Oh yes, each hit is 10ft off the next turn.
[15 seconds later]
Kraj> Does the coconut effect stack?
DM> [sigh]
Mike> I feel your pain Gary!
Abelarrrse> Eye of the Tiger starts playing!
Old Iron Leg> It should be Flashdance as you are ‘dancing’.
Abelarrrse> Yes! It’s a proper poncey skip as well.
[The image of the gimpy wizard poncey-skipping down the beach in front of a crew of undead pirates is now indelibly burned into the DM’s brain]
Christina/Plank> Abelarrrse, move your arrrse!
Mike> Nice!
DM> …and Abelarrrse gets a ten-foot speed boost!
DM> There’s a Squinty-shaped impression in the sand at the bottom of the cliff now.
Mike> To be honest, I’m surprised he didn’t miss the beach, it is Kraj.
DM> Joffrey kind of saunters under this dock area out of sight and changes into an owl.
Kraj> Swoopy McBooty?
DM> [deep sigh]
Mike> A Moon Dove of the Night?!
DM> He then he takes a fairly strategic position above The Duke…
[laughter erupts]
DM> [having a rethink and then getting it] No!
Jake> He’s not going to have a shit on The Duke?
DM> [sigh] He’s not, no.
[disappointed aaaw’s]
DM> Although… now you’ve planted that idea…
Mike> You know if Adam was here he would ask if his owl form could fly down and catch the enemy cannonball in mid flight, right?
[laughter]
DM> It’s like he was in the room!
[Wavey Davey is about to deliver his load (fnarr) and the player’s only hope is… Kraj! The rogue can bonus-action dash to just within coconut range of the drunken goblin]
Mike> You really need to get a 20 here Kraj as that will knock him prone!
We return to the main campaign after about a 9-month break due to life picking a fight with the DM and winning handily. At least in the interim we cured Mike of his gnome issues.
In an undead-pirate infested Port Llast we had a drinking contest, a fight and some maths.
That went about as well as you would have expected.
Really Important Stuff –
The DM forgot to start OBS (obviously) but Kraj remembered and saved the day! Yay Kraj!
Mike broke Talespire, Matt broke Tabletop Simulator, Steam broke the TTS lighting mod and then Mike broke Steam. Good work everyone.
We don’t need no stinkin Talespire to nerf Jake so we started the session in the theatre of the mind! That also went about as well as you would have expected.
Abelas got told that to get the Moonblade to work he would have to dedicate himself to a single weapon and thus must un-attune himself from the Staff of Defence which was a bit of a crutch the DM put into the early game to get the distinctly gimpy wizard through the troublesome low levels. It’s not needed now though so the DM cruelly snatches it away.
Adam tuned up late (again) and used a bucket as a microphone (again).
Everybody forgot how to Talespire in the nine months since we last used it. The DM unsuccessfully tried to simultaneously remember how to Talespire whilst telling everyone else how to Talespire. That too went about as well as you would have expected.
Adam then pointed out the instructions on how to Talespire that are now at the bottom of the Talespire screen that every other detective, investigator, forensic analyst and trained military observer completely missed [sigh].
Pirate names and ranks were given to the undead Quartermaster:
Kraj – Cabin Boy – Squinty
Clay – Master at Arms – Plank (Bakinna-sek’d out of telling the DM his pirate name so we gave him one)
Regulus – Quartermaster – Old Iron Leg (and other limbs)
Elvira – Master Gunner – Le Flèche (that be French, that be!)
The DM fucked up and started the con saves for the drinking contest about 4 points too low but he’d planned on Kraj getting caught watering the drinks fairly early on and that would have ended the contest and started a fight. However, Kraj couldn’t even do that right and proved surprisingly adept at sleight of hand checks (+fucking9!). Fucking Kraj [sigh].
Plank (Genasi, earth), Abelarrse (Wizard, gimpy) and Old Iron Leg (metal, cheese) faced off against Big Billy Fish (Orc, large), Wavey Davey (goblin, drunk) and ‘The Duke’ Antoine Fuustec (Human, French from the Moonshae isles).
Abelarrse came up with a novel idea of using his hat to drink from but then fucked up both the save and the hat. Old Iron Leg grabbed that hat and wrung it out to top up his own tankard and succeeded in both intimidating and disgusting The Duke. It didn’t do much for the hat either.
Snooty McBooty remembered he had guidance, used it once and then refused to use it again.
Having received said Guidance, Squinty then dissed Selune, realised what he had done when the DM started getting really excited and desperately back-pedalled it with “That was not in-game!”
Wavey Davey managed to drink himself unconscious despite having advantage on his saves. Big Billy Fish started strong but a relentless intimidation campaign (along with a few water tankards) from Plank finally drove him to tears and he retired. Plank continued drinking anyway. Old Iron Leg told The Duke he drank like a commoner and The Duke huffed out. A massive bar fight erupted.
The DM managed to talk himself into and then out of using table legs as finesse weapons within the same sentence.
Le Flèche (that be French, that be!) embraced the setting and started throwing tankards and pies at the pirates. This proved surprisingly effective with added heat damage and blind being applied depending on the dish that was thrown.
Old Iron Leg has his weapons built into his fists and so he just waded into the meelee and started one-punch dropping skeletons left and right having a fine old time of it.
Squinty got surrounded and decided to use the bar furniture as a weapon but it’s Kraj so he missed, obviously.
Plank (drunk) properly got into the mood and expeditiously charged into the middle of the fray, jumped on a table, dropped a couple of skeletons and then promptly fell off the table whilst trying to dance on it.
Snooty McBooty initially failed to embrace the setting and was worried that he can’t do much damage (not the point) and so didn’t do much the first round then realised he could wild shape and Bear Comma Cave came out and he followed Old Iron Leg by dropping any skeleton unlucky enough to be near him.
After two rounds of combat the pirates stand down, offer a round of drinks and everyone was best friends again. Squinty make a skeleton joke so bad I’m not going to repeat it here but he wins the Dad Joke of the Week award. Bear Comma Cave drinks an entire keg of grog and Snooty McBooty is now also drunk.
Some very basic maths puzzles were attempted and failed but after the fight the adventurers (and Jake) and the pirates were all best drunken buddies and they earned a forfeit and were told to report to the Master Gunner by the docks.
Important Verbalisations –
DM> …she is wearing ornate but not ostentatious armour inscribed with religious looking symbols. She walks…”
Regulus> Can I do a religion check on those symbols?
DM> Er… [sigh] yes.
[Regulus rolls a 15]
DM> Her religion is a complete mystery to you. She walks up to Abelas and says “My name is Jahandra Larakkian, High Cleric of Corellon”
[laughter]
DM> Sorry Mike!
[not really]
DM> She says “And what is your name?”
Abelas> Abelas… Abelarse… no… Ab… Wait… am I still a pirate?!
DM> She says “That’s quite a remarkable blade, where did you get it?” And this is where the DM has written down “Jake will have forgotten”
Jake> Erm…
[laughter]
Jake> [sigh] Yes, Jake has forgotten…
DM> Elvira?
Elvira> Yarr! I be the Master Gunnerrr, Le Flèche! That’s French, that be!
Kraj> Er… where’s France?
DM> The zombie innkeeper says “I think that be in the Moonshae Isles, I got drunk there once!”
DM> Selune is watching you Joffrey!
Old Iron Leg> Selune is judging you Joffrey!
[oooh’s]
[The DM starts getting ideas]
Le Flèche> Can I lob a pie as well?
DM> It’s maths but I have faith in you! Chris doesn’t.
This was the third session of the Fireshear frost giant fight. Spoilers; they still didn’t finish it.
At the end of the session, with significantly depleted spell slots and hit points, they still have eight frost giants to deal with on the ship.
Harshnag notes he recently spent time travelling with a Knight of Tyr who had a remarkable ability to insult people and figures he can pull a small number of the giants off of the boat.
Really Important Stuff –
Jake admitted he was slumming it and was down to one monitor like Adam. Adam smugly informed him that he was back up to two. Adam then admitted that his second screen was ‘technically in the post’ so he’s even cheesing that.
The DM reminded everyone that two of the frost giants had previously been hit by Joffrey’s Tidal Wave and were currently knocked down. Mike didn’t even hesitate and went full Chumbawamba, proudly telling everyone how they’ll get back up again. There was ‘singing’ [sigh].
The DM asks Clay why he isn’t using a shield. Clay says he wants to do more damage. Clay takes two boulders to the face. Clay decides to equip a shield.
Jake rolled a Fireball so high the DM gave up and used a calculator for the first time ever to work out a monster’s hit points.
A frost giant sneers at Clay’s shield and hits him twice for 50 damage anyway.
FIGHTER DOWN!
Harshnag proposes a simple plan to lure small numbers of giants off the ship. The party take a really long time discussing alternative plans, a remarkable number of which involved setting fire to it having forgotten that the hostages were still aboard. After some time they decided to have Harshnag try and lure small numbers of giants off the ship [sigh].
Important Verbalisations –
Jake> [explaining fighter attacks to Christina] You get two attacks. Later you get more than two. It continues to get exponentially better.
DM> I… er… I don’t think you know what ‘exponentially’ means…
Jake> [sigh] Yeah…it’s like… it’s the same as ‘literally’!
DM – I should make your anthem “Crit Me Baby One More Time”
DM> Wow, that conversation actually degenerated twice more than I thought it would!
Mike> Exponentially!
DM – It’s not cocked, it’s fucking wedged in there, look at it!
[Sirac casts a 3rd level Cure Wounds on an unconscious Joffrey]
DM> That’s a 3d8+5 but Selune may smile upon you, could you roll a D20 for me?
Joffrey> Bless me Selune for I am your child!
[Joffrey rolls a 5]
[unsympathetic laughter]
DM> Yeah, Selune is not paying attention today and so it remains 3d8+5
Joffrey> Awww!
Mike>Or… Sleune is paying attention and just knows you’re a dick!
[Celdar sneak-attacks a nearly-dead frost giant]
DM> I think it is dead. I don’t think even you can fuck that up.
[Celdar rolls 4+2+1+1+2]
DM> I stand corrected!
Celdar> [Expletive Deleted]
Adam> I turn into… a Giant Vulture!
DM> [deep sigh & some quiet swearing]
Jake> Did you just google “What animals doesn’t Talespire have?” just to piss off Gary?
Mike> Surely you mean “Giant Moon Dove of the Desert”?
DM> Harshnag gets to know Joffrey’s charmed wolf.
Mike> Boom-chicka-wow-wow!
DM> [sigh] Really Mike? Really?!
Kraj> I know you guys see a lot of fucked up shit but still…
Adam> Well mike shouldn’t any more.
Mike> Not at work anyway…
*If PSD ever read this, IT WAS A JOKE!
Storm King’s Thunder – Episode 37: Everyone Gets to be Twats
Vaguely Important Stuff –
This was the fourth fight against the frost giants that takes place in Fireshear. Spoilers: they still didn’t finish it.
The DM sounds so bad on this recording that I’m going to keep it to listen to the next time I start to feel sorry for myself.
A pair of giants left the ship to come investigate what happened to the shore party. The adventurers (and Jake) laid an ambush by hiding and having Harshnag play dead to lure them in. This was planned really quickly and was rather effective. Quite remarkably that was not sarcasm.
They set up to attack the ship with 6 frost giants still on it. The ‘Harshnag lures some out’ plan was put in motion.
They fucked it up.
Really Important Stuff –
Everyone took the piss out of Jake only having one monitor and a super computer that can’t display green lights.
They are low on HP and spell slots and there are 8 frost giants still on the map. Two frost giants were successfully ambushed by them. Regulus, who obviously brought a melee spec to a ranged fight, runs up to the pair and meelees one. Abelas for no apparent reason decides to place his Fireball so it hits Regulus as well. Regulus stuffed the save and took the full 33 points of damage.
A slight flaw in their ambush was exposed when it was Harshnag’s turn. The geniuses engaged the giants just outside Harshnag’s movement range so their biggest damage dealer couldn’t deliver his biggest attacks. /golfcalp. You can view this ‘going too early’ as a foreshadowing of later events.
The deputies (and Mike) conceal themselves behind a large rock near the harbour and wait for Harshnag to do the thing he learned from Sir Baric. Just to be clear on what the plan was supposed to be; Harshnag would step off the dock onto the ice, taunt some of the giants into attacking him, he would then retreat onto the dock and out of sight of the ship and then everyone else would pile in thus allowing them to tackle the six giants piecemeal.
Harshnag advances and calls out very formally “I wish to challenge two of your strongest so-called ‘warriors’, all of whom had maternal parents that resembled an ogroid… er, with herpes. Oh yes, and they smell bad!” The frost giants on the ship take a moment to figure out that he just called their mother a troll and then the two closest ones become very angry and prepare to charge.
Remember the plan:
1) Taunt giants off ship
2) Pull giants out of view of ship
3) Kill giants
The plan has all of three steps. Absolutely nothing could go wrong, right?
It immediately went wrong, obviously.
Celdar forgets step two of the plan entirely, bonus-action dashes and drops a Fog Cloud on the ship thus aggroing all six of the giants at once. This was going to be DM comedy write-up gold for months!
And then Mike happened [sigh]. Fuck you Mike.
Mike reminded the rogue of the plan and so he did not aggro the entire ship after all and instead prepped an attack. Other similar actions were also prepped. Jake raised a concern over the blasé nature of the held actions but no one listened to the fireballing teamkiller.
They probably should have listened to him [sigh]. The two enraged giants charged using all of their movement to get to Harshnag meaning he could withdraw safely to the dock without them getting attacks of opportunity… and then Kraj’s held-action was activated and he shot one of them in full view of all the other giants on the ship [sigh]
To be fair to Kraj (and I really don’t want to be) there were at least two other held actions which would have done the same thing, he just happened to have the higher initiative. Still… Fucking Kraj [sigh]
Regulus came up with a plan that the DM described as “the most fundamentally stupid idea anyone has ever come up with since we started playing” and congratulated Mike for it whilst bemoaning the fact that Adam wasn’t there to see how it’s done properly; Mike wanted to suicide bomb the ship by putting one bag of holding inside another bag of holding [sigh].
All six giants charge the dock. The first one goes down quicker than Kraj’s mum on the DM’s birthday and two more follow with only Elvira getting badly hit in return.
For a variety of well-deserved reasons, player minis were renamed over the course of the fight:
1HP-Elvira
StabInTheBackelas
WishesHeWasRangedSpeculus
WensleyClayle
Fuck Noob
Three giants remain for next week.
Important Verbalisations –
Jake – Mike suggested it and my initial instinct was “You fucking idiot” but now I think it’s not bad!
Abelas> So I Fireball and that is… it’s alright Regulus, my saves are shit… er, that’s a DC17 Dex save please.
Regulus> [slightly incredulously] Are you actually casting it at me?
Abelas> [having mapped out the AoE in Talespire] I wasn’t going to but then I just ended up doing it. Er, blame the snow?
Regulus> [flatly] You want me to make a Dex save?
Abelas> I don’t actually want you to but it would be kind of funny.
[a moment of silence occurs]
Abelas> Do you know what? Yes, I fucking do want you to!
Regulus> [eerily cheerily] Okee-dokee!
Abelas> Because I still remember the graphics card comments!
Regulus> That’s fine!
[It did not sound fine. It kind of sounded like a declaration of war had just been made]
Abelas> I slightly regret that… but not enough.
Regulus> [measuring out the distance to the wizard] Gary, I’m just checking… if I disengage, I can use my movement to get away and hunt other prey, yes?
DM> Oh definitely!
Abelas> Er, Bladesong!
Abelas – I’m sorry I threw a fireball alright?! That doesn’t mean EVERYONE gets to be twats!
[Kraj is about to get everyone killed, probably]
Regulus> Luckily it’s you so you might miss and as you are invisible…
[Kraj rolls a 23 to hit]
Regulus> [sigh]
DM> Fireball on Harshnag?
Abelas> Nope, I like Harshnag a LOT more than Regulus.
[Date of session: 16th September 2021]
Jake> I cannot wait for the write-up from this session.
DM> It’ll be about six months at the rate I’m getting them done.
[Date write up complete: 18th June 2022]
DM> Which will be a good thing because everyone will have forgotten about the time Abelas deliberately Fireballed Mike, Kraj got everyone killed and Mike came up with a plan so stupid even Adam didn’t think of it.
Mike> I still maintain it’s an amazing plan, a blaze of glory plan! I’d be billowing the fuck out that cape while I was doing it!
Storm King’s Thunder – Episode 38: Loading it Now
Vaguely Important Stuff –
This was the fifth fight against the frost giants that takes place in Fireshear. Spoilers: they only actually bloody finished it!
The nearly dead, out of spell slots party still face one somewhat buggered frost giant and two full health frost giants. In they end they defeated them without too much trauma, mainly thanks to the DM rolling pants for boulder throws.
The captain’s cabin on the ship was searched and they found a bloodstained pouch containing 17 wooden coins embossed with the image of a golden goose and a set of orders.
The orders are from the frost giant leader Jarl Stovald to a Captain Jarvak; The Jarl paid a hefty price to the Zhentarim for them to obtain a drop of Artus Cimber’s blood and the letter intimates the giants are using that to track him. It also seems that agents of the great red dragon Klauth (dragon cultists) have become aware that the frost giants seek something and may try to interfere. They are to be killed without hesitation or mercy.
A chest was also found which contained several items of minor loot as well as:
– Several ledgers marked with the seal of the Port Llast harbourmaster
– A large good-quality map of the sword coast
– 730 gold pieces
– Several items of soiled female underwear (very large sized)
– A small metal coffer
– A magical item; Captain Squint’s Eye Patch which can be used as either an eye patch or a sling.
The casket was made of an unusual, unknown metal, and Regulus opened it. As soon as the intricate catch was release, an indistinct ghostly figure shot from the box, paused a moment as if to get its bearings and then flew through the hull heading south-east. At this point the box was examined and found to be magical, enchanted from the Abjuration school which deals with spells of protection.
From the dates on the ledgers it looks like the frost giants raided Port Llast about two months prior.
They adventurers (and Jake) finish their griffin riding training with Dasharra and she offers them a hefty discount on future use of her rapidly expanding griffon taxi service and then she flies them all down to Luskan. They bypass the city once more and head down the coast to Port Llast.
As I’ll be going over the Port Llast stuff at the start of the next session you don’t need to read it here but I have included it at the bottom in ‘Extra Stuff’ if you want a refresher.
The short version version is that Port Llast has been engulfed in an unnatural fog and has been overrun by undead who keep asking people if they be true pirates. The party accept a quest from the mayor to get a small box from his office. They are accompanied into the fog by the guard captain, Yarla who has a sailing background, which might be useful.
Once in the fog-shrouded town they fought some skeletons and were confronted by a Master at Arrrms demanding to know if they were true pirates come to join up with Captain Squint. Dressing up as pirates and choosing staggeringly bad pirate names was a thing. Don’t worry, we’ll be redoing this bit, it’s built into the quest, so you won’t be stuck with whatever you came up with on the spur of the moment last time.
Really Important Stuff –
There was a two month break between this session and the last one due to the DM ending up in hospital again. That was nothing compared to what was coming.
Two months later and apparently during the break Jake had admitted in the office that us taking the piss out his supercomputer’s inability to display lights was irritating to him. This was obviously a massive mistake and everybody took the piss out of Jake’s supercomputer for not being able to display green lights. It went on for a while.
A long discussion took place on the current overpricing of graphics cards. Eight months later and we are still having remarkably similar discussions.
Talespire dropped the initiative order but luckily the DM had it written down on a dry-wipe board. That board had been sat by a window for two months so it’s probably indelibly etched into it by now.
The DM summed up the fiasco that was the last session and the group decided that, as he didn’t turn up then and was late now, Adam was obviously at fault for all of that session’s fuckups. We had a vote and everything.
Two hours and nineteen minutes after we started Adam turned up!
End of session.
Only joking. Adam spent 15mins arguing the minutia of his magic sling with the DM because, ironically (literally exponentially), he thought the stacking was cheesy. He then used it for the first time against a skeleton and rolled a 1 [sigh]
Having defeated the skeletons they take their clothing and dress up as pirates. They enter the town once again and are again confronted by the Master at Arrrms. As they at least now look like true pirates, the Master at Arrrms asked them what their true pirate names were so we should get some really good pirate names right? Right.
Celdar – Captain Cabin Boy Caldus
Regulus – First Mate Reg
Elvira – Sailor Elvirarrr!
Abelas – Seaman Abelarrrse
Joffrey the Cave Bear – Bear Bones
End of Session
Important Verbalisations –
DM> I really need someone to… no, let me rephrase that, ‘you’ really need someone to play Joffrey until Adam decides to turn up.
[Turns out Kraj’s mum had not made a surprise visit but Mike’s tablet was giving him some issues]
Mike> Oh… did anyone know Joffrey has Guidance?
The Party> [expletives deleted]
DM> Your turn Fuck Noob! Destroyer of ambushes and confounder of planning.
Kraj> Don’t known what you’re on about!
DM – Bear with me I need to refresh myself… refresh myself?! Fuck me. [sigh] Refresh my memory of… [laughing] oh just… fuck it!
Mike/Joffrey> I’ll cast a 4th level Healing Word on Elvira.
DM> 4th level?
Mike/Joffrey> Well, they’re not my spell slots are they?
Matt> Have you just destroyed several local towns Mike?
Mike> Yeah but they’re not our local towns are they?
Mike> Which way is south-east, I’ve lost my bearings?
DM> Shall we go to the quest map? Let’s go to the quest map… Er, wait, no, we’d all have to open it up for no particular reason… er, other than to take the piss out of Jake because his lights don’t work, but then we have the faff of everyone having to load into…
Matt> I’m loading it!
Mike> I’m loading it now!
Kraj> Yep, loading it!
DM> [laughing] You are such a bunch of cunts…
Jake> [multiple expletives deleted and then goes on to explain that he has rebuilt his entire computer since the last time we used TTS]
Matt> Its no good just saying you can see them now, we’ll want screenshots!
Jake> [sigh] I will supply screenshots.
[Shortly afterwards]
Jake> I… er… I cannot see the lights still.
[much laughter]
Jake> I am raging so hard right now.
DM> They turn to speak to you with varying expressions of relief and hope upon seeing a group of heavily armed individuals…
Kraj> And Jake.
DM> ..approach… [starts to lose it] They say… [the DM loses it completely]
DM> She explains that the fog appeared several days ago…
Mike> Erm, I’m just trying to do some calculations, was me opening the box several days ago?
DM> Yes.
Mike> Oh. Can I tell her that sounds terrible and that we probably don’t need to look into how it happened, okay?
[laughter]
Mike> I think I smoothed it over guys!
DM> Yeah… could you make a performance check please?
[party-wide laughter plus swearing]
Mike> We’re not pirates though are we? Although… we probably are now because we’ve just decimated this town haven’t we?
Kraj> [laughing] What’s this ‘we’ bollocks?
Kraj> While this map is loading Jake, do you want to go and make a drink?
Matt> He can’t, his shopping has just arrived.
Joffrey – Please miss my bear dong!
DM – Well mentally it does me the world of good to do these things so see you all next week!
[Session date 4th November 2021]
Extra Stuff:
Captain Squint’s Eye Patch
Weapon (sling), rare (requires attunement by a Druid) – Magical Sling +2
The eye patch of the legendary pirate, and later the legendary undead pirate, Captain Squint. It was recovered from the water after he was eaten by a giant shark which was subsequently exploded by the local town constable. It appears to have part of a map etched on the inside.
You may use your Wisdom modifier for attack rolls with this item.
The eye patch can be used as a magical sling which deals an additional 1d6 necrotic damage.
If used in conjunction with the Magic Stone cantrip, the minimum range becomes 60ft.
If attuned by a spell caster it allows the casting of the spell Arms of Hadar three times per day at first level when worn. The spell can be cast at higher levels at a cost of the required caster’s spell slots.
The Port Llast guard captain is a tough looking half-orc named Yarla who explains that the fog engulfed the town a few days ago and it has been overrun with undead. The undead are pretty weak but they keep coming back once killed.
The party accept a quest from the mayor to fetch a small box from his office in the village. The box is hidden in a secret compartment in his desk and they are not to open the box under any circumstances.
The mayor says that he believes that the fog is the work of the undead pirate Captain Squint. Port Llast used to be a pirate haven run by the infamous Squint some 400 years ago. His ancestor Commander Brody killed Squint using a specially trained giant shark and some explosives. However, Squint returned as an undead. Brody somehow defeated him once again, thought to be for good this time and the Brody family have been important people in the town ever since. Especially as they own a good chunk of it.
As the deputies (and Mike) approach the town they see that it appears to be engulfed in a thick greenish fog despite it being a breezy day. About 40 villagers are camped outside the town along the road. The town mayor is involved in an argument with the captain of the town guard; he wants them to fetch something valuable from his office and the captain is refusing.
The party enter Mirabar and collect the 5,000g reward. They also find and activate the Harper teleport circle in that city. They use the teleport circles to go back to Waterdeep and pay off Chazza Chazlauth (still TNAD).
They ask around about the frost giant with a white dragon helmet and learn that his name is Harshnag and he used to be part of an adventuring group called Force Grey that operated out of Waterdeep until about a decade ago when they retired due to becoming incredibly wealthy. Harshnag mostly avoids humans but is still occasionally seen in Waterdeep which he regards as home.
They have a quest in Bryn Shander way up north and they travel there via Luskan and the small village of Hundlestone where they buy cold weather gear. At Bryn Shander they learn that the city leader is absent and has taken a good chunk of the guards with her.
They meet a Knight of Tyr called Sir Baric Nyleaf in the pub. He is/was hunting the Weevil.
The town gets besieged by fourteen frost giants who are demanding that ‘Artus Cimber’ is handed over to them. No one knows who Artus Cimber is.
Really Important Stuff –
Regulus has a chat with the local Harper network and is promptly informed of that which he should have known in the first place; if you want to know about a legendary frost giant that was part of an adventuring group you should probably ask a bard and not a spy.
A bard was located in a posh tavern called The Gilded Meelay.
For some reason Kraj became fixated on what the Weevil was wanted for, so the DM read the wanted poster for him for like the fifteenth time or something <sigh>
Joffrey wanted white cold weather gear and, ignoring the suggestion of the locals to just stand in the snow for a while, bought a white yeti coat for 40g.
The Fantabulous Coffer of Conversion is used on the Bag of Tricks (Grey) and it became a Bag of Tricks (Purple) which allows the user to choose what to summon but only once per day and only for ten minutes.
Important Verbalisations –
Bard> My name is Aloybarz Zoddlehaddle..
Regulus> Alloooybaz… Zoddle.. Haddleow?
DM> Bless you online gnomish name generator!
Regulus> [flatly] He’s a gnome?
DM> Yes.
Regulus> Right, fuck off, we’ll go somewhere else!
DM> Have I got to read out that fucking wanted poster again?!
Celdar> Nah, don’t worry about it.
DM> No, no, I’m finding it now! Fuck you!
Regulus> I’ll ask the Gnomish Pontification System if it knows why the Weevil was wanted!
[The DM reads the entire wanted poster in the squeaky GPS voice]
Abelas> He called your bluff!
Regulus> He did, and that was going above and beyond!
DM> And we will now come back next week when my voice has come back!
SKT Episode 32: Welcome to the Suck
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The giants attacked the town, the adventurers (and Jake and Sir Baric) fought them off and looted a magnificent jewelled giant-sized war horn that they mounted on the battle wagon.
Really Important Stuff –
Sir Baric challenged the frost giant leader, Drufi, to a duel, she laughed at him.
Abelas dropped a Storm Sphere in the middle of the giants and it did a mighty 4 damage to two giants. Truly spectacular.
Sir Baric climbed onto the wall, adopted the blank-faced look of a half-wit, struck a majestic pose and insulted Drufi in a number of interesting ways including the implication if an incestuous relationship between her parents. Drufi raged and wasted her turn throwing a boulder at the battlements where Baric is hiding.
Jake’s suffered a wizarding fail and the rest of the group were extremely sympathetic:
Celdar rolled a stealth check so high Abelas forgot who he was. The master of stealth then decided to attack from exactly the same place he attacked from last time. The DM was not very scathing about this at all.
Joffrey turned Regulus into Regulapelas. Regulapelas throws a chunk of battlement at Drufi. He rolls a 1. Regulus remembers he has an inspiration! He uses it! He rolls another 1!
Sir Baric sauntered back up onto the battlements and made some more implications about Drufi’s parentage before taking cover from the pissed off boulder-throwing giant once again.
Important Verbalisations –
Abelas> I want them to actively think its too much of a faff to move away from this giant swirling storm of death!
SKT Episode 33: Where the Fuck is Elvira?
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The Sheriff of Bryn Shander deputised those that could be bothered to turn up and asked them to patrol along the river in Icewind Vale to see if the frost giants had truly left. They each now officially gain the titleDeputy of Bryn Shanderthat 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.
They successfully patrolled Icewind Dale and nearly died to three frost giants.
Really Important Stuff –
Jake informed everyone that his shopping would be turning up in a few minutes. Jake could offer no explanation as to why his shopping was not being delivered on any of the six days in the week that D&D does not occur.
Sir Baric called them a bunch of magnificent bastards and said he was off home as he had been stuck in ‘this shithole’ for too long. He also asked them to look in on an old friend Sir Lanniver if they got back to Waterdeep.
Mike, who couldn’t be bothered to turn up, became the proud owner of an indestructible clockwork gnome via a group stitch-up effort.
During the patrol they ran into three frost giants. The DM asked them if they wanted Regulus or Elvira present. They declined. They regretted that decision fairly soon after.
Jake dropped an Evard’s Black tentacles. In Talespire it was rather awesome:
Clay got twatted with three melee attacks… sorry ‘meelee’ attacks, we are up north after all (where the rivers have beaches), for a total of seventy five damage and drops unconscious. A moment of silence falls across the table while the players process those numbers.
Jake suffered some sort of existential crises asking questions like “What are we doing?” and “Why are we here?” Must have had a bad plant-burger.
Abelas taunted a frost giant and realised why wizards generally should avoid doing that when a large rock hit him in the face soon after.
Important Verbalisations –
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> 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!
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?
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!
DM – I’m fairlysure being slapped in the face by a giant soggy tentacle counts as a distraction…
Jake> You ever wonder if you were the baddies?
DM> [deep, deep sigh] They just attacked the fucking town!
Jake> Oh yeah!
Abelas> [rather pompously] To show my domination, I come out from behind my cover!
Celdar> “To show my domination”?!!
SKT Episode 34: The Ice Giants Cometh
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The party returned to Bryn Shander in triumph and were joined by a cleric called Sirac who is the son of Artus Cimber who the frost giants were after. Sirac fears the giant’s are tracking Artus’ blood and so he is putting the town in danger by remaining there. The deputies (and Mike) offer to accompany Sirac to Waterdeep where a relative of his, the archmage Lord Zelarun Roaringhorn, resides.
They proceeded to the small village of Fireshear to learn how to ride griffons from a trainer called Dasharra. Dasharra mentioned that Harshnag had been seen in the area. During the training the village is attacked by frost giants from a ship in the harbour.
Harshnag turns up to fight the invading frost giants and the adventurers (and Jake) team up with him. Dasharra also joins the fight flying above on a griffon.
Harshnag with some actual adventurers
Really Important Stuff –
Adam couldn’t make it but somehow was still exerting a psychic influence over the players as they made several decisions which were… highly questionable at best and downright fucking stupid at worst.
There was a discussion on whether a rather tall frost giant, blinded to anything further than 5ft, can still see his ‘gentleman sausage’ or not. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.
Important Verbalisations –
DM> Right fuck fucking Kraj, he can do one. We’ll treat him like Adam.
Jake> That’s a bit harsh.
Mike> Maybe your graphics card isn’t powerful enough Jake?
Jake> I will stab you if I ever see you in person!
DM> As you enter the map, a woman runs screaming past you, incoherently babbling about frost giants. And then a whole gaggle of gnomes run up shouting “Save us! Save us metal man! The frost giants are attacking! They are pillaging the town”.
Regulus> Hmm. I’m finding it hard to motivate…
Abelas – Er.. not to metagame or anything [Jake obviously goes straight ahead and metagames] but couldn’t you flank?
DM – Somewhere, out in the Kentish darkness, a hooded figure is concentrating on a crystal ball, sending psychic tendrils around the county. It is muttering “Do what Beaver would do!” over and over again.
Mike> So the Giantslayer does an extra 2d6 damage? Nice.
DM – Harshnag turns and walk over to the group, squints down at them and levels his axe at each in turn “Ah, the mighty Clay who fights nearly naked! Mistress Elvira, sharpshooter extraordinaire! And you must be Mister Regoolas, the famous wagon maker! And Abelarse, the one who falls off the wagon!” He looks at Celdar and says “I don’t know you” and then to everyone “I hear you have been looking for me?”
Harshnag> Who told you to find me?
Regulus> Er.. I thought Claugiyliamater told us…
Harshnag> You know her name?!
[laughter]
Harshnag> You must be the chosen one!
SKT Episode 35: In Your Faaaaaace!
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They continue to fight frost giants in the village. The frost giants have wolves with them.
Really Important Stuff –
The DM’s microphone decided not to work because Microsoft are twats.
Benjamin arranged to get their legacy weapons upgraded.
Mike summoned Anonymoose but Talespire didn’t have a moose mini at that time so we got a cow instead. They called it… Anonymoo.
Important Verbalisations –
Regulus> Benjamin, we’re coming!
DM> Joffrey, you have the Ring of Demonic Horse Detection and you think you felt a very faint vibration on that finger.
Joffrey> My ring is vibrating!
DM> [sigh]
DM> The only thing in the tent is a sturdy looking bench and on it is a large, flat chest.
Matt> I had a girlfriend like that once!
Adam> I was going to make a joke about Jake’s mum but its too early.
DM> It is never too early for a Jake’s mum joke… its never too early for Jake’s mum! Bwahahahhahaaaa! … … sorry … … Not sorry!
DM> So, purely as an examp…
Matt> Michael Jackson’s Earth Song!
DM> … purely.. eh… [sigh]
[mucho laughter]
DM> [resignedly] That is not an anthem is it? It’s a fucking dirge.
Celdar – I’m going full meelee spec!
Regulus> That is udderly ridiculous!
[groans]
Celdar> Can you mooove him?
[further groans]
Celdar> How dairy you summon that!
Regulus> Nice one! Cheesy!
[The DM starts looking for the Discord kick button]
The party faced off against the Seven Snakes on a riverside road on the way to ‘Nestlé’
Really Important Stuff –
Matt couldn’t make it because he was tired.
This was the session where the DM was introduced to the delights of Anaconda and suddenly felt really old.
The adventurers (and Jake) were level 7 for this fight, the snakes were CR ¼. This should have been over in ten minutes at most. It took all session so let’s find out how they managed that shall we?
The DM had a bunch of insulting dialogue planned but Abelas skipped all that and opened up his own line of dialogue with a fireball. This reduced No’Baconne Beutay and Black Mamba to half hit points and the other five were on 2HP each. This was all over right? Right.
Elvira finishes off No’Baconne Beutay but then Regulus uttered the line “Can I suggest that we possibly keep one of them alive? To interrogate them to see what else is going on?” and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you turn a five minute fight into a three-hour fight and interrogation.
Joffrey WOMMs all five snakes on 2HP and kills all of them leaving only Black Mamba and she is on half hit points. She swears the snakes will return and dives into the river. It’s all over right? We can move on to Nesme now right?
The adventurers (and Jake) continue to try and hit Black Mamba underwater that they can’t see so we are basically playing battleships at this point on a 16-square grid. Regulus and Abelas did nothing useful and Black mamba would escape on her turn so only Elvira, Kraj and Joffrey could stop her. Given that she was some distance away and invisible underwater, there’s nothing they could do right? Well, they certainly figured something out.
The Eventual Plan – Elvira fired a Seeking Arrow at Black Mamba and while it did not penetrate the water, it give give them an idea of where she was. Kraj grabbed Joffrey and cast Dimension Door to the targeted point in the river and dropped the druid. Joffrey wild-shaped into a Hunter shark.
So… a shark an emo and a psycho walk into a river…
The shark bites and knocks out Black Mamba and drags her to the shore which Kraj kept calling a beach despite the fact that’s its a fucking river.
The word un-shark was invented by Jake.
Black Mamba is bleeding out and when it comes to dead-lifting an unconscious half-orc in plate armour out of a river, a druid and a rogue would not be your primary choices.
Regulus summons Anonymoose and we then got Mike trying to make a persuasion check on a giant moose that the shark was friendly. Anonymoose dragged Black Mamba out of the water.
We then had both a Misty-Stepping rogue and a jumping shark impale themselves on Anonymoose’s horns, because if the players were going to be awkward twats the DM could be too, and that ultimately led to a naked Joffrey stabilising Black Mamba. It took one hour and seven minutes to get from Black Mamba jumping in the river to Black Mamba being out of the river again.
The interrogation of a psychotic half-orc by interrogators who didn’t really know what questions to ask nor what information they were after went about as well as you would expect and Abelas stabbed her in the heart. As she died she looked the wizard in the eyes and promised to come back for him.
Important Verbalisations –
Oh my gosh, look at her butt Oh my gosh, look at her butt Oh my gosh, look at her butt (Look at her butt) Look at, look at, look at Look, at her butt
DM – No’Baconne Beutay says “Ah, we meet again friends! You’ve done well for yourselves since we first met and you were lowly caravan guards pretending to be adventurers (and Jake). What brings you to MY road at this…” WHOOSH!
Abelas> I would like to do the customary warning that it is a very low DC save.
Regulus> We’re going to have to hear you say it!
Abelas> [laughing] It is a DC14 save…
Regulus> FOURTEEN?!
Kraj – By the time Jake gets a go they’ll all be dead.
Adam – This is almost as good as Operation Electric Ferret!
Kraj> I stroll up cockily…
Joffrey> You stroll up with what out?!
Kraj> Shout “HOW HARD CAN IT BE?” and touch Joffrey on the shoulder
DM> Wait… you touch Joffrey on the shoulder and ask him how hard it can be?
Regulus> Is that both hands… one on each shoulder, yeah?
Abelas> I don’t like to tell you how to Druid…
<Abelas immediately tells Joffrey how to Druid>
Kraj – It… I… I… It’s a fucking beach!
DM -You fuckers did this, I’m just following the physics of the situation!
Abelas – I feel like we are watching a Carry-On movie
DM> Joffrey?
Joffrey> Ok, this is what I want to do… I want to swim as fast as I can to launch myself…
DM> No.
Joffrey> …out of the water…
DM> No.
Joffrey> …bonus action…
DM> No.
Joffrey> …sorry, action to turn into Joffrey…
DM> No.
Joffrey> … and stabilise her.
DM> No…. Wait.. hang on, [sigh] let me check YouTube.
Some moments later…
DM> Well according to the Internet, great whites can jump up to 8 to 10 feet out of the water. Well… shit. [resigned sigh] How big a run up do you want?
DM> Ok, what are you stabilising her with?
[Silence]
[Profound silence]
[The kind of silence where everyone is thinking “uh-oh, Adam didn’t buy a healers kit!”]
Joffrey> [somewhat shamefully] I don’t think… er… I don’t think I’ve got a healer’s kit…
SKT Episode 27: Fantabulous
Vaguely Important Stuff –
Having finally arrived at Nesmé /Nestlé the party witnessed a large group of Zhentarim meet with a pair of fire giants. The Zhentarim pledge to keep the Lord’s Alliance busy so that they don’t interfere with the fire giant’s search for the part to the gigantic ‘brobot’. In exchange the fire giant’s pledge not to use the brobot (Vonindod) against the Zhentarim or places they want to gain control over.
Apparently someone called Duke Zalto is holding a Zhentarim prisoner in a place called Ironslag.
Once the fire giants left, the party briefly entertained the idea of attacking them and taking their leader hostage for interrogation but the memory of last week was still strong and so they just left and travelled to Kryptgarden Forest.
Within Kryptgarden forest they met the green dragon called Claugiyliamatar, or Gnawbone. They managed not to piss her off and so didn’t die. Claugiyliamatar detests giants so she offered to help them and told them to seek out the Valley of Khedrun to the north. They would need a guide and they should seek a frost giant who wears a helm made from the skull of a white dragon.
Really Important Stuff –
Adam couldn’t make it this week and so when it was discussed who to blame for the previous week’s fiasco it was a bit of a no-brainer.
Jake attempted to justify his outright murder of a helpless prisoner the week before.
Celdar felt like he was being stitched up when he was ‘volunteered’ to go spy on the meeting. He has +8 to stealth checks that he makes with advantage and anyone trying to find him makes checks with disadvantage and he has what are effectively potions of invisibility and he can cast actual invisibility and he can Dimension Door and he can Misty Step. Stitch up… right.
Benjamin left them a chest that acts like a bag of holding. It unlocks with one of the Adventurers Anonymoose badges. Within it were magical cloaks; dark green with AA badges for clasps and a bigger moose-head outline in silver stitching on the back. The cloaks can be billowed at will and this makes the stitching glow.
The chest also contains a box called the Fantabulous Coffer of Conversion. If you press the button on top of the box, anything nearby that is compatible with the box will briefly glow purple.
If one of these items is placed in the coffer, it will be transformed into something fantabulous (darlings). If you dislike what the Fantabulous Coffer of Conversion turns your item into, simply repeat the process to reverse the effects.
If you place a magic cloak in the coffer it will be transformed into a fantabulous cloak with the party emblem but will also retain the magic properties of the original.
There are also a set of plans for a war-forged guard dog and they say to consult with a master smith in Bryn Shander called Igor Flintbrow.
Important Verbalisations –
DM – Panache darlings! It’s not just a brothel in Phlan.
DM> Hey-Zeus Aitch fucking Kerist Mike!
Mike> Yeah, sorry, I was too busy thinking up insults for Jake when you said it.
DM> Oh… that’s ok then.
Jake> [engaging justification mode] The prisoner was clearly unresponsive and also sworn to evil!
Mike> But was also tied up!
Jake> So?!
Regulus> I’m quite happy to leave them but Jake, if you want to kill them in their sleep?
Abelas the Murderer> I don’t.. oh fuck off! Don’t take the fucking… fucking moral high ground with me you soulless robot!
Abelas – Oh fuck off! [sigh] You kill oneprisoner…
DM> All movement ceases and silence descends upon the forest. Abelas, you suddenly feel warm, moist air on the back of your neck!
Abelas> Oh no! I’ve seen this film!
DM> As you turn, you see above you a gigantic green dragon’s head, probably the size of a London bus. Its mouth is slightly open and hanging from the left side of the mouth is the tenderized corpse of an Uthgardt barbarian. The dragon is just staring at you from a few feet away, just its head sticking out of the bush. What would you like to do?
Abelas> Er.. a little squeak comes out!
DM> Did anything else come out?
Abelas> Not yet! I’m just frozen, deer in headlights!
DM> Everyone else, you see Abelas unflinchingly stare down the dragon
Regulus – Check it for traps first you twat!
SKT Episode 28: That Might Get Expensive
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They left Kryptgarden Forest heading towards Red Larch to find someone to build the specialist battle wagon they found plans for in Mornbryn’s Shield.
As they arrive in red Larch a young boy runs up looking for a ‘Mister Regoolas’ and asks him to visit the wagon yard. At the yard they find Benjamin has pre-ordered the parts they need and the wagon is built but the players had to pay for the work.
The bed of the wagon is 20ft long and 8ft wide. It resembles a large flat-bottomed boat with the prow cut off. The side are around 4ft high. The body sits 4ft clear of the ground on four spoked wheels clad in the same grey metal. A large central bar runs the length of the underside of the body and holds the axles and the suspension which is a leaf spring design. The wagon is much lighter than it looks and surprisingly sturdy.
The wagon builder, Thorsk Thelorn, tells them the wagon can be upgraded in many different ways but “It might get expensive”. They opt to put the driver outside the wagon and to fit folding armoured panels instead of fixed.
Further upgrades to the wagon require the services of a master enchanter and… that might get expensive. Also, the only master enchanter they know is Chazlauth (still TNAD) back in Waterdeep so that is where they head next.
Chazlauth gives them a Portable Dimension Sphere (PDS) which can shift the wagon and the horses into a pocket dimension for safety. It works once per day. The wagon is also enchanted with a magic-dampening field. This means you can’t cast spells inside it but it can’t be destroyed by magic either.
Chazluath charges 8,000 gold for the work, halves it as it will be used against the giants, accepts 2,000 right now but wants the other 2,000 in a year and warns them not to make him come get it.
They head on up to Xantharl’s Keep looking to collect the bounty on Worvil Forkbeard, also known as The Weevil. Having massively overcomplicated a simple ‘ask about the dude, find the dude, capture the dude’ bounty hunt, they did manage to locate the miscreant and capture him and then the town alarm sounded.
Really Important Stuff –
Joffrey’s Tressym, Solo, was coaxed into the Fantabulous Coffer of Conversion and turned into a mini flying panther. The WOMM turned into a pistol with gunbelt. Regulus’s fists gained the ability to change elemental damage type once per day as an action.
Regulus remembered Claugiliamatar’s name and Chazlauth (TNAD) got really excited.
Chazlauth (TNAD) casually threw the PDS over his shoulder to Regulus. Regulus obviously stuffed the rather low dex check and fumbled it towards Elvira. Elvira the ‘dexpert’ also stuffs it and it heads towards Clay. That save wasn’t even in question and it headed onwards to Abelas and Celdar. Abelas stuffed it as well but Celdar rolled a 17 casually snatches it our of the air and passes it sideways to Regulus without even looking at him. Fuck me.
Important Verbalisations –
Celdar – But his computer is so slow he’s going to go and make a drink while it loads?
Regoolas – That’s ‘mister’ Regoolas to you!
Chazluath> Do you happen to know her real name?
Regoolas> Er… yes.. it was… Claugiliamatar.
DM> Chazlauth looks completely stunned “It cannot be! It is impossible to pronounce a dragon’s real name unless [gasp] You must be who the prophecies speak of! You must be… the Chosen One!”
[slightly hysterical laughter]
Regoolas> [wearily] I sometimes feel like I’ve been chosen for something… yes.
Chazluath> Well, for a start it is prophesied that the Chosen One will believe anything you tell him! HAHAHA! HAHA-HAHA! HAAAAH… okay, whaddya want?
DM> [sigh] Does anyone NOT acquiesce?
Abelas> No.
[silence while everyone tries to work out what that means]
Abelas> I DON’T KNOW.. I.. what the.. I… what the answ.. what that question was!
DM> I fear you are having some communication issues tonight…
Abelas> I.. ye… aaaaaaaaah! FUUUUUCK!
SKT Episode 29: Back In A Sec!
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The town alarm is sounding because a frost giant has appeared on the plain in front of the town. He also has a small army with him. This is actually a distraction while a bunch of bugbears sneak over the back wall and try and capture the Weevil.
Really Important Stuff –
Elvira had been left guarding the Weevil in the wagon while the players were distracted and ran to the front wall. By the time they realised the threat was from the back wall, Elvira was in a bit of trouble and Mike nearly got her killed.
Regulus rescued Elvira and Abelas once again realised somewhat belatedly that he could fly and took off straight up 50ft. This left the rogue in a rather precarious position abandoned by everyone else.
Matt channelled Matt:
Regulus> That is the Mattest roll I’ve ever seen!
Important Verbalisations –
DM> There’s at least a hundred guards on the walls by now and a garrison commander snapping orders. The frost giant shouts out “….
Matt> Back in a sec!
DM> Oh for…
Jake> [laughing] That better be something fucking important….
DM – You put your fingers up his nose and say ‘sniff this!’
Abelas – Oh yeah! I do have Fly… I forgot about Fly! I will admit that I forgot that I could fly.
DM> What’s your armour class?
Joffrey> Er.. fifteen…?
DM> [looks it up] Yeah, it’s twelve, nice try though.
SKT Episode 30: The Chase
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They head to Mirabar with the Weevil on the wagon to collect the bounty but as they approached the city they were attacked by mounted barbarians who also wanted the 5,000 gold. They managed to not entirely fuck up the chase sequence.
Except Jake. Jake properly fucked it.
Really Important Stuff –
Matt had apparently forgotten it was Thursday and gone out somewhere.
The DM made Clay a magic item to help with his abysmal longbow attacks when he wasn’t in melee range. It was a boomerang called Bakinna-Sek.
The Lord of Xantharl’s Keep delivers an old elven longsword to the party as a reward for their help protecting the town. It turns out to be a Moonblade but right now it’s just a longsword until Abelas figures out how to get it to bond to him… if ever.
The battle wagon got upgraded with three heavy crossbows, one each side and one mounted on the rear. These require a bonus action to load and an action to fire. They have +5 To-Hit and deal a flat 20 damage. At the start of combat they are not loaded.
Regulus summoned a badger with a speed of 20ft in the middle of a high speed chase. Bye badger!
Abelas fell off the wagon.
Orcs jumped on the roof. Joffrey Sssurpsrisssed them:
Important Verbalisations –
Mike> Naval combat!
Adam> Who’s fighting their belly buttons?
[silence]
[silence]
Mike> Ohhh, right!
Tired DM> I don’t get… oh, right ‘navel’ combat [sigh]. That’s bad. Right, the mounted crossbows are unloaded, Regulus is driving, Abelas is shotgun, everyone else is in the back. Let’s see what goes wrong shall we?
Celdar – Okay, I’ll take a shot with the crossbow… Are they pre-loaded?
DM> [deep sigh] I knew I should have started this further back down the map but I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to fall off the wagon!
Regulus> I think “I didn’t think it through” might want to be the title of this one?
DM> I was thinking of just “Lol nub”
Abelas> Look, I’m having a bad time, just carry on! Everyone just carry on!
The travelled to Waterdeep for a quest from Goldenfields that led them to talking to the butler from House Thran and receiving a Wand of Magic Missiles and a Chime of Opening.
While in Waterdeep they went to consult with a rumoured dragon expert Chazlauth Yarghorn who Mike was totally convinced was actually a dragon before he had even met him.
Chazlauth (Totally Not A Dragon) suggests it would be very unlikely that good dragons would agree to work with the Lord’s Alliance to combat the giant threat and instead suggests that they go find Old Gnawbone, a green dragon, in Kryptgarden Forest. She apparently has some magnificent balls. Which can see the future or something.
Regulus (Totally Convinced Chazlauth Is A Dragon) attempts to get Chazlauth to pass word of the giant issues to the silver dragons. Chazlauth says no. Regulus gets grumpy.
They went to Mornbryn’s Shield to see the widow of a dead Halfling killed at Goldenfields. The town had been taken over by Zhentarim mercenaries and they go and see the head Zhentarim called Oboth. Oboth told them to leave town. They didn’t.
Really Important Stuff –
Matt couldn’t make it because apparently moving house is more important than D&D.
They chose their destination from Waterdeep using logic and reasoning and… no they didn’t, they used dice, and so we went to Womford the least important place first <sigh>
In Mornbryn’s Shield, Joffrey became obsessed with polymorphing someone into a giant ape and Regulus then wanted to use ‘gorilla’ tactics <sigh>
The planning on how to lure a group of Zhentarim thugs to an out-of-the-way place took nearly half an hour. Eventually, an actual valid, workable, pretty damn good Adam plan was devised (no, really!). They decided not to do that though obviously <sigh>.
Eventually, Abelas being the fastest runner was sent to antagonise the enemies and then run away. So what immensely insulting phrase did the gimpy wizard use to get them to chase him?
“I bet you guys are so shit you couldn’t catch me!”
Amazing.
Important Verbalisations –
Joffrey – Right, you need to mount me!
Regulus – <sigh> Totally not a dragon. If he is a dragon he’s a fucking bronze dragon or something shit like that!
Regulus – I don’t even know what we were trying to investigate there!
Joffrey> I’d say 50-50… we either die or we don’t.
SKT Episode 22: Giant Monkey Dong
Vaguely Important Stuff –
Six veterans pursued the gimpy wizard into a nearby dry gully because despite “I bet you guys are so shit you couldn’t catch me!” being one of the least effective insults ever thought up, this is D&D and he rolled a 19 on the performance check.
Really Important Stuff –
Adam remained obsessed with turning someone into a giant ape and Jake had been bigging up Storm Sphere for three sessions without actually casting it.
Abelas stuffed a DC5 performance check to fake a fall and lure the mercenaries closer. Yes, you read that right, he failed a difficulty check of five.
On an ambush map they turned their main ranged AoE damage dealer into a melee giant ape. I’d normally be a bit scathing about the tactics but with a giant ape on your side, well… where we’re going, we don’t need tactics, and so Abelapelas was born and thus did he mightily rampage through the valley of death.
Interestingly, by turning Abelas into King Kong, it actually made his charisma go up.
This was the episode that Adam’s inadvertent use of a webcam microphone birthed a meme that is still a thing.
Important Verbalisations –
DM – I’ve forgotten why I called Kraj’s mini ‘Cunt Face’…
Abelas> That is a, queue surprise noises, DC fourteen Con save.
Regulus> <acting surprised> Only fourteen?
<The DM rolls a 14 and a 19 for the Veteran’s saves>
Abelas> Oh… fuck off!
DM> Veteran 4 shouts to Veteran 5 “INCOMING! Dodge!” but the other one shouts back “It’s Okay! It’s only a fourteen!”
Abelapelas> I am going to attempt to squash Veteran 5.
<Jake rolls a 17>
Regulus> Ooh, nice!
Joffrey> You get plus 9 to hit and that’s 3d10 plus 6 damage… twice.
DM> Veteran 5 just looks up at you and goes “Well… shit”.
Adam in a bucket> He got giant ape fisted!
DM> <sigh>
Joffrey – Abelapelas! I created you! Save me!
DM> Elvira?
Elvira> Can I shoot the ape?!
SKT Episode 23: Go Big AND Go Home
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They finally manged to finish off two patrols of mercenaries in the dry gully.
The Zhentarim leader took a bunch of townsfolk hostage and they had to meet him on main street at high noon the next day.
Wooo-wooo-wooo-wooo-wooooo! WAH-WAH-WAAAAH!
Really Important Stuff –
Jake – Holy shit! Adam isn’t late!
Jake finally cast Storm Sphere. It was… alright… I suppose.
Kraj got flattened and was on his last death save. Only Clay could save him! Yeah, Clay went and twatted a merc instead. Kraj did make the next roll though.
Important Verbalisations –
Kraj – You did say “Go big or go home”
Jake – This plan now relies on Matt being able to roll well…
DM – <sigh> I will allow you to throw a giant monkey turd if you really, really want to!
Regulus> Kraj, how bad are you looking? DM> He’s an elf rogue, he’s dressed all in black in the desert, in daytime. It’s a bit cliched but in the right light it could look kind of cool. In the wrong light it will look a bit emo and trying too hard. It’s bright daylight and so all of the faults are exposed so he’s looking a bit… goth. Regulus> Does he look like he’s listening to My Chemical Romance? DM> Oh yes. Celdar> <deep sigh>
DM> Elvira? Which one would you like to… to… <sigh> double penetrate? <sniggering occurs> DM> Sorry, the words were in my brain, I tried not to say it but they had to come out.
DM –<with a barely perceptible trace of sarcasm> Don’t you think you ought to read about what you did before you actually did it?
SKT Episode 24: High Noon Low Down
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The adventurers (and Jake) got into a big fight against the Zhentarim in Mornbryn’s Shield. The leader got polymorphed into a white dragon.
The DM got into a big fight against both RythmBot (RIP) and Kraj’s computer which suddenly decided it wouldn’t draw buildings on TTS. Fucking Kraj.
Kraj assassinated the dude maintaining the dragon polymorph and it turned back into a very surprised Zhentarim leader who was then a lot more surprised when Clay twatted the church and dropped the steeple on him.
Really Important Stuff –
It transpired that not only does Adam not like Firefly, he doesn’t like the original Mass Effect trilogy either. I had to specify there because nobody liked number 4.
The beginning was somewhat delayed as the DM had a terrible time putting a sniper in the bell tower and you simply cannot have a high-noon showdown on main street without a sniper in the bell tower.
Regulapelas grabbed a chunk of church and threw it. This made the church a tad unstable.
Adam proposed a plan so stupid even he thought it was stupid and remarkably did not do the plan anyway. Everyone was a bit shocked.
Adam did however troll everyone when he had Elvira keep attacking Zhentarim thugs instead of the dragon. At least I think it was a troll…
The Godzilla vs Kong action started with the dragon attacking Regulapelas and the DM channelled the ghost of speckled recons and rolled 20, 20, 17 & 20 for 101 damage. “I wonder if we could perhaps all focus on the dragon now?” Asked Mike, somewhat worriedly.
Important Verbalisations –
Jake – This isn’t the time! THIS IS NOT THE TIME!
Abelas – Oh my god are we going Godzilla vs King Kong?! Turn me into a giant ape!
Regulus – Hang on, hang on, AoE could be quite useful. Could you turn Kraj into the ape on the basis that, and I don’t mean this in a personal way, but Kraj is a bit shit?
DM> The Thug falls from the bell tower… oh crap, now I need to unlock the Thug without wrecking half the map…
<The thug stays firmly in place while the church goes flying>
Mike> Nailed it!
DM> What’s that total Kraj?
Kraj> I’m just trying to fucking find it… Mike> If you need a hand with the maths, Jake’s free! Jake> <sigh> Adam> So you can’t perceive your perception stat?
Regulus – I didn’t mean that to come off passive-aggressive… I meant it come off as aggressive-aggressive!
DM> Make a melee attack against the church, it’s a static target so you’ll have to go some to fuck it up…
<Matt rolls a 1>
<Everyone loses it>
DM> He managed it! Abelas> He’s got another one! He’s got another one! Clay> That’s my second one in a row, I’m on a hat-trick! DM> Legana wedges itself in the corner of the wood and timber frame… Clay> I’ll use the giant slayer battleaxe instead! DM> Nice! Everyone sees Clay sigh heavily, reach over his back and unlimber a massive battleaxe and have another pop at the building.
<Matt rolls a 2>
SKT Episode 25: Off the Rails
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They have a quest in Nesme and Nesme is right up the road from Mornbryn’s Shield so that’s where they’ll go right? Wrong. They let a dice decide once more and we all fucked off the Shadowtop Cathedral instead.
They arrived at Shadowtop Cathedral looking for a treant named Turlang who might know where a druid named Aerglas is, because Aerglas fought lots of giants in his adventuring days. Turlang was not there but they did find a satyr which derailed everything until Mike could complete some safeguarding of a local dryad. That sentence was not an exaggeration.
They eventually met Turlang who gave Joffrey some awakened bushes and a tree.
A druid name Tharra asked them to escort her to Jalanthar and were rewarded with some Bracers of Archery. After that they decided to go to ‘Nestlé’ <sigh>. On the way to Nestlé they ran into the Seven Snakes again.
Really Important Stuff –
Matt couldn’t make it because he had to go to a cocktail party. I don’t think anyone has anything to say about that.
During the route planning stage the DM had to put into chat the definitions of ‘Adventurer’ and ‘Pansy’.
This was where everyone discovered that Jake’s supercomputer could not draw green lights in TTS.
Within less than a minute of being reminded of the simple three-step plan, of which they had already accomplished the first step, they managed to turn this:
Step 1: Go to Shadowtop. Step 2: Find Turlang. Step 3: Ask him where Aerglas is.
Into this:
Step 1: Go to Shadowtop. Step 2: Ask ask a random stranger where where Aerglas is. Step 3: Don’t ask the random stranger where Turlang is.
The DM dropped a spur of the moment comment on the satyr and we then had Regulus trying to explain to him why drugging girls is bad. This went on for a while. The DM looked up satyrs in the monster manual. That really didn’t help the situation at all <sigh>
Adam named the awakened shrubbery Woody, Tree-Diddy and Elvis Parsley. They have a movement speed of 20ft.
Important Verbalisations –
DM – That is not how it works. See, I’d look at the map and go “Oh look, Nesmé is RIGHT FUCKING THERE!” but no, you lot go “No! Let’s go back AWAY from the closest point” but that’s fine… everything is ok… wooosaaaah….
DM – There are several different dictionaries on the Internet and this one is one that everybody should look up ‘European Steamboat’ on.
DM – As you approach this particular part of the Evermoor Way, several ragged looking bandits jump out, the leader of which shouts out “We’re the Dandy Highwaymen and… Oh fuck! RUUUUNNNNN!”
Joffrey> I can turn into unicorns! Regulus> <shitting all over that particular parade> No you can’t, they are celestials.
Regulus> I’ve got medicine… Greenwhistle> Anything that will send her to sleep? <silence> Regulus> I’m sorry what? <shocked laughter> Regulus> I see, well… let’s talk about say, I want a cup of tea and I was going to give you one but you didn’t want one but I forced you to drink one… that’s not consent.
Much later:
Regulus> So you understand now about consent? I can leave here happy if you just say you’re not going to… Greenwhistle> If I just say yes, will you go away and leave me alone?
DM> Greenwhistle comes over to you and says “Whatcha doin’?” Joffrey> Does this smell like chloroform to you? DM> He takes a massive sniff and goes out like a light.
DM> Joffrey, the next morning Greenwhistle kind of sidles up to you and says “got any more that mate? ” Joffrey> Yeah, if you can provide the parts necessary and er, you know, a little bit of gold to make it worth my while. Greenwhistle> Yeah, yeah, cool, five gold do? Joffrey> Make it ten. Greenwhistle> Will seven and a half do? Regulus> Oh for fuck sake…
DM> He scampers of into the forest. Regulus> I feel like I should track him… Joffrey> We should follow him to help! DM> <sigh> We are NOT doing a gang rape… Joffrey> No! I meant follow him and tell him we’re helping him! Regulus> Not holding her down!
DM> The following morning Turlang arrives and he is very grumpy. This is an enormous treant, He’s about three times the size of Lifferlas. He is also in the company of a female half-elf druid. Turlang> Why are all these outsiders in my cathedral?! Regulus> Does the druid or the Emerald Enclave want to take the lead on this one? I don’t believe I’ve just suggested Adam take the lead… we’re fucked aren’t we? Joffrey> I think the wizard should take the lead on this one! Abelas> Oh for fuck sake.. I just tell him… Turlang> Are you a druid? Abelas> I mention… Turlang> Are you a druid? Ableas> I say to him… Turlang> ARE YOU A DRUID?! Abelas> <sigh> No, I’m in the Emer… Turlang> Go away. Abelas> I’m a member of the Emerald… Turlang> Go away. Abelas> I’MAMEMBEROFTHEEMERALDENCLAVE! Turlang> Go away! Joffrey> I’m a druid! Abelas> Yes! He’s a druid! DM> Turlang looks Joffrey up and down in his pristine white robes… Turlang> <snootily> I don’t think so. Joffrey> <sigh>
DM – Turlang leans down to the half-elf and says “Says it’s a druid, talks like a druid, smells like a druid… doesn’t look like a druid!”
Regulus> Adam, if you need the names, Lifferlas sent us to look for Aeglas. Joffrey> Yes, right, we are looking for Hourgalss! DM> <sigh> Regulus> And the giants! DM> So Regulus is stood behind Joffrey just prodding him and saying stuff; “<poke> Giants!” and Joffrey is like “Oh yeah, the giants!”. Turlang audibly sighs… there’s a lot of that going on tonight…
Abelas> Do you ever regret doing this Gary? DM> Very much so…
They went looking for the ‘Womford Bat’ and met up with a cleric from Red Larch who was out and about drumming up support for a forthcoming mayoral election.
Rather unsurprisingly the ‘Bat’ turned out to be a full-fledged vampire with a couple of thralls and a some bat-swarm minions. They killed the thralls but the vampire pulled some legendary action bollocks and escaped.
Really Important Stuff –
Joffrey cast a Wind Wall hoping to contain the bat swarms. The fact that they could simply fly over it clearly never occurred to him.
Abelas pissed off the vampire by thunderstepping away with his lunch (Joffrey) and then the dice saved the gimpy wizard against every single attack the vampire made so he changed tactics, read his mind, and went after the wizard in a different way instead.
Snake jazz became a thing <sigh>
Important Verbalisations –
DM> <quietly> How high is it?
Joffrey> Er…
<some sniggers are heard>
DM> I believe the answer to that question is “Well… shit”
Abelas – I may be dead but I still know stuff!
DM> Give it a good fisting!
Regulus> Indeed!
DM> Fist it in the wind hole!
<embarrassed silence>
Regulus> Er… yes.
Morticus Von Strimple: Do the gods somehow favour this barely-perambulatory varlet?!
DM> That vampire spawn dashes down there next to… Binky.
<shocked gasps>
Abelas> You fucking what?!
Regulus> <with brutal honesty> Well it’s you or Binky now.
Joffrey> Right, I’m going to move 15ft this way… and as I’m doing that I’m going to be singing snake jazz.
Instead of pursuing the fleeing vampire, the adventurers (and Jake) opted to take a long rest so he escaped for good. However, the vampire has left the area so they collect their reward from Womford and gain passage down river to Goldenfields.
Whilst resting at the inn in Goldenfields the town comes under attack. The inn is attacked by ogres, bugbears and goblinses. These are defeated and they take a bugbear prisoner.
Really Important Stuff –
Jake forgot it was D&D day.
Mike couldn’t make make it because he had the covid. There was a lot of that going around.
Joffrey, Clay and Elvira decided to drink heavily at the inn while Abelas had a minor meltdown due to a sense of impending doom. He was of course right about that and the three of them had to fight drunk.
Elvira however, rolling initiative at disadvantage, rolled two 20s <sigh>. Abelas, despite being the only one not drunk and thus not rolling at disadvantage, still managed to go last. Some things are just inevitable.
The DM explained how the things that were attacking Goldenfields were doing so for a reason but they’d probably have to wait until next week to find out what it was. In reality it was over three months because this was the week that the DM got the covid.
There were 4 NPCs in the fight and the players took control and rolled initiative for them. They rolled 2, 1, 1 & 4. Well done everyone.
Drunken Elvira kills two goblins in two shots. Fucking Arcane Archers.
Joffrey is feeling queasy and the DM proposes a course of action from the Goonies. Turns out Adam has never seen the Goonies <sigh>.
Clay picks a fight with an ogre
Important Verbalisations –
Clay> What was Elvira drinking? I want some!
Elvira> Too right, I want that in real life!
DM> Elvira, would you like to shoot the prisoner?
<slight pause>
Elvira> Er… yes?
SKT Episode 18: Regulus’s Day Off
Vaguely Important Stuff –
This was the first session in a couple of months after the DM used the excuse of ‘not being able to do stairs’ after his flirtation with covid. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.
The captured bugbear reveals that two hill giants called Lobb and Ogg led a force of goblins and bugbears to raid Goldenfields under the orders of the hill giant chieftain Guh. The giants have remained outside the town while three bands of raiders attempt to stealth in and steal food.
The second band of raiders were found and defeated at the animal pens and the last group were tracked down at the abbey. As they were defeated some injured soldiers appeared being chased by a pair of hill giants.
Really Important Stuff –
Kraj joined for the first time and the DM immediately blamed him for not having prepped properly.
Jake paid £8 for a mini and we all had to wait three hours while he figured out how to import it.
Important Verbalisations –
Mike – Jangle, jangle, now then, now then!
Joffrey> What the fuck is this cat?
Abelas> It’s just a cat.
Joffrey> I don’t trust it!
Abelas> Is that because it isn’t showing you its dick?
<Surprised guffaw from Kraj who doesn’t know that particular story>
DM> You are now the proud owners of an unconscious, manacled bugbear. Elvira, would you like to shoot the prisoner?
Elvira> <Eagerly> Yeah!
<groans and objections>
Abelas> And then I run away!
Joffrey> No one saw that coming!
Abelas> Look, my entire thing is running away so fuckyoo!
Abelas> Right, this is the important bit! This is where they make DC14 Dex saves!
Regulus> Only DC14?
Abelas> I will… er.. <depressed sigh>
SKT Episode 19: The Day The Music Died
Vaguely Important Stuff –
The two approaching giants were killed with only Regulus getting really messed up.
The adventurers (and Jake) defended a wall against a horde of bugbears and goblins with goblins being fired at them from siege ogres. They killed the siege ogres by using a giant ballista.
Really Important Stuff –
Matt rolled a 20 for initiative. No, he really, really did!
Abelas killed something with a sword. No, he really, really did!
Regulus took a 42 damage rock to the face, barely survived and asked if the rest of the party wouldn’t mind killing the giant that was targeting him. The rest of the party was of the opinion that he was “tanking it just fine” and that finishing off the first giant was their priority.
Kraj did this to the map:
Fucking Kraj!
Fucking Kraj!
A giant punched a giant badger named ‘Giant Badge’ and failed to kill it.
Important Verbalisations –
Regulus – …but no, you had to roll the wrong class!
Abelas> I… will… level 1 Magic Missile…
DM> OH YOU GOD-DAMNED PANSY! STAB IT!!
SKT Episode 20: Prostitutey Goblin Strippers
*I have to say I have no memory of why this episode was called this. Let’s find out shall we?
Vaguely Important Stuff –
They eliminated the siege ogres with Bertha the ballista and eventually eliminated or distracted the approaching goblin army as well.
Level 7 was achieved for the successful defence of Goldenfields and Celdar receives a matched kukri set called ‘The Devil & The Debt’ from Benjamin.
Really Important Stuff –
Regulus trolled Joffrey into dropping panic-snake form; Joffrey subsequently got hit by the very last spike-helmed goblin from the siege ogres.
Holly’s Hand Grenades of Anti-Lock became a thing.
Celdar casts a silent image of a ‘prostitutey looking goblin’ and had it do a provocative dance. This mesmerises a pack of goblins until Abelas hits the image with a Magic Missile <sigh>
Important Verbalisations –
Joffrey – Shoot your load!
Abela> I shall…
DM> STAB IT!!
Abelas> Um… I shall…
DM> STAB IT!!
Abelas> Er… I shall…
DM> OMG STAB IT!!!!
Abelas> <sigh> I shall attempt to stab it…
DM> YES!!!
Elvira – And I do a hair-flip!
Regulus – Sorry, I thought you turned into a snake not a pussy
