Author: Dunorlan

Episode 11: Moon Doves of the Day

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The session starts in the middle of the Hunt Lord fight and everyone obviously forgot that Spirit Guardians and Flaming Orb were in play <sigh>. The Hunt Lords are vanquished and a journal found that reveals that the true mastermind behind the rise of the undead Hunt Lords was actually the castellan Amrath.

Oops.

They got in a fight with Amrath and some gargoyles and nearly wiped but succeeded in killing him and freeing the town from the curse of the Hunt lords. Huzzah.

There was stuff with the three brothers at the inn; they were in line for an inheritance and had set out to allegedly kill a Hill Giant to decide who got it. One brother was killed by an alleged giant and on their way out of town the came upon one of the surviving two stood over the corpse of the other with a rapier in his hand.

The survivor, called Lezryk, claimed his brother attacked him first and that he acted in self-defence and he offered them 10,000 gold if the kept their mouths shut. They need to collect it in Neverwinter. Leyzark was released but they moved the body to a different location in case they needed some leverage.

Really Important Stuff –

Adam played Elvira this session, blew all her abilities in one turn and did some arrow twirling. It was later discovered that real archers think arrow twirlers are poncey twats and have banned it from competitions.

Isaac and Joffrey got into a religious spat and Abelas sided with the druid. Everyone else thought this was a major tactical mistake.

Adam attempted to cheese 10ft of reach from a 5ft Constrict attack <sigh>

Jake got educated about ritual spells in the usual manner; abuse.

They returned to the entrance to find Amrath no longer there. He wasn’t the only one as the DM had decided to make the gargoyle statues actual gargoyles and they had vanished too. So they did the obvious thing and split the party to go looking for the evil genius that had trapped the Hunt Lords into an undead compact with a demon lord. Absolutely nothing can go wrong with that plan right? Right.

It immediately went wrong, obviously.

Amrath lets loose a Cone of Cold that drops Joffrey, Isaac and Elvira and that put the party right in the shit until Clay action surges and dashes a really long way to get to Amrath and drops him with a double attack. Phew.

Back at town they decide to lay the dead pigeon to rest. Yes, Joffrey was still carrying it around <sigh> The was a lengthy discussion on the best way to do this and which deity it was which ended with Adam proclaiming off the back of a 9-point Religion check that “Pigeons go to Selune! Selune will guide pigeons! They are essentially…. The moon doves of the day!”

Joffrey wanted to commit an actual murder to avenge a possible murder <sigh>.

Important Verbalisations –

Adam – Because that’s just cheesy Gary and I would never play anything cheesy!

Adam – FUCK YEAH, ACTION SUUUUURGE!

DM – I can’t find ‘skeletal warhorse’ on D&D Beyond.. oh.. it’s under ‘Warhorse, skeletal’ <sigh>

• DM> COUGHGARGLECOUGH
• Adam> Gary’s got the corona!

Adam/Elvira – Fuck yeah! Does 27 hit? Of course it does because I’M A BEAST!

• DM> Wait, you have Comprehend Languages memorised?
• Abelas> Yeah.
• DM> You sad fuck.

Abelas – Wait.. are the fucking statues gone?!

• DM> So that’s 8d8 cold damage…
• Adam> Fucking wot?!

Episode 12: The Not-So Dandy Highwaymen

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The group name was decided and Avenger’s Anonymoose were born.

As they travelled from Noanar’s Hold to Everlund they had an encounter with a ragged band of bandits and scared them off without actually killing any of them.

They spotted some vultures and found a band of dead Uthgardt Barbarians and four Frost Giant corpses. They appeared to have killed each other.

Moving on, they arrived at the village of Olostin’s Hold where the local inn has a magical floating tankard in it. While there they heard rumours about a pair of blue dragons causing mischief in the northern desert near Ascore.

A quest takes them to a pub in Everlund where they are given a suspicious drink that teleports them to Moongleam Tower which is inhabited by the Harper archmage Krowen and a number of flying cats called Tressym. Krowen grants them access to the Harper teleport circles.

They moved on to Silverymoon, meeting a suspiciously familiar band of highwaymen along the route, and attempted to rob a demon worshipping family of its secret get away stash from the carriage house but set off the alarm and alerted the guards.

Really Important Stuff –

Joffrey expressed a wish to visit the Maelstrom, way out to sea in the south-west, at some point and the DM said he would try and make it happen.

While in the floating tankard inn the DM asked his players if they wanted to share anything. Instead of embracing the moment to RP they immediately got suspicious and tried to figure out what the DM might be hinting at <sigh>.

Krowen offered them a Tressym but only one and to the first one that could bond with it. Joffrey promptly cheated like fuck showed a lot of initiative and shape-changed into a Tressym and won.

Joffrey ordered some cat armour (yes, really) for the Tressym.

There was an interesting conversation about the difference between Detect Magic and Dispel Magic. There was then a much longer conversation regarding Jake’s ability to tell the two apart, his unwillingness to learn a wizard staple spell (according to Adam) and Adam’s inability and unwillingness to listen to whatever else Jake said about it.

They became convinced that the horses in the carriage house were actually ‘demon horses’ and that Joffrey would attempt to calm them with his ‘Calm Demon Horse’ spell <sigh>.

Matt won the inaugural Cheese of the Week Award for asking if his spell that makes characters stealth better also silences squeaky door hinges <sigh>.

It then transpires that not only Abelas but also Joffrey can learn Detect Magic. Oops.

It then transpires that not only Abelas and Joffrey can learn Detect Magic but Isaac, controlled by the DM, can as well… and that he actually has learned it and currently has it memorised.

Double-Oops.

Important Verbalisations –

Mike – Brilliant, you were given two options and you chose a third!

Regulus – I feel I know everything I want to know about these people to be honest…

• Abelas> Oh Detect magic? No, I’ve got Dispel Magic.
• Joffrey> <flabbergasted> Wha…! What did I fucking say?
• Abelas> <no fucks given> I don’t know, I didn’t listen to you.

Abelas – Oh for fuck sake you luminous prick!

• DM> Isaac shouts “FUCK MY DICK!”…
• Mike> It’s like he was in the room!
• DM>… followed by “LATHANDER SAYS RUN!” and he takes off down the street.

Episode 13: The Sound of Silence

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The ‘human’ carriage house guards turned out to be a pair of Cambion devils which were summarily executed and then Abelas eventually managed to cast Dispel Magic on the alarm to shut it up but only after Matt helpfully posted the definitions of Dispel and Detect in chat.

They stole the carriage and the loot inside it and made off out of town. The loot consisted of some unimportant magical items, a scroll of Detect Magic (because the DM is a troll) and a ring of Detect Demonic Horses.

They went to Zymorven Hall in search of a magical Giantslayer axe but it had been stolen by Lord Zymorven’s son, Harthal. A shifty bard told them Harthal had gone to Yartar and they should politely enquire after him at the Wink & Kiss Tavern.

They exchanged the favour they earned earlier in the campaign for information and found Harthal had killed someone and was in prison. A corrupt guard officer was currently in possession of the axe. They contacted a local Harper cell and paid 200g in expenses but the axe was delivered to the safe house without anyone getting killed (which made a nice change).

A request is made that they travel to Goldenfields where trouble is afoot. Stopping off at Westbridge they hear rumours:

• – There’s a red dragon cult up in the Spine of the World
• – There is talk of elementalists running around in the Dessarin Valley
• – Some particularly idiotic people are thought to be worshipping a kraken in Yartar and Waterdeep

They find a notice asking for adventurers in nearby Beliard and travel to The Stone Bridge over the Dessarin River.; 400ft high, a mile-and-a-half long, 20ft wide and with no hand rail.

At the foot of the bridge they meet two travellers looking to cross with a larger group. One is a dwarf named Dulron and the other is a human wizard calling himself Ember.

Really Important Stuff –

The DM boomered the audio recording so well done there.

Matt couldn’t make it because attending a PTA meeting is more important than attending D&D apparently. Then he turned up anyway. Then he left halfway through.

They questioned the need for a magic giantslaying axe in a campaign about rampaging giants. The DM may or may not have been disappointed with this response and may or may not have made several disparaging comments about the group as a whole and the distinct lack of adventure being displayed by peopled calling themselves adventurers..

Benjamin made an appearance on a flying black horse with a flaming mane and tail. He was pursued by flame-wreathed demons but managed to pass the party a bag of Adventurer’s Anonymoose badges before he rode off.

At the end of the session Adam appeared to be pre-emptively using the birth of his firstborn to get out of D&D. As I write this in May 2022 it seems this is becoming a habit Adam, just sayin’.

Important Verbalisations –

DM – Goddamfuckingshitfuck!

DM – ‘Adventurers’ my arse

Benjamin – WHOO-HOO! DARLINGS!

Also Benjamin – COME FANDANGO! WE MUST FLY! FLY LIKE THE WIND!

Not Benjamin – The princess’s defiler escapes us!

Episode 14: Knocking One Off

Vaguely Important Stuff –

Half way across the Stone Bridge they run into a Fire Giant with a couple of pets:

The Hell Hounds charge and get killed. The Fire Giant advances through a Spike Growth and is nearly in melee range when someone lands a Hold Person on it and that pretty much ended the fight.

The giant dropped a Rod of the Vonindod which can be used to detect pieces of the gigantic ‘brobot’ the fire giants seem to be trying to rebuild.

Ember tries to recruit Joffrey into some druid cult. He says that his real name is Bastian Thermander.

At Beliard they find out that hill giants have been stealing livestock from the surrounding farms. The mayor offers them a reward if they can find out where the hill giant lair is located. They set out to explore the local area and found an old tower from which came the most godawful mournful singing ever heard.

Really Important Stuff –

Matt told everyone that it was this week for the PTA meeting and not last week and that he wouldn’t be turning up.

Matt then did turn up and explained that the PTA meeting was the night before.

Mike used the Bag of Tricks but got a weasel. The DM doesn’t have a weasel mini so it became a racoon instead. We name it Mattroll because you need to roll a 1 to summon it.

Adam, playing Elvira, delivers an absolute masterclass in misreading ability descriptions and stuffs up the effects of both Shadow Arrow and Grasping Arrow.

Joffrey used a fire damage spell on a Hell Hound and seemed surprised when it didn’t do much damage.

Adam/Elvira action surged and rolled two ones for the next two attacks. Truly impressive.

Mike pulled a Dire Wolf from the Bag of Tricks and it was named after Joffrey; Insensitive Bastard.

Important Verbalisations –

Abelas – Fuckofffuckingfuck! What a prick!

• Adam> I’d say Abelas has a slightly higher charisma than Jake…
• Jake> You fucking piece of shit!

DM – I gave the Fire Giant 22AC and it wasn’t enough…

Episode 15: Charisma is NOT a Dump Stat!

Vaguely Important Stuff –

Matt couldn’t make it because he has the Covid. There’s a lot of that going around apparently.

Sophie joined for a session playing a Furry… Sorry, a Tabaxi.

At the tower the DM likened the din to the ‘music’ played by Uffo with the mini-xylophone. Yes, it was that bad.

There is a mournful female hill giant in the tower and as they all speak giant they understood she was singing about how someone called Guh has stolen her husband Hruk. The planning that took place to get inside the tower was impressive in both the length of time it took and the ridiculousness of most of the suggestions.

Sophie uses furry dancing to calm the giant and she offers to take them to the hill giant stronghold if they agree to get her husband back. They went to the stronghold, lured out the husband and returned to Beliard. For the reward.

They are sent to Womford to investigate some missing persons.

Really Important Stuff –

The furry wanted to negotiate with the mournful giant via interpretive dance.

The artificer wanted to tinker a message cube and throw it in the window. The furry wanted to add a pan-pipe fanfare to it.

There was further discussion involving erotic giant porn (don’t ask) how best to search for it online (really, don’t ask) and whether or not to attach said erotic giant material to the message box with a pan flute fanfare.

Only after two hours of planning does Mike ask “What are we trying to achieve here?” causing the DM to dissolve into fits of laughter. Regulus finally just walked in the door and spoke to the giant.

The planning to get the right giant away from the fort made the tower planning look like a work of genius. They managed it but it wasn’t quick and is wasn’t pretty.

Important Verbalisations –

Regulus – Yes, we could just shout up and say “Greetings giant. You sound… sad”

Abelas – I almost want to do it but I’m not fucking going to!

Abelas – If this is how we lose Joffrey, I’m in!

DM – The thought that just leapt into my head was “Remarkably, that is not the worst plan you have ever come up with”

• Regulus> I’m going to tinker a little box which has a ticker-tape readout on it that says “Hello giant, you sound melancholy”…
• <The DM has a quiet giggle at the thought of a hill giant with an Int of 5 knowing wtf ‘melancholy’ means, also that the giant can’t read>
• Joffrey> Has anyone got like a metal canteen we can bang on a rock?
• Felix> I have a Pan flute!
• <silence>
• Joffrey> They uh.. aren’t known for being loud.
  DM> No, but it would calm me the fuck down.

DM – Look, one of you just stick your fucking head around the corner, wave at the fucking giant and go something like ‘Cooo-eee!’. It’s not that fucking difficult!

Regulus – Why doesn’t the druid just turn into something tasty and run away?

Episode 6: Standing on the Boulders of Giants

Vaguely Important Stuff-

Orc raiders attacked Triboar and the party went to a nearby field to help with the defence.

Having killed the orcs they were summoned back to the centre of town where more orcs and a pair of Fire Giants had appeared.

Really Important Stuff –

Adam broke one of his monitors. This is where months of abuse started.

Joffrey (as a shape-shifted dire wolf) managed to talk Abelas into mounting him with the intention that Joffrey would carry Abelas magnificently into battle where he could Fireball the approaching orcs.

Halfway there Abelas’ brain suddenly realised what he was doing and he jumped off. This left the druid extremely unhappy and with one wild-shape wasted.

A very pissed-off Joffrey dropped a Moonbeam but it doesn’t do damage until the end of the affected creatures turns. It now became a challenge to the other players to kill off all the stuff in the circle before the Moonbeam could get to work. They largely failed but had a lot of fun trying.

Joffrey runs off alone into a field full of orcs and gets into a bit of bother. He suggests that Regulus and Abelas cast Shatter on both him and the orcs. He fails the saves on the first spell with style and on the second one with aplomb. This loss of hit points, along with a wasted Wild Shape, would have consequences.

Joffrey launched a Tidal Wave at the pair of giants, one of whom was holding both a very large boulder and her action. It did not end well.

Important Verbalisations –

• Joffrey> Look, you can’t do badly with a Fireball…
• Regulus> You can’t, no.
• Joffrey> You can do better with a Fireball…
• <general agreement>

• Adam> Jake.. operation gimp-elf dire-wolf?
• Jake> Oh, you know what? Why the fuck not?
• DM> “I somehow feel we should be better than this”… Jake last session.

Jake – Wait, wait… WHAT?! Fuck this shit I’m going back!

Jake – I didn’t come into this session meaning to piss off Adam, it’s just… progressed.

• Joffrey> I can call a Tidal Wave on these two and then run.
• Regulus> <dubiously> I feel like you are inviting a rock being thrown.
• Joffrey> It’s fine, I’ve survived worse.
• DM> Yeah, I mean, what are the odds that she’ll hit you at that range, right?

DRUID DOWN!

Episode 7: My Empire of Dirt

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The adventurers (and Jake) finish off the orc raiders and watch as the two fire giants finish digging up a hefty chunk of adamantite that looks like it is a part of a very large construct. They toddle off the battlefield unmolested.

The Lord Protector asks them to go look for the wizard with the gargoyles as his house got trampled and no one has seen him since. They found the wizard’s corpse and looted it and then found his vault and tried to loot that. A genie appeared.

Really Important Stuff –

Apparently a DFU civil war was happening between Team Slash and Team Dash but the DM was on leave and gave not one single toss.

Joffrey got healed and got back up. The orc next to him twatted him back down again.

DRUID DOWN!

Clay got surrounded and twatted down as well.

FIGHTER DOWN!

Adam spent an hour doing nothing as Joffrey remained on the floor for most of the fight. He did, eventually, get to his feet and got enthusiastic support and encouragement from his teammates;

• “Why don’t you wild shape?”
• “Cast Tidal Wave again!”
• “Wear another rock as a hat!”

Regulus wants to rebuild the giant construct and become ‘brobots’ with it <sigh>

The Bag of Tricks was used in the last round of combat and a giant moose was summoned. Anonymoose became a thing for the first time. Level 6 became a thing too.

Important Verbalisations –

Chris – You spent an hour dead and that’s what you came up with?

Regulus – He’s not barbequed yet because the cunt druid is dead!

• Abelas> Though also… shut up, you’re dead!
• Joffrey> Unconscious!
• DM> “You’re not here little druid-bitch!”

Drikk Fra-Kar points out that nobody likes fire giants because they are gingers.

DM> “Here lies Elvira, she was the one who could hit shit”

Episode 8: Duel of the Snakes

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The genie, named Benjamin, explains that if they are willing to face the guardians of the lamp they can free him and then he will reward them with gifts of power, majesty, intrigue and most importantly style!

The challenge was duly accepted and they ended up facing off against a team of doppelgangers.

The players beat themselves up and won the fight. Benjamin asked if they would free him and they did. Each player gains a ‘dormant’ version of a powerful item that will level with them as we progress through the campaign.

Really Important Stuff –

Notable highlights of the fight were when doppelganger-Elvira action-surged all over Abelas and took him out first turn and when Joffrey turned into Panic Snake and the DM used doppelganger Joffrey to not-really-ironically Tidal Wave him.

D-Joffrey then also turned into Panic Snake and we had a giant snake-off while the medieval version of Duel of the Fates played in the background.

Important Verbalisations –

• Regulus> We could try to talk to them…
• Abelas> Nah, I know me, I’d Fireball us in a heartbeat!
• Joffrey> Go on! Shoot yourself!
• Elvira> I will!

Adam – I didn’t realise Karl Urban was in Lord of the Rings!

DM – “Reward time darlings!”

DM – dit-dit-diddle-oo, dit-dit-diddle-oo… DIDDLE OOOO! DIDDLE OOOO!

Episode 9: The Evermoor the Merrier!

Vaguely Important Stuff –

Magic bracers from the dead wizard were sold in town for 5,000g and, along with two sets of plate mail, the players bought horses and named them as follows:

• Abelas – Binky
• Elvira – Artax
• Joffrey – Shelby (a black mustang <sigh>)
• Regulus – Nofoo (not food)
• Clay – Schlots
• Isaac – Firefly

They travelled to Yartar where they overheard a rumour about a trade delegation going missing near Womford and listened to a bard sing about Force Grey, a retired adventuring band out of Waterdeep that included a frost giant called Harshnag.

They stop at the town of Calling Horns along the Evermoor Way, a road running along the edge of the Evermoors. The woman who runs the town gives them free room and board as having adventurers around adds to the security of the place.

That night a disturbance outside leads to the adventurers (and Jake) confronting a pair of trolls that were trying to break into the stable and eat the horses. The trolls were summarily dispatched and the horses saved… mainly because Abelas was threatened with violence if he Fireballed the rather flammable looking stable.

Tamalin, the innkeeper, persuades the party to go spend a couple of nights in the Evermoors and see if they can figure out what has the local trolls so riled up so off they go on a happy camping trip.

On their second day in the Evermoors they hear a commotion and Joffrey polymorphs into a Giant Owl to investigate. He failed to persuade anyone to go with him and thus Operation Flying Wizerd was killed at birth, which was a shame.

The commotion was caused by a fire giant giving a troll a bollocking for not bringing it enough to eat. Mission accomplished; the trolls are roaming out of the Evermoors because the fire giants are enslaving them. Quest complete, they can go back to the inn and get their reward right? No, no they fight the fire giant.

Sadly the DM was unable to punish the wizard for not stepping back into cover with a boulder to the face because the fire giant failed every single save in the fight and got blinded and knocked down.

Really Important Stuff –

Two of them chose bright white horses to take adventuring in a land full of stuff that likes to eat horses <sigh>.

They want horse armour because Bethesda trained them to want it and the DM calculates that it will cost 36,000 gold to outfit all of the horses with plate so they didn’t do that after all.

It turns out that the horses are more charismatic than the wizard. Not joking.

During travel planning, Jake dismissed Lurkwood as a ‘discount Murkwood’ and the DM accepted the challenge and renamed it on the quest map to “Binky’s Doom”

The DM persuades Adam that a Spike Growth is a better tactical option than a Call Lightning and it end up doing more damage than the wizard’s Fireball, which was nice.

Important Verbalisations –

Jake – I’d tell you I feel your pain but I just rolled a 19 so…

Isaac – FUCK MY DICK!

Elvira – Er… 26 to hit?

• Joffrey> Is there any chance I can buy a white cowboy hat?
• DM> No

• Adam> I blame Jake!
• Jake> Go fuck yourself!
• <fapping noises come through discord>

Episode 10: FUCKOFFWINDOWS

Vaguely Important Stuff –

They return to the innkeeper and are rewarded with a letter that can earn them a favour from the Yartar Thieves Guild should they find themselves in need of one.

The next day they arrived at Noanar’s Hold where they were to deliver some high-end saddles. On the trail up to the town they spot a pigeon pinned to a tree by an arrow. Investigations showed it had a message on its leg which reads “The Hunt Lords live! Save us!”

The stayed at the inn and were warned not to go out after dark. Three brothers were also staying at the inn; they were there to hunt a hill giant for private reasons.

The next morning they head up to the hold to deliver the saddles, gained access to the fort and found some undead within. The session ends in the middle of a huge fight with the Hunt Lords and their undead skeleton minions. The DM asks everyone to remember that both Spirit Guardians and Flaming Orb are in play.

Really Important Stuff –

The discussion about what to do about the pigeon is one of the most painful, and yet entertaining, experiences the DM has ever had to sit through. Suffice it to say they massively overcomplicated things <sigh>.

They decided not to travel from the town to the castle in the dark not because it was potentially dangerous, possibly haunted and unquestionably stupid to go there at night but because it would have been impolite to rock up there after dark.

There were statues of gargoyles outside of the hold and they refused to check if they were statues or actual gargoyles. I still don’t know why. At the door they were met by a short irritable dwarf castellan called Amrath who grumpily invited them in to put the crate of saddles on the floor.

At this point the session ground to a halt because what they should have done was demand to see the Hunt Lords and if they turned out to be evil undead arseholes they should have fucked them the fuck up. However, they were simply too polite to upset the castellan and investigate the castle despite all the clues. There’s never a paladin about when you need one <sigh>. For the write-up the DM actually made graphic to summarise all the clues they had been given about what was going on. It was characteristically subtle.

The heavily armed team of adventurers (and Jake) first pretended to be cleaners to blag their way into the castle and when that failed begging to use the loo didn’t work either.

Eventually, after an extraordinarily long session of pontification with zero actual action, the DM had the castellan faint so we could get this shit show back on the road. They checked Amrath and found he was not faking it. They then discussed tying him up and Joffrey wanted to shackle him to a gargoyle naked <sigh>. They chose not to tie him up. Remember this bit.

Joffrey wanted to go left so everyone else went right, obviously.

Regulus summoned a modron cube as a pet. The DM asked him if he had a name for it and then labelled it Nottyett.

They get in a fight with a bunch of skeletons in the barracks and only after the fight does Mike use the Bag of Tricks and produces Anonymoose. It then dawns on everyone how big the moose is compared to the door. Anonymoose was abandoned which led to this:

Important Verbalisations –

Adam – OHFUCKOFFWINDOWS!

Jake – Do you ever think we overanalyse shit?

Joffrey – I think we should take it with us and be like “Is this your pigeon?”

Regulus> Do we think these Hunt Lords are evil undead and therefore we should probably be sorting them out?

Anonymoose the Plaintive Elk – MOOOUUUGHHHUURGH!

Joffrey – Ugh, I had to use my weap… FUCKOFFWINDOWS!

• Abelas> How did that one die?
• DM> It went minus fourteen, minus fifteen, ‘nuked to fuck’
• Abelas> Yeah, that would do it

• Clay> How would a trip attack work against them?
• DM> <sigh> Why couldn’t you just fucking hit it?!

Episode 1: And so it begins… again.

Vaguely Important Stuff –

Clay the fighter, Q’Aren the cleric, Abelas the gimpy wizard, Regulus the artificer and Elvira the arcane archer head to the town of Nightstone seeking adventure (and loot).

They arrived to find the town overrun by goblins, no townsfolk present and the Nightstone from the centre of town had been stolen. Turns out the town was bombarded by giants in a flying castle who nicked the stone. The townsfolk ran to nearby caves to take shelter but were captured by goblins that had recently moved in there.

They cleared the town of goblins but a group of Zhentarim bandits called The Seven Snakes appeared at the end of the drawbridge and Q’Aren negotiated with them. They buggered off… for now.

Really Important stuff –

In the first fight of the campaign Clay got KO’d by two Worgs, Growler and Snatch: FIGHTER DOWN!

Adam got really confused over a floor plan of a building with only two floors.

Adam ran out of attention span after one fight and swapped Q’Aren to a fighter.

When they questioned the town guard about what happened, they were informed that the flying castle departed to the east. Regulus then asked the DM which way the castle went.

Important verbalisations –

DM – See this bit? This is the groooooounnnnd floor…

Q’Aren – You’re not here, fuck off little wizard bitch!

Episode 2: Tonight we dine in Hell! (or the inn)

Vaguely Important Stuff –

An orc raiding party attacked the town and it was up to the adventurers (and Jake) to defend it. They mostly bollocksed it up, obviously. There was a palisade with a really defensible gap in it. They decided to ignore that and fight outside the palisade <sigh>.

Elven scouts turned up and massacred the orcs thus saving the party.

Really Important stuff –

Matt couldn’t make it because he was playing football. Yes, I know.

Adam mocked Mike for mispronouncing ‘Genasi’ but then mispronounced ‘Drow’ <sigh>

Q’Aren wants to charge the horde of oncoming orcs. The DM describes exactly where he will put the orcs if that happens. Q’Aren charges the orcs anyway. The DM puts the orcs exactly where he said he would. Adam is shocked and surprised. Mike is left genuinely speechless by Adam’s level of stupidity.

Isaac the Light Cleric unleashed the cheese of all cheeses; Radiance of Dawn. Everyone wondered how come Adam had not discovered this gorgonzola before now.

The theme from MASH became a thing (suicide is painless) and Christina blatantly mis-gendered the beleaguered Q’Aren.

Important verbalisations –

Chris – Christ, I can’t believe I exposed myself to you again!

Adam – OH MY GOD JUST SHOOT ONE!

Adam – I don’t need healers!

Adam – Oh, they move a lot further than I thought!

Mike – Why would you… why.. wh… … …

Jake – You’re a fucking idiot!

Episode 3: Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The adventurers entered the goblin caves which were home to the Pho-Knee tribe of goblins. The goblins had previously stolen a bunch of costumes from the store in town.

They entered the cave by going up the back passage and confronted the goblin chief. They killed him using Shatter which alerted everything else in the cave system.

Two ogres and a bunch of costumed goblins were killed and the main cave area cleared. The villagers were found in a cave full of bats.

Really Important stuff –

Mike told the DM that to make his character work he needed plate armour, a gem worth 100g and a Chinook. Careful what you ask the DM for.

Jake was roundly chastised for not using Magic Missile on 7hp goblins given that it does a minimum of 6 damage and the odds of it being that low are really… er… low.

Jake consequently Magic Missiled a goblin and obviously did the minimum 6 damage <sigh>.

Q’Aren got KO’d by an unexpected ogre wielding a small tree and a Pho-Knee archer dressed as a snowflake.

FIGHTER DOWN!

– Q’Aren got healed but was then attacked by three more goblins dressed as a special princess, a fairy and a sparkly unicorn.

FIGHTER DOWN! AGAIN!

– Q’Aren persuaded Regulus to accompany her on a split-party exploration whilst waiting for the bats to settle in the main cave. They found a rock with holes in it and Q’Aren poked it with a spear. The Black Pudding inside killed Q’Aren in one hit.

FIGHTER DECEASED!

Important verbalisations –

Adam – I don’t need Con!

DM – So, just to be clear, you are following Adam’s plan, yes?

Adam – Because now is not the time for fucking about!

DM – You perceive that the ogre’s tree is unimpressed by your five extra hit points.

Q’Aren – Come, my robot friend! Turn on vibrate mode!

DM – You went wandering alone in a cave with five hit points?!

Adam – That’s… actually just killed me… like outright killed me…

Jake – “I don’t need Con…”

Episode 4: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The villagers were rescued from the bat cave and along with them came a human druid called Joffrey who was unconscious. Jake nearly killed him getting him out of the bat shit after accidentally dropping him a few times. Turns out carrying people requires strength and that is not Abelas’ strong point. Actually, given what he rolled at creation, it’s not entirely clear if Abelas actually has a strong point…

They returned to the cave and killed the Pudding. Not for vengeance but because it had deprived them of the opportunity to kill Q’Aren themselves.

They head off towards Triboar and a wizard’s tower floating on a cloud appeared. They climbed up to it. The owner was a cloud giant called Zephyros who explained that the Ordning, which regulates giant society, had been broken and the various giant races were competing for places in the coming new order.

Zephyros explained that he had communed with some ‘demi-gods’ on another plane of existence and it seems the adventurers (and Jake) will be instrumental in fixing the Ordning, especially the one called Q’Aren who was destined to unite the orc tribes and bring peace to The North.

Oops.

Zephyros flew them to Triboar. On the way some truly offensive Air Cultists landed on the tower and Jake unsurprisingly took offence at being called a peasant by their leader and was challenged to a duel.

Really Important stuff –

Apparently, at this period in time Adam was sporting a rather fetching Hitler-youth lesbian haircut.

Adam’s druid worships Selune and Adam suddenly decides that looting things is an offence to the moon goddess. I need everyone to remember that going forwards.

The villagers built a memorial for Q’Aren that was a life-size statue of the half-orc wielding a greatsword in one hand whilst strangling a goblin with the other. The four sides have inscriptions:

– She died as she lived – screaming

– She was the loudest of us

– Her last words; “Come, my robot friend. Turn on vibrate mode”.

– A poem:

Through early morning mists I see,

A horde of orcs charging at me,

Their manager I will go and see,

And scream at him until he pees.

Important verbalisations –

Mike – To be fair, Q’Aren died so everyone had their best week last week

Jake – No… only if I am absolutely dead and I can’t be brought back then you can have my eyes…

• DM> Most of the people here are fine if a little bit malnu… malnooo… malnor… trish… oh for fuck sake!
• Chris> Malnourished!
• Jake> Malnourished!
• DM> I hate that word so much…

Chris – All of a sudden I’m seeing the KKK connotations of my class and race

Adam – I stopped listening halfway through

Chris –You petulant little cunt! I hope you choke on a bone you prick! You literally are the worst person I have ever met. I hope you trip over your cat and stub your toe on something!

DM – It was ‘Mellikkikkiki’ which is, of course, the proper pronouncement… ‘pronouncement’?! Fuck me…

Episode 5: Gorgon-fucking-zola!

Vaguely Important Stuff –

Quite remarkably, Abelas wins his duel with the offensive air cultist. Rather unsurprisingly the rest of the cultists take this badly and attack. The adventurers (and Jake) win, having been helped by Zephyros appearing and lobbing a level 6 Magic Missile into the mix.

A Lord’s Alliance strike team land on the tower delivered by an adult silver dragon. They are here to disable the tower as all Russians giants are apparently now bad with no exceptions. Elvira belatedly remembered she was also in the Lord’s Alliance and immediately and bravely got volunteered to talk to the dragon while everyone else valiantly hid in the tower. The strike force peacefully departs after she explained things.

The Lord Protector of Triboar hired them for some shady work involving ‘accidentally’ provoking a local wizard’s gargoyle sentries to attack them so they had an excuse to kill the creatures who had been harassing locals.

Really Important Stuff –

Clay got paralysed and was hit by an auto-crit Inflict Wounds and barely avoided “doing a Q’Aren”

Joffrey, in Dire Wolf form, repeatedly asked Abelas to “Mount me!”

Zephyros gave Regulus a prototype Gnomish Pontification System (GPS). It runs on cheese. No, really.

They let Adam do the talking in the shop and deliver the news that a family member had died in Nightstone. This was a mistake that is unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

Regulus summons a boar and calls it ‘Borax Thatmightchange’ which was a little unusual but the DM rolled with it.

Despite being told specifically not to engage the wizard and only the gargoyles, Joffrey immediately wants to drop a lightning bolt on the wizard’s house <sigh>

At the end of the fight, Joffrey dropped an AoE nuke on the last gargoyle and killed it… along with Borax Thatmightchange. Regulus was unimpressed. Joffrey (still in Dire Wolf form) gave not one toss and started chewing on some BBQ pork.

Important verbalisations –

• Adam> Sorry, I had a mouthful of noodles when you said that
• Mike> Is Noodles his cat?

• Jake – Nah, I’m fine
• Jake – Okay, I am not fine!
• Jake – Okay, I AM GOING TO DIE!

Joffrey – Fantastic! I would like to buy an abacus, a portable ram and, much like the cycle of money for exchange and the nature of life and death, your ex-husband is dead.

Abelas – At what point did that seem like a good idea and how did it happen? I feel like we should be better than this!

Clay – Is there any way we can bring Q’Aren back?

Adam – But I needed a portable ram!

• Starring:
• Jake as Gnorman the Gnome Paladin
• Kraj as Gnob (or is he?!) the Gnome Warlock
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Matt as Paracelsus (Vaseline) the Still-Not-A-Gnome Cleric

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.
• – Snorri was killed by Kraj due to an unfortunate sarcasm incident.
• – Trouble is afoot in Phandalin and the gnomes (and Matt) eventually end up in Gnorman’s Mum’s Hole; lair of Glasstaff and his Redbrands.

Pre-session Guff

Gary turned up late because Discord did an update. However, he did remember to start OBS. Adam was getting shit for being muted but insisted he was just AFK. Riiiight.

Kraj sounded like he had his head in a bucket and it transpired he was using his webcam as a microphone.

Gary noticed that on the TTS map the door state toggle was available so Gary went full-player and opened all the doors. One of them disappeared <sigh>.

Fucking Gary.

Planning… if you can call it that

Kraj and Matt were placed firmly in charge for the avoidance of metaprickness once again. After Vaseline vacillated for a while the corridor on the left was chosen.

The gnomes (and Matt) stack up outside two doors at the end of the corridor:

• DM Mike> Which door would you like to go through?
• Matt> I’ll go through the top door.
• <some moments of silence occur>
• Gary> Erm… on a 3D rotatable map Matt, that is not the most helpful…
• <laughter>
• Matt> The one where the green hand is!

Some moments of silence occur while everyone comes to terms with fact that we are stacked up in an entirely different corridor to the one Matt is indicating.

After some swearing, laughter and relocating, Vaseline listens at the door and hears goblins talking. There is some shouting, some arguing and some squeaking.

Planning happens. Matt suggests bursting in and deceiving the inhabitants to follow him away. Gary remembers to ask what the door looks like (remember this) and it has no obvious lock.

As persuasion/deception is to be the order of the day, Gnobby initially tries to usher Gnob forward as the highest persuader/deceiver, but it needs to be Vaseline as he is the shapeshifter and his persuasion/deception skills aren’t that great so Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) offers to help.

• Matt> I can look like a goblin and speak like goblin and probably not be persuading them at disadvantage…
• Adam> Can I er.. assist him?
• <sniggers from the peanut gallery>
• DM Mike> <sigh> You explain to me how you can do that and I’ll let you.
• Adam> As he says things I’ll nod enthusiastically! Backing him up!
• DM Mike> <deeper sigh> Okaaay… yep… that’s fine…
• <laughter>
• DM Mike> <slightly sarcastically> If you think that will assist him…
• Adam> Okay… we could put Kraj in manacles and pretend we have captured him!
• <more sniggers>
• Gary> <sigh> Have you given any thought as to what exactly it is that we are trying to achieve before we plan it? Because you seem to have come up with a solution to a problem we don’t have…

More Door Planning

At this point Ggnomeo advocated just kicking the door in and killing everything. Vaseline objects as “That’s what we always do”. Gary is trying to think of a time when we have done that this campaign and is coming up empty. Jake asks Vaseline how he knows what ‘we’ always do as he has only been in the party for a day. Jake then realises that he (Gnorman) has actually been in the party for less time than Vaseline <sigh>

Gary lays out the three main methods of getting through a door:

• 1) Smash it in (hopefully), get a surprise round (hopefully), kill everything inside (hopefully).
• 2) Aim a bunch of pointy things at the door and knock on it and when they open it say “Surprise you birthing-persons!” and stab them in the dick.
• 3) Social skills it: deception, distraction, intimidation, persuasion etc.

Matt chooses a combination of methods 2 and 3 due to the map topography: Vaseline stays by the door as everyone else retreats to the open space at the end of the corridor and aims pointy things back down it. Vaseline will change into a goblin, knock on the door and tell the goblins inside that there is trouble over the bridge and then lure them out into the ambush.

All the minis are moved out of the corridor. All but one <sigh>

• DM Mike> Adam, are you trying to hide?
• Adam (oh Adam)> As soon as they open the door are we going to stab them all?
• <party-wide deep sigh followed by laughter>
• Matt> No.
• Jake> No!
• DM Mike> <sigh> There’s a reason everyone is NOT THERE!

Matt attempts once again to explain the hide-around-the-corner and lure the goblins out plan to Adam. Ggnomeo trudges out of the corridor and reluctantly takes position behind a pillar.

Vaseline shapechanges into a goblin and opens the door. That’s part one successful!

Then it all went to shit, obviously.

Surprise you birthing persons!

So, despite DM Mike clearly saying Vaseline could hear goblins, what he could actually hear were several not-goblins-at-all but who were just speaking goblin <sigh>.

Vaseline does see a goblin as the door opens but it is being abused by three large and angry bugbears who clearly do not like goblins at all and Vaseline is currently disguised as one.

Well shit.

A bugbear orders the ‘goblin’ Vaseline to “Get in ‘ere!”. Matt instantly reverts to the backup plan; “I insult them and then run!”

Matt rolls a 20 on the performance check for the insult and then legs it back up the corridor.

Roll initiative!

Matt rolls a 3 <sigh>

Attacks are held in preparation of bad guys coming after Vaseline and the first angry bugbear that emerges from the room gets missed by a Ggnomeo arrow (even though he had advantage), hit by a Gnobby Eldritch blast and then missed by a Gnob Eldritch Blast.

As ambushes go, that could have gone better <sigh>

The front bugbear can’t reach the cleric and so retaliates with a javelin. Vaseline re-retaliates with a Guiding Bolt that hits for 17 damage, which was nice. The front bugbear was on 18hp though, which was not so nice. Going forwards we shall refer to this one-hit-point-bugbear as 1HPBB.

Gnobby misses 1HPBB with an Eldritch Blast.

Here we go again.

Then it transpired Gnobby got advantage from the Guiding Bolt so he got to roll a second attack and managed to miss 1HPBB all over again <sigh>.

Gnob decides not to blast 1HPBB and hits the full hit-point bugbear behind it instead.

Gnorman, the tank, decides not to tank and to leave Vaseline to soak the incoming damage. He calls upon Lathander and throws a light hammer at 1HPBB. Lathander, presumably not best impressed with this, says “no” and he missed… by quite a lot.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) misses 1HPBB for the second time and so, mainly because Kraj nuked the wrong target, 1HPBB got to run up to Vaseline and attack him.

Luckily for Vaseline (and probably Kraj) it missed.

Bugbear2 is stuck in the corridor behind 1HPBB. The players suggested that the DM could easily grant the bugbear the ‘reach’ ability so that it could twat Kraj. Sadly, the DM thought that was unfair. Instead it javelined Gnob but missed.

Kraj attempted a cheesy ranged Hellish Rebuke that everyone else though was cheese due to the range but it turned out to be a different cheese as the cheese-lord needs to be hit to use it.

Bugbear3 javelins Gnob as well and hits him despite his amazing AC of 13.

WARLOCK DOWN!

Sadly, it transpires that DM Mike got the bugbear weapon damages mixed up (we all do it) and it was only 7 points of damage and Gnob is not down after all.

WARLOCK REPRIEVED!

Kraj now uses his last spell slot on a Hellish Rebuke that hits Bugbear2 for half damage.

Spreading it Around

• DM Mike> Matt… it is now your go.
• Matt> Are all three of them up?
• DM Mike> Yes.
• Adam> Yes, they are all moderately aroused.
• <group sigh>
• Gary> Are any of them damaged Mr DM?
• DM Mike> All three of them are damaged.
• Gary> <ever so slightly very sarcastically> Really? So if we had applied all of our damage to only one of them, there wouldn’t be three of them right now?
• DM Mike> I… wouldn’t be so critical as to say that…
• Kraj> <proudly> I’ve hit two of them!
• <a torrent of abuse occurs>
• DM Mike> Just to be clear you chose not to kill one of them… again.
• <more abuse and laughter>

Vaseline does his massively cheesy Radiance of the Dawn ability that AOEs everything in the world ever. 1HPBB finally becomes 0HPBB with no thanks to Kraj.

Gnobby and Kraj both nuke the remaining bugbears and both miss. Well done ‘war’locks, well done /golfclap.

Gnorman gets brave and charges down the corridor at Bugbear2, calls out to his god and swings Talon at its dick. He rolls a natural 20!

Lathander Dick-crit!

Bugbear2 goes down in a flash of Lathander’s holy light with a warhammer in the unmentionables and Gnobby finishes off proceedings with a Dissonant Whispers on the last unfortunate enemy.

Interrogations… Sort Of

It now transpires that Kraj, playing a meelee warlock with high Dex, was using a short sword and does not own a rapier <sigh>. Having received yet more abuse for this, Kraj insisted that he would have bought one but they don’t sell them in town. When it was pointed out just how wrong he was, he said he wasn’t there for that episode. Which is a bit strange because I looked it up and it was the episode where we found him tied to a chair.

Ggnomeo gives Gnob his rapier.

There is a cowering goblin in the room who just wants to leave. As Vaseline attempts to gently extract more information from him, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) attempts to not so gently manacle him to the bed <group sigh>.

The goblin, while fighting off Oh Ggnomeo, tells us that the ‘boss’ is not here and is at the castle. Ggnomeo continues to shout “Stop resisting”, the goblin keeps resisting and keeps saying “Can I go now?”.

A grapple check ensues and Ggnomeo loses, mainly because Vaseline cast Guidance on the goblin, Gnorman assisted the goblin and Gnobby cast an illusion over the goblin so Ggnomeo couldn’t see him. The goblin scampers down the hallway past all the other party members and no one attempts to stop him.

The room was searched and in addition to some loot a key was found. A debate was held over having a short rest and the two warlocks were outvoted and we continued adventuring with only one of four spell slots available. I’m sure that won’t matter though, right? Right.

Gnorman listens at the door to the next room but doesn’t hear much. He kicks the door in surprising four Redbrands playing cards. Roll initiative.

Surprise, Birthing-Person Copulators!

Gnobby uses his last spell slot to drop a Dissonant Whispers on the closest gambler. Ggnomeo finishes him off with a sneak attack.

Gnob hexes and then Eldritch Blasts another unlucky ruffian while Gnorman runs up to him and attempts to hit him in the dick without bothering to invoke Lathander’s name. Lathander says “no” and he missed.

Vaseline gong-bongs the wounded dude and kills him with a Toll the Dead. Surprise round over.

Gnobby, now out of spell slots, misses with an Eldritch Blast. Remember this.

Two Redbrands still live and Ggnomeo runs up to the closest one and double-stabs him with his daggers because he had to give Kraj his rapier. He almost kills him but ‘almost’ doesn’t cut it and the Redbrand stays in the fight.

Gnob, the meelee warlock who has just been generously gifted a meelee weapon decides not to meelee and casts Eldritch Blast at the wounded Redbrand. He missed.

<sigh>

Gnorman this time does remember to ask Lathander if it is okay to kill this twat and Lathander says “Yes”. The wounded Redbrand gets killed by a glowing warhammer to the dick.

Only one Redbrand remains and this is the one that Gnobby would have dropped a Dissonant Whispers on, if he had the spell slots to do so, and Gnorman probably would have twatted if Ggnomeo had used his rapier that Kraj took and never used.

Instead, the Redbrand runs away through the other door and Gnorman’s attack of opportunity was not quite enough to kill him outright. He bangs on the other door and shouts to the boss that there is trouble and then legs it towards the chasm.

Gnobby runs through the room, out the door and nukes the fleeing Redbrand but rolls a 1 for damage and doesn’t quite kill him <sigh>.

However, the Gnobby-Ggnomeo tag-team does its thing once more as Adam depresses Mike by successfully persuading him that he can pull off a bonus-action hide as he runs under the table, over the chair, rolls out the door and sneak-attack back-shots the Redbrand, killing him.

Vaseline runs to the boss door, changes into a human and shouts “It’s ok boss, we dealt with it!” and then Matt rolled a 1 on the performance check. It was a nice thought Matt but the dice said “no”.

We Know Better <sigh>

Gnorman wants to kick the big-boss door in right the hell damn now. Gary attempts to explain the current tactical situation; we know the boss is in there, and probably ready for us because the fleeing Redbrand shouted to him and we want to face him with two warlocks that have no spells left and a rogue and a warlock with no health left.

Discussions occurred. Discussions occurred for quite some time.

Gnobby gets impatient and decides to just kick the door in anyway. More discussions occurred while we decide who is actually best able to kick the door in. While the rest of us are planning door kicking, Kraj is keeping quiet about the key that was found earlier. Nobody examined the door and thus nobody saw the lock <sigh>.

The portable ram was applied with some enthusiasm and the door came apart quite nicely to reveal what looked like a wizard’s laboratory. An open door leads into another room. Ggnomeo pocketed the lock from the broken door.

A rat scuttles into the other room. Gnobby screams “DEMON RAT!” and pursues it. In the next room it flees through an open secret door and down a set of stairs. In frustration, Gnobby drops a bag of 1,000 ball bearings down the stairs after it.

We might want to remember that next week…

A search of the rooms reveal a book written in dwarvish. A search of the character sheets reveal none of the characters speak dwarvish <sigh>.

A note is found signed by Dah Black Spidah! The Black Spider. It says that strangers are due to arrive in Phandalin that may be working for ‘the dwarves’. They are to be captured or killed and any maps they have are to be sent to Cragmaw castle. It also seems that Sildar’s friend Larno is actually Glasstaff

• Gnobby> We should find these strangers that are coming to town and work for the dwarves and see if they want to ally with us!
• <group sigh>

Loot is looted; 350gp and two spells scrolls. Ggnomeo sneers at the spell scrolls so Gnobby grabs them. They are scrolls of Charm Person and Fireball.

YEEEEEEEHHHHHHAAAAAA!

Ah, it transpires that Fireball is not on the Warlock spell list. Well… bugger.

DM Mike explains that Glasstaff fled once warned by the fleeing Redbrand. That would be the Redbrand that wouldn’t have been able to warn him if we had either done a double entry or short rested so the Warlocks had spells slots for that fight. Preferably both.

End of Session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – Will anyone tell Christina that the boss got away with her magic staff?
• – Will Gnobby be able to locate the strangers working for the dwarves?
• – Will Kraj continue to choose not to kill things that really need killing?

Tune in next week to find out!

• Starring:
• Jake as Gnorman the Gnome Paladin
• Kraj as Gnob (or is he?!) the Gnome Warlock
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Matt as Paracelsus (Vaseline) the Gnome Cleric

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.
• – Snorri was killed by Kraj due to an unfortunate sarcasm incident.
• – Trouble is afoot in Phandalin

Pre-session Guff

Past Gary once again told Future Gary he was once again a fuckwit who once again forgot to turn on OBS to record the session for the third week running <sigh>. Adam turned up on time and had his microphone working.

Kraj’s obsession with hentai games on Steam was discussed in some detail. Some doubt was cast on his ‘It just showed up in Recommended!’ explanation.

Insightful Negotiations

We rejoin the gnomes (and Matt) in the aftermath of the longest fight evah and the bodies are searched and red cloaks are recovered.

Being somewhat buggered from the fight the party wanted a long rest but settled on a short rest because ‘complications’ and then headed over to the Minors Miner’s Exchange

The Miner’s Exchange seems a bit busy and there is a school trip currently on with lots of bored kids. A woman on a platform (Halia Thornton) calls out and invites the heavily moderately armed gnome adventurers to join the school tour.

The response from the party is a little delayed as everyone weighs up various options and exactly what we can, or probably cannot, get away with.

• Jake> I think we should approach her shouldn’t we? Who is the most… the most…
• Gary> I usher the paladin gently forwards.
• Jake> Fuck!
• <laughter>
• Kraj> After you mate.
• Jake> You fucker. <sigh> Alright…

Gary feels slightly sympathetic, tries to stamp that crap out but fails, sighs heavily and has Gnobby send a gentle telepathic message to the woman “Excuse me, I wonder if we could have a word?” while waving a hand. DM Mike then has Lesgo run into the middle of the hall and cry out “Silence please! Sir Gnobby Gnobberson has entered the room!”

<sigh>

Gnobby sacks him on the spot. He cries a bit. Actually he cries a lot. Gnobby eventually relents and send him back to Brandon with a stern warning.

So finally they get to chat to the lady in charge. Once again Gnobby gently ushers the high-charisma paladin forward. Amidst the swearing and laughter it seems no one remembers why we came here <sigh>

Eventually it is determined that the orcs on the Triboar trail are not bothering the miners and while the Redbrands leave the miners alone they do bother the miner’s families. Gnobby asks for an insight check and rolls a 19. It seems Halia is genuine about wanting the Redbrands gone but is being somewhat deceitful over why.

Halia offers a 100g reward for killing the leader of the Redbrands, Glasstaff. Gnob attempts to negotiate for 150g but Kraj rolls a 3 on the persuasion check so that didn’t happen.

Fucking Kraj <sigh>

Halia invites Gnobby over for a chat when the job is done. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) makes a “Waheeeey!” noise and earns a scathing look from Halia who suggests that should some not survive the encounter with Glasstaff, the reward share gets bigger.

You First Indy!

Gnobby is toying with the idea of burning down the Sleeping Giant inn, where the Redbrands hang out, but isn’t totally enthused with the idea because of all the hassle of trying to do it at least semi-ethically; getting the non-Redbrands out and distracting the paladin while we do it. Ggnomeo seems keen but no one else was.

Instead we decide to go to Alderleaf Farm and investigate rumours of a tunnel. The party are met by the owner Qelline Alderleaf, a wise middle-aged halfling with a young son Carp.

There were some very unseemly comments about the examination of various holes. It seems Carp is out but will be back in an hour and Qelline offers the group tea.

Inside the house Qelline enquires what the group are doing in town and some pleasantries are exchanged but then it becomes apparent that she wants to gossip a bit, especially about her friend who doesn’t come to town any more. At this point Gnobby bails from the conversation but does perform an insight check and rolls a natural 20 and determines that she is an honest and genuine person.

• Gnobby> I tap Gnorman on the shoulder and say “My friend here is really interested in town gossip” and then step back into the shadows.
• Gnorman> <laughing> You absolute cunt…
• Qelline> Ooooh! Is he?! Sit down!

Gnorman sits and listens while Qelline goes on about the town. And on. And on. She mentions a druid friend but won’t answer Gnobby’s question about him as she is now talking to Gnorman (touché Mr DM).

Undeterred by the this, Gnobby telepathically sends to Gnorman a message to ask about the druid. Gnorman, who was pondering the various ways he could kill Gnobby at this point, does ask her about the druid and he turns out to be called Reidoth and he lives in the ruins of Thundertree Village. She also provides directions to get there. It is near Dead Panther Tree.

Qelline goes on about the town. And on. And on. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) pulls a blanket out of Gnorman’s pack and says “Did you show Qelline this blanket you made?”. Qelline gets very excited and engages Gnorman in conversation about blanket making while the rest of the party quietly piss themselves laughing.

Jake threatens some violence upon Adam. Shocking really. Ggnomeo wanders into the kitchen to grab some scones.

Mike decides to end it there as his throat is hurting. Gnobby promptly asks Qelline what else has been going on in town. As Qelline goes on about the town. And on. And on. Gnobby mentions that Gnorman’s brother recently died and then retires to the kitchen while Gnorman endures a torrent of old-lady sympathy.

Ggnomeo leaves the kitchen and mentions to Qelline that Gnorman really likes tea cosies. Jake becomes unable to speak for a few moments as Qelline says she has a treat for Gnorman and promptly starts showing him her tea cosy collection. At this point the group has forgotten why they even came here in the first place and don’t much care anymore.

Carp turns up! Various prayers of thanks are offered to various in-game deities.

Back Entrance Examinations

Ggnomeo asks Qelline if she is any good at sewing as he wants a red ninja outfit made from a Redbrand cloak <sigh>. She says she has loads of spare time being a single mother on a farm. Gnobby insight checks her and rolls another natural 20. Gnobby determines that she just might, just might, be being slightly sarcastic.

Carp is very impressed with the adventurers, especially when Gnobby tells him Gnorman is a holy paladin on a holy quest. When Carp asks what the quest is, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) tells him Gnorman is questing for tea cosies. Carp promptly drags Gnorman inside the house to see the tea cosy collection again.

It seems Carp was out playing with his mate Fish Boy when he finds the tunnel. He then goes into an explanation of why he was called Fish Boy that will not be reproduced here <sigh> (really Mike?! Really?). Gnobby gives the kid a gold piece to take them to the tunnel and then gives him another when they get there.

At the tunnel Carp warns the party that he saw Redbrands leaving the tunnel the other day. Ggnomeo examines the entrance and finds the tracks of men.

• Ggnomeo> <to the DM> I know they are men? They’re not wearing heels?
• DM Mike> <sigh> Yes, they are men… or really fat women.
• Ggnomeo> <to the party> It looks like Gnorman’s mum has been here… or they are all men!
• DM Mike> Yes… it looks like it is semi-regularly used.
• Gnobby> Much like Gnorman’s mum!

The back entrance now became known as Gnorman’s Mum’s Hole.

A fair bit of discussion took place about what to do next and it was decided to wander up and take a look at the manor house before they made any decisions. Ggnomeo was volunteered to head up the trail for a closer look at the house.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) fucks his stealth roll with a 2 <sigh>. Gnomeo gets to about 80ft from the house and gets told repeatedly to fuck off. Ggnomeo tries to be glib and gets shot. He tries to bluff his way in and gets shot at. Ggnomeo and the unseen archer get into an argument about heightism. Ggnomeo reluctantly and bad naturedly retreats while giving the archer the finger.

Ggnomeo, now with only eight hit points remaining (seven more than he needs!) is suddenly rather keen on going in the back passage.

The DM asked for the following to be recorded in the write-up:

• DM Mike> How many hit points have you got left?
• Adam> Eight.
• DM Mike> Okay…
• Adam> Above halfway!
• DM Mike> Excellent.
• Adam> Yeah, seventeen is my max.
• <a moment of silence occurs while everyone checks their basic maths>
• <sniggers occur>
• DM Mike> <quietly and gently> So.. you are below halfway then?
• <three full seconds of silence>
• Adam> <sounding broken> Yes.
• <abuse and laughter>
• DM Mike> I think the most telling comment there was “Even Jake spotted that!”

Non-Meta Meta-Pricks

The group follow a tunnel and enter the underground lair of the Redbrands. The meelee warlock elects to be at the back <sigh>

To the right of the party is a 20ft deep chasm with two bridges crossing it. It smells of death and decay. Two short corridors lead off the left hand wall.

Since Adam, Jake and Gary have played this campaign before, Kiara and Gnob are gently pushed to the front so Christina and Kraj can make the decisions and avoid any meta-prickness from occurring.

And also so they can take the blame, obviously.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) stands on the edge of the chasm and looks down. He sees a lot of bones and makes a quip about orgies and “a lot of bonin’ going on” <sigh>. As groans ring out, Gnobby considers using his Mage Hand to push him in but it probably can’t manage the weight, unfortunately.

DM Mike asks for the players passive perceptions and Kraj answers 32 <sigh>.

The party move slightly forwards intending to take the first left corridor when the DM calls for an initiative roll.

Gnob gets his mind invaded and a secret is stolen! A nothic appears from behind a pillar and Kiara is asked to make a Constitution save but Christina rolls high and represses whatever it was trying to do.

It was a bit strange though as nothics only have one eye but this one had two…

Jake was trolled over green lights in TTS simply because it was funny.

Bye Gnorman

Gnob charges forwards and melees the nothic. He missed.

Here we go again…

Kiara nukes the nothic with a Firebolt. She missed.

Gnorman is unsure what to do as he doesn’t think he can reach the nothic because Jake has forgotten that you can move through allies <sigh>.

DM Mike suggests he might get a better view of the nothic from the other side of the chasm and, in the greatest bit of DM trolling since Gary conned Adam into running within range of a shapeshifting wall-climber, Gnorman duly ran across the bridge which duly collapsed under him and duly dumped him into the chasm.

Well played DM, well played.

Ggnomeo attempts to “hit him with my best shot” to which Gary felt compelled to channel Pat Benatar with “fire away!”. Yes, I’m old. Ggnomeo did actually hit the nothic but employed ‘Jake maths’ and ended up with a few too much damage.

The nothic calls for the players to stop attacking and states it doesn’t mean any harm. It then whispers “I know your secret!” to Gnob and runs away from him. Gnob declines the attack of opportunity <sigh>.

Gnobby rationalises the following:

• – It did uninvited mind-probey stuff
• – It is uglier than Gnorman’s Mum’s Hole
• – The Redbrands tolerate it
• – It lives in a pit of bones

Obviously it must die.

An Eldritch Blast wings its way across the darkened cavern and smacks the fleeing creature for 10 damage.

Gnobby drops prone.

Kraj, the meelee warlock that just let it run out of meelee range, decides it needs to die after all and Eldritch Blasts it. He also doesn’t seem to know what Eldritch Blast does which, as a warlock, is pretty shameful.

The nothic screams ‘whhyyyyyy?!’ No one cares and we keep trying to kill it. Fool us once Mr DM etc.

Kiara nukes the nothic with a Firebolt (again). She missed (again).

Gnorman spent his time in the crevasse examining a corpse which turned out to be wearing woodworkers clothes. It had also been partially eaten.

“That’s fucking why!” Gnobby shouts back at the nothic.

Ggnomeo gets up in the gnothic’s face and stabs it with a rapier. It retaliates with a pair of claw attacks and runs towards the bridge.

A rather smug Adam informs Kraj that he should pay attention on how to do an attack of opportunity. Despite everyone wishing he would roll a one he actually rolled an eighteen <sigh> and carved a ‘G’ into its back. The nothic died screaming and took Gnob’s secret to the grave.

Gnorman Gets Really Excited

Gnobby is extremely distrusting of the bridge as Gary cannot remember if it is trapped or not. He pokes it repeatedly with the ten foot pole while very slowly crossing it and successfully makes it to the other side without anything unfortunate happening.

Gnobby wanders over to the crevasse and enquires how it is going with Gnorman. Both Gary and Jake are both very aware of what is in the crevasse from the previous campaign but Gnobby and Gnorman are gnot aware of it.

Gnorman rolls a rather pathetic perception and DM Mike relents and suggests Gnobby make a roll too as he is stood on the edge of the pit looking down at Gnorman. Gnobby rolls a natural twenty!

Gnobby spots something glinting and uses his mage hand to point it out to Gnorman. The paladin uncovers a holy +1 warhammer of Lathander called Talon.

Gnorman jizzes in his pants slightly.

He also found 120gp, five gems worth 15gp each and two potions of healing. “Clearly” said Jake “we have found the loot room!”

That’s us probably doomed then.

End of Session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – What level of door opening skills will be on display?
• – Will Adam continue to do ‘Jake maths’?
• – How much more can we make Jake regret playing the ‘nice’ character?

Tune in next week to find out!

• Starring:
• Jake as Gnorman the Gnome Paladin
• Kraj as Gnob (or is he?) the Gnome Warlock
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Matt as Paracelsus (Vaseline) the Gnome Cleric

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar Baravar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.
• – Snorri was killed by Kraj due to an unfortunate sarcasm incident.

Pre-session Guff

Past-Gary told Future-Gary he was a fuckwit who forgot to turn on OBS to record the session (again). Adam turned up late (again) and had his microphone muted (again).

No, you are not reading last week’s write-up <sigh>

Night Sweats

Having rescued what might have been the real Gnob (but might also still be the old Gnob) last week, the brave adventurers retired to the tavern for some victuals and sleep.

Rumours are heard:

• – The local priestess recently returned to town injured.
• – The local orchard keeper used to be an adventurer like us (and Jake).
• – Orcs are causing problems on the Triboar trail
• – The local woodworker and his family have disappeared after a fracas with the Redbrands, a local group of ruffians who hassle everyone in town except members of the Miners Exchange.
• – The innkeeper’s son found a secret tunnel in the woods

Rooms were rented and Lesgo attempted to sleep in Gnobby’s room at the foot of his bed. Gnobby told him to get the fuck out as he never lets the servants sleep in his room unless he can help it.

Lesgo winked at his boss and said he always slept there which did not improve his future employment security one iota as Gnobby slapped him and told him to stop lying. Brandon gives him a slap as well for good measure.

DM Mike used the term ‘whence’ and then extended it to ‘whence-forth’, which was nice.

Sildar wants the group to meet him at the Townmaster’s Hall in the morning. Gnobby would still like to drag Gnob before the priestess. There then followed some unseemly knob-dragging comments.

At this point it transpires that Jake’s microphone stopped working about ten minutes before and he was wondering why nobody was answering him. This rather upsets Jake as several pithy comments are now lost forever as no one heard them. Oh well.

The party retire to bed. Gnobby hears a knock on his door and says “If that’s fucking Lesgo, he’s gone!”. Whoever was at the door left hurriedly.

Kiara dreams of chaos. Gnob dreams of Sir Gnobby being heroic due to the bollocks Gnobby told him of the last few episodes. Gnorman dreams of a soothing light as Lathander is pleased with him. Vaseline does not dream. Gnobby dreams of being in an argument with a god.

Baravar decides to visit Gnobby and complain about the lack of progress in recovering the artifacts. Gnobby gets argumentative and Baravar goes off on one about worship. Gnobby points out that they have a mutually beneficial agreement and that he is not a minion. He also points out that this may take awhile. Baravar then threatens to change the terms of the deal.

Frankly, at this point Gnobby was wondering if that Traveller fellow wants to come to an arrangement because if Baravar won’t hold up his end of an agreed deal then the deal is off.

Worst case, Edgy McEdgelord, High Lord of Edgetown will come to play instead.

The following morning, mysterious D20’s were rolled at the request of the DM.

I Intimidate It!

The party awoke the next morning refreshed and possibly not possessed and proceeded to the shrine which the DM described as a pile of rocks. Gnobby briefly contemplated trying to walk into it but then figured that would be stupid.

The priestess was asked if she could tell if any of the party, but especially Gnob, were actually who they were supposed to be and not, purely hypothetically, some demonic evil shapeshifting, backstabbing, soul sacrificing entity instead.

The priestess agreed to help in return for a favour involving a banshee called Agatha, a comb and an ancient spellbook. Gary pondered if maybe it was Agatha all along and yes, it sounded just as bad listening back to it as it did at the time <sigh>.

The group agree to help and then head off to the Townmaster’s office to meet Sildar. A toady attempts to stop the party entering but a defiant attitude (and a minor illusion making the paladin’s eyes glow) got them waved through.

The Townmaster tried to get stroppy but Gnobby’s +4 to intimidation (helped substantially by the paladin’s glowing eyes) got him to back down in a hurry. When asked about the Redbrands and why he hadn’t done anything about it, he lies and waffles about them being a militia and tax collectors.

He also gives them more details about the orcs on the Triboar trail and offers a 100g reward. Gnobby negotiates half up front. Again, the paladin’s glowy eyes may have helped. The 50g is donated to possibly-real Gnob since definitely-fake Gnob has all of possibly-real Gnob’s money.

Sildar kicks the Townmaster out of his own office so we can have a chat. He tells the party that Gundren has found a map to Wave Echo Cave which contains The Forge of Spells, a very powerful artifact that must be secured.

Gundren is thought to be held in Cragmaw Castle but Sildar doesn’t know where that is. He also mentions a missing friend who was investigating the old manor house on the hill.

I Investigate It!

The adventurers (and whoever Gnob is this week) visit the woodworker’s house as it is close to the Townmaster’s Hall. Thus begins a serious amount of fuckery involved in finding nothing of note:

– There is blood on the door. Adam immediately asks if it is red.

– Mike sighs mournfully.

– Gnobby attempts logic on Ggnomeo again and might have persuaded him that the nuns gnuns lied to him about red blood being evil.

– Gnobby is determined to do it right this time and runs up and kicks the door open. He then runs back a bit and drops prone.

– Gnorman casts Divine Sense while looking pointedly at Gnob. He detects nothing.

– Investigation checks are called for. Gary rolls a 3, Matt rolls a 3 and Kraj rolls a 2. Heyzeus Aitch fucking Kerist.

– Gnobby, Vaseline and Gnob sheepishly leave the house to be searched by better people.

– People who could roll anything remotely decent found signs of struggle and drag marks.

– Kraj asks if we can hear anything. Gnob tells everyone to be quiet as he rolls perception.

– Kraj rolls a 1 <sigh>. Gnob perceives a knocking on the roof.

– Gnobby runs and leaps from the house pulling a mid-air 180 and landing in the Black Widow crouch, one hand raised with an Eldritch Blast at the ready. A demon squirrel is on the roof! Gnobby blasts it and its smoking corpse is sent flying! Gnobby is now smugly convinced that he has just saved the town.

The party find nothing further in the house and proceed to the orchard to meet the ex-adventurer. Cider and apple juice are consumed while they chat and they learn a few useful things and then head off to the Minors Miner’s Exchange.

Gnome-ists!

As they approach the Miner’s Exchange two men block the way. Two more are lurking 30ft behind them:

• DM Mike> Redbrand one, the larger of the two gentlemen says “‘ere look! Looks like school’s out. Alright kids? Wot you up to?”
• Ggnomeo> We are here to be exchanged for other minors!
• <group sigh>
• Gnobby> I hunch over a little bit and rub my hands nervously and try and appear obsequious. “Ah sir, we are the guhnomes from GuhNAMBLA and we were hired by the authorities in Neverwinter… the census bureau. It seems strange happenings have been going on in the villages around Phadalin… they’ve all been losing their idiots! You wouldn’t happen to personally know anything about that would you?”
• Redbrand One> … no….
• Gnobby> Okay.. I Eldritch Blast him.
• <groans>
• <laughter>
• Ggnomeo> In the dick!
• Gnobby> Thank you brother! I lower my aim slightly…

Look it was going to end in a fight as soon as anyone said anything Jake found mildly offensive okay? I was just being expedient.

Roll initiative.

The two closest ones are 25ft from the party

The Redbrands rolled 14 which was decent. Adam rolled a 1, Kraj rolled an 8 and Jake rolled a 3 which was pretty indecent <sigh>

Gnobby suffers a momentary pang of regret and asks the DM if he knows for sure they are Redbrands. He does not. Ooops. Gnobby then justifies it anyway as retaliation for the insults plus these ruffians are clearly gnome-ists and need to die! There was much agreement for this.

If we had known how the fight was going to go, they might not have agreed so readily…

Red One Standing By

Round 1:

• – Vaseline casts Bless but it doesn’t work.
• – Gnobby tells Vasleine to embrace Baravar instead of whatever shonky god just let him down.
• – Kiara, paranoid about wild magic, crossbows Redbrand-One and hits for 9 damage.
• – The two archers at the back shoot Kiara. This is why you don’t look up mob stats, DMs tend to change things like giving Redbrands ranged attacks. Kiara gets hit twice for 10 damage.
• – The two at the front charge and make two melee attacks each. Gnorman and Gnob both get hit once. Gnob retaliates with Hellish Rebuke for 13 points of the rare elemental damage type ‘backatchamofo’.
• – Gnobby burns one of his two spells on a Dissonant Whispers and kills the second melee Redbrand. Gnobby then runs around a corner and takes cover.
• – Gnob flanks Redbrand One and gains +2 to hit and still misses <sigh>.
• – Ggnomeo flanks Redbrand One and gains +2 to hit and says “I stab him in the butthole!”. He misses.
• – Gnorman, already flanking Redbrand One and gaining +2 to hit, attempts to “warhammer him in the dick!”. He misses.

Round 2:

• – Vaseline attempts to stab Redbrand One with a rapier. He hits! He calls out “In the name of the Traveller!”. He rolls a 1 for damage <sigh>
• – Gnobby tells Vaseline to embrace Lathander instead of the shonky god that just let him down again.
• – Kiara is persuaded to use her magic as the rest of us would actually find it hilarious if we all got killed by a wild magic Fireball. She Firebolts Redbrand One. She misses.
• – Redbrand One swings at Gnorman twice and hits once. One archer shoots and hits Ggnomeo, the other pulls out a horn and lets blast.
• – Well, bugger.
• – Gnobby, figuring (wrongly) that Redbrand One’s luck will run out this turn, turns his attention to the archers and nukes the first one for twelve damage. That’s him fucked and nearly dead. Remember this.
• – Gnob runs across to road to cover and on the way shoots an Eldritch Blast at the archer that was nearly dead. Except he didn’t, he shot at the full health one <sigh> And he missed anyway.
• – Adam has a mute fail and then Ggnomeo, already flanking Redbrand One and still gaining +2 to hit, attempts to stab him in the butt-hole again. He misses again.
• – Okay, this is getting stupid now.
• – Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) disen-fucking-gages and hides in an elderberry bush.
• – Gnorman, already flanking Redbrand One and gaining +2 to hit attempts to “warhammer him in the dick again!” . He misses again. The author is getting a lot of use out of copy-paste in this fight <sigh>.

Round 3

• – Vaseline flanks Redbrand One and gains +2 to hit and says “this time the butt-hole is going to get it!”. He is cheered on with much helpful commentary from his colleagues. He misses. He is jeered on with much unhelpful commentary from his colleagues.
• – Kiara Firebolts Redbrand One and hits him! He is done right? He is going down faster and harder than Kraj’s mum right? Right!
• – No <sigh> Redbrand One has one hit point remaining.
• – Two more Redbrands appear. Well, bugger.
• – Gnorman gets missed twice by Redbrand One. Gnomeo gets shot.
• – Gnobby figures this shit has to end and steps back around the corner and drops his last spell slot on Bert the Unkillable Redbrand and finally kills him. Maybe the rest of the party can get on with the fight now.
• – Gnob, the meelee warlock, runs away from new two meelee Redbrands and Eldritch Blasts one of them instead of the nearly dead archer. He missed anyway <sigh>.
• – Ggnomeo had to call off his “hide and scream ‘butt-hole!’ and shoot Bert” plan and hid and shouted “Surprise motherfucker” and shot, and hit, but did not kill, the unwounded archer instead of the nearly dead archer that has been nearly dead for quite some time now.
• – Mike and Gary were somewhat scathing about the target selection capabilities of fucking Ggnomeo and fucking Gnob.
• – Gnorman casts cure Wounds on Kiara. Which was nice. He rolled low and only healed her for 3hp… which was not so nice. He also ran behind cover and put himself within 30ft of the two new Redbrands <sigh>.

Round 4

• – Vaseline tries to cast Healing Word on Kiara. It works! Gnob, who is next to Vaseline and bleeding heavily, is rather unimpressed. Vaseline said he didn’t know Gnob was injured. Gnobby resisted asking for an insight check.
• – Vaseline then crossbows an archer that was not the one that has been nearly dead since round one <sigh>. He missed.
• – Kiara Firebolts the not-nearly-dead archer and makes him a dead archer. The nearly dead archer must have offered his god something special that morning.
• – A Redbrand ran to attack Gnorman and quite remarkably made it as, for some reason, the paladin had moved just inside the Redbrand’s movement range. He got deservedly twatted.
• – More than anything Gnobby wants to nuke the nearly dead archer but Gnorman, mostly through his own idiocy, is in serious trouble so Gnobby nukes the melee Redbrand next to him instead.
• – Gnob casts Hex on a Redbrand and everyone gets excited. He then explains that it only triggers when he lands a hit and everyone gets very unexcited again. Against all odds Gnob actually hit him! For 13 damage! That Redbrand is now rather fucked so I expect no one will attack him any more.
• – Adam started his turn by saying “Oh hello, let’s go” in a voice I cannot describe. The closest I can think is if Leslie Phillips was a paedophile psychopath on ecstasy.

• – Adam then does redeem himself; after failing his attempt to hide (this is important), he asks which Redbrand is the most damaged. Quite remarkably it turns out to be the archer that has been nearly dead since the start. Even more remarkably, Ggnomeo attacks it! Ggnomeo hits it! Ggnomeo kills it!
• – Except there is a problem because it’s Adam. DM Mike casually asks why Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) rolled a D6. Adam replies with “Sneak attack!… Oh no!”. Cries of ‘CHEESE!’ ring out and Gary offers Mike the use of Cheesebane to verily smite the offender. The damage is re-rolled and he rolls a 2. The archer has one hit point left <sigh>.
• – Fucking Ggnomeo.
• – Gnorman hits the closest Redbrand, is rather shocked, and instantly shouts “DIVINE SMITE!” with such enthusiasm the table cracks up for a while. He kills the Redbrand in one hit. Nice. And about fucking time too.

Round 5 (yes, a piddly Redbrand ruffian fight goes into round five)

• – Vaseline charges up to the nearly dead archer but can’t do anything when he gets there.
• – Kiara Magic Missiles nearly-dead-archer and he finally becomes finally-dead-archer <sigh>
• – Gnob gets twatted twice by the hexed Redbrand.

WARLOCK DOWN!

• – Adam asks Kraj “Are you playing your mum? Because you keep going down a lot”
• – DM Mike points out that is the only good shot fired by Adam tonight.
• – Having downed Gnob, the Redbrand tries to run away.
• – Ggnomeo runs up to a wall and there is a moment of hilarity when it is unclear if he is tall enough to see over it. Adam then attempts to cheese rocky terrain but DM Mike rules that hiding behind a stone wall does not count even if it is made of stone.
• – Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) shoots the fleeing Redbrand in the butt-hole and kills him. End of combat. Thank fuck for that.

Ggnomeo retrieves his arrow and says he will use it as a punji stick. He then has to explain (in quite a lot of detail) to most of the group what a punji stick is.

End of Session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – Will anyone remember to search the bodies?
• – Will anyone hit anything ever?
• – Will the punji stick be deployed?

Tune in next week to find out!

Post session guff:

It wasn’t as bad as it felt. In five rounds of combat:

• Gnob landed 1 hit.
• Vaseline and Gnorman both landed 1 hit and a heal.
• Ggnomeo landed three hits.
• Kiara and Gnobby landed four each. Although Gnobby used two half-damage-on-fail guarantees and Kiara used never-miss Magic Missile.

• Starring:
• Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
• Kraj as the Gnome Timebender
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Matt as the Gnome Cleric

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Author’s Note: One stupid action and we spend a whole session resolving it. Maybe Probably Totally worth it though!

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – They took three hours to take out four goblins. Actually it was three goblins I think, the last one got tired and ran away.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.
• – Snorri was killed when the DM and Gary were being sarcastic while Kraj (fucking Kraj!) decided to go AFK without saying anything and then never asked the obviously important question when he got back: “Who am I stabbing and why?”

Pre-session Guff

Past Gary told Future Gary he was a fuckwit who forgot to turn on OBS to record the session (again). Adam turned up late (again) and had his microphone muted (again).

Spoilers, we spent the entire session sorting out the Kraj situation <sigh>

The Kraj Situation <sigh>

As the party arrive at the outskirts of Phandalin, Gnobby calls a team meeting to address Snorri’s demise. Snorri died because in the real world the DM and Gary were taking the piss and Kraj went along with it despite knowing better. However, this has caused issues in the game world where Snorri was killed by Gnob and his soul sacrificed to Asmodeus <sigh>.

Gnobby’s (Gary’s) basic position is that Gnob (Kraj) stabbed Snorri (Jake) while he was unconscious on the floor, then sacrificed his soul to Asmodeus and thus simply cannot be trusted and probably needs to pay for that foul deed.

Gnob denies all knowledge of the event or even who Snorri was. This did not impress Gnorman (Jake), Snorri’s paladin brother. It wasn’t helped by the shockingly low deception roll Kraj made and the utter lack of remorse for doing the dirty deed.

Attempting to recover from the bad position he finds himself in, Gnob then says he was not aware of the event and says that the event may happen again but will try and ensure that it won’t and insists he was unconscious and did not know what he was doing.

Gnobby counters his counter saying that it doesn’t matter if he knew what he was doing as he could just do it again and Gnobby sees no way the party can continue with Gnob in it. This is why Gary hates PvP, you simply wouldn’t repeatedly go into combat with someone who you know could stab you in the back at any moment.

Kraj’s continuing pleas of innocence and not being in control of himself were somewhat undermined when Gary read out the following from the episode in question:

Kraj> I’ll go up and stab whatever the fuck I need to stab!
DM Mike> Okay, so you are following Asmodeus’ advice?
Kraj> <slight hesitation> … Yes!

“Well that’s a bit damning” said Jake as Gnob failed another deception check by quite a lot.

Gnorman asks Lathander what he should do. The DM seems to rule that as he doesn’t have Guidance, he doesn’t get an answer. I’m not sure that’s how Mike meant it but that seemed to be the outcome when Vaseline (Matt) (who STILL hasn’t added his character to the D&D Beyond campaign) and who not only saw Gnob sacrifice Snorri, but also had to rescue the goblin baby from being sacrificed to Asmodeus by Gnob, refused to cast Guidance on Gnorman. This instantly made Gnobby and Gnorman suspicious of Vaseline <sigh>.

You Know You Are In Trouble When….

The DM pulls Kraj into a private channel for an intimate phone sex DM chat session. While this happens Gnorman and Gnobby question Vaseline’s helping of an agent of Asmodeus and wonder what his god would think of all this. Vaseline gives not one single toss.

DM Mike and Kraj the Backstabber rejoin the rest of us and the DM asks what everyone is doing. Gnob maintains he didn’t know what he was doing. Gnobby can’t see any way forward with Gnob in the group. Gnorman is still waiting for a response from Lathander. Ggnomeo wants to treat Gnob as the victim because Adam is a dick. Kiara is neutral because she didn’t see it happen. Vaseline wants him to loudly and vocally reject Asmodeus and walk in the light of The Traveller <sigh>.

Gnobby wants to know who the fuck The Traveller is because he doesn’t want Gnob renouncing one evil god for another. Vaseline says “Not everything is as it seems” and his form flickers for a moment as he turns out to be a shape-changer. He makes an argument about not judging Gnob on what we see.

Gnobby and Gnorman disagree as they SAW him stab Snorri and take his soul.

Gnob waffles for a bit and then offers to follow Vaseline’s request and reject “Amso-who?” and walk in the light of The Traveller.

Since absolutely nobody believes him, Gnobby suggests we take him into town and get a priest in town to take a look at him and see if he is still associated with evil.

There then followed an ‘interesting’ conversation about the priest and DM Mike made a comment about Goliaths that will not be reproduced here because the world is now a better place.

Gnorman really wants to kill Gnob but reluctantly agrees to go with Gnobby’s plan and go find a priest (ah fuck the world, a priest who is hopefully not a Goliath paedo). Everyone is happy to go along with the plan and we are finally on our way.

Until Adam fucked it <sigh>.

Fucking Adam.

So now Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) says he grew up with nuns and they said that if your blood is red then you are evil and that we should just stab Gnob in the heart and see if his blood is red.

Everyone sighs deeply.

There is then a discussion on gnome nuns… or Gnuns <sigh>

DM Mike tells Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) that his character has a permanent fear of penguins.

One of the main problems Gnorman and Gnobby are having with Gnob is the total lack of remorse. As DM mike is explaining what we are about to do (go to town) Kraj undermines Gnob’s entire position with the offhand comment “Snorri bled red, just sayin’”

Oh Heyzeus fucking Aitch Kerist.

Gnobby attempts logic on Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) but that obviously fails because Adam. Meanwhile Gnorman is demanding to know why Gnob would say something like that but then says “Oh fuck it, I just hit him in the head with a hammer”

Roll initiative.

Surprise! No, really.

Gnob gets a surprise round by attacking a group of people who were expecting an attack. Gnobby was rather unimpressed with the obviously unnatural goings on (a combat round in 5e is 6 seconds).

Sketchy-Gnob rolls 1d6+4 and hits Gnorman for 19 damage knocking him out. He also now gets two attacks but chooses not to use the second attack and backs away from the party proclaiming that he could have attacked further but didn’t.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) can’t decide on an attack of opportunity, rolls for it and then doesn’t do it. Kiara and Vaseline both decline to attack as well and Adam is already regretting not doing it.

Gnobby, still pissed off over the totally-not-surprised-but-still-surprised surprise round, cuts loose with some venom and blasts the backstabbing traitor! For four whole points of damage <sigh>.

Vaseline declines to heal Gnorman and instead casts Spare the Dying which stops him from bleeding out but leaves him knocked out.

Ggnomeo continued to try and attack but no one else was interested and Gnob gnobs off into the distance towards town.

Priorities

The party enter town and immediately set about hunting down the evil presence they have unwittingly let loose upon the innocent townspeople of Phandalin.

Of course we didn’t, we went shopping. Well, we went shopping after we collected quest rewards to spend on shopping.

DM Mike attempted to guilt trip the party about this but once again, not one toss was given, especially after he mentioned that some kids appeared to be missing and the local priest was really upset because *REDACTED*.

DM Mike also explicitly stated that the general store did not sell weapons. Adam immediately tried to buy a crossbow from them <sigh>

As they finished shopping and left the store, an old lady appeared asking for help because strange noises were coming from a nearby house. The paladin was suitably guilt tripped into helping and the rest of the party went along for a laugh to help.

Gnobby politely knocks on the door then backs calmly but swiftly away from it and drops prone. A muffled thump is heard and nothing else happens. Gnobby sheepishly picks himself up and pretends he tripped over something.

Jake, having forgotten everything ever learned about opening doors in D&D, tries the handle <sigh>. It is locked. Ggnomeo attempts to pick the lock while Gnobby stands behind him fondling a brand spanking new crowbar.

Sadly Ggnomeo succeeded in picking the lock and the party entered the room rather less suddenly than Gnobby would have preferred and there they found… Gnob. Tied to a chair and gagged.

Gnob appears to be the real Gnob and the other Gnob appears to have been a fake Gnob but no one is really certain if this Gnob is the old Gnob or a different Gnob entirely. Clear?

Gnobby feels this has gone far enough and new-Gnob is cut loose and ‘invited’ to the tavern for chat.

End of Session, well done DM.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – How will the party determine if new-Gnob is old-Gnob or gnot?
• – Will anyone care after this week?
• – Will Kraj have learned his lesson and never ever do what the DM pointedly asks ever again?

Tune in next week to find out!

• Starring:
• Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
• Kraj as Princess Gnob the Gnome Warlock
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Matt as Vaseline the Gnome Cleric

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Author’s Note: Fairly short this week (yay!) as the fights were fairly perfunctory… unlike the social interactions <sigh>

Season Recap:

– Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.

– They took three hours to take out four goblins. Actually it was three goblins I think, the last one got tired and ran away.

– The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.

– Snorri was killed when the DM and Gary were being sarcastic while Kraj (fucking Kraj!) decided to go AFK without saying anything and then never asked the obviously important question when he got back: “Who am I stabbing and why?”

Pre-session Guff

Jake is depressed at having to cook for himself as his new postcode doesn’t exist for the delivery companies. There was much genuine sympathy… at least from the guys, I don’t think Christina was that impressed.

Jake’s new character is a Paladin who worships Lathander. The next attempted sacrifice to an evil devil god should be interesting.

Whilst waiting for DM Mike to get his PC sorted, Jake and Gary embarked upon a lengthy and detailed discussion of 7 Days to Die server settings which the others must have found simply fascinating judging by the sighs of what must have been disappointment when Mike finally interrupted to say he was ready to start the session.

Kraj decided not to turn up and not to tell anyone why he didn’t turn up. Turns out he had the sniffles and his mum said he was too poorly to attend.

He may also have had Covid.

Exposition

Some role playing takes place. It goes about as well as usual.

DM Mike recapped the previous session and Gnobby (Gary) was unfairly maligned with rolling a critical medicine fail when that was in fact, fucking Kraj first and then Vaseline (Matt) second.

Jake’s new paladin, Gnorman Nosebiter, makes his way along the road in search of his brother Snorri and runs into Lesgo and Brandon who direct him along the trail to Cragmaw Hideout. Gnorman eventually catches up to the party who are gathered outside the entrance to the cave (once again) exactly where they started two weeks ago except now two gnomes are dead and Ggnomeo is bleeding out on the floor.

Gnobby has laid out Snorri’s body and taken two beers from his backpack, one of which he placed in Snorri’s hands before enjoying a quiet moment with his lost friend and thinking dark thoughts.

When Gnorman introduces himself, Gnobby hands him a beer and says “He died as he lived… drunk”. Gnorman hands the beer back as he thinks Lathander would not approve.

Gnorman then asks Gnobby directly how his brother died and Gnobby slope-shouldered the answer onto Gnob, who was missing because Kraj had a slight cough and had neither been able to walk it the fuck off, nor indeed suck it the fuck up (Princess). Shocking really.

Vaseline (Matt), who STILL has not added his character to the D&D Beyond campaign and so will continue to be called Vaseline, attempts to tell Gnorman that his brother died honourably until DM Mike points out that is an obvious lie and requires a deception check. Gnorman insight checks Vaseline and fails to detect anything wrong with the answer. Gnobby is sure Asmodeus now has a hold on Vaseline’s soul for lying in his favour.

Gnobby then attempts to recruit Gnorman into GNAMBLA and starts to recount events so far:

• Gnobby> Potential brother, we haven’t had a lot of success finding any artifacts of Balavar… <thinks about it>… but then we haven’t really started looking yet.
• <laughter>
• Gnobby> There might be some in this cave, probably not, but we have rescued this gentleman <points at Sildar> but our friend Gundren might still be in there.
• Gnorman> I see..
• Gnobby> However, there is something quite big in the cave that has taken out…
• <Gary starts to realise where the sentence is going and tries to stop but can’t>
• Gnobby> … our previous… paladin…
• <laughter, Gary loses it>
• Gnobby> … in one… hit…
• Gnorman> Hmm…
• Gnobby> <still lost it> …and I’m just… going to shut up!

Despite the less than stellar attempt to sell the mission, Gnorman decides to join anyway.

Once More Unto The Stream of Death

The gnomes enter the cave once again with Gnorman taking the lead and Gnobby bravely bringing up the rear.

DM Mike takes pity on the party and we don’t go through the whole ‘getting onto the bridge’ thing again.

DM Mike then puts the boot in and reminds Christina that on week one as the last goblin was running away to his wife and baby, Kiara had promised that if they ran into that baby she would look after it. This turns out to be the baby that Vaseline rescued last week.

DM Mike asks if anyone wishes to remind Kiara of that promise. Jake and Matt duck the issue because they have new characters who didn’t hear it. Adam complains that Ggnomeo can barely breathe and Gnobby avoids it because he doesn’t care and thinks there’s enough drama and secrets going on anyway. Besides, how would they know this was that baby?

Ah, the first rule of DMing; they never do what you want them to do.

DM Mike attempts to guilt trip Kiara/Christina into taking the baby but Kiara gives not one toss and Vaseline retains parentship of the child.

At this point there is still no Kraj and we still didn’t know why and Gary states that if something bad has happened to Kraj he could get quite choked up and there may even be tears… for about a minute and he will then go and loot all Kraj’s stuff in 7 Days to Die. Jake, who is not at all bitter about the death of Snorri, offers to come and build a giant dick-shaped memorial on the server.

Okay, we are now over an hour into the session and we have moved from the entrance to the bridge.

ICU

At the end of the bridge they didn’t go to last week, Gnobby spots two goblins in the distance. The first one seems to be pretending not to notice the group while the second one is hiding in the shadows behind the first.

Gnobby suggests to Ggnomeo that he sneak-attack assassinate the first one to kick off proceedings. Jake/Gnorman objects to this as he might be friendly. Gnobby and Ggnomeo both sigh deeply at a perfect plan ruined by guilt-tripping morality. Planning commences.

Adam is fairly committed to just killing the goblins but Jake is absolutely sure that the goblin pretending he can’t see us is our friend. Thus, instead of launching a sudden surprise attack with advantage, Gnobby somewhat reluctantly waves at the pretending goblin to try and get its attention. DM Mike asks everyone to roll initiative <sigh>.

Apparently the goblins were pretending not to see the party in order to try and surprise them.

Fucking Jake.

So instead of Ggnomeo leading off with a surprise sneak attack for a fuck-ton of damage (imperial, not metric), Gnobby cuts loose with an Eldritch Boast that does 1 point of damage. One.

We now get a weird kind of fight where the ranged party members (everyone but Gnorman) try and shuffle around each other on the bridge while Gnorman does exactly what Snorri used to do and charges headlong into the fray.

Unfortunately, a third goblin was hiding just off the bridge and so now Gnorman was a bit fucked as the rest of the party left him to face-tank a trio of goblins while they hid around a corner in between firing variously effective attacks downrange.

The three goblins were finished off without too much fuss but at the expense of most of Gnorman’s hit points. The last goblin with only two hit points remaining was killed when Gnorman, in technical melee combat terminology ‘twatted it’, but only rolled a 1 for damage. However, Jake proudly exclaimed “It still hits for three damage though… maths, bitch!”

Oh My, What Big teeth You Have

They approach the final area of the cave which connects to the wolf den and the chimney which The Triton fell out of. Despite having just carried the goblin baby into a fight, concern was now raised about carrying the goblin baby into a fight <sigh>.

A discussion was held on what to do with the baby. A quite long discussion. Gnobby’s plan of throwing the baby into the cave first as a distraction was vetoed by the fun police paladin <sigh>

Fucking Jake.

Discussions were held on leaving it next to the water, then next to the rock which was next to a drop, then on whose fault it was that we were even having this discussion. Gary asked Future Gary to see how long this took. 8 minutes. It felt like 80.

The two gnomes with high AC had really low HP so Gnobby, who has crap AC but full HP, and who realised the logical inevitability of it all tentatively bravely stepped forward towards the cave entrance to trigger whatever the fuck was in there.

DM Mike spent twenty minutes rolling various dice for all the various crap that was in the cave. The upshot was that Gnobby’s impressive stealth roll evaded just about everything.

Sadly ‘just about’ was not good enough and having perceived two goblins in the corner Gnobby then, in technical canine combat terminology, gets ‘bit to fuck’ by a giant wolf who, as DM Mike described it, started ‘gnashing on his face’ <sigh>.

As the wolf was busy eating Gnobby’s face right off, Kiara (Christina) let loose with a held action and rolled a 1 which DM Mike said would be used to make a wild magic surge.

The gnomes are either all a bit buggered health wise or just have low HP anyway and Christina manages to roll a 0 on her first D10. Fireball is a 6 or 7 on the wild magic table. There was a tiny little bit of swearing as the odds of everyone dying suddenly went from fifty-to-one to five-to-one.

Breath was held.

Christina rolled.

Jubilation, relief and more swearing as Christina rolled a 5. Phew.

A small clockwork creature was summoned:

• DM Mike> Does anybody have a planar background?
• Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I have an edgy background!
• <groans>
• DM Mike> <muttering> …and you’ll be the first to die…

The wolf got killed by the party but it died on Gnobby’s prone body. Ggnomeo rolls an absurdly high stealth score, follows it with an absurdly high attack roll and follows that with an absurdly high damage roll and hits a goblin for almost three times its hit points.

Well Played DM

DM Mike describes sweary, rocky noises coming from the right (where the chimney is) but for some reason no one put two and two together. Gary didn’t even hear Mike say it because he was distracted by something funny but not suitable for reproduction because the world is now a better place. Just look up Lord Rotherham.

The second goblin was killed in very short order and then we spent an inordinate amount of time tactically stealthing and searching for whatever was big and killed The Triton that was obviously also hidden in the room somewhere. Except he wasn’t because he ran away down the chimney. That did not prevent the party spending twelve minutes looking for it <sigh>

I suspect Mike was secretly pissing himself laughing while all this was going on.

As soon as it became apparent that the boss Klarg had actually done a runner, Gnobby legged it outside and set off the second water trap unleashing another tidal wave down the tunnel but it was way too late, Klarg had escaped.

Gary blamed Kraj and asked if anyone disagreed. No one did.

Fucking Kraj <sigh>

The party departed the cave and, much to the consternation of Gary and Mike, on the way out Jake reminded Matt about the abandoned stored child. Matt let Jake off the hook by saying he had a post-it note stuck on his monitor so he wouldn’t forget.

The group gather themselves outside, return to the cart with some looted crates and head off to Phandalin.

Matt had to leave and Kraj couldn’t be arsed to turn up so they both missed levelling up; DING DING! LEVEL TWO!

End of session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – How will Gnob answer Gnorman’s questions about Snorri’s death?
• – If he tells the truth, what will Gnorman do?
• – If he lies, what will the rest of the party do?
• – What completely avoidable but now inevitable drama awaits?!

Tune in next week to find out!

Starring:

Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
Kraj as Gnob the Gnome Warlock
Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
Matt as the Gnome Cleric

With:
Mike as the DM

Author’s Note: These were supposed to be mini reviews but for obvious Kraj related reasons, this one got a bit bloated.

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – They took three hours to take out four goblins. Actually it was three goblins I think, the last one got tired and ran away.
• – The Triton was killed in an unfortunate rock-climbing incident that ended with a crit-hit from a bugbear and a short fall to a long sleep.

Pre-session Guff

Kraj made some very pathetic excuses for missing last week due to social reasons.

Christina couldn’t make this week for social reasons.

It turns out Matt has seen all of The Last Jedi but only half of Empire Strikes Back.

I don’t think I need to say any more about any of that.

Sue Narmy

We rejoin our intrepid gnome adventurers inside the cave system that is Cragmaw Hideout. They have just laid their Triton brother to rest in the shallow stream with respect, dignity and as little effort as they could get away with. They also robbed his corpse blind in the process.

• DM Mike> So, as you stare at the corpse of your good friend Nalos…
• Gnobby> Who?
• Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo)> Good?
• Snorri> Who?
• Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo)> Friend?
• Gnob> Who?
• DM Mike> <sigh> The Triton…
• Everyone> Oh!

A shout is heard from up the tunnel followed by the very loud sound of rushing water as a large wave comes careering downstream.

Gnobby (Gary) goes for an action hero roll into the wolf cave landing Black Widow style but partially stuffs the Dex check and ends up in the cave but considerably less stylishly than planned.

Ggnomeo (oh Gnomeo) (Adam) reassures everyone that he is already safely inside the wolf cave but it seems everyone didn’t particularly care.

Snorri (Jake) attempts to replicate Gnobby’s roll into the cave but stuffs it up even worse and gets caught by the wave.

Gnob (Kraj) wasn’t even in the cave because Kraj couldn’t be arsed to turn up last week and instead was sitting in the bushes outside the cave entrance where he had an excellent view of the wave exiting the cave and depositing Snorri, the naked Triton corpse and a new gnome on the soggy ground outside.

Snorri takes 4 damage from the rollin’ & tumblin’ and is knocked out. He also ends up face down in the water.

Gnob drags Snorri out of the water, mentions he has a healing potion but also mentions that he has no intention whatsoever of using it on the unconscious fighter.

Gnobby charges out of the cave, drags the Triton paladin corpse over to Snorri, places the Triton corpse hands on Snorri’s chest and beseeches the Triton’s god to let him Lay on Hands one last time.

Somewhat surprisingly that didn’t work and Gnobby disdainfully throws the Triton corpse back into the water.

Snorri passes a death save. Which is nice.

Jake made a comment about trying to mute himself when he coughed. Gary made a joke about Jake having Covid.

Yeah, that didn’t age well at all…

Gnob rolls a one on his medicine check to stabilise Snorri and makes him fail a death save. Fucking Kraj <sigh>

Gnobby flips Snorri over and jumps on his belly a few times to get the water out and then also attempts a medicine check to stabilise him, he fails the check but obviously not as badly as Kraj did. Snorri did take another death save fail from the jumping though so he is on the brink of death now.

Oops, fucking Gary <sigh>

Parss.. Parracill.. oh fuck it, as he still hasn’t added it to the D&D Beyond campaign and I don’t know how to spell it, he is Vaseline for now.

Vaseline, Matt’s new character who was washed out of the cave, turns out to be a gnome cleric and heals Snorri who gets to his feet somewhat dazed but clearly alive. Gnob high-fives Gnobby and says “Yeah, we did that!”

Play Silly Games…

Snorri wanders into the wolf cave looking for Ggnomeo but doesn’t find him; “Where for art thou Ggnomeo?!”. That wasn’t me and I am not taking the blame for it, it was Jake and Mike.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) decides to be a dick and stay hidden. Snorri wanders back out of the cave and mentions he can’t find Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) and so Gnobby joins him and they both wander back into the cave.

As they enter the wolf cave and fail to perceive Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo), Adam expresses a desire to jump out at Snorri and ‘make him shit himself’ <sigh>

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) rolls high and pounces out at Snorri shouting “I am the Grim Reaper and you should be dead!”. Snorri fails the save and defecates in his armour.

However, he also spins and attacks the ‘Grim Reaper’ with his swords and Gnobby cuts loose with an Eldritch Blast.

ROGUE DOWN!

Gnobby> I high-five Snorri and say “YES! We killed the Grim Reap… oh…”
Snorri> Idiot.

Gnobby reluctantly carries the idiot out of the cave. Snorri uses the opportunity to semi-effectively wash out his breeches in the stream but there’s still a bit of a whiff. He does however, with the aid of a natural 20, manage to convince Vaseline that it was Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) that shat himself instead.

We are now an hour unto this session and we are all still outside the cave in a considerably worse condition than we were when we arrived <sigh>.

A short rest was taken.

The Bridge of Fail

The adventurers re-enter the cave and follow ‘The Stream of Death’ past the wolf cave to the rickety bridge. Gnobby eyeballs a rocky slope to one side and perceptions that it looks climbable but dangerous.

Snorri takes a run at the scree slope, gets halfway up it and then ends up back at the bottom of it shortly after. It’s okay though, he didn’t spill his beer.

Gnobby wraps a rock in cloth to muffle it and ties it to his silk rope. He then spectacularly fails to throw it ten feet up and over the bridge.

Gnobby tries again with help from Snorri and even with advantage, still fails spectacularly.

It is swiftly realised that all of the gnomes have -1 to Strength except Gnob who has neither positive nor negative gains.

Gnobby duly passes the rope to Gnob (Kraj) and assists him. He too fails spectacularly.

After nearly ten minutes of this fuckery, Gnobby starts swearing in Abyssal and sheepishly casts Mage Hand and has it carry the rope up and over the bridge <sigh>.

The stone/rope is gently lifted up and over the bridge and lowered back to the gnomes who anchor it… or attempt to.

There was a LOT more fuckery involving backpack weights and climbing checks but frankly, living through that mess the first time was bad enough and I don’t have the mental fortitude to write down everything else. Suffice to say that a little over twenty minutes after arriving at the bridge, they all managed to be standing on top of it.

Aggressive Negotiations

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) successfully stealths into the small cave ahead and sees three goblins around a campfire and on an upper level another two goblins and a goblin leader along with the barely conscious Sildar.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) reports back and planning took place where a number of strategies were put forth and each was suitably shat on from a great height by everyone else. To be fair, most of them deserved to be shat on like Gnomeo sneaking in and catching Sildar when he is dropped, or sneakily building a bed of wolf pelts under Sildar to break his fall.

DM Mike made a number of strange noises as these plans were discussed.

Snorri proposed diplomacy and this was rejected out of hand by Adam. Matt wanted to try a stealthy Healing Word on Sildar. Adam offered to assist the stealthing at which point a slightly exasperated DM Mike asked exactly how you would assist stealthing. Adam’s reply did not win that particular argument as DM Mike felt that teaching someone to take their shoes off first was not going to cut it.

The plan was that the party would slowly approach the goblins and Gnobby would pretend to negotiate while Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sneaks further in and, at the appropriate safe word (asparagus), attempts to assassinate the goblin leader and hell would be let loose it would all go to shit, obviously.

Now, it’s important to know that as a DM, Gary doesn’t actually mind when his players spend 20 minutes on an elaborate plan but he does get somewhat exasperated when 10 seconds into the plan they revert to ‘I stab it in the dick!’ AKA Plan A. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Plan A it’s just that they waste a lot of unnecessary planning time. Consequently as a player Gary intends to stick to the damn plan. Nothing could go wrong, right? Right.

It immediately went wrong, obviously.

The reason it went wrong is because Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) stuffed the stealth check and was spotted by the goblin leader.

Still trying to stick to the plan, the party wander in to the cave trying to look like they aren’t planning on murdering everything in there. Yeemik, the goblin leader demands that they stop moving or he will drop Sildar from the ledge.

Gnobby goes with ‘I intimidate it’, a call back to the previous campaign, and fixes Yeemik with a Paddington Bear stare and both verbally and telepathically threatens to basically eat his soul. Somewhat remarkably this succeeded thanks to a high dice roll catching everyone by surprise.

Sadly Yeemik was not intimidated enough to surrender and so, still sticking to what was left of the plan after Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) fucked it, Gnobby yells “Asparagus!” and starts casting a spell at Yeemik. Roll initiative!

DM Mike rolled highest on initiative, obviously. DM Gary was starting to regret showing him where the special TTS ‘DM dice’ button was hidden.

It All Goes to Plan, Obviously

Snorri charges in and eviscerates the first unlucky goblin but misses with his second attack against the second goblin.

Yeemik is a bit confused by Gnobby’s mental intimidation and does nothing. Nothing except drop Sildar.

Oops.

Sildar hits the ground ten feet down and is now unconscious and starts bleeding out.

The rest of the goblins attack and Snorri gets shot in the face. Two more goblins shoot at Sir Gnobby (rude!) but both miss while he screams ‘Asparagus!’ back at them.

Ggnomeo (Oh Ggnomeo) shanks a second goblin, doing 15 damage to the 7hp goblin and carves his name into its chest <sigh>.

Gnobby casts Dissonant Whispers at Yeemik:

You whisper a discordant melody that only one creature of your choice within range can hear, wracking it with terrible pain. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 3d6 psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction, if available, to move as far as its speed allows away from you. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage and doesn’t have to move away.

Yeemik turns out not to be very Wisdrous and fails the save and takes 14 psychic damage, and he dies screaming while Gnobby exultantly shouts “Asparagus you birthing person copulator” and drops prone.

Vaseline (Matt) runs over and casts Cure Wounds on Sildar. Which was nice.

Gnob (Kraj), the ‘meelee’ warlock, lets loose a ranged attack with a glowing red Eldritch Blast at an upper level goblin and melts it’s face right off. Which was also nice.

Jake had an unfortunate ‘I was muted!’ incident and when he eventually recovered from that, Snorri charged towards the upper level and just made it to the top of the slope where he got shot by The Last Goblin and was knocked unconscious.

FIGHTER DOWN!

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) shoots at the The Last Goblin and misses.

Gnobby (oh Gnobby) shoots at The Last Goblin and misses.

Vaseline (oh Vaseline) medicine checks Snorri and rolls a 1 causing him to fail TWO death saves instead of one as per current house rules. I have a vision of the future! I foresee medicine kits being purchased!

Asking Last What You Should Have Asked First

I feel it is important to document the following conversation in full. This is what happens when you try and be funny. I think it also should be noted that for once Adam had absolutely nothing to do with this:

Finally

DM Mike> Kraj you feel an immense feeling of power flowing through your body…
Kraj> <evil villain laugh>
DM Mike> You feel…
Adam> Aroused?
DM Mike> <sigh>

There followed some discussion about D&D religion, the nature of both Asmodeus (known) and The Great Old One (unknown) plus the moral implications of stabbing a downed ally and then having his eternally burning soul taken by by an evil devil god and whether it was worth it.

No discussion took place on the inter-party repercussions of what just happened and we eventually got the adventure back on track.

And then Adam derailed it again.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I walk up to where Snorri’s body is, crouch Skyrim style… then stand up, then crouch again, then stand up, then crouch again, then shoot the goblin.

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)’s tea-bagging of Snorri’s soulless body caused some merriment that took some time to calm down.

They have killed everything else in the cave relatively easily and really quickly so finishing off the last measly goblin should be easy to dispatch right? Riiight.

• – Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) missed his bow shot at The Last Goblin.
• – Gnobby hit The Last Goblin with an Eldritch Blast but didn’t kill it.
• – Vaseline tries a Sacred Flame at The Wounded Last Goblin but it made the save.
• – Gnob misses the The Wounded Last Goblin with an Eldritch Blast.
• – The The Wounded Last Goblin shoots Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo).

ROGUE DOWN!

The DM reminds everyone that Christmas is in two days and he would be really, really happy if we could kill this goblin before then.

Gnobby crossbows the The Finally Fucking Dead Last Goblin and finally fucking kills it. End of fight… or is it?

DM Mike> Kraj, can you make a willpower save please?

Nervous laughter abounds as Kraj fails the save and Asmodeus takes control of Gnob and has him stab Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)’s body causing him to fail a death save.

Gnobby preps his crossbow and says if Gnob does that again there’s going to be some inter-party PvP but Gnob seems to recover his senses.

Oh Mike…

The cave is looted for a few bits and bobs but in one bedroll they find a goblin baby. Vaseline convinces Gnobby not to stab it. Gnobby sighs heavily, calls everyone a bunch of cunts, picks up Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) and carries him out of the cave.

Meanwhile, Gnob decides to sacrifice the baby to Asmodeus . Vaseline attempts a grapple but misses. Gnob hesitates for a turn and Vaseline grabs the baby and legs it.

We can’t even loot a cave without turning it into a drama .

Sildar says “Remember, not all creatures are inherently evil!”. Triggered Gary threatens to quit on the spot if we are playing Woke D&D.

The adventurers finally ended up back outside the cave in a pretty messed up state.

End of session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

– Will anyone let Gnob walk behind them ever again?
– Will there be repercussions for ‘the incident’?
– Will they ever finish this fucking cave?

Tune in next week to find out!

Post Session Guff – Unwritten rules

There are certain unwritten rules for both players and the DM the first of which for each is “The DM is always right, even if they are wrong”.

The player’s unwritten rules contain some obvious ones like ‘Don’t split the party’, ‘Don’t sacrifice a downed teammate’s soul to an evil devil god’ and ‘Never make a promise you don’t intend to keep’ (more on that one next week).

Unlike the player’s rules however, the DM rules have two caveats:

• – See rule 1
• – Unless they really deserve it
• So while Mike broke unwritten DM rule number two (don’t take agency away from your players) both caveats clearly apply in the situation above as we very clearly deserve it.

• Starring:
• Jake as Snorri the Gnome Fighter
• Christina as Kiara the Gnome Sorcerer
• Gary as Gnobby the other Gnome Warlock
• Adam as Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) the Gnome Rogue
• Matt as Sea Smurf a Triton Paladin <sigh>

• With:
• Mike as the DM

Author’s Note: We took a break the previous week because the new DM was, apparently, simply too busy to run D&D. This turned out to be a good thing as the old DM was readmitted to hospital in the intervening week and had been released, once again, on the Thursday evening. All this is basically just another Gary excuse for being on drugs this session.

Season Recap:

• – Some Gnomes (and a Triton) who are on a religious crusade to seek the lost artifacts of the gnomish god Balavar, set off with a wagon of ale to meet Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar at Phandalin down the coast.
• – They took three hours to take out four goblins. Actually it was three goblins I think, the last one got tired and ran away.

Pre-session Guff

Gary relayed a tale of great pain and a huge suppository and how he had risen from his death bed once again to play D&D as it may be his last session as there’s a risk he will expire while doing it and why he still made a heroic effort to be there because D&D is more important than life itself!

Kraj decided not to attend D&D and went to an office Christmas party instead.

I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

Jake admitted to reinstalling Tabletop Simulator once again in the off chance that his supercomputer can now display green lights.

Trail of Destruction

Gnobby (Gary) picks up a small rock and a small chunk of wood he can whittle into a shape the size of a Rubik’s cube. The reason for this will become clear later.

A marching order was established in very short order. Gnomes… ‘short’ order… get it? Lolz!

I’m not actually on any drugs as I’m writing this so I have no excuses at all for that one, sorry!

Snorri (Jake), who has seven whole hit points, walked straight into a trap that he failed to perception. He was hoisted into the air on a rope and ended up dangling upside down.

The other gnomes immediately started planning a rescue effort, possibly by doing the ‘three gnomes in a raincoat’ trick (thanks for that Adam) but Gnobby (Gary) reacted with confidence and panache (it’s not just a brothel in Phlan darlings) and Eldritch Blasted the rope with style, daring, deadeye accuracy and maybe just a touch of impetuousness.

Snorri immediately plummeted towards the ground and, in a surprising show of accuracy from the drunken fighter, struck it squarely in the middle with his face taking two damage.

Oops.

The party keep moving and Gnobby (Gary) says he thinks he might, maybe, possibly have acted a tad rashly and makes a resolution to maybe, possibly act less rashly in future… but probably not. Snorri just thinks Gnobby saved his life.

Snorri, who has 4 hit points more than he needs immediately walks into another trap, a ten-foot deep hole <sigh> He lands prone but passes a dex check and most importantly does not spill any beer. He does take another point of damage though.

Cave Entrance of Destruction

The gnomes (and Matt) arrive at the entrance to a cave. A small steam flows from the cave and across the stream is a small group of bushes.

Kiara (Christina) momentarily channels Elvira and rolls a natural 20 on her perception check and spies a pair of goblins in the bushes on the other side of the stream. Roll initiative!

Adam (oh Adam) genuinely asked if they were ten foot squares when they obviously were not. Mike was slightly scathing in his response: “How can you tell? Because they are OBVIOUSLY FIVE FOOT SQUARES!”. Indeed.

Snorri failed the ridiculously easy stealth check but quite remarkably everyone else passed it. Gnobby (Gary) runs forward and throws his rock on the ground calling out “Siiiize of a boulder!” and then cast minor illusion and had a boulder appear which he then took cover behind.

Kiara (Christina) firebolts a goblin for a mighty one point of damage. It does serve to illuminate where the goblin is to the rest of the group though. Sadly, no wild magic occurred.

Snorri and Kiara both get shot for 5 damage each as it turns out there’s a second goblin. The attack causes Snorri to drop his beer. He screams in rage and returns fire, headshotting the offending goblin and killing him outright. Snorri then drops his bow and sprints forward.

When questioned on the validity of this tactic Snorri (Jake) explains that he is not interested in it any more and he has his scimitars which are all that he needs. Gary remains sceptical about the wisdom of this action, mainly because Gary can count squares and can clearly see how far Snorri is from the goblins and also knows how far Snorri can run. One of these numbers is importantly larger than the other.

The last goblin pops its head up and shoots at Snorri but misses. A volley of return fire from held actions then occurred; “We shall fight them in the shade!”.

Gnobby (Gary), who’s only damaging contribution to the campaign so far was to stab Kraj in the dick, let fly with an Eldritch Blast… and rolled a 1 <sigh>. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) also let loose a sneak attack and the Eldritch Blast hit the arrow causing neither to hit the goblin <sigh>. The Triton (Matt) and Kiara (Christina) also both missed. Well done everyone, well done.

The surviving goblin then rolled a 1 on its stealth check so now we could all see it. It is Snorri’s turn and he can’t make it across the river with his gnomish 25ft movement. Still, he has a bow so he can at least shoot the goblin… oh, wait.

Snorri (Jake) then brings proceedings to a halt for ten minutes when he decides to throw his scimitars at the goblin and neither Mike nor Gary have any fucking clue on how the rules work on that shoddy bunch of bolarks. Eventually the DM ruled and Snorri missed with his throw and has now quite successfully disarmed himself. At least he still has his beer… oh, wait.

Gnobby casts an Eldritch Blast while shouting “YOU OWE SNORRI A BEER!” and kills the last goblin.

End of an ‘interesting’ fight.

In a perfect example of why it is taking us so long to progress through this campaign, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) (Adam) starts stabbing bushes in case there are any more hidden goblins. This goes on for a while as Gnobby exacerbated the issue by using Mage Hand to surreptitiously shake the bushes causing Ggnomeo to go ‘full strimmer’ and start shredding the entire area.

While this was amusing at the start it probably went a bit far so Gnobby cast Minor Illusion to mimic the death scream of the last goblin and called out to Ggnomeo “I think you got him brother!”. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sheathes his swords with satisfaction and victoriously low-fives Gnobby (they are gnomes so a high-five would be inappropriate).

Inner Cave Entrance of Destruction

Having reached the actual cave, Adam made a ‘your mom’ joke about the size of the cave entrance <sigh>

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) checks the ground and finds tracks that indicate at least ten goblins occupy the cave.

• Triton (Matt)> I would like to say that I am amphibious and could potentially swim in and do a little bit of scouting.
• Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> Isn’t that like knee high water?
• <Knee high to a gnome even>
• DM Mike> If he wants to try it, he can.
• Triton> How deep is the water?
• DM Mike> It’s about a foot.
• Triton> So… I could be prone and just shuffle along?
• <silence as that sinks in>

So we then had a rather large Triton lay face down in a foot of water and flap around a bit. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) starts splashing water on him. Gnobby and Kiara share a look which speaks volumes about what these fuckwits are doing. Snorri finds another beer in his backpack and focuses on that instead.

• DM> So… ‘Magikarp’, what are you going to do?
• <laughter>
• Triton> I stand up!
• Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo)> I keep splashing him!
• DM> <sigh>

Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) lies about the goblin tracks and tells the party there are at least 15 goblins in the cave and then offers to sneak inside. Gnobby goes and sits down in a bush. Snorri, remembering something from another life perhaps, something involving a glowing object tumbling out of a very similar cave, joins Gnobby in the bush.

Bridge of Stealth Destruction

The stream flows along the floor of a high tunnel leading back into the cave system. Just inside the main cave a smaller cave entrance is on the right occupied by three wolves chained to the wall. Further up the tunnel a ropey looking bridge crosses about ten feet above the stream and is being patrolled by a goblin sentry.

After a lengthy planning session, Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) successfully sneak attacks the goblin with his longbow but only does 6 damage to the 7hp goblin who screams “INTRUDERS!” as he falls. The impact takes away his last hit point and kills him but that’s about the only good news. The three wolves immediately start barking loudly enough to be heard throughout the cave system. From somewhere near the cave entrance, a heartfelt “Fucking Ggnomeo!” is heard amongst other rather uncomplimentary comments about the rogue’s lack of rougueiness. The rest of the party head into the cave. Roll initiative!

Two of the wolves break their chains and Snorri (Jake) was stupid enough unfortunate enough to be the closest unstealthed player and, in technical canine combat terminology, got bit to fuck and gets KO’d. In the words of the legend Bill Paxton in Aliens: “You’re dogmeat pal!”.

Kiara (Christina) shot a wolf with a crossbow but missed. Snorri made a death save, which was nice. The Triton (Matt) laid hands on Snorri and healed him a bit. Gnobby (Gary) actually managed to do something useful and killed a wolf with his crossbow. Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) double-dagger sneak attacked the second unchained wolf and hit it but failed to kill it (fucking Ggnomeo!). Kiara (Christina) shot a wolf with a crossbow but this time hit and killed it.

Only the third still-chained wolf remains and it is having a fit. There was some discussion about the ‘rightness’ of putting down the helpless but very noisy creature, especially as it calms down a bit and starts making puppy-eyes at the party.

The Triton and Gnobby ruthlessly end its life and move on with jaunty steps and light hearts. Gnobby then starts skinning the dead wolves.

Chim Chiminey of Destruction

There is a natural rock chimney running up the eastern wall with a pile of detritus at the base of it. Gnobby ascertains that not only are there turds in the pile but some are quite large. He then goes and explains to the rest of the party that he has found ‘turds of unusual size’ at the base of the chimney.

Now, at this point Gnobby (Gary) loses all interest in the chimney because he knows that we have a charisma heavy and strength light party and the odds of all of us climbing up anything remotely athletics related are extremely slim. I also expect DM Mike to ruthlessly exploit that fact during the campaign (I would!).

The Triton (Matt) has other ideas though and decides to climb the wall meaning A) He split the party B) He is climbing up a wall with a reasonable chance of falling off of it and C) If he does make it, he is likely to arrive at the top alone to meet whatever made the turds of unusual size.

Gnobby thoughtfully starts putting together a ‘landing pad’ of rubbish, dead skinned wolves and wolf pelts at the base of the chim chim cher-ee in case The Triton falls off.

Sadly this was not needed as The Triton successfully made it to the top of the chimney only to meet the alerted bugbear boss of the cave who surprise-attack natural-20 crits him for 36 damage instantly killing the Aqua Smurf.

TRITON DOWN!

TRITON DECEASED!

The body of The Triton then tumbles down the chimney and lands on the thoughtful but now rather redundant padding.

Much hilarity ensued.

Gnobby> <sigh> A moment, dear members of GNAMBLA, while we remember the sacrifice made by our dear friend and colleague… …<fails to remember his name> … ‘The Triton’. Okay, moment over.

Everyone immediately set about looting the corpse for everything he was carrying.

The DM points out that The Triton would have been okay if ‘fucking Ggnomeo’ hadn’t raised the alarm and alerted everything in the cave.

Matt was very concerned about who would look after his donkey. None of the rest of the party gave one single toss about the donkey.

It was agreed by the surviving party members that The Triton was clearly happiest when he was face down in the stream and thus it was agreed that was where they would leave the body. The DM enquired if this would be inside or outside the cave and the party swiftly agreed that carrying the body outside was waaaaaay too much effort and The Triton was laid to rest in the stream at the point that involved the most minimum amount of work.

End of session.

Next time on The Gnomes from GNAMBLA:

• – Will Matt’s new character be a gnome?
• – Will the party extract revenge for their fallen comrade upon the bugbear?
• – Will a lovestruck Ggnomeo (oh Ggnomeo) sing a street suss serenade, laying everybody low with a love song that he made?

Tune in next week to find out!