Starring:
Adam as Ari the Wizard/Fiki the Monk
Chris as Uffo the Bard
Henry as Darin the Rogue
Jake as Kroq the Fighter
Matthew as Cruril the War Cleric
Sophie as Torren the Tempest Cleric
With
Gary as The DM
“Listen and understand. It is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will try and stop you, forever, until you are dead.”
Prelude
The Dessarin Valley is a lightly settled region of caravan towns, isolated farmsteads and uninhabited wilderness just over a week’s journey from the grand city of Waterdeep. Once a frontier area, settled lands have expanded further northward leaving a quiet backwater littered with ruins. Nothing of note to the wider world has happened here for hundreds of years. Winters are hard here but the hordes of orcs and other hungry monsters are a long way off from these parts.
However, the area is still lightly settled and a large amount of steady caravan traffic passes through the area heading to and from the northern frontier and the settled cites to the south and west. Minor troubles are not uncommon in the area; bandits, bands of savage humanoids and some of the more violent tribes of the Uthgardt barbarians occasionally raid the caravans and farmlands and every so often a band of adventurers manage to stir up some ancient horror from the myriad of local ruins.
The area has an ancient history with some of the dwarven structures dating back over six thousand years. The current, mostly human, settlements have grown as the city of Waterdeep was founded and expanded over the last 500 years. “These lands, they have old bones” is a common saying in local taprooms.
Now, dark forces move in the northern region of the Forgotten Realms. Monsters are on the prowl, preying on flocks, rampaging through croplands, and attacking homesteads and travellers. In settlements, discord and suspicion grow. Sinister strangers lurk in the shadows, whispering about how everything is soon to change. This year brought an unseasonably warm and stormy spring. Tales spread of flooding, windstorms, wildfires and tremors.
Over the last six months numerous strangers have drifted into the valley in ones and twos. There has been a spate of banditry, kidnappings, murders and raids. The local constabulary is becoming overwhelmed. To add further misery, the weather is becoming more unpredictable and extreme.
And then this lot arrived.
Things to Know:
Beaver – Adam’s first ever D&D character. Prone to doing incredibly stupid things and thus the phrase ‘Going full Beaver’ was born. Beaver has the uncanny ability to convince sensible, intelligent people that Beaver’s incredibly stupid plans are in fact great ideas.
Mallory – Fiki’s pet duck that lives in his hat.
Uhffo – The bard’s name is Uffo, pronounced ‘Oo-foh’. This was mispronounced as ‘Uh-foh’ early in the first session and Chris made the mistake of letting everyone know that it irked him. Consequently the DM spent most of the campaign trying to slip the odd Uhffo past Uffo with varying rates of success.
WoMM – Wand of Magic Missiles. An item that both Uffo and Kroq ended up with. Uffo repeatedly forgot how to use it and Kroq repeatedly forgot he had it.
Wayne/Wanye – Adam complained about fantasy names. The DM added normal names. One of the normal names subsequently got changed because of some misspelled graffiti near the DM’s home.