Youth DnD: Now it's a proper heist

 So the party was sneaking into the manor of Polyphemus Estudian to steal the book he had just finished composing. The theft was commissioned by the Library Lich, who has issues with any books not being in his collection, and apparently hadn't convinced Lord Estudian to sell the book to him. 

Having realized that the pictures on the walls in the Entry Hall were all some species of mimic, the group proceeded upstairs. Their sorcerer, Toruv, was ethereal (because of his magic cloak) and thus ghosted through the rooms, discovering a guest bedroom, the master bedroom, a treasury, a hall for fighting practice, and finally a library. The others were searching separately in the physical realm, and found the guest bedroom and -- across from it -- their first locked door. The Arcane Trickster, Barrith, attempted to pick the lock and discovered that at least one of the twin doors to the treasury was a mimic. He managed not to be caught by it, backed out of range, and apologized (quietly). 

They proceeded on, finding the training hall and the library. (OOC: At this point, the only room on the second floor that they hadn't entered was the master bedroom, and the sorcerer had ghosted his way through that long enough to realize there were people asleep in there.) They entered the library and began checking the shelves, ignoring the table and chairs in the center of the room. After a while, the arcane trickster came to a single, unadorned book sitting on its own lectern. The book is closed. The swashbuckler, meanwhile, has moved across the hallway to peer into the training hall. The druid is currently a spider, and is riding on the arcane trickster's shoulder. 

The sorcerer, meanwhile, has used his ghostly state to drift up through the ceiling and take a look around the attic. The attic is a single, large space. It has a few stray wooden boxes and a couple of wardrobes, but it's mostly empty. He notices something on the south wall/ceiling, and moves to investigate; it's a carved wooden face, much wider than it is tall, stretching across the middle third of the attic. Under the circumstances, he finds this disturbing. 

Meanwhile, the trickster picks up the book and opens it to the faceplate, where he reads: "The Mimic Book of Mimics, by Polyphemus Estudian". Clearly, this is the book they're looking for. Even more clearly, they're now in trouble: the book sprouts teeth around its edges and shouts: "HEY! PUT ME BACK!" 

The arcane trickster casts Rope Trick as the swashbuckler comes charging back into the room. The swashbuckler swarms up the rope and disappears into the magical space beyond; the trickster follows, carrying the druid with him. This would be a great way to hide, except that the table, the chairs around it, and the rug underneath are all part of a single large mimic, and it's stuck out a tendril and grabbed the rope. 

The trickster uses Mage Hand to lower the book back to its lectern, then pulls out his crossbow and threatens to shoot the table if it doesn't quiet down. He gets lucky: the table-and-chairs-mimic is surprised enough that it loosens its grip on the rope long enough for him to yank it loose and haul it up into his spell. 

So that's where they are now: three of the four party members are hiding in a spell, with a large, angry mimic underneath them; Lord Estudian is likely to show up any minute; and the fourth party member is on the top floor, unaware of any of this. 

As their DM/GM, I'm actually quite proud: the Trickster's player got back to me before nightfall with a full, workable plan for how to get out of the situation. We'll pick up next week as he implements it.

Youth DnD: Art Criticism

 So, the youth DnD group snuck into the house of Count Polyphemus Estudian to steal the book that he had written, which they were commissioned by the Library Lich to retrieve. The house is a largish manor sitting on a (possibly artificial) hilltop about a mile and a half outside of Daern something-or-other. (I don't remember. I made that one up on the fly; it's in my notes, but I'm not where I can look at those right now.) 

After letting the Arcane Trickster scout the outside of the house with the help of his Cloak of the Bat, they decided on the simple and direct approach: they picked the locks on the front doors, and went in that way. 

That let them into a two-story entry hall, with the sweeping staircases flanking an upstairs balcony; there were a pair of stuffed wolves on either side of the doors, and a pair of stuffed bears on either side of the far pair of doors (beneath the balcony). There were paintings along the walls, plenty of windows on the south wall, and it was generally all very dark and quiet. (Even with the windows, it's a bit hazy outside and it's only about 1/3 moon, so... not much in the way of natural light.)

The Arcane Trickster is a halfling, and he's using Goggles of Night Vision. The druid (also a halfling) converted herself to a spider and is riding around on his shoulder. The dragonborn sorcerer has taken advantage of his Ghost Cloak to become ethereal; he can see the group, but the only way they can talk to him is if the druid uses her Ghostwise Halfling telepathy and he happens to be standing in range. The swashbuckler/lore bard, like the arcane trickster, has been relying on her native skills for stealth. 

So far, they have explored the ground-floor level of the entry hall -- where the swashbuckler's Rapier of Warning kept giving them oddly non-specific indications of danger -- and the dining hall, which was on the far side of the wall where the rapier indicated danger was nearby.  The swashbuckler activated Detect Magic and looked over the entry hall but found no magic; she was pushing at the pictures to see if they were covering any empty spaces when her rapier twitched a warning at her. At that point they asked the sorcerer to go check our the room on the other side of that wall, which turned out to be the dining hall. (Of course, the rest of the group has no idea if he even heard them.) They discovered nothing threatening; in fact, so far everything was minimally secured and they saw no signs of life. (Admittedly, it's nearly midnight and anyone living here is likely to be asleep.)

While the sorcerer was checking out the dining room, the swashbuckler went to explore the connecting hallway on the first floor, behind the double doors at the back of the entry hall; she found several closed doors, and a narrower hallway leading towards the back of the house. The arcane trickster, meanwhile, started poking the pictures from a reasonably safe distance using Mage Hand. 

When we ended the game, two major new developments had occurred:
-The swashbuckler's exploration of the narrower hallway had led her to a corridor somewhere near the back of the house, with doors on both sides. She could hear somebody snoring loudly behind one of the doors.
-The paintings in the entry hall were mostly landscapes, but the two northernmost were portraits, one of a man, one of a woman. When the arcane trickster poked the woman's portrait, the woman in the (apparently non-magical) picture turned and frowned at him. 

Considerable discussion of the use and limitations of Detect Magic ensued, with a particular emphasis on how it related to shapechangers, spellcasters, illusions, and invisibility. I've promised to go do some checking up so I can give official in-game rulings on those things.

Youth DnD

So, for this weekend's game I pulled together a new adventure outside Roslof Keep for the party. (They requested another departure a while back, then got distracted by bringing unlikely allies into their party.) 

This one began with the approach of a tall, slender figure in a black cloak and hood, features hidden. The druid hailed the stranger - who was about nine-and-a-half feet all, and it stopped just outside of combat range. The figure then threw off its cloak, revealing the horror of...

...Three skeletons sitting on each other's shoulders. They immediately hopped down and moved to attack.

At this point, the party is fairly formidable; it doesn't take much to dispatch the skeletons. Each of the skeletons has a leather bag tied inside its ribcage. Each of the bags carries a message. The messages say: 

My dear adventurers, it is my wish to extend another opportunity to you. There is a book that I do not have in my library. There is only one copy.

(Also, you should have seen the look on your faces! Three skeletons in a cloak! Ha!)

The book is in the possession of Lord Polyphemus Estudian, its author, in the county of Farwind. I am, of course, offering a reward if you can acquire it or bring me an exact copy.

It's a quest from the Library Lich, whom one of the players describes as "a whole mood". So they settle up their current business, and head off to Farwind to take care of this. 

The group asks around enough to learn that he has a reputation as an explorer and a naturalist, and that he was made a noble by the king. There's a rumor that his house sprang up overnight, which could certainly be possible. 

So they spend some time making up cover identities and disguising themselves as a group of travelers who are definitely not a semi-famous up-and-coming banner company who might get recognized the moment they set foot in Farwind. Then they board one of the mail-barges, and make their way to the town nearest the lord's estate. 

So... I've spent a couple of hours putting together Count Farwind and the other inhabitants of his house. I've mapped it out. I've filled in decorations and items. I am ready for this break-in/heist/negotiation/whatever-they-decide-on. 

...They decide to stop at the scriptorium in town, and buy a bunch of books instead. I mean, they do learn a bit more about the Count - apparently he's just finished writing some sort of guide and hasn't had it copied yet -  but mostly? 

Book shopping. 

::sigh::

Oh, well. I suppose the manor will just have to wait until next session.

Youth DnD: The Damaged Dungeon

 I realize that I've been lax about reporting on the youth D'n'D game that I run for Firstborn and his friends, but I'm pleased to say that: 

A) It's still going.
B) It transitioned to online gaming with only a few growing pains when the pandemic hit. 

The characters have been fairly consistent. Firstborn is still playing his dragonborn draconic sorcerer. (Because dragons. And fire. But mostly dragons.) The player of the mousefolk cleric transitioned to a half-elf swashbuckler/bard once they rescued the mousefolk tribe, allowing the cleric to gracefully return to her people. The third of the original players is still playing his halfling arcane trickster. We have two other players who are currently absent, but we're hoping to have them back when circumstances permit. 

The campaign itself is based in Roslof Keep, which is very much an old-school dungeon: you go inside and defeat monsters and get treasure. The primary conceit is that the dungeon is the creation of a Mad Mage, who is supposed to have hidden an immortality potion in the Infernal Machine at the heart of the maze. The dungeon is less of a dwelling than an elaborate test and training ground; the monsters inside are generated (and recreated) by the dungeon itself, though every so often some stray beast or tribe wanders in. 

This is not terribly well explained, since the dungeon is otherwise quite difficult to enter; it is sealed with a magic "membrane" -- essentially an impenetrable force field -- which will open only to groups who have sworn themselves to one of seven magical banners called Mithal Standards. In addition, moving down to each new level beyond the first can only be done when a group has defeated everything on the current level; a similar membrane keeps the levels separated. I've dealt with this by deciding that the membrane becomes more permeable when a banner company is entering or leaving; so long as some of the group is inside and others are outside, it's possible for other creatures to pass through. This was how the Mousefolk (as well as a group of orcs on the first level) made their way into the maze, and it was how the party eventually brought them back out. 

The prepackaged campaign is designed to be used for both AD&D and 5e... mostly. Mainly, that means that there are 5e stat blocks for the monsters along with the AD&D stats. Unfortunately, it looks like nobody thought to do conversions for the treasure, which has created some interesting issues with the magic items; as written, they're really too powerful for 5e characters. I've mostly ignored that, since the dungeon is fairly brutal and I've compensated by letting the characters level up a bit more than recommended and keep the more powerful treasures. I've also given them some sidequests outside of the main campaign; one was a quest to find out what was eating the horses at a logging camp, and another was a quest to return a stolen book to the Library Lich, and then a smaller sub-quest to clear the imps out of his basement. Oh, and they discovered a mysterious tiefling who was apparently spying on their lord's manor and probably on them, and survived a couple of assassination attempts.

As they've progressed, we've filled in more of the keep above the dungeon, local politics and other Houses and banner companies; they've rescued a member of another company and had one of their own members rescued by that same company. The characters are still definitely in the Scrappy Underdog category, but they're starting to make a name for themselves. Meanwhile they've discovered a strange fungus that seems to be infecting both the dungeon and the creatures in it, and one of their "recurring enemy" monsters -- a kobold sorcerer named Gex, who has attacked and been killed by them several times -- has asked for a truce; Gex and another monster are worried about the fungus and the way it seems to be draining the dungeon's magic, which means that if they're killed they might not come back.

...Which brings me to this week. The group has formed a temporary alliance with Gex, and after he helped them clear a couple of rooms on the third level they started talking about whether it was possible to bring him out of the dungeon, or whether -- since he was a creation of the dungeon -- that would destroy him. 

So they tested it by capturing a dungeon-spawned giant rat and carrying it out through the membrane. It survived. (Well, until they killed it immediately afterwards.) So they brought Gex out. This was... an experience. For one thing Gex had never entirely believed that Outside really existed; the adventurers came from somewhere, but for all he knew the dungeon was generating them the same way it did him. For another, he'd never seen sky before; it took them a few minutes to convince him that he wasn't going to fall upwards, and he could let go of the door handle now. He had certainly never seen a street vendor's cart, or a meat pie, so they promptly brought several of them; that was such a revelation that he barely notice the next two blocks as they led him back to the estate. 

Their lord was perfectly appalled by this. How had they brought the kobold out? And even if you can bring one of the dungeon's creatures outside, why would you ever want to? And what would happen to Gex now that he was out? Was he still bound to the dungeon? Was he an ordinary kobold, set for a full natural lifespan, or would he weaken and die outside of his home? The lord, a former adventurer himself, called in a friend of his -- an elvish wizard and former member of his company -- who suggested that Gex was less likely to suffer unpleasant consequence if he was bound to the Mithral Banner; Gex promptly agreed to this. 

So now the group has adopted a kobold sorcerer who was designed by the dungeon of the mad mage to harry them and try to kill them. We'll see how this goes...

Youth DnD: Outside the Dungeon

The party continued on, clearing out the room of Hobgoblins and then heading east... where they were attacked by a trio of oddly deformed, zombie-like goblin who seemed to covered in/taken over by some sort of fungus. They defeated them and looked into the room from which they'd emerged, and found it covered in the same violet fungus: walls, floors, and ceiling alike. Unwilling to enter the room, the sorcerer used his alchemy jug to splash as much oil around as he could manage, then set it alight with firebolt and backed far, far away. They waited, and entered again once the room had burned clean, claiming seven cuts of violet topaz.

However, their investigations roused a group of bugbears, who came charging out into the corridor, followed a moment later by their chief; the battle was intense but brief, and the group searched the bugbears' rooms, obtaining some treasure including a ring of feather falling which the arcane trickster claimed.

They then continued on, opening another door and engaging with four Hell Hounds in a battle which left the swashbuckler heavily wounded; rather than continue, they elected to withdraw and rest until later. From this room the swashbuckler collected an obsidian knife with a pearl handle (+2 Dagger) and the group gained 30 PP.

Treasure from this session and the last, which will need to be split with Lord Aldenmier, includes:
30 PP
350 GP
270 GP
200 GP
700 SP
An Amethyst worth 200 GP
A red Spinel (it's a kind of gemstone, so we got to learn something new) worth 175 GP
A nicely tooled belt that the Grimlocks must have taken from somewhere else.
7 cuts of violet topaz, worth 150 GP each.
Round Metal Shield +2

General Party treasure at present is:
25 PP, 3,327 GP, and 331 SP.
A potion of Healing
(Plus an ivory sheath that's currently sitting on a small table until someone can hang it on a wall.)

Youth DnD: The Mage's Tower, the Griffin Ranch, and Back into the Dungeon

Catching up on what Firstborn and his friends have been up to...

After they emerged from the dungeon they took a night off, then went to visit the Mage's Tower to see if they could swap the druid's new magic dagger for something the druid would find more useful. When they got there they found Molo of the Nine Wives not at the front counter, and sounds of struggle from the back. They quickly followed the sounds, and descended...

...into some sort of magical test or training area beneath the tower. On the far side of the room, they could see Molo being dragged off by a pair of figures, down a passageway that promptly vanished. They followed, solving the room's riddle to reopen the passage, then doing the same for two more rooms until they finally caught up with the pair and their prisoner.

The pair were a wizard and warrior; they fought, and the party killed the wizard and badly injured the warrior, who surrendered. Molo, when released, cursed the name of his brother-wizard and had the party carry the body back upstairs and drop it into a sarcophagus in a rather eerie room on the second floor. He offered them 400 gp as a reward, or 800 if they would kill the warrior and place his body in a sarcophagus as well. (Barrith: "So... he's a necromancer?" OH YES, he's a necromancer.) After considerable debate, the party turned the guard loose and accepted the 400 GP, then swapped the +2 dagger for a Staff of the Woodlands. (Molo was still feeling generous.) Molo also offers Toruv membership in the Order of the Towers, and Toruv accepts; this would be more useful to a wizard than a sorcerer, but it's still got some benefits. After a failed attempt to take the druid's hand in marriage,Molo agrees to keep an eye out for some items that they'd like to acquire now that they're rich, and he copies down their lists and says that he'll see what he can do for them. (Molo is... not a good guy, but he is grateful for the rescue.)

The group retires to Aldenmier's estate for a little downtime and a good night's sleep.

The next morning they get up and head down to Lord Aldenmier's new griffin ranch, established with the help of a druid from another, more famous ranch in another county. The druid has been busy; not only have the two eggs from the spotted mountain griffins hatched, but he's been acquiring stock from elsewhere and has a whole batch of cute little chibi flying killing machines that he's starting to raise. He spends some time getting the group up to speed on how to work with the wee beasties (except for Sana, the group's halfling moon druid, who's got an amazing knack for it already) and they spend the late morning and early afternoon on familiarity, bonding, and training. After that, the druid griffin-rancher mentions that one of the farms down the way -- half-elf family, nice people -- had an issue with their hens laying eggs that hatched into cockatrices; he took care of those, but that suggests that a basilisk has been getting into the hen-house and he didn't have time to track that down.

So the group heads over to the farm, borrows a nice silver mirror, and tracks the basilisk into the woods. They find it asleep in a rocky lair, and position the mirror in front of it. Despite some difficulties, the trick works: the basilisk, furious at having a competitor near its lair, meets its own gaze and turns itself to stone. Toruv, the dragonborn sorcerer, then levitates the thing (barely) and a furious discussion ensues on whether to carry it back to Aldenmier's estate as a decoration (Sana the druid), leave it at the farmhouse (Toruv the sorcerer), or try to sell it (Barrith the Arcane Trickster). Toruv's vote is the only one that really counts, as he has the only spell they can use to move that much stone; the statue ends up positioned in front of the farmhouse. They return the mirror and head back, bringing Aldenmier up to speed and then getting another good night's rest.

This morning they headed back into the dungeon, and tried out the secret door they learned about from the dwarves. (It turns out that I had the two passages down to the second level reversed, but that's fine; it's a magical dungeon, apparently they just come out in different places than conventional geometry would require.) The nearest set of rooms were all inhabited by Grimlocks, but it turns out that even ten Grimlocks aren't much of a match for five fifth-level characters. They cleared out three rooms, crossed a pit in the dungeon floor, and are now ready to face the next room...

When they open that door next session, Sana the halfling moon druid will still have her flame blade active, Barrith the halfling Arcane Trickster will have an additional 6 HP from False Life, and Aika the swashbuckling bard will still be slightly injured (-7 hp from a lucky Grimlock).

Treasure from this session, which will need to be split with Lord Aldenmier, includes:
350 GP
200 SP
An Amethyst worth 200 GP
A red Spinel (it's a kind of gemstone, so we got to learn something new) worth 175 GP
A nicely tooled belt that the Grimlocks must have taken from somewhere else.

General Party treasure at present is:
25 PP, 3,327 GP, and 331 SP.
(Plus an ivory sheath that's currently sitting on a small table until someone can hang it on a wall.)

Youth DnD: Two Dungeon Sessions...

Right, so: as planned, we picked up with another session in the dungeon, this time with the Druid accompanying the party. The group stopped to acquire another Ring of Protection for their new companion, then defeated the kobolds and the kobold sorcerer. ("Not... again..." he gasped as he died.) Heading down to the second level, they selected a direction and proceeded east, stopping to disarm a spear-trap along the way. (Their method is just to stand out of the way and set it off, then walk past.) Behind the next door they discovered a pack of white apes, who immediately attacked them (as almost everything in this dungeon does). They defeated the apes, and discovered in their room a bit of treasure and a magical dagger, which they handed over to the druid -- she being the only character who doesn't have any magical weapons at present. At that point they decided to rest, so they dragged the corpses out into the corridor, cleaned the floor as best they could, and settled in for a long rest.

When they awoke, they stepped back out into the corridor and noted that all of the bodies were gone. Had the dungeon reset? It shouldn't be able to, with them inside it. Something else, then? Toruv, the dragonborn sorcerer, suggested the possibility of a gelatinous cube. They continued on, bypassing a side-passage and coming to a door... and noticing another, secret door in the wall beside them. They got it open and walked through. sneaking down a narrow passage to another secret door... and beyond that, they found a naked, bound dwarf either sleeping or unconscious on the floor. The prodded him awake, and quickly got his story before cutting him loose.

His name is Brand Ironspark, and he's a member of the Black Vanguard -- another banner company. He got separated from his group down on level four, and managed to make it up to level two before being ambushed by a bunch of bugbears and dragged back here. That was, he thinks, a couple of days ago; the bugbear cleric seems to be planning to sacrifice him to some pagan god. Can the group help him get back to the surface?

They can do better than that: between the dragonborn and the half-elf barbarian, they're able to outfit him with a tunic and pants (even if they have to cut a bit off the legs). Then, digging around in the Bag of Holding, they come up with a suit of Ring Mail, a shield, a morning star, and a spear. Brand is ecstatic, and asks if they'd be willing to do him one further favor: he wants to kill the whole troop of bugbears before he goes. Is the group willing? Of course they are. They hand him food and water, and he's in the midst of scarfing it down when the non-secret door swings open and a robed bugbear strides into the room, yelling for the prisoner to quiet down until he can be sacrificed.

The half-elf swashbuckler/bard reaches out and swings the door closed behind the cleric. Then the fight begins.

It's a short fight. The bugbear cleric has just stepped into a room full of vengeful adventurers, and... well, Aika (the swashbuckler) stabs her, Sana (halfling druid) poison sprays her, Arch (half-elf barbarian) hits her with his flaming sword, Barrith (halfling Arcane Trickster) stabs her with his frost brand shortsword, Brand Ironspark misses his swing with his morning star (he's still recovering from being tied up for two days), and Toruv (dragonborn sorcerer) steps in, puts his palm against the cleric's face, and finishes her off with a pair of Eldritch Blasts.

The room that the cleric came out of is empty; there's some treasure, and they quickly loot it before setting up in front of the next door. They haven't been discovered yet, so they have time to set up a plan -- and it goes off perfectly.

The barbarian and the fighter set up in front of the door. The arcane trickster opens it (very stealthily) with Mage Hand. Then Toruv steps up with Melf's Minute Meteors ready, and sends two of the meteors into the room. The bugbears are sitting in a circle around a cookpot full of something that smells horrible, and the meteors catch all of them. In addition, Toruv has aimed his attacks to knock over the cookpot, doing additional damage as it spills over three of the bugbears and converting that side of the circle into difficult terrain. He steps aside as the bugbears all look up.

The swashbuckler slides in past her friends, attacks, kills one, and disappears back out the door again. The druid steps up and hits one with poison spray, but it manages not to breathe (possibly out of pure shock) and doesn't take any damage. She, too, steps out of the way. Then the barbarian steps in and kills another one. The Arcane Trickster slips up behind him and casts Sleep, putting four of the remaining five bugbears to sleep. The dwarven former prisoner, Brand Ironspark, steps in and kills the last one, and the group quickly finishes off the four sleepers. With that done, they accompany him back up to first level --

--Or, well, they start to. Along the way, they see a pair of skeletons floating down the side-passage towards them. They manage to spot (and recognize) a sort of shimmering wall in front of the skeletons, and correctly conclude that these aren't magical skeletons; it's the remains of the white apes, and they're being carried along inside a gelatinous cube. Toruv fires off a couple of meteors at the thing, and everybody runs for the stairs. Fortunately, gelatinous cubes are not fast; they're able to get to the statue room and realign the statue before it catches up with them. The closed portcullis won't keep the cube out, but the other portcullis is now up and their way to the stairs is clear. They race up the steps and pass through the magical membrane to the first level. The cube does not follow.

Feeling relatively safe, they continue back to the dungeon entrance; along the way, they think to ask if there's another way down to the second level, and he tells them where to find a second entrance behind a secret door. He also answers Aika's question about whether the Black Vanguard is engaged in a blood feud with the Iron Men: they are. The Iron men aren't really exploring the dungeon, they're just trying to make sure that nobody except the Guilded Lancers (the other Banner Company of their House, Briyann) gets to explore. Brand thanks them again, tells Arch it was good fighting with him, and leaves.

With Brand safely out of the dungeon and on his way, they circle the first level of the dungeon to find the secret entrance, which is exactly where Brand said it would be. They're looking at it when they hear the clump of footsteps, and a group of five dwarves come stomping up the steps. From the devices on their armor, this is obviously the rest of the Black Vanguard.

"Um, hello," says Aika, the swashbuckler. "We found your boy Brand."

"Ah?" asks one of the dwarves. "And where is he, then?"

"We gave him armor and weapons and saw him to the entrance," answers Toruv.

"I told you I felt him leave," says one of the dwarves -- the one who's carrying a staff instead of something edged, though he's every bit as heavily armored as the rest.

The dwarf who spoke first grunts an acknowledgement, and the group starts past. Another dwarf, the other one in the front row, stops and turns. "We're in your debt," he says. And with no more ceremony than that, the whole group marches past and heads towards the entrance.

"Well," says Aika. "That's not the worst thing that could happen."

So at this point the group decides that they've had enough excitement for one expedition; they, too, exit the dungeon. They're due a day of rest, and Sana the druid wants to see if she can exchange the magical dagger for something more useful to her. So after a pause at the manor for breakfast, they divide the treasure with Aldenmier and head off to the local magic shop...

...but that's a story for next time.

At this point, according to my listing, they have:
Current party treasure by my count is 25 PP, 2,602 GP, and 331 SP.

Treasure they've collected over the last few adventures (which we really haven't settled out) includes:
-A silver idol worth 450 gp, which they straight hand over to Lord Aldenmier in exchange for keeping the bracers of archaery, which the barbarian is using.
-A ruby worth 200 gp.
-400 gp.
-an ivory scabbard taken from the bugbear cleric, worth 75 gp.
-a +1 Ring of Protection, which they handed over to Brand Ironspark to help make sure he got home safely.
-500 sp.

Once they finish dividing that up, they should have:
25 PP, 2,927 GP, and 331 SP.
(Aldenmier agrees that they can hang on to the ivory scabbard as a keepsake; they've brought in quite a bit of wealth for his House and several of his business ventures seem to be doing well, so he's feeling generous. Also, an ivory scabbard for the Ivory Scimitars? It's just too appropriate.)

Youth DnD: Now Conducted Via Crystal Ball

Picking up from the last entry...

We've had a lot of new developments since I last stopped to document their game. The big one, of course, is that our school district extended Spring Break and is now trying to implement emergency online teaching so that everybody can maintain a soft quarantine (ahem: "social distancing") during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since I am already feeling unduly exposed by my workplace, I decided to do much the same thing for Dungeons & Dragons, and set up a Discord server. Saturday morning was our first virtual DnD session, and all things considered I think it went really well. (We had a few setup difficulties, but I was expecting that for our first session; and Discord is being hugely buggy and kind of freaking out, probably because the service is wildly overloaded. We coped by cutting out the video chat and proceeding on audio and text chat only, and it worked.)

Events since that last big update:
-The group located the wizard who had taken the book from the Lich's library.
-Her companions didn't know she still had it; they were mourning the death of their bard, who was stabbed in the alley behind the inn.
-When Toruv (dragonborn sorcerer) came out with the fact that they'd been sent to find a missing spellbook, the fighter and the paladin both turned to look at the wizard, who immediately turned invisible and tried to run away.
-The group immediately moved to close off the building, causing no small amount of consternation among the owner and patrons.
-A halfling at a nearby table pulled out a lamp and lit it, making the wizard unexpectedly visible. (This was the introduction for our newest PC, a Ghostwise Halfling Moon Druid of formidable talents.)
-The wizard's companions managed to subdue her, and our swashbuckler and the druid went upstairs to look for the book. The druid found it almost immediately and ignored its whispers; she tossed it to the swashbuckler, who immediately failed her save and decided that the book was her BFF and must be protected; she promptly threw herself out the window and led the rest of the group on a merry chase through the town, with the Druid tracking her as a dire wolf.
-They did eventually manage to locate (barely) and subdue her, and got the book under control - it turns out that its pernicious psychic influence doesn't work when someone is using Mage Hand to hold it thirty feet in the air.
-They then managed to talk their way out of getting arrested by the guards, and carried the book back to the library by wrapping it in cloth and tying it at the end of a stick.

At that point, we were ready to return to the usual dungeon -- but we had a couple of players out, and it was the first weekend of Spring Break. So I made the executive decision that the Druid had wandered out to commune with nature in the woods around the library complex, and the Barbarian was doing a bit of research in the stacks; so it was the sorcerer, the rogue, and the swashbuckler who the lich asked to deal with an infestation of imps (an impfestation, as it were) in his basement. Apparently he keeps a reading room down there, where it can be closed for researchers consulting the Special Tomes; and apparently this particular researcher has a bad habit of reading aloud under his breath when he's concentrating. The result was one dead researcher and a swarm of imps.

The trio ventured down and began exploring the basement, noting a number of rather dangerous items (all meticulously labeled) before entering a room with a wooden crate in one corner, a chest along the middle of each wall, and a torture rack against the far wall. One of them walked over and laid a hand on the torture rack, which emitted an ear-splitting shriek of horrible pain and panicked the sorcerer right out of the room. As he was coming back, the other two went to examine one of the chests... which turned out to be mimics and promptly tried to eat them.

Combat was swift and fairly one-sided; while troublesome, the two mimics really weren't strong enough to face this group. That left the chest in the corner, and of course that might be a mimic too, so... the rogue (arcane trickster) used Mage Hand to lift the crate to the ceiling and then dropped it; it immediately started bleeding, so he put a crossbow bolt through it and the sorcerer blasted it with a firebolt.

...Which was when the puddle of ichor started smoking. The half-elf swashbuckler and the halfling rogue were both caught in the smoke, and immediately developed a rash on the backs of their hands and portions of their faces. The rash turned out to be patches of scales. The dragonborn was unaffected, which was probably for the best. They immediately retreated back upstairs to consult with the lich, and discovered that the crate had been full of rare and expensive magical potions, and there was no telling what they'd been exposed to or what would happen because of it.

So the two affected characters decided to go take a long rest, while the dragonborn sorcerer decided to finish clearing out the impfestation. This proved dramatically more difficult than he expected: not only were the imps capable of turning invisible, but they were accompanied by a pair of spined devils; and not only that, but one of the imps turned out to be a spellcaster. If they'd really been trying to kill him, he probably wouldn't have survived. Instead, they spent a lot of effort trying to grapple and subdue him, and eventually wore him down to the point where he was affected by a Sleep spell and taken prisoner.

That was where today's online session picked up: the druid returned just as the rogue and swashbuckler were waking back up, and they noticed that the sorcerer was still gone. So they went back down to the basement, and found the imps in the sub-basement preparing for some sort of magical ritual. Rather than waste time searching for Toruv, who had been busy trying to escape from the room where he was trapped, they leapt straight to the attack.

Toruv had just managed to escape, and got loose just in time to hear the battle begin. The imps made good use of their invisibility, stingers, and poison; but even with the spined devils for support they were overmatched now that the whole group was there. They did some damage, but the issue was never in doubt. (If they'd managed to sacrifice Toruv and summon a Pit Fiend, on the other hand, well...) So they returned upstairs and reported their success, and the lich decided that their work essentially paid for the loss of his potions and sent them on their way.

Next time, we can pick up back at Roslof Keep and the main dungeon storyline; the group is strong enough now that they ought to be able to clear the next level fairly efficiently, and maybe even hold their own against some of the established adventuring companies. (Some of them.) So check back with us; the adventure continues!

Youth DnD: Lost Lore of the Library Lich

So, the players had requested a chance to do something outside of the main dungeon. I fully support this: a change of scenery, a change of pace, and a chance to try out some situations that wouldn't come up in the main quest. So with a quick refresher on the background, they departed Roslof and made their way to the Lich's Library. This is something that we came up with early in the campaign, like so:

"Favorite bit of semi-OOC interaction: Firstborn remarked that they had to be the weirdest adventuring party in the Keep. They're not, though they're definitely off in the right direction for that. But that gave me the chance to tell them about The Librarian. The Librarian is a Lich who lives in a small complex in the forest, about eight miles outside of the town. He pursued magical knowledge and power and eventually attained undead immortality so that he could finally finishing reading and writing all the books that he wanted to read and write. With the right letters of introduction, his library is a god-send to anyone doing research. He is the sort of librarian who keeps his library quiet and calm, and in fact he can enforce magical silence through the entire complex. The players were absolutely charmed to know that this place existed, and at some point they're almost certainly going to have to pay it a visit."

Later in the campaign, the Mousefolk Cleric and the Dragonborn Sorcerer had a letter sent to the Lich, asking permission to visit and do research on some sort of guard-dragons; the Sorcerer received a response a few days later while out and about in the town, when he and the Halfling Rogue were attacked by a skeletal minotaur. Upon slaying the undead monstrosity, they found a note tied to the inside of its spinal column indicating that the lich found their request acceptable. (Some of you may be wondering if I lifted this method of epistolary from the Elder Scrolls games; the answer is absolutely yes.)

So, the group arrived at the library and was unpleasantly surprised to find another skeletal minotaur standing at the gate; but this one led them back to the library proper (the largest of the buildings in the complex) and then returned to the gate again. They stood around inside until the Lich arrived to greet them. The lich is about what you'd expect: a tall, skinny human, now withered and slightly rotted, with burning red eyes. He led them through the library, past a beholder that floated in the midst of a circle of stands, apparently reading six books at once; then past a cyclops who had stopped to remove her monocle and wipe it clean, and then into a back room where he pointed out an empty shelf. "You see my problem?"

The group confirmed that they did.

"I loaned it to a wizard," the lich explained. "Loaned it to her, and she left without returning it."

"What kind of book was it?" asked the Swashbuckler.

"A spellbook, of course."

"Wait..." said the Barbarian quietly. "That whole shelf was for just one book?"

"I can't keep it beside other books," answered the lich. "It might interfere with them."

"So you want us to get your book back," asserts the swashbuckler.

"Yes. You must retrieve it before it takes over the wizard. And if it does take over the wizard, you must kill her and then bring it back."

"This book... it doesn't have spells that open portals to the plane of elemental fire or anything, does it?" asked the Swashbuckler.

"Not that I know of. If it does, it has never mentioned them."

"Right," said the Sorcerer. "Get the book, kill the wizard if needed, and bring the book back here. Any idea where she went?"

"I asked around," said the lich, "and they were seen in the town of Graindale, a few miles west of here. I do not know where they went after that."

So the group makes a quick decision, and heads for graindale.

Graindale is a town only in the loosest possible sense of the word. It has three buildings: a blacksmith, a sort of general store, and a tavern that doubles as an inn for the few travelers who come through town. Our heroes head for the tavern.

The main room is small (about the size of my kitchen), with four small tables and a small bar at one end. Behind the bar is woman about seven feet tall, maybe three hundred pounds -- most of it in her shoulders. "Ah!" she cries. "Adventurers! Welcome to the Inn of the Dulled Axe!" Sure enough, there's a massive bardiche on the wall behind her, with a strip of thick leather covering the edge of the blade. She is, obviously enough, a full-blooded orc... but while the party is still gaping, a small half-orc comes toddling out from behind the bar.

"Ah!" Cries the Barbarian. "So cute!" He rushes over to the child, who immediately holds out his hands to be picked up. The barbarian scoops up the child, cooing and fussing over him.

"Careful," says the orc inkeeper gently. "We call him Sam. I'm Arlis." They're between meals, but they still have some stew on for anyone who wanders in, and some bread that isn't yet stale. The group decides to eat, and she hauls over a massive pot of stew and sets it on the table (which creaks dangerously) before ladling a good-sized scoop into each of their bowls. Her husband, a middle-aged human, emerges from the kitchen behind her, bearing a tray with the bread and some spoons for them to eat with. His name, it turns out, is Bildur.

They haven't seen any sentient magical spellbooks, but there was a wizardly sort -- a human woman -- among a group of adventurers who stopped in a week or so earlier. They don't normally eavesdrop on their guests, but this group got a little loud and Arlis remembers overhearing that they were bound for Stonereef and would be meeting somebody from Isonwood there.

They've heard of both these places before. Stonereef is a predominantly Dwarven town, known for its mining, smiths, and metalcrafts; there's a much of the city underground as there is on the surface. The name Stonereef has something do with a geological peculiarity of the location, but they're not sure exactly what; it's one of those bits of terminology that makes perfectly good sense to Dwarves -- of course you'd name it that -- and not much sense to anybody else. Isonwood is unusual in being a community primarily of half-elves; it does some trade in lumber (but limited, so as not to damage the forest) and has a thriving artistic community.

The group finishes their meal and heads on to Stonereef. It's an irregularly-shaped walled city on the top of a hill or low plateau, with three stone ramps leading up to three large gatehouses. The group has caught a ride on a turnip-farmer's wagon, but they're pulled aside by a Dwarven guard at the bottom of the ramp. (The horses will have an easier time on the ramp without them anyway.) Stonereef, he explains, is a town of law and order; if they had mounts, they would be responsible for any messes made by their mounts. The same for golems, familiars, and companion animals. There's to be no stealing, no killing, no brawling, and no disturbing the peace. The group assures the guard that they're extremely easy-going and heads up the ramp.

Just inside the city there's a batch of small stalls, carts, and individual sellers. The one that catches their eye is a gnome who's selling wind-up mechanical spiders. Everybody buys one, and I'm sure we'll have spider-races to make important decisions at some point. A young dwarf -- they can tell by the lack of beard -- peels himself off the wall and approaches, offering to show them around the city for the very reasonable rate of two coppers a day. There's a brief discussion of whether he means "act as a guide" or "give them a tour", and he's perfectly willing to give them a tour -- but that would cost a silver each. Instead, they engage him as a guide and ask about places to stay.

Stonereef has three inns: The Golden Bowl is the nicest, and also the most expensive, where the most successful merchants and occasional visiting nobles tend to stay; The Shattered Box in the warehouse district, which caters to itinerant workers and is the least expensive, especially for extended stays; and the Frothing Otter, which is in the trade district near the central market, and offers a respectable place for lesser traders and occasional adventurers to stay.[1]

The group decides that the Frothing Otter is their best bet, and has their guide lead them there by way of the central market.

That was it for today's adventures; I've worked up character sheets for the wizard and her party, so it'll be adventurer versus adventurer if our heroes manage to track them down next week.

[1] It's also a reference to Eve Forward's Villains By Necessity. Firstborn gave a distinct side-eye when I named it.

Youth DnD: A brief update

The youth DnD game continues apace; our heroes cleared another room today (using a cunning combination of teamwork and Not Stepping Into The Trap) and added a small siver statuette of a cat with gemstones for eyes to their collection of treasure. I was particularly impressed because if they'd handled it differently, they probably would have been badly mauled by a bunch of gargoyles.

Youth DnD: Wow, I'm behind!

I see I haven't updated the Roslof Keep entries since early November. And while we did have a couple of weekends off, we've actually had a bunch of sessions since then. So, I'm going to do a quick recap and an updated treasure list:

With our new barbarian, the group was able to finish exploring the first level of the dungeon and find a passage down to the second level. This discovery allowed the group to level up, and that in turn allowed them to face and slay a pair of salamanders -- probably the toughest monsters on this level -- and thus complete the first dungeon level. This allowed them to level up again, and also gave them access to the next floor down. (They knew how to get there, but the dungeon wouldn't let them in until they'd defeated everything on the first floor at least once.)

The second floor was where the mousefolk tribe had been trapped, in a cavern that was technically outside the dungeon; a small earthquake a few months back had both opened a crack in the wall of the dungeon, and closed off the cavern behind them. They'd been surviving on the water from a small stream, and some edible lichens; by the time our mousefolk cleric was able to return to them again, they were in pretty poor shape. The party led them back out despite an attempted ambush by a group of kobolds led by a surprisingly powerful kobold sorcerer.

With their tribe rescued, Aspen the Mousefolk Cleric left the party. Their people would need help finding a place to re-settle, and while they were not planning to move far away, Aspen's days of plumbing the dungeon of the mad mage were over. Fortunately, another adventurer had shown up looking for work and a chance to make a name for herself: a swashbuckling half-elf bard named Aika.

With Aika taking her place at the front of the group, the party decided they had need of another ring of protection -- and they knew exactly where to find one. The plan was simple: the sorcerer would enter the room and head for the treasure room at the back, triggering the trap that would open the coffins and release the undead; the undead would follow the sorcerer into the passage back to the treasure chamber, and the sorcerer would drop a spell on them while they were all bunched together in the passage. The rest of the group would then enter the room behind the undead, and finish anything that was still moving.

It worked brilliantly. In fact, it worked so brilliantly that they annihilated the undead in the first round of combat, and were thus completely unsurprised when a group of orcs entered the room behind them in an attempt to ambush them. The battle was short and brutal, and the orcs did not fare well.

The group is currently taking a rest in the treasure chamber (among other things, because it will allow the swashbuckler to attune her new ring of protection); and after that, they'll presumably be heading down to the second level.

Current party treasure by my count is 25 PP, 1502 GP, and 331 SP.

Treasure they've collected over the last few adventures (which we really haven't settled out) includes:
250 GP
5 gold ingots worth 350 GP each
Bracers of Archery

And the equipment they scavenged from their orc ambushers, which includes:
1 longsword
4 crossbows
2 hand axes
1 greataxe
and six sets of scale armor.
...which honestly probably isn't worth the effort of hauling back to the surface, at this point.

Youth DnD: New Adventurer, New Room!

So apparently I utterly failed to write up the previous session, wherein Barrith (halfling arcane trickster) and Toruv (dragonborn draconic sorcerer) tried to chase down a thief as he fled the market, only for Barrith to find himself in a net loosed by two of the thief's accomplices -- who promptly fled. A pair of warriors moved in from the side-passages, and were completely surprised when Toruv (who'd been jogging rather than running) rolled up and lit one of them on fire. There was a brief exchange attacks while Barrith cut himself loose, and at the end Toruv and Barrith were standing over the bodies of two dead thugs.

They turned them over to the guards, which -- with the incident being this close to the main marketplace -- earned them some commendations from both the guards and the vendors. Toruv (who was shot with a crossbow from cover a while back) suspects foul play on the part of one or more of the other noble Houses, but of course it's impossible to prove anything.

They returned to House Aldenmier only to be awakened shortly after midnight by the sound of someone sneaking through Toruv's room. Toruv followed the shadowy figure, and Barrith woke up and followed him; the intruder turned into the grand hall. By the time they reached the open doors, the figure was nowhere to be seen. The two adventurers spread out, and managed to spot the intruder and wound her - whereupon the figure threw down a smoke bomb, reducing visibility to all but nothing. Both adventurers started forward anyway, just in time to see a bright flash from the far end of the room.

By the time the smoke had dispersed, they had found the body. She'd been trying to steal the banner, and got herself electrocuted instead. So they yelled for the guards, and left them to clean up the mess.

So that was actually last session. (Yes, you'd think I could keep up with this, but you'd probably be wrong.) So this session the group was joined by a new player. Apparently he was not the one who'd been talking about making a Circle of the Moon Druid for the game (don't ask how that all went down; I don't have the energy to explain the details) and when we were looking over his character he really didn't seem committed to the druid concept anyway: apparently he makes his characters by spreading his ability points around evenly (14 in everything) and then going from there. Since he didn't seem to have any spells picked out, I asked him if he'd be willing to try a barbarian instead (because I'd been looking at barbarians for something else and I'm deeply impressed with the class). He was willing, and his druid already had a flame tongue sword that he'd inherited from his family, so making the switch was really easy... and I think really successful.

He's a very unique and interesting barbarian, because he's really not optimized at all: his ability scores are 14 across the board, plus the bonuses he gets for being a half-elf (which are dexterity and charisma, rather than the barbarian standards of strength and constitution) and he's got a background as a sage (which he declined to change, despite the offer). So what we've got here is someone who's very devoted to his family, who has the potential to be fairly good at anything he turns his hand to, who knows how study and do research, and who also knows how to pick up that flaming sword and go to town with it.

I'm actually really charmed by this. We need to talk out the character background a little more, but I'm going to see if we can't do that either via text or email or something during the week. If not, I might need to have him stop by a little earlier next week; with the new arrival and getting his character sheet printed out (even though he'd already created the PC) we got off to a bit of a late start.

It was worth it, though.

With the party back up to a group of four, they were able to enter a room that they hadn't been to before. The rest of the group talked their new barbarian through the dungeon so far, up to and including the Delving Orcs (which we hand-waved away as having come out and gone off with one of Lord Aldenmier's lieutenants to be shown to their potential new job). So they entered, and were unsuccessfully ambushed by bugbears. And the ambush was largely unsuccessful because the barbarian is rather difficult to surprise and substantially hard to kill, especially while he's raging.

It was a close battle for a while there, but it was easy to see when the tide turned. (And also, when the weird trend of All The Dice Rolls Going Badly For The Party In The First Half Of The Battle finally stopped being an issue.) And while we did run a bit late -- we finished the battle with All The Moms waiting at one end of the kitchen -- we did get it done. The new barbarian is named Arch, and his player seems to be a good fit with the rest of the group, so I think this is going to work.

Current party treasure by my count is 25 PP, 1482 GP, and 31 SP.

From this last encounter, the group (once they finish looting) will add:
600 SP
6 morningstars
6 sets hide armor

Perhaps more importantly, that's another room clear and another room closer to being able to reach the next level of the dungeon.

Youth DnD: Catching up

The boys are out of school today in celebration of the birthday of Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau or something, I don't even know. But it's basically a long weekend for them. Between that and one of the players dropping out, this session was down to Firstborn and his friend who plays the Halfling Arcane Trickster.

This was the session where I finally came back to a bunch of the stuff that we had pending, but it started with the group going back to explain to Lord Aldenmier about the orcs. Aldenmier, it turns out, has a stake in a mining concern; and since these are Delving Orcs (who normally live underground) he thinks he could find a place for them at this mine if they were willing; they could even carve out their own living chambers in their spare time. This immediately caused some friction with the Orc Chieftain Ghazat, who's definitely not giving up control of his tribe, even if they'd be taking orders from a half-orc. But, the group talked Ghazat into coming out and meeting Aldenmier, and Aldenmier said basically that the half-orc foreman would be in charge of the work, but that Ghazat would be in charge of the tribe. Ghazat was at least willing to consider that; they'll just have to see if it'll work out.

They did, however, establish that it was possible to walk the orcs through the magical shield-membrane that keeps the dungeon sealed, as long as there was at least one member of the company already outside and at least one member still inside. This was a great relief to the cleric, who is looking forward to freeing their mousefolk clan from somewhere further down in the dungeon. Lord Aldenmier said he'd need at least two more days to finish making the arrangements with the other house who has a stake in this mine, and Ghazat went back inside to share the news with their people.

As they were leaving the orcs, the small cat statue that the Dragonborn Sorcerer has been carrying around began to meow and purr again. (It does this occasionally; they haven't yet figured out the pattern.) As they neared the exit, they nearly walked into another adventuring company who was clearly on their way down to the depths. This was the Laughing Beasts, a banner company in the service of a mysterious and much-rumored house; their leader is a gnoll, there's a massive lizardman with a greataxe, a couple of orcs, a kobold...

The gnoll stops to look at the group, while the rest of them file past him and into the room with the kobolds; this is immediately followed by the sound of dying kobolds. Then the gnoll walks over to the Dragonborn sorcerer, takes his hand, and makes a cut across the palm and up the arm with his knife. He nods once, then turns and walks away. Our heroes restrain themselves, because they're pretty sure that attacking the Laughing Beasts would be suicide... and because the Toruv, the sorcerer, is pretty sure that the wound was deliberately superficial -- that this is something in the nature of a "Welcome to the club" ritual.

So they head back outside, and back to the Aldenmier estate... where someone is waiting for them: older Human, brown robe, excited expression... He's a druid and a professional Griffin trainer, and he's come up from the Griffin Ranch to see these eggs. He's actually fairly excited about it -- "Ooh! Speckled Mountain Griffin eggs! They're nocturnal, most unusual..." -- and offers to buy them on behalf of the ranch.

...Which is when the PCs erupt into argument about keeping the eggs, learning to ride griffins, costs of feed, etc. etc. etc. while Aldenmier looks on, bemused. After a couple of minutes of this, the druid makes an alternate suggestion: he's been thinking about retiring, and if lord Aldenmier would help set him up with a farm (preferably somewhere isolated, with stone buildings) and a stake for starting expenses, he could set up his own ranch for griffins and other exotic animals. He'd be willing to raise the speckled mountain griffins and train them to the PCs as part of the process, thereby demonstrating his skills for one of the local Banner Companies and their illustrious lord.

Lord Aldenmier is amenable. As it happens, he has some magical rings of unusual potency, which he could sell out to local nobles and adventurers to recoup his costs. (These would be the Rings of Protection +2 that the group was farming from the treasure chamber.) Mainly, though, he's interested because this would give him another business venture that none of the other Houses have any stake in.

After that there's a lovely dinner before the druid flies back to work things out with his current employer, and in the morning Toruv (Dragonborn draconic sorcerer) and Barrith (Halfling Arcane Trickster) head into town to sell off treasure and look for useful supplies.

They're just nearing the market when a massive figure steps out of a cross-street and throws its hood back, then sweeps its cloak open. It's a skeleton... a very large skeleton, with a bull's skull and large horns, carrying an axe that's roughly the size of Toruv and has blades the size of Barrith. It attacks, injuring Toruv fairly severely. Barrith takes a moment to cast False Life on himself so that it can't squash him immediately, and Toruv turns and sprints away. The skeletal minotaur attacks Barrith this time, but misses.

Toruv skids to a stop at the edge of the market, then turns and lifts his hands to cast...
A massive, scaly hand comes down on his shoulder. It's the lizard man from the Laughing Beasts company. "What's that?" he asks, looking at the minotaur.

"No idea," says Toruv."

"I know what it is," says the lizard man. "It's fun." Then he lifts the axe off his shoulder and starts striding towards it. Toruv grins, then casts a doubled Catapult spell, prying up a couple of cobblestone and hurling them at the skeleton. They hit, and it staggers. Barrith, dancing in and out of its legs, adds some damage with his staff. Then the lizard man arrives and slaps the thing with the flat of his axe; it definitely feels that.

The minotaur attacks the lizard man but fails to connect, and Toruv finishes it off with another pair of magically-propelled cobblestones, which at that point are sufficient to kind explode the minotaur's rib cage. It collapses.

The lizard man looks back at Toruv and calls, "Well done." Then he strolls casually off into the crowd, while Barrith and Toruv look over the body -- or, well, the pile of bones.

Somebody has tied a small pouch to the spine, just below the neck. There's a note in it.

It's from the lich who runs the library outside of town. He'd be pleased to meet with Toruv and Aspen and provide them with assistance in their research, as long as they are honest with him about their goals and their findings. They will need to bring their own supplies if they stay for any time, as he does not keep food on the library grounds; but he does have guest rooms with small kitchens for visiting scholars of the sort who aren't undead yet.

And that was where we ended. I need to do math on the treasure, but that's more than my brain is prepared for right now.

Treasure they're carrying from this last adventure:
-silver coffer (worth 200 gp)
-3 rubies (100 gp each)
-50 PP
-Bottle of perfume

Current party treasure by my count is 25 PP, 1217 GP, and 31 SP.

Youth DnD: Back into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage

So we finally managed to get everybody together for the youth DnD game again, and this time it went pretty well.

OOC, we've started enforcing the Don't All Talk At Once rule, and it really does seem to be helping. Unfortunately the crown that I ordered still hasn't come in, so we had the Roman Gladius of Talking instead. I also talked a bit about playing their characters so that they can work together, and told them that Lord Aldenmier gave them a lecture on the need for teamwork the following morning. So, with that hammered out (hopefully) they headed back into the dungeon.

The first thing they wanted to do was finish exploring in the area where they'd encountered the orcs last time. So they headed back there, and the Dragonborn Sorcerer used Mage Hand to open one door from a good, safe distance. Which was an excellent plan, really, since there was a spear-throwing trap behind it. He then did the same with the door on the opposite side of the corridor, which opened onto a room with three zombies in it.

I need to pause here, because this campaign book has one really major weakness: a distinct (and occasionally glaring) lack of proofreading. The monster description says very clearly that there are three zombies. The room description says equally clearly that there are ten zombies. So the group ended up destroying three zombies, but I warned them OOC that next time there would probably be the full ten. Metagame knowledge, but under the circumstances I felt like they deserved the warning.

So they finished the zombies and found a silver coffer on the floor behind them, containing 50 PP (platinum piece, so worth a total of 500 GP), 3 rubies worth 100 GP each, and a bottle of extremely nice perfume which they plan to sell. The coffer itself is worth 200 GP. Overall, it's a very nice hall (and a good argument for the idea that there should have been more zombies).

They then proceeded past the orcs and on to the next room down the hall, opening the door to find... more orcs, and even more evidence that this is some sort of permanent camp, and not something that the Dungeon is generating. One of the orcs was a guard the last time the group encountered them, and he looks up when the door opens. "You change mind? We fight this time?"

The Mousefolk cleric assures him that none of them have changed their minds and promptly closes the door again. The Elf monk opens the door again, and asks if he can buy some food because he's hungry; the orcs, it turns out, are willing to trade for weapons, so the monk passes over the spear from the spear-launching trap. At this point everybody comes inside, and the Dragonborn Sorcerer uses his Alchemy Jug to pour out a full four gallons of beer, and suddenly these orcs are the party's lifelong friends.

So they're eating and chatting when suddenly the door opens again and this really large orc walks in, looks around the suddenly-silent room, and demands: "Who these people? You no guard no more? You kill them--" One of the other orc quickly steps over, whispers something in the big guy's ear, and presses a mug of beer into his hands. The large orc takes a long drink, lowers the mug, and glowers around the room again: "Why you no tell me our friends were here?!"

This is the Orc chieftain Ghazat.

So it turns out that the orcs wandered into the dungeon somehow -- they can't find the passage that brought them in anymore -- and have been stuck here ever since. This sounds remarkably familiar to the Mousefolk cleric, but when they ask about other Mousefolk the Orcs don't know anything.

We stopped at that point (which doesn't sound like a lot, but we spent more than a little bit of the game time ironing out how we were going to play so everybody could enjoy it). I told the players to think about what they wanted to do with the orcs for next time -- and suggested that they might want to consult with Aldenmier before just trying to walk the whole tribe of them out the main entrance. The group seems to agree with trying to help them out, not least because it may give them really helpful information when they try to extract Aspen's people later on.

Treasure they're carrying from this adventure:
-silver coffer (worth 200 gp)
-3 rubies (100 gp each)
-50 PP
-Bottle of perfume

Current Party Treasure:
They sold off everything they didn't need (and I finally did the math) with the following exceptions:
-Everyone received a Ring of Protection +2; the rest of those went to Lord Aldenmier.
-The bronze shortsword also went to Aldenmier because nobody in town is buying non-steel weapons at present.

Current party treasure by my count is 25 PP, 1217 GP, and 31 SP.

There are also two griffin eggs being cared for at the Aldenmier estate; but we'll get back to those.

Youth DnD: Farming the Treasure Room

This week's session... did not go so well.

How it played out:
In character, the group took a long rest in the chamber where they'd defeated the undead and claimed the treasure - including the onyx ring, which turns out to be a ring of protection +3. However, the cleric didn't immediately reveal that to anybody except the sorcerer. Once they were sure what it did, the cleric asked an intriguing question: would this item respawn (along with the gold) if they left the dungeon and came back in?

So they tried it: walked everybody back out to the antechamber, talked Lord Aldenmier into pulling their banner, and then replaced the banner and went back inside.

Turns out that it does. Also, it turns out that it's only stepping on the dais that opens the sarcophagi and looses the undead; so allowing the cleric to borrow the assassin's slippers of spider-climbing meant that they could claim the chest without going into combat, and with the way the dungeon resets they could do so repeatedly. Unfortunately, Firstborn was bored with the lack of combat, and announced that his character was going to step on the dais and release the undead, whereupon the cleric's player announced that she was going to cast Inflict Wounds and use it on him, whereupon I made everybody stop while we sorted this out.

So in character, none of that happened. Out of character, that was ten minutes of argument and very nearly an in-party murderfest with the potential to end friendships. But with that ironed out and a working system in place, the party (mostly the cleric) sets about farming the room. Barrith (halfling rogue) has meanwhile figured out that a light crossbow suits him better than his longbow, and swaps the bow for one of the crossbows that the party has been keeping with the intention of selling; but again, sorting out how that's going to affect the part treasure takes another five minutes.

With that done, the farming begins in earnest. The group manages to raid the treasure chamber eight times before something goes wrong: as they open the door to leave again, they find an orc on the far side. Both they and the orc are equally surprised and spend a moment just staring at each other; then they go into combat, and Kaz promptly kills the orc (much to the disappointment of Toruv -- dragonborn sorcerer -- and Firstborn, his player). As the orc falls, they hear a gasp and a door slams; Kaz identifies it as the door on the far side of the hall, which they haven't explored yet.

Kaz then takes off at a sprint, heading for the entrance to the dungeon. The rest of the group exchanges puzzled glances; then they cross the hall and open the door. Inside are six orcs, who had been sitting around a table but now are standing up with weapons drawn. The cleric, still wearing the assassin's slippers, is standing on the ceiling with the gold and elects not to speak; next up is Firstborn's pyromaniacal dragonborn, who assesses the condition of the room. It looks like some sort of long-term camp, not like a room full of monsters that the Dungeon of the Mad Mage just conjured up. "What are you doing here?" asks the dragonborn.

"We guards! What you doing here?"

"Exploring the dungeon," answers Toruv. "So now what?"

"You open door. We fight! ...That how it usually works."

Toruv considers this for a moment, then says: "I was thinking we could just close the door and go away, and not kill you."

The orc sort of stares at him. "You kill Arg."

Toruv nods. "Sorry. He surprised us."

The orc furrows his brown, then says: "Okay. You go. We not fight. We not even tell big chieftain!"

"Big chieftain?"

"Chieftain Ghazat! Him strong chieftain! Head of Blood Tower Clan!"

"Yeah, let's not bother him." Toruv closes the door.

Kaz, meanwhile, has emerged into the antechamber and is standing in front of Lord Aldenmier, who is staring past him in increasing puzzlement as nobody else emerges. After a moment he asks, "You just left them?"

Kaz looks back: "I thought they would follow."

Aldenmier reaches over to the banner and tries to pull it from its stand; it refuses to move. "They're still alive. You should go back to them."

OOC, Kaz's player considers the relative merits of just continuing to flee, but I point out as DM that lord Aldenmier would consider that a career-ending decision. Reluctantly, Kaz goes back into the dungeon.

Toruv, meanwhile, has started to move down the corridor to the next door that they haven't yet opened. This triggers yet another argument, since they have a good thing going with farming the treasure room and they're carrying a considerable amount of treasure on them; why take unnecessary risks? Firstborn allows himself to be convinced, and at this point we have a bit of an OOC meltdown. (That may be something of an overstatement, but when one of the players suggests that they think they should step out of this session, we definitely have a problem.) We have about fifteen minutes until parents start arriving to pick people up, so I declare by DM fiat that Kaz rejoins the group just in time for everybody to depart the dungeon and head back into town to sell their stuff and return to the Aldenmier estate.

Then we sit down and have an OOC conversation about what we need to do to make this campaign work for everybody.
-Firstborn and Kaz's player really enjoy the combat, and aren't really satisfied if they don't get to fight something. That shouldn't be much of a problem; this is very much a go-in-there-and-fight-things kind of dungeon.
-Aspen's player explains that she really likes the campaign and even the characters, but the OOC stuff makes it almost too frustrating to play; she also points out that Shadow had a distinct personality and motivation when Secondborn was playing him, but with Kaz's player running him he's just sort of turned into an extension of Kaz. Both of these are valid complaints.
-Barrith's player says he really just enjoys the whole thing, and that's kind of been my impression: he's not in it for the combat or the loot or the sneaking around so much as he's there to be a halfling rogue who can cast spells with his friends.

I reiterated that we really need to have characters who can work with each other; it's one thing to do a Guardians of the Galaxy thing where they start out not trusting each other but eventually learn to depend on the group; it's something else to have a Mad Max style character who's so socially damaged that they literally can't work with other characters. (If that's so, why are you playing a game that's designed around a group?)

We also discussed setting up some rules so that everybody isn't trying to talk all at once; I have ordered a Game of Thrones style costume crown to use for this purpose. The person with the crown gets to speak; everybody else has to wait their turn. (We started using Firstborn's dice bag for this to reasonably good effect about halfway through, and I think it will really help. I just want to replace that with something that isn't cloth and hopefully is less like to end in an outbreak of lice.)

I agreed about the issues with Shadow, and we'll be moving him out to work with the Dwarf Barbarian Jax (originally played by the boys' cousin) so that he remains in Lord Aldenmier's employ but isn't part of the banner company anymore. That way if Secondborn does decide to come back in, the character is available; but meanwhile we're not trying to keep him in the party with no player. (We have another kid from the middle school who's expressed interest in playing, but so far neither he nor his parents have contacted me; still, if he does join then that would bring us back up to five characters.)

Mainly, though, it sounds like we need to work on keeping people focused enough IC and OOC that we can pursue the party's goals without a constant stream of interruptions.

Treasure from last session:
-another bronze short sword from room o' spiders where they originally found the cat statue.
-200 GP from the chest
-a ring of protection +3, claimed by the cleric.
-a longsword that they claimed from the defeated wight.

Treasure from this session:
200 x 8 GP
8 more rings of protection +3 - enough to cover everybody in the party, any new arrivals, and still leave a couple that could theoreticaly (though not easily) be sold off.

Treasure from the Griffin mission, which doesn't need to be split with Aldenmier:
-A quarterstaff
-4 shortswords
-3 light crossbows
-12.5 GP from Barrith selling off his longbow.

Current party treasure by my count is 246 GP and 15 SP, which will increase as soon as I sit down and do the math on all this.

Youth DnD: Battle Against The Undead!

At the end of the the last session, the party had entered a room in the style of the long-fallen empire that once controlled this area. At the far end of the room sat a throne on a dais, flanked by a pair of black onyx jackal statues; behind it was an ornate tapestry. There were two pairs of sarcophagi against the walls on their left and right. The group moved around the room, carefully investigating, until finally the mousefolk cleric set foot on the dais. That was when the sarcophagi finally opened, and four undead figures lurched out. One of them attacked the monk, who had been trying to pry a sarcophagus open, and injured him fairly severely - these were unusually strong zombies, and did more damage than normal.

So today's game opened with the group scattered through the middle of the room, and two opponents on either side. The Arcane Trickster took a moment to cast False Life on himself and make himself a bit harder to kill; then he used Mage Hand to slap one of the zombies across the face. This did absolutely no damage, but did make Barrith feel better. Kaz, the elvish monk, took advantage of the opportunity to withdraw, and then moved back to stand on the dais beside the cleric. Aspen the mousefolk cleric hit one of the zombies with Sacred Flame (I think - something that did radiant damage, anyway) and readied it to use again the moment any of the zombies looked almost dead. Toruv the dragonborn draconic sorcerer used burning hands on the two so-far-undamaged undead, then moved out of melee range from them. Shadow, the drow assassin, meanwhile moved to flank one of the zombies and did it some further damage, which the cleric added to with their prepared action.

At this point, the undead finally made their attacks. The two zombies from the north side of the room attacked Toruv, doing him quite a bit of damage, while the remaining zombie attacked shadow but missed, and the remaining undead attacked Barrith with a longsword but also missed.

That was the point at which Toruv, raised around magic and the products of magic, realized that zombies do not use swords. So this thing could not be a zombie; in fact, it looked like a wight... He shouted a warning to the group.

That changed the whole pattern of the battle, as everybody moved to take down the wight before it could hit anybody with Life Drain. Owing to a combination of luck and effort, they succeeded, and were able to mop up the rest of the zombies shortly afterwards. With that done, they retreated to the grain room and took a long rest. Except... before they left, Toruv set fire to the tapestry, revealing a hidden passage behind it. He then went to go rest, and Aspen went with him. Barrith, Kaz, and Shadow, however, stayed around long enough to scout the passageway and discover a mid-sized chamber at the far end, with a single chest in the middle of it. Barrith checked the thing over, finding no traps on either the chest itself or the surrounding area; but after some (fairly heated) OOC argument, they left the thing untouched and went to rest with the other two.

Upon their return, they were pleased to see that the undead that they'd dispatched were still sprawled defeated on the floor. The dungeon had not reset. (As far as they know right now, the dungeon only resets when they leave, but it's a magical construct and this may not always be the case.) They proceeded to the chest, opened it with Mage Hand (it was unlocked) and discovered 200 GP and a black onyx ring inside, carved with the image of a jackal's head. The cleric immediately claimed that.

Also, in the process of checking it over with Detect Magic, the cleric discovered that the small cat statue (the one the meows and purrs sometimes) is indeed magical, and probably associated with divination of some sort; the ruby that they've been keeping tied to its neck is not magical at all.

So far on this expedition, the group has added:
-another bronze short sword from room o' spiders where they originally found the cat statue.
-200 GP from the chest
-a ring from the chest, its properties known only to the cleric (and only once she gets it attuned).
-a longsword that they claimed from the defeated wight.

In addition, the group has the following items that they still need to sell, mostly left over from their griffon-slaying expedition:
-A quarterstaff
-4 shortswords
-4 light crossbows

Current party treasure by my count is 246 GP and 15 SP, which will increase once they sell that stuff off and split the GP with Lord Aldenmier. I'm also curious to see whether or not they'll mention the ring to him; there's some roleplay potential there.

Back Into The Dungeon of the Mad Mage!

We had a full group of players again this week, except that Secondborn has largely decided to sit out the game. His character is still technically present, but he's still being played by the monk's character. Meanwhile, the players of the mousefolk cleric and the halfling arcane trickster have apparently been talking to another kid at school who really wants to join the game as an Aarakocra moon druid; I told them to give the kid my cell phone number and have either him or his parents contact me about it. Moon druid would not be a bad addition to the party, and when I spoke to Secondborn he indicated that he'd be willing to have his character join Jax The Dwarf Barbarian (originally played by his cousin) as a secondary, non-banner company team still employed by Lord Aldenmier. (That way they still have a plausible story presence if they want to join up again.)

So, this week two main things happened:

First, since they're now third level, I followed through on the "enhance and balance characters" initiative. In character, several of our adventurers found themselves transformed or enhanced as they entered the dungeon of the mad mage this time. The monk is now an elf instead of a human; the halfling rogue reworked his ability scores to better fit his role as an Arcane Trickster. In addition, an issue I noticed early on -- that the cleric's player had rolled for ability scores, and overall had substantially better abilities than the others (who got standard arrays during creation). The cleric's player and I did some math, and decided that if we gave everybody else 3 more points to add to their ability scores, that would about even it out. So there was some addition as well as some rearranging, and overall the characters are looking a lot more formidable now.

Secondarily, of course, they ventured back into the dungeon. They went past the spider room and paused to set it on fire again, then entered and retrieved the bronze short sword that always seems to be there. (The cat statue that they originally retrieved from this room is still with Firstborn's Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer, but at the moment it is neither purring nor meowing.)

They then proceeded on, electing to ignore the room with the kobolds, and tried the next door. It was had a dozen or so largish baskets scattered around the walls and apparently full of grain. The cleric (still the best-armored of the party) stepped inside, and immediately noticed that there were some small piles of mid-sized animal pellets on the floor. The monk, behind them in the hallway, had the distinct impression that the room was not empty, though he couldn't have said why. The dragonborn had also spotted the droppings, but unfortunately didn't too well at identifying them. He put a hand on the cleric's shoulder and said: "Careful. I think there're Death Bunnies in here."

The cleric didn't trust his assessment, but didn't do any better herself: "Those aren't death bunny pellets," she replied. "Those are clearly from Doom Hamsters."

The monk advanced into the room, sniffing the air and looking carefully around. "Smells more like rats," he said.

"Rats, is it?" asked the sorcerer, and immediately used fire bolt to set fire to a basket in the far corner of the room. Seven giant rats (about the size of Corgis, say) immediately emerged from behind the baskets. Unfortunately, they rolled really poorly on initiative and didn't get any real chance to attack: the cleric took out one with Toll The Dead before combat even started. Then the monk took out two more, the cleric nearly killed another one, the rogue took out one (I think), and the sorcerer finished off three more with magic missiles.

The mousefolk cleric was really pleased with the discovery of this much grain. For one thing, they're vegetarian; for another, a supply of food here in the dungeon means that they can stay longer.

So they proceeded to the next room, and opened the door. On the walls to their left and right were two pairs of sarcophagi, while ahead of them a large throne sat on a low dais. Two large onyx jackal statues flanked the throne, and a tapestry behind it showed humans and elves lounging on silks and eating exotic fruits. The group began checking the room - looking for traps, and throwing handfuls of grain at various things to see if there was any reaction. The monk tried to open one of the sarcophagi, but found that it was sealed. In fact, nothing much happened until the cleric stepped onto the dais.

That was when all four sarcophagi opened, and a zombie lurched out and slammed into the monk, damaging him fairly severely.

I called the game there, because we were seriously out of time; but we'll open with the Battle Against The Undead next time.

Griffons

At the end of their last adventure, the party had killed the gryphons who were eating the horses at the logging camp. We opened this session with their semi-triumphant return to Lord Aldenmier's estate in Roslof Keep. There they reported their discovery of the griffons, their clever plan to keep the gryphons from eating the horses by keeping them under a tent at night, and their slaying of the griffons. The two guards had returned with them also, and delivered a scroll from Bobilis, the expedition leader for the logging camp.

So, Lord Aldenmier:
-is pleased that the threat has been removed.
-is puzzled and appalled that the gnome Jou was a saboteur, and that the part let him escape.
-is willing to have a carpenter re-purpose one side of the stables for the care of gryphon eggs and the raising of gryphon hatchlings.
-Wants an evening to think about how much reward the party deserves for this decidedly mixed set of results.

So he sends everyone off to have dinner and get some rest, and retreats to his rooms.

Just after midnight, Kaz (the monk) awakens because he's hearing noises outside his window. He looks out and sees a large cart with four men unloading it in the courtyard/garden area behind the main house, with Aldenmier standing nearby and supervising.

Brief OOC Digression: Kaz was originally human; he is now an elf. I have given everybody a chance to tweak their characters upon reaching level 3, and that was the big change the monk's player wanted: more dexterity, darkvision, and a cantrip. The halfling rogue took the opportunity to lower his charisma (since the sorcerer is doing the Party Face role) and bump up his wisdom, making him less persuasive but more perceptive. The other three are pretty optimized already, so no major changes there. In character, these changes will take place the next time the group enters the Dungeons of the Mad Mage.

Also, upon reaching level 3 the monk chose the Way of the Open Hand, the drow rogue chose the path of the Assassin, and the halfling rogue chose the path of the Arcane Trickster and picked out some spells.

So the Monk woke the halfling rogue, and they went to investigate the back courtyard. They tried to be sneaky, but were spotted by Lord Aldenmier, who explained that when restocking a dungeon (even a backyard training dungeon) one needs to bring in the supplies at whatever time they happen arrive. Kaz the Monk is suspicious, but there's no way to get past Aldenmier tonight so he and Barrith the rogue head back to bed.

In the morning, Lord Aldenmier awarded the group 10 GP each, for their personal funds rather than the party treasure.

Discussion then turned to how best to follow up with the two griffon eggs, especially since we have a party of five characters. The mousefolk cleric wants to grab the sorcerer and head down to do some research at the Lich's Library, while the Monk and the two rogues did some asking around and learned about a fairly famous Griffon Ranch that's reasonably nearby.

Lord Aldenmier wanted the group to get back to exploring the Mad Mage's dungeon in the next couple of days, but he was willing to send messengers to both the Griffon Ranch and the Lich Library to ask some questions and make arrangements for a future visit. (Either or both of these may be fertile ground for future adventures, to break up the group's time in the Mad Mage's dungeon. In particular, the Griffon Ranch might be willing to offer the group three more eggs in exchange for their help with an outbreak of cockatrices. But those are thoughts for another day...)

Current party treasure by my count is 246 GP and 15 SP, plus some weapons they can probably sell pretty easily.
-A quarterstaff
-4 shortswords
-4 light crossbows

Boys DnD: There are TWO!?

So, at the end of the last game the party had fought off a griffin, then gotten distracted by one character's obsession with freeing the Gnome Saboteur and claiming him as a pet.

OOC, I had offered this player the chance to drop his character Kaz, a human monk who was raised by wolves, and create an entirely new one. In character, Kaz would have gone running off into the woods and become a gnome collector, and probably would have resurfaced eventually as the sort of threat that the party had to defeat. As it is, the gnome himself - who was using the name Jou - has vanished into the woods and will probably show up in future games, still working for House Bri'yann.

But Kaz's player had a change of heart during the week, and decided that he'd keep Kaz and make up with the rest of the party, which he pretty much did. So Kaz managed to master this strange madness, made his apologies, and stayed to help the group deal with the griffon issue.

So, the first thing they did was start moving the horses into the dining tent at night. This may not seem like the most sanitary idea ever devised (and it did cause some logistical issues) but it also kept the remaining two horses from being eaten. Meanwhile, the party kept watch outside at night, and once they thought they saw a griffin up in the sky, but nothing approached the camp.

So, after two days, they hiked to the nearby cliffs and went looking for the griffon's nest.

Climbing up was done in stages -- the cliff was not sheer, but it was reasonably steep -- with the Monk and the Halfling Rogue going first and then lowering a rope to help the others climb up behind them. Everybody made it to the top with no issues (three Athletics checks for everybody, with somewhat more difficulty for the monk and rogue).

The top of the cliff turned out to be a narrow but reasonably-flat but narrow ridge, extending the along one side of the valley. Since they do not see any griffons, they start walking along the top of the ridge.

About noon, the monk spots a ledge a little further down the cliff, on the side facing the camp. A moment later a griffin comes flying off the ledge, and everybody sees that. The group opens strong, with a series of missile attacks damaging the already-damaged griffon. Then a second griffon joins the fray, and there's a brief moment of freaking out. The group does finally rally and manages to take the second griffon down as well.

Investigating the nest, they discover a pair of griffon eggs and promptly claim them, with an eye towards eventually raising the griffons and using them as mounts.

The adventure is complete; everybody levels up.

Boys DnD: Gnome, Gryphons, and Close Calls

In their last game, the party discovered that the gnome quartermaster Jou was actually a spy and saboteur working for House Bri'yann, the most powerful of the Houses in Roslof. (This also gave them some suspicions about the bandits that attacked them earlier.) The gnome had his hands bound, and was taken to the tent of Bobilis, the fellow in charge of the overall expedition. It was, at this point, half an hour or so shy of midnight.

This was the point at which Kaz, the human monk, decided on a plan and called Shadow, the dark elf rogue, over to help him. His plan was that he would make a distraction, at which point Shadow could sneak into the tent and...

"Kill him!" finished Shadow. "Brilliant!"

"What? NO!" Kaz wanted to scare the gnome into helping them. He wanted Shadow to go in there, hold a knife to the gnome's throat, and explain to him that if he'd help them and be their friend, they'd cut him loose.

Shadow pointed out that there was no way they could believe anything the gnome said, and that he should just kill him.

Kaz agreed that if the gnome betrayed them later, Shadow could kill him, but right now he wanted the gnome set free.

"You know he's going to betray us," Shadow told him. "Save us time if we just kill him now."

The dragonborn sorcerer, who's been listening in on this from the edge of the small meadow and slowly easing closer, chose this moment to slap Kaz in the back of the head with Mage Hand. Kaz spun around but only caught barest glimpse of the fading hand as Toruv released the spell.

"Fine," agreed Shadow. "I'll slip in there and... cut the gnome loose for you... and definitely not just kill him and get it over with."

Kaz was starting to look around for some way to cause a distraction when Toruv used a combination of Fire Bolt and Control Flame to draw a line of fire on the ground between Kaz and Shadow and the tent.

That was when they heard a terrible hunting shriek and something large fell out of the night sky towards the horses. It was a griffon, and it had come in search of food -- and it was only at the last minute that it realized that the horse it had picked at random had an armored mousefolk cleric on its back. It shifted to attack them instead, missing with a beak and one claw but doing some real damage with the other claw.

Kaz immediately charged it and got in a lucky hit, ramming his sword into its flank. The sorcerer moved up and tried his breath weapon, but only scorched the beast's shoulder a bit. Shadow raced to one of the unoccupied horses, leapt onto its back, and slapped its flank hard. Barrith, the halfling rogue, had been sensibly hiding in a tree; he took a shot with his longbow, but missed. Aspen the mousefolk cleric took a swing with their longsword, but also missed. Several members of the logging camp looked out of their tents at the sounds of this new commotion, but nobody actually came out.

The griffon tried again, attacking with claws and beak; the beak missed the cleric, but it managed to sink its claws into the horse preparatory to trying to carry it off.

Kaz attacked again, missing with his sword but landing a lucky punch to the griffon's wing. I ruled that the beast crashed lurched sideways and crashed to the ground; a failed Strength check on the griffon's part indicated that lost its hold on the horse instead of pulling the horse down with it.

The dragonborn sorcerer took advantage of this opportunity, and emptied an Alchemy Jar's worth of acid over the griffon's other wing and shoulder. At this point, the horse that Shadow had jumped on took off at a gallop and lost itself in the woods, taking the rogue with it. The third horse, unmounted, also spooked and took off, but in a different direction. It plowed through the tent of Bobilis, the head of the expedition, collapsing the tent and trapping Bobilis and the gnome saboteur Jou inside. Then it, too, disappeared into the woods. Aspen and Barrith attacked again, but both missed.

At this point the griffon shrugged back up to its feet, extended its wings, and with huge, powerful sweeps propelled itself into the air and away towards safety. The attack was over, and fate of the missing horses was no longer a mystery. The dragonborn sorcerer, after a few moments of thought (while, OOC, we had lunch) suggested that the horses would probably be pretty safe if we kept them in some sort of tent or pavilion at night -- anything that kept them out of sight of the griffon.

However, we still had a minor problem: Kaz, and his full-blown obsession with obtaining a pet gnome. Toruv the sorcerer went to the front of Bobilus' tent and lifted it up, then stuck his quartertaff in to hold the thing top up. Bobilis came spluttering and staggering out, grateful to be free again. Kaz, meanwhile, had gone around to the back of the tent and cut a large hole in it, so he could sneak in and grab the gnome.

Barrith the halfling rogue, realizing what Kaz was up to, raced in the front of the tent and started pulling the gnome out in what looked like a heroic rescue attempt and sort of was. Kaz jumped on Barrith, and Toruv stepped in a moment later -- first to grab the gnome himself, and then to try to restrain the monk after Kaz threw a dart at him.

While the three of them were struggling, the gnome shrugged out of the ropes that had been holding him and sprinted out through the hole in the back of the tent, where he promptly disappeared into the woods. By the time Kaz got loose and tried to chase after him, he was gnomewhere to be found.

I'm not honestly sure how this is going to affect the game. The players for Toruv and Barrith were exasperated but also amused; nobody was actually angry, including the monk's player. However, Jou the Saboteur Gnome, who was meant to be a throw-away villain, is almost certainly going to be a recurring character now. Moreover, Kaz the Monk's player was talking about having Kaz take off into the woods to hunt for the gnomes. So, as DM, I explained that if he really wanted to have Kaz do that, he could put together a new character and Kaz would become an NPC -- and at some point in the future Kaz would probably come bursting out of the bushes yelling things like, "Have you seen that gnome!? He has to be here somewhere!" The player would be welcome to build a new, less crazy character at the same level as the current PCs and equipped with a magic item equivalent to theirs. The player smiled and suggested that he could play a barbarian, which... might not be any less crazy, but it seems likely that we'll see.

So, I mean, it's fair to say that Things Took A Turn, but I'm not as surprised by that a I might be. The player's father runs and plays in various campaigns where things like having a pet gnome (well, a servant, or an adopted orphan, or what-have-you) actually do happen, so I think some of this came from that background. Some of it also, I think, was a perfectly natural eleven-year-old's desire to drive the other players slightly crazy.

In any case, despite the intra-party gnome dispute, everybody seemed to have fun. As long as that remains the case, I do my best to roll with it.