Dungeons & DiSers Part one: Don’t know who you are, pal

So last night some DiSers played dungeons and dragons and I said I’d post recaps for anyone interested.

(apologies for missing or incorrect details, I was trying to take notes as we went)

The cast

Sir Curtis Sulazar (@keith) Human Fighter
Fannloy Roade (@anon67149139) Human Cleric
Gelanúr (@songs_about_ducking) Half-Elf Bard
Gloran Hopback (@grievoustim) Dwarf Monk
Sir Kelross (@anon42112221) Half-elf Ranger
Zana Dalanthan (@anon75298087) Wood Elf Druid

Part one: Don’t know who you are, pal

The party were invited to meet a dwarf named Gundren at an inn in Neverwinter. Each of them knew Gundren fondly through friendships and previous encounters. So when he told them he had a job going, their little adventurers ears pricked up and not one of them could refuse. So they went to the inn.

Zana quickly made friends with the innkeeper by magically lighting the fire they were struggling to get going. After waiting for a short while in the inn, Gundren arrived and ushered the party into the back room. There he told them the job was a simple, honest couple of days work. All he needed was someone to escort his latest delivery to Phandalin, a village a couple of days ride to the South East.

He told them he would’ve done it himself, with his trusty bodyguard Sildar, but he needed to be in Phandalin as soon as possible for some urgent business. He was riding there tonight.

Gundren told the party the cart would be loaded and waiting outside the inn first thing in the morning. Once they arrived in Phandalin, they should drop the goods at Barthen’s provisions where they would be paid. After that, they should meet him and Sildar at the Stonehill Inn for more drinks and a proper catch up.

Rushed by Sildar arriving to say the horses were ready, Gundren left the party to get to know each other and wished them well.

The group made slightly awkward chit chat as they helped themselves to the beer and food that Gundren had laid on for them. A fairly awful band started playing their flutes and lutes in one corner, a local group called Bard-Fi, much to the party’s irritation. As the night wound down, they took to their rooms and waited for their 5am wake up.

Jolted awake by a halfling landlady banging pots and pans, the party roused, found the cart and trundled off to Phandalin.

Sir Curtas took the reins while most of the others took the chance to rest more. Fannloy complained of hunger, so Zana fed the team with some magic berries and everyone just ate them because that’s what you do when someone offers you a magic berry.

After a pleasant day’s ride, they turned onto the Triboar Trail and after a sharp bend they were shocked to spot two dead horses blocking the path. As Sir Curtas examined them, he saw they’d been shot by a lot of arrows and crudely finished off with blades. He also found a scrap of cloth that, after checking with the rest of the group, he recognised as belonging to Gundren.

No sooner had this realisation hit, than Zana alerted the group to goblins advancing on either side of them.

Sir Curtas, seemingly spurred on by what he’d seen, wasted no time in swinging his greatsword through one of the goblins like butter. Later felling a second with as little effort. As crossbow bolts, and arrows flew wide of their mark, a combination of Gloren’s axe and Gelandur’s rapier put the rest of the goblins down. Unfortunately, Gloren took a nasty injury from one of the goblins, but Fannloy healed him up as the battle ended.

As they cleared the dead horses from the road, the party could see now that there was an empty map case and also drag marks leading from the dead horses to a gap in the bushes. It looked like a trail led into the woods.

After a few minutes debating whether they should just ignore this incident, take the cart to Phandalin and claim their gold - the team decided to explore the cave in the hope of finding their good friend Gundren alive and well.

They followed the trail and found it led to the entrance of a cave. As they approached, the party could hear two goblins arguing in the bushes nearby.

Zana called to the elements and sent a gush of wind blowing through the bushes, hoping to startle the goblins. The goblins stopped arguing momentarily, but soon went back to bickering - even after a second gust blew through.

Sir Kelross decided to step closer to see if he could see the goblins, but a clumsy misstep gave him away. Alerted, the goblins came rushing out, saw the party who outnumbered them with weapons drawn and froze for a second.

In that moment, the party sprang forward. Gloren severely wounded both goblins in a flash of axe and fist, but caught his second goblin injury of the day. Zana tried to reason with one of the goblins, but was only repaid with threats. Gelandur, having heard enough, expertly threw a dagger between its eyes.

With the goblins cleared, Zana agreed to scout the cave.

Creeping along a small stream that trickled from the entrance, Zana snuck into the darkness, her keen darkvision helping her see. She saw a room with three wolves chained up and further around a corner, a bridge with a goblin lookout on it.

She snuck back, real quiet like, and told the rest of the team.

Sir Kelross, keen to redeem himself after his stumbling alerted the goblins, tried to sneak past the wolves. Gelandur sang an inspiring song to help soften his steps. Unfortunately, Sir Kelross fell over, loudly giving himself away and the wolves fired up barking and snarling, pulling at the chains that held them back.

Flannoly fired sacred flames at one of the wolves, badly burning it. Sir Kelross, back on his feet with swords drawn, marched to the burned wolf and speared it with his shortsword as it leapt towards him.

Sir Curtas attempted to placate one of the wolves, but the angry beast was in no mood to roll over having seen its mate burned and stabbed.

As this battle went on, Zana decided to creep further round the cave but was too noisy to avoid detection. The goblin lookout on the bridge saw her and fled instantly off to one side.

Zana ran back to the fight in time to see Gloren punch a wounded wolf to death. She launched a burst of flame at the surviving wolf and Fannloy’s deadly crossbow bolt finished it off.

As the last wolf fell silent and the noise of the scuffle faded. Zana could hear the troubling sound of a lot of angry goblins. It seems the lookout has told his friends about the intruder…

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Absolutely lost it at this point :sweat_smile:

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Same! :smiley:

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Btw, I think this write-up does a very poor job of conveying just how much fun I had. :slight_smile:

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Was absolutely great fun, thanks @sadpunk :heart_eyes: Went completely method with it and was totally shitfaced by the end of it :sweat_smile: Fannloy Roade will just assume all of it happened in a drunken dream.

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It was the total bonkersness of it… let’s sneak quietly over here… TRALALA THIS IS MY SONG ABOUT QUIETLY SNEAKING I HOPE IT IS INSPIRING… -drums and cymbals noises- Oh shit.

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Note to self: go easy on the free bar when you’re up at 5am to go questing.

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I did record the whole thing, but unfortunately it picked up all of the noise in my house as well, my mum talking loudly on the phone etc :woman_facepalming: I’ll try and pick out the best bits later though

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I’m going to try sneaking past

okay, but you’re not the only ranged attacker in the group, someone else cou

I’m going to try sneaking past

okay, but remember your armour gives you disadvantage on stealth checks

I’m going to try sneaking past

clattering of armour and swear words

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Thanks for writing this up - enjoyed reading it muchly :slightly_smiling_face:. Sounds a lot of fun. Though I feel slightly sad for the wolves.

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To think I joked about leeroy jenkinsing the cave about 5 minutes before eric did it for real

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Keith did try and reason with one of them, he really did.

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Chained up and causing no one any harm at all. Sweet XP though.

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Yeah it was really fun, thanks @sadpunk and all my fellow adventurers

Sounds like we will be up against it next week so we’d better all bring our rolling A games

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Wait that’s a point. XP.

I assume we’re all level 17 dragonsworn vampire sexy wizards by now.

Here he is, wolfpuncher himself.

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Almost! :wink:

I’m doing it as milestone XP, so rather than totalling up arbitrary amounts, I’ll just tell you when you hit the next level.

Sorry, i mean I guess the rest of them.

=polishes sexy fangs=

Ah, it’s a shame Sir Doolittle wasn’t in the party.

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No need when you have a wolf whisperer and a diplomat of orc and goblin relations.

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