Saturday, September 19, 2020

Daggerford: What Goes Around Comes Around

Game Date: 9/19/2020

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 4

System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter
Ezmerelda (Christy) Halfling Rogue (Absent)
Khemed (Mike) Half-Elf Wizard
Neven (Steve) Elf Monk
Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard
Boo - Neven's riding lizard

The Session:
Today we jumped right into battle.  We started in a small temple, fighting several diseased Lizardfolk.  Once they were dead, we examined the room more closely.  There were several fire beetles in cages, and a very dirty altar.  After cleaning some of the garbage off of the altar, we saw a depression shaped like a sun.  We continued to explore the temple.

We opened the door to one room, and saw a throne made of lizard skin.  Two giant lizards appeared and attacked, and we killed them.  There was a feeble Lizardfolk cowering behind the throne.  He told us he was a poor old advisor, forced to serve an evil Lizard Queen.  He said that the disease is due to a curse on those who defile the temple.

The Lizardfolk told us that our wyrmling's father was in this dungeon.  The black dragon is working with the Lizard Queen.  We weren't too anxious to face a black dragon, and decided to head back to town.  Our Lizardfolk ally told us it wasn't a good idea to take our wyrmling back to town with us.  We decided to get close to town, and send someone ahead to inform them of new pet.

We headed back out through the swamp.  After a few hours we saw a dark mound in the distance.  As we got closer, we realized that it was part of a boat.  There were several skeletons tied to the ship, and they were moving around.  We killed the skeletons and explored the ship.  We found three pages of music in the ship's cabin.  Vanya played the music on the sheets, and while incomplete, found it to be a masterpiece.

We continued to climb upward into the belly of the ship.  We found some coins from another continent.  In the crew quarters we found a crystal doorknob and a wooden box.  The box contained a worm with a humanoid face on each end.  We closed the box and kept looking around.  We decided to spend the night in the crew quarters.

In the morning we resumed our trek.  Soon we heard a loud shriek, as a black dragon attacked us from the air.  We tried to hide, but there wasn't much to use as cover.  The dragon landed and demanded his offspring.  Azul relinquished the wyrmling and had a conversation with the dragon.  The dragon offered Azul a job as a soldier, which he turned down.  The dragon allowed us to live (for now), and flew off with its child.

We kept trekking through the swamp.  Eventually we came to a ruined gazebo.  It was round, made of white stone, and covered in vines.  Inside was a statue of a female elf, pointing North.  We noticed that there were no insects in the gazebo, and Neven's lizard mount refused to get near it.

The statue was labeled "Aelinthaldaar", but none of us knew who that might be.  We decided to camp there.  The weather was getting cold, but we marched on.  After a few hours, we reached a lake with a temple on it.  We had made a circle.  Some party members gained a level of exhaustion while crossing the frigid river.

We went back into the temple.  The first door we opened led to a room full of stirges.  They swarmed Neven, but Khemed took them out with a sleep spell.  In the stirge room, we found a dead halfling.  We asked our Lizardfolk friend several questions about the layout of the temple, and he told us there were two more levels beneath us.

We opened a few doors but mostly found ruins.  We disturbed some centipedes, and Vanya took them out with a shatter spell.  (That was probably a bad idea, but her rationale fit her character.)  In another room, we found a statue of a black dragon.  In the library we fought another stirge.  In another room, some green slime fell onto Azul.  He shook it off and we burned it.  Neven found a robe and holy symbol.  

We finished exploring the ground floor of the temple, and the only place to go next was down the stairs.  Some of us were suffering from exhaustion, so we decided to barricade ourselves in a room and take a long rest.  We ended the session there, on the same floor of the same temple where we started the session.

XP: 455 each

Saturday, September 5, 2020

Daggerford: How To Train Your Dragon

Game Date: 9/5/2020

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 3

System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter
Ezmerelda (Christy) Halfling Rogue
Khemed (Mike) Half-Elf Wizard
Neven (Steve) Elf Monk
Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard
Boo - Neven's riding lizard

The Session:
We received word that a black dragon was attacking Cromm's Hold.  They needed volunteers to ride to the hold and help out.  Naturally, we all volunteered.  We rode through a storm, arriving to find the hold recuperating from an attack.  We had missed the dragon by a couple of hours.  The dragon had demanded a specific relic - a blue coral altar, which the Baroness relinquished.  After the dragon left, the keep was attacked by some lizardfolk.  

We poked around the keep, helping out, and studied the dead lizardfolk.  They were oddly deformed, and did not appear to be from either tribe we've encountered so far.  We stayed at Cromm's Hold overnight, and had dinner with the Baroness.  She told us about another magic altar located at Elorfinder's Estate, which is Northwest of Daggerford.  She believes the two altars might be connected somehow.  

But for now, we were asked to investigate the black dragon's lair.  They gave us some Potions of Greater Healing (4d4+4).  In the morning, a woman named Maechen approached Azul, offering to be our guide.  She joined the party and led us into the swamp.

As we were trudging our way through, Maechen spotted a large constrictor snake, blocking our path.  We attacked it from range, killing it before it knew what hit it.  We pressed on until it got dark, then set up camp.  During the night, a group of large lizards attacked.  We took some damage, but we got them all knocked out.

Maechen spotted some ruins.  Esmereld and Neven accompanied her to investigate.  They saw a humanoid figure standing guard.  As they got closer, it started bellowing in Orcish.  Soon we were in a fight with some orcs.  After taking a few out, we entered the ruins, and faced more orcs and a shaman.  

The shaman hit Neven with a fear spell.  Khemed calmed one orc with a Charm spell, and Maechen finished it off.  We kept taking them out, and more orcs joined the fight.  Vanya finished off the shaman with a Shatter spell.  Azul hit three of them with his lightning breath.  

We noticed that the orcs looked like they might be half-Orc, half-Dwarf.  After the battle, we found a large egg.  We figured out that it was a black dragon egg.  After much deliberation, we decided to take it with us.  Unfortunately it started hatching as we were rigging up something to take it back.  Azul convinced it that he was its mother, and we decided to lead it back to town.  

We hiked, we camped, and we hiked some more.  Around noon we came to a large lake, with an island in the middle, and a small structure on the island.  We knew it was a bad idea, but we decided to check it out.  We discovered that the structure was a shrine to Lathander.  It contained an altar covered with four fire beetles.  Khemed turned invisible and went in to investigate, and saw four lizardfolk waiting in ambush.  They appeared to be deformed in the same way as the lizardfolk who attacked Cromm's Hold.

We ended the session there, right before a possible combat.  We received 100xp each, for a total 1004.  

Upcoming battle: