Eville-Sentials: Session 4

Game Date: 7/27/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Eville-sentials, Session 4

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

Breena (Whitney) - Gnome Druid

Keg (Whitney) - Half-Orc Barbarian

Lilly (Leah) - Dragonborn Paladin

Lucy (Genna) - Halfling Rogue

The Session: 

Last week the party finished two jobs, picked up some rumors, and befriended a couple of giant rats. Today we only had three players, so the party was especially selective about which jobs they took. First they accepted the Logger's Camp Quest. But first, they stopped by Falcon's Lodge in the Neverwinter Woods. Falcon told them about a nearby mansion - the Woodland Manse - that had been taken over by orcs.

 

The party proceeded to the Logger's Camp. It was eerily quiet, and no loggers were to be seen. They investigated a hole and a partially-collapsed cabin. Then a pair of ankhegs burst from the ground and attacked. The first couple of rounds went okay, but then a third ankheg joined the fight.

 

The party then experienced one of the worst runs of bad dice rolls I've ever seen. Keg and Lilly both went down a couple of times, while Lucy survived by hiding after every attack. The party's giant rats joined the fight. They were also quickly defeated, but at least they gave the ankhegs something else to attack for a couple of rounds.

 

Then Falcon arrived to help out. He'd been investigating some strange activities in the woods, and his curiosity had caused him to shadow the party. He and Lucy managed to finish off the ankhegs. Then they revived Lilly and the rats. Keg, however, was beyond saving. 

 

The surviving party members returned to Falcon's lodge and gave Keg a proper burial. Another one of the lodge's guests, a gnome druid named Breena, joined the party. Everyone leveled up to 4.

 

The party agreed to check out the Woodland Manse, accompanied by Falcon. He went ahead and gave the party their reward in advance, a pair of Boots of Elvenkind.

 

The mansion was surrounded by wild boars, who happily munched on pumpkins outside the building. The party snuck into the mansion, tiptoed through the hallway, and attempted to climb the stairs to the second level. Unfortunately the stairs were trapped, and Lilly fell onto some spikes.

 

The noise alerted some half-orcs, some of whom transformed into boars before attacking. A few rounds into the fight, Lilly attempted diplomacy. Rolling high, she convinced the half-orcs to take her to their leader.

 

The lead half-orc was angry at their presence at first, but Lilly was on a roll. She persuaded the leader to hear her out. The half-orc identified herself as Grannoc, High Priestess of Talos. She told them her tribe had been driven from the mountains by the white dragon. After a bit more discussion, they struck a deal. Grannoc's tribe would be allowed to remain in the Woodland Manse until the dragon was defeated. She even gave the party two Cloaks of Warmth and a packet of Dust of Disappearance.

 

The party returned to Falcon's Hunting Lodge and took a long rest. They now know the approximate location of the dragon's rest, though they'll still want to save that quest for last if they want to survive it.

 

That's where we ended the session. There are still two more quests on the job board, and a handful of rumors to check out. 

 

Afterthoughts: I love it when a problem can be solved through diplomacy. It doesn't happen nearly enough in D&D, and I applaud the players for finding a peaceful alternative. They probably shouldn't try it with the dragon, though. 

Eville-sentials: Session 3

Game Date: 7/20/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Eville-sentials, Session 3

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

Bartholomew (Peter) - Half-Elf Wizard

Keg (Whitney) - Half-Orc Barbarian

Lilly (Leah) - Dragonborn Paladin

Lucy (Genna) - Halfling Rogue

The Session: 

Last week the party finished two quests. Today they returned to the job board to find that three more jobs had been posted.

The first one they picked was the Butterskull Ranch Quest. They went to the ranch to check up on "Big Al" Kalazorn. Along the way they found three of Al's horses and a cow. When they reached the ranch, they found Al's house was occupied by orcs, and Al himself was tied up in the basement.

The PCs rescued Al first, then taunted the orcs into fighting them in the basement. The PCs managed to bottleneck the orcs at the basement entrance so that they only had to fight two or three at the time. Using this strategy, as well as some ball bearings on the stairs, they managed to kill ten orcs with hardly any issues.

Big Al was so thankful that he let them hang onto the horses. The party returned to town and collected their reward, then leveled up and bought a wagon.

Next they took on the Mountain's Toe Quest, in which they had to escort a man named Don-Jon Raskin to his mine. When they reached the mine, they found that it had been taken over by wererats. They convinced the guard to let them talk to the wererat king. The king arrived with some guards and giant rats. There was a bit of talking at first, but a fight was inevitable. Once again the party arranged things so that they fought on their own terms - at the entrance of the mine instead of in the tunnels.

This fight lasted a good while, but eventually they took out the guards and captured the rat king alive. Then they found the missing miners and returned to town.

They also picked up a few rumors on their adventures. Something has driven the orcs down from the mountains, which in turn drove the wererats out of their former home in the Shrine of Savras, which is rumored to contain a cache of gold. They also heard about some potential treasure in some shipwrecks beneath a lighthouse to the west. There's also Falcon's Hunting Lodge, which is a safe place to stay if they find themselves wandering the nearby forest. And of course, there was more talk of the white dragon - the party even came across some orcs it had killed.

And that's where we left things for the week.

Afterthoughts:

When this campaign started, I picked Essentials again because it didn't require any prep time. But the more I run it, the more I realize that it's my favorite module to run. It's really cool that things turn out so differently each time. My last two groups fully explored Big Al's house and the wererat-occupied mines, but this group brought the fights to them.

I've always had a thing for short stories. The first Stephen King book I read was Skeleton Crew, and ever since then I've preferred short story collections to novels. My own novels are basically collections of short stories, though sometimes those stories work together to further an over-arching plot. The point is, I like quick resolutions. My attention span just isn't good for long, drawn-out plots.

Once we finish the Essentials book, unless someone else wants to DM for a while, I'm going to continue to look for similar campaigns - ones that are basically collections of smaller missions. So if anybody has any suggestions, let me know. If it involves buying another box like the Essentials Kit, I'm good with that, especially if it includes a lot of helpful cards and maps like Essentials.

Eville-sentials: Session 2

Game Date: 7/13/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Eville-sentials, Session 2

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

Bartholomew (Peter) - Half-Elf Wizard

Fry (Steph) - Tabaxi Monk 

Keg (Whitney) - Half-Orc Barbarian

Lilly (Leah) - Dragonborn Paladin

Lucy (Genna) - Halfling Rogue

The Session: 

So, last session the party helped some Dwarven excavators, then returned to Phandalin to look for more jobs. Today they added Fry to their party, and teamed up to finish two more quests.  

 

Gnomengarde Quest - The party visited a Gnome compound so they could ask for magic items to use against the dragon. But when they arrived, the king had locked himself in his room, and the rest of the Gnomes were hunting for a shapeshifting monster. The party found the mimic hiding out in the wine room, disguised as a keg.

 

Bartholomew found that casting spells had interesting side effects in Gnomengarde, and he temporarily grew fairy wings during his visit. Once the mimic was dead, they spoke to the Gnome king and he gave them some magic items. They returned two of the items to Phandalin, but they kept two others: a Clockwork Amulet and a Pole of Collapsing. Then they advanced to level 2.

 

Umbrage Hill Quest - This one was quick and simple. They went to check in on one of Phandalin's locals, and found that her windmill was under attack from a manticore. The party got its attention and attacked it. The manticore hit hard and had a lot of hit points, but the party persevered and brought it down. The woman rewarded them with three potions of healing, and a coupon for one common or uncommon potion they can redeem in the future.

 

This is where we ended things for the week. 

Eville-sentials: Session 1

Game Date: 7/6/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Eville-sentials, Session 1

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

Bartholomew (Peter) - Half-Elf Wizard

Keg (Whitney) - Half-Orc Barbarian

Lilly (Leah) - Dragonborn Paladin

Lucy (Genna) - Halfling Rogue

The Session: So, I started a new campaign with some new friends today. I don't have a lot of free time lately to ready a campaign, so I'm running them through the Essentials kit, which I've already run two other parties through. It's an easy-to-run campaign that doesn't require a whole lot of prep time.

 

We spent a good portion of the session building characters, so we only had time for one of the jobs: The Dwarven Excavation Quest. Their mission was to warn a couple of Dwarven prospectors about a White Dragon, but once they arrived, the Dwarves asked them to kill an Ochre Jelly.

 

The first attack roll of the campaign was a crit. They fought two Ochre Jellies in the temple's main hall. Bart and Lilly got knocked out, but Keg and Lucy finished off the Jellies. Then the Dwarven prospectors returned with a couple of healing potions for the downed adventurers.

 

The Dwarves thanked them and rewarded them with a pair of Sending Stones. The party found a secret door and went to explore it. Down another hallway, Lucy opened a door and found herself face-to-face with a Stirge. Once it was dealt with, the party found three red gems (worth 15 gp each) under some old stone beds.

 

The party took a long rest. During the night, they overheard the Dwarves discover something, which turned out to be seven more gems. The Dwarves split their find, and everyone ended up with a gem. With no other passages to explore, the party headed back to town, but they intend to return later to check up on the excavation progress (and see if there's more treasure).

 

The party returned to town, collected the 50 gp reward, and bought some supplies. We ended the session there, and hopefully we'll play again next week.

 

 

Bensentials Session 6

Game Date: 3/29/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Bensentials, Session 6

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

The Party:

Ben - Changeling Sorcerer (Draconic)

Bryan - Human Fighter (Champion)

Rick - Tabaxi Rogue (Assassin), Tiefling Druid (Running for absent player)

The Session: When we left off last session, the town had been attacked by giants, and our heroes had accepted the mission to teach them a lesson. I used the version of Against the Giants that appears in Tales from the Yawning Portal, but mostly just for the map of the compound.

The PCs approached the giant compound from the south, listened at the door, and heard snoring on the other side. They sent the rogue in first, and managed to kill the first giant in his sleep. The other guard woke up but found himself surrounded, and was quickly dispatched shortly thereafter. They looted a couple of storage crates, then explored the staircase in the southwest corner.

In the original module, this staircase goes up to a guard tower, I believe. But I had it go down to a maze room. I got the maze layout (mostly) from an adventure in the book "One-Shot Wonders" by Roll-n-Play Press. This is a fantastic book for DMs who need a quick idea for an impromptu session, and they're not even paying me to say that.

The maze paths were only five feet wide, and the walls were electrified. The only light came from electricity sparking on the walls. Touching the walls produced the same effect as the Lightning Bolt spell: If a PC touched the wall, they would have to make a DC 15 Dex save or take 8d6 lightning damage (save for half). The players figured out not to touch them after seeing the walls spark, and experimented by throwing copper pieces at the wall and watching the sparks.

So, don't touch the walls. Easy enough, right? But some hallways also featured electrodes that fired bolts of electricity every five seconds. Getting their timing right to pass through these hallways also required a Dex roll to keep from getting shocked.

The whole thing gave us something of a Pac-Man vibe. The maze was populated by some creatures I made up, which I haven't really named. For the sake of this blog, we'll call them Orbies. They looked like beach balls with rubbery skin. They had feet and eyes, but no mouths or arms. Behold my MS Paint skills:

Of course, they don't look like they present much of a challenge. No teeth, no claws, no weapons.. what harm could they possibly present? Here's the stat block I came up with, in case you want to use them:

Orbie

AC 15, 20 hit points, Speed 30, Initiative 5

Immunities: Lightning

Resistances: Bludgeoning

Weaknesses: Piercing

Attack: +8

On hit, 0 damage, but the target is knocked into the nearest wall within 10 feet.

The PCs learned pretty quickly to defeat these monsters fast, lest they get pushed into the shocking walls. The creatures popped like balloons when reduced to 0 (originally I was going to have them explode on death, but the encounter turned out to be hard enough without that).

Getting past the electrodes was difficult for the party. The sorcerer managed to block one off with his immovable rod. But later he left the party to backtrack and retrieve it, and he got shocked to death. He failed his three death saves while the rest of the party worked their way to the center of the maze.

They found that the Orbies themselves could help them get past some of the electrodes. If they kept an Orbie between the electrode and the party, the electric jolts would be blocked by the Orbie, allowing the party to pass through the tunnel harmlessly. So they had to think tactically to keep the Orbies where they wanted them.

They finally reached the center of the maze, where three large treasure chests lay in the center. I let them draw Treasure Trove cards from Nord Games to determine the loot. That's my second product plug in this blog and I'm still not getting paid, I promise. Each card has the players roll a d12 to pick the treasure.

They also found a control box down there that allowed them to turn off the electricity in the maze. Then they found the sorcerer's body and took him back to town.

There were three churches in town with resurrection services, and they paid to have the sorcerer brought back to life. Then they stayed in town a couple of days so he could recuperate. When they were well-rested, they returned up the mountain to take another crack at the giant compound.

Along the way, they came across a druid grove being attacked by a couple of hill giants. The party joined the fight and the druid priestess thanked them by leveling up their pet wolf (he's now dire) and blessing each member of the party with an inspiration die. She also informed them that the giants were on an angry rampage now, due to the party's earlier intrusion into their compound.

The rest of the session featured a lot of exploration, taking out giants one at a time as they traversed the compound. They rarely had to fight more than two giants at a time. The sorcerer managed to befriend three wolves that were being held at the compound - they'd been taken from the druid's grove and they'd been mistreated by the giants.

As they cleared out room after room, they liberated several human slaves. Some fled the compound, but others joined the party, though they were too weak to be of much help.

The party took a counter-clockwise route through the giant compound, saving the main hall for last. This is where they finally fought the leader and his closest allies. The sorcerer, who is a changeling, enlarged himself and made himself look like a giant. He was still quite short for a giant, but it was close enough to cause the confusion he needed.

The disguised sorcerer burst into the main hall and shouted, "There's been a rebellion! The slaves are escaping!" The leader pushed past him into the hallway, and the sorcerer braced the doors closed with his immovable rod. Then the rest of the party rushed in through the other doors on the opposite side of the hallway.

The giant leader banged on the doors while the party, the wolves, and the freed prisoners took out the giant's minions. After a few rounds the leader burst through the doors, only to find half his allies had been wiped out. The party had saved all their best moves and resources for this fight, and they took the leader out a few rounds later.

We wrapped up pretty quickly after that. The party looted what they could, then returned the wolves to the grove and began to lead the ex-prisoners back to town.

I ignored a large portion of the Against the Giants adventure, but we might revisit it at a higher level.

Nomads of Zyden

Off-topic, but I've just self-published my eighth book, a swords-and-sorcery fantasy titled "Nomads of Zyden." Synopsis:

When a tribe of ghoulish monsters wipes out her mountain clan, a fierce warrior named Marta sets out on a mission of revenge. But while she grew up fighting giant beasts in the frigid wastelands, she isn’t prepared for the culture shock of meeting people from the lowlands.

During her epic journey she befriends a jester, a fairy, and a woman with whom she shares a magical bond. Together they take on a much larger quest in which they must explore ancient temples and fight ruthless monsters, all to retrieve a set of artifacts that will help them defeat an all-powerful evil. Their time is short and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

I don't always post it here when I release a new book, but since this one takes place in a fantasy setting, I thought it my interest this blog's readers. You can get it (and my other books) here:

Books by Xine Fury

Bensentials Session 5

Game Date: 3/1/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Bensentials, Session 5

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

The Party:

Baileigh - Tiefling Druid (Circle of the Moon - 2024 rules)

Ben - Changeling Sorcerer (Draconic)

Bryan - Human Fighter (Champion)

Rick - Tabaxi Rogue (Assassin)

The Session: Happy new year... Oh, it's March. Well, it's been a busy few months. Last October we ended the session one-third of the way through White Plume Mountain from Tales from the Yawning Portal. Today we picked up right where we left off.

This time they took the north path. The kelpies tried to lure them into the water, but the party wouldn't fall for their ploys. It wasn't a long fight. The party continued to follow the hallways until they fought the giant crab, retrieving the legendary item Wave, which the party Sorcerer claimed (after changing their religion).

They returned to the central junction and took the east path. They - somehow - correctly solved the Golem's puzzle (which number doesn't belong - 5, 7, 9, 11, or 13), so they didn't have to fight the golems, and one golem joined the party. Then they backtracked to the room with all the glass orbs. Even when they found the correct key, they continued smashing orbs to collect all the treasure in the room.

Heading back north again, they went through the one-way turnstile and entered the room with the hanging platforms and boiling mud. By utilizing a potion of flying and all the rope the party carried, they managed to make the puzzle a little easier.

Finally they faced the vampire in the magically darkened room. This was a difficult battle for obvious reasons, but they hacked away until they won. They probably couldn't have done it without the other two legendary weapons, Blackrazor and Wave. With the vampire now killed, they aquired the final weapon, Whelm. None of the party can weild it, but they're going to hang onto it for a while instead of collecting the reward money.

On their way out, they encountered the owner of the dungeon, an evil wizard who invited them to join his cult. The party refused, and fought the wizard along with his guards. The Sphynx joined the fight on the side of the party. This battle wasn't quite as difficult, and soon the party made their way back to town.

After a few days in town selling items and spending money, the city was attacked by hill giants. The party helped the town guard fend off the attackers. Shortly thereafter, the party was summoned to a town meeting, and hired to investigate a hill giant compound located on a nearby mountain.

Next session is scheduled for 3/29, where we will be starting the module Against the Giants, also from Tales from the Yawning Portal.

2025 Monster Manual

I'm not sure if I really needed to upgrade my Monster Manual. I mean, the old MM works just fine with the new rules. But I wanted to complete my set, so here we are.

So what's different? Hell if I know. I've cracked open the original 5e MM maybe five times. I mean, in the past ten years I've been a player more than a DM. When I did DM, half the sessions were online, where I tended to google the stat block I needed at the time. And the games I ran in person, I used a pre-made module with its own stat blocks.

I'll say this, I like the new look of the stat blocks. They're cleaner-looking, which is easier on the eyes. It's not a huge difference, but putting initiative in the top right, and putting boxes around the stats (now with their saves) is convenient. There's also a line for gear, for those DMs whose players loot everything they kill.

The monster's CR now also includes their PB, which I can only assume is the monster's peanut butter rating, something D&D has been sorely lacking. Those of us who use Reese's for monster minis have been demanding a peanut butter rating for years.

Edit: Okay, so I looked it up, and that's actually the monster's proficiency bonus. I guess that could be useful, but I'm a little disappointed about the peanut butter thing.

The monsters are organized a bit differently this time, which may or may not make things easier. For example, in the 2014 edition, the dragons were all lumped together. In 2025, black dragons are listed together with the B's, green dragons are listed with the G's, and so on. 

However, the "index of stat blocks," which was in the back of the 2014 MM, is right up front as part of the table of contents page this time. It lists everything alphabetically, so "Adult Red Dragon" is listed in the A's while the "Young Red Dragon" is listed near the end, despite appearing together in the book itself.

This is good. I do remember a couple of times when I was looking up a monster, I found the index more useful than the table of contents. Putting the index up front makes it that much more intuitive.

One thing that's causing a bit of controversy is that orcs are no longer in the Monster Manual. This struck me as odd at first. I mean, yeah, sure, they're a player race now, but that doesn't mean you won't still fight orcs.

But it makes sense in context. Traditional orc stats aren't hugely different than those of a strong human. The Monster Manual still includes stats for humanoids, including bandits, berserkers, knights, warriors, toughs, cultists, mages, spies, nobles, and so on. Every one of those is designed so they can be any humanoid race.

Some monsters are gone, but some have been renamed or replaced with something very similar. Thugs are now toughs, quippers are now piranha, and lizardfolk now use the "scout" stat block. This book contains more monsters than the previous book, so overall it's a net gain.

There's a list in the back of the book that tells you what new monsters to use in place of monsters that vanished between 2014 and 2025. So if you want to build an orc warband, use berserkers instead of the orc grunts, use the "tough boss" instead of the chief, and use the "cultist fanatic" instead of the shaman. So there's no particular reason orcs needed to take up space in an already crammed book.

Bottom line: I can't say the 2025 Monster Manual is a necessity if you already have the 2014 book. There are improvements, but they're nothing groundbreaking. Still, if I had to choose between the two books, I'd pick the 2025 version.

2024 DMs Guide

Honestly, the DM’s guide is probably the most useless of the core books. There’s very little a DM needs to know that isn’t already covered in the PHB and Monster Manual. Generally speaking, if you know how to play D&D, then you know how to DM.

But I want the complete set of the 2024 core books, so I splurged a little and picked it up. So how is it? I'm pretty happy with it. Here’s a breakdown on the chapters.

Chapter 1: What does a DM do? - This section is remedial for anybody who’s run a game before. But even if you’re new to being a DM, it still doesn’t do much that isn’t covered in the PHB.

Chapter 2: Running the Game - More tips, including things like running with multiple DMs, when to use advantage and disadvantage, ways to track initiative, and so on. Again, maybe useful info for newbie DMs.

Chapter 3: DM’s Toolbox – Tips on running chases, how to create backgrounds, creatures, magic items, and spells, how to manage curses, fear, mental stress, and rules for firearms. This section is moderately useful for advanced DMs.

Chapter 4: Creating Adventures – Tips on making adventures compelling and interesting. The advice in this chapter could be applied to writing in general, not just gaming.

Chapter 5: Creating Campaigns – This section mostly centers on planning ahead and making sure a campaign is leading somewhere. But it also contains an extended look at the Greyhawk campaign setting, which is pretty cool. The Greyhawk pages almost feel like an excerpt from a different book, but it’s a good-sized section (about 17 pages), so if you like the setting, this could help you. Note that the book also contains a fold-out map of the city of Greyhawk.

Chapter 6: Cosmology – The usual info on the planes, including a bit of Spelljammer content.

Chapter 7: Treasure – The section I tend to use most. I’ve seen most of these magic items before, but there’s a few new ones scattered in there. I’m sure some of the existing items have been tinkered with for balance, but I haven’t looked that closely. It includes all the magic items from the 80s D&D cartoon. In the previous DM's guide, the sentient magic items and artifacts were listed separately from the other magic items, but this version mixes all the magic items in together. 

Chapter 8: Bastions – Rules for letting players build their own forts and keeps. It’s always surprising to me what does and doesn’t make it into a DM guide, but this one feels like it belongs.

Chapter 9: Lore Glossary – A guide to classic D&D characters and locations. It's pretty useful if you're into D&D lore, though personally I tend to make up my own worlds. They honestly could have filled an entire book up with lore, so it's a little funny to see which characters/locations did or didn't make the cut.

Chapter 10: Maps – Just a bunch of sample maps to jump-start your imagination.

Tracking Sheets – The book contains several examples of tracking sheets (events, magic items given to the party, etc), scattered about the book in different sections. It’s a nice tool for certain DMs.

Bottom line: Is this book worth it? Well, you don't need it. It’s more fluff than crunch, and fluff is the one thing I don’t need help on. I barely cracked open the 2014 DM book, and I don’t expect this one to get much use beyond looking up magic items. Still, it's a decent read and I’m glad to have it on my shelf.