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.