Daggerford: Intrigue & Investigations

 Game Date: 10/31/2020

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 6

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 started the session in Cromm's Hold, and then traveled back to Daggerford.  After a tenday of downtime, we ran into Maechen, our guide.  We'd lost track of her when fleeing the dragon last session, and presumed she'd been killed.  Vanya asked her how she survived, but Maechen said we must have mistaken her from someone else.  This woman had no memory of meeting our party.

A few sessions ago we saw the execution of an evil wizard.  On a hunch, today we decided to dig him up.  "It's not grave robbing.  We're not going to take anything; it's grave voyeurism."  The body was still dead.  We looked for indications that the body was a clone, but the results were inconclusive.  He looked familiar, though.  In fact, he looked a lot like our party's wizard, Khemed.

We made an appointment to visit Daggerford's town wizard in seven days.  We saw town guards putting up wanted posters for a woman named Darwa Dalion.  We did some talking with various authorities, asking for more details about Dalion, and informed Sir Isteval about the Maechen's imposter.  Azul poked around and learned that Maechen was spotted in town while she was simultaneously leading us through the swamp.  

We rode out to the Florshin estate, to speak to Lord Darfin.  There was a lot of construction going on, as Darfin was in the process of building a home for the mentally ill.  Apparently madness has been running rampant in Waterdeep.  I wonder if that will be important later.

We poked around the estate, looking for clues about a recent murder in the library.  Our collective ears perked up when we heard about a fight that had taken place in the crypts.  Apparently some Red Wizards had stolen a key from the crypts.  Also, eight of their servants had been abducted.  

Our investigations led us to suspect the cult of Yan-C-Bin, an evil air god.  We headed back to Daggerford for more research.  Daggerford's priest of Lathander suggested we look for more information in Waterdeep or Candlekeep.  That didn't seem likely.  But Sir Isteval was able to give us more information about the stolen key.  Apparently there are four elemental keys.  Sounds like a good campaign hook.

We asked him about the remaining three keys.  He thinks they're somewhere in the Sword Coast area, and that the fire and earth keys might have already been found.  He also an idea who Maechen's imposter might be.  It was an old foe of his, a Rakasha named Nadir.  Why a Rakasha is so keen on meeting up with a black dragon is beyond our knowledge, but it's probably not good.

We believed our next step was to look for the water key, but we didn't know where to start.  While we waited for inspiration, a Duke came for a visit.  He told us that his sister had been abducted by the Baron.  He hired us to track down said Baron, and rescue his sister.  He was sending teams in three different directions to track down the Baron.  Our route was to lead us through an area called "Laughing Hollow", a canyon run by wild elves.

While riding through the snowy canyon, we encountered some mercenaries.  They fired some warning shots at us, and revealed that the Baron had hired them to keep us away.  We rolled initiative, and proceeded to kick ass.  Khemed took out two of them with a sleep spell.  Then Neven ran to the leader and pounded him into pulp.  Azul rode up to one, jumped off his horse, and skewered a merc with a dramatic dismount.

We finished off the last few, extinguished a burning tree (Khemed's work), and got back on the road.  The route became darker and scarier as we followed the Baron's path.  Ezmerelda suddenly fell asleep.  Vanya rode over to wake her up, when tendrils of grass suddenly started to entangle her and her horse.  

We heard giggling from the distance, and Neven went to investigate.  As he approached some dancing lights, Neven was hit by a sleep spell as well, but he was immune.  Three pixies materialized and started trying to calm Neven down.  They could only speak Sylvan, but Khemed had a Comprehend Languages spell.  They were asking for help.  

They led us down a path.  We saw a humanoid trapped at the bottom of a ravine, and a bunch of goblins were firing arrows at them.  Obviously the pixies wanted us to defeat the goblins and rescue the humanoid.  We had to end the session there, right before the battle was about to begin.

35 xp.

Fun With A 3D Printer

For my birthday I received a "Creality Ender 3 Pro" 3D printer, which I've mostly been using to make D&D paraphernalia.  It's got a sharp learning curve, and I'm not very good with it yet, but I've managed to make a few useful items.

First thoughts:  I can't wait until 3D printers are so commonplace that they just work out of the box, like an ink printer.  I had to build this thing from the ground up, and the included instructions are no help.  You pretty much have to watch a YouTube video to get it put together.  It took me about an hour to assemble it.

Keeping it working is also a bit difficult, as you're constantly having to relevel the bed and other minor maintenance.  It's kind of a good thing that you have to assemble it yourself, because it gives you insight on to how it all works, which may help you fix it in the future.

D&D miniatures are particularly hard to print.  This type of printer simply isn't designed for such tiny details on one-inch-tall miniatures.  My luck has been mixed, but I've made a few decent minis.  The hardest part is placing supports.  

Mini with Supports

Unless a mini's hands are on its hips, then chances are it will need supports to print correctly.  Otherwise, when the printer gets to the layer where the hands start, the hands would be floating in mid-air and won't print properly.  Supports are basically scaffolding that lead up to suspended areas, which you cut off of the mini when it's done printing.  The slicer software you use to prepare the 3D model can add supports automatically, but it sucks at it.  It's better to add them manually, which takes some practice to get just right.

And then if your settings aren't right, or the filament is too old, or the stars are aligned improperly, your print will fail.  If you're lucky it will fail early, because the nozzle was clogged or bed wasn't leveled.  But you could also be 20 hours into a 22 hour print when it suddenly conks out.

Printer Fail, or Time Warp?

And that's another thing - 3D printers are sloooooow.  Most of my miniatures have taken about an hour to print.  My condition rings take about twenty minutes.  But anything of substance takes hours.  The biggest print I've done so far took seventeen hours, for a dice tray that was only 6.5" x 7" x 1.5".

The pics below show some of the better results.  I still have work to do on most of these prints.  I still need to shave off some of the excess filament and paint them.

Condition Rings for D&D Battles

Lots of Condition Rings

Dice Tower, Overhead View

Dice Tower

My 17-Hour Dice Tray

Xenomorph Miniature

Partially Painted Sleeping Bags and Campfires

Many Minis Preparing for Painting

A Somewhat Stringy Samus

Green Knight in Search of Sir Gawain

Gandalf the Green

Partially Painted Pussycat

If the Joker Used a Hit Point Tracker

Sorcerer Spell Tracker

Bard Spell Tracker

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

Dice tower in action:

Anyway, so far I suck but I'm having a lot of fun.  It's a very time-consuming toy, and with all my various interests, it's going to be along time before I'm an expert at it.  But that's fine with me.

Daggerford: We Bravely Turned Our Tail and Fled

Game Date: 10/3/2020

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 5

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:

After taking a long rest in the top floor of the temple, we started down the stairs.  At the bottom was a hallway with several doors.  The hallway was damp and smelled like rotten eggs.  We opened the first door we came too, on the East side of the hallway.  There was a water basin, being filled from a spout shaped like a dragon.  The room was otherwise clear.

We detected a hint of conjuration magic coming from the water basin, but found nothing of interest.   Neven drank from the fountain, and it healed him.  Back to the hallway, and Neven checked a door to the North.  There were ten stone sarcophagi standing against the walls.  Then Neven checked the South door, to find a mausoleum.  

Waiting in the hallway, Azul saw a small statue in an alcove, and it started speaking to him.  It identified itself as Doug, a temple guardian.  Doug offered to give Azul a blessing, and told us that it hoped we would clear out the temple.  He also warned us that the other temple guardian wasn't as nice as he was.

Neven opened another door, and found ten more stone sarcophagi.  He looked at another alcove, and there was a small statue of a female elf.  The statue started cursing at Neven.  We decided to accept Doug's blessing, but he hit us with some radiant damage and cursed at us.

The door at the West end of the hall contained more sarcophagi, and we turned South.  In one room we fought a gray ooze.  It did some major damage to Azul, and damaged his armor, but we finished it off pretty quickly.

Khemed turned invisible and scouted ahead.  As he went down the South hallway, he could hear drums and chanting.  The hall finally opened up to a cave, full of Lizardfolk cultists.  He used a message spell to convince some of the Lizardfolk that they had been chosen by their god, and attempted to convince them to fight each other.   

Unfortunately, he rolled low on his deception check, and they ignored him.  He came back and informed the group, and we formulated a plan.  Neven was about to try talking to them, but Khemed fired a Chromatic Orb and got the battle going.

Khemed put one to sleep right off the bat.  Azul and Neven blocked off the hall, creating a chokepoint.  Vanya fired a Shatter spell into the crowd of Lizzies, killing two, and leaving two more hurting enough for Neven to finish off.

Neven and Azul finished off the final conscious one.  We tied up the sleeping one so we could interrogate it.  Then we took a short rest, then proceeded through a secret door behind an altar.  We found an old, rotting chest, which contained a leather pouch and a silver hand mirror (which Vanya claimed).  The mirror was enchanted to make the viewer look younger.  We double-checked a fire beetle cave behind us, then proceeded West.

A bridge and another stairwell opened up into a huge cavern, partly filled with water.  In the South was a frolicking dragon wyrmling, along with the Lizardfolk queen.  From what we could tell, we were interrupting some sort of ritual.  

Azul tried to convince the wyrmling to attack the queen, then Azul and Khemed fired at the queen.  The wyrmling's parent swooped into the room and fired acid at the party.  We were not ready to face an adult black dragon.  Vanya used Mantle of Inspiration to help the party flee, and we all escaped the the cavern.  

We picked a different direction - up a waterfall, and into another passage.  In one side passage, they encountered a carrion crawler.  It got the jump on Neven, who was paralyzed by one of the attacks.  Azul picked up Neven and tossed him into the river.  He then fell down the waterfall, where Khemed pulled him from the water.

The crawler followed us as we fled back down the waterfall.  It paralyzed Azul, but Neven ran up and finished it off.  Azul found a Ring of Acid Resistance in the crawler's lair, and we resolved to leave the temple.  Again.

We made it a couple of miles before nightfall.  We then encountered the friendly Red Feather tribe of Lizardfolk.  They took us the rest of the way to Cromm's Hold, where we gave our report.  We had a couple of days of downtime, and ended the session there.  

XP: 290