A Platinum Dragon by any other name...(Part 2)

This post contains the last of the previous session AND the rest of the next one.


After healing up at the Inn, our intrepid (and mostly hapless) adventurers set off for the keep for where they now knew Ninaran (the elf ranger who betrayed them) to be hiding. The first room they encountered contained some goblins and a pit trap with Tyler dutifully decided to step into. This led to a half-hour argument about line-of-sight and whether Tyler could Gay Step (Eladrin racial power Fey Step, if you haven't been listening) out of the hole. I ended my case with 'I'm the DM and I'm afraid that he'd end up ten feet in the air,'

Now, Orvik. Orvik is our party Cleric and the funny thing about Orvik (or Mat if you want to get into the real world) is that if you ask him to roll an attack roll he'll whack himself in the face. However, if you ask him to roll a skill check he'll (usually) always make it. Anyway they didn't take the bait to go and investigate the screaming down one hallway and instead set off for a maze of passageways.

In the passageways there were several runes which I promptly informed Tyler's 22 Arcana (The roll to determine a magical effect) were Terror Runes. Matt then asked whether something bad would happen if he stepped on one. "They're called Terror Runes," I pointed out, "Something bad is going to happen if you step on one,"

Skirting around the runes they came to a dead end and Orvik perceptivley spotted that the corridor was an illusion and that it led to an armoury. After dispatching the zombies that were inside they found a rusty set of armour with an inscription. The inscription was a riddle (which unfortunatley I can't tell you because of copyright) but Mat got the right answer which was: 'a legacy'. The armour gleamed with light and became a black suit of scale armour, the edges were gilded with gold. Giving this to Orvik we set off.

The next room was filled with zombies, the next after that was a room that was long and narrow and filled with sarcophigi. At the end of the room it widened out to include two altars amd a carving of Bahamut the dragon god of justice also known as the Platinum Dragon. As they entered the room the sarcophigi glowed with holy light and began to disgorge skeletons into the room. After about ten rounds of being torn at by skeletons Mat figured out that the Draconic script (which all of a sudden Grock could miraculously could read Draconic) told him that if he prayed at the altar the skeletons would stop attacking. After Grock knelt at the altar and prayed to Bahamut the room flooded with light and the skeletons were blasted with intp pb;ivion. The room emptied and they were left staring at an entrance to a crypt with the words 'SIR KEEGAN' etched into the door.

They spent half an hour levelling up. HALF AN HOUR.

Orvik dies...and stuff. (Part 1)

I am really tired right now so hopefully I can just get this over with quickly. This is the worst party ever. Ever. There was a good deal of roleplaying in Winterhaven which I approve of and enjoyed. For the most part Mat was doing the roleplaying because Grock (unfortunately) has an intelligence score so low that he can't talk. Orvik has to translate for him so whenever Grock notices something he has to tell Orvik. So we spent some time at Wrafton's Inn. We chatted to Eilian the Old who wasn't sober enough to stand and then as Ninarin (the elf ranger who is in league with the cult) fails to beat Orvik's passive insight check (which was a pretty impressive 17) and then proceeded to tell them a lot about the Keep (probably due to Grock spending so long shaking her until she answered). They told her to wait at Wrafton's Inn as she promises to lead them to the cultist.

Mistake.

Anyway they proceeded to interrogate everyone in the town including Valthrun the scholar, who Tyler was talking to. They then insisted that Tyler was trying starting a gay relationship with Valthrun. I can assure you that Tyler is not gay.

I threw them the bait for the Kobold encounter, the dwarf smithy who had a set of magic armour taken and tells them that you can have it as long as you kill the Kobolds who took it. My favourite moment of the day however was when they broke into Winterhaven siege supplies and then find a cache of 100 gold. They take it and then get Tyler to make it look like the gold is still there and make it looks like the padlock isn't broken. They quickly find out and on their way to visit Lord Padraig two guards stop them and ask them if they've seen anything suspicious. They lied, telling the guards that they saw Eilian nosing around there earlier. The final nail in the coffin is when Padraig offers to pay them the stored cache of 100 gold.

The made a pretty hasty exit. They went back to the Inn to get Ninarin only to find that she had run off. Hey tracks were plain in the mud road, leading straight back to the Keep. Ambushed by Kobolds on the road, Orvik was knocked unconscious, and an inch away from death, Grock badly damaged and Tyler was looking fine. I had to force the Kobold to flee after Ren failed to roll his daily power. Otherwise those 5 Kobolds would've killed the entire party. Tyler failed to get the DC required to heal Orvik but I let him have it. Orvik probably would've died otherwise. Admittedly they did have a Wyrmpriest who had Incite Faith (+5 to allies attack rolls within ten squares) and my dice rolled freakishly well (Orvik rolled predictably awful and ended up swapping dice in then end).

They came back to town to heal up. Salvanna Wrafton owner of the Wrafton's Inn was not impressed as they returned Orvik and Tyler looking okay and Grock leaking oil all over the floor.

Part 2 tommorow!

Our heroes set out!

Okay!

Yes! Dungeons and Dragons is nerdy!

But by god it's hilarious nerdiness!

After much effort disagreements, arguments, shouting and wasting of time I managed to pull together a couple of friends and start a D&D campaign! We decided to play Keep on the Shadowfell, the first official Wizards of the Coast Module as it had been released for free on their website. All of us had lost our character sheets so we had to start from scratch...with hilarious results.

You can download the PDF here.

Our heroes are:

Ren-Grock the Anvil our Warforged Fighter

Mat-Orvik Baernesson our Dwarf Cleric

Cal (Me)-Dungeon Master

Tyler Ghostguy our Eladrin Wizard (originally my character but I gave him for them to control. My first mistake)

I'm going to say this now. Grock's stats do not make sense. Due to having such a low intelligence score he is illiterate and has 39 hitpoints. At first level. Somehow we've managed to get our Cleric having less hitpoints than our Wizard. But onto the adventure.

So by this point we've had about half an hour of character making and about twenty minutes of Ren laughing hysterically at the name Eric the Cleric. I still don't get why he found it so funny. Anyway our adventurer's moved on to the town called Winterhaven and while on the road to Winterhaven they were ambushed by Kobold brigands.

Leading to comedy worthy of yakaty sax. Seemingly Mat rolled 1's for Orvik's first four attacks and seemed determined to remain at least twenty feet away from the action. Tyler loosed off burning hands killing four goblins but also setting fire to Grock in the process. Grock however was immobilised in his second turn by a foul gluepot sling.

Christ. We spent so long laughing at Eladrin racial power Fey Step (which Ren and Mat helpfully nicknamed Gay Step purporting that Tyler would flick his wrist and vanish in a puff of pink smoke). I had to reward Mat an extra 50 XP for the heal he performed on Grock otherwise he would have gotten next to nothing. But I have to say soon after Mat picked up the pace and killed a Dragonshield with Lance of Faith adding some badass to his failure.

We've just arrived in Winterhaven.

God I hope they don't do anything stupid.