Session 4: "Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations..."

The Plot:

The journey to Thunderbliss begins!

At the start, everyone has their weapons and armor (if they have it) from the peddler. These are on loan until the party takes him safely to Old Rock. The peddler - Beowyn - is also with his wife Sunna who is much more skeptical of the party than her husband.

The peddler told some tales about the roads in this area getting more and more unsafe. There is a large old tree he's used as a landmark for years that started turning black in the last couple of seasons. It started at the trunk and has spread out on the branches.

About two hours outside of town, the party met a rider on the road. The rider was a full blooded orc. He did not respond to Orcish but when Hori spoke to him in common he responded "Must go Benne." When spoken to more he simply repeated variations of "Must go Benne" and eventually "Must go Benne Windford.

When Voola got near to him he reached out and grabbed her arm, leaving a red mark behind. Voola got a distant look in her eyes and immediately rode off down the road to the Thunderbliss as fast as her horse could go. (DM Note: I asked that they let her go so the party did not follow, see more DM notes below.) The party tried to keep the orc and Hori used her sleeve to cover her arm and get the orc to grab her too. The orc left a perfect red handprint with a strange, shimmery sigil in the center of the palm. The orc was basically an immovable object and kept going and the party did not try to stop him. He rode south towards Startead.

On examination the following things about the sigil were discovered:

• The red stuff is blood
• It did not seem to have an effect on Hori. This could have been because it never touched skin or because she's not an orc, or any number of other reasons but those were the two the party focused on.
• The sigil looks vaguely like a dwarven rune meaning 'mine' or 'ownership' but also not really like that at all. It is not dwarven and was not recognized as elvish.
• Gigi cast detect magic and saw the last fading aura of magic and then it the sigil went quiet (no aura).
• The party told the peddlers that Voola was scouting ahead. Beowyn was more convinced that Sunna but neither questioned it. Gigi's detect magic spell does not show that any member of the party has any magical item on them although Beowyn, Sunna, and the peddler's cart all have various faint glows.

This is a rue from the Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archives
which hit the right blend of elvish and dwarvish for me.

At lunch, Beowyn stops at the tree he always stops at but the tree is no longer there, just a burned towering spike of what's left of a tree in the middle of a large clearing. The peddlers insist on stopping but keep their distance.

The party did not.

Chantrix gets near the tree and sees a band of cloth embroidered with Infernal glyphs. Her vague translation gets (Infernal is not her best language): danger, warning, healing, avoid. It is sort of the equivalent of a marker that tells you how high a tsunami might go on the coastline. Or a "bridge out" warning.

There is also a bag tied to the tree embroidered with gold thread and pulses faintly and rhythmically when touched. Chantrix opens the bag to find a still beating pig's heart. Despite Norbith's protestations Chantrix touches the heart with her dagger. As soon as the metal touches the pig's heart it shrivels and turns black. The ground erupts with tree roots that immediately begin attacking the party.

I'm not going to blow for blow describe the fight but Gigi gets out early and casts Bardic Inspiration to help people still trapped in the range of the tree. Hori gets out next but gets caught again while trying to rescue Norbith. Both Hori and Gigi try to set the tree on fire but it doesn't work. Norbith asks Beowyn for help but all he comes up with is healing potions. Norbith and Hori get out and Chantrix gets out with the help of a rope thrown by Hori. Everyone takes some damage.

The roll20.org map we were using.
As my players are more inexperienced I included the circle showing the range of the tree.
As they gain levels, I'm going to up the generally difficulty by dropping these hints but that's not necessary right now and I think would hinder their enjoyment.

As soon as everyone is clear of the tree it stops moving and the ground returns to normal, as though nothing ever happened. There's no signs of the fight or that anything had erupted from the ground.

Beowyn offers the two potions at 3sp each. Hori argued that they got in a fight on his behalf and therefore he's agreed to supply healing. Beowyn argues that it was their own stupidity and curiosity that got them hurt, he and his wife were never in danger and in fact Chantrix is the one who caused the danger anyway. He offered to give a deal (4 healing potions for 10sp) that Hori accepts and pays for. Norbith attempts to steal the cart but it is enchanted in some way and tries to unseat him. When he tries to get the horses to go they kick the cart. Sunna walks over and he abandons the thievery idea.

Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations, goes to look at the bag and heart again. She tests the ground and when it doesn't rise up goes to the tree and lightly touches the bag. There is no pulse. Satisfied, she returns to the party.

The party continues onward.

DM Notes:

I'm going to need to create a macro for "Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations..." because Chantrix will poke anything and Norbith is like Cassandra off to the side yelling "Why are you poking the thing? Why are you even that close to the thing??"

The player for Voola and I spoke this week and he was not available to play again tonight. He and I also had some talk about the campaign and his character because he's not sure it's a good fit for him. Some of it is party based - they're goofier than he was expecting and doesn't know if Voola fits into that - and some of it was my own DMing. I've been giving role-playing XP for big character moments but Voola is a much quieter character and he felt she was being short changed because of that. Which is totally valid criticism. We are going to talk in person this week and see what is a product of my being a new DM and what is a function of the game itself and decide if Voola is staying. That's why she ran off. If he stays, they'll catch up to her in the next town. If not I'll continue that arc and she'll be written out of the game.

The plotline the party is currently following includes a sorceress who is enslaving and using orcs to feed her magic. That's why the orc they met was acting weird and he's ensorcerelled Voola to go to her. Because she is only half orc, if the player stays in the game I have an out to have her shake it off in the next town. Or not if he doesn't.

Picture from here and uncredited there.

The tree was a tree trap from the D&D essentials kit I bought with some modifications to what was attached and set it off to fit my story. Had Voola been there she would have recognized the pig's heart as orc magic and that it was not to be touched or messed with. This is a tree that is specifically setup to warn orcs about the sorceress and how dangerous these lands are to them.

I didn't realize until we started that the trap was intended for Level 5 or 6 players. It's not a full encounter so it wasn't a big deal, it was not grossly overpowered, but I did make some adjustments to AC and the damage done by the tree on the fly as the first hit nearly killed Chantrix outright. if she wasn't a barbarian it would have. It was also immune to all but slashing damage and as it was a construct could never actually be beaten, just escaped. It took a while for them to figure that out. They never did figure out that only slashing damage worked.

I really enjoyed the character interactions this week. There is a starting period I think is common of "I'm playing this character and can do all the things" that we're starting to move out of and into "Who am I and what does my character actually want?" Which is great. Hori is still completely incapable of being lawful good and Norbith's PC actually went over and tripped her off her horse to keep her from talking. Which is a very in-character thing for Norbith to do. But he's also pretty sneaky. There will be consequences in Thundernbliss for trying to steal the peddler's cart.

Norbith also has the (brilliant) idea to buy some lockable boxes in the next town that she can put a few copper pieces in and hide in places where it looks like Chantrix is going to start poking around. That was Chantrix can be curious and Norbith doesn't have to get attacked by trees all the time. I love this so much and it's so in character. For both of them.

Overall, this was an easy introduction to combat for my new players. They got some plot info (from the orc and the tree) and got some extra XP as well as me getting Voola out of the session for a bit. I am not confident enough in my DMing to be playing a character that long and DM effectively. I asked if they wanted another encounter before they reached town and we've agreed to start the next session on arrival in Thunderbliss that night.

Rumbleflopping to Glory: Character Building

It's time for a guest post! The player for Chantrix has graciously agreed to write for this week since it's an "off" week for the group. Take it away Chantrix...

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Full disclosure: It has been a long time since I last played D&D. And I’ve never played a persistent campaign.


Secondary full disclosure: I am super bad at naming characters. Chantrix Rumbleflop is named after the prescription drug commercial the SyFy app played 2,056 times while I was designing my character and two words that I think are funny mashed together. I have no excuse. And yet, I’m changing nothing.


In the lost days of my youth, I was unlucky enough to be surrounded by people who felt this kind of nerdery was for boys. Those people are stupid, and I have since moved away from them. Go me. As an adult, I’ve been the person your DM calls when they need a pinch hitter - someone for the party to meet for a session or two that’s a little too big/too variable of a character for the DM to pilot - but I’ve never fallen into a group where I fit and had time and were just starting a campaign/looking to add a character.


All of this to say, I’ve never built a character from scratch, and I’ve never built a character to last. Because my characters were designed to die/disappear after a session or two, it was fine for them to be exaggerated or even slightly annoying caricatures of a person; it was fine if they didn’t quite fit in with the group, and it was fine if I was really, really bad at playing them. In fact, sometimes it was even better that way.


Enter the DM and her new campaign. I had the time; she had the group, and her stories are always worth telling. So, with very little knowledge and a plethora of confidence, I went out to build my character.


First of all, I have to admit that I love characters that don’t make sense. If you can smoosh together two things that shouldn’t work and make them great, I will fall in love with you every time. Got a rogue goliath? Come sit by me. Playing a (Half) Orc bard with maxed out charisma? I have never been so fascinated in my life. Do you have a Chaotic neutral/evil Aasimar without a tortured past? Did I ever tell you you’re my heeeeerooooo?


That said, those mixed-up characters can be difficult to play and hork your stats like whoa. Since I have no experience in making this sort of character work for the long haul, I went with the entry level version: halfling barbarian.


Let’s take those two separately, shall we?


Halfling: I always like halflings. They’re happy. Life isn’t. I mean it sometimes is, but not always. Halflings are optimists who truly believe that the sun’ll come out tomorrow. I am a pessimist who spends her life suffused with joy because the world didn’t end yesterday, and she really thought it would. Halflings are fun in a way I am not. Can you think of a better reason to play one?


Also, despite the genuinely low stakes of D&D, I hate rolling ones. Yes, I know everyone hates rolling ones, but they make my “this game is stupid and not fun; I’m taking my dice and going home to sulk(cry)” instinct kick in. I don’t know why. It’s not the failure. Rolling a two is hilarious, and you’re no more likely to survive a two than a one. But somehow, ones freak me out.


Halflings are lucky bastards who very rarely roll ones. And when they do, they’re double ones, which loop back ‘round to funny. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps this campaign will explain it to me.


Barbarian: I’ve never actually played a barbarian before. I’m not gonna lie, the straightforward nature of the game mechanics drew me in. See thing; hate thing; hit thing. Barbarian. I love me the complexity of a good spell caster, but they’re a lot of work. More work than I’m willing to do while figuring out the character complexities of my first persistent campaign. If the DM asks me back for a second campaign, she should be expecting a caster, but that’s a long way off, and by then we’ll both be different people.


I looked pretty deeply at Monk, which had a lot to recommend it, but at the end of the day the opportunity to reconcile “halfling” and “barbarian” was too much to resist. Because here’s the thing: barbarian is relative. What my mother (a midwestern homecoming queen who genuinely considered herself engaged when her boyfriend gave her his fraternity pin) considers a barbarian is very different from what I, a born again Californian (those five years in Georgia were bad, y’all. They were bad) consider a barbarian. So what would halflings - those eternally optimistic, get-along guys - consider a barbarian? I want to look into that. I want to explore it further than the provisional backstory I’ve built. I want to know what happens when someone is good at studying (my intelligence stats are great), but wouldn’t know a street smart if it punched them in the face (whose wisdom modifier is -1? This guy!). And I want to beat the crap out of everybody who stands in my way while I do it. Is that too much to ask? No, no it is not, because that’s how barbarians roll.


Practically speaking, that halfling +2 to dexterity is a godsend where Unarmored Defense is concerned, and if you think this character isn’t entirely based on her ability to take everything life throws at her and keep on smiling (Constitution, motherfuckers! It’s a racial +1 and the stat into which I dumped everything) then the last 850ish words have been wasted on you. Go back and read them again. You’ll see it.

The biggest issue for me was alignment. Traditionally halflings are lawful good, but
I don’t think that makes sense for a barbarian
I think if my halfling were lawful good, she would have stayed home
I don’t want to play lawful good. Lawful good is the straight man, and I enjoy being him for 3 sessions max.


So, do I shift over to chaotic good? It’s the logical side step. She wants the world to be good, but she questions whether the halfling adherence to etiquette will get us there. In fact, she questions if anyone’s adherence to anything will get us there.


What about neutral good? I feel that the halfling authority system is basically benevolent - the only times she was harassed by the halfling police, she totally deserved it. It’s a logical alignment. But. If this character is Neutral Good, how does she get to barbarian? I can get her cleric with ease, and warlock at a stretch (ask me sometime about my thoughts on lawful evil halflings. They are the worst, and I won’t play one, but I could get a PhD on my theories surrounding them. They are the *best* Germans).


Chaotic Neutral? There’s a lot to recommend this one. Is the greatest good really found in shaking off the rules and doing what makes us happy? In the end, won’t doing good bring us the greatest pleasure and so we should measure our goodness by our happiness? If a halfling has moved far away enough from halfling society that they are considered a barbarian and are forced to go adventuring, might this not be their outlook? Beyond the shackles of order lies the purest joy. What bold adventurers will seek it with me?

In the end, I opted for chaotic good. It’s the only decision where I’m still not at peace, and the only one where I may end up writing an overly-long, overly-emotional note to the DM later in the campaign. It came down to this: I think this character still believes in the concept of “good” as a socially defined, knowable thing, and I think she is working to bring that about. She may question the “good” of any given society, but she thinks it’s a thing that can be discovered, known, and achieved. If that changes; if she decides that “good” is a personal thing, and we all have to find our own, then the DM is getting a letter, and Chantrix is easing on down the road to chaotic neutral. In which case, god help us all.


I’d like to believe that everything I’ve created for Chantrix will survive contact with the campaign, but we’re three sessions in and already I have questions. I think, in the long term, it’s going to be a combination of internal and external factors. What are other members of the party exploring better than I ever could? What are they saying that I want to react to? What are they saying that I want to react to as somebody else? And what aspect of a (my?) personality might I want to explore without ever bringing it into contact with reality? Because why else would you design a whole other person and play a game where you can’t control the story; only your reaction to it? I’m excited to see where this goes, and I think I’ve designed someone who can carry me though. And if she can’t, I’m pretty sure the DM will allow her to evolve. And really, isn’t that all any of us can ask in any world: real or imagined?

Session 3: I don't think you know what the term "Lawful Good" Means

Oh Hori, you beautiful barbarian.

The Plot

We picked up from the last session with everyone back at the The Blue Flask (the local tavern). We were two players short so I picked up Voola and Norbith (wearing a green scarf to "be" the former and with a tire pressure gauge as a pipe to be the latter).

Early discussion happened (thankfully) about the group staying together. They all acknowledged they have the same memory wipe and some careful questioning of the tavern owner let them know they all have the last memory of bit over a year before. They also got their hands on a map of the general world area they are in. Everyone recognized some part of the map - but no one had been to this town before (that the knew of).

In the end, they decided to follow the rumor about a halfling who had arrived in town the Chantrix the day before but has been missing ever since. So they will be heading West - toward Old Rock.

And the sorceress of Old Rock who is, ultimately, responsible for their memory loss so good on them for noticing that. But if they decide to fight her at the level they're at now she is going to banish them off the furthest reaches of the known world.

So that will be fun :)

Because we were short on people this session was more rumor gathering. Gigi met up with the mayor who had her armor. He claims she lost it in a wager but it doesn't fit him anyway so he told her she could have it back if she sang a song for his wife.

Chantrix got her battleaxe back from the stablemaster and there was some discussion on if his need for their stuff (to check on his brother) justified the taking of it.

A peddler showed up in the evening as well and he had the majority of the rest of their weapons. Claimed they were sold to him by townspeople. Hori doubted this muchly. She did quite a hit of intimidation before rolling a perception to see if he was telling the truth.

Nat20.

He was. He's an honest guy. Hori was still all for beating him up and just taking their stuff back. This led to a long discussion on if Hori was really lawful good. She does not seem to have a good grasp on what that is. She may chaotic at best - evil at worst.

In the end, the peddler agreed to a trade: they protected him and his wife on his trip to Old Rock in exchange for their weapons back. Since this was where they wanted to go anyway they agreed.

Gigi did do her performance for the Mayor who is desperaterly in love with his wife who 100% wears the pants in the family. Again, Hori's preferred tactic was to intimidate him instead. Voola refused to participate as she believed the mayor to be honest and the rest of the party were too set on violence.

They leave in the morning. Next session? We get our first fight.

DM Notes:
I finally managed to push them out of town. I said at the beginning they were welcome to stay in town as long as they wanted but if so I needed to know so I could build it out more. The goal for tonight's session was to pick a general direction so I could build out a cone from that path.

Playing the 2 PCs was difficult but not as bad as last session with multiple conversations. My biggest issue ended up being that every person who lived in Startead has the worst southern accent you've ever heard. I don't know why. I couldn't stop myself. It was so so bad. The mayor sounded like Foghorn Leghorn. I am not kidding.

We have not been happy with google hangouts as a video system. Not because of any technical issues but because there were some features we'd like like being able to talk one on one or to change the name tags to our characters names.

So we switched to roll20.



roll20 is a lot. It has a lot of features that we are not using. But it does have a pretty robust video system and as you can see, we can have a map and track player positions. I am not using it to it's total efficacy. I know this.  At some point I'm hoping we can really use all of the features. But right now - as video and player position tracking, it gets the job done.

One thing I had asked everyone to do was logon with me last week to do a technical test. Not everyone did. We ended up starting this session 45 minutes late due to tech difficulties. The worst ones, however, came from the only person who had done the tech test so I don't know. Definitely recommend doing a pre-session of just working with roll20 and creating accounts, changing names, etc that isn't a play session

Yes, I am God.