It'd been a good long while
since we'd played some dnd. Earlier this year we'd attempted to
restart but ultimately failed to have a schedule that we could all
meet. As a result our weekly dnd sessions fell into a hiatus, one
that we'd failed to resume. Finally, by mostly taking the rest of my
friends by surprise, I'd managed to get them to agree to a single
session campaign.
I'd actually had the whole
thing worked out for a while now, it was actually supposed to fall in
between The Sand and the Dead it Left in it's Wake and Bleaker'sGambit, but it turned out we didn't need to fill in the time. As a
result I re-worked it as a quick introduction for a group of first
time players, which also never came about. In the end it served as
something quick to get the group together again.
The premise was pretty
straightforward; The group were lost in an enchanted forest and come
across a Wizard's Tower. Said wizard agrees to help them out of the
forest if in return they recover his spell book from a feral elf girl
that had stolen it. Knowing what the group was usually like I said
that the forest was protected by a magical spell that would prevent
them from leaving and only by finding the book would the wizard undo
the spell. They would probably just have tortured the wizard into
showing them the way out otherwise.
The session played out a
little like an old episode of Knightmare. I'd brought along some
Rory's Story Cubes for some added random events. If you haven't seen
these then you should really check them out, they're great for some
ad-hoc campaigns. The group's first stop was the haunted ruins. The
ruins themselves were dotted with slabs on the floor, some of which
were booby trapped, some of which weren't. Entering a room resulted
in me rolling a story cube to decide what was within and, to be
honest, worked out extremely well.
For example in one room I
rolled a dice and it came up with a shield, thus I decided that they
would find a stone shield which may become useful later. Another room
I rolled some cogs, telling the group that the room contained the
mechanism for a portcullis. Putting two and two together the team
could deduce that the shield was part of a locking mechanism for the
ruin's exit and sure enough they figured this out when confronted
with a statue of a knight.
Another thing I introduced
for the use with the Story Cubes was the periodic appearance of
ghostly fire. Putting ones hand in the fire would result in the roll
of the dice, sometimes they'd get something useful, sometimes not so
much. It was a pretty good way of preventing myself and the team from
writing ourselves into a corner.
After an encounter with the
elf girl and failing to hit her with a throwing knife the group come
across an orc village. Earlier I'd told the team that they had
infinite coin as they wouldn't be encountering anyone to buy things
off. Thinking themselves clever, they used this to bribe their way
into the orc village. Fair enough, shortly after they encountered the
tribe's well spoken chief, who told them that they'd need to do
something for his people in return for info on where the wild elf
lives. Again they attempted to bribe with infinite coin, only to be
told that the coin was now worthless as the economy had just been
flooded with the stuff. Rule one: never try to outsmart the DM.
So instead the group had to
find another way to appease the orcs. Option one was to find out why
a nearby tribe had turned hostile. Option two was to fix a mechanical
well that had dried up. Option three was to steal an artifact from
another rival tribe. With Nazrin being an artificer, it made sense
that they'd pick option two.
It turned out that the well
wasn't actually a well, it was an ancient complex of stone outhouses.
Cue the group joking about how the orcs had been drinking out of
toilets and me repeating “It's fine! It's clean! They haven't been
used in thousands of years! You can practically drink out of them!”.
The area was scattered with clues and options to fix the mechanism,
but most of the group missed these. Fortunately there was another
brazier of 'ghostly fire' nearby, which they used to randomly obtain
some 'strange gel', which they could then use to fix the mechanism
and get the toilets working again.
They return to the village
only to find the chief being threatened by a mysterious Inquisitor,
also on the trail of the girl. The orc agreed to reveal her location,
and the humans left. Choosing to stick around, the chief told the
team that he gave the humans the long way round, and then tells the
team how to get to her quicker.
The group make their way to
a river, and notice the feral elf girl again. Kenzi fails to hit her
with another dagger and she runs away. This was a little important
since they were supposed to have tried to hurt or capture her by now,
with a successful hit being met with a random spell being cast to
counter it, showing that she was impervious to damage. Without
witnessing this, things would make a little less sense later on,
which you will see.
The group lasso a rope
across the river and climb over. Using my story cubes once again, I
determine that a sea monster lurches from the depths, prompting a
quick combat encounter. Finally across, and making their way
upstream, I roll the cubes again and they find themselves face to
face with a traveling minstrel who they promptly murder rather than
deal with his riddles.
Finally at the summit, they
find the elf girl's cave and climb their way up to confront her. The
group doesn't use their time particularly well here, with only Damon
managing to gain a little of her trust. Running out of time, the
Inquisitor and his cronies arrive and take her hostage. He explains
that she is a new kind of wild mage who can cast spells just by
touching the wording, making her very dangerous to be in possession
of the wizard's book.
The Inquisitor explains the
damage equals random spell conundrum, and states he has a special gun
that will kill her outright. The group has no problem with this no
matter how hard I try to pull their heart strings. The girl, mute
though she is, tries to convey that the Inquisitor does not know the
full picture.
They still decide to let
him pull the trigger, leading to catastrophic results. The girl
creates a black hole that consumes everyone, with only Damon passing
a strength check to hold onto something. At this point, had Damon not
managed to hold on, or gain a little of the girls trust, then it
would have been game over. Yes I am that uncompromising. Fortunately
Damon manages to plead with the girl, who casts a white hole that
farts Nazrin and Kenzi back into existence.
Finally realising the
extent of her powers, they manage to negotiate the spell book out of
her hands. They return to the wizard who gives them a reward and
undoes the spell to get them out of the forest. Thanks for playing.
What Worked:
This was one of the tightest
run sessions I'd ever done. None of the solutions seemed restrictive
or railroaded, nor too obvious or too obscure. Both I as the DM and
the players made the most of the humour derived from flooding the
orc's economy and the toilet complex. the Story Cubes were a fucking
godsend and added an extra dynamic to the game that made it feel that
little bit more fresh and that little more unpredictable. As with my
previous campaign, I made use of the Lords of Magic soundtrack, which
seems to have a piece of music for every environment.
What Didn't:
I'd say the only weak part
of the session was the climax. I hadn't done enough earlier on to
clue the group into the elf girl's power set or give them a reason to
want to dislike the Inquisitor. Once again I'd created a scenario
where I wanted the team to empathize and they failed to do so. Lesson
learned I guess, don't get too attached to characters if you're going
to give the players the opportunity to murder them.
Final Thoughts:
A quick fun session that
proves that you can keep a dnd campaign at only one session long and
still include everything you want to. Certainly likely that we'll be
using this format again for future games.
