dragonhand777's Campaign

Sunday was my first D&D session as DM. After all these years, lol. My only worry was that I wasn't prepared enough. As it turned out, I had the encounters, the story's climax, npcs, etc. planned out and prepared alright. But I wasn't as organized as I would have liked to have been. But I had fun, and one of the players (our previous DM) emailed and said I did great.

Well, I just thought I'd share a bit of it with you...

The campaign setting is a world known as Atara-Eska 'en Coia, in the eastern region of the continent of Numen. Our adventure begins in the United Kingdoms, a nation made up of three citiy-states, a few small human settlements, and the sylvan elf kingdom Leitha-Taure.

Our tale's heros thus far: Honovi (male human, barbarian/spirit shaman), Camille (female elf, wizard/rogue), and Tra'el (male nu 'i anar*, fighter/rogue).

*mori'quessir nu 'i anar=drow under the sun. In my campaign world there is a race of drow who have been on the surface for many generations, they still have the ebony skin anh white hair, but have lost many of the other drow traits

It is the first day of the fifth moon, the Growing Moon, 5000 years After the fall of the Valorian Empire.

Three young adventurers, looking for work decide to visit the fabled City of Goodwaters. A city with a reputation of great wealth and commerce, the City of Goodwaters promises to be full of rich merchants and nobels needing the expertise which our young heros could provide. Honovi, Tra'el, and Camille begin examining the post boards out in front of some of the taverns and gear shops, there is one post inpaticular that sticks out to them, it reads "THEIF CATCHERS WANTED, See Captin Sollus Dunkirk of the city guard for details. Reward for capture of brigands." After finding Captain Dunkirk, the trio are given an appointment for the following morning with the elected Emporer of the U.K., Sir Doddin the Gnome. Emporer Doddin explains that the rumors of some brigands trying to start a theives guild have been confirmed. Rather than send the city guards into the sewers to track the theives down, the city's mayor Luecar Tenel has decided to "contract" the work out. If the adventurers are successfull, Emporer Doddin gaurantees that he will provide them with more work in the service of the United Kingdoms. Tra'el, Camille, and Honovi are given a map to the location where the suspects have been seen entering and exiting an older part of the sewer system along with the names of two of the suspected brigands and vague descriptions of their appearance.

Later that afternoon, Honovi, Camille, and Tra'el find the theives in the sewer, barricaded behind a contraption made to resemble a beast that Camille identified as a dragon. After some time spent in an effort to defeat and get past the barricade, the trio cornered two humans and three kobolds who were no match for the adventurers face to face. One brigand soon met his death as did one of his kobold allies (the others were captured and later turned over to the city guard). A side from some worn leather armor, a few weapons and gold peices, the party discovered a black silk standard in the center of which there was a depiction of a green clawed hand. Emporer Doddin rewarded the heros with some gold and a house located near Market Square, and after giving them nearly two weeks to get 'settled in' he called on them once again.

This time the mission... quest... thing... was to travel to the villiage of Turnupsii in Shaun, a region to the south dominated by halfling farmers, and retreive some old maps and documents from Joey Turnupsii the 3rd. Recently, times for the halflings have become dire. They are predominately tobacco and grape farmers, but recently the increased raids from their evil "lost kin" further south, and goblin raids from the west are taking their toll. The halflings have asked to have their territory be accepted into the United Kingdoms. The High Council and Emporer Doddin agreed, but it will take time to train and prepare a force to send to Shaun to help secure it. The adventurers will be sent some time before, to aquire the papers from Mr. Turnupsii, scout out the area and return.

So it is, on the 15 day of Growing Moon that the trio aboard a galley that will take them across the sea. The journey takes six days, and Honovi decided to spend this time training the mule (another gift from Emporer Doddin). After being set a shore in a small fishing villiage, the heros waste no time in settin out for their destination. This part of the journey is the roughest. By foot it takes them 21 days to traverse 500 miles. Luck was on their side. Along the way they encounter a dire badger, and a couple of orcs but the trip is otherwise uneventful.

Within a day's walk of Turnupsii, Camille discovers a trail leading away from the main high way. After examining the area Honovi discovers some humanoid foot prints and wolf tracks and determines they are fairly recent. The group takes a few moments to ponder the possibility they may find a druid (who could help them learn more about the region) and decide to head down the path. Approximately three hours later, Tra'el comes to the conclusion that they may be werewolf tracks and the party is not equiped to handle such a beast. The group stops to take note of their surroundings, in the distance through the trees they spot some sort of wood structure, such as a house or a barn. They quickly decide to return to the highway and continue on to Turnupsii.

As they near the small villiage, the notice smoke rising above the tree line. Thick, black columns of smoke. Once they enter the villiage they see several halflings walking around in a haze of fear and confusion covered in ashes. One halfling, standing near the center of the villiage seems more coherant than the rest. When Tra'el begins to speak to the halfling, the halfling asks if they were sent by the U.K., Tra'el answers yes and the halfling grabs his hand and begins to pull as if trying lead him some where. Tra'el quickly pulls his hand back askes the halfling if he is Joey, their contact and demands an explanation. Joey quickly aswers yes and explains that the thugs who torched the villiage were still in town. A few moments later the heros spot the villians, two humans and an elf, and start to set an ambush, but Camille gets spotted. Honovi still attempts his ambush, which works, but his opponent is heavily armored and the battle proves to be a tough one. Tra'el scrambles to the top of a mound (a halflings home) and begins fiirring arrow after arrow. Camille takes a couple hits from a scimitar and drops to the ground. Honovi's rage is not helping him, he too soon will drop. Meanwhile, Tra'el takes the leader down. The thug that dropped Camille joins in with his heavily armored companion and gangs up on Honovi. The villian with the full plate goes down. Honovi goes down. Tra'el drops the other baddy with his archery prowess. After some first aid and healing potions the group decides to check the bodys of the thugs. Suddenly as Tra'el approaches the one he had determined to be the leader, the body springs to life and thrusts forward with dagger. But the move was exicuted to soon, a fatal mistake for the villianous elf.

After a night of rest, and being given the best hospitality Joey and the other halflings could provide, the heros examine some of the items they had confiscated from the bodies of the thugs. One of the more interesting items was a finely crafted longsword with runes engraved into the blade. Camille identified the runes as an ancient dialect of draconic, but can't decipher them. The same green clawed hand from the standard appears on a map that was carried by the elf, no one recognizes the region on the map. The trio decides to show the map to Joey and he points out that it seems to be only a partial map but he can't identify the region either. Later in the day the heros set out on their return trip. Four days into it, they encounter a dire boar, that leaves Honovi and Camille dead, Tra'el and the mule survive and return with the bodies to Turnupsii. Much to Tra'el's suprise the halflings claim to know of a cleric in a neighboring villiage that may be able to resurect the dead heros. A day and a half later, Lyle Thorngage Cleric of Forseti arrives and performs true resurrection on Camille and Honovi. After listening to pleas from the halflings of Turnupsii, Lyle declares there will be no charge for his services this time. Then makes his hastey departure. The trio of adventurers spend another night with the halflings and set out early the next morning. The trip back to the small fishing villiage was fairly uneventful, Camille took out a giant fire beetle while Honovi slept and Tra'el meditated and in another encounter Honovi had a rough time restling with time an assassin vine. But before they knew it they were boarding the galley for home.

After the debreifing with Emporer Doddin: Honovi learns that a small group have come from his villiage to trade at the market and are camping just outside the city, so he joins them and discovers one happens to be his tribes spirit shaman. Tra'el devotes his time to digging through ancient texts and old documents in the library, trying to translate the draconic runes. Camille spends sometime in the library researching some spells and offering some help to Tra'el, but she also spends some time strolling through the city and learns of rumors that the populace is divided between those who support the nations expansion in the north and south and others who fear that it will start a war and the nation's resources will be spread out far.

I won't go into the whole story of this weeks adventure, but had to share this funny moment.

The players encounter a very hungry manticore. After exchanging a few vollies, the beast decides to grab the elf female Camille and try to make off with as big a chunk of her as possible, except after landing right in front of her he misses with his claw attack. Honovi, the raging greataxe weilding barbarian, charges the creature. [The manticore was at 4 hp, Honovi deals 17 points of damage (he has 18 str.)]

So this is how I played it up... "Your swing of the axe nearly slices the creature in half. The contents of it's stomach pour out onto the ground." Players make search checks. "Ok, in the remains, you notice a small vile, and what appears to be a human hand clutching a wand." A spellcraft check reveals the vile to be filled with "Dust of Dryness." After removing the disembodied hand and cleaning the wand up a bit, a further inspection revealed the wand was labled "Charm Animal."

This got a pretty good laugh out of the players.

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