D&D Recap: Sessions 1 - 3

So our D&D exploits have gotten rather popular and fans have really taken to the story and the players. Hell, someone actually made a TVTropes page for us (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpoonysCampaign) and as a Troper myself, that’s awesome. Now sadly with Spoony going to PAX this weekend there will be no D&D, and obviously there was no session this past weekend as Spoony was busy getting his newest review out before he had to leave. This means two weeks without D&D, and two weeks without a recap, so allow me to fill in the time with a look back at our campaign before we started streaming: Sessions 1, 2, & 3.

Let me start off this by saying our original group was Garrett (Skitch), Darstine (Sean), Viktor (Nik), Andraste (Paw), Jonn (LordKaT), and Sayid (me). Yes, Jonn and Sayid. Who were these two? Well Jonn was a human Barbarian and Sayid a Tiefling Warlock (Infernal for those who cared) and well… they didn’t last long. You’ll find out why shortly.

So our game began with our characters outside of the Kingdom of Sarmanath for one reason or another only to be in awe of the hundreds of refugees stationed around the city walls. Why they were there was a mystery, but one that was answered fairly quickly as our group was ushered in to see King Donovan. The King saw our team as brave adventurers and he wanted us to travel south from Sarmanath to find out the cause of whatever magic was forcing the people to his city. I recall vividly having someone barter with the King to give us extra gold for the sole purpose of buying supplies, and then nobody buying anything. Anyway, our group entered a tavern in town so we could acquaint ourselves with one another, and this was where our first big D&D joke started. Upon entering we were asked to roll Perception checks and we did. To my knowledge no one botched, and we all noticed that the restaurant was empty (I think Spoony said the DC was about 5). We asked what would have happened should we had missed, and he said we would have come in an immediately said “Oooh! Onion rings!” Thus the joke began that whenever our characters botched a roll it was because onion ring-related reasons. Onion rings can be rather banging.

Without any further delay our group set off to the south to stop this great magic and all become big goddamn heroes! Except it got late, and we were tired, and my feet hurt. So we put our brave quest on hold to go take a rest in a nearby abandoned farmhouse, but this moment was a rather terrifying one as well you know… abandoned farmhouse… middle of nowhere… evil magic in the air… things didn’t look good basically. You know people always cite Antwion the Halfling betraying the group to be the source of our paranoia, but I’ll have you know we were quite paranoid far before we were getting robbed by furry midgets thank you very much. So, we spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes investigating the home for any sign of foul lurking evil. You know monsters in the cupboards, boogiemen in the closet—that sort of thing. To our surprise we survived the night without being eaten alive, and we were awoken to a flavored description from Spoony.

I believe it went along the lines of an “orange light beaming through the windows” or something to that degree, and Jonn for some reason assumed that meant we were all being burned alive. When he asked Spoony if “are we on fire” Spoony responded with an instantaneous “no”. I’m not sure if Spoony had ever expected to hear something so stupid in his life, but this wouldn’t be the most baffling amount of stupidity he’d encounter in this campaign by far.

So we left the home uneasy, but rested. Not long after we came upon a caravan which had been torn apart and burned severely. Ever the curious explorers we had Darstine sneak ahead to see what the deal was. She was by the caravan when Jonn stormed up to her and assumed she had destroyed the cart. He immediately screamed “DARSTINE, WHAT DID YOU DO!?” and (surprise) a collection of fire beetles rose from the wreckage to attack. Not much was memorable about this battle besides the fact that Jonn and Darstine were nearly killed for well… you know… being idiots. I do recall Jonn laying a critical hit on one of the beetles with his battleaxe and Spoony’s resulting description pretty much amounting to the beetle exploding from the impact. Pretty badass if I do say so myself.

After the battle we continued on our way and I should note that the further south we traveled the more these farmlands began to fade away and turn into badlands until finally the ground itself turned to sand and we came upon a huge dip in the ground where it looked like a meteor collided with the dirt. In something out of Super Mario Brothers our verdant Forest Land totally just climate changed into Desert Land in a couple of miles. Just beneath the cliff we were standing on we could see a group of men with scorpion features forcing a group of slaves to cut down the few remaining trees in the area, and being the awesome heroes we are, we swooped in to help! Not much to say about this battle either other than we won, and if I recall the scorpion men tossed enormous tree trunks as javelins and I think Jonn took about four of them to the chest before the end of the battle. We took a rest here, and this is where Session 1 ended. Session 2 started the next morning where we now traveled towards an enormous pyramid that sat at the heart of this crater.

For abridging purposes I’ll skip over the uninteresting battles and just start again after we infiltrated (see: smashed into) the pyramid and we found our way into a side chamber. The room was covered in weapons and appeared to be a shrine of some sort (well we assumed that cause we sorta killed a priest who had just come out of that exact room) and a room adjacent to the weapon room looked to have quite a bit of history in it. It also had a series of monsters that all instantly came to life the moment we stepped in the room, and they possessed several powers used to unequip our weapons. Garrett lost his sword and become frustrated that he had no weapon to attack with… while standing in front of a room lined with weapons. The imagery alone is hilarious, but it was another one of those moments where Spoony had to wonder how stupid this group was. And yet still, not the stupidest thing this party has done. No, no that comes now when our group tried to head upwards in the pyramid and came upon a magic portal separating our party from a room filled with treasure. An obvious trap to be sure, but we debated about what to do. Should we jump through anyway? Should we investigate the rest of the pyramid? Should we try to disable the trap. To be honest we bickered about this for around ten minutes before Jonn just said “FUCK IT” and jumped through. He vanished and because in character and out of character I was friends with Jason I jumped in as well. The rest of the group (led by Andraste’s suggestion) said “eff it” and left us to die. No seriously, they left us to die. I know they didn’t want to die either, but seriously they left us to die and I’ll never forget it… Poor Sayid he had such an interesting backstory.

Well anyway, the remaining players went and found some ancient statue, a magic necklace (Viktor wears it still), and some history about the pyramid. A mural revealed (or at least implied) that the pyramid was actually a temple from way back during the Blood War which was a vicious war between the gods that resulted in many deities falling out of power or leaving existence entirely (this is major part of our campaign). The goddess of this temple apparently used some magic that launched her portal forward in time so she could rise to power after the war had ended, and the pyramid had chosen here and now to appear. So yeah, we’re dealing with a goddess. Fun, right?

Back to Jonn he appeared from his cross dimensional trip in a dark room reeking of death and the sounds of swinging chains swinging against the walls. Jonn decided he would investigate his surroundings by lighting a sunrod, and that set off the swarm of ghouls that instantly devoured him. Now this wasn’t a trap—this was an encounter. The problem is that Jonn (and later Sayid) is a Striker and not built to take out multiple targets at once. There were around six or seven minion ghouls, and two stronger ghouls and without anyway to do burst or area attacks we were done for. Jonn died and I appeared after the ghouls were feasting on his body. Spoony was actually being nice and giving me a chance to escape, but I figured I was done for, so I decided to go out epicly. I gave my best war shout and intimidated them! Only to find out ghouls really don’t care and they nom-ed Sayid dead. So yep, Jonn and Sayid were eaten by ghouls and that’s when Session 2 ended with Session 3 being the introduction of our new characters and Angry Joe. You guys know these characters (Juliet, Grae, and the original Lord Vane), and there’s not much to say about Session 3. The only things I recall was LordKaT not being able to play so I NPCed Grae, and he stunk. Never hit anything except the back of Darstine’s head and Andraste’s butt. Oh, and Joe could never decide on a name for Vane. In fact the name Vane wasn’t even his idea. He originally started as Jonah, but then I suggested Vane as Vane was the name of an infamous pirate. So Joe probably looked up Viking names and renamed his character Youst Kempfer, but no one could take the name seriously so he renamed himself Matrix, and then finally Lord Youst Matrix Vane Kempfer. He settled on Lord Vane.

Oh, and that all happened during the game. Midway through battle he’d change his name over and over. Pretty funny, at least to us. Again, there was almost nothing else to mention during this session. I got a nifty crown I still wear and we avenged Sayid and Jonn by killing the ghouls, but beyond that nothing happened. We returned in Session 4 which is where my recaps and the recordings already pick up. So that was our start guys. I’m really glad people dig this session so much. It’s awesome people are actually debating our characters with one another and creating tropes for our characters and exploits. It’s really far out to see you guys take such an interest in our game and it makes it all the more fulfilling for us. Thanks again guys, and I’ll return to my normal recaps when we (hopefully) return to playing next weekend! Until next time, Namaste!