(no subject)
As I have mentioned, I recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons with some co-workers and their significant others. Since I naturally took some photos, I figured I might as well write up our adventures. Feel under no obligation to read them since, like dreams, I know there can be nothing so boring as someone else telling you about their fantasy game. But my mom can look at the pictures and my group can use this for reference, so I don't think it's a wasted effort. If nothing else, this way we can look back and go "Oh yeah, we did totally miss that plot hook ten sessions ago. Oops."
Dramatis Personae
Sylvie (me!): Human Beastmaster Ranger/Wizard Hybrid
Sanjha (co-worker Judy): Human Cleric
Kail (co-worker David): Human Broad-Axe Fighter
Andraste (Deena, David's significant other): Eladrin Warlord
Tobias/Toby for short: Osprey
The DM (Mike, Judy's husband): Human Dice Master
Gabe (Deena's son as himself): Human Goofy Troublemaker
Fenris (Deena's cat as himself): Feline Lazy Troublemaker
Missy (David's cat as herself): Feline Manic Troublemaker
And so we begin! Mike started out by having us all list why we were in town (to get stuff was a popular reason) and then informed us that a parade was being held for the King and we all just happened to be somewhere along the parade route.
Clock-wise from the left: Deena, David, Mike, Judy's feet.
Also, we had some snacks.
The King was on a float at the head of the parade along with the Princess. Suddenly, there was a great flash of light! The King was stabbed with a sword and the Princess was abducted by a cloaked man. The guards quickly formed ranks around the float.
Being jammed in against a bunch of people on the parade sidelines, I wasn't able to do anything myself, but I quickly sent Toby after the princess.
I should at this point note several things. One, David and Deena didn't have minis yet, so they're represented here by what I think are space marines. Judy bought one from the store (apparently most people do that, unlike my family) but hadn't painted it yet. I made one out of fimo, but made it to family scale and not everybody-else scale so I was rather giant in comparison.
Even though I've known her for years now, I had no idea Judy was a talented artist. She's been responsible for drawing all of the monsters we've encountered so far (occupational hazard of being married to the DM), and she's done a really good job. Note the guard furthest on the left. He's a bit distracted, and we've had fun using him for various purposes throughout the game so far.
As we were all standing around deciding what to do, another shock: time was frozen - for everybody except us! A glowing orb of light appeared in front of the guards, and we all cautiously made our way over to it - discovering in the process that not only was everyone frozen, but we could also walk right through them!
Sanjha was the first, I think, to get close enough to the orb to learn anything about it (I think she saw images of her homeland). As we all crept closer, some ghostly images appeared on the other end of the street.
Mike hadn't made any figures for anyone we weren't likely to fight, so I used my dice as stand-ins. (There's a d20 marking the place of the orb.) Since then, I've had a lot of fun building and acting out our various non-combat actions with dice, paper, and whatever else is handy.
We tried to speak to them - that's Andraste heading in their direction in the picture - but all we got was sort of an approving nod and then they vanished. While the rest of us had no idea what was going on, Sanjha was able to at least see that the ghostly figure appeared to be Pelor, the god she worships.
We fussed around some more with the orb, and at some point it occurred to us that the King was still frozen-dead up on the float.
Nope, nothing on my character sheet about frozen time. That's not all my hair, by the way - both of the cats like to walk on the top of the sofa/futon, and Fenris doesn't mind doubling as a kitty pillow.
We started to head up to the float - I forget which one of us it was, but it was probably me - and the second whoever it was tried to walk through a guard, BAM! Time was unfrozen, and the guards weren't very happy for some reason.
The orb vanished, and suddenly a bunch of kobolds showed up.
Oh dear. Mercenary Kail decided he wasn't fighting if he wasn't getting paid, so he sat out the fight off to the side. Sanjha and I kind of panicked over which side to take. We tried talking to the Kobalds, but unfortunately neither of us took Draconic and the kobolds didn't speak Common. Andraste, meanwhile, decided it was kobold-slaughtering time, and dispatched a good number of them all by herself. Everyone else was suitably impressed, and she was suitably disgusted with all of us.
Since I didn't want to injure anyone I might need to get a quest from later, I decided to run over to the float and see if the King was really dead and such. Unfortunately, this meant running past a guard and getting felled by an opportunity attack. Sanjha came over to staunch my wounds as Andraste continued murdering Kobalds left and right.
Yeah, I got no idea what's going on in this picture.
Eventually, all the kobolds were dead and the guards demanded that we hand over our weapons and be escorted off to the jail, seeing as we were kind of suspicious and all that. Amazingly, they did not believe our protests that we were framed.
In jail, we were all thrown into a cell on the end. We could see some other prisoners in the other cells (not actually guards and a kobold; just placeholders), and through the cell window I was thrilled to see my faithful bird Toby appear with the news (conveyed via impressionistic images, we decided) that the princess had been taken to a ship in the harbor and the ship had since left. Oh no!
We talked to a guard who came in with an important official, and told him we were framed. They were grateful that we (Andraste, anyway) helped kill all the kobolds, so we were to talk to the magistrate the next morning to straighten everything out. I asked for a pillow (go diplomacy skill!) and we all bedded down for the night, since no one liked my "turn myself into a toad so as to escape through the bars and have Toby carry me to freedom somewhere outside" plan. (I have a toad transformation spell. I love it.)
In the middle of the night, however, we all suddenly awoke to find the door to our cell unlocked and our weapons in the middle of the floor. We ventured outside and - were attacked by skeletons made from the bones of the prisoners from earlier!
Apparently Mike makes this face a lot.
No one had any compunctions about wiping the floor with the skeletons, and we dispatched them without too much trouble, in part thanks to Sanjha's awesome powers against the undead.
As we left the jail, we found all of the guards unconscious and a note telling us to head for Bottleby's Inn. Not seeing any other convenient plot hooks lying around, we decided that would indeed be a good place to go. I put my pillow under the head of the closest one and left a note on the guard's desk explaining things weren't our fault, but I'm not sure the gesture was appreciated.
And that's where we left off on our first session! Comparing it with sessions since then, I hadn't realized just how much plot and character Mike worked into that one. We've done a lot more fighting and stuff since then.
Dramatis Personae
Sylvie (me!): Human Beastmaster Ranger/Wizard Hybrid
Sanjha (co-worker Judy): Human Cleric
Kail (co-worker David): Human Broad-Axe Fighter
Andraste (Deena, David's significant other): Eladrin Warlord
Tobias/Toby for short: Osprey
The DM (Mike, Judy's husband): Human Dice Master
Gabe (Deena's son as himself): Human Goofy Troublemaker
Fenris (Deena's cat as himself): Feline Lazy Troublemaker
Missy (David's cat as herself): Feline Manic Troublemaker
And so we begin! Mike started out by having us all list why we were in town (to get stuff was a popular reason) and then informed us that a parade was being held for the King and we all just happened to be somewhere along the parade route.
Clock-wise from the left: Deena, David, Mike, Judy's feet.
Also, we had some snacks.
The King was on a float at the head of the parade along with the Princess. Suddenly, there was a great flash of light! The King was stabbed with a sword and the Princess was abducted by a cloaked man. The guards quickly formed ranks around the float.
Being jammed in against a bunch of people on the parade sidelines, I wasn't able to do anything myself, but I quickly sent Toby after the princess.
I should at this point note several things. One, David and Deena didn't have minis yet, so they're represented here by what I think are space marines. Judy bought one from the store (apparently most people do that, unlike my family) but hadn't painted it yet. I made one out of fimo, but made it to family scale and not everybody-else scale so I was rather giant in comparison.
Even though I've known her for years now, I had no idea Judy was a talented artist. She's been responsible for drawing all of the monsters we've encountered so far (occupational hazard of being married to the DM), and she's done a really good job. Note the guard furthest on the left. He's a bit distracted, and we've had fun using him for various purposes throughout the game so far.
As we were all standing around deciding what to do, another shock: time was frozen - for everybody except us! A glowing orb of light appeared in front of the guards, and we all cautiously made our way over to it - discovering in the process that not only was everyone frozen, but we could also walk right through them!
Sanjha was the first, I think, to get close enough to the orb to learn anything about it (I think she saw images of her homeland). As we all crept closer, some ghostly images appeared on the other end of the street.
Mike hadn't made any figures for anyone we weren't likely to fight, so I used my dice as stand-ins. (There's a d20 marking the place of the orb.) Since then, I've had a lot of fun building and acting out our various non-combat actions with dice, paper, and whatever else is handy.
We tried to speak to them - that's Andraste heading in their direction in the picture - but all we got was sort of an approving nod and then they vanished. While the rest of us had no idea what was going on, Sanjha was able to at least see that the ghostly figure appeared to be Pelor, the god she worships.
We fussed around some more with the orb, and at some point it occurred to us that the King was still frozen-dead up on the float.
Nope, nothing on my character sheet about frozen time. That's not all my hair, by the way - both of the cats like to walk on the top of the sofa/futon, and Fenris doesn't mind doubling as a kitty pillow.
We started to head up to the float - I forget which one of us it was, but it was probably me - and the second whoever it was tried to walk through a guard, BAM! Time was unfrozen, and the guards weren't very happy for some reason.
The orb vanished, and suddenly a bunch of kobolds showed up.
Oh dear. Mercenary Kail decided he wasn't fighting if he wasn't getting paid, so he sat out the fight off to the side. Sanjha and I kind of panicked over which side to take. We tried talking to the Kobalds, but unfortunately neither of us took Draconic and the kobolds didn't speak Common. Andraste, meanwhile, decided it was kobold-slaughtering time, and dispatched a good number of them all by herself. Everyone else was suitably impressed, and she was suitably disgusted with all of us.
Since I didn't want to injure anyone I might need to get a quest from later, I decided to run over to the float and see if the King was really dead and such. Unfortunately, this meant running past a guard and getting felled by an opportunity attack. Sanjha came over to staunch my wounds as Andraste continued murdering Kobalds left and right.
Yeah, I got no idea what's going on in this picture.
Eventually, all the kobolds were dead and the guards demanded that we hand over our weapons and be escorted off to the jail, seeing as we were kind of suspicious and all that. Amazingly, they did not believe our protests that we were framed.
In jail, we were all thrown into a cell on the end. We could see some other prisoners in the other cells (not actually guards and a kobold; just placeholders), and through the cell window I was thrilled to see my faithful bird Toby appear with the news (conveyed via impressionistic images, we decided) that the princess had been taken to a ship in the harbor and the ship had since left. Oh no!
We talked to a guard who came in with an important official, and told him we were framed. They were grateful that we (Andraste, anyway) helped kill all the kobolds, so we were to talk to the magistrate the next morning to straighten everything out. I asked for a pillow (go diplomacy skill!) and we all bedded down for the night, since no one liked my "turn myself into a toad so as to escape through the bars and have Toby carry me to freedom somewhere outside" plan. (I have a toad transformation spell. I love it.)
In the middle of the night, however, we all suddenly awoke to find the door to our cell unlocked and our weapons in the middle of the floor. We ventured outside and - were attacked by skeletons made from the bones of the prisoners from earlier!
Apparently Mike makes this face a lot.
No one had any compunctions about wiping the floor with the skeletons, and we dispatched them without too much trouble, in part thanks to Sanjha's awesome powers against the undead.
As we left the jail, we found all of the guards unconscious and a note telling us to head for Bottleby's Inn. Not seeing any other convenient plot hooks lying around, we decided that would indeed be a good place to go. I put my pillow under the head of the closest one and left a note on the guard's desk explaining things weren't our fault, but I'm not sure the gesture was appreciated.
And that's where we left off on our first session! Comparing it with sessions since then, I hadn't realized just how much plot and character Mike worked into that one. We've done a lot more fighting and stuff since then.