D&D Session 36 (2/23/22): Wherein We Go Full Orc

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master  

Hard to believe we are into the second year of our D&D Trope Tour and have yet to battle orcs!

Perhaps the orcs were given pause by the newly muscled-up march order of our heroes -- seven mounted Blue Mountain Brothers in chain with swords and shield, plus Cummings and his little wagon train. A small army.

The orcs would have done well to avoid this one. They charged right toward the campsite in the dead of night. There was a desultory attempt to lay an ambush, but Droom (a Blue Mountain Brother, and kin of the late Thrombosis, clear from the way he couldn't stop throwing up) wrecked that for everyone.

Blah and the orc chief exchanged insults, which is basically the pregame show.

 And then it was on! And then it was off! Didn't take much to dispatch the orcs, frankly, though there were some good moments -- Sommpher turning into a killing machine, Arthur wrestling with wolves, Khostov blasting his pipes and levitating away from danger trailing fog clouds of confusion, and Blah beating the chief in single(ish) combat while convincing his wolf to desert.

But in the morning, the party woke up surrounded by seemingly the entire Tiger tribe of the Reghed Barbarians, so maybe the orcs were just the warmup act ...?

D&D Session 35 (2/16/22): Sing-Along

Music and Lyrics by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master  

You know Farrah and Jenny and Dee Dah and Arthur

Thrombosis and Khostov and Oolan and Sommpher

But do you recall

The most famous Half Orc of all?

Blah-ah the Antlered Half-Orc

Had a very silver tongue

And if you ever heard it

You would even say it sung

All of the other delvers

Used to laugh and call him names

They never let poor Blah-ah

Join in any delver games

Then one foggy dungeon Eve

Dice rolls came to say

"Blah-ah, with your speech so bright

Won't you guide the deer tonight?"

Then how the reindeer loved him

As they shouted out with glee

"Blah-ah the Antlered Half-Orc

You'll go down in his - tor - ree!"

D&D: Blah and Dee Dah and the Blue Mountains

 

D&D Session 34 (2/2/22): Lore Dump

 

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master  

Once upon a time, there was a mountain, a perpetually snow-capped peak near Hundlestone. The dwarves called it Noggak, and Uuthil was its Drow name. Humans, unimaginatively, just called it Blue. Blue Mountain.

For ages, Noggak was worked by dwarves for gold. Humans followed, and there was a glorious age of cooperation and trade. Together, humans and dwarves built the Castle of Blue Hills.

Then a fresh discovery of Ice Opals led to greed, mistrust, and an underground war.

The mine played out and the war sputtered to an end. The Castle of Blue Hills was abandoned. Drow tunneled up into the chambers of the exhausted dwarves, and enslaved them.

Unnamed among the enslaved dwarves was a sorcerer, his name lost to time. To please his masters, he built a mighty magical forge, and created wonderous armors and weapons.

But his experimentations went too far. His dwarven workers were transformed into a gibbering mass, and the sorcerer himself degraded into a dribbling Nothic. The sorcerer’s Spectator foreman was left alone to finish armor for the Drow.

Decades passed, maybe centuries.

Then came the Frost Giant, King Gut. Exiled by his own people, he moved into the ruined Castle of Blue Hills with his slaves and followers, and brokered a peace with the dragon Codoroth the Longtail, staving off the dragon with regular sacrifice.

Through simple good luck, Gut discovered a fresh field of Ice Opals, and set his slaves to mining them.

The wealth of the opals fired Gut’s thirst for vengeance against the world that exiled him, and he began to raise an army of orcs and ogres, while his Frost Daughters lured men to his slave pens.

Then the Frost Daughters lured the wrong guys.

 

In short order, Gut was decapitated by his own legendary vorpal blade, the slaves were freed, and an avalanche buried Gut’s dreams along with the Castle of Blue Hills.

And in the roots of the mountain, our adventurers found the ruins of the old dwarven tunnels, and found the magical forge where armor had long since failed to flow to distant Drow masters.

They discovered the foul remnants of the once-proud operation — the Mouther, the degraded sorcerer, the desperate Spectator.

In a way, they finished the order … and wisely bugged out before the Drow, who had long since forgotten all about the place, were alerted to investigate.

Escaping the dungeon, up a winding stair, at last our heroes came to a watch tower high atop Blue Mountain. Dazzling white light reflected from the snow field beyond slitted windows.

The Spectator flew into the blue sky — free, finally free!  Enter Codoroth the Longtail, who swallowed the poor Spectator …

Thus ends the sage of Blue Mountain. Sic Transit Gloria.