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.

HPE D&D Session #1: In Search of Kobold Fire Wine

 

My studio, Hidden Path Entertainment, is now running D&D sessions once a month.  We had our first one tonight.

Our adventure began at Brickshaven University in a small town outside of Waterdeep.  A Tortle professor needed Kobald Fire wine for his fish recipe to "taste right".  So off our party went into the underdark.

Left to right: Humanknight searching for his name; Auric an Earth Gensai; Iris the Elf ranger; and Orenock a Tielfling wizard

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The party came upon two Kobold workers who didn't appear to be friendly, so Auric cast a sleep spell, and Orenock hit one with a charm spell.  Buddies for an hour.  He tagged along with us until he was no longer useful.  Anyone speak Kobold?

Outsmarting an Ogre guard when there's nowhere to go in the Underdark.  

Hiding behind their wagon of explosive kobold vat discharge, Orenock uses thaumaturgy to recreate a goblin noise behind the ogre guard, while simultaneously **Humanknight fires a bolt in the same direction.  Noise... distraction... success!  The ogre grumbly goes to investigate, leaving the path open... for the moment.  Auric and the Ranger keep out of sight.

** It was actually Iris the Ranger who fire from her longbow.  Apologies Ranger!

Starting a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign at work!

 Hidden Path Entertainment is starting up a new campaign with first level characters tomorrow.  Gonna try a Tiefling Wizard by the name of Ornock this time.  Kind of scary only having 8 hit points!

That's going to leave a mark.

My D&D character, Blah the Barbarian, took some acid in the face when poking at a black pudding in our last adventure.

D&D Session 33 (1/12/22): Don't Touch It!

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master  

It's not like Arthur had been up that ladder before and noticed something dangerous there. Actually ... he did. But it had been months! And the lads were confident in their unconfident perception rolls!

Next thing you know, Blah is hanging half off a ladder, chopping a Black Pudding into smaller Black Puddings, all of which are angry and hitting him in the face and spraying acid all over the place. 

Don't Touch It!

Fortunately, Arthur brought the fire, and Sommpher was on his game, and Khostov was locked and loaded with the Magic Missiles, so the monsters were dispatched without too much ado.

Back up the ladder and into some kind of store room. Oh, hey, a treasure chest! Arthur whispers in Blah's ear to open it up, but ...

... Don't Touch It!

That's right, a Mimic. Now Blah has one hand half pulled down the throat of the thing and is swinging wildly with his sword. And Arthur sees a swarm of Carrion Crawlers on the ceiling! Might have gone sideways if not for Khostov's Pipes Of Instantly Wrecking Any Encounter.

The room contained stacks of iron ingots and barrels of coal, which made sense when the room beyond revealed a kind of iron foundry. The foundry was cloaked in the dust of time but shiny Elven armor (Drow?) looked like it had been made yesterday. Sommpher couldn't resist touching the shiny shiny armor that certainly wouldn't come to life, but ...

... Don't Touch It! 

ALL the armor came to life, red light pouring from vision slits ... and a tentacled eyeball joined the party. Here we go!

D&D Session 32 (1/5/22): Who Rules Bartertown?

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master  

A delight of a session where the heroes used their brains, powers, and assets to solve problems that had no pre-set solution.

Can't figure where that Vorpal Sword wound up? "Locate Object." Need to dive a thousand feet into a pool to get it? "Potion of Water Breathing." Want to pass unseen? "Cloak of Elvenkind." (Sorry, the Aboleth is psychic, but it was the thought that counted). (Literally). Want to check in with someone hundreds of feet away and under the water? "Sending." Awesome.

With such ingenuity, Blah recovered his sword and (just barely) eluded the Return of the Aboleth -- and the whole group wisely fled the dark pool chamber.

Equal ingenuity in transporting poor Arthur, who is consumed by a disease that practically demands he remained submerged in water -- filling a Bag of Holding with water did just the trick, and hanging that bag on Blah's back conjured images of Master Blaster. Who rules Bartertown?

Even an undead attack as the party retraced their steps avoided a bad ending with Sompher's quick Cleric-y ways -- Shadows and Vampiric Mist put paid to with a strong rebuke powered by the glory of the Silver Flame!

And now the crew is kind of back where they started -- still deep in a dungeon, still snowed in by the collapse of the castle above, now carting around a diseased halfling, but also bulging with treasure and optimistic that ladder they passed a couple sessions back will lead them out of this hole and not to ... the Drow.