My last campaign* (Not Crunch)

[Xeviat]

Hey everyone! In July, I'm going to be leaving my home in California to move to Seattle. My wife got a job doing tech support for Nintendo, so we're moving! Yes, that means I'll be applying to everything I'm qualified for at Wizards.

But this does mean that I'm going to be leaving my gaming group. After trying to get a game going for quite some time, we finally started, just before we decided to move. We only have 6 weeks to play (today's week 2). We're playing D&D 5E, and because we have a totally new player we are playing at first level.

I wanted to start with a simple dungeon crawl. Using the random dungeon guides in the DMG (which is a very good book, even for other editions), I rolled up a stronghold built by a lich. Obviously, not going with that for first level, but it was the only random roll that spoke to me. So, the first dungeon I sent my players through was a stronghold originally built by a lich to house its phylactery, but that is now inhabited by kobolds. You see, long ago (like everything always is), the lich faded and became a demi lich (this happens now if the lich doesn't feed souls to their phylactery often enough). The demi lich was destroyed by heroes of old, and the lich's stronghold faded from memory. Its magical protections faded. Its constructs lost their magic. Lastly, a landside in the mountains buried it's entrance.

That was until an earthquake rocked the region several weeks earlier. The earthquake uncovered the stronghold's entrance. It also collapsed a few caves that kobolds had been using in the mountains. Enterprising opportunists they are, the kobolds found the stronghold and began using it as their home. They brought their pet alligator with them. As they fortified the stronghold, they stumbled upon the last remaining guardian, an animated armor construct and its flying sword. Rather than lose everyone to the beast, they simply boarded up that hallway and ignored it.

So, the PCs joined together to take care of the kobolds, who had been raiding caravans on the shortcut route through the forest.

The PCs consist of:

Archibald; human warlock, CN: An artisan illuminater (someone who draws those pretty pictures in old books), he was given a strange tome to draw. Even though he didn't understand the language, cleaning up the art work revealed strange things to him. One of those things was the futility of life, because the great old ones were going to reclaim the universe upon its inevitable death anyway. He's a rather cheery fellow, considering his fatalistic view of things. He also can't shut up about the voices in his head, and is endlessly curious about using the abilities his forbidden knowledge have given him.

Grrraaarrr (goes by Veronica); half-elf druid, CN: Raised by a mother tiger in the wild, Veronica is a rather solitary fellow who cares deeply about her "fellow" tigers. When she left home, she stayed with an Orc Druid who taught her the Old Faith. Her independence wore out, and she left out on her own, traveling to humanoid towns to learn about her human and elven heritage. She quickly decided she didn't care for civilization, and went back out to the wilds. There, she ran into Moose and set about keeping the forest safe from evil humanoids.

Bethrina; half-elf paladin, LN: A child of privilege and nobility, Betty is a paladin of Helm. She strives to destroy evil because it is evil, not because she's good. Growing up rich, she is both overly generous with her money and blind to the plights of common people. The church put out a bounty on the kobolds, so she went out to take care of it. She had recently hired Archibald to restore a book of hers, and he mysteriously asked to tag along on her adventure.

Moose; halfling ranger, N: A self appointed hunter of evil humanoids, Moose is a no-nonsense archer who wants to rid the world of the likes of kobolds and goblins. His methods and willingness make him very much not good. He's on the adventure simply for the bounty, and the chance to hunt his foe.

My players ended up springing their naming convention on me; I shook my head. Also, I'm very unused to such a morally gray party; the moral compass is a LN paladin.

So, as the players cleared out the kobold stronghold, they found a golden skull atop an altar. It's the lich's phylactery, and the warlock has picked it up as it's a macabre thing he likes. Now, as we start the second session, it's going to be whispering to him and calling out to the forces of chaos.

[Xeviat]

For session 2, the players are level 2. They're are beginning in their little hub town, Riverdale (yes, continuing the convention). Archibald has the skull, and dark forces are coming for it. This session is going to be more sandboxy than the last, as the last was a rather linear dungeon. So I have prepped four encounters, on the hard side, to toss out as the players are going about their business, whatever that business may be. Maybe they'll try to figure out what the skull is. Maybe they'll seek to find out what the stronghold was. Maybe they'll just buy some new gear with all the gems they found in the dungeon.

The first encounter will be 3 insect swarms (locust). I do love me some locust swarms. They're such an in your face omen of incoming doom. There might be a big swarm, and the players will just be a part of the defense team, or maybe they'll come directly for them (since I can't count on the players to actively seek out heroic things to do).

The second encounter will be a bunch of zombies. Zombies are cool in this edition; they get to make con saves when they reach 0 to see if they're still standing. You have to hit them hard to take them down. Also, the dead rising is pretty bad, especially when most of the gods don't like the undead (undead are more related to demons and Orcus in my interpretation of the setting). I'm not sure if I'll have to pin them in a building, or attack them in the open.

The third encounter will be the main event. A gibbering mouther. Slow. Horrifying. It's so wrong that it warps matter around it, turning the ground into sticky goo. It's gibbering, driving people nearby crazy. I've leveled it up to be a real threat at this level, but it shouldn't be deadly.

The last encounter I will spring on the characters when they set down to rest. A quasit has been tasked with retrieving the skull. It seems a cult has sensed its appearance and wants it for some ritual

I can't wait to see how this session goes. It's going to be largely driven by the players. I don't know what they're going to want to do.

[Xeviat]

So, what do you think? I can't make things too grand, as the characters are low level. We're going to gain a level each week, which means we'll end up at level 6, when everyone will get fun new toys (level 5 and 6 are big power boosts for most of the classes).

I've already found what I want to be the final fight; I'm going to reskin a hydra as a tentacle monstrosity that's trying to enter this world. Will Archibald the warlock seek to stop it?

Level 6 also puts them in the range where I can use mindflayers. Fun.

I'm also planning on having the cult abduct the players, and force them into being heroes in their escape, rather than counting on them to do the heroic thing.

What do you think? Any tips for making this last mini campaign a memorable one?

[Steerpike]

It's kinda cool to see some non-crunch from you!

I'm also planning on having the cult abduct the players, and force them into being heroes in their escape, rather than counting on them to do the heroic thing.

I'd advise caution here. I've done this kind of plotline before in my own games and it's pretty dicey, and hard to pull off without railroading. Players really hate losing their stuff, and while the "no gear level" and escaping can be fun, especially for certain sorts of players, I've seen other players get pretty annoyed with it. The biggest sticking point is usually that the PCs can feel that they didn't have any chance to avoid capture, which is very frustrating. It's one thing to feel like capture was an organic consequence of bad decisions - one possibility amongst many - and quite another if it feels like the result of a GM's whim.

A lot of this hinges on how the abduction actually happens. Knock-out poison? Spells? Ambush?

I've actually used it best during campaign openers, but even these are tricky at times.

[Steerpike]

The first encounter will be 3 insect swarms (locust). I do love me some locust swarms. They're such an in your face omen of incoming doom. There might be a big swarm, and the players will just be a part of the defense team, or maybe they'll come directly for them (since I can't count on the players to actively seek out heroic things to do).

I adore swarms. Players loathe them but they're terrific opponents.

I don't know how swarms work in 5E, but generally when I use them in Pathfinder I often leave some of the following around in various dungeon rooms for players to find:

- torches
- pitch/tar/oil
- rope
- alchemist's fire

This stuff can be hidden and/or protected by other baddies, of course.

[sparkletwist]

I agree with Steerpike that it's cool to see some non-crunch from you, and also agree with his worry about an abduction/escape seeming kind of railroady. I'd say that even if you set it up to make it seem like it was a consequence of their own failure, it'd be hard to not make it seem like you were setting them up to fail, which is still sort of railroady. Honestly, my suggestion would be to just talk to them about it and arrange it-- that's more meta than some DMs like, but I think that it's always better to suck it up and "metagame" a little and talk things out with players than try to keep the game "pure" and end up doing something the players hate.

[Steerpike]

A middle ground between arranging the kidnapping with prior permission and just springing it on them could be to ask them if they're OK with that kind of thing more abstractly. I.e. instead of saying "OK, so I think it'd be cool if this cult kidnapped you, what'd you guys think?" you could ask "How do you feel about the possibility of things like your characters being kidnapped?" You could even be more abstract than that and ask if they'd be OK with light railroading for dramatic purposes or something.

[Xeviat]

After running two games with the new player, and more numerous games with the other players, I think they'll be okay with it either way. I may just have them wake up after a rest and suddenly be in chains. I'd rather do it in game and organically, though, especially because it would give one or two of the players a chance to escape to come back for their friends. They've all played video games, and cut scenes are perfectly fine with them.

I just don't want to have the cult get a hold of the skull and then have the character's first response be: "welp, not our problem anymore". The paladin wouldn't do that; it's the type of revenge she'd be all for. I know the other players would play along and find reasons (our session 0 included me saying, especially to the new player, that I'd like them to play along with things and come up with reasons why their character would do things, not why they wouldn't do things).

I'm really glad to actually be running games again. I'm going to miss my group, but there's a good gaming scene up in Seattle so I hope to find new players soon (and maybe get to play instead of DM!).

[Xeviat]

Oh, and the swarms worked out well. The druid, having just recently gotten her wildshape, went out for a few days in the forest to frolic, mark trees, and generally get to experience being a tiger for real for once. The ranger hung around and went fishing, as he didn't have anything else to do. The warlock set to work on the paladin's book, and the paladin went to her church to do the things she does in her down time. In the forest, the druid found the swarms headed for the town. She ran, tripped a little, and was bit some. When she got to town, she ran straight towards the church, as the paladin is really her only real friend in the group right now. That took her down the main street.

I made it clear that there were a lot of swarms. The other knights from the church went out to deal with them too, so the pc paladin was the one who came to where the other players were. Lots of running and screaming when a plague descends on town. The druid found it very odd that they were heading straight for somewhere, and only stopped to attack when they were engaged.

Rules wise, swarms now simply have half damage to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. I ignored that resistance for area attacks too, as the ranger used a spell for splintering arrows and I didn't want to pee in his cereal. The paladin used a smite (radiant damage), the warlock had a poison spray cantrip (bug spray!), and the druid dropped out of cat form to use some thunderwaves (burning 2 of her 3 spell slots; she hasn't learned to conserve, and suddenly regretted not having the produce flame cantrip).

One of the swarms made it to the door of the inn and crawled under the door. The warlock ran up to his room and closed it there, and found that the skull was buzzing. When he picked it up, he was entranced by it, but was able to break his attention away to deal the killing blow on the swarm as it made it into his room.

So the players figured out something was up.

Later, they took the skull to the church to see if the priest had any thoughts on it. Aside from the basics (yeah, it seems to be magical since you can't scratch the gold, and I don't know what it is), they were directed to take it to a city four days travel away to seal it in a stronghold. Then the skull turned cold and zombies rose from the church graveyard, something that shouldn't happen since it was consecrated.

I absolutely love the defensive mechanic on the zombies. They have AC 8 and a ton of HP for such a low level challenge, but they get to make Con saves (DC 5+damage dealt) when brought to 0 hp to see if they rise to 1; they're just hard to bring down. But I overestimated their offense; they simply couldn't hurt the players. Next time, I'll give them some grabs like they had in 4E and pair them up with some offensive skeleton archers to mix up the encounter.

So, the session ran long, and we didn't make it to the third and fourth encounter. The priest wanted them to leave now, so he loaned them horses and sent them away. They were tired so they stopped to rest at the inn. After a fitful hour's rest, I ended the session with "You've tossed and turned for an hour, but right as you start to drift off into deep sleep, you wake to the sound of grotesque squelching sounds and countless mad mutterings".

We're planning a long session for this week, something like noon to midnight if we can manage it. I hope the gibbering mouther fight goes well, as it's going to be the first time I've thrown something at them higher level then them. Depending on whether they head out on the road immediately, or try to get back to sleep, I'm going to wake them again with the quasit and company. I want them to feel unsafe and taxed of their resources; only the warlock and ranger still have spells left (mostly because the warlock regenerates them per short rest).

But now I need to plan another adventuring day. I think I'll introduce the cult as they make their way towards the stronghold.

[Steerpike]

Glad the swarms worked out well!

Rules wise, swarms now simply have half damage to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

This is a good middle-ground between regular damage and the immunity to weapons most swarms have in 3.5/Pathfinder. The zombie mechanic is actually really neat!

Sounds like the prisoner thing won't be a problem with your group. It's just bit me in the ass before  :P

[Xeviat]

No game this week. I was having stomach pains all week and I finally went to the doctor on Thursday. Appendicitis! They carted me to the emergency room and cut the bugger out. I've been in too much pain to plot.

[Xeviat]

So, session rescheduled for Tuesday evening. It won't get to be a long session like I wanted on Sunday, but what can you do. Appendixes do what appendixes do.

After finishing up the gibbering mouther encounter, which I'm really excited about as it will be the hardest individual monster I've thrown them up against so far, they'll be making their way to the Helm Stronghold. I'm going to make them work for it.

My planned encounters are two mini gauntlets. The first will be a pack of wolves. It's being structured as 2 easy fights and 1 hard fight, and makes up a third of the recommended daily XP, so it will be tough but not impossible. The first two waves will be four wolves each, along with a skill challenge esque chase between the horses and wolves. The third wave will be five wolves and a dire wolf, and I'll be having the wolves using grapple with their bite instead of just trip to hold people down so the dire wolf can attack indiscriminantly. They'll be focusing heavily on who ever is holding the skull, who is also the one who gets the early warnings when the skull is making a call for dark forces.

I'm hoping the druid tries to speak with the wolves. I need dark creepy things for them to say. Thoughts?

The second gauntlet will be two encounters. First, as the group is finishing up resting from the wolf encounter, I'll use the quasit/demon encounter I planned for last session. At level 3, this will be a medium encounter, but the point will be trying to get the skull away from them. What happens if I succeed? I'm sure Betty the Paladin will very much want to get it back. I can probably have Archie's pact master make a demand as well.

The second wave will be the cultists. I can afford 1 cult fanatic (a warlock) and 4 cultists (light armored warriors). But do I want to have them try to take them captive now? Should I be letting the players get to the stronghold? This is the middle of the campaign, so a turning point is in order.

Thoughts on pacing? Press my advantage and capture some of them? Let them go and then bring the big attack there?

I also thought it might be fun to use something silly like flumphs and modrons. Modrons could be sent to capture the skull and hide it away on Mechanus; they serve the greater order, and letting out a horror from beyond would not be good for that. But what happens if the players simply hand it over? Have the modrons still attack?

Flumphs could be fun to use for the players to get some information. I haven't been feeding them any info. They've been flying blind. Flumphs would give me a chance to tell them about the Gray King, a lich who abandoned immortal undeath to go to the far realm. His cult wishes to follow in his footsteps, to join him beyond.

How will they perform that ritual? What unspeakable act will be required to tear the universe asunder?

[Steerpike]

I'm hoping the druid tries to speak with the wolves. I need dark creepy things for them to say. Thoughts?

I've done creepy wolves a few times, they're always awesome. Example 1, example 2.

I can afford 1 cult fanatic (a warlock) and 4 cultists (light armored warriors).

This could be a matter of differing style or maybe it's some 5E thing I am unfamiliar with but this logic is just so weird to me. Afford? Is this an encounter calculator thing? I've never cared like even a little about things like recommended daily XP or whatnot.

Thoughts on pacing?

Again maybe this is just a different way of doing things or a matter of taste, but your outline seems almost a little too ordered. Are there non-combat solutions theoretically possible for any of the encounters? Could player actions and choices radically change the shape of the adventure? Pacing is usually somewhat organic... PCs making choices about when and where to stop, where to go next, whether to flee or sneak or fight...

I do really like the significance of the skull - granting special awareness to its holder, etc.

Modrons are awesome, IMO (like so much better than Flumphs), but need to be played in such a way that they're really alien and robotic. I don't see why a fight with them needs to be inevitable. Maybe the players do give the Modrons the skull, but then have to help them get it back to Mechanus, get attacked by the cultits and their minions, etc.

[Xeviat]

Yeah, "afford" is in reference to the encounter calculators. I've always liked to design "fair" encounters, even when that fairness is a "difficult" encounter. I've had my share of TPKs, and it's something I like to avoid without handwaving in the middle of things.

As for the orderdness of my outline, it's mostly for if the players do exactly what I think they're going to do. Things don't, and didn't, end up exactly as planned.

The players woke up to the sound of the gibbering mouther trying to break into one of the inn rooms. The ranger and warlock were bunked together, and they went out the window just as the mouther melted their door. The paladin and druid jumped out to help, but when they saw the others go out the window they ran downstairs too. The group fully assumed that the mouther was going to be coming after them and them alone, so they booked it, rode out to the farthest farm on the road, and convinced the farmer to let them stay there for the night.

As they were packing their horses in the morning, the mouther attacked the farmers inside their home. The husband died and was absorbed, so the players ran in and fought it off. It was an interesting fight, with the ranger and paladin getting stuck in melee while the druid and warlock blasted it from afar. It's blinding spittle never recharged, but it still took quite some time and the paladin and ranger nearly fell.

The group then gave the wife a large amount of money and offered to escort them to the city they were headed to, thinking it would offer them better opportunities than the nearby town. They also didn't want to leave them alone, feeling bad for bringing death upon them. So they rode off, and managed to avoid trouble the rest of the day. Ding, level 3.

The next day, they were dealing with some inter party conflict (the druid and ranger were partially out of the loop, not knowing that the skull was doing the calling of all the monsters), when a quasit showed up invisibly and tried to sneak off with the skull. The warlock noticed the skull had moved, and when he went for it, it flew into the air. He snatched it, and was able to wrestle it from the quasit. So the quasit appeared and cast a fear spell on him and then other demons appeared. The group rallied around the family and defended them while taking out the demons.

The skull hadn't called for them, but they hadn't yet fully picked up on the implications of that. But after the demons, the skull started to growl. The warlock noticed that the actions of the skull always directly related to what evil it was calling; buzzing for the swarm, coldness for the zombies, horror for the mouther, and now growling. At the same time, the druid and ranger felt like they were being watched, and the druid noticed wolves circling their position in the distance. So they got on their horses and tried to casually ride off so as not to scare the family.

Then I started playing the Wildebeest Stampeed music! We did a running fight. Since the horses were faster than the wolves, the wolves had to dive in, attack, fall back, then advance before attacking again. But wolves drag targets prone with their bites, so it was a tense series of "easy" encounters where the wolves were trying different strategies (first, they went 1 wolf to 1 horse and tried to bring them down. Then they focused on the flanks). Rather than using the direwolf that I had prepped for the 3rd wave, I switched it to 4 worgs so I could have some dialogue; the druid was waiting to see the alpha to cast speak with animals).

The worgs did manage to pull two people down, so a third dismounted and the paladin stopped to fight. The family rode off without them, finally not falling for the warlocks persuasiveness; it was clear now that trouble was following the party, not that "well, bad things happen to good people". The group prevailed against the worgs, but had to hunker down and rest since they were pretty hurt.

Down to one horse, they had to stagger their travel. For two hours, the druid would wildshape into a horse and they'd advance, then they stopped to rest to regain wildshape; it was faster than just walking. During one rest, they heard horsemen coming and they hid in time to hear the lead rider say "The diviner said they'd be around here; fan out and find them." Using Pass without Trace, the group snuck away and raced off, putting distance between them. The ranger was able to help them travel through the trees without losing speed.

Eventually, the horsemen caught up with them, so they laid an ambush, sneaking up and attempting to pick them off one at a time. The druid failed to get a clean kill, so the remaining foes were alerted. They captured the leader and learned some information finally.

The group comes from the Gray Watchers, a cult who used to serve a lich two thousand years ago, but were now dedicated to trying to follow the lich into the beyond. The lich was the Gray King, who the paladin recognized as a lich in legends who was destroyed by valiant heroes. In reality, the lich opened a portal to Far Realm and left, his philactery left behind in his stronghold to rot. But now that the philactery is free from the protection of the stronghold, it is calling out, hoping to call a beast from the beyond so that it can be carried back to its master (or at least to the same plane of existence). The cult has become a nylist cult, like a cult out of Lovecraftian horror, praying for the day everything becomes nothing.

The group also learned a pass phrase: "There is naught in life, but nothing in death".

So, the group wasn't caught by the cult. They want to have the phylactery destroyed. We're coming upon our 4th of 5 sessions, so it needs to keep building.

As for planning for non-combat solutions, they did run and gave me a good opportunity to prey upon their new emotional connections (something I don't normally do). I'm definitely going for action in this campaign, and the characters are largely built for combat. If we had more time, I'd build for more complex solutions, but as we are incredibly pressed for times, I'm shooting for excitement.

Where do you think things should go now? They have a clear path to the citadel. It can't be that simple. Maybe the priests will say they don't know how to destroy it. Maybe they will, but they'll have to take it to have it done. Why would the heroes remain involved, with their task done and presumably more capable people to take over? I do like the modrons, as they'd prove to be very different than previous beings they've encountered. If they hand it over to the modrons, then it could easily be taken from the modrons ... but then how would the players learn and would they even go to help?