The Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 13 - Of Rewards and Reminders

The prep...

How emerald is your enclave?

In the previous session, the duo of the Druid and Rogue (along with Inverna the cowgirl elf) dealt with traps and magic in the Shrine of Savras. This session, it was time for some town based encounters in Phandalin. It felt like I had been giving the Druid a lot to do with her backstory. Paellia was her contact and link to the Emerald Enclave, if she wants to pursue it. The dragon disrupting the natural order plays directly into her character. But for the Rogue we didn’t really have anything going on. 

It was time to change that. I decided to have a bounty hunter arrive in town looking for her. I planned on adding a bit of intrigue, as Haylia's goons will being spying on them. And if they don’t directly go to talk to Haylia (they’ve been avoiding her each time they return to town), then she will make a point of inviting them. 

I also determined that her thugs will learn about the Rogue’s bounty and figure they can take it themselves, so I will have them attempt to ambush the party, but only after they have gotten rid of Inverna. I added a new thug to the group, and rolled for some loot on them. I also rolled up stats for the Bounty Hunter. I based her off the Dark Elf princess from Record of Lodoss War, a fantasy anime series from 1990 which was based on an AD&D campaign diary. My Druid player will certain pick up on the reference, but it will make for a great new nemesis for the Rogue. I used the Elite Drow from the Monster Manual as a starting point and made some tweaks from there.

Other than that, I just have to prep all my townie voices. They will be interacting with Harbin for sure, and probably Barthen. That means a new item for the treasure barrel. I’ll also see if I can work in one more NPC I’ve been wanting to bring into the game, Pickled Pete. So with all that lined up I figured I was ready for the session in Phandalin.

The story...

Obvious halfling spy is obvious.

I started the party just arrriving in the little town early in the morning. They decided to head over to Barthen’s first, to see what was in the treasure barrel of course. As they moved toward the shop, I asked what their passive perception was, and rolled behind the screen… a 3. So the spy, one of Haylia's goons was watching them, very poorly. He is super obvious as he catches sight of them and then hurries away. The Rogue tries to intercept him, but he rolls well on stealth and she loses sight of him. They glimpse the caught was of a short statured figured in a cloak. They didn’t recognize him at all.

At Barthan’s they chat a bit with the shop keeper (me doing my best John Candy, imitation) and he talks a bit about the upcoming feast day, and how excited he is. He also talk a bit about the Loggers Camp provisions, which tie to an upcoming adventure. The pair reaches into the treasure barrel and finds the warm dagger scabbard again (still their from the first session). They also find a petrified mouse. Yeah that is right from the Trinkets Table in the Player’s Handbook. Like everything else in the treasure barrel, this mouse has a one time use magical effect. If held like a gun he will shoot a fireball out of his mouth. If thrown, he will transform into a Giant Rat that will fight with the party. Yeah it’s silly, but this game hasn’t been all that serious. And the petrified mouse is actually pretty damn hilarious because it is an unintentional call back to the old Star Wars game that both players played with me back in the 90s. Seriously, one of them played a little kid character who had a petrified rat as a pet, and she would pretend to shoot stormtroopers with it.

The ultimate treasure barrel!

Anyway, the players were grossed out by the mouse, but finally pulled out the dagger sheath. I said it had some runes inscribed on it in a glowing red writing neither recognized. The Druid rolled a very high History check and I told her that she suspected that it might be Primordial, but she couldn’t be sure without further research at the library in Neverwinter. They paid for the sheath (1 gold piece) and the Rogue kept it. They decided to visit the Coster and see if Lillian had a dagger that might fit. 

They chatted a bit with Lillian and she mentioned the feast day as well, and how the whole town was excited about it. Unfortunately she didn’t have a dagger that fit perfectly, but the Rogue bought one that was a close fit. But they were still nervous about putting a dagger into the sheath. How did I traumatize them so much already? 

They headed over to Harbin to get paid (and be very annoyed by his antics). The Druid tried to be funny and pretend to be a cat scratching at the door. She forgot that Harbin had a cat as well (I had him talking to “Mr. Whiskers” in a previous interaction). So the cat came to the door and purred and scratched back. The players were delighted and had some fun with that for a bit. Eventually Harbin arrived. Read the letter from Big Al, and then slid the 100 gold pieces under the door, a piece at a time. The cat helping sometimes. 

Harbin also mentioned the festival as well as the arrival of a dwarven scholar celebrity. Fargrim Rakenkrak - No I didn’t make that up. I rolled it up from the Dwarven Names table at the back of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. And I love it. And so did the players. Harbin mentioned that Haylia had arranged it. The players didn’t catch this (or if they did, they didn’t mention it). But they had mentioned seeking out a scholar in a previous session. Haylia has been spying on them.

Based on Piccolo Pete, or
based upon Pile-on Pete
of MST3K fame?

The players discussed what adventure they wanted to try next. Because they wanted to be around for the Feast Day in five days, they decided to take the shortest quest - the trip to Gnomengarde.  There they needed to talk with the local gnomes and see if any of their inventions or magic could help with the dragon. It was the closest and they figured it would be the easiest to complete. They headed to the Inn to pay Inverna her share of the fee. At the Inn the met Pickled Pete, another hireable NPC. I used my grizzled old prospector voice and played up his love of drink. I had fun bantering with the players and having him chat with the Innkeeper Tobin (but man switching from Grizzled prospector to Irish accent was tough). I also dropped that Pete can speak the orcish language, something that may come in handy if the ladies want to have more dealings with the cultists of Talos. 

Tobin showed off his new glowing mugs, of gnomish design. He knew a little bit about the gnomes, and told the players about the difference between Rock gnomes and Forest gnomes. He also told them that the gnomes in the area were bit isolated and eccentric (but nearly everyone in this adventure has been eccentric, so that isn’t saying much). After the players bid farewell to Inverna (she was going to gather some strong hands to head back to Butterskull Ranch to help out Al). The duo decided that they wanted to bring Donnabella the magical unicorn with them to Gnomengarde. Tobin said she was helping with preparations for the feast day in the main square.

The Rogue was not going to play gently
with the spy.

So the players went there to seek her out… and saw the spy again (seriously he was rolling so badly. Worst SPY EVER). This time the Rogue got the jump on him and chased the man down. Up close she was able to see that he was a halfling. He tried to bluff his way out of it, but the Rogue wasn’t having any of that. She use Thaumaturgy to make her eyes glow with an infernal light (being a Tiefling she is already pretty scary), and she rolled great on an Intimdation check with advantage). He revealed that Haylia wanted to know when they got back and wanted to know what they were doing in town. He said that a messenger came from Neverwinter, and that message made Haylia realize that she needed to talk to the Rogue as soon as possible. The message of course is the Bounty Hunter, but the halfling didn’t say that. The Rogue literally kicked his butt and told him to go away or she would gut him next time. The Rogue then returned to the Druid and updated her on the meeting. 

At this point I thought they would go to Haylia and find out what was going on… but no! They are determined to avoid her! Now I don’t want to force them to do anything they don’t want to do. But I’m trying to work an element of the Rogue’s backstory into this. I’m going to have them meet with Haylia one more time. If they really seem resistant to her offers, then I’ll just drop the whole plot line. I mean, the Bounty Hunter might still come after them, but I’ll wait to see how they react to that.

"And he's not slimy at all."

So instead of going to see Haylia they find Donnabella and ask her to come with them to Gnomengarde. I played her like a bit of a fan girl, she looks up to these two fearsome adventuring ladies, and now they want her to come along. And to visit magical gnomes! It was like the cool kids inviting you to sit at their table during lunch! That is like the greatest day ever for her. The players really like Donnabella and seemed really pleased to have her coming along with them. She also offers a nice contrast to the no-nonsense Inverna too. 

After that, they did some more shopping. Chatted a bit more with Tobin about the feast day (and Pickled Pete about adventuring). Then they headed up to the room - again, no visit to Haylia. But I had one last trick up my sleeve. As they got ready to turn in, a winged serpent arrived at the window. I had it open its mouth wide and Haylia’s voice come out (that uncanny moment disturbed the players). She wondered why they were so rude as to ignore her invitation. She has very important information for them, and will still be at the Exchange for an hour. If they don’t come, “then I can’t guarantee your safety.” We ended with the ominous phrase from the snake’s mouth, and then it turned and flew out into the night.

The post...

Oh come now darlings, I'm not all that
sinister, am I?

So it was a fun role playing heavy session. Lots of information thrown into the mix here. I’m building up the feast day, so I need to come up with some fun stuff to make it worth the build up. I have a few ideas I’m bouncing around. 

I think that the players are really enjoying all the personalities in the village. As much as they groan and roll their eyes when dealing with Harbin, I can tell they do get a kick out of his antics (and his stuffy British naval officer voice). But they have really taken to Tobin, Donnabella and even Barthen. The fact that they are avoiding Haylia like the plague tells me that I made her just slippery and sinister enough - maybe too much. 

And while the session did feel a bit fluffy, it was also a nice break from some of the intense stuff they were dealing with at Butterskull and the Shrine. Originally I was going to have Haylia’s thugs attempt to capture the Rogue, but the players had Inverna with them for so long, it thwarted them. I might have them give it a try after the meeting with Haylia, but we’ll see how that goes. 

So next session is one more meeting with Haylia, maybe a fight with the thugs, and then off to Gnomengarde. I’ve been looking forward (and dreading) that adventure. It has some murder mystery elements to it, and I’m not sure how they players will handle it. The Druid player is a HUGE fan of true crime, so she might be up for that, but we’ll see.

Up next

Session 14: Scum and Villainy

Who Are You? Part 6 - Niobe Morkoth

One of the players from Hubris and Ascension invited me to play in his home-brew campaign. He described his world of the Fifth Sorcerer and the premise intrigued me. He was hoping it would a long running game, with our characters making it up to 20th level. Ambitious indeed! How could I say no? But the question became, what kind of character should I play this time.

Well part of me never felt all that satisfied with the way Milo turned, so I figured it was time to try a roguish character again. But in so many ways Klio would be the opposite of Milo. Where he was short, mild mannered and didn't like to draw attention to himself, Klio was tall, spoiled and loved all the attention on her constantly. Yeah, this was going to be quite a switch.

My pal Kat drew this lovely bust of Klio with her
ridiculous hat. "The hat says it all, darling."

• Niobe Morkoth (aka Klio Illuvia) - High Elf Rogue/Swashbuckler - The Fifth Sorcerer (Home-brew)
• It was time for another long term epic campaign. I really love playing rogue characters (I usually create stealth ranged attackers in roleplaying video games), so I wanted to try a rogue character who could potentially get to high levels. Milo was a thief/spy focus, but for this character I wanted to try the swashbuckler subclass.
• The DM and I talked about a potential backstory for the character, and based on that discussion, I felt it would be interesting for the character to be High Elf. Klio doesn't really get all that many benefits because of that (High Elves are more suited for magic focused classes). But it makes for an interesting racial element that has come into play a few times.
• This is the first time I've played an actual evil character. Klio is a noble born selfish woman. She is essentially the femme fatale of the group, and her dark secrets threaten the whole party time and time again.
• The hardest thing was figuring out how an evil character could and would work with a party of mostly good people. I worked with the DM to come up with a story, and added that Klio will have an arc. If the other party members try to help her, she may become less and less selfish - and perhaps a little less evil. 
• While building Klio's backstory I thought it would be fun if all of her family and the elves in the area would use ancient Greek names. It was fun - until we had to pronounce them. Ugh!
• Morkoth is a corruption for the Tolkien elvish word for Darkness. It is also a hideous monster in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Only one of these was intentional.
• Backstory - I essentially took the noble story from Milo's backstory and turned the noble sisters into the main characters. The Morkoth family has fallen out of favor in the grand game of the elven political world. The family turned to dealing with devils to regain the power. Niobe and her sister Kallisto were raised in this environment of diabolical dealings and backstabbing. Niobe was the older and saw first hand the evils around her. She rebelled in her own way, becoming the black sheep of the family. Kallisto was treated much differently, because her parents had other plans. A ritual was performed and Kallisto was somehow linked to a devil lord, but Niobe managed to resist (with some infernal help). Kallisto's sweet and caring personality was changed into a malicious and spiteful one. A series of unfortunate events lead to Niobe killing her lover based on Kallisto's schemes. Niobe fled County Morkoth in search of a way to kill her sister once and for all. A "curse" keeps the sisters from directly hurting each other. Niobe changed her name to Klio and joined the party. She is using them to help her find a way to remove the "curse" and finally take her revenge. (just a little bit complicated, but that's just Klio).
• Typical Klio- Arrogant, spoiled and snarky: Klio is a blast to play. She flirts with just about everyone. Loves to drink wine and is a connoisseur. She has no problem lying or weaving stories. She loves her ridiculous hat, and uses it to distract from her other actions (such as cheating at cards, or preparing a dagger for stabbing). Over the course of the game she refers to everyone in the party as "darling", is obsessed with seeing the stronger characters do push-ups for her and has managed to get two party members to fall head over heels in love with her.
• Favorite Moment - I have to pick one? Is that possible? Well one moment does stand out, and once again my rogue just can't roll right when it comes to something she should be insanely good at. During the exploration of a ruined town Klio and her cleric buddy found a wine cellar. Since Klio LOVES wine of all kinds she was very excited. I said that Klio dances over to the wine rack. The DM took this literally (as well he should) and had me roll a performance check. Klio has a wicked high performance skill - and she rolled a natural 1. So the DM said she tripped and crashed into the wine rack, the whole thing fell over and shattered, covering her in wine. She was only able save a single bottle, and it wasn't even that good of a vintage. As she was lamenting her ruined clothing, the cleric decided to "help" with a spell called "create water". Three gallons of freezing water fell onto Klio drenching her further, but hey, now she was clean. The cleric couldn't stop laughing. When the two ladies got back to the group, Klio looked like a half drowned cat holding a bottle of shitty wine. Klio was not amused, but everyone else was. Klio did get her revenge on the cleric - the woman is now hopelessly in love with her.

Klio isn't all pretty hats and wine. When it comes to
adventuring, she is ready to go. "Oh how cute.
They think they going to get out of this alive."
SpaceFriend drew this image of Klio plotting
an ambush.

But yeah, she is mostly about hats, and wine.
"Oh have you come to join me darling. How nice,
and with a lovely Merlot. Well, the evening just got
better." Kat strikes back with another sketch
of Klio.

Who Are You? Part 5 - Gev Luka

As much fun as it was bing a traitorous scum (aka Vulmar Arnulf) for a short campaign of Dungeons and Dragons, I don't want to make a habit of it. So for the next home-brew game by that same DM I wanted to play someone a bit different. I had learned a bit about spell casting mechanics with my cleric character. But I wanted to give something a bit more involved a try. I ended up creating a druid.

But I had my eye on Circle of the Coast variant of druid. This adventure was going to be set in the island nations off the same continent that Hubris and Ascension took place. There would be pirates and other nautical dangers to avoid. So I figured a druid with spells and abilities focused on the water, wind and ice would be helpful. I've been keeping as close to the theme as I could, and had a lot of fun with this character.

What most folks think of when it comes to D&D druids.
Elves wandering with nature magic in forest... not Gev.

• Gev Luka - Human Druid/Circle of the Coast - The Right Thing (Home-brew)
• Decided to finally play a human, because why the heck not. The DM was allowing us to select Feats (special abilities beyond the typical abilities related to classes). So I went with the variant human with allows me to start with a feat.
• Decided to play my first full spell casting class - druid. I was going to focus on spells over the animal transformation (although Gev can do that, he uses them more for utility instead of combat).
• Turned out another player was going to also be a druid. (He rolls stats first and lets those decide what kind of character to play. He rolled the perfect fit for a Druid). We chatted and decided to play brothers in the campaign. I would focus on spells, he would focus on beast transformation and interaction. Since the player is from the south, I gave Gev an accent (cheesy Texan accent, I work with a lot of Texans and can mimic it pretty well). 
• Backstory - It was a bit of fun to coordinate backstories with another player. Gev is the younger of the two brothers. The older brother left home after a big fight with the parents. Gev stuck around for a bit, but eventually left home. He wanted to find his brother, but also just wanted to see the world. Gev became a sailor and had several adventures. After getting washed overboard in a storm, he met a sea elf, fell in love with her and was brought to the Circle of the Stone Eye. This druid circle developed Gev's affinity for the sea and its powers. He became a member of the circle. He was sent back to the islands to identify a dangerous imbalance involving "the shadowless".
• Typical Gev - Gev is also a very cheerful fellow. His positive outlook is reflected in his "winning smile" a big cheesy grin that he flashes to anyone watching. Gev is a talkative guy as well. He runs his mouth constantly and tries to keep everyone smiling and laughing. He can be a bit much at times, especially compared to his more morose brother. Gev's "winning smile" is going to become a drinking game.
• Favorite Moment - Gev has been a blast to play. His interactions with his brother and the mysterious rogue Sikia have all been really entertaining. But one of my favorite moments was the great escape. The two brothers were captured by a village full of orcs. The two managed to survive, with Gev quick talking to the Orc leader, and pitching the brothers as healers. Things went as well as they could. In the end the orcs decided to threaten to hang the brothers as a show of force. As the two were dropped with the nooses on their necks, they both transformed into animals (Gev transformed into a brown tabby cat) and escaped to their companions. The explosive battle that followed made the whole sequence one of the most exciting of the campaign yet.

It was impossible to find a good image of a coastal druid.
So I made one using Hero Forge miniatures. Gev is ready
for adventure and stories... did he ever tell you how he
lost his hair? Well it's quite a story. You see...

Who Are You? Part 4 - Vulmar Arnulf

Time again for another exploration into one of my characters from the Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. Last time we looked at the dwarven cleric with a mango obsession: Olgar Bristlebeard. This character was a bit special in a lot of ways. He was a home-brew race. He was a class I had never tried before in all my time playing RPGs. And he was a traitor... yep me and the DM were going there with the plot.

Vulmar was not quite this bird like. But I like
the image anyway. He kinda wishes he was this
cool looking.

• Vulmar Arnulf - Mendrari Ranger/Gloomstalker - The Assassin and Dayo Gorge (Home-brew)
• This was the first campaign for the podcast The Iron Archive. Our DM gave us an outline of this storyline, and that helped me decide what kind of character to make.
• I picked the home-brew race - Mendrari. These are bird-like beings with the ability for limited gliding and skills at climbing. They have down-like feathers around their head instead of hair. 
• I picked ranger because we were hunting down an assassin. Gloomstalker is a great sub-class for rangers, and the abilities to deliver a deadly first strike are impressive. Neat combo of fighting and spell casting.
• I pitched my voice a bit lower for Vulmar. He was part of an Imperial military unit, so I had him always refer to the captain as "sir" or "captain".
• Backstory - Vulmar was a skilled ranger who was prized for ability to hunt down targets. he was also a gambler. Because of his gambling habit he ended up in with a large debit. He hid this fact from his wife and child, but a criminal underworld was now pressuring him to pay up or his family would suffer. He was approached by the rebellion to act as a spy in exchange for them paying off his debts. He accepted, and his family was spared. Vulmar attempted to stay away from gambling afterward. However the rebellion asked him to stop the capture/killing of their best assassin. Now Vulmar has to become a traitor to the empire.
• Typical Vulmar - A man of few words. The less I spoke, the less I would give away as the hidden traitor in the group. Vulmar was quiet, but nearly unable to not say "captain" to his commanding officer, even when they were supposed to undercover. So I had lots of moments where Vulmar would say "I understand cap... boss."
• Favorite Moment - Well being the traitor, yeah that was the most memorable moment. It was a combination of fun and horrifying. Because immediately killing my companions to save the assassin was so counter to what you do in D&D. It was a memorable moment for sure, but in the end Vulmar and the assassin won! No one (not even the DM) expected that. So it was a mixture of exciting and horrifying.

I mean if you are going to betray, might as well do it in the
sleaziest city in the  Forgotten Realms.