<![CDATA[A-to-J Connections - Drink Talk Roll]]>

<![CDATA[A-to-J Connections - Drink Talk Roll]]>Fri, 17 May 2024 01:38:52 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[The Plan with No Brains | Drink Talk Roll #59 (Arretin Campaign #13)]]>Fri, 17 May 2024 08:33:36 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/the-plan-with-no-brains-drink-talk-roll-59-arretin-campaign-13

This is the thirteenth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! Amra returns, knows a new spell, and has the best plan ever! No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 5/10 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #13: The Plan with No Brains]]>Thu, 16 May 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-13-the-plan-with-no-brains

You know, like The Man with Two Brains? Too loose a connection. Probably.

Session Recap

After the near fatal encounter with the Kobolds at the end of last session, the party (minus Amra) decides to venture deeper into the caves looking for the source of the problem. They soon find a large behemoth covered in gems that seems to fit that description and try to get the drop on it. The combat takes its toll on Jedah but he manages to kill the beast with a bullet through its mouth.

As the creature dies, it lets out a psychic wail that the everyone in the area feels in their heads but Jedah feels it more strongly that the others. It sends him into convulsions and gives him a vision of some deeply buried memories. He sees himself, in what he assumes must be his childhood, carried by two feminine Elven figures he can’t quite make out. The speak of protecting him and place him in a magical circle that begins to glow. The memory fades to black and Jedah’s fit ends.

The party chops off the head of the creature and returns to the city to present it to Lady Demi. True to her end of the bargain, she has Amra’s petrified body brought into her office and restores his condition. With their deal done, she tells the party they can leave but are free to spend another night in the worker’s room she had converted for them. The party takes Lady Demi up on her offer but the room is a bit cramped with Amra now there.

The next day, they set out back for the magic circle they used to enter the area and Ulrich uses his necklace one more time to return the cave where they fought the cultists. They head back outside to find that the Skybreaker Goliath tribe believing them to be dead or disappeared, has left the area. Instead of pursuing them, the party decides to continue on their journey to Khanya via To’anata.

But the first stop on their trip is Jaran, a southern city on the edge of the same desert as Rashin. The town has been on the edge of conflict. Its ruler has died with his heirs nowhere to be found. The nobility of Rashin and Shunil both have their eyes on claiming Jaran for their own and have hired Arretin’s two largest mercenary companies, Crimson Comets and Golden Scales respectively along with a bunch of smaller companies to being the plots to control the city-state.

Seeing the situation, Amra tried his best to come up with a plan straight out of Yojimbo but Manuel’s drunkenness made it seem like his plan was just:

Join one side. (Side Note: The Golden Scales is made up entirely of Dragonborn so I don’t know how that was going to work.)
????? (Gather some information?)
Defect to the other side
????? again
Profit.

This plan was changed up a few times but it never made sense to anyone other than Amra/Manuel in or out of character.

While Amra tried to get his plan working, the other members of the party ventured around the city. Khorr and Jedah tried to find good food and wound up in a kebab place in the temple district where the took on guard duty for some Crimson Comets. Ulrich decide to go skirtchasing and ended up learning a bit of info on the leader of the Crimson Comets, Casval Elbanza. Some lower-level members apparently said that the commander is cursed and frequently bathes in the pools at the Temple of Larg in the city to purify himself.

The finally got back together and with all his wild geese chased, Amra finally realizes that he’s been missing the easiest option in all of this: They can just leave so they did. Next time, they head to To’anata.

Worldbuilding Spotlight: Larg

It’s been nearly ten episodes since I last talked about the mythology of the world so let’s take a few minutes to talk about another member of the main pantheon of the world: Larg. Larg is the Goddess of the Moon, Chaos and Trickery. She is said to have entered the Mortal Realm at the top of Mount Risalah in Erezel with her husband the Soel, God of the Sun, Order and Law. Using their opposing powers, the two created the world and the other major gods including Favel, God of the Wind, to whom Amra is devoted and whom I talked about in DTRE 4.

Larg is greatly associated with the moon because its constant changing nature also reflects her role as the Goddess of Chaos. It’s not necessarily evil. It’s just the constant state of change as opposed to Soel’s connection with the unchanging sun. The phases of the moon are also described in the worldly mythology as Larg playfully running around the sky and Soel chasing after her until she lets him catch him on eclipse days. They also have enough understanding of astronomy to know that the moon’s light is a reflection of the sun’s and thus, in some cultures, a mirror is used as an engagement gift and sending them a broken mirror is universally seen as breaking of an engagement or marriage. This also lends into a few minor domains as a goddess of marriage and motherhood.

In artwork, Larg is generally depicted as a dark-skinned woman of various humanoid species. She is said to have created the Halflings and giving them a disposition towards chaos so many of her depictions have her in the form of a halfling if she’s not depicted as a human. Some Halflings claim to have met her personally travelling the world in the guise of a Halfling.

Worship of Larg takes many different forms. Some people count their Robin Hood-like antics as a form of worship. Some believe reveling in the moonlight or even more intensely on the nights of eclipses is a form of worship. Some might say that for a goddess who thrives on chaos and changes, the only right is to do it is never the same way twice. Ask her the next time you pass a Halfling walking down the streets of Jaran.

Well, that’s it for this week. We’ll be off the week of May 24 so our next episode will be June 7th. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[The Brave and The Kobold | Drink Talk Roll #58 (Arretin Campaign #12)]]>Fri, 03 May 2024 19:31:55 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/the-brave-and-the-kobold-drink-talk-roll-58-arretin-campaign-12

This is the twelfth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! Amra is gone, but the adventures continue into a very mysterious place! No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 4/24 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #12: The Brave and the Kobold]]>Thu, 02 May 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-12-the-brave-and-the-kobold

I really hope that new Batman movie doesn’t change its name. Otherwise, there goes the streak of movie title references.

Session Recap

After Ulrich activated his magical necklace at the end of the last session, the party found themselves transported to an unknown location. And when the rest of the party turned around to look at Amra, they found him petrified by unknown magic, the eyes of the creature they fought at the end of last session falling out of his hand. The rest of the party started exploring the new location hoping to find someone or something that could restore Amra.

Just outside their arrival area, the party found a mazelike cavern guarded by two Minotaurs. Without their combo tank/healer, the party had to avoid getting into melee as much as possible but luckily with a string of lucky crits, they were table to take out both of them.

Continuing through the passage the Minotaurs had guarded, the party found it long and dark with only the light of the occasional glowing crystal and the sound of rock grinding on rock. This went on for what seemed like hours until the tunnel gave way to a giant cavern. In the distance, they could see a giant city carved out from the stone and illuminated by giant glowing crystals.

The party separated in the city. Jedah went looking for armor and Ulrich went looking for information about their current predicament. He couldn’t find anything entirely in a language he could read but he could understand the occasional word and pictures were universal. One of those pictures was a diagram of circles: Four with characters he recognized as the elements in a circle around two circles. One marked with the character from “Material” and another surrounding that one marked with the character “Void”.

After spending enough time studying, one of the workers told him that Lady Demi, the leader of the city, wished to speak with him. He was led to her office where he found a woman with skin that looked like brown stone with red swirls. Like most people they had met in this area, she expressed surprise at seeing outsiders. Apparently, they hadn’t seen one for what they assumed to be thousands of years. It’s hard telling time when you don’t have a sun or maybe that’s just me. Ulrich asked her for help in healing Amra and she offered to make him a trade: He and the party would do a job for her and in return, she would heal Amra. She was even generous enough to offer them lodgings so they could rest before departing on the mission.

The party reunited and rested up before the mission into the mines. One of Demi’s workers led them to the entrance but his orders were to wait for them on the outside and report back should they never return. The party took the torch from him and ventured into the mines. It wasn’t long before Jedah started noticing that they were being watched by something and that something turned out to be a pack of Kobolds. While the party preferred to do ranged combat, the Kobolds numbers let them move in quickly and even though the party was able to defeat them, the Kobolds were able to overwhelm Khorr who nearly died until Ulrich and Jedah were able to stabilize him.

With the Kobolds taken care of, the party had one question left: Do they venture further into the mines or do they leave hoping that they’ve taken care of the problem?

Splitting the Part (Again)

So, we had another party member out this week. This time it was Manuel / Amra. Like I mentioned in the previous section, this meant the party was without the person who is both their frontliner and their only person with free healing. Most of the time players build their parties to spread those out but this loveable(?) band decided to go with one point of failure. Therefore, for this session, I had to make sure I didn’t accidentally kill one of them because what would have been an easy encounter with Amra is deadly without him.

I intentionally choice things with Challenge Ratings that weren’t that high and played them with a very simple strategy of generally shooting the closest party member. Though, one thing you do need to consider is the power of groups in 5E’s action economy. The more actions the enemies can take, the more likely they are to hit your players and given the low HP a Rogue can have, my mistake in accounting for that with the Kobolds nearly killed Khorr. (It probably doesn’t help that I’m not sure Pleiades knows all of Khorr’s abilities more than six months in and completely sober but that’s beside the point for now.)

I probably should have also taken a look into Ulrich’s spells to see what Area of Effect (AoE) options he had other than faerie fire which doesn’t do damage. I think I was expecting him to just be able to zap a couple of the Kobolds with a quick spell and be done with them. I could have also factored in that Warlocks don’t get that many spell slots because they refresh on a short rest instead of a long rest. Well, if they press decide to go further, I can only assume it will be after taking a rest of some sort so Ulrich will be at full power and the other two shouldn’t be that far behind.

Another option I will have to remember for next time is to have Talliyah or another NPC companion take some of the hits. She wouldn’t have really gotten hurt but the location the party is currently in is surging with Earth (the element) power and she could have used her powers to bring up some rock or something to stop arrows or block advancement for a turn or two.

Well, that’s it for this week. There are a bunch of other different ways I could have rebalanced these encounters and a bunch of other things I could have kept in mind. I’ll do my best to remember all that next time and I hope you all found this to be helpful for you own future encounters. Until next time, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[A Beautiful Mindwitness | Drink Talk Roll #57 (Arretin Campaign #11)]]>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/a-beautiful-mindwitness-drink-talk-roll-57-arretin-campaign-11

This is the eleventh session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! We went into a cave, beat up some cultists, fought what we think might be a beholder, and didn't pee in any pools. We promise! No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 4/12 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #11: A Beautiful Mindwitness]]>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 06:11:38 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-11-a-beautiful-mindwitness

Session Recap

The party entered the cave that Tonlifter seemed to be drawn towards while under the control of the cursed headband. Talliyah was also there. She was just off-screen taking care of all the ninjas sneaking up on the party. The interior was dark with few if any sources of light putting Khorr the Halfling at a disadvantage.

As Amra and Jedah scouted further in, they heard chanting in a strangely familiar language that neither of them could understand. Despite this, the chanting gave Amra a flashback to memories he had thought long forgotten: He was chained somewhere in a different dimly lit room. A figure cloaked in shifting shadows spoke that language to a white-haired human with a long sword across his back. They had come to see him for some reason but now they were leaving.

Snap back to reality. Amra and Jedah moved further in and find cultists in a large room. They motion the party forward and prepare for an ambush. Thanks to some lucky crits, the fight is over pretty quickly. After taking everyone out, they decided to check the giant hole in the room and find a magic circle on the floor beneath them. The piece of magical lapis lazuli Ulrich took from the Masked Man all those sessions ago seems to react to the circle glowing brightly and pulling him towards it the closer he gets.

The party continues moving around the cave finding different rooms and even a little mud golem that posed no real threat to them on its own. Despite the size, the place doesn’t seem to have much interesting in the way of items. The only interesting they find is a set of communications noting that some higher up stationed them here to await a person who never showed up so plans are moving on without him. Judging by the dates, the party theorizes that it was the still unidentified Masked Man.

Eventually, the party finds a set of stairs down and once they reach the bottom, they hear even more chanting in that strange language. Sadly, they lose the element of surprise after one of them steps on a very loud piece of wood that snaps beneath his feet. Despite this, no one seems to come out of the room with the chanting so the party has to take it upon themselves to open the door.

After opening it, they find it now occupied by more cultists with a statue that Jedah recognizes as the one he saw in the cargo hold of the Emperor’s Breath where he found his guns. Their chanting seems to cause the circle to glow more intensely. The increased number make this fight harder for the party but they are still able to take them down until there is only one remaining. The last living cultist decides to stab himself spilling his blood across the circle to complete the ritual.

The statue disappears from the circle and in its place, a creature with a round, purple body and multiple eyes: one in its chest area and multiple on stalks extended from its core. In other words, a mindwitness. It uses its various eye beams on the party but they are able to avoid it more often than not and slay it soon after. Amra attempts to cut out its eyes and is successful at removing three of them without any damage.

It was about this time that Talliyah finished fighting all those invisible ninjas. More on that later. Ulrich was inspired by the intense glow of the crystal around his neck that he spoke the command words: Klaatu barada nikto. With that, every party member had their vision go black and it won’t be until next session that they figure out what happened.

The DM Kinda Forgot

So yeah, I kinda forgot about Talliyah this session and Pleiades forgot about the optional Rogue feature that allows for them to get advantage on ranged attacks if they don’t move that turn. Manuel blamed me for that second one but I think it’s the player’s responsibilities to remember their character’s features. I know they get progressively drunker as the stream goes on but I think it’s the least they could do when I have to play a dozen characters / monsters, remember what’s going on both in front of them and behind the scenes and tie that all together in a way that makes sense.

Moving on to the part that is my fault: Forgetting about plot points, characters, etc. I have this bad habit in both of my campaigns especially when it comes to tagalong characters like Talliyah and a character in my other campaign named Snake. There’s even a running gag that Snake is the ultimate sneak that even the gods can’t see and he’s the source of my “fighting ninjas off-screen” excuse which I use whenever a minor character who should have been there wasn’t. It occurs most often between sessions when I forget who’s there and focus on the players at the start that I forget the NPCs not needed for the setup. It’s doubly so if the plot of the session is a direct continuation of the last one but the NPC isn’t a direct quest giver.

You might have also noted that in combat last session, Talliyah didn’t really do much beyond creating a wall and occasionally firing rocks that did a small amount of damage. DM Confession Time: I don’t have a character sheet for her or most NPCs that don’t use a stat block that’s either straight from a book or slightly modified. I just chose a small but still significant number for damage and anything else she does is more utility based around her earth powers like creating stone walls. I know there are rules for companions/sidekicks in both first- and third-party sources but it’s just the easiest way for me to run them.

Sometimes, I forget a plot point because I thought I’d remember it and didn’t jot it down. This happened with the location of plot important items in my other campaign and luckily, one of my players had written it down. Obviously, this has the easiest solution of just making sure you note things you’ll need to remember somewhere whether it’s on a piece of paper, a text file or even a voice note. If that fails, I hope you have a player that takes good notes. With a crew that gets drunk playing, I don’t have high ups for that happening in this campaign. If you’re in the same boat, then you’ll fall back on the next easiest solution: Change it and pretend it’s always been the new thing. If you or someone suddenly remembers what it was supposed to be, you can roll back to that or just have a character suggest it was the old thing and get told they’re experiencing the Mandela Effect.

That’s it for this week. We should be back next week with session twelve without Manuel. What happened to the party? Are they still in that cave? Will we finally make it through a session without someone thinking they’re going to die after taking all of 1 damage? Find out next time! Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[Ignite Your Wagon | Drink Talk Roll #56 (Arretin Campaign #10)]]>Fri, 29 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/ignite-your-wagon-drink-talk-roll-56-arretin-campaign-10

This is the tenth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! When talking gets you nowhere, you just have to set stuff on fire! Nevermind that there might be some rather tough opponents if you do that without thinking! No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 3/15 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #10: Ignite Your Wagon]]>Thu, 28 Mar 2024 07:40:03 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-10-ignite-your-wagon

Session Recap

After meeting up with the Tonlifter Goliath tribe, the party was given an ultimatum: “Surrender or die in obscurity.” Clearly, a lot had changed in the week or so they’d been away from the group. The party debated surrendering, fighting and running before deciding to surrender and play along until they could figure out a better course of action. Their hands were bound and their weapons taken except for Jedah’s guns because he was able to convince the guards they were harmless. (Oh, the joys of being in a world that is only just beginning to understand guns!)

The party was marched westward across the Axida Plains towards an unknown destination. One day, after their march was done, the party was approached by former tribe leader Nallah who did her best to explain the situation: After the tribe parted ways with the tribe, Tonlifter revealed he acquired the Gnoll bandit leader’s headband. After putting it on, he experienced a sudden shift in personality and challenged and defeated Nallah for leadership of the tribe. Nallah herself was torn between her duty to serve the leader of the tribe and doing good for the world at large. The party tried to convince her to follow her heart and help them but failed.

The party went back to planning on what to do. Breaking out of the ropes binding their hands was fairly easy for Khorr and he went around scouting the camp finding the weapons and discovering a few new magic items in a wagon. Then, Amra came into the picture. He somehow got the bright idea to set a wagon on fire. Seeing that, the guards patrolling the camp assumed it was a bandit raid and immediately sounded the alarm waking up the entire camp including Tonlifter and Nallah. Seeing the commotion the party had caused, Nallah decided to stick by her tribe in the attack.

While the rest of the party dealt with the guards and Nallah, Amra continued to Amra and teleported himself straight towards Tonlifter grappling him by holding onto his back. He then began a contest of strength to remove the headband from Tonlifter’s head. He struggled for multiple rounds taking multiple attacks and a back slam from Tonlifter but with some help from Ulrich, Amra was able to finally remove the headband. With his mind his own again, Tonlifter immediately collapsed and seeing their leader defeated, the Goliaths yielded declaring Amra their new leader.

At the tribe meeting the next morning, a few members objected to an Elf being the leader of a Goliath tribe and while thanking him for his help in saving Tonlifter, Nallah challenged him for leadership of the tribe. Amra conceded defeat in the duel after one hit reverting leadership of the tribe back to Nallah. With all of that taken care of, the session ended as the party began venturing towards the cave Tonlifter had taken the tribe to after putting on the headband.

Fired Up Beyond All Recognition

Writing this, I’m reminded of a piece of writing advice from Raymond Chandler, “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” (Depending on your campaign world’s technology level, "gun" might be replaced by "sword" or "dagger".) I think it’s good advice for a game master looking to stall for time. Especially in games like Dungeons & Dragons, combat can take up a lot of time and gives the players a short-term goal and a feeling of progress as they eliminate the enemies.

This piece of advice was useful for me as I dealt with a party who decided to zag where I thought they were going to zig. I had planned for them surrendering and reaching the cave before attempting to escape and at least had an idea of what to do had they just decided to run. Their deciding to end things before reaching the cave was not on my list of things they would do. Never underestimate a drunk party.

Obviously, in this case, it was fairly easy for me. The party was already in the middle of a warrior camp. Any of the Goliaths could have started a rebellion against Tonlifter; another tribe of Goliaths or some angry Gnolls could have attacked. These might have been random but they still would have felt right in the world the players are in. That they were the ones who gave me an easy reason to start combat was just the cherry on top.

If you’re looking for ideas, sourcebooks and the internet are full of lists of random encounters you can use to fill combats as you figure out the reason for the attack. Here are some quick ideas just from me:

Did assassins show up? Maybe one of them accidentally stole an item that had been marked by a thieves’ guild or maybe your horny bard (or any other class) unknowingly slept with a vengeful noble’s spouse who hired them. These might introduce new complications into the plot like that guild or the noble or it could reinforce or reintroduce the other faction.

Have you already established a BBEG at least vaguely? Maybe they sent some minions down like Rita sending in the Putties and a monster in Power Rangers. People still know that, right? This is good if you don’t need much added to the narrative but need time to think of your next steps.

Sorry, if this week seems a bit light on info. I’m in the middle of two weekends of conventions but I still wanted to get this out on our usual skip week schedule. I hope I’ll have something from Tora-Con and/or Anime Boston to show you in the near future to make up for it. I’ll see you in the next column. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Malfunction | Drink Talk Roll #55 (Arretin Campaign #9)]]>Fri, 08 Mar 2024 09:13:46 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-malfunction-drink-talk-roll-55-arretin-campaign-9

This is the ninth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! We fight a Naga, Amra loses his book, hilarity ensues! No more details, watch for the rest! Consider catching us live to get the full, unedited DTR experience! The DM may change, the players may change, but we'll always be rolling!

DM:
J.D.

Players:
Manuel (Amra The Harbinger)
Hao (Ulrich The Warlock)
Pleiades (Khorr The Rogue)
Warren (Jedah The Gunslinger)

You can catch us live every other Friday at 6:30 PM via our twitch channel below! Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe for more, and feel free to chat with us in the comments below!

Catch Us Live On Twitch!:
https://www.twitch.tv/atojplays

[Original Stream: 3/1 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #9: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Malfunction]]>Thu, 07 Mar 2024 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-9-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-malfunction

(I thought I wouldn’t be able to top the last but I think I did it with this one)

Session Recap

Picking up where we left off last session, the party talks with Baizhu (I misspelled it on air) the giant snake who does his best to convince him that he can be trusted with the Earth Topaz. The party very quickly showed that they didn’t trust him and after a few failed attempts at diplomacy, combat finally started. Baizhu chased Khorr across the map trying to get the topaz from him smashing through the rest of the party and nearly taking a few out. Thankfully, Jedah was able to score the killing blow with a little assistance.

As he took his last shot, a roar let out and a glowing lion’s claw slashed through Baizhu’s body where the bullet hit. The party looked up to see where that came from and found a giant, glowing white lion descending from the starry sky seemingly projected on the ceiling. Introducing himself as Ishim, the Guardian Beast of Earth, he blessed the gun Jedah used to kill Baizhu granting it a fraction of his power and explained a bit about the party’s mission. They are opening perpendicularities to the Elemental Planes and undoing an ancient seal.

When asked where the other three towers are, he noted that he had not been in the Material Plane for millennia and the layout of the world had probably changed. He did however give them three clues: The Air Tower lies in a city of splendor along the coast. The Fire Tower lies in a pit as hot as the infernos of the Underworld. The Water Tower sits in the eye of a raging storm.

He also had some unkind things to say about the god Favel but that’s probably just because Favel’s a wind god and he’s an earth beast. With all of his info disclosed and the perpendicularity opened, Ishim wished them luck and departed.

Leaving the Earth Tower, the party returned to the library to find Talliyah still guarding the door and learning two things: That she’s an earth mage and that the opening of the Earth Seal had caused her powers to go temporarily out of whack. The party helped undo the damage she’d done to the library and got out. On the way out, Amra stole a book but learned that the library’s antitheft magic had turned all its pages black.

Regrouping at a bar, they explained their mission and what had happened to Talliyah. They asked her for advice and she put up a few ideas listing of coastal cities that could be considered a “city of splendor”, places that might be “hot as the infernos of the Underworld” and that somewhere in the center of the Sea of Storms was probably the location of the Water Temple.

Here, the party became divided. Khorr thought the best idea would be to follow Talliyah’s pet project of looking into Khanya, the mythical city of lights said to be on the edge of the Menagi Wastes as a possible location for the Fire Temple. Amra thought the best way forward would be sailing into the Sea of Storms looking for the eye of the storm and thus, the Water Temple. He dragged them down to the docks to find a ship willing to take them there. The dockmaster laughed at his idea calling it basically a suicide mission and it seems everyone else who heard him say it agreed. After wasting too much time, Khorr finally put his foot down and got the rest of the party to agree with him. They would set off the next day.

Before that, however, Ulrich had something to take care of. His patron had sent him a letter with the name “Lady Mei Bairen” and the name of a high-end tailor’s shop in Shunil along with a bottle of dye. When he showed the dye to the tailor, she said it was too garish and that none of her clients would be caught dead in it. After hearing those words, Ulrich understood what he had to do. While the tailor was distracted talking to Lord and Lady Bairen, he snuck into the back of the shop where Lady Bairen’s dress was still being dyed and poured the entire bottle in. Fey always have the weirdest of requests.

The next morning, the departed back the way they came across the Axida Plains towards To’anata and from there, maybe Khanya if it actually exists. After about a day of travelling, they hear the familiar rumble of feet as they meet back up with the herd of Goliaths they had met before coming to Shunil but there’s something off. It’s only been a few days but Nallah’s no longer in charge. Tonlifter, one of the younger members the party met, is now leading the newly renamed tribe and is wearing the same headband the gnoll leader had been wearing. What in the world is going on? Find out next time on DTR.

Choo-Choo

Honestly, the biggest gripe I’m probably getting from Manuel is that I railroaded him out of sailing the Sea of Storms. You know what? I did.

For those that don’t know, in gaming, “railroading” means “forcing the players down one path on which they have no choice”. It is the opposite of “sandboxing” where players can basically go anywhere and do whatever they want. Obviously, it’s almost never an absolute railroad or an absolute sandbox. 99.9% of campaigns are a mixture of the two. I try to keep this campaign as open as possible but this was one point where I really decided to put my foot down.

Does it make sense in the world? Yes. Shunil formed the way it did, carved out of the rockface because it is dealing with constant powerful storms and I think only a fool would want to sail that for days on end especially without a fixed destination. I tried to soften this blow by ging them an alternate route suggesting that it would be easier to go through the sea from the west starting in the Rotti Islands or Hozumi. It will take much longer but it’s a safer route and there’s the opportunity for multiple adventures along the way. Maybe, they’ll follow up on that after they finish up this mission.

Did I do it to prevent a TPK? Also, yes. I know what lives out there and it would eat them for breakfast if they could. In addition, I’ve already planted a hit of what they’ll need to do to safely cross the storm but the bad part about having a drunk audience is that they can’t also be counted on to remember everything. Hopefully, a few more hints will pop up soon enough.

My first time running this campaign was also the first time I seriously ran a campaign for a group. In a similar situation, I think it was also just after finishing up the first tower and leaving the party wondering what to do, I ended a session super early because I had planned for one option and they took another. One of my players told me that it might have been better to have only presented them the one option rather than trying to be open. Sometimes, a fun railroad ride is better than an empty sandbox. Ultimately, don’t be afraid to railroad once in a while. If your players complain, tell them I said you could have a little railroad as a treat. If that doesn’t work, blame the dice. Dice are always responsible when something bad happens in a ttrpg.

Well, that’s my thoughts for this week. Until next time, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

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