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

<![CDATA[A-to-J Connections - Drink Talk Roll]]>Wed, 02 Apr 2025 17:57:19 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Jedah vs The Volcano | Drink Talk Roll #75 (Arretin Campaign #29)]]>Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/jedah-vs-the-volcano-drink-talk-roll-75-arretin-campaign-29

This is the twenty-ninth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! With Manuel out, the rest of the party marches onward continuing their trek to the Fire Temple. Along the way, they get in a fight with some meddling mephits on the side of Mt. Lohi and Khorr is roped into the forge's initiation ritual. 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 3/28 6:45 PM PDT]

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:05 - We Are Live!
00:03:15 - Last Session Recap
00:07:38 - Session Starts
00:23:58 - Mephit Fight
00:37:48 - After Combat
00:40:31 - Entering the Forge of the Gods
00:48:57 - The Forge's Initiation Ritual
01:24:58 - Before the Temple
01:28:44 - Intermission
01:46:32 - Session Resumes
02:13:26 - The Magma Chamber
02:39:36 - Wrapping Up
02:43:09 - Keep on Rolling

]]><![CDATA[Amra the Lion in Winter | Drink Talk Roll #74 (Arretin Campaign #28)]]>Fri, 21 Mar 2025 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/amra-the-lion-in-winter-drink-talk-roll-74-arretin-campaign-28

This is the twenty-eighth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! After a short hiatus, Drink Talk Roll is back and this week, the crew faces off against Darius, his mother and a pack of Snowbolds. Amra takes a beating but will it be enough to take him out for good? We can certainly hope so. 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 3/14 6:45 PM PDT]

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:05 - We Are Live!
00:05:07 - Last Session Recap
00:07:43 - Session Starts
00:17:33 - Combat vs Darius, His Mom and the Snowbolds
01:15:03 - After the Battle
01:21:53 - Break Time
01:28:46 - Aftermath of the Battle
01:53:06 - Heading Back to the Ship
02:01:44 - Wrapping Up
02:04:56 - Keep on Rolling

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #28: Amra the Lion in Winter]]>Thu, 20 Mar 2025 07:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-28-amra-the-lion-in-winter

Session Recap

Starting directly where the last episode had left off, the party had ended Emberfell Palace on the frozen Rotti Islands to find Darius and an old woman he called his mother. Darius had the same demand as last time: Now that Ulrich was dead, his contract with the Winter Court was void; thus, Jedah and Amra were to be returned to Winter Court custody. Jedah and Amra both didn’t care for this arrangement. Jedah tried to keep a cooler head but Amra was well... Amra, and that meant combat broke out pretty quickly.

Faced with a small army of Snowbolds, a hag and Darius, this combat proved more difficult than before. At the start, Darius’s mother (Her name never came up but it’s Rhonda) used her magic to create a cold vortex that took a decent chunk out of the party with only Khorr managing to avoid it with his fast reflexes and small stature. Darius also focused on Amra and cursed him with fear making him an easy target.

The Snowbolds swarmed Amra and Rhonda summoned a wall of ice behind him to limit his options. Luckily, Amra hadn’t forgotten about his ability to teleport. He charged forward and pressed the attack the hag. With the combined attacks on her, she fell quickly which caused her Snowbold creations to disappear as well.

At the death of his mother, Darius got just as furious and headed straight to Amra with no regard for what happened to him. This made him easy prey for the party who finished him off quickly thereafter. Searching his body revealed two potions, a few gems for funds and the mission directive from the Winter Court.

At this point, the party was split on what to do and by that, I mean that as usual, Amra wanted to do something recklessly belligerent and the rest of the party thought that was a stupid idea. His plan was to somehow find a way to send the missive back to the Winter Court with Darius’s bloody handprint and a note explaining the situation. Everyone else disagreed with him but the argument was put on ice (pun intended) as they heard a thumping sound coming from behind the throne.

Searching the area, the party found a man and a woman. The woman had strange skin that seemed to crackle with fire. Amra and Khorr were quick to recognize the two as King Kolonohi V and Queen Kalanika. They did their best to get things up and running as the weather around the islands began to return to normal. They learned that Mt. Lohi, the sacred mountain of Darune the city sits on had been acting up lately while sailors coming in from Hozumi had noted that the Sea of Storms had been worse than usual. It seems the elemental forces of Arretin are still out of balance. After having a vivid reaction to touching the Fire Ruby, Queen Kalanika granted the party a royal invitation to visit the Forge of the Gods as soon as the path had cleared up.

To pass the time, the party headed back to the ship to update Captain Ren of the situation. Once again, Amra chose needless belligerence when trying to request the ship stay docked near Emberfell while the party investigated. Captain Ren noted that they would need to stop anyway because of the long delays in the calm zone and the frozen islands meant that they need more supplies than expected.

After a few more days on the boat, the party made their way to the start of the path up Mt. Lohi to see the Forge of the Gods... and that’s where our session for this week ended.

How to Avoid Being Swarmed in Combat

Running a large group of enemies can be mentally taxing and a major pain. *Salutes Major Pain* This is especially true when they’re not the only enemies in the combat. Here are somethings I keep in mind to keep myself from bogging down combat too much when running a group of enemies.

First off, I play the groups different if they’re the only enemies or if they’re part of a larger set. When the Snowbolds were by themselves, they used more magic and more complex attacks. They were the main threat of that combat and thus, I could put all my focus on what they were doing. That’s why they were the ones who got to use cool (pun intended) ice effects. Those effects also scaled with the number of creatures still alive so that things got easier as the players defeated them. It made things more in the players’ favor and helped them feel like they were making a bigger dent in the group.

In this week’s combat, they were just the minions of main threats Darius and Rhonda. The magic and other special abilities were reserved for their controllers. They still swarmed and surrounded Amra as they focused their attacks on him. They also moved simultaneously instead of having individual initiatives that made them feel more like a small united being controlled rather than a set of independent actors. That’s also why the rest disappeared as soon as Rhonda was killed. I think all this helped reinforce that they were just minions this time around and kept the difficulty down when already facing two characters that were on paper at least, a decent threat to the party by themselves.

Well, that’s it for this week. These were just the ramblings of one DM but your TTRPG of choice probably has some advice for running a large number of creatures individually or as a swarm in either its manual for running monsters or its advice guide for game masters. We should be back next week as the party explores Mt. Lohi and the Forge of the Gods. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #27: Are We There Yeti?]]>Thu, 06 Mar 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-27-are-we-there-yeti

Better late that never, I guess. I’m back from my trip to Japan and here to talk about the last episode of Drink Talk Roll.

Session Recap

At the end of the previous episode, the party had finally arrived at the Rotti Islands but instead of the early summer tropical islands they were expecting, the party instead found more of a winter wonderland. Now-Captain of the Leaping Lemure Ren sent the party plus their new “fifth member” Genji out to scout the islands. Despite protestations from some members of the party, Captain Ren pointed out that this was technically part of the agreement that had come to with the late Captain Alex so to the island they went.

After marching through the snow for a mile or two, the party came upon a mountain. At the urging of the rest of the party, Sirocco cast detect magic to try and find the source of the magic causing this unnatural cold. Instead, he finds a few sources of conjuration magic lying under the snow. Wiping it away, he finds a hand sticking out of the snow. It quickly grabs him and holds him down in the snow. Amra swoops in to help and yanks Sirocco out of the snow. As that happens, the creature lurking beneath the snow reveals itself. Looking just like the kobolds that Jedah and Khorr found on the Earth Plane but made out of snow, it’s a Snowbold and it brought some friends along.

Combat breaks almost immediately as Amra tries to destroy the first Snowbold but it and its friends move in a deal some serious damage to the party. They seem to be resistant to most normal weaponry but with the fire damage from Amra’s crane sword and its empowered form plus a well-placed spirit guardians from Sirocco, the party is able to turn kill them before anything too serious happens…except for the ferocious roar that erupts from somewhere up the mountain almost immediately after killing the last Snowbold.

Travelling up the mountain towards that sound because that’s what heroes do, the party eventually finds a cave. From inside, a fire goliath calls out to them. He’s hanging from the ceiling but the party is able to get him down with a few well-placed attacks on the ice around his feet. He introduces himself as Rogo, a local from a nearby town who was kidnapped by a giant creature and he’s so happy that the party has apparently slain it. The party has no idea what creature he’s talking about but Rogo also explains his understanding of the situation currently affecting the islands:

A few weeks before meeting the party, a silver-haired man with a giant sword showed up and asked to be taken to the leader of the islands and looking for a group of four men and one woman. The people of Goro’s village pointed him towards the big island where the capital Emberfell sits on the edge of Mt. Lohi. Afterwards, the man departed and the mysterious cold came over the islands. He’s not entirely certain that man is responsibly but it seems to be everyone’s current theory for the strange weather.

As the party tries to exit the cave with Rogo, the monster Rogo had thought dead suddenly appears from the snowstorm. It’s a yeti and not just an average size one but an abominable yeti. With its increases strength and speed as well as its cold breath, the yeti is able to tear through the party nearly taking out Sirocco but a shot through the heart from Jedah is able to take it down. They loot its cave and Amra tries to take its horns as a trophy but his harvesting skills still need work.

With the yeti taken care of, the part heads down the mountain and parts ways with Rogo as he heads back to his village and they had back to the ship. Khorr gives Rogo a little figure made of a bit of solidified yeti soul to show his people that the monster is dead. Rogo thanks him for that and heads home.

Back on the ship, Captain Ren tells everyone to set course for Emberfell. After about a day of sailing through the icy waters, they reach the area just off the island and the party is once again sent to scout the island. The party follows the view of Mt. Lohi to the city and finds that everything has mostly ground to a halt due to the weather. Some are trying their best to survive for many, that isn’t enough. Khorr decides to go hunting and is able to find a large enough deer to provide people with food. He takes it to a butcher to have it cut up and rationed off to the people of the city.

While this is happening, the part is also gathering information on the mysterious man who may be the cause of all these problems and it finally clicks who this person might be: Darius. When he had last seen them, they were still traveling with Talliyah and had just dropped off the Robin sisters so they would have been four men and a woman. As a servant of the Winter Court, he could probably pull something like this off given enough time or power from his patron.

The party enters the palace and finds that even the insides are covered in snow and ice. In the audience chamber, they find a small army of Snowbolds guarding an old woman. The quickly discern that she is at least partly responsible for the weather and Amra moves to strike her. After realizing that would be a terrible idea, he decides to just teleport in front of her and denounces her. Afterwards, Darius himself teleports in and that’s where the session ended.

Monsters Manually

This episode was another instance of modifying monster stats on the fly for both of the combats. I had actually created a full stat block for the Snowbolds the last time I ran this campaign but somehow, I lost it between campaigns. I should be able to dig it up and if I do, I’ll have Manuel upload it along with this article. I did however remember basing it on the Swolebold from one of the Kobold Press monster books for 5E so in a pinch, I just grabbed the stat block for that and the original token I used and improvised. Thinking on my feet, I decided that as a magical construct made of snow, Snowbolds were probably resistant to nonmagical sources of damage but in return, they would be weak to fire damage since it would cause snow to melt. I also gave them some other magical, ice-related powers like being able to collapse and reform out of snow and an ice blast based on a young white dragon’s similar ability. Modifying the abominable yeti was much simpler. All I did was give it 3 Legendary Actions for it to use outside of its turn so that it could move around and attack the party instead of just standing there and getting wailed on by the party after it had taken its turn.

Sometimes, it’s just switching out damage types to fit the theming like a flare hag I designed that used the basics of the bheur hag but swapped all of the ice spells and abilities for equivalent fire ones. My advice for adding an ability from another creature would be to use something from around the same CR level and/or consulting the Dungeon Master’s Guide or equivalent for your preferred system to see what it has to say about the effect adding an ability has on a creature’s difficulty. After gaining enough experience, you’ll be able to do this more easily on the fly. Honestly, I don’t think I’m there yet but I think I’m still doing a good job.

Well, that’s the end of it for this week. After taking a week off for my trip, we’ll be back next week. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[Are We There Yeti? | Drink Talk Roll #73 (Arretin Campaign #27)]]>Fri, 28 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/are-we-there-yeti-drink-talk-roll-73-arretin-campaign-27

This is the twenty-seventh session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! The party has good news and bad news. The good news is they finally made it out of that calm belt and to the halfway point of their journey to revive Ulrich. The bad news is that the tropical Rotti Islands are somehow covered in snow in early summer. To solve this mystery, they must venture onto the islands and fight some terrible creatures creeping in the cold. 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 2/14 6:45 PM PDT]

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:05 - Let's Get Rolling
00:03:37 - Recap of Last Session
00:07:08 - Session Starts
00:15:59 - Landing on the Frozen Isles
00:28:38 - Snow-bolds!
01:01:04 - Going Up The Mountain
01:16:36 - Yeti Attack!
01:36:41 - Aftermath of the Yeti Battle
01:50:13 - Back on the Boat
01:55:55 - Heading to the Palace
01:58:15 - Quick Break
02:05:12 - Game Resumes
02:22:46 - Entering the Castle
02:28:03 - Wrapping Up

]]><![CDATA[What Killed Captain Alex? | Drink Talk Roll #72 (Arretin Campaign #26)]]>Fri, 07 Feb 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/what-killed-captain-alex-drink-talk-roll-72-arretin-campaign-26

(Note: This episode was very cursed, so keep that in mind when watching. Thanks for the continued support!)

This is the twenty-sixth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! Captain Alex is dead and anyone on the ship could be a suspect. The party quickly sets out to find the killer before stumbling onto more mysteries of the deep and political intrigue. 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 1/31 6:45 PM PDT]

00:00:00 - Start
00:00:33 - We Are Live
00:05:37 - Recap of the Last Session
00:07:44 - Session Begins
00:30:46 - Checking the Cargo Hold
00:40:21 - J.D.'s Audio Works Again
01:03:58 - What's Kraken?
01:13:04 - After the Kraken
01:27:19 - Bathroom Break
01:40:25 - Back from Break
01:55:42 - Uncovering Operation Stormbreaker
02:22:45 - Wrapping Up
02:25:36 - Keep on Rolling

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #26: What Killed Captain Alex?]]>Fri, 07 Feb 2025 04:38:14 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-26-what-killed-captain-alex

Session Recap

This session picks up directly where the last one left off with the party finding members of the crew gathered around the corpse of Captain Alex. A quick look over tells them that he was stabbed in the back by someone. First Mate Ren proclaims himself the new captain and attempts to restore order and figure out who killed the old captain. The party determines that it would be helpful to see who on the ship is missing a knife. They find a few crewmates are missing their knives. For some reason, they also decide to implicate Amra in this as well.

To save his own skin, Amra channels divine power to cast zone of truth which prevents all of the crew members from lying to them. Amra’s initial attempts at narrowing down the suspects is a bit too complicated to work but with Sirocco’s help, he realizes that he just needs to ask a simple question: Did you kill Captain Alex? This narrows it down one person: Ron Freeflaw.

Interrogating Ron further, the party finds that he’s definitely been affected by whatever has been making everyone on the ship tense. He says he had been hearing voices in the back of his head which compelled him to sabotage the ship and the crew. It started small like asking him to sabotage some of the foods like spilling bags of grain which he claimed to resist but it escalated quickly to the point where he felt like he was barely able to control himself when he killed the captain.

This reminds Jedah of the tales of angered sea gods from the last session and that maybe this being could be placated by making an offering of treasure. With Captain Ren’s approval, the party moves the cargo deck to see what exactly the Din’eiddan nobles have brought in hopes that that might be a good offering. The nobles protest but when told that it might be that or their lives, they relent as long as other options are tried first.

Cracking open the large crate, the party finds a giant bowl nearly as tall as Khorr and as wide as Amra. The bowl is made of solid gold and its outside is carved with the depictions of all five varieties of Goliath but all of them seem to be much larger than the ones the party has met. The nobles claim it was to be a gift to the Empress of Hozumi for the 10th Anniversary of her ascension to the position.

Khorr decides to make this the tribute to whatever sea creature is causing the ship’s problems and while this is going on, Sirocco is above deck looking for anything in the water when he spots multiple giant tentacles that all emerge from the water and begin attacking the ship. Genji appears from below deck to offer his service in defeating this creature. Sirocco tells him to go ahead while he just kind of chills on the deck and watches.

Khorr first tries to appease the creature by throwing Alex’s corpse into the water but he hears the voice Ron described in the back of his head, “Dead men make terrible tribute.” Meanwhile, everyone else is in the cargo deck trying to carry the giant bowl out. They rush out onto the deck and drop the bowl over. In the back of his head, Khorr hears the voice reneging on its promise to spare the ship. It surfaces at the bow of the ship and looks ready to break the ship in two.

Luckily for everyone, Genji was still on deck and had spent the time charging up his non-trademark-infringing-energy-beam-ha! When it hit the sea beast, the beam damaged it enough to send it retreating back into the sea. And with that, the day was saved and good weather returned to the seas.

In the days that followed, the ship got back on track towards the Rotti Islands, Jedah spent some time learning new recipes from the ship’s cook and Khorr discovered that a possible smuggler’s chest in the cargo hold. He tries to uncover any secret compartments it may hold but with the help of Jedah and Sirocco, they’re able to find one containing a vial of poison known as The Long Kiss Goodnight and a collection of documents pledging support for the Kishu Clan’s claim to the throne of Hozumi should the current empress “die under mysterious circumstances with no apparent heirs.” It clicks in Khorr’s head that “Stormbreaker” which he overheard in the last session refers to this plan. The party spent a lot of time discussing their stance on this assassination conspiracy and how they would deal with it.

But there was another problem on the horizon and I mean that literally. As the Rotti Islands came into sight, what they expected to be a tropical paradise in the early summer turned out to be more of a snow-covered winter wonderland. And that’s where the session ended.

Dealing with Disaster

I think it’s safe to say that this stream was at least lightly cursed. Manuel dropped out multiple times apparently due to his GPU overheating. I was apparently inaudible for 40 minutes and had to rerecord my audio in the edit process. I’m honestly surprise that no one else had any serious issues during the session.

In the past, as soon as a serious issues like either of those popped up, I would have probably just frozen up and then, spent a decent amount of time spiraling while I looked for ways to fix it. I still do that sometimes if I feel a bit too much pressure on me or that something has gone horribly wrong. I think this time, there was enough of a cushion of the players’ ability to hear me and the fact that I could use their reactions and my memory to piece together enough of what I said to be able to rerecord afterwards. I did something similar not that long ago when my mic kept cutting off because of connection issues.

Those things along with the fact that it might be our final main campaign stream for a month were the reasons why I didn’t just call the stream at the 40-minute mark. In the week since then, I’ve double checked all my sources especially after updating software that is directly accessed in OBS. I suggested a new budget GPU for Manuel that’s actually from this decade as well. It all seems to be working. Hopefully, we won’t have major issues *salutes Major Issues* next time.

I think the first of these articles or maybe it was the article for the first official session of this campaign, I talked about having to deal when things start falling apart or going off the rails. It’s nice to see that after roughly a years’ worth of sessions, I’m applying that even outside of the D&D game.

Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll either see you in two weeks or some time next month. Whichever that is, until next time, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[Bungled Cruise | Drink Talk Roll #71 (Arretin Campaign #25)]]>Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/bungled-cruise-drink-talk-roll-71-arretin-campaign-25

This is the twenty-fifth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! Our team takes to the sea with a mysterious old man in tow. They spend a few random days on the ocean when they are suddenly faced with not only several water elementals, but also a murder mystery! 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 1/17 7:00 PM PDT]

]]><![CDATA[Drink Talk Roll Extended #25: Bungled Cruise]]>Thu, 23 Jan 2025 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/drink-talk-roll-extended-25-bungled-cruise

Session Recap

icking up right where we left off last session, the party was about to get on Captain Iskandar “Alex” Sunwolf’s Leaping Lemure when they encountered an old man begging to get on the boat. They would later learn that his name is Genji and that he is attempting to return home to the Rotti Islands. They had encountered him before when he asked them for directions to the Crane Monastery and Amra sent him to Meridan instead. To make up for that, the party named him their fifth member filling the vacancy that had opened up when Talliyah left.

Aboard the Leaping Lemure, the party was introduced to Captain Alex’s first mate Renard, a tall Half-Orc man whose tough exterior hides a gentle soul and navigator Wax, a Half-Elf woman with a penchant for burning the candle at both ends whose nickname got more meaningful after she accidentally set her hair on fire.

Amra and Jedah felt at home as they were put to work to keep costs down. Meanwhile, Sirocco was doing his best to make new friends and new types of alcohol and Khorr went snooping around for any interesting information. After the ship let on some noble looking types in the port of Din’eidda, he found a few retainers on the top deck and heard a few interesting words from them involving some kind of intrigue involving “Stormbreaker.”

With a successful history check, Khorr was able to gleam that the phrase may refer to the first empress of Hozumi who was giving the nickname Stormbreaker for leading her people across the Sea of Storms to settle on the islands, the weapon that she supposedly used to defeat the Storm King or any of the many things built in her honor including the lighthouse that leads ships to safety in the capital’s harbor. With all of that, he decided that this information was probably for later and decided to leave it on the backburner.

After a few more days, the ship started coming across strange weather phenomena. The wind died suddenly stranding them in the middle of nowhere and that was followed by a sudden storm a few days later. Finally, the ship was attacked by a trio of water elementals including one powered by a scalding magic core.

It was a tough fight because the elementals came from both sides and the cramped deck made the party vulnerable to area of effect attacks. Khorr nearly fell but thanks to Sirocco’s Peace cleric abilities, Amra was able to take the attack for him and finish off the scalding elemental in a battle of flame vs water.

But even with the monsters defeated, the ship was still abuzz with rumors that they had drawn the ire of some god or monster of the sea. Tensions kept rising over the days as it even seemed to spread to members of the party. The second day after the attack, Jedah was the only member of the party who hadn’t succumbed to this unhealthy mindset. He asked the captain about the situation and even suggested a solution of making a sacrifice using knowledge he had picked up from other sailors. Captain Alex listened and asked the Din’eiddan nobles about possibly throwing out some valuables they had thrown over to appease whatever force was causing this streak of bad fortunes. These talks didn’t go well. Listening in, Jedah heard some cursing including a few new words he had yet to hear in his career as a sailor and what may have been a thrown chair.

The next day, all of the party was able to shake off whatever had been affecting the crew and passengers to have a clear head. Sadly, it was too late to be of much use as when they came out onto the main deck, they found a crowd gathered around and in the center, laid Captain Alex with a knife in his back. And that’s where our session ended.

Faking It Up

I think I’ve talked before either in this column or maybe on stream about how even with all the preparation I did for this campaign, including writing roughly 40 pages of world info for players to use for themselves and even more for my knowledge, I still find myself making up new parts of the game as I go on.

This goes beyond things like names for characters and shops into bigger pieces of lore that I had never thought before. For example, from this week’s episode, “Stormbreaker” had been just a throwaway phrase I had come up with on the fly when I first ran this campaign. Even going into this one, I hadn’t really incorporated it into the lore and history of the world the way I did this time around. Now, it’s become more directly intertwined with the history of Hozumi and plot developments that won’t become apparent until much later on.

The whole idea of the School of Continued Progress running experiments to find psychic children and making clones of Robin was also a complete ad lib on my part that just kept snowballing until it became its own subplot of the campaign. This ad lib then ended up tying itself into a new player character’s backstory and that’s how Dr. Nathaniel Skye was born.

In my other game, which actually should be wrapping up the day this article comes out, beyond the basic outline of the plot, I was just continuously making up new elements of the world and worldbuilding as I went along and then figuring out how they fit into what I had done earlier afterwards.

I introduced an old lady with a sister that the sorcerer kindly decided to deliver a letter to which led to creating another sister which eventually revealed that they were a coven of Hags in service to a vampire family I had already established and looking to find the coffin of the lord of the family that had been buried in the ocean. They did this by killing an NPC from a completely different side plot when he was mounting a salvage mission for a failed test flight. He had brought them is to work as guards which they completely failed at but it did lead to one of the best scenes of the sorcerer using the Ring of Gravity Lashing to steal the MacGuffin and then water ski away without any skis. Those Hags then came back again as the kindly grandmothers of another NPC involved in a completely different subplot surrounding shards of Mechanus that had wound up on the Material Plane.

Side Note: Their “grandson” was originally named Viktor after the League of Legends champion as a humanoid who believed “metal was perfection” and wanted to use the Mechanus metal to become part machine himself. That was all before the sorcerer pointed out that he was clearly a Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) expy with all the metal armor and the cloak he was wearing. I might have mentioned that in to them in passing but that was just a one-off comment that completely changed how I perceived a relatively minor character.

Well, that’s it for this week. I don’t know if there was much of a point to this. Maybe as much a point as there is in anything I do in D&D but I at least hope this gave you a little more of an idea into how to make things work even if you’re just faking it the entire time.

Until next time, keep on rolling.

-J.D.

]]><![CDATA[The Winter Court Soldier | Drink Talk Roll #70 (Arretin Campaign #24)]]>Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:00:00 GMThttp://a-to-jconnections.com/drink-talk-roll/the-winter-court-soldier-drink-talk-roll-70-arretin-campaign-24

This is the twenty-fourth session of our brand new "Arretin" campaign, and the madness continues! An old foe returns as the party begins continues their trek to resurrect their fallen friend Ulrich. Will this be the end for another of our unlikely heroes? 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 (Sirocco The Cleric)
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: 12/6 7:00 PM PDT]

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