Dungeon Father Gaming – Deck the Halls, twice!

December saw us running two events, one our regular monthly charity event hosted at Tabletop Tyrants, the other an 8 hour birthday session with 9 players for a friend. I chose to run the same event for both not only to save on prep time but also because it was a fun adventure.

The heroes were hired by the Cormyrean military policing the walls of the prison city of Westgate and were being sent in covertly to investigate who or what was unifying the street gangs therein. They had a day to do this while (hopefully) most were at home with their families celebrating the midwinter festival.

The charity event run had four players, so I weakened down most of the encounters compared to the later birthday run.

Now, many of you by now will be wondering what the heck this has to do with “deck the halls” other than it being at the winter festival. Well bear with me.

The adventure I was running was an 5e version of a 1e/2e adventure that appeared in an old Dungeon magazine entitled “House of Cards”, where a thieves guild hidden beneath Westgate was being converted into a church of Mask (god of thieves) and an Arcanaloth had trapped most of the interior doors with the Deck of Many Things.

The first half of the dungeon was the orginal thieves guild, complete with barracks and rooms dedicated to training in the various skills thieves would need (lockpicking, pick pocketing, acrobatics, moving stealthily. This part of the complex was mostly empty witht he thieves enjoyig the festival but was protected by a cleric of mask (very badly I might add, as both groups dealt with him very handily).

The real fun began once they entered the church portion of the complex. Each door was “locked” by one of the cards and the only way to open them was to activated the card.

The charity group’s route of choice took them almost straight towards the most dangerous cards, with 2 of the 4 of them being hit with the Void and Donjon within minutes of each other. The remaining 2 players (we had about 20 minutes of the session left) deciding to quit while they still had their heads and leave the dungeon.

The larger birthday group took a slightly longer route, with the cleric being hit by a card that dropped his INT and CHA to 5 each and made him unable to cast spells or speak, the paladin had their alignment switched to Chaotic Evil, and the Half Orc “rogue” (actually a barbarian with issues) getting the Donjon while the Druid got whammied with the Void, releasing control of his summoned Earth Elemental which in turn allowed the other barbarian to face it down in solo combat to immediately gain a level of experience.

With 2 men down they still explored onwards, using a gained wish to restore their clerics powers, and then encountering the architect of the dungeon – the Arcanaloth “Phagen”. The fiend tried to use his flight to keep out of melee but the barbarian used his grappling hook to pull him back to the ground and the party made surprisingly short work of him. As the fiend expired his corrupted wish was broken and the remaining cards were sent inert and the Void and Donjon cards in his possession released their victims.

The heroes explored a little further, discovering a hoard of monetary treasure hidden in a false crypt before heading out of the complex victoriously.

This brought our first 6 months of Dungeon Father Gaming to a close, having raised £124.50 for our chosen charity (Parkinsons) which has been paid in already.

In the new year we’ll be raising funds for Mental Health Foundation UK and starting off with a couple of linked events returning to the realm of Tal’Dorei.

Until then may your dice be fair and your swords sharp!

Dungeon Father Gaming – Burning Desires

Apologies first of all, this post is a week late.

Sunday the 17th saw our November event take to the table with our biggest group so far, 6 intrepid adventurers making their way in the city of Baldur’s Gate.

The adventure was set a handful of years prior to the events of the Baldur’s Gate Descent into Avernus adventure and used some of the information from the D&D Next Murder in Baldur’s Gate adventure as a basis.

The heroes were hired by an individual named Skoond, he wanted them to break into a former business partners shop and copy his “secret” receipe for his fireworks so that he could set up his own similar business.

The party accepted and the break in went smoothly, getting the information and making two copies before returning to replace the originals so as to delay suspicion. Skoond was very happy and paid them the bonus as agreed, unaware that they had kept a copy for themselves. He said he may have further work for them and would be in touch.

Skoond was not the only one with a task for the heroes, a sergeant of the Flaming Fist hired the heroes to descend into the sewers to deal with a creature that had been attacking citizens. The heroes headed down into the labyrinthine passageways, trying their best to avoid falling into the foul fluids flowing below. They were soon beset by large rats, but quickly discovered that there was a monstrous one that was the cause of the problem.

The fight was brutal and bloody but the heroes proved victorious and returned to the sergeant with the beasts head as proof before retiring to the tavern to rest.

A messenger called them downstairs next morning to a meeting with Skoond, he had a simple collect and deliver job for them. Head out to Little Calimsham and bring a cart of supplies to a warehouse beside the docks. It was reasonable pay for little risk so the heroes agreed. Beside a brief delay with the guards at the Basilisk Gate, the collection and delivery went smoothly and Skoond was pleased to receive his supplies in good order. He told the heroes that he would have further need of them the following day and they were to come to the warehouse an hour after noon.

Next day the heroes returned to the warehouse to find it empty of the previous days workers, just Skoond and a dozen boxes. Skoond wanted the heroes to travel through the Underceller with the boxes “to avoid any nosey members of the Fist”, and to place them at specific points marked on the map he gave them as quickly as possibly. Once placed they were to tap the lids hard and get back out as quickly as they can. The payment seemed extremely high but the heroes cared little for the shadowy nature of the task and agreed readily.

Following Skoond’s map they found themselves in a large chamber below the High Hall and placed the packages against the supporting pillars within the chamber. Using mage hand and speed they activated the packages and high tailed it back through the Underceller, they had barely made it back above ground when They heard a tremendous boom and the ground shook beneath them. Smoke could be seen rising from the Upper CIty.

The explosions had been set to go off when the High Hall had been the scene of the voting to determine the new Grand Duke, three of the four candidates had been in the chamber with the voters and were amongst the casualties as the chamber was brought down atop them. The fourth, Duke Ravengard, had been called down to the citadel of the Flaming Fist as their leader to attend to an incident. As it was, the populace named him defacto Grand Duke, and the Flaming Fist and the Watch began their investigations into the explosion that had caused the tragedy.

The heroes meanwhile prepared to spend some time outside of the city for a while, but next morning when they awoke they found that they had each gained a mark on the inside of their right forearms, a skull surrounded by ten bloody teardrops – the rogue identified the mark as the symbol of Bhaal, God of Murder!

Dungeon Father Gaming – Where Evil Stirs

This weekend saw a band of intrepid heroes tackle our October event game, and in honour of the season it was horror themed.

Unnantural mists transported the heroes to an unknown derelict town where they were attacked by zombies, but not just your usual run of the mill zombies, some of them were quick, agile and eager to bite. One of them even bit one ofthe heroes and infected him with some sort of plague (though thankfully the cleric was able to cure him).

After killing the zombies and having a search they spied a ruined keep nearby and took refuge there, running into a band of bandits. After the paladin engaged their leader in single combat (and lost spectacularly) the bandits left and the heroes finished a quick search of the keep before locking themselves in one of the rooms to rest.

As the heroes took turns on watch they could see more and more zombies gathering beyond the moat but thankfully none seemed eager to cross the goopy fluid, or was something else keeping them at bay?

Rested the heroes headed down into the basement below the keep. Finding more of these plague zombies and a zombie ogre to boot. They also found a hidden door leading deeper underground. The deeper tunnels were filled with traps and some weird skeletal gnolls and eventually the heroes discovered a chamber with a priest of some sort chanting over a pool of the same goopy fluid as filled the moat.

The heroes attacked and despite the priest sending a ball of necrotic flames at them they were able to kill him. Upon his death the pool returned to normal (still stagnant and disgusting) water.

And that was where we left it as time had once again beaten us.

Did the heroes make it out alive? Did the horde of zombies swarm into the keep once whatever the priest was doing to the water had been stopped? Who knows!

Dungeon Father Gaming – Beginners D&D Intro event

This weekend we ran an extra Dungeon Father event on a Saturday at Tabletop Tyrants to introduce those either new or just starting out in their D&D adventures.

We used pregenerated characters from a great product from DMsGuild as these were well written and presented.

Our fledgling heroes ran through some of the adventures from the new D&D Essentials boxed set adventure, the Dragon of Icespire Peak. WARNING – THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THIS ADVENTURE!

The heroes began by talking to the townmaster, albeit through his front door as he refused to open it, and getting a pair of requests to head out and warn friends of the town about a dragon roaming the vacinity.

The heroes decided to travel the shortest distance first and go and try and convince the local midwife to accompany them back to town for safety. Arriving at her home, an old windmill, they found it under attack by a bat-winged lion!

The old lady waved from a window “A little help?” and the heroes began to barrage the beast with ranged attacks as it flew closer and fired its tail spikes at them. Eventually the monster was able to get into melee range and the barbarian was better able to deal with it but not before one of the heroes was dropped unconscious from the damage he had taken. The old lady was grateful and fed a healing potion to prone adventurer. The heroes agreed to help carry the old womans things back to town but chose to spend the night in the windmill first as this had taken a lot out of them.

Returning to town next day was uneventful but the heroes got their monetary reward from the townmaster, bought a few more supplies and set off to go and warn a pair of dwarven archeologists at their dig site. The dwarves (brothers) were excavating an old dwarven temple and when the heroes told them of the dragon they merely shrugged “dragons are forever a threat to dwarven lives” and said they couldn’t leave until they had had the temple explored fully.

The heroes agreed to explore the temple for the dwarves and headed in, the sorcerer and cleric lighting the way with their magic. They found a hidden door which led to a collapsed bedchamber but decided to headback and search the larger chamber upon finding nothing else.

Gathering around the limestone altar they were shocked when a massive puddle of gloop dropped from the ceiling above them and began to attack, they were even more shocked when the barbarian dealt it a mighty blow – only to split the creature into two smaller identical ones which continued to fight them!

Realising that the greataxe was causing this they advised the barbarian to try smashing it with the flat of the axehead, this seemed to be less effective but at least wasn’t making it split further -well, until the sorcerer used a Shocking Grasp spell on it that was. As the lightning dnaced around his fingertips and he thrust his hand at the creature the only affect it seemed to have was to cause it to split down into another two smaller versions of itself!

The amorphous blobs continued to fight, knocking the cleric unconscious but luckily the elven fighter was able to stabilise him with their healers kit while the rest of the party fought on and finally overcame the blob. Once the cleric had revived the explored the chamber more cautiously, discovering more hidden doors and that one of the supporting pillars was hollow. At first they thought it just contained a pile of dwarven skulls but as they emptied some of them out they discovered a stone box at the bottom. Carefully opening it they found it to contain some gemstones, which they tucked away for later.

Turning their attention to the doors they explored further, discovering another former bedchamber of whatever priests had ran this temple, including a stone wardrobe with the remains of their vestments which they took for the dwarves to identify later. Further in they found the opposite side of the collapsed area, the skeletal remains of a dwarven priest poking out from under the rubble. Digging it free they found it still wore a silver necklace with a silver charm that matched the symbol on the robes so they took that also.

With nothing else either attacking them or catching their interest they return to the dwarves, who identify the symbol as that of Abathor the dwarven god of greed (and thieves). The dwarves agree to head back with the heroes after a nights rest.

Next morning however the elf spots a group of figures approaching their camp, blocking off the only exit from the ravine.

Orcs! A quartet of the burly brutes. The heroes take cover in the ruins though some are not as well hidden as they  had hoped and battle commenced. The heroes begin with ranged attacks but the=is spurs the orcs on as they charge forward, throwing thier own javelins as they close. The barbarian grabs his greataxe and charges into the orcs but the brutes weather his blows. He quickly gets surrounded. While half the orcs begin to pound the barbarian into unconsciousness the remaining heroes continue to rain missiles and magic on the rest, managing to slay half the pack and casuing the ones standing over the fallen barbarian to think better of it and flee back the way they had came.

The party recover their comrade, binding his wounds and reviving him. Once they are sure the orcs had totally gone away they gather their gear and the dwarves and hightail it to Phandalin.

With that we closed the session, the players seemed to have enjoyed themselves and one has been in touch since asking for advice on what to get to continue playing at home so I think that was a success.

As always with the Dungeon Father sessions, half the proceeds go to our designated charity (for this 6 month period, Parkinsons UK) and with todays tally thats over the £60 mark already with at least another 3 events to go.

Dungeon Father Gaming – A Strangeness at Stilben

This weekend saw our September event day for Dungeon Father Gaming at Tabletop Tyrants and a band of stalwart heroes taking on a Critical Role inspired adventure set in the CR campaign world of Exandria.

Our worthy band today were:-

• Ashley playing Fennick, a wood elf ranger with hawk companion
• Alan playing Reign, an aasimar paladin
• Vin playing Wayne, a high elf wizard
• Jack playing Bre’ack, a tiefling gunslinger
• Jon playing Steward, a kenku warlock with a raven familiar

The heroes arrived in Stiben on the east coast amdist the K’tawl Swamp, finding a notice asking for intrepid souls to loko into the disappearances of local workers in the swamp. Attending the monthly meeting of the guildmasters they discover that the higher ranking guildmasters didn’t see there being a problem (mainly because their workforce wasnt affected).

The person who had posted the notice was Eli Troost, owner of a smaller mushroom farming company. While it was usual for one or two workers to wander off (either by getting bored of the work or falling afoul of the many predatory creatures in the swamp) the recent disappearences were much more frequent and the latest one left signs of a brutal and bloody struggle. ELi and a few of the other smaller business owners had clubbed together and raised 100 gold pieces for the culprit creature to be dealt with. Eli suggested the heroes start their investigation at Dunghill, a small shanty village in the swamp where many of the workers lived and even arranged a lift there on one of his barges.

Dunghill was little more than a dozen crude wooden homes around a single stone warehouse with a rough jetty allowing barges to dock and load their cargo. The heroes spoke to a few of the inhabitants, learning that there were three nearby workgroups: a peat farm, the mushroom collectors and the crayfishermen. There was also talk of a local hermit that often helped with medical care but he hadn’t been seen for a week or so. They managed to convince a young man that was preparing to take a stack of food packets out to the workers to give them a lift in his boat out to the mushroom patches. It was a cramped journey but uneventful.

The mushroom collectors were hard at work and understandably nervous when armed visitors arrived, the party were able to allay their suspicions and learned that one of their number had been attacked recently, all that had remained was a bloody foot and signs a a large creature passing. They also learned that a group of armed individuals had passed through the area a few days back, mercenary guards hired by the head guildmaster (Mr Stillwater) to guard his interests at the peat farm. Finally, they were told about an abandoned homestead in the swamp, a family used to live there but all disappeared around a year ago, nobody goes there as they say its spooky.

As this abandoned home was on route to the area the old hermit as supposed to be in they decided to check it out. Approaching the clearing they can see the small shack, an outhouse and what looked like a it used to be a jetty, complete with rotted shell of a half sunken boat in the mud.

The paladin took a calming breath and let his senses reach out, discovering that there were (as he suspected) several undead in the area.

The undead burst from hiding as the paladin lead the advance, a fifth figure steps out of the shack onto its porch and watches the fight. The paladin and ranger are engaged by a pair of the flesh hungry ghouls, both getting paralyzed at least once during the fight.

As the heroes begin to take down the ghouls the fifth figure strides forward, only to be intercepted by another creature that stomps forward from the tree line at the side of the clearing, this newcoming looking like a roughly humanoid shaped mass of vegetation.

The vegie-man and head ghoul go toe-to-toe until eventually the flora-beast clamps its appendages on the ghoul and rams him into its chest until only a claw can be seen slowly being pulled further inward, the vegi-man then begins to advance towards the heroes. The party understandably defend themselves, but the creatures seems content to knock the=ose that come close enough into unconsciousness before slowly shambling off into the denser swamp foliage. The heores choose not to pursue, and after reviving their injured allies investigate the shack, inside they find a sixth body, what once was a human female, her chest exploded outwards and a strange moss growing in the cavity, over the bed and up the wall beside her. The kenku uses his magic to clean away the fungus and they decide to spend the night before moving further in the morning.

The night passed thankfully uneventfully, and feely refreshed the party continue onwards to the hermits abode. A simple hut made from what looked like living tree limbs with a small entrance, a stone ringed fire pit out front and a larger stone ring that looked like a well a little further back.

The fire pit looked like it hadn’t been used in a few days, and as the party looked around the ranger discovered some tracks. From what he could gather, a group of armed and armoured figures (going by their deeper footprints) had come in, tussled with another figure in lighter attire, overpowered them and had dragged them over to the well.

Droping a pebble with a light cantrip cast upon it down the well they could make out the remains of a humanoid figure and so used mage hand to take a rope down and tie around what was left of the torso and pulled the remains back up. The remains were of a human male that had been stabbed, shot and beaten several times, as well as having severe burn marks across the right side of his face and upper torso. The heroes deduced that this was the hermit, and the paladin leads them in giving him a proper burial and a small ceremony to put him to rest.

They then investigate his hut, finding the interior to have pine needles carpeting the floor (there were no pine trees in the swamp?) and several ceramic jars containing various herbs and plants (enough to equip a healers kit). They also found a small notebook hidden in one of the jars, containing notes about the various farming groups and the last notes describing some sort of still out near the peat farms having some sort of blue coloured run off thats affecting the local flora and fauna.

The heroes decide to head towards the peat farms, as they got near they could hear croaking in the undergowth around them. They discovered they were being cautiously watched by a quartet of frog-faced humanoids and with the use of some ritual magic were able to communicate with them. The frog men were able to tell the party to watch out for alocal hazard and lead them safely to the peat farm before wishing them luck and leaving them.

Arriving at the peat farm they can see that several men are working, digging up loads of the sodden peat, loading it into carts and taking it to be dried. There were also a handful of lightly armoured guards armed with crossbows. The heroes approached openly so as not to startle them. Enquiring with the guards they find that the farm hasn’t had any disappearances, also the mercenary guards that were supposedly heading here were not and have not come here.

The party decide to head over to where this supposed still was meant to be. On the way they they pass an old statue overgrown with vines but decide to leave it alone for now and push on to a small clearing. They can see a hut with smoke coming from its chimney, a small waste pipe gushing a dark blue fluid that was then seeping into the surrounding ground. There were also four humans, two standing by the hut with the other to off to the sides keeping watch with their crossbows.

As the heroes engage fro the tree line a burly half-orc emerges from the shed and joins the fray. The paladin charged forward and releases his winged form, paralysing one of the guards with fear. The tiefling and ranger begin picking off the crossbowmen with their own ranged attacks. The half-orc enagages the paladin and mercilessly cuts him down before advancing towards the ranger. Eventually the heroes bring down the brutish half-orc, then check the bodies for anything that might give clues as to what they are doing. The paladin discovers a tattoo between the shoulder blades of the half-orc, one that he recognises. There is also note on one of the other guards bodys that seems to be from someone called Spireling Stillwater. The paladin confessess to the party that in their former life they were a member of a criminal organisation known as the Clasp and that these men appear to also be members. The shed holds a distilation set up which is refining a blue powder from gathered fungus which the paladin identifies as blue suude, a narcotic that can enhance the abilities of arcane casters and sells for considerable amounts on the black market.

The heroes agree to drag the bodies around the shack, then rig the still to overload and blow up. As the shed burnt behind them they return to examine the statue, finding to be of a four armed humanoid with a shark like head. It meant nothing to any of them so they left it alone and returned to Dunghill.

Here they rented a boat and headed out to the crayfish “fields”, here they saw several boats with crews pulling up basket traps while crossbow armed guards kept watch over them. Approaching them they find that these boats are owned by Mr Stillwater and he’d supplied the guards to protect them from anthing causing the disappearances. The heroes were directed to a group of smaller boats without guards, apparently belonging to Mr Troost and his friends.

The fishermen tell them that one of the recent attacks was in a particular area and they go to examine it, there are signs that a large reptile (maybe two) had passed that way recently, they also noticed the snout and eyes of a large crocodile or alligator in the water nearby, just watching them. Further along they find the remains of a small boat with what looked to be a large bite having been taken out of it.

The heroes decide to lay a trap for whatever is taking people, the ranger offering to be bait while he set up his hunting trap and a snare spell in the hopes of catching the beast, while the rest of the party pretend to be mushroon gathering in the nearby trees.

Unfortunately for them the creature had been following them, what they had assumed was a crocodile was actually a massive reptilian man-beast, with the head and tail of a crocodile that walked upright like a man. It also seemed to have the intelligence of a man, having stalked the party, watched them prepare the hunting trap and then struck from hiding at one of the other party members – its terrible claws ripping into the surprised kenku and leaving him bleeding out on the muddy floor.

While the wizard, gunslinger and ranger strafe the beast with ranged attacks and spells the paladin charged it, empowering his weapon with the might of his goddess in the hopes of sending the abomination into the nether realms. Unfortunately it barely phased the monster and it turned its attention to the holy warrior clamping its powerful jaws down upon him, teeth breaking through armour into the flesh beneath. badly injured the paladin fought on. Sadly the paladin was only able to fight on a little longer as the monster continued to rake him with its fearsome claws until he too lay unmoving on the blood soaked ground.

The beast then turned its attention to the next nearest target, the ranger. Striding forwards into the hunting trap and barely even slowing as it snapped at his leg before shaking it off. He entered the are of the prepared snare spell and only then the ranger realise too late that this monster was too massive for the magic to able to affect. Dropping his bow and grasping his blade he prepared to face the beast as the terrifying jaws descended once again on tender flesh.

The gunslinger was having to take the time to reload and the wizard was fast running out of powerful magic and the beast was depleting their numbers. Despite this the heroes kept battling, the ranger was fading fast and it looked like the monster would be dropping another body but the continued assault of the heroes proved strong enough as the only body to drop to the ground was a large scaly one.

As the heroes rushed to stabilise their fallen allies they noticed the monsters body was changing, slowly becoming more flesh than hide and shrinking to normal proportions until only the body of a man remained.

Despite running a longer 6 hour session time still managed to beat us, and so we wrapped up with the heroes heading back to Stilben with the monsters body, a scroll implicating Clasp involvement, and pride in the knowledge that this day, the forces of good had triumphed.

As they strode away, none noticed the red eyed, vine covered figure watching from within the trees ……

Dungeon Father Gaming – Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh session 2

This afternoon saw five brave souls facing the the next session of our Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.

The players:

• Jon A and his triton barbarian
• David M and his human storm cleric
• Sarah E and her tabaxi warlock
• Jack S and his wood elf ranger
• Lee O and his tabaxi rogue

The heroes search the barrack room once more, finally finding a hidden door leading to natural tunnels and caverns leading down through the cliff towards the shore below.

One of the first chambers they entered had some dripping green goo which dripped onto the cleric and burned hm with acid, causing him to go unconscious. The rest of the party were able to burn it away with a lit torch while the warlock dealt with another patch on the ceiling with a blast of cold magic. While they waited for the cleric to revive the rogue snuck around the tunnels.

Once the cleric was able the stealthy (or so they thought until the warlock stumbled noisily) members advanced into the next chamber only to find some smugglers awaiting them. The fight was breif and brutal and the party were victorious.

Continuing onwards they come to a side chamber with bolts of silk and casks lining the walls, hiding behind and amongst these were 3 humans and a hobgoblin. One of the humans was a mage and quickly dropped the warlock with a viscious scorching ray. If the previous batlle had been brutally brief this one proved to be an absolute bloodbath, with the rogue, barbarian and cleric all going unconscious at one point. However as the fight continued and the ranger finally got a lucky shot off at the wizard and killed him the remaining humans surrendered. They agreed to spill the beans in return for being let go unharmed and so the heroes discovered that they were smugglers, working with unknown accomplices that left the goods in the vicinity of the manor above and then they would bring them below and take them out to a waiting ship every so often.

The heroes loaded the silks and cask into the smugglers rowboat and took it all back to Saltmarsh. receiving a reward including a weeks worth of lodging.

A few days later as they rested at the tavern a messenger enters inviting them to an audience with the town council, so they agree to go and follow him to the council chamber. Despite the lead councilman Primewater being against the idea the rest of the council offer the heroes a substantial reward to seek out the put an end to the smugglers as the towns scouts believe they have found their ship off the coast. With a little haggling they agree and their friend Mr Welldeck offers the use of one his fishing vessels and its crew to get them out to it.

After gathering a few more supplies in town the head out on the small boat, using their fishing activities as a cover. The triton decides to swim solo ahead to scout but unfortunately draws the attention of a swarm of quippers! The ferocious fish overcome the submariner but his magical armour causes his unconscious form to float to the surface where his eagle eyed companions spot him and rush to his aid, thankfully driving off the minute predators before they cause his death.

The heroes then decide to wait, take a long rest and assault the ship under cover of darkness shortly before dawn and approach from seaward.

The assault on the ship starts off very stealthily with the two tabaxi climbing on baord and securing a rope for their allies, spying a pair of crewmen standing at the opposite ship rail watching the shore. They decide to rush them and attempt to tip them overboard but these salty seadogs have their sea legs and withstand the attempt, and combat begins!

We managed the first round of combat before time once again beat us. So we shall be returning to this adventure at a later event, however just as a note the players today bought 8 charity rerolls! (most of those to survive bad death save rolls).

Looking to next month’s event, we shall be playing an adventure set in the Critical Role campaign setting of Tal’Dorei, with a Strangeness at Stillben.

Back from the hiatus

Hey folks, sorry its been a while, especially for D&D related posts but I’m hoping that will be changing soon.

I’ve decided to take a plunge back into the murky waters of “Paid Dming” but this time in-person games rather than online.

With the increase in interest in D&D recently I’d noticed that 2 new gaming cafes had opened here in Leicester, offering gaming sessions (not just D&D, but that’s all I’m concerning myself with) and even had a meeting with one of them to discuss the possibilty. However as they are still in their start up stage they only want volunteer DMs.

Having given it a lot of thought, and chatted with my friend who runs pay-to-play games over at Chimera, I discussed my proposal with my boss, the owner of Tabletop Tyrants and so came up with a workable plan.

And so Dungeon Father Gaming was born, a monthly pay-to-play D&D Facebook page, where I’ll mostly be running games at Tabletop Tyrants here in Leicester but with prior arrangement considering other venues and schedules.

It won’t make me a millionaire and that’s not the intention, but it will make some money for charity and let me bring more folks to the joy of D&D.

Our first event went live and has already been provisionally booked up, I’m going to be running the first adventure from Ghosts of Saltmarsh adapted to the be in the Forgotten Realms.

So hopefully I shall be able to keep up to date with progress of the sessions.

D&D AL – Rrakkma – multi-table event day adventure

This weekend saw us running the Rrakkma adventure from Adventurers League in our FLGS Tabletop Tyrant. We had four tables of 6 players each for this 6-8 hour adventure.

Having organised this I must admit I was exceedingly nervous about it all going off smoothly, but I’m happy to say that aside from a few hiccups the day went better than I could have hoped.

Since the adventure showcased new monsters from the Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes I didn’t have any minis or tokens for them but was able to sort suitable ones to use from my 4e collection.

One of my players took pictures throughout the adventure so I’ll reshare those here rather than go into the ins and outs of the adventure itself (also to avoid too many spoilers).

What I will say is that many of the encounters/monster combinations have a fantastic synergy – especially in the final encounter. Being able to attack one of its underlings secure in the knowledge that rather than hurt it, it will pass that damage on to all the player characters around it was hilarious. Especially when I rolled an attack against the prone cleric with advantage and got a double Crit! BOOYAH!

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was a brilliant days gaming with fantastic people. A massive thank you to all who took part especially my fellow volunteer DM’s (Jim, Matt and Patrick) and our hosts, Tabletop Tyrants.

 

Now, where shall our adventures lead us next?

Gnomegeddon – the aftermath!

This weekend I ran the Gnomegeddon charity D&D adventure at Tabletop Tyrants. As I posted previously we were raising money for Dementia UK and I honestly expected us to raise around £150 between us. With myself as DM we ended up with 7 players and had an absolute blast of a game.

The first gnome death came before they had even entered the dungeon itself, with Daniel’s wizard, Bodyknock, drawing from the Deck of Many Things and pulling the Void! One of his banked resurrections down.

They came to the darkened three-sided pyramid with the strange icons at the points.

The first entrance they found led down a tunnel to a large double door, the second longer tunnel to a pair of doors. Venturing down this corridor they found loose stones partway along so cautiously spiked them incase they were traps before tying ropes to the doors and using them to open the doors from outside the tunnel. It was a good job too as upon opening the doors a block of granite slid forcibly across the loose stones, crushing the spikes beneath it and sealing the tunnel.

Rather than going down the other tunnel they checked the third side of the pyramid and found a third even longer tunnel with a mosaic floor which had symbols carved into a meandering red path as part of it.

And so began their exploration of the classic dungeon known as the Tomb of Horrors. I didn’t run it exactly as written as I wanted to put my own stamp upon it.

Many of the characters drew from the Deck repeatedly during the game (they were allowed 1 draw each every time they discovered a new “room” and paid a donation of £1), some of the results were good – Daniel gained 2 wishes, Elliot the deeds and titles to small keep etc; some not so good – more draws of the Void and Donjon cards, Elliot gaining the enmity of a denizen of the lower planes, and Jon having his alignment and gender reversed (Chaotic Good male to Lawful Evil female).

With advice from the fundraising team at Dementia UK some of us made Just Giving pages to accept our donations and these were them:

Mine – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mik-calow-dm which also includes £15 of Alastair’s as he didn’t create one for himself.

Elliot’s – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/elliot-winter1

Jon’s – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/indiana-gnomes

Sarah’s – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/patrick-ellwood

Daniel’s – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/boddynock-gnomeageddon

Jack, Matt and Alastair brought their donations in person and with them and other donations on the day this brought another fantastic amount in.

We’re just waiting for the last few in person donations to be collected in but we’ve already topped £700, a truly astounding effort from all involved I’m sure you’ll agree.

Using Daniel’s wishes they were able to bypass some of the dungeon and faced the final guardians. During this battle Jon entered the supposedly empty sarcophagus of the evil Dee-Em and found himself “elsewhere”. He was then given a choice, he and his allies could continue to battle and face the Dee-Em directly (and lose, according to the evil being) or make a deal to substitute one of his companion’s hearts to be used as a fake and leave the dungeon as supposedly victorious heroes and live long rich lives. Thanks to Jon’s earlier mishap with the cards his now evil alignment saw the benefits of taking the deal and gladly volunteered his rival rogue in the party, Elliot!

The enemies they were facing whisped into smoke as Elliot clutched his chest in momentary pain and Jon reappeared from the sarcophagus with the withered heart of the “Dee-Em”, the heroes rapidly exited the dungeon and took the heart back to the Gnomelands to celebrate (a few months later it simply crumbled into dust).

The evil Dee-Em is free to continue to terrorise Gnomes and a worthy charity receives some fantastic donations.

Charity D&D Game

Hi everyone, as some of you may know I am going to be DMing a charity game next month in aid of Dementia UK.

Gnomegeddon is taking place at Tabletop Tyrants in Leicester on 11th Gnomevember with a team of 10 gnomes tackling a modified Tomb of Horrors in an 8 hour session.

We are hoping to record it (either as video or audio, dependant on the equipment one of our players is able to borrow).

You can donate at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mik-calow-dm to make the little gnomes lives harder and help raise funds for a great UK charity.

Many thanks in advance.