D&D Session Log 1

I thought I'd take a break from watching Avatar The Last Airbender to write up my DMing session. The players are as follows, going by their usernames: Owler as Jerom Daleborn, Kurt as Kurth Pendron, Axe as Rolen, Hellion as Alain, and Mehdi as Thevars. With the help of Kurt's proofreading, I was able to retell the story of what happened among the Mercia Kingdom.

Our heroes started out in the Mercia Kingdom, with Thevars, a tiefling warlock in the tavern getting drunk; Alain, a human fighter speaking with a few of the locales looking for a job; Jerom Daleborn, a half-elf monk who was heading towards the nearest Bahamut Temple to pray; Rolen, a half-elf cleric who happened to be passing through; and Kurth Pendron, a half-elf warlock who was wondering outside the town square, perhaps looking for some gamblers to cheat out of their gold, with little success. Did you notice their were three half-elves? Neither did I. It was around noon when civilians came screaming down streets yelling 'bloody murder,' yes they literally yelled bloody murder, when some of these warriors ran towards the town square to see what the commotion was about. Alain asked a very nervous man what was going on, only to have him reply in a stuttering manner that someone had been killed out in the town square. When asked if he was going to go see it, he staggered backwards and paused before saying that he doesn't like the sight of blood, and walks away. Afterwards, Alain ran towards the incident. Thevars, drunk off his ass, limps on over to the town square for his own reasons.

When reaching the town square, they notice 3 men who are frothing at the mouth, their eyes rolled into the back of their heads, perhaps unconscious. No blood in sight though, which was odd. Upon further inspection by Rolen, it didn't seem like they were poisoned by any form of drug he knew. Alain also approached to do the same, and figured it was drugs that did this to them. Thevars saw throught this trickery and immediately warned the fighter of the cloaked skeletons in time to dodge it's attack.

It's amazing that the drunk tiefling warlock got a better check than the half-elf warlock who was sober.

As the mirage wore off, the skeletons rose and attacked the nearby citizens. Kurth manages to halt one of them, while holding his ground overzealous. Guess he's trying to make up for the failure in his last check. Jerom stopped the last attacking skeleton's scimitar with a quick move, pulverising the foul creature into dust.With ease the group thwarted off the skeletons, with a few hits here and there, even some of the guards getting a few hits off. Awesomeness came when Alain slid between two of the skellies and Dual Strikes both of them at once. Dual Strike allows the character to target two different monsters with one basic melee attack each. He rolled pretty good slicing off one's ribs, while slicing another completely in half! Much to their surprise, it continues to fight. While trying to gnaw on his leg, with little success, it distracted him long enough so that the skeleton behind him could get a critical hit, grazing his back. Kurth attempts to finish it off, with little success. Thevars shows him how it's done with an Eyebite to the face, causing the skeleton to disintegrate into the ground, after Kurth cursed it.

Eyebite is a wicked magic that blinds an enemy down to it's very core, hiding the caster from any form of sight. In other words, it deals charisma towards the target's will, dealing one dee-six plus the charisma modifier, and applied as psychic damage. Upon hitting, you are invisible to the target until the start of your next turn.

After finishing off the last of the skeletons, they were questioned by the guards as to who they were and what they had to do with the situation. Introducing themselves, Alain goes on to explain that they were only trying to help eliminate the undead, which is clearly proved by their assistance and good diplomacy. The guard believes him, but insists that they come with him anyway to meet the king, to which the group agrees.

Upon arriving at the gate, after an exchange of what is believed to be a code of some sort(that code being "Where do the swans swim?" to which the guard responds "Along the rivers of Clouchester), they enter inside escorted to the throne room of the king. Giving the usual hail to the virtuous King Leodegrance, the guard tells him of what has happened in the town square. He asks the adventurers if this is true, to which they explain that they were only trying to help fight the skeletons off. The king believes them and thanks them for their deed, to which Alain responded with a word of him being the son of Maec, who the king recognizes as one of the guards who protected him on his way to one of the neighboring kingdoms. He honors his presence and asks the guards to leave them alone. The king explains that the scouts have spotted a group of orcs making way to the eastern walls of the kingdom. The militia wasn't strong enough, so he asks the group to head out on a stealth mission to try and route the beasts from the eastern forests. In return, they would each recieve one thousand gold, two hundred right off the bat, after a little bartering by Kurth. The king insists that the group stick around for a day to regain their abilities, and even prepares rooms for each of them, and access to the library to gather information on the orcs. They, of course, take advantage of it.

They would split up to gather their supplies for the rest of the afternoon. Rolen was out collecting moonlight herbs from the elven merchant, whilst Alain visited the blacksmith, a very tall, bald headed man who worshipped Kord, asking for more hand axes. The blacksmith asked him why so many axes, to which Alain responds that he likes to toss things. Upon this, he also explained that he was hired to head out east. The blacksmith tells of an adventurer who also was hired for the king, had a hood above his head, a sunken face, and pointy ears, leading him to believe he was an elf. Thevars went off to find a better staff for himself. His travels fruitless, he went with Kurth to the library to find information about the orcs. All the while, Jerom had to travel to the otherside of the kingdom before finding a Bahamut Temple, amazingly not tired after the long walk.

Thevars discovers the name of the group to be called the Marauders of Gruumsh, but it was Kurth who figured out that the Marauders had travelled through many kingdoms, ravaging and pillaging the masses for all their worth, only caring about the thrill of causing great chaos. A group so powerful, even entire militaries of over a thousand soldiers couldn't defeat fifty of them. About a few years after their many conquerings, they vanished from the province, never to be seen or heard from again. They speculate that these orcs could be the Marauders of Gruumsh.

The real interest though comes from Jerom, who had just finished praying to Bahamut for good fortune in his future quests. On the way back, he was struck with a crossbow bolt from a nearby cloaked man. He gave chase after him leaping onto the roof with ease, discovering that his assaultant was quite small in stature before he made a run for it. Apparently, the small rogue knew the alleyways well, and managed to trick Jerom's eyes before vanishing into the paths. Jerom shrugs it off and decides to head back to the castle, checking where he was so that he wasn't lost. A streetwise check told him he appeared to be somewhere outside the town square, which was convenient.

The next day, after an extended rest, the group headed out to the eastern gate to be greeted by a caravan prepared to take them out to their destination. They would take them out halfway to the front of the Mercian Woods, in which they would make their way to the Raedwald Forest from there. Before heading out, one of them asks if they could have a method of passing a message once they were done. To which they were given a hawk, who seems to be much friendlier to Rolen than anyone else.

I would just like to note that this next battle gets a bit foggy on the mind. Sure, I remember all the roleplaying bits, but when it came to battles, I never was very good at remembering them unless their were funny or awesome tidbits and such. So with the help of Kurt, I managed to be able to recall most of what happened in that battle.

Upon entering the area, Rolen noticed that something was a bit off, but was unable to tell due to the wind rustling the trees. The gang prepares themselves for combat, holding their weapons at the ready. Incidentally, it was Rolen who was shot in the back by a crossbow bolt. He was able to spot where the bolt came from, and threw a Lance of Faith into that general direction, the tree's rustling, but not hearing a sound. Alain notices another bolt fly by Thevars, and looks up to spot another rogue hidden in the tree above them. He throws his axe upward, cleaving the rogue's branch off, causing the little guy to hit the ground. One of the warlocks finished him off with Eyebite. Alain spotted another one hidden among the trees on the far left. They were like little squirrels hiding up in tree's. Only difference is these squirrels are masters of stealth equipped with crossbows.. Alain eventually caught up to rogue number two, but not before Jerom hopped up into a tree and chucked rogue number three into the ground, drilling him into the grass, causing massive damage. Alain cleaved the rogue in the eye, causing him to fall to his death against the hard earth. The group proceeded to surround the rogue Jerom had tossed, hovering over him while Kurth finished off another rogue from afar. Rolen struck one out of the tree in the southern center, having him actually survive the fall with little damage. Jerom made quick work of him with his fists. It came down to two rogues left, the one in the tree, and the other one proned on the ground. Alain finally figured out where the last rogue was and chucked an axe in his general direction, the axe flying over it's head. The rogue simply pointed and laughed at the human's attempt. Feeling insulted, he threw another axe, this time flying into the rogue's groin, causing him to fall forward face first into the grassy plain. Surprisingly, the fall didn't hurt as much as the hand axe to the happy sack.

The other rogue, seeing his buddy cleaved in the balls surrendered without a fight, his comrade calling him a bloody coward before being coup de' graced.

I LOVE this rogue. Reluctant to taunt his enemies after seeing his allies fall before him, he is chopped in the nether-regions, downed to the grass, survives, and manages to call his ally a coward even under so much pain. This guy has balls. Er, used to anyway.

The battle ends with the remaining rouge being tied up. They begin to question him on who hired them after being intimidated by Jerom. Then again you really didn't need to scare this guy in order to find out information, you know, because seeing his allies die before him wasn't enough to scare him shitless. He explains that he was hired by the Marauders to route any forces sent to attack the encampment up ahead. Upon this, he talks about a group that looked like orcs, but weren't of orc descent. Before interrogating the rogue more, Thevars came up with the brilliant idea to scare the man futher beyond his wits' end. Shockingly, his bluff worked so well that the man died from a heart attack out of pure fear. The group decided to make camp, as it was about to get dark outside. To be continued...