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View Full Version : D&D Campaign Journal: Keep on the Borderlands



Trask
2017-01-12, 05:58 PM
Hey all! I started running D&D for some friends some months ago, one of which had never played D&D before and another who hadn't played much. Were 3 sessions in now and I think its a pretty fun game I it would neat to log it so you guys can read along. We are using "theater of the mind" and we are playing without feats.

I posted this in the 5e subforum as well but its not very 5e specific so I thought I'd put it here instead and keep updating it here.

I hope you enjoy!

Halison: Human Fighter (played by my brother)
Sariyu: High Elf Wizard (left the party to seek greener pastures)
Rorick: Mountain Dwarf Paladin (killed and devoured by hobgoblins)
Morafindel: Wood Elf Druid (killed and devoured by hobgoblins)
Elaniel: Wood Elf Druid (sacrificed to Demogorgon, replacement character for Morafindel and her sister)
Zook: Gnome Wizard (replacement character for Rorick)
Ginger: Wood Elf Druid (replacement for Elaniel and the third and last sister)

Session 1
The party was hired by a nobleman named Lord Kenway in the civilized lands to track down a band of goblins who kidnapped his niece and nephew Royce and Pirenna off the road. The heroes Sariyu, Rorick, Halison and Morafindel have been following the goblins for weeks with the help of Morafindel's skills in tracking. The arrive at Greystone Keep, the furthest domain of the civilized lands this far East. They ask about in Greystone Keep about the presence of any goblin tribes and learn about the ominous ravine and small valley the locals call the Caves of Chaos. These caves have existed for as long as anyone can remember but recently goblins have been moving in and around that territory.

Finding this a satisfactory answer to their query, the heroes sleep in the local Inn, the Green Gem Tavern and set out in the morning for the caves. The caves are about a 6 hour walk from the keep and the heroes make it without incident, finding the ravine that winds off down the path and into a small valley with caves dotting the walls of the rock face. They decide to check the first cave on the right, and are ambushed by 6 kobolds. With a little difficulty, the heroes dispatch the kobolds and heal the wounded. They also note that a fire bolt that missed by Sariyu struck a dry and dead tree in the ravine and it burst alight. The heroes decide to cut one of the smaller trees and bring it with them into the cave.

Poking around with a ten foot pole, they find a trapdoor a bit a ways into the cave and avoid it. Hearing voices in the hall ahead, they find 5 kobolds sitting around eating a meal of rat cheese. Gaining surprise on the lazy and inattentive kobolds Rorick and Halison fling the trunk of the small tree into the kobolds and Morafindel and Sariyu both fling their fire spells at it, bursting it aflame. It bowls over the kobolds, leaving only 3 alive. Two then rush forward with daggers and stab the druid and the fighter taking them down, and the last with the sling manages to wound the paladin. A few unlucky attack rolls later and it comes down to 1 kobold against the Wizard, who does not have all his HP. The wizard, speaking draconic, rolls an intimidation check to snarl at the kobold "flee now and you will live to see another dawn" and rolls a 19 on his check. The kobold loses his nerve and flees deeper into the caverns. Sariyu drags the unconscious bodies of his friends into the alcove and creates a minor illusion to mask them and commences a long rest. They hear some gurgling, throaty voices in the cavern beyond, not the chirpy and screechy voices of kobolds, something more mammalian, but it passes. The morning comes and the unconscious party members awake.

END OF SESSION 1

Trask
2017-01-12, 05:59 PM
Session 2
The morning begins with Sariyu and Halison gone back to Greystone keep to seek reinforcements to tackle the caves. Rorick and Morafindel decide to explore a little further and they head deeper into the kobold warren. Encounter a couple of well armed kobolds, they get the drop of them and cut them down easily. They then head deeper into the cave and find a kobold spawning ground with 6 adult kobolds protecting the dozens of younglings squeaking around them. Rorick and Morafindel hold up their hands to signal their intent and the kobolds lower their slings, wary and afraid. The heroes manage to get a few phrases of broken common out of them, asking about humanlings. The kobolds finally manage to choke out "goblinses have humanlings"

Satisfied with this, Rorick and Morafindel find some fresh goblin tracks leading into the first cave on the left. Creeping into the entrance they manage to slay some unmindful guards and make their way to the common room where they see 5 goblins sitting around a fire. Morafindel unleashes an entangle spell and the goblins dont last long under javelin and arrow fire. They try to leave one alive but before the interrogation can begin he starts shrieking for help at the top of his lungs. They quickly kill him but the damage is done, and the heroes now hear footfalls and clinking metal coming down the cavern hall. They hide in a crevice as 4 goblins burst into the common room. Knowing they will be found eventually, Rorick and Morafindel launch a desperate attack against the goblins but are ultimate brought down. They awake chained to the wall of a dank and musty cave with 5 other prisoners, 3 humans, an orc, and a gnoll. Rorick notices that the manacles they are chained to are simply spiked into the wall and are not extremely secure, so begins to start rattling and pulling against his binds and a hobgoblin guard of the 2 watching the room walks over and tells him to stop. Rorick doesnt comply and the goblin gets low and growls into his face, and then Rorick and Morafindel both roll to rip out the flimsy goblin manacles, they both roll above 18 and Rorick gets the hobgoblin in a headlock while Morafindel blasts him with a poison spell, killing him instantly. The other guard rushes over but Rorick picks up the guard's sword and slays the other hobgoblin. They set about freeing the prisoners except the gnoll who seems rabid and doesnt speak. They arm the Orc and the human fighter prisoners with the hobgoblin's armor since Rorick has low hp and Rorick picks up a femur from a pile of bones as a club. They creep out of the prison cave and find a fork in the path, taking the right fork they find a door from which beyond they hear many voices. Morafindel opens the door a crack and peeks through, seeing 5 hobgoblins sitting around playing cards and eating in what looks like a common room. Seeing no other option and not wanting to linger or backtrack, the heroes and their companions burst through the door and get the jump on the hobgoblins. A string of bad rolls leaves the hobs unwounded and the orc and human surrounded. Rorick tries to club some hobgoblins and manages to brain one with his femur and Morafindel kills one with her poison cantrip, but the opposition becomes too overwhelming and the hobgoblins take town the human while the orc fights desperately. 3 hobs rush up to Morafindel and Rorick to attack, and a few rounds later the last thing they saw was the orc falling down with a sword in his back and the other 2 non combatant human prisoners fleeing down the hall.

END OF SESSION 2

Trask
2017-01-12, 06:01 PM
Session 3
Sariyu having left the party at Greystone Keep, Halison returns to the Caves with 2 other adventurers coerced by the promise of a Lord's reward. The Gnome Wizard Zook and the Elf Druid Elaniel who also happened to be looking for her sister Morafindel. They head into the valley and see no sign of their companions. They proceed into the kobold warren and hear some goblins rustling around in the left passage, Halison jumps into the trap door and hangs off the side while Zook makes a minor illusion to make it look like a regular floor. The goblins rush in and hurl javelins which miss, and Elaniel kills one with produce flame and Zook wounds another with a fire bolt. As they get close, Halison's hand bursts from the illusory stone, grabbing a goblin by the leg and hurling him into the pit, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. The last goblin surrenders, terrified. They question him about what he is doing here in the kobold warren, with Zook now speaking goblin. The goblin says that they saw lots of dead kobolds and thought to take their rat cave for themselves. Confused by this, the disgusted heroes find the kobold's rat farm with big fat rats and piles of rat cheese where the goblins came from. The heroes offer this goblin the chance to kill kobolds with them and cut the hands off the others. Deeper in the cave they encounter more elite kobold guards and they throw them the hands and the live goblin as a show of peace and goodwill. The kobold chief with his two warriors steps forward and considers them. With a very good diplomacy roll the kobold chief accepts these "gifts" and his kobolds swarm over and eat the goblin. The king sends two of his armed warriors to aid the heroes fighting the goblins, Breecha and Greega. These two are distrustful of the heroes but will fight.

They then head to the goblin cave and get into battle with a patrol of 7 goblins who is guarding the cave entrance, and they are all felled by a sleep spell unleashed by Zook. Slitting all the goblin's throats except for one who they force to draw a map of the cave and then kill, they head deeper into the warren and arrive at the common room where Rorick and Morafindel fell. Getting the jump on a few goblins here, they see a couple rush to the back of the room with a bag of silver and start rolling a large stone away from the wall and pushing it in. The goblins quickly dying, a large fleshy hand reaches out of the cave and grabs the bag when Halison swings at the fingers with his sword, dealing hefty damage. There is an angry roar and an ogre steps out of the cave asking for his silver. The heroes (who have now killed all the goblins) back off and let him have the bag, when at that moment Halison rushes up from the side and leaps on the ogre's back, stabbing it and hanging on with his sword. the ogre rolls abysmally against Halison's athletics and cant seem to get Halison off his back, instead opting to smash him against the wall by backing up. Elaniel clubs him across the kneecap and Zook launches fire bolts while Halison keeps stabbing and the beast finally goes down. Feeling powerful and elated, the heroes rush into the ogres cave and find a huge bear rug, a bag full of copper and gold and 6 elven (+1) arrows and a potion of healing and a potion of invisibility.

They decide to give the kobolds the copper pieces and keep the gold, saying that they describe how theyre giving the kobolds "more" and the kobolds agree. The kobolds bring the copper to their chief and the party stumbles on a patrol of 2 kobolds and a hobgoblin which they easily dispatch. The kobolds return with 2 more kobolds from the chief and they proceed into the next room where there are 9 goblins and 15 noncombatants. With surprise they manage to take out all the goblins with some moderate injuries and 2 of the kobolds slain and one heavily wounded. They prepare to enter the last room at the end of the hall which they know the goblin chief resides in, and Zook makes a pile of goblin bodies to hide behind as cover. They burst open the door and see 4 well armed goblins, a very fat goblin on a throne with gold chains and a tall dark man with a pale face and black robes. A sleep spell unleashed in the room sleeps 3 goblins, and Elaniel unleashes a thunderwave into the room as well. Some of the goblins wake up, one dies, the acolyte blesses the goblins and they wade into battle. The goblin chief cuts down Elaniel and the kobolds go down as well. The acolyte fires a sacred flame at Zook who goes down. Halison disengages and runs away from the battle, scooping up Zook. The acolyte fires a sacred flame at Halison who manages to dodge it, and takes out the potion of invisibility from Zook's pack and chugs it. Making it away from combat, out of the cave and into the forest, Halison sets up camp to hide from monsters.

Elaniel awakes chained to a stone slab with a very tall black robed acolyte looming over her. He has a pale face, black tattoos around his eyes and severed lips. He raises a black obsidian dagger and plunges it into her. The last thing she sees before she dies is a black mist rising from the slab.

END OF SESSION 3

Trask
2017-01-12, 06:02 PM
Session 4
Halison and Zook make their way back to Greystone Keep without incident and meet up with Ginger, the third sister of both Morafindel and Elaniel who is looking for both her sisters and agrees to go with them to the caves. They decide to use their wealth recovered from the Ogre's lair to buy some gear but to their dismay find out that the majority of the gold pieces are simply copper with a gold wash (which also means the kobolds came out ahead in their deal). With their little money they buy some oil flasks and ropes and other such gear and then go to the Green Gem tavern to sleep. The innkeep lets them know that a woman has been looking for them, one with heavy armor and a large maul. They sleep and then set out to the caves in the morning after waiting around a little bit for the mysterious woman. On the way they pass a clearing near the forest's edge and see some trees knocked down and large footprints. They a roaring and stomping and see a rhino charging out of the forest with a woman in its back, both covered in blood. The party charges into battle and slays the beast, but not without getting knocked around and Zook narrowly escaping being stomped.

The woman introduces herself as Malinda, a cleric of Kord. Described as fit and strong wearing chain maul with a maul, and having a pretty face marred by a scar over her right eye she says that word of the party's exploits into the caves has been getting around the keep and she wants in. The party accepts and they head to the caves together. They come upon a grisly sight once in the valley, kobolds impaled on spikes all about. The party decides to go into the kobold cave to find out whats going on and come across 3 orcs squatting in the outer rooms of the cave. Dispatching these, the heroes head deeper in and find 2 kobold warriors holding what looks like a bloody perimeter with bodies scattered about. They menace the heroes but agree to let the heroes use this cave as a base if they can bring back the head of the orc chief and neutralize the orc threat. The kobolds inform the heroes that there are two tribes of orcs, the bloody bones and the fang fingers, and by the orc's sharply filed nails the heroes take a stab at which tribe they belong to. Leaving the cave they are jumped by orcs from the cave above but make short work of them with a well placed grease spell causing several to tumble down the ravine. One orc runs back into the cave and as the heroes enter all they see is a large dry mud wall with a door shaped hole in the center. The wall has many grooves carved in which house heads of various creatures of the caves as well as humans and orcs. The heroes notice that one head is not dead and is breathing slightly, and they stride up unassumingly and stab it in the face killing it instantly but not before its howls of pain and dying gurgles attract stomping and rousing shouts from all around in the cave beyond. The heroes brace for battle.

END OF SESSION 4

wobner
2017-01-12, 10:40 PM
thats some high lethality, although they did split the party and seem a touch wreckless.
out of curiousity, are these players new to the game? and can you tell us the levels?

some confusion, sariyu's player left the game? and is malinda a dmpc then? if they go through many more characters I would definitely like to see a better way of knowing whose who, even if you just start calling them player 1, player 2... and then listing the characters they cycle through.

also, are Royce and Pirenna dead now with the rest of the prisoners? or do we find out later in the story?

Trask
2017-01-13, 12:30 AM
thats some high lethality, although they did split the party and seem a touch wreckless.
out of curiousity, are these players new to the game? and can you tell us the levels?

some confusion, sariyu's player left the game? and is malinda a dmpc then? if they go through many more characters I would definitely like to see a better way of knowing whose who, even if you just start calling them player 1, player 2... and then listing the characters they cycle through.

also, are Royce and Pirenna dead now with the rest of the prisoners? or do we find out later in the story?

Hey! Sorry this is my first time ever doing a campaign journal so its a touch unorganized. Sariyu's player did leave the game unfortunately, and I dont like to think of Malinda as a DMPC but more of just an NPC to help out the party since they lack the healing of a cleric.

It is pretty lethal, two of these players (Zook and Ginger now) are new to the game but Halison is not. They are a bit reckless yes but I think its been a good learning experience with how to engage with the monsters. Theyre very interested in forming a solid alliance with the kobolds now and they might try and subjugate the other orc tribe. They are level 2 now (and quite a bit more survivable i might add).

Royce and Pirenna have not been found, but that remains to be seen :smallwink:

I dont expect it to be as lethal as it was before. Just a bit of bad luck really for our level 1 heroes. Of course peril does lurk around every corner, ive been called a harsh DM before but I just think i play the monsters realistically, they want to win. Sometimes thats a bit tough for new players to grasp but they get it now :smalltongue:

wumpus
2017-01-13, 12:21 PM
I wonder how much lethality has to do with "experienced DM, inexperienced players". Most of the memories of this dungeon involve inexperience all around, although the notes give hints on how to play it right (as opposed to video-game style with every room untouched by outside events that it was often played).

Couldn't at least *someone* at the keep pointed out that staying as high as possible in the caves of chaos is absolutely vital for first level characters? And not go down a level until you were at least second level, and preferably only after cleaning out the top? There's no reason they should be fighting hobgoblins (note: I was in the beta, but am pretty much going of nearly 40 year old memories of the boxed edition. I'm still fairly sure that the top levels should be nearly all first level (or easier) monsters. Also "level appropriate" wasn't a thing in Gygax's day, I'd suspect anything worse scrubbed for the new editions).

Lord Torath
2017-01-13, 02:25 PM
Couldn't at least *someone* at the keep pointed out that staying as high as possible in the caves of chaos is absolutely vital for first level characters? And not go down a level until you were at least second level, and preferably only after cleaning out the top? There's no reason they should be fighting hobgoblins (note: I was in the beta, but am pretty much going of nearly 40 year old memories of the boxed edition. I'm still fairly sure that the top levels should be nearly all first level (or easier) monsters. Also "level appropriate" wasn't a thing in Gygax's day, I'd suspect anything worse scrubbed for the new editions).
The caves closest to the floor of the ravine actually have the easiest monsters. The farther back you go, and the higher up you go, the rougher things get.

My PCs entered the Kobold cave first, faced a barrage of javelins from before and behind (the ambush group in the trees), and decided Kobolds were too tough. The next cave they went in was the Ogre's, and I knew they were going to lose someone. One sleep spell later, the Ogre was down with no party casualties. The PCs never did finish off the kobolds. By the time they were brave enough to go back in, the Kobolds had seen the writing on the wall (Minor spoiler: Goblins Hobgoblins, Orks, Bugbears, and Minotaur all dead) and abandoned their cave.

Trask
2017-01-13, 07:36 PM
I wonder how much lethality has to do with "experienced DM, inexperienced players". Most of the memories of this dungeon involve inexperience all around, although the notes give hints on how to play it right (as opposed to video-game style with every room untouched by outside events that it was often played).

Couldn't at least *someone* at the keep pointed out that staying as high as possible in the caves of chaos is absolutely vital for first level characters? And not go down a level until you were at least second level, and preferably only after cleaning out the top? There's no reason they should be fighting hobgoblins (note: I was in the beta, but am pretty much going of nearly 40 year old memories of the boxed edition. I'm still fairly sure that the top levels should be nearly all first level (or easier) monsters. Also "level appropriate" wasn't a thing in Gygax's day, I'd suspect anything worse scrubbed for the new editions).

The only reason they were fighting hobgoblins was because they got captured and sold to them by the goblins they were fighting.
It's a little lethal right now but the players are still having fun, and with every death the player said that they felt like that's probably what would've happened and they should have prepared more. I don't think that's a bad impression to get. Besides its so easy to generate new characters they're back in the action very quick.

wobner
2017-01-13, 08:50 PM
The only reason they were fighting hobgoblins was because they got captured and sold to them by the goblins they were fighting.
It's a little lethal right now but the players are still having fun, and with every death the player said that they felt like that's probably what would've happened and they should have prepared more. I don't think that's a bad impression to get. Besides its so easy to generate new characters they're back in the action very quick.

since i neglected to say so, i am enjoying the journal, and just to be clear, the high lethality comment on my part was not criticism, hope it wasn't read as such. glad to hear your players aren't detered by the learning curve and have such a good attitude about it.(i imagine its especially easy to drum up a new character when wood elf druid number 1, is replaced with wood elf druid number 2, number 3, ... i'm only teasing)

looking forward to more.

Trask
2017-01-13, 08:53 PM
since i neglected to say so, i am enjoying the journal, and just to be clear, the high lethality comment on my part was not criticism, hope it wasn't read as such. glad to hear your players aren't detered by the learning curve and have such a good attitude about it.(i imagine its especially easy to drum up a new character when wood elf druid number 1, is replaced with wood elf druid number 2, number 3, ... i'm only teasing)

looking forward to more.

No offense taken at all! Im glad youre enjoying the journal. Also for the record thats exactly what she did lol.