Four players of varying experience; most are using D&D 3.5 system for the first time (poor buggers).
First we rolled up characters – all at level 7.
Dramatis Personæ
Vordon – Human Cleric of Air (7th)
Near – Elfin Rouge (7th)
Patchwork – Human Wizard (7th)
Prince Rakeem the Bastard – Human Barbarian (7th)
We had a smoke then the adventure began.
Our adventurers woke up in the old 'forgot how they got there' plot hook. Lying in a field in a state of disrepair with killer headaches. The cleric was naked and his clothes were next to the comatose mule. Nearby was a campsite and a note stuck into a log with a dagger, which read:
Don't Panic!
Your name is Vordon. Your companions are Patchwork, Near and Rakeem the Bastard.
Last night you underwent a ritual of contact.
In order to perform this ritual your party ingested a large quantity of a very strong hallucinogenic fungi.
This ritual allowed you to contact your sponsor, Charles Javier, who dwells in another plane of existence.
This fungi tends to cause intense short and long term memory loss. But don't despair.
If you concentrate hard enough the answers will come to you.
V
Apparently someone had feed the fungi to the mule.
By passing a Wisdom or Concentration check players were able to ask the DM for memories. They discovered that their sponsor or patron, Charles Javier, had recruited them from a young age and trained them at his 'School for Gifted Youngsters'. They are a party of adventures and dungeoneers for hire – The (voiceless velar fricative) J Team.
The cleric then found a map in his pocket with directions to the nearby city of Melnibone with the name Monsieur Zenith scrawled at the bottom. The party soon realised this mysterious person was the obligatory 'quest giver'.
Also in the camp site they found their standard adventuring gear, weapons and four sacks filled with 20,000 gold pieces each!!
Our adventurers struck out down a nearby road towards the city of Melnibone for some shopping.
Eventually they stumbled into a (not so) random encounter!
Rising a hill they spied trouble ahead on the road. In the shade of several tall poplars, a two-horse wagon had been dragged off the road. Small goblins clamber all over the wagon, shouting in wicked glee, while a pair of hulking two-headed monsters (ettins) roar and shout at the goblins. A couple of motionless bodies are lying on the side of the road.
After discussing their options (but not buffing) they approached the monsters. The ettins shook their clubs and yelled at the adventurers to 'fuck off'! The adventurers decided to do just that until the Wizard realised one of the motionless bodies was the follower he had asked for using his feat of leadership. Patchwork then offered the ettins a whopping 3,000 gp for their hostages. The ettins, encouraged by the goblins, were more than happy with this deal and tossed them over. The pair were a well-dressed Lord of some kind and a groaning Jester. Upon realising that the Lord was dead the Barbarian became enraged – but not in the +4 to strength way – and decided to show these ettins his great sword. A fight ensued.
Round one. Barbarian hit an ettin, Rogue backstabbed another, wizard fired off a colour spray, ettins got stunned, goblins threw javelin at the wizard, cleric fired his crossbow.
Round two. More of the same – ettin recovered and hit the rogue down to 5hp, rogue got scared and hoped like hell the cleric would heal him. Cleric cast bless. Wizard did what wizards do – hit the monsters with a fireball and killed all but one ettin and a goblin.
Ettin moved to attack the wizard and the rogue got an attack of opportunity and finished it off. Barbarian grabbed goblin asked some irrelevant questions and then broke its neck.
Party looted 1,000 gold and wizard acquired a follower.
The groaning jester they had rescued called himself Lord Golden. Coincidently he had just lost his patron – the fellow lying dead next to him – and was in need of a new one. Patchwork happily took him under his wing (although he may regret it now).
The adventurers arrived in Melnibone. Did some shopping – any item from the book under 5,000 gold pieces (except boots of spider-climb). All scrolls and potions costing 5x normal amount and all wands/rods having only 1/5th charges available.
Standard rules for a one-off dungeon crawl.
+1 keen weapons seemed to be the most popular and a few cloaks of resistance, +2 stat items, +2 natural armour amulets and the odd skill ring. (No scrolls of Raise Dead…. But at 30,000 gold coins + materials who can blame them.)
Session one finished with the adventurers on the way to meet Monsieur Zentih.
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