Thinking Out Loud - Running Multiple 5E D&D Campaigns

So I finally started a 5th edition campaign a while back and I went for an old school approach: we rolled up characters with 4d6 drop the lowest, we used old school styled character sheets, I set it in Greyhawk, and we started with The Keep on the Borderlands placed on the frontiers of the Kingdom of Keoland. I've run several sessions and it's all good but ...

When some of the players from that group were not available and really wanted to play through the rest of the adventure, my solution was to start a completely different 5E game set in the Forgotten Realms and using a completely new school approach - point buy, new style sheets, 5E published adventure book, bringing in a new and very young player, and set in the 5E Realms - as opposed to the 4E Spellplague Realms, the 3E Realms, the 2E Time of Troubles Relams, or the original recipe 1E Realms. I've run a couple of good sessions here and we are having a blast.

This coming weekend we're looking at another session of the Old School campaign due to player availability and a few things occurred to me.

First, I wasn't really looking to run two D&D games, yet once again I've somehow found myself in that position. It's a nice problem to have but it's somewhat ironic that with all the games I'd like to run I end up running two of the same game at roughly the same time.

Second, having them in two separate settings means more overhead for me and the players as far as NPC's, nations, gods, assumptions, etc.

Third, if I put them in the same setting it opens up the possibility of crossovers of both players and characters which could be a lot of fun and very helpful as both campaigns proceed.

Given that, it makes some sense to retcon the old school game into the Realms. I really like the region where Storm King's Thunder is set and I am diving in full-on in researching it and gathering material, but I would prefer to set the other game somewhere else so they're not stepping on each other and so we can explore a different part of the Realms. I need a somewhat organized kingdom .. how about Cormyr? Far enough away that it would feel like it's own thing but still on the same continent and connected to the main region I want to use anyway.

So I was all set to do this when I started to have some second thoughts. The whole point of the original campaign was to do some "old school" adventuring using the 5E system. There are a lot of old adventures that I really like and that  my players have never experienced. I want to work those in along with some homebrew stuff. I'm worried that moving the game to the Realms will lose some of that feel. Most of the old 1E adventures have a location in Greyhawk and while it wouldn't be hard to place them in Faerun I myself first encountered them in Greyhawk and that's what feels the most "old school" to me. The thing is I'm not that excited about Greyhawk on it's own at the moment - I mainly chose it because it's the first place I think of when I think of these adventures, not so much because I think the world itself is something I want to explore right now.  My players don't really know enough about the old modules or either world to have a strong opinion so this is a problem mainly in my own head.

Now I could go in a completely different direction and retcon it into my homebrew old-school setting that I put together a few years back for our Basic campaign. I had a lot of the old D&D/AD&D modules in mind for that game anyway. A homebrew setting would be the oldest of old school approaches and it trades "research" for "creation" which may be more satisfying in the long run anyway.

As a plan C or D, well, the Scarred Lands have come up a few times as one some of my players (and I) remember fondly from our 3E campaigns and I've been thinking about how we could work it in to the rotation at some point. It's an interesting mix of old school and some newer concepts and I would really like to take my players into that world again. I mostly ran some Goodman Games and Necromancer Games adventures there and I have some that I never ran that would be fun in 5E as well. There would be a lot of adaptation so it still scratches the creative itch.

After thinking through it here I may reserve Greyhawk for another run down the road, maybe original flavor Temple of Elemental Evil. I think I like the Realms/Homebrew/Scarred Lands options more than GH right now. I have to decide whether the advantages of using one setting for both games is worth giving up separation to protect that old-school feel and that may take a little more thinking. Nailing down which adventures I want to run in the "Classics" campaign would probably help. Even there though I am not driving a metaplot here- a lot of it will be up to the players.

So anyway there's one DM thinking out loud and trying to find a good answer to this. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to share.

Campaigns I Haven't Run: Waterdeep

I've run quite a few campaigns across different systems, genres, settings, and time periods and I've talked about a lot of them here. Over the past week I've been cleaning up the library and the wheels start turning whenever I start going back through the books in depth. Because of that I thought I would post a little bit about some of the campaigns I haven't run but would like to, and why. First up: Waterdeep!

One of the first FR supplements after the box

It's the big city of the Forgotten Realms; the Greyhawk; the Lankhmar; the New York! It's a big, busy, potentially dangerous place. It's always been one of the more detailed areas of the Realms because it's one of the regions where Ed Greenwood actually ran games. It sits on top of a megadungeon, the infamous "Undermountain". It has intrigue with all of the guilds and with the rulers of the city being masked with secret identities - an interesting approach to local government.

I thought this was a pretty solid one-volume rundown of the city

It's also been the subject of focused supporting material in multiple editions of the game from the original module type booklet up above to the boxed sets of 2nd Edition to the hardcover book of 3rd edition. There's certainly no lack of material to explore. Beyond the books there is of course plenty of online material as well.

The maps are insane! This could easily cover a wall of a room.

Maps are an inspirational thing with me and they reach Ridiculous Level with the City System box. Seeing a good map makes me want to go exploring. Above ground ...

These could cover the other wall of the game room

...and below! I think most people are aware of the massive poster maps of the dungeon levels for Undermountain as well.  They're pretty cool and inspirational again for the sheer size and scope, especially of what you could do.

If you don't feel like Undermountain there are always the ... well, you know.

I've never really run a fantasy big city game but looking back through these books and boxes really flips the switch. You could run it as a total sandbox as there's all kinds of space, power groups, smaller dungeons, the mega dungeon - there's no real limit here. I can also see plenty of plots to flesh out and use as the spine of an ongoing campaign. Long term goals for old-school characters in a D&D game might include carving out a barony in the wilderness somewhere - here you could aim to become one of the lords of Waterdeep instead!

Now it is the Realms so there's plenty of gods and powerful NPC's running around and Waterseep tends to be an area of focus for big events but so are big cities in fiction and in the real world so a lot of the trappings of the Realms that some see as a negative make a ton of sense here, moreso than most places  - it's the big leagues! If you can make it here you can make it anywhere! I'd say it's a feature not a bug.

The main thing to keep in mind is that despite the history and popularity of the area quite a bit of it is only broadly described. There's plenty of room to carve out a neighborhood or three of your own design. Your players will get to know familiar NPC's, organizations, leaders, enemies, and eventually be experts on the region.

I also think it would be a great area to try running multiple simultaneous campaigns - one group might be mainly focused on Undermountain while another gets involved in politics. There are a ton of other options and they're all in a small enough area that the opportunities for crossovers are numerous.

There's also a lot of interesting stuff near the city so if your players get tired of urban adventures they can head outside for a special two-part episode in the High Forest or the Serpent Hills. That said my main focus would be the city itself. Kind of the opposite of the West Marches Mantra - here the adventure is in the city. Outside is where new characters and new threats come from, but it's not where you go adventuring.

So while I've never run or played in this kind of game It looks like a lot of fun to run and play.  A lot of my focus in recent years has been in shorter, limited campaigns like the Savage Worlds plot points or the Pathfinder Adventure paths. This is one of those long term no particular end in sight type of games I have not run in quite a while. It's on the short list for the next D&D type campaign I run.

SSoI - Session 28: Airstrike!

Our Heroes (10th level):

• Lt. Alex Gravis, Water Genasi Warlord (and Ivan, owlbear paratrooper) 
• Gartok, Dwarf Earth Warden
• No-Name, Elf Bow Ranger 
• Torin Tsai, Half-Orc Slayer
• Xyla, Drow Vampire

Note: Full Attendance! Just to restate, standard 4E encounter balance is built around a 5-man party. I stayed with this as we had six players when we started. So I build for five - if six show up they have an advantage, five is even, and if only four show then they are at a disadvantage. If only three or less can make it we just don't play that week.

This worked really well for much of the campaign but we're down to five players now and two of them are involved in an organization that has out of town weekend events fairly often. That means that quite a bit of the time I either have all five or I have only three. With six players it just meant a weaker party sometimes, but now it means no game. Add this unusual wrinkle in to the usual job/kid/family/holiday schedule complications in trying to get six adults together regularly and we had a very spotty latter half of 2013. I haven't fully solved it at this point so it was good to have a full team this time.

As the last of the fire's from Abrithiax's rampage are stamped out the bucket-brigading townsfolk raise a cheer for our heroes. Appreciating the appreciation is short-lived though as a telepathic contact comes in form Lord Cartwrtight that the western gate is under heavy bombardment. Some hellish green flame is being catapulted in and it's clinging to everything it hits and even the gatehouse is beginning to melt under the assault. He asks the heroes to risk an airborne trip outside the walls to destroy the infernal siege engines that are behind the attack. naturally, our heroes agree. Whistling for the owls, they leap into the saddle and are airborne in minutes.

They easily spot the launching point of the blazing green hellfire, but as they angle towards it other winged shapes are rising to meet them. As the gap closes they become familiar leonine beasts - manticores!

While a few combatants hang back and shoot, an aerial joust shapes up between the three biggest manticores and the four close-combatant party members, slashing and striking as they flash past each other hundreds of feet above the ground. Thinking outside of her usual melee box Xyla focuses her glowing eyes on one manticore and dominates it, sending the beast to attack one of its own. Aiming for the wings, the slayer and ranger both manage to send manticores spiraling down out of the fight, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for good as two of them plummet straight into the ground to their deaths! One beast gets tangled up with the slayer who goes after the wings (hey it worked the first time) and then realizes his mistake as the manticore, the slayer, and the owl all begin falling from the sky. He manages to break free before impact, but it's a near thing. 

Stay in formation!

Blasting through the manticores, the party reorients themselves, climbs back up out of bow range as they cross over a group of hobgoblins, then dives down over the artillery site. Leaping free they take stock of the opposition - dwarves! Strange dwarves with infernal symbols operating large mechanical siege engines - Charduni? No, Duergar!

There are 3 of them, one working each machine, plus a clear leader type shouting orders and one tough-looking customer with a big warhammer who is already eyeballing the party in general and Gartok in particular.

Starting things off right No-Name plants an arrow in the leader with his usual style as he gracefully leaps from his mount. The evil dwarf staggers back but is then charged by the slayer who is winding up for a ferocious fullblade strike. Desperate, the dwarf summons a legion devil between him and the onrushing half orc. One swipe of the blade cuts the devil in half, the follow through bloodies the duergar, and a final slice puts the dwarf down for good - and the fight has only just begun!

Gartok moves to engage what is clearly the duergar champion and the two go at it like angry blacksmiths, hammers ringing. He is aided by Xyla who is happy to meet a victim that doesn't drop at the first hit - finally a challenge! 

Gravis and Ivan, quickly joined by Torin and No-Name, begin attacking the artillerists to put a stop to the bombardment. They prove to be no weaklings themselves as they back off and team up, wielding frost-weapon morning stars and tossing explosive devices whenever the heroes group up. It's an unpleasant new tactic, as the dwarves are willing to grit their teeth and drop bombs in close, counting on their innate resistance to fire to protect them form the worst of it. The battle is mobile, shifting in and around the massive siege engines. The explosions take their toll but the defenders of Brindol are not deterred and one by one the duergar fall, leaving only the champion upright.

Battered but not beaten, the champion suddenly grows to the size of an ogre, slashing out with his spiked beard and laying about with rapid strikes from his hammer. If he can't save the others he can at least destroy these upstarts. Xyla and Gartok take some hits but the rest of the party rushes in after felling the last engineer and under the weight of those  attacks the dwarf staggers. Torin goes for the killing stroke, misses, but an incredible shot from the ranger deflects his blade into the massive champion finishing him after all. 

Realizing that the Red Hand army is all around them the group sets about destroying the hell-forged artillery and then escapes on their owl companions before the hostile forces can react, winging back over the walls of Brindol to safety.

DM Notes: This was a pair of battles in unusual conditions to change things up. First, the aerial battle with the manticores to try out the 4E flying combat rules. They worked pretty well but are very risky as "proned" = "falling" if the target is flying. This made for a very three-dimensional fight as the party does have some proning attacks. Some of the manticores had grab attacks which  led to some tricky situations as the grabbed character prones the grabbing manticore, sending both of them downwards. The mants have lots of ranged attacks too which meant they didn't have to close and our melee monsters had to work a little harder to jump on things. Even given that the fight only lasted 4 rounds, and these were not minions.

Exchange of the game:

DM: "...and these manticores attack the ranger" 

Gartok's player: "Yeeeeeeah yes yes yes!"

Gravis' player: "You're a terrible defender."

The duergar fight involved a new opponent for them and had a time limit, though they didn't know this had an actual mechanical element. It is night, but they are dropping in on a unit in the middle of the enemy army. Now that army has given the dwarves plenty of room to work, but if the engines stop firing and sounds of fighting break out, they will come to investigate. So, after the firing stops and combat starts, the party has ten rounds unmolested. After that, soldiers from the nearest units start coming to investigate. As it turned out it didn't matter as that fight only lasted 6 rounds, plus a few more to destroy the artillery. All the rest of the Red Hand got to do was shake their fists as the PC's flew off. 

Duergar are fun in 4E. This was my first run with them and I'm looking forward to more. The poor hellcaller died on round 1 but he did get to pop his fun power:

It didn't matter as the slayer still killed the devil AND the hellcaller but doing the facial expressions and (very short) conversation (BAMF! Yes o mighty mast-ACK!) as this all happened was quite a bit of fun.

The artillery crew had some fun stuff too.

Now these particular duergar had resist fire 5, and the champion had resist fire 10 - note the damage can exceed that pretty easily, but desperate times you know. The champion at one point was shouting at them to target him so the attackers would be getting hit as they ganged up on him and was just gritting his teeth as the 5-6 points punched through his tough hide and the push let him get some movement in that didn't provoke OA's - it seemed like a perfectly evil dwarfish thing to do. 

Also note: This pair of battles does not appear in the original adventure. I am freelancing quite a bit for the siege to make it appropriately climactic, to use some of the things 4E does well, and in some cases just because I want to. 

Everyone seemed to have fun, the good guys won pretty handily and the western gate was saved.

SSoI - Session 27 - Red Dragon Fight

Our Heroes (still 10th level):

• Lt. Alex Gravis, Water Genasi Warlord (and starting second base-bear Ivan!) 
• Gartok, Dwarf Earth Warden
• No-Name, Elf Bow Ranger 
• Torin Tsai, Half-Orc Slayer
• Zarra, Drow Vampire (in a torpor for this session after gorging herself on hill giant "juice")

Returning to Brindol after their emergency expedition the heroes realize that much of the city has been evacuated, presumably during their expedition to the Fane of Tiamat. They are invited to a council of war to share their advice and help plan a strategy for the defense of the city. As the most powerful adventurers in the city they are an important resource, and the city leaders know it.

Mechanically this is a 3-part skill challenge that will help frame the rest of the climax of the adventure.

Part 1: Formal Introductions

In this opening discussion the party meets the city leaders and makes their first impression on each. 

Success or failure here will affect how difficult the targets for the subsequent skill challenges are, initial attitudes of some of the NPC's,  and some of the offers that might be made by some of the individual NPC's.

This goes extremely well. The major players are:

• Lord Cartwright, ruler of the city 
• Lady Kaal, leader of a powerful trading house
• Marshal Ulverth, head of the city watch
• Lady Goldenbrow, high priestess of Lathander
• Immerstal the Red, leading wizard of Brindol

Also Appearing:

• Sorana and Speaker Wiston from Drellin's Ferry
• Sellyria Starsinger representing the Tiri-Kotor elves
• Captain Helmbreaker, leader of a dwarf mercenary company 

This was a Level 10 Complexity 2 skill challenge to make a good impression on the town leaders. Previous successful efforts in the adventure drop this to a level 8. Primaries are Diplomacy, Religion, and Insight. Secondaries are History, Arcana, Streetwise, and Perception.

The party blew right through this one. They are very good at some of those skills, had good references from Drellin's Ferry and the elves, and handled themselves perfectly.

Part 2: Strategy Session

With the introductions out of the way the talk turns to a debate on how to use the forces available to best defend the city.

This counts as one of the "battles" in the defense of the city. There are definite wise and unwise options on the table and choosing the bad ones will count as a defeat and remove some of the assets available to defend the city. This, combined with the results of our played encounters will determine the "finale" scenarios and the fate of Brindol - a successful, heroic defense and breaking of the Red Hand's siege, or a desperate rear guard action as the horde overwhelms the city's defenses and the remaining defenders flee for their lives.

This goes well too. It's a Level 10 Complexity 5 challenge. Primaries are Diplomacy, History, and Religion, Secondaries are Arcana, Bluff, Insight, Nature, and Streetwise. The basic debate is whether to meet the enemy in the field with the Lion Knights leading the way, or to hold the walls, giving up the initiative but maintaining a stronger defensive posture. Lord Cartwright and the knights are in favor of the field battle while the marshal favors holding the walls. The others hold varying positions or are undecided.

Gravis the warlord quickly realizes the army is not large enough to take the Red Hand on straight up ad argues forcefully and persuasively for holding the walls. Aided by his companions, they convince the lords of the city to play defense instead of a glorious but foolhardy charge into a stronger foe.

Part 3: Defending the City

Having decided on defense, the question arises as to what happens if they get inside the walls.

This affects some of the possible scenarios later in the campaign and there are advantages and disadvantages to both sides. This isn't a win/lose so much as it is a way for the players to decide how they want to handle things later.

One option is to run a resistance cell type of defense - small groups of snipers with makeshift barricades spread throughout the city making the entire area dangerous for invaders. The danger is that healing and power may be spread too thin. The alternative is a centralized defense stationed around the High Cathedral of Lathander. Clerics and elite defenders would be staged there to provide centralized healing and a rally point for any retreating defenders and to act a dispatch-able fire brigade if things are going wrong at any point on the walls. The danger here is that if this group/location falls, the whole city may fall. Lord Cartwright, Immerstal, and the high priestess favor the centralized defense while the rest favor a distributed defense as they are unwilling to abandon their individual holdings.

This is a level 10 complexity 2 challenge and the party once again blows it away with Torin setting Gravis up for an intense but diplomatic illustration of the perils of the distributed defense. Success here = the players get to choose how this goes, failure = a distributed defense regardless as the disunited leaders refuse to pool their resources and only defend their own holdings

After this the party is made the leading edge of the city's defense. To ensure communications the wizard uses a scroll of telepathic Bond to link Lord Cartwright to Gravis so they can communicate from anywhere in the city. Then word comes that giants are making another push for one gate, siege engines are bombarding the north wall ... and a red dragon has just landed inside the city and is setting that quarter ablaze. Our heroes mount up on giant owls and head out to deal with the dragon.

Abrithiax, the red dragon, has driven off the gate guards, smashed some smaller buildings, and set others on fire. He shows no fear as the party rushes in. In fact, though they have faced several dragons, none were as large and powerful as this one and his magnificence has an effect on them - briefly. All of them charge in (except for the ranger, though he does open fire). They wound the dragon but he repsonds with fiery breath and furious claws leaving Gartok bloodied. The warden stays in the fight, and the slayer keeps swinging, but a tail slap knocks the warlord across the street!

Continuing hits from the others are beginning to hurt the great beast and it unloads more flame on Torin and Ivan but Gravis gets back in the fight and shots encouragement to everyone. As the dwarf holds the red's attention, the slayer unloads a series of punishing slashes with his fullblade, and the ranger plants a final arrow in the thing's head as it staggers and falls.

After the dragon is slain it's a Level 10 Complexity 3 skill challenge to put out the fires. This was a little more freeform as to skill relevance so I let the players justify their skill choices. It was a lot of fun and a nice way to wrap up this session.

Marked, Quarried, and Bloodied - that's a tough situation

DM Notes: Most of my notes are above but I wanted to give the players some say in the defense of the city and the skill challenges worked very well. Their characters are the highest level beings in the valley other than the enemy leaders, and given their track record so far it makes sense that the town leaders would listen to their counsel. Note they are not just turning it all over to the PC's, but they are treating them as valuable partners, maybe even equals. I had notes on each leader's position on each of these questions and let the player's direction drive whose opinions were swayed. Skill challenges play much faster than a typical combat, so it's easy to include a few, make them feel fairly important to what's going on, and then wrap it all up with a fight against a big dragon I was very happy with the way this one went and I think the players were too. The decisions made here will shape a lot of the remainder of the adventure when it comes to encounters and the opposition.

February: The Red Hand of Doom Recap month

In February I am cranking my lapsed campaign back up again. To help with this I will be posting one session recap every day of the month. This does mean that the first few will be re-posts as I did make an effort early in the campaign to do them but I didn't keep up and soon enough they disappeared. I am writing up the interim sessions in the meantime and will post them all in sequence, once per day. To get things started, here is an introductory post.

Introduction

This campaign kicked off in early 2012. It is a 4^th Edition game set in the 4^th edition Forgotten Realms. It begins in Impiltur in the spring of 1450 DR.

System

We went with 4^th Edition because we were coming out of a previous 4^th Edition campaign that ended in a TPK. That one never made it out of Heroic Tier but it was very close and the group wanted to keep playing the same system to see what Paragon felt like and eventually to get to Epic. As a compromise between starting completely over and just jumping ahead directly to Paragon Tier we began with 4^th level characters.

Setting

Everyone still liked the Forgotten Realms so we stayed in that world. We did move to a different region as we wanted a fresh start with no connection to the prior campaign. I set the game in Impiltur. This region is really not associated with any legendary NPC heroes and has not been all that thoroughly explored in the published setting material.

The geography is not widely known so I could alter it to my liking without provoking an attack of opportunity. I did this by placing the Nentir Vale (from 4^th edition core materials) and the Elsir Vale (from Red Hand of Doom) in Impiltur. I’ve left the overall map pretty vague for now as most of the campaign has been entirely contained within the Elsir Vale, but eventually I will detail it out.

The history of the region is interesting and ties into some things I expected would be a big part of the campaign. Namely demons in general and Orcus in particular, who figures prominently in some of the Epic Tier adventures for 4^th edition. Vaasa, a land to the northwest of Impiltur, is home to the Warlock knights, a new enemy group in the post-spellplague Realms. They could make for an interesting change of pace if I need one at some point.

Finally, after 4^th edition turns the Realms upside down Impiltur is wide-open with a power vacuum my players could fill if they chose to do so. I wanted to give them a chance to become the movers and shakers of the Bloodstone Lands.

I set the game a few decades earlier in the official timeline, post-spellplague but not as much as the standard starting time in the FR book. This has about zero impact on the game but it sets things up nicely if I decide to run a follow up campaign as much of the early part will be based on Red Hand of Doom, and one of the published 4^th edition adventure paths is a sequel to that adventure, the Scales of War. Given the amount of time these things can take we may never get there, but I like planting the seeds just I case.

Theme

My original vision of the campaign was tied in to Impiltur’s history as a center of Lawful Goodness, Paladins, and a general knightly atmosphere about the whole area. I assumed my players would be thinking along these same lines, traveling about the land, righting wrongs and looking to restore the king. Thus the “Shining Swords of Impiltur” campaign was born.

Unfortunately I did not really get into a deep discussion of this idea with my players so of course this meant I was on a completely wrong track. They created a Genasi Warlord, an Elf Ranger, a Shifter Paladin, a Dwarf Warden, a Dwarf Cleric, and a Drow Vampire, mostly hard-bitten survivors from other areas around the region rather than the high fantasy scions of Old Impiltur. Given the situation I changed the label to “Savage Swords of Impiltur” and decided to run with a slightly darker, nastier tone. It is a new age after all.

Some additional background posts are here and here.

Gaming Fiction Review - Gauntlgrym

I started this one, set it aside for a few months, then picked it up again last week and read it fairly quickly. As of this volume there are about 20 books in the Drizzt saga depending on how you want to count the "Sellswords" trilogy where he only appears in the first book. There are 3 more in this particular series with 1 more (as part of "The Sundering") on the way so we're up to about 25 or so altogether. If you want to throw the Cleric Quintet into that (some characters show up in the Drizzt books) then we're up to about 30 novels in "Bob Salvatore's travels around the Realms". In my opinion, they're pretty good, around the top of "gaming fiction" as a genre. No, your kids aren't likely to be studying them in English or a Literature class but there are good stories and interesting characters here.

With all of those Dark Elf & Friends books out you're likely already either on board with them or not and I doubt this book will change your mind. If you don't like any of the earlier ones, you probably won't like this one and I wouldn't recommend starting with it anyway. If you do you probably read it a couple of years ago and are wondering why someone is just now posting a review. I'd label myself a casual fan - I get the books but not the day - or even the year - they come out. So I'm reviewing them at a casual pace and as that casual fan.

As an overview, this book continues the story of Drizzt and company though his companions are finally being thinned out by the passage of time. To me this is one of the great potential themes that the author has resisted until now: when you have an effectively immortal character who has non-immortal friends, what happens when time passes? How does it impact the character, a heroic figure in the setting, as his friends and family die off? There are a lot of interesting elements that could be layered on top of the original misfit/wanderer/outsider looking in themes of the early books. In the previous book in the series, The Ghost King, we finally started exploring these ideas and in this book it becomes a major theme and that's is 100% a good thing.

I won't get into spoilers too much here in case someone has not read the book but here are 3 things that stood out to me:

• There is a lot of time passing quickly in this book. Decades pass between the beginning and the end and the timing of most of this story is just a few years before the 4E era of the Forgotten Realms. Timeline jumps are much easier when you're dealing with Elven and Dwarven lifespans.
• The expected threat-of-the-book (pictured on the cover up there) takes a somewhat unexpected turn and despite the author's continuing preference for unique, signature weapons for many of his characters (see Drizzt, Athrogate, Cadderly, Jarlaxle, Artemis, Pwent, and others for examples) he manages to not bring it down to a simple confrontation between Drizzt and the expected signature villain. I thought the whole story was well done and the climax of the story was especially well handled.
• There is a lot of dungeoneering in this book and it's a pleasant change from some of the cross-country stuff in earlier books. If you like dwarves they are a focus of this book, along with Thay and cultists of Asmodeus. The opposing forces in the book are an interesting and unusual mix of creatures too. The party Drizzt joins is an interesting mix as well and the pages fly by.

One thing I realized as I was wrapping up the read was that none of the main characters in this entire saga have children: Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-Brie, Wulfgar, Regis, Jarlaxle, Artemis - none of them. In a lot of other settings and stories one way to handle the passage of time and mitigate the loss of favorite characters is to have their children grow to adulthood and begin having similar adventures. That's really not an option here. Why is that? I am not sure. Mr. Salvatore has children, so I know he's not against them in general. It's just odd that with all of the emphasis on home and family and friends and long term relationships that have their ups and downs that none of these characters appears to have produced offspring nor are they engaged in raising them beyond Bruenor's adopted humans in the first few books.I wonder if that will change down the road.

None of that changes the epic quality of the story - this is a tale that sets the stage for Neverwinter and the North in the 4E timeframe and it's a really good read, even moreso if you've read all of the others leading up to it.

Savage Swords of Impiltur - Session 26:

So, uh, yeah, bit of a timeline jump here. "When you find yourself deep in a hole, stop digging." My last session summary on my "main campaign" was in March of this year and it was for session ... 6. We've been playing the whole time, I just stopped writing up the summaries, and if you let that kind of thing go it can pile up on you. To head off any further growth in my backlog, I decided I needed to start posting the more current stuff as it happens, and I'll work on catching up later. Think of it as artsy flashback/timeline tomfoolery, like "Lost", or BSG's "One Year Later" episode. It's actually more than a year between #6 and #26 in real time, and quite a bit less than that in game time. Enough...

Our Heroes (now 10th level):

• Dar Bloodmane, Shifter Paladin
• Lt. Alex Gravis, Water Genasi Warlord
• Zarra, Drow Vampire
• Gartok, Dwarf Earth Warden
• Izenheim, Dwarf Cleric of Marthammor Duin
• No-Name, Elf Bow Ranger 

Roster changes:

• Dar Bloodmane left the material plane back in Session 17 under circumstances to be described in that post. As a clue to avoid any unnecessary stress on the reader, the most relevant word in his demise is "Behir". Dar's replacement is Torin Tsai, Half Orc Slayer

• Izenheim left the party a bit earlier, claimed by that all too common enemy of gaming - "family"

• As Gartok and The Elf with no Name were both out for this session, Apprentice Blaster filled in with Maximus, Human Fighter (Gladiator).

We begin in the city of Brindol, Impiltur, Faerun. Still stinging from their failure to stop the summoning ritual that allowed an aspect of Tiamat into the world, our heroes use the old portal once again to return to the city. They are greeted by Lord Cartwright and his aide who are relieved to see them alive but have an urgent problem: the Lion Knights of Brindol are battling the encroaching Red Hand army to try and stave off a siege but a group of hill giants has separated from the main army. One mob is attacking one of the gates while others bombard a section of the city wall with boulders. The city watch is being overwhelmed and the rest of the defenses are still being organized - can the heroes help? With barely the time to catch their breath, the party agrees to check the raid.

Gravis wants a tactical advantage if they are going to be fighting giants and requests the aid of the Tiri-Kotor elves who have forces in the city. They agree and soon the team is mounted up and airmobile. they sweep over the wall and swoop in behind the giants attacking the gate. It's a small force of only four brawny giants swinging a battering ram, a shaman-looking leader, and his pet - a monstrous scorpion beast.

The defenders of Brindol dismount and charge! Torin, Gravis, and Maximus cut down the shaman almost immediately while Zarra uses her uncanny charms to dominate the giant scorpion pet, turning it against the other giants before leaping into the fray herself! Not the brightest of beings, and befuddled at the sudden assault and their turncoat pet the giants die to a man in front of the gate. The heroes are battered but driven to carry on, so they whistle for the owls and remount to extinguish the second assault.

The second group of hill giants is gathered in the ruins of an ancient shrine outside the city walls. They are picking up everything from fallen masonry to grave stones and hurling them at the wall and seem to be having quite the time doing so - it's possible alcohol is involved. The party is soon over though as the owls drop down out of the sky and five deadly warriors close in around them like the fingers of a deadly fist! under Gravis' direction Maximus leaps in and draws their attention (gladiators!) while Zarra and Torin rip into the behemoths with no mercy. The giants fight back with clubs and boulders, knocking some of the heroes for considerable distances but the counteroffensive is unstoppable and this fight can only end in one way. Soon enough the giants are down while the party rests for a moment. Soon enough they call the owls down and take flight back to the city, mission accomplished - for now.

DM Notes: This was a get-things-going-again session after schedule issues caused us to miss most of the summer. I normally want a minimum of four players to run (I build the crunchy stuff for 5 players - bring 4 and I have an advantage, bring 6 and they have an advantage) and that's been the rule since very early on. After losing one of our regulars though it got a little tougher to keep the schedule going if more than one person couldn't make it. Three were available so I drafted Apprentice Blaster to fill in with a new character and he did really well as 4E fighters are fairly complex in play with the whole marking thing. 

The session before this was a really tough marathon fight that ended with mixed results but the players felt like they had not succeeded. I wanted to keep it fairly simple with a straight-up (and more level-appropriate) fight to let us all get back in the groove again and that's exactly how it went. No time for dilly-dallying around with social interaction or skill challenges - we're under attack! Help us! 

(That other stuff will come next time)

One technical note: adding decent mobility to this all-melee party made it incredibly vicious when it came to inflicting harm. A fighter, plus a tac warlord and two nasty melee strikers meant they were not at all afraid to mix it up in close and they were easily peeling triple digit hit points off of the poor giants every round. Nasty. They are truly Savage.

So in the end the city is being surrounded but the heroes have returned and quite directly and visibly established themselves as the top defenders of Brindol. Tune in tomorrow for Session 27!

Savage Swords of Impiltur - Session 6

Returning in triumph - and in a hurry as their ship melts beneath them - our heroes land in Fallcrest and announce their success! After high fives and salutes and raised tankards all around, Marko sneaks off into the crowd, glad to be done with the whole business. The following day, Lord Markelhay appears - accompanied by Lord Reinhardt himself! He announces rewards for the whole party. First up, each receives a 1,000 gold piece bonus. Then, as retainers of the House, Dar and Gravis receive land grants!

Dar is awarded the Tower of Waiting, a ruined tower on an island in the river. He will be the town's Lord Marshall, and the tower will be rebuilt. This will help protect the northern approaches to the town and serve as a staging area for efforts to civilize some of the surrounding wilderness.

Gravis is awarded Vraath Keep, an old holding of House Reinhardt in the nearby Elsir Vale region. It was attacked and destroyed many years ago but the House is on the rise and looking to reclaim its old lands. Gravis will be a big part of this effort, and he is given both the royal decree that endorses his claim and an old map to help him locate his new domain.

Our Heroes (now 5th level):

• Dar Bloodmane, Shifter Paladin
• Lt. Alex Gravis, Water Genasi Warlord
• Zarra, Drow Vampire
• Gartok, Dwarf Earth Warden
• Izenheim, Dwarf Cleric of Marthammor Duin
• No-Name, Elf Bow Ranger 

After several days of preparation most of the party heads out - Dar will remain behind to assume his new duties, while Izenheim has volunteered to help him survey the place to see just how bad it is. Traveling the Nentir Vale takes another few days - uneventful as it happens - and then they cross into the Elsir Vale. Heading for the closest village, Drellin's Ferry, trouble finds them almost immediately.

Moving along a sunken part of the trail, the group spots an abandoned farmhouse and quickly realizes they are in a prime spot for an ambush - the wrong end of an ambush. With a roar somethig throws a volley of javelins at the party, as a blast of flame reaches out from the foliage. Then a humanoid and a huge red hound appear at either end of the trail - hobgoblins! - and they appear to have some hell hounds.

In his element, the ranger with no name unloads a volley of his own, finding a target in the bushes and slaying one of the hobgoblins outright. The warlord, warden, and vampire charge the hidden mage who threw fire - they suspect he is the biggest threat. The hounds and other hobgoblins lope forward into a huge melee around the unfortunate spellcaster.

The warlord is caught in the fiery breath of both beasts as they rush in. The warmage goes on total defense as at least three people are trying to kill him, but is quickly overwhelmed. The ranger nails the hobgoblin commander with two arrows, seriously wounding him, then he scores with two more and slays the humanoid leader as well! The crispy warlord, deeming the hounds to be the next biggest threat lures one into a bad position and defends himself as the dwarf and the drow tear it apart.

Having turned the tide, the rest of the battle goes quickly. The ranger shoots down the hobgoblin spearmen while the melee trio of warlord-warden-vampire beat down the hobgoblin beast-trainer and the remaining hound. After the last enemy falls, the elf scouts the surrounding area and finds no other opposition. Our heroes inspect the farmhouse and decide to spend the night there. They will make for Drellin's ferry in the morning.

DM Notes - This session marked the end of the introductory adventure and the beginning of the meat of the campaign. Cairn of the WInter King is a perfect campaign starter as it has some interesting features but takes place in isolation and is a small 1-level dungeon. This allows the party to get a handle on how to work together and figure out their roles in the group. It also set up nicely to mark the PC"s as upcoming heroes in this part of the kingdom. The land grants served multiple purposes:

Steve was not thrilled with the way Dar was working out mechanically and wanted to try a new character. So, we "retired" him to the Tower of Waiting where he could be brought back in if needed as a replacement, or he could set up to be the first member of a new party if we decided to "fork" the campaign or if we wanted a backup group  - clearly the first adventure would be to explore and clear the tower! Also, in the long run, Dar and the rebuilt tower would make for a nice hook to a successor campaign if we ever ran one.

By granting Gravis a holding in the Elsir Vale I have both a reason for the party to go there AND a reason for them to care about the invasion that's about to happen. This is not subtle, but it makes sense within the campaign and the players liked it - plus it's fairly old school to have a keep at all and it's unusual to have one at 5th level in pretty much any version of D&D. Changing things up helps keep campaigns fresh and helps to distinguish them from one another. We had explored the idea of the party claiming an old keep in the previous campaign (at a higher level than this) but they were TPK'd in the process of doing it so we never saw the payoff for all of that setup. For this campaign I wanted it front and center and so here it was.

If you have played Red Hand of Doom then you probably recognize this first encounter. It starts a long road of adventure that we will be exploring all the way through the rest of that adventure and the rest of Heroic Tier play. We've had a lot of fun with it and writing up this first episode has me smiling as I write it. A lot of people thought it was one of the best 3rd edition D&D adventures - I can tell you it makes a pretty good 4th edition adventure too.

Savage Swords of Impiltur - Session 5

Beginning in the forge room where they battled the tiefling and his friends our heroes start exploring, discovering a series of connected rooms with no obvious inhabitants. Guard rooms, a well, bedchambers, a secret staircase, and then, passing through a secret door, the party finds themselves in a large throne room, Atop a tall dais stands a massive throne, and upon it sits a skeletal figure, sheathed in ice, one hand outstretched as if reaching for something. The halfling Marko steps forward, unwrapping the Ice Scepter as he draws it from his pack and holding it out towards the Winter King. The frozen hand ... moves ...

Not so fast! Gravis steps up as well and begins speaking to the icy figure, trying to determine exactly what they are dealing with. The vampire and the ranger chime in as well in their own special ways. The ice falls away as the undead thing rises to its feet but his menace seems diminished as the party informs him of the vast amount of time that has passed since his day and of the many foes they have defeated.

The King has never dealt with this kind of arrogance! He lashes out with a blast of cold and the fight is on! The warden leaps into melee as the ranger unleashes a volley of shafts. The vampire unleashes her true nature and rips into the Winter King at the foot of his own throne and he staggers back! Then the warlord shouts instructions, moving the team into a perfect position and after another icy blast from the King the vampire strikes, tearing his frozen body asunder, ending the Winter King for all time.

Pausing to contemplate what just happened the adventuring band realizes that in addition to the Ice Scepter they possess there is an icy adornment on the King's head as well. They take it, adding the Crown of Winter to their growing list of magical items. Then the rumbling starts, and ice and water begin to fall from the ceiling - apparently the Winter King helped sustain this place and with his demise it is coming undone!

Urgently the party retraces their steps through a quaking, collapsing cavern, praying that their magical flying ship survives and still functions well enough to get them home. Emerging into the brilliant light of the snowy mountains, it takes a second for them to realize they are not alone - between them and the ship stand some rough-looking fur-clad humans and a monstrosity with two heads - an Ettin!

Our heroes now pause to consider their course of action. Aboard the ship stands Dar Bloodmane, "speechifying" and letting them know just how doomed they are if they dare lay a hand on his vessel while Izenheim loads a crossbow. Moving even more rapidly now, Gartok (the warden) charges the ettin with the intent of locking him down so that the rest of the party can reach the ship. Zarra (the vampire) charges the barbarians with the intent of taking them down before they can do any real damage. Gravis (the warlord) and No-Name (the ranger) move up to support.

One of the barbarians is already down and the dwarf has the ettin under control when an owlbear emerges from the rumbling Cairn, apparently fleeing the place. He rumbles right down the path towards the party, and as he does so, roaring and screeching and hooting, the party realizes this could be trouble.

Poster maps! Props! Pulling out all the stops here!

The vampire is ripping through the barbarians with a little help from the ranger as the dwarf and warlord keep the ettin tied up then the owlbear, moving faster than anticipated, thunders into the ranger, wounding him and forcing him to deal with something right up in his face - not his preferred scenario. Gravis gets too close in an attempt to lend his aid and takes a huge paw to the head for his troubles.

Look! A Bloodied Bow Ranger! This is an incredibly rare sight, so I wanted to memorialize it online!

Finally the ettin and then the last barbarian fall and Gartok and Zarra run back to their companions, leaping into the fray with the owlbear, which is wounded but still fighting mad. The great beast manages to grab the dwarf, nearly crushing him, and tearing into him with its beak, but the tough (and slippery) warden squirms free, just in time for the Zarra to tear into the beast and for No-Name to skewer the thing with twin arrows. As it falls lifeless to the hard-packed and red-stained snow our heroes spare it no further thought, running for the ship  which Dar and Izenheim (and Marko - not at all interested in fighting, but very interested in leaving) have ordered to lift off. Leaping aboard and settling in, the band takes to the oars, pulling the ship through the sky, hoping to make it back to Fallcrest before the ship's icy magic fails completely.

DM Notes: This was another good run, a little more serious than last time. The WInter King encounter has an interesting mechanical setup where the party can cause damage to the king - who is a fairly nasty solo - by succeeding in a skill challenge, making him easier to defeat in combat. Surprisingly my players initiated this with no prompting from me (as they themselves say, they're usually a "Plan A" kind of group) and no knowledge of what this would do, and had some pretty creative uses of Diplomacy, History, Bluff, and Nature to back it up. Things did eventually come to blows but in his weakened (though not THAT weakened) state they took him out in two rounds! 

The Warlord to Vampire connection was tremendous in this session, as she did something close to 100 points of damage in one round and killed the WInter King thanks to normal attack, warlord bonus attack, and warlord action point bonus attack. This was a hint of things to come. Mechanically the Tactical Warlord is extremely effective when paired with the more Essentials type classes that work mainly from a basic melee attack and can then stack damage boosting powers or attack boosting stances on top of it, and the Vamp is that style of character.

Once they killed the king I thought it would be really anticlimactic to have them clear out the last few rooms in this small dungeon, plus it was a pretty magical environment anyway, so I had the place start to collapse - this is not in the adventure as written. This is a DM sensing that it's time to close out the warmup adventure and move things along. That does not mean those unchecked room inhabitants go to waste though! The Ettin and Barbarians were part of an encounter that was not used, and the owlbear was form a different encounter and using the distance and his movement rate I determined he would still be moving out when the party emerged, which made for a more interesting encounter anyway. It made for an appropriately climactic 9-round fight that had everyone sweating but not complaining - not bad! 

Now I normally try to stay away from too much of the whole dramatic embellishment and keep my dungeons more of a sandboxy environment, but I knew that it would probably take at least one more session to finish exploring the place completely. I also felt like walking out the door and getting on the ship like nothing had happened seemed wrong in this case as well. So I went for the big movie ending with the collapsing, melting dungeon and the fleeing monsters fighting for an escape and all of that, Part of having a preference or a style is knowing when to violate it, and that's what I did here. The mission was accomplished, the dungeon was largely explored and cleared, and after 5 sessions it was time to get their pats on the back and move on to the main focus of the campaign. 

Next time: Back to Fallcrest, and the Red Hand of Doom invades 4th edition!

Savage Swords of Impiltur - Session 4

We open in a hallway, near a set of double doors (with a particularly nasty lock on them) as the party hears the unmistakable sounds of a dragon bearing down on them. Our Heroes:

• Dar Bloodmane, Shifter Paladin
• Lt. Alex Gravis, Water Genasi Warlord
• Zarra, Drow Vampire
• Gartok, Dwarf Earth Warden
• Izenheim, Dwarf Cleric of Dumathoin Marthammor Duin
• The Elf With No Name, Elf Bow Ranger (who was waiting outside by the sky-boat since his player was absent)

The party braces as a large white dragon races around the corner. A surprisingly mobile fight - given the constricted terrain - breaks out as the dragon leaps into the middle of the group and lashes out at them, taking hits on the way in, and dishing them out in all directions. In a blizzard of blades, breath, claws, and tailslaps the "drow", the cleric, the paladin, and the dragon itself are all bloodied. Then Gravis gives a signal and Dar rears back and unleashes a devastating riposte with his sword that kills the beast outright*.

Resting a bit after this vicious skirmish, the dwarves use the ice key to unlock the doors. They are greeted with a solid sheet of ice, possibly filling the entire room beyond, but with a keyhole - and now the ghost dwarf mouths "fire" and "key". Realizing there is more work to be done the dwarfs are all fired up! The Paladin has used this time to sever the dragon's head and pack it in a bag - he wants a trophy. 

Somewhat battered and needing to recharge even more, the group decides to return to the teleportation circle room and take an extended rest. All seems quiet until the man on watch hears voices outside the outer door - sounds like a patrol of some kind! Not wanting to fight in their less-than-fully-recovered state someone (I can't remember who started it) suggests getting the dragon head out and using it.A couple of skill rolls later and the guards - debating whether to open the do-not-open door "hey I know we're not supposed to go in there but it looks like someone's been messing with that door" - are confronted with a jerked-open door and a roaring floating dragon head! Surprised (and not all that eager to die for the cause in my opinion) they retreat back up the passage and the party has a quiet time the rest of the night though the paladin is troubled by strange dreams where a disembodied dragon head tells him he's not very nice.

That's Gartok and Dar holding up a white dragon head while the Vamp, the Warlord, and Ivan the pet owlbear watch.

After their rest the party explores farther up the main corridor and ends up discovering a forge - a forge with frozen flames! One also with a tiefling, an ogre, and some flaming skeletons! Battle begins!

Forge Fight! They left the white dragon head outside this time.

The flaming skeletons and the tiefling team up but the fiery bone things are quickly dispatched by the Paladin, as the Cleric and Vampire tear into the ogre while the Warden locks down the tiefling. The ogre manages to wound the vamp by dipping a javelin into the frosty flames and then nailing her with it, prompting the vampire frost immunity discussion again (see session 3) as he is finally brought down by the paladin as he attempts to flee. Remarkably the dead tiefling appears to have a flaming key on a chain around his neck. This is scooped up quickly by the dwarfs as the party catches its breath.

DM Notes: This one was a lot of fun despite the anticlimactic dragon fight:

*He did 63 points of damage - in one hit, from a 4th level Paladin. It was amazing and this is where I started to realize the power of the Tactical Warlord. This fight lasted two whole rounds! I resolved to run my dragons better than this in the future.

The dragon head started talking in a kind of slow-guy voice (think Ord from Dragontales if you have kids of a certain age) about how they were mean and Dar wasn't a nice Paladin and how everyone was mean to him, spurred on by the use of the thing as a morale-breaker on the wandering guards. We were all laughing pretty hard after that happened so the head kind of turned into a borderline NPC for a while there.

"You're not a very nice Paladin are you?"

It also showed some thought on the part of the players outside of the stats/skills/powers structure and we handled it just like in any other version of the game - tell me what you're doing and let me think about what happens. Morale has not been much of a factor in most of our 4E games but this seemed like an obvious case for it. The lack of morale rules in the game doesn't mean it's not a factor - it means it's not a standard attack and defense mechanic  - but is up to DM interpretation, and sometimes the monsters run!  

I originally thought the key thing was kind of cliched but I realized that although it's pretty common in shooter games we haven't really done all that much of it in D&D, and the players seemed to like having these little sub-quests so if I ever work up my own mega-dungeon I will probably include stuff like this in moderation. Also, it helps that it was pretty obvious - there were no language roles or special items needed, someone just needed to speak dwarf and they could figure it out. A more universal solution might be to have the imprisoned dwarf spirit show an image of the key rather than saying it - it's magic, right? This would remove all chance of not having the right asset in the party to solve the problem.

Next time: The Winter King!