It was a random Saturday night with close friends when someone asked why we hadn't played DnD in a while. After a few moments fondly remembering campaigns from the past we decided to session zero a quick and fun little game. I was asked to DM as I was the most fimilar with the rules, and the others quickly used DnD Beyond to roll a few simple but priceless characters. As we were finishing up a few more people dropped by and a friend of my brother asked if he could play, as he has never played before. After a couple hours of crafting characters we ended up with four, an orcish barbarian, a half elf druid, a tiefling warlock, and a drawf fighter, which we all named Leroy, which our new player was to play. I told the players to worry more about their classes and races and I would fill in the rest to fit the narative. As the curtains open on our crazy little tale, one I pulled right out of thin air I mind you, we open on a imprisoned Orcish girl, jailed for her ties to the criminal underground, who is being watched by an older, and sleeping drawf guard, Leroy. I tell her that she has two options, await help or try and make her escape. She decides its better to make her escape herself then wait to be rescued. This first scene I created was entirely made to establish character motivation and personality, each of the choices the players made helped shape otherwise flat starter adventures into true heroes or in this case, misfits. Using a loose bar on her prison cell she was able to free herself, while the druid and warlock made the way into the keep. I asked they why they were there and the warlock replied jokingly to look for "bitches". I just smiled and said that they were headed in the right direction. As they snuck their way into the compound, they ended up in a hallway at the bottom end of a staircase. In the distance they could hear low snoring. Back to our prisoner, she had freed herself from her rope binds and was almost free when they druid and warlock entered the room, waking our not so effective guard. The old drawf sprang to his feet, which caused the dogs in the other cages to start barking, cue the "bitches". It is then the group realizes this is no prison but the holding pin for the city dogs, probably for game hunting and tracking, and whoever locked up our heroine did so in a hurry. Leroy tells the group to stay back and for the woman to return to her cell, and as they party get aquainted more guards show up and continue to escalate the encounter. In the end the group realize they are outnumbered and the only way to escape is a small port at the back of the room, outside several feet below is a river that the city uses to ferry supplies, and as the team makes a leap for it they shove Leroy out the door with them and into the current. The muddled group of misfits crawl into a sewer grate and wait out the other guards, binding Leroy worried he might rat them out. As they wade through the sewer they are attacked by cultists who call the under belly of the city their home. I will admit, without proper preperations I was running low on ideas and intended to stop here but the group pestered me to continue so I did. After being forced further into the depths of the underground, they were shocked to find a large underground society living beneath the city. In the dark and dank tunnels the cultists threw our team into make shift prison cells carved from the rocky walls. The group tried as they might to pick the lock but their rolls were not on their side, and each were taking their flustration out on Leroy, so I decided to have some fun with it. Leroy made a perception check looking to see if he could spot anything and rolled well so I told him he saw that there was a gap barely wide enough for him to slip through the bars. Quickly he pushed free of the makeshift cage door and ducked into a large tent about five feet away from the cells. As the flaps settled he was staring at a cultist preparing food for the rest of the community, his large butchers knife ready to behead a still living chicken. Without hesitation Leroy shouts "I rush to save the chicken!" I was shocked, I only even mentioned the cooks action to show he wasn't paying attention to the drawf and it was possible to sneak by him, but alright. He rolls the dice, and he crashes into some pots and pans catching the cooks attention. The cook cages the chicken and heads toward the dwarf. Not backing down Leroy gets up and continues to close the gap. Before I can ask him to roll initative he says that he leaps onto the table next to the cook, ok… roll, natural twenty. With ease the tiny Dwaf flies into the air and lands next to the cook, and he's so shocked by your actions he cannot believe his eyes. "I kick the knife out of his hand before he gathers himself" exclaims Leroy. "Ok, roll" again he rolls, a second natural 20. Without hesitating Leroy kicks the knife out of the cook's hands like and I quote "…like with the very tip of his toe" this sends the knife straight into the air, which starts to fall back toward the two. "I kick it again before he can grab it!" and again, and I cannot stress this enough, another natural twenty. Now, at this point I am at a loss. Not one, not two but three natural twenties. This final kick, is so well time, so well executed, that as it falls in front of the cooks line of sight, the blade is pointed directly at his face, and as the heel of the Leroy's boot hits the hilt the butcher knife pushes into his skull and out the back sending the man out of the tent and into the open, bleeding out. All eyes, including that of the BBEG fall onto the now corpse, and with a hollow scream the cultists decend on the tent and she vanishes into the saftey of a near by tent. In the confusion the barbarian grabs a near by guard as he tramps on by knocking him out and taking his keys and yells. "RIOT!" and begins to unlock the rest of the prisoners. Leroy comes out the tent surrounded by several cultists, but to his fortune, the group of would be theives and criminals who once called him their enemy, cut down the line and aid in his and their escape.
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