I’ve been playing D&D on and off for around 2 years through the Atlanta Drunks & Dragons community. All of them one shot campaigns. I’ve been wanting to play a real campaign for most of that time and eventually DM some of my own when the time comes.
Late last year, the Atl D&D announced that they were doing a charity campaign where everyone who donated would be grouped up, based on the campaign we chose from a list starting in January and have to get 4 sessions in by March. I donated and chose the campaign entitled “A little bit of panic, a whole lot of profit”. We were to meet Tuesday nights until we completed the campaign.
We were to create a level 4 character in accordance to the D&D Adventurer’s League rules. Mine was Jarrakas (Jaw-Raw-Cos). A white dragonborn paladin. The rest of the team were Thorim, a dwarf cleric, Chime, a kobold wizard, Varan, a wood elf monk, Gronk, a half-orc barbarian, and Cordak Danner, a halfling ranger.
Throughout the course of the campaign, everyone had trouble pronouncing my character’s name, which I’m rather amused by. Half the time they referee to me as Jurassic Park.
Session 1
We all met at the Temple of Joaquin where we are greeted by a priestess escorted by two embossed stone golems. She apparently has a love of earth elementals. We were tasked with bringing back the Atlas of Tamar. A map that will lead the priestess to the Plane of Fear. A dark dimension where a Great War is to take place. We were to be paid 500 gold along with a favor of our respective gods for doing so. She also gave everyone 30 gold to start us off with and a healing potion for each of us (1D4+2). Thorim and I were told by the DM that we were to be on the lookout for someone with one green eye and one blue eye because we had to immediately kill them and the other characters are not aware of this.
He said that this was decreed by our god Tempus, a god of war. I made the mistake of not choosing a diety for me character to follow before the game began so I just went with the Cleric’s god. Looking back, I probably would have gone with the Silver Flame if I had remembered to pick one earlier, but I have no regrets with Tempus.
The priestess brought us to an elderly wizard who looked like he didn’t like his job, who was going to teleport us to the last known location of the map. He said “Another group? And so soon?” We were curious as to what he meant by that. Before we could ask him about the previous group, we were teleported to a darkened area before a great door guarded by two young looking guards. As we got our bearings, Thorim threw up as he doesn’t like teleporting. As he was puking, one guard handed the other a silver coin saying “told ya”.
As we walked up to the door, Varan asked the guards about the previous group. The guards told us that the last group went in five months ago. Varan asked if they came back at all. The guards didn’t know because they had been on the job three months and no one had come out. One of the guards offered us some arms and wares to aid us before we went in, for sale of course. Cordak and Thorim both got two sets of crossbow bolts.
After that, the guards opened the door to let our group in. Inside was a cave tunnel somewhat lit by bioluminescent fungi along the ground and halfway up the sides of the tunnels, so we didn’t need the use of a torch. After the door closed behind us, Thorim decided to bang his shield with his hand axe twice to hear how far down the tunnel goes and we heard two hits of something in the distance. He banged his shield three more times and we heard three hits.
As we continued on, we came up to a fork in the tunnel, we encountered two gouls and a ghast.
The only damage sustained in this encounter was done to me due to a Nat 1 on Varan’s attack towards the ghast.
When we killed them all, their bodies disintegrated away except for the ghast, who left behind bleach white bones. Upon rummaging through the bones with his axe, Thorim noticed a symbol that was etched on the skull. His history check revealed that this symbol was the mark of a notorious serial killer known for targeting men with gray hair. He killed his victims by flaying them, leaving only their scalps intact.
While we ventured further, we came across a 30 foot pit. Chime had the idea for Gronk to pick him up and throw him across the five foot open with a rope, piton and hammer so that he can hammer the piton in the ground, tie off the rope and someone ties off the other end so we can shimmy across it, except for Gronk and I who run and jump over the opening.
We made it to an open area that had two other tunnel entrances. In front of us was a tunnel with a multitude of holes on the sides and on the right was a passageway that was magically closed off. Varan grabbed a rock and threw it at the passageway and it bounced off of an invisible barrier back at him with equal force.
After that, Cordak checked for any other traps and found that there was a concealed pressure pad in between the tunnel with the holes and there’s a three foot wide hole in the roof to the left of us next to the wall with another pressure pad beneath it.
Cordak tries to disarm the traps as best he can. A pillar of ice covered in a thick layer of frost falls from the hole in the roof, landing still. Thorim determines that there is a significant amount of magic emanating from it. None of us could make heads or tails of it so we figured we would come back to it later.
Cordak determined that the holes in the sides of the walls held arrows ready to skewer anyone who trips that trap. Due to some mediocre rolls, he only deactivated the arrows on the left side. Thorim takes it upon himself to cross the trap with his shield facing the right wall. He passes through with only one arrow hitting his leg.
That passage led to a room where there was a freshly dead body hanging from a stalactite. A body that was flayed except for his scalp with gray hair. The small room also had an altar that had a charred bone on it. Varan picked it up to investigate it and he started to attack Thorim and Chime who were in the room with him. Gronk barred the door by himself to not let Varan out. When it was my turn, the only sensible action I could take was to cast Divine Sense to determine if Varan was possessed. Gronk briefly opened and closed the door for me to sense the monk (as the action could only work if the target wasn’t behind total cover). He in fact was possessed by whatever magic was inhabiting the bone. Thorim was able to free the monk somehow.
Apparently, touching the bone before diffusing the magical trap will get you possessed. Also, the bone is in the shape of a key.
After that, we all made our way back to the open area where we are greeted by a mysterious, middle aged man. One who had one blue eye and one green eye.
End of first session.
[zombify_post]
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