5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 2 - Deeper into the Path Of Mavors

After a short rest, during which the fallen recuperated and the others search the bodies of the orcs, the party decided they wanted to avoid further confrontation with the violent and hardy orcs so left to try another door from statuary hall. However the heads of Turms Termax sat upon the statues of five of the gods of the Great Church were too tempting for the vandals in the party and too blasphemous for Brother Spenzar and they set about knocking them down one by one, but not before Spenzar rocked the statue of the woman back and forth enough to topple that too. While a din was made, the strange too-loud crash of the first head was not repeated.  

Opening the door in the north east they found an empty guard room, replete with smashed weapon racks and cobwebs. This chamber had a locked door in the north, and deciding to be a little more cautious the wizard Calphis checked the door for traps. He found something that made him suspicious, possibly a tiny magical rune of fire scratched into the metal of the lock plate. After some talk of smashing the door with the hammer of barbarian Zolius or using the warlock’s Eldritch Strike the party decided it was too dangerous and once again returned to the main hall.

This time they set off through the massive double areonite doors in the east, beyond which lay a well appointed 20 foot wide corridor that disappeared into the deep darkness. Both the north and south walls were punctuated by alcove set doors. Investigating the first door in the north wall they party uncovered a grisly sight, another guard room with the stone bodies of three dead dwarves in a pool of possibly alchemical red liquid. The dwarves had been murdered, and one had swelling indicating some kind of poisonous sting. Searching the bodies the party looted weapons, armour, rope, relatively fresh dwarven trail bread and a strange cylindrical hard leather wine skin, with unusual dwarven design carved into it. The chamber had a further door too, to the east which the party opened and discovered some kind of apparatus.  Metal rods, cogs and poles rested in grooves cut into the floor attached to which were a variety of purpose built weapon-like metal shapes. Along the south wall a metal cabinet with polished wooden rods sticking out of the top suggested some kind of control mechanism. Overall the device reminded some of the party of jousting training constructions.

Rather than risk injury, the party perhaps wisely beat a retreat to the main corridor where they continue further down, seeing a statue in the dark down the hall. Opening the south door they were confronted with an eerie sight, two apparitions, human guards dressed in archaic gear sat at a ghostly table arguing over the rules of the ancient game of zatrikio, of which the party only knew the name. Brother Spenzar dropped an amount of holy water onto the unresponsive apparitions, to no effect and determined that they were magical, not spiritual in nature, yet were not illusions.

With nothing to loot and without any way to interact with these apparitions the party went through the doors to the west to find yet another battle damaged and dusty waiting room which they exited through the southern door. This chamber, which had exits to the east and west was unusual in that the debris had been recently cleared away from the centre of the room where a odd 3ft tall black basalt pillar stood. Strange and unintelligible runes covered the surface of the pillar. Again the party avoided interacting with the thing.

Following the door to the east, the corridor beyond turned south and ended in another chamber. This one had two things of interest to the party, a large if fragile mahogany throne and three beautifully made blue and gold shields hanging from the wall behind it. While the wizard investigated the throne, looking for secret draws and seating himself upon the throne, they others carefully took the ornate but functional shields down from the walls in the assumption that they’d be able to sell them.

The elf Bittersalt, who had been increasingly disappointed by the lack of saleable items so far was particularly happy with this and in a fit of rash excitement threw open the doors to the west only to be hit by crossbow bolts fired by two of the six orcs that were clearly prepared for the party in the chamber beyond. A desperate fight ensued in which the elf immediately fell to the blades of the orcs, shortly followed by the barbarian. Calphis used both his sleep spells, evening the odds and Brother Spenzar used his potion of healing on the barbarian, whose rage was so great and wild and beserk that he struck the cleric with his sword. Fortunately he then charged in amongst the orcs hacking one in two immediately. The dwarf joined him in the melee and the two set about their deadly work with efficiency. Flandar the warlock, seeing the moment was dire stepped into combat himself, leveling his hellish rebuke at an orc who struck him, incinerating the beastman. The party, almost against the odds, won the day and immediately put the sleeping orcs to death.

Finally though they were rewarded with coin, and found the orcs had a sack of 500 old Thulian gold pieces.

This is where we ended the session, with the party out of healing, spells and many of them wounded but with tangible treasure. Brother Spenzar vehemently entreated the others to tithe a portion of all treasures to Typhon, lord of civilisation and justice and much to my astonishment they agreed to. Impressive roleplaying from both him and the other players.

I’m really looking forward to the next session in two weeks. Once again the players proved to be both good humoured and willing to get involved in the world around them. They managed to travel to a number of plot-rooms that may make more sense later. I get a bit of anticlimax blues when getting ready and then starting a new campaign but this session completely dispelled it if I had it at all this time.    

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 1 - tomb robbers and Orcs

Last night we had our inaugural Dwimmermount 5e D&D session at the Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts club in Bethnal Green. The first couple of hours were spent in character generation, and since I’d already presented the group with some background material and talked through some of the questions that naturally arise it went relatively quickly. Two players took the option of rolling their stats in order, and received an extra +1 to their highest stat of choice, while the others took the rolling and assigning route. I strongly dislike point buys for this kind of D&D, as it sets a strong gamerist, adversarial tone from the outset. The players should neither be in competition with each other so having unequal characters shouldn't matter, nor should they be overly concerned about the game rules.

The two in-order characters are Zoilus, a Hyperborean barbarian of vast strength and magnificent charisma and Flandar, a sturdy gnome Warlock. The other characters created are Brother Spenzar, a capable Typhonite Cleric, Bittersalt the elven fighter noted for her strength and nimbleness, Errol, a rugged dwarven fighter and Calphis the wizard of dubious heritage.

I decided that I would start the game ‘in media res’ with the players already in the Dwimmermount dungeon. My reasoning was that an entire session without any action might not engage with all the players, and it allows them to gently define their characters rather than having to talk about their backstory immediately. This however was slightly forestalled by their interest in the Areonite doors that guard the dungeon, and if it was possible to remove and sell them. A sign of things to come I suspect, and some of the characters nailing their motivations to the wall early.

They then made their way down into the dungeon proper, and although they spotted recent tracks in the centuries old dust, some proceeded cautiously while others enter the first room, a hall of statues, nonchalantly. Including the exit to the dungeon five doors marked exits from the hall, while six statues, five male and one single strikingly handsome female lined the walls. Brother Spenzar immediately recognised the male statues as defiled representations of the Thulian gods Caint, Dorn, Mavors, Tenen and Typhon. The heads of theses had been replaced by that of the stern, and bearded face of the man-become-god Turms Termax, a great magician who had become a god on the day of his execution and then ruled from Dwimmermount with his hordes of beastmen and demons.

While the party further examined the room Brother Spenzar became incensed by the desecration of the statue of Typhon and cast down the head in anger, producing an unnaturally loud crash.

I had wondered if I should force a combat, using wandering monsters, but this event meant that what happened next was by the players own hand.

A crossbow bolt struck the cleric in back, as the door to north was flung open and a party of 5 orcs attacked from the moulding reception room beyond. A huge and chainmail clad orc lead the beastman and orcs are already tough in 5e, so these five managed to put down both Errol the dwarven fighter and Zoilus the barbarian, but took vicious wounds in response. The combined attacks of Bittersalt and the magical attacks from Spenzar, Flandar and Calphis managed to overcome the weakened orcs however. Brother Spenzar stabilised the dying dwarf and barbarian, but he lacked the spells to actually cure them. However 5e provides significant natural healing by resting for an hour so at the end of the session the party was well restored.

In all fairness I think that the party did as well as it did because it has three fighters, all of whom dealt large (10+)  amounts of damage when they struck and they're good at hitting things. However having two character go to zero hit points could be unsustainable, although the ability to regain so many hit points between encounters does start to mean you get into the wilderness encounter situation of early editions. Something I may have to think on, and perhaps limit the ability to heal between long rests.

I very much enjoyed DMing the game. I'm lucky to have a well intentioned, amusing and intelligent group of players who so far seem to pull together as players, if not characters. I'm annoyed I didn't take any pictures at all of the group playing, and will endeavour to take some next time. Edit : Thankfully one of my players did take these snaps.