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 The heads of theses had been replaced by that of the stern, and bearded face of the man-become-god Turms Termax, a great magician who had become a god on the day of his execution and then ruled from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.