#twali

I'm back from holiday now. We're planning on doing two or three DnD sessions in the next couple of weeks, so I've got to start planning for that, which should be good. But right now, let's finish session four.

We must have spent half an hour in the room with the tomb in, probably more. Reverence was adamant that there was something fantastic in the tomb, so wanted desperately to open it up and see what I had planned for them. The others thought it would be disrespectful, so were all up for restraining him if needed, so there was some tension between them, to say the least.

Reverence was actually fairly confident that he would be able to take them, but his reasoning for this was that he was supposedly still concealed by his power (which only lasts for a few seconds anyway). Against Varis and Torrin, and possibly Vale, he wouldn't last long. But things didn't quite progress to a fight and they ended up arguing for quite some time.

I could have intervened to tell Reverence to give it up, as he was clearly fighting a losing battle, but I actually enjoyed watching them roleplay it out (although I use the term 'roleplay' lightly; I suspect that some of the players weren't actually particularly in character at all) and it became pretty funny:

REVERENCE: Could I just open the tomb then?

ME: I dunno, it's quite heavy. You'd need to make a strength check.

REVERENCE: Ok, I'll do that.

TORRIN: Woah, woah, I already said, I will fight you.

VARIS: Wait, how much does the slab [on top of the tomb] weigh? Because he can't lift more than his limit anyway

ME: Um, dunno, hold on a second

TORRIN: Can I make it heavier? I SIT ON THE TOMB!

ME: What!? You're telling me that opening the tomb is disrespectful but planting your arse on top of it is totally acceptable?

VARIS: Yeah, how will the elves know? I sit on it too.

ME: Well you'll be in trouble when they find the big bum marks all over their tomb...

TORRIN: We sit on the tomb!

REVERENCE: Can I lift them first?

Eventually, Reverence was persuaded that he couldn't do it and they made their way out, past the drake that Reverence once again insisted should love him unconditionally. And then they had to teleport back. And once again they'd forgotten the name of the dungeon. So Twali helped them out (yeah! NPCs are the best!) and they got back to the elves.

They were thanked and promised 50 archers for their battle, which rumours suggested was about to take place in two days time. So the adventurers camped with the elves and, well rested, left to defend Albridge and finally defeat the Iron Circle...

...as long as the dice roll in their favour.

The party met Eyriel, leader of the Woodsinger elves, at the camp. She sent them on their way with a small vial of dragon's blood, which they were to pour into the pedestal in the ring of standing stones in order to get to Dal Nystiere. Once there, the players were to rid this underground Elven sanctuary (or, if you were to ask any of the players, ancient Elven sex dungeon) of an evil skeletal mage, Yisarn.

Despite the simplicity of the quest, the players forgot their goal repeatedly, so whenever I say that they do something in order to complete it, just assume that this was only after them asking me what exactly they were meant to be doing and where they were supposed to be going. Which meant that I could taunt them each time for being the worst heroes in existence. Swing and roundabouts...

And the introduction to Twali was quite something. Despite his efforts at a Texan accent, we managed to ignore him and continue on, coming up to the standing stones within minutes.

At this stage, I made a mistake. The group had crept up on three goblins that were supposed to be asleep. My goblins were not asleep, as I forgot that bit completely. However, this actually ended up going well. Merric, being able to speak Goblin, attempted to talk to them and persuade them to let them pass. He failed, getting a roll of a 5 on diplomacy, but it's the thought that counts.

As the goblins attacked, the group was attacked by some spiders. Which was fun. The players complained that I hadn't checked their passive perceptions, but, much to my pride, I had done just that. So the spiders got a surprise round. And then, once the goblins were defeated (they were only minions), it was time to finish the session.

After fighting off the drake and its friends, the adventurers journeyed back to Albridge, to talk to Dar Gremath once again, (if you can't remember who he is, don't worry, neither could they; I was not impressed) and give him the wagon that they plundered as well the horse that it came with.

Dar Gremath told them that, in order to defeat the Iron Circle the heroes (while I keep calling them that, I've been careful not to refer to them as with that seeing as they haven't actually saved Harkenwold yet) were going to have to seek the help of the Woodsinger elves, whose camp lay on the outskirts of the Harken forest.

I feel as if I should mention something that I left out of the last session's write-up. When talking to him in session two, I had forgotten that the heroes had already been told that they had to disrupt the Iron Circle's supplies. And so our conversation went something like this...

DAR GREMATH: If we're going to beat the Iron Circle, we need to draw Redthorn out of his keep. We need to get him angry. There's a supply caraven heading out to Eas-

MERRIC: We know this already!

VARIS: Yeah, didn't we already hear that?

ME: What? I thought I'd told you the quest. Why'd you go back?

MERRIC: Why'd you send a guy to tell us to come back?

ME: Ah. Yes, well... I guess you should go and do the quest then.

REVERENCE: Wait, what's the quest?

DAR GREMATH: ...we've got to draw Redthorne out of his keep.  There's a supply caravan heading out to Easthill tomorrow...

And so it was that we got a quest twice. Good job team. Between us we managed to do a terrible job.

The party left Dar Gremath, once again without even a goodbye, and headed off to the elven camp, where Twali lived (conveniently) and were joined by him on... a quest!

We played session three on Saturday, March 2nd. Torrin's player's birthday was a couple days before, so we went out for a Chinese before getting back. This had two major effects: we started later than was useful, at about 9 in the evening, once we'd gotten back to his and prepared, and we were also joined by another player.

This other player... well he probably counted as more of an experienced player than us. We know him fairly well but it was only on the day that he revealed that he had roleplayed before. However, his definition of roleplaying games was rather more broad than mine. He had enjoyed a game of his own friend's creation, with largely lenient rules, which, while I'm not sure what it involved, didn't seem to fit into our fairly traditional structure. It was his ideas of what he could bring to the game session that worried me, he told us that, as he put it;

"I'd be more than glad to be doing all the fuckery so it's interesting"

That is a direct quote, from a comment on the Facebook meal event.

I think it's important that we pick our players carefully, especially as a new group. The team we used for the first two sessions worked out well, but to be honest, I found that five people is one too many for me, at least in my limited experience as a new DM. But it's pretty easily manageable.

This new player (who, to his credit, managed to create a character in about three hours while we were playing, although that was countered by the fact that he didn't bother to make one beforehand) is a particularly strong extrovert, which means he's very loud, but also very intent on making a joke wherever possible.

... Which lead to his character, Twali (although his first choice involved something with the last name lasercats), who was an elven cleric who, despite coming from an elven camp (which was conveniently the next destination in our campaign), had adopted a mildly racist Texan accent. Which was ridiculous, to be honest.

And so, we may or may not be stuck with him. He didn't make it to the fourth session (for which many of us were thankful) but I have no idea as to whether he intends to continue in our weekly(ish) sessions. Having known him for a while, I'm not sure that he's that committed.

As for the issue with timing, we got very little done, and to be honest it wasn't a great session (more on that later), which we've definitely learnt from.