Session 8: Of Daemons and Summoning Circles

The Story So Far

After escaping from a slave camp Rurik finds himself surrounded by strange allies, and wandering the Underdark trying to find his way to a dwarven town.

Journal

It has been 12 days since this motley crew escaped the prison camp of Krezzik Dar the Shadowlord. How I wish I was back at home with you, beloved Drahzda, this group of people are the strangest creatures I have encountered in the years since I have been away. The orc seems to be some sort of warlock, consorting with daemonic creatures. The only reason I don't kill his simpering imp is because thus far he has proven to be an ally. Even so I must keep one eye open, he is an orc and a follower of the same types of creatures we are trying to avoid in our journeys.

Our party has decided that our best bet is to try and avoid whatever these large circles are marked on the map as we trek towards Cragmire. Ancestors alone know what sort of thing warrants a daemon army’s attention enough to make note of it upon their maps. Even avoiding these hotspots our trip thus far has not been uneventful. The underdark is fraught with peril, and our supplies are limited. If not for the good work of Torvanor we would have run out of water days ago, but he calls upon his patron at each water source we find to cleanse it. This gives us safe area to rest and clean water.

It seems that the daemons are trying to expand these tunnels, on our seventh day out from the camp we found a group of enslaved duergar. They were being forced to mine for the daemons. Our dark cousins may be evil, but that doesn't mean they deserve to suffer under a daemon’s lash. We rushed to their aid, breaking their chains and slaying their masters. They ran off without so much as a thank you, and for a moment I believed they might have attacked us as well if not for some diplomatic words. HAH! If only Kardin knew that his lessons would have amounted to something!

Finally yesterday we discovered what the circles were. Coming upon one, that we had no chance to avoid, we saw a group of waxlike creatures under the direction of several imps expanding a chamber and inscribing a summoning circle upon the floor. Krezzik Dar still owes me a grudge, and so mustering the party we attack the creatures and destroy the summoning circle. These foul daemons will have to find another way onto our plain to aggravate me.

My turn is coming up for watch. 46 years 7 months and 16 days until I get to come home. The first thing I am doing is marrying you, and making you a princess.

Behind the Screen

This was the first session that I really got to play my Dwarf Battlemaster, and let me tell you it was a blast! It is so great to run a character that fits his role so well. I have found that I am able to protect my teammates decently well as long as they stand by my, which makes for a killer combination with Willis the rogue. He stands and sneak attacks for a ton of damage, while I impose disadvantage on anyone who chooses to attack him rather than come at me directly. The maneuvers I choose for my first level of Battlemaster were: Parry, Riposte, and Goading Strike. I knew from the get go that I would be using Goading Strike the most, with the others being extra in case I get the chance to.

The only issue I am having currently with being a tank is that I don’t have enough reactions to keep up with everything I want to do. Two of my maneuvers, my protection ability, and attacks of opportunity are all reactions. It’s because of this that I am not 100% sold on the Sentinel feat. I feel like it would force me to be even more picky about how to use my reactions.

Party Roles and You!

The adventuring party comes across a group of goblins in the woods, and immediately they jump into action. The warrior drawing sword and shield yells a taunt and places himself between the monsters and his friends. The mage prepares his first spell to put several of the beasts to sleep. The rogue moves to flank any that engage the warrior. Meanwhile the ranger begins to pick off his targets towards the rear, and blessings are being chanted  by the cleric in the background.

This is a pretty typical idea of how an adventuring party should handle threats in your basic fantasy RPGs. We all have the ideas of party roles, and how they work out to make things run smoothly. In a large part the class roles became codified from MMO’s and the concept has trickled in and become a major part in many games. Whether we are looking at FPS, or tabletop RPG. Any game where you are working with a group, it helps to know what each person is in charge of, and so we have adopted universal terms to know where everyone stands. These roles are broken down into 4 basic concepts: Tank, DPS(Damage Dealer), Healer, and Utility. Most characters have a primary role, but they can help out with others.

Here is a breakdown of the roles, and their sub-roles:

Tank: This is the bulwark behind which the party can feel safe performing whatever role each member has to do. Without a tank things can get very ugly as the party can’t survive long enough to defeat encounters. The main characteristics of a tank are high defense, and health as well as an ability to make sure that monsters continue to attack him rather than go after his squishier friends.

For 5e the classes and roles that are best suited to tanking(in my opinion are):

• Fighter: Either Champion or Battlemaster can make a good tank, but I feel that the battlemaster’s maneuvers give them an advantage as far as battlefield control and stickiness(the ability to keep a monster from ignoring you)
• Barbarian: A bear totem barbarian has just about the best survivability of any class in the game at the moment. This makes them a good tank, but he has a hard time getting mobs to stay on them.
• Paladin: I feel that oath of devotion and oath of the ancients can make for some very good tank builds. They have abilities that allow the paladin to survive a beating, and exert some minor control over the battlefield

The other class can  make builds that are hard to kill or can control the battlefield, but have a much harder time doing both at the same time. A monk tank built as a defensive duelist has some potential, but is going against the grain. While this isn’t a bad thing, its just important to note its not the easiest way to go about it.

Tank has one sub-role, the off-tank. This is a person who when there are far too many monsters for the tank to cover easily or when the tank goes down, can step in and protect the party. Typically this is one of the classes mentioned above, but built more towards a DPS role. This way when tanking isn’t needed they are pumping out damage and still helping out the party.

DPS: Even the hardiest tank with the best healer can only withstand an onslaught for so long. It is the job of the DPS to make sure that an encounter is finished as quickly as possible to conserve party resources. There are people that say that this is the easiest role, because its purpose is so straightforward. Find a target kill it and dont die, repeat until the encounter is over. This fails to take into account that a DPS person needs to make sure that their damage is optimized and that they need to be able to pick their targets to keep things going.

DPS is split into two types: melee DPS and ranged DPS. That is to say those who are up close and in the battle and those who rain death from afar. Nearly every class can be built to do damage, so I am only going to list the ones that are in my opinion the best at each of the sub-roles.

Ranged DPS(RDPS)

• Warlock: The warlock is currently the king of RDPS in 5e. The fact that their spells scale with them, and that their base cantrip has so many options to improve it make it difficult for other RDPS to keep up with them. They lack versatility, and unless they build themselves towards it battlefield control.
• Ranger: The ranger has the advantage that they can be built depending on what you expect to be dealing with either colossus slayer or horde breaker. With either of these as long as you are in your comfort zone you can do a ton of damage. The ranger also has a fair bit of utility.

Melee DPS(MDPS)

• Barbarian: Frenzied Berserker path has the ability to pump out huge amounts of damage per turn, because of their extra attacks. This coupled with their high health makes them ideal for getting in close and beating down targets.
• Fighter: The Champion path with a great weapon has a high critical chance, and the ability to reroll low damage. This lets them be very consistent in the damage they deal.
• Rogue: Assassin is different from the other two MDPS because they are very front loaded, or crit dependant. An assassin has the chance to kill a target in the first turn with their automatic critical sneak attack, but the longer a combat drags on the other MDPS can catch up, and even surpass them.

Healer: This is the least complicated role to describe, and also the most essential to a party’s survival. The healer prevents his companions from falling unconscious either through preventing damage or healing damage as it is done.

• Cleric: This is the standard healer for Dungeons and Dragons, and has been for decades. They have a wide variety of spells and builds that allows them to adjust their playstyle. They can also wear armour which means that they can survive being in the thick of things to apply healing where needed.
• Druid: Another divine caster, the druid plays very differently than the cleric. Their heals tend to be somewhat smaller, but they have a variety of buffs to make combat go more smoothly.
• Bard: I have only started to experience the bard as a healer recently, but I must say I am impressed. They can cast cure spells, and they can prevent damage using bardic inspiration. Spells like Vicious Mockery allow them to give extra defense to the party, which prevents a large amount of damage. The icing on the bardic healing cake is Song of Rest which increases a party’s healing during a short rest.

Utility: This is a catch all term for party members whose abilities are either devoted to controlling the battlefield, or are best suited for being out of combat. Most often you will not see a character who is primarily a utility role, this tends to be in addition to what they do in combat. These hybrid characters are often less powerful in the combat roles, but they are still needed for getting through all those times when a sword isn’t the right answer.

I tend to split utility into three distinct roles: the academic, the dungeoneer, and the controller.

Controller: These are characters that either disable or disrupt the enemies during combat. They will also have a variety of abilities out of combat to keep things moving if the party encounters resistance.

• Wizard: This is the controller that most people think of when they think of the role. They have access to spells of all sorts that let them either put monsters to sleep, control where they can walk(grease and entangle), or otherwise keep monsters from moving and attacking freely. The wizard also has the ability to fulfill the academic role, and some serious damage potential depending on the build.
• Sorcerer: Similar to the wizard with less variety, but more spells per day. They have a harder time filling the academic role, but they can do more damage
• Druid: Druids fulfill the controller role primarily by affecting the environment or monster movement.

Dungeoneer: This is the role that used to be filled almost exclusively by the rogue. Finding Traps, secret doors, and scouting the terrain to provide the party with an advantage. 5e has allowed the role to be filled by any character with stealth, perception, and investigation as class skills.

Academic: Like the dungeoneer gives information about the area that the party is dealing with the academic gives the party knowledge about where things can be found, what a Monsters strengths and weakness are, and what magic items do. This is typically filled by high intelligence characters with access to skills like history, arcana, and religion. I feel that this role is best filled by wizards and bards.

 

That is the breakdown of how I see the roles in 5e. You can see how the roles work out when you look at parties throughout the genre from the Heroes of the Lance to the Companions of the Hall. It is even easy to see in Rurik’s party, Rurik is the Tank, Kova is the Healer, Willis is the MDPS and Azhag is the RDPS. These roles being clearly defined I think is why the second party has been more successful than Aurelion and his friends.

Let me know what you guys think of the break down. Do you have a really cool build for one of the classes you want to share? Let me know in the comments section

Session Seven: Prison Break

The Story so far

Rurik is the eldest son of the Thane of Clan Wolfhammer. From birth he was bred to be a proper dwarf, he would serve his time in the guilds as a child and then his time in the army when he reached manhood. All in preparation for the day when he would take over from his father.

During his time with the army he served with distinction a solid shieldman, and a good friend to the troopers in his command. One day while on patrol they spotted a group of orcs running from a burning farmhouse. Taking a quick stock of his soldiers, he ordered them to follow. Chasing the orcs through the mountains took hours, and when they finally caught them it was an ambush. Each dwarf fought hard, and in the loosest of senses the battle was a victory. Only two dwarfs survived the battle though, Rurik and, his brother who had been assigned as the cleric for the squad, Ruik.

Ruik blames his brother more than anyone else and when they returned to the hold demanded a full trial be conducted. Rurik instead chose to leave. He would serve a term of 50 years in exile, and only then would he return. No sooner was the choice made than Ruik changed his thoughts. He wanted his brother punished for his foolish acts, but not for him to be sent out into the wilderness alone. Rurik promised him he would return when the time was right, and that they would rule the clan together wisdom and strength when the time came. With a final embrace Rurik began his long walk.

He still carries with him a warg tooth from that battle. A reminder of his failures, and a reminder to act with a cooler head.

Journal

It has been 3 years 3 months and 12 days since my exile began. In this time, I have travelled south. My hope: to arrive at Cragmire, the southern dwarven kingdom; perhaps there I can make myself useful to my people. I could find redemption in serving.

Along my road to the south, I was captured by the foul servants of the Overlord of Shadow Krezzik Dar. Little did he know a cage can not hold a Wolfhammer for long. Everywhere I looked more despair came upon me, my fellow captives were of types I couldn’t recognize, or I couldn’t trust.  Finally when I felt the time was right, I launched the plan to escape. Leaping at the wall of my cage, I knocked it to the ground causing a commotion. If I was going to be in a cage, they were going to have to kill me, I am no demon slave. An imp guard came to see what I was doing, and seeing my cage knocked over he attempted to indulge his cruel tastes by stabbing me with his dagger. Little did he know this was my trap! Allowing the blow to land, I grabbed his arm and beat him against the bars of the cage, stunning him. The other prisoners, each with their own dreams of freedom, began to act. Using my actions as a distraction, they were able to act without being seen.

Seeing their comrade in trouble, two more imps came to attack me. Unfortunately for them, their brother was already dead. Worse: now I was armed. Their tails lashed out into the cage, trying to kill me with their poison. HAH! I am dawi! I am of the earth, their poisons are nothing to me. I lashed out with the dagger, killing another imp. The remaining imp flew away, ignoring the insults I threw at him.

I looked around to see what the other prisoners were doing. An orc had managed to unlock his cage. Calling upon all my strength, I lifted my cage and ran over to the orc so that he could release me. A risk given that he was an orc, but one that paid off. He unlocked my cage and then proceeded to murder two drow that were also prisoners. It seems his favour is random... he also released two duergar.

In the end, 5 of us grouped together for mutual safety: Azhag, an orc spell caster; Torvanor, a cleric of Poseidon who seems touched by the elements; Kova, a ship’s lookout with planar blood; Willis, a halfling rogue; and myself. Stealing a map from one of the tents, we gathered our gear and supplies and ran off into the tunnels leading towards Cragmire.

I know I will be making sure that any followers of the Overlord of Shadow repay me for the grudge I now carry against their master

Behind the Screen

After last weeks TPK we each made new characters. This time the party was specific about each role, I was to be the tank. Being a tank means that you have two main roles in the party, survive being hit and make sure the rest of the party isn't getting hit. This is a job I am really familiar with since I have had characters perform it in dozens of different games. Being new to 5e I was excited to see what it brought to tanking.

One of the first things I noticed was that there were plenty of tools to actively help your party if a mob decided to attack someone beside you. As a battlemaster I had picked up goading attack, and I have the protection fighting style. This mean that I could potentially  force disadvantage on two foes per turn, as long as my friends were near me. This is a huge upgrade from 3.5 where as a tank you had to depend entirely on forcing attacks of opportunities to make sure mobs didn't get passed you to the squishier members of the the party, which doesn’t help other melee characters.

As a fighter one of the big things is a huge amount of Ability Score Increases(ASI) as you level up. In a game using feats this gives fighters the chance to tailor their build for a wide variety of roles. For a tank the feats that I was looking at were:

Shieldmaster: Allows you to push foes as a bonus action, increases your defense against harmful effects, and gives the ability to take no damage from dex based attacks.

Lucky: The ability to either take advantage or force disadvantage 3 times per long rest. Most importantly it can be done after seeing the roll, but before knowing if it was a success or not.

Alert: Bonus to initiative, and can not be surprised.

Sentinel: Increases your ability to make attacks of opportunity(AOO), and forces enemies that you hit with an AOO to stop moving.

Tough: Increase HP

Fell Handed: Bonus to attack rolls with dwarven weapons, chance to knock enemies prone, chance to do damage even on a miss with disadvantage, can give an additional bonus to hit when aiding another.

Heavy Armour Master: damage reduction(DR) and +1 Str

Each of these feats is designed either to either make it harder for the enemies to kill me, or to control the battlefield in some way. The most important ones to me are Shieldmaster and Lucky. The other feats has their utility, but it will be a close call between the feat and just gaining bonus stats.

Level advancement: Unlike other builds that I had looked at I was pretty happy with stopping at a 16 str and an 18 con at least at 4th level. This means that my plan as I level up as far as feats is:

4: +1 Str +1 Con

6: Shieldmaster

8: Lucky

12: Fellhanded

14: Sentinel

16: Tough
19: Heavy Armour Master

This means at level 20 I am sitting around a 26 AC(assuming +3 Full Plate and +3 Shield), DR 3, 20d10+120HP(220 average). I have a ton of abilities that let me control the battlefield, to assist my friends in having advantage, and forcing disadvantage on my foes. It's going to be fun to see how it plays out. Next blog post I will go in depth into how I see the battlemaster maneuvers.

Session 6: TPK

Story So Far

When last we left our heroes they had left Rathe’s Wall with all haste in an effort to catch up to Dohl’shelt and prevent the destruction of the Mistwall.

Journal

Once again we left in all haste, our carts loaded with supplies for the journey ahead. Our travels are quiet as each considers the task ahead, only Syr Spar seems unflappable even in our grave situation. Dohlshelt is at least 2 days ahead of us and we can only hope that that isn't enough time to finish the ritual.

On our third day of travel we came across another cart that had a broken axle. It was being used by cultists. Hoping that we could get more information I spoke to them as comrades, and the believed my tale. I was able to get more map locations for them before being interrupted by a woman. After speaking with her we realized it was Shae Rahel’s mate, Thal Askar Kor. She gave us a sign that we were to continue our travels, and that she appreciated what we did for her mate. As we rode off the dying screams of the cultists let us know that she had gained her freedom.

Our journey came to an end at a large submerged city. This city that I have no knowledge of in all my studies. We continued following our map until we came upon a sunken temple of Hades, this was it.

We descended into the temple, and we saw dozens of dead cultists. Their throats were slit, and it is clear that the ritual is either complete or at least has begun. We just stepped into a room, and there is an old mage speaking with a young girl. This must be the ritual it must be stopped.

Behind the Screen

Death, I am going gripe a little on this one. This session ended with the whole party being killed, and it was mostly due to a leap before you look attitude on the part of the paladin. We came across a ritual and as we were getting ready to observe what was going on in ran the paladin atop his spidery steed. His initial attack was impressive knocking a little girl unconscious and preventing the ritual from competing. Aurelion charged behind him, and as the dice hit the table it looked like we were going to have a very heroic boss battle, I had rolled a crit and some decent damage. Thats when the DM told me that the caster had hellish rebuke. Aurelion was vaporized instantly. Then over the next four rounds of combat the party was taken apart by magic until everyone was out cold except the paladin and the barbarian. At this point the ghost had recovered enough and possessed the barbarian who then murdered everyone.

Once the encounter was done the GM told us that if we had just watched for a second the caster(Dohl’shelt) would have died from the ritual and the fight would have just been the possessed little girl. Which we could have handled. Basically, we all died for interrupting the cut scene too early. The only member of the party to survive was Willis, because he wasn’t present. This makes Willis’s second TPK that he survives.  It is also the first time I have had a character die since 1996.

We sat around the table discussing what to do next, and the GM tells us to reroll characters. We are going to be in the same campaign setting, but elsewhere. Good news with this is that since we are all together to make our characters we can sort of create a more coherent party.

New Party

Artek Orc Barbarian- Torvanor Water Genasai Priest of Poseidon

Willis- Is staying as Willis because he survived

Syr Spar Gnome Paladin- Azhag Orc Warlock

Thalous Half Elf Warlock- Kova Tiefling Ranger

Aurleion Elf Bladesinger- Rurik Dwarf Battlemaster

The new party was built with everyone taking specific roles in mind. I went back to what I prefer to play the tank. This was going to be the first time I play this character in 5e, but Rurik has been created in many different games. For 5e he is a Mountain Dwarf fighter on the battle master path. The goal was to prevent as much damage to the party as possible, so I took protection. The only problem I see with the concept right now is that there are too many reactions I need to use and I only get one. It's going to be tricky to decide which one to use each turn, and how to save them. Sitting at 19 armour with almost 40hp makes for a pretty sturdy meat shield, combined with the fighter ability Second Wind I should be able to survive most encounters. Let’s see how it goes.

Session Five: A Requiem for Annie

Story so Far

The party remains one step behind Dohl’Shelt, and it is starting to feel like their efforts might be helping him. At the very least the Magisterium is profiting from their work.

Journal

Noble Kado has left our party, he chose to remain behind and comfort Calder in the death of his family. He may worship death, but his behavior often shows a care for the living.

As we arrived back at the Magisterium, we came upon a strange scene. A gnome and a halfling standing on a table arguing with Allthol. As we walk up it seems that they were part of an adventuring party that had a contract with the Magisterium, also hunting Dohlshelt. Finally we found a clue that could continue on our way. After some unpleasantness with the gnome, Syr Spar, proving his lack of education in the noble races, we merged our contracts and exchanged information. Their previous party had tracked Dohlshelt to the abandoned Darlo Mine. When entering the mine they triggered a trap and only Syr Spar and Willis survived.

We quickly prepared ourselves and made the three day trek to the mine. Upon arriving my new companions said that the landscape had been changed by some force, when asked for more specifics they were interrupted by Artek saying there was a large encampment over the ridge. Willis moved closer to scout out the whole of it, as he did this some sort of ritual began to take place.One of the cultists walked forward and from the cages in the center of camp we could hear the screams of a young child. As the child’s screams died down a large tree burst into purple flames and we could see the obsidian symbol forming beneath it. Dohlshelt beat us once again, and it cost the life of another child. Charging forward the party killed every single cultist in the mine entrance, except one who escaped with several cages. The battle was swift and fierce, but we weren’t going to allow their crimes to go unpunished.

Finishing the battle we searched the area, and found that the cages contained two children. One who seemed in good health, and one who had had terrible transmutative magics performed on her. Her body had been fused with that of a blink dog. The transformation was far from perfect and it was clear she wouldn’t live if we didn’t find her help. In a hurry we hitched two of carts up and raced back to Rathe’s Wall.

Despite our best efforts Annie perished, in truth while her passing breaks my heart, I can not help but think that it is kinder than anything that the mages of the Magisterium would have done in attempting to free her from the curse.

As we approached the town it was obvious that it was under attack, smoke could be seen rising and the gates were thrown open. Pushing our carts faster we rushed into town only to see bodies being lifted into the air. I stopped one of the guards to ask what was happening, and before he could answer an explosion rocked the Magisterium. He quickly filled us in that the floating bodies were cultists of Dohl’shelt, being summoned to power his attack on the city. The Magisterium itself was being attacked, but one of Dohl’shelt’s lieutenants was trapped inside, giving Annie’s sister to the guards we ran off in hopes of helping in the attack.

When we arrived at the Magisterium the attack had been defeated, but Grimjaw and Althol we arguing about what to do with the prisoner. The Magisterium wanted to keep him for information, and the Watch wanted him executed for his crimes. By way of mediating we offered to interrogate the prisoner and see if he had any information.

The criminal is a male eladrin named Shae Rahel the First Blade. After a fair bit of time we managed to come to an accord where he gave us information in exchange for a promise that we would try and secure leniency for him, and protect his mate from Dohlshelt.

He informed us that Dohl’shelt is simply a pawn of a larger scheme. A force from beyond the Mistwall, the Council of Four, has come to our island in an attempt to bring down the wall and allow the outside world in. Dohlshelt and his cult were to open the sigils which would create a crack in the wall allowing more Eladrin into our side. Eventually the wall would fall completely, and all the evils of the outside would flood in. Shae Rahel says that the Council started with this goal to find a new homeland for his people, but now they want to keep it for themselves. This is why he was willing to betray them. He told us we must proceed with all haste to the fourth sigil and stop Dohl’shelt.

On our way out of town, we spoke to Grimjaw. Explaining that Shae Rahel was not a minion of Dohlshelt didn’t help the case any. Hopefully his trial will not begin until we return so we can testify at how much his information helped us in saving the town.

Behind the Screen

Between this session and the previous one we lost 2 players, both Kado and Cerebus decided to leave the party for various reasons. They were replaced by Syr Spar a Gnome Paladin, and Willis a Halfling Rogue.

This was a less combative session overall with the majority of our time being spent in the interrogation of the Shae Rahel. I love sessions where you get the chance to get a good bit of exposition done, and this one certainly  did. Suddenly we knew why Dohl’shelt was doing what he was doing, and who the real villains were.

On a rules note the first fight with the large amount of cultists showed the benefits and disadvantages of having such low armour and to hit bonuses. A group of low level cultist should have been a relatively easy encounter, but the simple fact that they could reliably hit our tank made it a little harrowing. On the other side the rogue was able to carve through them really quickly. The game overall feels more deadly than previous editions, and that is a change that I really like.

Also a ton of hate for onion cutting DM who decided to reference FMA and Nina.

Session Four: A farm on fire

Story so Far

With Dohl’shelt continuing to assault the city of Rathe’s Wall with a variety of terrors, the heroes move onto their next mission. Another small landowner with a problem.

Journal

After the disaster that our mission to the Mill was I was very worried about what might come next. Dohl’shelt’s plans seem to encompass much more than just kidnapping. We used our letter of introduction to the guards and met Watch Commander Grimjaw, a rather sturdy female dwarf who seems to be dealing with the overwhelming amount of extra work the watch has rather well.

We spoke to her for sometime trying to get information about Dohl’shelt, but the guards are just as clueless as we are. Once we figured that we have no new leads we asked if there is anything else we can do to help at this time. She told us that a farm on the outskirts of town just burnt down, the owner and his family are all missing. He was seen in town last night, but no one has heard from the family. Our mission was to find the owner and his family, then determine the cause of the fire.

Conveniently no sooner do we receive our mission than Pael Calder, the farmer, walks up to the watch tower. He says that he was in town visiting friends, and that he spent the night in town. We could smell the alcohol on him which stuck with what we had heard from some of the guards earlier. We spoke to Calder to try and determine if anyone would want to hurt him or his family. He says that he has no enemies that he knows of. Following him back to the farm is a small trek, but it gave me a chance to see the surrounding countryside. I have been so caught up in everything going on I hadn’t noticed how different Rathe’s Wall is from my home. I miss the woods and the graceful architecture of home.

The farm was completely destroyed except for the grain silo. The livestock had gotten free, but after a quick head count Calder informed us that none were missing. Whatever else this fire was, it wasn’t to steal from him. The search was a quick one, Calder’s family had been in the home when it caught fire. Everything we saw pointed to this being an act of arson. The fact that both the barn and the house burnt down even though they weren’t connected being the biggest clue.

Thalous searched the barn while Kado tried to comfort the poor man. His brand of comfort doesn’t work for anyone not a follower of Hades, but is more than I can do. I understand his pain, being the last alive of your family is a terrible burden. For now though I am more focused on finding the culprits. My justice may still be sometime in the future, but Pael Calder will get his.

Thalous’s search revealed that there was a spot that had been protected from the fire by magic. The magic used was something particularly strong, beyond anything I can conjure. Thalous told me that was also having visions of tentacles crawling over the space. Remembering the mill we searched around until we found a trap door that led to a long tunnel. The tunnel headed off in the direction of the cemetery for an unknown distance. We gather up the rest of the group and head down the tunnel, Pael decides to follow us. He has no wish to be left alone with the ghosts of his family and whatever caused the fire.

As we walk down the tunnel Calder explained to us that his family is descended from an elven family. His branch was disowned for breeding with humans. That’s when they left the capital and settled here in Rathe’s wall. The tunnel led to a crypt containing the remains of his ancestors even though he has lived on this farm his whole life he had no knowledge of the crypt.

Exploring the crypt led us into several encounters with the undead remnants of the Calder family. Mostly the undead fell quickly to our attacks, the exceptions being some sort of unliving elven child who’s fell magics knitted their wounds as fast as we could cause them. During the exploration we also found some treasure, the half orc found the secret passage leading to it. The brute made the choice to keep whatever he found valuable in the chest, and leave the copper pieces for the rest of us. I hope he found enough to make up for the disfavour this caused with the rest of the group.

Once we finished exploring the crypt we found the key to the last door, beyond it was some sort of temple to Calder’s ancestors. As soon as we passed the threshold demons were summoned and set upon us. Banding together we fought them back, but it was too late. The symbol on the floor of the room turned black as obsidian, whatever these symbols are I do not think the change is a good one for us.

When we leave the farm we saw that the explosion from last night was something that destroyed a portion of the cemetery, I am unsure why anyone would attack the dead that don’t move when there are so many undead wandering around causing problems. Back at town we report our findings to Watch Commander Grimjaw and are informed that the Magisterium is purchasing the land from Calder. I don’t trust this.

Behind the Screen

This session had some of the most constant combat we have seen, and it was the first time we face the undead. It is a big difference fighting skeletons and zombies than what it was in previous editions. Before skeletons had a small of resistance to damage, 5e makes resistance automatically half damage. Which is great for the party member that does only a little damage, this way they can at least do something. It really hurts the massive damage dealers though. As a party we just weren't equipped for dealing with that sort of resistance. We then faced zombies, now these guys used to be low level fodder. In 5e they were given undead fortitude, a really awesome rule that means when they are reduced to 0 hit points instead of dying they take a constitution save based on the damage taken. Those child zombies lasted 4 or 5 turns of just passing this save. This turned a relatively easy encounter into something really dangerous.

One of my favourite parts of the new edition is that you can no longer take for granted that the party is going to destroy an encounter. Even with all the healing available and all the new skills, simple mistakes can quickly end an adventure.