Dungeon Master Life: Work Hard, Play Harder

Sorry for the long and unprofessional silence! The seasons of high school and holidays kept me and my players busy. I have perfected my method of making paper battle maps in the mean time: I screenshot the location (usually a shrine, in this campaign) in four separate corners, and then paste the pictures on a Google Document with One quarter the size of one page, print out the pages, and tape them together. Guaranteed 1-inch squares and even lines for ease of battle rules! I have made some halting headway in the story by bringing Meagan and Ashley into a groupchat on the Discord app to work around physical meetups. Makenna has not made a Discord account, and so Marilla the Merfolk has been conspicuously absent. After a long night's rest, Zebra-Casamir and Vulture-Agile, accompanied by Orvex the human scribe, desided to wait on attacking Kubazan's shrine again and instead lazily walked up the road to the west, while Agile had spotted a different shrine. Upon approaching the ...

After a long period of settling into new school and life schedules, I held a session with Meagan and Ashley on Saturday the 24th at Orc's Forge in Tuttle Mall, from 1pm to about 3:45. Using the power of Dungeon Master Executive Decision, I quickly summarized Agile's entry to the city of Omu and directed him toward the battle that had yet to be completed between Casamir and the crocodiles in front of the shrine of Papazotl. With Agile arriving as back-up (and the crocodiles making extremely pitiful attack rolls) the party defeated the four enemies without taking very much damage, and entered into the shrine itself. The floor was a mosaic depicting Papazotl, an elbis , fighting its rival Kubazan the froghemoth , and a set of stone doors (that required a combined Strength check of 20 to push) separated the antechamber from the main room, in which six statues sat. A riddle etched into the wall provided their next course of action. "Comes with sunshine, leaves with night. Hid...

On the afternoon of Friday the 14th from about 2:40 to 3:40 I held a session with Ashley, Norah, and a player that Ashley recruited from her Game Design class, Donovan. He played an elven Ranger named Sauriel, specializing in ranged weaponry. Casamir and Suga’s battle with the sea hags had not been concluded from last session, and so while I set Donovan up with the Player’s Handbook (so that he could pick his spells and add the last finishing touches to his character) I played through the rest of the battle with Ashley and Norah. With liberal assistance from the cleric Sullesh and the Emerald Enclave scouts, Suga and Casamir defeated the sea hags promptly. After the battle, Sullesh approached Casamir and remarked on the Fighter’s skill with two-handed weapons; proclaiming that he had no use for it, Sullesh gifted Casamir with silver maul named Smite-Light. Casamir received this because after losing his original weapons he needed a replacement, and Ashley and I could not resist the ...

I met with Ashely on Friday after school and together we helped Norah, a friend of ours, to completely build a level 7 Battle-Master Fighter in order to join Casamir. The session lasted from about 3 pm to 4:45 pm when Norah was picked up from Ashley’s house. Norah’s character Suga is a gold Dragonborn with a Charlatan background. Such a combination had never occurred to me before, but due to Norah’s creativity and the Fighter class’s versatility, Suga became a very believable character. The Bond that Norah chose for Suga also tied in well with the story: searching for the murderer of a loved one is a classic, and could definitely push a scam artist to become a dedicated Fighter. I described a way to integrate Suga into the story that Norah agreed to: Suga had followed rumors of the murderer to the mountainous southeastern coast of Chult and was lead through the wilderness by a small party of two Emerald Enclave Scouts and their priest, named Sullesh. Norah also described Suga as ve...

Makenna and Meagan met with me on Labor Day in the Orc’s Forge shop at the Tuttle Mall. Our session lasted from about 12 noon to 2:30. I should have taken photos to add to this post, because we had a fantastic time playing there and my geeky heart enjoyed the amount and variation of merchandise in the shop. After leaving Casamir and the traveling yuan ti slavers, Agile and Marilla first navigated back to the camp to reclaim what’s belongings they had left. They recovered the materials and the supplies they’d amassed, but the dinosaurs had run away during the initial kidnapping and River and Flask had returned to Port Nyanzaru with the assumption that the party members died. Agile plans for a dramatic reunion with his husband. Agile, after making a DC 15 Intelligence check, remembered his and Casamir’s encounter with the Red Wizard several weeks ago. The Red Wizard had surrendered and confessed the directions to the Forbidden City of Omu, and Agile reasoned that this was probably wh...

My apologies for the late update, but the first two weeks of school had me swamped with homework and stress and a sinus infection, rendering me unable to type up this report until now. This session took place at Ashley's home once again after school on Monday the 27th until about 5pm. With all of the pieces in place for the mutiny, Casamir took a short rest in the brig to regain a few of the hit points lost in the battle. Haley woke him up for the dinner meal, which The Chef had agreed to sabotage to weaken the yuan-ti. In the middle of dinner, a shriek came from the officer's dining hall, and Casamir and his allies ran down the hallway to investigate. Attempting to be stealthy, Casamir tried to peek through the door left ajar, but instead pushed the door open. The assorted halfblood officers were doubled over, choking and hissing in pain, while the yuan-ti abomination captain looked alarmed and was presumably the source of the scream. The Captain correctly accused Casamir ...