The Journal of Alfrederic Elmer Carlyle Bartholomew Desdemona III

A recap of all sessions including #7, recorded 05/01 to 7/10/2016.

Journal Entries

Well, I suppose it's time to start a meaningful journal of my travels.  Perhaps if I make it through all this nonsense I can use this as a warning to myself to not get into the entertainment business ever again.  Where to begin?

I suppose it all started when I met an individual by the name of Hogan Savage.  I should say the Professional Wrestler Hogan Savage.  Though not very professional, he is very entertaining. Through a series of what may ultimately be unfortunate events I deemed myself the manager of the “Wrassler,” to help him spread the word of Kord.


At least, that is my story.  Many others joined our venture and we decided to move town to town to promote the word of Kord.  If only things had gone as planned I may have been writing a success story of a lucky wizard that rode the fame of another to untold riches, though who knows?  Time will tell.

Our ill luck struck just as we were approaching the town of Greenest.  We happened upon a group of kobolds - terrible little creatures.  My allies seemed perturbed by whatever it was the little buggers were doing so they set to work fixing that mess.  I remember Hogan yelling something about Kord and kicking one of the small things so hard he killed it.  It was rather funny.

About that time, we noticed a dragon.  A blue dragon.  Quite beautiful. T hen I kind of haze out exactly what transpired next.  It was something about taking some villagers to the keep.  Though I don't understand why they wanted to go there.  The place was being attacked.

When we finally arrived at the keep things had settled down and I believe the dragon was gone as well.  At the keep, people were upset because someone had been kidnapped.  So, of course a few of the bleeding hearts in our little troupe decided we could help out the town and save whoever was missing.  Cry me a river.  Alas, we went anyway. I mean they did offer a nice sum of gold.

We followed the easily found trail of what appeared to be an army to their campsite.  Someone in our group found some cloaks that the towns attackers had been wearing so we could sneak in with a pretense of bringing a prisoner or two.  Luckily it worked - I was afraid I was going to have to abandon my new profession so soon.  The kidnapped person was soon found and we all left without too much of an incident so we traveled back to Greenest to collect our loot.

At the town we put on a show for the beleaguered residents and rested for a bit.  It was nice, but of course things always come up.  Someone then asked us to retrieve some dragon eggs from the encampment that we had just left.  Seriously, sometimes I wonder if people even think about efficiency.  It would have made much more sense to collect them when we were there the first time.

So, of course the helpful little people in our troupe, Shirley Lee and Teagan, agreed to help.  On our way there when we had bedded down for the night I got to witness something fun.  A hill giant happened upon us while we were sleeping.  By some gods good grace, our watch saw before he got too close.  That is when I saw the sign of coin...if we could successfully capture the giant, we could go town to town and have people pay us to watch Mr. Savage wrestle a real live hill giant.  Oh the possibilities.

It was truly great to witness Hogan bravely, perhaps stupidly, tell us to stay back as he charged the giant.  Everyone looked to me as if to ask, “Should we stay back?” I laugh now, I may have even laughed then when I said, “I want to see this.”  Then Hogan got hit.

It was bad, but he kept his feet.  Tough mouth-breather that he is he just kept on fighting.  He even disarmed that poor old giant.  It was a great memory.  We did kill it though.

We finally arrived at what I now know was a dragon cultist campsite and decided to try a different approach.  Talk to the guys outside and see if the dragon eggs are there.  Kuklak and Hogan decided to do the talking.  It almost went poorly, but luckily Hogan challenged two of the guards to a “Wrasslin'” match.  He took on two of them and won.  Though he didn't keep the gold.  I need to talk to him about this for future sake.

Afterwards, the guards didn't seem as on edge and Hogan found out the eggs were still in the cave.  Instead of us all going in it was decided that we would send the sneakiest amongst us into the cave after I turned them invisible.  Funnily enough it seemed Hogan could sneak the best even though you would never guess it by looking at him.  We also turned Teagans familiar invisible and sent it flying into the cave complex to map it out.  It was a bit boring waiting until all of that transpired, but Hogan returned with the eggs and I didn't lose my cash cow.  It was a delightfully successful mission.

Afterwards we headed back to Greenest only to find out that the person that wanted the eggs wasn't even there.  I really need to write a book on social etiquette when it pertains to dangerous business deals.  We found out we would need to travel all the way to Elturel just to get our money.

I was half tempted to just sell the eggs myself.  I'm sure they're worth more than what we were going to get.  Of course I couldn't do that though, people were watching.  Yet again we ventured on towards Eltruel with the eggs in tow.  That is when we started noticing boar tracks.  Big boar tracks.  I even saw the boar once, it was almost the size of a cow.

During one of the nights we were resting, a lone orc charged into our camp and began to attack.  We quickly set to work dispatching him and finally he yelled at me, “I'll get you one of these days Roland!”

I was at an utter loss - my name isn't Roland.  I don't even know a Roland.  As he was about to run away, Shirley killed him and I could ask no more questions.  He did have a magic sword on him though.  Shirley kept that.  Teagan kept the spear the orc carried as well.  It was made of silver.  I'm glad she did.

The next day in our journey, we ran across a lone individual coming from Eltruel who happened to be named Roland.  Kuklak didn't like the cut of his jib, but I didn't see any reason we should attack him.  I mean there were a lot of us and one of him.  He traveled on as did we.

That night while at camp, we were attacked again.  What is it with this group?  I mean, really?  Anyway, now the truth was known.  It was Roland.  He is or rather was a Were-Boar.  This was too much, I finally couldn't take it.

I refrain from using spells willy-nilly, but this was deemed necessary.  I was trying to sleep afterall.  My sleep is precious to me.  I need it.  I love it.  I unleashed my fury on him.  We all did.  He died pretty quick.

Afterward, I cast detect magic and found out his ring and cloak were magic.  I didn't care for the cloak though, I just wanted the ring.  It is a ring of protection.  It's wonderful.

Yesterday we rolled into town and found whoever we were looking for and got our cash for those damned eggs.  So now we sit in the town of Eltruel.  Hopefully things will go much better in the future.  

Hoard of the Dragon Queen (Sessions 4, 5 & 6)

These sessions were originally recorded 05/29, 06/05, and 06/12/2016.

You're Too Fat to Wrestle Me
As told by Hogan Savage, Professional Wrestler

After the whole ordeal in the woods, we went back to the town (I don't remember what it was called) and rested a few days.  I felt much better after a crowd gathered and heard the word of Kord.  I felt the power of Kord-a-mania!

We went back out into the woods (I'm not sure why) but found some more cultists.  They weren't good at playing fair, so we tied the survivor to a tree and left him there.  I tell you what, brother...Kord was with us that night, because a scalawag of a hill giant crept up on us as we slept.  Good thing the watch saw him, and I wrestled a hill giant.  Word.

I'm not really sure what happened, but another night we were attacked by cultists.  We made them regret their decision and interrogated the survivor, but he was mad.  I don't remember what happened to him.

At some point we were told to retrieve some dragon eggs from back at the cultist camp.  So we went back, and Miss Teagan had her dragon scout the encampment.  Not really sure what happened, but got a chance to wrestle some of the guards!  It was all good though - good chaps, really.  They were kinda fat, and I gave them some calisthenics protips.  Then they told me where the army went and where the dragon eggs were.  I let them keep the gold I won from them, just to brighten their day.

Teagan had her little dragon look inside the cave, but everyone was mad at me for some reason.  She said there was a dragon lady and some other guys inside, but not that many.  I'm not sure what the problem was, but they told me it was a bad idea to go talk to her.  I waited a bit, doing jumping jacks in the camp...then they told me they were going to turn me invisible and I had to go get the dragon eggs.  I'm not sure who suggested that - it might have been me.  Well?!  I'm the guy for that kinda job!

I went inside and grabbed the eggs.  No one saw me, but I heard something move once.  Then I left with the eggs.  The others were waiting outside the cave, so I surprised one of the guys with an invisible hug!  He was surprised, but I wasn't invisible anymore.  Then, we said bye to the guards and left.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen (Sessions 1, 2 & 3)

These sessions were originally recorded 05/01, 05/08, and 05/15/2016.

Greenest in Flames
As told by Hogan Savage, Professional Wrestler

"It's time to get down, brother!!

Here we were, minding our own business...when suddenly a ton of kobolds become a problem.  Turned out that the town we were coming into, Greenest, had a bit of a dragon problem, too.  Rough.

So I did what any respectable wrestler would do - I hid in the bushes until one of them came close enough for me to get.  After a few punts, and the others doing their work, we managed to get some of the frantic townsfolk to talk to us.  All they wanted to do was go to the keep.

We had to rough some fellas up who were trying to break in though a drain pipe.  Enough is enough, brother!  We took the important looking one to the ... magistrate, or whatever he was.

I tried to get them to see the light of Kord, brother...but they were worried about the dragon taking out their mill or something.  After some consideration (and some rest) we agreed to find out what was going on with the raiders - turns out, they were dragon-worshipping scumbags!

Now, everyone knows bad dragons have to go.  

Turns out some guy was kidnapped, and we had been charged with finding him.  I don't really remember his name, but he was some kinda monk.  Found some cultists in the woods, hid in the bushes again.  Some of the others stripped them and put on their silly gear - not THIS Kord-amaniac!  
We followed the directions the kobolds gave us after I applied the Iron Claw.  We were led to a small camp, and figured our guy was inside.  The ladies dressed me as a prisoner, and we got in.  Have to remember to let the ladies do the talking.

I sat with the prisoners until no one was looking, then snapped those silly chains.  Kord's the power, brother - you best get you some!  The ladies and the others wandered around the camp, and the cultists were too stupid to figure it out.  Eventually, they came back with our guy, the monk - and all the other prisoners and I began to climb out of the gully.

I didn't even get to test out my moonsault!"

Hoard of the Dragon Queen Campaign Open!

Welcome back to the Sword Coast, intrepid adventurers!  This season we begin with the first published adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition - Hoard of the Dragon Queen!  It's time to get down and dirty with the Cult of the Dragon, but please be advised that this season will contain spoilers for the adventure, so if you haven't played it yet you may wish to avoid the RPG Campaign Updates.

However, if you've already played it (or don't intend to, or intend on running it) then you will be amused at the ridiculous antics of our ridiculous player characters.  Serious / Not Serious play is where we live, so expect over the top characters and equally ridiculous reactions to events in game.  Our Dungeon Master is no less than the Reverend Greg, and he's been preparing for 5th Edition since launch and has already ran an awesome campaign last year based on the Basic Set.  We got 55.5 hours of play time just with the introductory box set and a Player's Handbook!

The shared experience of these adventures is what's going to make them classics, almost instantly.  I'm really looking forward to this, and we even have a few new players this season as well.  This shows how anticipated the new game is, and the strength of the new line to draw in players who have never played an RPG before.

All our campaigns this season share the same setting, as we've "nested" them together to create a stronger narrative.  This is another important aspect of the draw, and helps spread enthusiasm to other game lines.  Our version of the Sword Coast will definitely be changed, and we'll catalog all such new additions at the end of the campaign as normal so there will be a reference guide for any such changes.

 As I've already mentioned, I personally am super-stoked about being able to play this campaign as a player.  Big thanks to Reverend Greg, who's devoted his time to preparing and running the game and committed to running the season's game for four months.  To our new players:  we're so happy you've decided to join us!

Game Day this week will be in overdrive, as we've got some catching up to do from last week.  Our internal meeting took up too much time last Sunday...but that's ok.  A small backlog will help us avoid the "we're caught up" blues and give your wizards, dragons and professional wrestlers a good reason to try to kill each other.

Just remember - it's not the size of the wrestler that counts, but...no wait, that's not true.  The size of the wrestler does count, so stack all the bonuses you can find and get ready to do battle with the followers of Tiamat.  For our characters, an interesting career opportunity emerges from the strife of the Sword Coast.

It's not every day the gods give you a dragon to wrestle. So just accept it, and know that no matter what happens it is a feat of strength that will surely garner the attention of the gods themselves.  When the hits go down, you better be ready - or you'll get bodyslammed.