Heroes of the Sword Coast (Session 16)

From the Journal of Raine the Pixie

(09/27/15)

5:32

We take a rest and eat a meal of dragon meat.  As we awaken in the evening we hear the sound of the giant chicken, so we go out to find the skeleton and a wizard behind him.

The wizard says that he is looking for his friends.  He says his friends made the best Blue Dragon Ale ever.  His name is Mal, and he decides to investigate the mines with us to see if he can find his friends and the Black Spider.

We discover a goblin after venturing down the tunnel and intimidate him into telling us where we can find the Black Spider.  We tell him to leave the mine, but he runs in the direction we are headed.

After venturing into another room, we find a wizard who seems to Charm McElfatrick.  He tells McElfatrick to leave, and we chase him as he starts to do so.  I slap him and ask what he's doing.

The party heads back to fight the wizard, who Blinks out and the goblin takes off running.  We chase him down and kill him.

6:40

Just then, a bunch of undead come around the corner, followed by the wizard.  We battle the wizard and win.  We take the scrolls and a few other items we find.

We continue on and find a chamber that we enter that is cast into magical Darkness.  We are attacked by spiders and the tiefling is beaten down twice, but we revive him.

After we defeat the spiders, we see a drow wizard hanging on the ceiling that tries to Web us.  We manage to fight and kill the wizard and a doppelganger that showed up.

We find a bunch of treasure in the next room.

D&D Realms: The Forgotten Realms

At one point, I actually read comics.  Sometime in the late '80's, before I had gotten into gaming proper, I had a run of X-Factor and Solo Avengers.  I didn't collect very many, but the ones I had were some of my favorite pieces of literature when I was about nine years old.  Within these hallowed tomes, there were mysterious beckonings from another world posing as mundane advertisements for something I didn't really understand.  Those old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons advertisements are what initially drew my attention to this wonderful hobby of ours, and one of the first ones I remember are the old ads for the Forgotten Realms.

Ah, nostalgia.

Despite all those ads and the very real interest they held for me, I wouldn't actually see anything from Forgotten Realms until I got my hands on Menzoberranzan about 1993.  From there, it spiraled out of control for a bit.  Even though I had cut my teeth on Greyhawk and Dragonlance, the world of Faerun started to gain momentum within my gaming circle - especially after the very popular Dark Elf Trilogy caught on.  So, the trend goes.

The revised Forgotten Realms boxed set (with Elminster on the cover) was my first proper setting for the whole line.  It's set after the Time of Troubles, and the "Grey Box" is set before said event.  Little did we know this would set the trend for moving the setting forward with each edition...but it's continued into 5th Edition - and Faerun is a much weirder place.

The Time of Troubles was used to explain all the differences between 1st Edition and 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  During 3rd Edition, Faerun pretty much had leveled out after this cataclysm and developed into a great campaign setting, one that finally seemed to get its proverbial droppings in the can, but did so by literally reshaping a large portion of the setting.  Then...there was 4th Edition.

I'm not going into the Spellplague and all that, as we'll get to it with that part of the story as we progress through the editions...but let's just say it was a retroactive continuity change that significantly alters the nature of the entire setting.  If you want a more detailed (and slightly speculative) view of the history of the Realms and how the settings changed within the fictional world, I recommend this thread from Candlekeep.  It's a great assessment of the lore, and also showcases how awesome Ao really is.

For the Wargate, the Forgotten Realms is going to be all these things, and possibly more if what Aldrick had to say is even remotely true.  Long ago I came to terms with the fact that these settings and games change over time - they have to, for as shared fictional universes they MUST change and grow as all "living" things must.  Each setting is it's own theater, and because of how we handle editions here each will have it's own ruleset as well.  In the end, this makes for a diverse and rather robust gaming experience.

For myself, I've enjoyed kicking the tires of the 5th Edition and the setting.  It's familiar, yet strange at the same time.  All the little changes are hard to keep track of.  It will be very interesting to see how it all plays out, but one thing's for certain - folks have wanted to go back to the original maps and setting for a long, long time.  The original box is often hailed as setting the standard for decades within the industry.  Among certain OSR circles, it's the foundation and ultimate expression of what this sort of item should be / contain.

I was not happy that the Forgotten Realms supplanted Greyhawk as the "default" setting, but I suppose I'm a holdout.  I'm not really a Drizzt fan, nor am I a fan of Elminster - despite going through a phase or two in High School.  I'm more of a Mordenkainen sort of guy.  Yet, I do have a lingering and honest fondness for the Realms themselves...and more people know about it them than any kingdoms on the Oerth.

Not to mention - the Realms are rife with wargaming possibilities.  From Battlesystem itself and the published modules that incorporate it, to the multitude of other rulesets from innumerable manufacturers.  There's plenty of good reason for us to use Hail Caesar!, Frostgrave, Kings of War, Saga, Lion Rampant, and that's not even mentioning D&D Attack Wing or Dungeon Command or Chainmail.  This is the part that excites me, and once we upgrade our camera equipment (sorry there hasn't been very many miniatures lately) there will be plenty of photos of shenanigans and other projects.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading, and remember - not every drow miniature that dual wields is Drizzt.  In fact - none of them are.  None.  Zero.  Capish?

Heroes of the Sword Coast (Sessions 13, 14 & 15)

These sessions were orignally recorded 08/30, 09/06 and 09/13/2015.

From the Journal of a Chicken-Touched Fey

(08/30)

7:30

The party goes to meet Gundran after finding fliers looking for help.  We find Rockseeker in an inn.  He offers gold and a share in the mines to clear the evil from the tunnels.  

We head off toward the mine and find a town a day away.  We find Sildare in the inn.  He tells us someone was hired before but they 'left'.

We head to the mine to find Nezner, the Black Spider, and clear the minions out of the mine.  Outside the mine, we find footprints leading inside.  There, we found a large group of bugbears, an ogre and an orc.

(09/06)

7:30

Ser MacElfatrick spends the entire session converting two bugbears to Torm.

(09/13)

6:11

We sit in a room where we have defeated the bugbears.  There are three colored vials, 2 blue and 1 yellow.  They smell of flowers, so I put them in my pack.  The bugbears have fled, so we head off down the corridors to continue to search for the Black Spider.

We come into a large room and see that it is lit with torches.  As we are checking to see if this area would be suitable to rest in, one of the torchlights flies up and becomes a flaming green skull.  We end up having to battle this magical skull twice.  We feed the broken pieces to magical chickens to get rid of it.

We head down the hall and find a group of men.  We fight with them after a short conversation, and win.  One of the men converts to Torm after conversing with Ser MacElfatrick, the other runs off down the hall, wounded.  We give chase, and find the other man with a green dragon.

After a terrible fight with the dragon, Gnash has died and we are all injured.  We collect the treasure and tend Gnash's body.