PREVIOUS

The Doubley-Doos have been escorting a prisoner to Biel to stand trial for leading a bugbear raid against the village Erydark. However, with news that the Hearing House is planning to use the military against goblin tribes in response to growing talks of rebellion, Rhass suggested they release him and leverage his connections to other goblin tribes to stamp out the conflict before things can escalate. In exchange, they promised him the totem of the goblin deity of oppression and slavery, Khurgorbaeyag, that Shump has carried since his time in Opal Town. The nilbog agreed to meet them outside of Biel in 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, they came across a bard quartet requesting the group’s help in getting their money back from a group of thugs who have taken control of a nearby village. The quartet’s leader, a gnomish woman named Lidla, claimed that this gang of thugs was powerful enough to fend off an attacking dragon and have since squeezed payment out of the townsfolk for continued protection.

Rhass and Dormin snuck into the town in disguise to gather intel — Dormin sneaking into the poorer area of town and speaking with the local thieves, and Rhass chatting up a few locals at the pub. No one could confirm if the dragon was real or an illusion, although they did point to the burns at the edge of town as decent evidence to the former. Dormin made a potential ally of the local thieves, who feel these intruders are encroaching on their business, and Rhass learned that they regularly hold performances, attendance of which is compulsory.

The Doubley-Doos posed as a rival group of bards and used the thugs’ own stage to draw them out. Shump used his strength, Shelby played her concertina, Rhass used his magic to create illusions, and Badger trained a squirrel to fetch. Dormin, meanwhile, snuck into the crowd to keep lookout.

The plan worked, the bards revealed themselves, and Rhass brought two of them on stage and made them part of the act in an attempt to hold off any potential attacks. This seemed to work…until a roar drew the attention of the crowd and a golden dragon revealed itself from the woods outside of town.

____________________________________________

As I mentioned last time, I’m just coming out of an incredibly bad depression. However, in an odd twist, that wasn’t why we didn’t meet for nearly two months, it was just a fun extra scoop of sadness ice cream on my bummer brownie. In a wild series of coincidences, every time we were supposed to meet, something came up. Someone got sick, someone was out of town, I had to work late and couldn’t make it in, etc. I should’ve turned that into a silver lining and spent time getting ahead, coming up with more adventure seeds and maybe figuring out ways to work their backstories into the campaign, but instead…I did nothing. Not a damned thing.

After so long without playing, this session was pretty rough from a DM perspective. I couldn’t really remember what had happened the previous session, and relied way more than usual on everyone else reminding me of what happened last time, which is not really how I like to run my games. It made me feel really sloppy. Plus, my wife had some health issues and couldn’t make it, so it just didn’t feel the same without her.

All that said, this session was relatively easy to run. It was an extremely RP heavy session, which I felt bad about since Jess isn’t really into those. Personally, while I enjoy combat in D&D, RP is far and away my favorite types of interactions and sessions, and I don’t mind combat not being as frequent, but Jess really prefers combat and gets bored in the social encounters. I try to keep our sessions balanced enough that everyone gets a little something, but as I said, I was off my game. This was probably the third session in a row with no combat, so I knew I’d need to do something for her soon.

That said, as should be obvious by the way the session ended, they definitely got themselves into some combat for the next session.

NEXT