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The Doubley-Doos have been investigating mysterious circumstances in Opal Town as they travel to reunite some goblin refugees with their tribe. It seems that all of the higher ups of the town are somehow involved in a conspiracy involving a cult worshipping a strange snake goddess. In their investigations, they met a former soldier named Talbot Claire who has been aiding them along with a maid named Clairebell. During their investigations, Clairebell went missing and the Doubley-Doos spread out to find her. Unfortunately, all the found was more and more evidence of the deepening conspiracy, an apparent betrayal by all of their former allies from their early adventures.

All of the conspiratorial activity seemed to center around Talbot’s apple orchard, so the Doubley-Doos began to search the property, eventually stumbling on a secret stone doorway hidden in a hillside that would have been impossible for Talbot to miss before. Using stone runes, they managed to translate the passphrase — “Glory to the Night Serpent; victory to Klaas” — and begin their descent inside.

After stumbling upon a next of shadows, the party made camp and did their best to hide until they had their bearings. The mystery deepened as they each learned that when they slept, they disappeared, finding themselves in a strange, cosmic place of floating islands. Talbot explored one nearby to find an idyllic kingdom in the midst of a celebration. Upon waking, and realizing that he still didn’t feel tired — in fact, hadn’t felt tired in days — Dormin realized that they were actually asleep, and perhaps had been for quite a while.

They decided since their combats still hurt them and hadn’t caused them to wake up, it was better to try to see whatever dreamstate they were in to its finish in case trying to wake themselves caused something worse or did permanent harm to them.

Following a chamber to the right, they found themselves in a fairly large stone corridor. It was an otherwise empty room. The only things in the room besides themselves was the door they’d just entered, the door across from them, and torches on the walls.

As they crossed the room, however, the ground went from the firm, solidness of stone to soft, spongy, and malleable. The further they progressed, the more their steps would sink and press into the ground, and when they withdrew their foot, it would leave an impression that would slowly begin to expand back to normal. They noticed, too, that the torches didn’t actually look like real torches with real fire. They somehow looked fake, the fire not actually illuminating things.

When they finally reached the door, they were having difficulty standing on the soft “stone.” The door appeared to be a heavy wooden door with iron band reinforcements, but a quick touch revealed that the door, too, was soft and malleable, moreso than the floor. Dormin tried to pick the lock, but found that when he inserted his tools, he punctured something that felt like paper. When they grabbed the doorknob, rather than opening, the door peeled away like wet paper, revealing nothing but a black void on the other side. There was no light, no shadow. It was simply…nothing. A void so pure, it swallowed any light.

Dormin peeled away a larger opening and crept through first. He found himself in a large, ceremonial chamber. Many villagers were gathered at the top of a dais. To Dormin’s dismay, Clairebell was chained to the top of the dais, and the mayor stood over her, wearing her ceremonial robes and clutching the ornate dagger Dormin had found previously. It was clearly a ritual sacrifice, and as Dormin watched, an arcane circle beneath Clairebell began to glow. Dormin moved forward to join the crowd.

After a few moments, the rest of the Doubley-Doos followed Dormin in. Dormin tried to infiltrate the cultists, but was soon found out. A brief scuffle ensued, but as they attacked and killed the villagers, they sound found themselves adrift in a black void as reality seemed to shatter around them. When the world righted, they were back in the cosmic void on a small floating island. A goblin woman bearing the cult’s snake symbol and the mark of the Shrillbeast clan summoned snakes of fire and attacked.

A battle ensued. The goblin woman clutched at her symbol and said, “Dendar, give me your aid,” and shadowy hands emerged from the ground, grasping at the party and trying to hold them in place. Everyone but Shump was able to evade them, but they all soon found themselves brought under. The goblin woman continued to summon fire snakes to do her bidding, and the Doubley-Doos found the onslaught almost too much. Each time the wounded the fire snakes, they were getting wounded themselves, and they weren’t able to attack the goblin woman directly as she’d armored herself with an icy aura.

Each Doubley-Doo fell under the goblin woman’s charms and they began to relive their greatest fear. Talbot managed to shake the stupor loose and managed to land a devastating blow with an arrow, shattering the icy armor. The rest of the group soon made short work of her, but upon her defeat, the island they stood on fractured and crumbled away. Adrift in space, hissing emanated from all corners of this cosmic void. Everyone was soon gripped in the visions — nightmares — as they once again were forced to relive their worst memories. Talbot relived a battle where his men were cut down following his bad orders. Shelby relived the death of her master. Dormin relived dark memories of a cat-like visitor that led him astray. And Shump relived his village kicking him out after his mother’s passing due to his orc-ish heritage.

It was Talbot that managed to shake the illusion. While everyone else was gripped with fear, Talbot, who had dealt with these flashbacks and had learned to cope with his survivor’s guilt, had developed mechanisms with dealing with these types of things that the others hadn’t. Shaking off the stupor, he managed to catch a glimpse of the Night Serpent as it slithered through the cosmos and fire off a shot. His act of resistance was enough to break everyone else free and–

–the Doubley-Doos awoke around their campfire. Their goblin companions woke at the same time. Everyone seemed confused, and they realized they’d all been sharing the same dream. Shump wondered if any of it had been real, but Shelby found a mysterious artifact with the symbol of the snake goddess. It emanated a powerful anti-magical aura, but appeared to have a crack in its surface. It likely only had one use of its “anti-chantment” effects.

They traveled for a few hours and found themselves once again at Opal Town. The town was much as it had been in their dreams — fortified due to the frequent attacks by the Shrillbeast clan. Uther had, indeed, joined the Hearing House guard, although not as highly ranked as in their dreams. Benham had stayed on in town after they’d left and made himself at home. Clairebell and Drake were both safe and alive, and all signs of the snake cult were gone — or never had been.

They went to Talbot’s house, who greeted them at the door with a weary, “Oh…you are real…come in, I guess.”

They learned through the grapevine that everyone in the town was complaining of bad dreams. Not all of them were the same as the Doubley-Doos, but everyone agreed it was one of the strangest nights in the village’s history.

The Doubley-Doos took a day to relax and properly meet Talbot, but they knew they couldn’t stay long. They still had to reunite their goblin companions with the Rockmore tribe, and it appeared they were no longer able to operate under Klaas’s gaze. He now knew of them, and knew they were after him. After bidding Talbot adieu, the Doubley-Doos set back out on the road. 

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I was so afraid that everyone would dislike this ending. I wanted to make sure that “it was all a dream” didn’t mean “it was all pointless.” Part of the way I figured I’d accomplish that was by giving them a magical item as loot. Thankfully, everyone seemed to really like it. I got several compliments, and everyone seemed to agree that it was a lot of fun and a nice conclusion to the arc. I was so glad that Jaz’s dad was able to come back for one last session. I know it’s not his regular game, but he seemed very glad to have been part of things.

It’s funny, when everyone was plagued with nightmare visions by Dendar, I had that set up as a skill challenge, a la 4th edition D&D rules, where everyone made Wisdom checks against Dendar’s psychic attack DC. I’d set the DC in a medium high range because while technically they were dealing with an ancient primordial being that existed before the gods…I didn’t want them to fail everything and come away with nothing.

It turned out, it’s good I set it as low as I did. Jaz’s dad was the only person to succeed, and I hadn’t actually planned what I’d do if everyone failed. My notes said they’d be lost in the dream realm forever. But…that would have sucked! I would definitely have had to figure something out.

It was actually perfect that Talbot was the only one to succeed. Jaz’s dad designed a very cool character, not just in class and abilities, but giving him war-based PTSD and survivor’s guilt made for a very nuanced portrayal, and for him to overcome his triggers and rise to the occasion to save everyone was the exactly the right emotional conclusion. Sometimes, the dice have the perfect sense of drama.

The mushy stone room was completely seat of my pants. I used an online random dungeon generator to create the dungeon layout, and I had ideas for all of the rooms except one. I didn’t want it to just be an empty storage room, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the dungeon layout didn’t actually have to make sense…it was all a dream, afterall. And then I decided that if it was all a dream, I could get really weird with the sensory details. Everyone hated the spongy stones, which was hilarious. The way they squirmed every time they had to interact with it was so much fun.

I built the goblin warlock boss using Giffyglyph’s Monster Maker, and I definitely plan to use it again. It uses some concept from 4e, translates them to 5e, and creates dynamic, phased monsters, essentially combining the concept of minions, lieutenants, and legendary actions. It made the fight much more dynamic than just making the warlock a sack of hit points or outfitting her with a shit-ton of spells. It was a similar concept to Matt Colville’s action oriented monsters, but automated and calculated things like AC, HP, and to-hit bonuses for you based on the role of the monster you were making. Seriously, if you DM, check it out. It was a godsend.

After this game finished, the coronavirus really popped off, so we haven’t played again yet. It wasn’t really just the virus — at least, it wasn’t that we couldn’t meet. I’ve been a huge proponent of meeting over Google Hangouts. I’ve just been too sad, tired, and stressed to bother updating my notes. However, now that I have them updated, I can start building out the next leg of their adventure. I’m excited. I have a few ideas. Plus, they all need to level up anyway.

It’ll be nice to get back to some proper D&D. We haven’t played in our Strahd game, nor in the epic level game that we started on the side, in weeks or months, so there’s been basically no gaming happening outside of Jackbox.

One thing that’s been holding me up is figuring out how I want to do combat. I don’t think I have the ability to do actual maps and minis — I just don’t have cameras nor the space for it, I don’t think. So, maybe theater of the mind? Or I may look into how Roll20’s combat works — but building maps on that looks like a lot of work, and I am super lazy. We’ll see.

In any case, I want to start playing again soon. I miss it.

‘Til next time!

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