The Tome of Adventures

The Magnificents return to Mulmaster and realize the new cleric they picked up has… connections in high places.

There’s a laundry list of things to do. As the players were coming to a decision, our Amazon echo said, “I don’t know about that….”

The issue with the neighboring kingdom having duplicate dead bodies of a singular prince was resolved when… the prince returned home? Huh?

A young girl with the ability to use her grief to raise the dead has been taken in by the Tymoran clergy.

The dragonborn dropped a hide off at a leather worker. While they were gone adventuring, anti-magic vandals had broken into their favorite arcane shop and wrecked the place. A perpetual storm encircles the top of the magic school tower.

Corpses had been appearing on the Raven Queen’s temple step, holding notes introducing themselves and requesting their families be notified and their remains be dealt with properly. The players followed a scent trail to a man who likely dropped each body off. They followed him to the temple only to watch him sit on the temple step and take out a note.

Then a mind devourer squeezed itself out of his mouth and attempted to leave the body it delivered. Following the creature’s scent trail led them to the Zhent Getto, under the wall, and through the woods, where they stumbled upon a hive of the beasts, mid-devouring. They ran for the guards, more scared of being framed for murder than of the beasts. They also brought the proprietor of the arcana shop to help.

We ended the session with the Magnificents starting at a hole in the ground, 3 hours before dawn, unsure what to do.

• 

Our tiefling bard leaves in the night on her own quest. The remaining members of the Magnificent Four are surprised, but accept the timely companionship of a Luck cleric and head out to pay a debt, hearing about an abandoned, haunted town on the way to visit the fire guardian village.

The worg, Larry, catches rabbits on the way, remarking that they usually come out at dusk. The cleric and dranger (druid/ranger lol?) find claw marks of a large beast.

In the abandoned town, the sorcerer is mistaken for an adventurer who left the town 200 years earlier, by the sole resident, a fallen cleric of light who loved him. For some reason, the party did not appreciate how she had used the time to better herself as she waited for her love to return, and viciously attacked her.

One player asked for a save point.

That night, a creature came into town, drawn by the remains of the fight.

In the morning, the party raced to the fire plane guardians and were greeted as friends. Since the dranger already knew of the planes guardian tribes and her mother was a secret earth member, she was offered a challenge to become a member of the fire tribe.

The sorcerer was still freaked out about the day before, so he sat out with the worg. The others attempted the challenge and were on the cusp of succeeding when the trial was interrupted by an ancient, crazed dragon who normally stays in a different territory.

Back in the village, the players started trying to piece things together while the dranger received her member tattoo. Magic siphoning/limiting tools, planar portal issues, a growing intolerance of magic in towns, animals acting strange… are any of these things connected? If so, how?

A torn off mustache. Wearing someone else’s clothes. A snowfall of flour. A crate full of gnomes. A gold statue of a person holding a gold statue of a person holding a gold statue of… a bandit leader hung by his feet. A steel key and a fistful of gold. A lonely sheriff and a man who fights with his words.

The Magnificent Five had one hell of a night. Too bad they can’t remember it.

In the last session of dnd: Rumors of artifact hunters, rifts, war, and cultists. A burning bag of holding! Alucet Er Orcas, ambassador of the Organna Empire! A visit to the palace’s third best side room! Shameless flirting! Fireblossom anthem! Threatening a pilgrim! Sailing over the Moonsea! Terrible Irish accents! Grooming a worg! Shrieking sky attacks! A daring overboard rescue!

The birthplace of the nine! The Platinum Dragon! Suspicion! Bringing a nuke into the Vatican! A perfect shot! Platinum golems! Bad movie quotes! Divine mental blocks… and a heavy weight lifted. Whew.

 toad! Interpretive dance! Getting paid for a job overdone! Lies poorly attempted! Shopping! Clothes! Food! Luxury hotels! Horse bandits! Cancelled merchant caravan routes! Rumors of war! Another flamboyant tiefling! Anti-magic sentiment! A dead prince in two places at once!

A solo attempt at breaking into a jail turning into incarceration, with the rest of the party unknowing and eating a tour of bacon! Terrible rolls ruining great plans! Opening savings accounts! Chocolate from the sky! A gift to a friend turning them into a prisoner. Fire blossom perfume! Chicken hunt! A request to see the king…

With the Big Bad slain and a successful escape from the time-and-world-shifting nexus that was used as his lair, our stalwart heroes return to the underdark city to find that nearly a month has passed.

Without leadership, feral illithid abominations roam the body-strewn districts, devouring all. Only 50 survivors remain, hiding and confused with mind control broken. The players argued about fight or flight, finally deciding to attempt to sneak the survivors out, using the bard on a spider-crafted suspension bridge… as Eyes in the Sky, giving directions to the fleeing groups using… telepathic… rings…

And the picture is a toad (summoned from a Wand of Toading) with a dwarven child-size shoe tied on its head, used as a distraction….

“It could be a trap. Rex, you’re a magic user, you do it.”

“Ugh. Why can’t you just let me have all the spells?”

“Welp, while they’re figuring this out, I try the next liquor. I believe it’s the plum one.”

“Give me the most masculine drink.”

“Stupid Little Wing. Stupid blue dragon.”

“This bottle smells like bacon.”

“Guys, shut up and listen. I did something really cool.”

“Am… am I turning evil? I think I’m turning evil. I don’t want to be evil! …But look at these things I can do!”

• 

Muhahaha! A nexus of time and space! The healing power of fiend blood! Siphoning away life essence. Climbing high enough to flip gravity over. A strange, ebony sphere. Confused spiders. The screaming skull of a defeated rebellion leader.

8:00 p.m. becoming 11:00 p.m. — becoming 1:30 a.m. without notice.

Emotions! A near party split, a vow of lasting kinship after the campaign is over. Blue dragon reveal. Saying pre-battle farewells. Death turned by a single roll of the die. A player forced to attack another party member. Saying goodbye to a party member facing the judgement of his people.

A spell attempted at too high a level, resulting in a wide-spread flash of damage to everyone nearby.

Aaand… the second death of the God King Big Bad, the Crest of the Tide, Washing the Mundane World with Perfection and Beauty.

Also 1d6 metagaming damage. Brutal.