Category: D&D

Well summer is ending and fall is coming. The kids are all back to school, and today for the first time the weather dropped down into the 60s after being pretty much solidly in the 90’s for the last three months. We ended the summer with a trip to Ocean City. We used to do this every year but haven’t been in a few years, so it was nice to go back. It’s not the same now that the kids are older. Lizzy wasn’t there at all, and the amusement park and water park isn’t really a thing anymore. Still we had a good time, swam in the ocean, walked down the boardwalk, had a couple nice dinners and hiked around Assateague National Seashore.

One bit of business left from the summer we finished up this weekend was the D&D adventure. The module is the classic The Isle of Dread, adapted to 5th edition rules. If you recall we started it on the cruise back in July. By the end of the cruise the party had reached the entrance to the dungeon on an island in a lake in a volcanic crater on a mountaintop in a jungle on an island in the far reaches of the tropical ocean. It was the setting for the final climatic chapter. We played on session in August in which the part cleared out the cannibals living in the upper level of the ancient temple and found some treasure and secret door leading to the hidden chambers underneath. It was here that the final session began.

The macguffin for the entire quest was a giant black pearl. The lower level of the dungeon was filled shoulder-deep with water, so the players knew they were getting close. They happened upon a giant flooded chamber in the temple inhabited by sharks, but were forced to turn back. A little while later they opened a secret door which drained the water from most of the corridors. They were able to return to the shark room and now stand at the top of a stairway in water up to their knees or so. The sharks attacked but the players could fight back. Meanwhile on the other side of the room the party spotted a giant oyster, which must surely hold the pearl.

Abby, a halfling rogue, attempted to scale the walls to reach the terrace with the oyster, but unfortunately failed her dexterity check and splashed into the pool. Meanwhile the sharks turned out to be tough opponents, and even standing on stairs the party was fighting at a disadvantage. They threw everything they had at the sharks: hammers, axes, maces and magic, slings and arrows. Interestingly the two front-line combatants for this melee were Lou, playing Carmine the Invincible, a dwarven fighter whose main weapon is an axe, and Michelle, playing a cleric acolyte of Thor, who usually wields a hammer but for this encounter was trying out a newfound +2 mace. No swords. Michelle has studied the rulebooks and figured out how to maximize her spells and special combat abilities, and is already pretty formidable at second level.

It took a few rounds but Michelle had killed one shark and Lou had reduced the other to a single hit point. Meanwhile Abby had swum to the giant oyster and attempted to snatch the pearl but ended up getting trapped inside the oyster and was presently trying to stab her way out with a pair of daggers. That same round, as luck would have it, both Lou and Michelle rolled a 1 on their attack, and so had to make a dexterity check or fall off the stairs into the depths of the pool. Both failed their check fell in, and both were wearing metal armor, so they couldn’t swim except at a great handicap. Lou was then attacked by the shark and reduced to zero hit points. Katie and Valerie dove into the water to attempt to rescue their drowning companions.

This left Philip, the party’s wizard, as the sole front-line warrior. He had used up all is spells and his daggers were lying in the bottom of the pool. His only remaining weapon was a triangle. Now normally a triangle is really a musical instrument, but I figured the situation was desperate and anyway it’s made of metal, so I’d allow him to attack with it for 1-2 points of damage. So Philip dives in and clocks the shark right between the eyes, finally killing the monster! Soon after Abby succeeds in escaping the oyster with the pearl. Wow, what a great combat.

I had thought about all kinds of nastiness or twists of fate the could befall the party on the home voyage, some event to launch then into the next adventure, but I sensed everyone was eager to see the story come to its resolution. So I was nice and they returned without further incident to the very harbor town seaside pub in which the quest began, again sitting face to face with the aged and grizzled pirate Rory Barbarosa. He kept his word and paid them handsomely for the pearl, and let them keep the rest of the treasure and magic items they gained.

Now Michelle wants to DM, and wants to create her own module, so we’ll see how that goes. She’s got to do a bunch of reading and design if she wants to go that way. I’ll probably end up helping her. Hopefully we’ll be ready to play sometime this fall. I’ll need a character to play. I’m thinking of using Barbara Barbarosa, a.k.a. Babs. She was an NPC in the campaign, Rory’s daughter and the captain of the ship the party sailed to Isle of Dread, recently converted by Michelle to the cult of Thor.

Rejoining the party mid-adventure…

The one and only port of call was Bermuda, famous for its triangles. The consensus among our group seemed to be that there was not much to fear since we were only going to the very corner of the Bermuda Triangle. It was deemed unlikely we’d all die in a shipwreck after crashing into a flaming iceberg of fire or sucked into a vortex of the spacetime continuum. That was until I pointed out that the corners of any triangle are the sharpest part, and therefore the most dangerous. Everyone grew concerned. Luckily there no supernatural mishaps or anomalies. Still I’m glad we convinced Lizzy to not bring a ouija board with her.

In addition to the voyage itself taking about twenty times as long as by airplane, the logistics of getting on and off the boat every time were cumbersome. The port was on the extreme end of a long hook of land, which meant either a long bus or ferry ride to anything at all, and that meant queueing up with thousands of our new closest friends for limited service. Our first stop was the famous Crystal Cavern. It took us three hours to get there, even though the island is only twenty miles long. The whole trip was lovely and scenic so we didn’t really mind. The cave itself was a cool experience. It had a very blue (when lit up) underground lake. Still, after that we switched to taxicabs.

We decided to go one of the famous pink sand beaches. We found a very nice beach called Horseshoe Beach. And shaw’nuff the sand was actually kinda pink. The beach was sheltered from main ocean by a row of rocks like giant teeth out in the bay. Next to the main beach was a smaller beach like a tide pool. The whole scene was very beautiful, with the blue water, the sunshine, the waves, the rocks, the cliffs and the caves. Right next to the beach was a bar and restaurant, so we took a break and got some fruity rum drinks. Lizzy made a point of telling me this we the first time she and her friends had been to a bar while being of legal drinking age, so I bought them all a round. We stayed at the beach and the bar the rest of the afternoon and into evening. It was alot like actually being at a resort.

Late that night, after dinner, Jeannie and I walked around the village near the port. The next day we only had a half day on the island, so we stuck close to port. There was an old fort that was also a museum, so we checked that out and learned alot about the history of the island, the British navy, pirates, shipwrecks and of course triangles.

The trip home was much like the trip out. I must say the food was very good.

We resumed our D&D campaign on the at-sea day the trip back. The party wound their way thru the jungle toward the central plateau of the Isle of Dread. Along the way they encountered a treehouse village of some kind of flying-monkey-squirrel type creature. A melee ensued. The party was outnumbered but they escaped when Michelle used a Thunder Clap spell to repulse them.

A bit later they were scrambling down a mountain side toward a rope bridge crossing a chasm in order to reach the plateau, when suddenly a pair of giant lizards appeared. As luck would Abby was collecting toy rubber lizards given as prizes from the ship’s videogame arcade, and they were just the right size to use with the lego minifigs I brought along to use as tokens for the party. Because they were on a hillside I made a rule that if any player rolls 1 in a combat action they must make a dexterity check or slide down the mountainside some distance. (I don’t know if it’s a house rule of mine, because I’ve played so many version of D&D over the years, and in any event I like the keep the focus on fun and adventuring rather than rule minutia, but I like to play that just as a 20 is a critical hit, a 1 is a critical miss and is always followed by a roll to see if there is some tragic or hilarious consequence.)

So anyway, Carmine the Invincible is single handedly taking on one of the lizards (remember this is a party of first-level characters again 3 hit-dice monsters). Meanwhile the rest of the party is confronting the other one. Abby has the idea she wants to make friends with all the creatures she meets, so even though it attacks, she repeatedly attempts to charm, grapple, lasso or otherwise subdue it. Soon the whole party joins in. At one point Michelle makes a lasso and tries to toss it to Valerie, only to roll a 1 and go tumbling down the hillside. In any event they eventually subdue the lizard and name it Lizzy after her cousin. Abby, a halfling, is able to ride it as mount. I awarded them double experience for that encounter. What I didn’t tell them is every day, and whenever there’s a new combat, the lizard has a chance of running away or turning on the party!

That session was so much fun that everyone asked if we could do another one that evening after dinner, the last night of the cruise. By the end the party reached the central plateau, seen and even fended off a few giant dinosaurs, and reached a village in the middle of the plateau on the shores of a high lake in a dormant volcanic crater. On an island in the middle of the lake is the Forbidden Temple with the evil priest and undead army, and the final phase of the adventure. We left on a cliff hanger, and now it looks like the campaign will continue over the rest of the summer and maybe into the fall. I figure it’ll take two or maybe three sessions to complete. This is good news as far as I’m concerned, and Michelle too. When this adventure is done she wants to DM.