4U 4: Puff's Green Dragon

The RPG SAGA continues with "The Dream Team" of:
Koriel "Kori" the aasimar (human-looking) arcane archer,
"Puff" the gnome dream druid,
Aegle the winged elf kensei monk,
and their allies...

DM Note
I've let myself be inspired by "West Marches" style games for some of my recent DMing. The players are exploring in short bursts, sometimes encountering things above their level, finding areas to explore later, and returning to the (somewhat) safety of the home town. It's fun, but I can already tell I'm going to want to change things up soon.

4U Session 4 Log
Homebrew Campaign (Alternate Forgotten Realms)
Having left Aegle back in the fairy plane Kori, Puff, and Frazzle were back in Tholmme and talking with some of their NPC allies. A huge female green dragon ("Old Gnawbone" as Puff knew her) came through the sacred tree portal with Kennara (the blue-haired eladrin woman). Puff told the dragon about the magic singing sword; she said she was going to go explore the forest to find it, but that she would return in 10 days to take over the town. Kennara went to the tavern after hiring the team, giving them 8 days to retrieve the sword for her.

Puff had some explaining to do to the group, but told them the dragon had saved his life and trained him as a druid. He said his plan was to somehow convince the dragon the town was cursed. Deciding they would try to get the magic sword themselves, the team went back through the woods and found that the dragon had placed a black tarp over the Ryali statue. Kori removed it. They found a "Thunder Circle" with a picnic basket trap and a naked guy; they had to fight and kill the dude when he refused to help them.

Each night, when the team rested in the forest, the green dragon came and spoke to them in a human or gnome form. Kori's dreams showed her that the dragon was no threat to Ryali, other than continuing to cover the statue. The next day, the team took on a group of 6 bandits; they killed 5, but took the other one as a prisoner. The surviving bandit was willing to show them the hidden bandit lair.

The bandit base was camp-hidden in the woods. The team tried sneaking up at night, divided up; they each killed a scout but the bandit leader released his cockatrices and Frazzle was turned into a statue. Kori and Puff fled and had to kill 1 of the cockatrices; the other one got away. When the dragon came to them that night, Puff asked her to de-petrify Frazzle and she agreed to help. The group explained that since this was an alternate universe and the elementals were more powerful here, that the green dragon was probably better off just going home and letting Puff continue to send tribute back through the sacred tree. Their persuasion worked and she left.

The next day, the team took on 2 bandits on patrol. They killed one, but took the other one prisoner (to replace the prisoner they had lost from before). They had to decide whether to go ahead and assault the bandit base or come up with a new plan.

4U 3: Is Granma a Hag?

The RPG SAGA continues with "The Dream Team" of:

Koriel "Kori" the aasimar (human-looking) arcane archer,
"Puff" the gnome dream druid,
Aegle the winged elf kensei monk,
and their allies...

DM Note
I've let myself be inspired by "West Marches" style games for some of my recent DMing. The players are exploring in short bursts, sometimes encountering things above their level, finding areas to explore later, and returning to the (somewhat) safety of the home town. It's fun, but I can already tell I'm going to want to change things up soon.

4U Session 3 Log
Home-brew Campaign (Alternate Forgotten Realms)
Out in the forests outside of Tholmme: Having restored Thunderer's Hill to normalcy, the group rested at the Ryali statue. They had different dreams/visions before heading back toward town. On the way, Aegle spotted that "Grandma" gnome's forest cabin was on fire, being attacked by fire elementals.

The large elemental plane-shifted away, leaving four magmin for the group to fight. This battle was interesting because they had to protect injured Grandma and themselves from the exploding magmin. After the team destroyed the elementals, the burning house collapsed in on itself and revealed a mysterious dark well beneath it (which the team decided to worry about later).

When the team returned to Tholmme with Granma, they split the party and went to different places - including the "Gnomes for Hire" tree, the blacksmith's shop (where Aegle got the blacksmith arrested for having a fire elemental imprisoned in his forge), the tavern, and the temple (where Kori recruited the gold dragonborn cleric of Bahamut to assist them).

With Granma and the cleric, the team tried to execute the necromancer (with permission from the mayor). He got away, but understood that he had been exiled by the group. The gave possession of the tower to Granma, who agreed to store their treasure in the basement. There was some concern that Granma might have been a hag because of some confusion with "Papa Gnome" at the treehouse and the mayor. The halfling druid in town helped sort things out; Grandma was not a hag monster.

A leprechaun from the fairy plane came to town looking for Lord Eagle and thought that Aegle was Eagle. After resting for the night, the group went with the leprechaun the next day (after it had painted the bridge over the river with a rainbow pattern) to the fairy plane. There, they met the archfey of the winged elves, who was also a primordial of the air spirits and thus the leader for Aegle's group - except the team is in an alternate universe (which Puff tried explaining from his vision earlier in the adventure) in which the elemental cults have more power than in their home universe (because they weren't stopped by the heroes of long ago).

Realizing the confusion, Aegle opted to stay with the archfey and attempt to find a way to rescue his universal counterpart, Lord Eagle, who was said to have been captured by the fire elementals. The leprechaun - meanwhile - took Kori, Puff, and Frazzle back to Tholmme...

CoMT 3: Introducing Mory Brewblood

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Parker the tabaxi rogue,
"Oozey" Snakestaff the water genasi moon druid,
and INTRODUCING
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric!

CoMT Session 3
Homebrew Campaign: The City of Many Things
After Seiken, Parker, and Oozey rested up again they met Mory Brewblood - the infamous pirate who was actually a cleric of Moradin. Mory explained that his cleric mother had an affair with the dwarf pirate Brewblood (who also ran a brewing company and delivered his famous ale via his ships), who left the woman when she was pregnant. She raised Mory in the church of Moradin, but when he was old enough he went adventuring and became a criminal so he could join his father's pirate crew. While bonding with his dad, he got a bad reputation.

Unfortunately, the Brewblood fleet was recently attacked and destroyed. Mory survived since he was making a delivery of ale to the Roaming Gold Caravan Company. In mourning he got drunk and slept a lot as the caravan traveled through Naeb and to the City of Many Things. Once he sobered up, he found out about the missing heroes from FOE and went to go help bring them back. Thus he had arrived and met the party.

Using the silence spell over and over again, Mory helped the team sneak back to the kobold territory. They made their way inside and found out the the FOE team's hired gnome assistant had black tabards made for the team with silver thread. Seiken, Parker, and Oozey explored the team home some more while Mory bought the place next door (in hopes of turning it into a Moraine church/brewery).

In their HQ, the team found a hidden basement via a secret door in the fireplace; there was a dirt floor and torture equipment down there. The team met with the kobold area leaders and got permission to train 5 of their people. They also got permission to take 3 kobolds with them to go try to take over the bandit territory, with the promise to give 12% of the bandit loot to Braylinn. The team geared up and rested.

CoMT 2: Derv's Last Stand

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Parker the tabaxi rogue,
Derv Dewstone the human champion fighter, and
"Oozey" Snakestaff the water genasi moon druid...

CoMT Session 2
Homebrew Campaign: The City of Many Things
After resting at the tower, the team strategized to try to come up with the best plan for surviving and getting back to Seiken's kobold allies. In case he died along the way, Seiken wrote a letter of introduction and gave it to Oozey. Seiken and Parker scouted ahead and then went back and got Derv and Oozey.

The team killed 4 orcs (1 of which was the war chief that had killed Seiken's previous party - thus the elf monk got back his magical cloak of protection with the city's markings on it). They rested back at their tower and then decided to go through the "badlands" toward the bandit headquarters. They battled 5 gnolls (1 of which was a pack lord who summoned 5 more gnolls to help the enemies in battle); the team killed all of the enemies, but Derv died in battle.

Seiken, Parker, and Oozey found a dilapidated building to rest in after looting their enemies.

4U 2: Releasing Spirits

The RPG SAGA continues with "The Dream Team" of:
Koriel "Kori" the aasimar (human-looking) arcane archer,
"Puff" the gnome dream druid,
Aegle the winged elf kensei monk,
and their allies...

DM Note
For the previous session, I prepared a village with some NPCs. This session was based mostly on randomizers, with the players rolling to determine what they found as they explored. It led to an exciting, though challenging (CR-wise) session for the characters.

4U Session 2 Log
Homebrew Campaign
In Tholme: Kori, Puff, Aegle, and their hired gnome fighter Frazzle left the necromancer's tower with the old wizard's journals; Puff declared his realization that they were in a different universe (since he realized the river ran along the same path as the stream back in the forest in the Forgotten Realms).

The "Dream Team" encountered a rival adventuring party, which included: a wizard, a rogue, a fighter, and a cleric that all seemed to worship someone called "The Thunderer." This rival party went into the tavern and quickly found themselves also on the quest to find the missing singing sword, suspected to be lost/stolen out in the woods. The rival party got a head start, but - humorously - Puff talked to their stabled horses and convinced them to flee.

Stopping at an interesting double-tree in the woods, Puff studied the plant. Kori somehow threw up a raven, which Puff pulled a feather from (and gave to Kori) before the bird flew off. Aegle scouted for the group by flying above the forest and told them he discovered a cottage in the woods. When the team went there, they met a grumpy old "grandma" gnome who eventually warmed up to them and gave them each a magic potion. She also told them about the hill where people had been buried - thus making this a haunted forest - but warned that thunder and lightning constantly struck the hill.

When the team finally went to the abandoned temple in the woods, where the rival party was looking for the singing sword, they disrupted the burned circle to "The Thunderer" outside and then went in. Of the rival group, only the rogue survived; the other 3 adventurers were turned into shadows. The team helped the rogue escape from the shadows. They also killed 4 rust monsters in an area submerged in water. Puff swam around and discovered a portal to an ocean-like area.

Realizing they couldn't defeat the shadows, the team went to the haunted hill - after checking out a beautiful statue to the goddess Ryali (which had a fountain of holy water); Kori took some of the holy water. They used the holy water to remove the effects of "The Thunderer" and release the spirits of the dead elves trapped in the hill. The rival party rogue went off with a couple of fighters who worshipped "The Thunderer" that had been at the hill.

After killing 2 vargouilles, the team spent the next day with Aegle flying back and forth getting holy water to finish removing the scorch marks of "The Thunderer" and thus making sure any more captured spirits would be able to escape.

CoMT 1: Sewer Escape

The Adventures of the Federation of Explorers Team 2 (FOE2) continue as...
The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things...

CoMT Session 1 (follows FOE2 Session 6: Fallen FOEs)
Homebrew Campaign: The City of Many Things (CoMT)
FOE Team 2 survivor Seiken the elf monk was in some sewer dungeon cells with the three criminals Parker the tabaxi rogue, Derv Dewstone the human fighter, and "Oozey" Snakestaff the water genasi druid.

The "Criminals of Many Things" accepted Seiken into their group. They took out the 2 goblin guards and 2 orc guards, thanks to Oozey's druid shapeshifting abilities allowing her to get out of the cell and begin attacking the guards with the keys. They looted the guards and used their weapons to continue breaking out. They explored and took a short rest in some sewer tunnels before using stealth to take out another 3 orcs and 2 more goblins.

The new team used a ladder to get up into the "Orc Town" area. More stealth tactics ensued, with the party splitting into 2 groups: Seiken and Parker sneaked around on the ground while Derv and Oozey slow crawled across the rooftops. They took out 2 orcs on patrol and a goblin before escaping the area.

Thanks to Parker's climbing abilities, the group was able to secure a rest in an abandoned mage tower; she went in a window up top and came back down to unlock the magically sealed door from the inside. The team explored the tower and found the floors to be: (1) a potion shop; (2) office/study; (3) storage; (4) bedroom; (5) magic lab with items; and (6) an astrolab/observatory. The team found some magic loot as well.