FOE3 Log 21-23

I just looked through my notes and realized I needed to post the last three adventure session logs from before the PANDEMIC began...

The Federation of Explorers Generation 3 (FOE3) continues with...
Althar Ovinson the yuan-ti cleric-wizard;
Zeraf the tiefling rogue-ranger; and
A'Beezel the tiefling bard!

Session 21
In the mountains:Althar, Zeraf, A'Bezeel, and Dax went down into a "drow hole" and found a cavern full of evil mushrooms. They had a huge battle with the mushrooms; A'Beezel and Dax were infected with spores, but Dax cured them. After resting, the team went deeper underground. A roper surprise attacked the group and almost killed them, but they defeated it in battle.

After finding paths with a purple haze, the team turned around and found an alternate route down. This led them to fighting a neolithid that killed Althar's familiar and Dax with its acid breath. The group rested after the battle, with the dead Dax and his automaton in the group portable hole.

Session 22
In the mountain caverns:Althar, Zeraf, and A'Bezeel traveled another 10 days before finally finding a dark elf city: Dinzarn. They paid Velgarn the drow merchant to sneak them into a safe house and help them plan how to rescue the captured slaves (A'Bezeel's villager friends who had been captured, including the barmaid Rosy). The drow fighter Qalore (pronounced "Kaylor") also helped the team.

Drow insurrectionists put magical illusions on the team so they would look like drow. The team infiltrated the slave prison and rescued the slave with minimal conflict/combat until fleeing out of the city; the team used diguises, distractions, and explosives to get the slaves out to safety.

The group eventually made it back to Deepwood Fort with the rescued slaves. They gave the gnome tinkerer the automaton and scraps. One of the rescued villagers was a wizard's apprentice; they were mostly humans. Rosy was very happy with A'Bezeel.

Session 23
At Deepwood Fort:Althar, Zeraf, and A'Bezeel had to deal with Steve's shenanigans; Steve threw a fit and exiled himself; the team had the local bard magically message Bagi in Deepwater and warn her Steve was coming. She said she would kill him if he went there.

The team spent 4 months of downtime setting up expansions in Deepwood, including farms and new buildings - along with a set political structure with a council to rule when the adventuring party is out of town or unavailable.

They found out the dark elves killed Steve (though it's possible he gave them valuable intel about the villages and such before dying). The party went to help Deepwater fend off a drow assault, leaving the council in charge of Deepwood.

Deepwater had expanded as well, with large statues honoring Ludo, Zeraf, and Althar; they replaced the town hall with a market (apparently abandoning the commune style of living for some form of capitalism?) and built a "war council" (Bagi, cleric of Mask, and the wizard) two-story town hall.

A drow army led by a wizard and priestess invaded Deepwater...

[Battle next time - though unsure when next time will be?]

FOEberron Log 1

With the new year comes a new campaign - set in Eberron 5E with some Federation of Explorers legacy characters...

The FOEberron Campaign begins with the 4 sons (half-brothers) of Raylin Sunsoaker:

Port the human druid;
Ath the half-orc fighter;
Dartag the half-elf rogue; and
Aram the tiefling warlock.

Session 1
Background: When Raylin Sunsoaker traveled to other planes to start divisions of the Federation of Explorers, he ended up spending some time in Eberron on the continent of Khorvaire (in the Q'Barra region, where he established a guild hall); he had affairs with 4 different women and each one had a son, but by the time they knew they were pregnant Raylin was already gone (off to another world to recruit more FOE adventurers and start more guild halls).

Twenty-five years later Port, Ath, Dartag, and Aram were surprised when they were called into the FOE guild hall and found out they were all brothers. Port had been working with the Greensinger druids, Ath had been a scout in the orc army, Dartag was a Q'Barra outlander, and Aram was a sage researcher looking for ancient knowledge about nature and the fey.

The Adderport FOE guild hall leader Galden asked the guys to work together to investigate a missing shipment of dragon shards (concerned about House Tharashk gaining power in Q'Barra from the Eberron crystals and the rumored [El Dorado] city Haka'Torvahk guarded by a dragon). The team hired Jharn the lizard folk ambassador to help guide them into the wilderness, where they found evidence of an ambush. The combined tracks of humans and lizardfolk took them to a cave in the swamp, where they killed 5 brigands; Dartag died in the battle.

The team couldn't find the lizardfolk and only recovered about 25% of the dragon shards, but they reported back to Adderport after fighting a large crocodile. To replace Dartag, they hired Kira the elf scout mercenary. Jharn told them where the Blackscale lizardfolk clan could be found, but they went to the capital Newthrone. They inquired about events at House Tharashk and had to make an appointment to come back the next day. They spent the night at a nice inn.

FOE3 Log 20

The Federation of Explorers Generation 3 continues with...

Althar Ovinson the yuan-ti cleric-wizard;
Zeraf the tiefling rogue-ranger; and
A'Beezel the tiefling bard!

Session 20
When Althar, Zeraf, and A'Bezeel woke up from resting Koh was gone with the rings from the temple; the tracks indicated he had gone back in there alone. The team chased after him; Althar banished an air elemental that was in the way. In a room near the stairs going down it looked like someone (maybe Koh?) put the rings together gathering elemental energy from fire, air, water, and earth. There was a nearby treasure chest, but the team ignored it in hopes of running down and catching up with Koh.

Down the stairs, they saw a huge vampiric tree that Koh (transforming draconic) seemed to sacrifice himself to; Koh's body and the tree were replaced with a young black dragon possessed by the spirit of the ancient obsidian dragon. The dragon claimed that if the team killed him, they would be killing Koh. In a close battle, the team (thanks to Zeraf's amazing sharpshooter crossbow expert abilities) was able to slay the dragon; Althar's familiar Fowl perished in the battle.

Left behind from the dead dragon body was the ROSS-necklace; Zeraf destroyed it too. The team claimed the gold and the breastplate +3 armor in the lair before it started caving in around them. On the way out, Zeraf was also able to get the treasure chest from upstairs.

Once safe back outside the temple ruins, A'Bezeel told the others about the villagers he used to live with being taken by the drow into the mountains; he asked the team to try to help rescue them. But first they headed south to the ruins of a druid settlement where they found a goldscale kobold artificer named Dax Ulathor of the Cog Clan (who was the last of his clan).

Althar used find familiar to get a new familiar named Fowler; the team sent Fowler with one of Dax's sending stones so Zeraf could talk to his wife back in the village of Deepwood, but the gnome there intercepted it. The team reported that Ludo was dead and that Althar missed Steve (24 hours).

They were then ready to go explore in the mountains...

FOE3 Log 19

The Adventures of The Federation of Explorers, Generation 3 continue with...

Althar Ovinson the yuan-ti cleric-divination wizard;
Ludo the firbolg barbarian;
Zeraf the tiefling rogue-ranger;
Koh the human monk; and
Tali'Anya the drow druid!

Session 19
Tali'Anya gave back the staff of healing before heading out to bring the rescued dryad to its home. The rest of the team continued going through the corrupted temple. At the earth elemental ring test/trap Ludo died from suffocation when it pulled him underground; the rest of the team had to kill the corpse flower and earth elemental that came forth in order to get the ring and Ludo's dead body.

The team went to rest outside the temple and give Ludo a proper funeral by burning his body. After about an hour, 3 lycans showed up and attacked the group (a wereboar, a weretiger, and a werebear). Koh, Zeraf, and Althar killed them.

The next morning the wandering tiefling bard A'Bezeel joined the group. Varis let him wear Ludo's red dragonscale armor. Althar started using Ludo's +1 battleaxe. The team went back into the temple and killed 4 black puddings that ambushed them from the ceiling of one of the rooms.

FOE3 Logs 1-18

The 3rd FOE Campaign (FOE3, or F3 for even shorter) has been a blast thus far! I am a player in this game, which started with the core trio of players and same DM from the FOE2/CoMT campaign. We were joined by 2 more players and they add even more fun to the sessions. We also had a special guest player for one of the games, though at that point we were out of seats at the table. LOL.

One of the players wanted to play a firbolg, but it's not easy to find miniatures for firbolg characters so I suggested we get a bugbear and the DM painted him to look like a firbolg. I think it turned out great (see below):

F3 Log 1: I play Althar Ovinson, the yuan-ti cleric-wizard who was born a tiefling (the son of Ovin and the succubus that killed him during the FOE2/CoMT adventures - but went through yuan-ti rituals to convert). I am the only "legacy character" from the bloodlines of previous characters (thus far). My character is joined by the tiefling rogue Zeraf Drake and the firbolg barbarian Ludo. We were sent through a portal to another continent to establish a settlement, along with a bunch of NPCs [similar to the idea of Australia, I suppose]. We sent a lot of the first game session learning about the NPCs and finding a safe place in the woods near a lake to have a hidden forest village.

2: We have been gathering animals and crops and busy farming/ranching it up, as well as assigning all the NPCs important jobs/duties in the village that we named Deepwater (since we originally were sent here from Waterdeep). We also spent time securing the nearby mines, which meant defeating kobolds and a young red dragon.

3: We explored in the nearby mountains and were abushed by goblins. We ended up having to kill a bunch of goblins and their wolf. We found a cave with drow and spiders that came up to fight us. We had to kill them too.

4: We took supplies back to our village and then went back to the cave to explore the "drow hole" as we called it. We found an ancient dwarf temple. The dark elves attacked us and we barely escaped alive. We managed to get the books and such from the dwarf temple. We also went to a ruined settlement and fought off a strange lich spirit. After more resting, we ended up exploring out to a bear cave and taking on a mutant werebear.

5: A 4th player joined us as Koh the human monk. He showed up with some failed settlers that we had come join our community. We spent a bunch of time coordinating the breeding of animals and growing of crops, along with building more log cabins in the woods. The monk then joined the main trio with some backup NPCs to go on one last mission into the dwarf temple to retrieve relics and more books before blowing up the tunnel.

6: Our 5th player joined in as a drow druid (though, unlike all the other dark elves, she was on our side) named Tali'Anya. We quested for more interesting crops, like carrots and cabbage, to add to our farms. In the wilderness, while exploring, we fought 2 owl bears and slept in the mountains, where we were abushed by a party of drow. We defeated them.

7: We continued exploring in the mountains. We battled 4 air elementals and dealt with weird traps. We went through mountain caves with dark elves and duergar. We ambushed the enemies and took their equipment.

8: We rescued slaves from the caves and brought them back to your nice forest village community. We worked on our cabins/farms for a bit and then continued exploring. The core team went to explore a mountain river path and we found an unnatural wasteland. A magic voice in the sky announced it was taking back energy and souls. We witnessed the wild magic from the area go north, into the wasteland and past it. We went to a giant dead tree and killed the corpse flower monster there.

9: The team entered the dead tree lair and dealt with all of the traps and monsters inside. We won over a sphinx via a riddle competition. The main battle was against a wizard and a druid. They almost killed us, but we managed to get out alive.

10: We brought the sphinx back to the village with us. Our guards had seen lizardfolk nearby so we decided to go deal with them. In the swamp, we had to destroy a party of undead (a wight and 4 will'o'wisps). We made a deal with the local lizardfolk to be allies. They took us to their village and introduced us to their leaders - a half-dragon and an ancient obsidian dragon. The obsidian dragon tasked us with killing his rival, a gold dragon. Who were we to say no?

11: As we traveled, we found cows that belonged to orcs. We had to kill a bunch of orcs and Althar became the new orc chief. As their chief, I convinced them to share the cows with our community and to have 4 young orcs continue with the adventure party to go deal with the yuan-ti and such. We found a yuan-ti village and fought some of them. The NPC orcs died in battle.

12: We battled more yuan-ti and then, in the city, there was a weird astral plane projection thing that happened to some of us. We had to defeat a yuan-ti spirit. In the end we won and ended back in our bodies.

13: The normal campaign paused for this week as we played a special session. Instead of our normal characters, we got to play as creatures from the Monster Manual. I was Patyr the Satyr; we picked randomly. We also had an orog, a lizardfolk shaman, a dire wolf, and a giant spider. We were helping a Dragonborn ranger to stop some summonings. We fought a bunch of kruthiks and cultists and then had to knock a glabrezu into a portal (the dire wolf sacrificed himself). In the end, we woke up and it was a vision our main characters had of some sort of potential future.

14: Back to the normal campaign: Althar, Ludo, and Zeraf dragged along the unconscious monk and druid. As Althar, I returned the stolen yuan-ti eggs and tried to throw them off so they wouldn't follow us anymore. We went into the mountains and befriended some kobolds who took us to the community of the gold dragon (where they lied and said there was an ancient gold dragon, but his spirit had been split into different people). We befriended them.

15: As another diversion from the main campaign (since we were missing 2 of our 5 players again), 3 of us played as characters in a gladiator type arena. I was Jerek Feyblood the half-elf barbarian, joined by Terrence the tortle tempest cleric and Beelza the tiefling bard. We had been captured by the evil wizards/druids and forced to fight in their arena. We escaped after some fun battles and then rested in the sewers.

16: In the normal campaign the gang was all reunited in the secret gold dragon cave HQ. We told them the truth about the obsidian dragon and decided to all work together to go put an end to its reign. We took the army of dragonborn and kobolds through the forest and swamp; along the way, we recruited the orcs to join us (though we sent the kids away to Deepwater with the cows and the old folks). We had a huge battle at the lizardfolk city in the swamp, with our side winning! Belthoth, the ancient gold dragon reunited its spritual self back together to help with the victory.

17: The gold dragon rewarded us and we decided to let the remaining lizardfolk live in peace there. The dragon's people mostly returned to their secret cave. We also decided to start up a new village at the abandoned orc fort. The cows had been slaughtered by dark elves, but the children survived. We figured out the politics and farming and spent a year of downtime. Unknown to the rest of us, Koh was being manipulated by the evil dragon spirit trapped in the ring of spell storing (ROSS) that I had given him (that I had gotten from the battle).

18: On the way to the temple that Koh told us he had a vision about being corrupted, we were waylaid by a froghemoth that almost killed Koh. We made it inside and had to deal with a bunch of elemental-based traps and puzzles. We freed a dryad prisoner and ended the session half-way through the dungeon.

FOE2/COMT Reflection

Thoughts from a Player...
I had so much fun playing the FOE 2 (a.k.a. CoMT) campaign. The DM had a really interesting concept for us, clearing out an entire city from monsters, with a link to a cursed Deck of Many Things that summoned the magic to change the city in the first place. When we finished the main mission, the DM modified the Curse of Strahd campaign for us to play it at high level.

Throughout the campaign, as usual with this group, I ended up with the high kill count. I ended up playing:
*Narg “Fox” Stormleaf the half-orc cleric/wizard, who died fighting the monsters in the city streets;
*Derv “Dewey” Dewstone the human fighter, who died helping Seiken escape from the orc fort;
*Mory Brewbeard the dwarf cleric/pirate, who had his brain eaten by an intellect devourer and his soul taken by Shothragot;
*Ovin Snakestaff the water genasi fighter/cleric, who had ended up magically trapped in a room where he got his soul eaten by a succubus after impregnating her;
*Keravel Ual the elf cleric, who retired as the leader of a city; and
*the returning Raylin Sunsoaker the human sun cleric and Director of FOE, who successfully saved his own soul and then went off to spread the Federation of Explorers to other worlds.

That means, over about 45 gaming sessions, I played 6 really interesting characters with fun personalities. There were a lot of memorable moments, from fighting back the “green tide” to plotting to get the druid to fall in love with the necromancer (which didn’t happen), to pretending to be Gith, to surviving a huge airship battle/assault, to secretly setting up the Criminals of Many Things as a subset of FOE, to saving Raylin’s soul. Especially after Mory’s soul was taken, it meant a lot to be able to go back and save Raylin like that. It's bittersweet to end a campaign, but that just frees up time to start a new one...

COMT 31-35: Curse of Strahd

The Federation of Explorers (Part 2) a.k.a. The City of Many Things (a.k.a. The Criminals of Many Things) continued with The Curse of Strahd...

CoMT 31: Seiken the elf monk, Elyrin the human necromancer, and Keravel elf cleric were finished with their mission saving the city from the monsters that threatened it. The elves from the High Forest sent an eladrin ambassador (Daevala) from an ancient elven city that hid from the Netherese; they had elven magic forging abilities and druids that would help with farms. The CoMT setup an elven embassy for them. Keravel went to become the new leader of Naeb, to rebuild that city.

Raylin Sunsoaker, the human sun cleric and Director of FOE, returned to the city, having done a ton of research about Strahd and the Dark Powers – along with a plan to go into the Domains of Dread to try to free his tainted soul. Elyrin and Seiken agreed to go with him. Seiken, Elyrin, and Raylin went shopping with the ancient elves before going to the Twilight Forest and entering the mists of Ravenloft/visiting with the Vistani and Madame Eva. They ended up in the village of Krezk, and a strange Abby…

32: Strahd taunted the team by ordering the peole at the Krezk to attack the team of Seiken, Elyrin, and Keravel before disappearing. After the team defeated the enemies there, they went down the road toward the village of Barovia – stopping at a lake. They took a boat across the lake, looked for a wolf cave, and found an elk that turned out to be the insane Mordenkainen! The team dispelled his mind blank and went into Mordy’s mansion. After resting and sharing info with Mordy, the team left.

33: The team (Seiken, Elyrin, and Raylin) fought off a dozen werewolves and then spent more days heading toward Barovia. They ended up in a “ghost town” where they found off an army of undead with zombie, spirit skeles, and a skull lord caster.

34: After some keepy dreams/visions/illusions, the team finally ended up in Barovia. They dealt with the local church with the priest whose son was a vampire. The team got the info on where to find the crypt of Strahd’s brother, where there was a weapon they could use to defeat Strahd. They went through a creepy graveyard and battled some demons and amges. Strahd tried taunting the team again when they got the sunsword.

Days later, the team went into Strahd’s castle to fight him. They fought off Strahd’s army of undead and defeated the Dark Lord Strahd! They then found themselves planeshifted to a “Dark Powers Council Chamber” with 3 death gods (Bhaal, Talona, Loviatar). Seiken used the scale the gem dragon (Seradeth) gave the team, thus summoning him to join in the battle…

35: Seiken, Elyrin (with his undead minions), Raylin fought Loviatar while Seradeth took on Bhaal and Talona. After finishing off their opponent, the team joined Seradeth. Together, they defeated the death gods and freed Raylin’s soul from the Dark Powers. Seradeth thanked them and gave them each an open invitation to his resting pool.

Epilogue: Elyrin decided to continue life as an adventurer for hire. Seiken started his own monastery. Raylin headed to other worlds to setup chapters of FOE as an interplanar adventuring company. Meanwhile, Keravel had setup a proper, non-evil government, in Naeb and had renamed the city back to Loudwater. He also convinced more elves to move there.

CoMT 15: Elemental Knight

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Elyrin the human necromancer,
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout, and
(introducing) Ovin Snakestaff the eldritch knight/tempest cleric

CoMT Session 15
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
When the group rested down in the basement of the "Brainbeak Manor" they discovered that the person they had rescued was actually a water genasi, not a half-orc; he was Ovin Snakestaff, the "Elemental Knight" (eldritch knight/tempest cleric) and brother of Oozey Snakestaff. He told them his family was missing and he was looking for his sister, who was rumored to be in the region. They told him they knew Oozey and, when finished with this mission, would bring him to her in the City of Many Things; they also gave him use of the group's staff of healing. With his sending stone, Seiken called into FOE Waterdeep and gave them an update, telling them to start paperwork for Ovin.

Elyrin's undead minions were destroyed when the team fought a swarm of cranium rats, a mind witness, 2 gazer, and a gauth. Ovin picked up the maul+3 from the destroyed undead. In side rooms, the group fought a wizard (who teleported out via a circle that they then destroyed) and 2 gibbering mouthers.

When they went up the stairs to the ground floor, Seiken stepped into a gelatinous cube - but Ovin used his acid resistance (and the magic maul) and destroyed the creature. They searched the first floor and rested for an hour so Ovin could make the magic maul one of his bonded weapons. When they went up to the 2nd floor, 6 cultists and a wizard confronted them; the team quickly killed them. Unfortunately, while searching the loot in a side room, they found a bag of devouring that pulled Seiken into it thus destroying itself and Seiken's portable hole (with Mory's body) while also sucking Seiken, Elyrin, and Ovin into the astral plane. Bleaksin was left behind at "Brainbreak Manor" to finish the mission by himself.

CoMT 14: Brainbeak Battle

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer,
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout, and
Dribbledip the deep gnome druid!

CoMT Session 14:
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
Dribbledip found an interesting plant and decided to head back to her pond in Llork to start growing it there. Seiken, Mory, Elyrin, and Bleaksin continued clearing out the monsters in the ancient “Ghost Town” while looking for the Netherese pillar. As the team went around town Mory bashed zombie skulls while the others fired their ranged attacks from the rooftops of the buildings.

They made it to what they called “Brainbeak Manor” (because it was where Bleaksin had previously spotted the aberration).  The place made them feel a sense of dread and the team, in their strange emotional state, wasted time with some arrow-rope tricks and climbing around the roof and chimney; during this time, Seiken ended up falling down the chimney and discovering a furnace room. He came back out and the group just decided to go in the front door.

From the inside of the manor, the team tried to go up the stairs toward the 3rd floor – but the stairs turned out to be a trap that turned into a metal slide that sent them hurling down into the furnace cage; Seiken managed to avoid the trap, but jumped down to stay with the rest of the team as they fell into the trap. In the trash room that they fell into, the team had to kill 2 otyughs – which almost killed them.

After breaking out of the trash area of the basement, the team went for the next room down the hall. They found 3 “brainbeaks” (grell) and 2 “brain dogs” (intellect devourers); Mory’s brain was eaten and he was mind-controlled to fight the others, until they destoyed the “brain dog” that had taken him over. Mory was permanently dead, brainless at the end of the battle [and his soul would have likely gone to Tharizdun as per the ritual from the "Green Tide" battle]. Elyrin, Seiken, and Bleaksin survived. They also rescued 3 prisoners, only to find out 2 of the prisoners were already dead. The living one had green skin and they assumed he was a half-orc. They needed to wait out the day and take a rest again.

Player Note: Since I play Mory I was hit really hard by his in-game death. I tried to play it off as no big deal, but after playing him for 12 adventures (December to June) I had gotten really attached to the character. At least he had a little bit of a redemption arc before his death. The good news is that I get to make a new character for the next session… yay!

CoMT 13: Streets of Undead

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer,
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout, and
Dribbledip the deep gnome druid!

CoMT Session 13:
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
Seiken, Mory, Elyrin, Bleaksin, and Dribbledip found themselves in battle when a swarm of undead came running out to confront them [because Mory had failed his stealth check]. While the rest of the team jumped into the window of the house near them, Mory stayed out in the street – wanting to be swarmed so he could use his channel divinity to turn and destroy as many undead as possible.

Seiken, Elyrin, Bleaksin, and Dribbledip had to contend with a team of 5 vampire spawn inside the house while Mory battled 4 zombies, 5 skeletons, 2 shadows, and 3 ghasts out in the streets. With good team work, Mory’s cleric powers, and Seiken’s sun sword the team survived the battle.

They explored the home. In the master bedroom was the vampire lord with 2 more vampire spawn and 2 ghosts. This time Dribbledip freaked out during combat and Elyrin was possess for most of it. Again, the sun sword was the main contributing factor to the team’s survival and victory. After the combat, Dribbledip turned into a spider and put webbing around the area to secure it for a long rest.

CoMT 12: To Llork

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer,
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout, and
Dribbledip the deep gnome druid!

CoMT Session 12:
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
Seiken, Mory, Elyrin, Bleaksin, and the FOE clerk (Authel) were followed on their way out of the city by the deep gnome druid Dribbledip (who had been asked by FOE to join the group on their journey to Llork). Since Dribbledip failed to properly introduce herself (and purposely dressed like a homeless beggar child), it led to enough confusion that the guards down at Waterdeep’s docks almost arrested Seiken for kidnapping.

Once the team got on their way, sailing in their magical folding boat, Mory tried to bond with Dribbledip and discuss battle strategy. She turned into a dolphin and later explained that she was mostly a pacifist who tried to avoid being in direct combat. Battle scared her and talked about herself made her uncomfortable. When the team got to Llork, they found out it was a mid-sized city with a population of mostly humans and dwarves that had learned to live together. The team convinced the mayor to sell them a house, which they dubbed the Llork House of FOE. Dribbledip also bought a nature park with a pond she called “Lake Stout.” The clerk made plans to live at the house and start the official FOE chapter there.

The next day Dribbledip used her sage lore to help the team find where to go for the old Netherese magic ruins. The Llork town ranger warned the group that there were a lot of undead seen in the northeast region. The team traveled for 3 days, having to destroy 3 will’o’wisps. They made their way into a devastated area with sand and an ancient “ghost town” with undead. Bleaksin scouted ahead and reported back about interesting brain-beak creatures in one house and what sounded like possible vampires in another.

When the group tried to stealth across the city, Mory accidentally made a bunch of noise... [to be continued]

CoMT 11: Waterdeep FOEs

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 11:
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
Seiken, Mory, Elyrin, Bleaksin, and the new bard recruit were all on their boat bonding on the way to Waterdeep. Mory asked Elyrin what he thought about them secretly being the “Criminals of Many Things” as a division within FOE (The Federation of Explorers) – as per Mory’s original talks with Oozey. This conversation upset the new bard and allowed Mory to realize Seiken never really realized that he had joined the Criminals of Many Things (back in the sewers with Derv, Oozey, and Parker). The situation was also news to Elyrin, who ultimately brought up a moral dilemma that someday Mory might have to pick between FOE and the Criminals of Many Things (which Mory thought was a ridiculously absurd possibility, until later in the adventure…).

At Waterdeep the new bard left the group to go off on his own adventures. The city guards wouldn’t let the team into the streets with their weapons because they didn’t have a writ as adventurers. Seiken refused to leave his sword behind to go into the FOE Offices of Waterdeep to get the proper paperwork; Mory, familiar with the city but not the FOE Waterdeep division, volunteered to go. Unfortunately, the team soon found out that the Waterdeep division of FOE did not consider Mory, Elyrin, and Bleaksin official members of the organization.

Once they got the entire team into the city and up to the 3rd floor offices of FOE, Arty the clerk introduced the team to the leading council of the FOE Waterdeep Division: Lt. Hayes (the red half-dragon with a cool pocket dimension office), a half-elf, and a human. They told the team that the new guys could be probationary members and earn full status if they completed a quest consisting of 3 parts. The had to (1) bring a clerk with them to start a new division of FOE in Llork, (2) search the hills and forests north of Llork to find a magic pillar rumored to be left behind by ancient Netherese wizards, and (3) somehow bring the pillar back to FOE. Bleaksin got a double-sided map with the Sword Coast on one side and the High Forest region on zoomed in on the other.

The team researched in the libraries of Waterdeep, where Elyrin learned that the pillar – in legend – was associated with an egg or a building or a hammer forge (maybe all 3?). They also met with Mory’s mother Kathra, who was the assistant head cleric at the Moradin temple. She confirmed that in her younger years she foolishly fell in love with Mory’s pirate father. She also gave the team info to trade items with two different dwarf magic item dealers.

With his mom, Mory had recommitted to doing Moradin’s work in the world and apologized for falling into bad habits in his quest to know his pirate father. The next morning, the team went to the Waterdeep FOE tavern to pick up the young human clerk Authel (and Seiken picked up a sending stone so he could magically send reports back to Arty).

Player Note: Both myself (playing Mory) and the player of Elyrin were upset by the way the Waterdeep FOE officials totally disrespected our characters - which was weird because the DM said after the session that he hadn't intended for the NPCs to come across that way. Apparently our assumption that Seiken could recruit people into FOE in the City of Many Things was not the same as what the DM had the NPCs think about the organization.

CoMT 10: Orc Loot

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 10:
Homebrew FR Campaign (City of Many Things)
After the victory against the “Green Tide” the team needed to search the entire orc sector for loot. They started with the stronghold, moved on to the streets, and ended up at the docks. Some of the more interesting items were a bunch of fine art, a magical unfolding boat, a ram’s head ring, and a pearl of power [likely the one Fox had earlier in the campaign].

The team also rescued four humans from a warehouse, where demonic sacrifices had been made. After nursing them back to health, the team brought them to the tavern; Elyrin burned down the warehouse. One of them was a bard and decided he wanted to join the adventuring party.

With downtime for about a week, the team was able to achieve some goals, including: Seikin visiting with the Noble District FOE Team (Parker, Oozey, and the gnome clerk) and meetings with the faction leaders (Braylinn in charge of the kobolds, the Roaming Gold Caravan leader, and Bruth of the refugees). In the end, the team gave money to each group and organized a defense for while they would be out of town.

The gnolls appeared to have withdrawn into their area, no longer being as aggressive. Thus the team decided it was time to head out on their boat with a mission to visit Waterdeep to try to get more resources and hire more help to finish saving the City of Many Things. Note: They could have gone to a closer city, like Daggerford, but Mory was concerned about comments Elyrin had made about his mother and father (implying that Mory’s father might have forced himself on Mory’s mom since he was a pirate and she was a cleric, instead of it being a consensual love affair) so they were going to Waterdeep to her Moradin temple to ask her about the truth behind Mory’s origin.

Player's Note: As the player of Mory, it was exciting to get the folding boat and become Captain Mory. This was a fun roleplay-oriented session.

CoMT 9: The Green Tide

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things (the evolution of the FOE2 Team) continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 9
Homebrew FR Campaign: The City of Many Things
Continuing from last time, locking themselves in the wizard's tower: Mory, Seiken, Elyrin, and Bleaksin found themselves surrounded by "The Green Tide" army of orcs and goblins. There were well over 100 enemies surrounding the tower while the team tried to figure out what to do. When Mory looked out the window, the goblin archers hit him with enough arrows to knock him unconscious. The rest of the team plugged up the window.

Seiken and Bleaksin looked through all of the magic supplies and messed around in the potion lab to figure out how to make some magic explosives. Elyrin read through the necromancer's books to figure out how to use the portals; he discovered a portal that went to the old Karse lich trapped in the city's central tower. Mory discovered a ritual to make a pact with Sothragot, an agent of Tharizdun, via the astrolab,

The team prepared 8 bags of wild magic bombs and, once night came, opened up the ceiling to use the astrolab. Seiken, Bleaksin, and Elyrin held back the army of orcs and goblins for 10 rounds while Mory did the ritual to commune with Sothragot. Sothragot demanded Mory's eternal servitude, but destroyed all of the orcs and goblins in the City of Many Things! The orcs and goblins disintegrated around the team.

CoMT 8: The Old Gods

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things (the evolution of the FOE2 Team) continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 8
Homebrew FR Campaign: The City of Many Things
Still at the wizard's tower: Mory, Seiken, Elyrin, and Bleaksin ascended the stairs - up to level five; they found teleportation circles in a wizard's lab. The group heard a voice from up above; the evil necromancer who had taken over the tower was in the astrolab. The group had to defeat him, his mind-controlled ghost, and 5 zombies. After that, they took a good rest.

Uninterrupted, the team was able to spend two days reading/studying. Mory learned about "The Old Gods" from books in the tower; this lead to him gaining an obsession with Tharizdun. They also learned about the ancient Karse rich trapped in the City of Many Things central tower.

Wanting to kill more orcs, the team went out. In the streets, they defeated 3 orcs and 6 goblins before advancing on the orc keep (where Seiken and others had previously escaped up from the sewers). There, the team took down 3 orcs/orgos, 6 goblins, and 2 trolls before strategically retreating. They heard war cries as more orcs/goblins swarmed out. The team made it back to the tower.

CoMT 7: FOE Lady

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 7
Homebrew FR Campaign: The City of Many Things
Before the group (Mory, Seiken, Elyrin, Bleaksin, and the rescued refugees) left the half-burned down fort in the woods, Elyrin checked out the messed up teleportation circle. The team managed to return to the City of Many Things without difficulty. They treated the rescued refugees to a nice dinner at the FOE tavern, even hiring one of them to become "FOE Lady" running the new base operations for this chapter of FOE. They went ahead and paid her salary for the month, along with a bartender and server; she was able to trade out the armor and weapons that the team had been collecting from their adventuring.

Mory, Seiken, Elyrin, and Bleaksin went through some of the disputed territory and killed 2 orcs, 1 gnoll, and 2 goblins. They made it to the wizard tower (that Seiken and the others had previously secured) but Oozey still had the key and someone else had taken up residence there. Seiken made his way up the wall, into the 4th floor window with the team following after them. They killed 6 zombies, a ghast, 3 ghouls, and 4 skeletons. There was a teleport circle and some books in the room.

CoMT 6: Burn it Down!

The Adventures of the Criminals of Many Things continue with:
Seiken the elf kensei monk,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
Elyrin the human necromancer, and
Bleaksin Blackscale the kobold scout!

CoMT Session 6
Homebrew FR Campaign: The City of Many Things
While Mory, Seiken, and Elyrin were having breakfast at their new FOE tavern – the blackscale kobold scout Bleaksin interrupted them with news that the forest orcs had kidnapped some new refugees from Naeb that were travelling toward the city. Bleaksin joined the team, traveled a day out to the wooden orc fort, and prepared to assault the place in order to rescue the captured humans. On the way, they defeated 2 brown bears.

In a huge battle, the team defeated the troll leader and 9 orcs (most of which were actually orogs) by setting the place on fire. The captured humans were freaked out, but managed to survive by fleeing and hiding in the woods during the battle. All together, the team saved 8 refugees. At the end, the team was still at the half-burned down fort – but they were planning the 2-day trip back to the City of Many Things with all of the loot/gear they had acquired.

CoMT 5: Reclamation

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,
Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric,
and Elyrin the human necromancer!

CoMT Session 5
Homebrew FR Campaign: The City of Many Things
After defeating the bandits and claiming the tavern as the new FOE HQ – Mory, Seiken, Oozey, and Parker went outside and saw the main city gates open up for the one-eyed human wizard/necromancer Elyrin. The team told him about the City of Many Things, the Federation of Explorers, and the wizard tower that was still in the orc-controlled territory. Elyrin was mostly interested in the wizard tower, but he agreed to join the group and help them. Mory claimed the brewery for himself. Oozey and Parker were offended by Elyrin being a necromancer and decided to leave the adventuring party and work out of the noble district FOE HQ after the team looted the area (calling it “reclamation” instead of looting).

The entire team went through the “wild lands” district to get back to the noble district; they had to fight and kill 3 gnolls and a shadow demon. Once back, they met with Breylinn (kobold leader), Bruth (refugee leader), and the leader of the Roaming Gold Caravan in order to arrange people moving to the newly acquired area. Breylinn sent a silver dragonborn with 15 kobolds, in addition to the 5 kobolds that were now training with Mory. The team spent time getting the human guards and caravan to the new area as well. They put up defenses with barricades and traps. They also calculated they would need about 5,000 gp and 100 days to setup a fortification at the nearby mines in the forest (which take about a half-day to get to). They would need to accumulate more money for that.

CoMT 4: Bandit Naeb-ors

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 Mory Brewblood the dwarf cleric!

CoMT Session 4
Homebrew Campaign: The City of Many Things
After Seiken, Parker, Oozey, and Mory rested up again they made plans for assaulting the bandit area of the City of Many Things. They picked up the 5 kobold cleric trainees and left them at FOE HQ. They also picked up 3 kobolds to help them assault the bandit HQ.

On the way to the bandits, the group was attacked in the "wild lands" area; the team killed a squad from Naeb (2 guards and 1 wizard who were there to check on the progress of the FOE team); unfortunately, the 3 kobolds died from a cone of cold. The team returned to the kobold quarter and gave the loot to Brayin while they apologized for the kobolds getting killed so quickly.

After resting for the night and waiting out much of the next day, the team timed their assault on the bandit HQ to coincide with nighttime (to get advantage at stealthing in the darkness). The team took out about 25 enemies (2 were guard captains and about 5 or 6 were adventurers) in their rush into the bandit courtyard and inn; the team succeeded without losing anyone else! Mission accomplished!

Note: the team was using great strategy with Mory's cleric spells (aid, spiritual weapon, and bless) and Oozey's wildshapes (not to mention the great optimization of Seiken and Parker).

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.