My first campaign, a run down

[SithKittie]

So, I decided the campaigns on the sites were too .... straight forward, so for my group of gamers here I made my own! Second time GM'ing.... it probably wasn't the best idea but ah well. It's fun and works my brain.

First off (this was hastily improvised because I forgot to think of a starting point for the characters), the PC's were all neutral or evil alligned. They recieved anonymous letters calling them to a meeting. Ok, brief world explination. This is the northern kingdom, which consists of mountains. There's one "city" which is just sort of there for trading and a middle point through the mountains going from east to west. It's in a valley named Talluah from the song I was listening to when I made it up. Anyway, yeah, the mountains are home to evil things, lots of undead and monsters. Nobody goes up there unless they're 1)evil, 2)have a death wish, and 3)bored. Key word there is "and." So, characters go up there and meet with a lych, who they later find out is named Caine. He enlists them to go kill a vampire named Adam (yes I'm that creative) and retrieve the daggar the vampire stole from him, gives them a map, promises them the kingdom to the south, and sends them on their way. And the Barbarian wanted a kingdom of rabbits, so considering the south is mostly farming areas, he promises lots of rabbits too.

The PCs started by chasing after the barbarian (actually the sorcerer chased the barbarian and they chased the sorcerer) who was hunting rabbits. Somehow they managed to find the mountain (which fortunately was only slightly to the north east) and not fall off the fjord trying to get in. Once in they only managed to disable one trap, which was surprisingly not the rogue, but the barbarian who threw a rabbit down the hall. The first narrowly missed hitting the rogue, and the third was bullrushed by the barbarian who was running down the hallway after a Shield Guardian. They beat that and unsurprisingly (yet stupidly) separated. Yes I had a reason for making them be all evil or neutral. Teamwork = higher chance of beating dungeons without PC deaths.

After throwing the Shield Guardian's severed head at the Half Elf Sorcerer for greasing the floor of the combat area (referred to as "Bowling for Half-elf"), the Barbarian picked up the Gnome Cleric, named him "compass" and headed off. The rogue, hiding and moving silently, headed in another direction, which the half-elf, after getting up from the sucessful hit of the construct's head, went in the direction of the rogue. The rogue, however, sprung yet another trap, which consisted of a shadow hidden in a portrait, and was, at that time, getting hit by a Shadow and down to, I think 3 points of strength. By the time the half-elf showed up he was on the floor. The half-elf beat the Shadow with disturb undead and proceeded to rest for an hour to regain spells (house rule, they have rings of sustinance but I make teh spell-casters rest/pray for an hour to get their spells back) and hp and mock the dwarf rogue as he was prone with 1 strength and praying to morden to 1) regain health and 2) kill the half elf. There was some discussion about daikon in this as well (very large Japanese radishes).

The barbarian and his compas found a stair case and went up it, the side that went to the third level. They found a platform and a stone bridge. After hitting the bridge with his axe to see if it was solid, he proceeded down the bridge, holding the gnome and continuing to beat his axe against the bridge, which a third of the way down went through the stone and he lost his balance, throwing the gnome backward and barely (by only a few points) passed his reflex save to hold onto what was actually bridge. The gnome sat kinda confused trying to figure out why their was an orc hand sticking up through what looked like solid stone. They made it out of that mess and went back down stairs, eventually finding the room where the half-elf was mocking the dwarf who was still praying and painfully slowly regaining strength.

After this they went into an ajacent room, after breaking the door down because orcs apparently don't bother trying handles. Cleric saw a bookshelf and went for it, getting stopped part way by somethign trying to grab him that he couldn't see. They then sat at the door throwing stuff at the bed, which promptly ate whatever they through. (I do'nt think the players actually figured out this was a mimic until after they beat it and I mocked them for their really bad combat). They did this long enough to not see the shadow coming out of another portrait in the room with the mimic. They made it in time to run to the other room, but then realized the door was broken down, so they dragged the dwarf out of that room and closed the door. The shadow didn't care enough to follow out of the door. At this time also, Morden finally heard the rogue and gave him his strength back. He promptly snuck away from the party again into a hidden room in which he came across 6 corpses in a set of catacombs. Moving silently, he found another door that opened into the back of a bookshelf and relized there was nothing in teh room for him to steal. So he left the room and the rest of the PCs had by this time moved on to the staircase and took the cleric's suggestion of taking the other set of stairs up to the second floor. Went to the left and broke down teh first door, went "oh, portrait... I wonder" and then ended up having to engage the Shadow. Next room, no portrait, but a very surprised and annoyed vampire spawn who they failed to kill but sent away. The vampire had been searching through a chest of weapons, which the barbarian stuck in the bed saying stuff like "stupid beds. I hate beds."

The rogue, after hearing the rest of the party was gone, went up to the second floor as well and went away from the sound of the party and into the first room. After noticing the portrait and rats in that room, he shut the door and moved on. The next room had two, one of which he destroyed before the shadow came out, and the other partly. Then slept in the bed. Why? I have no clue.

That was day one of gaming here. We've done more, but it's long, and I don't feel like typing it all at the moment.

[1darkangel]

, I can see why you don't feel like typing more. That was a lot already. Sounds like a fun time had.

[i11umin8ted]

Actually they do need an hour to pray and study to prepare spells as per the rules. Actually, it might be a little longer than that, but you've got the right idea.

-i11

[SithKittie]

wow... good guess then. hehe.

[i11umin8ted]

Indeed.

-i11

[SithKittie]

So, on from there, the party took forever in the library on that floor to find the two hidden doors, which were set at the so very difficult DC 15. Well they found the one, which led them into a room in which, at the far side, was set a "large frame like something under a blanket." The barbarian went "gah, scary portraits" and attmepted to smash it, which only succeeded in knocking the blanket down and two of them got sucked into the mirror. They finally broke the mirror after wasting the scroll of dispell magic that I placed in there to help them get past another trap, which consequently didn't work on the mirror. Ended up fighting a very pissed of Wright who was also stuck in the mirror, and at this point the dwarf I think was still blindfolded so he wouldn't look into the mirror. Before this he tried, blindfolded, a few times to throw the cloth back over the mirror, but yeah, dwarf, blindfolded, tall mirror, that didn't happen. Also in this room the gnome found a pretty cloak and put it on and went "oh crap! where did those come from?" yeah, the half-elf had fun taking him/her clothes shopping. hehe. The dwarf also found on returning to this room later the rod of wonder. bwahah*cough*

So, they ventured up to the third level where the dwarf got across the death trap by using spider climb boots on the walls. I was hoping he'd step on the land in the basement (another death trap) but that's just me wanting a PC death. They managed to throw rope over to him on the other side of the bridge and get the half elf and gnome across. The dwarf again left the party to explore one door, and after much hinting about the staircase they found from me the half elf and gnome when down the staircase and found the room with the mimic they never beat. So they managed to get the barbarian to go back down to that room and instead of fighting the mimic he decided to try to barrell roll past it. ... and somehow this actually worked, mostly due to a natural 20 on one of the checks. He did take some damage from the mimic, but managed to get up with much shaking of the head from me. During this time the dwarf rogue kept trying to get into the boss fight room and got kinda irritated when I played God and said no. I should have said yes, cause he'd have died and that would have been funny... but I figured they'd need help in the fight.

Eventually the rest of the party caught up and teh door magically was able to be unlocked (the barbarian knocked on the door). heh. Entered the room and found the vampire, big shocker. There was some dialogue that I can't remember off the top of my head, some to do with the dagger (eventually) and that they couldn't have it while he was alive... at which point the barbarian rushed him, called an attack to the neck with an axe and rolled a natural 20. Yes, vamps are immune to crits, but even subtracting all of the points against him, he still would have hit... so yeah... my boss got taken down in one hit. This guy would have done at least some damage.. I actually leveled him down significantly from the original cause barring a called shot like that he would have been too hard (party level 5). I was kinda bummed. But check him out.

ADAM human vampire
LV. 7 (Fighter 1, Ranger 1, Paladin 3, Black Guard 1)

STR 16 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 13 WIS 14 CHA 15
HP 59 AC 21
FORT 10 REF 1 WILL 1 (I double checked this, but I'm pretty sure I added that right)
INIT 2 BAB 7

Attack
+2 Bastard sword of lifestealing // +9 1d10+2 // crit 19-20 X2 -1level, add 1d6 to HP


I was bored and made whole characters for some of my NPCs. Hehe. He'd have done some damage. *le sigh* I gave the barbarian sole experience for that one just cause, yeah...

Unfortunately after this they had no clue where the dagger was, and so after going through every room, which meant they had to fight the mimic and the last shadow that was still floating around and they also woke up 6 vampire spawn at once in a small room (knocked the half elf out for a bit at least), they managed to find the other hidden room off the library on the second floor. finally. Well, the dwarf did and consequentally had to fight off an imp by himself. This was the room they needed the dispel magic for. Used the rod a few times. I actually forget how they finally managed to dispell the magic on the bars protecting teh area with the vampire's coffin. It was an alcove with really big metal bars that had a magic shield around them that kept them from being passed or damaged. They tried beating the bars a few times before they thought "hm.. let's try to pick them up" which *shock* worked. So they found the dagger in the oh so hidden place of the vampire's coffin (mind you this took several hours of actual role playing to find). The dwarf tried to sneak in and steal the dagger after the gnome had already taken it... got into an argument about timing at that point. Player already said his action and then the dwarf's player said he tries to steal the dagger.... yeah, not so much there. But yeah...

So they managed to get out of the castle and back to the lych's place and found a pissed off human threatening the lych and then stalking out *gasp*plot point*gasp* So they give the lych the dagger and he's like "ooh, nifty. there you go. go play"ish. Says the dagger can be used to change the mind of the king and then left. They were very confused... and so went to the nearest town and the rogue blew up the magic shop with the rod of wonder.... after stealing some scrolls and wands (and a random hand) and killing the owner (I don't get it either). And the barbarian found a nice cleric with restoration to give him his level back. And the gnome got some pretty dresses....