The Shadowvale Campaign (thoughts) part 3

Picking up where we left off. The group headed back towards Glasspring with mixed emotions. They had cleared out the perceived goblin threat, but that had only revealed a much darker force at work.

Going into the next session, I generally didn't have any set encounters planned for the group, unless they choose to pursue the Darius angle. They held up outside of town for over a day watching the comings and goings and noted that the town guard was much less active, in fact nonexistent at times. Finally they braved up enough to venture into town and confront Darius. While the group had been away, I had Darius release the town guard and take total control of the quiet town of Glasspring.

I have to give my players credit, they devised a hell of a plan to break into his mansion using disguises and trickery. Some of my most fun memories at the gaming table are just watching and listening to my players come up with these crazy schemes....great stuff!

The meeting with Darius was modeled much after the I6: Ravenloft encounter with Strahd (and really a lot of this campaign was borrowed as such from that module).

Not quite Darius, but close!

The group dined in a civil manner and Darius proposed an agreement to the group, to seek out and find the Book of the Shadowhorn (the key piece needed for him to challenge the mortal gods of the Shadowvale), in exchange for riches and ownership of the town. The group hesitantly agreed and Darius made the deal in blood by murdering the town sheriff, who was charmed, in front of the group. This was the first time the players (most of whom were new) had experienced a shocking and unexpected event in the game, it definitely had an effect on them. I feel like these elements are important in games to keep the super hero mentality in check...these are just normal people in abnormal situations.

With some guidance from Darius on the rumored location, the group immediately set out for Eldermere with the thought the book was located somewhere deep beneath that small village. After a bit of hex crawling and wilderness encounters, the group arrived at Eldermere only to find the village in ruins and it's population now turned to mindless undead...

I love Megadungeons!

Since I first laid my hands the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set when I was a kid, I've had this love affair with megadungeons. This has never really been a featured product from the likes of WoTC, but man the OSR has some great ones. ASE, Maze of the Blue Medusa, Stonehell, Barrowmaze, the list keeps going.

Hours of fun?

The new school of roleplaying shuns these a bit as story gaming has taken root, but I really think there is a great appeal in these products. So, what makes for a great megadungeon? Factions, uniqueness, high danger and rich rewards, alien and abnormal environments. Can I actually run an entire campaign using a megadungeon? Hell yes you can! Some of the best megadungeons have tons of creatures, npc's, items to mess with, adventure hooks, and central themes to resolve. With all of this, you and your group can still build and tell an amazing story of adventure and isn't what D&D is about at its core?

Session Recap: Keep on the Borderlands (01/19/18)

Wow! This one was a doozy, where to start? We pick up with the players just leaving the keep once again returning back to the Caves of Chaos to plunder and possibly resolve some loose ends from person at the keep. There was a pretty good turn out for this session.

Cody >> Kodar the drunk sailor bard (lvl 4)
Scott >> Gensher tiefling paladin (lvl 4)
Brian >> Yvelda orc monk diva (lvl 4)
Kevin >> Elmond human bard (lvl 4)
Daniel >> Nadar half-dragon paladin of deceit (lvl 4)

No encounters on the way to the caves and the group decided to go back to where they had left off, the goblin entrance and head towards the hobgoblin den. I had a surprise in for them though, since they had let the Redcap goblin chieftain leave on his own accord, I had it in mind they had contacted their bugbear buddies to set up trap to retake their part of the caves. Obviously the bugbears do not work for keep and the chieftain had given over several of his tribe to become slaves or meals for the bugbears. 

I had set up the immediate entrance to the goblin caves with a burning oil trap and barricaded both sides of the cavern to hopefully trap even nosy adventurers between a crossfire of ranged attacks while actually on fire. And bingo! The group decided to go this exact route. The encounter wasn't much an issue and they finally killed off the goblin chieftain before he could retreat back to the hobgoblin lair in a last ditch effort, but resources were tapped and this would come into play before the end.

The group then made their way towards the hobgoblin lair via the connection in the goblin caves. The hobgoblin had not had a chance to resupply from the previous days encounter when the group had freed their prisoners, but they were expecting them. The group battled through a couple of encounters and they actually managed to take a one hobgoblin, Pookit as prisoner.

There was some pretty hilarious roleplay as the group questioned him in a good cop / bad cop manner, and it was decided that they would bind and gag him and take him along....as a mascot....The group barricaded themselves in a cleared room and took a short rest. This is where something fortuitous would occur thanks to the random encounter table. During the rest I hit twice on the table >> 1d4 gnomes and 1 carrion crawler. I decided to have the gnomes be a rival adventuring group and I placed the carrion crawler near the hobgoblin caves entrance to the ravine. Gnomes slew the crawler and proceeded into the caves in a different route than the group. The group decided not to investigate the commotion down the hall.

The group finally made their way to the lair of the hobgoblin warlord overseeing the clan in this cave. Impressed by their ability to make this way, I had him attempt to parlay with the group to help expand the hobgoblin interests in the Caves of Chaos, notably in killing the bugbears. In the midst of this, Yvelda lost patience and attacked the warlord and off we went with the final encounter of the night....

So, I had not previously run hobgoblins in 5E previously, but they have a bonkers ability which can make for a pretty deadly encounter, Martial Prowess: once per turn can choose to deal additional damage when a melee attack hits an opponent with 5' range of an ally, dealing an additional 2d6 damage. Damn, that some brutal stuff. On top of this, the hobgoblin warlord has 3 attacks per round, along with the same martial prowess ability, on top of that the hobgoblin had planned for just this situation in case the party did not take the deal and placed two additional guards outside of the room.

This encounter was a bloodbath, for both sides really. Their rolls were really poor which did not help and the warlord slowly beat them down focusing on the softer player characters who for some reason were in range of him despite being restrained by one of the paladin's abilities. When things looked their darkest, Cody's character Kodar made a break for it while Gensher the surviving up right member slew 1 of the 2 remaining hobgoblins before being dropped as well.

I mentioned that Kodar saw the gnome party as he was fleeing from the caves. He decided to plea with them to help and they agreed for a share of the loot. We ended the session with people in the midst of their death saving throws, but I noted that the other group arrived in time to stabilize those who were down...next session will reveal just how "good" this gnomish group may or may not be, but this was essentially a TPK and the first one I'd DM'd in 5E.

Critical Role is not D&D

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but Critical Role is not D&D. For all of the good that show does: bringing new people into the hobby and opening the doors for many players to view and learn about the hobby, it also does an equal amount of bad.

Hear me out, Critical Role is really just a over-produced, likely scripted, TV-show with D&D as it premise. Matthew Mercer, the DM of Critical Role, is in my opinion a great DM and story-teller, anyone would be lucky to have him run a game for them, but the show people are watching weekly is not so much a game as an ongoing produced show. Here is when the bad comes in regarding the hobby. New players and prospective DM's brought into the hobby by this show will expect this type of TV drama in their games: the voice acting of characters, grand elaborate stories from the DM, and produced drama outside of the actual play.

I recently had a twitter exchange between a newer DM questioning why his new players aren't voice acting and always speaking in first person at their games...their timeline was full of Critical Role fluff, this told me all I needed to know. Don't force your players into something they aren't comfortable with. If they show up, participate and have fun, then that is mission success.

Look....the fun of D&D for the DM is when your players are having a good time. It is not telling some grand story, write a book if you want that. The story should emerge organically from the interactions between the players and the encounters that the DM has laid out. Your game, as a DM, doesn't need to be full of rich history and some grand setting full or lore, let the players help define your world, let their choices have meaning in the setting.

The tabletop RPG hobby is probably in it's best place since the early 80's due in no small part to streams and live-plays such as Critical Role, but my hope is that those coming into the hobby will define their games in their own way, not based on something they watched Thursday night.

Tales from RPG games of yore

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a neighborhood with kids close to my age, whom I'd often press into service as players when I needed them for the games I ran in my youth. Fortunately and unfortunately one of these was my younger brother Paul. You see, Paul was the player who really didn't give a crap because he had better things to do....his characters were throwaways and his actions were the definition of wild card.

In one of the better campaigns I ran during this time, my brother had rolled up the group's Magic-user....a 7'2", 18 strength, don't fuck with this dude in a back alley Jenis. I suppose spell casting is just his side gig.

For one of the early adventures in this campaign, the group was looking for some scrolls in some generic ruins I had probably drawn up 15 minutes prior to the session. In the midst of all of this, the group somehow began to argue which direction to take.

Paul probably: "I saw some treasure to the west hallway, I don't give a crap, I'm going down there to get it"

Drew, playing the dwarven fighter: "We have to go to the east, the Wizard told us to go this way for the scroll."

Paul: "So what, I want that gold!"

Drew: "We shouldn't split up, it's not safe in here."

Me >> rolls for random encounter due to the yelling....nothing.

They continue to argue which leads to Drew stating that he's going to knock him out to move on.

Paul: "Come and try it mother fucker!"

Initiative is rolled and what happened next still gives me a laugh to this day. Keep in mind, this AD&D, Jenis the magic-user has 1d4 hit points. Paul, not one to back away from challenge insisted that he wouldn't use any spells (Magic Missile or Sleep would have won this fight quickly). Rolls were made and by the end of it, Jenis the magic-user had slain the parties fighter in single combat, in the middle of the dungeon with his staff. Drew was obviously pissed, but no one at the table could hold back their laughter.

D&D is a random ass game, sometimes the dice screw you, but there is always a story to be had...

OSR: My roleplaying love affair

Let's talk about the OSR. For those not in the know, OSR stands for Old School Renaissance and refers to movement in the RPG community to continue and expand upon the basis of 1st edition D&D. There are now numerous retro clones of the rulesets that have been published to date, my favorites are >> Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Swords and Wizardry, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The best part is that you can find most of these games for free through DriveThruRPG or their individual web pages.

What I love about the OSR is that it harkens back to my upbringing in the hobby. Gone are the min-maxing superhero characters, you play normal persons in abnormal situations. You are not able to plow your way through difficult encounters with character violence and abilities, you will need to think as a player...often encounters in the OSR are deadly, if you're fighting, you will soon be dying. This is true fantasy roleplaying, monsters seem scarier and deadlier, the world is more fantastic.

Everyone is looking for something different in their roleplaying games, but this is what I started in and this type of gaming is more what I'm drawn to. Credit to D&D 5th edition for bringing me back into the hobby, but the OSR is what has fueled me since and taken most of my hard earned loot in real life. Which brings me to another point, the amount and quality of content from numerous creators is amazing. Look at some of the LotFP products, their layout and craftsmanship is second to none. Books such as Maze of the Blue Medusa and the recently released Dark of Hot Springs Islands are both inventive and just stunning tomes to hold in your hands.

I've been slowing moving the groups I referee to the OSR through our play and adventures. Once our current campaign wraps up, I'll make the permanent switch over to the Labyrinth Lord rule set on something new and likely gonzo given my current taste. If you're interested, I've a few links listed at the top of the blog to get you started.

Curse of Strahd: Thoughts and reflections

I was fortunate enough to play in a year long campaign for Curse of Strahd that recently wrapped up. I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this module from a player and DM perspective. I played a human paladin in this campaign, he was pretty stereotypical for paladins, the uptight lawful good-doer. 

Brennan Tattersall in all his glory

My DM was a first-timer, but he really did a great job for his first go at refereeing a campaign. Our group was a mix of players and classes, with some playing remotely as the rest of us gathered at the table, which seems to be an increasing phenomenon these day. Thank you internet!

So Curse of Strahd is essentially a rewrite of the original I6: Ravenloft from the Hickman's. The updated version (written by Chris Perkins of WoTC) expands upon the original opening a more sand-box type feel for the land of Barovia and can be run for PC's level 1 - 10. Their are numerous adventure hooks seeded throughout the adventure, but the primary driving point is the obtainment of items required to do battle with Strahd himself and possibly free yourself from the lands of Barovia.

Overall, I think this is one of the better releases put out from the 5E D&D line. The intro adventure "Death House" which our group did not play is one of the highlights of the entire module, it sets the tone and feel for Ravenloft. Horror and oppressive atmosphere are tough things to pull off in any published adventure, but the book does a great job adding tidbits which help with this like changing the flavor and use of certain spells to represent this feel.

Again with other 5E releases, the book is bloated with information on NPC's and locations which based on your groups decisions may require a lot of page flipping, but thankfully there is an excellent set of maps included with this book unlike previous releases. Any perspective DM's will definitely need to give it a good read through before showing up to the table. There is also the borrowed mechanic from the original I6 that randomly assigns the items used in the fight against Strahd to various locations throughout the map, this is done from the initial encounter with Vistani and Madame Eva's tarot card reading.

I was fortunate enough to play in a group and with a DM that presented us with lots of roleplay interactions as we worked to establish a home base of sorts in the town of Vallaki. As I mentioned previously, there is a lot going on in this town which could lead your PC's to go in a myriad of different directions. Our DM, did a great job of seeding these tidbits of information as we went along. Some of the highlights included the encounter with the druids while assisting the local winery outside of Vallaki, inter-political drama within the town with the current Burgomaster and those more aligned with Strahd, and the gonzo of the Amber Temple.

Throughout the adventure, Strahd will harass and test the players in various ways, but the culmination of the adventure of the adventure is the final show down with Strahd within Castle Ravenloft itself which is a fairly large dungeon by 5E standards. By the time my group had finally made our way to Strahd we were are armed with an assortment of powerful relics and powers, but also allies, this led to an easier than expected final showdown. Again, I still think the power-creep of 5E is way out of hand and this is just another example. If I was running this adventure, I'd continue to scale back the magic items and additionally buff the encounters presented, which my DM did.

All that being said, I had a great time in this adventure. Like most sessions, it comes down to the players and DM in regards to fun and I was lucky in that regard. I do have one complaint that is not related to the adventure itself, but a mindset / actions from another player who joined the group remotely. You may know this type of player, because I have seen many over the years. Since this player was playing remotely and rolling his own dice, he was held accountable to those results through trust. The same player who rolled up his character with 4 starting abilities over 16, one of which was an 18.....and seem to always land a success when needed.

Guys and gals out there, you don't need a super hero character to have a good time at the table. Those flaws make your character more fun and enjoyable to play, trust me. I have seen this a lot with new players and I'm not sure where it stems from, but his actions and rolls caught a lot of eye rolls from the other members of the table. This type of mindset is why I'm moving more and more to the OSR and running my own games.

The Shadowvale Campaign (thoughts) part 2

This is a follow-up to the previous post on the Shadowvale Campaign that I ran over the course of 3 years, recently ending. If you haven't read the previous post, you can find it here: The Shadowvale Campaign (The beginnings)

We were ready for our first session. My initial players were all new to role-playing games and we, myself included, were all new to the 5E ruleset. That being said, I wanted to go easy on them at first and ease them into some comfort for the rules and for their characters. The first session involved the festival and the goblin attack which draw the players into a much more dire plot, if they took the bait...and they did! Right off the bat I was pretty impressed with the power level of the 5E classes, this will be an ongoing theme as I make some mistakes throughout this campaign that pushed my players into the realm of extremely tough.

Sketched Shadowvale Area Map

The players wrapped up the first session by doing some investigation on behalf of the town sheriff Belor, part of which included the players on their own initiative meeting the main protagonist of the setting Mayor Darius. Perhaps they were more suspicious than I initially thought....during the course of the next few sessions, the players followed up on the goblin attacks by tracking the goblin tribe back to their home for their first taste of a D&D dungeon.

Goblin Caves (Straight from my notebook)

I had a set of goblin caves (pretty basic stuff) set up for the group that required them to find an entrance near an old farmstead, where the original owners corpses still rotted in the farmhouse now occupied by the goblins. I included a few side ventures within the goblin caves, as well as some clues that would tie in the plot towards Darius (the Mayor) being involved. Also, I included a human wizard (part of Darius's more trusted group) who had a lab within the caves. The highlight of this dungeon was the trapped roped bridge that spanned an underground river, the fall wasn't so bad, but the rushing water quickly submerged back underground which would prove near fatal to anyone falling in. 

The group surprised me in their eagerness to explore and interact with the numerous objects and rooms within the dungeon, including them absolutely annihilating the wizard in his lair. I also, had a few new members join the group in the midst of these caves. I wrote them into the story as being captives of the goblins. The conclusion involved a boss battle with the goblin chief and within his lair, where I had goblin lackeys hurling burning oil flasks down upon the group from a ledge over the main cavern. The goal was a dynamic encounter which I mostly pulled off.

In the end, the group had earned some loot, which they discovered was actually plundered loot from the poor citizens of Glasspring. I wanted to challenge their morals a bit as characters (do players even care about alignment these days?), they also had another piece of the puzzle regarding the bigger plot of the campaign. They were headed back to Glasspring for more answers....

Blood in the Chocolate: Review and thoughts

Recently I had the pleasure of the running my group through a one of shot of Blood in the Chocolate by Kiel Chenier from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This adventure was the 2017 Ennie Award winning "Best Adventure". I converted this for use with D&D 5E since my group of players was most familiar with that system. This is adventure is a spin of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" for the LotFP setting.

Our session was great, I had blast refereeing this one and the players felt the same, even though were some lamenting over a few of the poison effects, but those really helped to make the game dynamic and enjoyable. Right off the bat the random tables on the chocolate tasting effects hit my players as the group of Frenchmen that had hired them for this expedition let them sample a bit of the chocolate, I knew tonight was going to be fun.

The initial struggles my group had were with gaining access to the factory. Looking back, if I were to do another one-shot, I'd just start them inside the factory. My group actually experienced an almost TPK as they smuggled themselves in via the loading docks using a distraction from another member near the guardhouse. Also, two of the members were hit immediately with the Noxious Berry Curse during this encounter.

The fun, at least for the referee, in this adventure is watching as the group scrambles to "cure" and deal with these poisons as they are encountered through play. As my two players began to swell up with blueberry juice, they were trying everything, including have the other party members stab and slice them to drain them of juice, of course taking damage while doing so. This is A+stuff! 

The deeper the group moved into the factory, the more reluctant they were to touch or mess with anything. Mr. Chenier did a phenomenal job with this adventure, this was true horror in an almost comedic way and it wasn't mechanically forced upon the players. The group eventually encountered the villain of this module, Lucia De Castillio. She is not some magical beast or demon, she is just a shrewd-sexy and evil business woman. Ultimately, my group survived and took access to the factory, though some of the characters were forever changed by their experiences there.

Things that I loved about this book and adventure. The book layout is again fantastic from LotFP. Maps and tables on the inside covers (take note WoTC), great character building for Lucia, keyed locations in the book also include the portion the map they represent! LotFP has the absolute best quality of books and it's not even close. The poison effects are all horrifying and awesome! Anytime my group stumbled a check I was on pins and needles for what random effect they would now be dealing with, seriously this makes play of this adventure so good. Lucia is also a great villain, it's nice to see an non-typical and powerful woman for a change.

This is a perfect one-shot adventure for any group, seriously go find a copy and enjoy!

Session Recap: Keep on the Borderlands (12/29/17)

I am picking up these session recaps mid-stream on this campaign. To get you up to speed, we are playing 5th edition D&D. I initially had this group play through the Sunless Citadel (From the Tales from the Yawning Portal) converted to 5E. The group is a tad over-leveled for Keep on the Borderlands, but I have a few wrinkles that I'm tossing in to keep the game challenging. I should note that I'm basically running this straight out of the original B2 module.

The players for this session were:
Yvelda >> half-orc monk (Brian)
Nadar >> dragonborn paladin (Daniel)
Gensher >> tiefling paladin (Scott)

Player turn out was a little low for this one due to the holidays and people being away, but yet we persisted. The group picked up in the midst of clearing out the goblin warren of the Caves of Chaos. The goblins in my version are all red-cap goblins, meaning that they paint their hair with the blood of their enemies, but I play them fairly goofy and dumb, so most of the blood in their heads comes from their goblin buddies.

Let me diverge a minute and give my impressions of the power scaling in 5E player characters. They're too powerful! Just my opinion, but they are really a resilient bunch given the short rest options afforded to them. I've seen this in multiple game session in various campaigns, there is no fear in monster encounters once they reach the 3rd to 4th level and beyond, which leads to "lets kill everything" approach to play. To combat this, I try to flavor up my monsters a bit or toss in some unexpected abilities. In this session, the random encounter table did all of the work for me.

Back to the recap. The group pushed through a couple of large room goblin encounters making their way pretty easily to the chieftain's room. Many of the goblins had failed their moral check at this point and as the group based through the chieftain's barricaded door, these goblins were not looking for a fight. A few intimidate and persuasion (roleplaying checks as I call them) checks later and the group had cleared this section of the caves. They decided to take a short rest in the ogre cave and gather their loot before advancing, that's when I finally hit a random encounter and it was a doozy.

I rolled a 12 on a D12 >> Gelatinous Cube.

I had the cube waiting for them outside the cave pressed up against the wall, lead character Gensher missed his perception and he basically was one-shotted as the cube engulfed him pushing into the cave entrance. The next few rounds of combat were what make D&D great to me. Yvelda slowly chipped away at the hitpoints of the cube as I moved to engulf their hard earned loot, as Nadar did his best to pull Gensher out of the cube (barely accomplishing this). The two remaining members likely debated running with the loot leaving their companion to be consumed in the cube, but decided to stick it out risky life and limb. This is drama that no other game can simulate. Gensher survived making his final death save with a 2 / 2 split between living and dying...

They regrouped in the previously cleared kobold section of the caves and survived a long rest of random encounters, much to my surprise and disappointment. I'm telling you, really not a fan of the long / short rest mechanic in 5E...moving on they continued deeper into what they thought was the goblin section of caves, only to find out they had stumbled onto the hobgoblins. They don't have much trouble with the initial group of hobgoblins, even after I pulled the ones from the torture room down the hall. The group saves the hobgoblin captives, most importantly of which were the merchant and his wife. I tried to emphasis the horrors they had received at the hands of the hobgoblins and after a bit of convincing, they decided to escort them back to the Keep for a small reward. The merchant and his wife would have likely died on the road back had the group not decided to assist.

The party was likely needing a reset and to dump some loot at this point anyways, plus they had a quest item of sorts to turn into a general good merchant within the Keep. He had requested them find a lavish dress that had been stolen previously, his hope is to woo the barmaid at the Keep tavern whose husband was captured and currently MIA somewhere within the Caves of Chaos. I really love inserting a little conflict into the safe haven and the group took the bait on this one. In fact some members of the group are generally out to help the barmaid, while Nadar, who is a bit of chaotic paladin, is out to "assist" the merchant. There was a little drama between the two NPC's and now things are shaken up in the Keep. This was all great stuff and it is a open bit of story that the group wants to follow-up on when they aren't killing cave inhabitants.

We wrapped up, but I planted another story seed which I won't reveal just yet. I can't say enough how much I love my players, they are all fantastic role-players and they keep me guessing as a DM, evenings like this keep me fueled up to keep playing.

Sweet skeleton miniatures

I have to give a shout out to a recent purchase I made through the Facebook RPG Auctions group. Jeff Zahniser painted these sweet skeleton miniatures that I was lucky enough to win the bid on. 

Painting miniatures is something I've never really dove into. Most of the ones I own are of the prepainted variety, though I try to not to focus my games too much on their use. It's nice for my characters to have some representation of what is occurring in key encounters though.

Check these out though:

Needless to say, I envision some adventures in Barrowmaze just so I can put these guys to use!

The Shadowvale Campaign (The beginnings)

This will be a summary of the 5E campaign I ran over the past couple of years, named The Shadowvale. This campaign started in the Fall of 2015, I was new to 5E D&D and all of my initial players were all brand to role-playing games in general, in fact this would be their first game ever. I quickly familiarized myself with the rules, which I was initially quite impressed with, I feel that 5E harkens back to the 1st and 2nd edition of the game while keeping some of the character customization of 3rd edition...so win win to WoTC for that.

I had few notes that I had been working on for a homebrew adventure which would be the starting point. My initial points of emphasis were a sleepy border town, a corrupt and ambitious leader / mayor of this town, and a powerful artifact which use would bring about some questionable moral decisions for the group. Over the course of this campaign (3 years) I would have a few players come and go, but the central group consisted of the following:

Edric >> halfling cleric (Aaron)
Caedryn >> half-elf rogue (Brian)
Brugal >> half-orc fighter (Scott)
Trar >> human druid (Daniel)
Petros >> half-elf warlock (Rob)

Before play began, I continued to flesh out the world I envisioned a bit. These were all new players and I was still finding my feet a bit with 5E, so you'll see as this continues that I did not deviate from a lot of the standard fantasy troupes. A few other points I want to establish about this world were the following:

• Fallen gods. Though this would be unknown the natives of the world, the gods were living among them as mortals so to speak.
• Decline of the elves and dwarves. Both races were hidden away and the remaining population within the human culture were extremely low.
• Things are too quiet. The main protagonist, Darius, had discovered the hidden truth of regarding the Gods and he was going to make a power grab for godhood.
• The players enter the scene with things already set in motion, but not too late to "save the day".
• The artifact of power, the Book of the Shadowhorn, is ultimately evil, but it is the key to Darius's end-game.

I roughly formed up a map of the region, I'm certainly no artist as you'll come to find out.

Glasspring would the starting area and "homebase" for the PC's throughout the early part of the campaign. I was robbing a few itemsI enjoyed from the Rise of the Runelords adventure path for the start as well. The players begin in a festival, then an attack occurs allowing our heroes to be heroic, moving to an investigation phase. My hope was that they would start to grasp the rules and skill checks available in 5E. So, how did it go? Stay tuned.....

Some background and what this is all about

Greetings all!

This is something I've been wanting to do / putting off for a long time. This blog will be about role-playing games, most notably Dungeons and Dragons and its many variant rule sets and products. I will post session recaps from the games that I referee and play in, review products (literally my bookshelf is bowing from the weight of all the role-playing books I own),  as well me giving referee advice and thoughts.

Before we begin though, I feel like you, the reader, should know my background in the hobby and why I love this game so much. It all started for me in the early 90's during a summer break at a friend's place. The set up was not elaborate: a fold-out table, some chips and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I was hooked....no, I was addicted immediately. My friend ran myself and another through a custom castle dungeon he had created, but the world I immersed myself in that day would forever change me. Looking back, it would be many years until I got my hands on a another D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which is a compilation of the variant boxed sets released in the first edition of the game and in my opinion one of the finest products released by for the game system, and I paid way more for it this time.

Before long, I had my own rule books, I had used allowances to purchase many of the setting boxed sets (Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Ravenloft) that were all the rage in the 2nd edition of D&D, and I was creating and refereeing my own adventures for my friends. I could not get enough, it was always my first option when the friends gathered. But like many things in our life, we lose interest or the ability to do the same things we love, such was the case for role-playing games for me. School, work, parties, college....but always it stayed in the back of mind.

Flash forward to 7 years ago. Now married, in a career, no kids as of that time, and yet there was something missing from my life: no outlet for creativity, social interaction and laughs. On a whim, I went out and purchased the latest version of the game....scratch that, 4th edition was the latest edition, but after watching some YouTube play of that version of the game, I decided to pick up and play the Pathfinder rule set. I literally forced some of my friends into joining a Roll20 game that I would referee. To get my legs underneath of me again, I ran Rise of the Runelords....it was amazing, looking back my opinion on this changes a bit, but that will be for another day. The rules in my opinion were a little complex and clunky, but we made do, learning the rules as we played. After several sessions, they had cleared the first chapter, but that's where the group fell apart. Turns out that D&D groups die to scheduling more than any monster or trap ever conceived.

I was hooked again though and craving more. Breaking out of my introvert shell, I sent out some emails to some work colleagues: "Hey, so random question. Have you ever heard of D&D?"......

I will continue this story in another post, which will be the recap of the Shadowvale (homebrew) campaign that I ran over the past few years for that group. So, what is it that I love so much about this game? There is so much, but for me most of al it is: bringing together people, escaping to this fantasy world for a few hours, laughs with friends, and just creating a story with a group of people that nothing else can ever simulate.