Monday, October 17, 2022

5e Session I: The Road to Phandalin

Aurora Boree Alice - Human Cleric
Chuck Norris - Elf Ranger
Purina - Half-elf Druid
Your Majesty - Human Wizard

Leaving their homes and temples to seek out a name and fortune for themselves in the land of Faerun within the Forgotten Realms, our various party members have journeyed to the largest city in the northern region along the Sword Coast; the city of Neverwinter.  But their naïveté played a disservice as the growing city of merchants, thieves and worse greedily preyed upon their innocence and ignorance and has left them penniless.  

The past few days living in squalor in the bowels and back alley ruins of Neverwinter has made them desperate to rise above their current state.  An opportunity came in the shape of a posted ad that asked for “...competent souls needed for a 5 day wilderness journey! Earn gold!  Skill with a blade a must!  Magic a plus! Inquire Gundren Rockseaker at the Cock & Bull!"

Hoping it’s not too late the party members had made their way over to the Cock & Bull and after asking around were introduced to a bearded warrior by the name of Sildar Hallwinter. He, in turn, introduced them to a weathered dwarf… who introduces himself as Gundren Rockseaker.

Gundren hired the party to carry some supplies for him to the frontier town of Phandalin and drop the cart and supplies off at Barthen’s Provisions.  Before Gundren and Sildar left that evening on horses, Gundren paid for the party’s lodging in the barn and paid for their morning breakfast.

The party traveled down the coast road and on the second day came across an elvish boy, Haldir, searching for his lost dog Naquoo. The party tried to assist the boy and look for the any sign of the dog but no trace was found.

They continued on to the Wayfarer Inn for the night at the crossroads of the Triboar Trail and the Coast Road.

The next morning they set out down the Tribor Trail and ran into the slain horses of Gundar and Sildar and found an empty map case. There they were beset by goblins which they quickly slew.  Trying to find signs of the fate of their employers they found no trace.

They continued on to Phandalin arriving in the evening and there they met up with Barthen and handed off their delivery for an additional fee and stayed at the Stonehill Inn.

The next day they traveled to Umbrige hill to purchase some healing potions from the midwife but found her windmill under siege by a wild Manticore.  After Purina entangled the beast the party attacked it from a distance.  The wounded creature broke free and flew off.

Adabra the midwife rewarded the party with 1 healing potion each.  

Returning to Phandalin, they stopped at the Shrine of Luck and met Sister Garale who informed them about the troubles with a gang of bullies and thugs calling themselves the Red Brands who were taking it upon themselves to 'guard' the town. As she spoke, two Red Brands were watching her conversation with the party from a distance...

Session notes: This was our first session of 5e. All the players are fairly inexperienced with D&D and one had never played role playing games at all. I figured I would skip the "Session 0" idea and just get into the game figuring we'd teach and learn as we go. Also, we're all adults and busy and who wants to spend that whole first session doing the 'homework' of building characters that new players really don't understand?  We're all adults and busy with real life things so spending hours just building characters seemed somewhat ridiculous to me and my quick, down and dirty old school ways. I asked most of the players what character race and class they would like to play and then built them as pre-rolled characters for them just to get them into the game play.

Session 0 probably would have been a bit more helpful as all the elements of the the character sheets and rules to go along with them are a bit challenging for new players to understand and grasp.  In fact, I'll get more into that in a future post. 

More thoughts on the first session coming soon...

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