Hey everyone, I figured I'd post what happened in the first session of our little 'unofficial Giant Bomb" D&D 5e game. Originally I had some thoughts about potentially recording the session, maybe making it available to folks out there.

Turns out, even trying to edit 3+ hours of anything down to something that approaches being enjoyable to listen to is basically impossible, especially when the people involved aren't professionals by any capacity. However, I haven't given up on logging these sessions. Instead of trying to figure out hosting for 3+ hours of footage, I'll be providing the overviews on here. What a novel idea, that.

The Introduction

“It is said that there is no place in the entire world that is brimming with opportunities as the city of Holbeck. Over the last 40 years, the city, once a simple docking village on the Starwur Sea, has transformed into a bustling center for trade, largely due to the careful guidance of its current leader, Lord Tybalt.

This sudden growth hasn’t been without problems however. With rapid growth came increases in criminal activity and other, vague problems within the expanding citizenry. The town guard, pushed to its absolute limits, petitioned to have additional help. This need for help lead to the establishment of a system, wherein those who are either brave or foolhardy enough could acquire adventuring licenses within the city. These licenses effectively allow the city to help itself, allowing those previously mentioned brave/foolhardy folks to take on paying jobs provided by the populace.

Our story opens on the Celestial Siren Tavern, located in a relatively quiet part of the city, where five recently licensed adventurers are sitting around a table, with three different jobs before them. Despite having a wide variety of backgrounds and desires, fate has seemingly forced them together in this moment. How things progress from here depends on how this first job goes, but which job will they pick?”

The Adventurers Have Job Options

After some debate amongst each other, the group decides to pursue the guard job at the Tybalt Manor. They arrive at the manor's front gate, just as the gala is beginning, where they meet Vicar Adolman, the captain of the guard and person in charge of the adventurers who operate within the city. Vicar expresses some despair at having inadequate city guardsmen to run security for such an important event, and a perceptive Genghis notices that he might not be disclosing everything he knows about what may happen at the event.

The party works their way into the manor and begins to schmooze and work the crowd. While doing recon, Rurik notices one person who seems out of place: a man who is dressed in extravagant green clothing with "a poofy hat" who seems jittery and a bit nervous. Genghis attempts to listen in to find a name:

Here's a voice clip of the shenanigans (I say a swear word in here, just so ya know)

After learning this man's name is Lennix Thombend, both Cay and Genghis talk him up, attempting to learn more about this strange fellow. Genghis successfully fools Lennix into believing that he had known "Lenny's" brother in Wizard Technical college, although nearly reveals that he is working security for the party just as Cay steps in. Cay speaks with Lenny, discovering that at one time Lenny had been in line to be the ruler of Holbeck, but was denied that by the much more popular Lord Tybalt. Before much else is learned, a scream is heard from the kitchen.

Our adventurers run to the kitchen, where they find the staff there in distress and screaming about a "man in black" who had been poking around the food before he punched a kitchen worker and ran off towards the building's basement. The group rushes to the basement, which appears to have been set up to be a practice room of sorts, with training dummies and weapon racks on the walls. However, there is seemingly no sign of anyone being there. As the adventurers split up and look around the room, Cay notices a gap behind a weapon rack, clearly a secret door of some kind. As he approaches, however, three of the blades on the rack begin to float up into the air, blades turning towards Cay. (Turns out, they're flying swords).

There's a really rad battle, people got cut up by magical swords, and it is discovered that thin, flying blades are actually really hard to hit. Also, as it turns out, spears and rapiers are the most potent of anti-sword weapons, and rays of frost apparently can only hit swords that are no longer animated. The group eventually prevails, and travels down the hidden passageway, into a subterranean room where the air feels thick, and the smell of chlorine is potent.

"There are two large, barrel-like reservoirs in this room, each with a paddle inside that rotates magically, stirring the contents. Copper piping connects the two reservoirs, and a third branch of the pipe goes to a nearby table. This table is covered in alchemical equipment, glass tubes, burners, and among the instruments you notice a small, circular glass container with a pearlescent powder within..."

The powder, it turns out, is a rather potent drug known as bliss that has been troubling the town lately.

I'll throw some information about this stuff here, since this isn't exactly a standard D&D item:

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What the party knows about bliss:

For Non-Magic Users: For up to an hour after taking Bliss, you can cast Prestidigitation, Firebolt, or Guidance as if you were a natural magic user. After casting a single spell, the effects of Bliss immediately end.

For Magic Users: You immediately regain a single spell slot, the level of which is equal to 1/2 your highest spell slot level. For an hour after use, the next spell you cast will be more effective than usual (up to the DM's discretion for what that actually means). After casting any spell, the effect immediately ends. You cannot regain more than 1 spell slot per adventuring day by using Bliss.

While under the effects of bliss, the user has disadvantage on all charisma and wisdom based rolls. (Except those which effect spellcasting).

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Some of the party members, predictably, take some of the Bliss with them. For research purposes. Or something.

The party then follows the mystery man's trail towards the back of the room, where a tunnel is located. There, the adventurers find rats. Another fight occurs, where it is learned that

• Sivi is really, really good at killing rats. Uncomfortably so.
• Ray of frost works much better on living creatures than on animated swords.
• Rurik is into rat kebabs.

Once the rats are dispatched, the adventurers find a ladder that leads upwards, and after moving the stone lid out of the way, they find themselves just outside of the estate, in a garden. The entrance to the 'drug lair' seemingly hidden under a rock that moves when pushed from below (but not from above, as they later discover).

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That's about the halfway mark of the first session. I'll write up the rest before the next session. Sorry if the tone of this isn't great from a narrative point of view. I'm an engineer, not a writer.

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Continuing on!

I could have just pretended that I wrote everything in one sitting, but eeeeh. Much like my DMing, not gonna take this writing thing all too seriously.

Anyway, adventurers get up to the top of the tunnel, find themselves in the garden, and are once again approached by Vicar, the captain of the guard. Vic starts harassing the adventurers for seemingly abandoning their posts, but is silenced when he sees their wounds, the drugs, and Rurik's rat-kebob.

The party tells Vic of the drug lab and assassin. Due to the nature of the party, Vic insists that they shouldn't go and try and arrest the lord in charge of the entire town just yet, but promises that he'll follow up on their story once he analyzes the powder the adventurers came up with.

Of course, only Rurik actually handed over any powder. Both Cay and Genghis still had theirs stashed away. For independent study.

Our group then heads back to the gala, where things have really started getting going, mostly thanks to alcohol. They all spend some time recuperating from being stabbed by magical swords, when Sivi notices a few muddy footprints going towards the men's restroom.

Because my fantasy world has indoor plumbing.

Within the restroom there are three stalls. Sivi, being the gung-ho lady she is, promptly kicked all the doors in. Turns out, after kicking one of the doors, the stall was booby-trapped, and a dart carrying a potent sedative shoots out at her. Sivi is exceptionally awesome however, and she gracefully matrix-dodges the dart, causing it to embed itself in the bathroom wall.

The party then notices a window that's ajar. Predictably, this leads them to some muddy footprints, which then leads the group to the estate's stables. Which, despite looking very fancy, still smelled terrible. As a stable will.

Once in the stable, a shadowy figure leaps from the upper floor, and darts out the door. This results in a chase sequence, where:

• Hildegaard pole-vaults using one of her spears onto a greenhouse roof.
• Everyone parkours gracefully off of a roof and into a garden, while Genghis and Cay do the smart thing and just walk around to the entrance.
• The group, using a combined effort, manages to determine which path to take through a hedge maze
• Rurik actually screams "ARBOR DAY" as he rages and cuts two twig blights cleanly in half
• The group manages to shoot the unknown figure in both legs with arrows and ice magics

And they even kept up with him step-for step the entire time! It really was great, considering that the assailant was supposed to be able to get away and all.

The chase ends at the center of the garden maze, around a large fountain. Despite the unknown figure's ability to conjure flying swords, he is quickly subdued by a berserking Rurik, who knocks his legs out from underneath him, before smashing his head into the dirt with the non-sharp part of his axe, subduing him.

Just as everyone starts to calm down, good old Lenny shows up, before freaking out and running away. Sivi, immediately catches and tackles Lenny, as she is some kind of insane flip-wizard.

Exposition, exposition, turns out Lenny hired this unknown person to sow discord in the party in a weak attempt to get people to view Tybalt as a weak leader. Though, thanks to the adventurer's unusual aptitude, he failed spectacularly. Both the assassin and Lenny are taken to the authorities, but not before Genghis pockets a mysterious stone that the assassin had on his person. The stone is clearly magical, but it's a vague kind of magic. Sivi also basically stole all of the assassin's cool black clothes. And they all got 350 XP and a bunch of gold. Good adventuring day, all said.

And that basically covers what happened in our first session. 3+ hours, and a real hum-dinger. Though, there are a couple of loose ends for the party to ponder:

• Where did this assassin come from?
• What is up with the DRUG LAB beneath the lord's manor?
• What kind of magic does the stone have? (Genghis is actually looking on magical wikipedia during his off-time to find out)
• Why is Lenny's voice so annoying?

Most of these questions will most assuredly be answered in future sessions.

Oh, and if anyone can figure out how to host 3+ hours of video without it being an insane nightmare / knows a really good VOIP service, lemme know. 'Cause written documentation really doesn't encompass how rad some of these moments were.