Hey there. Take a seat by my ornate fireplace and pour yourself a snifter of fine bourbon from my pure crystal decanter. Enjoy the dulcet tones of Morgan Freeman as he reads the remainder of the blog to you inside of your imagination. Welcome to the write up for the third session of Tuesday Night DnD.

Our story opens on the interior of the Celestial Siren Tavern, where our adventurers have regrouped after their time spent training / investigating the disappearance of both Lennix Thombend and Lord Tybalt. The investigation duo of Ghengis and Sivi did not manage to discover much, simply that there was outside assistance involved in the previous session's jailbreak from potent spell casters.

There was a brief aside where Hildegaard conversed with Corstine Littleknight, a halfling bard and Beldak Shipsail, a half-orc. The duo had been talking about some adventuring jobs that they had been recently on, and was just getting into being stiffed for payment on their last job when a messenger came in through the front door with a letter.

The party, clearly wanting to get to the parts of the adventure where things were happening, then departs from the Celestial Siren to go and meet with Vicar Adolman, the captain of the guard.

Before they get there though, they first swing by the FABULOUS Marketplace. It was my DM handwavy way of allowing the group to spend some of the gold I've been giving out on items that have a great deal of potential when used correctly. I'm just going to include the items for sale in this post so that other interested parties can use these (mostly) custom items in their own games:

Items from the Marketplace (In no way associated with Fantasy Costco)

Rod's Rods:

"You'll love the feel of my rods in your hands!" -Roderick, proprietor

Immovable Rod [200 GP]: A D&D classic. Has a button that causes the rod to remain fixed in place until the button is pressed again. Can resist 8,000 pounds of weight. Requires a DC 30 Strength Check to move 10 feet while active.

Invincible Rod [150 GP]: Cousin to the Immovable Rod. Under no circumstance can the invincible rod be destroyed.

Swiss Army Rod [50 GP]: Can turn into the following at command: 50 ft. rope, crowbar, 10 foot pole, Fishing pole w/hook, Miner's Pick, shovel. Also has a corkscrew on it.

Pointy Rod [50 GP]: A seemingly normal looking stick that, on command, extends into a spear. Great for sneaking weapons into places they shouldn't be.

Light Rod [50 GP]: This rod has a button that causes it to light up much like a torch. Has unlimited uses, and will function even when wet.

Panacea:

"We have the cure for whatever ails you! Also, the opposite of that." -Maybelle, Owner

Healing Potion [50 GP]: Restores 2d4 +2 HP upon use.

Hurting Potion [50 GP]: Can be applied to either one melee weapon or 3 ammunition. On hit, a creature must make a DC 10 constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage.

Climbing Potion [30 GP]: Gives advantage on Athletics Checks for climbing

Potion of Night Vision [50 GP]: You gain 60 ft. of darkvision for one hour.

Potion of Blocking [50 GP]: Grants +1 AC for an hour.

As a minor disclaimer, if you plan on using these items in a home game, might want to tweak the gold prices to fit your setting.

Back to the Adventure

Everyone basically just buys healing potions, although Hildegaard picks up a pair of "Pointy Rods" (I'm surprised that no one bit on the immovable rod, honestly). The group continues on their way, but as they pass down a side road they are ambushed by a group of thugs.

"You really ought to be careful about who you piss off" - A Thug

Despite having superior positioning, our group of heroes manage to brutally kill their attackers. A couple of noteworthy events occur:

• One thug, upon seeing how poorly this fight was going for the crew, rethought his life's choices and ran away.
• The leader of the group also ran, but Sivi got him in the back of the head with an arrow.

Having thoroughly disposed of the attackers, our group continued to Vicar's office at the barracks. Inside, Vic tells the party of a stolen ship that had recently left the harbor and was seen going South. He believed that it was likely connected to the recent disappearances, and encouraged the group to go and meet up with Corora Bearcharger, who has a boat waiting for them.

Predictably, shortly after saying all this, there's the sounds of combat coming from outside the door. Vicar calmly bolts his office door, walks to the back corner, and pulls a rope revealing a roof access. He then told the adventurers to sneak out the back, while he would do his best to prevent anyone from following.

This lead to a rooftop escape/chase sequence. It was pretty gimmicky, enemies chased after them, people jumped roof-to-roof; it was interesting to DM. Anyway, there were a few noteworthy things that occurred:

• Rurik found a large ruby stored in a crate as he went across a bit of rooftop storage.
• A man was playing a fiddle on one of the roofs. Rurik shot him a thumbs-up as the dwarven berserker used a zip-line to get from one roof to another, bolstering the fiddler's confidence.
• Ghengis spotted a strange man drawing a pentagram with red chalk through a hole in a roof.
• Sivi spotted a terrified wizard instructing an overly ambitious apprentice.
• Hildegaard slipped on roof tiles and had to hang from the edge of a roof by her fingertips.

Eventually the chase culminated at the city's docks, where Corora stood on her boat, shouting for the adventurers to hurry up as more thugs shot crossbow bolts at them.

They got away. Relief. Everyone took a nice long rest as the ship made a day's voyage towards the south towards an island where it was suspected the boat went to. As night approached, everyone went down into the body of the ship to get a good night's rest.

It's never that simple.

The Ship is Attacked!

The party is awoken by the sound of wood crashing into the side of the ship and the clangs of metal on metal. It's clear that something was attacking, and just as everyone stood up two men came running down the stairs to greet the party, with torches in hand.

I should have mentioned that there was a keg of Dwarven blasting powder in the hold. Torches. Hm.

Turns out, after quite a bit of fighting and a close call or two, the attacking boat was being lead by the assassin from the first session. This teaches the group a potentially valuable lesson: if you allow someone to survive, don't be surprised if they come back to attack you again.

Action Bullet Points!

• Ghengis, in a last ditch effort to stop thugs from lighting the blasting powder with a torch, gets on top of the keg and shoots FIRE at them. This miraculously works.
• Rurik is determined to throw the blasting power into the other boat to blow it up. He stumbles on the throw attempt and it falls into the water. At least there it was no longer a threat to the ship they were on.
• Sivi attempts to pose as the Assassin, but the group of thugs is not fooled by the existence of someone else who looks kind of like their boss. These guys are experts.
• Hildegaard spears dudes like there's no tomorrow. Spears for days. Spears for years, even.
• Corora (accidentally) steals Rurik's idea, and throws the assassin off of her ship, pulling a Harrison Ford "Get off my plane" in the process.

The adventurers now have a second boat. Things are looking up.

Wherein the DM Got Sleepy and Sped Past a Bunch of Content

The adventurers arrived at a forested island that had clear indicators that boats had been visiting it recently. After convincing Corora to stick around for their return, the party goes to the island using the boat they've acquired as loot from the ship battle. Hildegaard, using her expertise at navigating forests as a ranger, quickly finds the trail leading to where all the people on the island have been going: a large, rough stone keep. Overgrown in ivy and covered in cracks, there was only one real defining mark on the keep: a red banner with "L.T." emblazoned in gold text. The adventurers set up camp, and prepared themselves for an assault on a fortress.

Miscellany

In the event anyone is wondering, as soon as I'm done with my school finals and this branch of the adventure is complete, I'll be including my DM notes for how these adventures could have gone. Might be interesting to the players, might be useful for other roleplay peoples. I dunno. But look forward to those.