Starting a New Campaign!

The first session and a half or so of Princes of the Apocalypse (Princes) was spent on character creation. Four new players were added to the group: Art, Kit, Rick and David. This will make for a large party. Most of the players arrived with a strong idea of a character they wanted to play. Dwayne had actually completed his character beforehand.

Part of the character creation process was to have each player describe a portion of their characters' back-story & have the group brainstorm a possible personality trait, ideal, bond or flaw. This started building a strong group dynamic right away. Be warned though, it was a bit time consuming and we unintentionally went over time on the first session. But it was worth the time, especially with a newly formed group.

The cast:

Ander, a half-elf soldier paladin of Tyr from Waterdeep. He is looking to root out evil and lawbreakers across the northwest. Played by Art.

Darwin, a young, blue haired human fighter and local hero in the Dessarin Valley. He knows he can do it all and bring down anyone causing trouble in the Valley. Played by David. David originally wanted to base his character off of Legolas (the movie version). Since he joined the group a session late, he started with the Human Fighter Folk Hero form the starter set to get him in quickly (previously known as Lakeo in Tyranny of Dragons). Later, I helped him adjust the character to be a High Elf Fighter Folk Hero being built towards the Eldritch Knight archetype. This will give the team a LOT of arcane magic.

Derek Eventide, an intelligent, human sage and wizard from a merchant family in Waterdeep. He is always delving deeper into how things work, even if it puts himself in danger. Played by Joseph.

Hos Kadeem ibn Solak, a charismatic, tall, green-skinned Genasi, water sorcerer, and sailor from a well to do merchant family in Calimshan. He is always looking for ways to increase his family's trading network, but he knows that people come first, be it family, crew mates or trade relations. Played by Rick.

Kariel Ilphelkir, a charismatic wood-elf, rogue and criminal from the High Forest. If she's bored she'll disappear. And we all know she'll be up to some mischief. Played by Kit.

Skomba Shieldbender, a tall, strong Goliath street urchin, fighter and former slave, from Waterdeep. He's always looking for ways to help the outcasts, slaves and underprivileged. Played by Dwayne.

Varis Nailo, a half-elf druid from Waterdeep. Money is of little concern when judged against the lives of animals. Played by Nathan.

To expedite the second session of Princes some character-to-character connections were thought of ahead of time. Even with these verbalized connections the party acted more like a bunch of individuals than a party. Each character individually or as a pair, in the case of Skomba & Hos Kadeem, made their way to their faction's contact in the town of Red Larch. Nearly every contact mentioned strange goings on and then directed the characters to Constable Haburk Tuthmarillar, who lived and worked at the butchers.

When every one arrived at the butchery the constable was explaining to Darwin that he couldn't handle the 4 bandits on his own. The constable recognized an adventuring party when he saw one. He offered the ill gotten gains of the bandits in exchange for their removal. The party accepted and set out for the suspected location of the bandit camp.

The group tried to sneak up on the bandits. Darwin was the only one to succeed and get a surprise round. Due to the party outnumbering the bandits nearly 2 to 1 the battle was swift and one sided.

The first round a volley of ranged attacks dropped one bandit and injured another. Then Derek the wizard cast sleep and put 2 of the bandits into a supernatural slumber. On the second round the third bandit spent his action waking one of his fellows. They couldn't counter attack the party the second round.

The bandits also had a bear caged in a wagon that began trying to escape once the fighting broke out. Varis the druid cast animal friend on the bear to try and calm it. It mostly only made the bear think of Varis as a friend so it continued to try and escape the violence. As the fight was obviously going in favor of the party he let the bear out of the cage and with a successful Wisdom (animal handling) roll, Varis convinced it to flee the area.

As the fighting concluded 3 bandits lay dead and the 4th asleep & wounded. The last bandit was bound for questioning by Hos Kadeem who was a sailor and knew knots well. 

While this was happening Kariel the rogue was poking through the treasure in the nearby cave. Ander the paladin noticed her in the cave and loudly thanked her for gathering the loot. One of the character connections was Ander caught Kariel in one of her larcenous endeavors in the past and had reason to think she may not be on the level. As a side note in Encounters and other Adventurer's League events you have to split the loot evenly anyway.

After the bandit awoke the party questioned him and discovered he had been a goat herder in the mountains before he became a bandit. He stopped doing that and turned to crime after monsters, specifically ankhegs (giant acid-spitting ant-lions) ate his herd. After the interrogation the party put the bandit into the cage on the wagon took the loot and set off toward the town with Skomba the very large goliath fighter and Ander the very strong half elf paladin primarily pulling the wagon. The ramifications of taking him to town will have to be discovered next session.

Since Rick and Joseph are AWESOME and helping with chronicling, the next post is forth-coming, but we're already a session ahead. Being back in the DMing saddle after a long absence has been satisfying and challenging. I'm glad I got a chance to play this system before running it. These early encounters have so far been a bit too easy. None of the monsters have pack tactics, and the numbers have been a bit low. So no kobolding. I'll probably have to adjust some numbers up to keep the challenge up.

I'm also hoping to be a bit freer with the Inspiration.

Also, anyone looking to try this, visit the Isle of Games this Saturday. the 20th (Free RPG Day, guys!) From 12-4. I'll be running a Goodman Games licensed module for 12th level characters. Find out if you can slay the dragon!