D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Shada »

Threader walks towards the encampment, arms out to his sides in a cocky sort of manner
Threader wrote:Alright, my mustard-robed friend, who's in charge around here? Let me put a face to the guy who's gonna authorise the payment for slaughtering a bunch of evil monsters.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Grimmie »

The Half-Orc turns with a smile, offering up a shred of beef to his owl. He's an old fella, wispy grey whiskers around his face, dark liver spots on his face and hands. Old for a Half-Orc anyway, Orovan and Glibberig are probably older.
Halil Yimaz wrote:Welcome, friend. Quartermaster Ryfon holds command of the dig.
He points over to the Elf standing atop the column, who seems to be keeping an eye on you all as you shuffle in wearing armour. The students behind you catch up and start to branch out towards their designated spots, greeting other students on the way in, catching up with one another in warm conversation.
Halil Yimaz wrote:Though I'm the one who holds your pay, young one. I expect you're eager to see it, travelling all this way on a promise. I am Halil Yimaz, of the Ochre Robes, the university's house Sage."
He buries the base of his staff into the ground and beckons to the treetops with his fingertips, curling them inwards. At first it's not clear what he's doing, but after a few moments seven leather sacks drift down towards the ground from the canopy, one stopping in front of Threader, and the others distribute among the party. He holds the last and offers it up to his owl.
Halil Yimaz wrote:And this is your gold. Hoot, take this to the driver, there's a good boy.
And off Hoot flies, back through the forest towards Bill.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Shada »

Threader enthusiastically checks inside the sack for coin. [Assuming it's all there] He then looks up to the half-orc, grinning widely.
Threader wrote:We-he-hellll nice to meet you then, Halil! I'm sure we'll be just the best of friends. Now then! What's got you guys so riled up that you're passing this amount of coin around to get it sorted? The job notice wasn't entirely specific. Mind you, they very rarely are.
Threader began eyeballin' the Quartermaster towards the end of that sentence, not being too fond of being watched.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Grimmie »

Halil reaches with his wrinkly old hands and closes your fist around the sack. It's 300 made up of platinum (20), gold (90) and silver (100) pieces.
Halil Yimaz wrote:Our students are very valuable to us.

The cartographers who travelled here with you need to survey and catalogue the area around this building as our archaeologists uncover it. We also need to look underground to give us an idea of what this building was used for.
He gestures over his shoulder to a partially dug up room with a set of heavy oak doors built in to the muddy floor tiles, and then to a couple in front of you examining a large stone slab.
Halil Yimaz wrote:The doors to the cellar, they were sealed in stone, Hastos and Jastra are trying to translate it. Beneath? Things that skitter and crawl and creep. Who knows? Maybe even your next sack of gold. Feel free to make camp and rest if you need to, speak to the students, or if you're feeling adventurous you could well begin to clear the lower levels.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Mr. Johnson »

Thoon wrote:Well, what's in there is not going anywhere so I'm having a few drinks before I go in. Care to join me?
Thoon turns to where the students are working.
Thoon wrote:HEY! Any of you bookworms want to see my evil dog head?! It doesn't stink anymore!
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Dog Pants »

I'm happy to wait while Thoon has a drink and grosses everyone out. I won't have a drink but I will have a wander around the site and quietly ask the students examining the slab what they know so far.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Shada »

Threader is fully prepared to get tanked up on dwarvern ale and smash some monster heads in.

He aint all that interested in the students. He doubts there'll be anything to talk to amongst them, unless they know a few sea shanties, then they'll get along just fine.

He's still sending furtive distrusting glances towards the quartermaster.


Ready to move on to the dungeon when everyone else is! I assume we'll rest up a bit before we delve.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Mr. Johnson »

Sea shanties? Maybe the bard can write you one.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Roman Totale »

Glibberig wrote:Oh I do like to be beside the seaside
But it doesn't like to be by me
For when the waves are high
And the ocean meets the sky
I like to go a skinny dipping
Glibberig clears his throat.
Glibberig wrote:Ahem, my voice went a bit there - almost like I'd not spoken in over an hour! I apologise, I do hate to deny you such simple pleasures. Cor, look at the bird! I had one of those once, although mine was bigger. He used to let me ride on his back and we'd fly across the lands exploring new places. I don't know why they never caught on as a regular means of transport. I remember one time we were flying over a dark, horrible area, full of lava and ash. Down below I could see some halflings struggling to reach the top of a mountain. Don't know what they were doing, but I'm sure it can't have been important, otherwise they'd have gone by bird! A shame those wolves got to them.

Drinks and merriment sounds ideal! Would your students like to hear tales and songs of our adventures?
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Roman Totale »

Glibberig wrote:Yo ho ho and a mug of brown ale
All aboard boys as we go to set sail
With the wind at our back
And our backs to oar
It's not long now till we reach distant shores.

Yar, ahar, ahoy off we go
Plunderin and pillagin
Drinkin rum down below.
We sail by day and cruise by night
When you see our mighty galleon
You'll get such a fright!
Glib sidles up to one of the students
Glibberig wrote:I didn't mean to frighten you my boy, we're not really pirates! Well, not all of us anyway. My friend Threader over there was once a mighty Pirate Captain. Reformed now, of course. Mostly. He was once feared anyway that water was more than waist deep - sharks fled before his prow, and mermaids grasped in his wake.

Did you ever hear of Balthazar the Barnacle Butcherer? Choppy Tom, the wave cutter? Captain Mack Tallow, the candlelight calamity? Of course not! Admiral Threader sank them all before they ever became a threat!.

Yarrr.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Shada »

Threader wrote:Ha! You sing a good shanty and speak a great load of truths, friend. Perhaps I should hire you as my bard once this mercenary business is over.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Grimmie »

Sorry for the pause :aww:

I didn't want to shoot ahead till I was sure Pants was happy to play over Roll20.

Thoon - the students seem a little startled when you produce the dog head and ask where on your journey you encountered a Death Dog, as they're better known as night hunters. Despite the magical lanterns overhead, night's drawing in. Halil offers to answer any questions you have about them though, he seems to think himself something of an expert when it comes to magical beasts.

Forenrond - the students studying the slab are a couple of well-dressed Elves. Hastos is an older gentleman with a well kept greying goatee, Jastra is a younger woman wearing a viscously pink dress. They don't seem to have gotten very far in their translation, it seems to be some form of Giant, but it looks like there's some other language blended in to it which doesn't read quite right.

Glibberig - You end up telling your tall tale to a guy called Rueben, who wears a tricorn with a tall purple feather sticking out the top.
Reuben wrote:Reckon that your pirate captain could use some appropriate headgear then. Token of gratitude for lending a hand with the dig.
He lifts it off his head and hands it over, and bends down to retrieve another hat, this time straw, from underneath his work table, along with a similar purple feather sprouting from its side.

A young human boy talking to the Quartermaster comes towards your party.
Squire wrote:Would you like me to stable your horses, and your.. B-bear?
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by FatherJack »

Squire wrote:Would you like me to stable your horses, and your.. B-bear?
Thor wrote:Grizelle would thank ya kindly if you would, yessir. She's uh, a bit scared of the big horses, but she'll just curl right up in a ball and go to sleep.
Forgot to play this at the last stables we stopped at, so Thor's probably already cottoned on that a bear in a stable is a bit unusual, even though from his point of view in context of our odd mix of races and mounts it hardly merits a mention. No-one has mentioned it - they probably just think "yeah, that's just Thor". Of course to outsiders on seeing our merry bunch, they probably think the circus has come to town.

Thor sees all the books the students are looking at and scowls at them (the books)
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Roman Totale »

Presents! How wonderful. Here, have this piece of writing chalk in return.

Glib sidles up to the student startled by Thoon...
Glibberig wrote:THOON!
Give the man some room!
If you spill his drink then it could spell your doom!
He's got a beard, and a beer, and he's about to get real
Step a little closer and you will feel
A boom
boom
The voice of Thoon
Paladin. Adventurer. Can kill you with a spoon.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Grimmie »

Good game last night, we tried out Roll20's neat little dynamic lighting engine. How did you all find that, did it add much to the game or was it just a hindrance?

The party delved into the basement beneath the dig and Orovan cast light on Threader and Thoon's shields to illuminate the way. The hallway immediately before them was in complete disrepair and crumbling around the edges. After dispatching a spider the size of a dog and advancing down the dusty corridor a few more came barrelling towards them. Orovan identifies them as Hunting Spiders, and warns everyone they're poisonous. A few shots get made with bows and slings and spiders fall before the party's might. A bite gets landed on Thoon, but the sturdy Dwarf shrugs the venom off as though it were nothing - squirting the liquid from his leg with a flex of a muscle. It's decided that the spider is called Bono, and Thoon turns it into a fine red paste.

The room the spiders came from gets explored, a small break room with a table and chairs and some split barrels of beer. The flagstones beneath are sticky and swarm with mould, but Orovan decides to tap and drink from one of the in-tact barrels. Sampling 250 year old brew and failing a fortitude check, the Gnome takes some non-lethal damage and a bad taste in his mouth.

Threader rifles through the stuff on the table, pockets a set of rusty keys, hands a "Boring" book to Thoon and a "Bag full of shit" to Orovan. The book is called "The Tales of Elrich the Giant Slayer" and tells short stories of a Giant-killing Gnome and his various adventures. The pouch contains a bag of marbles, a black fur hat (well preserved in its leather pouch) and a set of waxy blue candles.

While the others try to decide which door to open next, Threader listens closely to the nearest and boots it in. Orovan spots beds in the opened room and leaps inside to jump on a set of revealed beds (possibly just playing with the dynamic lighting), and in the process manages to snap a bunch of wooden slats and disturb a Giant Fire Beetle sleeping beneath. The combat doesn't last long, and Orovan drives his short spear through it, soaking it in glowing orange butt-goo to gain a little torch (which, if you're wondering, will last for a good 24 hours).

Annnd that's where we're up to!

Thanks for coming along to play last night guys. Combat and conversation seemed to flow pretty well.

Edit
We should start recording these, if only for the stupid shit we come up with, like calling Thoon's main weapon "Waraxe Davis".
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by shot2bits »

I enjoyed it thoroughly, good write up too Grimmie. i think it was Glibberig who gave people glowing shields though.

And i thought the dynamic lighting was quite nifty, nice little touch that.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Dog Pants »

I liked the dynamic lighting. Roll20 is pretty good.

Something probably easier discussed out-of-character here rather than in-character over TS like I did last night is movement and looting. Just dragging your character through the dungeon looting everything while everyone else is doing admin or AFK is not good for me. In character I'll be petitioning the rest of the party for their opinions on the looting, out of character I'm just not interested in playing a PvP campaign.
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Mr. Johnson »

Dog Pants wrote:I liked the dynamic lighting. Roll20 is pretty good.
:above:

I had a swell time!
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by Shada »

Dog Pants wrote:Something probably easier discussed out-of-character here rather than in-character over TS like I did last night is movement and looting. Just dragging your character through the dungeon looting everything while everyone else is doing admin or AFK is not good for me. In character I'll be petitioning the rest of the party for their opinions on the looting, out of character I'm just not interested in playing a PvP campaign.
Over voice it does feel a lot like you're telling me off rather than my character, haha. But I getcha.

Anyway, Threader is a young, impatient, true-neutral in-it-for-himself adventuring asshole with a huge ego who genuinely believes he can take on anything. He'll likely always charge forward without thinking, but I'll reign in on the looting now that he's been told off. It wouldn't benefit him in the long run for the whole party to turn on him, after all.

And yes good work grimmie on the mapping and DMing! Shit's funnnnn
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Re: D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

Post by FatherJack »

Nice one Grimmie, the lighting was a cool addition, but it does seem to be worked out using you own character's point of view, so I found myself having to move around so I could see what the people who had gone charging ahead were talking about.
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