Motley Crew: Session 0

 

After a series of unfortunate events (the quarantine, jobs, life, etc) stopped my local group from gaming outside of a few one shots ran by various members, we were able to get a Dungeons and Dragons 5e Campaign off of the ground.

After some discussion, the GM decided to run Descent into Avernus. So, this is everyone's one and only SPOILER WARNING! If anyone reading this plans to play in this campaign or is playing in it, there will be spoilers in the play reports. 

Without further ado, I will introduce our adventurers!

Garrett (H): Garrett is a Human Druid. Garrett is a folk hero who gives aid to those who can not help themselves. Originally from the deep north, Garrett escaped just ahead of a hunting party; he promised to return and free his people. Garret has a good heard and will not stand for any wrong done in his presence.

 

CAUSE OF DEATH: The sword of the Pirate Dead Eye in Elfsong Tavern during Session 1...

Merrick (B): Merrick Hawklin is a Human Paladin, of the Corymr Hawklins. Rough edged, but humble and down to earth despite his noble upbringing. Merrick acted as a local constable for a many years before succumbing to the need to fighter the bigger good fight which led him to putting in for an replacement. He hopes to earn the right to join the Purple Dragoons of Cormyr.

Theren (M): Theren Silverstar is a young Elf Wizard who just turned 100. His clan was slaughtered by orcs. He gathers experience and fame to fortify civilization’s edge, as a base of operations to take the fight back to the orcs. Theren is a practical and prudent man, using his skills and peoples ignorance to the best of his abilities. 

Tonic (T): Many years ago, a Drow trading post was raided under false pretense and just about all were killed. One of the Knights found a Drow baby and could not bring himself to kill it. So, he took it home and the Knight and his Wife raised the Drow child. During this time, the child was educated, trained in combat by his adopted father, and was basically the village secret as the drow child became known by the nickname of Tonic and was well liked by most. During Tonic's young adult years, the local lord found out about a village harboring a Drow and made a lot of threats and offered a lot of rewards to find who and where this Drow was. Tonic, to save his family and the village any trouble, left on his own to find his way in the world. 

Due to his lineage, Tonic ended up in a lot of fights and has plenty of scars to prove it. Tonic soon realized that people of a certain character and related jobs care a lot less what you look like as long as you do your job. This led Tonic down the road of being an enforcer for local guilds but eventually his dad's voice about honor crept back and he slightly altered his professional focus - he still thrives in the underground but works as a bounty hunter for whoever will pay. Regardless of this, Tonic is a logical man who has flexible morals but is loyal down to his last breath to his friends.

Bond/Flaw (Unknown to the rest of the Party): Before he found himself in Baldur's Gate, he once fell for a lady who didn't care about how he looked. Well, she fell victim to a mugging gone wrong and when Tonic returned to her city after a job to discover this fact, he tracked down the people that did it, killed them, and framed someone else for the crime.

 

Uthar (P): Uthar is a fighting Goliath that left his tribe as a young adult after a caravan stopped to trade for carouse for a week. Uthar saw all the glitter and glory that the wider world could offer. Uthar then spent a good amount of time working as a caravan guard and doing various mercenary work which lead him to Baldur's Gate. Uthar tends to get attention being 8 ft. tall and covered in tribal tattoos and scars from countless battles.

 

Gabriel: Gabriel made his living as a tracker, hunter, and teaching rich overfed nobles how to rough it in the woods. After a particular pompous noble decided to make Gabriel's life a living hell after a suffering a stupidity induced injury, Gabriel decided to get out of that business and started to travel from village to village and hunting for them. This eventually led Gabriel to Baldur's Gate where mercenary work become his only option for income. Gabriel was sent by Capt. Zogg to reinforce a particularly Motley Crew....

 

These people found themselves at Baldur's Gate for different reasons and each one have been within the Baldur's walls for various amounts of time. They well recruited into the Flaming Fists and were put together into a squad. They have been working together for weeks...

My First Dice Tower

 

For years I have heard about dice towers and how amazing they are. A lot of the praise comes from how they supposedly make dice rolls more random. If they do, then I doubt it is by much. If they don't, then they are great just to have.

So, after searching around for awhile I found this one, which is depicted above. It is high quality but smaller then I thought.

As chance would have it, I would get to test it out right away as I had an upcoming Dungeons and Dragons 5e game to play in. After about five hours of play using it here and my thoughts on dice towers in general:

• It can mix up the dice rolling aspect
• Is a good way to control the dice so they do not go flying all over the table. I think this is especially important when the group is at a small stable or it is a large group. Plus, I do not like people touching my dice
• It is satisfying to hear the click clack
• Rolling multiple dice at once can cause them to bounce off of each other in the "settling" area. This can be good if it was a bad roll or bad if it was a good roll. It knocked me out of a few good rolls

All in all, I really enjoyed using it and I am glad I finally got it. The dice tower will make an appearance in a lot of games I am sure. Though, to be honest, towards the end of the night I missed the act of rolling so I started to roll by hand. 

Detroit Suck City: Episdoe 15

 

 

The crew starts out heading into the burn after deciding to veer south and skirt the edges instead of driving though the heart of the burn. Hours later the crew comes to a fork in the road and Kamanje turns to the right which would take the crew right the the middle of the burn unbeknownst to the crew. 

The crew comes across a massacre in the middle of the road. A large section of the road was covered with bodies, the twisted metal of ruined vehicles, shell cases, scorch marks, and a few small burning fires. The crew slows down to investigate and to move some of the debris out of the road so they could pass. As they are making slow progress the roar of engines are heard in the distance moments before a motorcycle with a side car housing mutant octopus and a thin boy with a shotgun and a ATV speed around the bend. Before the crew can even react, a rocket is fired from the ATV wish narrowly misses 9s on his hover bike but the blast send him careening out of control, and off the side of the cliff. 

Wilhelm riding his Po Dog charge the ATV but Wilhelm gets hit with weapon fire and ducks into a long warehouse like building as the ATV jumps over some rubble to follow him. The ATV circles around and slams into the Po Dog which sends Wilhelm flying off into the sand. As the ATV driver continues to try to injuries the Po Dog, the driver meets the business end of Wilhelms sniper rifle and takes off. The second shot from the rifle goes wide as the ATV vanishes into the distance. 

During the same time, shots are exchanged between the crews hover van and the motorcycle with the side car. During these exchanges Kamanje notices that the hover van is really bogging down because they are now 2, then 3, and now 5! Hughies popping up. It is quickly surmised by Parrot that the radiation blast Hughie took form the Obb in the Killbox somehow caused him to mutate with temporal fatigue. Hughie keeps multiplying until they are 8 total and these Hughies start rolling out of the hover van. Before the rest of the crew could even get their bearings, two more motorcycles speed around the bend and head towards the hover van.  

Kamanje not missing a beat, speeds up and crashes into the two incoming motorcycles sending destroying the motorcycles with the sounds of screeching metal as one of the drivers fly through the window of the hover van. Parrot and Kamanje dodge the flying dead body but it lands on top of Hughie. 

As Kamanje tries to control their steerless hover van Parrot notices an armored tow truck bearing down on them with a two headed duck gesturing wildly at them with a shotgun, a mohawk burn wench driving, and a giant bare chested human hanging on the back of thee tow truck swinging around a tow hook. 

Kamanje, Parrot, and the OG Hughie all bail out of the hover van and quickly take up deference positions as Parrot fires his AK at the motorcycle with the side car - taking out the dirver and sending it crashing into a rock formation with a fiery explosion . Tthe tow truck continues to speed towards the hover van with obvious intent, two of the Hughies teleport inside of the truck - one of them fighting with the passenger and the other one grabbing the steering wheel and wrenching it to avoid a bone crushing collision. The antics are successful even though Kamanje had to leap to safety to avoid becoming road kill. The other 5 Hughies fire their crossbows with some of the bolts finding their mark as one of the Hughies in the tow truck pull the pin on a stun grenade and it explodes knocking everyone unconscious except the driver who takes a hard right into the burn to escape. 

Within in minutes of the remaining opponents escaping, they crew kills two of the unconscious Hughies which cause the other 5 to vanish in puffs of acrid smoke. The real Hughie falls unconscious as 9s finally makes his way back up over the cliff walking a dented an dbut still functioning hover bike. 9s looks at whats left of the hover van and the fresh carnage and asks, "What did I miss?". As they quickly scrounge for additional supplies they notice that their ambushers vehicles all had this symbol painted on them...

 

 

The crew does not find anything useful that survived the carnage and heads out once again. They take shelter in a decrepit warehouse just before night fall as Hughie wakes up with a double New Years Eve hangover. 

Just another Day in Detroit Suck City...