Hello, and welcome to the Kaverns & Kobolds Klub!
In this thread, I, the dungeon master, will be honing my skills in hosting a third edition dungeons and dragons adventure over an online medium, with a team of four promising adventurers who embark on a a treacherous quest. On their adventure, our heroes will encounter magic, monsters, tragedy, treasure, traps, and much much more. Will they survive the ordeals I've prepare for them? The dice shall decide their fates.
Our story takes place around a small mining village known as Duvik's pass:
Duvik’s Pass is a small town nestled within one of the few valleys that cross through the Serpentcoil Mountains. It has long been a waystop for travelers and adventurers seeking to rest aching limbs and drown painful memories within her gates. Moreover, it has also gained attention recently as a potential power in the area’s commerce, due to a discovery of substantial silver deposits buried in the mountains nearby. Over the past three years, the men of Duvik’s Pass have burrowed into the ground seeking the wealth therein. Able-bodied folk from neighboring villages flocked to the town, hoping to lend their strength within the mines and garner some share of the prize. A wide variety of creatures may have had their own reasons to cross these mountains, but it was the smell of silver that drew the nose of a certain merchant-wannabe some time before our story takes place.
Schlomo Goldsteinbergwitz Jr. was a young goblin who travelled across this region some six months ago. The goblinoid came from a rather prestigious family of (((merchant))) Archivists in a far away region, and like all in his family, he had a nose for silver, the silver of Duvik's pass. Schlomo Jr. had only just finished his bar mitzvah and unpacked his presents when he got wind of a the prospects that'd been dug up in the promising town, and so he made off towards those very mountains, taking a dozen of his uncle's irreplacible bank notes with him. Infuriated, his uncle, Harold Goldsteinbergwitz, placed a heavy bounty on the theif's nose, prosising a reward of 4,000 gold pieces to whoever could bring back the young prospector, alive.
It's for this reason that our heroes, to be described, have gathered in Duvik's pass. Each of these young lads happened to pick up wind of the bounty as they were crossing the mountains. They've traveled far for the chance at fortune, perhaps even bumping into eachother once or twice along the way. The four cloaked figures enter the town at different entry points, stopping and asking less-than-friendly commoners for directions that may lead them to their fortune. To call the townsfolk unfriendly would be an understatement, as each of our four cloaked heroes would find brutally clear as they make frustrated ill attempts to communicate with the locals. The entire town seems to be on-edge, paranoid, and almost hollow in some ways. Our four unnamed heroes would find that the promising village of Duvik's Pass isn't all it was cracked up to be, at least not since a grim misfortune that had befouled the town long before their arrival.
Hope and industry of Duvik's Pass turned to despair and potential ruin with the advent of the Burning Plague four months ago. It began quietly enough, with the miners returning home from their work at nightfall complaining of blistering sores and an unbearable thirst. Shortly thereafter, the town’s livestock was decimated by an unknown illness and her crops began to wither. The elders of Duvik’s Pass declared that the well water had been soured by an unknown disease, but by then the Burning Plague had already begun claiming the young and the sickly. To make matters worse, the last few men still strong enough to plumb the wealth of the mine have yet to return from their last endeavor. The townsfolk know not what happened to their loved ones; they continue to await the return of their missing sons and husbands, while praying for an end to the sickness that continues to spread within their home.
Needless to say, few of the despairing commoners have anything nice to say to the cloaked strangers traveling about the town looking for clues to the whereabouts of the goblin merchant; some turn away in disgust, others point in various directions, some even throw rocks, but most of them just shrug in ignorance. Frustrated and annoyed, the four cloaked figures eventually find themselves marching across the town in the same general direction; they shuffle awkwardly alongside one another, trying and failing to avoid eye contact, perhaps vaguely aware of their common prospects. Together, willingly or not, the haphazard squad make their way to the town's largest pub and community center: The Old Plot Hole Inn. One by one, they squeeze past each-other through the doors of the tavern.
1400 replies and 78 files omitted.
I'm going to take this chance to point out that the spear that nobody bothered to loot is very ornate, with a silver haft and ivory carvings, and is definitely worth keeping.
>>121510The old man seems visbly uncomfortable, glancing at the spear every now and then, as if he can't really believe it's there.
"The orcs.. The Tornclaw. Dey were once the top dogs in this region, before the Zarians decided to push 'em out. Long family of mages; dey were the baddest brutes in the mountains.
"Ten years ago, was the end to a long war my brothers and I fought under the flag of Zaria against the orcs un dese mountains.. They were tough, savage, and strong, but not too many of 'em. There were hardly any left by the time we'd won. Just a few running off into the mountains, and one more who fought till he was near dead before escaping; he took my eye with him.."
>>121511lolIsla nods in interest.
"I see."
A pause
"Did they use some sort of dark magic stuff, maybe? Something related to zombies?"
>>121512"Am not so sure. Am no expert on dat orc juju. Dey sure as heck had some powerful hexers among 'em though. Der even had a pair o' dragons on their side. The Zarians won in the end, but they took out more than half of militia army. My comrades.. we're told to take out da shaman first.. it was easier said than done, cuzip those juggernauts could take a dozen bolts to the chest and still keep going. I thought we'd had em by the time it was over. The blasted savage was already being eaten by rats by the time I turned around, but then the bastard sprang at me and jabbed mr eye out, muttering his dark mumbo jumbo before skatin for the hills with a whole sled's worth of treasure on his back.. and none of us ever heard from him again...
.... until today..."
Seeing as how Lucy's player isn't feeling well, and I still haven't had the chance to reintroduce Rhyd, I think we outtalked cut it for the night.
I did a random ecounter, but i'll probably do them on discord from this point on. I just wanted to get the party back together before the adventure ended. There isn't much left here.
Goodnight.
Since it looks like some of the players would not like to play on the board for the remainder of this adventure, I thik I'll just cu the dialogue and narrate the closing of te story as follows:
The commners are at first skeptical of Lucy's "quick rundown", but are hushed by forceful words of the one-eyed elder. Word travels quickly of the supposed curse that the curse that ravaged the land had supposedly been lifted.
Defeating Jakk had an almost immediate visible effect upon the waters of the wellspring, which began to clear themselves of the muck of the Plague shortly after his death. The mine itself remains in need of purification and most of the contagious elements therein will have to be burned before it is safe to wander through the mountain’s interior once more. Even so, most of the able bodied young men left in Duvik's pass died at the hands of M'dok's Warband, and it could be quite sometime until the mines of Duvik are productive once more.
The Plague symptoms affecting the town of Duvik’s Pass begin to subside with the cleansing of its water supply. The townsfolk are most greatful, and are told that whenever they come back to Duvik, they will never need to pay for lodging or any supplies within reason during their returns to that place. The party find themselves cashing in immediatey though, for not a day after their descent frm the mountain, they all find that the themselves have all contrated a particularly horrid case of the burning plague, in addition to the filth fever that had been spread to them by the rats. They find themselves bedridden by ability damage, gracious for the free hospitality of of he Plot Hole Inn. The effects of direct exposure are so severe that they spend weeks tossing and turning in their beds in hot spread tormented by mad fits and nightmares, just barely managing to avoid permanent ability drain (Isla came pretty close though). Upon the fifteenth day, they find that they've all recovered, having been treated by Sister Morgan, the town's only Adept, finally free from her room in the Mayor's palace.
The next day, the party are all given the chance to meet the Mayor, a silver-haired human aristocrat named Cristofar Sendars, who is eventually convinced to leave the safety of his mansion after a heated dispute with and some name-calling from Scout Tungstan, the old barkeeper himself, who threatened to break down the door with his pickaxe if he didn't "get his sorry ass out of there". The Mayor obliges, but never takes off his plague mask for the duration of the meeting.
Mayor Sendars offers a reward of 100 gp taken from the mine’s anticipated profits to each adventurer who helped reclaim the mines (including the freaking goblin who didn't do anything but help himself to th last of the treasure). He also treats them and the town to a feast meal (cooked from the stocks he'd hoarded in preparation to wait out the plague).
Yeeck is given a free pony, and rides off ito the sunset, to never to return until or unless his player is able to play once more in future games.
Kiara, who tragically took her own life in despair of being tortured by the kobolds, is dragged out of the mine and buried to avoid her turning into one of a list of a hundred different kinds of undead monsters that make up this word's insane foodchain.
The fate of Rhyd remains unknown, but nobody seems vey optimistic given how he was abruptly taken by that giant spider..
The Banknotes of the Goldstienbergwitz Clan are nowhere to be seen, perhaps traded of to the Hobgoblin parade that visited the town three months prior. Mayor Sendars seems unwilling to speak of his dealings with the infamous goblinoid, but makes a remark that "That thieving bastard nearly ruined this town with his worthless paper mony!". The ivory stamp in Chef's possession, however, is proof that the notes were there, although it's uestionable if it would really be worth the effort to travel to the clan's homeland with neither the notes nor the living goblin in hope to extract a reward from the infamous (((bankers)))...
It's unclear what the future will brng for ou little band of murder hobos.
As for further adventures, rumor has it that word has spread among neighboring orc clans that the PCs slew the last son of the Tornclaw Clan. The wrath Gruumsh One-Eye, The God Of Vengence, is an ever present omen in the background, as the fearsome lord whispers to his shamen sends word to his followers that warriors who bring him the heads of the meddlers who thwarted his Burning Plague will gain his favor.
M’dok remains alive, trekking back to his clan with his wounded warband. Perhaps the little red Sorcerer may return in the future as well, leading another army to reclaim the mine he still considers his, for his people believe here is no obstacle in the multiverse that cannot be overcome with sheer numbers.
For now, however, the day has been won and the dangers of the Plague averted. The PCs (and their players) should take some time to enjoy the satisfaction of a quest completed. Perhaps one day they'll seek to investigate who Schlomo was trading with months prior, or maybe they'll search the mountains in hopes to find where Jakk stashed away the last of his people's treasures, but for now, they rest. The PCs who finished the adventure taking all the time they need to level up.
The KKK is dismissed for now, or at least won't return to the board for more than a week or three.
Thank you all for playing; it was a lot of fun! :D
I'll see you all on discord, so you can make any retroactive changes to your characters, and maybe try some encounters of mine if you're interested.
I'll narrate whatever happened to Rhyd (spoiler alert: he hasn't been eaten by spiders yet) whenever his player has the time. Last thing his player knew, he was cocooned in the ethereal plane, praying for salvation from the 8-legged menace.
The KKK will probably not formally meet again for a couple weeks, maybe even a month, since it looks like some of our players need some time to sort out their schedules.
In the meantime, I'll be reading up on some better and more original Content than The Burning Plague, and maybe trying out some crash course encounters while I contemplate mediums. I'm not entirely satisfied with how that adventure went (particularly how it lasted a month instead of just one day), so I'd prefer to be a bit more prepared if any future plot-based adventures are to occur.