Grage Activity

11/13/2023 & 12/18/2023 - Critters, Carcasses and Corpses: The story picks up with the addition of Braciole the Tormentor (5th lvl Goliath Champion) and Victor Van Go (5th lvl Daywalker WM Sorcerer) hanging upside down from the ceiling with their legs buried in resin to the knees. Directly below them lay the bodies of a mage and priest along with a great many Kruthik hive victims and refuse, these two originally being teammates of the two hanging above. The fault of the two new players being in this dire situation is due to two NPC's that may ne seen at a later date, but these two did break their bonds and fell into the mess below, and able to recover adventuring gear and some magic items with limited success. As all the noise they made in freeing themselves alerted the hive, the reponse of the Kruthik adult guards gave an opportunity for the remainder of the adventuring group to gain entry to the hive and aid Braciole and Victor.
The party then faced multiple swarms of hatchling and a few adults before encountering the hive queen. Fortunately for the battle weary party, the queen lost too many hatchlings to want to ace the party, but had to get them out of the hive. She had her remaining adults dig a hole to the burial mound (the queen isn't stupid) and gave them the opportunity to jump down, assuming that was the goal since the undead she had battle in the past also wanted passage to the burial mounds. (Cat Claws)

11/07/2023 - The First and Last Day of Moist Seagal: When we last left the party, Moisty's bucket had fallen of his horse and swiftly went down stream. Fortunately, Suroh was off to attend a cliff concert with his fellow Aarakocra and spotted Moisty who he gave a him quick ride back to the party's camp. During the downtime between sessions, someone took Moisty's icon and replaced with a elderly Steven Seagal, and so, Moisty taking offense played to his new picture. He first leapt off cliff with the benefit of the monk's slow fall, but then had to wait for the party coming down the cliff trail. The party (now with Moisty), did an excellent job sneaking around the kruthik pecking and patrolling around the hive, but then decided kill the lone sentry guarding a north east entry point. Three kruthik hive guards and four hatchlings showed up with more probably coming per round as the hive went on full alert, and Moisty to go full "Hard to Kill" Seagal and told everyone to run while he held them off. He was quickly whittled down to critical and was unfortunately dropped by opportunity attack despite a rolled hit die via Wither and Bloom casted by Derfrick. After a savage bite by a hatchling that took two death saves, Moisty caught a break when the hatchling starting vomiting up his plasma and an extremely bad roll for the rest of the hive defenders had them vomming as well. It all came down to the next death save which Moisty failed with a seven, and died collapsing into a pool with a pool of lizard/bug thing vomit on top. The run and gun began after that with three of the savage hatchlings dispatched before the remaining four gave up pursuit and returned to the hive grounds.
Fortunately, The groups NPC cleric named Proid had a bad feeling the situation was going to become a shitshow and turned invisible a round beforehand, and was able to recover the puddle formerly known as Moisty. After almost running into an undead army that patrols the moors. Now, safely back abve the northeastern inside their Mordenkainen's secure shelter, the party mourns for struggles to formulate a plan and how to cope with the loss of Moisty the Monk.

10/17/2023 - Forest Griefers: After Moisty's bucket fell his horse stirrup and he floated downriver, the group made their way up through a trail leading northwest following an ever deepening river to a clearing where an old human man played a tune. The tune paralyzed some of the party and all of the party, which triggered a portal of imps to out to mock the party who in turn attacked the imps. They eventually figured out to damage the old man's intrument and he told them he was a cursed king and that bandits were ahead. The party did not anticipate satyrs with ability to charm via music and some players were not happy that they literally only had one attack. Thankfully, the non-charmed players incapacitated the two charmers and three centaurs faile morale and booked. The party then robbed the bandit fey and moved on, making camp overlooking their first target: a kruthik hive. They also forgot they have a Mordenkainen's Secure Shelter to stay in when making camp, so I guess they eneded under the stars.

10/03/2023 - Forewarned under Protest: I have discovered that my players are not into role-playing, or even interacting... most of them just like to kill! While I do respect that. It does become necessary to have some interaction in order to flesh out a module, and more importantly a large and stable adventuring campaign. So to keep it short and sweet: At the behest of the controlling council of Mayatic, the party must go down and into an ancient royal burial mound to find a sentient weapon possibly capable of finding an individual of the eldest royal bloodline. To complicate the task, a hoard of kruthik were blown in by a wild magic storm and has built a hive over the burial mound. Organized undead roam the countryside, but now ignore the kruthik for the most part. In addition, one member of the party was approached by a councilman who asked them to not bring back the weapon and jump start a new monarchy.

09/19/2023 - Well...that was Unexpected: All of the deaths I have had as a DM up to this point was pretty much killing off a character when a player has left the game (which did happen this time as well), but two character deaths caught everyone off-guard including me! Hats off Xemnas the Barbarian for using ancestral protectors to keep his two skeletal opponents on him from engaging the more squishier party members at the cost of his life. The party will also see the final exit of Lemont as his worn body and formerly removed brain are put to rest, and the new player who volunteered to temporarily play Lemont for a few sessions is bringing in her own character. Now that the party has reached the capital city of Oldeivael, the can divide up the loot while Xemnas decides or not to embrace life again. Finally, the Khopesh is now in the game.

08/20/2023 - The DM makes a Shit Show: So in my haste to move my players through Ashtar's Temple, I instructed them to prepare for 4th level as they would gain said level next short rest. Unfortunately, real life struck us and no one had prepped for the next level and of course, the one player that did prep before the game wanted to short rest. Sadly, they picked poor and cramped areas to camp and encountered wandering creatures. Since they had ended all of the touigher creatures in the temple, Against my better judgement and sent all the creatures to the bedroom of the high priestess and to get it over with because they were noisy as all hell. Now, hopefully we all will be ready in a few weeks for 4th level and loot...

07/09/2023 - Homebrew Interlude One - I have their bones, and I will travel: After defeating a nasty practitioner of magic called a Marrow Tracker, the group rested nervously despite taking care to locate any runes or devices that could be used to track the cart they rode in. In addition, the group briefly mounred the passing of Lemont, who succumbed to the damaging effects of drugs and drink - his liver failing him before a greater restoration spell could be sought. Despite his failings, Lemont was a capable wizard and played his role in slaying the Marrow Tracker, and now having no practitioner of the arcane arts with them made all in the wagon feel a bit less capable to overcome what lay beyond. These events now lead the party to Ashtar's Temple. This is a nice little vermin filled dungeon crawl from the Summer of 2001, and if the party survives the crawl - they will still have a huge obstacle to overcome before hoping to reach civilization.

06/25/2023 - Sarcastica: Magic is a weird thing. Mordenkainen's Secure Shelter (A magic item the size of a hand-held square box that creates a shittier version of Leomund's Secure Shelter without the protection spells) recognizes anything not attached to it and removes to the floor. Anything living is expelled out immediately upon closing - not constructs though, nor the undead. So Moisty was insutled to find himself trapped inside the folded shelter, and had to send out his longest pseudopod to squeeze through the seal around the shelter activation button, only to be stymied by a failed strength check. Olive initially failed at understanding what was going on, but eventually got Moisty out. During this time, Scarlet Roze was able to send/receive from the looted sending stone and made arrangements to meet the individual in need on the other stone. Guided first by the message from the stone, and then by telepathy, the party came upon a dirty road that strode upon it a carnival wagon without beasts to pull it. Upon entering, the party was stunned to find a brain in a large tube of Mountain Dew Voltage. Moisty, Olive and Xemnas were able to free the magical restraints on the Altered Brain in a Jar who is named Wren, and she provides them shelter and safe travel as they make way towards the nearest city.

05/20/2023 - Ancient and Old Smushed into New: As I attempted to locate a module that was fun, but not a typically played sandbox or path like The Secret of Bonehill, Curse of Strahd or Decent into Avernus - I came across two adventures from different editions, a moldy oldie, but goodie from the AD&D days called The Riddle of Dolmen Moor (RPGA5), and the 4th Edition module Seekers of the Ashen Crown. A nice mix of aliens and undead to give them a good boot in the ass.

05/19/2023 - Much Silver, No Gold: So the players used tactics, cooperation and a mostly reasonable distribution of loot... truly impressive! The module was ran as close to the book as possible, with only the bone scepter by the sub boss changed to a Rod of Retribution (destroyed by Lemont) and the Ratling minions (Ratlings?) were retconned to Tasloi since a large and wide variety of goblinoids live in the region. With all 4 players barely surviving the module, their party now expands to 6 as our one night replacement Scarlet Roze the Tiefling Warror joins the party as well as an Aarakocra Ranger named Suroh to travel to the capital of Mayaernic to collect the bounty for the rescued as well as collecting a reward from the Elven Carpenters Guild for saving the guild members from a frosty doom within the warlock's keep. In addition, an old warriror bestowed upon the party a small box that expands into a shitty house when commanded, but it seems to attract nothing but trouble as they journey southeast.

04/25/2023 - What was Learned & Spurned: A year and a half ago I began trying my hand at being a DM/GM. I started with eight players, some being family, some being friends and friends of friends, and my old DM from when I was a kid. It started out well enough... if not for the desire for killing for money and magic items, meaning everyone went right to murder hoboing. So after the first session I indulged them to keep my players interested. We started FA1 Forgetten Realms Halls of the High King from the AD&D days adapted to 5E, and it is a tough but generous module. Eventually I decided to do a stress test by letting the players have so many magic items they didn't know what to attune to and the long term disadvantages of attacking everything. After they failed to safeguard the king's shipment of weapons from The Risen Cult of Nerull (replacing Bane), the king submitted to the cult and let them take a noble for a ritual that brought Nerull's scythe Lifecutter into the possession of the cult.
The party had to abandon the quest and the island and lost the charter their mercenary company. They struggled on and joined another mercenary company, but the die rolls lead them to murder hobo'ing more and upon hitting 12th level the 5 remaining players wanted to make new characters. So, to summarize, I lost one player to his work time changing, another rage quit in multiple disputes with another player, and then that player came back and another player left because of the returned player, and then the returning player rage quit again after the group decided to role for a manual of quickness in action instead of giving it to the rogue, and after that the player that left returned because of the twice rage quitting player was gone for good. In the end it was real fun shit show. With the Grage FA1 campaign finally closed - I had 4 players left that wanted to start over fresh and I picked out and updated a module from 1992 called Quest for the Silver Sword.

11/06/2022 - False Start: After applying the bribes rerquested and taking some verbal abuse, the team got a nice long rest and geared up for the first leg of their quest by stopping off in the port city of Reerdon for much needed journeying maps. As the party became increasingly bored with lore and exposition, I set them out down the barren path to Reerdon. Luckily for this band of murder hobos, they had a critical fail on the encounter role and then their scout (a paladin for some reason) rolled a 3 on perception. An adult blue dragon with a bone to pick with three members of the party dive bombed from behind and wreaked havoc. Patwootis the blue dragon was mega pissed because most of the party had helped slay the Typhon/Kaiju a mere week ago, robbing her of revenge as well as the best pieces of her hoard. In addition, the dragon had been basking on the edges of wild magic hurricane level storms, using her intellect to focus and channel the WM exposure to her advantage (the Gloamless loves to give WM tips to friendly dragons), giving her thunder damage immunity and chain lightning breath.
The party greedly dove into battle when Patwootis landed after using her breath weapon, and it was Kirkland Ross use of the command spell that foiled the dragon's plan to take Ryker for a ride skyward and fling him into wild blue yonder from 300 feet! In the end, none of the party dropped but they did get bloodied, and it could have been a party wipe when the dragon's breath weapon recharged, but a well placed arrow from Saytens Spooky Unicorn put her to rest for good. After chopping up Patwootis for all her profitable parts, the group recovered most of their mounts and headed back to the keep to deposit the bio-loot as scavengers closed in on what was left of the sun cooked corpse.

10/16/2022 - Fried Pride: With great sadness we say goodbye to two players that have been at my table for over a year and a half. But along with the negative we get the positive: The return of the Paladin of Pizzazz Kirkland Ross next week! In addition, characters Waulie Ann and Julie Unruly will be stepping aside for their former player to pick up an earlier campaign which was her favorite. So a short and almost painful low participation complete with minor retcons and character deletions occured... a real shitshow.

09/18/2022 - Bites, Gamera, Vomit!: As the party gathered up the injured, the retreating Behir with Bruce Ryker trapped inside it's guts was being kept alive by the creature holding open it's gizzard, which gave the Paladin some relief from the corrosive stomach fluids and enough air to endure a bumpy ride to an ancient ziggurat. The Behir did up-chuck Sir Bruce after finding what seemed to be a dragon's lair, and after forcing the Paladin to tie himself around the waste with his own rope Sir Bruce Ryker was sent as scout, bait and a diversion. As Ryker made his way down the steps and into the ruined huge hall beneath the ziggurat, he spotted the white bones and the dried blue skin of a Dragon and was in-turn spotted by a Typhon Class Kaiju!

08/14/2022 - Squalled: So part of the party managed to four defeat summoned monstrisities except this one: , who has the party's Pally secured in it's gizzard.

08/01/2022 - This site is not optimized for mobile. So prepare to be disappointed.

08/01/2022 - With the escape of Greenskin, Waulie Ann, Drizzit, Ryker and Clip Clop from Bounding Cawl Islands, the remnants of the Democrats of the Dimensions turned the tables on their former leaders and have cleared their names in the Empire of Chauntless. As the group regained legal status, Greenfin secretly recruited fellow goblins from Cracked Eye Seaport and absconded with the schooner the party used for transportation. Greenfin returned to active duty with the Green Fleet, but promised his former adventuring party aid in the future. After being recruited by The Foretold Fist, the party now sails towards the ruined continent of Ahegthna to recover a piece of technology vital to the protection of the planet. The target is the former coastal city of Gyd, that is unapproachable by sea due to the presence of a Kraken, known only as the King of Silt who has the power to decimate an entire fleet!