*UPDATE*
After reading this Play-Through after it was posted, I realized that it did not really show case our bard character. I will be posting another bard post in the next week or so, to go through and show off the highlights of the class.
This week for our Play-Through Party we are going to playing through a short tutorial to show off our featured class for the week. This week is the Bard. You can read about the bard here.
This is not an ongoing campaign, just a short tutorial with a few of our other characters we have at the moment. Today my guest is going to be my friend Darren. He will be playing Shadow Blade and Brass Shield.
“Trisha (Half-elf Monk), Shadow Blade (Halfling Rogue), Brass Shield (Dragon Born Fighter), and Ogrush Story-Teller (Half-Orc Bard), arrive at the northern port of Frozen Cove. They arrive in the harshest part of winter. There is deep snow all around the town (about a foot or so deep) except int he main roads. The town is average sized about 30-40 buildings, with a larger house towards the center of the town.”
Shadow Blade and Brass Shield look into a weapons shop to gather supplies. Trisha and Ogrush pick up some extra rations. Shadow Blade and Brass Shield catch up to Trisha and Ogrush and also grab some rations. Shadow Blade takes the time to grab a steel pot to boil water in.
The shopkeeper here says, “Winter be harsh this year. Food will be hard to find, animals are all holed up somewhere. Bandits be pretty bad this year as well. Aye, if you talked to our mayor about it, he may be able to give you more information about the situation.”
The party makes their way across town to the mayor’s home. They get into see the mayor. The mayor is short portly man, bald, and loud-voiced. “Yes? What do you need? I am rather busy.” Shadow Blade and Ogrush (the diplomats of the group) approach the mayor, “We hear you are having troubles with bandits this year, if we got rid of them for you, what would you give us?” The mayor, “Ah yes, the bandits. They have been stealing our food supply, leaving our stores short on anything but small rations. That is no way to live. If you get rid of those bandits AND make sure our food is unharmed we would be able to give you each 100 gold.” Brass Shield steps forward, “We will do it. Tell us were they are.” They mayor says, “They are off to the west of the town, about half a days track through the woods.”
“The party leaves town and makes their way through the forest. They experience a quiet passage through the forest. The forest is eerily quiet. As the towns folk mentioned there are no sounds of animals, or anything. Just quiet. They reach the edge of the forest, seeing there is a cave in the side of the cliff face.”
Shadow Blade goes runs up to the cave entrance, trying a stealth check before he reaches the entrance, and rolling a 2, instead starts waving his arms screaming, “Hello in there!” The rest of the group, just kind of face palms then runs up after him. Two thugs come running out of the cave. The party fights them off. Beating them rather quickly.
“They party enters the cave. The room is about 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep. The ceiling is about 10 feet tall. There is snow in on the floor. There is 3 tracks of foot prints in the snow. There is one that goes straight back to a wall, one to the left to a wooden door laying against the wall, there seems to be a cave in on the other side, then a door on the right. There are more foot prints heading to this door.”
Shadow Blade trying to redeem himself, tries to see if he can figure out how to open the obvious secret door, and fails. In fact the whole party fails on checks to find out how to open. Shadow Blade tries to redeem himself again, to the group, and goes to sneak up to the door, and rolls a 2, again. So instead of listening on the door like planned, he decides to knock on the door, and say, “Hello? Is anyone home?”
A large man, about 6’3″ with bulging muscles and a great sword comes running out at him to answer the call. “Who the ‘ell are you little man?” Brass Shield slams into the Berserker, slashing at him with his longsword. Shadow Blade goes around behind him, and stabs him in the shoulder with is rapier. Trisha runs up to the berserker and punches him twice in the face, then follows up with an uppercut to the throat. The Berserker swings at Trisha, she dodges off to the side of the blow. Ogrush in the corner of the room, “Your mother is *****!”, he says to the berserker. The berserker staggers from the mental anguish of the insult (Vicious Mockery).
Brass Shield swings again, Shadow Blade follows up with another stab, then Trisha punches him in the stomach. Then again is the face, then again on the back of his head. The berserker, swings at her, and brings his sword right down on her head. Dropping her to the floor in one, blow. Ogrush, seeing this shouts, “Your mother is the biggest ***** I have ever seen!” The Berserker, replies, “To ‘ell with you, she is a lovely lady!” (Passed his saving throw). Brass Shield swings at him again dropping him to the ground. They stabilize Trisha, and haul her outside of the cave, back to the forest for a rest, Ogrush keeps watch because he is unharmed. They rest up and everyone is ready to go back into the cave. They go back in and go through the door.
They see an empty hallway, that leads to another door. Shadow Blade, trying a third time today, attempts to sneak, and rolls a 20. He sneaks into the room, and sees there is a mage, and two more thugs in the room. Trisha sneaks into the room after him, and sees it. They formulate a plan, to where the others will wait in the hallway to draw the guards out, and they will attack the mage.
Shadow sneaks back and relays the message to the others, then gets back into position in the room with the mage. Ogrush smashes his flask of oil in the hallway and readies an arrow at the next person to pass through the hallway. Brass Shield readies his breath weapon, a line of fire, and starts slamming his shield and sword together.
The Mage, “What are you waiting for? Go see what that noise is!” he says to his guards. They run down the hall, past Trisha and Shadow Blade, and as they turn the corner, Ogrush shoot an arrow in to the first guy as he steps in the oil on the floor. Brass Shield spits fire down the hallway hitting them both, setting the oil on fire. Shadow blade runs up to the mage and shoots an arrow at him, dealing massive damage. Trisha gets into a prime position for her next turn.
The thugs in the hallway charge forward taking fire damage, they both attack brass shield, he dodges both blows. Brass Shield lays out the first thug, then Ogrush hurls insults at the second. Shadow Blade shoots another arrow at the mage. The mage retaliated by hurling sacred fire at the little halfling doing decent damage to him. Trisha runs up the mage and punches him twice, then a third time laying him out. As this happens the sounds of battle from the hallway reside as Ogrush and Brass Shield drop the last Thug. They find some items on the mages desk, and see a small closet off to the side of the room, with the door open. The look inside and see the food, see that there is a lot of food there. They rest for the night.
“The party makes their way back to town. Their journey through the forest is safe as it was earlier. They reach the town and make their way up to the mayor’s home. They walk into the mayor’s home and tell him that the towns food is safe in the cave. The mayor pays them their gold and sends a wagon off to fetch the food.”
The group goes back to the tavern and gets some food and drink.