Introduction

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ DnD 5e campaign I ran in 2017-18, the ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign I ran in 2018-19, the ‘Out of the Abyss’, a campaign I ran in 2020, the ‘Phandelver’s Pact’ campaign I ran from 2020-21, the ‘Shadows over Saltmarsh’ campaign from 2021-22, and my current Pathfinder 2e campaign, ‘Vaults of Otari‘. CoS was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that), which is why I can use them for this column. Now, I post summaries to Roll20 after each session.

Here are the session summaries from my first Dragonbane campaign which I started running in 2024 after buying the Dragonbane Starter Set. It’s adventures from that set, plus some homebrewed content. We’re still playing; this summary is from early on in the campaign.

I apologize in advance for the writing in these summaries – they’re a bit raw, and not fancy at all (I don’t have time for fancy writing when typing them up late at night after each game lol). Some will be more detailed than others. The campaign continues!

Steve 🙂

Session 19 – The Alliance & the Oracle

Archmaster Aodhan the wizard awoke in his little red wagon, covered with tree branches and stuck in a niche in the rockface. He climbed out, read a note pinned to his chest and promptly followed the clues, making his way through the caves to locate his missing party.

They had all rested briefly after their run in with the spiderlings. Theoline the halfling barrelmaker passed out from his wounds, and Bastonn the Wolfkin Hunter elected to carry him. Volcarian the wolfkin embercaller summoned his Salamander, who promptly caused issues due to separation anxiety when he was ordered to go far ahead and take orders from scout Kris (which he wouldn’t do because she wasn’t his summoner).

Kris, the bold halfling, led the way through the tunnels to the west, eventually coming to a room with weapons, armor and skulls stuck in the walls. Further west was another very narrow tunnel, which the party managed to squeeze through (with a few becoming stuck, and being pushed free by the others). Kris was getting a little aggravated by the Salamander, who luckily faded away when his summoning time expired.

The halfling came to the foot of a natural rock staircase, leading upwards. She led the way to the top, with the party following. Kris heard noise ahead and openly declared who she was. As she rounded a corner, the halfling came face to face with two orcs in front of an ancient outpost. The orcs were a little confused at Kris’s precociousness and rushed off to get their leader, Agra.

Agra, a tall, female orc chief, arrived and questioned the party’s motives. She was culturally affronted when Kris indicated they might have taken the child Roric. Agra informed the party she was of the Maladuk clan, they were hunting cultists of Sathmog and had nothing to do with any children (or child-eating stereotypes). Upon hearing this the party offered an alliance (Kris indicated the caves were full of cultists).

Volcarian presented Agra with the banner of Clan Takruk he had recovered at the Tower of Sighs. Agra accepted the alliance, offered up three orcs (a good-natured sergeant called Frank and two others obsessed with “orcish telepafy”) to track down Sathmog cultists and the child. The party and the orcs split up when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Crossing a swaying bridge of spiderwebs, the party made their way west until they came to a large web-filled chamber. A hissing voice filled their minds, and they were confronted with the largest spider they had ever seen. Saak’Shal the she-spider was the fabled oracle of the caves, and she had the child Roric webbed up in a cocoon. After incapacitating Kris with her webs (that’s what you get for “accidentally” attempting to burn a she-spider’s webs), Saak’Shal offered to give the party the child if they eliminated the pesky orcs.

The party agreed and left, knowing that they didn’t really want to kill the orcs they’d just made a pact with. As they made their way back over the web bridge, Archmaster Aodhan fell into the raging rapids far below. The party couldn’t believe the wizard was gone and naturally assumed the worst. They made their way dejectedly back through the narrow tunnel and into the caves beyond, continuing south into a lake-filled cave where they found Aodhan being revived by Frank the orc.

Reunited, the more fulsome party headed back to the spiderlings’ cavern and northwards. Kris led the way into a cave full of spiderwebs and human-sized cocoons. Three giant spiders rushed down from the webs. Volcarian and Aodhan sent fire blasts at the creatures. Bastonn killed one with a precision spear stab and dodged attacks with his fancy footwork, while Kris was hit by one spider’s poison stinger and paralyzed. The orcs killed the first, then finished off the second spider, but one of their own was killed. They buried his body in a spider carcass, dismembered the other spiders and partially ate them in celebration of their victory and comrade’s death.

Aodhan decided to suck the paralysis venom out of Kris’s wound and was promptly paralysed in a compromising position. Eventually they both recovered.

Kris found a survivor in one of the cocoons, but when she found out he was one of the bandits who had kidnapped Roric, she promptly summoned the orcs to “take care of this Sathmog cultist”. A few moments later, the blood-soaked orcs had beheaded each of the bandits and were parading their heads on their belts chanting “Sathmogs! Sathmogs!”

Bastonn suggested perhaps they trick Saak’shal and the orcs by presenting the orcs to her. Aodhan and Volcarian were against this, having taken a liking to the quirky killers. While this was happening, Kris decided to sneak off and find the other orcs so they would have greater strength of numbers to take on Saak’Shal. The rest of the party and the orcs made their way to the entrance cavern and rested for the night.

Meanwhile, Kris found Agra and the other orcs and then promptly got lost while leading them through the tunnels…    

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