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 recently finished the campaign, after 38 sessions!

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.

Steve 🙂

Spoiler Alert: This summary contains spoilers for the adventure Somber Vale, available on DrivethruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519044/draakenslund-adventures-3-somber-vale

Session 21 – Somber Balls

Kalgrim Rockbreaker, a recently divorced, dwarven artisan, wandered into Somber Vale after following a falling star he spotted the day before. As the dwarf entered the hamlet, he noticed it was strangely quiet. Bizarre puncture holes, in groups of three, covered the muddy roads and grass. Kalgrim could hear noises to the north of the hamlet, and sneaked forward to see what the commotion was.

Krisanna, the bold halfling, approached one of the metal balls, but it moved to lash her with a spiked tentacle. Zog, the wrestling circus ogre, used his mental abilities to create a power fist and then jumped on a ball, crushing it. Archmaster Aodhan (wizard) blasted two of the balls with fire blasts, but they fizzled out without even scratching the tough metal shells. Bastonn the wolfkin hunter stabbed one, denting it badly, and noticed that the strange metal casings were not like any metal he had seen before.

One of the balls zapped Aodhan and Kris with an electrical charge, nearly felling the two. Kris sought cover in the nearby stone watchtower, spotting the dead guard’s body at the base of the stairs prior to hiding.

Zog was knocked unconscious by one of the metallic spheres as it slammed and slashed him with a vicious tentacle. He crashed into the mud, almost burying poor Roric, the small child the party had only just rescued. 

Kalgrim rushed into the fracas, slamming one of the balls with his hammer. Its shell was cracked badly and he noticed wires and crystals inside. Bastonn finished it off with a spear thrust, while Kris backstabbed another and Aodhan blasted some more. Finally, Kalgrim destroyed the last.

No one had ever seen the like of these metal tentacled contraptions before. Kalgrim salvaged a piece of the strange metal and Aodhan, a crystal, but it dessicated and blew away into Zog’s face. (Years later, he would succumb to asbestos poisoning. Just kidding.)

The party did a round of introductions. Kalgrim was travelling, looking for adventure after his business failed and his wife divorced him. Since new party members were hard to come by (and seemed to die often), they invited him to join.

Roric, coughing and spluttering, extracted himself from the mud and rushed to his home. His mother, Aliksia, welcomed him home and ushered the party inside. She thanked them and mentioned a fallen star had crashed in the river a day ago, and then the metal balls had appeared in town, electrocuting and taking the villagers underground. There were old caves under the hamlet, which had been used to store goods a century ago, but were now closed off after an accident. A few guards had gone below to investigate, but never returned. Now all the other villagers were missing, taken by the tentacled balls.

The party agreed to find the missing people, and rested for the night in Aliksia’s house. Kalgrim sharpened some of the party’s weapons, and Kris pored over her secret treasure map. A treasure horde was supposedly hidden in a cave to the north of the Misty Vale; Kris was determined to have it, but for now it would remain a secret…

The next morning the party made their way to a ruined house nearby. The walls had been knocked outwards, as if something had damaged them from within. There was a deep sinkhole in the bedroom where the floor had collapsed downward. Zog leapt in, using his mentalist abilities to float down like a feather. Kris set up a rope and the party gracefully abseiled down into the depths.

At the bottom, Bastonn and Kris moved further down a tunnel to find water lapping at the shore – the caves below town appeared to be flooded. Kris tested the depth and nearly drowned. She elected to ride on Zog’s shoulders for this little expedition.

Bastonn waded into the waters and came across another gleaming metal ball attached to one of the tunnel walls. This one was covered with crystals that glowed, and rotated back and forth as if looking for something. The wolfkin quickly speared one of the ball’s crystals, destroying it. The guard ball turned and fired painful energy pulses at Bastonn and Zog. One by one, Zog, Kris, Kalgrim and Bastonn destroyed the remaining crystals, silencing the “cannon” ball.

Two more tentacle bots were attracted by the noise; Zog crushed one and Bastonn and Kalgrim finished the other. All was quiet, except for the sound of meat being torn and chewed, somewhere not too far away…