Laidback DM: SteveStillStanding.com

Hi all,

Over the last few weeks I’ve been posting some warts-and-all email summaries of the Curse of Strahd campaign I ran in 2017. This is the first campaign I started sending summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that).

Some of the summaries may be dull, some may be amusing; some are written in present tense, some in past tense – these are unedited emails, so please forgive their somewhat chaotic nature and poor sentence structure/grammar.

If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them, but I warn you: I’m not Mathew Mercer and this is not Twitch.

Game on!

Steve 🙂

Week 20

Mark’s Gnome Bard re-joined the party after a very, very long rest. After a quick discussion, Natasha’s Gnome Druid cast water walk so the party could cross the river and get to the swamp on the other side (“Why’d the party cross the river? To get to the…” – okay, never mind). Everybody decided to sneak down the road past the ruined houses to the goat pen, where a number of skulls were mounted along the fence.

Having learned earlier that skulls are a warning sign, the Druid decided to talk to the goats and tried to open the gate to let them out. The skulls immediately started screaming in alarm. In a moment of pure inspiration, the Bard decided to polymorph into a goat to persuade his goaty brethren to rise in revolt against their obviously evil witch overlord (who might, for all the party knew, love goats). 

William’s Dragonborn Paladin (with his spectral horse) hunkered down in a nearby ruined building. The Dusk Elf Wizard NPC and Natasha’s Druid hid in an overgrown and thorny garden behind a mansion, while Dan’s Halfling Monk hid in another ruin. Seven Scarecrows wandered up to investigate the alarm. The Bard gave an inspiring goat speech to his fellow goats and charged the gate, doing a teeny-tiny bit of damage. The other goats decided to rise up against their oppressive overlord with him.

The wizard and druid were attacked by poisonous snakes while hiding. The druid conjured constrictor snakes and the wizard and druid high-tailed it out of the bushes to hide in the ruin next door. The monk leapt out to fight the Scarecrows, was frightened by their glare, surrounded and soundly thrashed.

Baba Lysaga appeared overhead in her flying skull.  She noticed the paladin and cast a lightning bolt at him. Both he and the spectral horse were frazzled and the horse didn’t make it. The bard decided being a goat wasn’t so great, changed back, ran underneath the flying skull and misty stepped up into the back of it. Baba Lysaga cast finger of death on him, killing him outright.

The wizard fireballed several of the scarecrows (and, unfortunately, half the newly socialist goats in the pen). The druid cast healing word for the monk to recover. The monk hid and added poison to her weapons. The paladin threw a few javelins at the skull, then misty stepped up to the skull, attacked Baba Lysaga from behind and sent her flying out of the skull to the ground.

The bard rose from the dead as a zombie. The druid zapped him with a moonbeam.  Bye, bye, bardie. Time for a new character, Mark!

The paladin misty stepped down to fight the witch. The monk ran across and flanked her. Their combined attacks knocked Baba Lysaga unconscious.

Then Baba Lysaga’s Creeping Hut appeared.

The druid polymorphed the paladin into a tyrannosaurus rex, and the battle was on. The wizard flew onto the roof of the hut. The monk dragged and bound the witch. The paladin changed back to dragonborn form as his polymorphed form sustained full damage. The druid polymorphed him into a T-rex again, but the creeping hut creamed him, finally knocking the paladin unconscious. The house then put down the monk and the druid in short succession. Only the wizard was left. Inside the creeping hut, he cast magic missile onto the floorboards, broke through and removed the green stone powering it. The creeping hut collapsed, defeated. Unfortunately, the paladin failed his death saves and was dead. The wizard managed to stabilize all the other unconscious bodies.

Tied up on the back of the creeping hut was Mark’s Goliath Barbarian, his new character ready to conveniently replace his dead bard.

Meanwhile, a mysterious figure in a ghostly light appeared at the mansion ruins across the way…

Next week: Recovering artifacts and on to the Amber Temple!

For more Laidback DM, click here.

All Laidback DM products are on sale at DrivethruRPG.

Hi all,

Over the last few weeks I’ve been posting some warts-and-all email summaries of the Curse of Strahd campaign I ran in 2017. This is the first campaign I started sending summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that).

Some of the summaries may be dull, some may be amusing; some are written in present tense, some in past tense – these are unedited emails, so please forgive their somewhat chaotic nature and poor sentence structure/grammar.

If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them, but I warn you: I’m not Mathew Mercer and this is not Twitch.

Game on!

Steve 🙂

Week 19

This week, after a long rest in Asgarte’s chamber, the party elected to burn the demon with Natasha’s Gnomish Druid’s wall of fire. This didn’t work, instead burning away the magic sigils keeping the demon imprisoned. Before Asgarte could get out and ravage the party, William’s Dragonborn Paladin decided to grab the Gnome and drop him on the back of his spirit horse in the corridor they had previously traversed while the horse was flying (they were expecting a trap, after all). Unfortunately the spirit horse wasn’t flying this time. The corridor floor became a slippery downward ramp and the Gnome and the horse slid down into the opposite wall and then further down to the bottom of the shaft, 40 feet below the double doors of the previous room.

Meanwhile Asgarte decided to take advantage of the situation and push the Dragonborn Paladin and Kasimir, the handy dusk elven NPC wizard, down the ramp. Kasimir, being an all-around weakling, went all the way home, crashing into the horse and gnome. The Dragonborn was made of sterner (stupider?) stuff and stood his ground. Asgarte took a few swings at the paladin, and then decided (in what turned out to be a bad move) to slide down the floor to take out the magic users. Dan’s Halfling monk, casually poisoning his blade, decided to slide down the ramp and give the demon a damn good rodgering. This wasn’t entirely successful, and he ended up flat against the demon’s back. The paladin decided to slide down with a javelin and missed by that much, both the demon and the monk. So now all the party was down at the end of the slide, packed in like lemmings.

The Gnome cast another wall of fire just in front of him. The NPC wizard cast some magic missiles. The monk stunned Asgarte for a round, and the monk and paladin took advantage of this to finish him off. A mighty divine smite was the killing blow, with William’s paladin claiming the title of “Demonslayer” forevermore. Or until someone else killed a demon. Either way.

The party climbed back up to the room, took the 4 x 2000 GP diamonds from the walls and made their way out of the tomb. The short, skull-encrusted romp was a success. “That’s the most treasure we have ever found in Barovia,” said the Dan’s monk, telling everyone what they already knew: Barovia is full of poor and depressed people.

Meanwhile, what to do? After much discussion, the party decided to take a wagon and some horses and go to Vallaki, as it was really close. There they found much of the population had deserted the town, due to lack of wine the party had failed to deliver. Oh, and that little Vampire Spawn massacre a week ago. Looks like the church where Ireena and her brother were holidaying was destroyed as well. Ireena and Ismarck were missing… 

The party headed back to the Inn, where they had a free meal on behalf of the Martikovs. The dragonborn changed into a raven to show solidarity with his wereraven chums, then had to put all his armour back on. The wereravens got a good laugh out of that. 

The party decided to question the burgomaster to find out what they could do. The monk got antsy during the discussion, attacked and killed the burgomaster (despite a valiant attempt by the Gnome to save the burgomaster by changing him to gaseous form). The rest of the party set about supporting the guards who took the monk off to gaol. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 GP. 

The burgomaster’s wife was not amused.  No, dragonborn, it wasn’t a good time to ask her about that strange mirror in her bedroom. “And how did you know I have a mirror in there, anyway?” said the lady. “And where did my wedding dress go?”

“We’ll just be going, we’ll make our own way out, no need to fuss, see you next time,” said the party, tip-toeing to the door).  

While the party went back to the inn, the monk shared some pipeweed with her guards. The druid felt bad, went back to the monk’s cell, changed into a spider and walked under the door, changed the monk to gaseous form (that spell has been pretty useful this time around) so she could escape and then toddled out again. The Halfling monk decided to hide in her wagon as she wanted to avoid the dragonborn, who was a bit peeved the monk had killed the burgomaster (“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” said the paladin, having conveniently turned the other way when it happened). 

The party decided to go to Berez and recover the third green stone for the Wizard of Vines and also find whatever it was the Tarroka Cards were referring to that lay there. Somewhere. Their wagons got bogged (lots of mud in Berez) and they crossed the river to talk with a wereraven spy who gave them intel on the witch Baba Lysaga who lived in a tiny hut in the center of Berez with her freaky scarecrows.   

Next week: Back  across the river, and taking out that witch. Or making friends and influencing people. Or smoking pipeweed. Or whatever they want to do.

For more Laidback DM, click here.

All Laidback DM products are now on sale at DrivethruRPG.

Hi all,

Over the last few weeks I’ve been posting some warts-and-all email summaries of the Curse of Strahd campaign I ran in 2017. This is the first campaign I started sending summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that).

Some of the summaries may be dull, some may be amusing; some are written in present tense, some in past tense – these are unedited emails, so please forgive their somewhat chaotic nature and poor sentence structure/grammar.

If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them, but I warn you: I’m not Mathew Mercer and this is not Twitch.

Game on!

Steve 🙂

Week 18

After a two-week enforced delay, the game was afoot.

The party was pleasantly surprised by…you guessed, it, fog! And lots of treasure (most un-Barovian). After ransacking the remains of the Vistani encampment, everyone seemed more excited at the prospect of horses and wagons, rather than gold pieces. But it’s been that sort of campaign – it’s all about sore feet and the indignity of walking.

While searching the main tent, William’s Paladin discovered a well, hidden under the campfire (isn’t that where all the best wells are hidden? In Barovia, anyway…). The wall of the well were studded with human bones and skulls. Naturally everyone felt a bit worried. So, the next day, after a very brief discussion, money signs flashed in their vision and they decided to explore it.

Natasha’s Druid shape-changed into a bat and scouted the well and the first corridor below, seeing through the illusion-covered pit with her echo location (“Damn,” said Steve. “Foiled!”). To get across the pit, William’s Dragonborn Paladin piggybacked individuals as he climbed the walls. He only fell off once. The floors were also covered with skulls and bones (a Barovian designer choice, perhaps: “I think I will go with skulls for the floors and walls, it’s so in, this season”).

The first set of doors opened easily, and the Paladin’s spidey-sense picked up lots of undead (“Damn,” said Steve. “Foiled again!”). The party very slowly made their way across the room, tested the doors at the other end and that’s when the undead skeletons and a mummy made their brief guest appearance, thanks to the Dusk Elf leader’s fireball (“Damn,” said Steve. “Foiled again!”). Yeah, turns out he’s a bit of a wiz. Wizard, that is.

Next room, a teleporting hole in the floor over a water laden pit, guarded by two Hook Horrors. Lots of fun, with William’s Paladin’s spirit horse activating the trap and the paladin being dragged down into the water after grappling with one of the monsters. The party hung back at the door, using ranged attacks (“Damn,” said Steve. “Foiled again!”). Eventually the horse and paladin were saved. The Wiz cast fly on the horse and the party were safely transported over the floor. The Druid fell into the floor with the Wiz, changed to a giant spider and carried the Wiz out (“Why do I bother with traps at all,” said Steve).

The last room was home to a trapped Demon called Asgarte, who promised the party anything they wanted if they freed him. So, the party slept on it, taking a long rest in the room and thoroughly annoying Asgarte, who stood watching all night with crossed arms, tapping his foot.

Next week: The end of the mini-adventure (Steve’s excuse to use his new dungeon tiles), and back to Barovia-proper!

For more Laidback DM, click here.

All Laidback DM products are now on sale at DrivethruRPG.