Session 4: Guest Writer Stefan Poag!

Guest Writer Alert!

I was out of town for this session so our fellow gamer and friend Stefan Poag took over. If you are into role playing games, particularly the fantasy art that accompanies them, then you know Stef and his work. He has done illustration work for Goodman Games, Kenzer & Company, Game Developer and others. He’s also a really gifted writer. Check out more of his work here: https://stefanpoag.com/

A write-up of our biweekly Dungeons & Dragons campaign from the perspective of my character, Heyou, a teenage elf barbarian. Heyou was kidnapped at a young age by bandits. His family was murdered and his face disfigured, including the almost complete removal of his ears, before being sold to the orphanage where he grew up. Orphanages are big business in our fictional world as they produce the laborers that power the economy. The disfigurement means it was impossible for any extended family to identify and claim him. As a result, Heyou has a very jaded world view but also sees the ability to make money by perpetuating the kidnap-and-sell scam. He is not very bright but considers himself so and thus he frequently uses words incorrectly. Heyou and several of his fellow orphanage mates have reached the age where they must leave and go find jobs in the fields they have trained all their lives, however they have chosen a different path and have overthrown the thieves guild that once ran their small corner of town.

These write-ups are done as a pure stream of consciousness – one of my favorite ways to write. No thinking in advance. No multiple versions. Just a laptop, the notes from the gaming session scribbled in my journal, and then I go at it in one continuous burst until it is finished. I allow myself one edit to keep it pure but to find as many errors I can before sharing.

Caladryl’s Journal

I took over journal duties since Heyoo is too busy scrubbing out the orphanage's toilets.

Last session we rescued the chest filled with black coins which we turned over to Big Ulp as instructed. Also we got some more weapons and stuff from our benefactors and we killed three wererats.

We returned to our hideout where I told my comrades that we should just go ahead and be evil instead of pretending otherwise… one of our number wants to mutilate children and sell them, another is the spawn of a devil, etc., and, as far as I was concerned, the city of Holdoor was a fucked up place that deserved whatever we dished out. There was some grumbling from the potato farmer and the girl but whatever. We also went up to 2nd level.

We looked into making or buying silver weapons but of course this is Kevin’s campaign so we don’t have enough money to buy silver arrows. In 5th edition, silver arrows cost and unreasonable amount of money IMHO. More than arrows made of solid fucking gold with tips of diamond. WTF WOTC?

Payton from the orphanage came to pay her protection money. First she begged 2 gold from the Dark Gecko and then she paid him with the money he had just given her and he announced her account as paid. I don’t think the demon spawn understands how capitalism works. Payton also complained that the orphanage was a mess and needed repairs after the fire so we sent Jillian and Heyoo to help. Heyoo was instructed to give the privies extra attention. Dark Gecko went to work on his armor and managed to knock out a few strips of banded mail. Two kids wanted to help and ended up bashing off their fingers and thumbs (Heyoo will complain that this decreases their market value).

The rest of us went to the Miller’s to try to get in touch with Red (our benefactor?). There was a suspicious looking person with a hat pulled down over his face in the shop so we requested a private audience with the Miller but I don’t remember what was said. Someone else can fill that in. I went out and used a disguise self spell to transform myself into the semblance of a skinny human man with lank hair… and when the mysterious stranger departed, I followed him. Dank and Maella went back to our fort where Dank nailed a dead rat up over the door.

The mysterious stranger went into an apartment building and I followed him. I was trying to determine which door he went into and he suddenly confronted me in the hall and asked me what I was doing there.

“I’m looking for the apartment of Mr. Scott,” I responded confidently. He watched me as I studied the nameplates and then I saw one of the nameplates said, “Mr. Scrot.” “Oh, I must have the wrong building,” I said and left confidently. I didn’t notice that the mysterious stranger followed me back to the fort but the potato farmer saw him doing so.

I went inside and dropped my disguise. The mysterious stranger just used his own key to walk right in. We drew weapons and asked him what the fuck he wanted. He said he had been an informer for the previous residents and would now be an informer for us. He told us his name but I’m pretty sure it didn’t matter so I didn’t bother to remember it and I just thought about how much I wanted to slit his throat. I demanded (and got) his key to the door. He said he would give us valuable info for 1 black coin. Maella said we would give him the coin but if the info wasn’t valuable, we would slit his throat and take the coin back (see how evil she is?). He gave us a map and told us that two rival gangs were fighting. We let him go, sacked up and followed the map.

We arrived at a house where there were some corpses scattered around the room. Some of them were guys with red and white collars on their shirts, some of them had a rose embroidered on their shirts. We explored around and found a guy with the red and white collar gasping out his last breath with a sword in his gizzard. Maella bandaged him up a little (enough to keep him from bleeding out) and cast Friends on him. He told her to go rescue Jorge… the enemy were attacking the treasury… we had to rescue Jorge.

We explored hallways that went down underground in the direction he indicated and came upon a room where two of the “rose” thugs fought one red-and-white stripe guys who was valiantly defending himself with two swords.

We decided to attack the rose guys first and then decide what to do about the other guy… so we ran in, shooting arrows, stabbing, etc. After a few exchanged blows, one of the rose guys withdrew to drink a potion and use a wand which promptly disappeared (Al’s Campaign) and then summoned some sort of invisible creature. Our regular weapons didn’t hurt it but the red-and-white stripe guy successfully stabbed it which means that at least one of his short swords is magical. I filed that information away for future consideration… it would be a shame if his throat got cut and someone stole his magic weapons, eh?

Maella managed to make it temporarily visible with a frost spell. We killed the wand guy and the other rose guy drank a potion of invisibility and tried to get away. Dank tackled him and I skewered him and then Dank chewed his throat out.

We were hard pressed to defeat the invisible creature since most of our weapons didn’t hurt it but we hurled a couple of spells at it, weakening it. The frost wore off and it turned invisible again but I rant towards the spot where I thought it was, an inflict wounds spell on my lips, and released the magic just when I came into contact with it, destroying it.

At that point we and the surviving red stripe man took a look at each other, trying to decide what happened next. We told red stripe that we understood that Jorge needed rescuing and that seemed to impress him and he said we had better get going then.

That it where we ended… bodies on the floor as of yet unlooted.