Describe your last RPG session in more than 5 words.

My players completed our 2 year-long campaign in the previous session. So for this session, I had planned an epilogue for it, and also the starting areas of he next campaign. A while ago, 2 of my players (a couple) moved to a city further away, because of a new job situation. So they have a 2 hour drive to get to our sessions, and another 2 hour drive back.

I kind of expected them to drop out at some point due to the crazy commute, and they appropriately chose to do so as the campaign ended. Unfortunately, they didn't inform me until the day before today's session, so I ended up only doing the epilogue part, as I didn't want to start a new campaign with only 3 players and then haphazardly adding more underway. Since I didn't know they were going to leave before the new campaign, I had also done a bit of work setting up some situations for one of their characters to foreshadow, and give some personal investment for him, in an important part of the next adventure.

They were great company though, so I am sad to see them leave.

Yesterday I ran a 6th level Shadowdark adventure called "The Queen of Thorns" at TotalConfusion in Marlborough, MA.

It was an epilogue to the three part Triarch Crown game I ran at Carnage (Killington, VT) in the fall. In those adventures, the PCs retrieved and returned the powerful crowns of the unquiet dead Three Empresses. Well, except Empress Rose and her Crown of Thorns because they learned she wanted to use her crown to "return to nature" their home city. Think a very angry undead fantasy Poison Ivy.

Anyway, in yesterday's game, she had acquired her crown from a different thief/adventurer and was taking over the city. But before she completely destroyed it, she wanted revenge on the ones who refused to free her previously (the PCs). The PCs knew they were being hunted but did not think she knew who they were on sight, so they went to find out how the Crown had been freed and if there was something they could do.

The Crown had been being held in the vault of Caleb Darkseer, who had foreseen the danger of giving it back to Empress Rose. He ended up getting betrayed by his apprentice and crucified (alive) on the wall of his tower by the Queen of Thorns as a warning to others. The PCs got him down and learned the story, but in so doing exposed their identities to Empress Rose.

They had to decide whether to get out of Dodge or take the fight to her. They chose the latter.

it was a TPK.

The pcs are playing through L1: The Secret of Bone Hill. Last session ended in town, in the burned out guard house, exploring the secret level underneath the place in search of the giant rat that had previously bitten a local child. The pcs spent this session fighting undead and giant rats, as well as spending some time in town spending money (this is the group where I am using the 'ale and whores' xp system, in which you ONLY gain xp by spending money on frivolous things such as ale and whores- nothing that gives you anything, just burning it up). Most of them concentrated this on literal ale and whores, but one bought rooms for a bunch of travelers, and one bought a sauna session from the town's druids. A new pc joined this session, and the group got enough treasure that he made 2nd level and the rest of them hit 3rd.

They then returned to the guard house and continued exploring it. They had exhausted most of the possibilities except for a cramped passage that stank of rat and had tons of droppings and rat tracks leading in and out, and the new guy- a forest gnome- used minor illusion to duplicate the mating calls of a female rat.

A massive wave of giant rats responded, resulting in the pcs fleeing for their lives until they could slam a door shut that the rats couldn't easily penetrate, then escape through a secret tunnel to the river's edge (still in town, but well-concealed).

Be careful ordering summons around.

The PCs are at an ancient watchtower imbued with a magic that can summon a trio of imps who are under the control of their summoner, the idea being to send them out as invisible scouts to increase the tower's effective vision range. After one of the imps got a little too verbose explaining this, the PC who summoned them told it "Right, no more talk from you."

Shortly thereafter, the imps were sent out in three directions to scout the region for some foes the PCs knew were nearby. When they got back, I had the PC roll 1d3 to see which imp had successfully spotted the enemy. He rolled a 1, and it turned out to be the same imp he'd issued the order to earlier, who then remained silent rather than telling him what it had found.

You're as cold as ice.

A successful session of Rime of the Frostmaiden, as the characters pass their tests and finally lay their hands on Auril's secrets. But when Auril asks "Are you willing to court death to receive my blessing?" she seriously means death. One failed constitution save later, and as the session wraps up the party's ranger is petrified as an ice statue.

John Dallman said:

Player departed; big reveal; planning!

Click to expand...

The departing player is for an interesting reason. The Monday Avalon group has been running for four years, and the party are about 12th level. The DM is running another weekly session, in Avalon, and the departing player has been in that too. He feels it will be easier if he isn't having to keep two sets of information separate. Also, his Monday character is a Caviller with a very abrasive personality, who finds he doesn't get to make many glorious charges as part of a group that's mostly doing investigations and intelligence work.

The big reveal was (a) How the "One True Church of Evil" removes memories from people and (b) that it is possible to recover them, although it's quite difficult. The party have not decided what they want to do next, although they eliminated a few possibilities.

MarkB said:

Ice-petrified ranger defrosted, much rejoicing.

Click to expand...

Another success for Mordenkainen's Microwave, no doubt. Or were they just propped up in a campfire?

Silvanus's Sacred Spring, in this case. Except that it's winter, so the spring itself had to be thawed with Create Bonfire.

ichabod said:

Meet Gork, save crazy lady

Click to expand...

Woe and alas. If only it was the other ork deity so I could make a joke about her name being Mindy.

Wofano Wotanto said:

Woe and alas. If only it was the other ork deity so I could make a joke about her name being Mindy.

Click to expand...

Gork is not a deity, he's just a really rude goblin who been enchanted to follow the rogue's orders. It was fun for a session, but I can tell already that I'm going to have to kill off Gork pretty soon.