Dragons of the Grove - Part 1?
I've given you a few stories but here is absolutely the best campaign I've ever actually DM'd
We ended up playing for a little over a year and each and every time we played it was excellent. There ended up being over 100 named NPC (I actually have to keep the word doc open while typing this) and the plot was almost game of Thrones intricate sometimes (player statements, not mine).
Special kind of magic in my campaign - Soul Artes
Powerful magic. Quick and easy path (like the dark side)
Requires Valuable item to corrupt into a Phylactery
Phylactery can hold 1 soul per 1,000g in value of item sacrificed.
More valuable the item sacrificed (in either gold or sentiment) the more powerful the phylactery.
Spells can be cast at 1 soul per spell level.
Example: Sleep (lvl 1 spell) - costs 1 soul
Fireball (lvl 3 spell) - costs 3
etc. Also you need to do a successful "Spellcraft" check to "learn" the spell.
You get sould by murduring intelligent creatures and stealing souls before they hit the afterlife. Taboo in most cultures.
>Allot happened in this campaign all the time, I will try to condense
>Important points
>Near beginning of campaign party was captured by group of lizard men going to be auctioned off as slaves to a bunch of high class nobles and rich business people.
>In this world, slavery is considered illedal except for "monsterous races" which would be like kobalds, goblins, gnolls, etc.
>Also, all (non-monster) races are considered "Human".
>Basic humans are known as "Masics" (basic+man)
>Party consists of:
Vahan - Female Sand Elf Swordsmaster (homebrew)
Seazle - Male Masic Druid
"Hogar" - Male Gnoll Barbarian
Dorris - Female Masic Ranger
Rex - Tan Orc Gunslinger
Most of these characters met up during this auction. Held a daring jailbreak and managed to scare off all the rich folk. They discover a box in the back of the tent where they were being held. This box was super fancy and locked tight. The opened the box to discover:
Princess ***** of house Malvae - Female Drow Noble Sorceress
This was actually a surprising turn of events. I made it very clear in the story that the underdark in this world was almost mythical. Many believe that it didn't exist and especially not Dark Elves.
> language barrier but was able to communicate with some spell and linguistics work.
>Last thing ***** remembers is having been kidnapped outside her city. Doesn't have memory of much else.
>Promised party amazing treasure if they could return her to her city.
>party really couldn't think of a reason why not to and sticking together as they left this place seemed to be the best idea
>They steal a wagon and drive down the road to the nearest city
>Next day they are attacked by several nobles in carriages. They have guns and mean business
>Party figures they are pissed at losing slaves and money
>Wagon-coach chase battle! very fun
>Party eventually defeats them
>chase down stragglers, take 3 prisoners.
>Turns out, most of the nobles that attacked them were teenagers or young adults. Only 3 kids left.
>2 elf "teens" boys (twins) from a house of elves named Ias Durathil
>1 masic teen named Donnovan of House Michaels (richest masics in country)
>There were also some Stoneshaper dwarves that were killed (most powerful dwarf family) but they didn't capture any.
>Party deciding what to do with prisoners.
>Michaels' boy is being total chav
"Wait until my father hears about this! He will have you hanged for murder!"
>Made this kid's personality along the lines of Draco Malfoy and a touch of Lanister pride
>Party instantly hates this kid
>Party also gathers loot and everything else gathered from the area.
>Their wagon was smashed but the other three carriages were fairly intact.
>Seazle uses Wood Shape spell on the wagons and combined them into one gigantic Super Wagon.
>Party loaded all their loot onto it and threw the prisoners into their makeshift brig.
>Party heads down the path in what is basically a house on wheels with 8 horses pulling it.
>thanks to the druid's spells they were able to traverse most common dirt highway obsticles.
>Michael's boy complaining the whole time, threatening with beheading, threatened to have the females raped, etc.
>Hogar beats the kid into silence but he still makes comments once in a while
>They want to murder this kid but feel they can at least bargain him off for their freedom so they keep him alive.
>They come across a large cottage in the woods.
>Turns out this is one of the hunting cabin of the michaels, recently evacuated because of the slave auction fiasco.
>Party breaks in
>sees stuffed animals everywhere
>Druid is pretty pissed
>Get past hall, enter main living room
>Discovers the bodies of 2 dryads are being used as fireplace decorations
>Druid loses it and is about to beat the **** out of Donnovan (apparently in his backstory he was raised by dryads)
>Party pulls Seazle away from the kid and remind him that they are in the Michaels house.
We ended up playing for a little over a year and each and every time we played it was excellent. There ended up being over 100 named NPC (I actually have to keep the word doc open while typing this) and the plot was almost game of Thrones intricate sometimes (player statements, not mine).
Special kind of magic in my campaign - Soul Artes
Powerful magic. Quick and easy path (like the dark side)
Requires Valuable item to corrupt into a Phylactery
Phylactery can hold 1 soul per 1,000g in value of item sacrificed.
More valuable the item sacrificed (in either gold or sentiment) the more powerful the phylactery.
Spells can be cast at 1 soul per spell level.
Example: Sleep (lvl 1 spell) - costs 1 soul
Fireball (lvl 3 spell) - costs 3
etc. Also you need to do a successful "Spellcraft" check to "learn" the spell.
You get sould by murduring intelligent creatures and stealing souls before they hit the afterlife. Taboo in most cultures.
>Allot happened in this campaign all the time, I will try to condense
>Important points
>Near beginning of campaign party was captured by group of lizard men going to be auctioned off as slaves to a bunch of high class nobles and rich business people.
>In this world, slavery is considered illedal except for "monsterous races" which would be like kobalds, goblins, gnolls, etc.
>Also, all (non-monster) races are considered "Human".
>Basic humans are known as "Masics" (basic+man)
>Party consists of:
Vahan - Female Sand Elf Swordsmaster (homebrew)
Seazle - Male Masic Druid
"Hogar" - Male Gnoll Barbarian
Dorris - Female Masic Ranger
Rex - Tan Orc Gunslinger
Most of these characters met up during this auction. Held a daring jailbreak and managed to scare off all the rich folk. They discover a box in the back of the tent where they were being held. This box was super fancy and locked tight. The opened the box to discover:
Princess ***** of house Malvae - Female Drow Noble Sorceress
This was actually a surprising turn of events. I made it very clear in the story that the underdark in this world was almost mythical. Many believe that it didn't exist and especially not Dark Elves.
> language barrier but was able to communicate with some spell and linguistics work.
>Last thing ***** remembers is having been kidnapped outside her city. Doesn't have memory of much else.
>Promised party amazing treasure if they could return her to her city.
>party really couldn't think of a reason why not to and sticking together as they left this place seemed to be the best idea
>They steal a wagon and drive down the road to the nearest city
>Next day they are attacked by several nobles in carriages. They have guns and mean business
>Party figures they are pissed at losing slaves and money
>Wagon-coach chase battle! very fun
>Party eventually defeats them
>chase down stragglers, take 3 prisoners.
>Turns out, most of the nobles that attacked them were teenagers or young adults. Only 3 kids left.
>2 elf "teens" boys (twins) from a house of elves named Ias Durathil
>1 masic teen named Donnovan of House Michaels (richest masics in country)
>There were also some Stoneshaper dwarves that were killed (most powerful dwarf family) but they didn't capture any.
>Party deciding what to do with prisoners.
>Michaels' boy is being total chav
"Wait until my father hears about this! He will have you hanged for murder!"
>Made this kid's personality along the lines of Draco Malfoy and a touch of Lanister pride
>Party instantly hates this kid
>Party also gathers loot and everything else gathered from the area.
>Their wagon was smashed but the other three carriages were fairly intact.
>Seazle uses Wood Shape spell on the wagons and combined them into one gigantic Super Wagon.
>Party loaded all their loot onto it and threw the prisoners into their makeshift brig.
>Party heads down the path in what is basically a house on wheels with 8 horses pulling it.
>thanks to the druid's spells they were able to traverse most common dirt highway obsticles.
>Michael's boy complaining the whole time, threatening with beheading, threatened to have the females raped, etc.
>Hogar beats the kid into silence but he still makes comments once in a while
>They want to murder this kid but feel they can at least bargain him off for their freedom so they keep him alive.
>They come across a large cottage in the woods.
>Turns out this is one of the hunting cabin of the michaels, recently evacuated because of the slave auction fiasco.
>Party breaks in
>sees stuffed animals everywhere
>Druid is pretty pissed
>Get past hall, enter main living room
>Discovers the bodies of 2 dryads are being used as fireplace decorations
>Druid loses it and is about to beat the **** out of Donnovan (apparently in his backstory he was raised by dryads)
>Party pulls Seazle away from the kid and remind him that they are in the Michaels house.
>Wicked grin on party faces
>They loot everything that looks remotely valuable that isn't tied down.
>Clothes
>Curtains
>Small statues
>Ammo
>Artwork
>Food
>Booze
>Furniture
>Playing cards
>Poker chips
>Medicine
>Picture Frames
>Cutlery
>Bed sheets....and the beds
>Their proudest theft was a grand piano in the living room that they managed to heave atop the super wagon
>Seazle burries the dryads and stuffed animals in the yard
>Hogar hands Donnovan a torch
"Burn it"
>Michael's boy throws the torch into the house burning down one of his family homes.
>pisses the party off further by saying he had at least 3 more where that came from (hehe)
>Party continues in their new newly furnished, freshly stocked mobile home
>They come across a city.
>Elvish port city that many masic businessmen often spent time in in summer.
>Party figured this would be a good time to sell off some loot.
>They leave behind ***** , Rex and the prisoners
>Cleric actually had a robe of bones, pulled out 2 skeletons and compelled them with negative energy
>Take artwork and some other things into town
>sell most things pretty easily except for some paintings they couldn't get appriased
>Take the painting to an auction house
>Auctioneer is very excited and informs them that the painting is a rare one of a kind and is extremely valuable.
>He offers them VIP seats in the house and free dinner to watch the auction
>Party accepts and heads upstairs
>Auctions go by, typically what you would expect
>Art
>antiques
>and slaves
>Hogar gets pissed as every slave goes by, including a Salazhan (snake man) which isn't considered monsterous by law
>Final auction of the day is the painting
>A man walks out onto the stage.
>Says he is the Lord Donathan Michaels, head of house Michaels and the people in the VIP seats are thieves that break into his house.
>Guards are surrounding the party, they start to panic.
>Without missing a beat Terikk says deadpan and emotionless
"If you attempt to arrest us, your son will die"
>Roll intimidate
>Natural 20
Table stops playing, party actually looks at the player (who is normally a very quiet person) and just comments "holy **** Kyle"
>Terrik continues and says he is a necromancer and has 2 skeletons guarding his son and will kill him if the guards take a step closer
>Michaels calls them child killers
>They call him poacher, slaver, murderer, dryad killer (elf town was not happy at that one), and a whole bunch of other ****
>Eventually they came to an agreement.
>Michaels will call of the guards in exchange for his son
>He will pay party a stupid amount of money, 2 scrolls of Resurrection for the "allegedly" killed dryads, all the slaves to be freed at the auction (Hogar's insistance) and a 1 day head start
>as the exchange was made the Michaels head whispered to Terrik swearing that he will get even with them. Party even gave them the Elf twins even though it technically wasn't part of the deal
>Party takes treasure, recently freed slaves, and scrolls and sprint ouf of town.
>They were fairly certain the "1 day headstart" was going to be an hour at best.
>Amazingly they leave town and flee south
>Seazle shapeshifts into a hawk and flies back to the Michaels' cabin, they agree to meet up at a village ahead
>Seazle arrives at Cabin and uses the scrolls to ressurect the dryads.
>They thank him and promise to put in a good word with the Druids of the Grove (world druid organization)
>Seazle makes it back to the party. They rest at a relatively small town for a bit (they have been traveling for days)
>Take note of new arrivals:
Lizardman nicknamed "One Eyed Jim" that had levels in rogue (Terrik took leadership feat)
Salazhan Soul Artist
Pygme Troglodyte without a name. Vahan chose to keep him as a (well compensated) butler. She called him Henry, in her backstory she came from nobility and liked having servants.
>Party flees the country intending to deliver ***** to the underdark because at this point they were probably the most wanted criminals on the surface.
>Few in-game months go by
>Party still on the run
>Party has bonded pretty well at this point due to their common enemies, criminal records, and overall willing to cooperate.
> ***** and Terrik begin to get close
>Henry has nice clothes
>Jim is outfitted fairly well
>Hogar is well accepted into the group of humans, seeing him as more than a barbarian monster
>good raport between party members (honeslty one of the best group of players to get along)
>honeslty, some of my favorite moments was them deciding how they wanted to live on the run. They lived in the Super Wagon as a mobile home improving it a little everyday.
They eventually mapped out every part of this thing.
>Party gets some decent equipment (they definitely had the money to spend)
>Head to a cave rumored to be a lead to the underdark
>Turns out its a Vampire Sorcerer's Lair.
>Vampire dominates Jim and attempts to kill party
>Party manages to escape and uses stone shape to seal off the entrance.
>Super wagon gets damaged in the escape including the grand piano.
>They mourn the loss of Jim and head further south.
>They decide they should report the vampire to a Druid of the Grove
>Turns out there is an arch-druid's grove nearby
>This grove also doubled as an elf settlement
>As they travel towards their destination they come across a camp flying Ias Durathil's colors
>They come across one of their once hostages. One of the elf twins.
>Turns out he was one of his house's elf princes (elves have a weird heirarchy)
>His town was attacked by a necromancer in order to free a greater devil trapped in the castle
>The town also doubled as a druid grove. The arch-druid that was stationed there was also killed.
>the elf teen, desperate and knowing that the party was a powerful group of adventurers, begged them to help. His entire family was killed in the coup, he says.
>He asks to rescue anyone they can
>he also asks if they could retrieve their family heirloom: a Pendant of Diamond and Saphire in the shape of their house symbol. Been in Ias Durathil for generations.
>The party agreed to help and went into the forest/grove
>situation was worse than they suspected. Undead and devils everywhere.
>They begin to formulate a plan. ***** suggests something
> She had an artifact with them that would temporarily give one spell a great power up (1 time use)
> They choose to power up the spell Polymorph
> Turned each of them into golden dragons and I gave them all the stats of a young adult gold dragon. There were 7 of them.
Some backstory: in my campaign, dragons are nearly extinct. In fact, another adventuring party wiped out the last of the white dragons at the north pole (another campaign, same world). So, to the enemy that took over this grove, 7 gold dragons suddenly emerging from the trees was like divine judgement.
>Party starts purging everything with fire. No devil, undead, or necromancer was left alive in this town.
>Party invades castle, enemies scatter.
>it didn't help, everything burned
>enter throne room
>Necromancer immediately ***** his pants as 7 gold dragons burst into the room. Teleports away with elf teen's sister (in a princess leia slave outfit of course)
>They go outside and see that the pair forcefully break the arch-devils seal with some soul artes
>The sister of the elf teen turned the pendant into a phylactery and was using soul artes to control the arch-devil
>They could break the seal but not control the arch-devil (for long).
>Trapped Arch-Devil was an Ice Devil named Zatch the Blood Moon, that had a ******** of boosted stats.
>they kept breathing fire it thinking it was weak to it, but apparently it's immune...
>eventually devil, necromancer, and elf sister teleport away
>The party, while not able to stop the arch-devil managed to save the grove.
>They find a unicorn horn and attach it to a statue that turns into a unicorn (I was basing it off of a pre-made module...)
>Unicorn blesses party and then leaves to attempt to purify what is left of the forest
>Party is covered in Blood, gore, and undeath.
>They decide to bathe
>Unicorn purified nearby pond
> ***** creates darkness orbs to give girls privacy
>Other Dorris and Vahan notice that ******* body is covered in scars that look like snake bites
>She admits that they were from her sisters "encouragement" of her growing up.
>Other druids started to show up but realized they were too late to stop the release of Zatch.
>The first druid that showed up was the dwelf, named Grundi. His mother was an elf druid and father was an adventuring dwarf.
>acted like a typical dwarf and had a good sense of humor (especially about his mix-race).
>gave the party the nickname "Dragons of the Grove" for their heroics.
>Grundi told them that there was to be a druid moot between this continents arch-druids and heirophant.
That's the start of the Dragons of the Grove....This one was especially long since I felt it would be stupid to call this the "Dragons of the Grove" and not end the story on how they got their name.
I can continue to that if you want?
Next Time:
Druid Moot
Vampire Hunters
Dark Vision
Tags: dungeons and dra
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