The D&D group got together last night for what might be the penultimate session before taking on Strahd, our vampire nemesis. In search of one of the Emeralds stolen from the Wizards of Wines, we ended up in mortal combat with Acererak the Lich…and I, at least, got pretty fucked up. Technically, I died twice, and almost met my end with a third death via Disintegration, which would have been rather final. I took some pictures of our fight, which made use of gorgeous terrain at Casa del Reese.
The setting: As we crest Yesterhill, we arrive just in time to see Faust’s previous demonic Patron being summoned by a pact with the grand necromancer Acererak. Faust’s “betrayal” of the pact (that the former didn’t even want) set the mood as an army of demons and undead set upon us. Acererak and Asmodeous’s Avatar in the temple with their army of undead and demons at ready.Our friendly House-Dragon takes flight as we prepare for the incoming army of undead. I cast Holy Aura on the group to protect us from the incoming evil as Faust turns into a Golden Dragon with True Polymorph to join his subordinate copper dragon in the skies. The undead army continues to shuffle forward as the epic bridge battle continues. I confront the demon at the bridge, hoping to hold on long enough for my allies to kill the incoming army.The undead get close enough to the holy battle at the foot of the bridge for me to Turn them.Faust, in his badass Golden Dragon form (the blue dragon model), eventually grabs the Pit Lord off the bridge for an aerial grappling battle in which he ultimately prevails. Dragon Faust then proceeds to land behind me as I desperately attempt to heal myself. Acererak, who is now flying in an Anti-Magic field, continues to throw high level Fireballs at us, only stopped by Alethra’s continued Counterspells. Meanwhile, Drip’s fire elemental starts single-handedly wiping out the army of undead and fiends, who are now Turned at the far end of the battlefield. We eventually take to the skies via a bizarre Druid spell by Prince Drip. He somehow creates a stone bridge in the sky to somehow both restrain Acererak and allow us passage into melee range. Eventually it required Divine Intervention from Cyrroollallee to banish Acererak from this plane of existence. Matt really likes to smoke. (Just kidding, it’s terrain)
Overall, it was an intense battle that could have gone either way. At the end of the day, Acererak was vanquished along with Faust’s old Patron (for now!). Next up: the Windmill of Corpses and the last Emerald of Power before taking on the big bad Strahd himself.
We had our first D&D 5E game in a year and a half and I remembered to take a few pictures this time! We were well fed with wine, pizza, and birthday cake. We got to use terrain that has been sitting on the shelf for a while. And we got to kill an evil witch! Special thanks to Anthony for letting us use his Hobby Badger shop as a venue and for supplying pizza and drinks, as well as for Brett and Grant for bringing a chocolate cake so rich that I physically felt myself acquiring diabetes. It was great that everyone was able to show up and play again after so long. I personally had a blast and hope you all did as well!
Playing D&D at Hobby BadgerMatt photobombs my attempt to capture the battle in the swamp with the Evil Witch. Sam dual wields some knives and gets ready to cut the cake. Grant’s character failed to avoid the ambush. Our stats for our characters from like, 2 years ago? Most people are still playing the same character! Pretty cool to think about. The terrain looked amazing as usual.The fight as the top of the tower got pretty crowded at one point. This rapidly changed the subsequent round when the crying baby exploded.
MPMB’s Character Sheet (Printer Friendly Version) is the most comprehensive character sheet I’ve ever seen for 5E (sorry Andy). To be honest, it’s a full-on program with the skin of a PDF file. It pulls upon all of the source books to fill in information as you need it on your character sheet, such as Class Features, Spells, Feats, etc. without having to look them up manually.
You can only really utilize its functions in Acrobat Reader (which sadly makes you install McAfee Antivirus software you will have to uninstall after you install the main program). Then, if you Right-Click->Save this file then follow these instructions starting at “Step 2” under “How to import a script”, you can get a character sheet that pretty much fills itself out. Great for characters with a ton of spells with descriptions you don’t want to copy-paste. I did it for my cleric Milo earlier and it completely filled out my spellbook without needing to type a thing. Wohoo!
If you’re interested in more information, you can jet over to their official website.
As we move forward to begin playing in-person again (finally!), character sheets for our various tabletop games have been posted on the Media page. If there are any other resources that you think we might need as we move from computers to paper and pencil, feel free to let me know in Discord.
Based upon a suggestion by Sam, a dice rolling bot named Avrae has been added to the discord server. Feel free to mess around with it if you guys like; there are all sorts of cool commands you can learn, found on the official Avrae Bot website. If want want to mess around with the bot, please limit it to the #dnd-session chat channel so as not to clutter up the other channels.
If anyone else has further suggestions on what to add to our Discord server, feel free to contact me (Patrick).
Google Meet, our go-to conference app for Roll20, is hungrier than Ghandi for Internet bandwidth. Discord is our backup for when Google Meet is too much for our group to handle (it takes fewer Internets to run). Discord runs in-browser, so you don’t need to download anything – just make sure you have an account and the settings are how you like it.
This will all be less important when we start meeting in-person again, but for now, it’s good to keep in mind!
To start your Discord adventures, simply click the “Connect” button on the Discord applet to the right.
What will the next few months in gaming look like?
Well, it has been a crazy 14 months since last March. The loss of in-person games and the stress of school really weighed down on me mentally for quite some time. But at the very least the year of COVID has brought families and loved ones closer together, and that is a truly beautiful thing. If all goes well, we should be going back to in-person games soon and more time should be free for games, events, and writing. With things beginning to open back up a little and as more and people are getting vaccinated, life as we knew it should be returning to normalcy, although it will be a new normal.
Everyone should try to keep in mind our schedule moving forward. The game masters try to put as much time into planning as they can, with as much forewarning of dates as we can, because we know that everyone’s life is busy. So, make sure to click whether you can go or not to the events. Most of the Geeks have voted, and Top Golf was a resounding victory. To the BBQ voters, fear not! We should be having something small within the next few months as well. Top Golf event is up, so please try to save the date if you can make it. Top Golf is not only a great way to have fun while making a huge ass of yourself in front of your friends, but they also have a great restaurant and bar.
The Forgotten Realms game is in full swing. This is the highest-level campaign for many of our newer players as we are now fully in tier 3 level of play, within Adventurer’s League. It has been fun, as our players scrape by to survive a cruel and dangerous world in Ravenloft. Although this group is fully vaccinated, we will be finishing off this game on Roll20 due to funding by our wonderful players and sponsors. We will return to our normally programmed gaming first week of September.
The Star Wars game has grown and expanded over the last couple of months. We here at TTG would like to take the time to welcome Ash, and Christian to our table. Thank you all for coming. This group of scoundrels has found itself embroiled within the galactic civil war, and has made itself an invaluable to the Rebellion. This game, since it is a little smaller and due to their being almost zero support on Roll20 for older Star Wars game settings, will be moving back to in-person by July. Keep an eye out for invites.
We here at the Guild fully intend to have in-person games by the end of Summer. In-person Star Wars games will begin again on July 3rd, and in-person Forgotten Realms games will start again on September 4th. But we will still be following protocols suggested by the CDC. Meaning, the house would like to see everyone’s vaccination card at least one, if you are sick STAY HOME, and we probably will not be bringing food to share for a while. I know, everyone, I miss the snacks most of all, too! If anyone has an issue with this, thinks we should start in-person sooner, or feel that the rules are not stringent enough, please send us an email or IM.
The Geeks have spoken and it looks like our next module for Adventurer’s League will be the Tomb of Horrors. As mentioned previously keep your calendar and minds open, as these dates are tentative an assume that the world does not face a worse global catastrophe over the next few months. Sorry, I like my nihilism sunny-side up. New Adventurer’s League in-person game starts on September 4th! Venue will remain at Grant’s.
A few here at the guild have brought up the prospect of group terrain. This has been a responsibility usually shouldered by us here behind the dungeon master’s screen, but how would people feel about throwing in on things like community terrain, models, and paints to help liven up our games even more? I know everyone’s wallet is a little tight, right now. Let me know your thoughts and ideas, I would love to hear from you!
Last game we were discussing the possibility of others DMing and maybe even expanding beyond our currently used rule sets. While I love “Dungeons & Dragons 5E” and “Star Wars Saga”, I know I’m always down for a new game system! For those curious, you can find a great online collection of all of these rule sets online at The Trove. Many of you already know about this website, but it’s good to put that information out there again.
Just started a listing of podcasts we listen to, both tabletop gaming-related and otherwise. Feel free to add to the list, by either direct editing or sending me a message. Also added a menu link to the Facebook page for Hobby Badger Games, a store run by our good friend Anthony. Please support him and his business!
