Here we go again.
Before we start, a brief overview. This campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms, and according to the DM, will mostly be a combination of several modules (if we survive to see more than one, that is) plus a little homebrew. We are starting with Out of the Abyss.
The campaign began with every member of the party in the capture of the drow, deep in the Underdark, performing daily tasks of varying kinds alongside nine other prisoners. The early part of the session mainly covered setting the scene and introducing these NPCs. I’m not going to cover who they are – as they are all unique and that would almost take me as long to write as it did take in game – but how’s about we meet the party.
First, we have Dribble, played by yours truly. Dribble is a halfling who looks like a two foot tall red dragonborn, thanks to being a draconic sorcerer. He is friendly towards everyone in a naive sort of way and is generally confused by what’s going on around him, but just goes with it in a cavalier, not very wise manner.
Next, we have Dorne, a half-orc paladin who is quite friendly. Then we have Qiris, a firbolg cleric who is not. And finally, Azrul, a human fighter who is quiet.
Dribble has not yet learned too much about these others, largely because (especially with all the NPCs around for the entire session) we didn’t get to spend too much time chatting character to character. Speaking of the NPCs, there is one worth specifically mentioning. Stool, a young myconid that just wants to go home and that Dribble already feels very strongly about helping. While all the NPCs and other PCs have become Dribble’s friends to some degree (and some perhaps more from Dribble’s perspective than their own), Stool is special among them.
For example, when I was washing dishes in the kitchen, I managed to pilfer a knife, a fork, and a spoon. I gave the knife to a drow prisoner who seemed to be protective of Stool when we first met them, the fork to a red dragonborn that I want to be my friend because I too am a red dragonborn, and the spoon to Stool, for their own protection.
One night, we all had dreams of strange shadows and freaky sounds. The following morning, one of the drow – a disgraced fellow with a mangled face – brought our breakfast and offered to Dorne to facilitate our escape. He unlocked the gate and told us that he would keep the tower watching us empty for a little bit following the next guard change.
This came off without a hitch, with the entire prisoner group getting into the tower and getting our hands on weapons and armour (if, unlike myself, they were in the category where they needed either). However, as we were doing this the outpost came under attack by some vague force too far from us to be identifiable. There was a moment of hesitation for some about whether we should fight or fly, before Qiris led the charge in dropping down from the outpost into water below.
There was a grey ooze in the water, but we managed to avoid it and head down a tunnel. Many hours passed as we walked through pure darkness (I used Light so that those of us without darkvision could at least see something), one of the prisoners – a dwarf – did some scouting and found some food, and eventually we came to rest. Which went… questionably.
Dorne took the first watch, which went fine. Then Qiris took the next watch, which also went fine, but at the end of which he woke me to take the final watch. Unfortunately, nobody had explained what taking watch entailed, so I spent the entire watch walking around the group holding a bright, glowing rock at approximately eye height (considering I’m two feet tall) waking up everyone I walked past, disrupting sleep, and not actually watching out for dangers in the night.
Eventually that nightmare (for everyone else) finished and the group woke up. With no real reason to delay, we cracked on, setting off through the dark once more.
We encountered three things over the course of the day. The first was a dead end that turned out to be a very high wall with a rope ladder at the top. Dorne was able to climb up and drop it down, allowing us to keep on going. The second was a ravine spanned by a rope bridge, with many spikey rocks as the bottom. I walked straight across the bridge without even testing it (it held, luckily) and then bungee jumped down at the suggestion of Qiris (without questioning the idea or even checking to make sure someone had the other end of the rope). Dorne also climbed down, but the only thing the skeleton had was a small musical box.
The third thing was a giant rocktopus. We were walking along when the walls of the tunnel we were in started to shake and tentacles burst forth, snatching at us. Dorne was the only one grabbed and was heavily injured, but with a little help from the other prisoners, we were able to defeat the monster. My final attack against it had involved using Burning Hands, which seared much of its flesh quite nicely, and once Dorne had struck the final blow the smell of seared meat made us all realised how hungry we were so I went straight over and took a bite out of it. It was safe and tasty, so I invited the others over and we all ate well.
Eventually the day ended and we hunkered down for another night of rest. We were plagued with dreams of red light and terrifying shadows, but otherwise the rest went fine and when we awoke in the morning we ended the session.
In all, it was a slower start to the campaign, but at level one and with all those NPCs to introduce and form at least some kind of relationship with, that didn’t come as a surprise. And hey, at least I didn’t die. Speaking of which, it’s great to be a player again. It is a different experience being on one side of the DM screen to the other and I’m looking forward to stretching those muscles once more.
So, will my current success at keeping Dribble alive continue beyond one session? What else will we encounter as we delve further through the Underdark? How long until we start unintentionally getting our NPC allies killed, giving the DM a reprieve from having to keep track of so many characters (and especially the voices)? Tune in next week to for answers to those questions and more (probably).