Once upon a time, a being came to life in the forest. This being was made of plants, a seven foot tall fungus man comprised of leaves, sticks, grass and dirt. Compelled for some unknown reason to seek out the owners of the Goblin’s Mug tavern in Waterdeep and assist them, he began his journey into the city. That was yesterday.
Today, my new Circle of Spores druid character, initially without a name but later to be called Moist, entered the Goblin’s Mug and was greeted by Droop. I was led upstairs to meet the others and explain that I was there to help. I was greeted warmly enough (even with my habit of asking every person I meet whether they are male or female, which has resulted in the mantra of this episode’s title), though Mercenary did not much appreciate the dirt I was trailing through her establishment, so she led me downstairs into the coach-yard out back. After accepting my assistance and helping me choose a name (I came up with Moist, since it is an apt way to describe me), she left me to enjoy the outside air while she and the others set about some business.
At the same time, we were being spied upon by a human ranger named Tilly Heartgem. She had been instructed by the Emerald Enclave to investigate my strange appearance, and upon sneaking close enough to hear our conversation in the courtyard, later reported my harmless motives and was instructed to provide her assistance to the party as well. Later in the day, she entered the Mug and explained herself, was accepted as well, and badabing, we had our new party makeup.
Over the course of that day, the others explained the situation to Renaer, who found us some bugbear ears, the first key to get into the vault. Tilly acquired the second, an elf colleague of hers that was plied with alcohol until she was totally pissed. And, as it turned out, I, as (technically) a construct, was the third. Mercenary also requested assistance from the Lord’s Alliance, and we were sent a human fighter to help. With him and Renaer in tow, we then made our way to the entrance to the vault.
The entrance was hidden beneath a trap door that was magically sealed, but providing assistance for the first (and not last) time, I cast Dispel Magic and we went on down. We passed through the entrance by having me, the drunk elf, and the bugbear ears stand by the big door, and inside we found a large chamber with many doors. We fluked upon quickly finding the right one, but upon entering Mercenary was caught by a trap and charmed. I dispelled that too, and then we continued on up some stairs. On the next layer above, we crossed a trio of damaged bridges through a combination of jumping, tossing, wild shaping into a dog, and, in one instance, falling. Eventually figuring out the puzzles to get into the vault proper, which I won’t elaborate in case you ever find yourself trying to crack them, we entered and were met by the dragon.
Turns out, he was a pretty swell guy. We chatted, Renaer explained about his dad not being in charge any more, and the dragon was cool with the city reclaiming the half million golds coins the hoard contained. Thanking it, promising it extra gems for a job well done, and wishing it a good day, we made our way back to the entrance.
Upon returning, our human fighter friend, whom we left on watch at the entrance, informed us that there was someone coming. Shortly after, a group belonging to Xanathar’s Guild showed up. They started to speak to us about how they were going to claim the treasure, get out of our way, blah blah blah, but then three other groups showed up. Jarlaxle freaking Baenre with a trio of Drow Gunslingers, a handful of Zhentarim, and a third group whose allegiances we were unaware, though we were certain they weren’t friendly. After a brief Mexican standoff and the requisite posing, the inevitable fight began.
Most of the combatants were close to the entrance to the chamber, while our party was further inside, mostly behind a large, central column. I had the fortune of rolling high enough to go first, so I cast Spike Growth (which is an amazing spell if you’re fighting a veritable army, like we were – I did so much damage with it over the course of this fight) on the bulk of the bad guys, only missing three of them. With the exception of two floating creatures and a couple more that could cast Misty Step, every one took damage from it. After that, I ducked behind the column and hoped no one was coming for me.
It almost looked like someone was. Jarlaxle came charging right through the ranks, past Airina and Tilly, while his gunslingers got out of the spike growth and started opening fire on the other bad guys. Airina didn’t like Jarlaxle being so close, so she started attacking him, while the rest of the fighters came together and started hitting each other real hard. Most notably, Mercenary was grappled by a giant, floating, tentacled brain, and then attacked by our human fighter ally, who, as it turned out, was a traitor. He shall henceforth be referred to as the traitor.
In the second round, I tried hitting a big section of battlefield with a Tidal Wave, and while I struck a sizeable chunk of the combatants, the dice went against me and I didn’t do a lot of damage. The fighting kept going, with the traitor nearly chopping Renaer in two (leaving him with only two hit points, at which point he retreated) and the tentacle creature getting cut down, while the first of the bad guys fighting each other started falling.
Meanwhile, the drow gunslingers moved up and Jarlaxle regrouped with them. Not liking their relatively unimpeded advance, and seeing that most of the bad guys had moved out of my spike growth, I dropped that spell and Entangled the drow instead. All four failed their saves, but Jarlaxe used a legendary resistance to succeed instead, leaving the three gunslingers restrained. Jarlaxle didn’t like that, so he came and attacked me, hitting me twice. I managed to make my concentration saves, though, keeping his elves stuck in place.
Also, one of the other combatants, a mage, dropped a Cloudkill over the section of battlefield that covered our party members. Parvus took a huge amount of damage from it, nearly dropping him, so he also retreated back from the traitor, who was sure to bring him down otherwise. I also took a bit of damage from the cloud, not a lot, but it caused me to drop concentration, so I fell back, re-positioning closer to the door to the other parts of the vault. Mercenary was also quite low on health at this point, but Jarlaxle offered a temporary truce to deal with a powerful zhentarim spellcaster that suddenly broke through to our area, so we had a temporary reprieve from the assault.
As we came into the next stage of the fight, bodies were dropping left and right and several teams were starting to dwindle, so people started to flee. The mage that cast Cloudkill dropped it and flew out, managing to escape, while the zhentarim spellcaster was cut down by the combined efforts of Airina, Jarlaxle, and the drow gunslingers. However, his body turned to snow, which, if you know what that means, you know what that means.
The fight ended with the arrival of Lirael Silverhand, the Open Lord of Waterdeep (aka. the chick in charge of everything). She Mass Suggested the remaining nine bad guys to surrender, and all but Jarlaxle failed their saves and did so. He surrendered as well, since he basically had no choice. At that point, we ended, as the game had run late because of the fight (which was awesome, but, with five different factions, complicated, so took quite a while).
This was a great session, and I think I can honestly say I have never been as excited to play a character as I am to keep playing the literally-born-yesterday Moist. I never thought I would say that about a druid, but there you go. That’s D&D. The one bad thing was ending when we did, because we didn’t get to see the aftermath of everything that happened. The one worst thing than that is that, because of the Easter weekend next week, we are taking a week off, so we won’t find out what happens next for a whole fortnight.
But, what can you do? People have plans. At least we now have our new party makeup, with Moist and Tilly having joined, and with the vault recovered, I assume we are just about done with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. So, the question is, what comes next? Day 2 of Moist’s existence has been quite something. What will day 3 bring?