So Adam and Ian don’t feel like they play enough D&D. To rectify this, they started playing a text-based adventure with a couple of friends, still using the 5th edition framework. We thought it would be fun to clean up the transcripts of this adventure and start publishing it in weekly chapters here on the site. Let us know what you think, and please share around! If you missed Chapter 1, check it out here!
Disclaimer: This is the transcript of a text-based D&D game played over a period of 6 months. Bad language included. Picture based dice rolls/media omitted. Names changed to preserve anonymity. Goblin based violence frequent. You have been warned. If you missed Chapter 19, find it here!
Bronan: Hmm you think this all of them?
Constance: Nah they must have come from somewhere
DM: Can give a wee perception roll before heading further downriver
Bronan: 17
DM: Superb
DM: Bronan, at the edge of your sight you see a crack in the side of the river wall, about four foot high
DM: The entrance is strewn with garbage
DM: As you peer closer, something slinks into the crack
Constance: 11
DM: Constance you can’t see anything approaching behind you
DM: And as before the high walls middle any sounds from the street/building
Bronan: Crack in wall! Turn around and be on guard Constance. Bronan come! (Bronan moves to place himself between Constance and the threat
DM: Okay, so you are back to bronan, Constance with a torch, and then faustus at the back?
Faustus: Sure
DM: What’s the plan boyos
Constance: Have we got torches?
DM: I thought you had one lit between you?
Bronan: Yup. And I have 3 more
Bronan: Lets look at crack, maybe fill it with rock
DM: Okay, as you shine your light at the crack you can see this is clearly the nest
DM: Amongst strewn bones and rubbish and filth, a gnawed skeleton in green robes lies, clutching a wand and a spellbook
DM: Behind it, a monster!
Bronan: What is the monster doing? If it’s threatening Bronan will charge, if it’s just using Microsoft Bing, he’ll think before charging
DM: It’s snarling
DM: Will send a pic shortly
DM: (oops. sent a fucking dire rat picture to my girlfriend. Hi honey)
DM: You see this beast, gleaming with strange arcane energy and covered in odd spines and nodules, and it retreats back to the furthest reaches of the chasm and hisses at you
Constance: (HAHAHAHHAHA)
Faustus: (Hahaha)
Bronan: (I laughed out loud)
Bronan: (Let’s hope it doesn’t lead to pet shopping!)
Bronan: Bronan is gonna run and try to hit it with the beers
DM: Attack roll, with disadvantage because you are fighting in a 4ft high cave crack thing
Bronan: It’s a 12
DM: You miss, your hammer thwacking against broken stone and earth
Bronan: (were that I a halfling)
DM: Aye, Constance, what do ye? Faustus?
Constance: Is there enough space for us all in this crack?
DM: Yeah it goes 10 ft back but only 4 ft high
DM: Don’t think you can get past bronan though!
Bronan: He’s a leg wriggled!
Bronan: Wriggled!
Bronan: Goddamn autocorrect, wriggler
Constance: I’m a halfling. I can move everywhere!
Constance: Bronan feels a tickle in his nether regions and looks down to see a head protruding from between his legs and a hand darts out loosing a poison dart before disappearing again.
Constance: Ah crap. 7 to hit
Bronan: Sir dribbles snorts
DM: Misses
DM: Faustus, anything you want to do?
Faustus: I assume I can’t get to the thing?
DM: Hm. Probably not to be honest. Got anything ranged? Chuck a pebble at it?
Faustus: I’ve got a javelin, can I jab it with that around Bronan?
DM: Yup
Bronan: I picture Bronan doing a power squat rather than bending at the waist, again, perfect form
DM: Attack roll Faustus, disadvantaged though! Not an ideal battleground
Bronan: (Bronans butt in yo face!)
Faustus: 17 to hit was my lowest
DM: Superb
Faustus: So I think I’m going to make this a divine smite, so I add an extra d8 to the damage. And if it is undead lemme know, that’s another d8.
DM: It’s not undead
Constance: It’s 2d8 for first level plus an additional d8 if it’s undead
Faustus: Is it?
Constance: Literally just wrote a paladin character sheet
Faustus: Ah cool. The app writes it up weird.
DM: (okay I’m totally making a paladin for my other game)
Constance: (Yeah they are pretty boss actually)
Faustus: Ok 17 damage total.
DM: Jesus wept
Faustus: 1d6+3 for the javelin and 2d8
Faustus: Actually a fairly bad roll!
Bronan: (sweet damage man!)
DM: This dire glowing spiked abomination throws itself at bronan’s face, and is brought up short as faustus slams his javelin into its chest
Faustus: Well, average roll I guess.
DM: It’s snapping jaws stop inches from bronans throat, and it slowly falls still
DM: Dead.
DM: Out of initiative! Well done
Bronan: I grab it and bring the corpse with me
Bronan: Out if the tunnel
DM: The rat? Or the wizard?
Faustus: What about the dead dude with the book? Can we have a poke around?
Constance: Does this tunnel go anywhere else?
Bronan: The rat first
DM: Sure, investigation
Bronan: Bronan got to clear the path for his friends
DM: Tunnel is a dead end
Faustus: 18
DM: But at the back is a dripping glowing green liquid
DM: Faustus, you find a pouch with 10 gold, a ring of silver, a wand and a spellbook. Robes seem pretty standard. Aside from that, mainly rat scraps and rat shit. Trickle of glowing green liquid slowly dripping into the back of the tunnel from a seam above
Bronan: Does the green drip look like sewage? (listeria and all that)
Constance: Can I go take a closer look at that green slime. And also retrieve my dart from the tunnel
DM: Constance, investigation
DM: Bronan, no sewage you’ve ever seen…
Faustus: Take all that shit for now, split the gold etc.
Faustus: Can I tell what the ring/wand /spellbook is?
DM: Arcana checks
Constance: 11 on investigation
Constance: Whom?
DM: It’s some sort of goo charged with arcane power- it seems to be seeping down from above, which must be one of the shops on the street by the river!
DM: Faustus arcana checks, sorry
Bronan: (I love rolling int based checks but Bronan is satisfied it’s not poop water) it OK, not poop water
DM: Ha
DM: Bronan you are holding the spiky glowing rat?
Bronan: Yeah sure
DM: Cool
Faustus: Well that was a bad trio of rolls
Faustus: 4, 3, 7
Bronan: I dragged it out now stopped cutting off its tail to check poop water, so holding it by tail?
DM: Cool
DM: Yup
Faustus: For the ring, wand and book in that order
DM: Faustus, it’s a magic ring, wand, and spellbook
Faustus: Yep. I figured.
DM: Ring and wand you aren’t sure about
DM: Spellbook seems to be low level wizard spells
DM: Could probably decipher more about all of them in a bright pub rather than a rat cave
Faustus: Seems like a good shout.
Bronan: Uhuh, Bronan chop
Bronan: Tail comes off I guess
DM: Grand
DM: Yup
DM: You guys can head back to the inn of you like?
Faustus: Cool. Shall we get paid, maybe warn the innkeeper about the goo?
Bronan: Bronan not want to put body in river, we pile up somewhere? Collapse tunnel with ram?
Bronan: (he means the crack and gestures as such)
Constance: Maybe keep that to ourselves for now, till we pop to that shop and see what’s going on?
Bronan: Not a problem, when you need Bronan to smash, you let him know, Bronan break house today! Good pokey stick friend Faustus! Bronan feel holy church ghost brush against inner leg, felt weird
Bronan: And friend constance, you throw dart good! Good throw!
Faustus: Well done to you too Bronan. It seems these vermin were little trouble at all, despite the odd appearance of the last one.
Constance: I missed Bronan. But it’s fine. You guys had it.
Bronan: No no, early in fight constance throw dart, it fly past Bronan like mighty horse, kill rat
Constance: Oh yeah I totes did that!
Bronan: We go get Inn man the Burliman to let us in, get stew and give him rat tail?
Constance: Sounds good
Faustus: Shall we keep this strange tail to figure out what is going on with it?
Bronan: Bronan better not keep, sir dribbles like to play tug of war, he use tail
Bronan: But Bronan could tie tail around arm, maybe sir dribbles not get it then?
DM: Returning to the inn, holding a pile of rat tails, one glowing spiked rat tail knotted around bronans arm?
Constance: Didn’t we get a giant rat too?
Bronan: We got, 20 regular, 2 giant and a glowey one
DM: Yup
Constance: Huzzah.
Bronan: (it speaks to Bronans character that I wrote it in my treasure section)
Constance: (Oh also I forgot to mention earlier, at the height of the the rat swarm fight when I was walking home I saw an actual rat, prophetic)
Bronan: (shit man, you need to move to a nicer part of Bristol, then you get to see the Clifton fox)
Constance: (Nah it was next to work, we don’t have rats here, had mice cause we’re near a field but the biggest risk is the youths)
Bronan: If Burliman doesn’t open up the trapdoor with knock, then Bronan begins to play drums singing “I know a song that will make you let us in, make you let us in, make you let us in” on repeat
DM: Ha
DM: Just as you start singing burliman opens up
DM: Well done well done! My goodness so many tails!
DM: Upstairs and a pint for all of you, on me of course!
Bronan: Yup, Bronan friends mighty
DM: Did you get rid of all of them? Any sign of that young wizard lad?
Constance: Unfortunately yes, it seems that these *gestures to tails* things got the better of them
DM: I see. Well. I’m very grateful to you. I can take these tails up the regional majors office tomorrow, but I suppose I can give you the gold for them now
DM: That’s 20 small tails, two big guns, so 4 gold total!
Constance: We would be happy to take them up there as well for you Burliman!
DM: Oh nonsense you’ve got better things to be doing, I’ll have my lad Hep sort it in the morn
DM: So he refunds you your money for the rooms and stew, gives bronan a bowl, and shows you all to your rooms. Three comfortable small rooms
Faustus: Cool
DM: Faustus, you can try once more to identify the ring and wand in this friendlier setting?
Faustus: Yeah sure.
Faustus: 12 and 17
DM: (EDITOR’S NOTE- sent the wand and ring through as pictures, now lost to the mists of time. Who knows what they do? Perhaps they will appear again)
Faustus: Wand seems like a general group item, I don’t mind keeping hold of it. Anyone fancy the ring?
Constance: Perhaps best for someone without armour. Bronan? Perhaps you could take sir dribbles for a swim
Faustus: Also I need to clarify some gold stuff. I spent 10 getting here for me and Bronan right? Then we just got 14 total here?
Bronan: Bronan have necklace,.it make beer cold!
Bronan: Bronan pay his own way
DM: Think that’s right Faustus?
DM: Plus whatever you paid for the inn back
Bronan: (Bronan had 5, the reduction for beer made the fare 5, worked for 5, then I spend 4 on rooms, one on being able to be able to drink my own beer
Constance: Yeah I think I spent one for cart
Constance: Then forgot to pay for room
Constance: Or whatever
DM: Righto
Bronan: Ah ok, Bronan wouldve paid for rooms for his friends before him
DM: I’m assuming you all call it a night in preparation for tomorrow’s adventure?
DM: Seeking the sultan, or the green goo, or whatever you fancy
Constance: Yeah
Faustus: Yeah sounds good. I’m heading to bed IRL too. So 4 gold each and some change from that?
DM: Call it five each, tip for quick resolution
DM: As you lay in your bunks trying to sleep in the Sand Spire, below you the Great river cormyra flows ceaslessly, out and away. The city is loud even at night, carriages and horses and traders and bakers, night watchmen ringing bells, far off scuffles and nearby footsteps. As you fall into slumber, the city doesn’t seem to have noticed you
DM: Yet…
Bronan: (thats a cliffhanger!! Awesome!)
Come back next Monday for Chapter 21 of The Cursed Tomb!
Fancy supporting the site? You can pick up all of the 5th edition D&D books from Wizards of the Coast using our Amazon links below, and we’ll get a cut with no extra cost to you!
Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
