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 40, find it here!
DM: You hear the shifting sands outside, and what sounds like Bronan chatting (one sided) to a skeleton
Bronan: As I’m moving bodies, I’ll keep an eye out for some keys in case they have a set
DM: Aha!
DM: Investigation!
Bronan: (I also want to look for any other shinys that may be on their remains, especially a shiny snorlax card)
Bronan: I got 11
DM: You find a sealed letter on the man in the cabin, assorted daggers etc, about thirty gold pieces
DM: And a six keys. 2 are the same, the others assorted
Bronan: I’ll show the party those when I’m done body clearing 🙂
DM: So yeah, bronan has cleared the skeletons- where are they all now?
DM: Constance and faustus thoroughly check the hold, now staring at a hatch that seems to lead…down
Constance: down the hold?
DM: You open the heavy hatch to inky blackness below
DM: Stillness
DM: Heat
DM: A steep metal ringed staircase descends into the darkness
Bronan: I would’ve put the skellys off the ship to the side, away from the gnolls
DM: Sure sure
Bronan: I’ll light a torch and see what we can see
DM: Perceptiooooooooon
Bronan: 18 total
DM: It’s the engine room! Three skeletons lie utterly still, dressed in overalls. Tools lay scattered around them, chisels and hammers. Emerging from the floor, a dome of blue crystal covered in runes sits. A tube with a horn at the end protrudes from one wall. The other walls have: a racy elf calendar; a complex poster with a picture of a blue runed orb; a heavily edited and overlapping shift timetable
DM: I mean. It must be the engine?
Bronan: Bronan is going to go with what he knows, and start flicking through the calendar
DM: Great
DM: Give me a perception, with disadvantage if Bronan fancies elves
Bronan: Errm I dunno, I kinda figure he’s into most things, Bro tribe rules is any hole’s a goal
Bronan: Got a 16, and a 15, so 15, Bronan wise, Bronan strong, Bronan look at nudes all day long
DM: As you are scanning the pictures, you realise this calendar is on the wrong day! It’s set to about…150 days ago
Bronan: (after a long time of looking at the pictures) I think date wrong it’s [insert correct date] not [correct date-150 days] right? also Bronan have keys, we open boxes? Search mechanic skeletons?
Bronan: I search the skeletons in the engine room then put them with the others
DM: Investigation check
DM: You find nothing of note those skeletons, and can haul them to where you store the others
DM: You are left on a ship free of skeletons, full of mysteries
Bronan: Can I try some of the keys on the locked crates? (unless people want to leave me be?)
Constance: Ok. So situation. We are in the engine room. Big blue runed ball thing. Calendar marked to 150 days ago. Complex poster. Shift time table. Big horn tube thing. We have a bunch of keys. Right?
DM: Yup
Constance: Ok. I want to go check out the poster and kind of compare it to the big blue orb thingy.
DM: Sure, arcana check for me please
Constance: Ugh. Five
DM: This is a big fuckin magic ball, eh
Constance: well shiz
DM: Uh huh
Bronan: (I really want Bronan to have a go just in case, would that be cool? He technically has 2 rituals and a proud shamanic tradition)
DM: (but of course)
Bronan: Nope, I got a 3
Constance: ha
Constance: Faustus! You know about complex magicks right?
Bronan: I think there are tiny wizards inside, maybe they hungry?
Bronan: (Bronan needs a brocade loincloth)
Constance: (oh yeah, ill use inspiration to give Faustus advantage on his Intelligence and Charisma rolls for tomorrow)
DM: Constance and bronan are in the hold. faustus is in the engine room. none of you seem to know what you are doing, and I think it’s early afternoon
Bronan: I’ll make lunch for people while sir dribbles browses the smut
DM: Passive perception checks
DM: Puhlease
Bronan: My passive is 14
Constance: Mine is 12
Faustus: 10
DM: Bronan, you hear a noise from outside somewhere. Not on the ship, somewhere below on the sands nearby. It sounds like a dry piece of wood being snapped
Bronan: Errm Bronan think Besh got loose, we should go check
Bronan: (and then he goes and looks outside)
DM: You very quickly realise what the sound is
Bronan: (please not skeletons)
DM: It was the sound of Besh’s neck snapping as a desert lion killed her. There are at least fifteen of them. Five clustered around Besh, five crunching the skeleton bones, and another five nervously sniffing the gnoll remains
DM: Your supplies and food and water are being pawed at vigorously
Bronan: (oh crap, that’s worse)
Bronan: Sir dribbles begins Barking at the large cats and seems to be going into pug rage, Bronan realises this and follows suit, raging and trying to charge at the nearest lion yelling bad kitties kill Besh, Bronan smaaaassssh
DM: (the lions are on the desert floor, you are fifteen foot up on the ships deck
Bronan: (yup, gonna jump it)
Faustus: Fuck!
Bronan: I should have enough movement to get to em
Bronan: (I hope!)
DM: Yeah, from 15ft up? Acrobatics check please
DM: And you can have a surprise round (I’m certainly surprised) of attacks then we will do initiative
Bronan: 18 total
Bronan: (Bronan has been chatting to Besh every day, they’re friends so he wants to get revenge)
DM: Okay, no damage from the flying leap. straight at the five munching on beau/your supplies?
Bronan: Yup. Getting all up in them pussycats
Bronan: I’m gonna give these cats some beers, and by that I mean smash them with the crushed beerkeg that is my axe, 22 to hit
DM: That hits the first lion
Bronan: 14 slashing
Bronan: And that’s my turn:) they’re going to nibble me next I guess
DM: All roll initiative
Faustus: Hahaha
Faustus: Right, I got a 2 for initiative.
Bronan: 20 #dicerolleroffire
Constance: 10 for initiative
DM: Bronan I need your roll with mods, apparently…
DM: I’m guessing it will be 3 though, in which case it is your turn again!
Bronan: My dex is +2
DM: So, to paint a picture. Bronan stands raging over a wounded lion, his axe bloodied, roaring with rage
DM: And fifteen lions roar back
DM: You can go first bronan
Bronan: (oh fiddlesticks, 15 lions may just be enough to action economy me down)
Constance: Action economy?
DM: (i mean…action economy?! There are fifteen of them. they are fucking lions man. You have made your choice…)
Bronan: (number of actions like attacks per turn, I thought there was 5, but happy to lie in this bed, Bronan smash)
Bronan: I try to smash the wounded lion to death
Bronan: 15 to hit
DM: Great, that hits
Bronan: My ac is 15 btw
DM: (i just checked, I said fifteen. Also thanks for AC, that will speed things
Bronan: 16 damage for that little kitty
Bronan: It’s cool, Bronan would’ve jumped in anyway
Bronan: He a big dumdum
DM: That first lion, the one who had killed Besh, lies slain on the sand
DM: And the rest pounce
DM: The four nearest, three hit you, total of 17 slashing damage
Bronan: Ok, is it halved already or want me to halve it?
DM: You half it please
Bronan: Cool 🙂
Constance: (Oh good)
DM: Next pack of five try to pounce on you
DM: So they Sprint forward one at a time with claws bared
DM: All five hit you
DM: So
DM: 30 slashing
DM: And make a strength saving throw
Bronan: Highest was 25 (natty 20)
DM: You get any below 13?
Bronan: Ooh I rolled once with advantage, got a 13 and a 25, I’ll make 4 more rolls
Bronan: (rolls for 4 more anyway!)
Bronan: Lowest (given advantage) was an 18
DM: Wow
DM: Okay
Bronan: If you want to speed it up, my strength save is a plus 5
DM: As you bat away these pouncing lions you keep to your feet, despite the hideous raking of their claws
DM: And the final five pounce
DM: Four succeed in clawing you (so four str saves again please)
DM: 23 slashing damage
Constance: Meanwhile, in the engine room. “Faustus, do you know where Bronan has got to? And where is that calendar?”
Bronan: Got a 12 for one of them, next lowest was a 15
DM: Bronan you are on the floor
DM: Take another 10 piercing as one tries to bit your face off
DM: And now, Constance…
Bronan: Cool (current hp is 18 for you at home)
Bronan: (13 rather)
Constance: Right. 1. Have I realised that bronan is in trouble?
Constance: 2. How far is he from me?
DM: Yeah this has been possibly the loudest 12 seconds one could imagine
Constance: Oh shit. K.
DM: Bronan, screaming in rage at Besh’s demise, leapt from the ship and attacked and killed a lion. 14 other lions are now circling him, pouncing, roaring. It’s a fucking maelstrom of lions
DM: So you guys I’ll say are on the deck, fifteen feet up
DM: Looking down on a storm of claws and violence
Constance: I’m basically trying to work out if I can get in, grab bronan and get back out in one turn.
Bronan: (can I request that for my tombstone? “he died in a fucking maelstrom of lions)
DM: Hahaha
DM: Constance- you could leap down and reach him (with an acrobatics check), and drag him out. But you’d be taking heaps of opportunity attacks on the way out, and need to presumably climb up the ship again (another acrobatics/athletics check). Chuck him a rope and pull?
DM: Just try and picture in your head 14 lions against this beast of a barbarian, fifteen feet below you. How do you extricate him/save the day?
Constance: Would I though! Cause I have a plan!
DM: Feel free
DM: Lions are hungry, and you are a tall halfling
Constance: Ok. I leap down and grab bronan.
Constance: (Tall-ling is the preferred term you fucking racist)
Bronan: (if not I’m gonna animal handling these fuckers to make me the alpha and cruise with a pack of lion minions)
DM: Acrobatics check, it’s a fifteen foot drop
Constance: 19 on acrobatics
DM: Okay you flip onto the sand, into the pack, and are next to bronan. a lion is currently gnawing on him and dozens others batting in with their claws
DM: What exactly are you doing?!
Come back next Monday for Chapter 42, the penultimate part of of The Cursed Tomb!
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The Lost Lighthouse 