Events & Play Wednesday - Lords of Waterdeep

Brad, Tom, and I broke out the store copy of Lords of Waterdeep by WotC for a fast-passed game on Tuesday.  This is a game we return to time and time again with little difficulty jumping right in and keeping it moving.  There was very little intrigue this time around and it became a race from an early point in the game.  Three players don't tend to compete much for resource spaces and out Lords weren't too much at odds with one another.  Check it out on Board Game Geek here.

Events & Play Wednesday on CreativeMountainGames.com 

News of Conventions and Gamedays as well as pictures

from those I have attended and games I have played.

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Events & Play Wednesday - LGG Events

We've got some stellar events lined up at Lake Geneva Games in September.  These events are included on the LGG website calendar but also sometimes organized on Facebook as individual events.  First up, today, Wednesday, August 31st and Saturday, September 3rd, we have two follow up events to our very successful Conspiracy: Take the Crown draft last Saturday (which drew 63 players!).  Both days will including rolling drafts for $10 per participant.  They are, of course, Conspiracy: Take the Crown format: drafting then a multiplayer game for three to five players.  Three packs per player and keep what you draft!

Also, Sunday, September 4th, is First Sunday and that means Open Boardgaming (and other tabletop gaming) from Noon to Nine at Lake Geneva Games.  We set up a Facebook event for this one here.

Late this month we have a handful of events for both the Kaladesh MtG pre-release weekend and the release the following weekend (which extends into October).  All of these are on the LGG Events Calendar but the first two pre-release events might draw the biggest crowds as the first chances to get hold of Kaladesh cards.  The pre-release weekend begins with a Midnight event which organizes on Friday, September 23rd at 11:30 PM and start promptly at Midnight.  You can pre-register for this 2-Headed Giant event here.  On Saturday, September 24th at 2 PM, we're holding a Sealed event for a BOX which you can pre-register for here.

There is also a 40K afternoon on September 11th which I discuss on the Wargaming Wednesday blog here!

Events & Play Wednesday on CreativeMountainGames.com 

News of Conventions and Gamedays as well as pictures

from those I have attended and games I have played.

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Events & Play Wednesday - FREE Conspiracy Draft

Many of you know that aside from running Creative Mountain Games for the last fifteen years, I recently signed on board to manage Lake Geneva Games, the FLGS in my town, the cradle of D&D.  We've done a lot to improve the store in the last few months including adding twice as much permanent game space and revamping the front retail area.  We've got some more to do as time goes on but the changes made so far have helped the store a great deal and I'm very proud to be a part of it all.

As most know, Lake Geneva Games is a versatile store with TCGs, Boardgames, GW lines, as well as other dice and card games.  Our bread and butter, however, is Magic: The Gathering and the store hosts many events while selling both new product and singles, through our storefront and online.  One thing that has eluded the store in that regard (and wasn't likely to happen until that game space expansion) was evolving from a second tier host of events in the eyes of WotC to a top tier store with all of the additional prize support and privileges that brings.  What Jason and I have decided to do in that regard will be a milestone in the history of the store.

This Saturday, August 27th @ 1 PM, we are hosting a FREE Conspiracy Draft utilizing the new set of cards from WotC, Conspiracy: Take the Crown.  This is where the community comes in, especially local MtG players but not strictly so.  It drafts similar to a regular draft set but has a few twists.  After drafting, players will then play a single multi-player game to determine game winners.  Did I mention that we're supplying three packs of cards to each player for FREE?  We're doing this so that we can qualify (which has to happen once per year) for the top tier.  We fulfill all other requirements to qualify for the top tier except having at least one really big event like this one so we're absorbing the cost and hosting the event at our own expense.  If you're in the area or plan to be, please go to the Lake Geneva Games website and grab a seat for the event, but only if you're absolutely sure you can be there.  We'd hate to turn other away because the event only holds 64 players max (as does the store!).  Thanks, and I hope to see many of you this weekend!

Events & Play Wednesday on CreativeMountainGames.com 

News of Conventions and Gamedays as well as pictures

from those I have attended and games I have played.

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Events & Play Wednesday - Eldritch Moon MtG Events

Lake Geneva Games has a lot of release weekend Magic the Gathering events this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday starting with . . .

The first weekend we can use Eldritch Moon booster packs for our FNM Booster Draft.  This start at 6 pm so try to get there a bit early to be sure you don't miss out!  We'll follow that up Saturday and Sunday with 1 pm $15 Booster Drafts (3 booster packs, 3 rounds, +1 pack per round won plus Promos!).  Come in both days and play in these inexpensive drafts to build up your selection of Eldritch Moon cards and get used to the new set.  But the BIG event is Saturday evening starting at 6 pm.  It's a $20 Booster Draft for a Box!  It's an Eldritch Moon $20 Booster Draft (3 booster packs, 3 rounds, Minimum 8 players) and the winner gets a Sealed box of Eldritch Moon and all players get a promo!

Finally, on Sunday at 5:30 pm, we have the first week of our six-week Magic the Gathering League.  Each Sunday we play a Shadows Over Innistrad block constructed tournament, with the added deck building restriction of only 1 mythic.  The tournament each Sunday is free to league members, and only league members may play in it.  The cost to join the league is $10.  Each player finishing each tournament gets +1 pack, and there is a +1 pack per 4 players prize pool awarded to the first place player, or shared by those tied for first.  Each tournament is 3 rounds Swiss pairings.  Block Constructed is similar to Standard, except more restrictive.  Only cards from Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon sets are legal in your 60 card deck and 15 card sideboard.  Further, there is a restriction of ONE mythic rare card in your library at the start of each game.  You may have more mythics in your sideboard, but only one mythic can be in your library at the start of each game.

Events & Play Wednesday on CreativeMountainGames.com 

News of Conventions and Gamedays as well as pictures

from those I have attended and games I have played.

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The Friday Grab Bag - Open Positions

Over on wokq.com, they informed us that the Wolfman position is open at Clark's Trading Post.  Find out more here.

Also, on giftrepublic.com, you can "Become a Laird or Lady" here.

Finally, in recent days on company.wizards.com, they've posted over a half dozen new job listings here.

The Friday Grab Bag on CreativeMountainGames.com 

Essentially, a clearinghouse for topics not covered

elsewhere or needing a particular focus.

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The Friday Grab Bag - Gen Con, Mearls, & Crawford

Over on polygon.com, they tell us that "Gen Con 2015 breaks records, doubles attendance from 2010" here.

Also, on merricb.com, Merric gives us a good summary here of The Tome Show interview with WotC's Mike Mearls that was released during Gen Con.

Finally, on gamer-goggles.com, they share a post-Gen Con interview with WotC's Jeremy Crawford here.

The Friday Grab Bag on CreativeMountainGames.com 

Essentially, a clearinghouse for topics not covered
elsewhere or needing a particular focus.

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Events & Play Wednesday - My 5E D&D Starter Set Playthrough Final Session

Our playthrough coverage continues from here!

We've been gearing up for our final leg of the 5E Starter Set Adventure for a while.  Getting us all together proved difficult in the end of the summer so those of us who could make it week to week opted to hold off and play boardgames.  Some have far to travel and can only do so if an RPG is in the offing.  Sadly, a last minute illness still meant our delay meant playing shorthanded.  We pressed on.

Here are the PCs and their players:

• Fighter, Noble (Human) - Excelon played by Floyd
• Cleric, Soldier (Dwarf) - Nox played by Norman
• Rogue, Criminal (Halfling) - Bulbo played by Keith
• Fighter, Folk Hero (Human) - Samuel played by Kurt
• Wizard, Acolyte (High Elf) - Heronimus played by John (proxy to Floyd)

For this final session, I made some adjustments to the layout and extent of the Wave Echo Cave complex, compressing the ecosystem and the map.  Images and details on that below but the intent was to make sure we could potentially get through the last leg in just one evening.  It worked out well though in retrospect, I might have done a few things differently.  Read on and enjoy but with the following warning . . .

The rest of this post, a continuation of 

this series is fraught with spoilers.

You have been warned!

(My own players have now played and 

are welcome to examine the details below or in previous 

posts in this series.)

For the last leg, even after having purposefully skipped some of the less-intriguing areas of the adventure like Thundertree,  Given we hadn't played through the whole adventure, and much experience that could have been gained in the omitted sections was not available to them, we opted to raise the group up to fourth level.  I wanted to truncate the Wave Echo Cave location so as to fit it into a single evening.  That too, would require the group be strong enough to handle most encounters swiftly.  While the temple and smelting locations are clever, as well as interesting set pieces, in my view they don't necessarily add to the adventure aside from be places where certain creatures could be encountered.  As such, they were eliminated and the encounters (mostly) relocated to a tighter cave complex.  Much of the southern end of the complex remained intact with some adjustment in the middle.  Compare the following to your own map f you'd like to follow things along in closer context.

To speed up play, and because I enjoy using battlemats much of the time (as do my players) I grabbed some images from the players map I got through Mike Schley's excellent resource.  As with previous areas that are heavily geared toward combat in this adventure, I blew them up to one-inch equals five feet.  I had to add in some grid lines because the map for Wave Echo Cave is set to ten foot squares.  I then printed the pages out on 110 lb cardstock, cut out the sections, and attached them to some thin foamcore boards in sections.  I made the images in greyscale / black & white because it is less expensive though in previous parts of the adventure I colored some portions in with markers.  I considered coloring the fungi area but didn't bother.

Floyd brought a GM screen for me to use, set up with the faction symbols on the outside and some updated charts on the inside.  Very nice, indeed.  One will note that one of the main features of Wave Echo Cave, the underground sea, and even all traces of water are gone, thus necessitating an alteration in the explanation of the periodic echoes.  I simply allowed for this to be coming from beyond the section of this complex through fissures and louder toward the natural caverns to the east, loudest in the northeast, which still accomplishes the original design intent, leading the PCs toward the Forge of Spells.

During play, I used cardstock pages to introduce a fog of war beyond the reach of light sources.  I had moved the Ghouls into the opening cavern and though this left the body of the dead Rockseeker brother less intact, it was still easy enough to identify once it was seen.  The group moved in, engaged in hand to hand combat, then backed off to the cave mouth and allowed the Dwarf Cleric to turn the Ghouls.  This gave the group a minute to snag the body and drop into the gorge in the north of the cavern, which I deemed the Ghouls would not drop into themselves.  A couple of the PCs had taken some damage and after a quick bit of healing they pressed on.

Rather than heading north to the maze of mine tunnels, the group opted to head east toward the louder sounds of the "waves."  In the first passage northward, Gundren took the time to bury his brother, if only temporarily, with the Dwarf Cleric to say some words over the corpse.  The rest of the group edged eastward and discovered, after tossing a light source well into the next cavern, that Stirges were swarming around in the heights.  I didn't have Stirge miniatures but had some Giant Ice Flies that I had created for another game some time ago.  I had used some dollar store flies with the black base removed, drybrushed with icy blue and a touch of black, then re-based.  They worked just fine.  A sleep spell took them out after only doing a smattering of damage.

After squishing the sleeping Stirges, the group had a look around.  The bones of those who had fallen here long before and the decorations on the walls gave them some confirmation of what they already knew about the mines and cavern complex.

They checked out the storage room to the north, now a dead end, keeping it in mind for later to rest.

They looked over the original entrance, realizing that any clearance effort would be beyond their strength and time.  They quickly looked in the assayers room and discovered the coin chest.  Then they looked in but did not enter the guardroom, avoiding dealing with the skeletons there.  I missed a trick with the assayers room.  Discussing things afterward with Norm, we decided it might have been a good idea to set the Flameskull on one of the sides of an assayers scale, playing possum, and have it come to life while the group was vulnerable.  I had left the Flameskull out completely.  I considered adding it back in when I allowed the group to level up to 4th-level before we began playing but didn't pull the trigger.  As it was, the evening was full enough so no big loss.

After checking out the entrance and the near rooms, and a short rest in the storage room, they moved toward the fungi cavern.  They had given it a quick look before, and tossed something in to disrupt the puffballs, watching as the cavern became spore-ridden, so they knew what they were up against.  They decided to chance it one at a time.  I give each player a single reroll they can use during each session.  They cannot save them from week to week, so they know to use them or lose them.  As each ran the gauntlet of the fungi cavern, most set off the spores and failed their first save.  The rerolls were all used up before reaching the far side but they made it nonetheless.

They had a good look around the next cavern before deciding top set up and try the scarred doors of the "Wraith" room.  I use quotation marks because this is really a toothless encounter designed to give the PCs a chance to gain some information.  The Halfling Thief was prompted to cross and check out the chest they saw from the doorway, which triggered the Wraith to rise and threaten anyway violating the room.

The Halfling Thief thought quickly and offered up a magical potion to appease the Wraith, so I allowed that to be enough if they agreed to leave him in peace, which they did, and as they left I had him beseech the group to eliminate the threat in the northern room.  Some of the players heard "Spectre" rather than "Spectator" and some discussion ensued before they mustered their courage to deal with the next threat.

They crossed northward and climbed the stair.

Again, they set up well to handle whatever they would find.

I explained the differences between the miniature I used and the actual Spectator but it worked for our purposes.  The dice went their way and although the creature got off some attacks at the Noble Fighter who rolled poorly on Initiative and stood in the door as the group moved back and forth, taking some ranged attacks.  In the following rounds, the fighters charged and landed some heavy attacks, finishing the Spectator.

They gather the magic items, assessed the weakness of the forge, and continued on to find the Black Spider.

They followed the winding hallway back into the worked sections of the complex, fearful at most had taken some damage and spells were now running low.

They found a collapsed room with the bodies of dead Bugbears.  My interior explanation was that these had fallen as the Black Spider made his own hasty attempts to gain the secrets of the forge.

The two Bugbears the Black Spider, Nezznar, a Dark Elf Wizard, had left in his employ were in the barracks, as was the villain himself.  As the Bugbears fought, Nezzner attempted to grab something and make his escape.  He was seen, so rather than risk his own life, he left behind the sack (treasure from the unused sections of the adventure) and took to the maze of the mines.

Poor rolls by the players allowed the Bugbears to last for many more rounds than should have happened.  This turned out to be a real nail-biter, despite Nezzner getting out and probably getting a good lead on getting away.  It was made even more sweet as I described these two Bugbears and the ones who helped Iarno escape from the Phandolin manor ruins.  Once the Halfling Thief slipped through the lines and was able to divide the attacks from the doorway, others slipped through.  A Hold Person finally stopped one of the Bugbears and once they were able to coordinate their attacks on the other, they chopped him up then finish off the held creature.

They were very happy with this, quickly gather the treasure sack, and made after Nezzner, hoping the Ghouls left behind in the entrance cavern would slow him down.

But they hadn't seen the mine-maze before so this threw them off and they slowed their progress to be sure they were not taken unaware.  I had replaced the Ochre Jelly, figuring it was too slow to be a real challenge for the group, with a Minotaur, which I constructed from some slightly-beefed-up Ogre stats.  I thought of having Nezzner attack them from hiding, invisible at first as he now was in my estimation, but they made such quick work I opted for Nezzner making off with what little dignity he had left.

The group also searched the rest of the maze, came up empty, gather up the body of the one Rockseeker they had found, dealt with the Ghouls again (having had a short rest early and able to turn them), and left the complex.

We were out of time for the evening and I offered the chance for the group to fight Nezzner in league with the dragon from Thundertree but we all agreed that we had the lion's share of adventure from the Starter Set and were done with it.  We'll re-start the 1E campaign next time we get together to roleplay and go back to our twice a month schedule, those who are more local boardgaming in the off-weeks.

No one was more pleased the group's success while being less pleased with his dice rolling than Floyd.  He really stepped up, running two PCs for the evening.  He'll also be running a regular Saturday afternoon 5E game at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL starting this week.  If anyone is interested, mention it here and I'll be sure he gets word.  I plan to make some more notes on how the whole process of playing through the 5E Starter Set Adventure (with some Basic rules) and will address my thoughts on a System Saturday post this weekend or next.

Thanks for following this blog series.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Events & Play Wednesday on CreativeMountainGames.com 

News of Conventions and Gamedays as well as pictures
from those I have attended and games I have played.

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The Friday Grab Bag - My 5E D&D Starter Set Playthrough Keeps Going (and Going!)

Our playthrough coverage continues from here!.

Before we jump back into the adventure, I have some added information to share.  One of the things I wanted to try and work out before our next game are inserts for a customized GM screen.  To that end, I discovered a thread on EN World where user ren1999 was building one for himself to use with 5E Basic D&D.  While I hope to make mine with more group-specific and Starter Set specific info, I'm keeping an eye on that thread for ideas for content and how to prioritize the layout.  See more here.

Also, WotC has put the five pregen characters from the 5E Starter Set up online as a PDF here.  Folks that are running the game, especially online, have been clambering for these.  Even if you are not playing or running the 5E Starter Set, you might want to look them over to get some insight on the new rules.  For our group, the characters and their players are named (in the order of the PDF) -

• Fighter, Noble (Human) - Excelon played by Floyd
• Cleric, Soldier (Dwarf) - Nox played by Norman
• Rogue, Criminal (Halfling) - Bulbo played by Keith
• Wizard, Acolyte (High Elf) - Heronimus played by John
• Fighter, Folk Hero (Human) - Samuel played by Kurt

But without any further ado . . .

This whole post, a continuation from last week, will be fraught with spoilers, so you have been warned. 

 My own players should avoid the text below as well!

Often I post reports like this from the perspective of the adventurers but let's look at the rest of this section of the 5E Starter Set adventure in part from the point of view of the hapless victims of our fearless band of marauders.  I'll try to include details that would seem most important to the villains without leaving too much out for those who want the usual treatment.  Maybe a GM's insight into how one might run the bad guys will prove useful to other GMs.  Some of the encounters were from the previous week, held in reserve from the blog because the group had yet to complete the section. 

___________________

When last we left our adventurers they were surrounding the Nothic.  The group was taking a few hits but were dealing some serious damage to the creature.  The Nothic, who is often prone to negotiate.  Perhaps because he was once a wizard (though now horribly, insanely aberrant), he misses talking to people.  Perhaps, all Nothics are just greedy.  This one opted to attack for various reasons.

(Someone off-blog had asked for a peek behind the decision to have the Nothic attack rather than negotiate and the following is a capsule of what I shared.)

In this case, the party (without cloaks or disguise) are clearly intruders, had blood on their weapons, one had just fallen down the crevasse and was severely wounded and had thoughts of taking over the complex for his own (Nothic gained that info), and while three were back helping the Noble out of the crevasse, the unarmored one (Wizard) was wandering over in easy striking distance (with surprise and Advantage) with only the little one (Halfling) supporting him. 

I rolled a die and determined the Nothic would use the upper hand to try to take one or two down, perhaps using that and the injuries of the Noble to extort payment from a position of strength.  Nothics are evil, after all.

And there they were, the Nothic on the east side of the northern bridge, with adventurers all around him.  Some Fancy Dan of a warrior was standing atop this arched footbridge.  Our Nothic knew, through mental insight, that the so-called Noble had declared his intentions to claim the complex for his own and, in all likelihood, slay all who might live within.  With this threat came many merciless minions.  Action was taken.  What was meant to be an attack by the Nothic to slay an unarmed intruder before threatening the rest of the interlopers had swiftly turned into the Nothic fighting for his life above his cozy home in the treasure-laden crevasse.  Oh, the injustice!

The Dwarf was the hardest to hit and, despite Nothic's claws flailing multiple times at the bearded invader, only once did the nails cut through the Dwarf's armor, and then not-at-all deeply.  The Halfling was trickiest, avoiding damage but slipping in from time to time to strike with his little blade.  Another armored Human stood on the west side of the footbridge, firing arrow after arrow, more than a few finding the Nothic as a target even though the cavern resident had positioned himself with both the stone pillar and the Usurper as some form of cover.  It simply wasn't fair!

The party whittled away at our misunderstood mage-turned-monster, who was merely defending his home, and all soon seemed lost.  No matter how often the Nothic struck, a myriad of blows from the marauders rained down on him from all around.  Before long, the Nothic was at death's door.  But the leader, upon the bridge, slipped.  An errant swing of his axe had him slightly reeling astride the wooden span.  With all his strength, the Nothic plunged both sets of claws deep into the torso of the usurper.  Into his mind he projected an ultimatum, "Let me live or we both fall to our deaths!"

The Nothic felt the enemy stab deeply with his blade and shove him from the bridge, dislodging his claws.  As he fell into the crevasse, he could see he would land upon his treasures, some cold, golden comfort in his final moment.  He cerebrally screamed into the mind of his slayer hoping it would echo in his soul forever.

When Floyd's attacked with his Noble Fighter resulted in a "1," I allowed the Nothic to have Advantage on his next round of combat.  When the Nothic subsequently rolled a "20," and both claws had struck home, I allowed the Nothic to have buried his claws so deep it required a Opposed Strength Check (Contest) to separate them.  When Floyd struck with his sword, he also rolled the check and despite the Nothic rolling first and rolling high, luck was with the Noble Fighter.  I rewarded the well-played moment by having the falling body reveal the location of the chest hidden in the crevasse.  The group found the only one of the secret supply room doors, in the northeast alcove.  Through that, they discovered the Armory and only glanced into the tomb without entering (leaving the Undead undisturbed for now), then went below to the Redbrand Common Room.

Meanwhile, a weekly dice game was taking place in a Redbrand Common Room not far away.  Oblivious to the action that had transpired in the cavern above, Sulidan, the Redbrand who had been with Glasstaff the longest, was fleecing his fellows with a set of loaded dice.  He had just managed to build the pot large enough for a final throw of the bones when the door burst open and a sizable warrior moved in and around the table.  The newcomer hacked at the Redbrand to Sully's right dealing him a vicious blow.  Right on the warrior's heels, a wizard, his profession fast becoming apparent, danced across the room shooting out flames from his fingers, engulfing the table of ruffians in fire.  This finished off the injured Redbrand.  Next through the door came a Dwarf who clouted the ruffian across from Sully, and the former dice-mate died in his chair.  A fourth combatant appeared at the doorway and plunked an arrow in the back of the ruffian to Sully' left and killed him where he sat.  It all happened so fast that it was all Sully could do to blurt out, "Don't kill me!  I know things!"

After dispatching three dice players, and gaining some knowledge from the fourth, they bound him and checked the laboratory.  After a bit of confusion, they killed a large rat that was trying to escape the room beneath the door to the east.  It had already tipped off Iarno, though, who fled the complex.  After gleaning what they could from the paperwork left behind, including the identity of Iarno and the existence of the Black Spider, they discovered the secret way up to the storeroom, and made their way back to the Cistern hoping they could catch up with Iarno.  The tied up Redbrand from their first battle had been killed, seemingly by Iarno, and they figured out they had missed something hidden in the Cistern that had been retrieved.

 Figuring they had lost Iarno, but ignoring the door to the Bugbear Barracks, the group approached the tomb from the front hallway, nearly falling into the pit trap.  They opted to then go back around through he secret way to the tomb.  They vanquished the Undead and quickly handled the two Redbrand guards, releasing the prisoners.  With the former captives in tow, they returned to the Cistern and led them up and out through the cellar and back to town.  They felt they had cleared the complex.

In the meantime, the Bugbears had discovered the death scene in the dice room, not noticing the tied up Redbrand behind the dicing table.  The Bugbears checked Iarno's quarters and discovered he had fled.  The Bugbears opted to leave via the secret tunnel but soon reunited with Iarno hidden in the woods, who rallied the Bugbears awaiting a chance to make an attack on the adventurers.  Seeing they were still strong, he used his invisibility potion to follow them into town.  Because they revealed their next plan on the streets, Iarno returned to the Bugbears and waited in sight of the Manor ruins to see when best to make an assault.

"I had a very good thing going on here," thought Iarno.  "If it hadn't been for that meddling Sildar, and his collection of fools, I might have established a kingdom here in time and eventually had power enough to make the spider pay."

The disgruntled employee of the Black Spider knew there was but one way forward.  Fleeing the area was out of the question.  His identity was now known to Sildar and soon to the Lord's Alliance.  Neverwinter was off limits to him.  No place would be safe.  He needed to force the issue here and now, remove the adventurers from the picture, deal with Sildar and the folk of Phandalin, and re-establish control over the town.  If he could get this done before Sildar sent word to Neverwinter, it might buy him even more time.

Knowing now that but a fraction of the adventuring party would be returning to the Manor ruins to bury the dead, Iarno caught back up with his Bugbear allies hidden in the woods.  They crept up to listen and discovered the adventurers were the only ones willing to go deeply into the complex.  Iarno waited until most of the Deadbrands were pulled out and the townsfolk-helpers were busy with the bodies already brought forth.  Those idiots were still marveling over the burning body of the Nothic when the three adventurers on hand descended one final time to retrieve the three bodies form the Common Room.

Iarno scrawled a message to the Black Spider and dispatched it with the Goblin who would be glad enough to free from the Bugbears.  The Goblin only knew the way to Cragmaw Castle but they would pass word along to the Black Spider.  IF the Goblin managed to make it there.  It couldn't be helped.  Iarno needed all three of the Bugbears to re-establish control here.  With the Goblin on his way, Iarno gathered the Bugbears and slipped into the secret passage from the woods.

Without much light in the tunnel, he sent one of his burly, stealthy henchmen ahead to watch for when the adventurers would pass across the northern footbridge.  When he returned with word, Iarno split the group, sending two Bugbears, including Eyepatch their leader, down the southern staircase while he and another Bugbear, Splitnose, flanked the adventurers from the northern staircase.  Just to be sure they were softened up a bit, Iarno urged Splitnose to allow the other Bugbears to engage in the attack first, then head down.  As they descended to the sound of fighting in the Common Room, that damned Dwarf Cleric stepped out into the hallway.  If that bastard shut the door and barred the way, this combat would not end well.  He didn't.  His Dwarfish pride kicked in and he attacked Splitnose even as he was still upon the lower steps.  Iarno did his best to stay hidden behind his burly buddy, just above him on the staircase.

By the sound of it, the Bugbears in the Common Room were holding their own.  Splitnose was getting the upper hand here on the staircase but just to be sure, Iarno shot a couple of Magic Missiles at the bearded miscreant.  The dwarf called out that he was in trouble and another blow from Splitnose laid him low.  Iarno patted Splitnose on the back and sent him down to the Common Room to help finish off the others.  Still, there was no sense risking personal injury while the Bugbears had things handled.  Iarno stooped over the expiring Dwarf and rummaged through his pouches, snagging a couple of gems, a scroll, and some baubles.  As he heard Eyepatch call out that the battle was lost, Iarno looked up to see Splitnose hadn't entered the room and was now barreling his way toward the stairs in flight.  Leaving whatever else might be on the Dwarf's body, Iarno ran for it.  He didn't have to outrun the adventurers, he just had to outrun Splitnose.

As it happened, they both made it out the secret tunnel.  With little left he could do, while not risking his own neck completely, Iarno led Splitnose further off into the woods then slew him.  He had been bleeding profusely and it was not tough to tap a couple of missiles into the base of his skull.  If word of this bad turn reached the Black Spider, Iarno's days would be numbered even shorter than they obviously already were.  If he could just ensure that the Black Spider's plans for Wave Echo Cave were not thwarted, he might still stay in the evil graces of that tyrant.  For now, Iarno wandered off further into the woods to scheme and ponder his own existence.

With the complex now actually cleared of enemies in earnest, the group rounded up the supplies and weapons and made a deal with Barthen to liquidate them.  They put on hold their intentions to take the place over and stayed at the Inn where a long rest could more safely be assured.  With Sildar, they intended to leave the next morning using their Goblin guide to locate Cragmaw Castle and rescue Gundren, should he still be alive.  Most of that two-day journey north was uneventful but on the second night, during third watch when the Wizard and Cleric were up, the Wizard perceived a large creature lurking nearby and coming closer.  As the brush parted, an Owlbear burst forth.  Thinking quickly, the Wizard cast an image of as large a dragon as he could between himself and the charging beast.  It worked!  The Owlbear doesn't fear much but it also isn't bright and a dragon is just a little too big for him to comfortably attack.  It turned tail and lumbered off in the woods northward.

This ends the two weeks of dealing with the second section of the 5E D&D Starter Set Adventure.  We will continue and are having fun.  While we still need to refresh our memories on some of the rules changes from time to time, the game is playing well enough in this form to keep us enjoying what we have played.

More to come!  The next post in the series is here.

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