Another moderately short session, but things will be picking up soon.

The characters (The Vingaardians):

• Drystan Silverhart – Level 4 Aasamar Paladin (Knight of Solamnia)
• Yseult De Lorimar – Level 4 Human Warlock (Noble)
• “Fletch” Siannodel – Level 4 Kagonesti Elven Ranger (Folk Hero)
• Sabelina – Level 4 Human Cleric of Gilean (Acolyte)
• Sidekicks: Hrigg Roundrook and Tem Temble

When we last left off, the party decided to check on various farmsteads around Kalaman to ensure the farmers were okay, and if there was Red Dragon Army activity nearby, to get them to head to safety in Kalaman – this session we started right out of the gate with that, with the party heading out with a generally planned search pattern that would take them about a week of in-game time. I had the party roll a Survival check to try to get some additional information about the Red Dragon Army’s movements, but the best the party got was a 10, which I interpreted as being that they could tell that the Red Dragon Army had been there, but you couldn’t quite get a good sense of their numbers or the age of the tracks, outside of “within the past week”.

The encounter this session was the fight at the farmhouse, with a group of Hobgoblin mercenaries lead by a supervising Red Dragon Army officer. The hobgoblins and the commander rolled horribly on their Perception check (the officer rolled a 1, and the hobgoblins rolled a 2) – and none of the players rolled a 1, so even Drystan, the knight, in full plate, on his horse, managed to surprise them, giving us a surprise round.

That said, the party also managed to spectacularly whiff most of their attacks – with only Yseult landing a successful hit. They were however, able to quickly turn things around – helped by the Hobgoblins focusing their attacks in the first couple Rounds on Drystan, who just had too much AC for them to hit – even with Pack Tactics. Speaking of which – Pack Tactics also does a great job of encouraging Hobgoblins to group up, which allowed Fletch (who had the main AOE attack spells) to do some extra damage mid-fight.

I also came up with my own fun little “how do you want to do this variant” – Yseult’s familiar is a Sphinx of Wonder, so when he rolled a 1 on one of his attacks – I asked Yseult’s player to describe what cat thing her familiar was doing instead of helping in the fight.

After the fight, I came up with a little thing to embellish the session – I had the party find (while checking the site) signs of survivors – with a woman and her children running one way, and her husband running another in an attempt to distract the army – with the heroics unintentionally being in vein not because of any tragedy, but because we arrived before the Red Dragon Army could try to track them down. This gave us a little more opportunity to roleplay with the family after rescuing them.

On the way back, I added the encounter where the party ran into a returning Cudgel’s Company, with Becklin, and the whole group walked into Kalaman together – adding some dialog with the party catching up with Becklin, and then the party getting talking to Mayor Raven to help get the refugees settled, and letting her know Becklin and Cudgel are okay. We wrapped up the session with the party getting their next assignment, taking Wheellock Keep.

As an aside, the commander for this attack is also named Raven in the adventure, so I’ve named her Lieutenant Raven to differentiate her from Mayor Raven of Vogler. I don’t now if they’re supposed to be the same character or not as written, but I feel like Mayor Raven is going to put her focus on advocating for her people, rather than leading troops in battle.

Also, I’ve come to a realization of one of my shortcomings as a DM – I’m bad at coming up with NPC dialog extemporaneously. I can come up with something in advance, something that’s effectively boxed text. I can come up with some pretty good descriptions in the same way. When playing instead of GMing, I can come up with extemporaneous dialogue for my character. However, when I’m spinning all the plates of a GM, it gets a little tricky to get NPC dialog outside of a bit here or there.

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