Aight so I play a shit ton of dnd and I thought it might be fun to write out what happens in all my seshes as a narrative, but I ain’t gonna post it if nobody’s interested in reading so just go ahead and leave an agree or sum if y’all wanna hear what’s goin on at the table
Alright so here’s a rundown of all the characters in the campaign: Zezimier, half elf ranger obsessed with cataloging Monsters Skolmuck, dwarven smuggler who has been on the seas for most of his life Azure, served as a healer in a war but fled when her army lost (water genasi) Summid Moonrock, literally the most SMACKED character I have ever played with (Goliath) Craeli, Aaracocran (Bird person) who is obsessed with the stars, was found at a young age and was raised as a monk So, our story began at the Wicker Goat Tavern in the small fishing city of Saltmarsh. The party was having dinner when a woman came in screaming at the tavern-keeper; something about her son going missing because of the tavern-keep’s grandson. After the tavern-keep tried to calm her down, she started trying to assault him, so she was thrown out of the bar. The party asked the tavern-keeper what had happened, and he told them his grandson had made a bet with the lady’s son about going into a haunted house about 4 miles outside of town. The players went to the lady, who told them her name was Kiorna, who said that her son went missing at the haunted house. They found that the house was actually a sort of local legend; there used to be an alchemist living there but he died about 2o years prior, and everyone in the town had assumed it haunted ever since. Kiorna directed the party to an old wicky who was the only person known to have gotten anywhere close to the house. They found the wicky near another tavern in town, and he swore he’d seen ghosts there before, though he did seem to be the sort to exaggerate some details in his story. They decided to head out to the house, and made it there in about an hour and a half. Upon investigating a few rooms in the house, they found a man named Ned Shakeshaft who had been kidnapped and tied by bandits, and taken into the house. He said that they left him to die there after hearing some ghostly howls. While the group had some suspicions of him, they decided to let him loose, and he fled not long after. Upon further exploration of the house, they found stairs leading into a basement, and as they began going down the stairs, a guttural and ghostly howl took over the room, and completely frightened both Craeli and Zezimier. They continued venturing down, and found themselves in a cellar. Azure discovered muddy footprints leading to the wall, and upon further investigation Azure discovered a secret door, which opened up into a larger chamber. When everyone entered, they discovered several bandits, a hobgoblin, and a wizard. The wizard was peaceful at first, and revealed the house was not haunted, but instead a base of operations for a smuggling ring. The wizard, Sanbalet, offered them a spot in his crew, but when he revealed that some of his plans included smuggling slaves, Azure began a fight. Sanbalet and Azure had an epic duel of level 2 spells!!! and everyone else took care of the rest of the crew. Everyone was slain, and the party found the two boys who had gone missing, Leiflin the 8 year old son of Kiorna, and Markus, the 14 year old grandson of the tavern keep in cages. They revealed that all they knew was that a ship was coming to pick them up in just a few days. . .
The party made their way back to Saltmarsh and reunited the kids with their families. As they were eating dinner in a tavern, a member of the town’s council, Anders Solmor, approached them and thanked them for their service to the town. He requested they have an audience with the entire council to talk about the discovered smuggling ring. The party accepted the request, and made their way to the council hall with Anders. He introduced them to everyone on the council, and they gave all the information they found regarding the smugglers. The council said they would send a detachment of guards to the house to see what else they could find, and also requested the party board the ship that the boys had said was coming in a couple days. The party accepted, and left the council’s chambers. The following morning, they decided to investigate the matter further, and made their way to speak with the kids they had rescued. They first went to Kester’s Leather Goods, run by Kiorna, the mother of the younger boy they rescued. They spoke with the boy and his mother, and he wasn’t able to tell them much more than they already knew from their previous conversation. Leiflin, the boy said that most conversations were out of earshot of them, and they didn’t get to hear much of the smugglers’ conversations. Kiorna thanked the party again for saving her son, and they went to find the other boy at his grandfather’s tavern. They found Markus, and he told them that the situation simply started because of a bet with the younger boy. He offered about the same amount of information as Leiflin, and also said they had not been harmed at all. After this conversation, the party decided to trail the guards that were sent to the house to aid in the investigation there. After another hour and a half walk, they made it back to the “haunted” house. As they were walking up the hill to the house, Zezimier heard guttural screaming yet again, and they drew weapons as they walked in. They cleared the rest of the rooms they hadn’t entered, and the only thing of note they found was a lantern with a hood and lens cover. As they went back down into the cellar of the home, as they got to the cave that opened to the ocean, they found the two guards dead with trident markings in their chests, and an amulet with an ornate shark on it. . .
They returned to Saltmarsh to let the council know about their findings of the dead guards, and Azure made her way to the Faithful Quartermasters of Iuz, a sort of magic shop in town run by a Tiefling named Captain Xendros. Azure showed Xendros the amulet they had found, and the Tiefling warned her that it was actually a holy symbol to the evil Shark-God Sekolah, the entity worshipped by the dreaded sea-devils, the sahuagin, a mysterious and bloodthirsty race of Shark-Folk. The rest of the party, while with the council, was told they could be given a keelboat temporarily to help board the ship that was set to be coming the next day. For the rest of the day, the party took to exploring the town, as they hadn’t spent much time seeing what goods and services were offered around the area. Zezimier found a Mariner’s Guild, who provided him with a fishing rod and bait, and he spent the rest of the day fishing to provide the party with a meal. Skolmuck went to the blacksmith, and while there, discovered that the weapons sold there were suspiciously of good making, almost of Dwarven craftsmanship.. the only suspicious thing was that the blacksmith was a human, and not a Dwarf, and evaded most questions on if she actually smithed everything there or not. After a day of browsing the town, the party met up at the Empty Net tavern, had a few drinks, and went to sleep to prepare for the likely long and dangerous day ahead of them . . .
The day finally came for them to see what they could find aboard the ship. They made their way back to the house one final time, and set up camp there for the day. Craeli and Zezimier climbed up onto the side of the cliff facing out to the ocean to see if he could spot the ship coming throughout the day. Skolmuck, Azure and Summid stayed in the cave on the beach to make an attempt to deceive any smugglers that may make their way to the beach. Hours went by without any event, but finally, as the night came in, Craeli and Zezimier spotted a large ship several hundreds of feet off of the shore. It stopped and presumably dropped anchor, and from the beach, Skolmuck spotted a lantern potentially signaling to the beach with a code he recognized from being on the seas for most of his life. Craeli flew down from the side of the hill and gave Skolmuck the lantern, who signaled back to the ship. Azure began swimming out to the ship underwater using her water-breathing to see if she could investigate a bit closer to the ship. On her swim out, she almost ran into a rowboat that was making its way from the ship to the beach. She hastily swam back to the beach as they prepared to likely fight whoever was on the rowboat. It got to the shore, and at first, Skolmuck was able to fool the smugglers into believing they were new to the operation, but they eventually accidentally gave themselves up. A small fight broke out, and the smugglers were dispatched rather easily. The party came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to easily take over a ship of pirates with just the five of them, and decided it may be in their best interests to abandon their quest. Before they could set out, another rowboat was spotted approaching the beach. They decided they could try to pull more information from these approaching pirates before running away. The boat landed, and four men stepped off, one wearing mage’s robes, one with a coat and a hook hand, and two other regular smugglers. The two more threatening men immediately began a fight, seeing the other men from the other boat dead on the beach. Azure ran up immediately, and used a brutal spell, Thunderwave, which sent the two lesser men flying back into the water, almost completely disintegrating before hitting the water, and then drowning after being thrown into the water. One of the men, the one in robes, did not budge, and the one with the hook hand was thrown into the sand off of the rowboat. A magical battle broke out between Azure and the robed man, while everybody else went to fight the hook-handed pirate. Azure dispatched of the robed man, taking some hits from him, and when the hook-handed man realized he was likely to die, he yelled out a, “PARLAY,” and by the code of the sea, the group was not allowed to kill him. He agreed to take them aboard the ship and speak with the captain, but he did give them the warning that they would likely die if they went on board. The group took that as a challenge, and they all got on a rowboat and began rowing towards the ship. The journey took about twenty minutes, and they all climbed aboard, greeted by the captain, who at this point had realized something had gone wrong. Zezimier took control of a conversation with the captain, saying that they would die for their crimes; he may have been able to tolerate regular smuggling, but when they kidnapped children to sell as slaves, that was too far. The captain was taken rather aback by this, but realized that it was, “that idiot wizard Sanbalet,” who was trying to get them involved with smuggling children, even though he had repeatedly told him that he did not approve, no matter how high the price. Regardless, the captain said they would have to die for killing his men, and another fight broke out. Summid used his Druidic powers to transform into a bear, which definitely sounds cooler than it is (he was rolling absolute shit for his damage and did basically nothing). Azure began throwing magic at everyone she could see, taking on three pirates at once. Skolmuck and Craeli began fighting the captain and his first mate in melee combat, and Zezimier began firing arrows at everyone else, trying to cover his mates. Zezimier was attacked by three pirates, and was actually thrown unconscious, and after several minutes of fighting in a bloody battle, all of the pirates were slain, and Azure stabilized a bloodied Zezimier and healed him. The group stood victorious, having slain a dozen pirates, and possibly ending a smuggling ring. . .
Nah we’re running ghosts of saltmarsh rn. im not a huge fan (I give it like a 6/10) bc it’s a whole bunch of completely separate adventures, but there’s ways to weave them all together which is proving mildly annoying
