campaign — in the context of a tabletop roleplaying game such as Scarlet Horizons, the word denotes a series of successive adventures with some unifying theme or trigger. Conversely, a series of unrelated adventures is comprised of one-offs.

Session 15 Phandelver Tabletop Campaign

? May 2024 (6:00-? CST) ? hr session; cumulative: ? hrs

Postponed from 23rd May 2024 to 30th May 2024 due to Vivian's birthday party.

Session 15 Synopsis:

Session 14 Phandelver Tabletop Campaign

16th May 2024 (6:00-9:00 CST) 3.0 hr session; cumulative: 41.5 hrs

Postponed from 9th May 2024 to 16th May 2024 due to DM having an audit at work.

In tonight's game session, the PCs received an update from Thraxis Corvale that their respective dragons — Vrakthis, Saphira, and Xaiko — are now approximately two tons each and with twenty-foot wingspans. Some discussion centered around possibly training them to carry the PCs in flight.

The Four postponed that task in order to respond to a new danger: the emergence of Anatharaxis from her deeper lair within the Barrowmaze. The PCs managed to locate this dracolich and its giant zombie servitors and dispatch them before they could visit destruction and terror upon communities surrounding the Barrowdown.

In this fight, Lanky drew upon his incredible assassin skills and the magic of his magical cape, enabling the halfling and Keven, his cave lizard mount, to disappear into shadows and move along the walls and ceiling of the dracolich's cavern.

Lanky slew the monster by using up most of his acidic murdayne root poison, while the other party members dealt with the not-insignificant giant zombies. The party emerged victorious and each PC attained Level 12 overall, whereupon Celaena took her 4th level in Ranger, Feyre took her 1st level in Necromancer, and Lanky took his 3rd level in Cut-Throat. Whiteheart took Level 4 in Sohei.

Well, our heroes, Matthias and Aury are headed for the Barrowmaze with their guide, a dungeoneer named Brother Jasyn. It's October 23, 204 Post-Ravaging. I spent some time this evening doing some setup for a fight with a hunting party of lizardmen they've encountered.

My plan is to run the combat tomorrow. I can use it for entertainment during breaks while working on a Sunday School lesson.

I continue running a campaign on myth-weavers.com and we're using Hackmaster 5e but planning on soon converting to AD&D 5e. The campaign's been running about four months and has been moving forward rapidly. Characters currently vary from 5th to 10th level. Yes, they've advanced rather quickly. For context, we're playing a no-level-limit campaign.

When I started this play-by-post campaign back in April 2022, using the Mythweavers site, I substituted some place names and proper nouns, to hopefully throw off any meta-gaming player from discerning the published source of the story-arc: Night Below, a well-received product of the AD&D 2e era. Of course, some of the players are in their fifties like me, so may guess it anyway.

Currently, the PCs are about to wind up the first portion of the campaign arc, at which point they'll have the option of retiring either permanently or semi-permanently. Having saved Haranshire Slaytonthorpe from the bandit threat, they've earned the gratitude of the locals residing in Milbourne Millboro and Thurmaster Trimaster, including that of the mage Tauster Tauste.

I'm using a doom clock in the current fight, which is against the BBEGs. The PCs are fighting death cultists and giant skeletons in a Fane that sits atop the mega-keep, The Brokenspire Tornspire. A group of bandits have been kidnapping people from various surface villages, towns, and cities for the past few in-game months. The PCs have fought against these bandits in the region of Slaytonthorpe.

In the current battle, a winged monstrosity I've given the appellation draco-demon is using a fiery breath weapon to soften up party members. More importantly, it has begun to glow and throb with an intensifying inner light that signals an imminent explosion. A danger clock is ticking. Each round, I select a party member to roll a dice pool. If three or more of the rolled d6s comes up '6', the draco-demon explodes for 8d6 penetrating damage in a fifty-foot radius. The dice pool started at 3d6, but will contain 4d6 next round, 5d6 the round after that, etc. It's a tension-building mechanic...

Assuming that the PCs -- who style themselves The Knights of the Rising Phoenix -- prevail, they will bring the current story arc to an ending and will have the undying gratitude of the people of Slaytonthorpe. Perhaps they'll retire. Then again, they may follow up on clues that this recent rash of kidnappings of surface-dwelling spellcasters may be occurring at the orchestration of a much more dire intelligence in the Underdark...