A DnD Tale: Thief in the Night

He was a Magic Man

After almost 2 years the craving for a real dungeon crawl in DnD went so strong I was left with only one option... I roped in my three sisters and brother-in-law. So I went all in and wrote a short adventure that spiralled for all 20 levels and even godhood if need be. I probably won't reach that level, but let's see how far I can get them (which probably is a big fault from my side, but hey, it's my first time as a DM). Back-story is that my brother-in-law is a dragon born named Sphinx, son of Phalanx. A paladin of the Bahamut order sent to the mercenary company Silverhawks in Fallcrest for his training. Sarion, the eldarin wizard on a journey to Fallcrest to discuss some recently discovered relics from a long lost kingdom with the green wizard. Kiera, the half-elven bard entertainer that are travelling through and lastly Despair, the tiefling rouge trying to escape the slums of the town by stripping it down, even the smallest copper coin don't go free.

Holy Fighter in an Ancient War

I used the training dungeon in the Dungeon Master's Guide together with the town Fallcrest as a setting to make it easy to adopt it. So three players are arriving at Fallcrest, the first is Sphinx that on the way to the Silverhawks company gets pick-pocketed and has to get help from their captain, Tyrell the Swift, an half-elven bard searching for a statue of Bahamut stolen earlier from the Temple. Meanwhile Sarion has reached the Green wizards tower where the wizard informs him that the artefact, a jewel rose has been stolen and he localised the thief with his crystal ball so Sarion and the wizards helper tries to find her (if you haven't guessed it it's Despair). At the same time Kiera enters the town and gets pick-pocketed immediately, but catches the thief in the act, but receives a fist in the face so the hunt is on. running through the streets they almost push Sarion to the ground, but recognising the thief from the crystal ball follows suit. They follow the thief to the lower quays where she enters a building and looks the door behind her. They bang on the door, but can't enter and instead attracts the attention of seven kobold minions surrounding them. After some slashes arrows begin firing from the roof-top. A dark shadowy creatures emerges and kills off five of them when the bard kills one of them with one hit while the last one runs off. The wizard mostly fired magic missiles all across the scene illuminating them. Down jumps a drow elf and starts picking the lock. Meanwhile Sphinx tried his luck with the leader of the River Rats, Kelson, but get laughed at for getting pick-pocketed at the first day on the job. He also mentions the most likely suspect is Despair, the rouge he more or less fired from the gang for sticking her fingers in the profit margins. They follow the clue to Sandercoots provisions where they open the front door, but the paladin armour scrambles so high that the sons of the owner comes down to rough up the intruder. It ends with Sphinx throwing one of the sons across the room, through the door and into the room where the owner haggles with Despair... which could have gone better. She got rid of most of the goods, except a pyramid of Onyx she stole from Kiera which she tried to bluff off as a treasure from the Lord Warden... which I spun as being extremely hot for the black market so she would have to pay me to get rid of it for her. Still, Despair got caught between the groups and ratted out by the Sandercoots as they felt the noose around their necks. All well that ends well... they thought. An explosion from the backroom where the goods are stored interrupts the party and they head back where they find the goods missing and a lot of dead kobold bodies from the explosion they set up. The Sandercoots offers some guiding help to the Kobold Manor and a map for some small compensation... the 2000 gold coins Despair had collected. After that they head over to the Silver Unicorn inn to rest as the darkness have fallen. Tomorrow they went for the Kobold Manor.

Only light in the darkness shining forever more

They enter Kobold Manor while the two Silverhawk members, Tyrell and Argent the Fallen guards the entrance and keeps their escape free. After hard fighting they kills off the guards in the first floor that they spend four hours resting up after to restore their strength. They break down the barriers to the second level. There they enter a grave chamber and fights off three skirmisher kobolds and unfortunately activates several of the dart traps immobilising all of them, except the paladin. Afterwards they breaks the statues being the source of the darts. After some nasty backfires of course. Meanwhile the paladin finds a Tiamat alter that he smashes. They enter the third area where the kobolds are invested in a game of Skull-Skull where they throw a wrecking-ball at four coffins... and any one foolish enough to enter. After an intense battle they take another long rest as two fell unconscious during the battle. The fourth area they sneak into listening to a mysterious lady berating the kobold for the measly treasures they offer Tiamat. She takes the rose, the statue and the pyramid and start to leaves but notices the heroes in the doorway and alert the kobolds before leaving through a side-door. The kobolds unleashes a rolling boulder trap that starts rolling down as two slinger kobolds climbs up from the middle area and starts throwing rocks at the party. The trap sadly backfires at the kobolds as the party tricks them into its path or the best part bullrush a flying drake onto the ground so it gets crushed. After finishing of the cultist leader they head for the secret passage and enters an underground passage with an ice covered floor. All they can hear is something breathing in the cave. Sphinx and Despair sneaks down the columns past the ice lake and finds a sleeping dragon. They detect a magic door on the side. but the rouge accidentally awakens the dragon. It starts off ice-breathing the two intruders, but the paladin avoids damage, but the tiefling takes it head on. In retaliation the rouge blinds the dragon that stumbles out on the ice lake where the wizard finally gets one hit and burns the dragon and the ice so it falls into the water. The dragon surrounded on all sides it crawls up and intimidates the wizard to inaction and bloodies the dragonborn. At this moment, after waiting over 9 hours, the members of the Silverhawks venture down the path wondering where they disappeared too and joins the fight. The Drow ready his bow for a sure shot attack. He fires and... miss. He re-rolls and... miss. He uses his action point and... miss. Just like old times. Anyway, the battle rages on for some time, several of the characters get bloodied (Argent accidentally shot Tyrell in the back one time), until Spinx smites the dragon with his flail. They search the cave and finds a chest with a letter they can read and several treasures (which I forgot to give them during the course of the adventure... oops!). They try to enter the magic door but it is sealed by a powerful magic spell, wrought by Tiamat. They get Tyrell to fiddle with the spell, but he unleashes the trap that send him and his two assistants across the room while the cave tumbles in over the door. The wizard Sarion restores the cave, but the door still stands, untouched. They decide to head back to Fallcrest. There they can't enter the town as the gates are closed for the night. They enter the inn just outside and are introduced to the owner and important noble tiefling. They gather information on some rather interesting tidbits happening in town. Apparently a ghost have been spotted in the tower in the middle of the river, the lord warden is away dealing with the bandits led by Wren, the draconian in the north, usual complaint of high taxes and so on. They talk bit about further plans to get their items back before going to bed.

And that concludes my first couple of sessions as a DM. Maybe not the best, but I think I got the right story hooks. I'm just a little bad at getting them to talk between them and tell more of the setting. They seemed to enjoy it though. Next is levelling up and see if there will be some more play session before they leave... although since this happened during the Christmas holiday I will probably know. Also I put this on the video game Wednesday since it kept me away from completing video games during the holiday so enjoy. Also I played 4th edition since that's the one I've played and since I'm the only one experienced it probably was for the better. Plus it got all the extra material I can use compared to 5th edition... at the moment of writing that is.