A DnD Tale: Waterdeep - Dragon Heist: The Waterdeep Job

 

I'm the jester with no tears
And I'm playing on your fears
I'm a trickster smiling underneath this mask of love and death
The eternal lie I've told
About the pyramids of gold
I've got you hooked at every turn, your money's left to burn

The next adventure kicked off in January of 2022. Been given the message from the monk in the Temple of Elemental Evil, they are surrounded by fog and then... returned to a harbour in Barovia together with Madam Eve. A ship appears with Vistani colours on the sails, captained by a vistani crew. From behind carts carrying goods of wheat, wine, furs and furnitures to load upon the boat and they all board and sail away. Through the magical mist they enter the world of Toril and the continent of Faerûn and sails toward the city of Waterdeep, the City of Splendor and the Crown of the North.

Arriving at the docks Madam Eve sends them to the Yawning Portal to meet someone. There they observe the people in the tavern and a fight breaks out between a half-orc and five people dressed in black. During the scuffle a troll appears from the well with 9 stirges and all people erupts in panic. A short scuffle with the involved fighters it's over and the players are introduced to Volothamp Geddarm, Volo to his friends and in need of some help since his friend Floon Blagmaar has been missing for two days. With ten gold coins each as down payment they go out looking for this missing person. 

Walking through the streets they encounter the fall out of a gang war between two fractions of the underworld. Dead bodies and city watch walking all around. No one caring for the missing person beyond our heroes. They find some curiosity shop where they learn that the owner watched two people being abducted and dragged away by five people. They walk over to the inn that Volo last saw Floon. After bribing the patrons with some gold and ale they inform them that Volo and Floon was here, but after Volo left another person appeared and joined Floon and as they left five other men left the tavern. The five people the patrons recognized from a magazine by the docks. 

They arrive at the magazine and enters it, finding another scene of dead bodies. Looking through the bottom floor they find a noble by the name Renaer Neverember, son of the former open lord of Waterdeep who was the target of the kidnapping, but since he and Floon looked alike they both were taken by the Zentharim, the thieves guild. And here the Zentharim was attacked by the Xanathar Guild who got away with Floon who they mistook for Renaer. They also finds a secret room with stolen goods, but before they can do anything else the house is overrun by city watch guards that have been alerted by passers by some strange activity. The captain takes control of the place and after some questioning of the three lets them go. Renaer joins with the players to look for Floon since he feels guilty for the events that have transpired. They investigate and finds tracks to a manhole into the sewer and delve underground.

And here we come to the problem with sending level 8 characters into a first level dungeon. The first monster is a gazer, a small beholder pretty much. They just hit it once and it's dead. Next enemy is wererat that they don't actually have any problem with since the rouge alone made 37 damage, insta-killing it if they wanted to. Of course, Immeral the monk had a bit of bad luck and got bitten before anyone could do anything, failed the con saving throw and was now affected by a lycanthropy curse. And they found the secret door toward the boss room, skipping the most of the dungeon. They kill the goblin keeping watch and continues in to face the orc torturing Floon together with the mind flayer and an intellectual devourer. Hope the rouge attacks the orc and kills him in one hit. The big boss they encounter is a Mind Flayer. Immeral attacks the mind flayer that just shrugs at the damage and walks away, putting a dominate curse on Renaer that attacks Hope. And the intellectual devourer jumps on Immeral missing the strike, but is able to get off the brain drain and Immeral losses the saving throw and I rolled higher than Immerals Int ability score so Immeral is out cold. 

Which was lucky for me that they still could pose a threat for the players even though they are 7 levels higher than they are supposed to. Hope uses the spell protection from evil and good to wake up Renaer. The mind flayer escapes into a magic portal and Renaer and Hope kills the intellect devourer before it take control of Immerals brain (which I wouldn't even dare try since the luck of the player would mean that would have been the end of Immeral). They leave with Immeral's unconscious body and return to the Yawning Portal. Volo is relieved that everyone's back, but is a bit worried about the state of Immeral. So they send a message to the temple for a cleric to restore the intellect. Meanwhile payment is discussed. He don't have much money (the sales of Volo's Guide to Monster doesn't seem to be that high), but offers a deed to a house in the Northen ward. Taking a look Hope accept and add it to their growing list of real estate that lies in the hand of Hope and Immerals Emporium. Hope returns to the Portal, the cleric Parker Bronzebeard have arrived with a Greater Restoration spell and is able to cure Immeral on both the wererat curse as well as the damage done by the intellect devourer. Renaer pays for their stay during the night since they can't expedite the take over of the deed until noon the next morning. And here the session ends.

That was fast. We got through the first chapter in one sitting, I actually thought it would take two at least. Could be that I bumbled the magazine scene by accidentally skipping the check on opening the door so I had the kenku assassins already be gone. I also messed with certain rolls. For example I made the mind flyer go before Renaer in the last battle and I forced him to lose the dominate monster spell so that the ilithid could get away. Other adjustments was that I forced them to start with 625 gold each since keeping it all would wreck the economy (which it still does, but it will speed up certain aspects, but since they want flour and other things imported from Barovia they need to get some clearance from the right authorities and that might make everything equal). 

I also plan to change a lot in the end. First of, the keys are kinda underwhelming. Just 3 random things that can be found anywhere? And if you play it as written, then you would have 3 "dungeons" unused? Well, first instinct was using three statues that would open the door to the treasure. I got the idea from an old TaleSpin episode I watched as a kid, "Molly Coddled" it was apparently called. There the villain used a statue (or doll) to open a chamber where a ruby version of that doll was. Neat right, my only problem was what the statues would look like, and I thought gods would work, especially one would be Asmodeus.  Then I watched "The Phantom" from 1996 and thought, skulls it is, of gold, silver and jade.

The Skulls of Touganda

So each villain gets one key so that you can do all of it. Plus watching a couple of Jönssonligan-movies made me think about performing the perfect plan, planed into the smallest detail... or rather, the players gotta figure it out while I play the music from the movies. This gonna be fun.

The Shannara Chronicles (Season 1)

 

Well, hard to miss the post-destruction of earth.

As mentioned while playing through Shannara, I liked Terry Brooks Shannara-series (or at least the ones I've read). So, I discovered there was a TV-show made after one of the books, and it's the Elfstones of Shannara, the best book in the series. And it got John-Rhys Davies as king Eventine and the guy that played Deathstroke in Arrow as Allanon. The others wasn't that interestingactually.

So the story follows Elfstones pretty much. The "world tree" Ellcrys in the lands of the elves are dying and it is the only thing that keeps demons trapped from the real world. As the tree gets weaker three demons are released, the leader of the demons and two lunderlings that are sent out to prepare for the invasion of the demons. You got the chameleon that can take any form and infiltrate the elven court and tells on the planes to demons. The other is the grim reaper that first is sent out to kill the chosen of the Ellcrys, but one is missing. Allanon have awaken from his druid sleep and first pick up Will Ohmsford, the last of the Shannaras and then get an elven princess that left the court and was a chosen and send them out to gather a seed and reinvigorate the tree while Allanon leads the defence of the invasion of the demons. Great story.

A bit of difference here. The changeling is sent to take out the chosen in the elven capital and kills Eventine pretty early, especially when they killed it already just an episode or so earlier, and takes his place instead of reveal that the dog spied on them until the end when it killed Eventine. The wanderer's aren't the same either since they in the books was pretty much romanticised gypsies with ideas like stealing children... like blond blue-eyed children with all the black-haired gypsies... yeah probably good they changed them. In the book they pretty much cheated Will out of the elfstones, but one girl decides to steal them back leaving them with painted elfstones that let's get them killed by the grim reaper as it can follow the stones. The grim reaper shows up fairly late and is more a black knight. And the place they need to find is in San Fransisco. The witches, I don't know what they are, but it isn't like the book. Or I never saw it like that as I quite missed all the modern stuff that existed in the book. Here we have subway systems and areas with radiation poisoning, working pistols... wait, would they still work after what, millenia? At least Allanon fought in the war of the four lands 300 years ago and god knows how many hundred years after Bremen (who makes a small cameo in the show) and the other hundred of years after the destruction of the earth.

Also, they added some conflicts within the elves like the sons of Eventine, the youngest being a drunk after letting gnomes infiltrate the palace and killing the oldest brother and the middle brother wanting to becoming king but constantly fights Allanon and don't believe the demons are coming. Also, they ditch the human legion and dwarfs that would be the only ones that would stand by the elves as the demons attacked. I mean, the leader of the humans was the real badass. So instead of conflict between the elves themselves, why not put that on the other races? Which is funny, since there isn't a single dwarf in the show. And I don't know if trolls and gnomes should look like that, I mean trolls is just wearing gas masks and gnomes disfigured humans with aviator googles. They also added a seer that gets possessed by the demons that wasn't in the book. Seems to be an important character in season 2 so that will be interesting to see.

It was fine, but I didn't get the horror feeling of the hunt by the grim reaper or the tear-inducing ending as all is revealed and the princess realises that she has to sacrifice herself to resurrect the Ellcrys and Will's love for her powers the elfstones while Will tries to plead with her that he loves her and all that. It's a sad ending. They also doesn't show the toll on Allanon since it's also telling how magic affects a person, everything had a price. And the wanderer girl isn't even there in the end but still in San Fransisco. Which sets up season two that I'm waiting for arriving in mail any day now. Will I watch it again? Probably not, I prefer reading the books actually and have a bit of craving for it now.

DC's Legends of Tomrrow

 

Defenders of the Earth!

Well, since Supergirl isn't on Netflix Sweden for the moment, better jump in the next series and that would be DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Basically the show where all the side-characters disappeared from the other shows. I mean you got Sara Lance and the Atom from Arrow, Firestorm, Captain Cold and Mike Rory from the Flash. Then the Hawk-people from the Vandal Savage episodes, which basically is the plot for the first season. Captain Rip Hunter from the future puts together the group Legends of Tomorrow on his time-travelling space ship in order to save humanity from Vandal Savage that will enslave all humans if nothing is done. He gets Sara Lance, Roy Palmer, Mike Rory, Jax and Martin Stein, Leonard Snart, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. They try to stop Vandal at different times before he ascends to full power and conquers earth. Which doesn't work since the time bureau that Hunter belongs to tries to ensure the timeline as well. So in the end Snart sacrifices his life by blowing up the time bureau space station in the future. 

This causes time getting unstable and people and creatures are getting misplaced through time. A new time bureau have been created (somehow Rip Hunter ended up there with Sara Lance becoming the captain of the Waverider, the time-ship) and the legends are put out of commission due to creating this mess to begin with. Until Julius Cesar ends up in Aruba where Mike Rory is on vacation so they get together and starts to put back time as it was meant to be. Meanwhile Eobard Thane (the original looking one as well, don't get why the Flash continued to use the Wells version) together with Damien Darkh and an still evil Captain Cold is looking for the Spear of Destiny or the Spear of Longinus, the spear that pierced Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. We also get John Constantine (back from Arrow) trying to help this possessed girl Astra, that later turns out to be the daughter of Damien Darkh. Which set up the next season where Astra as a grown up resurrect Damien Darkh and prepares to release a demon trapped in the time stream that needs to be defeated by collecting the 6 talismans of the Zambesi, an african tribe where the superhero Vixen comes from (which appeared in Arrow as they fought Damien Darkh).

Fourth season brings in John Constantine again as the release and defeat of the time demon brought magical and fantastical beasts and monsters free into the time stream. There's unicorns, fairy god-mothers and more. Another Legend is Steel, which I don't think is gonna be a reference to the Superman hero Steel. He joins the legends and his father is a politician or something with pulls in Washington and made a pact with a devil to gather the fairy creatures. His father intends to use them for a theme park while the devil intends to create an app that people download where the fine print gives him their souls to take over hell. Then there was one season Sara Lance was kidnapped by aliens contracted by a genius from the future that intends to take over the universe by cloning himself and her. And then the Legends get trapped in 1925 America, their Waverider destroyed by another Waverider and being hunted by a robot J. Edgar Hoover after they killed him by accident. By an earlier version of the genius they used to kill his older self that made him build the Waverider and their computer that now went HAL from 2001 on the Legends. 

Overall I think this is the best series so far. It's completely wild, the legends pretty much does more damage to the timeline and has to fix it more often. Legends dies and disappears and new joins. I get invested in the relationship between Sara and Ava. Rory's whole arc up until season 7 is the emotional weight of the series. He loses his best friend in Snart in season 1, he joins the bad guys in season 2 for that reason but defect in the last episode, he gets invested in stopping the homage to slasher movie villain when the slasher kills his school girlfriend... and that reunion pulls him into a father role. And since he is the last original legend when Sara gets kidnapped, he takes it very hard and is the only one that travels through space of the Legends to save her. Then he leaves the series after killing the villain with his alien children after a union with the alien kidnapper that he had to birth.

And I love all of these misfits of society. They try to do their best, and they fall for temptations to alter the timeline to undo wrongs, but the lesson is always that the consequences is to dire. Also, I like that many episodes are based off movies or books. Also fourth wall breaking jokes like the T. P Barnum episode when they just bash Titanic and the guest star is Billy Zane (you know, the Phantom) that was the villain and Martin Stein played by the engineer in James Cameron's Titanic. And since I watched the other shows first it was fun to see what happened to them, like the Atom that I think just disappeared from Arrow. Although, season 6 was kinda weak in the final boss segment since a genius that clones himself is rather non-threatening after demons, devils and already proven enemies. But since he appeared again in season 7 it might be some later pay-off.

The Flash

 

Flash! Aha! Saviour of the Universe!

Of course I had to continue on the second DC-series, the Flash. Only knew Flash from the Justice League cartoon and animated movies like Flashpoint Paradox. So I got some ideas about villains like Grodd and Zoom and characters like Barry Allen, Wally West and Iris. Of course, Flash for me was always Wally West which made watching Young Justice a bit harder to follow... on more than one way with Wally being Kid Flash and what happened in that series.

So basically during a failed experiment made by Harrison Wells, Central City is showered in dark matter and as Barry Allen, a forensic scientist at the local police head quarter, is fumbling around his office as lightning strikes him, he lands on some chemicals and is in a coma for 9 months. We saw that in Green Arrow. He awakes and finds out he has super speed which he trains with an immobilized Harrison Wells and his two assistants. Meanwhile since he can reach such speeds he knows that there must be a way to save his father from prison where he is falsely accused of killing his wife, Nora Allen. 

During the first season he learns that Harrison Wells is in actuality Eobard Thawn, aka Anti-Flash that is a speedster from the future that killed Nora and took Harrisons place in order to create the accident so that the wheels be set in motion to create Flash... so that anti-Flash can exist and travel back in time I guess. Time travel is weird. The second season is about Zoom, a speedster from another universe that want to be the only speedster through out the multiverse. They beat him and as it looks alright they reenact the Flashpoint Paradox. The paradox is that Barry travels back to the point where his mother is murdered and save her, but in doing so changes the time line. Since his mother and father both survives they live a happy life and he doesn't become the Flash, instead Wally West is the Flash. New villains appears and such, but the reality is falling apart as certain enemies becomes too strong as well as more violent. So he has to put it back on its original path, but it doesn't come back the same. The relationship between the heroes have changed due to certain differences, like Cisko's brother that dies in this new reality. 

New arch-enemy appears, Savitar, the god of speed that in reality is a duplicate of Barry. I gotta be honest, the main bad guy gets harder and harder to separate and how often can they bring back the speedster bad guy again? As of writing I've seen up to season 7 and I kinda could keep up until season 5-6.. Arrow lost interest after season 2, with certain problems here and there, mostly the things that make the show look a bit like Arrow. I mean, we have the season the protagonist goes to prison and the season where the protagonist daughter from the future travels back and save her father.

But the show isn't ashamed of being superhero silly. We get a couple of episodes where Central city is under siege from sentient gorillas from an alternate universe led by Grodd. Barry's father is portrayed by the actor that played Barry Allen in the 90's live-action show, and Jay Garrick which was the first incarnation of the Flash in the comics. Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker is playing the Trickster which he did both in the 90's series as well as that episode in Justice League Unlimited. I mean, first episode of season 6 have a bit where they play Queen's Flash theme from Flash Gordon in universe as Barry travels into a black hole to save a person which is AWESOME! Made me want to see Flash Gordon so that may be a problem. Overall it was kinda fun watching it, losing a bit at the later seasons and certain mysteries at least me to pay attention a bit longer. Who did Zoom have imprisoned? Who was anti-flash and then who was Savitar? A bit copy of certain story elements from Arrow, but was a bit shorter or didn't overstay it's welcome with that. Overall more fun.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda

 

Now You're Playing With Power, SUPER POWER!

The celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda gave us another Game & Watch edition, akin to the Super Mario edition. Instead of two games, we got three. The two original Zelda-games, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: Link's Adventure and the original game boy version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. And a modified version of the Game & Watch-game Vermin. Which I have a score over 200 on as of writing.

I've pretty much played all of the games before on different consoles and versions, latest being Link's Awakening with the remake for the Switch. Playing them again, maybe that the screen isn't the best for long play in these adventure games, a bit easier to play a couple of levels of Mario and then quit. In Zelda you get into a flow and need to be able to see small things on this tiny screen. For example, you are able to see the movement of the crawlers in Zelda II while it's dark before you get the candle, not so much in this version. The only one I can't play on any other console is actually the original Link's Awakening (although, the DX version isn't that much different than the original). I also lack a way to listen on the music through earbuds or something, maybe I don't want to disturb all around me, but the music is so good that you have to hear it while playing.

Also, maybe not for the original Zelda and Link's Awakening, but I need save states to finishing Zelda II without losing my mind with the instant death and gauntlets of enemies at certain parts. That makes the Wii U, 3DS and NES Classic Edition better choices to play through. Plus bigger screens in all of them. One wonders though if there is gonna be some other Game & Watch editions. Like, Metroid version in preparation for Prime 4 (they missed the opportunity to remind people for Dread and I would like a Prime-collection)? Kid Icarus because... well, it was some time ago. Maybe Golden Sun?.. Nah, better wait for a Switch remake collection in anticipation in the (hopefully) coming episode 4?

Also, gotta add, we decided to get a couple of copies to my dad and brother-in-law for Christmas who are big Zelda fans. It only backfired in that I had to play first half of Zelda 1 for my dad so he can go around with most of the equipments. Twice I might add since I played first on my Brother-in-laws version during the Christmas holiday and then again during the Easter holiday on his own version.

Arrow

 

More like Robin Hood.

After watching the Star Trek-series I've thought, what is next? Well, I like DC and since the movies are bit more hit and miss, why not watch the TV-series instead? And why not start with Arrow? Oliver Queen is found after being presumed dead for 5 years after he disappeared together with his father on the family yacht. After returning he begins to dress as the Hood to eliminate people on a list his father left him. Basically the list contains name of the most wealthy people in Starling City that worked in a conspiracy to destroy the city and reshape it to their liking. Together with his body guard John Duggan and Queen Consortium IT-person Felicity Smoaks they form team Arrow to fight them. John becomes Spartan and Felicity is Overwatch and later we get Roy Harper as Assault (which I know was called Speedy in the comics, but they gave that to Oliver's sister Thea), Mr Terrific, Black Canary, Black Siren and what not.

So I get most people from the animated Justice League-series or Atop the Fourth Wall. Interestingly the show goes back and forth between "present" and five years earlier to see what happened on the island, like meeting Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke), Katana and Amanda Waller. They did that for 6 seasons and then shifted to the future and brought in time travel and that for the last seasons. Gotta be honest, got a bit lost at the end on what the hell was going on. Didn't help that here and there they had crossover episodes with the other Arrowverse shows, like the Flash and Supergirl, just like the comic books, and just like them you need to follow all the shows and watch them at the same time. I don't go for that and just let one show run to the end since I don't want to bother with switching shows all the time (especially since Supergirl isn't on Netflix in Sweden at the moment, or I can't at least find it).

The rouge gallery consist of Ra's Al-Ghoul and the monitor... and then a lot of people I don't think I know about, like Damien Dhark and the Dragon. Damien Dhark was at least some one with meta-powers, but Dragon was just some ruthless mobster. I mean, yeah he's scary, but he's clearly not trustworthy since he offs his companions when he want to climb the ladder or they "fail" him. And he's really not that interesting compared to Damien Dhark or a threat  to Arrow. Really, they should have changed order of them. 

But overall a good series. It is really enhanced if you know some lore, like names and such and then you can enjoy a bit of foreshadowing, like that Barry Allen is the Flash, Slade Wilson is Deathstroke and so on. Also fun with both Peter Stomare and Dolph Lundgren as bad guys, russians at that.

Bayonetta 2 (Switch)

 

At least I refreshed myself in wait for Bayonetta 3

Finished it once again. Pretty much the same verdict like last time. I liked that you keep all upgrades from the first game so it was kinda effortless to play them back to back. It was only 16 chapters with was 2 chapters less than Bayonetta 1. And I don't know why, but it felt the gameplay was a bit more grind heavy in fighting bosses, takes more time and you seem to do less damage, or it might be just me being bad at the game. Also, the ending isn't as bombastic as the first game, I mean, riding a bike up on a rocket into space to reach a god to pry its eyes out and then throw Jubilees into the sun is rather more epic than flying (on an airwing in my case) toward a mountain where you fight angels and demons and then Bayonetta and Balder fight the evil Aeiser and combining a big Madam Butterfly to throw him into Jeanne's dog demon. Not as epic all I'm saying. Hopefully the third game up the antes. 

Now with some more games under the belt I also get more references, like the Lumen Sage Panther-form looking like Amaretsu from Okami. It has more replay value as well with Jeanne as a playable character and the grind for 9 999 999 halos to get the Platinum ticket, which can't be that hard if you gotta play all difficulties and try to get platinum (or maybe even Perfect Platinum) trophies on each chapter. I won't do that, I've got a life... or rather I got a lot of other games to play. 

This was the special edition I got after talking with the local game store and they had an extra copy. So of course I got it. It contained some sheets with stickers, a steel book cage, the normal game card for the second game, downloadable code for the first game and a box with what is called verse cards. I think they are the cards that Loki uses in the second game. No real value other than maybe as a prop for a DnD game or so. They are nice though, but I think I can understand what they represent, but I'm not sure. I think mostly depicting events in the game.

Fun to play, wonder how the third game will fit into this especially with the time traveling shenanigans.

*Update* What do you know, when I wrote this no release date was mentioned and now it has been revealed and it's just weeks from release. Sometimes I'm actually very current with the release schedule it seems.