u/Baytonator

We had our 9th session at the end of last week and it was probably the most fun I've ever had as a DM.

They'd finished up the Chapel of St Brenna having been sent there by Ophelia Reed. As they left they encountered the falling fire, led by one of the PCs estranged friends. The NPC convinced the party to travel together back to Emberwood Village to at least hear our Nathaniel Flint on why they should be given the Sceptre. The party did this and after speaking with Nathaniel for a while, excused themselves and discussed. Hearing the party discuss in detail about the morality of both groups, the consequences of giving it to one side or the other etc. was incredible. Each PC had different opinions based on their own upbringing and backgrounds. For like 30 minutes I just sat back and let them debate in character.

I've rarely seen my players as engaged in a game as they were in this, especially when it's something that is not mechanical at all but narrative.

Eventually they decided to leave the Sceptre with the falling fire and are planning to tell the Silver Order that they were too late when they arrived and the FF had already claimed it (they'll have that conversation next session)

THEN the warlock, who is in Drakkenheim as for some reason when she first encountered Delerium, could hear it almost singing to her (no one else can hear this) overheard some of the followers of the falling fire playing some gospel folk music round a campfire that seemed to resonant perfectly with the music she hears from Delerium. Her reaction was beyond excitement!

She quizzed the musician playing who said that he never heard Delerium but that he just played what felt right. When pressed further on his relationship with Delerium he removed his shirt to reveal a Delerium crystal in his chest around a mostly healed wound.

We ended the session on that cliffhanger and the reaction from the party was incredible.

No other adventure/campaign has ever felt as immersive, gives real choice with real consequences or made it as easy to add player backstory elements in.

I love Drakkenheim so much! Thank you Dungeon Dudes!

So this week my players completed the chapel of St Brenna. For about a year I've been on this sub Reddit and seen countless stories of parties setting themselves on fire to complete the riddle at the end and always thought 'surely players aren't all that stupid are they!?'

And of course upon me saying the riddle the first thing out of their mouth was 'is anyone willing to be set on fire?'. They did end up using fairie fire instead but it was a close call.

Other hijinks included very nearly asking one of the mephits to go upstairs and disable the immovable rod whilst they were all down stairs. It was only at the last second that one of the party realised that they would be putting all of their lives in the hands of a chaotic mephit and could potentially leave them all trapped indefinitely with a dozen undead skeletons and a mummy.

St. Brenna herself also very nearly killed our warlock. Rotting fists took my PC to 10hp with the first hit and then swung again, thankfully missing since if it did hit it would have straight up killed her!

Also when the party realised that the bones of the mummy and skeletons were magically forming again there was a real tension and fear. One mummy was bad, if it came back it could have been catastrophic.

Honestly, this dungeon is so good. It's quintessential DnD, nothing that crazy but just a couple of good social interactions, a couple of interesting puzzles and the potential for some good combat encounters. Brilliant design.

Keen to understand people's perspectives here. To me, having both the hydra and then the duchess (aboleth) back to back in the same dungeon seems REALLY difficult to overcome. Of course if you find a way to bypass combat with one or both then it'll be okay but I would assume most parties would fight both.

Anyone that's run the book as is, did you party fight both and if so, how did it go? What level were they? Was it brutal?

How did you all run the mephits? None of my PCs are likely to be confused as part of AA.

What would make them attack or what might make them let the party through or perhaps even help? I'm a little confused by their motivations

Just wanted to tell my story of my party in the first proper adventure. They had previously done a delerium hunt and explored Emberwood Village a little before being tasked by Ansom to rescue his sister. The party consists of a Gunslinger Fighter, Cleric, Big Game Hunter Ranger, Warlock and Dex Paladin.

The party headed into the Rat’s Nest Tavern looking for the Ratlings that had captured Petra Lang. They quickly headed into the ruined basement and found an empty crater. Heading into the burrowed tunnel they headed downwards, eventually coming across a steep, slippery incline. The paladin made it to the bottom with no issue before realising that they had no light and couldn’t see any further. The fighter then decided to join and immediately went arse over tit, sliding to the bottom and landing in a pit trap filled with spikes. Whilst this is happening, stones pelted the walls and armour of the paladin, flung from a slingshot of a lone ratling that could see her. 

Combat shortly ensued with a group of ratlings being slayed by the party. Unbeknownst to the party, the loud gunshots from the weapons of the fighter and the ranger alerted the entire burrow to the presence of the group. The party decided quickly to head south, following the drag marks of the small meteor where they soon encountered another group of ratlings in front of a makeshift Idol depicting the Rat God. They quickly dispatched this group before being shot at from an invisible Ratling Mage missing the paladin by a hair who then disappeared quickly. The group collected a few scrolls and some delerium before heading further in and finding a tied up, gagged and wounded Petra Lang. They untied her and armed her with a spare handaxe. Just as they went to leave they then encountered the Ratling Mage again, with support from friends.

Combat ensues with the party retreating back the way towards the lookout burrow to make their escape as they fight. They take out a lot of the normal ratlings but as they head towards the tunnel they can hear dozens more ratlings heading from that direction investigating the gunshots heard. Not wanting to get caught between two groups of Ratlings they take a few actions to collapse the tunnel heading from the Idol of the Rat God to the Lookout Burrow. 
The Warlock of the Rat God then turns invisible and teleports away, feeling the tide turning and the party decide to head to the tunnel east of the Idol. They shortly then come across the Rat Prince and the princess of the party decides this is an opportunity to try to set up a trade deal with other royalty and tries to dissuade violence. The Rat Prince is unconvinced by this and it seems that a fight is inevitable when in the knick of time our party’s warlock casts a calm emotion on the entire group. After a string of terrible dice rolls, all of the Ratlings including the Rat Prince himself fell under the spell and decided they were full-up right now and didn’t need to eat any more manlings! 
So the party fled into the sewer with Petra in tow, deciding to run full sprint after realising that the ratlings would only be calm for 1 minute. Whilst they did indeed lose the Ratlings quite quickly, their sprinting certainly gained the attention of one of the denizens of the sewer and quickly they came face to face with a massive, mutated, multi-limbed alligator. Badly wounded and low on spell slots, the party decided to flee and started a skill challenge. The cleric lost her shield to an alligator bite, the warlock got dashed against the wall and knocked out by a tail whip and the paladin nearly lost a leg but with a couple of good rolls and clever spell/ability usage, they were able to scramble up a ladder and onto the street above, leaving the gator down in the sewers. They’re now somewhere in Drakkenheim and will need to orientate themselves to get Petra back to Shepherd’s Gate…

Last session my players met Ophelia Reed for the first time in Emberwood village. They didn't know what to expect and went into the conversation proudly bragging about how much delerium they had collected and sold after their first foray into the city. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to show the players how anti-delerium the Sacred Flame and by extension the silver order were by having Ophelia try to explain to the players how sacrilegious it was. That delerium was evil, corrupting, dangerous etc. However I think I went a bit far and my players now really dislike Ophelia and the Silver order for being judgemental and not open to new ideas etc.

​

Since it's only session 3 I don't really want the party so set against a faction so early. Any ideas for how to bring it back to neutral and keep that relationship open.

​

I'm thinking of having Ophelia approach the party privately and apologise for being so stern, maybe throw in an anecdote about how a family member died due to delerium poisoning etc.?

​

Any ideas welcome!

Hi all,

I'm looking to see if there's any online games I could join either this evening or tomorrow during the day (UK time)?

I've read the rulebook so have a basic understanding but haven't played yet. Lots of experience with others RPGs though of course understand that the vibe is very different!