D&D Stupidity: Week One, in which our heroes meet, kill some kobolds and nearly get eaten by some drakes.

I feel I should start this post by telling you that I am a gigantic nerd. Of course, you probably already guessed this due to the fact that the title of the post begins with D&D, but I just thought I'd reassure you that you were correct in the assumption. I'm the vice president of the Stirling Uni Sci Fi Society you see, so it's basically my job to be a gigantic nerd.

Anyway, a few of us got started on a D&D campaign last night, and so many silly awesome things happened that I decided that a weekly feature of my blog should be the strange misadventures of our little band of weirdoes. I will try to keep it entertaining, but I won't judge you if you decide you want to just hit the back button now (you heartless, heartless person you). Now, for those of you still reading, I shall begin with some introductions to our characters.

We started out a with a trio; an axe-crazy tiefling warlord by the name of Larrsinan, a goody two-shoes half-elf ranger by the name of Carric (and his imaginatively named fox companion Swiftpaw) and an antisocial, heavy drinking half-elf warlock by the name of Illyria (that would be my character).

Things started off in a pretty standard way. The three were sent off to investigate a supposed death cult by an apparently rather absentminded cleric. On the way, they were attacked by a band of eight kobolds (little lizard/dragon men for those not well-versed in D&D monsterology). Being big manly men, Larrsinan and Carric went charging into the fray and Larrsinan proceeded to get the shit repeatedly kicked out of him. Carric was marginally more successful, if only because the kobolds surrounding him proved to be utterly incompetant with the spears they were wielding. There was, however, the awkward moment when he tried to do a dual attack with Swiftpaw, only for the fox to miss horribly and presumably land on Carric's head.

Illyria, on the other hand, being the lazy bitch she was created to be, proceeded to simply stand back and be the long-range heavy artillery. After cursing three or four kobolds and blasting two of them to smithereens, she moved exactly one step forward (this was literally the only movement she made the entire time) and ended the battle by using her handy Vampiric Embrace move, which killed the final kobold and landed her with more hit-points than she started with, thus giving her a nice buzz for the rest of the afternoon.

After looting the bodies (and the smouldering patches of grass where a couple of bodies used to be) and picking up more useless weaponry than anyone outside of an RPG could carry, as well as a couple of handy dragon scales and some money that Illyria was not allowed to keep hold of, our heroes moved on reached the village of Winterhaven, where they observed a couple of houses outside the walls that weren't so much houses as they were charred piles of bricks. The guards at the village gates were not terribly helpful when asked about that, although they did give the three directions to the local blacksmith and also to the inn.

After offloading the weapons onto the dwarf blacksmith, and being told to try showing the dragon scale to the local sage, the three headed for the inn, where they proceeded to book rooms. Well, Larrsinan and Carric proceeded to book rooms. Illyria proceeded to get blind drunk. Larrsinan and Illyria also attempted to flirt with every waitress in the place, but both were unsuccessful.

After talking with a strange old man about the kobold infestation so near to the village, the two sober ones in the party (the fox was also drunk by this point; her and Illyria spent most of the night sitting in a corner making attempts at singing. Both failed. Horribly) met the local sage, who agreed to give them some information, or at least directions to find information, about the death cult if they did him a favour first. Apparently a friend of his had gone off to investigate an alleged dragon graveyard and hadn't returned, and the sage wanted either proof that he had perished or fallen into trouble there or on the way, or that he'd simply visited it and then kept going. Agreeing to meet the sage at his tower the next morning to get directions and some more information before setting out, the party dragged Illyria upstairs and got some sleep.

It was also during our night out at the pub that the band met the dragon-born paladin, Bob. Bob was a simple soul who agreed to got along with them on their quest. Except that Bob thought they were going on a pub crawl. Bob was sorely disappointed.

The next morning, after dousing Illyria in the water-trough outside, the party picked up a map and a hangover cure (that didn't really work) from the sage before setting off. The journey there was uneventful, although the minute they reached the dragon graveyard they were confronted with a couple of guardian drakes and a mob of bandits led by a gnome. The sage's friend was there too, all tied up, but the party was more concerned with the fact that there were two lesser dragons present that seemed rather keen to eat them.

Conscious of the fact that he had nearly died several times in the last battle, Larrsinan proceeded to proclaim Bob the primary meat-shield of the party. He attempted to soften this by granting the party some extra hit points, which really didn't do that much to make Bob feel any better. Illyria returned to her now standard tactic of stand back, curse and make dudes explode. Of course, this was after she tried her nifty Dire Radiance attack, which worked once. The failure of her second attempt was presumably due to her hangover, since the whole 'painfully bright light' thing probably hurt like hell to cast in that state and she forgot to close her eyes the second time.

Anyway, the battle went ahead fairly standardly. Bob spent most of time soaking up damage, although there was the exciting moment when he set three men on fire and subsequently killed them all. Carric, however, did a stupid thing and taunted the bandits' slinger to try and hit Swiftpaw who was hiding in a huge tangle of roots at the time. Despite the fact that the slinger couldn't actually see her, he still managed to hit her full in the face and almost kill her. Carric felt a little bit silly after that one.

Eventually, after much effort on the part of our heroes (the frigging gnome could go invisible), Illyria ended the fight with Vampiric Embrace again, thus coming through another battle unscathed and on a huge buzz from the two huge doses of extra health she'd gained (now there was a working hangover cure). Bodies were looted and the hostage was rescued, Bob glared at everyone for a while and more money was kept far away from Illyria. All in all, quite a successful trip.

And that is where this installment ends. We are as yet uncertain if Bob will remain with the group, as Bob was very upset at the lack of ale on the outing. As such, he may bugger off on the return to Winterhaven, although I'm sure he will get replaced.

So, that's all for this post folks.
*Mint uses Teleport*