The latest session of my Dungeons & Dragons Greyhawk campaign was the first one of the series that we played on Roll20. We spent the first hour mucking around with the interface, the next two hours negotiating with the djinn, and spent the final hour finally fighting the Wind Dukes of Aaqa!

The set-up is as follows:

• In an expedition to a magical cave, Paul’s character Everest was transported to the Elemental Plane of Air
• Everest had been saved by the djinn, but had to serve them for a few years as payment for their rescue
• The characters travelled to rescue him, but they also needed to recover an artefact from the djinn which would help them in the war between Veluna and Ket
• That item? A section of the Rod of Seven Parts!

I gave Paul some information about what had happened to Everest amongst the Djinn so he could impart that to the other characters. I spent a lot of time using whispering and journal entries with the Roll20 interface to so do. Here’s what I told him:

You are the beloved servant of the glorious Emir Ebbu The Victorious, lord of the Sapphire Skies, in gratitude for his rescue of you.

You tend to the grounds and you are currently on greeting duty at the gate.

The djinn have been fighting the Wind Lords of Aaqa for many years, and have currently captured a great prize from the Wind Lords – a jewelled rod – which is held in a enspelled cabinet in his throne room. The Wind Lords have sent many raiding parties to recapture it, but the fortress has held strong.

There are about 50 djinni in residence here. The Vizier is Errimo the Flawless, who you’ll have to go through to see the Emir. About 200+ other humanoids live here, including many warriors who are devoted to the Emir.

From this, we got a scene where Everest role-played with the other characters for about half-an-hour before I had to say anything. I just sat back and listened. It was glorious. Paul was confident enough to add details I hadn’t given, and eventually everyone chose to enter the castle of the djinn.

I played Errimo as very serious and very stern, without much of a sense of humour. The characters offered him 5,000 gold pieces to buy Everest’s contract. Errimo said he’d had to talk to the Emir.

And then we had the Emir. Oh boy – my inspiration for his character was Jeff Goldblum’s take on the Grand Master from Thor Ragnarok. Very child-like in a lot of ways, but with that air of menace. Not as cruel as Grand Master – very excited about a lot of things he was unfamiliar with – and, I hope, amusing to interact with. I didn’t do a perfect Grand Master imitation; I didn’t want to! But that was the starting point!

He gleefully displayed his “jewelled rod” to the party, which he had well-guarded in his throne room, though Iyolas was able to memorize the arcane chant to unlock its trapped case when the Emir removed it to show to the characters. Sir Nil (a paladin of St Cuthbert) was able to determine that the rod was indeed part of the Rod of Seven Parts, and it could lead him to the next part – which was not on the Elemental Plane of Air – but the price for the Rod? Well, the Emir didn’t want to part with it.

However, he was not an unreasonable Djinni, and suggested that if they could bring him something of value from the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, he’d exchange it. So, off the party went to find the Wind Dukes. A fortress relatively nearby was easy to get to.

The last part of the session saw them fighting a Wind Duke patrol. I hadn’t made new stats for the Wind Dukes soldiers, so I reskinned some Air Elemental Myrmidons (Princes of the Apocalypse) and a Firefist (Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica) and set those against the party. Due to the chat logs, I have a round by round view of what happened. For your interest:

1. Combat began at long range (about 100 feet apart). Elsbeth provoked them by casting a fireball at the warriors (myrmidons), Garazhan moved in and cast firebolt, but was banished by the Wind Lord (firefist) in retaliation. Ash (the barbarian) “fell” towards the monsters – you can fall at 100 ft. a round in the plane of Air, but you need an Intelligence check to stop accurately. His total was 0, so he stopped 40 feet short. He raged and threw an accurate javelin – but the Wind Lord made his save and didn’t lose concentration. Iyolas cast another fireball at the warriors to end the round.
2. Nil “fell” towards the Wind Lord but also failed the Intelligence check and ended up 5 feet short – so he cast spirit guardians. The warriors converged on Nil, striking him, and Nil lost concentration after the very first blow! A stunning lightning blast failed to stun Nil, and Elsbeth loosed twinned fire bolts at the enemies; both hit, but the Wind Lord still didn’t lose concentration. Everest entered the fray, attacking a lone warrior and missing, while Ash finally got to use his nine lives stealer, striking the Wind Lord. Who still kept banishment up!
3. Nil finally reached the Wind Lord and attacked with his scimitar of speed, and the first attack broke the spell – Garazhan returned! However, Nil was swarmed by the warriors, who did a lot of damage to him, bloodying the paladin. Everest riposted (and hit) the warrior who missed him! Elsbeth cast scorching ray for little return, and Garazhan missed with his fire bolt. The Wind Lord hit Nil with a blinding smite, but again the paladin saved. Ash recklessly attacked, damaging the Wind Lord severely, as did Iyolas with his scorching ray.
4. Nil struck the Wind Lord twice, bringing him down to 4 hit points, but was himself knocked unconscious by the two Warriors, who then moved onto Ash. The third Warrior remained attacking Everest, who riposted on the missed attack. More fire bolts from Elsbeth, a good strike by Everest, then Garazhan used healing word to revive Nil, while getting the killing blow on the Wind Lord. Ash took down the first of the warriors, while Iyolas took down the one fighting Everest.
5. Nil almost killed the last warrior with various smites, who then tried to flee, but a fire bolt from Elsbeth slew him. The combat was over!

They recovered some treasure (just minor coinage) from the enemies and made their way towards the fortress of the Wind Dukes. But we’d been playing four hours and it was now 11 pm, so that was it for this session. We’ll meet again in a fortnight, and with luck I’ll have designed what they’re about to infiltrate.

The session, as often is the case, was constructed on slight material. I knew the set-up, and how I wanted to role-play the Djinn, and that was about it. However, the players were strong enough at role-playing to carry a large part of the session, with only one combat to provide closure to the night. I’m very much looking forward to next session!