We played our fourth Shadow of the Dragon Queen session on June 12th, 2023. As you can see, I’m a little late getting to the report. This lateness will be a feature of the rest of these reports.
As seen in our previous sessions, the Red Dragonarmy had laid waste to Vogler, a small town on the edge of the Waste, and was now getting close to the great port city of Kalaman. The characters had escorted the refugees to Kalaman and had volunteered to help its army defend the city from attack. All of which meant that the party was now working as a small band of troubleshooters, going to various hot spots and dealing with them.
At this point, the party composition was:
- Tordek, a dwarven fighter,
- Quin, an elven monk,
- Vermin, a kender ranger, and
- Parren, a human wizard.
I was playing Parren as an NPC. We were using Story-Based progression, so everyone was 4th level. It is something I advise for this campaign – it’s quite linear, and if the characters are too low-level, it can adversely affect the experience.
The central set-piece of this session would be the characters taking on a Dragonarmy outpost known as Wheelwatch. Still, there were a couple more small encounters to run first, giving the players a taste of what was happening in the lands around Kalaman. The first was entitled “Draconian Blockade”, with the characters sent to investigate rumours of Dragonarmy attacks on travellers to the east. The encounter’s text reads: “A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Survival) finds clawed footprints leading to woods to the south”, with further text describing what happens when the party follow the path. (They find draconians!)
What happens when everyone in the party fails the check? The adventure doesn’t say. So, given my party didn’t make the check, there wasn’t an encounter.
Hang on, Merric! You’re a skilled (and inventive) DM! Couldn’t you invent an alternative way for the party to find the draconians?
Well, yes. I could have. But the encounter didn’t feel that necessary. And if the adventure’s designers couldn’t be bothered listing alternatives, I didn’t feel like making up them myself. I get infuriated by this technique: putting checks in without thought about what happens if they fail. Missing out on a three-paragraph encounter? Yeah, that isn’t so bad. Missing out on the entire adventure? Incredibly, this is a thing I’ve seen. (You can’t navigate to the island? Sorry!)
We quickly moved on to the fourth of these encounters, which reunited the party with survivors of the mercenary band that defended Vogler. The main NPC here was Cudgel, the scout, and we got a little role-playing as the group reunited. Unfortunately, Becklin – the knight who was far more significant to the players – wasn’t present. I had intended to use her in a different, later encounter, but I forgot to – partly because, by the time she could reappear, it was many weeks since the players had seen her, and she no longer seemed so important.
But if you’ve got players who love role-playing, this is one encounter you want to use. And then, you can add information or flavour to help the campaign.
With those encounters dealt with, everyone gained a level and reached Level 5. Now, it was on to the main event: the assault on Wheelwatch. This was an outpost that the Dragonarmy had taken, and Marshall Vendri, the commander of the Kalaman forces, wanted the party to recapture it – orders relayed by Darrett, of course. A small army would accompany them, and all the party needed to do was infiltrate the fortress and open the gates.
The characters acquired uniforms from a Dragonarmy supply caravan – as well as the caravan – and disguised themselves as soldiers escorting a “prisoner”. The prisoner? Vermin, the kender. Of course, the soldiers at the gate wanted to know why they hadn’t just slain Vermin, but a little fast-talking later, the party convinced the soldiers that the kender had valuable information.
What happened next is partly due to me not remembering a detail in the adventure. Wheelwatch has a jail where prisoners are taken. I just missed that during the session, and so decided that putting the kender in the stables where a Dragonarmy officer and a dragonnel could keep an eye on her.
Oh boy. Chaos ensued. Remember, when you capture a kender, make sure they’re gagged!
The rest of the party were escorted to the kitchen, where they then overcame the guards and went to take out the rest of the outpost easily. They were slightly surprised to see an enraged Dragonarmy officer running out of the stables and making his way very quickly towards the leader of the outpost. But only slightly.
The big consequence of these events was that the dragonnel never entered the fray – there was no-one left to let it out of its cage. But the rest of the outpost? Group by group, they became aware of the party, and they began to enter a major fray in the courtyard.
One of the lessons I learned running The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun was the joy of having combatants enter the battlefield at different times. The idea of having waves of enemies is one that several designers have used, and is also part of running a reactive environment. So, every so often I determined that another group of enemies became aware of the battle and began making their way towards it.
I wonder how many groups have been able to open the gates stealthily. Or does it most often devolve into a major combat? I know what happened here!
The party got split up as they moved to engage enemies approaching from different directions. The battle went the heroes’ way early on but became more even as it continued. Parren ran to one area of the courtyard to use his magic to delay the soldiers’ advance, while Tordek and Qinh fought together, with Vermin taking crossbow shots from hiding. Qinh, seeing that Parren was in danger of being overwhelmed, dashed to step in front. It was brave, but it was also foolhardy – Qinh was a monk, not a fighter nor a barbarian. And his defenses were not up to the task. Parren could fall back – Qinh took all the hits and was knocked down.
Vermin and Tordek were too far away to get to Qinh’s side quickly, and they were engaged in melee with other soldiers, regardless. Parren used his remaining evocation magic to slay most of the soldiers surrounding Qinh, but no-one could get close.
And Qinh kept failing his death saves.
Vermin finally got free and ran towards him – but just too late. Qinh died before anyone could stabilise him. In the last round of the fight. Vermin shot the last soldier, and everything fell quiet. The gates were finally opened, and the army poured in.
This was the end of the session. Qinh’s player started creating a new character – a barbarian, which would better fit the dynamic of the group. Having only one front-line fighter is very tricky.
For now, the party had been successful – but at a cost.