I’m a bit late on writing this, so the details of the session are a bit fuzzy in my mind. However, I’ve now run two sessions of Lost Mine of Phandelver for my experienced Friday-night group. In the first session, they rescued Sildar and dealt with the goblins. This session, they ran into the Redbrand Ruffians. They didn’t like the Ruffians, and the Ruffians didn’t like them, either! Mayhem ensued.

Everyone was able to turn up to this session, so we had a table of six players; Rich playing a rogue and Adam playing a wizard were able to make it this time. I expect, now the Player’s Handbook is out, that a few characters might get modified by the next session!

Upon arriving in-town, the group made their way to the inn on Sildar’s suggestion; a few of them made sure that their wagon made it to the Trading Post, and the rest of the goods looted by the goblins were deposited with the Coster.

It didn’t take them long to learn about the trouble the town were having with the group of ruffians known as the Redbrands; it seemed that everyone in town wanted to let them know about the threat. Greg’s cleric of Tymora visited the local cleric of Tymora, and learnt about her wish to recover a spell-book that only a banshee knew about. Greg promised to aid her, just after he and his friends dealt with the Redbrands.

The group made their way down to the local watering hole that the ruffians frequented, and insulted them a lot. When the Redbrands attacked, attempting to defend their honour (well, what little remained of it), the ruffians learnt exactly how bad an idea it was to fight newly-arrived adventurers! From there, it was up to the ruined mansion to search for signs of the other ruffians.

Descending to the cellar, the players were able to confront the ruffians in the barracks off the main storage hall and defeat them. They were rightly suspicious of the dust-covered passage leading to old, old doors, but unlike my other group were aware enough to find the secret door that led into the main stronghold of the ruffians.

The way was not clear, however. A nothic spotted them and did some small amount of damage in the combat that ensued, before it fell to their prowess. The nothic didn’t really talk to them that much, though. (I ran this session before I ran the nothic for the other group, so I was less developed in my approach to the monster). The group explored around the various passages that led from the cavern, eventually opting to go down some stairs and discover a wizard’s laboratory, which kept them quite amused for some time. In the meantime, the leader of the ruffians – aware of their presence through his spying familiar – gathered up his stuff and ran for it.

Thus, he was no longer there when the group entered his chamber. They could see the open secret door he’d escaped through, but the Glasstaff was nowhere to be seen. His papers revealed that his actual name was Iarno Dethek, the wizard that Sildar had come to town to find. The party will deal with that next session, I guess!