Last time, we covered our final intro session for my newest campaign by introducing Lethanin, a curious gnomish musician and spellcaster who spent his introduction delving into lore and causing chaos. Together with Brokk, whose intro session involved saving a young dissident elf from being captured and forced into military service, and Aurora, whose intro session spanned several years after her discovery of a distinctive style of magic and included forming a surrogate family and joining the crew of a sailing ship, Lethanin will be embarking on what I believe to be my most ambitious D&D campaign ever. We all got a chance to sit down and play our first session, and while there were difficulties from outside of the game, and some disappointments for me as DM, I'd say it was overall a great first step which will serve us well in going forward. So let's get into it!
To get started, I needed to bring the party together. If you've read the intro sessions, then you know that Brokk and Aurora were on exact opposite ends of my main continent, Evanoch, and Lethanin had unknowingly left the city where Aurora was based to go to a completely different city altogether. As I mentioned in her introduction, Aurora is played by my fiancée, so we've had the opportunity to chat about the campaign's non-secret information as it's developed, and her number one question going into this session was, "How are we all going to meet up? We're scattered across the map--how do we get together?" This was something I've had a plan for for almost two years, and I delighted in not answering the question beyond, "I have it covered." So to begin, I rolled a d3 (aka a d6 divided by two with rounding) to determine who would be first. It came up as Lethanin, and so we joined him just before he entered the city of Ringsdale, where he planned to search for information about the copper dragon who'd gone missing here centuries ago, presumed dead.
Lethanin was walking towards the gates of Ringsdale, and a handsome and intense dwarf approached him. The dwarf identified himself as Thomas and said he needed to speak to Lethanin privately. Lethanin was disinterested and walked directly past Thomas. But Thomas called out, using Lethanin's name without being given it, and demanded an audience for something he promised was important. Lethanin grew curious and agreed to come with Thomas, expecting the dwarf to take him to a nearby house or quiet place. But Thomas instead grabbed Lethanin's hand and teleported to somewhere where the buildings were all of dwarven construction instead. Thomas led Lethanin inside a grand house, through a beautiful parlor, and to a massive dining table covered in a feast. Lethanin began to complain about being teleported without his consent, and Thomas talked over him, declaring he needed to bring a few more people for the conversation, and teleported away, while Lethanin continued to complain to himself about Thomas's rudeness.
Meanwhile, Aurora was in her surrogate mother, Heather's, backyard in Torga, enjoying a calm and peaceful day and thinking to herself. Heather came to her, saying that a dwarf had come looking for her, and Aurora tentatively agreed to speak to him in a few minutes, relieved that he was not a human like the Daltoner who'd come looking for her at the end of her intro session. But Thomas did not wait a few minutes; instead, he barged through Heather's apothecary shop and told Aurora that he had urgent business and needed to speak to her privately immediately. Aurora agreed, unsure of what he was up to, and Thomas once again teleported with her to the same house and left her with Lethanin. Aurora and Lethanin spoke together about how rude and strange Thomas was, and he once again excused himself and teleported away.
Finally, Brokk was helping his friend and employer, Marque, to unload a boatfull of fish from the docks of the small town of Drumchapel. Thomas said he needed to speak to Brokk immediately, and Brokk said he needed a few more minutes to finish unloading. But Thomas would not wait, and he demanded that Brokk come with him now. Brokk and Marque covertly mocked Thomas for being so demanding, but Brokk agreed, and Thomas brought him to the same house and brought Brokk to Lethanin and Aurora, who were discussing how odd it was that Thomas was doing what he was doing. Brokk too was perturbed by Thomas's approach, and the three of them asked why Thomas had brought them together.
As far as introductions go, being teleported one by one from opposite ends of the world is a bold start. I knew before the session that it would have benefits and drawbacks. On the negative side, it's very unsubtle. But I reasoned that Thomas as a character is very unsubtle, so that was fine by me. Also on the negative side, it makes the players feel a bit not in control of the situation--being forcibly teleported somewhere unknown without warning or explanation takes some comfort from the players. But again, this is how Thomas is, and I also wanted to make an impression. These characters are beginning the campaign at level 12. They're powerful people, and in their intro sessions, each of them was distinctly in control of the situations they found themselves in. This campaign is called "Of Gods and Dragons" for a reason--the people and situation they're dealing with is the big leagues, and I wanted to start them off with the impression that they weren't the strongest, most powerful people in the world.
I was okay with the drawbacks because I felt they were appropriate, but I also felt there were benefits. On the one hand, I let the players build their own little worlds in their intro sessions and be anywhere in the world they wanted to be; having someone teleport them all to the same place let me have an easy opportunity to let them have the backgrounds they wanted while still getting to easily shove them together. And as bold and potentially divisive a move as it is, it definitely makes an impression. In the moments that followed, as Thomas began to actually talk, all of the players noted that someone who can comfortably teleport themself and others across the world six times in a few minutes without issue or concern is a powerful person, and this again reinforces what I was looking to do. Honestly, Thomas is a brusque and unpleasant man, and this was established, but also, he was certainly intending to intimidate them a bit with him magical prowess. So while I don't think every campaign should begin with something like this--it feels a little railroad-y to me--it served some important purposes and didn't present any meaningfully detrimental effects to the building campaign.
So there in Thomas's fine house, he began to explain. He gave the party a few basic facts about why he'd brought them together. Namely, he explained some lore of my gameworld that set up the main story. First, he explained that prophecies appear in the night sky as constellations, telling them that a prophecy was on the verge of being enacted, and that an astronomer friend of his knows how to read such prophecies. According to this friend, people matching the party's descriptions--a demonic orc, a musician of the spheres, and a Fae-driven scientist--are the key figures in the prophecy. Thomas said he felt it was only right to bring them together and explain the situation so that they could be aware of their roles in their own destinies and that of the world they live in. Further, the prophecy must have something to do with a weakened magical barrier that separates the gods in their realm from the physical world where the party lives. He noted that some gods had recently broken through that barrier and been rebuffed, which he believed to be a threat. His suggestion and request of the party was to destroy the barrier--he reasoned that interacting directly with the gods was a valuable thing and that having all the gods able to descend to the physical realm would keep the balance of good and evil gods, whereas mostly evil gods had made the effort to break through.
Tangent time. Years ago, when I was doing Listen Check, one of the first-ever D&D podcasts, I faced an interesting scenario. On our first game day, which was to be broadcast live over the radio and recorded for the podcast, one of our three party members could not play for health reasons. We had advertised the show and set up our first session/episode long in advance, and it could not be cancelled or postponed. We had to play with a full third of our main characters. This meant that for me as a DM, I couldn't really introduce anything super important to the game quite yet. But our episodes were three hours long (the medium hadn't been cemented into one-hour slots yet), and I wasn't exactly sure how to fill that sizable time slot without getting into anything that would be vitally important to the long-term game. So I made a snap decision, having found out only minutes before we were supposed to play that our third player was unavailable, and the episode was devoted to establishing the world and characters. I encouraged the other two players to explore the city where the game was to take place, speak with the allies they were working with in-game, and learn more about the lore of the city and the gang they were a part of.
It felt like a disaster. To this day, when I tell people about the show, I recommend skipping the first episode. A lot of it was me monologuing as NPCs and narrating things about the show that would be valuable later on. Don't get me wrong--there were good outcomes. The two players present had a great sense of the gameworld, and given that their characters were supposed to have lived in the city for many years, it allowed them to have a real knowledge of the city, whereas the player who was sick played someone new to town, so the other two characters could actually show the third character around and explain things to him. And while I would have preferred to have introduced all that lore bit by bit over time in a more subtle way, getting it all out of the way meant that the campaign could roll on without slowing down later on. But it felt bad. I felt like I was giving a seminar on the gameworld rather than letting them play. I resolved to never do anything like that again.
That was almost fifteen years ago now. When I was building Of Gods and Dragons, I realized that there was substantial lore that needed to be shared for the players to understand the stakes of the game. Even the very brief summary of the lore a few paragraphs up is pretty substantial to take in in the opening minutes of a campaign. I decided that I wouldn't introduce it all at once, and I would instead portion out different parts of it out over the first several sessions. But as you can see in that paragraph, that didn't happen. I ended up lore-dumping in the first few minutes of the campaign. I did not want to do that. But I did, and I had reasons for doing so.
Mostly, the players more or less requested it. I had intended to keep Thomas secretive and have him refuse to give too much away for reasons that will become clear below. I had plans, which my session outline showed, to have him give just a bit of the info and have other NPCs fill the rest in over time. My intentions were good, and I didn't want to make that same mistake again. But as Thomas spoke, the player characters had questions. Lots of questions. He explained the prophecy concept, and they wanted to know how they fit into it. So he hemmed and hawed, but they kept pushing. Eventually, he explained their role in things. I intended to stop there. But the party asked about what he wanted them to do, and that meant explaining the barrier concept so that he could ask them to destroy it, which led to more questions--which gods came through? Why? What did they do? I'll admit, I created my own problem here, but I've been building this campaign for almost two years, and I never came up with a satisfying way around just explaining some things, especially since that is what the characters would do. Thomas would give answers, even if they weren't true.
And Brokk noticed that in fact, Thomas's answers weren't entirely true. He got the sense through an Insight check that Thomas was both withholding the full truth and lying directly about other things. So Brokk did what would make sense in almost any other situation--he tried to intimidate Thomas. Thomas had been getting more and more pushy about getting the party to do what he wanted, and they didn't like the idea of opening the world up to the gods, so they started to dig in. Brokk's intimidation attempt was strong--a 22--but Thomas only grew angry, threatening Brokk for trying to play him. The party refused to do what Thomas asked, so Thomas lost his temper and said he'd show them something that would change their minds, storming from the room to bring them evidence that might change their minds.
Once Thomas was out of the room, there was a tapping on the window. A meek human man stood outside, trying to get the party's attention. They went to the window, and the man explained in a panic that Thomas was purely evil, and he could help them and explain more, pleading with them to leave. The party quickly agreed, and the man introduced himself as Aurix as they hurried away from the house. Aurix asked permission to teleport them all to somewhere safe, and gratified that Aurix had actually asked them, they agreed. Aurix teleported them all to a fine dining hall within a system of foreboding tunnels.
The party began to ask questions of Aurix, looking for answers that Thomas had been unwilling to give. Aurix explained that they were indeed part of a prophecy which involved dealing with the barrier to the gods. They also divulged that the gods really had come through the barrier, and that they and others had fought Gruumsh to keep him from harming the city of Torga, which they were beneath (this is how Listen Check ends, and Aurix was a key figure in that campaign). But Aurix also explained that Thomas had lied about which gods emerged from the heavens and that Thomas was making a power play. The party asked more questions, and Aurix told them that the barrier to the gods' realm was not broken--they'd partially repaired it, and the crack in the barrier meant that powerful magic was leaking into the physical world, where it empowered the most powerful people in the world. They noted that the party themselves were empowered by this, as were Thomas and Aurix. Thomas, they said, was a dragon--a red one, purely evil.
This led to Aurix explaining some of my world's rules about dragons. They explained that there are not families of dragons as the legends say, but only one of each dragon. Dragonhood is a title and position rather than a genetic trait, and Thomas had been the red dragon for 3,000 years, the longest time any of the contemporary dragons had served. While explaining the rules of dragons, Aurix slipped and used the word "we" in place of "they," and the party got them to admit that they were in fact the gold dragon. The party had gotten them to acknowledge, minutes before, that they were not a human but a gold-scaled kobold, and Aurix was quick to say that they were not a mindless monster, but a kind person. But the admission that Aurix was a dragon opened a whole new line of questions. The party wanted to know what Aurix wanted, and Aurix explained that the leaking divine power meant that Aurix, and all the dragons, for that matter, were stronger. But Aurix did not know if the other dragons knew this, and if all the good dragons were made aware of their increased power, they could use that power to do more good. The party was skeptical about this, but they continued speaking with Aurix about their plans.
Again, you may note that this is even further lore-dumping. Originally, my plans for the session indicated that Aurix should appear only at the very end of the session and even then would not explain all of this. Aurix's appearance would have been the end of the session, and the next session would have begun with more information, gradually given. I had not planned on the party disregarding Thomas so quickly, and I had to improvise and throw Aurix into the mix quicker than anticipated. Genuinely, between Thomas and Aurix, more lore-dumping happened in this session than I'd planned to do in three sessions. In an ideal world, that might have happened. But as any DM knows, we do not play in an ideal world. I have always said to give your players what they want, and this party wanted answers. So I gave them the info they were asking for. I like to think that my players wanted all this information, and I did a good thing by giving it to them. Time will tell, and I do plan to acknowledge that more lore-dumping happened than I strictly wanted. But in the moment, Aurix wanted to be honest, as is their wont, and they weren't going to evade their questions, and so it happened as it happened.
The party indicated that they weren't entirely fans of the idea of leaving the barrier to the gods' realm open, and Aurix perked up, suggesting that they speak to the other good dragons. Aurix reasoned that if they wanted different approaches, the other good dragons might have them, and Aurix needed the other good dragons on board to do anything with the advantage granted by increased power. Aurix explained that the evil dragons were fairly divided, but sadly noted that the good dragons were too. They said to find the other good dragons, Nasimar (who went missing 800 years ago and hasn't been seen since), Versvesh (who's been too depressed for 300 years to do much), and Rachaurach (who became a dragon only days ago and was freaking out and had to be found). Aurora pointed out that one dragon was missing, and Aurix happily explained that Wing, the last good dragon, was their close friend, and they knew exactly where she was and how to find her. Aurix said that Wing was very good with people and would know more about the other good dragons, and the party agreed to go and find her in Vestry, the gnomish capital, where she lived.
What happened next was classic D&D at its finest. Aurora's spellcasting allows her to combine different words and ideas into spells, and Aurora, eager to teleport without being ushered around by dragons, decided to teleport the party to Vestry to speak with Wing. But in the design of Aurora's teleportation spell, she did not indicate Vestry specifically or a gnomish place or anything specific to Wing. The party also did not ask any further questions about Wing. Perhaps they were growing tired of talking and were ready for action; perhaps it was just D&D giving rise to unpredictable things as it does. Aurora's player assumed that the best friend of the gold dragon would be the silver dragon, and she indicated in her spell that the spell should take them to the territory of the silver dragon. The spell took effect, and the party went spinning magically through space to the territory of the silver dragon: Talon Gorge.
Seeing the sign outside the city indicating it was Talon Gorge and not Vestry, Lethanin perked up. He had no excitement about returning to the city of his birth and youth. Aurora was crestfallen that the spell had not worked as intended, eager to prove to the rest of the party that she was a valuable asset to the team. Brokk was almost entirely unaffected, simply content to be free of all the powerful people trying to control him. Rather than trying to teleport to Vestry with a second spell, the party agreed to seek out the silver dragon and find him as Aurix had asked.
We ended up calling the session there. In retrospect, this was not a bad stopping point. Beginning the search for the silver dragon was a nice place to stop, and I do want them to start fresh from that point moving forward. But that's not really why I called the session at that point. My internet, which I was sharing with Aurora's player since we live together, is notoriously unstable. It was especially bad for me, since my computer is in a bad wifi reception area in the house. Had we been playing in person, which I do think is ideal for gaming, we probably would have plowed forward and started the search for the silver dragon. But I had already dropped out of the video call four or five times, and upon arriving at Talon Gorge, I dropped out yet again. My players were being patient and understanding about this, but it was frustrating for me to develop a rhythm and momentum and have it interrupted by technical issues. Looking ahead, I'm going to do what I can to stabilize my connection, especially since we only got to play for about an hour and a half (whereas I prefer to play for three or four hours at a time). But I'm not dissatisfied that we left off at a good stopping point; I only wish that the whole first session hadn't been spent establishing the plot. A little more open choice for the players would have been ideal, but I am very excited to say that it's all open choice from here. Every single session for the rest of the campaign will be directed by the players, and I'm eager to find out what happens next.
So, reflections on our first session? The drawbacks were frustrating, as I've said. Technical issues are a real bummer, and lore-dumping is something I hate doing and try to avoid as much as possible. But neither were avoidable here, so it is what it is. The party dynamic is obviously still developing; the group only interacted together in response to NPC input. But what I saw was promising. Brokk is easily frustrated and highly practical and moral. Aurora is erratic and impulsive, but stubbornly helpful. Lethanin is temperamental and somewhat passive yet certainly capable of mixing things up. In one way or another, each of them is hard to predict, and each of them wants what's best for everyone, and that's a wonderful composition for a party. They seemed interested in the hook for the story, and once they figured out their angle on it (going to Wing), they were quick to act, and did so decisively. And the fact that Aurora's spell took them to the wrong place is fun, but even more fun is the fact that they just ran with it. Nobody suggested backtracking and going to Vestry--they just nodded and agreed to move forward with the hand they dealt themselves. And as much information as they took in, they obviously still have a lot more to learn. The backdrop for this campaign is the most elaborate I've ever attempted, with dozens of NPCs and lots of important mythology, so mistakes like going to the wrong city in search of someone might be a commonplace affair in this campaign, and I personally am thrilled to see what else goes wrong and right for the party.
In the immediate future, I'm thrilled to see the party track down the silver dragon, who is among my very favorite NPCs in the whole campaign. I can't wait to see the party make some real decisions together, and watching their dynamic develop will be riveting. And as I told them at the beginning of the session, just getting to play with all of them is a huge thrill. Aurora's player is my partner in life, and Brokk and Lethanin are played by my two closest friends. So every time we play, I'll be with my three favorite people, and that's one of the true beauties of tabletop games. Getting to spend quality time with your closest friends, engaging in imagination and creativity with them, and telling a story all together--this is what D&D is really about at its core level.
That's all for now. Next time in Of Gods and Dragons, the party will explore Talon Gorge and try to track down the silver dragon. Or not! Who knows? With this party, I can't be sure of anything, which is exactly how I want it. Until next time, happy gaming!
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