The Sunless Citadel: Session 1

Hello Everyone! Over the weekend I had my first session of my new D&D campaign. While I can’t share all the details of the start of the campaign, because my party reads this blog, I will share what details I can.

The first half of our session was centered around character creation. After about 2 and 1/2 hours of socializing and creating my party was ready to adventure.

The party was composed of:

-Aman the Mul Fighter, a defensive brute armed with a Warhammer and Shield, I was excited to see someone take this race.

-Milbee the senile Human Wizard. He is an elderly Wizard and introduced himself to the party by rambling about how he used to be a Shepard. This was complimented by a ramblely old man voice from Milbee’s player. (Think Fizbin from Dragonlance)

-Noble the Drow noble Cleric, who felt too dignified to give his official name yet. (Player of Legion in the Lost City)

-Starfall the Persistent a Tiefling Druid, whose life struggle is for equal rights for Tieflings. (My player described his character as Britta from Community) (Player of Sol Mina in the Lost City)

-Aldo Hardbottle the Halfling Bard, who proceeded to in detail record the session to regal us with in the future. (Player of Fizzywinks in addition to other characters in the Lost City)

Overall I was quite pleased with the balance of my party, there was a lot of diversity, three classes which could heal, and quite a bit of casting ability. Despite such a great blend of classes and background though, no one in my party took Investigation as a skill, which would quickly come to give problems when venturing through The Sunless Citadel. (Note if any of my players read this I will allow up to two party members swap a skill for Investigation, consider this an Easter Egg for those of you who read the blog 🙂 ).

I kicked off the session by having the party describe themselves and what they were doing in the inn Ol’ Boar Inn. After some great roleplaying from my various players, four bar patrons, 2 dwarves and 2 human farmers, confronted the strangers in town, singling out Noble the arrogant Cleric of Tyr to pick on.

The bar patrons were quite drunk, and scared about recent bloody disappearances of live stock in surrounding farms. With alcohol lending courage, the desperate commoners blamed and confronted the new strangers in town.

The confrontation devolved into a brawl, some highlights included Milbee shouting an intimidating incantation, and using the Light spell to make himself glow, scaring the one ignorant farmer. Aldo, while playing an instrument in the corner incapacitated a common with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. Starfall took a shattered mug to the face. Noble the Cleric, disgusted over being touched knocked two dwarves out with non-lethal melee attacks.

This was a great way to start the session, as it gave some roleplaying opportunity and then jumped right into some action. It was also a good opportunity for players to use non-lethal techniques and abilities.

The party eventually moved to go investigate Gunter Blaise’s farm, the most recent victim of livestock abduction. Starfall communicated with the surviving sheep gaining feelings of fear, unnaturalness, and twigs or trees moving. Using this unique Druid spell was a really nice choice, and one I hadn’t even thought of, kudos to him!

From here the party moved into The Sunless Citadel. Initial forays into the citadel involved players falling and being shoved down a ravine, taking quite a bit of damage, fighting several Giant Rats, falling into pits, and prying open a sealed door, only to decide to turn around and go a different direction.

We left off with the party having found a Keg in a room, with pipes leading out into the floor. The party, naturally thought booze and went to investigate, prying the lid off. It took quite a bit of effort, but with some help Aman did it, only to free the small water elemental inside! After a brief scramble, a critical hit from Aman, as the rest of the party ran, the elemental fled back into the pipes. We then called it a night.

Some thoughts, overall it was a blast. Everyone got in some good moments and roleplaying. Characters jelled fast, but did not sacrifice their background stories. I do think my group was a little bit sillier then I would prefer, but for a first session it kept everyone involved and excited which is great. I need to do a better job in my descriptions of The Sunless Citadel to make it clear this place fell into ruins centuries ago, as it was once a base for the Death’s Head cult, not certain I made that clear enough.

For those of you following along, my next session should be in about 2 weeks, and will hopefully have some very exciting moments in them, when I begin to put my own spin on The Sunless Citadel as my own preferences, and player choices begin to influence and change the module.

Readers I am curious what you thought of this synopsis, my session ran about 5 hours, and there was a lot to cram in. I tried to give some highlights, and really give the feel of the group, while not getting bogged down into details. What worked and what would you like to see changed?