Weekly Gaming Summary #35: (10/31/2020 Halloween)

A Thank You For Playing today's Dungeons & Dragons 5 th Edition game of Halloween 10/31/2020 - From 10:00 am EDT, until 1:00 pm EDT, and our 44 th Gaming Session, goes out to:   Monk – Elf – Farren Nidanas - Bahrrenn Drakke Rogue – High Elf - Roqar -  Roxxifarius Wizard – Human - Dolores - Klona   Whom Could Not Make It Today!   Cleric – Hill Dwarf - Galdor Brawnanvil – No Attached Player Now Fighter – Human – Alteon – No Player Attached Fighter (Echo Knight) – Xar’Tharkas – Half Orc – Christian W. Ranger – High Elf – Willie Belson –  Buddy-D   New Player Coming In: Barbarian (Berserker) – Minotaur – Armanuk Keenhorn - Pheonix Paladin Knight – Half Elf - Genry - Hermit8     Game Summary for Saturday (10/31/2020):   Opening Scene: Day 20 : June 7th; 5:32 am   The Adventurers  are at Falcon’s Hunters’ Lodge, in the midst of a battle with invading Anchorites of Talos, Many Arrows tribe Orcs and their Needle, Twig and Vine Blight minions. Galdor having just smited an Anchorite down during Round #19.     Round #19 of Combat continues!   Dolores, casts a Fire Bolt cantrip at an Anchorite and missed!   Alteon, stabs  Anchorite #02 for 5 piercing damage with his 18 ft long pike!   Anchorite #03, slashes Falcon for  4 damage with the clawed gauntlet!     Round #20 of Combat!   Farren, missed Anchorite #01, with a dart!   Anchorite #02, missed Alteon with the clawed gauntlet!   Willie, slashes Anchorite #03 with the magical Talon long sword for 16 damage!   Xar’Tharkas, slashes Anchorite #01 with the 8ft long glaive for 8 damage!   Roqar, stays back away from the fight.   Galdor, pounds Anchorite #02 for 5 bludgeoning damage!   Sildar, defeats Anchorite #02 with the two-handed long sword for 7 slashing damage!   Falcon, slashes Anchorite #03 with the long sword (two-handed) for 12 damage!   Anchorite #01, missed Xar’Tharkas with his clawed gauntlet!     Round #21 of Combat!   Dolores, casts a Fire Bolt cantrip at an Anchorite, hitting for 9 fire damage!   Alteon, slashes Anchorite #01 for 12 damage with the pike, defeating him!   Anchoite #03, missed Falcon with his clawed gauntlet!     Round #22 of Combat!   Willie, stabs Anchorite #03 with the short sword for 12 piercing damage, defeating him!   End of Combat!   Three days later, after healing up wounds and helping to repair the palisade where the attackers broke through with a lightning bolt spell then puling the remaining splinters down, the party decides to head back to the old manse that the attackers used for a base.   Following a trail through the woods, you come to a foggy clearing, in the midst of which stands a crumbling two-story manse all but hidden beneath thorny ivy. The large house is set atop a six-foot-high stone foundation, and the main entrance has a balcony above it. Pumpkins grow wild in patches around the manse, with several wild boars feeding among them. The boars snort with contempt as you draw near. Stone steps climb to a portico with a stone balcony overhanging it at a height of ten feet. Vines wrap around the balcony’s support pillars and its crumbling stone railing. The ground-floor entrance features a double door with a giant boar’s head crudely carved into it. An unmarred double door stands closed on the balcony.   Entering the manse’s entry hall you note the ceiling is 8 ft high with the creaky, moldy stairwell to the east, the parlor entry to the north and a broken door out to the courtyard in the south east wall.   The parlor: The door to this parlor has been smashed to pieces. The room is strewn with broken furniture the remains of chairs, side tables, and a wine cabinet. A moldy circular rug covers most of the stone floor.   The adventures make their way straight east into the dining room with several of the twig figures still on the mantelpiece that resemble the party members aside of the one that resembled Roqar which attacked her on the first visit after she touched it.   Here, The walls are covered with crude drawings in blood that depict boars chasing stick-figure humanoids. A fireplace dominates the south side of the room, and a smashed wooden dining table lies in a heap in the eastern half of the room, surrounded by six broken chairs. Windows are 2½-foot wide, 5-foot-high apertures with wooden shutters but no glass. Those along the outside walls are covered with ivy.   Roqar, has a look at the door on the north wall of the dining room, finds it unlocked and enters:   Nature has run roughshod over this kitchen, whose furnishings are wholly decayed. The outside door was broken down years ago, and rats have chewed holes in the bottom of the door leading to the west. Roqar, did not find anything out of the ordinary in the kitchen as Dolores looked outside through the broken door, seeing more pumpkin patches with a boar in one to the east, eating a pumpkin.   Roqar, then squats down to look through the gap in the bottom of the west door, but it is too dark to see what is inside.   Finding the door unlocked, Roqar, enters a pantry revealing:   Much of the roof above this chamber has collapsed, leaving debris scattered across the floor. Birds have made nests on the wooden shelves that line the north and south walls. Rats long ago devoured anything they could reach, and all other foodstuffs have rotted away. Roqar, rummages around the pantry but did not find anything useful or edible.   The party moves back through the dining room to one of two south doors, (the west one being busted), that opens into the courtyard and enter it, spotting Yuuki’s now mostly eaten corpse still here.   Stone steps lead down to a flagstoned courtyard that has a pillared arcade to the east. Seven windows on the upper level overlook the courtyard, in the middle of which is a five-foot-wide stone well with thick vines erupting from it. There are no sounds coming from the south east like before. Going to one of two south doors off the courtyard (the third broken down one leads to the laboratory), Roqar sees the door is unlocked and opens it to see:   This room was once a bedchamber, kitchen, and dining room rolled into one. Four beds stand along the south wall, with shuttered windows and nightstands between them. Against the west wall are four wardrobes and a cabinet full of plain dishware and cutlery. Four chairs surround a small dining table in the northeast corner, and a trestle table strewn with pots and cooking utensils stands near a blackened fireplace. All the furnishings are made of wood. The ceiling in the southwest corner of the room has collapsed, filling the area below with debris and leaving a jagged hole through which the room above is visible.   Roqar did not find anything unusual in the room.

As Roqar uses her acrobatic abilities to jump up to the hole in the 8 ft high ceiling, Dolores has gone through the laboratory:   What used to be some sort of laboratory lies in ruins, its furnishings broken and heaped against the walls. In the middle of the room, painted on the floor with mud, is a ten-foot-wide symbol depicting three lightning bolts joined at their tips. Light filters in from the window Dolores had cut through vines and the party jumped out of before.   Dolores, goes to one of two doors on the north wall, going to the north west one and opens it into a library:   This room has a ten-foot-high wooden balcony forming its upper level, reached by a wooden spiral staircase curling down to the flagstone floor. Tall, empty bookcases line the walls, their shelves mostly bowed and broken. On the lower level, east of two pillars, are four old desks with chairs tucked behind them. A few moldy books are scattered about.   Meanwhile, after Roqar had pulled herself up through the hole, she sees:   A once fine guest room, now with it’s furniture completely destroyed, perhaps by the Anchorites and or Orcs that were here. Roqar, did not find anything of any value remaining, so for now she climbs back down through the hole in the floor.   Dolores climbs the spiral staircase to the balcony, where book cases line the walls and a single shuttered window is on the west all, it is dark in here due to the ivy growing over the shutters, so a torch is needed for light. Dolores, pushes open the shutters enough to get a blade through and cut the vines, then opens the shutters.   Dolores, rummages through the books, seeing that they are titled and written in Elven. Roqar is here now so she has her look at the books. Flipping through one, Roqar sees it is describing long lost elven kingdoms and civilizations, she tosses the book aside saying, “Garbage”.   Dolores, tells Roqar to have a look at the book that is supporting a desk leg. It is titled, “Elvish Idioms.” Roqar checks that the book is not trapped and when it is opened it has several pages cut to form a compartment which holds a small leather packet, which holds a fine powder inside.   Dolores, has an identify spell but needs to find or buy a 100 gp valued pearl for the spell.   The party decides to go upstairs now so Roqar is checking the steps for a trap when, after she gets half way up the upper half, the stairs give way, sending her crashing through and landing on two of several wooden spikes set into the floor, dealing 5 impaling damage! She hollers out from the pain!   Galdor, immediately uses, his hammer to smash through the wall under the staircase as the others help to pull it away to reach Roqar, who is then seen to be propping herself in such a way to avoid being impaled by more spikes, as she tries not to move where the two spikes had impaled her to avoid losing blood to fast.   The party gets to her after smashing down some spikes out of the way and lift her out as she screams in pain from the spikes getting removed. Galdor , then immediately casts a Cure Wound spell upon her, to completely heal her fully back to health with a 7 hit point restore (only needed 5).   The party then decide to get upstairs via the hole in the ceiling that Roqar climbed up through before. She jumps and pulls herself up, as does Dolores and Galdor,  while the others piled some of the broken furniture under the hole and reach up through the hole that way, as Roqar and others that climbed up help the rest up.   Once everyone is in the guest room, Roqar goes to the set of double doors in the north east wall, finds them unlocked and opens them into a hallway:   This corridor is enclosed by two double doors and four open windows. Ivy has grown through the windows and into the corridor.   The party is able to easily side step over or walk around the ivy to reach the other double door. Roqar finds the door to be unlocked and opens it to see:   The walls of this L-shaped hall are lined with closed doors and shuttered windows. Between them are hooks where decorations once hung. A fireplace along one wall has a large insectoid head mounted above it. Natural light enters through a hole in the roof at the east end of the hall. The floor beneath the collapsed roof is strewn with debris. Roqar notes the insectoid head is that of an ankheg, just like the ones the adventurers fought off at Tobin Wester’s logging camp. As Roqar enters the hall, a young stirge swoops down upon here but she managed to bat the creature away! Roqar, tries to swing her short sword at the stirge but she missed!   And this ends the gaming session for the day, until next time!   It is now June 12th at 7:00 am.   The Adventurers’ Experience Points Earned This Session: Anchorite of Talos (3): 3 * 700 =  2,100 XP   2,100 / 6 =  350 XP each ----------   Grand Total Experience Points:   Everyone is at 4,670.67 XP  Level 5 reached at 6,500 XP!   Loot Found: Small leather packet with fine dust inside.   Number of Sessions for current Adventure Module: 44th Session for “Lost Mines of Phandelver / Dragon of Icespire Peak” 10/31/2020 [1st Session start was 08/15/2019]