Welcome back to the weekly D&D and Tabletop Gaming thread!  Here’s a place where we can talk about Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games that you nerds might be into.  Tell us about the games you’re playing, speculate about future expansions, recruit your fellow Avocados into new groups, whatever you want.

It seems to be generally accepted that most D&D campaigns end when the characters are around level 10.  Which means that a lot of the most powerful monsters you can find in the Monster Manual won’t ever be encountered by most players.  No doubt the biggest and baddest is the Tarrasque.   This is basically D&D’s interpretation of a kaiju.  It stands 50 feet tall, and 70 feet long.  It makes five attacks per round and can swallow PCs whole.  It’s almost impossible to hit, with an AC of 25, and some spells will literally bounce off its hide and back at the caster.  If the Tarrasque rises up out of the ocean or bursts from under the earth, you should probably just run as fast and as far as you can.

Have you ever run or played in an encounter with a Tarrasque?  Assuming the answer is no, would you want to, just for the challenge of it?  Are there any other monsters that are too big for most groups that you’d like to see in action?

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[spoiler title=”Cast of Characters”]The AvocaD&D group is currently running through a set of Eberron adventures, DM’d for this week by The Wasp Woman. The player characters (all at Level 3) are as follows:

• TheCleverGuy as Cybin Stoneswift, a Hill Dwarf Wizard who’s singularly obsessed with the study of various forms of mushrooms
• Otto (our only non-Avocado party member) as Magz, a Changeling Rogue, a native of Sharn familiar with the city’s seedy underbelly
• The Hayes Code as Cassidy Cody, a Tiefling Bard who makes a living busking in the lightning rail stations with the talent passed down to her from her Pa’s deal with the devil
• Wafflicious as Pizzazzle, a Dragonborn Druid who just wants to clean up the planet so it’s fit for consumption by the all-powerful Nexu
• Spiny Creature as Aina Nistor, a Half-Elf Monk who wears the red hood of the Blood of Vol, a religion that worships no deity, but rather the divinity within all mortals
• Sister Jude the Obscure as Orana Coratash, a Kalashtar Barbarian who’s hiring herself out as muscle to local adventurers
• Josephus Brown, as Heiyoo, a Kobold Artificer who’d taught himself magic by stealing and dismantling magical items[/spoiler]

[spoiler title=”The Cannith Compound, as told by Cybin Stoneswift”]

So there we were, standing in the sewer with an unlocked door (and freshly sprung trap) in front of us.  Before we went in, we spent some time coming up with a cover story.  As we discussed, Aina suddenly spotted a kobold lurking in the shadows.  He said his name was Heiyoo, and he’d been trying to break into the compound himself, but didn’t want to risk setting off the trap.  Now that we’d set it off for him, he wanted to join us.  We were a bit suspicious, but decided it’d be safer to bring him with us rather than send him away–who knows who he might tell about us?

Anyway, we decided our plan would be to pretend to be a visiting delegation of scientists from Morgrave University with important business for the head artificer in this lab.  Secret business, to explain why we were coming up through the sewer instead of using the front door.  With that settled, we opened the door and went into the compound.  I sent my frog, Toadstool, ahead of us to look around.  He spotted 4 scientists, and they spotted him but didn’t seem to mind.  So we walked into the room, and Cassidy took the lead, convincing these guys that we were there on official business.  She convinced them so well, they gave us official ID badges that would allow us to access pretty much the entire compound. Cassidy asked them if there was anyone on staff who could help decipher a coded message, and they pointed us to the library upstairs.

To get there, we had to go through the main workroom of the lab.  There were bits of weaponry and armor all over the place. Heiyoo started rifling through some f the junk on the worktables, and found notes on creating new giant-sized Warforged, which is very illegal.  That tells you the kind of people these Cannith folks are.

Anyway, we made our way up the main stairs to the second floor, where we came upon a mess hall with all sorts of food laid out.  I guess our new kobold friend was hungry, because he started piling food into his bag.  It took me a minute to realize that this bag must have been bigger on the inside than on the outside, because Heiyoo cleaned that place out.  Continuing on to the library, we soon found the personnel records department and started searching through the files for notes on the head artificer, Gallavant de Carrots.  There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, except for one small gnome who appeared to also be searching through the personnel files.

Assuming this was the gnome we’d been asked to extract, Alyssa Long, Cassidy made some polite conversation trying to surreptitiously let her know we’d received her letter and were there to get her out.  She seemed confused, but quickly brought us to a more private room to talk in.  When we got there, Ms Lint made it quite clear that she’d never sent us a letter at all and we potentially blowing her cover by being here.

This was bad.  Who did send this letter and why?  We certainly had no idea, and neither did Ms Land.  But clearly, her cover was already blown, so we convinced her to come with us.  For some reason, we also decided to move ahead with the mission to get  chief’s ID too.  I gotta be honest, I kinda spaced out for a few minutes there, so I’m not sure why we thought this was a good idea.  The gnome brought us over to Garaban’s office, and again, I’m not exactly sure what happened here.  The ID card we were going or was strung around his neck.  I don’t think there was any way to get it off him without him knowing.  Aina and Cassidy tried to convince him we were here on official business, but he was suspicious to say the least.  Eventually, Pizzazzle got fed up and hit him with a Hold Person spell.

Unfortunately, this activated the invisible stone defender Caravan had as a bodyguard. Thinking fast, I used Color Spray to try and blind the clockwork bodyguard so we could grab the ID and run–unfortunately, the artificer took the brunt of my spell and it had no effect on the construct.  Heiyoo shot the paralyzed man with his crossbow, and killed him.  Luckily, Aina and Magz were able to take down the construct pretty quickly.  We grabbed the ID tag and stuffed the artificer’s body into Heiyoo’s bag of holding.  Magz shifted to look like him, and we walked straight back out of he compound the way we came in.  None of the workers there seemed to wonder much where their “boss” was going.

Alicia said she’d lead us to a safe house, but on our way we were ambushed by a group of Boromar halflings who suddenly appeared in a cloud of fog, standing on a fire escape above the alley were in.  I guess now we knew who’d sent us that letter.  They’d arranged the whole thing to get their coded message back from us and kidnap Ms Landing to decode it for them.

Heiyoo and Magz traded crossbow fire with the halflings, and I hit the leader with a Ray of Sickness.  Cassidy had a stroke of genius and ran directly under the fire escape to let loose a Thunderwave onto the whole group of them.  Aina climbed up the ladder to engage up close.  When the leader dropped thanks to a shot from Magz, the rest of the rogues ran off.  Cassidy picked up some kind of magical cittern that the leader had been using.  With the halflings dispatched, we went on to the gnome’s safehouse, and she decoded the message.  Here’s what it said:

To the Greatest of All Who Bear the Name Cannith,

We represent the Swords of Liberty. We have received confirmation that you are proceeding with our order as planned. You have our humblest thanks—we assure you that the transfer of funds into your accounts will be made with the utmost discretion, and that nothing will link our activities. Our agents have heard that the schisms within your mighty house have led to the Boromar crime family siding with your d’Cannith rivals. Our deepest condolences. Nevertheless, we expect that your agents will be the picture of discretion in order to keep any unwanted investigators out of our business. The crowned heads of Eberron will roll, thanks to your contribution to the war effort. We hope to do business with you again in the future.

Sincerely,
He Who Will Write History with Crimson Ink

I’m not sure what all this means, but Aina noted that “Crimson Ink” might indicate some kind of connection the monastic order she serves, the Blood of Vol…[/spoiler]