AvocaD&D and Tabletop Gaming Thread: Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Session 3

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.

This week Wizards of the Coast had two big releases for D&D.  The first was a new campaign guide, Eberron: Rising From the Last War.  Eberron material had been available for playtesting for quite a while, but as of yesterday, it’s now an officially released setting.  The book introduces the first official new player class since 5th edition was launched, the Artificer.  It also includes some new playable races, Dragonmarked subraces for some of the race options in the the Player’s Handbook, a new “group patron” element that functions as a background for the whole party, and everything else you need to run an Eberron campaign, including a pre-written 1st level adventure.

Also released yesterday is D&D vs Rick and Morty, a 5th edition adventure based on the popular cartoon.  I have to admit, I’ve never seen Rick and Morty so I don’t really get the appeal here. It comes as a boxed set that appears to include the adventure book, some pre-made character sheets, and a DM screen.  This isn’t the first time D&D has released cross-promotional material–there was a Stranger Things box set adventure that came out last spring.

So, what do you think?  Will you be picking up either of these new products?  Are you excited to have new official race and class options to play with?  Does Rick and Morty really work as a D&D adventure?  Are there any other pop-culture cross-promotions that you’d like to see from WotC? 

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The Hayes Code is jumping back into the DM seat to guide us through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, with the setting adjusted to a fantasy version of 1930.

[spoiler title=”The Saltmarsh Situation Solvers”]

• Sgt. Vivian Aequoreus, a Dragonborn Sorcerer, an admiral’s daughter and naval officer serving as representative of the Navy in Saltmarsh (The Wasp)
• Rainn Cloud, an Air Genasi Bard, of uncertain origin and purpose (Wafflicious)
• Festuca Glauca, a Human Cleric, raised on a floating brothel and now striking out on her own (Otto)
• Constable Renard Muldoon, a Half-Elf Paladin, a life-long resident of Saltmarsh assigned to this new task force as liaison to the local town guards (TheCleverGuy)
• Rielle, a Human Druid, who’s definitely NOT a mermaid transformed into a human through magic (Anna Nomally)
• Dr. Nickel Ferrous Testling, a Kobold Artificer,  a scientist currently working for the WPA in their cultural archivist project, primarily focusing on folklore and legends, local religious cults, and regional variations in spellcasting technique (Josephus Brown)[/spoiler]

[spoiler title=”Beyond Skeletons”]

We started out this week by searching the remains of the Old Alchemist and his skeleton guards.  The first thing we noticed was that each of the guards had one rib that appeared to be made of gold.  On the alchemist we found a flat green river stone as well as a bag that seemed to be empty. Reaching into the bag, Rainn found that it seemed to be bigger on the inside. We had a pretty good idea that this was Bag of Holding, and we thought we might test it out to be sure. But Festuca recalled hearing about another kind of bag that would destroy whatever you put inside, so we decided to wait until we could positively identify the bag. In the meantime, Rielle had picked up the stone and spent some time attuning to it.  She found out that it was a Luck Stone, but it was cursed.  She wasn’t able to give it away or leave it behind, and if she ever used its magic to give herself good luck, she’d have twice as much bad luck afterward.[footnote]The stone can be used to grant advantage on an ability check, but if used, you then have disadvantage on your next two ability checks.[/footnote] We gathered up the golden ribs and went through the secret door that the alchemist had come through.

Beyond the door, we found the alchemist’s workshop.   On the desk, there was a book titled “The Secret of the Philosopher’s Stone.”  Scattered around the room, we could see  various objects made of gold, including a rose, an apple, a handful of disks, and a human skull. They appeared to be very finely carved.  We figured that the alchemist had been successful in actually transmuting things into gold. Dr. Testling used his monocle to Detect Magic in the room, but didn’t find anything.  Testling claimed the “Philosopher’s Stone” book, and we gathered up all the gold, including the ribs from the skeletons, and returned to the town.

Our first stop (after dropping off Neddy the Nife at the jail), was Winston’s General Store.  We traded most of the golden objects (though it turned out that the ribs were just gold-plated, not solid gold like the others) for a pearl, so that Testling could Identify some of our other loot.  We discovered that we indeed have a Bag of Holding.  We’d also found some alchemical powders in the house, but they didn’t seem to have any magical properties on their own. Constable Muldoon thought that they might be of interest to the Mage, Keledek, who lived in a tower in the northern part of town.  Muldoon told the group that he’d always heard that if you say the Mage’s name aloud, he can eaesdrop on your conversation.  Dr. Testling immediately tested this theory, by loudly announcing our plans to pay the Mage a visit and sating his preference for darjeeling tea. We arrived at the Mage’s tower a short time later, and he did indeed seem to be expecting us, with darjeeling ready and waiting.  Keledek gave us a few silver pieces for the powders, but didn’t have much to say about the other things we’d discovered in the old house.

We stopped for the night there, before meeting with Capt. Fireblood for our next mission.[/spoiler]