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.

Discussion topic:  A lot of us will probably be getting together with family over the up-coming holidays, and sometimes that means playing board games.  Whether you have young kids, elderly parents, or just cool siblings and/or cousins, what are your favorite games to play with family?

When I was a kid it was games like Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, or the old classic Pictionary.  The story goes that a young CleverGuy, enjoying a game of Pictionary with various aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, pulled a card and was asked to draw the word “lumberjack.”  Not knowing what that was, I drew a single dot on the page and insisted that everyone should have known what it was.

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The Hayes Code is guiding 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=”A Short Debate”]As we searched the Sea Ghost, Dr. Testling noticed that some rooms in the lower deck of the ship were smaller than their upper-deck counterparts.  The doctor deduced that there must be a secret compartment. After a more thorough search of the lower decks, we found two.  The first was a small cramped space, in which we saw a ragged-looking Sea Elf.  Constable Muldoon was able to speak to the captive in Elvish.  He told us his name was Oceanus, and he’d been sent by his people to investigate the ship that kept passing over their underwater city.  Unfortunately, Oceanus had been captured by the pirates almost immediately upon boarding the ship and didn’t have much information to share with us.  We unlocked his manacles with the key we’d found in the captain’s quarters and let him go.

The other hidden room contained a cache of weapons, the ones that the lizardfolk had arranged to purchase from the pirates.  Finding these weapons started a debate within that party on whether or not to give the weapons to the lizardfolk.  Testling and Sgt Aequoreus, who had spoken with the lizardfolk, felt we should give the lizardfolk their weapons and keep the 10 bars of electrum (worth about 500 gp).  We had no real use for the weapons, and the lizardfolk seemed to want them only for the purposes of defending their home in the swamps nearby.  Muldoon, on the other hand, considered that the ship and all of its cargo were now the property of Saltmarsh.  The deal that the lizardfolk had made with the pirates was not a legitimate business, and we were under no obligation to honor that agreement.  A group of well-armed lizardfolk close to the town was not exactly a welcome thought, and besides, for all we knew, those weapons were all stolen goods.  Muldoon thought we should return the lizardfolk their electrum and send them on their way.  After some arguing, we decided to head back to town and try determine where these weapons came from before making any decision.

We brought some of the weapons to the town blacksmith, a shop called the Dwarven Anvil, though it was run by humans.  The smith was able to tell us that these weapons were decently well-made, and seemed to have been forged by many different manufacturers, as they were not uniform in appearance by any means.  Muldoon and Aequoreus reached out to their contacts in the constabulary and military, respectively, for any information on stolen shipments, but neither had received any reports of a large shipment.  With the lizardfolk beginning to grow impatient and no real clear idea of a rightful owner for the cache, Muldoon was overruled by the rest of the party, and  we decided to let the lizardfolk leave with the weapons and keep the money.

We also received a reward of 500gp from the town council, though they were a bit worried when they heard we’d given the lizardfolk those weapons.  They mentioned that we might be asked to check out the lizards’ encampment later on.  Festuca used some of her share of the reward money to purchas some ruby dust from Keledrek the mage in order to create a Continual Flame as light source for any underwater missions we might be sent on.  We were also given the use of the Sea Ghost whenever we needed it, with the town taking care of the expenses. We hired some sailors and rechristened the ship the Sea Ghost Coast to Coast.  With no new assignment from the council at the moment, we had some time to ourselves. [/spoiler]

Next weekend, Hayes is going to take a break from DM-ing, and I’m stepping behind the screen for the first time!