D&D Chronicles: A tough induction for Ash

My new D&D character is a ranger called Ash. She is a northern plainswoman, a ‘pale-skinned barbarian’ in the imaginary world of our game. Hailing from a remote plains village that has recently been raided by thieving goblins, Ash and the village cleric (Alix) are the only surviving members of a party that set out in pursuit of the goblins… and they found themselves stranded high in the mountains, having lost the goblins’ trail.

This is the scenario the two of us whose characters carked it last time came up with to explain our new characters’ presence in the vicinity of our original party. They came across us in a cave and begged to share our very warm fire… they weren’t in very good shape, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised they wouldn’t help us chase off/kill the three wolves outside the cave gnawing on our last remaining companions from our village.

Gifts — or manipulation? — from the DM

We had to, you see, because our DM decided to embellish our scenario and load up the dead bodies with several magical items and a spellbook.

In the end, we managed it rather well, the two of us… we defeated the wolves, retrieved the objects, generously shared them with our new companions — who in my opinion were rather demanding of two strangers they’d just met… and not nearly as open and forthcoming. In fact, I found it really disconcerting for Ash to be suddenly distrusted by these characters I actually knew quite well.

More bouts of unconsciousness

After some verbal fencing, we eventually agreed to join forces (as if we wouldn’t) and continue the hunt for… whatever we find. Our route took us down below the snow line, through skirmishes/ambushes by blood hawks, poisonous snakes, mini-orc things… until we encountered a lizard man, who saved my life with a potion in return for us retrieving an artifact the mini-orc things had stolen from him.

Somehow we seem to keep going into debt to save my life. Hmm…

And so our band of five went off to track the mini-orc things… which attacked us in the forest. They surrounded us and there was a mighty battle. But in the end we defeated them all, although three of our party ended up unconscious and it was a miracle no-one died.

Overall it was a really fun night. Despite the fact I rolled THE WORST EVAH!

Still, given how badly I rolled, I managed to finish the final battle still standing and defeat the leader. And after one session I somehow gained enough XPs to level up for the next session. Yay! As a level 2 ranger, I’ll be a much more potent force.

Interestingly, I played with far less caution than normal, because I hadn’t had time to become too invested in this character. It wouldn’t have worried me greatly had she died — although now I’m level 2 I’ll probably start exercising caution again. But it was fun to play with violent abandon!