First Night

1 Ne 4:6 - And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

Oh you guys. 

I don't even know how to start this, because it was just. that. fun. 

We have such an incredibly beautiful group of humans right now, and what happened last night was nothing short of magical. I can only hope some of you may find this experience for yourself. I suddenly understand the draw for D&D. I get it. And we played maybe 2 hours. It was...I dunno. 

 Pre-players setup. 

As the group descended the stairs, they entered the tavern in that order, chose minis, and chose seats in the bar. 

 Minis game on point.

 I believe at this point Amulek (the Elven Wizard Outlander, as played by Jesse) was encouraging Moroni (the human soldier as played by Elder Meinhart) and Archeantus (the human charlatan rogue as played by Elder Guymon) to go talk to "that beautiful elf and her adwarfable friend" (Emrin the elven Bard as played by Sister Lott, and Ziff, the dwarf paladin as played by sister Cox).

Shortly after this, Nebacca (Nephi, as played by a Chewbacca mini from the Star Wars Clue game) ran gasping into the tavern, crying out for help in getting the plates of brass back from King Laban, who had not only refused to give them back but had also stolen his family's treasure as well. He begged our brave adventurers to go to the castle (he couldn't return himself, because he had already exhausted Laban's short supply of good graces) and recoup the book and kill Laban (because God had told him it must be done...if not, Laban would continue to pursue him and his family in order to get his revenge. I'll admit, this was one part I didn't think through enough...why would the adventurers want to do this? Especially since, before this, they didn't know each other as a collective.) Any treasure they found, they would be free to keep.

The players found their way out of the tavern and into the castle. They'd just finished disarming a fire breathing statue. Of note, at the entrance to the castle was Animated Armor, which Moroni (I believe) managed to trick into believing our friends were all friends of Laban's. (I'd had a riddle prepared for this...sort of...and they completely side stepped it. Oops.)

Pause for sustenance. Sisters Lott and Cox on the left, Elders Guymon and Meinhart on the right, and Jesse in the middle. My heart is full looking at this picture.

Debating what to do next. After next week's conclusion, I'll post pictures of the maps of the castle and town. Honestly, the town doodle was supposed to be just a funny doodle, but when they rolled for persuasion against the crying guy in the bar (who happened to be a recently fired Castle Guard with a lot of handy information), all they got was "that rusty suit isn't so scary." They may have gotten an unmarked map of the castle if they'd rolled better, but alas.

Side note, it is hard to remember who knows what in this game. Just another thing I didn't think about when putting it together, and maybe I'd use that as a mechanic later in the game.

The final setup right before curfew. They'd found the book (which is loosely based on the Book of Exalted Deeds) and used one of the mechanics I came up with (which may actually be in DnD canon, but I haven't read that far yet) to decide what to do with it. The Prayer mechanic allows the player whose turn it is to ask a single, explicit question of the DM prior to performing their action on that turn. They roll and add their Religion modifier to determine the answer. What was beautiful was that Moroni came up with a Group Prayer mechanic, in which only one question is answered, but anyone in the group who participates in the prayer (must be within 10 ft of the player asking the question, or in the same room) rolls for an answer. Highest roll counts, and the answer is given (for now) to the group at large. Maybe in the future the answer will be given only to the one who rolls highest, and they have to figure out how to convince the others of its truth.

This mechanism worked well to reveal whether the players should continue to seek and kill Laban (the lawful Good gals weren't fans of killing and wanted to just leave the castle), and revealed the truth about the Book (that it may only be read by a character of Good alignment, and must remain in custody at all times. If the character is unable or unwilling to be part of a given adventure, it must be passed on to a character of Good alignment. The conclusion of the story will have more of the details on this I think.)

That's about as much as I can reveal at this point...I'm excited to show off my terrible doodles in next week's post! Next week is Elder Meinhart's last week on his mission, so it'll be a great way to send off this young man who has meant so much to us (he was the first elder who came to our door nearly two years ago, and his were the hands that baptized Jesse last July).