This has officially become the longest Dungeons & Dragons campaign I have ever been in. My character Althaea is level #5 now and has more spells she’s learned through the course of her adventures. Our last session was one of the most entertaining sessions I have ever witnessed. If you can’t already tell by the title of this post, one of the characters has some fun with the Wraith we fought which I will go into detail shortly.

To begin the session, our group heads to Lake Constance to fetch some of the remaining magical artifacts. We were going to head there in the prior session, but we were attacked by Frost Giants. As we carefully walk on the frozen lake, we see a Wraith pausing over a hole in the ice. We investigate the Wraith and see it has been injured and unfortunately succumbs to its injury. One of our characters has a spell where she can breathe underwater, so she dives down to collect a dark arrow and a pair of gauntlets. We also uncover a map from a corpse nearby which has been frozen solid in ice. This map leads us to certain locations where other magical artifacts can be found.

Althaea decides we should investigate the Dark Tower. As we climb the stairs we see a light Wraith guarding the light artifacts. One character named Cupo decides to yell “GOOD MORNING, HOW’S YOUR DAY??” at it. I burst out laughing because of the way he randomly yells this and his facial expression as he says it. The Wraith immediately sent a bolt of light at Cupo who took 13 damage. Since wraiths are ghost-like creatures, it was immune to physical weapons. It was also resistant to poison, fire, ice, and thunder magic. This happened to be what most of my spell slots were.

Muglupus and Cupo weren’t able to fight the Wraith since they weren’t spellcasters. This is where things got weird. Cupo decides if he can’t fight the Wraith, he will distract it. First, Cupo starts asking him generic questions like, “SERIOUSLY THOUGH HOW IS YOUR DAY?”. Cupo starts rolling high enough that the Wraith is apparently distracted. Next, Cupo undresses and starts “shimmying” at the Wraith. If that wasn’t enough, Cupo completely undresses and starts “dancing” which turns into twerking in front of the Wraith. Cupo rolled a critical success, which led to the Wraith gliding up to Cupo and licking him!

Eventually, Althaea and Maeva defeated the Wraith by casting various spells at it even though it might have been resistant. Althaea dealt it 20 damage with Maeva dealing it 25 damage. Our characters turn to see Cupo desperately trying to dress himself as we walk out of the Dark Tower with our items. As our characters decide our next move, we make our way back to a village we saved back in session #2. I bought more health potions since I had plenty of physical weapons. Our group looked at the map we gathered from the frozen man and saw that the mountain range was our next place to go. As we walk to the mountains we see a group of monks who have been slaughtered. This ends our session.

This was an exciting session for me due to being able to fight the Wraith. It was entertaining seeing Cupo trying to distract this Wraith. It’s not as funny typing it out in a blog post as it was actually being there and seeing him say these things to the Wraith. I’m looking forward to our next session where we will be in the mountains collecting more magical artifacts. Thank you so much for reading all these recaps, hopefully, you’re enjoying them as much as I am.

Remember how I’m involved in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign? Our campaign titled Dark Ages is still active, I fell behind in writing the recap posts for each session. There’s a lot to summarize since our group of characters now befriended a pack of wolves intending to kill us. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I did write recap posts from our first two acts which I will link here:  Dark Ages Act #1 & Dark Ages Act 2. Let me recap how we added a pack of wolves to our gaming group.

Act #3 Lots of Wolves

Our group is staying at our friend Rose’s house after we killed the innkeeper because of his human experiments on the townsfolk. Through our exploration, we know that there are bandits within the area. We could either stay and defend Rose in case she is attacked by bandits or explore this monastery with arcane artifacts. We chose to adventure to the monastery.

As we set up camp due to poor weather, we heard wolves howling in the distance. Muglupus (my boyfriend’s character) howls to the wolves which probably wasn’t smart to do. The wolves show up because a dwarf howling can be heard from miles away. It was Muglupus’s idea to try and befriend the wolves. Everyone in our group rolled terribly. Muglupus however, rolled well. As long as we feed our wolves at regular intervals, we can keep them. There were five wolves including the alpha. Each of our characters got to name a wolf. This is what our group decided:

Alphie *is the alpha* named by Muglupus. 68 HP.

Liam Neeson 11 HP

Mrs. Waffles < this one is mine. 11 HP

Jacob – 12 HP

Debra 9 HP

We also killed a group of bandits with help from our wolf pack. The wolves allow us to get to the monastery ahead of schedule which marks the end of this session.

As a side note, what makes this session important is how my boyfriend was crucial to the story. As Muglupus, he rolled well, so our characters could befriend the wolves. My boyfriend was so excited about it, I thought it was cute.

Act #4 Fighting with Frost Giants

As our characters pulled up to the monastery, we were greeted by monks. They told us a story of these artifact tablets representing light and dark magic. If one of these tablets is destroyed, it puts the world out of balance as far as magic takes over. The light tablet is located at the bottom of Lake Constance farther north than the monastery. Our characters have decided to find the tablets and either destroy them or give them to the monks for safekeeping.

As we attempt to go to Lake Constance, our group is surrounded by Frost Giants. Unlike our previous session, we couldn’t befriend them and we were forced to fight for our lives. Althaea didn’t do a whole lot with them but was able to deal eight damage to one with the firebolt spell. Unfortunately, one of the Frost Giants was able to severely wound Mrs. Waffles, my wolf. I had to use my last red vial to heal her, otherwise she would have perished. Our group was lucky because these Frost Giants had up to 68 HP. After looting their corpses, we see a fire in the general area where Rose’s cottage was.

Our group goes to investigate and it seems Rose’s cottage has been burned to the ground. Deep in the ground seems to be footprints from her cottage leading north. As we circle back to the monastery (without the light tablet from Lake Constance), we reunite with Rose as she was able to make it back to the monastery. In our next session, we will try to secure the light tablet and establish whether or not we will keep the tablets safe or give them to the monks for safekeeping

Recapping these past two sessions, Althaea didn’t have a huge role in either of them. However, it’s been exciting to see my boyfriend become more involved with the campaign. I’m not sure if he would ever seek out Dungeons & Dragons without me involved, but it’s fun for me to see him getting excited about the game. Our next session is next weekend and I’m curious to see what our Dungeon Master has planned.

TeeTurtle has some of the cutest t-shirts. Recently, TeeTurtle has delved into tabletop gaming by creating their Unstable Unicorns card game. During one of our DnD sessions, a friend brought over the main game with the expansions. Unstable Unicorns is easy to learn and super adorable.

Unstable Unicorns is a game of collecting unicorns for your stable. Every player starts with one baby unicorn. Throughout the game, you can play cards in your hand which could be adult Unicorns, upgrade cards to help you gain Unicorns, or downgrade cards to prevent other players from gaining unicorns. There are also “Neigh” cards that prevent a player from completing their action. The person who collects seven unicorns in their stable first will win the game.

The main base game of Unstable Unicorns is perfect for all ages, however, some expansions are NSFW. When I say NSFW, I truly mean NSFW. I find these cards hilarious, but they aren’t for everyone.

This game is great for anyone who’s a casual gamer and likes cute things. I liked how quick the game was considering most of my board games I own take hours to play. I highly recommend buying the main game for your next game night.

I’m behind in my blog posts considering Con of the North happened close to a month ago. Con of the North is located in the Northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. It had been on my radar for years, but I couldn’t afford the gas to drive home when I was in college. This year, I invited a friend to attend with me, so I didn’t have to go alone.

Con of the North was extremely well organized. When I registered for Con of the North, I could sign up for games, role-playing sessions, and other gaming events. When I signed up for an event, it showed my gaming schedule on the website, so I could see what blocks of time I had left. If there was a full event, you could be added to their waiting list in case someone had to drop out last minute.

On Friday, I drove to the hotel to pick up my badge. Along with a badge, I got a Con of the North die, all of my tickets to the events I pre-signed up for, and a packet for the convention including a map of the hotel. The first event I signed up for was to learn how to play the Batman Miniatures game published by Knight Models. Miniatures is a type of tabletop game that has fascinated me, but I’m terrible at it. I find it challenging to predict what an opponent will do next and then try and place my miniatures in a compromising position to the opponent’s objective. I did lose to my opponent, but the game was easier to learn than I thought.

On Saturday, me and a friend had signed up to play several games of Magic: The Gathering EDH. These games were low stakes which was good because I’m a pretty casual Magic player and most of my decks aren’t competitive.

On Sunday, me and my friend split up because she wanted to play a massive game of Settlers of Catan while I went to try RunePunk, a steampunk-themed adventure using the Savage Worlds game system. Imagine Steampunk mixed with references from children’s stories.. that’s how I would best describe this.

Con of the North is a convention I would attend next year if I’m free. The organization, the convenient location, and the welcoming community made this experience a positive one. It was a great way to spend a dull weekend in February.

You know 2019 has started off right when you realize you have been playing more D&D. Last weekend, our gaming group headed over to our friend’s apartment for our Dark Ages session #2 with our characters. You can read our session #1 recap in this blog post I made last month. I will say Althaea accomplished more in this session than in the prior session which made me super happy.

After sleeping off the fight with the barbarians, our characters awake in an ice prison underground with no memory of how we got there. There’s a tunnel about 50 feet down that goes deeper into this ice prison. Thankfully, one of our characters has a rope where we climb down and start looting the corpses which are scattered everywhere. Muglupus (the boyfriend’s character) is a dwarf who spends most of his time building a tunnel to find an escape. Suddenly, the floor beneath us breaks and one of our characters drops into a sewer facility where she has to fight three rats.

It takes Althaea a little while to get down there, but she comes to aid to fight these massive rats. As a side note, three giant rats sound horrifying to come across. After the defeat of the rats, we realize they weren’t actually intending to attack us, they were running from a massive spider. This is where Althaea is the true MVP in this session. I decided to grab my two ruby-encrusted daggers attached to my hip. I held the handles in both hands and ran up to the spider intending on cutting off the two spider’s giant limbs. I ended up rolling a critical success. Althaea went for the two limbs but ended up sliding underneath the spider and cutting off all its limbs. I’m just imagining that scenario in my head and it makes my character look like such a badass.

The spider quickly dies and I’m able to steal some of the spider’s fangs and now my daggers have venom on the blade. After traveling underneath the sewer we pop up in the Doctor’s office of the village we were staying in. The Doctor’s office contained several vials believed to be a mix of poison and medicine. Also included in the Doctor’s materials was his journal admitting to experimenting on the citizens living in the town. Our characters decided to poison both the Innkeeper and the Doctor for what they did to the citizens in the town. After revealing the truth at a town meeting, we decide to save the Doctor from the poison and let the town deal with him. We ended our session by running towards a monastery and camping with Rose, a friend we met in the village.

Our next session will be this weekend because we may have to skip the month of March due to everyone’s obligations. I was really satisfied in this session and I feel rejuvenated in where the campaign is going.

If anyone has any D&D campaign stories to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Did you know Brett Dalton, Hayden Panettiere, and Rami Malek were in a video game? I found this out as I started playing Until Dawn a week ago. I hope if I ever became famous, I could appear in a video game too. Until Dawn is one of my favorite horror games I ever played.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Eight teenagers gather at a log cabin mansion owned by Josh’s family (motion captured by Rami Malek). Beth and Hannah, Josh’s twin sisters, run into the storm after a practical joke gone wrong performed by their friends. Beth and Hannah are never seen again. One year later, the same eight teenagers return to the cabin: Josh, Chris, Ashley, Sam (motion captured by Hayden Panettiere) Mike (motion captured by Brett Dalton), Jessica, Emily, and Matt. As you play through the episodes, vicious creatures start to stalk the characters. Additionally, it appears one of the characters is a psychopath who’s also hunting the teenagers. Each of the ten chapters allows you as the player to make decisions regarding the fate of the other characters.

Trophies can be unlocked based on decisions made in the game. For example, I chose to cut off one of the character’s fingers with a hatchet after getting stuck in a trap. This allowed my character to still have a working hatchet and I received a trophy for this decision. Some decisions in the game were easy for me to make, but others I had to deliberate on for much longer.

Until Dawn relies on QTEs (quick time events) meaning pressing buttons in rapid succession to succeed in an event. I accidentally failed this when one character was racing in the woods and I pressed the wrong button on the PlayStation controller. Missing one button led to a character’s death. There are many ways to replay the game as I need to collect all the collectibles, but also want to see how different choices play out differently. I wanted to unlock the trophy where all the characters survive as my first playthrough. Unfortunately, I accidentally killed them all

I have no criticism for Until Dawn and I cannot stop raving about how great this game is. There’s a soft spot in my heart for Ashley and Chris since they both remind me of young, high school love. The graphics in this game were breathtaking as the cabin is based on the top of this mountain with a brutal snowstorm being the backdrop for the teens. Until Dawn is a game you must play if you own a PS4.

Toward the end of December, a good friend of mine created a group Facebook group regarding a D&D campaign he wanted to start. It was going to be set in the Dark Ages with 5e mechanics. The boyfriend had never role-played before, so this would be an exciting opportunity to introduce D&D to him. We had our first session yesterday complete with Moscow mules, pizza, and snacks. I briefly wanted to recap the campaign and share what’s to come in future sessions.

My character is named Althaea and she is a level #1 Elf Sorcerer who happens to be an Occult Investigator. When she was young, she started developing magical abilities much to the chagrin of her father. Her father refused to teach her how to defend herself due to being in fear of the dark source of Althaea’s magic. When Althaea was 10, her father was killed by an evil spirit. Althaea has sworn revenge on this evil spirit and finds more information behind her father’s murder.

Our campaign began in January of 453 AD. Side note, as our DM revealed the date, each of our group members wrote the year wrong. I still don’t know how that was possible considering he was sitting right next to us. Our characters were trapped in a burning village being attacked by barbarians. Six of them came after us. I rolled very poorly most of the time during this attack which led to me having only one hit point at the end of the battle. Once the barbarians were slain, we investigated another town which also was being invaded by barbarians. Althaea did a lot better as she used her “ice knife” spell and it ended up landing on one of the barbarians.

After defeating the barbarians, our group of five is approached by an innkeeper. He offers us rooms since we saved his village from the barbarians. One of our characters rolled an intelligence check to determine if the innkeeper was hiding something from us. The innkeeper is hiding something, but throughout this session, none of our characters figured out what it was. Althaea did attempt to flirt with the innkeeper, but I rolled so low that he pushed me away and wouldn’t talk to me. It was at this moment I realized I should have been a Bard. Anyway, not much happened after that, but our DM said the innkeeper is hiding something huge, and the name of our next session is titled “Murder House.”

Overall it was a great first session. I will say I don’t have a lot of experience with character building with 5e rules. There was a lot I didn’t create with my character prior to the session beginning. Thankfully, the group I’m playing with is rather forgiving. The DM even admitted he wished he had done a bit more research and had a map for the players to look at.

Thanks for reading my recap! Our next session is planned for Saturday, February 2nd, so expect a post somewhere near then.