The Reroll: A Weekly D&D Chronicle (Issue #2)

We're back, dear reader, with another entry of The Reroll!

In this series, I (Dace) chronicle my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game, revealing what I, as the Dungeon Master, planned and what happened when the players took the reigns.

With that:

The Adventuring Party

Our tale follows the intrepid crew of the Morning Zephyr, an airship captained by Captain Krass Redbeard, his first mate Alucard d'Cannith, ship arcanist Islensine, and quartermaster Hellggah Boromar.

Last week's issue delved into these four characters' backstories, so read about them here if you haven't already done so.

Joining our aerial privateers are two additional characters who have traveled in their company for nearly a week now: a half-orc druid named Spein Veyn and a half-elf artificer named Osz.

Spein is a former member of an ancient druid sect, "The Gatekeepers." Known as the oldest order of druids on Eberron, The Gatekeepers have a timeless mission to defend the planet from any abhorrent, extra-planar threats that could harm the delicate balance of Eberron's natural world.

Spein, however, was kicked out of the order for his obsession with mycology, necromancy, and preserving life beyond death.

Osz is a quieter, calculative individual, hailing from the frigid northern region of Karrnath, where he made his living collecting high-profile bounties placed on renegade undead. Like Alucard, Osz is also an artificer.

But where Alucard specializes in alchemy and chemistry, Osz is an artillerist who prefers to blow things up. In that way, his character reminds me of Vinny from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Both these characters joined the others when escaping the town of Greywall during a siege by a mysterious army of Warforged.

Last Week

Our adventure last week saw the group arrive in the realm of Fernia, Eberron's elemental plane of fire. In no way was this a planned excursion, but a gnome named Vi, possessing a mutated dragonmark that enables planar travel, utilized her mark to help the group escape a tight spot in the city of Fairhaven, where a heist mission on a House Cannith foundry ended in an unexpected encounter with the foundry's head honcho.

Waylaid, the group set off into one of Fernia's sprawling cities, High Hearth, built atop an island of obsidian floating over a sea of lava, with their primary goal now being to make it back to the Material Plane.

Aesthetically, I imagined High Hearth to be similar to Medina in Saudi Arabia, with narrow, winding streets, sprawling markets, and a massive, centralized temple of worship.

However, in High Hearth, the objects of worship are a species of fire elementals known as Efreet's, who've established a kind of sultanate, with the title of Sultan rotating to whichever Efreet is currently the most feared by the city population.

To leave Fernia, the group needs magic beyond what resident wizard Ilsensine can currently conjure, leading them to strike a deal with one of the Efreeti nobles, Pasha Raqashtar.

Raqashtar owns a casino called Hot Streak and has a penchant for gambling himself, so the group visited his establishment to introduce and hopefully ingratiate themselves.

That's where Hellggah beat Raqashtar in a game of dice called "Kings."

Needless to say, this grabbed his attention.

This Week's Plan

In Fernia, inhabitants utilize ships made from brass and iron to sail across the molten ocean, separating the various islands.

Pasha Raqashtar has an ongoing bet with High Hearth's current ruler, Sultan Azhalar, that his brass ship, the Infernal Mirage, could outclass the Sultan's vessel, the Ember Tyrant.

If Captain Krass and the others could guide the Infernal Mirage to victory, Raqashtar would grant them their wish. Otherwise, he'd burn them alive.

Behind the Screen

I sent out to design a kick-ass naval battle over a sea of lava, which was just as fun and dangerous as it sounds.

First, I wanted this to be a "David and Goliath" situation, with Raqashtar's ship, the Infernal Mirage, built for speed and stealth, against the Sultan's boat, the Ember Tyrant, a nigh-impenetrable, lumbering man-o-war.

Both ships would have a crew of reptilian fire elementals called Salamanders, and captaining the Ember Tyrant would be a devil called an Erinyes, who, in D&D, are infernal justiciars.

Erinyes

Salamander

Not only will the Ember Tyrant outgun its rival vessel, but its captain isn't someone the players can take lightly.

I borrowed designs for both ships from the Fifth Edition Spelljammer supplement.

Spelljammer ships have unique weaponry the players have yet to encounter, like eyestalk lasers and mechanical scorpion tails, which are perfect for giving the Efreet vessels an exotic feel.

For this session, I chose the Bombard statblock for the Ember Tyrant, outfitting it with a massive frontal cannon that launches 10-ton cannonballs, and a Shrikeship for the Infernal Mirage, a deadly fast vessel with a giant piercing blade protruding from its bow.

My ship battles in D&D usually take up an entire 4-hour session, which I break down into three loose stages: battle preparations/travel, ranged fire exchanges, and, finally, daring actions/boarding.

I don't make my players aware of these stages, as it's only to help me determine how the NPCs on both ships will act at different points throughout the combat.

Sometimes, this inadvertently informs the players on how to behave. Still, they usually do whatever the hell they want, so at the very least, this gives me a baseline behavior from which the game world can improvise.

The last thing I considered when designing this battle was the environment of Fernia and the kind of challenges it could bring the players that would differ from their experiences fighting over water or in the air.

We're fighting on brass ships over a molten ocean, so simply standing on the boat is excruciatingly hot, especially on the feet.

The players all have the ability to resist fire damage thanks to a previous adventure reward. Still, for mortals, resistance to fire in Fernia just means you can exist in the plane without spontaneously combusting.

As for their feet, as long as they remained standing on either of the brass ships' decks, they'd be under the effects of a weak version of the spell Heat Metal, meaning consistent fire damage to their characters.

Not only will this widdle down the six hearty level 14 players, but it will also keep a sense of momentum throughout the evening.

Additionally, I created a d6 table with six random environmental events that one could only experience upon the Sea of Fire.

I rolled on this table at the top of round 2, followed by every other round, showing how the everchanging Sea of Fire indiscriminately challenges any who dare sail it.

Take a look:

All this combined made for an exciting evening. I did, however, toss in two scenes for what could happen after, in case the fight didn't last the entire session, but I'll cover those next week, as I didn't end up using that material.

At The Table:

The prospect of naval combat immediately took the players. They enjoy their current piratical lifestyle, but perhaps, to some surprise, it doesn't always involve battle aboard a ship, so it's always a welcome challenge.

While the Infernal Mirage prepared to make way, The players utilized an offering of gold from Raqashtar to purchase a couple of frost-based spell scrolls, which they'd later use to thin out the Ember Tyrant's Salamander crew (Salamander's have a significant weakness to cold-based damage).

All in all, the fight came incredibly close. The players only won if they sank the Ember Tyrant. The Infernal Mirage came close to destruction, having sustained damage from two 10-ton cannon blasts. But even with only 21 HP left to their vessel, the players managed to sink the Ember Tyrant first.

Here are some standout moments from the battle:

• Ilsensine cast the 7th-Level Spell Reverse Gravity on the deck of the Ember Tyrant, lifting a large portion of its crew 100 feet aloft, rendering them incapable of firing their ballistas.  

• Spein eliminated half the Salamander crew with multiple focused Ice Storms.

• Alucard daringly leaped from one ship to the other to place an Immovable Rod in the barrel of the giant cannon, later causing one of its cannon blasts to backfire partially.

• Osz cast Haste on himself to race across the deck of the Infernal Mirage, launching multiple ballistas off by himself for an impressive barrage.

• Captain Krass boarded the Ember Tyrant alone, where he plunged his Silver-Flame sword into the then-now malfunctioning cannon, nearly delivering the final blow.

• Hellggah soared through the skies atop her Glidewing, pelting the ship's officers with her Mjolnir-like hammer and eventually swooping down onto the exploding Ember Tyrant to pull Krass free at the last second.

  
  

Yeah, these players kick ass.

Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to that oh-so-terrifying Erinyes ship captain, it was Alucard who shot her with a sling loaded with a piece of ammunition worth 10,000 gold.

The ammo contained a highly concentrated amount of Dreamlily, which is an opioid that induces euphoric sleep. This particular strain is enough to kill a mortal instantaneously, so it knocked the infernal captain out cold for nearly the entire match, which, despite my frustration with not getting to see the Erinyes do something cool, was still well-placed and highly effective.

Cheers to Alucard for equally annoying and astounding the Dungeon Master.

The Roll-Up

All in all, it was a great session.

The players had a fantastic time (the most crucial part for me), and their victory earned Pasha Raqashtar the title of Sultan, which is what we learned Azhalar gambled.

Tough luck, huh?

As for the players, Raqashtar will grant them a single Wish, which they can utilize however they want.

After all the fire and devastation, I imagine they'll use it to return to somewhere less hot.

Until then, happy rolling! - Dace