Session 1

The Lost Mines of Phandelver

Dean (Jared), Brian (Pryrx), Matt (Kordaius), Mariel (Linaya), Coby (Kyros), Jeff (Ford), Leah (Mari), and Chris (Creeper) are returning cast members.

We left the Band of Misfits having solved the Assassins Knot, and move to a new set of characters in a world known as the Forgotten Realms.

The party consists of two tieflings, three goblins, a halfling archeologist, and a human artificer. One of their contacts, a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker, reported an exciting new discovery in Phandalin. He bought a cart and supplies, hiring them to deliver the cart from Neverwinter to Phandalin while he went on ahead with his friend Sildar to make advance arrangements. The party agreed.

The journey to Phandalin began without incident, with the party camping overnight at the head of Triboar Trail. They set off down that trail in the morning, and around noon found two horses lying dead on the trail, filled with arrows. Creeper was in the lead, and in combination with Nyx (Pryrx’s owl familiar), noticed four goblins lurking around the horses. There was a short battle. Investigating the scene revealed that the horses were those of Gundren and Sildar, and a trail leading off into the woods.

Following the trail, Creeper fell victim to both a snare and a pit trap. Oops.

At the end of the trail was a cave entrance, from which flowed a stream. Two goblins stood guard, but they were not exactly paying attention. Creeper and Ford hid in the bushes until Kordaius stumbled upon the stream and looked around in puzzlement for his scouts. The goblin guards finally noticed the intruders, but Creeper and Ford took them out from hiding before anyone was hurt. The party proceeded to enter the cave.

Inside and to the right, a small cavern held three chained wolves or wargs. Repeated attempts to charm them with horsemeat and rations failed.

As the rest of the party moved into the caves, however, they failed to note a goblin watching them from stealth on a bridge across the stream deeper into the cave. He slipped away to notify the chief of the attack, and the chief ordered his guards to remove the first of a pair of dams behind which a large pool of water was held while guards took up positions on the bridge and began to shoot at the intruders. The resulting flood ripped through the party, washing half of them out of the cave entirely.

Kordaius, Jared, and Ford had managed to hang on to rocks or jump out of the way into one of the nearby passages. Kordaius was in the lead and charged into an unexplored passage, but Jared and Ford had taken shelter just out of reach of the wolves, which were straining at their chains in a nerve-wracking manner.

The rest of the party were just picking themselves up outside the cave when a second wave of water rushed down.

At the end of his passage, Kordaius found a group of goblins holding a man prisoner. He recognized the prisoner as Sildar, the man with Gundren. A battle immediately commenced, with Mari offering healing support, Pryrx repeatedly putting some of the goblins to sleep, and the rest of the group slowly making their way into the room just in time to be wounded themselves. It was a close run thing until the tribal chieftain arrived – a massive bugbear named Klarg, with a pet wolf and an honor guard of fresh goblins. Only Creeper and Kyros were left standing to face him. Eventually all of the group save Ford, who had slipped away during the confusion, and Kyros lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Kyros surrendered, knowing it was hopeless.