It was basically a month, but we are back with more Tower of the Gods campaign. It was nice to get back to some Dungeons and Dragons again. So where were we in the game. Barrai, Bokken, Kip and Thrain had just finished their escort mission getting Dorin, the land pirate gnome, back to his parents in Castleveinea. Thrain decided to stick around and win some money on some gambling on bar fights, aka, that player couldn’t make it to the gaming.

The Session

There was a little bit of shopping as the players headed out of Castleveinea. Barrai picked up a few tinkered little toys, including a spider that jumped and a bird that toddled around as it walked. And Kip bought studded leather armor. Things were uneventful on the way back to the school, city, and tower, as they didn’t run into any more goblins. But Bokken did pick up some nice whiskey for sipping in the evenings.

Back in the town they picked up on the last lead that they had. They knew the address of Nahzir, the wizard whom Addruss had been working with. After spending a little bit of time looking around and asking about him, they end up at Moody’s Bar, where Barrai finds out some disturbing information, in the week they have been gone, Zaphir, who hates Barrai and Thrain has undergone a transformation of sorts, and still really hates them.

They do get a better idea of the location of Nahzir’s place of residence. It is a long term stay hotel sort of location. Barrai and Kip scope out one side of it from a restaurant just down the street, and Bokken disguises himself as part of a display at a florists. Kip uses his familiar Kraig to fly up to what they surmise to be Nahzir’s rooms window and Kraig doesn’t see anything inside, but sense that there might be something there. Bokken spots that there is a side entrance that some of the residence seem to be using.

As it gets dark outside, the group decides to break into the building through that side entrance. The lock is normal and they are careful, so Kip is able to pop the lock no problem and get inside. It is just a normal hotel and they make their way to Nahzir’s room on the third floor. They check the door for magical traps, but there aren’t any. Opening it up, Barrai lets his little bird toddle through and nothing happens. Bokken goes in first.

There is a flash and a bang as some explosive concussion is triggered. A figured wearing a cloak that obscures all of his body in shadow leaps out at Bokken nailing him with a couple of slashes. A fight ensues and Bokken has a rough go of it after taking a lot of damage to start and then missing on a number of attacks. Kip, unfortunately for him, casts a spell drawing the attention and ire of the cloaked figure who changes his target taking down Kip. Barrai and Bokken are able to do enough damage to taken down the being and they revive Kip as well.

They figure out that the creature is from the Fey Wilds and is an Arcane Stalker, more about them later. Getting the corpse into Nahzir’s room, they ransack it. Kip finds another coded book as well as two books on the Fey Wilds and one notebook full of notes on that subject as well. They also don’t find any clothes that would fit the Arcane Stalker, they just find clothing for Nahzir in there. The most interesting find, though, comes when Barrai opens up a dresser drawer, and in there, there is a scarab.

And that is where we ended.

Behind the DM’s Screen

So the main thing to talk about here is using supplemental materials. I picked up through Drive Thru RPG and Cawood Publishing a book of monsters and in particular Fey monsters, this came when I was reading a ton of Dresden Files and was thinking about a Fey based campaign, that is still on the table. That is where the Arcane Stalker came from. It was fun to use a different monster. I built them up with their movements and their description to make them feel more unique.

The Arcane Stalker is an elite warrior from the Winter Courts who is basically used to kill magic users. They have some magical abilities of their own, such a teleporting or dispelling magic. So I got to play around with that, I knew that they were there waiting on Nahzir for some reason, TBD for the players, but also they were going to be after any magic user first. Even though the tank Bokken is a big threat, the Arcane Stalker is all about taking out magic users. It gave it a logical priority that the players could figure out.

So grab some supplements from other companies. While I do have mainly Dungeons and Dragons books, I am also a big fan of looking for new things, and from some of the established 3rd party creators, like Cawood Publishing and others, you can find a lot of other cool things to use.

As always, does the session and campaign sound interesting as one to run or play in? If you use third party published stuff, do you have a favorite?

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