Upon coming there, they were informed as part of a test, that there were spies in their midst that they could get extra credit if they could figure out who they were by the end of the two years there. So, Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain immediately set out to figure that out. They determined that Dorin was a suspect and Barrai used his new found friendship with Domon, another Tiefling, to send Domon to accuse Dorin, which, they aren’t sure was successful.

In their barracks they had gotten matched up with Dorin, a Gnome Rogue who fancied himself to be the leader of their barracks no matter what Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain told him. During the time that our three main characters were talking to the other students, Dorin had gone through their stuff, but they didn’t find that out until after an introductory meal where Bokken considered breaking into a teachers office to see if there was more information on the students and who might be the spy. In the end, he didn’t break in, but had Castillia, an elf whom they trust and trusts them, start spying on Narius, a rich halfling.

They returned to their barracks to find out that there things had been gone through, but Dorin not being the brightest, hadn’t trashed his own things so they quickly caught on and accused him. Thrain, as a revenge when through Dorin’s stuff, including a couple of daggers and books that were written in a language that none of them understood, possibly because none of them speak gnomish. Needless to say, Dorin was pissed off, and Barrai decided to try and restrain him when he went to bed, but that didn’t work that well, so Bokken, instead took up just watching him sleep, since Bokken, as a warforged sleeps with his eyes open, however, Bokken wasn’t a great watch and Dorin snuck out.

Dorin went to one of the teachers and the next morning the Thrain, Barrai, and Bokken were confronted about how they had been treating Dorin. They gave a half hearted apology and Dorin said he wanted to transfer to another group. Tormin, the teacher, agreed, and the group was happy enough and really wanted to get Narius into their barracks to keep a closer eye on him, so Tormin presented them with a challenge. They could pick who they wanted if they, minus Dorin, could take on another barracks and beat them, otherwise, he would decide. They went to an arena and the teachers, keeping an eye on things, and other students watching the spectacle watched as Thrain, Barrai, and Bokken took on Castillia, Narius, Adris – a human, and Cordon – a dragonborn.

Barrai gets to act first and gives Bokken some inspiration and then starts to mess with Castillia, who, swiftly puts a stop to that with a wicked arrow shot dropping Barrai. He gets floated off by the teachers. Thrain then returns the favor to Castillia and the sides are down to two, Thrain and Bokken, against three. The fighting slows down after the first volley as Cordon, with her dislike for Thrain, immediately moves in to target him. They trade attacks with Cordon even using her lightning dragons breath on Thrain, but his stead volley of eldritch blasts eventually knock her down to the ground. Bokken, meanwhile, has gone and faced off against Adris, the fighter. They trade blow after blow dealing little damage to each other with Narius, who had claimed to be a great shot, struggling to hit Bokken. His frustration mounting and Thrain joining the fight, Bokken eventually falls to the two on one attack and Thrain is left to face both Narius and Adris. But, with a bolt form his crossbow, Narius is able to drop Thrain, and the Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain await their fate as to whom will join their barracks. Tormin gives them Parrag, an elf whom they had actually not talked to before. Castillia, after the fight assumes that they had wanted her to join their barracks.

After that, the bell rings, and having missed breakfast, they need to go and start their first day of classes with courses on Court Etiquette, Second Story Work, Poisons and Antidotes, Demonology as their core courses, but then they could specialize in a few different areas. Bokken chose Assassination and Thievery, Thrain – Curses and Necromancy, and Barrai decided on Conjuring/Summoning and Curses. Bokken had a few other people going into what he was looking at with the likes of Dorin and Castillia and more. But Thrain was the only student to pick Curses for their main focus, and Barrai the only one to pick Conjuring/Summoning.

That’s where the session ended with them finding out that they have two tests in the Tower that will determine most of their grades for the school year, at which point, thematically, they’ll level up.

So behind the DM’s screen a little bit.

This was a fairly scripted session. I knew that most likely the players would quickly figure out that Dorin was the one who had gone through their stuff and probably rough him up or threaten him a little bit. I also had thought maybe it would come to light that they had accused him through Domon of being a spy, but that didn’t happen.

The fight that they were going to have, depending on which barracks they picked it was either going to be hard or deadly, they got hard, which was still deadly at such a low level for them, mainly because of the numbers game.

I gave Cordon her dragons breath feature to use. I probably could have just used a spell to simulate that for her, but thematically it worked and did slightly less damage than the spell.

The fight was fairly standard in that it had an end goal because they were facing off and try to knock down and out their opponents, but the story beat to it was that they were deciding who got to be in their group. And the decision that was it was Parrag was a die roll, there were 8 options so 8 sided die, and it landed on him.

Dorin slipping away while someone was just watching him, that was the one part I wasn’t sure what would happen, I knew that he’d try, though. So I gave him disadvantage on his roll for stealth and he rolled a 15 and a 20, plus two since he’s sneaky, and that was considerably better than Bokken’s 10.

What has been hitting your table? What story are you a part of?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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The Wizard is one of the classiest classes already without doing much to class it up (well, kind of…mainly I just want to write this sentence). There is some truth to this,though, because Wizards, as magic users, don’t get their power by an act of a god, through nature, by making a pact, or by a twist of fate. They are the scholars of the Dungeons & Dragons world. Wizards put time and effort into learning spells, honing their skills, and focusing their studies. Wizards cast based off of their intelligence, and can learn many spells by translating them into what they need it to be to cast the spell. This means that the wizard doesn’t have as hard a cap on spells known as some of the other classes.

Because it is more of a scholarly pursuit, there are a number of different courses of study that a wizard can go into. They could study evocation or divination or necromancy, and whatever they’ve chosen to study, they become better at that area than other wizards. This does in some ways limit the logical routes for backgrounds and backstories. As a wizard, you have to have at least some level of knowledge and schooling to be able to cast spells and learn spells. How you can change it up is how you learned, where you learned, and whom you learned from. You can also, especially with races that live longer like Elves and Dwarves, have been out of school for a long time. A human wizard is likely going to be more recently out of school.

So, what are some backstories that you could use?

You don’t know who your parents were. You don’t even know what town or country you are from, really, though you’ve started to search out clues. Being kidnapped as a young child is always terrifying, even more so when you are kidnapped by a mad wizard who wants to eventually put her mind into your body and become an all-powerful lich. She didn’t want the body of a child though, so she trained you and taught you so that you could help her. That was all that you needed — when you figured out what she was planning, you started planning as well. Then, as she got weaker and it grew closer to the time when she was planning becoming a lich and steal your body, you struck first. You killed her — or at least, you killed her human form. But what you hadn’t realized was that she was prepared to become a lich even if she couldn’t get your body. Now you’ve got to learn more so that you can destroy her and the power you unleashed upon the world.

Background: Folk Hero(?)/Haunted (from Curse of Strahd)
Wizard Class: Necromancy

School was not your thing. It wasn’t that you were a bad student, but it was so boring and dry. You wanted your life to be more exciting, so you goofed off in class, always making amazing illusions that you entertained your classmates with. This didn’t really endear you to the teachers, and before you were set to graduate, you were expelled for causing one too many disruptions. That was okay; you’d learned what you wanted to know. You took your show on the road and performed all over, from small towns of simple villagers to big cities in front of nobility. Life was great. Then you started to notice strange things happening in a number of the small towns and villages you went around to. You weren’t sure what was going on, but with your entertaining, you can open doors and talk to people. Now you just need someone who is better at investigating to help you figure it out.

Background: Entertainer
Wizard Class: Illusion

You remember that day so well. It stands out in your mind; you’ll never forget it. There was nothing that you could have done; you were so young. But one day, the goblins found you and your mother in the woods. She told you to run, and you did, but not too far — you watched as she tried to hold them back so they wouldn’t go after you. They killed her, but she had bought you your life with her blood. It still stands out in your dreams, and you rarely get a good night’s sleep. You went and joined up with the local militia, and they taught you how to destroy. You were able to fight and defeat many a goblin, but that didn’t bring your mother back. You vowed to let no one else die, and as you learned that you had magic abilities, you started spending your time figuring out a way to change the future. You, along with your teacher, were able to see a major tragedy that was coming to the school. Your teacher sent you away to get help, but while you were gone, your teacher died. Now you have to figure out how to stop this event on your own and find out who killed your teacher.

Background: Sage
Wizard Class: Divination

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The Wizard is one of the classiest classes already without doing much to class it up (well, kind of…mainly I just want to write this sentence). There is some truth to this,though, because Wizards, as magic users, don’t get their power by an act of a god, through nature, by making a pact, or by a twist of fate. They are the scholars of the Dungeons & Dragons world. Wizards put time and effort into learning spells, honing their skills, and focusing their studies. Wizards cast based off of their intelligence, and can learn many spells by translating them into what they need it to be to cast the spell. This means that the wizard doesn’t have as hard a cap on spells known as some of the other classes.

Because it is more of a scholarly pursuit, there are a number of different courses of study that a wizard can go into. They could study evocation or divination or necromancy, and whatever they’ve chosen to study, they become better at that area than other wizards. This does in some ways limit the logical routes for backgrounds and backstories. As a wizard, you have to have at least some level of knowledge and schooling to be able to cast spells and learn spells. How you can change it up is how you learned, where you learned, and whom you learned from. You can also, especially with races that live longer like Elves and Dwarves, have been out of school for a long time. A human wizard is likely going to be more recently out of school.

So, what are some backstories that you could use?

You don’t know who your parents were. You don’t even know what town or country you are from, really, though you’ve started to search out clues. Being kidnapped as a young child is always terrifying, even more so when you are kidnapped by a mad wizard who wants to eventually put her mind into your body and become an all-powerful lich. She didn’t want the body of a child though, so she trained you and taught you so that you could help her. That was all that you needed — when you figured out what she was planning, you started planning as well. Then, as she got weaker and it grew closer to the time when she was planning becoming a lich and steal your body, you struck first. You killed her — or at least, you killed her human form. But what you hadn’t realized was that she was prepared to become a lich even if she couldn’t get your body. Now you’ve got to learn more so that you can destroy her and the power you unleashed upon the world.

Background: Folk Hero(?)/Haunted (from Curse of Strahd)
Wizard Class: Necromancy

School was not your thing. It wasn’t that you were a bad student, but it was so boring and dry. You wanted your life to be more exciting, so you goofed off in class, always making amazing illusions that you entertained your classmates with. This didn’t really endear you to the teachers, and before you were set to graduate, you were expelled for causing one too many disruptions. That was okay; you’d learned what you wanted to know. You took your show on the road and performed all over, from small towns of simple villagers to big cities in front of nobility. Life was great. Then you started to notice strange things happening in a number of the small towns and villages you went around to. You weren’t sure what was going on, but with your entertaining, you can open doors and talk to people. Now you just need someone who is better at investigating to help you figure it out.

Background: Entertainer
Wizard Class: Illusion

You remember that day so well. It stands out in your mind; you’ll never forget it. There was nothing that you could have done; you were so young. But one day, the goblins found you and your mother in the woods. She told you to run, and you did, but not too far — you watched as she tried to hold them back so they wouldn’t go after you. They killed her, but she had bought you your life with her blood. It still stands out in your dreams, and you rarely get a good night’s sleep. You went and joined up with the local militia, and they taught you how to destroy. You were able to fight and defeat many a goblin, but that didn’t bring your mother back. You vowed to let no one else die, and as you learned that you had magic abilities, you started spending your time figuring out a way to change the future. You, along with your teacher, were able to see a major tragedy that was coming to the school. Your teacher sent you away to get help, but while you were gone, your teacher died. Now you have to figure out how to stop this event on your own and find out who killed your teacher.

Background: Sage
Wizard Class: Divination

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

We are trying a new thing with Amazon Links! If you’re interested in what we talk about in our articles or use for the podcast, please consider making a purchase through our links. Purchases help support our website and offset our costs. Thanks!

[amazon_link asins=’0786965606′ template=’ProductGrid’ store=’nerdologists-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’edd5fd71-db9a-11e7-88a1-d70a450710e0′]

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[amazon_link asins=’0786965983′ template=’ProductGrid’ store=’nerdologists-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’206f0624-01dc-11e8-b501-371c5856c559′]