“Life is a game of Dungeons & Dragons. For better or worse, we need to be prepared when the dice are rolled.” – Bryce Ward 9/19/2020

Hello everyone! I have a bit of a different topic to share with you this week. As some may know, I play a board game with my friends called Dungeons & Dragons or D&D for short. D&D is a role-playing game where you roll dice to decide how successful you overcome the challenges you encounter in the game. As for my role in my group’s D&D campaign, I am the Dungeon Master. My job is to create the story for my players and present encounters that the party must resolve.

Let me bring you up to speed with the story so far and how my party unleased a great evil upon the world.

Welcome To Saltmarsh

Our group came together in the seaport town of Saltmarsh. They were looking for adventure and a chance to earn their fortune. The party quickly discovered a smuggler’s hideout and dismantled the smuggler’s ring claiming the smuggler’s ship as their own. From there, the party took on more jobs salvaging lost ships and clearing out monsters threatening the town. While there was much work to be found, the profits they made were low, so the party quickly found other ways to fund their operations.

Stealing The Crystal

The group’s Sorcerer, an ex-pirate, took on work looking for magical items for a shady bar friend. This friend promised a big payday in exchange for a crystal known to create magic items somehow. One downside, this crystal was held by the town’s resident wizard, a man whom the locals feared and avoided if possible.

The party decided to take on the job since they did not have a good impression of the Wizard and made a plan to get inside his tower. The party waited for the Wizard to go away on business and sneaked into the building. The group fought off enchanted suits armor, flying swords, and trapped rugs until they could find the crystal. However, they also came across the Wizard’s study and found notes on this item. It turns out the crystal somehow could steal the magic of any living being that touched it. The Wizard was experimenting with the crystal and trying to understand how the crystal worked. He believed that its ability to create magical items was not its primary purpose but a side effect. The party stole the crystal and got out of the Wizard’s Tower as fast as they could. The group didn’t stop until they returned to the safety of their ship.

We Must Destroy The Crystal!

Once the party was safely out to sea, they discussed what to do with the crystal. Overall the group agreed that they would not turn in the crystal to their buyer nor return the crystal to the Wizard. Instead, they opted to test out the crystal during their next job then destroy so that no one could abuse its power. So off they went to a small island to explore and clear any threats so that the Mariners Guild of Saltmarsh could build a lighthouse to guide ships away from the rocky shores hidden below the ocean’s waves.

The party landed on the island’s dunes and were quick to discover that the sands hid skeletons, which rose to ambush the players. The party dealt with a few skeletons with ease; however, the remaining bones combined to form a Juggernaut. Seeing this new threat, the party panicked and attacked the Juggernaut with the crystal. However, things did not go as planned. The crystal in its current state was unstable, and once it smashed into the Juggernaut, the crystal shattered, releasing raw magic in a violent outburst knocking two players unconscious. However, raw magic was not the only thing that was unleashed from the crystal. It turns out that this crystal held the remains of a Demi-Lich who was using the crystal to reform his body. And for now, that is where I must leave the story as the party must decide how to overcome this threat or die trying.

Thank You!

Hey, thank you for reading this week’s post. This has to be one of my D&D group’s craziest things so far, and I am excited to see how things play out. Have you ever played D&D? What stories come to mind from your D&D sessions? I would love to see what has happened in your games in the comments below!

Thank you again for your time and for reading this post!

Have a fantastic day!

Sincerely,

-Bryce Ward