Diary of a D&D game - Episode 1

Follow along on the adventures of one of our D&D groups!

The 8-10 year olds on Thursday evening are playing The Lost Mine of Phandelver - one of the official published D&D campaign books. Please note that there will be spoilers for that adventure in this series of blog posts!

Our story begins on the road to the small mining town of Phandelin. The intrepid adventurers are taking a cart full of supplies to the town, at the request of their dwarvern friend, Gundren Rockseeker. He is not accompanying them, however, as he went on ahead with his friend and escort, Sildar Hallwinter.

Upon reaching a fork in the road our fearless heroes find the slain horses of Gundren and Sildar, a battle has clearly taken place but there is no sign of their friends. As they are investigating the scene, lo and behold they themselves are ambushed by a band of goblins! Using clever tactics, such as distracting the goblins with tasty beer, the adventurers emerge victorious, and decide to follow the goblins' tracks in the hopes of finding their missing friends.

The tracks lead back to a cave, and after dispatching the goblin guards outside, our heroes cautiously make their way inside. In the first chamber they find some hungry snarling wolves chained up, and with a few treats and soothing words they eventually manage to gain the wolves' trust and are able to free them from their chains, allowing the wolves to join them as pets.

Not satisfied with just wolves as pets, our heroes also decide to use their waterskins to capture and house several small fish from the stream which runs through the cave.

Pets acquired, the group heads further into the cave, encountering more goblin guards who attack. After taking care of one of them, the remaining goblin begs for mercy, which our kind heroes grant. The goblin tells them about their boss, a bugbear called Klarg who is very mean to them, and forces them to attack people and steal their things. The goblin also mentions that there is currently a man tied up in the cooking chamber, getting ready to be eaten.

Our heroes go to confront Klarg about his treatment of both of the wolves and the goblins, but he attacks them. The heroes eventually emerge victorious but it is a tough battle. After exploring the looted supplies and finding some sticks of dynamite, among other things, the adventurers make their way to the cooking chamber.

Here they find a familiar face, Sildar is badly injured and tied up. The heroes try to reason with the goblins, but they also attack. Once they are taken care of and Sildar is rescued, he explains that he and Gundren were attacked by these goblins who took Gundren and all of their armour and equipment, to their main stronghold - Cragmaw Castle. Knowing that he is weak from his injuries and without any armour or weapons, Sildar offers to pay the heroes to escort him safely to Phandelin.

Retracing their steps, our heroes find their wagon of supplies and with Sildar in tow, make their way to Phandelin.

The small town of Phandelin is built on the ruins of what was once a much larger town. After settling themselves in at the inn, the adventurers begin exploring the town and meeting the locals.

First they drop off the supply cart, as instructed, at Barthen's Provisions, where they also take the opportunity to stock up on supplies including, tents, lanterns and more waterskins for even more pet fish (if you're sensing a theme here, you would be correct).

Exploring the town they learn that they are having problems with a criminal gang who call themselves the Redbrands, who have been extorting business, committing robberies, and even kidnapped some of the townspeople who tried to stand up to them. The Townmaster, however, insists that there is no problem, and our heroes quickly realise it's because he's afraid of the Redbrands and what they might do. Eventually they discover that the Redbrands' hideout is located at the old ruined manor on the outskirts of town.

Our heroes however, have more pressing matters to attend to... The Ranger has learned the 'speak with animals' spell and wants to know what all their pets' names are! It turns out that every single fish is called Bob, and the wolves don't have names as their previous goblin masters never gave them any. So the wolves are immediately christened 'Protector' and... 'Stevon'.

Our adventurers then undertake some solo missions for a while (school holidays, you know how it goes). The Ranger heads to Wyvern Tor at the request of the Townmaster to deal with some Orc bandits who have been attacking supply caravans and traders on the road, and The Fighter heads to Old Owl Well where there have been reports of Undead creatures lurking. The Ranger informs the Orc Bandits that they don't have to attack and kill people for food and supplies, they can just buy things with all the stolen treasure they've amassed, which of course they have never considered before. The Ranger then leads the Orcs back to the town, promising that no one will hurt them, and attempts to get them jobs and integrate them into polite society. Meanwhile, The Fighter discovers a cultist necromancer is raising undead zombies at the Old Owl Well ruins, and immediately sets about capturing him in a rope snare trap, stealing all his stuff (fair's fair), and then escorting him back to town to face punishment. 

Finally reunited, our heroes then decide to go and look for a pet dragon! So they head out to the ruins of Thundertree where someone said they thought they saw one. As they investigate the ruins the heroes are blasted with a spray of acid and almost fall unconscious. They call out to the dragon, informing it that they will not hurt it, and try to convince it to come with them. The dragon however likes its lair here in the ruins and just wants to be left alone. Our heroes then decide that perhaps if they can clear out the Redbrands’ headquarters, then maybe the dragon could move in there? The dragon says it will consider it, so our heroes head back to town at once.

These are the adventures so far of this mighty band of heroes! Tune in again soon to find out what they have gotten up to next!

If your child would like to go on their own epic adventures, drop us an email to hello@bristoladventurersguild.co.uk to find out more about joining a D&D group. Suitable for ages 8+, all of our groups consist of 2-4 children of a similar age and are run by trained Dungeon Masters. We can also run one-to-one games for children who might struggle with a group setting. Get in touch to find out more.