Diary of D&D Game - Episode Two

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

The 8-10 year olds on Thursday evening have been 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 blog series!

If you missed the first post in this series you can read that here.

When we left our adventurers last they were heading back to the small mining town of Phandelin with the aim of clearing the Redbrand bandits out of their hideout so that a dragon can potentially move in there.

After following a set of footprints the gang discover the Redbrands’ hideout in the basement of the ruins of Tresendar manor on the outskirts of town. Heading down into the basement they encounter a group of ruffians and with clever use of a Spell Scroll of Darkness manage to capture one of them, allowing another one to flee. After much discussion they decide to put their captive inside a barrel and roll him down the hill.

Moving further into the hideout our heroes accidentally fall into a trapped pit in the floor and then stumble into a crypt containing animated skeletons! They don’t stand a chance against our mighty warriors though, who emerge victorious and continue their quest heading into the next room of the underground hideout.

Here they find one of the local villagers held captive in a cage with her children, but not to worry, our heroes have a plan! The Ranger takes a potion of invisibility and slips in unnoticed whilst the Fighter convinces the guards that he’s a new recruit and has come to take over the next guard shift. It’s all going quite well until the Ranger decides to have some fun and starts invisibly insulting and scaring the guards, at which point they realise that something fishy is going on (and I don’t mean the Ranger’s 5 pet fish all named Bob) and attack, leaving our adventurers no choice but to defend themselves.

Our heroes once again emerge victorious of course, and they rescue the villagers, sending them on their way. But now they find themselves at a bit of a dead end in the hideout. Some careful searching later, they eventually discover a secret hidden door and make their way deeper into the lair.

They find themselves facing a crevasse with two bridges over it. As they contemplate these bridges they hear a strange voice echo in their minds – “Hello, have you come to bring me food?”

Tentatively our heroes investigate the depths of the crevasse and come face to face with a Nothic – a large telepathic monster with one giant eye in the centre of its face. They react to this in much the same way that I react to spiders – KILL IT WITH FIRE. Which they do. The Fighter then finds a very nice sword hidden in a treasure chest.

Eventually they make it out to the other side of the crevasse and find an empty alchemy lab and a strange note which may or may not be relevant to the plot:

Lord Albrek,

My spies in Neverwinter tell me that strangers are due to arrive in Phandalin. They could be working for the dwarves. Capture them if you can, kill them if you must, but don’t allow them to upset our plans. See that any dwarven maps in their possession are delivered to me with haste. I’m counting on you, Iarno. Don’t disappoint me.

The Black Spider

Hmm I wonder what that could be about?

The heroes then head into the last few rooms of the hideout that they have not yet explored.

First of all they find a group of ruffians playing a gambling game, and the Ranger once again becomes invisible and tries to convince them that they’re being haunted. It works on a few of them, who run away crying, but a few wise up and fight back.

After they’re dealt with, the heroes enter the final room of the hideout and find several Bugbears tormenting a goblin who immediately faints. Angered by this blatant mistreatment, the heroes set about dispatching the Bugbears immediately and rescuing the little goblin, who is very grateful.

Having now successfully cleared the Redbrands out of their hideout, the adventurers head back to the dragon and inform it that its new home is ready. The dragon flies them back to town and lands to discover it is far too big to fit into the basement entrance. The ruined manor above, however, will do nicely (much to the town master’s delight. Not.)

At this point our adventurers level up to level 3 and the Ranger is delighted to discover that they can now become a Drake Warden Ranger, and summon their own loyal Drake companion (basically a tiny pet dragon).

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.