Dungeons and Dragons ("DnD"): Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Episode 3.91 Adventure #21
Date of Session: September 22nd, 2019 (9:30pm to 12:00 am)
Number of Players: 3
Legendary Hero Menos (Dragon-born Paladin)
Kai-tick, Kin-slayer and “Servant” (Aarakocra Rogue)
XerX, the “X” Archer and “Master” (NOBLE Half-Elf Ranger)
The Enforcers have officially become fathers. Yes, that is the craziest part of this session. If you made it this far in my D&D adventure reviews, you must be used to the players by now. Anyways, let us began their separate journeys starting with Menos waiting for his NPC companions Tiffany and Lina.
Menos is enjoying the interesting sunshine and sees Lina walking up first in a plain dress. Lina stopped by her old house to pick up some new clothes. Menos questions if she could fight in this. She didn’t say yes or no, being unsure but liked being comfortable in a dress. Menos left it alone after that and waited for Tiffany. Lina’s stomach began to growl. She’s hungry but was too embarrassed to speak up about it. Menos suggests going to the same restaurant he went with Mas O in the last session.
Tiffany soon joins them and thinks it’s an excellent idea. They will need their strength before the epic quest. The three of them go to the restaurant where they run into that waitress that Mas O almost choked out. Menos assures her that Mas O has left, and he will pay for any damages he caused. The waitress agrees to those reasonable demands and allows them to sit down. They take a table and order food that costs 8 silver pieces.
Lina and Menos talk about what to do next. Tiffany is on the side eating his sandwich, taking his time with the details of the epic quest. Lina tastes her soup and… it’s bitter based on the roll. Menos tastes the soup as well and finds it bitter, agreeing with Lina. Lina is not feeling well. Menos asks the waitress for something else to replace it with.
The waitress is convinced (Charisma check) and goes in the back to get something for Lina. Menos and Tiffany decide to go outside to conjure the horses while she finished eating her new food (Shrimp Fried Rice). After Menos summons his trusty horse Axel using the Find Stead Spell, he goes inside to get Lina. She wasn’t there anymore. Plus, Lina left her food unfinished.
Menos runs to the back of the restaurant and finds her leaving with Vin through the dark portal. Menos runs and rolls, hoping to reach the portal before it closes. He rolled a low 2, which meant he didn’t make it in time. Menos believes Lina has betrayed him by picking Vin, but it was out of character. He suspects something else but learns they’re heading to the Cavern of White Dragons as well. Menos and Tiffany ride off on their horses to rescue Lina from Vin’s alleged mind control.
Lina is taken to a different realm. We’ll switch over to XerX and Kai-tick for a second.
Kai-tick has failed at being King Drip-Tin. Ten the Wizard teleports Kai-tick, XerX, and Guitarist back to the pocket dimension Sanctum, where he lectures them on following the path of one in a billion. Kai-tick is really annoyed about the whole “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen” scenario he found himself in, and leaves to torture his young brother from a different dimension to better the impersonation.
XerX watched in horror as Kai-tick punched and kicked Drip-Tin into submission. Kenji brought the snacks. XerX took a bag of chips. Ten the Wizard sent the Guitarist into an endless wormhole (Doctor Strange and Loki). Eventually, Kai-tick returned to Drip-Tin’s chambers to snoop through his things and to keep up appearances. This is where baby daddy comes into the picture.
More accurately, Mirna-2. She is not the same woman who betrayed Kai-tick. She’s a different version and mistress to the King. She visits Drip-Tin to tell him of the grand news: she is carrying Drip-Tin’s child. Kai-tick sees an opportunity to seize the Dragon Power (Overlord the Young Green Dragon) and happily embraces his “wife”. Honestly, witnessing this gave me chills.
Around this time, VIN AND LINA arrive to take out Kai-tick, believing him to be false and his “reaction” to kryptonite. I’m having a hard time recalling the specifics, but Kai-tick was acting like kryptonite hurt him in order to pass as Lord Eggza, the Captain-Commander of the Golden Dawn Squad plus the other eleven. Lina is under mind control but breaks out once Kai-tick continued spouting his false identity.
“You took everything from me” made Kai-tick realize his fatal mistake. Lina blasted magic beams while Vin rushed Mirna-2. Somehow, Kai-tick repelled them enough straight back into the dark portal. Or Lina freed herself of the mind control and Vin forced a retreat. Kai-tick accepted yet another identity… continuing to fail his Noble Phantasm training. What is your true name, Kai-tick? Keeps finding every excuse to become other people.
XerX and Kenji accepted a mission to deliver Kenji to the Vice President of Phandalin, the Red Overlord in order to steal her ingredients and sabotage a transformation potion that could sabotage Kai-tick’s false identity scam. XerX wasn’t unable to seduce Halia the Red Overlord and sent Kenji to do his wife. Quite literally off-screen. XerX managed to steal a couple of ingredients for poison, and he left Kenji behind to… spend private time with his alternate counterpart wife.
Red Overlord-2 was a pretty funny reminder of how far XerX’s character has gone in comparison to Kenji. The player appreciated some of what I threw at him. DnD is so funny. Anyway, Kai-tick and XerX are back together and explain what they did apart. These players do not like staying together with each other for some reason. Like yes, realistically teammates would split up occasionally to get more goals accomplished, but… I miss everyone being together in one scene. But it’ll be worth it. It’s all for the upcoming Ginyu Games event.
Kai-tick ends up kidnapping Mirna-2 and requests Ten the Wizard perform a powerful spell to replace Drip-Tin’s DNA with his own DNA, wanting to become the father of the child to further his goals. Kai-tick also discovers a chunk of kryptonite inside the bag of holding. He believes it’ll be a good binding ingredient. XerX volunteers his DNA to get greater power, misunderstanding the entire situation. Ten the Wizard rolls his best but eventually, the task was done.
XerX, Kai-tick, and Mirna-2 are expecting a child together. XerX is unable to comprehend what he signed up for. He thought he was getting a power-up, not a child. Mirna-2 has no idea what has happened to her child. She believes it is still Drip-Tin, who is told the news following their imprisonment together. Drip-Tin has no idea he isn’t the father anymore.
To ensure his child’s safety, Kai-tick assumes Lord Eggza’s identity and takes to the streets to terrorize the town folk. He is successful in making everyone afraid of him, XerX helps a bit, but he also joins in on the terror. Phandalin submits to Kai-tick’s terror, but he offers a peace offering of 2 copper pieces per villager. A good cliffhanger to give us time to figure out what happens next.
Back to Menos and the missing Lina.
Menos, Tiffany, and Zora ride their horses toward the Cavern of White Dragon. After a mile or two riding, the dark portal opens in front of them. Lina is attacking Vin, who is dodging her blasts. Vin removes his black cloak and reveals he is wearing Menos’ body clothed in a gray monk outfit. Menos makes fun of Vin’s clothes and unveils his Avatar Blade.
Tiffany backs away, afraid of battle. Zora rides and whips out his Anti-Magic Blade. Vin is solid because he knows that weapon could neutralize his transparency ability. Vin wields the other half of the Avatar Blade and for once, fights back against Menos. Through sheer teamwork, Menos, Zora, and Lina manage to corner Vin. As Lina goes to give Vin the fatal blow, Vin reveals the terrible truth: Vin has implanted part of Menos’ DNA inside Lina via experiment in Stranger Things. Lina is pregnant with Menos’ child, which caused stomach problems and the mind control.
Menos shouts out his disbelief. He didn’t expect to be a father at all. Vin uses this opportunity to escape. Menos trusts Zora to take Lina back to Greenest to protect unnamed child while he and Tiffany continued onward to retrieve the shield.
Afterwards, Menos and Tiffany continued onward until they reached the Cavern of White Dragons. The Enforcers are shifting their stories to the exciting parts of the filler arc. They have a lot to think about during this two week break.
We’re taking a two week break to give us time away from the game. This campaign is amazing, but breaks are necessary to conserve energy / avoid total burnout from the whole playing too much. Dungeons & Dragons will always be waiting for us.