Games Logs

Morning in Berez arrives dim and damp, and it brings headaches. In Baba Lysaga's goat shed, Komzin and Vincent Yeager wake from a sleep that was not entirely their idea. Their heads are thick and throbbing. Their packs are gone. So are their weapons, and worst of all, so is Vincent's orb. Without it, whatever power he commands stays locked inside him.

Biblo, in a remarkable burst of strength, tears free of the webbing the giant spider has wrapped him in. She approaches; he dives through the door. She retreats upward to wait for the next unwary creature to ambush. He rejoins the group and finds them discussing something that has upset them all. Horatio is gone. This should not be possible. Horatio is magically bound to guard the barn, and a creature bound to a location cannot simply wander off. Nike, especially, feels hi

The truck rattles through another stretch of Hell's endless carnival midway, and somewhere out the shattered passenger window, a stuffed effigy of the Lord of Blades sits slumped in a game booth, a prize nobody wanted to claim. It's the kind of detail the party can't leave alone. Naturally, they don't. The trouble starts with a rope in Borark's hands. Nearby, the barbarian has spotted a fortune-teller's cart — a table of cards spread out under an awning, unattended, or so

In the cellar, Soulfire hisses, “What ARE they doing up there?” The hammering on the organ far above them has resumed. Crystal merely shakes her head. Suddenly, there is an enormous crash from somewhere ahead of them. It is so large, so powerful, that the ground beneath their feet shakes and dust trickles down from overhead.

Under the big top, the tail-coated ringmaster sweeps into view wearing an outrageous hat, purple shot through with black. Its two bells jingle, throwing off faint silvery sparks with every toss of his head. Gearloose squints at it, thinking the sparks look almost like insects, swarming and settling in the same breath. Vali does the same, tilting his broad orc head, and between the two of them the verdict comes back clear: this is no cheap prop. Whatever the ringmaster is wear

So your kid came home talking about goblins, twenty-sided dice, and someone named "the DM" — and now you're wondering what exactly you're in for. Welcome, Traveler! You're in the right place. Consider this your parent-friendly field guide to Dungeons & Dragons for the 9–13 crowd: what it is, why it's genuinely good for growing brains, and how to get your young adventurer to their first game.

arvalis, Sir Billy the Cockatrice, Deviant Art, 2014. "Which door leads us to Maladomini?" demands Vali. leaving malbolge The first golem does not speak. It simply raises one iron hand and points — a slow, deliberate gesture toward the door on the right — and that is enough. After their twenty minutes of argument, the answer arrives without ceremony. In unpacking the guards' declarations, the party determines it is the first guard who has never lied. The second has: it claime

The Armen do not charge. They advance — measured, deliberate, wearing Arman’s face across every iteration, each one belted with the Giant’s Strength that makes even a clone of a changeling into something genuinely dangerous. The staffs they carry hum with the same force as the one Arman took from Lawrence. Arman himself stands apart from the fray, watching his own face multiply through the chamber, and does nothing. He cannot make himself raise a hand against them. They are h

Orbart is difficult to miss: a minotaur, seven feet and eight inches of dense muscle, sharpened horn and quiet reserve, wearing a chainmail shirt with a slight hood and boots that have given way at the toe. He carries an amulet bearing a strange symbol, which he uses to channel his magic, and he has his own moral code, arrived at independent of his god. He has been in Vallaki for two months, renting a room from a widow who would not have him if extreme old age had not dimmed

The cavernous silence of the maze is punctuated by the echoing scuff of boots. The sounds bounce back to their ears, making it impossible to tell from which direction the noises come, despite the evidence of the listener's eyes. Then suddenly, from somewhere — perhaps around the next corner, perhaps from behind them, or perhaps in no place at all — there is maniacal laughter that belongs to no one present. There is also quiet weeping, a child's, high and inconsolable, cutt

The city wakes before dawn. Word moves through Vallaki the way bad news always does — in whispers first, then in the clatter of boots on cobblestone, then in torchlight multiplying along the walls. Komzin finds Dunlar in the building that used to be Krieger's, a table spread with rough maps and a candle burning low. Dunlar doesn't look up when he enters. "I heard you were back," he says. "I also heard other things. We'll discuss them when this is over." Komzin pulls ou

In a vault-ceilinged room, the shambling mound shuffles toward the Hexmates beneath Witherbloom Tower, smelling of wet soil and rot. Massive, its vines and branches are held together with some sort of mucus, and they appear just at the edge of decay, suspended by magic rather than nature. Fungi grow in clusters along the upper ridge of what might be called its head and shoulders, some of them faintly luminescent, throwing pale light across the room in uneven patches. Gaping m

Wizards of the Coast. The Dark Gifts. Digital illustration. Curse of Strahd, WotC, 2016. Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi The East Hall of the Amber Sarcophagi smells of damp stone and something older, sharper underneath — caused, possibly by the divine things that have been imprisoned within for a very long time. Behind one of the chamber doors, the sounds are extraordinary: crashing, roaring, the shriek of something that might be female or might be the sound stone makes when it

Wintersplinter is already gone, its colossal form crashing through the treeline in the direction of Vallaki. Violet Robin has been sent back to the Martikov vineyard for horses. On the muddy slope of Yester Hill, the old druid and his staff silhouetted in the mist, fighting on. Blinsky and his monkey, Piccolo, lie where they fell — victims of the old man’s lightning. They are alive, barely. Torgen, Feesh, and Krelldutt have closed around the druid, who has proven far stron

“Fall out” would definitely describe what is happening. The truck is falling out of the sky of Malbolge. That detail is important. There is no dramatic pause, no moment of collective realization — the truck simply is in freefall, forty feet above the tavern roof, because this is where Kiki’s spell has placed it. The mapach has the wheel. Vali rides shotgun. Whatever conversation they were having before this moment is now entirely irrelevant. Below, where Kiki cannot see, th

Viktor and Jayce cautiously explore the subterranean chapel. It is empty save for three things: one cage fitted with manacles sized for something with very large arms — or perhaps a neck — one altar, and one ominous door. At the door behind the altar, Viktor leans in, ear to the wood. Behind it, the unmistakable sound of goats. He hisses at Jayce to get his attention. The paladin strides over, slides Viktor aside, and smoothly opens the door. No darkvision. No light. Just t

wasana jaigunta, kariyat, DepositPhoto 571766420, 2022 Where everyone is At the moment in question, where everyone is in the Cave of Lost Things takes some explaining. The party is distributed across its tunnels in a way that suggests it might be either a tactical decision or a catastrophic loss of group cohesion. It is the second of these choices. ⚔ In the main tunnel, the cloaker is dead. Freda, a ranger, views this as an opportunity, and draws a dagger from her belt. She

Nesquo's fog still hangs in the tunnel, thick and impenetrable. The cloaker, on fire and annoyed, launches a thrashing attack — and misses everyone. It connects with nothing but air and its own smoldering indignity. Inside the fog, Glumbo strikes Nesquo.

In the blink of an eye, Fekre is gone. One moment she stands before them — tattered gown, closed eyes, the wire crown pressed into pale

The plan had seemed sound enough, right up until the moment it wasn’t. Arman, wearing the face and form of the nightmare shepherd Lawrenc