3/24/2025
This is the start of a new series of campaign diaries were it’s less about about the story of the campaign (although that will be told) and mostly about the lessons learned and GM tricks employed to keep the game moving. I’d never ran a city campaign in my GM career, so I wanted to try it out, building the Stormreef product just for this purpose (feel free to check it out). I’d also never ran the adventure Against the Cult of the Reptile God (N1), so I wanted to slot that in here as well. I’ll be releasing my re-write of it as a city adventure after this arc of the campaign is completed. The system we were using was Aketon.
GM tricks or lessons learned will be in gold.
Making Characters
There were three players for this game:
- One has played a lot of D&D but knows nothing of the meta-lore (what is a paladin vs cleric, what is an owlbear), she chose to be a Warrior (female)
- One has played very little D&D but know a lot about the meta-lore thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3, she chose to be a Paladin (male)
- One has never played D&D and knows nothing about it, he chose to be a Thief (male)
I wanted to throw these guys right into the game so we started at level one, with classes, instead of level zero, without classes.
We rolled on all the Adventurer Options tables to get these characters backgrounds, star signs, distinguishing features, and party bonds. We worked out the backstories over the course of play. We just needed to get playing! This took about 5 min.
Homecoming
I told the players they all lived in Stormreef at one point and asked who they knew that still lived here. The Paladin said he had a baby mama (unmarried), Martha, and a son, so I latched onto that.
The Paladin had been receiving letters from Martha, telling them that weird things were going down in their old neighborhood of Stormreef named Arlane (right along the coast in block 6). The other players didn’t have anyone they urgently needed to see, so they all agreed to go with the Paladin to visit Martha.
The townhouse Martha lived in with her parents and her son had it’s door kicked in. Nothing was stolen, but there’s signs of a struggle and everyone is missing.
They ask the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Buttersmith, what happened. She claimed to have heard something, reported it to the guards, they came and looked around and then didn’t do anything else with it.
With this, the Paladin and Warrior go to the local Customs House/guard fortress to check on how its progressing, while the Thief stays behind and looks over the house, searching for clues.
While they decide to go to the Customs House their is confusion about the nature of this Paladin. So, we get a flashback to how they became a Paladin, how they had a vision of themselves heaven, being anointed in oils by their God, and sent to enforce justice on Earth. This re-emphasizes the fantastical nature of the setting. Everyone is locked in.
Split Up and Look for Clues
It’s a 20 minute walk to the Customs House, so we stick with the Thief for the next portion. The townhouse has three floors, each has a single room, no doors exist between them. He finds:
- Three bottles of Golden Grain Whiskey on the first floor
- A strongbox on the second floor under the parents bed with 55gp (he takes this greedily, much to the chagrin of the Paladin player who claims he’s robbing their future in-laws)
- Two unsent letters on the top floor, in what seems to be Martha and her son’s bedroom
One is to someone named Deacon Maycomb. Martha tells him to stay strong and confront the fellow believer he’s worried about. That’s his job after all.
The other is to someone named Jenny. He reads it. It’s about how shady it is that people are disappearing, and how Martha suspects this is all the doing of a local Thieves’ Guild because the guards seem like their ignoring certain crimes, as if they’re bribed.
This is where I needed to step in as a dungeon master because I knew the player was not familiar with D&D at all. So, we made this part of his backstory. Borrowing from an article written in Dragon Magazine, we illustrated a scene where a master thief sat down a fledgling Thief and taught him not only the tools of the trade but also what to look out for with thieves’ guilds. The Thief player loved this.
Following this, I knew (as the GM) that the investigation was over because there were no more clues left, and that we should flip back over to the Paladin and Warrior. However, if I switched back at this point it would be really boring for the Thief, so let’s introduce some drama!
The Thief hears the clattering of the broken door on the first floor, and many bootsteps into the building. We switch back to the Paladin and the Warrior.
They have to walk through Fortunes Avenue (where seers and mystic ply their trade) and end at the Customs House. After some discussion with the receptionist, they encounter Grover Ruskland, the Guard Sergeant for their block. He recognizes the Paladin and is immediately friendly with the party. He’s a super friendly, local guy.
They tell him about what happened, he says that the family gave him a letter saying they’d be out of town for a while and to make sure their place is secure while they’re gone. While he regrets their apartment was broken into, he tells them they’re aren’t missing. He’s even willing to stay late (seeing as its getting close to closing for the main building) to help the party with any questions they may have.
They leave to return to the townhouse.
This was dramatic enough. Out-of-game, they knew the guards were shady due to the Thief reading the letter, which made all of their interactions with Sergeant Ruskland tense. They had a lot to think about as we switched back over.
The Thief, through a series of tense and timed decisions, hides from the intruders and gets a glimpse at them. One is a guard, one is a barbarian-looking-guy, one is a shorter, stockier, smellier, hooded figure.
They leave, just missing the Paladin and Warrior’s arrival.
Investigating Leads
As soon as they reconvene they share clues.
The Paladin remembers the Church that the Deacon belongs to, so they all three go there to look for him. While there they speak to the Priest, who tells them that the Deacon has been absent for some time, but he gave the Priest a letter saying he’d be out for a few weeks.
Okay, so we’re soft-locked here. The players are only half-picking up on a lot of the clues. They’re confused and they don’t know where to go next. This is easy to detect, and only lasts a minute or so before I interject as the Priest to give them another lead I had on stand-by should they need it.
The Priest, who remembers the Paladin, asks if he has anywhere to stay the night. He offers the Paladin, and his friends, a night at the Golden Grain Inn, “I know the owner” he says, “Just give him this card.”
The players detect there’s some connection between this inn and Martha’s disappearance, but can’t connect all the dots just yet. That’s okay.
They take him up on that and go their next. They get a table and the Warrior notices her dad (a retired guardsman who lives in a different part of the city) is the bartender.
Earlier in the game we randomly rolled her Dad’s name (Bertram), and this guys name is also Bertram. She didn’t have a lot of interaction of in-character hooks in the adventure yet so I gave this to her and I’m glad I did because it worked out well.
The Warrior hides under her hood while the other two go to give the card to the bartender. A disturbance is spotted when two barbarian types, one male one female, begin harassing the serving-maid.
At this point we discuss more of the Warrior’s backstory to add some meat to the scenario (things were getting too straight-forward). She was trained by a swashbuckling sailor how to fight and defend herself after being saved from a pirate ship. She once was defenseless like the serving-maid.
The Warrior stands up to intervene.
Think Fast!
We have our first fight, all unarmed, all non-lethal, it’s very fun, we play Freebird by Lynard Skynard on our phones and the combat’s over before the song is. Sergeant Ruskland and the guard the Thief saw in the townhouse come to take away the barbarians, the barkeep doesn’t blame the heroes. The Thief and the Warrior decide to follow the guards (not trusting them) while the Paladin stays at the inn.
After some walking, the barbarians and guards duck into a shop called Smith and Sons’ (the party eavesdrops). Inside they Sergeant threatens to send the barbarians “to the cellar” if they don’t get their act together. They begrudgingly agree and the Sergeant tasks them with killing the party.
Smith and Sons’ was one of three different side encounters I could pull out if I needed to move the plot forward or introduce drama. Throwing it in here as a hideout for the bad guys was not a bad move either. It’s good to have these little areas premade in case you need them!
The barbarians pull out their weapons and start heading back to the inn.
Switching back to the Paladin, he’s just sitting around eating a sandwich. The serving-maid comes over to thank him for standing up for her and introduces herself as Jenny. “Do you know Martha?” “She’s my best friend!” Jack pot.
She immediately warns him not to eat the sandwich before being called away. Why not? Save vs. Poison. He passes. His stomach gurgles. He gets pretty sleepy.
This was a shot of drama that I felt the Paladin player needed to justify them staying behind. It worked really well and suddenly all the players were trying to figure out what was going on.
The Thief and Warrior ambush the barbarians, who are already beat up, brain them both and start dragging their bodies through the streets to the wharf. They pass Mrs. Buttersmith’s townhouse and she spots them from her window, then hides. They discuss if they need to kill Mrs. Buttersmith too.
This began a running trend with this party, they are very indecisive. They will take split-second decisions and discuss them for 10-20 minutes as a group. Later on to combat this I would start giving them time-limits for decisions (one minute, 30 seconds, two minutes, etc). This first time, I just cut to the Paladin.
The Paladin is wondering where is friends are and feels like he’s been drugged. He got Jenny’s townhouse number and wanders out of the inn. He sees the huge bloodtrail in the street and follows it to the rest of the party. They continue to discuss and not act.
Once again, a long period of discussion and inaction. Time to make things complicated.
A guard at the end of the street calls for them to stop and runs over to them. They discuss what to do but don’t act so he eventually reaches them. He reaches for his reinforcements whistle and they start to club him unconscious. As soon as they do so, they look over and see Mrs. Buttersmith once again peeking at them from her window and then hiding when spotted.
I tell them explicitly THEY NEED TO ACT OR MORE BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
The Thief and Warrior finish dragging the bodies to the wharf, and throw them in. The Paladin kicks in the door to Mrs. Buttersmith townhouse. Inside is her and two troglodytes (stinky lizard people)! “That’s him! That’s the man that killed those two people and hurt the guard!”
The Paladin sprints away to the other two, the drugs kick in, his legs give out, he tells them Jenny’s address and they all spend the night over there.
Session End
Thank you for reading!
Until we meet again,
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ADVENTURES
Ward Against Evil 
Leave a comment