The Goblins Fan Forum

We started on the ship in the midst of a huge storm, ship going up and down, thunder, waves, the works. They fall out of their hammocks and end up rolling for characters as they try to do things. About two thirds of the party joined the crew in trying to secure rigging.

One of the guys rolled poorly while pulling a rope.

"The rest of you see the golden skinned fellow vanish into the storm. He's there one moment, and gone the next as a wave washes over the ship."

"What?!"

"Yeah, he's just gone."

Kept giving them disadvantage on things and anyone that rolled bad was lost to the storm. Anchor dropped, slewing the ship about, and they were trying and managed to get it up and secure. The rest of the party was hiding in the hold (one was vomiting, the other praying), and the ones up top had made a lot of good roles, so tentacles wrap the ship and begin to squeeze. The crew rallies, and tries to fend it off, but the ten foot diameter tentacles are too much. One of the party wants to run to a lifeboat, but has to go past a tentacle tip to do so... rolls a three and gets flicked into the drink.

Tentacles crunch the ship (and I mute the laptop... very effective.)

Had them roll a d20 to determine order they wake up, and had the party of 6 split into two groups. They get descriptions of themselves through the eyes of the other two in their half, and are able to start writing things in. As they make skill checks, I mentioned how well they do on things after looking up modifiers. The last one to wake up had actually been submerged by the rising tide, and the tiefling learned that he had Lay on Hands, when he redeemed a die to try to save the eladrin after hauling him out of the water and pounding on his chest didn't work.

The parties met up after party B killed a crab that got snatched by a gull... and then the eladrin whipped the crab he'd caught at the gull and brought all three prey down... and party A saw a bird plummet from the sky.

They make it to the island, find a small fishing boat, and make their way up the slope, where they see a small cluster of outbuildings constructed of wreckage, around the hull of a ship that has landed in the open space in the middle of island. They see movement, and make a white flag from sail and head into the town.

The 'captain' of the community introduces himself as Jones and has a pretty significant stutter. He offers them food and drink, and hesitatingly answers their questions. They underestimate him at first, but eventually the half-orc celestial warlock (not that he knows that last part yet, but he has one glowing golden eye) catches J-j-jones in a lie, and grabs him by the shoulder to intimidate him. I have Jones hiss that they are all going to die here in a different voice, and it's initiative (leaving the exact nature of the baddies vague in case I want to use them in the future).

I should have beefed the encounter up a bit more, but used commoners instead of cultists for most of the bad guys, other than Jones and another one. They actually 'won' prior to backup arriving, taking out those who initially attacked them. At that point, we were running late (2:30 am), so in the interest of wrapping it up, since everyone wanted to continue with it this week, they get captured by the wave of backup. Jones will probably have been stabilized, so that they get a second crack at him, but they'll be waking up in volcanic tunnel caves tomorrow, along with the two friends from out of town, who will be starting with blank characters.