Dungeon Masters
I’m not one for staying on top of New Year’s resolutions. Like my poor house plants, they wither away and are often forgotten by February. But this time last year, I committed to a new adventure–start a Twitch stream with my friends playing Dungeons and Dragons.
So, I took the idea to my companions. The five of us have played off and on together in different combinations over the years, and were ready for a new campaign. Forgoing a published adventure in favor of a homebrew campaign I’d been tinkering on, we were all on board and rolled our first die in January 2023.
While we agreed to do this for fun, we had a little bit of purpose. As we stream, we raised money for Extra Life, a wonderful foundation that supports over 170 children’s hospitals across North America. Together and with the support of our viewers, we raised over $900 to fund life-saving and critical-care treatments for kids around the country.
If you’re thinking of tuning into our stream, here’s a little insight into what you’ve missed–or just want a recap of. Spoilers for the first 36 episodes lie beyond this point!
Meet the Players
As the party learned more about the cult, they also learned more about one another. The lighthearted and amazonian sorceress Lyra, also an elvish diplomat to West Watch informed the party early on that they have unique connections to one another. But who are our adventurers, really?
Branwen, the forlorn castaway
Branwen Foxbriar is a Summer Eladrin bard whose mind is as sharp as her blade, but if only her luck could meet it. Strong-willed, private, and perhaps just a little bit sad, Branwen finds herself in the Material Plane after being banished from her home in the Feywild after a duel gone wrong. Asked to feign defeat for a high lord’s apology, Brawen refused to yield for reasons not yet known, and found herself cast off to Euson.
Dunk, the amicable thug
A wild magic barbarian, Dunk is a kind Bugbear who ate the one brother we know about. Dunk was raised by the charismatic charlatan Borgan who was the kingpin of a gang of cutthroats, ruffians, and thieves. It was there Dunk cut his teeth and made a not-so-great name for himself in the more civilized places of the world. Not long before our campaign, Dunk split off from Borgan’s Band after a chaotic heist gone wrong that saw him leave with a peculiar new magic that seemed to power his rage. Canonically, Dunk has a number of folds, making him the group’s master of coin.
Randy, the wayward smuggler
A lumbering Goliath cleric without a god, Randy spent much of his formative years running goods and not asking questions for those willing to pay. The frontier was rugged and dangerous, but it bothered Randy little. Ten years before our adventure, Randy shepherded his most peculiar cargo yet–a young girl named Sina, who was supposedly being brought to her parents outside Mercier. After a formative adventure across the continent, Randy left Sina behind only to discover he had left her with the men of a noted criminal kingpin Gordon Trunchmer. Unable to find her, Randy spent the next 10 years in isolation with little but the drink and the leaf (and maybe a few other substances) to ease his guilt.
Willem, the cursed child
A young human boy of eighteen, Willem was born out of an unnatural contract between his parents and a witch of the forest–a hag. A hexblood, Willem began sprouting peculiar horns and demonstrating sinister abilities as a result of his bloodline. At the age of sixteen, a wretched conflict with a town elder of Conway’s Ferry saw an angry mob arrive at his doorstep, desperate to rid the city of the hag’s blight. Managing to escape, Willem watched his home crumble to ashes, his parents left inside, before setting off into the unforgiving frontier on his own.
Hairy Beginnings
Our campaign takes place on an ancient island continent of Euson. A densely forested and mountainous region, Euson is a secluded realm that few (or any) have ever left and returned. Civilization is quite new to these shores, with bastions of human, dwarven, and elven societies springing up in remote areas of the continent.
Despite the novelty of cities and trade, the realm is quite peaceful, with the disparate societies living in relative cooperation across the frontier. Still, as our campaign began, such peace was under assault. Attacks, disappearances, and strange reports of dangerous beasts were disrupting trade routes and putting cities on high alert.
Cities like Trowood, the small capital of human civilization in Euson. This is where our party found themselves as a colossal, white-furred dire wolf chased one of our adventurers, Dunk, into the city and brought mayhem into market square.
Defeating the creature, the party collected themselves and set out to learn more about the beast at the behest of Thomas Blunt, the chief of Trowood. Tugging on the threads of these strange appearances led the party to West Watch where they first learned of a rogue cult. Proclaiming themselves the ‘Holly Hunters’ in honor of the peculiar bits of holly leaves found wherever traces of the cult are found, the party went off in search of more clues.
A Brief Trip to the Feywild
After routing members of the cult in West Watch, looting the safes of collaborator Galen Redwyne, and solving a murder on the high seas, our party returned to West Watch in search of a potential ally. Randy had become acquainted with a roguish fellow in a seedy tavern in West Watch, and volunteered to assist on a “stealing mission.”
The very same mission would bring them to the doorstep of the Marigold Estate, a well-to-do plantation north of Trowood that supplied much of the town’s wheat. The stealing mission was meant to force the aging patriarch of the estate to deed it to Seario and Verena. That is, until Verena revealed her awareness of Sina, Randy’s long-lost ward. Realizing their service to Gordon Trunchmer, the party swiftly dealt with the duo and their cronies, earning the rights to the Marigold Estate in the process. The team has gone on to transform the estate into a farming co-op and home for wayward henchmen!
Along the way, they discovered Trunchmer’s current base of operations for his organization, the Cinder Kin, lie in the sewers beneath Trowood. Given their connection to Sina, Randy led the party in pursuit, only to confront Trunchmer himself. In the chaos that followed, the party managed to fell Trunchmer by Dunk’s axe, but at the expense of Branwen’s life.
Thinking quickly, Willem retrieved a Planar Amulet sold to them by an enigmatic shopkeep named Zoltar and whisked the party to the Feywild in hopes of finding aid in Branwen’s home plane. And while they did, they found it alongside pain.
Cursed with visions from an aloof fairy named Cleo, the party suffered while her wife brought Branwen back to life. In their respective visions, Willem saw his love, Gwen Lightly, pulled away by hags–powerless to save her. Dunk saw his former brother in Borgan’s Band bleeding, gasping out the final location of the treasure from their heist gone wrong. And Randy came face-to-face with Sina, beside a figure shrouded in shadow who revealed himself as none other than Hanson Daedi.
On the Road to Ruin(s)
With Branwen revived and quickly dismissed from the Feywild by her former patron, Erevan Youkel, the party found themselves once more outside Trowood, though several weeks had passed in their otherwise brief planar travel. Time moves differently in the Feywild, eh?
Desperate for respite from cults, combat, and the threat of Hanson Daedi, the party decided to pursue the cache of loot that Dunk flashed on in his vision, only to stumble across an enclave of druids and rangers in the Greenwarden Dell and more creatures summoned by cultists. Finding little kindness in the Dell, the party trudged onward in pursuit of more potential foes in Borgan’s Band but found an amicable, albeit awkward welcome.
While the archdruid of the Dell had tasked the party with slaying Borgan, the party fell in line with his charismatic ways and the drop-dead looks of his confidant, the mage Lorelei. Like so many up until this point, Borgan spoke of ruins hidden deep in the Watham Wood that held untold treasure. Knowing Daedi was in pursuit of these ruins as well, the party decided to aid Borgan’s efforts–for now.
Coming into conflict with the Archdruid’s stewardship of the ruins along the way, the party inevitably arrived at the ancient and decrepit ruins. Finding peculiar journals in foreign languages, statues of Eladrin, and remnants of the Cinder Kin along the way. But perhaps worst of all, the party eventually came face-to-face with Hanson Daedi himself.
With Sina by his side, Daedi welcomed the party and promised them no ill will. He only wished to bring about the arrival of the Winter Queen of the Feywild, who supposedly whispers in his ear as her chosen. Her coming, he claimed, would bring about the untamed wilds of the Feywild that humanity seems so intent to trample upon here in the Material Plane.
Taking little interest in his machinations and only in seeing to Sina’s safety, Randy grabbed Daedi and willed the Planar Amulet to take him to the Feywild, leaving Sina, the party, and me in complete shock. Losing sight of her long-term master nearly drove Sina to madness, and she prepared to kill the party one-by-one. That was before the steely blade of another drove through her back–that of Branwen’s sister, Colette Foxbriar.
While the party desperately worked to revive Sina, Randy landed deep in the Feywild with the party’s worst enemy, much to his chagrin. Exploring a peculiar tower with the help of some unfortunate but kind souls, Randy and Daedi inevitably met the lord of the tower, a powerful wizard by the name of Draken Voss. Quickly dismissing Daedi and leaving him battered and broken, Voss took special interest in Randy, a known party member of one he’s been tracking for a while–Dunk.
Offering him freedom in exchange for information on his furry companion, Randy inevitably left the party, content to leave as penance for his misguided path.
Elsewhere, Colette warns that all is not right in the Feywild, and a strange mirror in the heart of the ruins provides visions of a colossal tree in the midst of a resplendent clearing. Weird!
Finally, discovering another cache that Dunk had seen in his vision, they learned that Borgan’s Band had robbed Draken Voss, all at the request of Lorelei, his disgruntled former student. Realizing that the chaos of their former heist had led to Dunk’s wild magic affliction, one that is slowly killing him, Borgan and the party turned on Lorelei, felling her and returning to camp to reflect on the events that lead them here.
Willem Finds His Way
As the party sans Randy licks their wounds and wonders what–if anything–is waiting for them with Daedi gone, a new adversary appears. A cowboy hat-wearing, accent-toting bounty hunter by the name of Lazer Hawk is here for Willem, and he can come the easy way or the hard way.
Ultimately subduing Lazer Hawk, the party hears him out and understands a bounty has been placed on Willem’s head in his former town of Conway’s Ferry. The truth of his lineage finally revealed, Willem reckons with his past as a hagspawn. Agreeing to venture with him to Conway’s Ferry and handle the bounty and the remnants of Daedi’s cult that have taken root there, the adventurers set off into Butcher’s Pass, a dangerous mountain trail.
Along the way, they investigate a strange house playing host to Lady Ophelia, inevitably revealed as a hag of the Moonlit Coven. The sisterhood that brought Willem into this world has big plans for the young warrior, should he agree to join him. They find the body of Wilbert Watham (so those ruins weren’t his after all) and Sina flees (boy does she hate these guys or what?).
Once in Conway’s Ferry, they find a very different town than the one Willem grew up in. Under the thumb of a zealot cultist named Sigmond, strict curfews are enforced and guards patrol the streets. But Willem has other things on his mind, like finding the man who burned down his home and killed his parents. Lazer Hawk just wants his bounty.
Pursuing a lead into the forest in the dead of night, Willem and company find that very man, chained to a stump in a clearing that he had seen in so many nightmares. Lady Thalia, another sister, reveals herself and offers Willem a bargain. Take them as a patron, and be gifted with insurmountable powers. In exchange? The chance to kill his mortal enemy. Right here, right now.
Everything he’s ever wanted in front of him, but Willem sings a new tune. Forsaking the coven that brought him into this world, freeing the man that killed his parents, and swearing a new oath to rid the world of the hag’s injustice. Willem the Paladin, born again.
Emboldened by their friend’s sacrifice, the party returns to Conway’s Ferry to free it from Sigmond’s rule and man do they just totally beef it. Largely because none of them carried the 10 gold required to pay a simple toll.
Captured, removed of their weapons, or fighting a losing battle against swarms of cultists at the top of Drum’s Mill, it is only when Elraei and Lyra arrive are our heroes able to turn the tide. Picking Sigmond’s cronies off one by one while Willem pulls every trick in the book to prevent the cultist from beginning the ritual that will supposedly bring about the Winter Queen–or will it?
Finally victorious, the party turns to find Sina, possessed and speaking with a voice not of her own. Promising their demise, the voice wills Sina to begin the ritual anew and almost succeeds, until a brilliant flash of light fills the room, and a goliath cleric in flowing white robes stands before them, clutching his former ward against his chest. Purging the darkness from her, Randy greets his companions after his absence, his faith in the goddess Adara renewed.
Into the Wyld
Daedi gone. Sigmond defeated. Sina saved. All is well, yes? Unlikely. Randy returns not just with fresh digs and a righteous outlook, he returns will ill tidings. Whatever possessed Sina is not defeated, and the gods themselves see it as a threat to the world, perhaps the planes themselves. He, and by transitive property, them, are just the people to fix this plane-ending problem.
A brief respite at their estate and in Trowood sees our adventurers celebrate their victories and finally come to terms with Sina, who agrees to stick around…for now. Reunited with her surrogate father Elraei, Branwen discovers a project he’s been working on since her premature death–a teleportation circle. The kind that would send her back home to the Feywild.
Elsewhere, Dunk questions the inevitability of his condition, while Willem continues to court Gwen Lightly. That is, until he starts asking questions. Why so many mood swings? What’s up with her sick dad? Why does she hate Branwen, besides the obvious and understandable reasons?
And perhaps some questions are best left unanswered. Like, ‘Are you a hag?’
And as Gwen revealed herself as the final sister of the Moonlit Coven, it was decided that Willem can’t have nice things. While defeating her here on the Material Plane, the party knows all too well that the Ladies Gwen, Ophelia, and Thalia will be seen again, especially as they step through the portal and into the Feywild.
In the pursuit of answers to whether the Winter Queen really was behind this all and if not, who is this mysterious “She” that so many cultists, Sina included, seem to refer to? Who is this Thalariel character? Does he really hold the answers to the creation of the universe? What are Branwen’s parents like? Whatever happened to Hanson Daedi? Does Draken Voss hold the key to Dunk’s survival?
All this, and much more as our party steps into the Wyld.
What’s ahead of us
When we started out, we set ambitious goals for ourselves. We wanted to raise $1,000 for Extra Life, become Twitch Affiliates, and worst-case scenario, have Dua Lipa join us for one of our episodes.
The reality is, we didn’t hit any of those goals. We started biweekly, and struggled to hit a stride. I was wondering if this was worth it. But my wonderful friends stayed committed. We built a website. Dabbled in blogging. Experimented on TikTok. And started playing once a week. Progress was slow, but it didn’t matter. Because…
We were having fun every week. I loved the stories my friends were helping to tell. The numbers weren’t huge, but we were doing something.
So we’re doing it all again in 2024. Bigger? Maybe. Better? We’ll certainly try. We’ll still have ambitious goals. You can start contributing to our $1,500 goal here. Or subscribe to our Twitch here. Can you connect us with Dua Lipa? Let us know.
In the meantime, we’ll see you on Wednesdays at 8 CT / 7 ET at twitch.tv/nat20hot.
