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Alright, due in large part to my laziness I've neglected this blog post, which I shouldn't do because this thing will no doubt prove invaluable in terms of helping me keep track of what's happened since I'm more prone to elaborate here than in, say, Masterplan. So instead of a recap of the first session of this campaign, here is a recap of the first half dozen sessions of this campaign. Or maybe the first two because this is taking longer than I expected. Hooray laziness!

Session 1: Murder in the Mountebank Inn

A varied group of individuals convene at an Inn about a mile outside of Wroat. They have all been invited there in order to accept a prospective job that offers few details beyond promises of vast fortunes. The patronage seem no more unusual than is average, and so it's no big surprise

Just in case you haven't seen it already, The Tyranny of Ghosts has been added to the wizards.com product catalogue -- along with the amazing cover! Check it out!

That's Ekhaas in the foreground.

Gather Around, I've a Tale to Tell!

So, welcome to the first edition of 'Gather Around, I've a Tale to Tell!', the account of my 4E D&D experiences on both sides of the DM screen. Within this post, and the others to follow, will be reports of my efforts to entertain my players and my attempts to survive my DM's own works. These reports will come from several settings, some of them homebrew and some of them Eberronian in nature.

Readers of the Expedtionary Dispatches feature from Dragon Magazine might recall the Dispatch from Janus Gull, which appeared in Dragon #367. Having not run a session in some time, and yet having made time for a Halloween edition, I found Janus Gull to be the perfect idea for my purposes.

Set in Eberron's Eldeen Reaches, Janus Gull is a small fishing village

I'm still reading the module rather than skim it. I'd like to know what every monster can do ahead of time. One thing I did note is that I'll have to work up treasure parcels for the players. On the one hand, I don't mind making up the treasure lists myself, on the other, I'd rather have at least some guidelines in the adventure. "This encounter has two treasure parcels" or "One level 15 item".

I did peek ahead a bit and saw there are drow involved. If you know the Eberron setting, you know that drow will never work with giants. It didn't work out so well for them last time. :)

While I won't have exact minis for every monster, I do get a kick when I turn the page and find a monster for a mini I DO have. (I did pick up the ice titan for the adventure. I already have a fire and earth titans.)

Ok, So i am starting my first Eberron campaign, this week, I know the world pretty good, but my players are not familiar at all. So this should be fun. I just hope i can make it entertaining without making it overwhelming.

Any D&D playing single ladies in the house? Keith Baker, creator of Eberron, is traveling the world and looking for some nice geeky ladies to take out for dinner in the various stops on his tour. Check it out here: geeksdreamgirl.com/date-keith-baker

I picked up the adventure Revenge of the Giants, and I think it would be great to run in the Eberron setting. Warning! There may be spoilers to the adventure.

Looking over the background and history of Argent, it looks like it's very easy to convert. I won't spill all the details/surprises of what I'm changing just in case any of my potential players come across this.

The first choice I made is the location of the city. I figured since the adventure involves giants, it should be set in Xen'drik. I don't have any specific place in mind, and the Traveler's Curse (Which changes locations/distances between places) is a good excuse.

The giant's goal and reason for the alliance is to release Piranoth. I'm still trying to decide who's really behind it all. At first, I thought the Lords of Dust

This is going so well. (Whew.)
There's something super cool about introducing your kids to a hobby that was important to you--both when you were a kid and as an adult too. I had the same big geek reward a few years ago when they were ready for Star Wars ... and they *loved* that too. Of course I realize that they may not always dig this stuff and that yep--the day will surely come that they realize that Dad is a geek and then they'll be off doing whatever their thing is ... but in the meantime--we're having tons of fun.

So, for this latest episode I tried to stage events to 1.) reinforce their bond with their characters and each other 2.) build up the tension of the plot as the adventure deepened from a mystery to something bigger and more important, and 3.) to build out challenges that