Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

The way I've written so much about my D&D group leveling up you might think that's all we did in this past Sunday's game session. With my efforts to keep it short while also indulging the players in character development through storytelling we kept it to about 2.5 hours. That left almost 2 hours for me to try killing their characters with monsters.🤣

The Silent Quarter

This adventure takes the party into the Silent Quarter of the capital city of Lentria. Called Fisherman's Bottom by government officials, this poor and sketchy district is given a number of colorful names by locals. The Sump; Debtor's End. Each of them have meaning, often double meaning. The moniker Silent Quarter refers to the fact that nobody speaks of what happens here. Because nobody cares. (I coached the group that it's like the setting of the classic 1974 movie Chinatown.) In a city where everything is old and decaying, Silent Quarter is the oldest and most decayed.

Kiarana the cleric was sent to minister the Silent Quarter as part of her punishment duties. Locals were initially distrustful. Authority figures like city guards and members of prominent faiths are a rare sight. "Get your merit badge and get out," people sneered. But Kiarana was earnest about helping. Yes, it was a task assigned to her in scorn, but it was not the people of the Silent Quarter who were her enemy.

One local resident, an alchemist whom she was sent to buy materials from to prepare magic scrolls and potions— because the high priestess at the temple wouldn't let her use materials on hand— came to her with a problem. Her son had gone missing 3 nights earlier. Usually a missing-person situation in the Silent Quarter is ignored. People go missing here all the time. Sometimes it's even deliberate. Sometimes. But the artisan believed it was foul play. And that it involved the House of Black Wood.

The House of Black Wood

The party chose to spend a few hours gathering information on this place, the House of Black Wood, or Blackwood House.



An abandoned stately city home atop a small hill, it was falling apart— and widely considered haunted. There were various stories about what "haunted" meant, ranging from mysterious lights to spooky moaning to pale men walking the street. Multiple times they heard stories "Sometimes people that go in there come out, sometimes they'd don't." When the rogue rolled a natural 20 on his Gather Information check I added, "Not even that other cleric who went in a few moons ago." 😳

The group decided that they'd investigate. At night.



Yes, they went into the haunted house at night. 😱 They were all set to wait a day or two, to gather more information and go in the daylight. But when I reminded them about the young man already missing for 3 days, they decided they couldn't let more time pass. OMG, they took my bait!

Stay tuned for what's inside the House of Black Wood!

I mentioned yesterday that it was time to level up in my D&D game. Indeed, the players spent hours of table time updating their character sheets. That's a kind of bookkeeping time sink I've been trying to avoid in this game.

It could have been worse, though. We could have made it worse. We could have tried roleplaying— and roll playing— through the minutiae of everyone finding tutors (they're in a new city), arranging relationships, and figuring out what happens over the course of a few weeks. I've been in games that are like that.

I've also played in games that are the complete opposite of that. I remember one GM just told us after an adventure, "Great! You all gain a level. Update your character sheets." Many of us players, accustomed to all the accounting of crunchy games like D&D were all 😳. I mean, the GM didn't even tell us how many experience points we'd earned! 🤣

Inspired by that GM, I proposed to the players we could skip all the fuss of how leveling up happens in-game, make changes to stats quickly, and get on to the next adventure. To my slight surprise, the players wanted to spend at least some time on it, to see what leveling up in my game is like. Plus, they were curious to see if playing through getting trained could, say, help them develop their characters by finding new allies. Fair enough!

Still I didn't want leveling up to become a full game session— or longer. To help focus our efforts on the high points of storytelling rather than getting lost in the minutiae of "I rolled a 7 on my check! What happens next?" I proposed a narrative framework that's like a writing prompt: Think of 1 bad thing (challenge, adversity, setback) that happens and 2 good things.

The players all embraced this prompt. Some did a lot better than others with it, though. I mean, that's to be expected. Some players are more creative roleplayers than others and/or are more familiar with the game. In my house it's not about grading everyone, it's about working with what we've got and making it fun.

Keep reading: Two examples of "training montages" we created in my next blog.

Since we're going to play my D&D game again later today I should really catch up on sharing the story from our last game twos weeks ago. That previous blog got a bit long— and also kind of dark. I want to retell what happened with the players meting out justice and add a few thoughts.

One of those thoughts is that I purposefully include morality plays in RPG stories. These are situations where there's no obviously right answer. And figuring out what's most right (or least wrong) is not easy. It's hard— on purpose. Honestly, players don't always respond well to these situations. So I use them sparingly. But I do use them.

Now a bit of background about this situation, illuminating what happened before it took an arguably dark turn:

First, recall that the group was attacked in an ambush by hobgoblins. But it wasn't just the monsters that were against them. Before the ambush they'd uncovered that the head merchant was a traitor. He knew the attack was coming and was paid to keep quiet about it. Then, during the attack, they spotted a human "spy" trying to make a getaway. Two of the PCs chased and captured the spy. Through questioning the two men they determined that the spy was the paymaster for the hobgoblin ambushers.

So, that brings us to this moral question:



You've captured two criminals. They plotted a murderous attack against you. You're days from a city big enough to try them in front of a magistrate. What do you do?

Letting them go is such weaksauce. Dragging them along with you for days to face justice in a city, expending time and resources and shouldering increased risk to transport murderers, seems nonsensical. And, oh, did I mention... one of the your party members is a member of a ruling coalition family? The magistrate a few days away you'd take them to would also be a member of a ruling coalition family... possibly the same family, possibly the family that the paymaster/assassin belongs to! 😨😵💀



Kiarana, the cleric, didn't condemn the two criminals, per se. Instead she proclaimed that fellow group member Otonio Tashara "Is the law here". Otonio, surprised by her strong words and not quite ready to step into that role, nonetheless did so. The aristocratic playboy pulled on his big-boy pants and pronounced sentence. For attempted murder of himself and his companions, death. For mutiny against the caravan and its crew, death. Leoghnie killed the assassin; Otonio killed the traitorous merchant himself.

We played D&D again this past Sunday. Yes, it had been several weeks since our previous game session. We had to work around multiple travel schedules and a soccer game or two. That's the unfortunate reality of planning f2f RPGs once everyone's past 25 years old. But let me not bury the lede: We played D&D this past Sunday!

Where last we left the heroes they were fighting off a hobgoblin ambush while guarding a merchant caravan— a caravan to transport a totally-not-evil-because-it-doesn't-have-eyes harpsichord, unlike the harpsichord with sneaky eyeballs that tried to kill them— to deliver it and other valuables to a pair of asshole heirs of a reclusive billionaire on the other side of the realm. Along the way the group shrewdly sniffed out that there was a traitor in their midst. So they knew an ambush was coming; they just didn't know the time, or place, or who or what would ambush them.

Where we left off before Sunday's game the PCs had turned the tide of battle and were taking down the ambushers. The hobgoblins, being paid to fight but not in it to die for a cause, were ready to flee. Meanwhile, someone was already fleeing. A cloaked figure on horseback dashed from concealment in a stand of trees, angled toward the road, and headed back toward the last town. Otonio, the well-heeled rogue and now de facto caravan captain, spotted the fleeing spy and spurred his horse to give chase.



When I wrote this adventure I expected that Herran the woodsmanwoman (yes, she changed genders two sessions ago) would spur her horse to give chase. She's the strongest rider in the group. Alas, her trusty steed was the first casualty in the ambush. Leaving her on foot. So I clued in the player of the next strongest rider, Leoghnie the fighter, that she should skip chasing level-1 hobgoblins as they break and run and instead pursue the mysterious figure who could be some kind of ringleader. Jill, playing Leoghnie, didn't need further encouragement that it was her moment to take the spotlight.

Here, again, I'm sharing pictures I created with AI. Do you see what's wrong with the picture above? I prompted Google Gemini that the fighter and rogue are chasing the spy. It got so many things right about that scene. And yet.... Okay, if you don't see the problem, imagine that the Scooby Doo musical interlude theme is playing in the background. 🤣

It took only two more prompts to get a more accurate illustration.



Otonio stayed about evenly matched with the spy. The two men were equally matched at horsemanship. But Leoghnie had a big edge on both of them. Despite the spy having a 200' head start she was able to close the distance in a minute of furious riding. In that short time she'd covered almost half a mile!

As Leoghnie overtook Otonio just before reaching the mystery rider, Otonio stopped his horse and loosed a single shot from his bow. Ka-BOOM! A direct shot that caught the fleeing spy right in the back.



Leoghnie overtook the spy seconds later, her horse about ready to collapse from exhaustion, and opted to grapple him and yank him off his horse rather than slash at him with her sword. The spy, having been injured by the group's spellcasters earlier and now taken a near-fatal shot from Otonio's bow, was already slumped over, unconscious. Leoghnie pulled him off his saddle and dropped him to the ground.

The two PCs circled back around to assess the situation. The spy, lying unconscious in the dust, had only a weak pulse. Finely wrought armor under his cloak showed burns from spells that had penetrated it, and an arrow was lodged between his shoulders. Several of his ribs creaked like they were broken. His breathing was ragged. Left alone, he'd be dead in 10 seconds.

While Leoghnie tried in vain to staunch the bleeding from multiple wounds, Otonio dug out a magic healing potion from his pack and poured it down the man's throat. He hated using a valuable cure on an enemy, but it seemed necessary if they were to figure out who this spy was— and who hired him. The potion was enough to stop the blood loss. They tied his still-unconscious body over his horse and walked it back to the site of the ambush.

To be continued!

Across the last two sessions of my D&D game the group sniffed out treachery in their midst. They'd embarked on an adventure as guards on a caravan transporting high-value goods. On their second night on the road, their first night camping in the wilderness between towns, they were attacked by a pair of worgs.

Worgs are like wolves that are slightly tougher, much smarter (they can learn languages!), and evil.

Fortunately for the caravan, Leoghnie, the toughest warrior in the group, was on watch at the time. She killed one and chased the other off while waking her compatriots.

In the morning the four PCs and their NPC ally, Otonio, compared notes. Otonio had already warned them that "Every thief in Durendal knows about this caravan, so we should expect trouble." Ryuu-Han shared that in chatting with his watch-mate last night he learned that most of the guards were noobs. The crew chief was offering shockingly low pay for this being a conspicuously high-value caravan. Otonio amplified that, explaining that he was asked to provide a few "regular" guards from his household before he surreptitiously hired the PCs instead.

Kiarana decided it was time for some divine assistance. She memorized a few Zone of Truth spells at dawn and called the crew together for a team meeting after breakfast.



Everyone, including the PCs, was quizzed with the same questions about knowledge of the caravan being attacked. All of the hirelings disavowed knowledge or involvement in any treacherous plans. Only the lead merchant, Munetoshi, refused to answer the questions directly. He gave evasive answers and complained repeatedly about the disrespect inherent in the process. "Mutiny," he called it, twice. He tried to leave but well-armed and armored Leoghnie blocked his path.

Although Kiarana cast the spell and started the interrogation, Otonio took over as he was more fleet with words. "Your evasiveness isn't a good look," he explained to his boss, Munetoshi. "Your inability to answer simple, direct questions with a 'No' under the cleric's Zone of Truth spell leads us to the conclusion you made treasonous plans against this mission."



The group decided to take Munetoshi prisoner. Otonio got some ropes from the supply wagon and tied him up. Then Leoghnie's player realized, "Hey, I have Rope Use +6" and said she'd tie him up extra good.

About these pictures: I created the latter two illustrations with Google Gemini. I prompted the AI with a variety of information about the group and the situation. I iterated a few times to try to improve some of the details. Some of those prompts worked, some were ignored or only partly heeded. And some things are just funny, like the fact that each picture contains a person with three arms— and which person it is changes from pic to pic!

Keep reading: The real ambush comes hours later!

I've really fallen behind on writing about the D&D game I'm running. We've played twice in the past week on a new adventure in the game... and I still haven't finished blogging the first adventure.

Recall the group was in the story I named The Collector's Menagerie.



Also known as Cursed Clue.

The group had cleared the main floor and basement of the eccentric old lord's city mansion. They were working their way through the top floor, having fought through giant spiders and giant spider webs.



I noted that at least one of the players was having an "Ick!" response to there being big spiders. That warmed the cockles of my DM's heart, as I knew there was one more spider still to go. The boss was a spider!

At the far end of the corridor the group heard faint calls for help from beyond a door left slightly ajar. They opened the door to find an opulent bedroom suite beyond. In the far corner of the room was an elderly man half-cocooned in spider webs.

The group entered, warily, suspecting a trap. The man claimed to be Lord Asano... but the group had already found the body they thought was Asano's laid out in repose in the crypt in the basement. They strongly suspected there was at least one more monster left to find, based on finding 8 vacant cages and only 6 kinds of monsters so far. Could "Asano" be another shapeshifter like the harpsichord-monster with a million eyes?

Otonio offered to free the old man after asking him a few questions first. He probed for, whether this was really Asano or a shape-shifter pretending to be him.

The man answered questions about Asano correctly. He pointed them to the magic device that controls the cages. It was under a pillow on his bed in the chamber. He even told them the command word, Securus, that would activate the talisman to return all creatures to their cage and lock them in.

But still the party was cagey about this being a trap. And they were right. It was a trap.



In conversing with "Asano" for a few rounds, Otonio noticed that the webs cocooning him from the chest down weren't right. They were an illusion. Asano was actually human-ish... with two extra arms!

Meanwhile Ryuu-Han was poking around the room and found a brass nameplate on the floor... a nameplate like the ones on the cages downstairs. This one read Aranea Pluriformis— Old Tongue for Spider of Several Forms.

The fight was on!

Fortunately for the party the Spider-Man was not the toughest monster. They might have been more fooled by its magically enhanced disguise if they hadn't found the other clues first. It might have gotten the drop on them, then, and been a tougher foe. But in a fair fight they quickly overwhelmed it. And by this point they were all pretty disgusted with large spiders, so they pulled no punches.

It's been a while since I've checked in on my blogging. My last remark on the topic was noting in mid-January that I'd blogged 30 days in a row. Well, good news/bad news in that vein....

Good news: I extended that streak of writing at least once a day to 62 days.
Bad news: The streak ended when I missed a day on Feb. 21. I then had another missed day on the 27th.

Looking at the month of February 2026 in full:

• I posted 42 journal entries
• That hits my intermediate goal of averaging 1.5 blogs/day.
• It's my best month since September '25, before I hit a slump in October.

Am I over my slump of the previous 4 months? Yes and no. The main thing that drove my uptick in blogging this past month was playing D&D. I posted twelve journals about D&D in the month. Without that February would've been as much a slump as October was. Will playing D&D continue? Unclear. I want to, but at the moment the challenge— as always— is finding time that works for everyone. I proposed last week that we play this weekend, and my players quickly drove the negotiation out to whether or not we can play in 3-4 weeks time.

As for what got me into a slump with blogging starting back in October.... Two big factors were the seasonal slowdown in outdoors adventures as winter weather came on, coupled with us having to stand down from travel due to Hawk's two surgeries. Both of those surgeries are in the rear view mirror now, and she's recovering well— though still weeks away from being fully healed. Plus, the weather is getting nicer now. Plus— bonus!— I've just retired, so we have way more free time to do fun things that are worth writing about. This would seem to augur more blogging ahead. But....

...But the other problem I highlighted in October was the DFC problem. I just don't care. The past week as I've stared at my keyboard I've mused to myself, "Do I even care anymore?" I don't know if I do. I hope I'll see my spirits lift when I get more active again.

It's been a quiet 3-day weekend here at home. It's winter, the weather's poor (by local standards, anyway), and Hawk is recovering from surgery so we didn't have any plans to go anywhere. Combine that with working from home, and the days all blur together. To be sure, working from home is way better overall than commuting to an office. But one of its few downsides its that weekends can seem little different from weekdays. Weekends are like work days, just with less work.

Among the less-work things I did this weekend were working on my taxes and playing D&D. Taxes I mentioned starting in earnest on Saturday. After that I did come back and do another tax session after dinner Friday, followed by short (90-ish minute) sessions on Sunday and Monday. The balance of my time Sunday and Monday I spent playing D&D. And not just playing D&D but DMing it. (Not that that's necessarily better... it's just a lot more work!)

This weekend we actually squeezed in two games of D&D. As we wrapped up our gaming session on Sunday we were talking about when to play next— like, would it be next weekend, or would it be 2 weekends out? Then I suggested, "What about tomorrow?" And everyone found time in their calendars! We played D&D two days in a row. It's like a Critical Hit! 🤣

Now I've just got to finish up my taxes. I figure I'm 80% done.

Today we played D&D again. It was the second full session of my game, The Collector's Menagerie. After an action-packed session 2 weeks ago where the group got through a lot of challenges today they.... Well, it's not so much that they "hit the skids" as that they fell over laughing.



The laughs today came from two things. First, I came up with names for the menagerie of monsters they're fighting in the mansion. No, I don't mean names like "Sammy the Stirge". I mean names like... if you saw these monsters at a zoo, what would the placards in front of their cages say? Because part of the story here is that these monsters literally have cages. And they were put there by a collector... who wanted to show them off. Hence they'd have labels!

The group came back upstairs out of the basement and ventured into the Gallery next. The gallery is the large room where the collector literally had most of his exotic monsters displayed in cages. And because the collector was a bit snooty— I mean, if you've got exotic monsters in display cages between your Hall and your Ballroom you're going to want to be snooty about it— I decided the placards would be in an ancient language known only to the most learned scholars. Ergo, for roleplaying props, they're in Latin.

But how do you say "Owlbear" in Latin? I punted... and marked the cage "Ursa Noctua". Bear-owl. 😂

One of the PCs is actually fluent in my game's ancient scholarly language. And the players had fun trying to guess the monsters from their high school Latin lessons before his character translated them. I gave them these 6 monster labels:

• Ursa Noctua : Bear owl (Owlbear)


• Versipellis Furtivus : Sneaky Skin-changer (Mimic)


• Arinerum Magni : Large Spiders


• Aves Sanguinarii : Blood-drinking Birds (Stirges)


• Scutigera Cadaverosa : Carrion Crawler


• Belua Excrementum : Shit Elephant

To preserve an element of mystery there were two cages with missing labels.

The group choked a bit on the Sneaky Skin-changer— which they interpreted (correctly) as a Mimic, a classic D&D monster. They kind of assumed it, anyway, the moment they saw the treasure chest with fangs chasing someone in the cover pic (above).

The group really choked on Large Spiders. Even worse than worrying aloud that every piece of furniture they came across could be a Mimic, they fretted that there might be spiders ready to drop down on them from the shadowy recesses of the high ceilings. 🕷️

The one I thought was funniest, though, was the last one in the list. The Shit Elephant.



I came up with that monster's Latin in-game ancient language name, Belua Excrementum, by starting with the name we came up with when the group fought it in the last session, Shit Monster. "Shit" translates obviously to excrementum, but "monster".... In Latin, "monster" really refers to a thing of enormous size. Like "jumbo". "I have a monster headache" is like saying, "I have a jumbo headache." And the word for very large thing happens to be the word for elephant. Belua. So the Otyugh got the Latin name Shit Elephant. 💩🐘🤣

My D&D group playing my adventure story The Collector's Menagerie spent much of the last session doing battle in the basement. After fighting the owlbear in the Hall to rescue the butler and get some sense of the challenge at hand the group decided that they would clean house bottom to top. Especially because they heard faint cries for help wafting up the servants' staircase from the underground level. Though first they checked out the chirping coming from the Conservatory. Finding there were stirges there, they closed the door on them and left. Then it was time to head downstairs and rescue the servants calling for help.

A Little 9-Ball Torture, Anyone?

On their way around to the stairs the PCs peered through a wrecked door (the owlbear had damaged a lot of things in this part of the mansion) into one of the rooms along the front façade of the mansion.

"The room is sumptuously wood paneled but otherwise Spartan except for a large table sitting slightly askew in the middle of the room," I told them. "The table is quite stout, and about 8 feet by 4 feet across the top. A raised lip surrounds the table top. Below that lip the table is covered with green fabric. Several white, stone balls are scattered across the surface, and two light maces site among them."

"It's probably a torture chamber," one of the players scoffed with a laugh.

Dipshits. Did we not already establish that this mansion is like the one in the game of Clue? It's the Billiard Room! 🤣

(BTW, my description of "light maces" on the table comes from a quick bit of research I did about the history of billiards. I didn't want it to be an anachronism that a wealthy person in this game world owned a billiard table. I'm giving my world a technology level roughly corresponding to 1600. I found that billiards had been around for upwards of 200 years by then. It had been adapted from croquet, though, an outdoors lawn sport that used mallets. Thus the indoor version used small mallets, called maces. The modern version with cue sticks would evolve later.)

As the group descended the narrow stairs a sense of foreboding grew. Occasional cries for help, in a weak but deep man's voice, continued. "Help, help me." The air cooled to a chill as they descended and an awful spell of rot and decay filled everyone's noses.

A wide, plain stone corridor stretch into darkness at the bottom of the stairs. Its end was beyond the reach of the group's lights. The magic lights provided by Ryuu-Han, who had a seemingly endless number of small but useful gadgets in his magical man-bag.

The Crypt 

The group moved in close formation, wary that there might be a trap or a monster crouched in hiding, and not wanting to be split up.

First they peered through an open portal on the left side of the corridor. With their enchanted torchlight they saw a crypt: a chamber with stone pillars and stone coffins, and at the center a bier atop an alabaster dais. There appeared to be a body under a light drape on the bier.

Satisfied that nothing in the crypt seemed to be shaking, the group moved on without checking out its deep shadows.

The Kitchen 

Through a wide door on the other side of the corridor the group found the Kitchen. Prep tables, hearths, and storage barrels were lit at weird angles by enchanted torches knocked to the ground. Here the air reeked of spoiled meat, a different olfactory offense than the stench of trash and waste out in the corridor.

Herran the ranger entered the kitchen first. Herran had taken the brunt of damage from the last two monster encounters, the owlbear and the stirges, so it made sense to send him in first again. 😣

"Guys, it looks clear in here!" Herran announced just before he turned around and saw... a 8-foot long centipede-like creature with a mount full of sharp teeth crawling down the wall behind him.

The monster, a carrion crawler, swatted at Herran with one of its tentacles. It hit, stinging him with a contact poison that caused paralysis. 😨 Herran was unable to move, unable even to speak, as the monster moved around behind him to start eating him.

Fortunately for Herran he wasn't alone. Leoghnie wasn't about to let some overgrown arthropod make a meal out of her friend, even if it was thematically appropriate for being in the Kitchen. 🤣

Leoghnie stepped up, braving the crawler's waving tentacles herself. Sword already in hand, she lost no time joining the fight. With an mighty overhand blow, still aided by the strength enhancement from Kiarana's divine blessing, she chopped a big chunk out of the crawler's side.

Ryuu-Han acted next. Speaking words of magical conjuration he thrust his hand forward and launched a glob of acid at the monster. The acid sizzled and burned the creature's slimy hide.

Otonio stepped up to fight, as well. The group had been skeptical of him. With his foppish attire and noble lineage they suspected he was just cosplaying as a guard officer for his two-days-a-month duty. But he plunged his rapier deep into the monster's body, killing it.

Kiarana stepped forward to cure Herran's temporary paralysis with one of her spells. But the danger wasn't over.



The group's focus on the battle in the kitchen created a perfect opportunity a pair of ghouls hiding in the darkness in the crypt to attack. Yes, there were monsters hiding in the darkness the group didn't detect! And with the group's big warriors fighting the carrion crawler toe-to-... hundred toes in the kitchen, the ghouls attacked from behind against the unarmored Ryuu-Han.

The ghouls were human-like forms dressed in clothing hanging in rags over their mottled, decaying flesh. Bones poked out, mouths were full of sharp teeth, and eyes burned like hot coals in their sunken sockets.

"Zombies!" shouted Ryuu-Han.

Otonio once again rushed forward, defying his typecasting as the idle rich kid. One of the ghouls lunged and bit at him. Its sharp teeth tore through his handsome doublet but— CHUNK! couldn't penetrate the thin layer of mail hidden underneath.

As Ryuu-Han and Otonio started to fight back, the cleric Kiarana— still in the kitchen— spun around in anger at the report of undead. She raised the holy sunburst medallion from her neck and called upon the power of Reema, Goddess of the Sun and its Life-Giving Warmth. Rays of light burst from her medallion, passing between the arms and over the shoulders of Ryuu-Han and Otonio, and striking the ghouls. The power of the sun lit their undead bodies. Their skin glowed and started to crackle. Their eyes flared from smoldering orbs to burning flames. In a split-second flash that seemed to play out in slow motion, their bodies burned to ash.

Kkarana hadn't just invoked her power to Turn Undead, she made it a Greater Turn Undead.

To be continued....