DavesGaming

This will be an alternate recreation of a team I created a couple months ago to play through the old Gold Box games. This team has already been through Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds, and I hope to continue their adventures into Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness.

But for now, I really wanted to run them through IWD. This is partly for the more modern rule set (2e!) and partly for the more modern game play. Yes, the Gold Box games are really old! In PoR you only have the four core character classes to choose from. Curse adds Paladin and Ranger. But none of them ever add kits or simple things, like weapon proficiencies! So yeah, I really want to play with the more sophisticated rules/mechanics.
Not to mention the pure aesthetics of it. Its almost funny how after a couple months off, playing these older games, IWD suddenly looks so vibrantly new to me!

I will dive into this with a short “How They Met” story, then a run down of the characters (including a little about their gaming history/development). Finally I’ll launch into a Prologue that takes them into Easthaven.

*****

Diomedes and Garaint grew up together in Neverwinter. Diomedes was the son of clergy from the Temple of Lathander, Garaint was the son of a knight. Diomedes was always the more reflective and intellectual. Garaint was more high energy and competitive. They brought out the best in each other. Garaint challenged and dared Diomedes into action and achievement, while Diomedes pushed Garaint to actually thinking about what he was doing.
In his mid-teens, Diomedes met Psyche. They became a couple almost as soon as they met. At this time Psyche was being raised by an older woman, a mage. Psyche was already learning what would be her profession. Psyche had a background that Diomedes only learned of slowly. She had been born into slavery. It was not a terrible or abusive situation, but it was not a good life for a curious and intelligent young girl. Out of frustration and boredom young Psyche turned to thieving. At 12, Psyche’s older sister found her and bought her out of slavery. She left Psyche with the old mage to raise her up right. By the time Diomedes and Psyche met, Psyche had turned her back on her thieving ways and was determined to become a mage and a champion of the oppressed.

In their late teens Diomedes and Garaint had started training as warriors. Of course Diomedes was actually training as a Paladin, which meant he was heavily involved with his parent’s temple. As such, he introduced Garaint (and Psyche!) to a Cleric in training. Moya Durbin was a fierce and fiesty highland lass. Or so she said, don’t argue with her about it! She and Garaint bonded, like brother and sister (?). Which is seriously how it always looked. Except every now and then… well Psyche was the first to be sure, but there was defintely something other than just “brother and sister” going on between Garaint and Moya.

In the course of their martial training, Diomedes and Garaint also befriended a young Ranger. Harg had grown up on an isolated farmstead and had developed hunting and general outdoors skills all his life. Now he was training mainly to add melee/self-defense type training, and more general Ranger skills. They all bonded over the desire to make things right and safe in Faerun, and became good friends.
Then one afternoon Diomedes and Psyche were out enjoying a ride, when they encountered an exhausted woman. A refugee of sorts. It took some time to learn her story because she did not speak the local Common Tongue. But months before, her home village had been sacked and destroyed by raiders. She was taken captive, to be sold in a wealthier slave market she was told. (Psyche’s blood boiled on hearing this!) But Shuri was relentless and clever, and managed an escape from her captors in the dead of night. But now she’d been wandering for some weeks, and did not know where she was. Diomedes and Psyche provided the help they could. And when it was learned Shuri had been training in her village militia, it was arranged to get her proper warrior training along with the guys.

And that will be the team of six.

*****

Diomedes has always wanted to be a Paladin. A hero and champion to make Faerun safe for those who want to live in peace.

18/00 – 18 – 18 – 13 – 16 – 17
LG 1st level Paladin-Cavalier

Diomedes is literally the oldest D&D character I still have a sheet for. I believe I started him in 1978. I played him for a long time, from 1st to 29th level. Which is a much bigger deal in most PnP games than in CRPGs.
In Gold Box, there was no “Paladin” initially so he was created as a Fighter. In the second game I was able to recreate him as a Paladin. There also are no weapon proficiencies and no dual wielding. In IWD he is specialized in Long Sword and Dual Wielding.

Psyche shares similar motives to her husband, to do right and make Faerun a better and safer place. Long ago she renounced her thieving, but as she adventures she will find cause and reason to dust off those skills and use them as needed. So yes, she will be a LG thief.

7 – 18 – 18 – 18 – 14 – 18
LG 4th level Thief/1st level Mage

Psyche is just as literally the second oldest character I have a sheet for. She was created within a few weeks of Diomedes, and quickly became his partner and wife.
In Gold Box there was no Dual-Classing in the first game so Psyche was a single class mage initially. For the second game I recreated her as a thief, dualed to mage. But sadly, she had to remain NG to do that. Sad from an RP perspective, it diminished an interesting quirk of the character.

Garaint is a little more of the dumb jock than his buddy Diomedes. He revels in action and competition. He still wants to do right by everyone, but he’s no deep thinker about it. He will always be steady and faithful to his friends.

18/30 – 16 – 17 – 10 – 9 – 10
NG 1st level Fighter

Garaint is from a short duration sort of PnP game. It was always going be a game of six or so game sessions. Which makes him a character I’ve not dug out for many CRPGs.
In Gold Box there is never much to say other than “Fighter”. For IWD I’ll mention he is specialized in Bastard Sword, and will build that to Grand Mastery as fast as he can. He is a Sword and Board type fighter.

Moya Durbin is a spunky and sassy sort. Her personality may seem at odds with her calling to the clergy. But make no mistake, she is devout and serious in her faith in Lathander.

9 – 16 – 15 – 11 – 18 – 16
LG 1st level Cleric of Lathander

Moya was first created for Seige of Dragonspear, for Psyche and Diomedes’ run through. I noticed when the party scatters early in that game, we had no cleric. She has the quirk of a great disparity between her appearence and her reality. She is *Human* thoroughly. No Infravision, no funny sleeping habits, she’s only 22 years old. And she’s never been to Kara-Tur, nor have her parents. She has green eyes just like her daddy!

Harg is a quieter sort than most of his companions. But he is driven by the same sort of desire to protect. He is from a more rural upbringing than the others, which will provide some help in the adventure ahead.

13 – 18 – 17 – 10 – 11 – 13
NG 1st level Ranger-Archer

Harg is another character who goes way back into PnP days. He was first created as a Barbarian, with a completely unofficial *class* in a 1E game. That game was ended well before 2E came along, although at some point I did redo his sheet for 2E as a Fighter with the Wilderness Warrior kit (sort of a low-rent Ranger). But the thing is, the whole time, he was always an archer first and foremost. Regardless of the names and titles he used. So it seems fitting to recreate him as a Ranger-Archer. And don’t think of him as “weak”, he is short and fit. He is also a Short Bow specialist and relies on Quarter Staff for melee.

Shuri was from a small, remote village. She would register as a Southerner and a foreigner to most people around Neverwinter. After a year in the area she speaks local common passably. She is very tight with her new friends, practically we could say they are her new tribe. Especially Psyche, who has bonded with the young woman over her brush with slavery.

15 – 17 – 16 – 11 – 15 – 15
LG 1st level Fighter

Shuri is from my own PnP game, one of the later original characters I ever designed for it. She was an NPC from an adventure into an Ancient Egyptian setting. She was an orphaned young woman taken in by the adventuring party.
A thing worth mentioning here is that historically a spear is a *one-handed* weapon used with shield. Seriously, this is how most ancient armies fought. So in PnP I had her using a shield and specialized in spear. She was *very tanky*. Didn’t really hit so hard, but a good armor class and lots of hit points. We loose some of that in IWD, because she can’t use a shield. We’ll call that a vague reflection of having learned an obsolete weapon (just that she won’t be as effective as she could be). Further, I have her started with specilization in spear, proficient in quarter staff and two-handed weapon style. In theory, she would continued to Grand Mastery in Spear as a priority. But in IWD? I think it will depend on what weapon she is currently using (she is more likely to find a good quarter staff than a spear I think?).

*****

Diomedes and his friends were all approaching completion of their training within a few weeks of each other. They started looking out for, and asking around about any opportunities to try their newly formed skills.
But more importantly, they started planning a grand party. A graduation bash of sorts to celebrate their entry into adulthood. Then Diomedes and Psyche got to talking, they decided they had something even more important they wanted to celebrate with their friends.

The party was barely over when one of the clerics at the Temple of Lathander summoned Diomedes and his friends to a meeting. He had a vision, in a dream. A devout and stout warrior from far off Easthaven, in the ten towns of Icewind Dale, would soon be summoning heros to deal with an ancient evil. Hrothgar did not even know this himself yet. But the cleric’s vision was clear, Diomedes and his friends were called to Icewind Dale.

The journey took a few weeks. And finally mountains, the Spine of the World Mountains had to be crossed!

Well, everything but the coin purse. And thankfully, it was just stuff. But ALL their stuff except what was on their backs.

*****

A couple comments about the build. This is mostly as it has been with Tweaks Anthology providing a lot of little things, mostly convienence oriented. SCS is at Improved. I have several Lava adventure mods installed, including the newest “The War of Bloom and Rot”. That last is apparently the biggest of the bunch, and is the only one I’ve not played.

My instinct is that this is a strong party. No Undead Hunters this time! But I still think this is a strong crew.

Update 1

We entered the small frozen town and discussed where to head, it seemed a rustic tavern had some activity. It might be a good place to get some information and see where we could find this “Hrothgar.”

Hrothgar affirmed we was putting together a band of heroes for an expedition. He invited us to drop by his home a little later to talk more in depth about it. The villagers were friendly, and we met a dwarven warrior who was also here to join the expedition of heroes. Aparently a messenger from the (not so) nearby village of Kuldahar had delivered a message a few days ago that help was needed. The messenger died of exhaustion after delivering word. This had obviously generated some buzz and excitement.

There was a general goods store nearby, and we knew we needed some new gear. So that was our next order of business.

On entry, we saw the shop keeper was a severe looking southerner. Psyche suggested Shuri might want to talk with a fellow southerner. She groaned and said she didn’t think *HE* would see it that way!

After our business was complete, we had new weapons and armor to replace what we’d lost. Shuri said to Psyche “You know there is more than one nation to the south! And it wouldn’t have mattered, I’m pretty sure he thought he was better than any of us.”

The best armor in town was scale mail, definitely not the quality of what we’d lost. But it was better than being unarmored. We headed over towards an inn, and saw a young boy in a panic over a basket of fish some goblins had stolen from him, we pointed towards, well we could see the goblins making off.

I’d say this was our first fight. I’m not really sure if a small band of goblins counts as a real fight, but these guys could have seriously hurt some of the townspeople. We returned the boy’s fish.

We got our room at the inn, after stashing some of what we’d just bought we set out for Hrothgar’s place. Along the way, we encountered a fisherman who seemed lost in daydreams. After we got his attention we found he’d been having dreams of a beautiful singing lady. Garaint found this amusing (“well, who hasn’t!”). Psyche looked over the large lake that provided this town’s livelyhood, and suggested that could be something interesting. We should take a look along the shore.

We played go between, and got the broken remains of a fine old sword back to Jhonen. We had a few other little side adventures in town, but finally made our way to Hrothgar’s home. We learned a little more. The arch-Druid of Kuldahar had sent the request for help. He was a friend of Hrothgar’s and not a man prone to needless panic. But nothing more was really known about the nature of the trouble.
Heroes and adventurers were still gathering for the expedition, that was planned to depart in two days. Hrothgar asked us to look into an overdue supply wagon. He showed us the route it *should* have followed into town.

We set off to find the wagon the next morning. We found it not too far outside of town, smashed near a mountainside cave. An orc was still pilfering gear from the wagon, when he saw us he ran off towards the cave.
We followed, but not too rashly. Anything could be in there.

This really led to the toughest fighting we’d seen yet.

This was a pretty large cave complex, and we explored through several connected cave chambers. We fought a few more orcs and another cleric.

He had a number of other orcs with him, this demanded everything we had left in us. We prevailed. At least we’ll have a little real world experience now before we head off on the expedition tomorrow.

We trekked back to Easthaven, and nursed our wounds at the inn.

As magic weapons go this was a pretty low power item. And sadly, none of us primarily use a dagger. But we’ll hang on to it for now. Psyche is at least trained in small blades, and you never know when such a thing might be needed.

Tomorrow, we join the small expedition marching out.

*****

After the several little quests in Easthaven, and the bigger adventure in the orc caves, Most of the team is now 2nd level. Moya is already 3rd. That makes them all far more capable.