DavesGaming

Brademante has always known she was adopted by Gorion, and she’s always known she was well loved. As he says, he *chose* to adopt her. And since it was just the two of them as family, they’ve always been very close.  In Candlekeep, the Great Library, many of the monks were like extended family. Even some regular visitors became well known to her, Brademante has always felt loved and valued by those in her orbit.
Except, there were a number of monks who were more icy towards her. She never quite understood. But a small number, who have always been around her, are still almost strangers to her after her whole lifetime. Strange?

And Gorion was a loving parent. He taught her the importance of treating others with kindness and courtesy. He taught “doing the right thing” even if it was hard, or required some sacrifice. And Brademante embraced this as her own credo.
Even when it led to some surprising life choices. Gorion had hoped she would become a mage like him. And she tried, she really did. But from a fairly young age it was clear she could not wrap her mind around some of the concepts. Not so much the easy stuff, she could get the magical ABCs things. But magical physics were another matter. She was more comfortable with morality, being an encouragement to others and even metaphysics. Which led to some expectation she would be a cleric. Gorion could understand that.

Years ago, a big event for young Brademante occurred at age 5. That’s when a new family arrived in Candlekeep. An old friend of Gorion’s, Winthrop, bought the Candlekeep Inn. He brought his adopted children, Imoen and Amyntor. Brademante was thrilled to have other kids to play with. She and Imoen teased each other, and played all around the Keep, even sneaking in where they didn’t belong sometimes! But once they were caught, Brademante was shamed by being grounded. Do you know what it is to be grounded when you already live INSIDE Candlekeep!? Oof. She loved Imoen, but she was a wild one! 

Amyntor was Imoen’s older brother. Not by much, they were all within a couple years of each other. And Amyntor and Imoen weren’t really brother and sister. He was the son of some other friends of Gorion and Winthrop. His parents had died while he was very young and Winthrop adopted him, about the same time he adopted an abandoned infant, Imoen. So they all three had that in common. But Brademante felt something different and special with Amyntor. They became much closer as they grew older. And they both dreamed of helping make Faerun right and safe. It seemed every new visitor to the Keep and Inn brought stories of scary and dangerous things in the outside world. Brademante and Amyntor talked of how they’d love to set things right. To make it so people didn’t have to be afraid.

By their mid-teens Brademante and Amyntor had hatched a plan to be Paladins together. They would be the great heroes people seemed to need! What could go wrong with such a well considered plan? 
Well, apart from mentioning they were both pretty small. At 18 Amyntor was full grown at 5’5”. And he was a fair bit bigger and stronger than Brademante.  They were both slim and graceful types. Generally athletic, but not prototypical warriors!

They were fit and strong for their size, and they were able to qualify for Paladin training, both of them. They threw themselves into it with a passion. They pushed and challenged each other. They did not finish in record time or anything, but they both plainly passed all their training and their lessons.  Gorion always tried to be supportive, although truly his daughter becoming a warrior had shocked him.

This all wouldn’t be complete without emphasizing how close the three children of Candlekeep were. Amyntor and Imoen were truly brother and sister. Brademante loved Imoen as her impish little sister.  Brademante and Amyntor loved each other in a different way.  By the time they started training together Brademante and Amyntor knew when they started their adventure together they would be husband and wife.
When she mentioned this to Gorion he grew thoughtful. He said “let’s be sure you really know all about each other first.”  But he wouldn’t be more helpful about what *that* meant. He had just recently told Brademante he was pleased with what a good pair she and Amyntor were. But there were some things they would need to talk about before they made things “official”.

Then things got kind of nuts. There were several strangers visiting Candlekeep, who were apparently asking questions about Brademante! Seriously! How did anyone even care about the little girl who grew up in the library!  Then Gorion said they would have to leave Candlekeep, today!  With her head spinning, Brademante ran off to gather supplies for a journey. Armor, weapons, what else? She had just finished her training, she should be ready for this! She told Amyntor and Imoen so they should follow along.

*****

Brademante and Amyntor are another pair of characters from my old PnP folders. They were created for a game I played in College. Actually, it was the first game I played in apart from my old gaming buddies I’d known through High School.  As it turned out, I really didn’t like the DM. So I only played for about a month, before I found a DM and players more my speed.  Which left these two at 3^rd level “forever”!
As you’ll see, they are really nothing special. I used them once as part of a Gold Box team, but neither has a strength bonus so they are really marginal in those games. And I *think* that’s the only time I’ve used them since what, 1981? It has been a while…

Brademante

Human Female LG      unkitted Paladin
12 – 16 – 13 – 14 – 14 – 18
short sword specialist, flail, weapon and shield style

Amyntor

Human Male LG     unkitted Paladin
13 – 17 – 15 – 12 – 16 – 17
long sword specialist, two-weapon style specialist

Both characters only ever adventured in 1E, as such they will be unkitted. But, I will take advantage of weapon specialization!
Neither character will be a mighty warrior, until they amass some levels and better gear. I figure they are about equally tanky (or NOT tanky!). Brademante, as Gorion’s Ward and having the better charisma will be on point.  I expect having few native bonuses, but slightly different fighting styles they will vary over the course of the game who is more effective.

Their names are from when I was on a big mythology thing. Amyntor is among the Greek kings who sailed for Troy.  I don’t recall his adventures, I’m sure I could search the Iliad and find him…
Brademante is maybe better known? In Carolingian mythology she was the “White Knight”. The only woman Paladin whose signature look involved a white shield and helmet plume (I find white a little boring, this won’t be her game look!). She has a different fate in different tales. She was either killed with most of the other Paladins at the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778 AD. Or she had left the team to marry Ruggiero (Roger) and raise kids…  (such is the way of mythology, every tragedy has a “not tragedy” version. Of course the tragedies usually became the operas or epic poems).

Update 1

Bonus update! The first part of the story unfolds.

*****

The small party traveled several hours from Candlekeep. Gorion had told Brademante they were heading for the Friendly Arm Inn. Brademante knew of this place, it was a small castle converted to an inn. About a day’s travel from Candlekeep, the majority of travelers to The Great Library had come by way of the Friendly Arm Inn.
Further, Gorion told her they would meet with two old friends of his at the inn, Khalid and Jaheira. Brademante did not know these names.

Brademante was still stewing over why this sudden flight, what was Gorion worried about? And did this relate to why she had literally spent her entire life at Candlekeep and never traveled at all before?
It also seemed a little odd that Gorion did not seem entirely pleased that Amyntor and Imoen had followed along. Did he seriously think she ever would have left without her friend and her future? No, he presumably knew that. That’s why he was only a little unhappy and had resisted saying anything.

As she pondered, Gorion had taken them clear of the road and they were now walking through thin woodlands.

“Quickly child, go back to your friends and get to the Friendly Arm Inn”
Brademante obeyed without question. She heard a booming voice command that “I only want your ward” and something stuck hard in her shoulder as she ran. Why would anyone want her?

She heard a couple of explosions behind her, and she soon ran headlong into Amyntor and Imoen. She was in a panic for a moment, not thinking straight. Her friends helped her to calm down, and she related what happened. What little she had seen. They heard another loud noise in the distance. Gorion was using powerful magic like they’d never seen before. They checked Brademante’s shoulder, it was not a deep wound. They decided to make their way back and help Gorion, but everything was quiet now. Imoen was very worried if someone was hunting them. So they moved back that way carefully, looking as best they knew how to avoid an ambush.
Brademante was encouraged by her friends. Amyntor’s steady confidence, and Imoen’s cautious alertness disquised by her bold bravado.

Retracing her steps took far longer than she had expected, they had all gotten more spread out than she would have guessed. But she could see that clearing ahead.

In time, Brademante was able to think at what was here. And she noted the large warrior was no where to be seen. Brademante looked through Gorion’s things, she found a letter advising him to leave Candlekeep promptly. And the writer seemed concerned that the one entrusted to Gorion had perhaps been too sheltered. (Obviously herself?) The writer also suggested Gorion should meet up their old friends Khalid and Jaheiera at the Friendly Arm Inn. It was signed “E”.
Helpful and mysterious all at once. At least the first course of action seemed obvious, off to the Inn.
Imoen suggested they should move out.

I’ve read such beasts rarely attack humans? Maybe it knew we were all young and dumb. No other wolves turned up, just the one. But it was a tough fight for us. It was quick and strong! It bit Amyntor very painfully. After we killed it we both exhausted our “Lay on Hands” restoring his wounds. But we can only do that once a day.

Not too much further on, the path was becoming wider and was cobbled. We met a traveler heading the other way. I struggled to remember if there were any particular courtesies for encountering someone who might be someone you’ve heard of?

The gentleman gave us directions and distance to the Friendly Arm Inn. Of course there was a marker right near the road with the same information. But I think I got directions from Elminster? Funny he didn’t give a name. But he spoke in a kind tone that was strangely calming, I felt better for the exchange.

And we were getting close to the Inn now, just a couple hours left.

The guards were friendly, just reminded us of the rule, keep your fights outside.

As we approached the entrance to the old keep, a mage in green was coming the other way. I detected evil in abundance!

He started casting a spell and we attacked to disrupt his casting. Two guards jumped in alongside us to help. And soon we all had him down. On searching his body we found a bounty notice, a reward was offered for me! By name. Obviously this wasn’t going away.

Feeling a little shaky now, I led us up the stairs into the Inn.

There was a large and busy common room filling the first floor. We saw the innkeeper had a counter, a desk across the room and we started heading that way.

“Yes?”
“Gorion is not with you? I can only assume this is not good.”

We had met Khalid and Jaheira. I felt a certain relief. Although casual conversation revealed these old friends of my father’s were off on their own first adventure. They were husband and wife, and were obviously a little older than us. Being elves, they were likely a lot older. But they were not quite what I was expecting.

We had a seat together. That was a relief and I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion. We talked a little about Gorion, and they mourned with us. We shared what all we knew and they were very concerned. They said they had received a message through friends to head here and meet with us. But there was no grand plan beyond that. They were concerned at anyone who could have slain Gorion. They must be very powerful, beyond the abilities of any of us to face. Which is certainly why Gorion sent me away when he saw them. I felt a little guilt drop away as Jaheira spoke, I could not have helped my father. I wolf almost killed the three of us!
Amyntor suggested we should stick together. Obviously five would be much stronger than three.
Jaheira agreed and said she was Druid, she could provide whatever healing we might need.
I mentioned Gorion had taught me a team always needs a mage of some sort too, we were currently short on that count. But this was a good start.
Jaheira said they had been investigating an “iron crisis”. Much recently forged metal was proving brittle. We should all carry extra weapons on that account. And they were heading south to Nashkel. A small town just over the border with Amn. But there was an iron mine there that had been producing much of the corrupt output. They meant to look into that. It might be good for us to head away from here for a while, and spend some time training and working together.
That sounded like an excellent plan to me.

The next day we set out to the south.

I hate to hope for trouble. But we need to gain some experience together before we end up in a big fight.

*****

We’ll call this the first version of the team. Obviously still missing a mage. This is an interesting crew, none of these characters are *bad*. But its not an extremely strong crew either.
Khalid and Jaheira are tied for the best physical strength, both have a 15. So not a Strength bonus in sight!
Yet every single character has a Dexterity bonus. Imoen is tops with an 18, Brademante and Khalid both have 16s. They are the *least* agile, so this is a quick sort of team.
For intelligence, Imoen is significantly the smart one with a 17. Of course she’s a little rash and cocky.
The wisest team member is Amyntor with a 16. Although Brademante and Jaheira would both qualify as wise.
Brademante leads for charm. With an 18 charisma she will take the lead in every plot or business related talk. Being Gorion’s Ward, this is also convenient from a story perspective.
It seems funny to have a crew of five with a total of *two* 18s; Imoen’s dexterity and Brademante’s charisma. On the other hand, Imoen’s Strength and Khalid’s Charisma are 9, the only scores below 10. So this is a very above average team, just not with optimal scores.

I will be making a few changes ahead, although I think four of these characters are here to the end.

Update 2

I’d been taught adventurer’s have to “look for” a certain amount of trouble. Not that fighting is ever a good thing, and it comes with a certain degree of risk. But to be effective, you need to learn. To improve your own fighting skills and the team-work within your crew. We were all on the same page about not causing any undue harm, no bullying anyone, no stealing or robbing. Some of this is what I was taught just as a paladin, we’re there to provide aid. To step into the breach where others fear to go. Amyntor and I had talked all through this, we need to take on some risk to do good and right.
Still, setting out on the road to the south felt like another big step for us. This sure wasn’t the way we ever expected to set out into the World. But we trained for this, and now the time had been chosen for us.
We had heard a couple of things as we set out towards Nashkel. First, there was ogre just south of the Inn, east of the road. He had been robbing people and stealing their belts. Odd. I felt butterflies in my stomach as we came to the crossroad, west back to Candlekeep… or south. We turned south. Then started exploring a little east of the road.

Of course I wasn’t really alone.

As soon as she ran past us she twisted around and fired an arrow towards the ogre. Dang! Immy is quick!
The rest of us formed a line of sorts to give the ogre an impossible choice on who to attack. Amyntor and Khalid went straight at him, while Jaheira and I closed from opposite flanks. I gave a shout and made my hardest slash at the monster. Has my sword always been so short?
By now we had all closed to striking range. Of course I kept an eye on the ogre’s huge spiked club, pretty sure he would crunch any of us who got struck.

All things considered he actually went down pretty quickly. We laughed a little. I think all of us were just happy to be alive at the moment. We’ve seen a few clashes now. Starting with the wolf. Then a couple hobgoblins near the Inn. And of course that nasty mage. This was plainly our biggest fight yet. It felt like a big win. We had taken down a bully and a robber who’d been preying on travelers heading south.

Not too much further we saw a small ruined caravan. A couple of overturned wagons, one burning still. Dead horses. And dead travelers.
We spread out to approach, Imoen holding back with an arrow nocked, looking for movement where there shouldn’t be any.

She moved to attack us while shouting to a couple of men in hiding to shoot us. Amyntor and Khalid rushed the hidden archers while Imoen shot at what she could see. Jaheira and I fought the bandit leader.
The presence of a couple archers made me a little nervous, but this proved to be an easier fight than the ogre.

This was an eventful first day of travel! We had arrived at Beregost, a small city almost halfway to our destination. It was not quite dusk yet, but we were all a little wired from the day’s excitement and all knew we should stop here for the night.

Well of course! She didn’t mention it was a group led by red wizards! It was actually a hunting group specifically after her.

Funny, we needed a mage anyway. I heard Jaheira groan. Yeah, I remember Gorion talking about the risks of wild magic. He considered it lazy and sloppy. Apparently some, few individuals can learn the tricks of the magic business without really understanding what they’re doing. They can accomplish amazing things. We had just seen Neera cause the leader of that hunting party vanish into thin air. But they can also make the wrong thing explode, or unexpectedly turn themselves into a squirrel.
But for now, Neera is a frightened young woman who we can protect.

We had gathered a few better quality weapons we had picked up during our travel. And Imoen had a bag of gems she’d… huh, wow she had really found a lot of gems?
Combining what we had with what we just sold, we had a couple thousand gold pieces. The most obvious thing we were still lacking was any sort of magic weapons, so we bought a few low powered things. Some arrows and sling bullets with minor enchantment. And a sling and short sword. It made me blush when everyone decided to buy the sword, that’s my weapon of choice. Of course, it was also much cheaper than the long swords Amyntor and Khalid favor. And there wasn’t a magic club for Jaheira. So I guess it was logical.

Now we’re feeling a little broke again.

Stupid, I should have done a Detect Evil on her! Bards, it didn’t occur to me a bard could be evil. She pretty much just wanted us to kill her trading partners and go home with all the loot. We told her she was crazy, we didn’t kill on command! Yeah, so we wound up having to fight an evil bard.

Not too long after this we met a frantic woman, Alanna, saying her neighbor had just turned into slime! The neighbor, Eltoth, was supposed to be giving her a botany lesson. But when she stopped by his home he was just slime.

But as near as we could tell, Eltoth had taken some sort of um, “enhancement” serum. And now he was slime. We had to track down the vender and fetch an antidote. In the end, Eltoth was restored. I’m pretty sure when we left there he wouldn’t be playing around with anymore such things.

At the south edge of town was a run down looking house. A lodger back at the Friendly Arm Inn (Unshy by name) had asked us to stop by her house and clean out a spider infestation she had fled from.

So even after arriving in Beregost our day was interesting. We got a restful night at an inn, and continued south on the road to Nashkel in the morning.

They are bigger than me, but not very skilled. Still, it was a long fight.

We also found remains of their victims, and some stashed loot.

We fought another small group of bandits after. No doubt, this route has been hazardous. That is not considered normal for this area! We’ve learned a lot about our teamwork, and have learned a lot about trusting and depending on each other.

As we entered Nashkel I saw a bundle of something wrapped and partly under a rock. There was a suit of Ankheg Plate Armor!

The guys all agreed since I was the smallest, and on point, I should wear it. I agreed only under the condition if we found a claim on this armor in town I would surrender it promptly. It is beautiful.

We were talking about how best to proceed, when we came across a confused looking warrior.

When he saw us he quickly asked for help. A group of gnolls had taken his witch! (witch?) After affirming she was not a hamster we agreed this sounded dire. Gnolls are not the sort of carnivores that would be expected to keep a captive long.

But now we had some conflicting objectives. Jaheira wanted to get to the mine, Amyntor and I thought the captured woman sounded more pressing. We stopped by an outfitter as we talked.

As we talked, it seemed Neera found all this talk of “who needed the most help” to be tiresome. Apparently she wasn’t so scared anymore, and she decided to head off on her own. I was hoping we had found a mage, but no such luck.
We also decided Khalid would stay here in town poking around about the Iron Mines, while the rest of us headed out west to track down Minsc’s “witch” Dynaheir. The trail took us almost to the Sword Coast!

Well, not so much anymore.

We returned to Nashkel at a more comfortable pace. Dynaheir was in rough shape. We learned she and Minsc were foreigners, well actually, any conversation revealed that. But she was a Wychlaran, which (!) she and Minsc had decided best translated as “witch”. But she was a mage, and he was her bodyguard. She was exploring and learning Faerun.

We asked them to accompany us, and they agreed! We had a mage.

*****

So here is the team now.

I think Khalid is essentially administrative personel. He’ll be following the crew along maintaining base camp for us. Neera, well she’s a friend. But a flake. We know we’ll cross paths again!

This will be the final form of the team through BG. I will miss having a real cleric, we’ll fix that by SoD.

Update 3

In the morning we set out to explore the area and head towards the mine. There was a carnival visiting just east of town so we made that our first stop.

I’m not sure how much threat they actually posed? But certainly an unarmed villager, or a family with kids could be at serious risk. Its dangerous to have such pests close to a gathering of people.
All told we found maybe 20 kobolds in three different groups. We cleared out the ones we could find.
The carnival itself was a fun diversion. Many venders and good food. A large gambling tent for those inclined.

There was much fun nonsense around. Playwrights, poets and artists showing their wares. They were set up for a grand joust too, but we missed it.

From here we traveled south southwest to the mines, still reconoitering the environs.

Minsc was right beside her, Imoen quickly regained her footing and we were all on the beast. Seemed a shame to have to kill such beautiful animal. But I think this has to have been the most dangerous creature we’ve seen yet, certainly the biggest and baddest wolf!

Jaheira recognized the name as being an elven queen with a forest realm to the south. The poor artist was smitten, obsessed and near collapse. Then a bounty hunter showed up to take Prism. We tried to talk patience, at least let the man finish his grand masterpiece! So we came to blows with a thug. For his trouble, we gained a fine long sword for Amyntor.

We finally found ourselves at the entrance to the Nashkell mine.

We meant to look in to both of these things. He happily agreed to letting us in.

They had wild rumors of everything from ghosts, to dragons infesting these caves. One said he’d seen “yipping demons”. Kobolds, that would fit.

We also found several of them had some sort of yellow liquid in glass vials. Was this the contaminent?

The third level down was getting a lot rougher. It looked as though the mines had broken into a sort of natural cave system. There were more kobolds, plus a Ghoul and a couple of large spiders.

I barely got my shield up in time! We defeated the ambush but all of our warriors were injured. We took a few minutes patching our hurts. It might be worth mentioning here I had an odd dream last night, that I could heal more with my touch. Like an extra use of my “Lay on Hands” power that I trained long and hard to learn. Amyntor does not have a similar “bonus”. The imagery of the dream seemed dark somehow. Very strange.
But we exhausted most of our healing before continuing. We still have some potions of healing, so we decided to continue on. Deeper.

We crossed an underground river and came to a sort of furnished area of the cave. And it was not empty.

Apparently he works for someone named “Tazok”, a name we’ve not encountered before.
It soon became clear this would end in blows. I was forced to melee with Mulahey while Dyna and Imoen backed me up with missile fire.

We actually slew the big guy pretty quickly and all of us cleared the caves soon after.

We had learned much interesting. The “iron crisis” and a general increase in local bandit activity are not coincidental. Mulahey was getting his orders from Tazok, a bandit chieftain operating somewhere north of here. And his go-between was a mage named Tranzig who had a room at Feldpost’s Inn, back in Beregost. Obviously this would demand our attention.
But first thing, we returned to Nashkel to let the Mayor know what all we had learned. He did not know what to do about the contaminent we had found. But he suggested Taerom Fuiruim, the blacksmith back in Beregost might have some thoughts. It seems all paths lead to Beregost.

On our way up towards the Nashkel Inn a man dressed in dark clothes moved towards us. He boasted he was the bounty hunter who would collect on me!

Fortunately Dyna just learned that one, so I’d at least talked with her about it. All things considered I think it was a poor tactical choice. Dyna cast Magic Missile, Imoen started firing arrows, several of the local guards fired their own arrows towards the foolish mage who had initiated hostilities in their town (!) and four of us rushed at the man! What a dope.
All of the attacks at him made it plain which of the images was actually “him” and we settled things quickly.

After a good night’s sleep we set out for Beregost in the morning. First order of business was to visit the blacksmith.

Then we walked over the Feldpost’s Inn.

One mage against a team of six is bad odds. Err, well, I don’t mean to get cocky. I know there are powerful mages who could handle all of us. We just had another brief encounter with Elminster. He is genial and friendly, and a living reminder we are not the top of the food chain.
On his body, Tranzig had a map indicating the location of Tazok’s bandit camp.

We spent the night at Feldpost’s Inn, and talked over how to proceed.

*****

Brademante is right not to get a swelled head! Minsc and Dyna just gained 3rd level during the period of this write-up. Jaheira is still 2nd level. The team has grown a great deal, but is far from “powerful”!

I tried a couple of new things with renders here. For one, I wanted to show a proper (Balearic) sling! It is funny to me how even in D&D it is sometimes depicted as a slingshot (like the D&D movie “Honor Among Thieves”). The ancient weapon “sling” is a bit different (and far more dangerous). Watch the first season of the Amazon series “House of David”, a sling as it ought to be!
But how to render? I thought of finding images on-line, to add to a render of Dyna (my only sling user). The problem still is, a sling has little distinctive “structure” to it. It is just a couple straps of leather with pouch or patch for the bullet. But the depiction of Dyna launching a bullet right at the viewer is the best result I could get. Maybe some future effort (or a smarter AI!) will yield a better result.

My second new thing was “Mirror Image”. That was fun! It actually came out quite easily. I used GPT Image (as I did for all renders here) and then said he had cast Mirror Image (which gave him “several identical copies of himself, adjacent”). That came out easier and faster than I expected.