Category: D&D

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the conclusion of the sixth heist, Masterpiece Imbrogli. The party captures Elix the Saint, steals his key, battles some marauding Hill Giants seeking Bigby, and raids the Agile Hand thieves’ guild. It was a relatively flat and fast encounter, defeating Guildmaster Dusk and recovering the Constantori’s Portrait.

Days in a Haze with a Blaze (Rouge played by Travis) is based on Calendar Man.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault. Lining the Pocket the Lion (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.
Ra’s al Ghul. (Wizard Necromancer played by Cody) is just a broken build controlling 12 skeleton warrior in the League of Shadows
Shame (Fighter gunslinger played by Richard) is based on some cowboy villain from the TV show.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Two Moon Spoiled Custard (Elf Fighter played by Henry) is the Joker’s step brother who watches a lot of YouTube with excellent vision.

Another fun week of D&D at Alakazam. It was pumpkin spice latte week and DM Richard delivered!

We finished Tockworth’s Clockwork and started Masterpiece Imbrogli. Another great heist.

The maps in particular are just amazing.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the conclusion of the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockwork, and the start of the sixth heist, Masterpiece Imbrogli. The party defeats Trixie, disables the clockwork automata, and escapes the city. They are approached by a sphinx and sent on their next mission to recover a stolen painting from the Agile Hand thieves’ guild.

Days in a Haze with a Blaze (Rouge played by Travis) is based on Calendar Man.
Lining the Pocket the Lion (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.
Sitting Horse (Fighter played by Nicholas) is a bow legged pike wielding penguin follower.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Two Moon Spoiled Custard (Elf Fighter played by Henry) is the Joker’s step brother who watches a lot of YouTube with excellent vision.

DMing this session is awesome–lots of space for role play.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockwork. The party enters the workshop, searching for the fail-safe. Attacked by armor and a crown of madness magic circle. They find safe, abyssal papers and summon Trixie to a final showdown.

Days in a Haze with a Blaze (Rouge played by Travis) is based on Calendar Man.
Lining the Pocket the Lion (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.
Sitting Horse (Fighter played by Nicholas) is a bow legged pike wielding penguin follower.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.

My players have the absolute worst mini’s ever.

I started using the Field Notes DM Notebook and I have a LOT of thoughts! There is no space for initiative or combat tracking–which is likely the single most important thing. There is no great section for quotes. The player section is not “large and flexible enough”–overall it is just a mess and not that useful so far.

Expect more updates on this, but so far my thinking is that index cards are still the best way to go for D&D note taking.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockwork. The party continues to explore the svirfneblin city of Little Lockworth. The party battles across the bridge into Smoldertown, takes a rest in a tavern where the first encounter Trixie and then head to her workshop where a shield guardian prevents their access.

Deacon Dupree (Rogue played by Rock) is based on Brother Dupree. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Days in a Haze with a Blaze (Rouge played by Travis) is based on Calendar Man.
Honey Bunches of O’s (Paladin played by Taylor) is four years old and working with Penguin yakuza version.
Lining the Pocket the Lion (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockwork. The party enters the evacuated city of Little Lockworth, rescues the Abbot, repairs the Power Station, explores the prison (the scene of a grisly murder), and is attacked while crossing the bridge into Smoldertown.

The location for this one is awesome–anytime we go to the Underdark I am excited.

Carolus Rex the Eyeless (Paladin played by Adam) is based on Scarecrow. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Days in a Haze with a Blaze (Rouge played by Travis) is based on Calendar Man.
Honey Bunches of O’s (Paladin played by Taylor) is four years old and working with Penguin yakuza version.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Lining the Pocket the Lion (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.
Siddam of the Sands (Fighter played by Owen) is a member of the Court of Owls.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Two Moon Spoiled Custard (Elf Fighter played by Henry) is the Joker’s step brother who watches a lot of YouTube with excellent vision.

Another amazing map provide with the adventure–one thing this map does is provide adventure hooks that the players can use to enrich the exploration.

10 players at the table is a lot, but I think that in general it went well.

I really love that each adventure has its own image–a very cool feature of this campaign.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockwork. The party explores the Underdark, finds a mushroom farm, battles black pudding, and arrives at the barricades outside the gnome city.

Carolus Rex the Eyeless (Paladin played by Adam) is based on Scarecrow. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Trixie (Wizard played by Dylan) is a chromatic orb casting, fire breathing familiar member of the Golden Vault.

I still have the best dice in D&D.

Table is crowded and we keep inviting more players to the game–Rock was back from Vermont, New York, and Canada. Dylan returned from Australia.

My table has the WORST minis. Ever. It is like they are not even trying!

Not much from this weeks DM Notebook.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fifth heist, Tockworth’s Clockworks. However, before we get to that The Feline Five defends the Azorius Senate ramparts from a strange Goblin Clockwork army–with sentient ladders! After which they receive their briefing (and reward from the last heist), head into the Golgari sewers, and travel to the Underdark.

Carolus Rex the Eyeless (Paladin played by Adam) is based on Scarecrow. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Ice Cube (Rogue played by Josh) is Mr Frosts henchmen. New to the Golden Vault, he meet the party while trying to sell ice on Ravnica.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.

I let the players run the Goblins, which was fun.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fourth heist, Prisoner 13. The party tours the prison with the warden, loots the warden’s office, serves the prisoners’ dinner, and escapes with the key. I think this is the first heist they have completed without combat.

Carolus Rex the Eyeless (Paladin played by Adam) is based on Scarecrow. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.

Prisoner 13 is off to a fantastic start! Before we dive into the adventure a quick review of the ongoing and amazing art for this entire product–the stuff on Revel’s End is amazing.

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the fourth heist, Prisoner 13. After increasing their renown on Ravnica, we head into the briefing phase, moving quickly to planning! The adventurers head back to the Forgotten Realms to retrieve a key from a dwarven prison who locked up the dwarven Clan Axebreaker hoard in an impenetrable vault. Revel’s End was used in the D&D movie and most players are familiar with this classic Forgotten Realm northern location.

We created Golden Vault renown levels–Fools (0-3), Filled (4-7), Plated (8-12), 18K (13-20), 24K (21-25). I will post these to reddit. I also encouraged players to create their own renown for the factions that they are in.

Carolus Rex the Eyeless (Paladin played by Adam) is based on Scarecrow. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Deacon Dupree (Rogue played by Rock) is based on Brother Dupree. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Julie Newman (Ranger played by Lance) is Ra’s al Ghul. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Snow on the Mountain (Fighter played by Lewis) is mentored by Two-Face. Plated member of the Golden Vault.
Swallow the River (Cleric played by Brian) is a follower of Zoltec the Crocodile god of death from Chult. Filled member of the Golden Vault.
Top Card (Rogue played by Glenn) is Cat Women without the slapstick. Filled member of the Golden Vault.

Was another role play heavy session in which I felt rushed and I am not sure I included all the players very well–it is a big table!

Keys From The Golden Vault, live from Alakazam Comics in Irvine, CA, continues this week with the third heist, Reach for the Stars. The party descends into the basement and battles Markos Davros.

They retrieve the book and scramble out of the mansion. Success! I ran this as a hack and slack crawl, since the last two heists were really focused on party building and roll play.

The art for Marcos Davros and the Codex of the Stars is excellent. The Shard of Krokulmar is good, but not perfect–the gibbering mouther should be larger and more horrible.

We used absolutely fantastic mini’s at the table–the Skull is Markos, the D12’s are additional dead bodies (the original adventurer bodies which were supposed to be in another room).