Aster's Ledger

Summary

Pinned down in Cragmaw Castle by Iarno's goblin army and cut off from Shoomit, the party's fight collapsed when Beatrix lost concentration on her Spike Growth, and they made the only play left: strip, surrender, and stall for time by texting Venomfang. The dragon crash-landed into the goblins' newly invented trial, played interested attorney long enough to be handed the prisoners' case, then sold the rescue for double the slaves — 200 within the original deadline — before kicking through the wall to free the naked, manacled adventurers. They fled into the woods under a fog cloud, reunited with Shoomit at the cart, picked their manacles, and set their sights on finding the necromancer Hamun Kost to raise a zombie army. The session closed with a level-up and Glomblax earning inspiration for holding the door.

Key Events

Cragmaw Castle keeps shooting

• The session opened mid-ambush — Shoomit was stranded behind the collapsed ceiling while the party faced the goblin horde, and Sam took over Shoomit's sheet for his absent player. The DM promised "this goblin warrior about to fuck you all up," and the goblin rolled a 20 to hit Beatrix, announcing "a devastating seven piercing damage" — then corrected it to four. The HP bookkeeping chaos drew Sam's protest: "We have a hostile DM."
• Beatrix claimed sovereignty over her own hit points — "I'm responsible for my own HP since I was a wee lad" — then took another 4 damage from a 23-to-hit goblin shot and wailed, "Why are they hitting me? Why are they all hitting me? I pointed Glomblax. Hit him."
• Shoomit absorbed a 12-damage advantage shortbow shot while isolated, and Sam roasted the DM's eagerness to apply damage as wanting "to hold our characters' lives in the palm of your hand... like a child with a bug."
• The goblins kept the pressure and the prayer circle going — "Now you know what we need to do. We must pray harder for vengeance against our enemy. Pray. Pray." One whiff-happy marksman missed Beatrix twice and muttered, "We must pray harder. We must pray harder."
• Beatrix answered with Spike Growth — after debating fog cloud and moonbeam, she dropped a 20-foot-radius spike field (a 2nd-level slot) and refought the old grid argument about whether an AOE radius becomes a square, complete with the misremembered-Ashton story from a past campaign: "It's 30 feet away. What are you talking about. It's a 30 foot radius." A clean square would not draw itself in Foundry.
• Beatrix then chugged a healing potion as a bonus action — 7 HP back, "no longer bloodied, but just barely" — to the table's collective grumble about 2024 potion rules: "Hacks. Wall hacks."
• The spike field claimed its first kill immediately — a hobgoblin decided to "risk it for the biscuit," took 2d4 twice trying to walk out, and was "spiked to death," impaled on the thorns. A comrade cried, "No, brother!" — which Jonas echoed as "Brother."
• Glomblax delivered the session's best kill — still raging, he reckless-attacked a goblin with advantage, rolled a crit, and narrated the greataxe burying itself in the wall with the top half of the goblin stuck to the blade while "his legs just fall over." He capped it with "Hello." and "Is that what you wanted, miss Beatrix?", then closed and held the southern door shut against the goblins massing behind it — the table moment that later earned him inspiration.
• John's Vicious Mockery at Zeond flopped — "Zeond looks at you, and it just shrugs" — and he passed bardic inspiration to Glomblax instead of spending Beatrix's Silvery Barbs.
• The table codified door-cover law on the fly — open door equals half cover, closed equals full cover — prompting Beatrix to verify the party had "Fully covering my balls in honey."
• Zeond made its move — after an air-traffic-control bit about the no-fly zone over the spike pyramid ("Beatrix is fifteen feet tall"), it bit Beatrix on a natural 19. Beatrix burned Silvery Barbs to force a reroll, and the DM rolled a 23, so the bite landed anyway: 5 piercing plus a Constitution save she passed with an 18 (after the DM briefly joked "actually, you automatically fail... No. I'm just kidding."). Sam shot back, "You're trying to fuck me in the ass, Jesse. I know what your game is."
• Then Zeond vanished — "you don't know where it went" — spawning the eternal "where did eBay go" mishearing, and the real tragedy: Beatrix's concentration save on Spike Growth failed. She burned the inspiration John had handed over, rerolled, and failed again. "The spikes flatten down... They turn into a nice gentle grass instead." Sam lost it Gilbert-Gottfried-style — "We have to fight 73 goblins" — and the DM marveled, "Sam has turned into Gilbert Godfrey."
• The horde kept coming and mostly whiffing — two-attack goblins missed over and over, drawing the rule-literate protest "Why do they have two attacks?" The DM would only say one was "not a normal goblin"; Sam dubbed it "a mind goblin," and the DM agreed: "He's a beautiful mind goblin."
• John ate the session's biggest hit — a 15-to-hit longbow shot for 14 total (5 piercing plus 9 poison), declaring "Oh, I'm bloodied. Oh. Oh. Ouch." while the "my HP total" bit took off around the table.
• Iarno cast a spell at Shoomit — Shoomit passed the Wisdom save, and the wizard tipped his hat: "Damn. Nice work." — before slipping back into cover.
• The southern drawl arrived in-character — a voice called out "have you had enough yet, my friends?" and Beatrix immediately asked whether her "dragon boyfriend" could swoop in and cook everyone alive. The DM told her to text him; she sent "oh my god. Help. We're gonna die. Please come save me", and Venomfang's replies were "tits?" and "I've been dying to see you too."
• With the action economy crushing them, the party sent Shoomit running — Beatrix shouted, "Save yourself. Save yourself, Shoomit... and come back for us," then amended it to "Save yourself and then save me." Shoomit disengaged, dashed 60 feet, and fled toward the cart with Bone flying escort.
• Amid the goblin flood, the table's tactical discourse sagged — Rob proposed "We might need to run, boys," Sam announced "I'm thinking Arby's," and the crew began planning their next D&D characters (Patrick Bet David for Sam, "Benjamin Nettle Yahoo" for Rob).

"I'm too pretty to die" — the surrender

• Beatrix declared combat unwinnable and offered terms — "Wizard guy, we're... I think we're ready to talk. We'll put down our weapons." First she hid her sending stone "somewhere on my body outside of my normal items and holdings."
• Iarno found the surrender amusing — "What's that now? Now the hunter have become the hunted. Is that what I'm hearing?" Beatrix's plea was simple: "I don't wanna die. I'm too pretty."
• The party's value proposition was thin — Beatrix offered "John plays the guitar really well" ("He's got the lived experience, which makes a true artist"), but Iarno countered that he could simply conjure a guitarist.
• Iarno brought up dead allies — "From what I hear, Gral has, unfortunately passed on." Beatrix deadpanned, "It was like that when we found it," then muttered about hating "that fucking Kwanzaa" (Zeond).
• John tried the misunderstanding gambit — "Don't you just let us go? We can call this whole thing a misunderstanding." Iarno reminded them they'd "viciously massacred my Redbrands" in their own hideout.
• John pinned the Redbrand massacre on the necromancer — describing a red-cloaked wizard type. Beatrix confided she'd been about to name "the vampire guy," but conceded John's version "works too." Iarno professed not to know the fellow, but said "that is a shame."
• They claimed they'd heard an explosion and walked in — Glomblax hid his blood-dripping axe behind his back and said, "It looked abandoned, so we just walked in." Iarno's retort: "You think it's appropriate to violate property rights?" John: "We just pick a straight line and keep walking till we find one. It always works."
• The map denial was a team effort — "We didn't see nothing. We didn't hear nothing. We didn't say nothing. We didn't smell nothing. We didn't feel nothing." The DM called for deception rolls and Iarno let it ride: "I must be confusing you for someone else."
• Beatrix tried to filibuster into a legal epic — pitching an "intense and foundational legal case about castle doctrine versus self defense," complete with contacting "our representatives" and "court proceedings for perhaps decades." Iarno consulted a goblin named Lupo and announced two options: "a court case... a jury of our peers... or... getting sacrificed upon the altar. We don't have to sacrifice all of you, but perhaps the scrawniest of you."
• John's atheism was volunteered for sacrifice — "All the gods that have tangible effects and actually do stuff. Yeah. I don't believe those guys exist." Iarno: "I can make him a believer." John then bargained for a trial and then a sacrifice, which Iarno found "reasonable... he'll be tried by the gods himself."

Intake processing and the naked short rest

• The terms were read aloud — strip, lay down weapons, single file. Beatrix asked to keep her undergarments; John asked to keep his boots and guitar — "surely an instrument is not a weapon of sorts" — and was told "The rules are the rules. The rules, we're just inventing an entirely new trial process in this moment."
• John argued for his guitar on artistic grounds — "prison is just the best place to make music" — but it had to be inspected and processed with the rest of the gear.
• John was processed first — "Naked is the day he was born," he stepped into the pale light, let a goblin manacle him, refused to sit on the altar ("I'm not sitting on the altar." — he took the floor), and Beatrix added, "You wouldn't want me to desecrate your altar with my bare ass cheeks now, would you?" Sam also cracked that Shoomit would come "smashes through the wall, the killdozer."
• Glomblax objected to stripping — "I've never been much of a rule follower myself, so I don't really wanna." Lupo sized him up: "He looks chunky enough. We could sacrifice him on the altar. No problem."
• Glomblax demanded charges and representation — and got the full list from a document Lupo fetched: trespassing, murder, manslaughter, desecration of a holy vessel, mistreatment of creatures, aberration creation, destruction of property, and "running away from an officer of the court."
• Glomblax tried to smuggle a knife — "The handle's just poking out like a little butt plug" — and asked the guards to turn around. The DM shut it down: "We're gonna pat you down anyway."
• Beatrix stalled Venomfang by text during processing — she sent a photo of "John's naked ass sitting on the altar" captioned "they're gonna sacrifice us. They're killing us." The dragon replied "oh, for real?" and asked after his slaves, then texted "o m w."
• The DM fast-forwarded the intake — everyone stripped, manacled, and locked in the altar room; the party's gear (including John's guitar) sat behind a locked door, and the goblins fell into a heated argument over "who's going to be the attorney, who was qualified to be on the jury." The party took a short rest to the sounds of jury selection, while Shoomit burned hit dice out at the cart with Bone on lookout.
• The arrow slit caught their attention — Beatrix asked if John could squeeze out through the slit behind him. The DM ruled it too narrow to slip through even for a transformed creature, and Beatrix conceded, "I think that's appropriate."
• The fireball scroll came up — John remembered it, Beatrix confirmed she had it (casting above her level would take a DC 13 spellcasting ability check), and the table decided stalling for Venomfang beat fireballing a prepared goblin kill-box. They also floated an Entangle gambit, but the DM reminded Beatrix of the goblins with readied bows outside.

Venomfang, esquire

• The dragon landed with theatrical timing — wings over the roof, then "Alright, guys. I'm here. Bring him out." Beatrix yelled back, "We're down here. We're down here."
• Glasstaff greeted the dragon at the door — "Are you a friend of the spiders?" — and Venomfang answered, "I've killed quite a lot of spiders in my day. I don't know if you'd call me a friend of the spider."
• The goblins offered the dragon a role in the trial — and Venomfang demurred: "It's been a while since I practiced law, but I think... perhaps." Too large to fit through the halls, he took the prisoner interview from outside, through the arrow slit.
• At the slit, Venomfang was unimpressed — "So you, you got my slaves." Beatrix: "They overpowered us." The dragon: "I thought you were experienced adventurers. I thought this castle was going to be mine."
• The slave math soured him further — maybe 15 people in the castle, by his count "one fifth of what I was promised."
• Beatrix poured on the sugar — "sugar dragon, sugar claw" — and begged for a wall knocked down and maybe a little fire. Venomfang wanted more slaves "unless you have something more promising." Beatrix countered with "my undying devotion"— which the dragon found nice but insufficient.
• The dragon floated taking 50% of the Phandalin business's profits — Beatrix whispered, "Now slaves, that's one thing, but garnishing our wages, I can't abide by that." Glomblax twisted the knife: "Isn't that what you used to do to us?" Beatrix: "I paid you the market rate for your labor. I can't help it if the economy is in the shitter."
• The deal settled at double the slaves — Beatrix's 150-slave counteroffer was swept aside, and Venomfang's final offer was "If you can do twice the slaves in the same amount of time, I think we have a deal." Beatrix: "Okay. Fine. Good. Good deal." The debt climbed from 100 to 200 slaves.
• Venomfang kicked through the wall — and when the gear room proved locked, "flicks it with his wing, and it immediately pops open" — to the goblins' cry, "He's betraying us!"
• The party sprinted naked into the woods — still manacled, clutching their gear, a fog cloud between them and the castle, while behind them the dragon roared and "slashing into people." Arrows flew, but nobody could see who was winning. Beatrix: "Oh, wait. He's killing them? What the fuck?"

Reunion and reckoning at the cart

• Shoomit was waiting at the cart — "What's up what happened here?" John: "It got real close." Beatrix: "We escaped." John, wistfully: "We almost got into a trial. It would have been a multi day affair."
• Shoomit picked everyone's manacles, and the DM ruled the manacles can now ride in the party's inventory as "some loot."
• Beatrix unveiled the new plan — convince the necromancer to march a zombie army on the castle, then either hand the zombies to Venomfang "and possibly betray the necromancer," or turn the horde on Venomfang with a spell to keep him from flying. Rob's idea of teaming up with the goblins to kill the dragon was shot down: "I don't think going back right now would do much." Venomfang was too busy fighting to offer a taxi ride.
• The geography worked against them — about a day (15 miles) to Phandalin; the banshee was two days in the opposite direction. Their best bet was heading toward Phandalin and hoping Hamun Kost shows up, since they'd previously left him on friendly terms and invited him to stay at their new place in town.
• The corpses and the map resurfaced — Gundren and Reidoth are still dead on the cart, "rotting." John: "I don't care about these corpses. I think we should just dump them in the woods." Beatrix wanted the necromancer's opinion first, in case there's "anything to be done." John: "We got the map." The DM: it leads to "untold risk."
• Beatrix summed up the campaign despair — the Cragmaw run was supposed to yield Spider intel and a rescue, and instead "this has been so terrible."
• Then a small mercy — "Hey. We leveled up," and the DM confirmed it. He awarded inspiration to Glomblax for "the whole holding the door thing," and closed the session with the party on the road back toward Phandalin, still failing to write down who has inspiration — "We've regressed to screaming infants. Can't even write down a single—"

Numbers & Resources

• Party funds & deals
  • No coin changed hands. The Venomfang slave debt doubled as the price of rescue: from 100 owed slaves to "twice the slaves in the same amount of time" — 200 slaves — due by the original deadline. Beatrix's 150-slave counteroffer was superseded; the dragon's floated 50% cut of the party's Phandalin business was not agreed to.
• Combat resources spent
  • Beatrix: Spike Growth (2nd level, concentration broken by Zeond's bite), Silvery Barbs (1st level), Fog Cloud (1st level, during escape). She stated four 1st-level slots remaining before spending two. One healing potion consumed for 7 HP.
  • John: Vicious Mockery (Zeond saved), one Bardic Inspiration (given to Glomblax), and his inspiration token transferred to Beatrix and burned on her failed concentration save.
  • Glomblax: raging, Reckless Attack. Earned inspiration at session's end for holding the door.
  • Shoomit: spent all his hit dice recovering while separated. Damage taken included 12 piercing (advantage shortbow), 6 slashing (scimitar), and 7 slashing (longsword), leaving him near death before he fled.
  • Beatrix took 4 + 4 from early goblin shots and 5 piercing from Zeond's bite (poison avoided with an 18 Constitution save). John took 14 total (5 piercing + 9 poison) from a longbow and was bloodied.
  • Kills: one goblin cut in half by Glomblax's crit; one hobgoblin killed by Spike Growth.
  • The whole party leveled up at session's end.
• Gear notes
  • Beatrix's sending stone: hidden on her body during the surrender; the Venomfang text line survives.
  • Fireball spell scroll: unused; would require a DC 13 spellcasting ability check if cast (Beatrix has +5 Wisdom).
  • Manacles: recovered as loot after Shoomit picked them.
  • All confiscated gear, including John's guitar, recovered from the locked gear room after Venomfang flicked the door open.
  • Gundren's map, and the dead bodies of Gundren and Reidoth, remain on the party's cart.

Loose Threads

• The party now owes Venomfang 200 slaves by the original deadline, with no workable supply chain in place.
• Venomfang was left fighting Iarno's forces in Cragmaw Castle; the party fled under fog and does not know who won or whether Iarno survived.
• Zeond disappeared mid-fight and has not been seen since.
• Hamun Kost's whereabouts are unknown; the party is heading toward Phandalin hoping to find him and pitch a zombie-army assault, and they had previously invited him to their new place in town.
• The party told Iarno the necromancer wiped out the Redbrands — a lie that could come back on them if Iarno lives, along with the dragon-assisted breakout.
• The group never got the Spider information they came to Cragmaw Castle for; Gundren's map supposedly leads to "untold risk."
• Gundren's and Reidoth's bodies are still on the cart — John wants them dumped in the woods, while Beatrix wants a necromancer's opinion first.