Felsenhold Campaign Summary

In 2022 I ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for some friends. It never really had a name, but took place in a town called Felsenhold and due to the number of times Kobolds showed up I took to calling it "Kobold Game Wardens."  The way I run a session always starts off with a "Last time on..." retelling of the previous session. Keeping notes on what happened last time allowed me to reconstruct the timeline after the fact.

Here, I preserve it for posterity.

Session 0

We Created Characters

• Krizokz - Goblin Blood Hunter Revenant
• Tam - Human Druid/Barbarian City Saviour
• Stirling Fairfield - Human Warlock/Wizard Reformed Villain
• Justice Ferous Wahrhiem - Dwarf Cleric Justicar

On the way to Felsenhold to help ensure the success of a celbration marking the rebuilding of the town after a war against the giants, the party defended a caravan from an attack by kobolds. The party saved a few folks, but some members of the caravan died, including a fancy lady and her servant.

Session 1

Talked to the Mayor of Felsenhold, Blake Demar, and interrogated a few of the kobolds that had been captured.

After taking a rest, the party went back to their captive kobolds and found one of them dead and missing its brain.

After some conversation with Oteban the Knight and Grant, the town cleric, the party released the remaining captive kobolds in order to track them back to their home, a dwarven fort in the mountains.

Session 2

After scouting much of the tower with Stirling's Arcane Eye, the party stormed it, fighting kobolds and springing traps before running out of resources.

While attempting to take a rest in an upper level of the fort, they were interrupted by the kobolds backed by some more powerful enemies.

Ferous was knocked unconscious by a dwarven berserker, and when that berserker was defeated, an intellect devourer appeared next to it. Even so, a kobold bearing a shield with an eye set in the middle of it got away from the fight.

Session 3

The party left the tower in order to get a proper rest, and witnessed some of the tower catch fire and collapse.

Going back to explore, they found dead kobolds, an abandoned mine, and evidence of undead activity.

Then the party headed back to town, bearing the body of a dwarf. Stirling's goblins also had a body they had found from someone they claimed was trying to break into the mayor's house. The party also conducted an investigation of a nearby lake that was turning briny and had weird tadpoles in it. Then went and talked to Mayor Blake about a dwarven diplomat, Lopen, who had arrived in town.

Session 4

The investigation of the briny lake continued, and some kids were hired to catch the strange tadpoles. A conversation was had with Lopen, who claimed the town and mines belonged to them and made mention of an army the dwarves were moving through the mountains. The party also looked for an alchemist who had setup a stall at the fair but never returned. The mayor's son confronted them, casting shade in response to the death of the lady from the caravan who he claimed he was to be wed to. In a final confrontation with him the found he was possessed by an intellect devourer. Now dead, the son's body was brought back to the mayor.

Session 5

An interrogation of the Mayor's son's friends found they had been perpetrating some nefarious plot to see the party cast out of town. This led the party to a farm where they found some townsfolk captured by a robed figure with tentacles. Cephalosk warned the party that more of his kind were coming but that he was fleeing from them as well. Cephalosk agreed to provide a map of the tunnels under the mountain that the dwarven army may be using to travel in return for the promise of adamantium. The party successfully negotiated the release of the captured townsfolk and returned to the town.

Session 6

True to Cephalosk's word, a dwarf from the diplomatic party showed up with a map. Ferous met with Lopen the dwarven diplomat and showed him that one of his guards had been compromised by forcing the intellect devourer out of the dwarf who had brought them the map. The dwarves were ready to go out and fight Cephalosk at this point, but the party had other things to do in the mines outside of town. They met Hen the foreman and headed down into the mines looking for adamantium. In a section of the mine the humans hadn't started working yet, they found dwarven catacombs infested a demon leading packs of ghouls.

Session 7

The party chatted with a ghost who blamed the party for the invasion of the giants many years ago. Dwarven soldiers arrived. You had a chat with them about intellect devourers but the dwarves were apparently under orders to kill the party. Some dwarves survived the fight as prisoners. Most of them left when given the opportunity, but one named Fedruid Barbhelm stayed, mentioning he was a relative of Lopen. Heading back to the surface, Hen the foreman gave them a barracks to take a rest in.

Session 8

While the party was delving the mines and taking a rest, Stirling's goblins were back at town running the bar and watching the dueling championships. With their interference, Oteban managed to win, but his opponent was left dead. This led to the discovery that a resurrection scroll that was meant to be used to revive the winner in the final fight had gone missing.

The party then left the mines ahead of a large dwarven force that was emerging. Arriving back in town at night, they found the large effigy in the middle of town had been lit to mark the end of the festival.  With an army of dwarves just a few hours away, the party shut down the festivities and began the evacuation of Felsenhold.

Session 9

A long discussion about next steps led to a demand for rest. Stirling sent his goblins away with the rest of the evacuating town and Tam had some volunteers sign up to help him defend the town on account of his reputation for doing such things in the past. Grant the Cleric and Mayor Blake argued about how to use the missing resurrection scroll, and Cephalosk moved into town and offered to craft magical items in return for the party leaving him alone to finish his work. The group set out to follow the evacuating townsfolk for a bit to keep them safe, and managed to save Stirling's goblins from an ambush by dwarven scouts, one of whom they captured and then left in the care of Lopen.

Session 10

The party headed to the dragonbone graveyard with Oteban the knight looking for more adamantium, taking a day to track through the moutains. Resting for the night they dispatched a zombie. In the morning they went down into the valley, scouting an old dragon skeleton befor fighting against various undead. Though the party was victorious, Oteban was disintegrated.

Session 11

The party returned to town and received their promised items from Cephalosk, who gave more warnings about the coming mind flayer threat then promptly disappeared. Thinking of how best to take the fight to the dwarves to try to stop the invading army, a route over the mountains was chosen, in the hopes it would avoid having to fight through the dwarves at the mines and in the tunnels. Upon reaching their destination, the came upon the lair of a beholder whom they defeated.

Session 12

Mildi the kobold introduced herself, aghast at the death of the beholder, whom it called "the master."  The party explored the caverns, crossed an underground lake and snuck past some dwarves. A large kobold warren was discovered and the kobolds, worshippers of the evil god Bhaal, heralded the party as saviors sent by their god. After further exploration, there was a combat with some dwarven guards, one of whom escaped. More time in the caverns eventually led to a long hall in which dwelled a dire troll.

Session 13

The defeat of the dire troll afforded the party a rest. Then they ambushed some dwarven guards and took a prisoner. More time was spent in the caverns trying to find who was controlling the dwarves and fighting oozes.

Session 14

There was a big fight with a large number of dwarves and mind flayers who began trying to escape with a magical floating chair. Krizokz rescued the gnomish alchemist Nyami, a pair of Giff showed up, and the party managed to stop the mind flayers from getting away with the chair.

Session 15

A discussion with the Giff reinforced that the mind flayer's were up to no good and more powerful forces were on their way to snuff them out and probably the town, too. The Giff blew up the chair, and the party found a safe-ish place to rest in Stirling's Tiny Hut. The remnants of the dwarven army in the area came by while the party was resting, but didn't seem to know what to do about the tiny hut so they left.  More exploration of the area found remnants of the mind flayer's experiments. The mountain was exited back the way they came and the party headed to where they now knew the mind flayer's damaged Nautiloid ship was located.

Session 16

On their way to the Nautiloid there was a dead giant missing its brain. The party awoke after a rest with the feeling they were being followed and watched, but discovered those thoughts were not their own and banished them. At the Nautiloid ship the party hatched a plan to bring down a mudslide on the mindflayers at the ship then mop up the survivors and their pet hydra.

Session 17 & 18

The party headed back towards town in the Nautiloid Ship. Over the dragonbone graveyard they saw the mind flayers resurrect a dragon and take control of it with an Elder Brain, who swooped by to attack them before heading off towards the town. At the town they found a battle already underway and joined in. Though losses mounted and it looked that all might be lost when Ferous was killed, the party eventually killed the elder brain dragon and the mind flayers controlling the dwarves and saved the day.

Epilogue - A year later...

Krizokz went with the Gif, got a different ship of his own and enrolled in Spelljammer Academy. Now he gads about in his small, comfortable ship, occasionally visiting his friends.

Stirling built a goblin fortress/community center, attracting goblins looking for a better life. A tall tower is a landmark for the area, with a tower designed to receive Krizokz' airship.

Tam stayed in Felsenhold and helped to rebuild it. He builds a memorial to Ferous and creates a training camp to teach soldiering. As the tales of the defense of Felsenhold spread, the camp becomes well attended.

Duzzea the goblin finds a ring on the body of Ferous. Duzzea receives advice from the ring, to be passed on to Stirling. With the ring's help, Duzzea teaches the goblins at Stirling's goblin fortress how the concept of justice is the way that society shows its love for its citizens.

Modelling Supplies

I do a bit of hobbying with plastic models, as you can tell if you followed my Instagram Page, and I've been asked on occasion (and recently) by folks wanting to know what supplies you need to start assembling models. Rather than continue to answer these questions anew each time they're posed, I'm putting together my list here as a handy reference.

The list isn't long. It basically comes down to clippers, knife, glue. All the links below are affiliate links so I might get a little kickback from Amazon if you use them, but it won't cost you anything extra.

The clippers are used for separating parts from the sprue.  They shouldn't be very large, and need to be of the style where the side with the cutting edge is flat, so you can get as close to the part as possible. You should be doing two cuts when you remove parts from the sprue.  The first cut is on the vents, close to the sprue and away from the actual part you are trying to separate.  Clippers put some force on the plastic, and if your first cut is too close to the part you could warp, stress, or otherwise damage the part. The second cut is to get most of the rest of the sprue off your part. You can spend twenty dollars or more on clippers, but a seven dollar set will suffice.  The GodHand brand is widely viewed as the cadillac of clippers.

For a knife you don't need to be fancy. Your run of the mill X-Acto knife is going to work just fine. You'll use the knife for cleaning the last little bits of sprue off your parts, and also for scraping along any mold lines left over from the manufacturing process.  Some people buy files or special tools just for removing mold lines, but I've been using an X-Acto blade for that purpose for decades and it's worked just fine.

Last up is glue. When you're working with plastic models you want plastic cement not super glue.  Super glue will hold things together but is likely to break if it gets a hard jolt (like if you drop it). Plastic cement lightly melts the two plastic pieces and when it dries the two pieces have essentially become one. Plus it has the added benefit that it won't glue your fingers together. You do still have to be careful not to get it on parts of the model you don't want since it can melt fine details. Lately I've been using Citadel Plastic Glue (expensive) and ModelMaster Plastic Cement (cheaper but smells like weird bananas) and both seem to work equally well.  Some people like Tamiya brand since the bottles come with a brush in the tip that makes getting the glue where you want it easier, and doesn't get clogged like the other bottles.

You'll need paints and brushes when you get to painting your models.  Any search for model painting starter kit will find a host of possibilities. I don't have any direct experience with any of them, but be on the lookout for something with a couple brushes, colors that will work for what you're painting, and some kind of wash or shade color.

You could also just go the Contrast Paint route. Check out the below video for some enlightenment on what that entails.

Book Review: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Prince of Thorns is a story featuring a wholly unlikable character with few redeeming qualities.  Even as a product of adversity, Jorg is hard to identify or commiserate with.  He's a character who knows he is doing wrong, and delights in it. He turns away from humanity and remorse at almost every turn. The saving grace for this book is Mark Lawrence's beautiful writing and the fascinating world he has constructed. I only wish that he had chosen to provide the reader with a better guide to that world.

Book Review: Sand - Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey’s Sand is a slow burn through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  It shows us that the author has many different visions of the future to share with us. It’s a story about family, loss and abandonment and how the different ways people handle adversity. Read it if you like Dune, Mad Max or Snow Crash.



I read the Kindle In Motion version of Wool three years ago, and haven't gone back to Hugh Howey until now. That mistake is on me. I found Sand at the Seattle Public Library and grabbed it to tide me over until some of my book holds came in.

What a great ride this was. What a unique vision of the future. Some authors engage in world building, giving greater importance to the world they are building than the characters that inhabit them. But Hugh Howey treats the world right and the authors with respect.  We experience the world through the eyes of the characters and the world slowly constructs itself around them as the bits of information assemble themselves.

★★★★☆ I highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.