Sanity Damage - D&D Actual Play

Plowing through another hole nearly results in catastrophe. After recouping, the party individually come face to face with their deepest fears.

Descending one of the deepest holes in the Well leads the party beyond the material plane altogether, and they set foot into the Astral Sea for the first time, where they engage in some hand-to-hand combat with otherworldly beings.

While exploring the Well, and digging into the themes and challenges presented by the Well’s emphasis on past, present, and future, the party fights one of their most challenging adversaries yet: themselves.

Only a short way into the multitudinous mini-dungeons within the Well of Fate, the party faces obstacles that challenge their very perception of reality. Jack undergoes an awakening, and Mitzka is offered an ultimatum.

In one of the Well of Fate’s pits, the party plays with mirrors and moonbeams in a complex geometric puzzle. Solving the puzzle leads to another, deadlier challenge, and Moriarty rises to the occasion in typical fashion.

At long last, the party approaches the much-anticipated Well of Fate. With the use of the wheels that they took from Trisyn, they manipulate enormous stone slabs to reveal different doorways. As the resident expert on different types of holes, Lucky randomly picks which mini-dungeons to explore.

Having failed to kill any of the hags, the party quickly confers and decides to push their advantage while they have it. If the hags have time to retreat and regroup, all might be lost. So, with many of their resources expended, the party continues to hunt down the coven.

In a shocking turn of events, the party changes tact and uses the age-old solution to most problems: violence. In a tense and dramatic series of encounters, the party takes on two of the three hags of Trisyn, but realize that they might be outmatched.

Cleaning out the abandoned inn leads to a series of strange encounters. Lucky gets lucky. Jantor and Mitzka feel the clock ticking, but some plans require a certain amount of cooking time to reach fruition. Ultimately, the party uncovers Trisyn’s shocking secret.

While the town is certainly unsettling, it invokes in the party such a feeling of paranoia that they begin second-guessing every decision that they’ve ever made. They debate their options in excruciating detail while beginning to explore Trisyn, eventually hatching an unorthodox plan.

The party late at night arrives in town, and seeks out shelter, finding an old friend. The innkeep asks too much (it’s a shakedown). The party sleeps like beggars in the end. Upon the morrow, the whole party deems that in this town not all is as it seems.

Having reached an agreement with Jantor, the party allows him to attune to the Totem of Tiggal, allowing them to travel north much more quickly. Having defeated the gnolls only hours ago, the party sets out through the Dagharalish Mountains and the Erohavian North in search of the Eye of the Norns.

Jantor tells the party the results of his communed conversation with Jold. However, there is more to the conversation than Jantor first let on, forcing the party into another argument that pushes them to the point of breaking.

A pack of savage gnolls attacks Jantor’s hut, and the party struggles to fend off the attack with their new friend, Lucky Shore. Many counterspells are cast.

Following Jack’s interpretation of Jold’s entreaty, the party heads north towards the Dagharal mountains. After a chance encounter with a carnivorous elk, the party happens across an archdruid and a tabaxi wielding the bagpipes.

Jack communes with Jold again, but Jold’s advice leads to a couple of very different interpretations of what the party should do next. The argument escalates into a surprising conclusion as Zachariah and Jack cannot see eye to eye.

Disconcerted by the cloud of diluted blood hanging over the whole town, the party finds a couple survivors and learns more about what happened. Then they dive into the fortress to confront the Terkanese aggressors, and are confronted with untold horror. Our main campaign resumes next week!

Listen to our two-shot interlude as a crew of Neraoese politicians, soldiers, and criminals that embark upon a deadly mission to check in on a fortified outpost that has gone silent. Nerao is an aquatic kingdom, so this entire adventure takes place beneath the surface.

We are going on a brief hiatus while DM/Nathan finishes earning his MFA in fantasy fiction writing. We'll be back in your feeds on August 10th!

The party joins Jack on a small key (an island of fossilized coral), where they confront the spirit of Tiggal. Having built a shrine in honor of his son’s death and the animals’ symbiotic relationship with him, Tiggal now protects a powerful magical item, which the PCs can take for themselves if only they best him in a contest of strength…

Jack dives into the tidepool. Mitzka gets ambushed by sand, and then Klakkr and Moriarty give her drugs. Zachariah helps Jack explore the watery crypt beyond the tidepool… leading to a puzzle with consequences that they could not have seen coming.

The party finally tracks down the true monster. After the dust settles and the remaining party licks their wounds, Jack is approached by a moose - the symbol of his god - and they diverge farther still from their original mission in pursuit of the divine.

The party agrees to keep their ship docked overnight, allowing Elizabeth’s crew to carrouse while the party looks into the threat posed by a monster. They determine that they are dealing with a werewolf, and follow its trail into the black pine forest.

Jack has another dream, and discusses it with Zachariah and Mitzka. They attempt to divine what Jack’s deific benefactor wants them to do. When the party stops off for a supply restock in a tiny seaside village on Reniyenan continental mainland, they get embroiled in a monster hunt.

We return to the main party. Elizabeth’s crew pirates a passenger ship, and the party’s pirating skills turn out to be… unconventional. Through the misadventure, the PCs are forced to confront questions of heroism and morality, each in their own way.