Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Part 1: Character Creation & Introductions | Starter Kit - D&D Edition

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

If you’ve always wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons but weren’t sure where to start, answer the call to adventure with Starter Kit! Join veteran Dungeon Master Jason Charles Miller as he guides his celebrity players through creating characters and starting a quest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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turns at AKA.m.m.S. College PC. Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, is a fantasy role-playing game that people have been playing all over the world for over 40 years. It's the granddaddy of all modern role-playing games, and its release in 1974 is commonly recognized as the launch of the modern role-playing industry. I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was 10 years old,

and I want to share with you the joy that this game has brought me. Together with five of my friends, a few of whom are going to be playing for the very first time, I'm going to show you the basics of how to play this amazing game. If you've never played D&D before, or if you love the game and want to recall the joy of playing it for the first time, this is the show for you.

I'm Jason Charles Miller, and welcome to your starter kit. To play Dungeons and Dragons, you really only need three things, a Dungeon Master or DM. Ideally, this is someone who knows the rules of the game pretty well or is willing to read the rule books to learn. The Dungeon Master guides the story. You'll see how that works.

For our story, that's me. An Adventure. This could be a published adventure from Wizards of the Coast who makes D&D, one of any number of amazing smaller companies who published D&D adventures, or one that's completely made up by the DM. For Starter Kid, some friends and I have taken a classic D&D adventure from 1979 in search of the unknown and rewritten it to make it a good teaching tool for new players with an experienced DM.

Players excited about the game, usually three to six, but really any number works, depending upon the adventure and everyone's experience. The players will each create and play the main characters of our adventure. So you've got me, your dungeon master, and you've got an adventure. Let's meet our players, and together we'll create our characters. Hey, Carmel. Nice a seat. Come on in. Have a seat. Hey. Hey. So thanks for coming over today. My pleasure. We're going to play Dungeons and Dragons today. This is exciting. That you've never played before in your life, right? Never.

What I wanted to do was make sort of a classic party that's been represented in D&D the entire time the game's been around. And really, four classes. Class is your profession or your job, your main job. We're gonna have two fighters. Those are the guys that are in the front lines, swinging the swords.

We're gonna have a wizard and we're gonna have a cleric. Cleric is the one, just remember the back of your mind, I always wanna keep that cleric alive because she can keep the rest of us alive. Okay. I gave you a little bit, a little bit of homework kind of look up some things. Yes, I did.

It's quite involved. Yeah. It's exciting. We kind of came to the conclusion that you might want to play a rogue. Yep. So the rogue is sort of the sneaky trickster of the bunch. A lot of times in Dungeons and Dragons,

you're gonna encounter, there's gonna be traps, there's gonna be locked doors, there's gonna be puzzles, there's gonna be hidden things that a rogue has special abilities to handle more so, than anyone else. You're a good fighter, but primarily you will be probably the second line of defense. We've got the fighters up front,

but you could try to sneak behind an opponent unseen and stab them in the back. That's what rogues do. I see. You're gonna play a half-ling, and it's funny because you're our tallest player today, and yet you're playing a character that's three feet tall. I know, I'm like, I'm small, I'm small, remember that.

Just, just, just. So we're gonna talk about alignment for a second. You're chaotic good, and that's a role playing, that's sort of a role playing guide. Meaning chaotic good is you're good, but you know, the ends justify the means. Like whatever you turn. Whatever you have to do to kind of get the job done,

you're gonna get done. But you're still mainly a force for good. Okay. Think sort of like Han Solo, you know. He gets the things done. And even, you know, is it illegal? You know, maybe. but that's okay.

Let's roll some dice for your stats. And what I like to do is I would like you to roll these six times and every time we're gonna throw out the lowest die. Okay. So the first roll isn't necessarily for the top ability. We're gonna get six scores to choose from and then we're gonna assign those as we go. Okay, so.

Love it. So your first roll is a 16. That's really good. Okay. This one, but I really like those two. And 14, another good one. I'm really liking these scores. I wanted the rogue to have good scores.

So we're already in a good position here. One thing to keep in mind too is you're a light foot halfling. And those are the halflings that want to go on adventures. Those are the ones that you find more out in the world. And so you actually will get some ability score help. You'll get some bonuses. So whatever you assign to your dexterity, you'll get a plus two.

And whatever you assign to your charisma, you'll get a plus one. So that's all that's good. I like those two. would say take the 16 because it's gonna turn into an 18. I see because you can't go higher than 18. You can, but so even if it turns into a 19, you're gonna get the same modifier.

Oh, I get it. So not as well. Let's do 16. Yeah, so make that an 18. Oh, 18, right, because I'm adding two. And then add plus four to that because that will apply to your die rolls later. So we gotta figure out where to put that 17.

Wisdom is a great place for a rogue, because you're gonna be using that skill a lot when you're trying to detect certain things, and that's sort of what the rogue does. You might sneak out in front of people. Charisma could be good too. Are you the kind of rogue that's gonna bluff people, try to persuade them to do what you want them to do?

High charisma helps with that. If you're maybe a frontline fighter, do you wanna be a crazy rogue fighter? Strength will help a lot with that too. So I guess it just really depends on where you see your character. Okay, I think I'm gonna go with, Charisma. Okay, I like that.

And you have a bonus there too, so that 17 will turn into an 18. You've got two 18s. I'm pretty badass. Yes, that is a badass character. Yeah, I mean, usually, like, if someone were to show up at a game with a character that had 2 18s, the DM might be a little suspicious. I saw you roll that myself, so, you know, so... That's good.

Wow. This is really good. And I think I'd like to put the 14 on the wisdom. Yes, that's a really good idea. The 13 and the 12 are basically the same, because they'll both give you plus one, and the 11 won't give you any bonuses. So yeah, tell me what you think.

Okay, I'm thinking I'd like to put Constitution in case I get in a scrape. Sure, yeah, that'll give you a couple extra hit points, or at least one. I feel like maybe that there, strength 12, and intelligence 11, because I already have pretty high wisdom. Yeah, I think that's great. It's gonna really, a well-balanced road.

Let's talk a little bit about some of your, that you get as a halfling and as a rogue. One of the great things I love about halflings is you have this ability that's just called to be lucky. And what that means is, anytime you roll a 1 on a D20, which is not good, that means critical fail, your lucky ability lets you re-roll it. You automatically get to re-roll it.

If you roll a 1 again, it's gonna fail, no matter what, but that's a really, really good ability. ability. Okay. You also have advantage versus being frightened. You're very brave. You can move through creatures of at least one size large. And what that means is you're not physically like moving through someone like a ghost.

But if you're in combat and your official size is small, because there's small, medium, large giant, right? So humans and elves and half elves are all size medium. So if you needed to move through them to get to another area on the map, you could do that with no penalty. I see. Yeah. Also you can hide behind creatures and gain cover in combat, so that's very useful.

This is a great character. It really is. And these abilities scores, you're going to have fun with this character. You really are. The last thing we need to do is decide your name. Okay. I have a name. What is your name?

It's Trin Hilltopple. I love it. I love it. Trin Hill topple. So go ahead and write that into your... With a Y. Okay, yeah, gotta have the Y. Trin kind of for Rogue and Hilltoppel for...

Mathling, yeah, and here's your figure. That's awesome. Great, and I'm gonna see you when the party assembles. Awesome, see you then. Angela, hey! I am so excited to come on in, come on over. Let's roll some dice. Yeah, all right, you're ready to roll.

I am. Okay, you're one of my ringers. You've played D&D before. I have, that is true. But I will be happy to learn more things today. Okay, well, you know, maybe you're gonna teach me some things too. And that's always good. Yeah.

It's, you know, the DM always has to be open to learn from his players. What I wanted to do with today's game was make a really balanced classic party. And you graciously, I wanted to be the cleric, so I'm really thankful for that. What if they get hurt? I'm here for you. Yeah, we decided that your cleric is going to be a cleric of the god Helm. Helm is the vigilant one, the great guard and the watcher, God of guardians, protection and protectors, and worshiped by guards and paladins. He was long seen as a cold and focused deity who impartially took the role of defender

and sometimes also enforcer. So I think that's pretty cool for a cleric. It's very, very good. Yeah, yeah. Punch and heel. Yeah, exactly. Punch and heel. Yeah.

Slam and heel. We're good to go. You're really gonna be the life blood of the party and hopefully give them back some of their blood here and there. All right, are we ready? We're ready, yeah. Nice, nice. That's very good.

What's great about being a human is you can add one to all of those. Oh nice. In this addition, humans get plus one to all of their ability scores. Okay. So now let's figure out where we're gonna go. Still two eights, but that's okay.

Well, you know, use that for your role playing ability. So I assume I want to go wisdom high, right? Yes, wisdom high for sure. So I would definitely put the 16 in the wisdom. What else am I gonna need? Do you want any tips from the DM here? I would say we want to make sure you stay alive. So probably Constitution I would go for.

I need to be alive so that everyone else is alive. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I like having dexterity, but intelligence might be more for spell casting. You- With clerical spells, it really relies on the wisdom more than intelligence, so... Let's do decks so I can get out of the way if someone's hitting me. Great. Although, you know, what I could have said too is that because of the modifier,

an eight or a nine basically are the same, yeah, they're both negative ones. I feel it though, when I say, like, my charisma is an eight, it feels different than saying my charisma's a nine. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, different for you. And actually, that kind of maybe goes along with, you've got a lot of wisdom, but not a lot of, not a lot of maybe street smarts.

And book smart, not so much street smart, that's fair. You can play it that way. We're going to talk about spells for a minute. As a cleric, you get your spells directly from your deity. Wizards study spells that they learn in books. Clerics get them from the divine. There are two types of spells that you're going to be able to cast. as a first level cleric.

One are cantrip, cantrips you can cast at any time. They're not very powerful, but they're sort of ingrained in your body. You know how to, you know, you just, you've done them so many times, you can do them whenever you want. Light, light, light. Right, yeah, there you go, just throw light everywhere.

And as level one, you have two level one spells. You can choose from any of these, but you can only cast two of them per long rest. And a long rest is like sleeping for eight hours, hopefully. What we have to do now is I hope you've been thinking about a name for your character. My character's name is Deborah Deby. Okay, great. Yeah, and she's here to sort of be the mom and take care of everybody.

I love it. I love it. Deborah. The thing I remember from learning how to play D&D in high school is that if you add just apostrophes in the middle of stuff, it becomes a fantasy name. This, yeah, exactly. So I'll just do that. Perfect. And here's DeBora, here's your figure.

Oh my God, she's so beautiful. Custom painted. That's gorgeous. So you'll be using her today to represent your character in combat. So I'm gonna see you in a little bit when the party assembles. Alright, let's do it. Great. Hey, Mike. Come on over.

Come on in. Thanks, man. Yeah, thanks for coming. Of course. Great. So, uh, Greetings, Adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles,

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Yeah. So you're one of my newbies. I played on a web show at Meltdown Comics. So I've never actually played without cameras. And now, and you never will. So one of the fun things about playing D&D is creating your character. You chose to be a fighter.

So you're going to be a dwarf fighter. Now often when you're a new player, the DM will give you a pre-generated character. And we've done some of that today, but I wanted to do the funest part for me anyway, which is rolling for your stats. Okay. And I am going to give you your very own dice. These are for you to keep. Thank really. Yeah. And here's some extra dice because you can never have too many D6s. Because you're going to need a lot of these in the game eventually. Or is just called these dice.

Yeah. I didn't realize these are dice. There's so many. There's so many different ones. So we've got some things set out here. But what we're going to do first is we're going to roll for your six attribute scores, strength, dexterity, constitution. Those are the three physical. And then intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. And those are the more the mental or spiritual. As a first level character, because we're all starting as first level. I'm in first grade. Yeah, you're in first grade, basically, as an adventurer. You know, you might have done something else. In fact, I think we have that you, your previous background with your character was that you brewed beer. Okay. Okay, so you were a brewer before. Yeah, yeah. And now you're ready to kick ass.

Where do I throw these? Anywhere. Place to the north? Yeah. To the east. No, just right there on the table. It's fine. Wow, okay, so that's a pretty good roll.

So now we're gonna do this five more times. Oh. So now you've got these six stats to place. One thing to remember is because you're a mountain dwarf, you get bonuses on top of this. So, Constitution, you're gonna get a plus two bonus to whatever you place this. And same with strength. What's the difference between Constitution and strength?

Strength? Constitution is how much damage you can take, how much, like what your fortitude is, whether that's like, not only is it physical, but also how much can you get through before you get exhausted. Like passive strength or something like that? It also has to do with what we're going to talk about later too, which is hit points, how many hit points you get. So really how much damage you can take, but also, you know, how long can you hold your breath,

how long can you, you know, march before you fall over, all that kind of stuff. That's Constitution. Also a great stat for a fighter, for sure. Right. Okay. So I'll put my 16 in Constitution. Yeah, great. And then because of your bonuses, that'll make it an 18.

That's a really good idea. Your ability scores also determine you're going to be rolling different skills based on that, and you're going to get bonuses. And with an 18, you get a plus 4. So you're going to write plus 4 in that little one. The 15, you're going to get plus 2. plus two. All right.

And for the 13, you're gonna get plus one. Now we've got, I feel like I'm applying for a very weird job. Yeah, you are. You're applying to save the world. Oh. Yeah. With the wisdom, you get a plus one, so that's good. And with the charisma, you're gonna get minus one. So, and you can look at that in, yeah,

you can look at that many ways. You know, charisma's really like leadership ability. It's not necessarily about physical appearance. So you're gonna. And mostly beard, right? Yeah, yeah, you're mostly beard, first of all, which is, I can relate to. Yeah, yeah, maybe you stink or maybe, you know, you stink of hops because you're always brewing beer or something.

Or maybe you're just crude or you know, speak out of turn, stuff like that. What we're also going to talk about are your special abilities. Okay. So you've, this is what's really great about being a dwarf. You've got dark vision for up to 60 feet. Yeah, nice. You can see in the dark for up to 60 feet. They live under a mountain.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't need any light source, anything like that. You've got advantage on saves versus poison. We're gonna talk about advantages later. And one of the great things about fighters is you have an ability score called second wind. What second wind is, is if you get damaged, if you get injured, and call in your second win,

and then roll a D10, add one to it, and get those hit points back. So that's like, like WWE, when it looks like I'm Haggard-Roe. Yes, and then- Shake it off, instantly. That's it, that's second win. Perfect. Cool. You can do that every short rest and a short rest is only an hour. So as long as you rest for at least an hour, you can use your second wind power again.

So it's very, very helpful for fighters. That's exactly what I assumed it would be. Oh good, okay. You've got a lot of standard stuff in your pack. Check that out. And the last thing we need to do is decide your name. Oh yeah. Have you decided your character's name? I think so. Okay, what's it going to be? Thinking thumper. Thumper? Yeah. Thumper FireForge.

Thumper Fire Forge. I love it. But Th, H. Aposophie, U-M-P-A-R. Okay, so Thump-R. Thump-R. Yeah, Thumpur. Great. Okay, so write that in there.

All right. And here's Thumper. Hey. Boom. There's your guy. Little big thumpur. So we'll be using him in combat today and that will represent your character.

All right. Cool. I'll see you soon when the party assembles. Mixie, hey. Come on in. How are you? Good. How are you?

Amazing. Cool. So we're gonna play D&D today. Yeah. And you've never played before, right? You're one of my brand new nubes. Okay, cool. What I wanted to do was sort of play a game where we have a nice balanced classic party.

We talked about you being a high elf wizard. Yeah, cool. Are you excited about that? I am. Awesome. One of the most fun things about creating a character is rolling for your staff. rolling for your attributes. The six attributes are strength, dexterity, constitution,

and those three deal with more of the physical aspects. Which I don't do much of as a wizard. Right, yeah, intelligence is going to be your... And wisdom. Yeah, intelligence, wisdom, which is totally not actually me. Right. Well, you know, that's why we play for ten.

What we're going to do is we're going to roll for these. And the lowest score you can get is a three, and the highest you can get is an 18 at level one. at level one. Boom, look at all that. I just throw all of them at one. You throw them all. Where?

We're gonna just take four of the D6s. These are D6s. So the way the dice work is this is a D4, four-sided, six-sided, eight-sided, ten-sided, twelve-sided, and twenty-sided. Twenty-sided you're going to use the most in the game once we get playing. But now just in character creation, you're going to use, you're going to roll these six times. And we're going to write that down and then we're going to assign the scores that we get to the ability scores of Not too bad 12. Okay, nice. 14

14. Okay, cool. So now One of the things to remember too is because you're a high elf, you're going to get a couple of bonuses You're going to get to your dexterity. You're going to get plus two to just remember that and then for your intelligence. You're going to get plus one Now, intelligence is the stat for wizards. So what I, you know, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't put that 15 in... 15 on the intelligence. Yeah, and make it a 16 because that'll actually give you more bonuses to. Yeah.

So I take the, cross out the 15, put it in intelligence, and make it a 16. Okay. Yeah, and also you can add, do a little plus three below that. What's that? That's gonna be, that's the bonus. as you get for any intelligence-based skill that might happen later. So that's all very good.

Which are gonna be a lot of skills for me. Yeah, definitely, yeah. So now the next number to plays is we have a 14th that we need to put somewhere. And I would say one of the things that we need to remember about wizards is that they can't wear armor. And so either constitution or dexterity

would both be good places to put that. What's the difference in dexterity and constitution? and they're both protecting you? They're both protecting you, but in different ways. So Constitution is how hardy you are, how many hits can you take, how far can you go without being exhausted, things of that nature.

Dexterity is how agile are you? Can you jump out of the way if someone's trying to attack you? Can you, you know, balance on that beam? Both kind of defense things. Yeah, yeah. It might make more sense to take the 14 and turn it into a 16 for dexterity. Or 14 and constant.

And then you could take the 12 and put that in dexterity. Make that a 14 too. That's great. That's a good idea. You like that? Okay. Let's do that. 14.

Which will be 14 also because of your racial bonuses. Plus two. Yes. Great. And then the bonuses with those 14 will both be plus two and the little thing below it. This is great. This is a very well-balanced wizard character. I like these numbers a lot.

You're immune to magical sleep, which is also a really good thing. really good thing. So someone cast... I would that I get... Yeah, if they cast a spell on me and they put, or that put everybody to sleep, I don't go to sleep. Yeah, that's... So you might be dragging people out. I don't really sleep anyway. High Elves

only sleep while they go into a trance for like four hours. Versus most characters are like eight hours. I read that. I did my homework a little bit. I didn't want to be a super new. So I tried to learn a little bit. That's great. We're going to talk about spells. Sweet. As a wizard, you get your

spells from knowledge. You get your spells from studying and from learning them from other wizards that might give you a spell to learn or a spell book that you find. Or looting? Or looting, yeah. You could loot a scroll and then see, oh, this is a spell. I'm going to copy it into my, into my book. You've got two types of spells. You've got cantrips and then you've got first level spells. Cantrips are the spells that you can cast at will. You can cast those anytime you want. They're the ones that you've been practicing your whole life. So, you know, if you want to cast firebolt every round, you can do it right out of your finger. Level one spells as a level one wizard, you can only cast two of those per long rest,

or per day, sometimes people say, but really like whenever you go into your trance again, you can only cast two of these. You can only cast two of these. You have all of these prepared so you can pick from these, and we're going to add a few more too now that we know what your ability scores are. but you can only cast basically two per day or two per long rest. All we have left to do right now is decide your name. What is your character's name?

My cat's name is Moon. So I thought Moon could be my first name. And then, uh, blood. That's great. I just want to be a little evil. Yeah, why not? I mean, you are good, but, you know, we're in good characters, but... Moonblood.

Yeah, Moonblood. Do you like it? Okay, cool. I like it. Great. So write that in your, right here. And here is Moonblood. That's gonna be your figure today. She's hot. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd. But too often, life gets busy, or the price holds you back. Price Line is here to help you make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live.

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Yay! Thanks. Great. Come on in. How what's going on, man? Hey, good to see you. Good to see you too. Right on. Yeah. So thanks for joining us on this little adventure today.

Absolutely. I love what you've done with the place, by the way. Yeah, it's great, right? Everyone's got a suit of armor in their basement. No, just you and I. Oh. I think pretty much just you and I. Okay, fair enough. So you're kind of, you're one of my ringers. Right.

My veteran players. That's right. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, I grew up in a place called Peaks Mill, Kentucky. And at the Tom Sawyer Library, we would have Dungeons of Dragons every Sunday. I became the kind of de facto Dungeon Master when I was 11 and then 12 years old,

because I was the only one who wanted to do the reading. Well, what we're gonna do today is we're gonna play sort of a classic party makeup. And I didn't want to add any more classes so we're gonna have two fighters so you're gonna be the second fighter right you're gonna play half of yeah yeah it's always good to have another fighter in a party what I love to do is I love to have people roll for their stats great we've we've filled out a lot of this already sure go over that in a minute but I but I'm gonna give you your dice these are

officially your dice these are your dice to keep what yeah all for you for today very exciting should have brought my loaded dice hey yeah not too bad not too bad not too bad Not too shabby. So we've got two 14s, a 9, a 12, and 2 tens. Now, because you're a half elf, you get plus two to charisma, and this is what's great, you get plus one to any other stat of your choosing. That comes to the fact that elves get higher charisma

and humans add plus one to all other stats. Right. And since I'm half, so yeah, give that a little extra bump. Okay, cool. Well, since I'm a little bit more, Since I'm a fighter, you know, I'm gonna load up my strength and my dexterity with the 14s. Okay, great. And that's a plus one there too, so.

Okay. So yeah, go ahead and write that as a 15. Now, you can't add plus to both. You have to pick. So you can only, so it's plus one to one of your choosing and then plus two to charisma. That's very disappointing. Sorry, man, you got to pick one. So, okay, so dexterity will get a 14.

Yeah. And then I get plus what on charisma? You get plus two on Charismus, so whatever. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay, there we go. Not bad, I'm not stupid, but I might make some dumb decisions now and again. Right, but you're pretty strong.

Yes, I am. All we need now is your character's name. Yes. Well, Haldor is always my kind of D&D go-to name. But we had a, like, what would come up for a last name, Spalharkas or something? Spal-Harkes, right? Spell-Harks.

Yeah. Haldor Spal-Harks? Yeah, love it. I love it. And here's Haldor. Oh, that's awesome. That's gonna be your mini-pil today. Looks just like me.

It does, it really does. Only taller. And I will see you when the party assembles. I love it. Cool. Do you guys want to introduce each other to each other really quick? Just kind of tell me your character's name,

what your job is, your class is. I'm howl door, Spallox. I am half elf because mother was that way. And not an elf, I mean, you know what I'm saying. And I destroy evil, which is what I do. So hi guys, my name is Trin Hilltoppel. I'm half half-hling and half rogue. Or that's my class.

Yeah, right. Actually, you're all half-ling, all rogue. Yeah, your race is halfling, Your job is broke. You're half-pright. Okay. I'm half-ling rogue, that's what I am. So I, you know, I'm here to help us get to our goal

and that's what we're gonna do. Guys, you ready? Mm-hmm, right. Hi, I'm Moonblood. I am a high elf wizard and I will have your backs no matter what through thick and thin, through the whole entire night and I will be there to cast spells on all of our enemies and I will be there for you, all.

I am Thumbar. Fire Forge. That is when they call me thumbing. I am a mountain dwarf. I like to fight. I'm being very strong and I have a lot of Constitution. And I grew up making beer. I love to talk about beer. We can be friends. Thoughts about beer. Let's talk about beer.

All right. I guess that's where the constitution comes around. My name is Deborah. I am a cleric of Helm, and I am here to just make snacks and heal people. So please, you need anything. I'm here. Great, and heal people with your snacks. I'm gonna kill people too, but I like to talk about the healing more.

Deborra, Thumpar, Moon, Haldor, and Trin. All five of you grew up in the city of Waterdeep, and all five of you met on the steps of the steps of you, of the Adventurers Guild, a guild that all of you are trying to join, but you've all been turned away, because you've been on no adventures. Trin, in your underground network, being a rogue, you have heard of the legend of Rogan and Zellegar.

Rogon the Fearless and Zellegar the Unknown are legendary names. Rogon earned his name as a great warrior, and his reputation spread far and wide across the land. Zellegar, equally renowned, earn his status and power as a foremost practitioner of the mystical arts of magic and sorcery. No one knows what brought these two together, but they formed a strong bond of friendship. Eventually, stories surfaced about a hideaway being built

deep in the wilderness, far from the nearest settlement, away from traveled routes, where they practiced their adventuring prowess and kept their treasures. Thirty years ago, a great barbarian invasion came from the lands of the North, threatening to engulf the entire land. Rogon and Zeligar and their band of loyal henchmen met the barbarian army in great battle. Rogon slew a horde of barbarians single-handedly, and Zeligar's powerful magic put their army to flight.

Eager to destroy the hord's once and for all, Rogon and Zeligar pursued the barbarian horde into the north, where they met their demise in a great battle that he had. shook the heavens. In the past week, it has come to your attention that there is a man named Darien in the town of Daggerford, who claims to have a map to a mystical lost keep, a place apparently called just by one letter, Q. He claims it's the lost keep of Rogan and Zellegar. It's filled with vast knowledge and treasure, and he's entertaining bidders. The map is accurate. It could lead you to the mystical place that was once their home and sanctuary, and perhaps their treasure trove.

Just the thing that you guys might need to prove that your adventurers can gain admittance into the Water Deep Adventurers Guild. Adagraphord is just the next town south. It's just right down the sword coast. You could get there easily, so let's say you go. It's pretty obvious. Get him, move on.

I'm for it. I just got to pack a lunch, and then, yeah, my character needs to do a couple of things. I can bring lunch. I'm happy to. Like, if anyone needs anything. Great. Vegan?

Now, you have reached the town of Daggerford. And there is, you heard that Daryon is hanging out in the inn called the Broken Boatwright. Daggerford is a town of 900 people It wishes it was a bustling metropolis And they try, but it's It's time to bring on the blooms At the Home Depot with Spring Garden Deals

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You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost! Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or The Hilton. Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. There's not that many, there's not that many ends. So finding the broken boat right is pretty easy. How do you trust people from a place called named after daggers? And isn't the coasts sword coast? Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. Begging people not to come back on any point. Really do not come to our... Good idea. Get wisdom extra points for that.

Sorry, so what's our first option to? What do you guys want to do? Oh. Well, we need to go in there. Yes, me. Great. Yeah, great. Get that map.

I think so. No, who's good at talking to people? Like, who's friendly, charismatic? That would be me. Oh, fantastic. Or you. You have spells. My charisma's not really on its game.

Mine's pretty good. Thanks. I do you say so and so. All right. Right. Yeah. Okay. But I have wisdom enough to let you start.

There you go. There you go. So you entered the inn. It's actually pretty bustling. There's probably about 20 people in there. You see the bartender sort of tendon bar and, you know, wiping it down and he looks at you and clearly doesn't recognize you. So it's like, welcome to Daggerford.

Never seen you guys here before. Hmm. It sort of goes back to, you know, cleaning, cleaning glasses. Let's kill it. Sir, we look for an old friend of our horse. Old friend, you say. Hmm. Old, what's his name?

I didn't write down. Darian. Darian. Daryan. You sure you're not thirsty from your long journey? You all look thirsty to me. It's very important. Let's have a couple beers.

He's an expert on beer, my friend. He would love to taste your wares. Would you like to taste our local brew? Yes. Okay, that'll be two copper pieces each. That's what I have to say. All right, here you go. Okay, great.

So he, uh... Okay. He gives you all, all, all five of you beers, and you taste it, and it's, you know, it's not, it's okay. You know, it's not really. It doesn't live up to the Fire Forge standard. I want one of my copperback. You're cheating me out of a two copper beer. Be nice, be nice.

No, you're fine. It's not bad. Daryon's over there. Here it is. Thank you for the business. So he points to a man in a green cloak sitting next next. to a fire by the hearth. He's reading a book and he's just sort of all by himself.

He wants to go talk to him. Absolutely. Yeah. And then kill him. Right. See, I can't remember who Darien is specifically. Oh, Darien is the guy that supposedly selling the map. Selling the map, right.

We'll find the territory of the two dead guys who, Rogan and Zelliger. Zelliger, the unknown, who is famous. Okay. Yeah, right. He was a famous fighter named Zelliger the unknown. He's like Zellig. He just blends in everywhere.

That could be Zellig. So, yeah, he allegedly has the map, but I doubt we go straight for map. So I think it's just kind of like, you know. Chat him up. Yeah, somebody's got to chat him up. Okay, you start while I, like, get that. Okay, I've got the, I've got fairly decent charisma, I suppose. I ask him his name and then I guess, I'll,

excuse me, friend. Excuse me, friend. Yes. Can I recognize you from up the coast? Are you not, are you not a member of the Adventurers League? Do you not? No, I'm not a member of the Adventurers Guild.

Or League? I heard, the League. Yeah, the League, the Guild, the Guild itself. The League's a loosely banded group of people. They're friends of mine wherever. But a friend of mine, Rogan, a friend of my father's, said that he had friends down this way. and we are traveling adventures.

Rogan, hmm. That's very interesting. I happened to have procured recently a map to Rogan's abode. Is that so? Yes. Father had said we should always... We had no idea.

Father had always said I should visit this place. It was a great place of great learning. Hmm, I somehow don't believe you, but I... Regardless, I have a map, if you have gold, I have things to sell. I say we grab the map and go. We have bigger fish to fry. Yeah.

Should we check that he's even Darien? He said he was Darien, but we didn't say. Yeah, maybe we should see the map first. Because if the address on the map is like one of our houses, we'll know what's made. Yeah. Okay, and then we turn away from our huddle where we've been loudly saying all of this.

Of course. So he, out of a very ornate scroll case, He pulls this map out and sort of like, he sort of opens just about, you know, a few inches of it to show you. And you notice the surrounding countryside, everything sort of looks right. So how do we know this is the real map?

You don't. We don't. How much is it? How much? 30 gold pieces. There are a lot of people that want their hands on this square. Yeah. I'm pretty firm on the price.

60. 60. Oh, 60, sure, absolutely. Yes. Okay, so. Anybody got any fake gold? Yeah, do we have money? Do we have money on your sheet?

Oh, tons of money. I have four gold. You do? Yeah, it's right here. Where's my gold? It's right there in the bottom. I got 12. I'm loaded.

I got 12. I got 12. You got 12. Yeah, I've got 12. I'm not paying for the whole map. I've got 12. Get the maps. You love maps.

I'll go in evenly on the map. So I will give my 12 if anyone wants to match and meet with me to buy the map. I've only got 12. Okay, so, all right, we've got 24 right now. I have four gold. Okay, you have four, you have three. I'm sorry, where does it say that?

Actually, yeah, you have three gold pieces. I'll do eight and then that'll be 30, right? Four. Six, on. Oh, you only have four? Yeah. I only have three. In the world, but it's fine.

Okay, all match. Okay, how about this? We'll give all of ours and you can give us six more. We just need six from you, 30 gold to him. Yep, so. Or just do it for 20 gold. Yeah, I just write down you have zero gold. The price is, I'm not here to negotiate.

Just pay for it, let's go. All right, do you have change for a 32? I don't give change. All right, well, okay, so you give him the 30 gold pieces. We get the map. He hands you the map. Yeah. And then immediately stands up and walks out a side door.

Keep an eye on him. Yes, let's keep an eye on him. Want me a follow him? Follow him. What are I follow him yet? You want to go spy on him? Why don't I follow him? Sure.

All right, I follow him through the door. Can I follow you at the door? He's gone. Dude, that dude just disappeared. Mm-hmm. Completely dis-disclosed. He's left it as a burden. All right, what's the-look.

Look at the map over. Yeah. Okay, so you roll out the map. That guy could have been Zelliger. It looks legit. And you see basically, Basically, you know, what looks like the surrounding countryside, about two days' journey, you see the letter,

you see the letter Q. So everything seems to match up with what you heard in your spy row. Okay. Find certain devices that one of us. Not that cue, different key, sorry. So we should follow the map and look the keys along the way. Yes, look at, yes, absolutely.

It looks like a short. Map to Q. Yeah, okay. So I think we start on the, Can we tell from the map if there is a more circuitous or more dangerous route? It looks pretty dangerous. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look at it.

Yay! From what you know, you grew up in Waterdeep, which is the big city north of here, from what you may know just with your survival skills. These don't look like roads or paths you've ever seen before. Mm-hmm. Then I think we start on the firmest straightest, path to Q. Since that's our goal, we want to be in the Adventures Guild, man. We can't tiptoe around after that nonsense trying to decide whether or not to buy the map. I'm questioning whether

we deserve to be in the Adventures Guild us. We're just getting going to throw a little caution to the wind, people. All right, you start out on the map. You've already, you're already well equipped for this. You're, you're, you're ready for this. You're ready to go. So what, what we're going to do is I'm, I'm going to get you right there. Yeah. This is, this is what our adventure is. Straight to Q. all about. And what I want to say also to is if this were a longer campaign, if this were a campaign that we were starting as friends and we were going to play every week, you know, every Wednesday in the library, there may have been a lot more detailed things along the route, but I want to get you to Q because that's what we're going to be focusing on today. Right. Yeah. Great. So

I'm excited. That's where the fun happens. Yeah. Let's go to Q. Do I have a teleportation spell? At level one, you do not have a teleporting. No, level one, you don't have. Jack. Yeah, right. So here's what happens. So you're following along the map and you're in a heavily wooded area.

Light. You don't need light yet. It's during the day. It's like light. It's good though. You can cast it as many times as you want. You can cast it on each tree as you went along if you want. You see as you're getting closer to on the

map which what looks, everything is kind of, you know, it's like third rock on the left kind of thing. Everything looks legit to you. And you're going up a sort of craggy hill at the top of this path that doesn't look very worn at all. You see a cave-like opening, somewhat obscured by vegetation, noticeable at the end of a treacherous pathway which leads up to the craggy outcropping of black rock. By sweeping aside some of the vines and branches, the opening becomes easily accessible. A dungeon? So you look like you're at the entrance of the cave.

The opening of a cave. Okay, so I say we enter the cave. I say we enter the cave. Yeah. Great, okay, and that's where we're gonna take a little bit of a break, and the next episode, we're gonna enter that cave. Oh boy. Oh, wow.

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