Tales from the Table
Home of all the stories from my RPG sessions.
In this section
Fate in Flux
A D&D adventure of silliness, with everything—including characters—rolled up completely randomly. It involved talking volcanoes, upside-down towers, a Deck of Many Things, and a surprising number of ducks.
Portland Monster Slayers
For a while, we had a player who could only make it every other week. To make sure he didn’t miss our regular D&D campaign, we found something else to play the other weeks: Monster of the Week. Or, I suppose, Monster of Every Other Week. It’s like Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG format. I didn’t have time to write about the adventure as it happened, so here’s everything at once, hastily summarized.
Dungeons of Drakkenheim
Dungeons of Drakkenheim is a D&D 5th Edition adventure created by the Dungeon Dudes about a dark city ravaged by a mysterious meteor swarm.
The Astral Scroll
The Astral Scroll was an adventure I created for D&D 5e where the characters raced to find a scroll of Wish. They all wanted it for their own reasons but in the end, only could claim it.
Veil of Whispers
A D&D campaign about rescuing a kidnapped princess. Started in January 2024—a new year with new players, new adventures, and new opportunities to wreak havoc and terrify the townspeople. And this time I got to be a player!
The World Rune
The World Rune was a D&D 5e campaign that I ran between December 2022 and November 2023. Beginning with a noir-style murder mystery in a steampunk city, the story quickly became one of world-shattering events. Traversing the continent by airship, the heroes found themselves racing against the clock to save the fabric of reality from being torn apart. The final part of the campaign even launched off into space and became a spelljammer adventure. All in all, it had just about everything an epic, almost year-long campaign should.
Enter the Hollow
Enter the Hollow was a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition that I ran for twenty-one sessions between January and July 2020. Beginning with a mysterious event where the entire population of a city disappeared, the players quickly found themselves up against a group of shadow people from a dark realm, hellbent on completing a ritual enabling them to take over the entire material plane. To make matters worse the shadow people would possess the rich and powerful to further their nefarious goals. No one could be trusted.
All posts
Fate in Flux Part 0: A Rather Silly Premise
In which I talk about ducks and how they can break D&D.
Portland Monster Slayers: Part 2
In which the slayers slay more monsters and also God.
Portland Monster Slayers: Part 1
In which the slayers slay monsters.
The Yathea Wildspace System
I made this totally sick high-level spelljammer space adventure as the last detour before The World Rune’s finale. It ripped off drew inspiration from Halo, Outer Wilds, immersive simulators1, Return of the Obra Dinn, and Solaris. It would’ve been glorious. However, the group was falling apart and I had to shorten it significantly. Still, it was pretty cool!
The Cocaine Owlbear
Alright, here’s a quick one about a silly encounter I threw into The World Rune. This was right after the movie Cocaine Bear had come out, and jokes about it were all over the internet. To this day I haven’t seen it (and probably never will) but that didn’t stop me from putting a D&D-ified version of the voraciously drugged out mammal in my adventure.
The Vampire's Factory
The one where the party investigates a slaughterhouse and brings the collateral damage into triple digits.
Drakkenheim Part 3: The Castle
The party enters the final dungeon. Will they make it out alive?
Drakkenheim Part 2: Inside the Walls
In which the gang betrays just about everyone.
The Royal Society of Hat-Wearing Foxes
Deep in the Feywild, there’s a castle full of foxes.
Drakkenheim Part 1: The Outer City
Rats, haunted houses, and greed.
Drakkenheim Part 0: The Cast
Before heading down the deadly road to the even deadlier city of Drakkenheim, we made some characters. Here they are!
The Storm Wall and the Astronomically Low Odds of Survival
An unusual boss battle leads to extraordinary things.
Well in One
A silly little comic about the events of The Astral Scroll’s finale.
The Astral Scroll 6: The Showdown
Find out who gets the scroll in the finale!
The Astral Scroll 4: The Nice Part of the Journey
A city, strange mines, a desert, and a cliff.
The Astral Scroll 3: Brewery Heist
Heists never go as planned.
The Astral Scroll 2: Spiders & Sleuthing
Running all over town, looking for clues.
The Astral Scroll 1: False Leads and New Companions
Session zero: rules, character creation and a gentle start.
Veil of Whispers 12: An Unexpected Finale
The curse of high-level encounter balance rears its ugly head.
Veil of Whispers 11: Behold My Broken Build
The beholder gets what’s coming to him.
Veil of Whispers 10: Tomb of the Necromancer
Twenty years later, not much has changed.
The Only Time the Party Ran Away
I decided to throw some horror in the players’ direction. It was nice.
Veil of Whispers 9: Giant Spiders with Chainsaws for Legs
The party hunts for phylacteries. It does not go well.
Veil of Whispers 8: Army of Darkness
The party investigates yet another kidnapping and uncovers a great threat. They also launch themselves from a catapult.
Veil of Whispers 7: Enough Grease Already
In which our so-called heroes complete their so-called noble quest.
Veil of Whispers 6: Child of a Messy Divorce
The group rescues the princess at last. Montgomery narrowly escapes death. Others don’t.
Veil of Whispers 5: I Can't Believe Your Adventurer Licenses Haven't Been Revoked
Nessie finds her long-lost father. Rosa threatens people.
The Story of My Favorite Trap
Traps are a classic element of D&D. You walk down a dark dungeon hallway and hear a click as you step on a hidden pressure plate. You only have a moment to react. Will a poison arrow launch at you from a hole in the wall? Will a boulder drop from a hatch in the ceiling? In The World Rune I created something far worse.
Veil of Whispers 4: Attack of the 50 Foot Cow
The party’s procrastination problem continues as they reach Duskridge. A bovine of unusual size appears.
Veil of Whispers 3: Caves & Kobolds
The gang crawls their first dungeon. Montgomery feels the need for speed.
Chrismas in Hell
When our Dungeon Master suddenly had to leave the group I took it upon myself to create a worthy ending to his campaign. The result was… not what the group had expected.
Veil of Whispers 2: There's a Cow Somewhere in My Family Tree
In which we continue to do everything but save the princess.
Veil of Whispers 1: The Princess and the Cheese
A brand spanking new campaign, the first session of which was spent creating characters who would go on to fight evil and consume cheese.
A Dragon Flew Away With the Tavern or: How To Start a Campaign
The party met in a tavern. You won’t believe what happened next! Although it’s right there in the title.
The Tower at the End of the World
Thinking back on all the games I’ve run, the penultimate session of Enter the Hollow must surely claim first place as my favorite. Derivative as it may have been it turned out very memorable, with the fantastical location of the tower, and the high tension that arose despite the lack of any real combat. It truly captured the magic of the game in a way that has been hard to replicate. Looking over my several-year-old session notes I realize that I barely did any preparations for it, and what I did prepare was mainly intended for something the group skipped right past. Sometimes it truly is the improvised games that turn out to be the most memorable. I doubt it would’ve turned out as well with a different group, and the enjoyment would probably have suffered if any of them had known that I stole it all from an episode of a TV show1. Okay, let’s go.
An Incident at the Bathhouse
Once upon a time, a group of adventurers entered a public bathhouse for a friendly chat with one of the patrons. The events that followed weren’t quite what I had expected.
The Hare and the Hag
A strong gust rattles the bare branches of the sallow trees and makes the loose snow dance in the air. It is the coldest winter that anyone can remember in Haarlan. Usually snow trickles once or twice during a winter only to disappear shortly after, but this winter it has been coming down in droves. The cold bites harshly outside and some argue this is not just a weather phenomenon, instead muttering that it is “the red winter” from old stories come again.
The Ballad of Sir Garner
This is the story of Sir Steven Garner; A bizarre man who met an even more baffling end deep in the deserts of a faraway land. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This story begins with a player named Gustav. A childhood friend of mine and by far the one who’s played at my table the longest, he always takes detailed notes and rarely misses a session. A great player in every regard except one: