Friday night D&D

Last weekend, I ran a game of Dungeons & Dragons for my wife. While she's played D&D before, adventuring with me in the Hill Cantons, I had never DMed for her. Using the Labyrinth Lord Advanced rules, she rolled up her character--Casandra, an assassin recently downsized from the Guild due to the economy (that's her in the blue cloak).

In need of work, she started the game at the Green Dragon Inn, in Portown. There, Casandra encountered rumors of a nearby dungon complex that was attracting adventurers, opportunities at a distant keep located on the borderlands, some sort of trouble at the palace in a not-too-distant kingdom, an abandoned hideaway of two famous adventurers, the missing son of a local lord (who would pay handsomely for his child's return), and treasure in the cellars of an abandoned sorcerer's tower located next to the graveyard and not too far from the sea.

She chose to investigate the corridors beneath the tower, but not before gaining a few adventuring companions: the hobbit Banker Baggins (no relation), Nestor the cleric, and Abercrombie (Abe) the dwarf. Their first foray brought them into a room with smashed coffins and a couple of hungry ghouls. They ended up defeating the pair of undead creatures, but Banker had fallen, so they went back to town to recover (but not before finding some platinum coins and a handful of gems).

On their return, they walked through a room they thought was empty, but which contained animated skeletons hidden in alcoves. A word from the cleric Nestor sent the figures clattering away, and they continued until they found a room with a man in robes accompanied by a bodyguard behand a table with all sorts of wizardly implements. A good reaction roll meant that instead of ordering the fighter to attack, the man conversed with the explorers and even mentioned that he had seen some idiot kid wandering around the dungeon, heading to the west.

The adventurers continued on, discovering a room containing a statue, the facing of which controlled which door would open, and defeating a giant snake in a circular room with a staircase leading up. Before they could explore any further, a group of wandering dwarves entered from the south. Although Abe tried to talk with them, a very bad reaction roll had them on the verge of hostilities, so the explorers withdrew. At that point, we called it an evening.

My wife had a good time adventuring, and she played smart. She had never mapped before, and she did a good job charting their route through the dungeon. I hope she decides to play again soon--after all, that lord's idiot kid is still down there somewhere.