everybody dies 1 - everyone dies as a surprise

Quick primer for anyone unfamiliar with Everybody Dies, Volume 1.

Everybody Dies, Volume 1 contains fifteen stand-alone adventures for use with the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks. All are designed for 4-6 1st-level characters, all can be played in a single session, and all of them are utterly lethal.

This description had me hooked the instant I read it. Then I learned that this was inspired by a relatively popular D&D Live-Play Show and made by Beadle & Grimm’s a name I had heard before. I did a bit more research and learned that Matthew Lillard is one of the creatives behind the show, the company, and the book. As a millennial, this was the most important detail.

the adventure

The party finds postings all over a castle town looking for “True Heroes” to rescue the princess, who has been kidnapped by an unknown beast. She is believed to be in a long abandoned tower in the royal forest.

Once the party has accepted the heroic quest from the queen they gain boons of power and knowledge from an old wishing well. Equipped for the journey the party finds the tower protected by violent and dangerious magics, angry guardians, and finally a battle against animated armor.

With fighting ceased, the beautiful princess can thank them for their rescue. She reveals her secret, shes a hungry Rakshasa in disguise who uses her magic to toy with her food.

the session

This was the first time this group had played together, but not the first time they’ve met. We also had a first time D&D player as well. To start I had each player introduce their character.

The Cast:

• Dalphine: Fighter, trained by her father to be a royal guard. She decided as she finished her training that the world was too large to not explore a bit and headed off for adventure. Her skills, training, and equipment being the only things she brought on the road.
• Astrazenica: A Sorceror who had her powers thrust upon her one fateful night hiding in a temple. Her mind addled by the gods of space and time, she now sees the world in a much different way than others around her.
• Cassius: Once a street urchin, now the warlock wielder of a book that spreads doom and corruption. When counting his coppers from the most recent stroll down the market avenue he heard whispers. Further down the alley a leather tome sat abandoned.
• Satchel: A lowly muck farmer he grew up doing back breaking labor under the gloomy skies. He would spend hours hucking muck and staring at the patterns and channels carved by the muck worm wrigglings. One day while mucking out the stables, he discovered his grandfathers old chest. In it advenuturing gear.

I asked that the four of them now build out how one another knows each other.

Quickly they all converged on the idea that they met on a caravan traveling through a vast kingdom. Dalphine joined as a guard, the perfect way for her to earn her keep and get started on her adventure. There she met Astrazenica, while the two of them couldn’t be more varied in personality Dalphine was enamored with the rituals, chants, and teachings Astrazenica shared. Not that Dalphine believed it. Cassius snuck aboard the caravan leaving his life behind him, Dalphine saw him sneak on and was quick to put him to work so he would not be ejected by any caravan officials. Lastly, the caravan stopped at the muck farm so that the angler carts could haggle with Satchel’s father over price and inventory. Satchel saw this as an opportunity to find new business dealings for his family’s muck farm and hopped aboard to spread the word of the Pointman Muck Farm.

the market

The caravan arrived to the walled castle town of Lunaris. The wagons disolved into organized chaos; wagon keepers and their helpers started offloading goods into stalls, talking, shouting, and making this evening market bustle with new life.

The four dispersed amongst the crowd each finding something that interested them. They began to notice as they went about their business that each market stall had a pink note nailed to their canopy posts. On it a desperate plee from the queen of this kingdom asking that true heroes rescue her daughter from a monster. At the bottom of the posting there are pull tabs and most of them have one or two torn off.

They find themselves gathered again, all having a ticket in hand. Dalphine was first to openly discuss it. She thought that this would be exactly what she was looking for. As a former royal guard she felt strongly about helping the queen rescue her daughter. The rest of the party were more interested in the financial gain they’d see. They all agreed to head down the market road and toward the castle proper.

the castle

The party made it to the drawbridge where two guards were posted. Seeing them approach the guard on the right stepped forward with an outstretched hand. They depositied their slips into the guards hand, Satchel prentending to do so and sneaking passed with the others.

Once the party crossed the drawbridge into the castle walls they were greeted with a verdant garden and walled forest. Vibrant colors and vivid greens surrounded them on all sides. A guard escorted them to the main throne room. As they walked small song birds twittered above and dropped warm strawberry scones into the party members hands. The group ate them as they walked while Satchel put his in his pocket.

The party met with the queen, she was delighted to have true heroes before her. After confirming the details with the party the queen clapped her hands twice and a slender, greasy-haired, and black-robed individual emerged from behind the throne. He pulled a large bound scroll from his sleeve and unrolled it. It fell to the floor and continued to roll for an additional ten feet. Many additional pieces of parchment were fixed to the scroll as adendum’s and side-clauses. The four of them signed at the bottom after some hesitation. The robed man quickly pulled the scroll from the hands of Satchel the moment he had finished signing. Sneering and slinking away. The queen then escorted the party to a lush kingswood off of the throne room. In the center clearing there was an ancient cobblestone well. The party approached and heard gentle, musical speech on the air.

Make a wish and wish it well,
Seek a truth or gift bespelled,
Boon or bane, heroes true,
As you give, I give to you.

The four of them stood in silence mulling over the words. Dalphine acted first and dropped her bow in the well. She was rewarded with a more powerful bow (+1 to attack and damage rolls made with the bow). Astrazenica offered her necklace and got back a lockate of defence (+1 to AC and saves). Cassius offered his warlock tome and it returned to him with an additional page with a rune emblazened (Advantage on initiative rolls and rolls to detect traps). Lastly, Satchel reached into his pocket and pulled out the strawberry scone and dropped it in. The scone returned with jam and clotted cream spread on it (eating it casts haste on the wearer).

Each party member was quite happy with the resulting boon asked the queen how best to find the tower. She handed them a map that would guide them right to it.

the tower

The tower sits on an island in the center of a small pond. A drawbridge is pulled up close to the tower wall. Astrazenica notices a lever and casts mage hand to pull it. The drawbridge falls and a large water elemental forms out of the pond and shouts at them for doing “his job” before melting back into the moat. Just before the party was going to take their first steps, Dalphine tossed a ball bearing onto the bridge. A large arcane explosion went off and a cindered rune etched into the wood. Wide-eyed, the party ushered Dalphine to the front and she tossed marbles along the way each one causing an explosion.

The party reached the door and entered the tower, Astrazenica saw a large grouping of rats under the stairs. The rest of the party spread out in the room unaware. She told Satchel who then became tranced with their movement, Cassius seeing this shrieked at the mass of rats and tossed a firebolt at them. The party and rats clashed, two ratkings emerged gnashing little teeth and singing in an uninteligable language. Once vanquished they noticed that they were all wearing clothes too.

Up the stairs the party saw an ornate chair and the frame of a mirror. While investigating Cassius and Dalphine were both sucked into the mirror. While Astrazenica tried to investigate without looking at the mirror, Cassius decided to act from within. He threw another firebolt and shattered the mirror, expelling himself and Dalphine from the extradimensional space.

Ascending to the final floor, the party stood in front of two rusted suits of armor. They noticed that one of them had the rust scraped around the joints. Deciding to not let the armor act first, the party attacked. Quickly they overpowered it and crumpled it to the ground. With that, they opened the final door and were all presented with the beautiful princess. She thanked them and begged know if they were the true heroes she was expecting. Astrazenica quickly responded that yes, she was indeed a hero. With an abnormally strong hug the princess said “oh good! True heroes taste best, I will save you for last”

the princess

The princess shed her illusionary appearance and the group is presented with a Rakshasa, a clever and powerful fiend from the nine-hells. She dominated Satchel’s mind and forced him to attack his friends. With a powerful swing of his flail he brought Cassius to the ground. Astrazenica was able to put a stop to the spell and Satchel, mind now free ate his scone. The rest of the fight was a blur. Spells from Astrazenica and Cassius, valiant strikes from Dalphine and Satchel, and joyous laughter from the princess.

The princess caught Dalphine’s blade and disarmed her, the princesses other hand glowing with necrotice energy struck out. Dalphines bones cracked and her body slumped to the floor decaying into a necrotic mass. Satchel swiped with his weapons many times, the princess toying with him seemed unaffected. Again, her hand glowing she struck Satchel who collapsed. Cassius and Astrazenica fled down the stairs, the sound of laughter pursuing them. The princess rushed to Astrazenica, threw her against the wall and then slammed Cassius to the ground. As Cassius’s vision began to fade, he heard the princess growl “Dying already? Shame, I was just starting to toy with you.”

Astrazenica seeing the princess tear at Cassius, ran back up the stairs. She saw the small arrow-slit and knew her body would just barely fit. With all her might she ran and jumped from the window casting feather fall and slowly gliding out into the moat. The moment she touched the water, the large water elemental reformed and screamed for her to “GET OUT!” and threw her with all its might into the forest. She ricocheted off tree trunks and lay unconcious in the loamy earth. The last thing she saw was two glowing green specs coming from the window she lept from.

the reflection

I couldn’t be happier with how this session played out. Everyone was so quickly on-board with the adventure. They all made such varied characters but had no problem forcing them together and making them work as a group. They hit all the adventure beats and none of them needed pursuasion to buy in. We will be doing more.

There are a two things I would want to do differently if I ever ran this again.

1. Handle the well hints differently.
2. More combat prior to princess.

well hints

My players did not return to the poem after discovering that they got magic items. This is definitely my fault. Going forward my sessions will have more printouts and props. I think having the poem on the table would have made them return to it.

No matter what, having the queen provide 3 of the most important clues as a backup would have been good. The robed man could have returned and provided small slips of parchment with the words from other “heroes”.

more combat

I didn’t run all possible combats, this resulted in most of the players not getting to fully utilize their characters. Tougher enemies, more combat rounds, etc. would have raised the stakes. Having exhausted most or all of their uses or spells and then having the impossible Rakshasa fight feel even more impossible.