DCO with Randos: Session 1

In an effort to get around to actually playing games, I decided to brave the wilds of looking for an online game. I quickly found one that was looking for a DM, and with immense luck it turned out to be a great time for all parties involved.

When I asked about what sort of adventure they wanted me to run, the group was quite enthusiastic in their support of the "weird and dark" parts of my module collection, which meant Deep Carbon Observatory, for there are none weirder or darker, and hacking it to 5e is not much trouble.

The party consisted of:

• Eren, human ranger
• Alterial, human monk
• Durlan, wood elf life cleric

It was a short session (one of the party had to leave early), and so they did not end up leaving Carrowmore, but we did get through all the chaos. Man, what an opening.

The sequence of arriving in Carrowmore, with everything happening all at once, is perfectly overwhelming. Not enough to impede running it (by the second or third series of events the flow begins and you are carried along as if in the flood itself), but enough to get you really into things.

The group's opening arc was something like this:

• The group rushes in to help Callao rescue the children and elders of Pollnagollum Village.
• Alterial and Durlan go and try to round up Sue Trouin's schoolchildren.  With some food they're able to collect the band and lead them back to Callao's group.
• Eren goes to investigate Busla Rant and her clocktower fishing spot. He learns of the gold dust, and is nearly but not quite pickpocketed by Wit Tambdoun. Eren trades a portion of rations to have Wit steal one of  Busla's treasures. 
• Eren saves Theodore Brosen.
• Wit returns with a severed head, mouth full of gold dust.
• Alterial and Durlan nearly have the lynch mob turn on them, but are able to . The rescued sailor leads them to the Snail-Shell Zarathustra. The captain makes his offer, as normal.
• Eren (followed shortly thereafter by the other two) comes across the Snowflake Squad accosting Constable Stary. They call the bluff and send them packing, and get quite excitable when Stary makes her offer of 5000 gold for proof of there being no treasure (as well as catching on to the inherent silliness of the claim and potential avenues for abuse - there's no treasure north of the Lock if we've already stolen it, now is there?)

We had to end there, but that's still two hours of thoroughly enjoyable game for six pages of module (and more time to prep for the next session. Eagerly looking forward to the continuation.