In our previous session, we fully explored the ruined fortress at the top of Icespire Peak while the dragon, Cryovein, was off harassing the bandit crew we’d just run off.
Who We Are
- Harka — Half Orc War Domain Cleric
- Gregory — Barbarian Berserker
- The Man With No Name — Human Bard
- Sasha — Bronze Dragonborn Sorcerer
- Don’t Remember Name — Human Warlock
All level 6.
No rogue, but the warlock can sneak, tank, heal, and somehow perform all the capabilities of every other class better than they can. And they always roll high. Just Saying. I played the cleric.
It wasn’t clear to my character — lawful neutral alignment — why we should be killing the dragon. The townsfolk of Phandalin definitely wanted us to, but they weren’t offering any sort of reward, and there was no indication that the dragon — Cryovein by name — had a horde.
We had encountered Cryovein once or twice, but it seemed to be content with eating whatever it was we’d just killed (manticore, orcs, etc) and taking off. Well, why not? We weren’t eating them.
The DM suggested that the experience of killing the dragon should be reward enough. Meh. Then they reminded me of a certain anatomical fact about dragons.
They have skulls.
My character is named Harka Skulltaker. She sacrifices the skulls of her enemies to the god Gruumsh. A dragon skull would be a valuable offering to her god.
The warlock used a staff of bird calls to wake the sleeping dragon with eagle screeches by its head. This woke it up in a bad mood. Our plan was to lure it into the fortress (it being a young dragon, it could fit through the doors), block its retreat with our Immovable Rod, and then go to town.
I opened the combat by casting Spiritual Weapon at it, which pounded away for awhile. The warlock fireballed it from an arrow slit before retreating downstairs. The dragonborn went up to firebolt it, and it went roaring after her as she ran back downstairs, leaving the bard the only one to come face to face with the dragon. The bard had thought we were fighting it upstairs.
The bard died to its breath weapon. I got him back up with Aid for him, the barbarian and the warlock.
The dragon roared down the stairs. The warlock stealthed in plain daylight and brushing against the dragon to get behind him… somehow. Not sure how a stealth roll makes you invisible in plain daylight but DM allowed it. (I just checked the rules and asked Kasul, who played the bard and was there: he stealthed while hidden, so apparently it’s A-OK).
Sasha let loose with firebolts, I brought my spiritual weapon down and then cast spirit guardians, a favorite of mine in BG3. Gregory expertly tanked and started carving up the dragon with the dragon slaying sword we’d found, while the warlock let loose with scorching rays. When it started its third turn, my spirit guardians killed it. So, it was dead.
We dinged level 7 and… that was that.
A disappointing ending. I’d have hoped for something more epic. But, I’ll have my time in the hotseat in a few weeks when I run a one-shot Dungeon Crawl Classics “character funnel”.
