My friend the Druid

 Until I left Kings Bridge on my way to the adventuring life I had never met a Druid.

Oh, I'd heard of them. Clerics of the natural world, able to transform into beasts and all. But I'd not encountered a druid until I met Derrick Smallz. 

I'd also never met a Hobgoblin. Derrick checks that box as well. I'd always thought that hobgoblins are horrible nasty beings with bad tempers and just not really great to be around. I was quite wrong.

Derrick is amazing. His particular domain of expertise (I don't know the official druid terminology) is the fabulous world of fungi. His spells are quite useful. He can cause plants to suddenly grow and entangle our enemies, and he has one called Thunderwave that creates a massive blast of thunder that just obliterates things like kobolds. 

Derrick can also turn on a cloud of necrotic spores around his body that seem to make hime a bit stronger and harder to hurt in combat. VERY useful. He's a great spellcaster to team up with.

Being a hobgoblin, Derrick can be a bit of a fish out of water, so to speak, but he's a great comrade. 

A few words on Kobolds

 As I have mentioned, thus far in my adventurings my party and I have dealt with troublemaking, annoying, spiteful kobolds. I mean, even their young are spiteful mean little knobheads. 

They are also clever.

They may never invent a great spell or solve a difficult calculation, but when it comes to taking advantage of their natural environment (which tends to be sewers and other vomit-inducing places) they are geniuses. On our recent sewer excursion we saw this firsthand. They knew that sewer like the back or their evil little hands, and lead us into all sorts of problems.

Let me just say it. I bloody hate kobolds. But I also admire their single-mindedness and tactical skill, and I have to say I think I've learned from them. We killed them of course. I mean, they kidnapped a BABY. So the kobolds definitely earned a free trip to whatever ghastly afterlife they might believe in, and we were only too happy to award that prize to them. But yeah. Clever, nasty, mean little bastards they are. 

More later...

Monsters I have encountered thus far

If I'm going to be an adventurer I feel that I should document the monsters, animals, and other beings I meet. 

When I have a chance I'm going to go to a nice library and do some reading on each of these creatures. Especially the Fey creatures.

Where to start...

OK, obviously kobolds. I learned that there are flying kobolds. I had no idea. I also had no idea how devious they are. Not to stereotype, but yeah, tricky little bastards. Some of them even use spells. 

Also met thus far...

A Hag. Not trying to be insulting. I think that's what they are called. Kinda like a witch. Had a cauldron and some evil little servants and everything. Used invisibility and magic. 

Faeries: Sprites and Pixies. Some Dryads. A Satyr. A Faerie Dragon. None of them seemed evil, but they were quite weird and hedonistic. Derrick killed some of them, and later the hag "bound" one of them, named Karen, to be Derrick's companion until we can return some magic apple from the such-n-such forest to her. Considering that she's proven quite untrustworthy, we are making no effort with regards to the apple. Karen is kind of grumpy, but handy to have around. Overall these Fey beings, who inhabit the Myrthwood, have some good magic. I'm trying to learn a bit more about them. You have to be very patient with them. I mean, they turned Joe into a cat. Or was it a rabbit, and Wendrey squirrel? Obviously they turned back.

Ogre. Yes, we fought an ogre, who was working for a kobold shaman. I used a mental illusion to keep him busy, but eventually we had to kill him. He was just not settling down. Witchbolt to the noggin put him out of our misery. I don't really like to resort to violent spells, but sometimes someone insists on having their brains vaporized by electricity.  And who am I to argue?

Mimic. We've fought a couple of these. Tricky. 

Gelatinous Cube. Again - tricky dweller in dungeons and sewers. You can see through them, and they can attack by engulfing you or by extruding pseudopods to hit you and drag you in. Barf. 

Carrion Crawler. Not an easy kill. Hey, I get that they are an important part of their ecosystems, but you really have to stay out of their way. One carried Wendrey off down the sewer. He got loose, but was paralyzed in its tentacles for a bit. Nearly lost him. 

A dragon. No one believes us, but we did in fact see a Dragon. That was close enough.

Dragonborn. We encountered a Dragonborn scholar. I'm not sure he wasn't working against us. 

Kenku: We encountered a Kenku bard in a tavern. SQUAWK!!!

Well, I think that's if for now. Wish I could go to the Kings Bridge library and learn a bit more, but I'll keep taking notes in the meantime. 

Oh, kinda unrelated, but if you are ON the magic path through Myrthwood, DO NOT get off the path. You won't be able to find it again. 

Unseen Servant is my friend!

 I mentioned that we had an adventure in the city sewers. 

When we first went down there we ran into a Gelatinous Cube. It engulfed a couple of our party. Nasty. It starts digesting you as soon as you are inside it, so it's like being in acid. Also you can't breath. Disgusting. While we were fighting it a Carrion Crawler attacked us from the rear. It paralyzed Wendrey and carried him away. I understand that they take their prey back to the nest and feed it to their young. Also disgusting, but no one said adventuring would be easy. Wendrey got away, then we killed the Crawler, after killing the Cube. 

We made it through these challenges without losing anyone. After that fight I spent 10 minutes to ritual cast my Unseen Servant spell. I just sent the servant out about 10 feet in front of us, to reveal any more cubes or whatever. As it went over a bridge, that bridge revealed itself to be a Mimic. We used some ranged attacks to deal with it. Needless to say my Unseen Servant was destroyed, but it served its purpose.

The lesson? 

Unseen Servant = good spell

Well, hello there! I'm Tiberius

If you are reading this, there's a good chance I am dead. For you see, I've become an adventurer, and I'm keeping this journal to chronicle those very adventures, record my thoughts, maintain my research on the strange creatures and people I encounter, and in the worst case give my poor mother some idea what became of me in my wanderings should I not return to my home and family in Kings Bridge. 

So if I am, in fact, dead, please see to it that this book is returned to my mother, or if she's dead, my mentor, the wizard Richard. If he's dead too, well, please take it to my friend Pinky who lives in Myrthwood. 

So, who am I? I'm a tall lad of 18 years. People tell me I'm a genius. No, really, they do. It's not a big deal really, but it does make learning magic much easier. I made extra money for my family performing feats of memory and calculation on the town square for the entertainment the townspeople, which brought me to the attention of Richard, a local wizard of some renown who needed a student to 1)mop the floors of his keep on the outskirts of town 2) check every morning to make sure he still alive 3) learn magic from him and carry on his legacy. 

As I write this first journal entry I have been on the road, adventuring, for several months. I'll not give you all the details of all that has come before. A summary will, I think, suffice. 

So, let me start here, and see how much I feel like writing before I go to sleep.

Some months ago my friend Wendrey and I were in town at our favorite local pub. Oh yes, forgot to mention, Wendrey is a halfling. People love Wendrey. He's a cleric, and he's also something of a trickster. A top bloke, that one! 

Now, I've found that I've somewhat an affinity for Illusion magic, which also lends itself to trickery, so Wendrey and I get along quite well. 

Wendrey and I embarrassed some local tough guys who were extorting the tavern owner. A little do-gooding on our part. Well, that landed us in some hot water, and Richard suggested we might want to leave town for a bit and let things cool down. He sent us on job with my friend Joe the Barbarian, Derrick the Druid, and Killian, who is an elf and a ranger.  

We were to accompany a fellow named Jason to deliver some strange metal to some associates in another city. 

On the way to do this simple task we were attacked by kobolds multiple times (we think someone put them up to it as it was an ongoing problem), journeyed through Myrthwood and met some faeries, a satyr, a faerie dragon...oh...forgot to mention the hag we fought in a weird sailing ship we found in the woods.  

Also, the Kobolds killed Jason on our first encounter with them. Not great. 

Suffice to say we have been through a lot, and find ourselves now, having delivered our cargo, in another city which was also dealing with a kobold problem. Why the little bastards are such...errrr...bastards I have no idea. At any rate, we just killed a bunch of them in the sewer, where we fought an otyugh (which we left alive) and killed a few other monsters. The otyugh bit me. It really hurt, and now I'm a bit sick from the bite. Gonna have to see about a cure disease spell as soon as I can. 

Oh yes - almost forgot to mention that during that adventure in the sewer we saved a kidnapped baby, which was really the point of being down there. 

We've been on the road for quite a few weeks now. I'm getting better at magic, but I have to admit my crossbow is really coming in handy. Glad I found it in Richard's barn.

More later...