Session one in the books, and it felt like… good, clean D&D. Just a group of players solving problems together, and everyone getting a chance to shine. Which, honestly, is wild, because this group is seven people deep with three new players.
The session opened at the Basilisk Gate, mid‑riot. Refugees screaming to get in, Flaming Fist cracking skulls to hold the line, and Captain Zodge throwing punches. The party got swept up fast. They leaned hard into roleplay from the jump, especially with Zodge. They badgered him, rolled high, and walked away with something I didn’t expect to hand out at level one: a Flaming Fist badge. Later they doubled down on the scam, talked their way into the barracks, and walked out with a Flaming Fist sash too. So now the party is armed with both props and one of them happens to be a changeling. That’s not foreshadowing at all, nope.
From there it was off to the Elfsong Tavern. I’d prepped the place straight from the module but added my own texture to the NPCs suggested by the module; the drunk playwright testing pirate dialogue inspired by something he saw at the docs earlier with a barcat by the fire to draw the players toward him. When the Elfsong itself started playing? I piped in a fan made recording through Discord, and the table went dead silent. It was eerie. Everyone leaned in. Suddenly Elturel wasn’t just “that city we don’t know about,” it was tragic. All the research I’ve done on the module has DMs recommending alternate openings to more deeply tie the players into Elterual. Turns out, you just need to make them hear a soggy elf sing about it and suddenly they are making History checks and asking NPCs for clues.
The pirate bandit fight came and went in a way I didn’t plan. The changeling saw Tarina, copied her face, and bolted when the pirates showed up. Deception check? 23. They chased him instead of storming the tavern, he juked into an alley and changed again, this time into a Flaming Fist, sash and badge on full display. Problem solved. No combat, no bloodbath, Tarina survives. RAW this encounter usually ends with Tarina dead and Zodge footing the bill for a Speak with Dead spell. Not this time. Roleplay wins.
After that, the group bee lined to the bathhouse. This party moves fast. My last campaign (Tomb of Annihilation) crawled. These guys? Speedrunners. They scoped the bathhouse perimeter, peered through a window, spotted cultists, and smashed in. Cue fight with the Night Blades, the low‑level assassins of Bhaal’s cult. Highlights: the cleric getting wrecked for 10 damage (instant “learn positioning” moment), and Granny‑Warlock turning into an optimized Shillelagh wielding blender. 2024 Truestrike plus Shillelagh equals cultist pulp, I was impressed.
The party gelled fast. They’re working together, playing off each other’s ideas, and somehow seven players didn’t feel like chaos. Big moments for everyone, the badge scam, the Elfsong silence, the bathhouse fight, the necromancer chasing ghost stories. Everyone felt like they contributed. That’s a win.
Next week we hit the Dungeon of the Dead Three. Every DM who runs this module will tell you the same thing: this dungeon is brutal for level two. It’s not balanced for them. We’ll see if they make it out.
Bellow are some of the AI art tokens cropped and used during the session. The Elfsong tavern patrons and the Night Blades.
