Beholder Group D&D Blog

Wednesday 18th June 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 9 Faced with another large spider, the like of which our "Heroes" have not defeated since they were level 2, Alwaith took the best option he felt he could - he closed the door. The DM proceeded to rip up that encounter prep. With Sanada back at the Veil HQ, the three remaining "Heroes", sans-allies or spiritual helpers - aka "cannon-fodder" - took the long way round to arrive at Thalios' room a little later than they had hoped, but without any spider-based encounters. There was some discussion about how to open the door, revealing more intra-group discord along the lines of "We only brought you so you could bash the door open!", and "what use are you anyway?", which is usually only reserved for Sanada, but was a fair reflection of the tiredness and irritability of the group who had been not only awake for 18 odd hours, but also fighting, stealthing, dying and swimming ...

Wednesday 11th June 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7 With the party in poor shape, though not too bad health, they face a risky challenge. Solveig is very exhausted, Sanada is miserable and exhausted, Alwaith and Faith are out of spells. They face a large, metal, shielded, clockwork creation, and an angry, well-trained half-orc fighter. Things look bleak. They consider fleeing. But this is D&D. And this is the Beholder Group. So they decide not to flee, which, to be honest would have been the better option, but instead stand and fight. And somehow they survive. The DM has no idea how - I mean, it is hardly through good planning on their part - but they do. With the help of Phil Spectre, a spectral wolf and Hallion, who although they did no, or very little damage, they did prove a useful distraction, and with Solveig's seemingly bottomless pool of spells and abilities, they pull through, managing to take down the mighty orc, and eventually wear down the Clockwork G...

Wednesday 4th June 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7 Following Solveig’s rescue from the giant spider, the healthier members of the party decide to split up. Sanada remains with the exhausted druid in the “common room” and spends her time investigating the nearby locked room. Using her shadow step ability to slip through the keyhole, she manages to gain entry. Inside, she finds several locked chests. Lacking keys or other tools, she resorts to brute force—methodically smashing the chests open with her fists. Though this takes time, she eventually succeeds, recovering some useful loot. However, nothing appears immediately relevant to the party’s current predicament. Meanwhile, Solveig waits outside with their prisoner, the bound and hooded cleric Drake. Given Solveig’s recent transformation—from a calm, nature-loving druid to something far more unstable—the wisdom of leaving a helpless prisoner in their care is… questionable. That concern proves justified. When the party la...

Wed 28th May 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7 Having chased one of the cultists around the sewers, they have arrived at a door, with no idea if he is behind it, but there is the sound of voices coming from within. While the others wait around a corner, Solveig changes to a spider to check out the room, crawling under the door. He emerges on the other side of the door in a lounge area - a well-lit and relatively comfortable room within the sewers. He spots the guy they were chasing - the seeming leader of the ritual - on the far side of the room, and about 6 other cultists standing around, blades ready and discussing their next steps, being well aware of the intruders in the sewers. Rather than retreat and tell the others of the contents of this room, Solveig decides to take advantage of his spider form and run across the well-lit and well-furnished room to see what is on the other side of the room. To save time, he runs across the floor of the room. Unfortunately, despite...

Wed 14th May 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7 As the guard runs off deeper into the sewers, our "Heroes" make a quick (at least, quick for them) decision as to their immediate response. Sanada is closest to the fleeing guard, and spots that he went into a large room - a makeshift "temple" - where there were other cultists, now fully alerted to the presence of the intruders. Sanada waits for the others to catch up, and tells them what was ahead and they quickly hatch their plan of attack. They then ignore that plan and wing it, which ought to be their plan every time, as it is always what they end up doing anyway. With all hope of a stealthy, or deceptive, infiltration of the group completely out of the window, their best hope for ensuring any useful information the cult may have is contained, and available to them, is to shut down any group of cultists to prevent the higher up members from fleeing or destroying useful information. And so they just run ...

Wed 7th May 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 7 - Alturiak 7 Whilst Sanada and Faith headed to the Merchants' Quarter library to research Dragon Shrines and Shadar-Kai magic, respectively, Alwaith and Solveig came up with a plan to interrogate the captured member of the Black Sun cult. They put a lot of thought into their disguise and how to try to win over the young, scared, captured acolyte, with Solveig disguising himself as another, senior, captured member of the cult, with a semi-detailed backstory about why he was in Neverwinter. A slight mis-step, perhaps, when Solveig implied that he was here to kill the acolyte (!) but he managed to pull it back with some name-dropping and the odd convincing persuasion roll. Having gained some of the acolyte's confidence, the plan fell apart a little when it was realised that our "Heroes" had not discussed what information they actually wanted to get from the cult member! Assuming that this low-level member of the local cult wo...

Wed 30th Apr 2025 In-game timeline: Alturiak 6 - Alturiak 7 Our "Heroes" return! Back in the Material Plane after a long, and rather miserable, spell in the Shadowfell. They are unsure not only where they are, but also WHEN they are, as they do not know how well the Staff of Ages worked in returning them to their own time and place. In fact, the Staff or Ages, which holds the Eye of Kronos gem, is now dim and cracked - likely unable to be used again. Once they have recovered their senses, and once more acclimatised to the colours and smells of the Material Plane after the dull and monochrome Shadow lands, Alwaith and Solveig assess that they are probably in the Northern Hemisphere, likely not hundreds of miles away from Neverwinter, given the climate and position of the sun - which is somewhat hazy in the misty and overcast sky. They also reckon the time is early morning. Sanada's despondency does not seem to have left her, despite the return home, though its effect has p...