Solo Session #1
Dungeons & Dragons 5e
Lost mine of Phandelver/Possibly maybe the Shattered Obelisk

The tenday had just begun, and two adventurers were to meet someone named Tulae in Neverwinter. They each shared a mutual friend, a dwarven man named Gundren Rockseeker, and for one reason or another they each were headed to the old mining town of Phandalan. Gundren had mentioned that this would be one of the last jobs they would ever need to do.

They loaded up in a horse drawn carriage and headed off to Phandalan. The carriage was loaded with supplies they were to take to Elmar Barthan, owner of Barthan’s Provisions, which is a small trading post in Phandalan.

The trip there was rather quiet, but over the few days of travel, they did introduce themselves:

Tulae Wickenshaw, a Halfling Cleric and an old friend of Gundren. She was the one who shared the most on the way down. Apparently Gundren was on the hunt for something, and Tulae had an interest in old civilizations. So she traveled with Gundren for some time as he was on his hunt. Eventually they parted ways. She assumes that Gundren finally found whatever it was he was looking for.

Kethin, a Human Rogue who has a very pessimistic outlook on life. He’s here to get paid, and nothing more. Gundren worked with him in the past, and he knows Gundren is true to his word on matters involving coin.

Val, a Kobold Sorcerer who… well she was incredibly quiet most of the way down so who actually knows? The others tried to talk to her several times, but she seemed distant and lost in thought. Her eyes have an empty sadness to them. Tulae and Kethin have their share of tragedy in their lives, but they couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for the young Kobold. What must she have seen?

Sometime after departure they had made their way down the Triboar Trail. The talking had died off and they just silently clopped on. Tulae noticed something in the road, “Oi, there’s something up ahead.”

They had been made aware that bandits had been active along the trail so they were immediately cautious.  Each of them taking their respective weapons.

On the trail were two dead horses.  They pulled the cart up close and stopped to investigate.  Tulae, being the curious one jumped out first with Kethin exiting the back side of the cart.

“Be careful, this could be a trap.”  Said Kethin.  Tulae nodded and looked around as she investigated.  The horses had been shot with black feathered arrows.  The saddlebags had been ransacked and nearby on the ground was an empty map case.  Having traveled with Gundren for some time, Tulae also recognized this as Gundren’s horse.  Before she could relay that back to the party, she was pelted with arrows.

Kethin immediately darted in the woods to hide and get the jump on their attackers.  Tulae retreated back to the cart, using a healing spell on herself to tend to the wounds.  Val spotted some goblins hiding in the shrubs and launched a Chromatic Orb at one, dropping it immediately.  Val shouted to the rest of the group what was happening.  

This was enough information for Kethin to skulk through the woods and take out another one without being found.  Meanwhile, the goblins continued their assault on Tulae, taking her down with another volley of arrows.

Kethin and Val took out another one together, and the final remaining goblin fled while Val tended to Tulae’s wounds.

Tulae took a few moments to regain her composure, and immediately insisted they follow the goblin into the woods.  “If they did somethin’ with Gundren, I imagine neither of you have any reason to really continue forward.”

Val and Kethin somberly agreed, and they parked the carriage off in the woods.  After a little bit of investigation, they were able to find and follow the tracks of the fleeing goblin.

Some time later…

They all arrived at a cave mouth with two goblins standing guard outside.  Figuring this was the place, they decided they’d have to fight their way through.  Kethin fired at one of the goblins, while Val and Tulae fired spells at the other one.  

Both the goblins went down without any sound.  They snuck their way in through the cave entrance.  Off on a side path, there were three wolves all chained up.  The wolves barked and batted at the party as they snuck by.  The wolves somewhat startled the party, and they doubled their speed to get by the side path.  Figuring the jig was up, they continued forward at normal speed.

They climbed up a rocky path and rounded a corner to find themselves faced with 7 goblins.  They hadn’t been as stealthy as they probably should, and the goblins opened fire on them.

Tulae was in front and took the brunt of the damage.  Kethin ran around her into the room and dispatched one, while Val took out another one with a Firebolt.  The goblins crowded Kethin and Tulae.  Kethin took some blows, but was able to stay on his feet.  Tulae however, still injured from the fight before, went down once more.  

Kethin managed to take out another, as did Val.  Luckily this time around, one of the goblins actually clobbered another one by accident.  Kethin used the commotion to take an attack and strike down another goblin.  The room had a staircase leading to an upper platform that looked over the area below where the party had been fighting. One of the two remaining goblins seemingly fell back, moving out of sight from those below.  Kethin ascended the stone stairs to make his way to the final two, while Val healed Tulae.

Tulae, upon waking up, and rather pissed by this whole ordeal, fired off a spell at the the only visible goblin above as Kethin was approaching, dropping the goblin instantly.  This allowed Kethin free access to the final…

Or it would have.  The final goblin appeared with a beaten and battered middle aged human man. He dangled him over the ledge, “Any more moves and the human dies…” he said in his gnarled goblin voice.

“Sildar…” Tulae muttered worriedly, clearly recognizing the man.

Kethin stowed his blades and waited for the goblin to speak.

“Now then…”  Said the goblin as he slightly pulled back the man from the ledge.  “I believe we can help each other…”

Length: 1hr

My Notes / Thoughts:
I played for one hour because I wanted to just…start. But I wanted to set a time limit so I could pull myself out and not develop any habits one way or the other. The goal is to get an idea of my weak points so I can look into systems to compensate for what I am looking for in solo play. I just didn’t know what that was yet, even after looking around.

Some takeaways I found while playing were:

• 3 whole characters with an entire character sheet worth of abilities and powers might have been a bit overzealous for my first attempt.  After doing more research I see that a lot of people tend to go with one character and maybe a couple of followers.  In my head I think I wanted something similar to “actual” d&d.  I just didn’t realize how often I would be stopping to look something up or write down what was happening. I wouldn’t say I hated it or anything, but it was certainly not what I was expecting for some reason.
• I started on Lost Mine of Phandelver because I have played it with my friends before.  I have the newer book “The Shattered Obelisk” and I know it continues the story and changes some things here and there, but a lot of my memories are from that original version. Which is also partly why I chose this adventure. It was easier to hop right in and go.
• I think I will probably do one more session where I just sort of wing it like this. Afterwards I have 2 books to pick between to help me run this solo. The ones I am looking at are the “Mythic GM Emulator,” and “DM Yourself.” I am leaning towards DM Yourself currently because it actually goes into specifically running Lost Mine of Phandelver. I think having that added guidance will help me pick up on how things work and can properly apply them to more adventures going forward.
• Keeping a log like this is…weird. Some of the things and how they are described here don’t really go into the mechanics of the game and might not make sense at a glance when thinking about game mechanics. Kethin getting an opportunity attack on one of the goblins, for example. When playing, the goblin actually took a step away from his ally to see what the hell was happening, prompting the opportunity attack. But I skimmed over that for the sake of moving the story along. So think of this as a retelling of the events as they actually happened at the table. Sometimes those details aren’t really important, so I am just writing them down in the way that makes sense to get the point of what happened across.