Rejoining the party mid-adventure…
The one and only port of call was Bermuda, famous for its triangles. The consensus among our group seemed to be that there was not much to fear since we were only going to the very corner of the Bermuda Triangle. It was deemed unlikely we’d all die in a shipwreck after crashing into a flaming iceberg of fire or sucked into a vortex of the spacetime continuum. That was until I pointed out that the corners of any triangle are the sharpest part, and therefore the most dangerous. Everyone grew concerned. Luckily there no supernatural mishaps or anomalies. Still I’m glad we convinced Lizzy to not bring a ouija board with her.
In addition to the voyage itself taking about twenty times as long as by airplane, the logistics of getting on and off the boat every time were cumbersome. The port was on the extreme end of a long hook of land, which meant either a long bus or ferry ride to anything at all, and that meant queueing up with thousands of our new closest friends for limited service. Our first stop was the famous Crystal Cavern. It took us three hours to get there, even though the island is only twenty miles long. The whole trip was lovely and scenic so we didn’t really mind. The cave itself was a cool experience. It had a very blue (when lit up) underground lake. Still, after that we switched to taxicabs.
We decided to go one of the famous pink sand beaches. We found a very nice beach called Horseshoe Beach. And shaw’nuff the sand was actually kinda pink. The beach was sheltered from main ocean by a row of rocks like giant teeth out in the bay. Next to the main beach was a smaller beach like a tide pool. The whole scene was very beautiful, with the blue water, the sunshine, the waves, the rocks, the cliffs and the caves. Right next to the beach was a bar and restaurant, so we took a break and got some fruity rum drinks. Lizzy made a point of telling me this we the first time she and her friends had been to a bar while being of legal drinking age, so I bought them all a round. We stayed at the beach and the bar the rest of the afternoon and into evening. It was alot like actually being at a resort.
Late that night, after dinner, Jeannie and I walked around the village near the port. The next day we only had a half day on the island, so we stuck close to port. There was an old fort that was also a museum, so we checked that out and learned alot about the history of the island, the British navy, pirates, shipwrecks and of course triangles.
The trip home was much like the trip out. I must say the food was very good.
We resumed our D&D campaign on the at-sea day the trip back. The party wound their way thru the jungle toward the central plateau of the Isle of Dread. Along the way they encountered a treehouse village of some kind of flying-monkey-squirrel type creature. A melee ensued. The party was outnumbered but they escaped when Michelle used a Thunder Clap spell to repulse them.
A bit later they were scrambling down a mountain side toward a rope bridge crossing a chasm in order to reach the plateau, when suddenly a pair of giant lizards appeared. As luck would Abby was collecting toy rubber lizards given as prizes from the ship’s videogame arcade, and they were just the right size to use with the lego minifigs I brought along to use as tokens for the party. Because they were on a hillside I made a rule that if any player rolls 1 in a combat action they must make a dexterity check or slide down the mountainside some distance. (I don’t know if it’s a house rule of mine, because I’ve played so many version of D&D over the years, and in any event I like the keep the focus on fun and adventuring rather than rule minutia, but I like to play that just as a 20 is a critical hit, a 1 is a critical miss and is always followed by a roll to see if there is some tragic or hilarious consequence.)
So anyway, Carmine the Invincible is single handedly taking on one of the lizards (remember this is a party of first-level characters again 3 hit-dice monsters). Meanwhile the rest of the party is confronting the other one. Abby has the idea she wants to make friends with all the creatures she meets, so even though it attacks, she repeatedly attempts to charm, grapple, lasso or otherwise subdue it. Soon the whole party joins in. At one point Michelle makes a lasso and tries to toss it to Valerie, only to roll a 1 and go tumbling down the hillside. In any event they eventually subdue the lizard and name it Lizzy after her cousin. Abby, a halfling, is able to ride it as mount. I awarded them double experience for that encounter. What I didn’t tell them is every day, and whenever there’s a new combat, the lizard has a chance of running away or turning on the party!
That session was so much fun that everyone asked if we could do another one that evening after dinner, the last night of the cruise. By the end the party reached the central plateau, seen and even fended off a few giant dinosaurs, and reached a village in the middle of the plateau on the shores of a high lake in a dormant volcanic crater. On an island in the middle of the lake is the Forbidden Temple with the evil priest and undead army, and the final phase of the adventure. We left on a cliff hanger, and now it looks like the campaign will continue over the rest of the summer and maybe into the fall. I figure it’ll take two or maybe three sessions to complete. This is good news as far as I’m concerned, and Michelle too. When this adventure is done she wants to DM.