DM cocktail

For some reason I decided as I was cleaning up from today's session (I hold them at our dinner table, which is in our fairly large combo kitchen/dining room) to clean out the fruit drawer, and found some limes that definitely needed to be squeezed Right Away. I also had out some berry-flavored seltzer - originally bought to top off a not-especially-inspiring, but pretty, red, white, and blue sangria that I took to M's parents' Fourth of July roof party this summer, but ultimately not used then - that I'd pulled out to make D orange spritzer after I ran out of plain seltzer. That also put me in mind of the Chambord raspberry liqueur that I bought for the sangria. The result:

The Dungeon Master

1 oz fresh lime juice

1 oz Campari

1 oz Chambord

1 oz Greenhook Ginsmiths Old Tom Gin (the first gin I laid hands on that I was willing to sacrifice, although next time I'll use Tanqueray)

The gin made it taste considerably less like cough syrup. In fact, I'll make it again. 

Weeks 4 and 5: Not that kind of brownie

It's all a bit of a blur, but the party (now minus T the rogue) did make it through the dungeon intact and get their 275 XP (as well as an extra 50 for the random giant spider I gave them to keep things interesting) and rescue Sildar, one of their original employers. Other high- and lowlights:

-B the rogue has changed his name to Default Skin, so will henceforth be known as S, since D is already taken. (This us a Fortnite reference, I'm told, and I don't want to know any more.) He's also manifesting even more homicidal tendencies than the others, which is amusing because I had previously considered him, along with A, as the most orderly of the four boys... which he may still be in school and regular life! In the campaign universe, however, he's a cannibal who keeps trying to eat dead monsters and threatening to kill and eat party members. Sigh... On the plus side, his mother did send some excellent brownies for our snack last time.

-D is still being difficult. On the plus side he seems to be having a better start to his school year than last year.

Week 3: First casualty of the feline

Not, this time, the cat as weapon: T had to drop out because he's allergic to cats and it was making him too miserable. We're bummed, although it's possible having one less player will make things quieter. (I'm not holding my breath on that, admittedly - for one thing T was on the calmer end for the group.)

Otherwise, it was a fairly routine trip farther into the dungeon. The party, now four total, made it into the cave and killed a few goblins and a couple of wolves. M, the Tiefling warlock, has a backstory in which he was raised by wolves (quite inaccurate with respect to his actual parents, IMHO), so he decided to make friends with one of the wolves and I let him succeed. The wolf even helped kill a goblin, although I don't expect that to reliably continue unless he works at it a bit more.

B also managed to make his first saving throw against goblin-flesh-related gastroenteritis (he's got a few more to go, though). We'll see what next week brings.