Tales from the Yawning Portal: The Story So Far

It's been almost one full year since I started running the first adventure from Tales from the Yawning Portal for my wife and children. Despite numerous interruptions, we're now over halfway through  the second adventure, and everyone is still eager for more. I felt it was time to move the ever-growing appendix of links from the end of each session summary to its own page. From now on, I'll simply include a link to this page with each new installment.

Following that index are my house rules for the campaign, which for now just consist of the options from the core rules that we're using.

Our Heroes

Our heroes for The Forge of Fury include (from left to right, above):

• Sir Dain (NPC/guest-PC), male hill dwarf paladin 4 (oath of devotion, knight)
• Xuri, female blue dragonborn sorcerer 4 (wild magic, sage)
• Raven Flare, female tiefling rogue 4 (assassin, urchin)
• Kalitni, female human ranger 4 (beast master, hermit) with Daikitsu, wolf companion
• Erky Timbers (DM-run NPC), male forest gnome cleric 4 (life domain, acolyte)

The Story So Far...

Tales from the Yawning Portal (product mini-review; 4/19/2017)

The Sunless Citadel (2017)

#1: Down into the Ground (5/31/2017; started at 1st level)
#2: Lost Dragon (6/7/2017; reached 2nd level)
#3: Through the Dragon Door (6/14/2017)
#4: Goblin Boss Battle (8/9/2017; reached 3rd level)
#5: Through Pallid Gardens (9/28/2017)
[Campaign Update (9/28/2017)]
#6: Belak, at Last (10/5/2017)

The Forge of Fury (2018-2019)

[2017 in Review: The Blog (1/2/2018)]
#1: Orc Gruel (1/9/2018)
#2: Bloody Stirges! (1/16/2018)
#3: Into the Glitterhame (2/13/2018; reached 4th level)
#4: Even the Rocks Want to Eat Us (2/28/2018)
#5: The Wrong Kind of Dwarf (5/8/2018)
#6-7: Forges and Dragons (1/3/2019)

House Rules

Most house rules for this campaign pertain to available options for player characters, but I am also using a couple of the optional rules from the core rulebooks.

Books: At present, the only books that are being used for this campaign are the core rulebooks (Player's Handbook [PH], Dungeon Master's Guide [DMG], and Monster Manual [MM]), plus--of course--the adventure anthology Tales from the Yawning Portal.

Determining Ability Scores: Use the ability score array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. (In order to keep character creation quick and simple, the Customizing Ability Scores option will not be used.)

Races: All PH races and subraces are allowed except for dark elves (drow). Variant human traits (p. 31) are an allowed option.

Classes: All PH classes and subclasses are allowed.

Backgrounds: All PH backgrounds (pp. 125-141) are allowed, including variants.

Starting Equipment: Characters receive equipment based on class and background, not random gold. (If we ever need to introduce a new PC later on, we'll combine this with the DMG guidelines for wealth at high levels.)

Multiclassing: (I have not yet determined if multiclassing will be an option for this campaign. And no one has asked to yet.)

Feats: Feats (pp. 165-170) may be chosen in place of Ability Score Improvements, or at 1st level if the variant human traits (p. 31) are chosen.

Combat: The flanking rules will be used; see p. 251 of the DMG.

Gods of the Multiverse: Tales from the Yawning Portal includes adventures that were originally written for multiple campaign worlds. There will be minimal attention paid to the world outside the adventures, so any gods from the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Nonhuman tables (PH, pp. 293-299) are suitable.