Session IV: 'But I Don't Want to Look in the Bucket'

Our Party
Azok - Silver Dragonborn Barbarian
Harrod -Half Elf Paladin
Grog -Half-Orc (Ogren) Fighter
Scruffy - Blue Dragonborn Paladin
Stephen - Halfing Bard
Peter -Human Thief

When we last left off half of the party was facing off against a pair of giant maggots that had just ripped their way out of a corpse, while the other half was getting friendly with a rust monster. The maggots were dealt with post-haste while the rust monster was lured away by throwing the paladin's helmet into the sewer like tossing a ball for an eager dog.

You can tell you're dealing with new players when they did not immediately search the body, which meant they didn't find the treasure map on the dead pirate's body. Turns out I didn't need the hook anyway.

Instead they trekked on ahead where they found a storeroom guarded by a Ratling warrior and a half dozen giant rats. The ratling is an NPC I actually stat'd named Nasher. He played dead with a couple of hit points left and was able to scuttle out of the room once they had lost interest in him. Nasher and Skabies (who we will get to in a moment) had been hired by someone to steal Grixby's master's amulet, but were playing with it a bit before turning it over.

Meanwhile, Scruffy, broke into a heavy boarded up old dormitory for the sewer workers. The only things inside were some old cots, a table and a large bucket under the table. Scruffy went in first and they all ended up confronting this illusion-projecting, face eating monstrosity that had been hibernating in the bucket. Much hilarity ensued. We also learned that one of the twins can poke his brother in a certain way that makes him fart, which isn't really useful to me as a DM, but you never know.

After all that, I was finally able to reunite the party just in time for Azok, in his eagerness to loot the next room, barge down a nearby stairway and into a room where the Ratling Warlock Skabies was playing around with the Amulet of the Green Sign.

And we left it there. The next session isn't until the new year, but I told them that after they deal with 'the Ratomancer' as they dubbed him, they will level up. They are looking forward to that.

I broke a bit early because I wanted to ask the group what they wanted to do next year. They were running off in all directions until I broke it down a little simpler: keep exploring the dungeons, get on a ship, leave the city and explore the area, or stay in the city.

The little shits voted to stay in the city. So instead of coming up with mazes, monsters and traps I gotta come up with NPCs and stores and plots and street names and stores. Seriously, I am the least prepared for this. Cities are large and complex with politics and people and intrigue - which has never really been my style and I don't have a lot of ideas that don't get super complicated, super fast. I'm not sure my DMing skills are up for this.