Dungeons Without Dragons solo Finished

2024 Summer Holidays

Key: Harmony Melody (sister) Aubrey (Mum) Marcus (Dad)

While Harmony had been gallivanting in the hills of Scotland learning the ways of the wand, her father had been following his dreams of Dungeons-and-Dragoning, following some of his friends to their weekly session and quickly becoming caught up in the wonders of roleplay.

That brought the Hollins family to this current moment, seated around their dining table with a thoroughly scribbled-on sheet of paper lying before each of the girls and various large books propped up in front of Harmony’s dad to cover up what he had in front of him. Marcus had painstakingly figured out for himself how to D&D and now was going to impart the knowledge on his most loved ones in the form of a one-shot.
Harmony knew her father would be excited to share this new interest with his family and her mother would like to be spending time with them, but she felt quite embarrassed and quite certain that Melody was, too.
Yes, spending time doing improv and acting with family would be fun, but Harmony was at that age where there was nothing more embarrassing than your own parents.

“The scene begins in the depths of a dungeon, meticulously crafted over the span of a very long time – like, a week – and interwoven with ancient magic right through to its core.” Marcus set the scene, staring ominously at each of the players around the table in turn. He went on to describe the chamber of the dungeon the campaign would be starting in before turning to Melody.

“Duncan,” he began, “you are trudging through the woods, looking for adventure but not feeling very hopeful about it. Your hometown, filled with the enchanted reminders of your false attempts to find a place, grows smaller behind you”
“Oof, that’s dark,” Harmony muttered.
“Suddenly, your surroundings go blurry and your body is filled with an odd sensation of not knowing where to go, as if each molecule had been given a different instruction and they were all trying to make you carry it out at the same time”
Marcus narrated Melody’s character appearing in the aforementioned dungeon chamber, then Harmony’s, then Aubrey’s. He then introduced them to the problem: the wizard creator of the dungeon and all its traps hadn’t thought about the best way to go about his work, and was now trapped in the center of his dungeon with no recollection of what trap he set where or what any of the solutions were.
“Roll for Investigation,” and they were off!

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

“Wait! Before we leave this room, I check for chests or secret compartments or anything like that”
“Can I loot the body for stuff?”
“Is there anything interesting about the wall?”
“Mum, stop, you don’t need to collect all this stuff”

“OOH! I rolled a 20! That’s really good, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, Mel, that one was just to check if you actually hit the goblin or not. You need to roll another one to see how much it hurt”
“... it hurt one hp”

“Why were there even goblins in your dungeon anyways?”
“Uh, I don’t know, I thought it would be pretty cool. You killed them, though.”
“Yes? How else were we supposed to escape?”
“Well, you’ll have to find me some new ones when we get out of here”

“What do you do?”
“I look for a key”
“I knock”
“I run and charge at it”
“I help her charge at it”
“What do you mean it was an unlocked pull door?”

“The giant snake turns to you, Venus, and bows its head”
“No! I cast Friends on it to make it my friend!”
“I Command it to ignore her!”
“I Minor Illusion a giant middle finger as her face!”
“Well I use Thaumaturgy to make massive fart noises come right from her face!”
“Well, I-”

“The first question flashes on the stone wall, reading ‘what is Winston the Wondrous Wizard’s favourite colour?’”
“Well, Winston, what is it?”
“He says ‘blue’”
“Well then, we answer ‘blue’”
“The wall flashes red and the walls grate as they open to reveal your monstrous punishment”
“What the heck, Winston? It’s your favourite colour!”
“‘Sorry, I think it was pink when I made this wall last week.’ Anyways, roll for Initiative”

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

“As you make your way along the stone halls, you notice that you can see increasingly better with every step, and the flickering torches are becoming less important for your vision. Finally, your four turn the corner to see the outdoors! The sun is shining and there are trees that stretch higher than you can see with the mouth of the cave in the way.”

“Venus says, ‘Grass! I’ll never neglect you again!’” Harmony announced.
“Wait,” Melody squinted at her father in suspicion. “I don’t trust this.”
This was truly the end, however, and Marcus narrated Winston the Wondrous Wizard safely making his way to the mouth of the cave and back to the outdoors.
“What is this grass you speak of?” He joked.

The family closed up the campaign and packed away their character sheets and the multiple books Marcus had used to hide his DM notes.

“So, what did you think?” Marcus asked, an excited smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“I liked it,” Harmony announced.
“It’s a lot better than playing Catan”