When a sinister enemy cleric called Elwaylin slew and then revived a friend of the Tiefling Rogue Lividity, she took the opportunity to call upon the powers of the Dead Three gods of the Forgotten Realms.
Lividity’s player, Alexander Ward, capitalized on a loophole in the language for the Bloodthirst ability, which allows a Scion of the Three Rogue to teleport next to a Bloodied enemy to then make an attack as a Reaction. Instead of attacking the gravely injured “enemy,” however, Lividity stepped from behind Elwaylin and plunged her shortsword into the cleric’s chest.
“I don’t necessarily disagree with your purpose in being here,” Lividity growled. “But I do take umbrage with you killing people I like.”
This moment quickly emerged as one of the coolest from the Dungeons & Dragons Actual Play from Wizards of the Coast, released Nov. 5, proving that seasoned Dungeon Master Aabria Iyengar abides by the Rule of Cool.
“Being able to just yeet myself across the battlefield to a Bloodied enemy is really, really cool,” Ward told viraltrendingcontent in a video call. “Bloodthirst is such an incredible skill to get to play with, and it makes you feel so powerful.”
With Iyengar as DM, Ward played alongside Ginny Di, Christian Navarro, and Damien Haas in a one-shot session of “Adventures in Faerûn: Tears of Selûne,” remastered for D&D 2024 rules as part of two newly released sourcebooks: The Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn and Adventures in Faerûn. In this short adventure, which you can watch in full on the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel, four adventurers race to save Waterdeep from the dark magic of the Goddess Shar. At this table, the adventure took nearly two and a half hours.
“It’s to show how cool Forgotten Realms is,” Ward said, adding that he grew up reading the novels. “These new books are absolutely gorgeous, and the adventure is designed to demonstrate what you can do inside them.”
Not only do these two new books mark the first major release under the revamped 2024 5e rules, but they’re D&D’s first return to the Forgotten Realms since 2020’s Rime of the Frostmaiden. In the years since, however, 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie and the critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate III, both set on the continent of Faerûn, have firmly reestablished the Forgotten Realms as D&D’s flagship setting. Heroes of Faerûn and Adventures in Faerûn capitalize on that momentum.
Wizards of the Coast assembled the star-studded cast of actual play aficionados to celebrate and showcase the new eight subclasses, various feats, and other character options available.
Ward and fellow player Ginny Di told viraltrendingcontent over video call that the group assembled for a day-long Session 0, which they described as a rare luxury for a filmed game. They were given the books and encouraged to develop characters using the new class options.
“It was like having a feast laid out before you,” Di said. “We all got to explore what the books offered together and see what everyone else was interested in while figuring out how those choices would play together.”
The players established a shared history for their characters, so that even though this adventure is technically a one-shot, “it didn’t feel like strangers meeting in a tavern,” Ward said.
As a major fan of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series, Di grew enchanted by the idea of a magic “adventure librarian” who fights monsters. The Cleric’s Knowledge Domain subclass gave her the perfect opportunity to create Iksa Penn.
“I’ve always loved the idea of a big, strong orc librarian with tiny little glasses,” she said. “Iksa’s a by-the-book rule-follower forced into situations where she has to decide whether following the book is actually the right thing.”
Alongside chaotic companions like Lividity, Iksa Penn emerges as something of a “straight man” for the group.
Voice actor Damien Haas played what Di described as a mischievous, heart-filled “little rascal” character that balanced the party’s darker tones: a halfling College of the Moon Bard named Prumpkino. Critical Role regular Christian Navarro played the ancient elven Winter Walker Ranger Eloin Emberleaf.
“Christian really nailed the feeling of being a long-lived species like an elf,” Ward said. “It was wonderfully sad.”
Ward named his Tiefling Rogue Lividity after the purple hue a corpse takes when blood pools after death, which is fitting for a character blessed (or cursed) by the Dead Three: Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul.
“You can play somebody who’s not necessarily good and still work with a party,” Ward said. “That dynamic was really important to me.”
As DM, Aabria Iyengar infused the story with a sinister sense of danger. In an early scene during the session, an enemy erupts out of a friendly shopkeeper’s mouth, fingers first.
Without giving too much more away, both Di and Ward described Iyengar’s approach to DM-ing this one-shot as “brutal … in the best way.”
“I’ve never felt so scared for our characters, but at the same time so confident that we were all in it together,” Di said. “When you have a DM with that kind of confidence, it reminds you how powerful that can make the story.”
“She doesn’t pull punches,” Ward added. “She’ll take your ideas and mold them into the story in a way that feels so cool and unique.”
Though a dangerous single session for these four characters that may never gather at a table again, Ward argued that “even a single session can feel as meaningful as a whole campaign” if the players and DM take the time and care to make it special.
Even a one-shot can hit with the weight of a campaign if the table is willing to bleed for it. And bleed they did.
