“All right, we start in a wide-open field outside the cityof Darkthorn. You are all part of an enormous crowd that’s formed around a large wooden stage. Each of you is here to attend the Darkthorn music festival, one of the most well-known festivals in the land.”
“You have us at a concert?” Max asks. “Are all of the performers women?”
I blush. “Actually, yes.”
When I created this opening, I figured I should choose something that would be in my repertoire. I haven’t been to many concerts or music festivals, but I’ve always thought how cool it would be to have gone to Lilith Fair, an all-female concert tour in the nineties. So, I took that as the inspiration.
The others ask questions about the details of what everything looks like, and what types of people are around, but I anticipated this and am able to answer everything.
“The final act comes onto the stage, and the crowd surges forward,” I say, adding urgency to my voice. “Just then, there’s a rustle in the surrounding forest, and an enormous opossum comes barreling toward the crowd. It’s as tall as a person and has glowing red eyes and vicious, long teeth.”
Everyone sits back in surprise, and I smile to myself. I’d seen giant badgers listed as monsters, so I figured I’d use that as a template.
“People begin to scream and run away in any direction they can.”
“Not me,” Max says confidently. “I’m dragonborn. Anopossumisn’t going to scare me.”
I knew he’d react that way. “The opossum swipes at another concertgoer who gets too close, and they go flying into the air. Do the rest of you stay where you are or run?”
“We’re staying,” Nova says.
“I figured. Then it’s time for our first initiative roll to see who goes first for this battle.” We each roll a d20—our first time doing this together—which makes everyone grin.
“All right, time to finally do some damage with these axes,” Max announces once we determine that he’s going first. He gets a 19 on his attack roll, which means he definitely hits, and gets a high roll for damage as well.
I do some calculations behind my screen while Max and Felix high-five.
“That damage is enough that the opossum falls to the ground dead,” I announce.
“That’s how it’s done!” he shouts. “One blow from me is all it takes. Wait, don’t opossums have pouches? Do you think it could be storing anything of value in there? I want to loot the body.”
“You can certainly try.”
Nova eyes me suspiciously. “Are we sure this thing is actually dead?”
Aw man, she knows my expressions too well. “Actually, all of a sudden it pops back up and turns its red eyes on you again, Max.”
“But you said it was dead!”
“It was onlyplayingdead,” Felix says with a laugh.
“An extra fun reason to use it as a monster.” I turn to Max. “I believe the deranged opossum is coming for you.”
The party spends the rest of the game fighting off the giant opossum and then a giant raccoon that appears, although that one gets away and runs back into the forest. They also question a few non-player characters about whether this isthe first time a creature like this has been sighted and any reasons why it might be attacking. To my utter delight and relief, there’s no hint of tension or animosity as we get deeper into the session. The group is completely absorbed, especially when the raccoon gets away, and that helps me fall into my role instead of analyzing every word out of my mouth. I’m particularly proud of having the raccoon escape so that they’ll want to follow its trail into the forest to get to our first dungeon crawl—a quintessential D&D adventure.
I can tell they’d like to continue, but we won’t have time to get far before my parents finish their game and kick everyone out. So, we call it there and pack up.
Li pulls me into a hug by the front door on her way out. “Hazel, that was the most fun I’ve had in forever.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Felix agrees. “I’m glad to be included.” He’s more subdued than Li, but he seems to mean it.
Nova hugs me next. “You did an awesome job. I’m so glad we finally did this.” She drops her voice and whispers in my ear, “And you managed to make it the whole night without fighting. Well done.”
“No one’s more surprised than me.”
I wave goodbye to the others as Max comes up beside me.
“This was a new experience. I think we both managed to lose our bet today.”
