Once you get to higher levels, you can communicate with each other from far away (if you’ve got the right spells). So, a party split should go smoothly, right?

But what happens when those spells aren’t working?

In these Campaign Diary posts, I discuss the campaign I play in and what happened in our most recent session.

What’s SBotLL?

That’s the name of the campaign I play in! It’s been running for almost four years now. There are two parties, one on the Surface and one in the Underdark. I play in the surface squad as the elf bard Finnith, and my two friends play the dragonborn rogue Nala and the tiefling ranger Allora.

Recap

Allora has stayed behind at the Awoken Flame’s camp while Finnith and Nala go to take care of business in Thraden. She survives a difficult battle with an enemy that attacked them. But as her consciousness fades, her bow of warning goes off…

Meanwhile, Finnith and Nala square away some stuff in Thraden. They meet up with Antonio, who has been spying on the Coven for the Moon’s Eye, and discuss the information they’ve found out.

Antonio also delivers a letter to Finnith, addressed to him from Carmella Amastacia…

During this session…

Finnith reads the letter, which essentially is the Coven of Eternal Light declaring war on the Moon’s Eye. But, the Coven thinks that Finnith (the “dark sorcerer”) is the leader of the “dark forces” that stand against the Coven, so they’re singling him out as the recipient of this declaration. He uses the sending spell to relay this information to the actual leader of the Moon’s Eye.

Since the party is split up, Finnith tries to use the dream spell to contact Allora and touch base. It doesn’t work. Sending also doesn’t work… and neither of those spells work for a few of the other NPCs who are supposed to be at the Awoken Flame.

Finnith and Nala speak with Vindus, the deity that the party is working for who they can speak with mentally. Vindus tells them that Allora is recovering from a difficult battle.

At that, Finnith reaches out to another NPC at the Awoken Flame, and learns that Allora’s okay, but not everyone else is.

Nala and Finnith are very concerned for Allora, but it’s too late to start travelling at this time of day. So, Nala makes use of dream to speak with the warlock NPC Amuulqalo to ask him to return to them in preparation for the conflict with the Coven.

Meanwhile, Finnith speaks with Antonio while they’re waiting for Nala to finish the dream. The two banter back and forth a bit. Antonio hasn’t revealed all his secrets yet, though, so Finnith asks about one of them—how was he able to find them? It takes some persuading, but Antonio relents and shows Finnith something unusual: a diamond pendant with a drop of blood forming a rune within it.

And that was the end of the session!

Communication Spells

We’re in a later tier of play now, hovering around level 14. As a full caster, Finnith has access to sending and dream to communicate with anyone who is a valid target for those spells. He also has enough spell slots to use these spells more than once a day.

This changes the dynamic of the sessions, when we can communicate with anyone we’ve met in a limited fashion. The DM has to prepare for any number of NPCs to get contacted in this way. There’s definitely a trade-off—it’s fun for us as players, but we still need to ask the right questions of the right people, so we still face the challenge of communication!

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!