Fate of the Realms: Sessions One and Two

 So, we started the campaign and the first session was a bit chaotic. I must admit that "roleplay" isn't my forte, but I was perhaps anxious that day. So I decided to play that up with the NPC patron- a wizard named Qia Lien, secretly a chronomancer from the time of 5e. I didn't describe her as being from Kara Tur, but perhaps I should with that name. I had to cut the session short, but before that we got the initial meeting and objective of the adventure down. The PCs have to seek out a Runestone that Halaster was using to try to forestall an upcoming disaster. One character was able to get a bit of an indication of the secrets surrounding the wizard.

 So in the second session they descended into Undermountain.  They almost immediately encountered a lesser caryatid column (actually a modified animated object) in a antimagic field in a hall full of pillars. This... was a slog. It was a slog the first time even without the antimagic field (I forgot about that in the first attempt at this campaign). I'm not running it a third time, but if I did, then it would not include this encounter. The encounter as written in the module (Expedition to Undermountain), would have probably been even worse, with an actual caryatid column. Honestly, if you ever want to run Undermountain in 3e other modules featuring the megadungeon may be better.

  After the exploration of some corridors north of the hall of pillars. They found a barricade with "Greyhawk Construction Company" on it. Bypassing it they encountered a recently constructed brick wall. Confounded by this they withdrew.

Soon afterwards they encountered some goblins. Seeing them to not be immediately hostile they parlayed. The goblins explained that this was their territory and that the PCs could obtain a token in exchange for gold. The PCs reacted by claiming that by destroying the lesser caryatid column. The goblins agreed and they got the token. They then returned to the hall of pillars to rest. 

Fate of the Realms A Forgotten Realms campaign

Fate of the Realms is my newest D&D campaign, using 3.5 with the Trailblazer rules. Trailblazer is something of an overhaul of the 3.5 system, but more compatible with it than Pathfinder. The basic premise of the campaign is that a Chronomancer travels back in time from about one century in the future and seeks to prevent the Spellplague from ever happening. She recruits our heroes for the task, actually knowing them from the future. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually know exactly what started the Spellplague, though she knows it was triggered by Mystra's death at the hands of Cyric.

Therefore she has our heroes enter Undermountain shortly after the death of Halaster Blackcloak,who also sought to avert the coming disaster though he did not know the exact nature of the threat. Their goal is a Runestone that may allow the Chronomancer to forestall or even outright prevent the Spellplague. Unfortunately, I experienced a mass defection of players so I've had to restart, with the first game of the restarted campaign being this Saturday.