D&D at Gravitate: Coworking leads to tabletop adventures
Most people know Gravitate as a coworking space for entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote workers and others, but not everyone knows about some of the awesome things that go on behind the scenes. Gravitate is a breeding ground for partnerships, free-flowing ideas and new adventures.
A prime example of this is Dungeons & Dragons. For over a year now Gravitate members and others get together every other week to partake in the structured, yet open-ended role-playing game.
“It was a First Friday at Gravitate and we all somehow ended up talking about D&D,” said EB Updegraff, Gravitate member and dungeon master. “It sounded like a lot of fun so we decided to start doing it.”
Having long been interested in D&D, but never having played I decided to join the adventure. We played for nearly five hours on a Tuesday evening. I had a blast and will definitely continue to participate.
Here’s what went down. (To avoid subjecting you to a 3,000-word blog post, I’ve spared you all but the crucial details):
EB took on the role of dungeon master.
The rest of us — two paladins, two sorcerers, a barbarian, a cleric and a druid — found ourselves in an old house in Goldenrod, a town in turmoil, recovering from a recent invasion of thieves.
In the process of fixing up the house, we discover a hidden door in the basement. After some brief deliberation, we decide to pry the door open to see what’s behind it. We enter the room behind the door to find a large earthy room with strange symbols on the ground and cages along the walls.
Suddenly, our group is surprise attacked by tentacles that drop down from the ceiling. Many of us are wrapped up unable to fight at full strength. We begin hacking away at tentacles and quickly realize that the tentacles are regenerating as quickly as we can cut them. A firebolt is shot at one of the tentacles hanging from the ceiling, lighting up the room and allowing us to see the creature itself on the ceiling.
After the long and hard-fought battle full of javelin throwing, fire bolts and magic, we managed to defeat the mysterious creature.
However, our victory celebration was short-lived. For as the creature was slain, it released its grip on our comrade Kralin, dropping him 60 feet to the ground. Kralin had passed.
So ended my first dungeons and dragons encounter.
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Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018
Jake Slobe is the Managing Editor of Clay & Milk. He also writes blog posts for Gravitate. A recent graduate from the University of Iowa, Jake has previously written for the Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research, Iowa Journalist and The Daily Iowan.
Aug 8, 2018
