Session 16: The Pig Pen

Going deeper in the dungeon increases the quantity of treasure but not the quality!

Session report for April 11, 2024. Six players adventured for two days.

Characters

Bastion, human fighter 4
Bard the Stout, human fighter 3
Deadleaf, elf assassin 3
Mustacha, human ranger 3
Jude, half-orc cleric/assassin 1/1
Lokken the Golden, human cleric 1

Fenrir megadungeon finally has a name: the Pig Pen!

come to da orktagon - oink!

These guys had a plan. Deadleaf showed up with a menagerie of animals to help, including more pack mules and a hawk. I don't know what the hawk was for. But they were ready to dive to level 3 of the Pig Pen and haul back loads of treasure on their mules. Let's find out if they succeeded!

First they returned to the room where they were ambushed by halflings last week. There were two secret doors and no treasure. All they found was a few empty jars with grubby halfling handprints on them.

They backtracked and headed to level 2 and ended up in the room with a trashed naugahyde couch. A secret panel in the back corner revealed a staircase down to level 3.

This was a new part of the dungeon for me, so I'm back to zero prep. Beyond the landing was a T-shaped intersection. To the left, the hallway curved away from them. To the right, just outside a door, was - and I promise, this was all determined by random chance - a patrol of orcs!

The orcs did not notice the party but that wouldn't last long because of all the light and noise from the party (1 segment of surprise). The party engaged the back line and wiped out two ranks of orcs. Deadleaf and Jude sniped their targets from rear with their bows, using the assassination table to great effect.

Shocked by the assault, the orcs retreated down the hall. The party charged into unknown territory and found something unexpected. The orcs were in a 20'x30' room, retreating through a secret door in the back. They were yelling at an ogre, promising treasure if he'd stop the party. The ogre sat on a pile of sacks and tattered furs yelling back at the orcs. What would he do?

The party's front line crashed into the orcs. Jude spoke to the ogre in the language of giants, hoping to keep it on the sidelines. Deadleaf didn't care: he shot the ogre in the face as soon as he saw it.

The ogre joined the battle next round and took a swipe at one of the men-at-arms. The orcs won initiative and escaped while the party murdered the ogre.

They took a breather and searched the room. The ogre's seat containd a mighty treasure of six thousand coins... all copper and silver.

They left the heavy treasure behind and returned to the door where they found the orcs. Deadleaf found a trap mechanism inside the lock, but he couldn't disarm it. Lucky for him, the trap did not go off, but he did not want to press his luck by trying to open it.

The party doubled back beyond the stairs, down the other hallway. Intersecting corridors connected small chambers that were empty except for the occasional puddle of water. They found a few interconnected rooms that may have been living quarters. One room had a beautiful fresco of buxom women and terrible demons. When the players stepped up to investigate, they set off an old arrow trap - but the arrows failed to penetrate their armor. An adjoining room had four braziers around an empty old lectern.

Another room contained a large cask full of vinegar. Bard emptied the cask and found a wax-sealed container inside. It was a stash of gem stones!

Unafraid of wandering monsters, the party searched each room. Their effort paid off when they located a secret exit from one of the small chambers. It led to a kind of foyer with a staircase going up and two doors in the wings.

Deadleaf listened at the first door and heard croaking sounds. The party decided they wanted a look and found seven giant toads snacking on an orc. They decided it would be best to close the door and leave the toads alone.

"Toads can't use the door, right?" asked Deadleaf.

gulp!

Of course the toads could open the door - monsters can always work doors. But did they care to? I sought the wisdom of the Oracle of Reaction Dice which clearly indicated a hostile result!

The toads burst into the foyer while the party moved to investiage the other door. Initiative was tied - the party did not have time to adjust their ranks and the combat was a bloody free-for-all in the middle of the room. The vicious creatures favored the men-at-arms and killed two of them before the players could wipe them out.

Back in the toad's room, the half-eaten orc looked as if it had been cooked. Scorch marks covered the floor in front of four iron trunks. There was some kind of script on the lid above the latch but no one dared to look closer or try to read it. The party dragged the trunks out into the foyer.

They prepared to haul everything to the surface. Deadleaf went up the stairs and found himself in an unfamiliar room. Rather than risk getting lost they decided to take the treasure out the way they came.

It would take two trips to get two bodies, four trunks, and 3000 coins back to the surface (they left the ogre's copper behind). Fortune smiled on the players as they completed the extraction without further encounters. They covered the booby-trapped chests, loaded everything onto their mules, and headed out.

Because they spent so long in the dungeon, night came upon them soon after departing and they decided to camp in the forest. In the middle of the night a large beetle came upon the camp and tried to make a meal out of the dead hirelings. It was no match for the midnight watch and fell to Deadleaf's arrows.

In the morning, Jude confirmed the trunks were trapped by the script with detect magic. The party turned the trunks face down and bashed their way inside, and recovered... another pile of copper and silver!

THE VANQUISHED
2 men-at-arms
7 giant toads
9 orcs
1 ogre
1 bombardier beetle
XP for monsters slain: 785

THE SPOILS
3000 copper pieces
6000 silver pieces
92 electrum pieces
4 green Chrysoprase sold for 200 gold
9 suits of scale mail sold for 405 gold
9 spears and daggers sold for 9 gold
XP for treasure taken: 970

THE SCORE
Bastion (fighter 4, E): 800 cp, 1600 sp, 24 ep, 164 gp, and 388 xp.
Bard (fighter 3, E): 600 cp, 1200 sp, 18 ep, 123 gp, and 325 xp.
Deadleaf (assassin 3, E): 600 cp, 1200 sp, 18 ep, 123 gp, and 325 xp.
Mustacha (ranger 3, E): 600 cp, 1200 sp, 18 ep, 123 gp, and 325 xp.
Jude (cleric/assassin 1/1, E): 200 cp, 400 sp, 7 ep, 41 gp, and 196 xp.
Lokken (cleric 1, E): 200 cp, 400 sp, 7 ep, 41 gp, and 196 xp.

Session 15: Hidden In Plain Sight

"I should get paid by the secret door!" -Deadleaf, elf assassin

Session report for April 4, 2024. Six players adventured for one day.

Characters

Bastion, human fighter 4
Deadleaf, elf assassin 3
Mustacha, human ranger 3
Karl, human magic-user 1
Lokken, human cleric 1
"Stacks" Lorenzo, human assassin 1

Bastion and Deadleaf came back from long downtime activity and eager to get loot. Because of the long travel time to the ruined keep, the group decided to return to the local megadungeon. Someone called it the Orc Warrens but the name hasn't stuck yet.

They followed their map through familiar territory in the first level. But when they opened the first door, crossbow bolts flew at them. Someone had set a crude trap to kill intruders. Who could it be?

They pressed on. It wasn't long before they found themselves in a large chamber with no exits - and something found them.

As the players discussed how they would search the chamber for treasure or secrets, a troupe of halflings crept in behind them. They got the drop on the party for 3 segments, the maximum possible surprise versus Mustacha's ranger sense. The reaction dice yielded "Hostile - immediate action". Were the players about to be rolled by halfling ninjas?

I reasoned that a group of lawful good creatures might be on an orc treasure hunt and would not be inclined to murder a group of humans. Besides that, "immediate action" was one step better than "Hostile - immediate attack". So, before the party knew what was happening, they were surrounded with swords to their throats (or as close as their diminutive attackers could get).

sometimes leaves his hobbit hole to shank adventurers

Bastion spoke for the party and appealed to the halflings Good nature and dislike of orcs. The halflings weren't impressed but his charisma pulled them out of immediate hostilities. The party offered to yield the room and head back the way they came and the halflings let them go without bloodshed.

The party returned to a different hallway and resumed their exploration without any further encounters. They skipped the elevator room that claimed the lives of six players and found a network of rooms connected by secret doors (in fact, very few normal doors were found this session). The keen-eyed Deadleaf spotted them, one after another, even when the party was actively searching, he would be the one to find the secret door. The players broke brosr tradition and celebrated their elf companion for being just what they needed.

The rooms hidden by secret doors had their own surprises within. "Stacks" Lorenzo and Deadleaf discovered invisible containers full of platinum and silver. Unlike the bottle of booze Karl found a few weeks before, these containers became visible when opened. The players (including the DM) marveled at how many invisible treasures there were.

This was an interesting consequence of using Appendix A to generate the dungeon. When a hallway encounters a space that was already explored, there is a chance that the two areas connect by secret doors or one-way doors. Now that I was filling in the final rooms and corridors of the level, this situation came up repeatedly and resulted in a great many doors for the players to find!

Satisfied with a mostly complete map of level 1, the party headed down a spiral staircase to level 2, where they hoped to get vengeance on some orcs.

Four shriekers waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. They did not survive three surprise segments.

They continued down an unfamiliar corridor. There they found a secret door that led to a plain 20-foot square room, similar to the other elevator rooms they had seen. No thanks.

Soon the dungeon became familiar again. A long hallway led to a former barracks. A secret door revealed the large triangular crypt where Dirty Dom met his end. They had connected the two areas of level 2!

The party doubled back to explore new territory and made a tragic discovery. Less than a hundred feet from a known intersection, they came upon a side passage where the floor was covered in old blood stains. An evil holy symbol lay on the ground. And just around the corner, a door opened to a plain 20-foot square room - the same one with a secret exit in the South wall.

The characters who were murdered by orcs weeks ago were a short walk back to the first level - and the secret door would have let them avoid the encounter entirely! Now everyone knows why it was so hard for me to watch it unfold.

Time was running short, so the party packed up and headed back to Fort Fenrir. They didn't have much treasure to show for their efforts, but their maps are quite improved. And no one died!

THE VANQUISHED
4 shriekers
2 piercers
XP for monsters slain: 190

THE SPOILS
100 platinum
1000 silver
XP for treasure taken: 550

THE SCORE
Bastion (fighter 4, E): 201 xp.
Deadleaf (assassin 3, E): 158 xp.
Mustacha (ranger 3, E): 158 xp.
Karl (magic-user 1, E): 74 xp.
Lokken (cleric 1, E): 74 xp.
Stacks (assassin 1, E): 74 xp.

Session 14: Ruins on the Borderlands

The players ignore the dungeon for random crap. But this is a no-prep #brosr table, and AD&D has all the tools to make it work. And everyone had a great time!

Session report for March 28, 2024. Four players adventured for seven days.

Characters

Mustacha, human ranger 3
Arrek, human fighter 1
Fomo Bagful, halfling thief 1
Jude Stabwater, half-orc cleric/assassin 1

Some of the regular characters were still recovering from the wounds they suffered last session - which, in game, was just one day ago. Mustacha decided to forge on with only half his maximum hit points while Bastion and others rested. Everyone bemoaned the absence of good clerics in the party - Jude remained silent.

Mustacha insisted on returning to the ruins they explored last session. They arrived on the third day of travel.

definitely treasure in here and not that lame dungeon

Their plan was to leave the dungeon be and investigate the ruined keep. The outer walls, worn and covered in plants, were still standing. Inside the gate, weeds and grasses choked the foundations of long lost buildings. A broken altar and pews spoke of an old church.

The party followed an interior wall to another gate house, with an inner courtyard and the keep visible through an iron portcullis.

Fomo Bagful stepped up to earn his share. The halfling was able to squeeze through the bars and scout the other courtyard. There were two portcullises with murder holes and crossbow slits facing the small space between. Inside the gatehouses he spied the mechanism to open the gate, one on each side.

At that time, two figures rose from the grass and shambled toward the party. The warriors and their men-at-arms readied spears.

Jude presented his holy symbol (a hand with crossed fingers) and commanded the zombies to rest. The zombies laid back down in the grass. And the warriors were more than happy to dispatch the monsters.

Fomo got his rope through the bars and used it to get up onto the wall. From there he scouted the top of the guard tower and found stairs leading to the lower level where he could access the gate mechanism. The party climbed up with help of the rope and regrouped inside the East guardhouse while Fomo kept watch on the wall.

They opened the first gate which created an awful grating sound. Three more zombies stood up in the tall grass and wandered over.

Arrek took two men-at-arms along the wall to the other side of the gatehouse. As they approached the other gate mechanism, four zombies rose out of the rubble and debris and came at them. They were pinned to the wall separated from the others and fighting for their lives!

Mustacha and Jude circled around the outside and made an entry on the ground floor. Fomo sneaked in behind the zombies from the second floor. They finished off the undead just in time to save Arrek, but one of the men-at-arms lay comatose on the floor. Jude was enthusiastic about saving the man-at-arms which seemed odd coming from an evil cleric/assassin.

They spotted an iron chest uncovered by all the activity. Fomo went to work again and found a false floor in front of the chest. The party piled zombies onto the floor to see what would happen.

They were hoping to trigger the trap but instead three rot grubs burst from the bloated corpses and crawled at their living flesh. Lucky for them they won initiative and chopped the worms into bits.

Fomo failed to open the lock. Jude and Arrek popped the chest with a crowbar and leverage and revealed 500 gold pieces. And dropped a stack of dead zombies down a trap door, which snapped shut.

The party debated opening the trap door to investigate, but it was too late in the session to take those kinds of risks. They put their wounded comrade on a makeshift sled and made their way home. It took an extra day due to their encumbrance, but they had no encounters.

Back at the fort, there was some confusion on treasure splits. Fomo insisted on taking a quarter share and Mustacha insisted on an extra share for his level. For reasons that are unclear to me, Arrek and Jude agreed to the shares.

THE VANQUISHED
10 zombies
3 rot grubs

THE SPOILS
500 gold pieces

THE SCORE
Mustacha (ranger 3, E): 250 gp. 292 xp.
Fomo (thief 1, E): 125 gp. 157 xp.
Jude (cleric/assassin 1, S): 62 gp. 104 xp.
Arrek (fighter 1, E): 63 gp. 108 xp.