Swords & Dorkery

There was a bit of hiatus as various schedules conflicted but we were back at it last night and the Fool, the Ranger, the Druid, and the Fighter all made it so they finished exploring the tomb near Moordoth (the Palmer and Cleric apparently had bad cases of gastro-enteritis from bad food at the village and had to leave in a hurry).

There were only a few room left to explore, and the way the module was written they monsters were in pretty good positions to be surprised by the party, especially as the Ranger crept up to the doors and opened them just a crack, slowly. The Ranger player also knew the AD&D surprise rules quite well and the party rained death of the ghouls in both cases, hardly taking a scratch. (Going forward we all agreed that the “shoot three times as many missiles as normal in a surprise round” rule is too much and will likely reduce the effect to double damage or and additional die of damage or something.)

They secret of the ghostly maidens was revealed and the party went back to the village to accuse the elders of their crimes. They took them into custody when the villagers threatened to hang the elders without a trial, and moved on, back to Warminster. In Warminster the elders were turned over to the baron for trial and the party asked about any other problems or monsters in the area. (They might have investigated the Clerical Necromantic Unground since the cluse under Old Sarum cathedral seemed to point to Warminster but decided against it as they were without their Palmer and Priest.)

They decided to investigate yet more missing shepherds (Wiltshire is wool country you know!) and found an abandoned wagon on the road which looked like it had been looted. Soon a small flock of sheep appeared on a nearby hilltop and the party realized they were under attack by three shepherds wearing masks and driving the flock toward them. The party split up, the Ranger riding off one way to harass the shepherds with bow fire while the Druid and Fighter retreated (the Druid to protect his animals and the Fighter to also ready a bow). The fool leapt onto the wagon. Soon it was clear that the Ranger’s fear of venomous sheep was well-founded!

The Ranger was charged by two venomous rams while the rest of the flock was driven downhill at the party on the road. The shepherds meanwhile slinged stones. Things got grim when the Fool passed out from the sheep fumes and the Ranger was being butted repeatedly by the large rams, but the Druid managed to convince the sheep that the shepherds were planning to sell them to a butcher with a Speak with Animals spell and two great reaction rolls. The sheep turned on the last shepherd (the other two being killed by arrows) and the party celebrated another victory.  The Druid had to be convinced that the venomous sheep would not be good animals to add to his menagerie and the session ended.

*****

Venomous sheep

Number appearing: 2d8

HD1 (rams, 3 HD)

Damage: special

AC 6

Venomous sheep emit a slightly off-putting toxic odor that causes anyone within 20 yards to fall asleep unless they save versus Poison. The sheep will then slowly trample the victims to death, inflicting d6 damage per round. Any flock will also be accompanied by d4 rams, who will protect the flock by charging any threat (2d6 damage the first round from a charge, then d6 from ramming on subsequent rounds). If the rams can mob one opponent, they will take turns withdrawing so they can charge again.

Wearing a vinegar-soaked mask over the nose and mouth protects from the fumes and some shepherds have been known to turn to banditry, herding the flocks into travelers and merchant caravans and looting them.

A double feature as I’m behind on recaps.

Last week, the party limped back to Salisbury for much-needed medical attention, as Reginald the Ranger and Gillem the Fighter would need a full week of rest before being able to do much of anything. Worse, the Ranger noticed that his joints were swollen and painful, decreasing his agility. The Fool, still aged from the poisoned needle in an earlier session,  sought out the local wise woman hoping for a cure. Long story sghort, the party traded the strange magical book they’d found (The Red Dragon, or True Grimoire) for cures for the Fool’s poisoning and the Ranger’s disease. The Druid managed to recover his bear from the local woods.

Once they were able to move about, the fighter and ranger went to confession, admitting their role in releasing the demon. The priest chided the ranger for his pride in attacking the apparently contained demon, and referred both to the bishop. Meanwhile the fool and druid heard about some missing children. The bishop tasked the party with recovering the grimoire from the wise woman, and then to find the demon so he might try to banish it. He also informed the party that the real reason he’d moved the cathedral from Sarum to Salisbury was that his predecessor had fallen into evil practices and was part of the (da da dum!) Clerical Necromantic Underground. The CNU are priests and clerks who turned to black magic (necromancy in the general sense of consorting with spirits). Are they organized or mavericks? Who knows? But the sacrilegious altar, presence of demons, and everything else suggests someone was back at work beneath the old cathedral.

To recover the book, the party returned to the dungeon to seek out the treasury, and they recovered some loot from a previously missed secret room. They traded two jewels for the book, and then set about tracking the demon, which seemed to be lurking in the area and returning to the dungeon at night. Using an altar boy as bait, the party set up an ambush, lurking outside the dungeon at daybreak the next day. It was a rough fight, especially as the demon gated in another of its type, but with the assistance of the bishop’s Protection From Evil, Bless, and Chant spells, they defeated first demon and the bishop was able to banish (turn) the other. (He used the bit of St. Aldewulf’s finger that the party had found earlier to create a reliquary in the form of a crucifix. Holy Symbols with relics enshrined in them increase a Cleric’s effective level for turning, but are not otherwise usable for appeals for intercession/miracles, per my house rules.)

The next session, last night, the party reformed with everyone but Marcus in attendance, and worked on gathering information about the CNU, spending loot, and generally regrouping. They Cleric  went to St Edmund’s College, which had been founded by the previous bishop, and found some suspicious activity (clerks copying bits of one of Albert Magnus’ books in the library). He defaced the pages they’d copied after the students were gone and reported back. They also learned that the copy of the Red Dragon they’d found had an inscription signed “Fr. B.” The Palmer meanwhile broke into a chapel in the new cathedral to steal a relic, and against all expectations, the saint’s reaction was friendly, indicating that this was a furta sacra, or “sacred theft” of the sort that was in accord with the saint’s will. He took the signet ring off of Saint Edmund’s finger and also made an offering to the shrine, adding Bless to his miraculous repertoire.*

Returning one last time to the dungeon to look for clues, and explore the only unfinished bit of the map, they found a room full of bodies in the caverns. These rose up and attacked, giving the party a relatively easy fight. Fortunately they took out the hurdy-gurdy playing skeleton before it could use its power to animate and reanimate the dead. The only additional clue they found was that one of the bodies had a girdle-book identifying the owner as a being from Warminster, the town they’d visited earlier.

The bishop asked the party to take the cross with Adelwulf’s finger to the shrine in Bishopstrow, so they set out back west. Along the way they stopped at Moordoth, a village, and at the tavern witnessed a haunting, which led them to investigate a nearby hill and the rash of attacks the village had been experiencing. They found a tumulus grave which had been expanded and used in more recent times as a crypt for some wealthy family, and inside found evidence of ghoulish activity — even finding one ghoul struggling to emerge from a sarcophagus. They explored a bit more, Gillem fell into a pit trap, and the Druid negotiated with some giant rats, but learned nothing useful. Then we ended the session.

=================

*From the playtest I’m realizing that the Palmer class is more interesting if we emphasize the conman aspect: selling indulgences, stealing relics, and generally relying more on Charisma than Piety. I’ll likely tweak the rules on this.

In this week’s session, the entire party was assembled at last. We met up in a relatively new venue in Akron, the Green Dragon Inn, which is filling a void left by the closure of another boardgame/TTRPG bar last year (The Malted Meeple). It was kind of busy with a Pokemon tournament in one of the private rooms and a “open D&D” in the other, so service was not great. The oven was down, so snacks were limited to some very sad chips and popcorn. Overall, though, it was fun to run a game in a place that looked a lot like the interior of a medieval castle!

The party got past the riddle in record time, and got right into exploring. With this big a crew — Marcus the templar, (Cough cough) the ranger, Gillem the fighter, Thomas the Druid with two dogs and bear, Lord Chucklebum the fool, Worthy Barker the cleric, and “Brother” Maynard the palmer — I rediscovered how terrible 5′ wide halls are when miniatures are involved. This was lesson learned long ago in my first Telengard game, and obviously forgotten.

Anyway the party returned first to the tomb that had the screaming gryllus, and opened the other sarcophagus. This released a second gryllus, but the ranger cut it down swiftly. Next they spent some time searching for secret doors, and finding none decided to brave the other door that had caused PCs to flee in fear a couple of sessions back. The brutal AD&D saving throw table made it a challenge to restrain PCs as they approached and fled, but eventually the party got a few past the fear effect and opened the door. They found another tomb, inhabited by a blobby, slimy humanoid (a manes devil) and four giant maggots with human heads (larvae). The templar spiked the door shut and the group came up with a plan to reopen the door and make a fighting retreat so that they could lead the slow creatures down the hall to a larger room where they could take advantage of their numbers. The plan mostly worked, except that the larvae used a secret passage to ambush the druid and range who were standing guard part-way back from the door. In the end, after a drawn out melee the party triumphed. Next they had to get the whole party past the fear effect so they go deeper into the dungeon, and the time it took for failed saves, restraint, and finally successful saves all around allowed the manes to regenerate and attack again. Their numbers made quick work of it, and after discussion someone poured holy water on it, destroying it for good.

Next they used the secret door the larvae had used to explore some connected caverns. The caverns had a human-faced giant rat (Brown Jenkin), which they killed, and a study with some more books and a nest made of silk cloth which they deduced belonged to the rat-thing. From there they found a flooded cave, which presumably had caused the water damage in some other rooms they saw in the earlier session.  The ceiling was studded with stalactites, though no stalagmites were obvious (cough, foreshadowing!). As they passed through the cavern, some piercers dropped on the party, injuring the fool. Then they cam to a final chamber with a large, green demon confined inside a pentagram. It begged them to release it, and after short discussion the party opened fire with archery, dispelling the circle and releasing the type II demon.

Now you might be thinking, a 9 HD demon seems a little tough for a mostly 1st level party (the fool and cleric might be 3rd and 2nd, I tihnk?).  Of course it is. But they could have left it alone.

The demon first used it’s fear ability to disperse the party; several unaffected made a run for it but the fighters and rangers all saved and stood their ground — the Templar would have been unable to retreat without breaking the Templar oath never to retreat unless outnumbered 3:1. Things went pretty much as expected, except that the ranger beat the odds and hit its -2 AC almost every round. First Gillem fell. The druid returned just in time to see the ranger fall, and carried him off while the templar continued to fight it out. It became more of nailbiter than you might expect, as the demon was down to single digit HP and one hit could have finished him off, but instead the templar fell next and so the fighters’ bodies were both swallowed.

The session ended with some table talk about whether attacking the demon was a good choice, but I hope fun was had by all.

<<UPDATE>>

It occurred to me after the fact that the Templar player hadn’t really understood that he COULD break a vow, at a cost of Piety. Had he instead grabbed Gillem when he fell and made off for safety, the Ranger could have held off the demon and been rescued by the Druid. (How the Druid would have managed to drag off the ranger I didn’t really consider.) But in that case all the PCs could survive and they’d just need to deal with a demon on the loose. The demon moves rather slowly (6″ on land) so an escape seems barely possible. All agreed to that resolution.

As much as I love to see PCs die by their own foolishness, it hardly counts if they don’t have all the information they should.

Replacement characters were made, and another player rejoined the group! It was great to have John back, as he’d been mostly out since we returned to indoors last year.

The new characters were a ranger, a fighter, and a palmer. I introduced a few tweaks to rules (this is a playtest after all) shifting to a 3-18 score for Piety, allowing me to give +1 /-1 every session, if need be, without it getting too “swingy” as the character can lose more than point without changing the modifier and so on. Another minor tweak was making sure everyone rolled for age and took the appropriate modifiers — one player knew to in session 1 and I forgot to have everyone follow suit. A bigger change was to Social Class as I decided to use it for starting wealth, which seemed logical. This would affect the new PCs a bit.

The same player who lost a palmer last session created a new one. This one would have much better luck in play.

The ranger replaces Big John the fighter, who died last time. I’m slightly tweaking rangers for the middle ages as a militant order devoted to protecting humanity from monsters. As “giantkin” are not really that common, they may choose a general type of monster to gain their bonuses to damage and tracking versus: the undead, chimericals, monstrous (usually giant) animals, etc. As alignment is out, their need to keep their Piety to a certain level or lose their powers. Rangers are similar to mendicant orders more than monastic: they travel, and generally work alone. This fits the ranger’s other usual restrictions on working with other rangers, not keeping too many magic items, etc. Franciscans but with swords. (In hindsight, maybe I should have made Druids magical Franciscans, given St. Francis’ association with animals. Hmm.)

The new fighter was the first character to have a really low Social Class — in fact a 4, so he had been enslaved. So, he started out ill-equipped like a CRPG character: leather armor, wooden shield.

The party gathered at a tavern, naturally. The Fool was telling the Cleric and Druid about his misadventures, and the others approached to get in on the treasure-hunting,  monster-killing, and relic-seeking according to their motivations. The Druid had spent his absence last session seeking new animal friends and returned with a bear!

Back at the dungeon, they made it past a new riddle* and then solved the mystery of the wooden statues in the first chamber: if the heads are all turned completely around so that the demon-faces show, a secret door opens. This led to a study with a trapped chest, which the Fool opened, getting stuck by a poisoned needle that aged him a few decades into middle age! They managed to retrieve some of the fallen characters’ stuff – they found the fighter stomped flat, but some of his stuff was usable. They continued to the room where grylli had killed the palmer, and found it quiet, with the palmer’s flattened and headless body on the floor. One of the new PCs approached, springing the same Gryllus assualt as last time, but this time one of the grylli had Alfred of Mercia’s face, perhaps accounting for the headlessness of the corpse.

The party, much stronger in terms of fighters (and bear!) this time, defeated the grylli and recovered more loot. Deeper delving led to another burial room. This one had a screaming gryllus whose voice caused confusion, creating a tense few rounds of confused animals and characters wandering and not helping the fight much, but again the party triumphed. Battered and low on resources, they made another retreat to the surface and here the session ended.

The party seems to have found a relic among the loot, but there is more to explore in the dungeon.

*”I have one and you have one. So do the woods, fields, streams and seas, fish, beasts and crops and everything else in this revolving world.”
Party answered: Age. Accepted, but classic answer was: a shadow.