Social Set Pieces in Campaigns

Although mapping and exploring and figuring and fighting are all lots of fun, the best campaigns also mix in a different kind of action in a less dangerous social setting. I've been doing this in all my campaigns, and noticing a spectrum of the kind of interludes I run. Most of them are heavily improvised with the help of various tables, player input, and off-the-cuff inventions. Many of them stem from the carousing and gourmandising rules, or from attempts to buy services or sell loot. Some are just generated as random encounters.

1. The expository set piece. Sometime's there's just sheer fun in kicking back and entertaining the players. You might play this out as the characters watching a religious ritual that explains a mythic story, a procession in which the major social forces in a city each represent themselves, an overheard gossip conversation between two washerwomen. In my Trossley campaign this role was played by the gourmandising feast of the henchman Cordoon. In the current Kaserolle epic I spent a good half hour relating the rhyming play performed by a troupe of traveling players that was commenting on the current action and giving intimations of connections to larger events ... somewhat inspired by Gene Wolfe's similar use of a theater troupe in the Book of the New Sun.
2. The interactive set piece. Here, there is more of a conversation, although the interaction is not exactly free; it follows set rules or is bound by an interrupting event. Your players might be wagering with the patrons on either side as they watch a horse race, conversing with the other passengers as a ferry barge glides past the main sights of a river city, discussing all the reasons why the long-winded merchant should buy their carpet for fifty silvers as he lists all the reasons why only forty will do. In Trossley the players had their individual questions for the lammasu Saheedra; in Kaserolle last week a gourmandising session turned into a feast at a cheese restaurant that alternated conversational opportunities with several NPCs and lavish descriptions of the courses of the meal.

In short, I find it good to have a structure of some kind for audiences and parties so that the players make every word count and the event doesn't drag or fade.

3. The fully gamified set piece. I hadn't really done anything like this before today in the Kaserolle campaign. It's a set piece where the players not only interact but take part with their own mini-game. Imagine a conversation over a card game, for example, gamed out with actual cards, where the NPC grow more generous or cranky as they win or lose. In Trossley a carousing attempt led to a short knife fight and an enemy made. This time I spiced up a carouse table with  ... well, I'll really have to wait for the photos to get to me to really do it justice. This was unbelievable, one of the best times I've ever had at the table and with the full input and cooperation of the players.

Does anyone else find room for set pieces in their campaigns? What kind of techniques do you use to keep them moving along?

Trossley: The Inquisitors

Well, it's been a long hiatus for this blog and my campaign. The four of us were all getting set to play last night when disaster struck ... my wife came down with a headache and couldn't join the session.

I really don't like running a campaign with a player absent. None of the well-known solutions are satisfactory in a small party (running the PC as an NPC, rendering her temporarily infirm). Compounding the problem was the long break from the campaign. It would be a struggle to regain the bearings of this increasingly complicated plot even with all four of us around.

And then a crazy idea occurred to me. What would have happened in this run is that the party limps back to town, to find that a long-awaited event has come to pass. This is something I'd planned beforehand, only to see the party take the opportunity to adventure out of town.... the arrival of the Inquisitors of St. Damian and St. Hieracon. The party thought it would be a good idea to send for holy help, way back at the beginning of their adventure with the Dark Mother cultist at the millhouse. The sacred bureaucracy being what it is, it's taken a month or two for the response to come. Since then the players have had regrets ... yes, it's fair to say that the prospect of meeting these dreaded agents of orthodoxy  brings a shudder every time they're brought to mind.

So, two players, two inquisitors ... why not run a one-off game with those NPC's, whom I'd been already forming in my mind as Hildegarde, the heretic-hunting devotee of St. Hieracon, and Radigund, the demon-hunting devotee of St. Damian?

Now picture the left hand one with a war maul and plate armor.

Their levels were duly rolled up (5th level priest, 5th level militant), stats and equipment handed out including an impressive set of manacles, torture tools, and an iron stake loaded onto a patient mule. After receiving a briefing from the Sub-Hierarch of Utherton, who seemed more interested in the heresies and disrespect for the church shown in former years by the Mad Archmage than in the Dark Mother doings ... and having a chat with Joya, the mentor of the party's wizard, who showed exactly the opposite concerns ... the inquisitors were on their way to Trossley.

After taking inventory of the evilly tainted wood, which mostly still sat in the western square, our inquisitors found and interrogated the Busiacquo brother lumberjacks who had found the stand of "elven" trees. Much of the session they were trying to find ways to use their spells to exorcise the evil wood, but progress was slow. Our independent-minded ladies of the church refused lodging in an inn, choosing to take up residence in an empty house ... right next to the main party's house.

Recall that the main party had bought some crude furniture from Lucille the woodworker which turned out to have been made with the suspect wood. In the middle of the night, then, the inquisitors had to get up and contend with six rolling log chairs and an angry animated table. In the combat, a memorable fumble had Hildegarde's two-handed, blessed, illuminated war maul pulverize the head of a civilian who had rushed up to help with an axe. It's not really clear what the aftermath of this will be, but a disturbing postscript is that the main stockpile of logs had also rolled and banged around in the night.

This was a great setup for some memorable NPC's, and a good way to ease back into the plot, focusing on just one part of it. The players showed verve and class inhabiting their potential adversaries, making sure to impound everything they found in the main PC's home after the furniture had been smashed to splinters ... even to the point of destroying the hard-earned bedding made from the Mad Archmage's canvas tents. For being good sports and playing the Inquisition to the hilt, the two players' main PC's each earned 100 experience points.

Having players take a turn as higher-level NPCs is definitely not for every day or every campaign, but I judged it was what the campaign needed yesterday and it turned out to be the right call.

Journey to Saddleback III: Memory

(This continues my series of game-mastering problems and tips grafted onto play session reports. If you're more interested in the GM stuff than the play session, scroll down to below the ***.)

The party reconvened last night after a long time away. Action commenced at the gates of the hill town Saddleback, wherein our band found a cool reception in the tavern of the Badger Leaf dwarven clan, but a warmer reception in the halls of the Twisted Bar thanks to the gate guard Borran, who'd taken a liking to the group, possibly in particular to the she-dwarf Grumpka.

There was a somewhat noncommittal public audience with the town's governing Triad, two dwarves and a human who rule back-to-back from a rotating stone seat under the open air. There it emerged that rumors of a giant in the hills may have been grossly exaggerated by the Badger Leaf merchants met on the way to Trossley, who are after all wily and fiercely competitive. The strange coincidence, that after a dozen years of inactivity two groups of merchants should set out from the same two towns toward each other, was remarked upon.

During a long dwarven feast in the halls of the Twisted Bar clan, it emerged that two bereaved parents from the third family of the Twisted Bar tribe wished to unburden themselves of a sad memento - their daughter's bride-gift, a suit of chainmail armor, precisely what Grumpka had been looking for. The story emerged; betrayed by a faithless husband obsessed with human women, the daughter, Ysolde, sought advice from the lammasu Saheedra but then died falling from Saheedra's crag. Suicide is an unthinkable sin among the dwarves, and in the scandalous aftermath the husband fled from town and her child was abandoned. Some were surprised, and some were not, to learn that the husband was Doug, the bartender at Trossley's Duck and Whistle, and the child was Devin, who had been taken in by Saheedra.

With armor in hand, apples traded, and new friends and enemies made, the party set back out through the hills for Trossley. Almost immediately they came across a brushy box canyon from which two wolves growled at them. Deciding to pick a fight with the wolves, the party found two wolves turning to six (one approaching from behind) and some of the worst combat dice rolls they've ever experienced. In the end, the wolves were vanquished but the NPC muleteer and town guard lay dead, and multiple party members had serious wounds. We left off having just reached the resting point of the abandoned hermitage, a day's march from Trossley.

***

One problem that came up in this run was keeping the memories going of what has evolved into a quite complicated situation after a month-long gap in play. At one point, I couldn't recall an important detail like the terms of the financial agreement by which the party chose to accompany the "Nameless One" on his mercantile venture to Saddleback. This is a reminder that my usual method of improvising lots of details doesn't get me out of the need to keep notes and records. The most important of these being:

1: State of the party in time: whether they've rested overnight already, and so forth.
2: Terms of deals, prices of goods, etc.
3: Names of minor NPCs (hint: completely made-up names like "Zortaang" are a disaster - always go with something already in your memory structure, for example if I want a name for a logger-woman carpenter, I have them typecast as French Canadians so I pick the French name Lucille.)
4: Clues that the party have been given in conversation, ancient inscriptions, etc.

Veteran roleplayers (like the couple who live down the road, and since having two kids have reluctantly reduced their GMing and playing to only 5 weekly games at a time) know the importance of this. For example, when we would play with the aforementioned veterans, if he was DMing, she would be playing and setting down notes. Now imagine the notes accumulated from 10 or more years of 5-a-week campaigns ...

The options for us are either to designate a party notetaker, or have me step up my own notetaking. To keep track of time, I've been using an old unused calendar from 2003, marking an X on the lines between days to show the passage of a night and writing down the party's location. I suspect now more notes will have to go on there.

Another crucial thing (see under 3 above) is to make things easier to remember. I tend to drop details that repeatedly keep getting forgotten and don't add to the enjoyment or immersion of the game. For example, torches and living expenses. I feel the need not track either of these bit by bit but just charge a flat rate (1 copper a day for lodging and the same amount for food) or in the case of torches, ignore them as trips to the dungeon are not that frequent.

But if you've found any handy tricks for preserving memory in the long and short term please let me know.

Journey To Saddleback II: Wake-Up Rules

The last encounter of the session was an encounter with another human group, who I'd decided beforehand to be a rival group of the goat nomads.

via Arena Astral, photobucket.com

This encounter came at night, as the party camped in the badlands outside Saheedra's spire. They were taking one-person watches, and had camped in a hollow, concealing their fire from passers-by. The henchman on watch was alerted by two sling bullets whizzing by; he quickly raised the alarm as the intruders closed to fight. Nobody had time to put any armor on, but as the enemy swarmed the tents, the party wizard cast her Sleep spell and most of them (plus one henchman) went down. One ran into the dwarf's axe, and the militant struck to subdue the last one. Deciding on mercy, the party disarmed the attackers, tied them together, and ran them off.

All well and good, but there were still a few loose ends after that encounter.

1. Should there be less of a chance for encounters due to preparations such as hiding the fire? Or more of a chance for lack of such preparations? I think the latter, so on the d20 roll for static encounters while camping, figure -3 in flat ground, -2 in hills/mountains, or -1 in forest if the party is making visible smoke by day or fire by night, unless they take pains to hide it.

2. Should shouts be enough to wake the party in one round? Watches and waking are not really well treated in any of the old-school material I know of (I'm sure Wilderness Survival Guide from AD&D covers this but I am not familiar with it). In retroactive continuity, we can say that the holy influence from the lammasu spire made people miraculously alert to the shouting. But normally, I would say that physical kicking or shaking will also definitely wake people up, and any other alarm will wake people up if they make a Mind save (Spells if you're using that system). An unusual alarm device will give anywhere from +2 to +4 on that save.

3. All this argues for more people on watch, so that one or two can handle waking duty while the rest defend against attack. My party, maybe working off procedures from other games, posted only one watch person and disallowed the spellcasters from taking watch because they need to get sleep to recover spells.

But realistically, nights are 12 hours long (my world is flat so there's no procession of the sun; on a round planet with axial seasons, things get more complicated) and you only need to sleep 8 hours. With this in mind, it's not just a good idea to have watches consist of 1/3 of the party strength, it's actually more realistic, because what else are people going to do for those 4 hours?

In fact, before electric lighting, it was culturally accepted to have a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night. So even taking middle watch is an acceptable way to fit 8 hours of wakefulness into 12 hours of night. Even if spellcasters do need that sleep to be uninterrupted if they are to regain spells, they can still take first or (preferably) last watch.

4. All the same, this makes night monsters much more dangerous; they effectively get a couple of rounds even if you're not surprised and then you have to fight them in your PJ's.

I'm curious how the rest of you handle this kind of situation, given that it's not well described in any of the core rulebooks I know.

Journey to Saddleback I: Three's Company

Result 20 on my one-page wilderness random encounter table says to "roll twice," raising the possibility that the party will stumble upon two groups of creatures hobnobbing or fighting.

Skirting wide away from rumors of a giant in the foothills, our Trossley adventurers came upon such a big 20. Further rolling revealed that some hill nomads and some ogres were in the mix. "You hear some shouting from behind that ridge ..."

As they advanced, I reflected that given the distances over open terrain, the fight could very well be over before the party closed to range. So I made it an ambush - groups of nomads were lying in wait behind three ridges that formed a box, and another couple of them had lured out some ogres.

How to run an outdoor fight? When the sling bullets and arrows started flying, the range was long enough that I marked out general positions with pawns on the hex mat, about 40' to a hex (in hindsight, 30' would have been handier for figuring out movement distances). Moving to melee and spell range, 5' hexes gave a focus on the action. The ogres randomly concentrated their efforts on the goat-hide-wearing hillmen, laying three or four of them low before being defeated. The hillmen thanked the party, divided the meager coins the ogres had been carrying, and all went their separate ways.

But the general question remains, how to handle those 20s, or in general stumbled-upon encounters of the kind that add spice to life?  Three factors come into it: whether the encounter is friendly or hostile; the power balance; and whether the encounter is in the future or past. For example, I could have had the party come upon the goatmen, and then have ogres crash in during negotiations ... or be attacked by ogres, and then saved at the last minute by a nomad charge.

So, this table is not necessarily for taking literally, but shows the possibilities and may help direct your thoughts when running a similar encounter.

Double Encounters (d6 for time)	Encounter roll between the two groups (2d6 with modifiers)
	Hostile (2-5)	Neutral (6-8) or friendly (9-12)
1-2: Before	Party encounters the side you rolled first; the other side will come on the scene in 1d8 rounds.	The side you rolled first is heading to a rendezvous with the other in 1d8 minutes.
3-4: During	They’re in the middle of a fight; for each figure on the weaker side and every second figure on the stronger, roll d6, 1 means dead and 2-3 means half hit points. When party shows up,  the side they’ll fight (if that’s obvious) or the weaker side (if that’s not) must test morale.	One group is meeting and trading (3) or on patrol (4) with the other if friendly; if neutral, it’s a standoff.
5-6: After	The two sides have already taken the casualties above. Party has come upon the fleeing and hiding weaker side (5) or the victorious stronger side, with 10% of the weaker side captive (6).	The side you rolled first is carrying trade goods (5) or loot (6) from their collaboration with the other. if not friendly, backing off from standoff. They are still in shouting distance.

Hat not included.

After the fight, the party made their way toward the now clearly visible landmark, the rock formation and spire shaped like a pointing finger (index finger) where they'd been told the lammasu Saheedra dwelt. I decided to make the occasion more solemn, and less like a White House press conference, by having each character ascend alone for an audience with the great and holy woman-beast, by request of her dwarf-child major-domo. "Alone" here was not taken literally - I hate secret information and separate rooms between the players - but allowing a platform for each player in turn gave just the right amount of slow-down to the session.

Many mysteries of the campaign were exposed in these audiences and more were hinted at. But there was one more encounter that evening, and it brings up a second mechanical DM issue, so it will get its own post.

Under Tree and Over Hill

In Friday's session the players took a lead I had been dangling, and while the explorers didn't go into the dungeon, there was action in the other "front" of the campaign - the strange doings in the woods - and a new "front" opened up - a business venture that had been proposed by an NPC that began a trek through the Durrn foothills. All of this will force me to sharpen up my game about outdoor encounters. While I managed to run the session adequately with some random encounter table rolls, I also found myself wanting more control over the environment, as I would over a dungeon or other adventure.

Zak has the insight that there are two kinds of outdoor experience for characters: going from point A to point B, or systematically exploring and scouring a chunk of wilderness (also see ChgoWiz and comments on the topic). I'll add to that three different ways you can handle encounters in either situation:

1. Straight-up random, figure oout the chance to have an encounter, then roll for one upon a table.
2. "Quiet on the set!" Certain hexes have encounters that are programmed to go off when the party first enters them.
3. Open dungeon: creatures have lairs and ranges of roaming; encounters are random within this framework.

For one-shot travel that effectively changes the home base of the party, sure, I could see using number 1. For a scenario whose point is to explore a wilderness, I could use number 2. But for the wilderness surrounding the home base, where many journeys from A to B are anticipated, I'm going to be using number 3.

At any rate, on returning from Utherton the party heard shouts coming from the lumberjack end of town and found one group of lumberjacks arguing with another in their foreign language. Lucille the carpenter filled us in on the story - apparently one group of lumberjacks, the Busiacquo brothers, had been felling some "elven trees" whose wood was uncommonly strong and workable. The other lumberjacks didn't like it. Jessera saw this opportunity to cast her newly learned Detect Magic spell on the timber, which was going into the crude furniture Lucille had been making for them, and found it radiated a faint magic.

The party decided to take the wandering opportunist, The Nameless One, up on his venture to re-establish a trail to the human-dwarven hill town of Saddleback now that the bandits from the Castle were gone. They let him buy trade goods and mules while they went into the woods to see if they could make contact with Burnsteen the Wood Warden. They reached their limit for the day approaching an area where the birds were singing especially loudly. Turning back, they soon found an elf patrol, whose bristly stance softened somewhat as the party dropped Burnsteen's name. The elves said they worked with the Wood Wardens cordon around the unnatural tree that had sprung up in the forest, told of the evil influence that it spread among the forest, and curtly warned off the woodland amateurs from the vicinity.

Returning, the party found Nameless in possession of several bushels of apples and a large stock of the Busiacquos' magical wood, which they had apparently let go at a bargain price. Now warned by the elves, Boniface cast his Holy Light spell, which also functions as a barometer to detect evil, and found indeed a malign influence. He used his Purify powers to free a sample of the wood from its taint, to the awed witness of the village's lumberjacks. And on the next day they set off, following the landmarks that Doug the dwarf bartender, a native of Saddleback, had given them.

The first of these was a hilltop hermitage, in quite good condition (courtesy of Jim Pacek's Wilderness Alphabet) and empty except for the grave of one Mallory, a member of the Greatest Adventuring Party Ever Known, and a painted altarpiece. It showed the messianic figure of the religion of Invictus, the coming New Man who will be the founder of the Fifth and Final Race of humanity. Strangely, the scene at his feet included the Castle of the Mad Archmage. Even more strangely,  although the picture looked decades old, it included the black and white tower with moving bricks that had newly sprung up in the Castle's Black Courtyard. Nobody knew the old High Tongue to understand what the scroll by the New Man's mouth said, but it was faithfully copied down.

Staying overnight in the hermitage, a random encounter was rolled in the second watch. I guess the elves were not enough for one day, because the dice came up dwarves.  Of course, they had to be dwarves from Saddleback who had precisely the same idea a couple of days earlier, and were bringing the goods of Saddleback to Trossley. Had these stout members of the Badgerleaf clan had any encounters on the way? Roll, roll ... oh, just a hill giant that they hid from.

This was a fun session even though it went by without any experience or combat for the players. It's pretty typical of how I wing things - the wood plot element was thought up in brief form the previous day, the trade scenario had been brewing a while, and I'd actually had a completely different set of developments in mind if the party had decided to go back into the castle instead.

More on my outdoor system next time.

Gluttony, Wrath and Petty Avarice

Trossley Rule: To precede reports of Actual Play with something everyone can use, related to the run.

In this case, a random table to determine just what it is your gourmand is munching on when gourmandising in ye olde North European fantasy land.

Click, and click again, to enlarge.

Roll d4 according to the intricacy of the dish, from 2 dice for a simple one, to 7 for a true extravagance. Consult the column for each die roll. Any "1" result requires determining the meat as well as cut on subtables 1A and 1B; real foppish gourmands may modify a column 2 result with 1B as well, possibly leading to "larks' tongues in aspic" and other delights. Finally, roll on column 0 to determine the method of cooking, for each 1, 2, and 3 result. I presume you know how to get a d40 and d50 result ...

"Farcing" is the practice of filling the roast animal with its own ground meat. "Jugged" is a means of preserving in jelly. Laver is an edible seaweed. Yes, they ate beaver in the Middle Ages. It was an acceptable non-meat for Fridays and Lent. You there in the back row, would you mind sharing what's so funny with the class?

***

Our heroes started off the run by making the first moves toward furnishing their abandoned house in the village, mortgaged to them on generous terms for a tithe of treasure. Crude logs worked by a woodsman's wife would have to serve as chairs and table, for now.

An expedition was then mounted to the Castle of the Mad Archmage - that nexus of adventure, menagerie of deadly creatures, level upon level of mystery and danger unparalleled in human history - for the sole and express purpose of retrieving two canvas tents from the stockpile discovered in the stirges' lair. This haul prompted much mirth from the gate guard Fergus, and Motley Tom the magical wares merchant. Undaunted, the party converted the canvas into bedding pallets for their house, and returned to the dungeon the next day to seek richer treasures.

The actual dungeon session only cleared two rooms - explored a long time ago in an alternate reality by the first delvers into the Castle Cellars. This party did not set the oil-soaked scarecrow in fire, saved like fiends against its fear effect, and found the treasure the other party missed. Smart! Then they went in the room with hooks on chains dangling from the ceiling, and just had to pull the one chain that went up through a hole in the ceiling. Not so smart! The hooks started flailing around and poor Balm got hit in the neck by two of them like a doubly unfortunate trout, causing a terrible wound that he's still recovering from.

That DF map is useful.

With a stretch of in-game downtime looming, the party decided to march to Utherton, and sell some of the loot that had been accumulating ever since the days of the millhouse adventure. Part of this involved carousing. Jessera rolled a hangover mishap, and her meeting with mentor Joya was thereby delayed for a day. The dwarf Grumpka rolled a fight mishap ... consulting Dramatic Personae, I found it was a priest, and indeed a militant of the same order, nay, the same training class as our Boniface. This one wasn't very kindly, and after some racial insults flew, each sprang to action with hand weapons concealed on their person. Grumpka had the better weapon with the handax, but this Fretanax fellow rolled better, after fumbling and falling down the first round, and scored two shallow hits with his dagger. Fortunately, Grumpka had completely won over the crowd by refusing to take advantage of the fallen man, and subjecting him to a rousing harangue (12 on reaction roll). The onlookers were able to cover her as she walked away, Fretanax crowing in triumph - but crowing alone.

The only uneventful "carouse" was henchman Cordoon's 68 silver piece meal under the limited but safer "gourmandising" option. Here I improvised on the spot a five-course medieval food porn epic, complete with "a loaf of bread stuffed with dormice" and "an eel in grape jelly and it turns out to be a marzipan eel." Cordoon was able to say, at the end, that he was more a man of the world for his experience, and he gained the second level.

So, um, yeah, I basically took about as twice as long to make the food porn table as to write that report.

Trossley Campaign: Stairs and Stirges

It's been a while since my last update on the Trossley campaign. I find campaign reports tend to go uncommented and I myself often skim over them in other people's blogs, with a few exceptions. Are play reports kind of like "tell me about your character" for DMs?

Well, they're a good record of the campaign so I'm going to keep posting them. But I am going to spice up proceedings from now on with a kind of "Joesky rule" for my reports, which is to talk at the end about a lesson or idea that emerged from the session, rather than "bla bla bla and then they killed the hobgoblins." It is optional for this lesson to be presented by one of those 1980's moral-delivery characters that child psychologists stuck into cartoons for kids to identify with.

Otherworld Minis stirge

Two sessions have gone by since. The first one had a lot of exploring, with the party finding themselves banned from the Yurog Kobolds stomping grounds because they didn't want to play "The Game" - unlike the "Finger of Fazio," a rival party's mercenary the kobolds took prisoner on that group's ill-fated dungeon run and forced to play along.

Lots of dungeon terrain got mapped and connected up, lots of empty storerooms explored, a troglodyte released who was suffering from strange excisions on the groin, and some in-town bickering and haggling. Oh, and about three more stairs down got discovered. One was a huge spiral stair that led up as well as down. It had the dwarf suffering direction-sense vertigo as they ascended, but they'd been warned about this particular dimension-churning staircase by the veteran explorer Lord Mayor Felmere. What they didn't expect was that the stair was winding into a ceiling of water, with fishes swimming and sunlight dimly shining from above. Prudence dictated descent.

The second session, picked up from where the intact party left off in the dungeon, was an epic two-delve battle against a colony of stirges in a section of the cellars that someone had been trying to mine into. Spirits were tense as Grumpka the dwarf ventured alone time and time again into the low-ceilinged tunnels, drawing out pack after pack of stirges like a daintily-bearded fishing lure. Cordoon the henchman caught a beak that put him out of action, but thanks to good post-traumatic dice rolling was back on his feet in a day, and the party went back, disposed of the stirges, and raked in a motley collection of items, coins, and an intact suit of plate/mail armor. Boniface's attempt to peddle a stirge's beak to the old witch who sells healing potions, though, met with nothing but contempt and antipathy. Charisma won't get you everywhere...

So, Orko, enough telling you about my campaign. Tell me, what have we learned about stirges?

•  Striges (r before i, the plural of Strix) in Roman legend were blood-sucking screech-owl witches. Thomas Burnett Swann in the novel Day of the Minotaur, made famous by Gary Gygax's Appendix N, adapts them as soft-feathered "vampire owls" with fangs instead of beaks, but has the singular as "Strige." From there, that iconic monster is just one long beak and one momentous typo away.
• Striges ... aggh, stirges ... were part of my introduction to D&D circa 1980, through a feature article in Games Magazine. It included a sample dungeon that could be reached through a trap door in "Madame Bam's" disreputable establishment (anyone else remember this one?). The "Stirges (vampire birds)" described therein had a weirdness to them that had me hooked from the start.
• When your players imagine out loud ... and they imagine stirges with barbed beaks in the middle of a stirge encounter ... it takes every ounce of willpower not to make them pay for it ... just yet. Instead, I cooked up an Alterna-Stirge table:

1-15: Normal stirges
16-17: Barbed beaks; do 1 more point of damage when extracted, 1-3 if wound is healed over.
18: Acid stirges, inject caustic bile on first turn of sucking for double damage.
19: "Stirges Blow": deviant stirges inflate instead of draining their victims' blood vessels; save (Death/Fortitude) or suffer a fatal embolism.
20: Tiny Burnett-Swann stirges, fangs not beak, 1-2 hp each, hide and sneak as a 5th level thief, settle on back of neck with a hit, hide there and drain 1 hp/round unless noticed.

Who's your Dungeon Rival?

Tomi Ungerer's "Les Trois Brigands"

To keep the pressure on players, it's a real good idea to have some competition for the spoils of your typical mega-dungeon. Of course, your standard NPC party will answer, but below are eight more unusual ideas.

1. Spyro and Ain, a desperate husband and wife evicted from their farm, carrying a baby (whom they will leave with someone trustworthy at the inn) and accompanied by their dog Ponto. Both are zero-level civilians, and they are carrying a spear, a shield, and an axe between them, equipment they say they found on a dead man by the side of the road.

2. Fazio, a low-level rogue, and the Five Fingers of Fazio, a collection of ex-stevedores, unemployed farmhands, and unclassifiable layabouts whom greed, and Fazio, have persuaded to go dungeon-bound. Fazio has a small sword and boot dagger, the Five Fingers have cudgels, one hatchet, one hammer, and a bill hook between them. Three of them have quilted armor, two have a shield. The whole plan is a swindle, and Fazio sees the Fingers as completely expendable. (Note: this may or may not be his actual motivation in the Trossley campaign).

3. Seven dwarf homesteaders and a wagon pulled by a mule, led by a matriarch with the unlikely name "Ivo Gnarledchasms the Sound of Lozenges." They are well armed and equipped, with axes, hammers, picks, mushroom spawn, casks of ale, and even an anvil. They intend to settle in the dungeon once cleared, and will camp outside in the meantime. They know the story of Snow White and take very poorly to attempts to exploit its comedic potential.

4. Elf and Safety Inspector. A mid-level cleric, one Sister Kunda, has become slightly deranged and is convinced that the dungeon is an unsafe working environment. She intends to rectify this by finding and disabling all traps, catching all monsters and releasing them in the wild, and incidentally carting out all the treasure she can find, because coins have sharp edges and someone might slip on them. Until her job is done she is very insistent that nobody else should go down into the dungeon. Her sidekick is a cynical female elf named Thyale, who helps the good Sister chiefly so she can claim in truth that now she's seen everything.

5. Bax is a mid-level hunter, or ranger if you will, from an aristocratic family. He has become fixated on finding and killing one particular monster deep in the dungeon. He would rather not have any distractions on shallower levels if he can help it and is always looking for news of a quick way down. His entourage includes Mahlathi, a tall, taciturn warrior from the southern continent, who knows no Common but whose language Bax knows; a pipe-smoking bard, Landreaux; four hired crossbowmen; and four baggage handlers.

6. Reckel is a dark, brooding half-orc warrior. His company is made up of shabby, disreputable humans - a spell-slinger, a scout, three rough-looking bandit women. Their intentions are sinister. Aided by his command of most of the major humanoid languages, Reckel has a messianic vision of uniting all the humanoid groups and patrols in the dungeon, marching forth and conquering the nearby area. Not all the humanoids in the dungeon go for his scheme, but he is very good at bargaining with them and they will likely let his team pass through safely.

7. Young Lord Borgis is a spoiled and dissolute nobleman's son from the nearest city. He is here to fulfill a bet, made while drunk, that he could spend a night in the dungeon and emerge alive. He has the best equipment that money can buy, and a grizzled, much-put-upon veteran bodyguard named Deague. But he has also brought along his two foolish friends, some female companions, and a mule loaded with wine and sherry, and he intends to make a joke and picnic of the whole affair. In the likely event that he is lost in the dungeon, his father will offer a large reward for the retrieval of his body and a larger reward if he is returned alive.

8. A standard adventuring party, with fighter, cleric, magic-user and thief. Except the fighter is a doppleganger, the cleric a penaggolan, the magic-user a rakshasa, and the thief a wererat. They met as part of a powerful arch-wizard's menagerie of shape-changers, and were subjected to unspeakable sorceries and humiliations. Escaping upon the wizard's demise, they swore to live as humans from now on, to see how truly human they could become. The rivalry with the players' party, though, makes for a sore temptation to exploit their special powers - one that each of them will have to face in his or her own way.

***

The first two of these rival bands have been met in the Trossley campaign. Last night, the party hacked down, with axes, the door to a trick room (not one of my finest) where any noise would disturb the teetering stacks of bronze pennies and send them swirling down into the depths. Then they came across a couple of Grinning Skull orcs from a lower level, also attracted by the noise, and killed one. There followed a tense fight with four wandering spiders, which left the hireling Balm comatose from poison but surviving his second saving throw and becoming a Level 1 fighter.

Near the end of the fight, when the players were starting to panic, a light from behind revealed the coming of Fazio and the Five Fingers! They rushed forward to help, and their contribution to the fight was minimal but gave a player morale boost when it was sorely needed. With healing spent and Balm near death, the party decided to leave the dungeon to Fazio and his Fingers.

And of course, I needed to know what happened to them. So I ran them through the dungeon, rolling decisions to go left or right as needed, also making checks against their morale and loyalty when needed. Indeed, that's how they got to the fight with the spiders in the first place. About the rest of their day, all I can say right now is - it's fun to be an adventurer as well as the DM ...

Trossley Campaign: Politics, Economics and ... Puppets?

After a long hiatus due to our travels and various other infirmities, the campaign got back rolling Friday evening. Reaction and morale rolls ensured that the remaining hostile kobolds of the Am'rash tribe would stand down for now, so the first half was spent cleaning up remaining pockets of resistance and engaging in humanoid politics. While Boniface the militant came away with a sword of virtuous steel formerly wielded by the Am'rash chieftain, the coin and other effects fell to the Yurog kobold allies. They had offered to "play a game" back at their lair to determine the division of these spoils, a generous offer the party unaccountably declined. Proceeding were interrupted as a group of five orcs chased a Yurog scout back up from a lower level (the result of a "does this cool thing happen" roll). After a joint show of strength, the orcs backed off, and with this increasing the pressure, the party decided to make their apologies, though with some grumbling from the Yurog.

Back in town, more politics ensued, the party being summoned to the Lord Mayor Felmere to give a briefing on the reappeared castle to the local Earl, Grangor of Pendry, and his daughter, the celebrated beauty Ellimer.  Both the Earl and the Mayor grew interested in any treasure flow from the castle. Grangor left with a poor impression of the Castle's worth - the coinless adventuring proving to be, perhaps, somewhat fortunate this time. Felmere, a former adventuring henchman, had other suspicions about the prosperity of the restocked dungeons. Spurred on by news of the arrival of another, somewhat raffish rival adventuring party in town (another "cool thing" roll) he floated a proposal for an adventurer-friendly "tax" on recovered treasure in the form of a compulsory payment toward the purchase of one of the town's abandoned properties.

The main play issue this session brings up is the difficulty I had in creating a conversation between NPCs with the party as audience. I felt like a puppetteer, switching voices not altogether successfully. Maybe some handy finger puppets - or at least miniatures for the figures involved that I could pick up and wave around - would help keep things straight as to who was talking. If that's not, you know, too weird.

I think most DMs try to avoid such NPC-on-NPC scenes for good reason, but the more intrigue one throws into the stew, the more they become inevitable. Any tips for handling them, of course, would be very welcome.

Kobold Wars

Politics, shopping, carousing? Not tonight. Back to the dungeon for another helping of kobold slaying!

I was ready for them. The current kobold-infested level of the megadungeon, a home-made first level that sits on top of the Castle of the Mad Archmage lower levels, is now a huge PowerPoint slide on my laptop. Crude unit squares marked the disposition of the two tribes that were going to war, the Yurog and Am'rash. Topside, the party's contact in the Yurog, the Common-speaking Yonx, informed them that the Am'rash had pulled some levers and sealed off the usual entry ramp. He led them down an unfamiliar ramp to where a small unit of Yurog was waiting, and a few messengers sent off into the dark brought more.

The Yurog were tightly organized and disciplined into units of six; two slingers, two shield-and-club warriors, and two long spear carriers, who moved back and forth into formations with practiced ease. At the sound of far-off shouting and clanging Yonx gave the sign to move forward, south ...

The enemy Am'rash were organized around a crude barricade-like bastion, two and a half feet high and some 10 by 20 feet, guarding the double doors that led further in. Four hobgoblin soldiers had inexplicably joined their ranks. The troops in the bastion were mainly male and female kobold pairs, each teamed up to handle a scavenged halberd. A couple of sling-wielding scouts completed the layout. The leader (red M) was waiting behind the doors.

At the approach of torchlight and clanking metal, the scouts wounded one Yurog slinger and faded back ; the hobgoblins arranged themselves for a side attack and the defenders of the bastion thrust halberds over it. Meanwhile the Am'rash leader, alerted, was opening the doors and preparing his troops.

After a couple of rounds flesh-wounding the hobgoblins, losing a kobold, but seeing Yurog morale hold, the party decided to unleash the bane of all kobolds. A Sleep spell fell right in the middle of the bastion where, unseen, the leader had moved up. Seeing the leader and four of the troops fall senseless, the rest of the Am'rash fled and the Yurog, shouting, surged forward into the bastion.

Hard to climb a neck-high wall for a kobold; but in a practiced maneuver, two shieldbearers crouched, put shields on backs, and the others mounted up and over them. The Yurog, with coordinated sling shooting and second-rank spear jabs, finally dispatched two hobgoblins. The party members surrounded and quickly dealt with the remaining ones. Into the lair, cutting throats as you go! Watch out for those falling rock traps ... there go another two friendlies.

A long diagonal corridor was the scene of the last combat in the evening's short-ish session. Some remnants of troops confronted the onrushing Yurog and surface-siders; four kobolds in a somewhat impractical tortoise formation with iron shields and long spears; the "Best and Worst," a very well equipped 4HP kobold and a very poorly equipped 1HP one; and the ace in the hole, a ravenous, blood-sucking giant weasel!

The enemy kobolds fell as kobolds do, with really bad dice rolling on their part. The weasel ripped into the dwarf's flesh, latching on with a high roll, and would have surely drained blood and imperiled her life on the next round had it not been for a lucky critical hit with a kobold slingstone against the weasel's head, which made it release its grip. Blow after blow landed on the weasel, but landed ineffectively, the beast living a charmed life and killing one kobold, finally succumbing to the law of large numbers.

Just then (again, off-scene dice rolling favored the party, delaying this event for quite a long time), more kobold cries echoed from outside the double doors. But the war will have to wait until another time ...

Tales of the 11 Foot Pole

The lead-in to last night's Trossley run:

• The collapsible *11* foot pole ( sections of 3, 4 and 4 feet) the party had commissioned from the ten-foot-pole magnate was finally ready.
• Every megadungeon has to have rival adventurers, and the first ones arrived in town. A down-on-their luck couple with a dog, a baby, and some scavenged weapons of poor quality, I fully expected pathos and tragedy to ensue. What happened? Read on...

The new wizard, Jessera, showed a tactical bent as she urged the party to "secure the back area" and investigate the other doors leading from the entry room before pressing deeper into the dungeon. Going north found a room with murals of the Archmage's troops marching forward, and exiting the far door caused an odd, nervous feeling in the dwarf that went away as the party decided to turn around and try the south door. This led to an ineffective crossbow trap, a brick-constructed area with rooms formerly dedicated to storing foodstuffs, and a left turn into... an encounter with some kobolds, dressed as the well-guarding kobolds had been in the scraps of the Archmage's livery and armor!

Jessera's sleep spell once more left none to tell the tale, but the party was interrupted in the midst of throat-slitting by a Common-speaking representative of another kobold tribe who had taken over the well after the party had slaughtered its defenders. This "Yurog" tribe claimed to be peaceful and urged the party to strike south against the warlike "Amrash." Both dwarf and militant had their own reasons to just want to kill kobolds, but discretion won the day and the Yurog representative was sent back with news of the party's willingness to truce.

Further exploration, using the pole to open, prod, and keep at bay, netted only a fight with some centipedes and a hoard of coins sewn into a mattress. Some of my rolling behind the scenes revealed to me events that led to a loud marching and intimidating battle cries of "Am-rash!" being heard approaching from the south. Feeling naked without their sleep spell, and also succumbing to player fatigue (it had been a long week), the adventurers retreated to count their money and experience.

And the luckless couple? I'd determined they would try to clean up an area of towers in the upper works the party had not fully explored. They squashed a black widow spider with extremely lucky dice rolls, and it was guarding a decent treasure too ... Thus when the party got back to the Duck and Whistle they saw the lucky couple eating a fine meal, swilling ale, bouncing the baby, and declaring their early retirement from the adventuring game.

Meanwhile, the dungeon shifts ... the kobold wars continue ... intrigue and infamy await!

New Life, New Levels

In Utherton the survivors of our band tried to forget the death of their comrade, each in his or her own way. Boniface the holy militant, suffering from a slow-healing cut in his left arm, gave over a large sum of treasure to the maintenance of a goodly hospice of healing, thereby feeling exalted in piety. For her part, Grumpka the dwarf resolved to teach her maimed man-at-arms Balm henceforth the more subtle arts of fighting [1]. 

Postponing lessons for the nonce, his initiation was celebrated through a six-hour bender during which various publicans struggled to satisfy the dwarf’s free spending with mugs and bottles distributed to all patrons. Balm passed out too early to suffer any serious damage. Grumpka woke with a headache, which was quickly dispelled, and racial memories stirred within her; her carousing had earned her the second level.

Presently Joya arrived at the inn to convey a young acolyte of sorcery, classmate and friend of the late Ephemera. Merry and boisterous where Ephemera had been serious of purpose, this Jessera had resolved nonetheless to take up the vacant place in the adventuring band, having already had some experience of that sort in the northern hills and returning with a craving for more. The rumors of dark cults and the formidable Castle ruins only whetted her interest. Taking possession of Ephemera’s spell parchments, crossbow, and dagger of virtuous steel, Jessera set off with her new comrades back to Trossley.

There, the oath to St. Hermas was sworn again with the new associate; or rather, an oath, for the wording on the altar had changed betimes, with words about leaving no party member to die a lonely death that were much remarked and interpreted. Even with arm in a sling, Boniface and the others decided to try the stairs leading down into the depths of the Temple.

The challenges and treasures lurking in that basement were slight indeed. The wire attached to a swinging hammer was spotted through the crack of a door and disarmed; several waves of rats the size of cats, issuing through holes, were dealt with in good order, though not without some tension; a sack of coins was upended and the magically rolling silver pieces chased throughout the brick-lined passages, where their behaviour hinted at a secret door. A scratched graffito elsewhere in the tiny dungeon, after the better part of an hour’s puzzling, yielded the secret of the door’s opening, and the band beheld an offertory chamber, the resting place of coins dedicated to St. Hermas.

And not just coins; for in the heap of meagre treasure Boniface spied his severed ear, which he had thrust through the slot several days back on the advice of a prophetic dream, and now appeared cast in finest silver. It attached itself to the lacking spot and, in premeditated compensation for a miserable initial roll, Boniface was granted an additional hit point. Moreover, the whole adventure had advanced him even more in understanding of sword and cross and he, too, was elevated to second level. A booming voice that had offered stingy advice and sardonic laughter during the exploration now revealed itself. Rather than St. Hermas, it was a wee ventriloquist, Guilfoyle the guardian of the Temple, a former associate of the Most Magnificent Band of Explorers. After inquiring after the mysterious disappearance of the Mad Archmage’s face from the temple’s stained-glass window and several silver coins of his mint – a mystery our adventurers had not yet compassed in their explorations - Guilfoyle bid adieu.

[1] This and several other features of this session make reference to my experience rules, which I'll be sharing over the next several posts.

Death and Aftermath

Knights, samurai and other warrior elites know that the point of life is not just to live well, but to die well. Adventure games, though, typically give no rewards in themselves for a good death. Nevertheless, the recent heroic self-sacrifice of one of my campaign's characters gives room to illustrate how death may be given its consolations, both through mechanics and gameplay.

The game referee has to project a difficult illusion. On the one hand, the adventure must be seen to be gripping. Death and serious consequences must be seen to lurk around every corner, or the delve becomes little more than a parody of work, dungeoneers clocking in, clocking out, and collecting their haul.

On the other hand, character death really sucks. I'll leave it to Trollsmyth to spell out some reasons why, but it's no fluke that it's essentially vanished from commercial online gaming, and my Niecely Informant doesn't see much call for it in her own freeform online endeavors, either. For people who don't have a lot of time to spend playing, the grind back up to reasonable power levels can be very demoralizing. "Old school hardcore" is all very well and good, but it's a philosophy devised in an age when people gamed two weekday nights and all weekend.

One way I cushion the sting of death is to award half the old character's experience points to any new character the player rolls up. In fact, if I'd set out thinking from the start, I'd use this rule to separate good deaths from bad - a heroic or selfless death would allow a respawn at 2/3 xp instead of 1/2 xp. Interestingly enough, Ephemera's player (my wife) has rolled up another wizard, even down to the same main Sleep spell, so it's not too much trouble to pass the new character off as a student from the same school ...

Another way is the aforementioned negative HP tables, that dole out the threat of maiming or incapacitation as a less serious gradation of death. Sometimes the threat of consequences is enough. This goes even for systems like 2nd edition with its highly generous death's door rules - if the GM is plotting the campaign world well enough, failure in a mission will feel like the loss of a limb, as the consequences on the PC's allies and acquaintances make themselves clear.

Barring any further mechanical tweaks, this kind of social GMing can go some ways to showing the consequences of a good death. Ephemera's sacrifice has so impressed the man she saved, Fergus, that he has foresworn his bandit ways and with a few of his fellows has been sworn into the Trossley Village Guard and given domain over the newly opened east gate (facing the Castle). The bandits slept by her spell were trussed by the survivors and taken to justice - all are due to be hanged, even the Young Fergus, after a scene in which he rebuffed his older self. And Ephemera's mentor in Utherton, Joya, has been profoundly affected and is showing the party survivors a level of help she would have only given her student.

Ephemera has been given burial in the tomb-wall that lies in the garden in the back of the Temple of St. Hermas. Who knows? It may be that her name and legend will be enough to secure the party a more favored status in the town, as everyone awaits the tide of hungry treasure seekers ....

So how do you handle character death? Are the adventurers just leaves on the wind, rootless treasure seekers to be cut down and spring up again? Or does their death carry some meaning ... and in what way?

Trossley: End of Innocence

Last week's session was a tense, hard and brutal slog with one of the three PCs dead at the end and the others unconscious, saved only by NPC allies.

With the bullying behavior of the Skull Stackers bandits dominating the Gray Courtyard rampart overlooking the dungeon entrance, a shadow was cast over the prospect of dungeoneering. But now is a good time to mention the NPC Fergus, a bandit from the rival Invisibles gang and veteran of the old days of the Castle, who had been hiding his cohorts in the illusion-concealed and empty Castle ruins.

What are the consequences of an empty dungeon that suddenly restocks itself for mysterious reasons?

Well, Fergus was disconcerted by the appearance of his dead comrades - and, amazingly, even his younger self - when the Skull Stackers gang "respawned." One session prior, he had turned up in town, having fled the Castle in the night after it reappeared and ... came alive.

This session Fergus pulled himself together and, urged on by the priest and Mayor, proposed that the party join the Invisibles in immediate hostile action against the Stackers. Fortuitously - as it turned out - one of my frequent "wouldn't it be cool if this happened" die rolls worked out and the woodland warrior NPC Burnsteen was back in town and eager to join the fight.

Approaching the redoubt of the Invisibles, Fergus was hailed by the small garrison left behind, as his rival for leadership, Brom, had gone foraging in secret with the main strength of the band. The two sides were facing each other on opposite sides of a tower with two doors and adjacent wall, neither side daring to step in the tower or make for the top. Now with the numbers and magic, the party decided to rush into the breach. The other tower door was open, the Skulls nowhere to be seen. Most of the force quickly gained the top floors of the tower, with two Invisibles bandits stationed at ground level - just in time to be swept forth by the charge of the fearsome half-orc fighter Grainne leading the Skull Stackers band.

The ground floor friendlies panicked and ran, Grainne chasing them out into the further court but then retreating after being peppered by missile fire from tower and battlement. The dwarf Grumpka held the stairs against the assault of the axe-wielding foeman lieutenant, while shooters behind and to the side took their angles as best they could, screened by Fergus. Once again, Grumpka's bad luck was good luck as she got downed to exactly zero, earning only a concussion rather than any roll for lasting effects. Fergus and shooters downed the axeman, and then Grainne took to the stairs, swinging her mighty two-handed sword, her armor of strong viridescent goblin-metal protecting her to an exemplary extent.

Fergus took a wound, quickly healed by the holy militant Boniface, and then counterstruck for a critical that faced Grainne with the option between maximum damage and falling from the stair. I chose the fall for her, and then Fergus made an exceptional morale roll that had him leaping on the hulking amazon, sword blade choked in gloved hand for an up-close brawl!

It was then, as Grainne's followers crowded around and tried to pull Fergus off, that the wizard Ephemera made her brave and selfless choice to try to save Fergus. Descending the perilous stair, she won initative and cast her sleep spell. All but Grainne, even Fergus, fell asleep... and getting to her feet, the half-orc won initiative, overtook the frail spellcaster, and dealt out instant death.

Grainne then leapt up the stairs. There fell Boniface - left arm out of commission for a week, by my new negative hits table. There fell the dull-witted Balm - loss of left hand, by the same table. Cordoon, Callow and Burnsteen finally faced her, and Burnsteen finished her with a well-placed sword thrust.

I'll finish with the "death & dismemberment" table I'm using, working off similar efforts by Trollsmyth and others, but leaning more toward Norman Harman or Eric Minton's bloodier versions.

A blow that takes a player character or follower to zero HP results in unconsciousness for 2d6 rounds.

A blow that takes the character or follower below zero HP requires a roll on this table, using 2d6 with -1 for each point the character finds him/herself below zero after the wound is inflicted. Yes, this one is a real killer .. if you roll boxcars at -1, you're well advised to play possum, as the next hit will almost certainly kill you. It's somewhat tempered by the "unconscious at 0" rule, though.

2 or lower: Instant death blow to random vital area.

3: Fatal wound to random vital area. Will die in 1d6 turns unless Cure Critical Wounds is applied.

4: Severed or crushed random limb. Will bleed to death in 3d6 rounds unless tourniquet, cauterization or Cure Critical Wounds is applied. Cannot act for 2d6 rounds due to shock. Limb is permanently unusable.

5-6 Serious wound to random vital area. Cannot act for 2d6 days or until Cure Serious Wounds is cast specifically to remove the wound, not for hit points - the unusability is independent of hit points.

7-8 Serious wound to random limb. Cannot act for 1d6 rounds due to shock. Limb unusable for 2d6 days or until Cure Serious Wounds is cast specifically to remove the wound, not for hit points - the unusability is independent of hit points.

9 Light wound to random vital area. Cannot act for 1d6 rounds.

10 Light wound to random limb. Cannot use limb for 1d6 rounds.

11+ Fight on you lucky (?) weasel! No effect.

Limbs are rolled on d6/d6: 1 = eye (1-2) ear (3-4) nose (5-6); 2= left fingers (1-2) hand (3-4) arm (5-6); 3= right fingers/hand/arm; 4 = non-vital torso wound that affects use of both legs; 5 = left foot (1-2) leg (3-6); 6 right foot/leg.

Vitals are rolled on d6: 1 crown/brain 2 throat 3 heart 4 lungs 5 guts 6 kidneys or other.

Next post, the aftermath of the slaughter and some more general comments on PC death.

Into the Dungeon!

Three different runs of the same dungeon now - my Level 1 for the Castle of the Mad Archmage.

Four ramps going down. Each party chooses the same ramp.

And two out of three choose the same door out of three after that, ending up in the well room guarded by armored kobolds. Both times the charge was led by an angry dwarf ... both times a kobold fell in the well. (To be fair, that well is kind of like the proverbial Act I pistol.) This time, the Trossley group had a sleep spell on tap, so they fared much better against the kobolds.

There was some good old exploring, hacking and slashing tonight - not much treasure but lots of creatures fell. I don't want to discuss too much but there are interesting things brewing with various groups in the Castle and dungeons. The 2-dimensional reaction/morale table is proving very useful, and it's also fun (if a little mind-wracking) to fill in what's going on behind the scenes in the Castle while the adventurers are off healing and resting. It definitely makes an adventure location come to life when it is filled with scheming, strategizing individuals and factions.

Highlight of the evening: the players, already somewhat battered and out of useful spells, are being pelted with rocks from a higher battlement by a group of bandits after a bullying request for treasure was met with a contemptible show of copper. One of the bandits rolls a 1 ... I rule that his fumble consists of throwing too enthusiastically from on top of the battlement, from where he slips and falls, taking a mortal amount of damage. A small moral victory, and why not, I awarded XP for the kill.

The Castle Is Open

This evening's session found the players cleaning the last few scrub polyp-monsters from the millhouse cellars and getting into a long, involved episode of dealing with the potentially toxic smoke from a disturbingly human-like mushroom they had shot in its little wrinkly face and set on fire.

They then headed into the other direction from Trossley, eastwards to investigate the loud noise from a couple of nights ago, and found that the Castle of the Mad Archmage had reappeared.

Carefully skirting the bastion from which the raucous sounds of suspected bandits wafted, our intrepid adventurers circumambulated nearly the whole dimensions of the pile. (When I roll for wandering monsters, a 2 rather than 1 on d6 indicates the sound, track, smell, or other clue to the monster, rather than the monster itself. Adds drama ... and lets the party go pick or avoid a fight if they want to.)

They next entered the one clear gate into the walls, at the low end of the huge slanting limestone rock hill whose surface the castle walls entirely bound. Passing through the gatehouse tower, they were attacked by a large black-widow spider as it rappeled down on its thread from the upper storey. After some confused misses on both sides, Grumpka the dwarf clove it asunder with her axe.

As the sun was getting low in the sky, it was decided to head back and head out the next day. Funny how Motley Tom chose to pitch his tent selling magic wares near the boarded-up east gate of the town ... almost as if he knew something about the coming increased popularity of that direction. And now Clem, the youngest son of the ten-foot pole magnate, is getting back into the game ...

So! It begins. I've added a castle "upper works" to the Cellars of the Castle Ruins that I was running this summer. The spider is an homage to the first encounter from Grendelwulf's very recently divulged sketch of Gygax's original first level to Castle Greyhawk, which I highly recommend as a historical document and a great example of Old School principles - seriously out of level monsters, groups of dwarves and elves to bargain with, trick rooms and secret doors a-plenty. Hey, if I'd had that to work from, maybe I wouldn't have written my own first level for the old Castle. But I'm happy with my own work and eager to get some use out of it.

Ephemera's Report

[This account of last week's game is penned by my wife, also known as the magic-user Ephemera. Notes from me, as GM, are in brackets.]

As every student of the arcane knows, there is a time for all things.. a time to press the attack, and a time to regroup.  The adventuring band retired to Trossley, rested a night but soon stepped up to fight once again - the horrifying not-plant, not-animal creature glimpsed beneath the millhouse was still at large. 

Fortified by a few supplies and stalwart city guards, mostly healed, but once again recklessly advancing with their divine spells expended, the party returned to the mill.  (Minus the faithless oathbreaker Lessig the Elf, who left in the night taking Ephemera's generous pay advance with him. [1])  They brought the  "lump monster" to bay and dispatched it along with a few other similarly slimy denizens; the group left full exploration of the tunnels for another day.

The party and allies took heart from this success, but all was not yet set to rights. The foul millstones remained.  After Ric son of Nic had been executed by the townspeople in the earlier incident, Trossley went to considerable effort to remove and bury the stones.. but a short while later, they had vanished from the burial site leaving only an empty hole. 

Next order of business:  resupply and continued investigation.  The party set out for the nearby city of Utherton, a very different community from Trossley - as evinced by its 3cp entry toll and thriving commerce.  The party visited Utherton's famous Street of Ranged Weapons, adding Cordoon's brother Callow to their ranks as a henchman.

Utherton's religious authorities also differed sharply from the down-home priest of Trossley.  Despite the urgency of the stones' sorcerous threat, little succor came from an interview with the sub-sub-hierarch of the Church. After some remonstration, he spoke of inquisitors of St. Damien [2] to arrive in Trossley in a matter of weeks.  The party also consulted Ephemera's arcane mentor Joia, who gave some hope of a means to investigate the party's possibly evil, possibly magical loot.  She also shared knowledge of the Dark Mother, a dark, sorcerous, chthonic being invoked by the spectacled sorcerer in his last fight and revered by earthly evildoers.

Finally, returning to Trossley the adventurers fell in with a strange traveling vendor of exotic magical wares - Motley Tom by name, looking to purvey his expensive goods in the village, little realizing how far the adventuring spirit had fallen off in recent years.  And back at the inn Lessig had returned his pay with a note of apology.. apparently his oath of loyalty sworn before St. Hermas was more than empty words in the Saint's eyes...


[1] I judged her generous offer of two weeks' pay in advance would incur a loyalty check; hirelings must be kept content but hungry .... Even with the bonuses from the Oath of St. Hermas, not much you can do against boxcars. The loyalty, reaction and morale rules are definitely earning their keep in this game.

[2] St. Damien is the patron of a secretive and itinerant group of Church exorcists, dispatched to purify people, places and things from unholy influence. Trained in White and Gray magics, they gain access to all spells of dispelling at one spell level lower. They wear black soutanes and skullcaps, and are well equipped with blessed waters, crosses, weapons and parchments. Due to their infrequent appearance and grim legendry, they are held in awe and trembling by most common folk.

The Millhouse Burns

Tonight was the climax of the Millhouse Saga. Rushing to the porch of the white house, the adventurers found flames all around, the guardsman they'd posted there beating out his burning clothing (miraculously, he survived), and the Orange Goblin and a hooded figure high-tailing it out of the compound - the Goblin weighed down by a medium-sized chest he was toting on his crooked back.

The party at first decided to let them go, but after extinguishing the flames and fending off the ivy tendrils that still danced to the arrhythmic grinding of the millstones, decided to give chase. Doing a foot chase betwen two parties of equal speed is a tough job. I ended up rolling DEX checks for the fastest runner, the NPC woodsman Burnsteen, being helmed by the player of the militant who got KO'd and ear-gouged by the Orange Goblin, and giving him an extra d6 roll against his wilderness skill - each passed check meant a 10 foot gain. Meanwhile the other two were rolling DEX as well. After some six rounds of this I also started rolling STR checks for stamina. It was fun, especially when the hooded figure turned around to cast Gust of Wind and Force Shield spells to try to confound pursuit, but it was all ultimately preordained as the law of large numbers caught up to the villains.

(If anyone has a better or more conclusive chase procedure than the one I winged up please let me know!)

The sorcerer threw back his hood and sneered defiantly - it was the spectacled figure who'd instigated the whole bone meal plot. The Goblin, who'd dropped the chest a long time ago, turned to fight as well. After a short combat with better party rolling than the previous two debacles, it was all over for the bad guys. A search of the sorcerer revealed some jewelry, a dagger of virtuous steel, and a fearsome black book. The dropped chest was looted of coins, and it was back to the millhouse to try and stop the grinding stones.

The door to the millstone room was open, and a horrific sight within - the rotating stones engraved with silver-chased runes of ominous portent, and smeared with a foul-smelling slurry of blood, bone fragments and chunks. Fortunately, Grumpka the dwarf did extremely well figuring out the mechanism, and a well-placed spear shut down the grinding. A hole in the wooden floor revealed a cellar with something amorphous, neither plant nor animal, covered with tentacles, mouths and eyes; it scuttled away from the torchlight and nobody seemed up for descending. In the next room over was a pillar-like statue of a dense and unfamiliar black wood carved with sinister braids and half-tortured, half-laughing faces, next to a strangely hypnotic rug. Searching the other buildings revealed various mundane treasures, and a rotten top floor that sent Grumpka plunging to land among (luckily, not on) the wounded in the room below.

It was then decided to stop messing around, and gather kindling for a torching of the accursed millhouse, pyre also for the bodies of sorcerer and goblins. In trying to appropriate a barrel for fire control, Grumpka (like everyone else, down to a last few HP) and the captain of the guard came face to, um, eye with a barrel beast courtesy of my Varlets & Vermin selection. Fortunately, the thing was quickly enough put down and the house burned down to blackened timbers in hours. With a mighty crash the demonic millstones fell into the cellar - but ominously, the pillar still stood, unharmed by the fire.

This was the first really successful session, with nobody KO'd, foes defeated, and a decent if not spectacular haul of treasure. Party members are at about 500 xp - we'll have to see if I stick to 2000 as a level-up figure or show some mercy. They could really use the insurance of another hit die ... but good things don't come easy!

Also, props to my wife for surprising me with a custom Roles, Rules & Rolls DM screen for my upcoming birthday! Photos soon.