Radiation Damage

I've been chewing on an idea for radiation, its damage, and the sickness caused therefrom, for my game ... for reasons ... mostly involving the Star Things currently descending over the Greyhame Mountain region.

The first glimmering of this idea came to me through listening to episode 9 of "The Hall of Blue Illumination", a podcast dedicated to M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel setting; around the 1:20 mark (first link, episode 9), Victor J. Raymond mentions radiation damage and how Barker adjudicated that neither cure disease nor neutralize poison spells worked against its effects. What its effects were, alas, we know not--but the idea of radiation as a separate damage has stuck with me over the past few months ...

So anyway, I've got some super-secret write-ups for monsters and spells that cause radiation damage; this damage will apply to hit points as normal damage, but has the added effect that after certain thresholds, the damage causes "radiation poisoning/sickness." Trouble is, what's the threshold?

The chart on Wikipedia for "Whole Body Absorbed" Grays (Gy) seems like a good place to start, given its clear number values and possibilities for nausea, headache, and mortality. Unfortunately, the chart jumps from 1-2 Gy absorbed with 0-5% mortality, to 2-6 Gy with 5-95% mortality! Admittedly, this mortality is over the course of weeks; but dealing 3 damage to a character and having them die ~50% of the time after several weeks regardless of level ... just doesn't seem sporting.

So let's assume 1 radiation damage = .5 Gy (half a Gray). It can still be lethal pretty quick (6 such damage gets one to the "50% mortality in a few weeks" range), but still allows concrete understanding plus the possibility to run away really fast / put something between you and it really fast.

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Radiation Effects

1) up to 2 radiation damage: sunburn, no other side effects

2) 3 to 4 radiation damage: save v. poison at +2 or nauseous all session, at end of session save v. poison or at -1 on all rolls for 1-4 weeks

3) 5 to 12 radiation damage: save v. poison or nauseous for 1-4 weeks, at end of session save v. poison or die in 1-4 weeks; successful save indicates survival, but nausea continues additional 1-4 weeks (i.e. 2-8 weeks of nausea)

4) 13 to 16 radiation damage: save v. poison at -2 or nauseous for 1-4 weeks, begin vomiting and otherwise incapacitated by severe headaches in 1-6 turns; at end of session save v. poison at -2 or die in 1 week, successful save indicates survival, but incapacitated for 1 week, nauseated for 2-8 weeks after that

5) 17 to 60 radiation damage: save v. poison at -4 or confused per the spell by nausea and severe headaches for remainder of session; at end of session, save v. poison at -4 or die in 1-3 days, successful save indicates survival but with 2-7 weeks incapacitated by sickness

6) 60+ radiation damage: save v. poison at -8 or die in 1 turn; success indicates that death is staved off 1-6 turns, but the character is confused per the spell for their last few turns

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There should probably be additional debilitating effects of radiation sickness after, but I'll admit, I'll probably be more generous than Barker as regards spells like neutralize poison etc. curing radiation damage.

Still, we'll see. This is a rough draft. It hasn't actually presented itself in my game yet ... yet ...

Jungles of Chult: Locales around Nyanzaru

Since the last session of the Chult game I've been busy populating the hex map with rules from the Welsh Piper's Hex-based Campaign Design posts. After the first session I'd already placed a few settlements around the north coast near the main port city of Nyanzaru, and several small encounter areas along the Tiryki River (since I knew that was my players' intended path), but I wanted more--so I redrew the map onto larger hex paper, added larger "atlas hexes" thirty miles across by drawing around the ten-mile hexes of the Chult map, and rolled some dice.

So here's a rough gazetteer of the human settlements along the north coast of Chult, around the main city of Nyanzaru, for the edification of my players, but also for anyone interested in seeing a different take on the Tomb of Annihilation: (the myriad monster lairs, ruins, and dungeons will have to be ferreted out through rumors or exploration, of course ...)

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Dya
While Nyanzaru is the main port and destination for foreign traders coming to make it big in Chult, Dya serves as the port and warehouse center for local trade between the towns along the north coast of Chult. Goods from Binin and Moata to the west come across the mountain pass just south of Dya, are sold to merchants and warehoused there, and thence are sold to Ngana, Nyanzaru, Fort Beluarian (and through Beluarian to inland Wtunga); and the goods from the other settlements needed in Binin, Moata or beyond naturally pass through Dya going the other way.

The population of Dya is predominantly Ido; Chultan albino dwarves own and work the tin mines in the mountains above the town. Oloya Oliha is the local Oloya/chief, and he is a good friend of the merchant prince Ekene-Afa in Nyanzaru. The mines, meanwhile, are owned and administered separately from the town, and are run by Kwaroth, chief of the albino dwarves, who is jealous of the rights of his people.

Dya lies sixty miles northwest of Nyanzaru on the eastern coast of the mountainous peninsula that forms the western boundary of the Bay of Chult.



Kilik-Ik
High in the mountains ten miles north of Dya, an ancient and abandoned monastery clings to the cliffsides. Men, dwarves, and aarakocra all shun it--the tales tell of the place being haunted by some demonic presence, and that all those who seek the riches forgotten behind its walls are killed--or worse, damned!--by the evil things that dwell within.



Kaaraa Eyrie
Further north from Kilik-Ik, high in the central mountains of the peninsula where the views stretch east over the Bay of Chult and west over the Shining Sea, a large tribe of aarakocra of the Kaaraa tribes make their eyries. They are guided by Old Kruaak, an aarakocra so old that he can no longer fly, and by the shamaness Pree'eet, who knows the ancient secrets of speaking with and summoning the winds.

The player-characters met Skir, daughter of Old Kruaak, during their brief stint as guards on a supply run to Fort Beluarian during the first session of the game, and received tokens of friendship from her for their efforts to cure her hurts, got from a skirmish with the lizardmen of Hssa Hsi.



Fana Sirroc
Due south of Dya, high over the east-west pass between Binin and Dya, the aarakocra are said to maintain a secret shrine to the fire winds of a god unknown to man's ken. Men--and even aarakocra who have not ritually purified themselves--are forbidden even to look upon the secret fane.



Iduna-So
On the west coast of the peninsula some twenty miles southwest of Dya stands the fortress Iduna-So, tower of the sorceress Ekundaya and her consort-apprentice Ziba. Iduna-So protects the coast road leading from Dya and the mountain pass under Fana Sirroc to the north down to Ngana to the south by the Soshenstar River delta.

Ekundaya is an hereditary Oloya, responsible for seeing to the defense and maintenance of the coast; but though her castle is well-manned with over a hundred men-at-arms, she is herself preoccupied with her growing age and in seeking out magical means of increasing her own longevity. She was a rival of the Nyanzaran merchant prince Wakanga when the twain were younger, and will gladly recount tales of their magical spats (though she will conveniently forget that she was more often the loser ...). Moreover, Ekundaya owns a sizable hadrosaur ranch on the banks of the Soshenstar and so has a vested interest in the dinosaur races that take place on the streets of Nyanzaru and many other Chultan settlements--and the gambling that takes place around the races.

As for Ziba, it is generally thought that he is using his handsome youth to take advantage of Ekundaya, to study from her magical libraries for the price of flattering her and her self-image.



Binin
On the western coast of the peninsula, on the shore of an inlet at its base, stands the fishing-town of Binin. Or rather, a collection of fishing towns and villages that have sprawled together over the years, all overlooked by the Golden Hall of Binin ruled by the Oloya Igo.

Alas for Igo and for the people of Binin, some evil has come over the land ... once proud with fine searovers and fighting-men, the land has been emptied of promising young men so that it seems the whole of Binin is filled only with children, women, and old men and crones. Only Igo remains in his palace, and his jalis sing him of the ancient deeds before the land was cursed.

And the nature of the curse is that an evil spirit seems to have come to dwell in Binin; it is widely said that the warriors who once dwelt with Igo in his halls perished in a series of bloody nights, killed in their sleep; and all their attempts to catch or to fight against the spirit were in vain, only leading to more death--and so all the warriors of Binin have fled elsewhere, leaving Igo to his empty memories ...



Moata
Twenty miles north of Binin, still on the western coast of the peninsula, the fortress of Moata rises above the waves of the Shining Sea on a high headland. Emeka is the Oloya there--or he claims to be an Oloya, despite lacking any official pedigree. He is an old seadog and sometime pirate, and he has taken in a number of Igo's former warriors who fled the evil in Binin. It is said that some wish to return to Binin, overthrow Igo, and with their young strength to cast off the evil that has befallen the land.

High along the seacliffs northwest of Moata live a tribe of aarakocra led by Kri'isa, who is friendly with Emeka. She and her fellows often fly over the ocean scouting out fish or ships for the galleys of Moata to chase. These aarakocra are related to the tribes of the Kaaraa Eyrie, but do not always see eye-to-eye with their kin.



Ngana
Back on the eastern side of the peninsula, at its base and some twenty-five or so miles west of Nyanzaru, the town of Ngana stands on the north bank of the Soshenstar River's delta. Ngana is another Ido town like Binin and Dya, and a rich one at that--the hills are dug through with copper mines worked by slaves, mines owned not by dwarves but by the Oloya of Ngana and the merchant-princes of Nyanzaru. Combined with the tin from Dya, the copper is worked into the beautiful bronze sculptures and art that have made Ngana rich.

The Oloya of Ngana is Ogano, a wealthy Ido man who is popular with the local young men because of his liberality with palm wine and because of his jalis that sing the deed-songs of the Ido. Ogano looks back to the days before the coming of the Omuans with nostalgia, and he and his cohorts long for a return to independence from the Omuan suffetes and merchant-princes of Nyanzaru.

Ngana is the center of the Cult of Gu the Iron God (or the Bronze God as he is also known in Ngana), chief of smiths, hunters, magic-users, dogs, and rum.



Palm Orchards of Enogie Ishau
But Gu is not alone in Ngana--a religious order dedicated to the brewing of palm wine and the oracle of Enogie Ishau's head has its headquarters in the orchards just south of town along the north bank of the Soshenstar. Ikenna is the chief priestess of the Priests of the Palm and Gourd, which oversees production and distribution of palm-wine.

The tale is that Ishau, an Enogie of the spirit world, was walking the world in a destructive rage, burning towns and forests and slaughtering peoples, and his wrath was only ended when he stopped to drink of palm-wine from a gourd and became so drunk that he fell asleep. And while he slept, the warrior gods Gorm and Madarua came and cut up his body and scattered the pieces all around the world--but the head they kept beside the palm tree and the gourd, and fed it wine when it called out, and asked of its wisdom when they needed advice.

So the Order of the Palm and Gourd maintain the palms, and also enjoy the prestige of possessing the oracle of the demon Ishau's head which they can feed with wine and ask things of.



Iya Afa
About thirty-five miles west of Ngana and the Palm Orchards, following a road that runs through the thin jungle along the mountains' foothills, lies the town of Iya-Afa, yet another Ido mining-town. But the mines of Iya Afa provide rich silver, a royal metal, and so the lord of Iya-Afa, one Ijayo, is allowed to retain the ancient title of Enogie.

Ijayo is friends with many men in high places, especially outdoorsmen and hunters; he often invites Ogano of Ngana, or the merchant-princes Jobal and Ifan-Talro'a out to his estates near the jungle to hunt boar, leopard, shield-heads, or even the terrible mouth-dragons.

Iya-Afa is the center of the cult of Merikka, goddess of yams, grains, and growing things, but a curse seems to have fallen over the temple--the chief priestess fell ill, spoke of fevered dreams of rotting things, and has since disappeared; and now there are rumors spreading even unto Nyanzaru that strange new forms of worship are become common in Iya-Afa with the failing of the cult of Merikka.



Hssa Hsi
North of Nyanzaru are three fingers of land that jut into the Bay of Chult; somewhere in the mangroves and estuaries and saltwater marshes of these tidelands is rumored to be Hssa Hsi, the village of the lizardmen. Several tribes of lizardmen are known to haunt the mangroves and swamps; they are allowed to remain because they offer semi-regular tribute to the suffetes and merchant-princes of Nyanzaru (and because actually hunting them down through the swamps would be a fool's errand), but rogue lizardmen and brigandage are fairly common in the swamps of the Three Fingers.

When the lizardmen get too uppity, the merchant-princes are wont to offer a small bounty for every lizardman tail brought in, until the creatures remember to send adequate tribute of pearls and woven feather cloaks ...



Fort Beluarian
A Flaming Fist outpost some sixty or so miles northeast of Nyanzaru, Beluarian was built to protect the Flaming Fists' rights to the Wtunga Mine. These rights were purchased for a large sum from the merchant-princes, and the charter is allowed to remain in the hands of the Flaming Fist Company only as long as the merchant-princes deem the relationship profitable. Supplies are run to the Fort from Nyanzaru by boat around the Three Fingers, and ingots from the mines are shipped back to Nyanzaru the same way.

Giant saltwater crocodiles have recently begun disrupting these supply-runs, and Liara Portyr, commander of Beluarian, has spread word that she is willing to offer substantial bounties for proof of these crocodiles' demise.



Wtunga Mine
Just twenty miles southeast of Fort Beluarian, the Wtunga Mines are worked by slaves purchased by the Flaming Fist. The mine had lain abandoned for a time, thought to be tapped out, when the Flaming Fist purchased rights to explore and mine it. Now it's a thriving iron mine, after Thrain Throrson a dwarf from the north explored it.

The mine head is protected by another small fort, ruled by Lady Ibasha, an Ido woman with a keen sense of tactics whom Liara Portyr sponsored to be their head-woman at the mine itself.

Not all is well at Wtunga--encounters with boars and leopards have increased in recent weeks, and rumors have begun to spread the the forest and mountain spirits are angry with the reopening of the mine--and that maybe the closing of the mine to begin with was because of a curse laid down by the forest itself.



Iya Ifa
On the coast northeast of Beluarian and Wtunga Mine lie a collection of fishing towns and villages collectively known as Iya-Ifa, ruled over by the Oloya Eweka from his coastal towers.

The fishermen of Iya-Ifa are known to be especially good sailors and well-attuned to the fickle moods of the sea--and many are the tales of them taking sea-brides, or of the women of the village seeking out octopus-husbands beneath the waves. What is certain is that the people of Iya-Ifa, though they eat scaled and finned fish in every variety and in many excellent dishes, they consider shellfish, octopus, and squid all taboo and will not eat of them, or even touch a dead specimen.

Iya-Ifa is also a main cult center for Olokuna, the hermaphroditic water god/dess sometimes counted as a consort of Ubtao, or as the spouse of warrior goddess Madarua.



Wadi Suchos
Southeast of Nyanzaru some thirty to forty miles, in the thick of the jungle, lies the settlement of Wadi Suchos. Not quite a town in the traditional sense, Wadi Suchos is a permanent waypoint for the bands of Turkana herdsman that move through the jungles and along the northern coasts of Chult, trading in all the major towns and then moving on in their nomadic way.

There is a permanent bazaar, including many Omuans and Ido who dwell there to turn a profit from the continual flow of people through the streets of the Wadi. And moreover, there are a number of saurians that live there as well, intelligent enough to live at peace among men--shield-heads, hadrasaurs, club-tails, all living in semi-partnership.

Wadi Suchos, as one might guess from the name, is also the center of the old cult of Suchos, a saurian god variously depicted with a crocodile head, a sail-back head, or even a mouth-dragon head. The temple of Suchos sits in the center of the bazaar, and the bazaar itself is surrounded by stone colossi shaped like mouth-dragons with gems for eyes. Any attack against the town or temple (be it from undead, Batiri, pterrafolk, etc.) causes the eyes to flash and a deep roar to sound over the jungle, and within minutes, a tribe of mouth-dragons arrives from their lair in the jungle nearby to wreck whatever attackers they find ...

Play Report from Jeff Rients' Vaults of Vyzor 4

(my 4th report, not the 4th session ... go to Jeff's Gameblog to find the preceding 30+ sessions)

"Laurantha the Unbeautiful to the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask,

"O! puissant one! We, your lieutenants and servants, have confronted the Elf-King, Elexus Starchild, in his own throne room and come away without victory and badly scathed for our troubles. This is my account:

"I write this missive in great pain, only barely dulled by the strength even of my own mead--for my left hand has been mangled, leaving only a bloody mess without fingers. It throbs without end, and I fear as to my future spell-casting faculties; and Barnabus Sleet, muscle-wizard unparalleled, has returned from the depths with a stump where his right foot once firmly trod the earth; and Kat Eumeleia, a companion on the delve, has not even returned, but was captured by the Elf-King's lion-men during our headlong flight.

"I tell you, the company we gathered was good. Barnabus had with him his manservant Dale, as well as the wolf-demon Astonac; Pitwin Spryneedle was with us, a sapling who has grown as proud in prowess even as Magic Meryl, and he commanding the mushroom-demon Xasu; and Lobat the Laserer was with us, accompanied by trusted gnomes-at-arm Jade and Blondie. For myself, I had heard the Kat Eumeleia, cleric of the Star Goddess was considered a Champion of Vyzor, and so I enlisted her as my henchwoman, much to her ill fortune. Rose Royce, said to be kin to the Elf-King was also intended to accompany us, but alas was unable to join our ill venture ...

"And lastly, the creature Man-Rider was with us. [Man-Rider is weird. ~Ed.] This thing, said once to be a goblin--and now a weird blue thing with tentacles and too many eyes and a door in its breast--proclaimed itself a tracker faultless through its own eldritch faculties, and so we enlisted its aid to seek out the Elf-King in his dungeons below the Azure Tower. For this we required an article once possessed by the Elf-King himself, and Kat Eumeleia, after wooing Laurela--the estranged niece of the Elf-King, freed by the deeds of Kat and others--that is, Kat received from Laurela a dress she had once gotten as a gift from Elexus, which Man-Rider took (and wore himself, a most hideous sight), and declared that he knew where the Elf-King was.

"Therefore, Barnabus took the Man-Rider upon his shoulders (as was only appropriate), and we set out into the depths beneath the Azure Tower, following the directions of the misbegotten Man-Rider. On the first level we dithered for a while, finding orcs and goblins captive in the Elf-King's Agony-Machine cages. Suffice to say that the goblins were freed and the orcs all slain, save one charmed by Sleet.

"Thence we descended through the second level down to the third, and unto the very bronze doors of the Elf-King's throne room, those doors emblazoned with his ancient deeds of wonder. 'Through there,' Man-Rider indicated, and Barnabus Sleet hesitated not a moment before he burst open the great doors. Not a moment even to plan ...

"And there was Elexus, seated formally upon his throne, eyes like black holes, face made up in full Starchild makeup, wearing a robe of lucky charms and a cloak of the still-living-and-grimacing faces of inept servants--and attended by a host of lion-men! Without a thought, Barnabus leapt across the throne room to confront the Elf-King himself with but his fists, leaving the rest of us behind to fend off the lion-men.

"And this we did! Pitwin slew many with a wave of acid; Man-Rider, thrown into the melee by Lobat, incinerated others with his fiery burps; Blondie and Jade threw a tube of hair gel into the midst of the guards and shot it with their lasers, causing the tube to explode; and myself, I sent a line of lightning crackling through their ranks. Many died.

"Meanwhile, Barnabus's own lightning spell, cast through his connecting fist, was merely caught in the hand of the Elf-King, ready to throw back at us. Only good fortune saved us, in that Lobat then turned his laser rifle on the Elf-King and blasted a hole in his right arm, causing the lightning to ricochet around the room (incinerating one of his own guards). Still, the Elf-King lived--

"--and summoned an elemental of earth from the floor of the chamber! And the eight pillars around the room smoked and then transformed into horrid creatures with ebon skin, terrible claws, and red-burning eyes!

"Lobat rolled a keg of black powder at the elemental and shot it, causing the powder to explode and the room to shake, but failing to destroy the creature. Man-Rider sought to inject new strangeness into the melee, first by growing a great shell, and then by summoning a serpent-demon which proceeded to attack and dominate him; and while Barnabus continued to rain fists upon the Elf-King to little avail, I advanced to attack one of the pillar-demons with my sword. It should be noted of Pitwin that he showed conspicuous gallantry in throwing an interdimensional knife at Elexus, which he followed through the planar gap to stand beside the Elf-King himself, and to stab Elexus in the posterior with his knife, literally enacting the thing he had intended merely to spraypaint upon the throne room's walls.

"But this is where the tide turned against us. The pillar-demons struck out, and their attacks against myself and Barnabus Sleet caused grievous bodily harm. And here the Elf-King drew his sword, which I am to understand was forged from a single hair stolen from an angel, and stabbed at Barnabus--and only the sudden collapsing of the chamber's roof and the mutual surprise of everyone involved interrupted his incipient death!

"As the chamber shuddered, weakened by the explosions within, and the Elf-King hesitated, wondered at the shivering walls, we all fled headlong, uncertain of aught but that our doom lay within if we remained there. In the flight, Kat was lost and captured by a new contingent of lion-men coming to reinforce the first bodyguard, and one of the gnome lasses following Lobat was smashed in the hip, ever after to walk with a limp--but otherwise carried to safety out of the deeps.

"So it was that we, your lieutenants and servants, assaulted the Elf-King on his own ground, and were badly repulsed. For myself, I fully intend to return to the dungeon as soon as I am able and recovered of my wounds, thereby to deliver Kat Eumeleia from captivity, and to redeem my honor as the one who enlisted her aid ...

"Your lieutenant in the War Against the Elf-King,
"Laurantha Akala"

Jungles of Chult: River Mist and Flask of Wine

Using the "Into the Unknown" ruleset from +Anders H, which is a Basic hack of 5e D&D, for running WotC's Tomb of Annihilation.

Of course, I screwed up the above "boxed text" because the published book of ToA contradicts itself. Jobal is described on the one hand as giving out information including the whereabouts of River Mist and Flask of Wine; while their descriptions (later on) contradict that information flatly. Alas, because Jobal was the first of these characters that the players interacted with (and I was several beers in and blithely trusted the book), I had Jobal citing River Mist and Flask of Wine as employees of his. Fortunately, this "situation" resolved itself somewhat when the players did something else before returning to Jobal for a guide, so by then Jobal and the Tabaxi could have had a "break" and terminated their relationship. And my players elected to hire the twain specifically because Jobal said they were untrustworthy ...

Anyway, I'm writing these NPCs up because the "stock" 5e NPCs are bags of enormous hps but worthless skills (9 hit dice, but +2 to hit, i.e. the same as a 1 hit die first level character? why don't bonuses scale with hit dice??). I'd rather they have a fair chance of dying, but also of being useful--and I'm going to give them to the players as "characters" for them to run for the duration of the expedition, to lessen my load (and if their player characters die, maybe they take over as the guides).

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River Mist
STR 11
INT 7
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 14
CHA 12

Fighter (Deadeye) 4
hp 26
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, longbow, handaxe, shortsword, backpack

referee fiat abilities: herbalist -- has a nose for useful/valuable flora in the jungle (subject to further fiat for what precisely that means); track -- double proficiency bonus for tracking creatures through a wilderness

River Mist is a tabaxi female who wears an eyepatch over her right eye. She is evasive about the cause of her missing eye, sometimes alluding to a long-ago accident. River and her brother, Flask of Wine, have been acting as jungle guides for those leaving Port Nyanzaru and its environs for an expedition into the jungle for several years. Mostly, they act as guides for those wishing to hunt or capture large jungle beasts like shield-heads or dagger-backs, but they have also led several expeditions up the River Tiryki all the way to its source in Ataaz Ahiya, the Weeping Gorge.

River (as you might call her for short) is the face of the twain, the one actually willing to converse with strangers and to put herself out there. Nevertheless, she is at home in the wilderness, and is happy to be out among the trees, seeing and smelling new things, and hunting strange new creatures.

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Flask of Wine
STR 10
INT 13
WIS 12
DEX 16
CON 9
CHA 8

Rogue (Thief) 3
hp 8
AC 15 (2 studded leather, 3 dex)
proficiency +2
equipment: studded leather, shortbow, handaxe, machete, backpack, deck of cards

referee fiat abilities: gambling -- double prof for games of chance; trackless step -- double prof for being stealthy in forest

Flask of Wine is a tabaxi male, brother of River Mist. The twain have acted as guides in the jungles of Chult for several years, and feel they have a general grasp of the dangers in the jungles.

Flask (as he is known for short) is a laconic creature who rarely utters more than a sentence at a time, if he speaks. He isn't shy, per se, and is more than glad to join in a bout of drinking and carousing, going mug-for-mug of palm wine with any others--though palm wine doesn't make him any more lugubrious, and perhaps rather quieter--he just doesn't offer much verbally. Perhaps he heard the old Viking advice that those who say nothing, though they know nothing, may seem to be wise; while those who say much, though they know much, will certainly seem foolish.

Flask of Wine had taken a liking to Sound of Distant Rain to play card games with him, gambling small amounts as they traveled. Alas, their games were cut short by the death of Sound in the Sailback Shrine, killed by a mysterious psychic emanation from the creepy monkeys they battled in the catacombs. On return to Nyzanzaru, he took much of the wages paid him by the players and paid with them for a small sacrifice to the Cat Lord for the spirit of dead Sound ...

Jungles of Chult Session 2

Beware the crocodiles of the Tiryki River ...

The crocodiles will eat you

our intrepid heroes:

Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue)

Terahn Atzi (human priest)

Nugiri (lizardman monk)

Takashi Kaga (human magic-user)

Nebin (halfling barbarian)

Chiratidzo (human druid)

with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man guides)

The last session ended just into the expedition up the River Tiryki, after five days of travel following the river, the characters led by River Mist and Flask of Wine and porting a rowboat with them through the jungle (despite the river being right there ...)

Picking up where we left off, on the morning of the sixth day, Chira noticed a strange little creature at the edge of camp as everyone else was breaking things down. The thing looked like a root knotted into a six-inch high humanoid form, with pebbles for eyes and mouth, eagerly watching the party. It was sitting on a mess kit. Chira informed the party as to its presence, and Takashi, miffed as he realized that the thing had taken his mess kit, mage handed the kit up and as it rose through the air, the little creature jumped off and ran away.

Takashi discovered an empty wasp nest left in his bag in the mess kit's place; and Chira informed everyone that the thing was a Chwinga, a kind of nature spirit that is generally harmless though sometimes mischievous.

Continuing on, through the evening, the characters noticed eyes watching them from the river--insectile eyes from rocky carapaces. Asking their guides after these sightings, River Mist informs the party that these must be Aldani, the lobster-men the haunt the waters of Chult. "Don't take what's theirs, and they won't bother you," she says, and then continues the hike.

Day 8 -- morning -- Chiratidzo heads down to the river as camp is breaking to wash his face. As he crouches there, he gives a shout--"There's something in the water!"--as what looks like a waterlogged tree drifts toward him and the rest of the party comes nearer. Then the log surges out of the water with a huge splash, and a giant crocodile's jaws close around Chira, snap his back, and the crocodile beings to drag his body back into the river. The rest of the party threw missile weapons at the crocodile, but to no avail, and the reptile and its prey both disappear under the waters of the lake ...

River Mist and Flask of Wine shrug. "The jungle is dangerous," River Mist says, and then she and Flask continue to lead everyone on.

Day 9 -- diseased bite -- Sound of Distant Rain saves

Day 10 -- morning -- the party comes across Quinsela, or "Quin", another druid, now out hunting alone. He agrees to accompany the party, knowing that the crocodiles along the River Tiryki are deadly things to contend with ...

Later, the party comes across a kind of idol rising out of a series of rocks in a kind of calm area of the river. The idol is an obelisk, vaguely carved, dedicated to Olokuna, other than a maze-like vulva and stone phallus rising from near the water line. An altar of flat stone lies just under the water, covered at the moment with worked stone offerings (stones with carvings of hands, crabs, phalluses, mazes, vulvas, etc.); Sound of Distant Rain deposits a flask of palm wine on the altar for deceased Chiratidzo, further offering a prayer to the Cat Lord for the man's dead soul ...

Day 11 -- physical barrier -- the party runs into a cliff blocking their path; they decide to backtrack for a day rather than attempt to climb or circumvent it

Day 13 -- morning -- Flask of Wine calls Sound of Distant Rain forward to look at something--it's a dead body, half-eaten by a mouth-dragon and now abandoned in the bole of mighty tree-roots.

Day 14 -- morning -- The party enters a small mango grove and Flask of Wine (from scouting ahead) comes back with broken fruit on his shoulders. "There are mad apes ahead," he says and brushes himself off; he is immediately backed up by the sound of screaming apes from behind and another thrown fruit. Nugiri steps out and catches some thrown fruit, and also grins broadly at the two apes he can see.

The apes interpret that as a threat and charge into combat. One runs all the way forward while the other throws rocks from behind; but Sound of Distant Rain hates monkeys, as do the rest of the party, and they quickly kill both apes (though one does knock Nugiri out with its fists before dying from other melee attacks)

River Mist then points out that the swamp containing the Sailback Hill/Shrine is within a day's travel, if anyone were interested in checking it out. Everyone agrees that it sounds interesting, and so the party moves to the east bank of the river (they've been hiking down the west bank), and they find a wide swamp with both stork-men and sail-backs lurking in its midst.

The stork-men with the evil-eyes

Almost immediately, the party spies a group of stork-men between them and the sail-back hill; Sound of Distant Rain and Flask of Wine sneak out to (bag?) them, but Sound decides to talk instead. Fortunately, one of the several stork-men speaks the Common tongue, though hissing like a swan; "These are our swamps! What do you offer to move through them? Give us shiny things!" The party gave a mirror and a disassembled mess-kit, and I rolled an 11 for reactions, so that was enough. "I am Sssra," the lead stork-man declared. "You may travel our swamp. And let me say, the best place to rest is beneath the banyan outside the mouth of the sailback shrine," it adds.

---

The party deposited the boat in the banyan "grove" matching Sssra's description; they felt a supernatural sense that it would be "good" to camp there, indeed; then they headed for the dungeon in the open mouth of the sailback hill.

The mouth opened onto a stairway down (the gullet); this led down to a three-way fork; the party went west and found themselves in a stairway that ended in water. Nugiri checked under the water and didn't seem to find anything. The party then glanced down the east way, but ultimately went down the south way into a large chamber with stone pillars rising up that look like they support the stone spines of the hill that make it resemble a sailback. There were pit traps around these pillars; then entering the main chamber, the party saw a ruby, pulsing slowly, in the jaws of a small stone sailback on top of an altar against the south wall; the other walls were carved to resemble up-curving ribs. The altar was dedicated to SUCHOS, a god like an animal-headed Egyption god, but with a dimetrodon head.

A small swarm of mosquito-bats attacked the party here, but were easily dispatched ...

Furthermore, there were four other exits from the room ... the party checked one and found a collapsed corridor; checked another and found a closed door; but looking down the south west corridor, they found a series of natural caverns, of which one held a crevice in its floor filled with glittering coin. The party went for the coin, but were surprised by a "nest" of creepy monkeys with blood-red hands hanging from the stalactites on the ceiling of the chamber. Sound of Distant Rain was foremost in the party seeking the coin in the crevice, and he suddenly keeled over dead, clutching his head; Takashi also fell over, blood pooling from his nose, but not quite dead.

The creepy-monkeys with blood-red hands

While Nugiri saved Takashi and Flask of Wine ran forward to save his friend's (Sound's) body, the party elected (after a first intuition to run), to fight--and because they killed one monkey and injured two others with a variety of spells and attacks, the creepy monkeys fled deeper into the cave after failing a morale check.

"Let's loot this thing and get the hell out of here!" Nebin cried, and then the party quickly grabbed what they could of the coin (including 2 scrolls) and then fled back to the large room with the pulsing ruby-heart. They pitoned the little sailback statue's mouth open and took the ruby, but heard the grinding of stone nevertheless--the mouth of the cave had closed! Placing the ruby back re-opened the closed jaws. The cat-men thought they might be able to run fast enough to grab the gem and then make it out ahead of the jaws, but the party balked in the end and elected to return later.

So deciding, they checked one more room and found a tomb filled with sarcophagi for sailbacks. Opening the most ornate one, Teran forced open the sarcophagus and breathed in a poisonous cloud, but lived ... inside they found a sailback skeleton plated with gold, which they took ...

With a couple thousand coin (from the monkeys) and a gold-plated skeleton in their possession, the party went straight for the river with their rowboat and began to row their way back down the River Tiryki toward Nyanzaru. On the river, flowing downstream, their movement doubled to 10 miles per day (one hex per day).

---

Day 16 -- evening -- rare plants, zabou, 4 "doses" of zabou mushrooms which the party collects (Quin as an herbalist can pick them without trouble)

Day 20 -- evening -- croaking of giant frogs ahead--the party decides to accept another roll on the encounter die in the future to avoid the frogs now ...

Day 21 -- morning -- as Teran hauls the boat down into the water of the river, a giant crocodile surges out of the water with a high initiative and snaps Teran up in its huge jaws. Teran is instantly killed and dragged away into the water, leaving the party bereft of a third member ...

Except the hindquarters are Tehran's, not a zebra ....

Day 22 -- back in town! (now everyone can get XPs)

In Nyanzaru, the party went to Jobal, whom they know collects hunting trophies, to sell the gold-plated skeleton to him. Jobal is sad to hear of Chira's death, but is glad to buy the skeleton off of them for 250 gold. During this conversation, Nebin brings up the mosquito-bats they killed (and the bodies they saved) trying to sell them to him too, but Jobal shows his colors, racist against "lesser" folk by "belittling" Nebin. "What, did you step on that? How cute!"

The party then also sold their 4 "doses" of zabou to Jessamine, who has been interested in rare plants.

And in the end, Nebin and Takashi caroused. Nebin ended up in debt to Jessamine 100 gold and in love with Talara, halfling wife of a local halfling merchant, Haban Widewater; and Takashi ended in debt to Jobal for 400 gold, and furthermore beaten and robbed so that he starts the next adventure slightly injured ...


------


Remembrance for the Dead
Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (cat-man rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 18

Orcs have returned to the caverns of the Glimmervaults;
the Goblin King and the Lord of Werewolves have renewed their ancient alliance beneath the Howling Tower;
and the secret treasury of the ancient Bronding Kings is said to lie hidden behind the Brokenbrand Falls, haunted by enchanting naiads ...
...
and Jaer the Windlord looks down on the world below from the Eyries of the Eagles on Greyhame Mountain itself;
while the Stars themselves are singing an eerie, eldritch song, night after night ...


29 January's roster:
Aethelwulf (paladin 3)
with Hauka (snake-killing weasel)
Baby-Face (thief 5)
with Frida and Hubert the Peacock (normal mercenaries)
and Whesker and Wilmerand (weasels) and St. Bb (a st. bernard)
Lead (cleric 4)
with Astia (normal woman) and Sparkly the Mule
Blackleaf (Elf 2)
with Johann Haybaler (normal man)
Koko (woman-ape 1)


Lead the cleric was eager to get back to the Glimmervaults to kill orcs and take more heads for Jaer the Windlord, a powerful creature of air who dwells with the eagles at the summit of Greyhame Mountain. In the past, Jaer has promised a powerful wish for a group who would rid the mountain of the orcs that are always hunting and torturing his friends, the eagles, and Saul-style, set the price for this wish at fifty orc heads brought to him on his mountain. (On an earlier expedition, the party gathered a mere 31)

Before setting out, they had several items to attend to.

First, Baby-Face acquired a sending bone and a bottle of Laurantha's mead from the local procurer of oddments. He used the sending bone to send a message to Jaer, asking whether the wish was for the group entire, or one wish for every individual, and the spirit arose from the bone and whisked away on the wind toward the mountains. On its return, the sending took on an imitation of Jaer's visage: One wish! it declared. But one wish for the company--even my powers are limited.

Meanwhile, Aethelwulf had a couple of things he wanted to do. First, because the party would not be following through with the rescue of children kidnapped by the goblins on this expedition, he sought out the captain of the guard, Cairn, Knight-Captain of "the Citadel" (the watchtower in town), and implored him to guard the town's children better against goblin kidnappers. "If all the children are taken away, Morholt won't have any populace left within his realm," Aethelwulf pointed out.

But Cairn basically just shrugged him off--"We guard the town. It's the fools in the country who can't keep their children safe. And what, a dozen farmers' nits carried away? Good riddance."

After this ineffectual audience, Aethelfwulf went to pray at his small shrine to Adonai, god of justice, in the market square. There, he found Aldir, Blackleaf's blacksmith-squeeze, who has been more aloof with Blackleaf in the past week, while going on about how he wants to be Good and a hero, like Aethefulwulf. So at the shrine of Adonai, Aldir got a little more instruction in the mysteries of Good from Aethelwulf.

Finally, we were ready to adventure. The party gathered rations and supplies and set out from town. The trek to the Glimmervaults proved easy, with but a single broken axe when Baby-Face was cutting firewood.

Looking up a the two entrances into the Glimmervaults--a western grotto that leads into a natural cave system, and a built-stone entrance to the east with spears and impaled heads placed out before it--looking up at these entrances, and then down at the maps drawn by their some-time companion Little Bob, the characters were paralyzed by confusion. This was a moment of great amusement for me, the referee, as the players pored over their actual artefact of play, unable to make sense of the three maps. It was a perfect moment of a kind of 1:1 identification between the characters and the players, of actually poring over a map in confusion as to what it means, where to go?

Finally, they elected to enter the grotto and explore an unexplored side-corridor just to the west inside the entrance. In they went, and were immediately surprised by a roar and with Lead getting swiped by the claws of a huge bear. A short melee followed, short because the bear was overwhelmed by the party's numbers. It put up a good fight--damaged Aethelwulf's hawk-shield and mauled both him and Lead (mauled Lead because the man was still wearing his old green-slime-burned plate armor from the first session!), but ultimately it was put down by two simultaneous critical hits.

Aethelfwulf turned out to be proficient at skinning animals, and so he proceeded to remove the bear's pelt, which was mostly undamaged other than the melee-mangled head. This would prove to be their only real treasure for the session.

When the bear was skinned, the party continued southeast through a series of large irregular caves, deeper into the Glimmervaults, seeking a great chasm on the first of Little Bob's maps. Entering into a chamber with stairs leading up to a flowstone formation, they searched for secret doors and found one--but heard the noise of moving things from the other side. Fearing undead, they cracked the door open and balanced a flask of holy water above, to drop on anything passing beneath--but the noise turned out to be a group of orcs passing by.

Lead insulted them and their mothers, and the orcs shot back with a lame retort and then charged through the door. The holy water didn't do much--but the "army" facing them were too much, and two orcs went down on the first round, and the other two were shot down as they attempted to flee. The party hacked off their heads and then moved on.

They found a chamber with statues, their faces all knocked off by chisel and hammer, and with an iron plaque on the west wall reading in part, The tribe of Galad is destroyed root and branch; let jackals crush the bones of his heirs, let their spirits never rest. This place is accursed.

The party poked through a number of tombs in the vicinity of this room, and in one chamber with three tombs, they disturbed a colony of yellow mold within the tomb. Blackleaf, Hubert the Peacock, Frida, Wilmerand, and Whesker all failed their initial save and began to wheeze as their throats filled up with spores. The rest of the party then frantically tried to help clear their breathing with heimlich maneuvers, forcing them to gag and throw up, or even an dagger-tracheotomy for Frida! Out of all those affected, only Hubert the Peacock ended up dying.

Continuing on, the party ultimately emerged through another secret door to a passage just west of the large chasm they'd seen on the map. They skirted it along its western ledge, noting a broken bridge that would lead to a door on the east wall if still intact; but ignoring that, they headed northwest into another series of chambers, including a set of rooms with scummy wells, and an orc armory. Along the way they encountered a further six orcs, but these were slept by Blackleaf and killed without incident. The party looted the armory of spears, mail, and shields, and then headed back to town (out the way they'd come) because we were running out of time.

Back in town after another easy journey (only one more broken axe for attrition), everybody caroused. Baby-Face caroused especially hard, racking up a tab in excess of 4000 gold and landing him in debt to the thieves' guild by some 3000 gold! Aethelfwulf drunkenly bought a slave-woman, one Hastia, and awoke hung over and no longer a paladin until he frees her and atones for his crime against Goodness. Koko, meanwhile, had a religious experience, and is now of Good alignment herself!

------

Remembrance for the Fallen:
Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal man), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boarhound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghost hound), Arrow (pack dog), Freyja (normal woman), a nameless cur, Hot Dog and Cross (mastiffs), Orion II (lion dog), Bacon (boarhound), Tore (half-orc fighter 1/cleric 1), Jimmy the Snitch (dog), Orion (lion dog), Harambe (man-ape 1)

and for those Enchanted Away:
Dol (fyrdman hireling)

Sword of Blood

Inspired by a joke-calculation concerning how much blood it would actually take to forge a sword from the blood of your enemies ... This spell, sword of blood, is a ritual, a concept already in use in games like 5e, but the rules of which for my B/X game I just made up for this post. Maybe I'll rescind or modify them later, but I like the idea for now.

Rituals may be taken by clerics instead of their usual spells, or may take up a slot in a magic-user's or Elf's spellbook of a level equivalent to the ritual's level. Rituals are used in "downtime"--the rites and magic involved are too lengthy to be really useful in an adventure-context, and probably also don't add up to anything usefully gamable within that context. (Also, rituals usually use up large amounts of material components)

A terrible way to forge a sword ... but it is cinematic

Sword of Blood
ritual 4
range: the blood of all humans or humanoids being sacrificed as part of the ritual
components: 500 gold for the "liturgy" of each sacrificial "session"

By the means of this ritual, a cleric or magic-user extracts the iron from the let blood of a sacrificial victim of human or humanoid nature. Each individual's blood produces 1-4 grams of iron; this works out to requiring about 200 victims to provide enough blood for a single sword. (I did say that this was a long term "downtime" activity, unless your cleric or magic-user has the location and means to sacrifice 200 victims all in one go)

I wouldn't tend to worry about the grams themselves, just the number of victims; though the caster will require somewhere to store the iron they're collecting by means of the ritual until they have enough.

When enough iron has been acquired by means of this spell, it can be forged into a sword (or other desired weapon), by the caster if he has the wont and the skill, or by a hired armorer. When the sword has been forged, and a last instance of ritual incanted over it, roll a d20 and consult this table, add +1 to the roll if at least 5000 gold is spent on ornamental trappings for the sword:

1-2 -- the metal was impure and the weapon is worthless

3-4 -- it's a sword, but there's nothing magical about it

5-12 -- it's a sword +1; if the sword is ever destroyed or broken, an incorporeal wight will spring from the fragments, born from the hatred of the spirits trapped within; this spirit will seek out and destroy the sword's creator

13-16 -- it's an intelligent sword +2 of the same alignment as its creator, but it also actively hates its creator; 3 times per day the sword can do extra damage, i.e. for 1-10 rounds, each hit will do x4 damage; if the sword is ever destroyed or broken, a wraith born of the hate of the spirits trapped within will emerge and seek out and destroy the sword's creator

17-20 -- it's an intelligent sword that hates its creator, and acts as a lifedraining sword, i.e. on a hit it may drain 1 life level of energy; but after draining 13 life levels, the blood of those within its iron erupt as a spectre intent on destroying the original caster of the spell; the sword becomes a mere sword +1


It shouldn't need saying, but any Good character attempting to use this spell immediately loses their status as Good, and they also lose one life level, and must seriously atone even to regain their former alignment. Good characters attempting to wield these weapons feel intensely uneasy and treat the magical "plus" as a penalty instead. Surrendering such weapons to the Good cult to be redeemed is worth at least 1000 experience per magical "plus".

------

There is an 01-05 chance that any magical sword (or metal-headed weapon) found in a randomly generated treasure hoard was created by this ritual. Good characters find them uneasy to wield, as above, and may turn them over to the Good cult for "redemption" and experience points.

Moreover, more powerful magic swords of this type actively hate their creators and will seek out their destruction if possible. This would be an excellent hook for future adventures ...

Jungles of Chult -- Around the Head of the River Tiryki

In the first session of Tomb of Annihilation, the players decided that they would journey up the River Tiryki, which they can see entire on their copy of the hex map (much of central Chult are just blank hexes to be explored, but the Tiryki is "known territory"). They made this decision in large part because they hired two Tabaxi, River Mist and Flask of Wine, as their jungle guides, and the two mentioned that they knew directly of at least two sites near the head of the Tiryki--Firefinger and Dungrunglung. (the characters had otherwise been interested in seeking Camp Righteous and Camp Vengeance, up the River Soshenstar)

The Tiryki is the central of the three northern rivers

As a couple other reviews of ToA (at Dungeon of Signs and Against the Wicked City) make clear, the hex map of Chult is actually a kind of howling emptiness of hundreds of miles (dozens of days) of random encounters, interspersed with a sprinkling of interesting adventure locations. My intent is to create content for all those empty hexes--and because my players are headed up the Tiryki, I'll start with locations around its head.

The information is that which is known well enough locally in Nyzanzaru that rumors could be picked up just by mentioning the Tiryki, or is information directly from River Mist and Flask of Wine.

------

the Pilgrims' Guide
There is a statue on the bank of the river, a great idol like a stern king, River Wind says. That is when we know we are halfway up the River Tiryki. He is a stern king, but he points to the east directing pilgrims on their way to the City of Mists. Sometimes they leave offerings at his altar, but I do not touch them because he is a god.

There are other altars too, Flask of Wine adds. There are too many gods in these jungles.


Sailback Hill
There is an outcropping in a swamp shaped like a sailback, according to River Wind. We only saw it from afar, because it stands in a swamp, and we did not wish to wade there. But I think I saw a face at the hill's base, a gaping jaw with big fangs. There were many storks in that swamp, and I did not like the way their eyes looked at us.

The mouth is a cave, Flask of Wine says, but says no more.

A sailback, i.e. dimetrodon

Firefinger
It is a pinnacle topped with fire! River Wind explains. It lies on the right bank of the Tiryki--a finger pointed at the sky, with a pyre burning brightly, day and night, at its top. The dead lie thick around it--all those taken up by the pterafolk, and then thrown down from the top. We have climbed, Flask and I, and found a cave inside the finger--but we have gone no higher. Just the two of us, what would we do against the many pterafolk that nest at its top?

Flask of Wine only nods agreement.


Ataaz Ahiya ("the Weeping Gorge")
The head of the River Tiryki is in a gorge (other gorges are also named with "Ataaz" in Chult, so I assume that's what it means), approximately 25 miles long north to south, and ten miles wide east to west. Smaller tributaries to the Tiryki pour in around the gorge, either as high waterfalls cascading down cliff faces, or as narrower streams that have cut their way down through the surrounding highland. Many tribes of pterafolk roost in the heights of the cliffs around the gorge, ruled by an ogiso or king.

The face of Olokuna is said to have been carved into the southern cliff-face, with waterfalls pouring from its eyes, and a mouth that opens into a deep cavern and shrine. Olokuna is an androgynous water god, possessed of both male and female features, and idols to it often include both an erect phallus and a maze-like vulva.

Yes, yes, River Wind says, we have seen the face of the goddess. She weeps because she is forgotten by all but the monkeys who dwell in her mouth. I too would weep if stinking apes were in my mouth. Her servants, the lobster-men, peer with cold eyes from the waters beneath her shrine.

He weeps because he has waterfall eyes, Flask of Wine adds. There is gold and gems in his mouth, but the baboons are too many.


Dungrunglung
Dungrunglung is the greatest shrine of the grungs--the frog men, you know, River Wind says. We have looked on it only from afar, because it lies in the midst of a wide swamp, and it is closely surrounded by a hedge of thorns. The head of the shrine towers over the hedge like an evil frog, grinning at the swamp, and all the while the croaking of the frogs and the frog-men is sounding around you. It is southwest of the Weeping Gorge perhaps twenty miles--who knows? It is difficult to judge distance in the jungle.

And it is filled with treasures, I am sure of it, Flask of Wine mutters, almost to himself. Riches to make a man wealthy.

I might end up calling them grippli or bullywugs,
we'll see ...

City of the Faceless Men
Somewhere in the jungles south of the Ataaz Ahiya lies an ancient and ruined city, its name forgotten and only its curse remembered in tales and old epics. It was a city of the Eshowe, perhaps, before their slaughter; or a city of Omuans, cursed by God for the pride of their ways. Regardless of the origin a curse lies over the city--all those who enter are damned to contract a horrifying disease that slowly eats the flesh of the face until only a gaping hole remains where once were mouth, nose, and eyes. The legends vary about what lies within its cursed grounds--treasures untold, or only old broken stones? But one thing that is certain is that a tribe of cursed men live among the ruins (or eke out an undead existence)--the Faceless Men, the Mask-Wearers ... in every tale, they are said to haunt the ruins, perhaps as cannibals, perhaps as undead horrors, but always wearing masks to cover the horror of their hollow faces.

It is there, River Wind says, and her ears lower, and her eyes narrow. It is an evil place. I have forgotten the way, but I have seen the obelisks that mark its boundaries. They tell its curse, because the men there have no mouths behind their masks. I will not go back. She shakes her head after saying this, going to bathe in the river, and will not talk about the City any more after that.

I remember the way, Flask of Wine murmurs. There must be something there.

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 17

Orcs have returned to the caverns of the Glimmervaults;
the Goblin King and the Lord of Werewolves have renewed their ancient alliance beneath the Howling Tower;
and the secret treasury of the ancient Bronding Kings is said to lie somewhere behind the Brokenbrand Falls, haunted by enchanting naiads ...
...
and Jaer the Windlord looks down on the world below from the Eyries of the Eagles on Greyhame Mountain itself;
and the Stars themselves are singing an eerie song, night after night ...


21 January's roster:
Kord (half-orc fighter 1/cleric 1)
Ham (cleric 1)
with Livy and Lysimmachus (normal men)
and Fang, Orkie, Blade, and a nameless mastiff


Kord's last expedition to the Greyhame Mountain Dungeons was the 14th, which is to say a couple weeks back, in-game. On that expedition, he and his compatriots (including Finbar the half-Elf) discovered a secret room behind some burial niches, a room filled with treasure--but also with strange magical shadows that leapt to life and attacked the party, draining the strength of those they touched.

Desiring to return there, but to defeat the shadows, Kord turned therefore, in search of a sage who might know more about what it takes to slay such enemies. There are two such sages who "lair" near enough town to be easily approached: Morla of the Mists, a sort of witchy hedge-wizard who dwells on a misty fen, and Axxl the Mask, a creature who hides his face -- rumored to be the ugliest face in the world -- behind an ever-changing array of masks. Kord elected to seek out Axxl.

AxxL is also a bizarre German Youtuber

When he arrived, he found Axxl the Mask to be standoffish and unwilling to consider any research for less than the going rate, i.e. 2000 gold for a month of research (or 500 gold for a week). This price seemed stiff to Kord, and he attempted to talk it down, but Axxl would not budge, other than to agree for an up front fee of 350 gold and payment of the rest on Kord's return ("We all know how you adventurers are of a short-lived variety, and my time is very valuable to me."). Kord seemed to intend to adventure during the week of research, but ultimately just paid the 500 gold; and after a week he was informed that the shadows typically encountered in dungeons are not undead, though they seem such, but that they are incorporeal and can only be struck by magical or possibly silvered weapons. Axxl further informed Kord that if a piece of one of these shadows were brought back to the sage, he would pay handsomely for it--though he had no idea how that might be effected.

Armed with this knowledge, Kord returned to Brakeridge and outfitted himself and his party for a foray to the Howling Tower (he had heard the tales of the last expedition from Baby Face and Blackleaf, but was also eager to seek out the secret gold he knew of). He bought two new dogs (Blade and the nameless mastiff), but with four dogs, two hirelings, and the henchman Ham to follow him, I had to check his Charisma score for maximum number of retainers--and CHA 9 allows four retainers at most, so even with dogs counting as half-retainers, he couldn't bring all of them.

Blade and the new mastiff were kenneled at the inn for 5 gold, and then Kord, Ham, and their cronies set off for the Howling Tower. Nothing molested them on the way out ("That's a first!" Kord exclaimed on arriving unscathed), and the party found themselves outside the tower on the spur of the ridge, but with the pyre that once held Begor's bones vastly expanded and filled with numerous smaller bodies. Goblin bodies, they figured on a brief inspection; then they headed into the tower.

To get to the stair, they had to go north and into Begor's old room. Then at the southwest door of that chamber they listened and heard goblin voices--Kord speaks goblin. The goblins were debating what they wanted to eat--"These rats are fat enough. Now let's get some cheese." "Cheese? I want mutton!" "Well you know we don't have any ..."

Hoping for surprise, the party burst through the door, but the goblins were not surprised per se, so much as astonished, and we proceeded to roll initiative. A short fight ensued which involved some goblins running around the corner to seek reinforcement, but also a rat thrown by another desperate goblin straight at Ham, which dealt 1 damage as it scrabbled and bit at his face. The party cut down five of the six goblins, but one escaped to warn his comrades; as the party came around the corner, they found him rallying a crew from a further room.

Couldn't find much in the way of imagery for "rat-throwing"

Kord and his crew withdrew to set up a fighting line, and soon were engaged by eight fresh goblins. These fought for a round, losing only a couple goblins, and then began a fighting withdrawal back around the corner; Kord and crew stuck with them, pressing forward and maintaining the melee. Unfortunately, around the corner was an additional dozen or so goblins, including one which began to cast a spell. The goblins also had shortbows and other missile weapons, and with their overwhelming numbers they managed to quickly knock out both dogs (Orkie and Fang) and also to slay the mercenary Livy. Lysimmachus panicked with a bad morale roll and Kord and Ham elected to retreat alongside their comrade rather than face the goblins while outnumbered ten to one.

Because of the hallway's bend, fewer goblins got off missile attacks and so the remaining party members quickly escaped back the way they'd come and out the door. As they scrambled down the stair to the ridge on which the tower stands, the goblins boiled out behind, but hissed and scowled at the sun. They threw a few ineffectual missiles at the party, along with a great number of jeers, and then retreated back into the tower.

Licking their wounds, Kord and crew retreated to town (again, miraculously, without any attrition). There, they collected Kord's other two dogs, Kord bought some oil, and Lysimmachus agreed to accompany them again in hopes of retrieving Livy's body. On the second day back to the tower, I rolled a single attrition die; Kord's player suggested losing his rope, and I agreed that Lysimmachus had somehow misplaced his boss' 150' of rope.

Then on the fourth day they arrived back at the tower, with an eagle soaring among the clouds overhead. As they climbed the stair to enter the tower, they found a spear wedged outside the door with Livy's head impaled on it--Lysimmachus blanched as he failed morale, and I adjudicated that he would be at -1 on all rolls for the rest of the expedition.

Anyway, in they went. Heading up through Begor's old room and around the corners through the corridor, they encountered none of the goblins there previously; but at the door to the room with the stair down to the dungeon, Kord heard within several goblins discussing the best way to kidnap a child. Hoping to cut them all down quickly, they burst in the door; again, the goblins were not surprised, and we rolled initiative. There followed a three round slog of mostly misses, typical of first level encounters. Noise began to gather in the hallway behind, and then the same goblin horde as before came in through the door. The nameless mastiff was both cut down in this melee, as well as a number of goblins; and Kord, feeling hopeless of victory, ordered everyone down the stairs as quick as they might.

Lysimmachus was cut down as he attempted to retreat, but Kord, Ham, and Blade all made it down the stairs. As they went, Kord smashed several flasks of oil behind him and tossed his torch back to set it ablaze, and not a few goblins got hot feet for their close pursuit. With a moment of respite at the bottom of the stairs, Kord got himself oriented on the map and then sought out some southern burial niches he knew contained the secret door to the treasure horde. They passed through a room with an altar to a multi-armed goddess of darkness, a room which contained a couple desiccated husks of insectoid horrors formerly killed there.

Then, in one of the burial niches in the corridor beyond, Kord threw the catch and the stone wall ground back, revealing a narrow hall to the south which opened into a room after about thirty feet. Surmising that shadows require light to exist, Kord ordered Ham to stay back with his torch while he, Kord, went forward alone using his orcish infravision. Into the chamber he stepped--at its southern wall stood another idol of the multi-armed dervish goddess, surrounded by a veritable hoard of gold and other trinkets, while on her breast hung a carcanet of fine silver and gems. Kord went to work in the darkness, shoveling what he could into his own backpack and then into Ham's, and he never was bothered by any shadow or shade.

And then they were stumped. How to get out past all those goblins? Fortunately, at this point, Kord looked at his map, drawn on the last expedition, and pointed out a winding tunnel labeled "Up" just twenty feet from the secret door. "What does that mean?" he asked rhetorically (and the referee informed him that he would have to investigate to find out if he didn't remember). Investigate he did, and found a short tunnel that wound away up into darkness. A man could just wriggle through it if he could stomach the claustrophobia. Does it lead out? Is there any light? All he could see was the tunnel's darkness.

It was worth a try; otherwise there was a hoard of goblins to contend with. So, wriggling through miserable darkness, Kord and Ham and Blade found themselves first in a largish chamber filled with weird eggs and crawling things, but with a continuation of the tunnel; and then ultimately standing in sunlight on the slope of the spur some little way from the Howling Tower.

Needless to say, they hightailed it back to town.

Again, my dice were favorable; as Kord and Ham got to selling their loot, they found that it was probably the most valuable haul yet carried out of the dungeon. Each leveled up to second level; then, through carousing, leveled immediately up to third after that (even with Kord having to divide his XP equally between classes!).

Unfortunately for them, both being clerics of the Chaotic Good cult, Kord failed his save and had a "religious experience" of Evil, probably tempted into it by some evil genius (a spirit, not a comic book villain) whispering poison into the ears of Good characters around Brakeridge; and Ham failing his save as well, and rolling "blaspheme the gods" was clearly talked into some kind of blasphemous deed by Kord in his evil mood. So both are under the Ban of the Good cult and neither can cast cleric spells again until they atone for their evil deeds.

And still, the kidnapped children remain unrescued and somewhere unknown ...

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Remembrance for the Fallen
Lysimmachus (normal man), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boar hound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghost hound), Arrow (pack dog), Freyja (normal woman), a nameless cur, Hot Dog and Cross (mastiffs), Orion II (lion dog), Bacon (boar hound), Tore (half-orc fighter 1/cleric 1), Jimmy the Snitch (dog), Orion (lion dog), Harambe (man-ape 1)

And for those Enchanted Away
Dol (fyrdman hireling)

Are Goblins Just the Worst?

On Monday, Kotaku published an article by Cecilia D'Anastasio entitled, "Goblin Fights In D&D Are The Worst," in which the author argues just that--that in D&D, goblins are just low-level mooks arrayed before low-level characters just so that the characters/players can have what is essentially a no-risk fight and means of gaining experience: "Repeat [to hit rolls] ad nauseum until, huzzah!, the goblins have died. Your dungeon master ... informs you that you have been awarded some experience points. Your party licks their wounds and continues on their journey."

She claims that these goblin fights are boring, standing as stagnant interludes between moments of what the game is really about, i.e. (asking ironically), "How am I supposed to break up long periods of players developing their characters, puzzle-solving, discovering lore and fighting magical monsters?" It's strange to me that D'Anastasio doesn't see that goblins are magical monsters, and doesn't conceive of the possibility that the presence of goblins and whether they fight might be a means of puzzle-solving ...

My attention to this article was directed by David Rollins at blog Searching for Magic in his post "The Ecology of My Goblins or, How to Make Goblins Fun!" He takes issue with D'Anastasio's characterization of goblins, and I agree wholeheartedly with his rebuttal.

...
But I must admit--I do actually agree with D'Anastasio to a large degree. Battles without stakes are boring, and I don't play D&D just for the visceral joy of seeing dice roll across the table--I play for the visceral joy that a character's survival depends on that die roll! If goblins are being used by a referee just to be a no-risk fight, and I'm forced to slog through every round of it, and the goblins fight to the death, and none of it matters, I tune out. I've played in games like this; I played in a Pathfinder game where my paladin was blinded, but I refused the possibility to have him cured and had him run into the vanguard of every fight against Orcs just to test how far the referee would bend the rules not to kill him (he survived every fight; the absurdity was the only reason I was entertained).

This article piqued my interest because the last two games I've run in my Greyhame Dungeon Game have both involved goblins (Expedition 16 and Expedition 17; I haven't yet written up the latter). Expedition 16 involved what was basically a massacre of goblins; the characters entered the dungeon with a veritable army of wardogs and hirelings, and all together slaughtered some thirty goblins--but this was not "I miss," "I hit," "I miss," "I hit," ad nauseum, this was a running battle with groups of goblins panicking from bad morale rolls, running to the next goblin post for reinforcements, and/or going through side corridors in attempts to outflank the party. Nothing worked--the goblins were just too weak.

Expedition 17, meanwhile, involved only a couple of characters and their few hirelings and wardogs. During their first entrance into the dungeon, the party was overwhelmed by a large number of goblins, and after both dogs and one of the hirelings were killed, the party had to retreat. Outside the dungeon, they regrouped with a couple more dogs; then, going back into the dungeon, they were ambushed by the same large force of goblins. Another dog and the other hireling were killed, and it looked like the survivors would soon be goblin-arrow pincushions; but to my surprise, the two characters and their last dog fled downstairs to the next level of the dungeon, only escaping by lighting oil on fire behind them on the stair. After that, it was only by good luck that they found another exit from the dungeon so that they didn't have to face the goblins again.

I recite these examples as clear counterexamples to D'Anastasio's claim that goblin-fights are the worst. Both of these games were exciting--for different reasons!--and both involved goblins.

a couple of Free Goblins

So I agree with D'Anastasio in a general way that pointless fights are boring--but on the point of goblins I completely disagree, because the presence of goblins do not a pointless fight make. Goblins can be as boring as the Orcs that my blind paladin fought in that Pathfinder game, or as interesting as Rollins' weird hive-goblins, Jeff Rients' goblins with their goblin-doors (I keep forgetting to use these), or my own goblins who are certainly easily routed cowards, but who can also overwhelm and kill foolhardy adventurers (and they can cast magic and do other things too ...).

The relevant question to ask is not "Are there goblins?" but "Why are there goblins?" If the answer to the why of goblins is just to have no-risk fights for low-level characters, then fighting them is bound to become boring (but honestly, if that's the goblins' only point, if you're playing D&D, the game of tactical infinity, why don't you avoid fighting the goblins?).

What if the goblins are the type that steal children, and the fight
against the goblins determines whether you save the kids or not?

But in my game (and in Rollins' game, and in Rients' game, etc. etc.) goblins have probably been chosen because they specifically interest the referee. I know in my game, that's the case. I use goblins for a variety of reasons: goblins kidnap children (adventure hook--save the children!); goblins are the friends of wolves and werewolves (another hook in the monsters they associate with); goblins are either the slaves of Elves (and maybe sympathetic to the PCs?), or Free Goblins (both a player class, and a further adventure hook in that goblins hate Elves); higher level goblins cast weird magic (including goblin doors, probably); goblin kings are strange and powerful and as beautiful as Elves (or at least David Bowie); and let's be honest, fighting goblins in an old school game where a referee is willing to see characters die is just not boring!

the Goblin King

Goblins are great! Use them, please, in great numbers and in great varieties. Make them interesting, and make sure interactions with them (fights and otherwise) matter.

Goblins are incredibly versatile monsters, by the way; I've seen lots of different goblins in modules, including fungus-goblins (Tomb of the Serpent Kings) and blue goblins (Mortzengursturm the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak) and Batiri jungle goblins (Tomb of Annihilation); and don't forget the goblins of other media, especially Labyrinth, and even Blix from Legend.

Gnolls: Followers of the Phallus

In the dark of a catacombs in deepest night one might hear them: laughing wildly, raucously, yellow eyes flashing in the night, teeth cracking and grinding the bones of the dead. The gnolls have gathered for a feast of bones, and only the stalwart or the foolhardy can hear their weird laughter without the catch of terror in his heart.

(those who hear the "laughter" of gnolls must make a morale check, results appropriate to the situation--i.e. panic and flee if in combat, or become shaken and suffering -1 to all rolls, etc.)

Slaughtered animals lie in the fields, killed for sport and stinking of blood, but otherwise untouched; meanwhile, the gnolls that hunted, killed, and ignored them gather now in the graveyards of other races, digging up bodies long dead to crush the bones of corpses between their teeth. Laughing and hyena-headed, gnolls are creatures of perversity, servants of Evil who make a mockery of every philosophy and religion.

My first D&D book was the 2e Monstrous Manual, whence
this image is take; it's still my favorite depiction of a gnoll

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As scavengers, gnolls prefer to eat that which is already dead. They kill for sport, but prefer to eat that which is long dead, or which is killed by the hands of another. To this end, they prefer corpses dug up from necropolises and graveyards (which they can easily crush between their teeth, and which provide the added pleasure of enraging certain sects who believe that the buried dead are sacrosant); OR to eat of flesh killed by the hands of the slaves they keep--and because a slave killed it, the gnoll is glad to "scavenge" it by bullying the slave into surrendering the kill.

Gnolls draw dicks on everything ... and then build dick-idols!

Gnolls' obsession with phalluses is well recorded. Certain scholars identify their main deity as Priapus, god of fertility and sexuality, traditionally depicted with an enormous erection; but this identification is weak at best, as the erection-wielding deity of the gnolls is generally androgynous, or perhaps indeed a goddess with an enormous phallus--or literally just an enormous phallus without other context, probably carved of appropriately-shaped hardwood. Not that identification of a gnoll's sex is easy--many sources attest that every single gnoll is male and that the specie's propagation is a mystery, while other scholars argue that female gnolls are actually possessed of a huge clitoral pseudo-penis, generally functional as both a male and female organ.

On the left, a hyena penis; on the right, a hyena female's pseudo-penis

Because every member (ahem) of the species possesses a significant erectile organ, the gnolls' obsession with phallic art is perhaps understandable. Wherever gnolls gather, phallic graffiti will adorn the walls, and altars will be raised before idols either bearing huge erections, or seeming merely to be erect phalluses themselves. Native gnollish religious rites involve feast-orgies in which the strong bully the weak into feeding and sexually pleasuring them; and among those tribes which have large contingents of Lawful or Good slaves, gnolls tend to take a perverse pleasure in mocking the rites of those religions, especially by dressing up a donkey in a priest's robes (calling it a "priest-ass" if they have any sense of the Common language and the nature of puns), and forcing all to do obeisance to it as it brays the eternal "Yee-AH! Yee-Ah!" (check out Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra for the joke ...)

Seeing this mockery of Lawful and Good religious rites, presided over by an ass, the gnolls fall among themselves laughing horribly into the night. They demand ever more elaborate "rites" and protestations of faith from the slaves/prisoners they wish to abuse by forcing them to take part in these abominations of religious ritual; whether the "rites" end up killing the slave(s), or the gnolls find the joke good enough to spare their slave(s) for the night is up to the whim of the gnolls and whether they can control themselves amidst their fits of laughter. (Once the mockery gets going and the gnolls begin really to laugh themselves wild, they should make a saving throw against paralysis at +2 each round to act; otherwise they continue to laugh uproariously, pounding the ground in their perverse mirth, though still able to defend themselves ably if attacked).