Dark for Dark Business: old school d&d

Showing posts with label old school d&d. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

the First Time I Played D&D

A good friend of mine had me create a character for a game I'd never heard of before. I was ... 9 maybe?

I played a fighter (simple to describe and create). I'm fairly confident I'd read The Hobbit by then, because I don't remember being phased by the presence of Orcs. What I do remember is that after killing several orcs in a semi-ruined city, I ran into one, an older orc who didn't immediately attack. I spoke with him; he asked me why I was killing his comrades.

How could I respond? I barely knew what kind of game I was playing. I have no memory at all why I was killing orcs to begin with ...

But I knew I was hooked. (Thanks, Jesse! I don't guess you know how much that little session expanded my horizons)

I pored over this friend's accumulated "monster manual", which was in the true old style of a three-ring binder filled with three-hole punched monster pages. Dozens of monster I'd never heard of. We made characters using his rules to attack our dads' dungeon (my dad and his are best friends from their college years, and played D&D together back when it was the LBBs); but we failed to do much of anything other than lather up an angry water-weird.

Back home, without any kind of actual D&D rulebook, I wrote a set of rules based on what I remembered, plus stats from the Master of Magic game that we had on the family computer. I introduced friends at school to the idea of the game; I remember I played a kind of gold dragon as a "DM character" for a little while, but ultimately abandoned that idea after fire-breathing my own enemy-creatures to death too many times.

Later on, I acquired the 2e Monstrous Manual as my first actual D&D book (I still have it; the binding is maintained with duct-tape now, and saving throw tables are written into its back pages). My only book then!--so all characters were Fighters without spells or special abilities. We still managed to make it interesting; one player was a minotaur with a Warhammer 40K-style chain-sword, one was a wererat, one was a halfling. A different game of mine with another friend had otter-people (courtesy of Redwall) and a vorpal demon-halberd emulating Ashitaka and his curse from Princess Mononoke.

Then at last, I acquired a Players Handbook--two, actually, both the first edition and the third edition versions ... I ran a short first edition game with a good friend and his ranger and cleric characters; but third edition games didn't really take off until high school ...

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A response to an "old" guest-post over at Tenkar's Tavern that left me chewing on memories. Obviously, my experience in the beginning was similar to Michael Gross' experience, except I was the young referee trying to marshal players in the "wings" of the elementary school building during recess, using handwritten notes.

Which brings up another idea: D&D as a punk exercise, as articulated by the author of the Pits Perilous blog. You want to run a game? Great! Rulebooks are helpful, but they're not necessary. All you need is a gut understanding of a game that takes advantage of infinite freedom. The rules are yours to write/steal. ("Here are three chords; now go start a band," as the punk reference is made)

A seven-year-old can write a D&D scenario. Get to it!

(a further addendum: I had a friend in junior high and high school who had come up with his own "game" which started out entirely as a narrative give-and-take between him and us players. No dice, everything was his fiat; he had a world that he had imagined up, with a variety of strange creatures (most of them were reptilian something-or-others), and we explored it entirely through dialogue with him, without dice or anything. Just to point out that you don't even need the handwritten rules that some of us had; sheer imaginative force is sometimes enough. And thanks, Solomon! I really didn't appreciate your creation and originality as much as I should have back then!)

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 28

Like this except more nude, black skin, white hair

"Why are you disturbing my work?" the Goblin King intoned as he turned to the party--for surely it was he, finally!

"To destroy your evil!" the party cried. They charged; but the Goblin King won initiative, got his spell off, and the party was webbed. He and his female assistant disappeared the next round with another spell, and disappeared through another door to the north; meanwhile the spider killed the dog Fluffy with poison, but was shortly thereafter killed and the web cleared by the party.

With the spider killed and the others fled, the party freed the child in the middle of the room, and then found six more already cocooned and half-transformed into goblins in the room to the north. Aethelwulf remanded the children to his hirelings, Nietzsche, Lesing, and Aquinas (he named them), and had them exit the dungeon while the party pressed on.

Meanwhile, the party found a secret door back to the star-throne-room. Continuing back out into the corridor south, they found a southern door; ESP revealed a jumble of hostile thinking beyond, and when thrown open, the door revealed a group of goblins being rallied by their King.

The goblins were slaughtered; the Goblin King disappeared again, while the coal-skinned woman stepped up to fight (spells from the party failed to affect the King and his compatriot ...). An inky black monstrous cloud began to appear behind the party, but Blackleaf successfully identified it as an illusion. As the party meleed the goblins and the woman, Aethelwulf demanded her surrender; and she proffered it once the Goblin King was gone.

Questions collated with Blackleaf's ESP established that the woman was Callirath, the djinni spirit who aided the Goblin King's escape from the Elves after he seduced her. The party demanded her knowledge about treasure, and she informed them about the treasure of Lososkelax the Spider, also on the second dungeon level; Blackleaf then attempted to sow unrest with the spirit by implying that the Goblin King, whom Callirath loves/lusts after, was more interested in the Star-Being he had summoned/trapped with his machinations. But Callirath was having none of it.

Lastly, the party swung by the spider's web-filled halls to find Loxoskelax and her treasure. They quickly murdered her 8+ hit dice and helpful smaller spiders and zombies, and then took her treasure. It wasn't of terrible value.

On the way back to town, Callirath turned into a whirlwind and escaped from her "captivity."

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Remembrance for the Fallen:
Clara and Ilana (normal women), Marlo and a number of dogs, Gram, Dorcas, Frida, and Johann Haybaler (normal hirelings), Hauka and Wilmerand (weasels), Blade and Boar (boarhounds), Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal men), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boarhound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghosthound), 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)

Friday, April 20, 2018

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 27

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

5 April's roster:
June (cleric 1)
July (half-Elf magic-user 1)
Aethelwulf (paladin 4)
Lead (cleric 4)
Blackleaf (Elf 4?)
Koko (woman-ape 2)
Little Bob (travelling-man 5)
Kord (half-orc fighter 4/cleric 4)
Ham (cleric 4)
Thaddeus (fighter 1)
and sundry mercenary hirelings, though no dogs this go-around

In town, Aethelwulf bought a bee-stinger dagger from a passing merchant (from d12 oddments table).

Little Bob hired a merchant to go south to specifically find and bring him snake-killing weasels, spending 300 gold for the service; seeing this, Kord did the same, but spent 600 gold for the fellow to seek out orc mastiffs. The merchants won't return for another two sessions at least (one week travel there, one week back, at minimum).

The party then put their heads together ... and conspired to infiltrate Oakridge Castle to kill/kidnap Morholt, the usurper-lord who had taken power after the late lord Albrecht III died--and to boot, Morholt had taken the widow of Albrecht, Lady Sonora, prisoner and held her with the intent to force marriage upon her--until our heroes put an end to that plot by freeing her!

So, their plan was to repeat the success they had had with the last infiltration mission when they rescued Sonora, except that this time the entire party was going to climb the tower to penetrate the keep. From Sonora, they learned that Morholt's chambers were "down the hall from my prison, and on the right. You can't miss it."

Okay, so the party marched their way out of town and around to the northwest to the north side of the ridge on which the castle of Oakridge overlooks the village of Brakeridge to the south. They kept to the trees; and though the treeline had been cut back from the castle's walls, it turns out that spells like sleep and hold person have a range of 240 yards when outside of dungeons, which is pretty much like a lobbed longbow shot. So the 12 guards on the two turrets of the keep, 6 on the west turret, 6 on the east, were all well within range, even with the characters lurking in the trees.

So Blackleaf cast sleep over the west group, and all of the guards fell into a magical sleep. The guards on the east tower failed to notice; Blackleaf cast another sleep spell sent 4 into a magical sleep. As the last two guards stood by, trying to figure out what just happened, Kord cast a hold person spell at them and they failed their saves.

Koko then used her ape-ness to climb up the keep's walls and cast down ropes, and the party slaughtered all the sleeping and held guards, all without alerting any of the other guards on the other turrets. On the keep, a trap door opened down into the interior; the party dropped through and found themselves in an E-W corridor with a door pretty much in front of them (and down the hall to their left was the door into Sonora's former chambers).

Blackleaf used ESP through the door and detected a human thinking about his lordship and other more alien thoughts. This must be Morholt's room, the party said, but then dithered in the hallway long enough that a hear noise check for those inside the room succeeded. The door cracked open; a large spider peeked out and whispered to Koko, "Go up the ladder and shout."

Koko failed her save against spells and immediately turned to do what was said, but Ham cast a hold person spell on her, and she failed that save too, so she was paralyzed. The party then burst through the door! But the guy on the inside was ready, and initiative was rolled ...

So as Kord burst through the door, he was met by a sword swung by the thickly-muscled arm of a consummate fighting-man, broad-shouldered and narrow hipped, hair dark, face blackened with a fighting-grimace. At his feet were two serpents that also struck out at Kord and Aethelwulf.

Over the next couple rounds, Kord took several hard hits from the man's sword; meanwhile, Kord and Aethelwulf each took a bite from a serpent, and both failed their saves. Both took an antivenin passed forward from those in the back; Kord made his second save, but Aethelwulf failed his, and as the paladin's heart began to palpitate wildly and sweat break out over his pallid skin, he fell over dead the next round.

But then Lead threw a hold person spell at the warrior, and he failed his save, and became suddenly rigid and unable to act. The serpents were both quickly slain, and the party piled into the room.

Blackleaf's ESP established that this man was indeed Morholt. The party disarmed him, and tied him up (as well as they could with him being rigidly paralyzed). Then they heard a knock at the door: "M'lord, are you okay? We heard shouting ..."

"No, no, perfectly fine!" someone in the party shouted back gruffly. "It was nothing--just knocked a desk over!"

A high reaction roll and cowed servants led to the servants slinking away, back down the hallway, leaving the party to do what they might to loot the chambers. They found themselves in a kind of antechamber with tapestries and with shelves of books. Through a second door, they found the master's chambers, with a number of obviously lootable items--a boar-hunting spear on the wall with a hunting horn, robes of fox and ermine furs, etc. etc.

The party grabbed what seemed easily movable and then headed back out to the corridor to go up the trapdoor and escape. But they heard thoughts/talking on the wall above. They almost talked themselves out of going up out of fear, but finally agreed to send someone up the ladder with Morholt and a dagger at his throat to try to get the guards above to surrender.

What ultimately happened, though, is that once the party got up onto the fighting-floor of the keep's roof, they had to fight through six guards, and try to prevent other groups of guards running to intercept them from other turret-tops. Blackleaf poured oil on the stairs and lit it on fire to prevent other guards from getting to the fighting-floor while Kord held the line against the last few guards. Six more guards were killed in the melee, but the party managed to descend their ropes while the oil-fires held the last few guards at bay.

So they had captured Morholt! They agreed to take him to Sonora; and she elected to take him and a number of her loyal fighting-men and go north to the courts of Vialar, the king of this northern kingdom, and to sue Morholt in the king's courts for his injustice in usurping the castle of Oakridge and holding Sonora hostage.

Meanwhile, other party members took Aethelwulf's body to Lailith, local cleric high enough level to raise dead. She raised him, but alas, Aethelwulf came back with heart palpitations left over from the poison's effects, so he heals at half the normal rate from his sickliness. He paid Axxl the Mask 2000 gold to research means of ending these palpitations ...

And lastly, Lead and Astia (Lead's hireling-woman) caroused, and Astia had a wild trip with some powerful drugs so that she feels like she has some kind of insight that she can call up as to the nature of reality, or something! And also, she earned her way out of normal womanness to being a full-fledged character.

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Remembrance for the Fallen:
Clara and Ilana (normal women), Marlo and a number of dogs, Gram, Dorcas, Frida, and Johann Haybaler (normal hirelings), Hauka and Wilmerand (weasels), Blade and Boar (boarhounds), Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal men), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boarhound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghosthound), 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)

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

New Class: the Ogre

Back when the Greyhame Game was just picking up, only a few sessions in, one of the prospective players asked me if he could roll up an ogre character for the game. No, I immediately replied, wishing as referee to retain control of the game and its B/X basis (this particular player was familiar with 3rd edition and its rules for monsters as characters).

But then I relented. After all, directly from Holmes, "At the Dungeon Master's discretion, a character can be anything his or her player wants him to be. Characters must always start out inexperienced and relatively weak and build on their experience. Thus, an expedition might include, in addition to the four basic classes and races ... a centaur, a lawful werebear, and a Japanese Samurai fighting-man." (p.7, Dungeons and Dragons, by Gygax and Arneson, edited by Eric Holmes, 1979 edition)

So I agreed that he could play an ogre-character, but not until another character in the game had reached fourth level (given that ogres start off with HD 4+1). Well, today he remembered that conversation, and told me he was going to roll up an ogre tonight (probably for Thursday's game). I told him to roll it up as usual, 3d6 in order, and I'll write an ogre-class ... so here goes.

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The OGRE
Strength is the prerequisite of the ogre class, and STR 13+ provides a bonus of 5% to earned xp, while a STR 16+ provides a bonus of 10% (non-cumulative). Ogres may not be of Lawful, Clannish, Good, or Evil alignment; Ogres of less than INT 13 also may not be of Arcane alignment.

Level 1 -- Bully -- 4d8 HD -- 0 XP
Level 2 -- Brute -- 5d8 HD -- 16,000 XP
Level 3 -- Masher -- 6d8 HD -- 32,000 XP
Level 4 -- Ogre -- 7d8 HD -- 64,000 XP
Level 5 -- Bluebeard -- 8d8 HD -- 120,000 XP
Level 6 -- Chieftain -- 9d8 HD -- 240,000 XP
Level 7 -- 7th Level Chieftain -- 9d8+4 HD -- 480,000 XP
Level 8 -- 8th Level Chieftain -- 9d8+8 HD -- 600,000 XP
Ogres may advance no higher than 8th level.

Languages known are Ogre, Orc, Troll, Stone Giant and a pidgin Common. Ogres with INT 13+ may learn additional languages (or be fluent in Common) normally. All ogres start play as illiterate, and remain so until/unless they spend time in-play learning to read and write.

Ogres fight and save as a fighter of a level equal to their hit dice (i.e. an Ogre 1 fights and saves as a Fighter 4). They may use any weapon or shield, but armor must be fashioned specifically for their frame, at great cost. Magic armor may not be worn unless fashioned for a giant-type creature to begin with.

Without armor, Ogres have an armor class of 6; they start the game with a suit of piecemeal armor that lowers this to armor class 5 when worn. To fashion armor for an ogre, the cost is 100 gold for leather (AC 4), 400 for mail (AC 2), or 1000 for plate (AC 0), at minimum.

Because of their great strength, ogres deal 1-10 damage when striking with clubs of their own make. Any other weapon in their hands deals an additional +2 to damage (i.e. a spear would deal 3-9 damage, rather than 1-6). This is in addition to any bonuses or penalties from an ogre's strength score, so an ogre with STR 13 will actually deal +3 damage on every hit with a normal weapon (or 2-11 damage with his own club).

All Ogres begin play with only three items: piecemeal armor, a club, and an ogre-bag. The ogre bag may carry up to 4000 coin of weight, and contains an additional 2-5 random items according to the table at the bottom of the post (roll once at first level; after that, what's in your bag is what you put into it).

At 4th level (Ogre HD 7), an Ogre may invest 5000 gold into raw materials, magical components, etc., in order to complete an esoteric ritual to sew and create a new ogre-bag which is actually a bag of holding. The creation of this bag takes from 1 to 3 months to create, though--as the ritual is largely involved in the slow process of stitching everything together--it may be interrupted by periods of adventuring. Nevertheless, any time spent adventuring does not count toward time spent creating the bag.

At 6th level (Chieftain HD 9, so basically "name level") an Ogre may carve out or seize a cave or some other underground complex as his lair. Depending on the Ogre-character's proclivities, the referee will provide the details for this adventure. Once the lair has been secured and any inhabitants driven off or subdued (or, if carving it out, any attempts to take it by other creatures are driven off), the Ogre will attract a tribe of 2-20 normal HD 4+1 ogres to join him. These do not serve per se, but may be bullied into doing the Ogre chief's bidding.

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Contents of an Ogre's Bag
Roll 2-5 times on this table at first level. After that, what's in your bag is up to what you put into it.

11 - hemp rope 100'
12 - a battered lantern
13 - a week's worth of hardtack and pemmican
14 - two halves of a 10' pole
15 - a large, tarnished hand-mirror
16 - a scroll which is actually a randomly generated treasure map; you can't read it, of course
21 - a lump of wax
22 - a tangled mass of string and twine
23 - a large jar of lard
24 - 50 pieces of greasy parchment
25 - 2-12 iron ingots
26 - large cast iron cooking pot
31 - 4 large, round, river rocks
32 - a broken-off stalactite/stalagmite--may be used as a club that deals 1-12 damage
33 - a cool geode; you think it's worth something, but it probably isn't
34 - a little box of dirt you took off some halfling; doesn't seem worth much
35 - 1-6 chunks of ore; could be copper, might be gold
36 - 1-6 pieces of fool's gold
41 - a large bone whistle fashioned for your lips/mouth
42 - a long braided sling; casting large stones with it, you deal 1-8 damage
43 - soiled laundry (jerkin, etc.) that even you won't wear anymore
44 - a sewing kit with large bone needles--sometimes even ogres need to stitch something!
45 - a large whetstone and a large knife (shortsword) sharpened by it
46 - an idol of your god or giant-hero, whittled with some patience
51 - the corpse of a giant rat
52 - a live troll arm--you've got to keep eating from it day-to-day or it will grow into an angry troll
53 - 1-6 of what might be dragon teeth (the kind that grow armed warriors when planted)
54 - 2-12 orc heads
55 - a roper's gizzard containing 1-3 gems worth 10-100 gold each
56 - a wyvern's sting with one dose left
61 - a giant's femur, scrimshawed with scenes of battle
62 - a cask of fine wine of excellent vintage; you've been saving it for a real shindig
63 - a battered old book of poetry worth maybe up to 600 gold (except you can't read it)
64 - a rolled-up old tapestry worth maybe 100 gold to the right collector
65 - furs worth 100-600 gold
66 - 1000 gold

Sunday, April 15, 2018

11-66 Table for Fighter Abilities at First Level

I wrote this table back in December, and only just rediscovered it. I was reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World at the time, which is a history of our hobby from its roots in wargaming up through the early years of D&D. Alas, I cannot find the reference in the book at the moment, but apparently a number of referees came up with variant abilities for the Fighting-Man class to roll at first level, to help distinguish one from the next, somewhat in the way that Magic-Users and Clerics are distinguished by their choice of spells.

I was quite taken with the idea, and I thought an 11-66 table, with 36 entries, would provide enough variety for few fighters to be the same, but not take too long to write (also, I have a fondness for 11-66 tables after playing so much of Avalon Hill's Samurai, which uses one for random events each turn). So this is what I came up with; it probably could use a bit more creativity (like Zak S.' random advancement Alternative Fighter), but I'm still using bog-standard fighters in my game:

Fighter Abilities
When generating a fighter-character at first level, roll once on this table using 2d6. Read one as the tens and one as the ones.

11 +1 to hit with swords

12 +1 to hit with pole arms

13 +1 to hit with axes

14 +1 to hit with maces

15 +1 to hit with bows

16 +1 to hit with slings

21 +1 to hit with crossbows

22 +1 to hit with spears and javelins

23 +1 to hit with daggers

24 +1 to hit with hammers

25 +1 to hit in melee

26 +1 to hit with missiles

31 -1 AC with shields

32 +1 damage in melee

33 +1 damage with missiles

34 +1 damage

35 +1 to hit

36 +1 to hit when fighting alongside a companion

41 -1 AC in mail armor

42 -1 AC in plate armor

43 grant -1 AC from your shield to your companion next to you

44 may climb sheer surfaces as a same-level thief when in leather armor

45 may move silently/hide in shadows as a same-level thief when in leather armor

46 may open locks as a same-level thief (when not wearing gauntlets)

51 knows one first level magic-user spell (cannot cast it while armored)

52 knows one first level cleric spell

53 may turn undead as a first level cleric

54 +1 hp per hit die

55 may dual-wield weapons for -1 AC

56 may dual-wield weapons for +1 to hit

61 eldritch aura--may use normal weapons to strike creatures only struck by magical weapons

62 25 gp income per month

63 100 gp income per month

64 knightly title--some discretion as to what this entails, but certainly deference from inferiors, exemption from taxation or some other legal burden, access to a higher social circle, etc.

65 +1 morale to followers

66 +1 to number of retainers one may lead

Friday, April 13, 2018

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 26

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

29 March's roster:
Lead (cleric 4)
Baby-Face (thief 5)
Valor Justice (Elf 1)
Little Bob (travelling-man 4)
Aethelwulf (paladin 4)
Blackleaf (Elf 4)
Koko (woman-ape 2)
and a coterie of hirelings and dogs

To the Howling Tower, to deal with the Goblin King and his meddling with Star-Things!

On the second night out, the characters came across a pair of wolves, unconscious and lying in the woods, with a strange and shimmering silver cord rising from each up into the night sky toward the singing Stars. The party was baffled. Baby-Face suggested that the stars were sucking information out of them, but who knows?

Aethelwulf decided to put one out of its ... misery isn't quite the right word. Still, he slew one with his sword; the silver cord snapped as soon as the body was slain.

After that, Koko attempted to use her ring of animal control on the "surviving" wolf, to no avail; Blackleaf tried to read any thoughts in it with her amulet of ESP, but detected nothing within--not even an animal intelligence. It seemed the bodies were mere shells, alive in the barest sense of the word, and Aethelwulf killed the second one.

Then the party made camp, and I telegraphed that something was coming by asking for a watch schedule. Alas, but I have only just introduced actual encounters that require a watch schedule in the wilderness; I should probably request one as a matter of course when setting out from town.

Anyway, four watches were set over the course of the night, and I rolled the first watch, which Lead and Blackleaf had taken. So as they stayed up to watch over their comrades, Blackleaf suddenly felt as if some kind of insect were crawling over her back--and yet nothing was there!

The invisible thing's attack failed against Blackleaf. Hands attempting to find it failed to touch anything, but the swordpoint of a magic sword carefully pressed into the area around the weird crawling feelings resulted in contact with some kind of invisible presence. Those individuals who were wakened and had magic weapons proceeded to attack the invisible thing; despite penalties to their attacks, they managed to hit the thing and avoid hitting Blackleaf until finally whatever it was seemed to fall off; searching the ground with magical swordpoints finally revealed something on the ground that didn't seem to be moving around. The thing was dead? They couldn't see it or touch to really ascertain ... so they went back to their regular watch schedule.

Nothing further happened.

Arriving on the ridge atop which stands the Howling Tower, fronted by its two pyres of goblin and ogre corpses, the players agreed to enter through the insect tunnels on the north side of the ridge, which lead directly into the first dungeon level and bypass the Tower itself. Lead left his mule Sparkly outside (mules don't fit in the tunnels), guarded by Baby Face's hirelings Thorn and Cadmus.

The party made their way through the first dungeon level seeking for the stairs down to the second level. They encountered what seemed to be a mobile puddle of water as a wandering monster, but easily destroyed the ooze with an overwhelming number of attacks.

Descending to the second dungeon level, the party headed south. They passed through the room that contained the star pool, which has once been seen to contain a Cthulu-ish tentacular horror; but it seemed empty of anything but stars at the moment. Passing to the south, the party found a door that opened into a chamber with three statues in the NE, SE, and SW corners. One was of a beautiful, seductive Elf-maiden, one of Anglamorath the Dragon, and the last of Astora Queen of Stars in full regalia.

Through the eastern door of that chamber, the party found a north-south corridor that they followed south. They ultimately walked into a chamber which was a goblin-barracks containing more than a dozen goblins. A sleep spell incapacitated many, and the others were slaughtered. The party killed two, but tied up four of the sleeping goblins (amusingly, my notes read "sleeping orcs", a Tolkienian slip); questioning those left alive, they learned from the poor creatures that "the Goblin King can be found through the western corridor and down the stair," while "treasure could be found north with the webs and the snakes."

Leaving the goblins behind, the party went west through further corridors. They ran into a party of goblins and one wolf as wandering monsters. My notes are sparse; I believe that what happened was that the goblins were driven back into another room, which contained other goblins. But ultimately, the party encountered a party of goblins including three that seemed less crooked than their fellows, all of whom began casting spells when the party moved to the attack.

One of the goblin magic-users doused the party's lights so that all was darkness. One of them threw a web spell, incapacitating most of the party (I think initiative was simultaneous, though, because I remember dogs and frontline fighters getting into melee); the last of the goblins cast a sleep spell which dropped all the frontline dogs except Panzer, Little Bob's orc mastiff.

A short melee round ensued; meanwhile, for the webbed party, Lead the cleric lit a torch and set the web alight. So it burned up (in one round; in retrospect it takes two rounds in the rules, but whatever), causing 1-6 damage to all those stuck within. This fire damage killed the hirelings Clara and Ilana of Blackleaf, but the rest of the party was thus freed.

Beyond that, the combat was short--one of the goblins got off a second douse lights spell, but the characters lit another torch; and another one managed to get off a mirror image, which allowed him alone to survive the combat. After all the other goblins were slain, this last fellow was finally subdued and tied up. He directed the party to the Goblin King's inverse-tower in return for his life, and also let drop a mention that the captured children were turned into goblins by the King by being spun up in spider-silk; and then he was left behind by the party. Meanwhile, some characters were looting the room--they found a good deal of gold, a magic helm, a magic shield, a potion, a scroll, a bow, and a spear (much of it loot from the dead goblin-magic-users).

Through another short corridor, the party finally opened a door onto a long spiral stair down into the darkness. It seems to lead down to dungeon levels three and four, but our time was short ... behind a door on the landing, Blackleaf detected the thoughts of scared children. The door was forced open, and the party found a group of five scared and emaciated children.

Our time was short, so the party ushered the children out of the dungeon. The only thing of note on the way out was that passing through the room with the three statues, the party found the statues changed into images of horrid hags, and as the party passed through, they were all subjected to a kind of curse.

Nothing else happened on the way back to town. Local high-level cleric Lailith (who won't adventure in Greyhame until the other characters are closer in level) agreed to lift the curses for 1000 gold altogether. And with his share of the wealth, Baby Face paid off the last 1600 gold of his debt to the Thieves' Guild.

------

Remembrance for the Fallen:
Clara and Ilana (normal women), Marlo and a number of dogs, Gram, Dorcas, Frida, and Johann Haybaler (normal hirelings), Hauka and Wilmerand (weasels), Blade and Boar (boarhounds), Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal men), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boarhound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghosthound), 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)

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Skills in My Game

Over at "The Retired Adventurer" is a wonderful post about character backstory for an OSR type game where the characters explicitly don't have backstory: "The Pack of Lies: Backstory as Equipment and Resource" (with the opening counterpart being a 3.5 game with a great deal of backstory).

The basic idea is that there are several items a character could have in one's inventory that imply backstory (a diary, a published personal memoir, ingredients for s'mores that inspire campfireside stories, or a lucky charm), and that a player-character could invoke one of these items by telling those at the table an anecdote about their backstory (true or not) to justify why they're "Good At ..." something. This trait for being Good At ... lasts for but a session with most of these items/invocations, which is an elegant mechanic for allowing otherwise skill-less OSR characters to take on some kind of mechanical skill while still keeping their character sheets and home rules uncluttered with miscellaneous entries.

I'm tempted to nab this idea entirely for use in my games (especially the 5e Jungles of Chult game, given that 5e explicitly includes a random table of weird charms/things a character can start with--a perfect random lucky charm table).

Still, I'll have to think it over; my game already has a homebrewed rule for character "skills" and their acquisition. It was formed in the rough-hewn origins when I was trying to navigate the space between player skills and game mechanics ... especially for certain situations that would have used an opposed roll in 3.5, which we were used to, but which I didn't want to fall back to.

For example, say the party has captured an orc and want to tie him up securely (while I, nefarious referee, planned secretly for the orc to attempt escape to warn his fellows deeper in the dungeon). In 3e I would have asked for a Use Rope skill from the players, and compared their roll against the orc's Escape Artist roll; but this is B/X! I don't want to have to enumerate all the potential skills and have players select from among them, that would defeat the purpose of playing B/X to escape the rules. Still, I wanted a means of random adjudication ...

So the new skill rule was instituted. "We tie up the orc!" the players say. "Roll a d6," I answer. "On a 1, your character is skilled with ropes, the orc is firmly secured, and you can note your skill with ropes on your character sheet. In the future, you may invoke that note for any plan involving ropes, and I'll give you better odds for it working or just adjudicate success."

This followed from two sources, 1) Jeff Rients' general rule that any action may be attempted with a roll of a d6, with a 1 being definite success and a 6 being definite failure (and with further gradations according to referee consideration); and 2) adapted from the 1e Dungeon Master's Guide page 60, "LISTENING AT DOORS ... Keen-eared individuals will gain a bonus [to their "hear-noise" roll] ... Use the chance of hearing a noise to determine if a character is keen-eared the first time he or she listens at a door, and if it is indicated, tell the player to note the fact for his or her character. ..." (modified to use the B/X rules rather than 1e, so a keen-eared demi-human "hears-noise" on a 1-3 on a d6 rather than a 1-2, while a keen-eared human "hears" on a 1-2 rather than a 1)

At any time in the game, a player may ask if they can invoke a kind of "skill" regarding a task or plan in which they're engaged. On a 1 on the die, they may note that their character is skilled in whatever task it was. This has resulted in some great "skills"--a friend of mine has a fighting-man who is an Art Critic, who can judge the value of obscure art; another has a character who is a Religious Scholar, who can identify various details about obscure cults, their symbols, and theological minutiae. There are, of course, a number of characters who are skilled rope-users, appraisers of treasure, or other more usefully banal skills, but the openness of the rule allows for surprising and strange skill-sets that make a character just that much richer.

I don't have a hard limit on the number of "skills" a character can have noted on their sheet, but three seems like a good boundary beyond which something more would be required than just a d6 roll (like maybe going to a sage/expert and paying them to teach you over the course of several months/years ...). Plus, the rule doesn't usually get invoked often enough for characters in my game to have more than one or two skills yet.

As a final note, a further de facto rule that has arisen is that characters don't roll for the same skill twice ... except I don't have players note that on their character sheet because I've never actually ruled against it. Players just assume that they can't and leave it at that. I mean, I probably would rule that within a single session, only one roll per "skill" would be allowed, but other than that I'm open. Maybe the character learned it during downtime?

Well, those are my rules for "skills". I really do like the item => background => "good at" idea, though, so I'm considering adding it to my repertoire of home rules. Maybe even just as an alternative to my own skills-rule.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

War Dogs for Sale

What feels like a long time ago (June 2012), I copied the general idea of Zak S.' d100 wardog table into the notebook in which I was keying my first megadungeon in my still-ongoing B/X game. It's much modified from Zak's table (and Noism's dogs, which Zak liberally lifted); my proud addition to it, which has taken some prominence in my recent Greyhame Game, was the entry of "Snake-Killing Weasel: 3 HD, x2 cost, murders snakes, morale fails 50%"; the characters Baby-Face and Aethelwulf have both purchased a number of such creatures for that game, and used them well in many a combat.

I break this table out pretty much every session; the value of a wardog that you can buy for 25 gold and then set in the front line so that it takes the brunt of the damage is pretty well intuitive to just about everyone who plays. But my notebook is getting beat up (my own characters are in it; some of the pages are stained, and the spiral coil is well-used), so I think it's time to write out a new copy of the table; and since I've been using it for almost six years, maybe it's time for some new entries!

War Dogs for Sale (d100 table)

1d4+1 dogs are available per session

normal cost 25 gold per dog

all dogs have AC 6 unless otherwise mentioned, and morale 8; all dogs know "heel", "come", "sic", and "stay" as base commands; HD 1 dogs deal 1d6 damage on a bite, HD 2 or higher dogs deal 2d4 damage on a bite

01-04 Well-Trained Dog: HD 1, never checks morale

05-08 Avenillish Cur: HD 1, AC 5, surprised only on a 1

09-13 Ghost Hound: HD 1+1, detects invisible within 60 feet

14-17 Aachen Weaseler: HD 1, AC 4 (highly agile)

18-22 Wolfhound: HD 2, +2 to hit

23-29 Pack Dog: HD 2, +1 to hit and damage when attacking with other dogs (+5 maximum)

30-35 Lion Dog: HD 2, can carry 250 coin of stuff

36-43 Boarhound: HD 2, 60% chance to track enemies, may wear armor (costs 25 gp, AC 4)

44-50 St. Bernard: HD 2, trained to drag unconscious allies to safety

51-62 Mastiff: HD 2, ordinary war dog, may wear armor (costs 25 gold, AC 4)

63-67 Hexenhound: HD 2, detects familiars, shape-changers, etc.

68-72 Half-Wolf: HD 2+2, +2 damage, 50% attacks allies if morale fails

73-77 Basilisk Hound: HD 1+1, -2 to attack, immune to gaze attacks (because they're blind)

78-81 Dungeon Terrier: HD 1, AC 5, surprised only on a 1, x2 damage to creatures dog-size or smaller

82-85 Bloodhound: HD 2, 80% chance to track target given to it via scent (i.e. dirty socks or something)

86-89 Orc Mastiff: HD 3+3, x3 cost, morale 10, invisible to infravision, 60% chance to track orcs, may wear armor as boarhounds or mastiffs

90-93 Snake-Killing Weasel: HD 3, x2 cost, murders snakes, morale fails 50%

94-95 War Bear: (as B/X black bear) HD 4, x6 cost, attacks 1-3/1-3/1-6, morale 7, may wear armor (costs50 gold, AC 4)

96-97 Warbat: HD 2, x4 cost, echolocate 60 feet [a silence spell will blind it], trained to scout ahead in darkness and come back with warnings, fly 180 feet/round, attack 1-4)

98-99 Hunting Pard: (like B/X mountain lion) HD 3+3, x6 cost, attacks 1-3/1-3/1-6, surprise on 1-3 if sent ahead)

00 Warbeetle: HD 3+3, x8 cost, AC 3, attack 2-12, morale 10)

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Jungles of Chult Session 4

our intrepid adventurers:
Nugiri (lizardman monk)
Takashi (human magic-user)
Nebin (halfling barbarian)
Qinsela (human druid)
Thrice-Orphaned (goliath fighter)
Vilnus (half-Elf bard, joined late last session)
with River Mist and Flask of Wine (cat-man fighter and thief) as guides
and hired help Olol, Benge, and Adoun

Last time we ended with the characters having just discovered the secret tunnel into the deeper parts of the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, and ready to descend into the depths. They are seeking magical writings for the merchant-prince Wakanga, a magic-user himself, who is willing to pay "thousands of gold" for magical writings dredged up from the tombs ...

Now, just as they were about to descend further into the depths, the party was joined by a pair of new characters (my out-of-town friends were in town for the weekend, so we had them join!): Gona (dwarf monk) and a not-yet-named human druid.

So deeper they went. They descended into tunnel lined with statues. Behind one, the party discovered a secret door that led into an old guard post that was otherwise empty. Continuing through the main corridor, they entered into a large octagonal chamber with a door or open doorway in every wall, and a pool of scummy water at its center.

Looking around, the party decided to tackle things door by door and went to the door just to the left of the entrance; this corridor has a pressure-plate trap in the corridor beyond, the party didn't search for traps at all, and so they set it off--a lightning bolt discharged from the tomb at the end of the twenty foot corridor! The smell of burned flesh filled the corridor, and Vilnus and the nameless druid both dropped dead-dead, while Qinsela was knocked out and almost dead. ("Roll a new character, Josh," I declared, while Vilnus' player also started rolling a new character ... his seventh in the campaign yet ...)

During a short rest, Nugiri the lizardman decided to cook up the dead half-Elf. Nobody protested.

After the rest, the party checked the next door. They found it blocked with rubble and heard something clattering around on the other side, and elected not to clear the rubble.

Through the next door, they found another tomb. They searched the tomb and found a sticky black residue around the seams. Should they try to build a fire around it and cook whatever's inside? That plan was ultimately shut down; instead, they put the bodies of Vilnus and the nameless druid in the corner and then opened the tomb, hoping that if an ooze were inside, it would go for the bodies ... Well, a black ooze was inside, and fortunately for the characters, my reaction dice indicated something good, so the ooze did indeed go for the bodies.

A quick check of the tomb discovered nothing inside, so the characters fled and then stuffed the doorjamb with clothes pilfered from Vilnus' stuff (she had been an actor and had some extra costumes, apparently).

The next door opened onto a long stair down. The party moved on to the next door; they pilfered a silver snake idol and a dozen scrolls that contained writings in unreadable Yuan-Ti script. At this point, the new characters Walter of the Wandering Foot Family (halfling) and Komuzar (half-orc thief) showed up because they were finished being written up. I decreed them companions of Gona and the late nameless druid who had just caught up.

The next door opened onto an unfinished tomb; and the doorway after that opened into a room with three columns of snake-man warrior statues. The secret door behind one in the back corner was duly found, which opened onto a blank corridor, at the end of which the second secret door was quickly located.

Opening that, the party found themselves in a large, dark, underground space. Columns held the ceiling up; a chain descended from the center of the ceiling and then led off into the darkness just beyond their light spell, though the chain was clearly moving and scraping along the floor ...

Stepping into the room, the characters immediately spotted a large reptilian creature with eight legs on the far side of the room. It approached; as it stared at them with eldritch green eyes, Nebin the halfling felt himself rooting into the ground as if becoming part of the stone himself. The party quickly intuited that this was a basilisk and then charged to attack!

The combat didn't last long. The basilisk got a couple good hits in, but against eight 5e characters, it just didn't really have a chance. After it was dead, Nugiri did his thing and carved it up and cooked up some basilisk steaks, and also popped its eyes out and saved them in a jar.

From here, the party went "north" (it was north in my game, but not in Skerples' descriptions) and found a door of intertwining serpents that they couldn't unlock, a stair down to the west, and other doors to the east. Through the east door they went, and were confronted with an undead horror--a snake-man, anciently embalmed, eyes of red pinpoints in empty sockets, who greeted them in a hissing language none of them understood.

Nugiri responded in Draconic, saying, "Bitch, please," which is not the kind of thing I personally would say to a lich. The lich responded also in Draconic, "What did you say to me?" and then Nugiri cleaned up his act. He explained that they were just there looking around ... the lich, one Xiximanter, took Nugiri to be the owner of the entourage of humanoid slaves, and decided to be hospitable. He remembered the forms of entertainment, if not the details, and went to a pitcher and some goblets and "poured" nothing from the ewer into the goblets and handed the empty vessels around (Walter and another character poured actual wine out for themselves from their possessions).

Xiximanter explained that he was on the verge of a breakthrough in his experiments attempting to brew a potion of immortality. He assumed the empire of the Yuan-Ti was still alive and well above, though he hadn't seen anyone for quite some time. The players wisely avoided revealing the truth ... Xiximanter asked Nugiri if he could use any of the lizardman's "slaves" as fodder for his experiments, but Nugiri politely declined.

Bored now of the conversation, Xiximanter went into the room next door and pulled out of a pit a goblin all infected with fungus. He dragged the protesting thing into another room and attached it to a chair like the one from the Skekzis' castle in The Dark Crystal and proceeded to drain the essence from the goblin into a little vial, and then to use that in whatever experiment he was engaged in.

The party left, uncomfortable.

Heading back through the basilisk room, they encountered a skeleton jelly and were unable to destroy it. Takashi slowed it by blasting it with ray of frost, and the party escaped back to the octagonal room with the pool. There, they discovered that the ooze had moved--clothing no longer stuffed any of the doorjambs ... finding the ooze in another room, they stuffed its doorjamb with clothes, and then turned to explored down the stairs they had earlier ignored.

At the bottom of the stair, they found another large octagonal room, but this one had walls covered with the shields of all the Batiri, human tribesman, and other Yuan-Ti tribes that had been defeated by the empire back in the day, layering the walls like scales. In the center of the room was a huge stone figure of a night with a cobra's head that advanced to attack as soon as the door was opened. The players noped! and slammed the door and went back up the stairs.

Going back through the basilisk chamber and north, the party descended the stair there and found the cylinder-door. Gona and Komuzar went through counter-clockwise first and felt the pangs of spears stabbing their sides. Returning back, Komuzar then went in alone and went clockwise, and ultimately reported back the passage on the other side of the rotating cylinder.

These passages led into the fungus-goblin warrens, which skeezed out the characters--Walter in particular was nauseated by a room that was filled with garbage and pulsating slime-molds, and lost the wine that he had recently imbibed all over his own feet.

A single goblin was found in the next room, chewing on a bat; the characters dispatched it with a number of missile attacks. Chattering goblins could be heard in the room beyond that; Takashi hit on a good plan regarding them. He approached the doorway alone and poured out a sack of gold coins on the floor before him. As the dozen-plus goblins gathered around to collect the coins, Takashi let loose with a burning hands spell and killed most of them.

The others failed their morale; the characters gave chase up a stair and chased the goblins up into the sunlight, while they themselves found another secret door into the basilisk-room from the other side.

Continuing their exploration, the party went through the "south" end of the basilisk room, and then down a stair to the southwest. They ultimately entered into a room with a pit-trap and while Nebin made hi save to avoid it, Thrice Orphaned tumbled in, but took negligible damage. On the other side of the pit was a door; through that door was a chamber with a pit along the east wall, in the center of which was an eternally burning flame surrounded by charred bones, runny gold, and gems.

Takashi mage-handed the gems out of the pit; through the next door, the party found more doors, one of which was iron. At this point I read that the key to that door was embedded in the basilisk's neck, and I adjudicated that Nugiri had found it while carving up the basilisk for eating. Opening the door with the key, the party found a crap-ton of loot, more weird writings, and a stair down to gods-know-what even deeper beneath the tombs ...

The party elected to take the treasure and go--they still had a jungle to make their way back through.

Out of the dungeon without monsters bothering them, the party found their porter and two slingers still next to the boat in their paltry camp. Gathering everything up, they headed north through the jungle seeking the River Tiryki; from there they would boat back down to civilization. On the first day, they spotted some flying lizards, but the creatures avoided them; that night, a mysterious man arrived in camp. When they offered him food, he offered his name, Wtanda, and suggested that in return for their hospitality, he would lead them through the jungle to the river. They agreed; the next day passed without incident as they followed Wtanda. At the river, he took his leave of the party.

They then set out on the river with their boats, because travel downriver on boats is much faster than hiking up through the jungle; the next day they passed a party of other explorers, emaciated and calling for help from the shore, but the party passed them by, afraid of delays and cannibal-attacks.

And they arrived back in Port Nyanzaru without any further issue!

Wakanga was glad to buy the strange writings from the party for a significant sum; they were not the magical writings he sought, but were still something. Moreover, he was interested in their account Xiximanter, and expressed the possibility of funding an expedition to give slaves to Xiximanter in trade for his potions or knowledge or both ... we'll see what the players think next session; especially seeing that Wakanga also gave the party the journal of another expedition that he had in his possession, which details a failed expedition up the Soshenstar River ...

Takashi paid off his debt to the merchant prince Jobal; Nebin probably will do the same with Jessamine, but his player wasn't actually present for this session to make such a call.

Komuzar and Nugiri both went carousing after that, and by the fate of the dice, each failed their save and then rolled the result "acquired a slave". Komuzar bought Talis, a scribe from across the northern ocean; meanwhile, Nugiri bought Tzana, an old man, but surprisingly strong and spry for his old age.

------

Remembrance for the Dead
Vilnus (half-Elf bard 1), a nameless druid 1, Nsi Losi (human fighting-man 1), Biango (NPC porter), Iedos (tiefling paladin 1), Tehran Atzi (human cleric of Ubtao 1), Sound of Distant Rain (catman rogue 1), Chiratidzo (human druid 1)

Friday, March 30, 2018

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 25

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

22 March's roster:
July (half-Elf 1)
Kord (half-orc fighter 4/cleric 4)
Ham (cleric 4)
Thaddeus (fighter 1)
Blackleaf (Elf 3)
Koko (woman-ape 3)
Little Bob (travelling man 5)

"LET IT BE KNOWN ... THE WORSHIP OF KORD IS HEREBY OUTLAWED ON PAIN OF DEATH ..." read the placards that are nailed up throughout town this week.
"AND MOREOVER, LET IT BE KNOWN THAT BABY-FACE, LEAD, AND THEIR ASSOCIATES ARE HEREBY NAMED WOLVES AND MAY BE HUNTED TO THE DEATH THROUGHOUT THIS REALM.
"~MORHOLT, LORD OF OAKRIDGE CASTLE AND THE VILLAGES BRAKERIDGE AND KALLIA"

Last session, the party entered into Oakridge Castle by stealth and while one half rescued the Lady Sonora (whom Morholt had been holding hostage with the intent to force her to marry him using a love potion), the other half slew a number of his men-at-arms in their sleep. Unfortunately, one half of the party started off with a less successful gambit, attempting to gain entrance at the gate by claiming to be clerics of the god Kord, and thus announcing themselves as probably the perpetrators ...

Fortunately for everyone, the news that Sonora was rescued spread quickly through town. The villagers hate Morholt and love Sonora as they remember her late husband, the legitimate lord of the area whose power was usurped by Morholt after a suspicious hunting accident; so given the news that their lady was freed, the villagers sent word around to get Kord, Blackleaf, and the others out of town before Morholt's men-at-arms could come hunt them down.

So, out of town but nearby, the characters considered overthrowing Morholt once and for all and restoring Sonora to her ladyship ... but Blackleaf preferred to wait until they had a fuller party. And, moreover, the young half-Elf adventuress July showed up, newly arrived and ready to go adventuring, and it seemed more prudent to show her the adventuring ropes in a dungeon, rather than start off with a castle raid.

Thus, the party elected to return to the Howling Tower, there to explore and see what they might learn about the Star Things, while Kord expressed a desire to collect the body of Gram from the secret shadow-shrine.

Three days to the Tower ... wilderness attrition resulted in lost daggers and a lost shield, so I presume they were minor animal encounters. The Tower stands atop a ridge running down from the southwest spur of the Greyhame Mountain, just above the treeline so that it stands like a lone nail above the valleys on either side. In front of it stand two pyres filled with the bodies of goblins.

Kord remembered the secret tunnel entrance down to the crypts of the first dungeon level and led the party to it, and everyone elected to use it. About half way down is a wider space in which are sometimes insectile horrors; this time, the party found a number of large egg sacs which they decided to destroy before passing on down to the dungeon.

In the dungeon crypts, the party emerged about twenty feet from the secret shadow shrine. Given how close they were, that meant that Kord wanted to go in and get Gram's body, left their from another session. So the half-orc went in without any light (light inside creates animated shadows); meanwhile, Blackleaf heard a goblin voice stage-whisper "Oh, shit!" from the darkness just to the north, and heard two pair of goblin-feet padding quickly away through the dungeon.

The party gave chase, and with a lit lantern managed to shoot the two goblins down before they got far so that they could not warn their comrades elsewhere.

From this point, the party explored a number of tombs in the largely unmapped western portion of the dungeons. They fought a number of pallid, hungry undead humanoids which were easily turned by Kord and Ham with prayers to their god; and also a number of tentacled insectile horrors, some of which managed to paralyze Ham, Little Bob, and one of the dogs for a number of turns before the horrors themselves were killed.

In one tomb, the party discovered a sarcophagus that was cold to the touch. Koko the ape drank a potion that she felt made her invincible, and found within a colony of brown mold that was so cold that her breath came out as a mist and her fingers cramped up. In the midst of the colony was laid a sword ... ignoring the damage she was taking, Koko took out the sword ... at the party's behest, she laid it in the middle of the room, covered it with oil, and set it on fire. The mold on the sword immediately doubled in size and the room got noticeably colder! Koko was badly injured by the extreme cold, and so she wrapped the sword up with rags and then she and the party abandoned the room to the mold ...

Exploring further, the party found a couple means of ingress to a separate dungeon level to the west, one through a secret door, the other through a goblin barricade. These goblins Blackleaf magically slept, and the party took them prisoner. Then, using "truth potions" (the party's label for them ... sure they're labeled as such, but I don't remember ever handing such out ... I ruled that the potion got the goblin drunk and then he blurted out a kind of truth), the party learned from one of the goblins that there is a secret door with treasure behind it in the main goblin barracks on the first dungeon level.

Using this info, the party traced their steps back to the main goblin room on their map. Barging in, they found a number of goblins and wolves; Koko used her ring of control animal to force the wolves to attack the goblins, and meanwhile the party lit into the poor goblins with a vengeance. Once the room was secure, they did indeed find a secret door on the south wall, behind which was hidden a violent shrine to a goblin deity and vengeance against the Elves--on three decapitated Elf heads on the altar shone three circlets of silver and gold.

Collecting their loot, the party then made their way back to the surface. They avoided the stairs (a party of goblins was waiting there, ready to ambush them, but Blackleaf checked ahead without light and saw them) and left by the tunnel instead.

All in all, a simple session, but a good one. A good introduction for July and her player, I hope!

------

Remembrance for the Fallen:
Gram, Dorcas, Frida, and Johann Haybaler (normal hirelings), Hauka and Wilmerand (weasels), Blade and Boar (boarhounds), Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal men), 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)

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Greyhame Mountain Dungeon Expedition 24

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

15 March's roster:
Kord (half-orc fighter 3/cleric 4 ... he mislabeled levels before, I probably did too)
Ham (cleric 4)
Thaddeus (newly minted fighter 1)
Baby Face (thief 5)
Valor Justice (Elf 1)
Blackleaf (Elf 3)
Koko (woman-ape 2)
Lead (cleric 4)
Aria (Elf 1)
Little Bob (travelling-man 5, I think)
and all their hirelings and dogs

This is the week during which Morholt will force the lady Sonora to marry him, using a love potion possibly provided to him by the Elves.

But first, the characters had other business.

First, Blackleaf tested out a bunch of magic items gained from the hoard of Ulfior, undead thing, and discovered among other things a medallion of ESP and a ring of animal control along with a couple other minor things (some potions she sipped, none poisonous, including one seeming to be of strength, of invincibility, etc.). Discovering these things, Blackleaf then sought out Aldir (whom she is hoping to use to marry and thus to gain an immortal soul) while everyone else was preparing. She used her newfound medallion to read his thoughts concerning her (suspicion--is she here to tempt me with an illicit relationship again?) and then offered him a silver torc to dedicate to his god Adonai as a kind of peace-offering. He accepted it reluctantly.

Meanwhile, the party has a number of other magic items they needed to identify and which were less simple to figure out. So they sought out Axxl the Mask, semi-local sage, and for the price of 2000 gold, got him to agree to identify up to a dozen magic items over the course of the month. They gave him: 1) a scroll, 2) a scroll, 3) a helm, 4) a wand, 5) a sword, 6) a scroll, 7) a handaxe, 8) a flamberge-sword, 9) a scroll. I've been taking notes for the last twenty-three sessions, but fuck me if I remember what is what, especially when their notes don't tell them where they acquired the thing. Oh well, that's what I signed up for as referee. Four weeks from now I'll have to have identified all these things for them.

Okay, but really, Morholt is going to force Sonora to marry him. I roll ... 4 days before the deed is done. The party begins to plan ...

Send the eagle Kaaraak to reconnoiter Oakridge Castle to figure out where the lady is? Aria the Elf won't allow it (she is of Natural alignment, and playing it hardcore).

Finally, Baby Face uses his sending bone to send a message to Sonora: "We want to save you; where are you?"

The message returned is, "I don't know if I can trust you. I'm trapped in the northwest tower of the keep."

Meanwhile, Baby Face also approaches his Thieves' Guild contact Jaybird Jenny and gets a message sent to the "bandits" in the woods (who are actually the freed men-at-arms who were loyal to the former lord and who were imprisoned by Morholt before being freed by the player-characters ... and are now living as bandits). The message details the party's desire to free Sonora, will they help? "Tell us when and where to meet you and we will kill Morholt and his men," the bandits answer back.

"Meet us tomorrow night below the castle gate," the party sends the message back. Thirteen bandits show up, ready for trouble.

And so they attack the castle ...

The plan ultimately decided was to split the party. Half the party (the Extraction Team) including Koko, Blackleaf, Kord, Aria, Baby Face, and Valor Justice would have Koko the ape climb the northeast face of the keep with ropes, everyone would climb up, and they would go in an free Sonora.

Meanwhile, the Distraction Team--everyone else, including the bandits--would approach the front gates and create a distraction. Actually, the Extraction Team was supposed to wait until the distraction took place.

Anyway, the Distraction Team marched up to the castle gates. The guards hailed the large party of armed people approaching at night. "Who are you?"

"Clerics of the god Kord, come to bless the upcoming wedding!" Lead called back.

"We didn't invite you!" the guard leader calls back. "What the hell is going on?"

"If you refuse us, the god Kord's wrath will fall upon you!" Lead answered.

"I'm calling the guard captain," the guard returned.

The Distraction Team here abandoned their plan and retreated (at some point I reminded them of the secret entrance to the castle dungeons they've been through before ... was it here?). They decide to go around the castle and enter the secret door into the dungeons.

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The Extraction Team waited in vain for a signal and finally decided to act on their own. Koko the ape climbed the keep face without a rope and noted six guards on the fighting-floor of the keep's roof. (The guards rolled a 6 on a d6 on their "notice check", the worst they could possibly roll; they're gossiping among themselves). Blackleaf then cast sleep and all six guards fell asleep. The Extraction Team then climbed up with the help of ropes thrown down by Koko. The guards were standing near a trapdoor down into the keep ...

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The Distraction Team entered into the dungeons. The bottom level was unguarded; they immediately found a stair upward that led to a closed and locked door. With brute strength, they forced open the lock (they were there to make a distraction, after all).

Inside were six guards gambling at a table. The party charged forward and murdered all the guards before any alarum could be raised.

Continuing out into the corridors of the castle itself, the party turned south and ultimately broke into another room. There, they found five men sleeping in their beds and murdered them all mercilessly as they slept.

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In the keep, the Extraction Team made a beeline to the west toward the door, behind which were heard two feminine voices. Baby Face failed to pick the locked lock, but then called on the unseen servant bound in his ring to open the door, and it miraculously could. Opening the door quietly, they surprised two women--one middle-aged but still beautiful, the other young, dark-haired, and very similar in face to Morholt--who were talking quietly to each other.

The party rushed in and held their mouths, telling the two women that they were there to rescue them. This worked, strangely, and the women trusted them. The older one identified herself as Sonora, the younger as Moria, daughter of Morholt, imprisoned by her father in the tower until she could be given away to the Elves of the Dwimmerholt. Once freed, the women quickly grabbed some valuables, and then agreed to be led out to the roof and carried down the wall ...

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The Distraction Team continued a little deeper. They moved on to the next room and found another barracks with another five sleeping men whom they quickly killed. They then considered mercenary goals--what is there to loot? Between the two rooms, they had seen twelve footlockers altogether, and now split their attention opening all these lockers. In these they found a number of fine cloaks, suits of plate armor, and a number of other pieces of jewelry.

At the end of this time looting, Lead received a sending from Baby Face telling him to "Get out!" Consolidating everything, the Distraction Team then went out and back to the basement and then out through the secret door. I didn't roll any wandering inhabitants, alas.

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Back in town, some of the party set out with the "bandits" and Sonora and Moria to their hideout in the woods north of town while others decided to remain in town and possibly spread rumors of the god Kord's wrath having befallen Morholt and his men. Rumormongering was done, much quickened by an excess of liquor as several of the characters caroused. Valor Justice and Thaddeus both saved, but Blackleaf failed her save and ran into a minor misunderstanding with the law--she happened to be in the way when the mercenaries in the "Citadel" (the only watchtower in town) were mustered out to go to the castle for an emergency, and they shook her down for 50 gp ...

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Remembrance for the Fallen:
Gram, Dorcas, Frida, and Johann Haybaler (normal hirelings), Hauka and Wilmerand (weasels), Blade and Boar (boarhounds), Hubert the Peacock and Lysimmachus (normal men), a nameless mastiff, Livy (normal man), Orkie (orc mastiff), Fang (boarhound), Droopy and Snoopy (mastiffs), Dream Destroyer (ghosthound), 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)

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Travelling in the Wilderness: Becoming Lost

(new rule idea in the middle of this post)

"If a party is lost, the DM may choose the direction the party moves in, or use a random die roll. The DM must keep track of the party's actual position, as well as the direction the party believes it is moving. For example, the DM determines that a party ... has become lost. ... the party wishes to travel north; however, the DM has secretly determined that the party will head northeast. If after travelling in this direction for 6 miles, should the group decided to turn northwest, they will actually turn north." ("Travelling in the Wilderness", Dungeons and Dragons Expert Rules, p.X56)

A diagram using hexes follows.

I have never used this rule.

I did invoke a "becoming lost" rule once, in my Jungles of Chult game, which in 5e is of course a skill check (a Survival [Wisdom] check, DC 10 for waterways or DC 15 for jungles). Failure indicates that when the party moves into the "next" hex, roll a d6 to randomly determine which neighboring hex they actually enter. "... While the party is lost, players can't pinpoint the group's location on their map of Chult. The next time a navigator succeeds on a Wisdom (Survival) check made to navigate, reveal the party's actual location to the players." ("Chapter 2: The Land of Chult", Tomb of Annihilation, p.38)

Actually, I didn't use that rule by-the-text either, because I allowed a player character to make a second roll to get on track after the navigators (River Mist and Flask of Wine) got themselves turned around with a failed roll.

Where I have used rules like it is when playing Outdoor Survival (the hex map of which, as I understand it, was the basis for much D&D exploration back in the genesis-days). In that game it makes sense. As a board game, each player has perfect information about the board and the state of his "character" and position on the board, and even everyone else's character and position. The only way to simulate "lostness" in such a case is to force a player to move in a random direction as indicated by a die roll. (Every turn you roll a die to determine how lost you are; a good roll allows you to choose a direction, a bad roll forces you to move in a die-rolled direction)

image from Boardgamegeek

But D&D is emphatically not a game of perfect information. A player has the information on his character sheet and on whatever map he may have drawn, and beyond that relies on the referee's description of his character's location and surroundings. D&D is a game of discovery, of epistemology one might say ... a game in which players map a space according to the referee's descriptions which may or may not conform to the referee's map of the "actual" space, and where such accuracy or deviation can have serious consequences for the state of the characters and the game.

So D&D doesn't need to simulate "lostness" in the way that Outdoor Survival does. The players already don't know the map, and don't know where they're going. And I don't much like the idea of running "getting lost" at the table by travelling in a random direction--to go back to the B/X quote at the top, to keep track of where the characters are on my map and also where they think they are on my map, and to adjust their movements accordingly seems like a hassle. I won't lie, I already have trouble keeping track of where the party is on a hex map just for myself when I'm supposed to be notating it in pencil ... sometimes I forget to mark a day's travel, or when they're not moving at the speed of one hex per day I forget how far through the hex they've moved this turn ... (maybe I'll post about hex maps in the future).

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Long story short, I have a thought for another way to simulate becoming lost that would mitigate the hassle of the map and confusion on the referee's (my) part:

Becoming Lost
When moving from hex to hex (or from area to area, maybe), treat navigation as an "open door" type check. The party rolls a die (be it a straight 1-2 on a d6 or rolling a d20 plus Survival [Wisdom] against some DC, or whatever) and if they succeed, they may proceed into the next area. If they fail the roll, their day's travel is suspended as they try to find a passable way into the next area but their way is blocked by impassable brambles, a raging river, a sheer cliff, or their own incompetence at wilderness travel. They do not advance or move anywhere else.

On the next day, they may either try again with another roll, or must try to circumvent the barrier through magic or by traveling another direction (depending on whether you, the referee, treat the roll as final or as re-rollable).

In most situations, the party is able to backtrack the way they've come without having to roll anything, especially in the cast that they've mapped their way there. But in especially thick wilderness (a jungle, say), the party might have to make a roll to make their way into another hex or area even if that is the same hex or area from whence they've just come. I'd probably still allow a bonus to backtrack, especially with a map ...

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This method of getting lost would cut out an element of the game that I feel is intellectually interesting, but which often bogs down at the table: the mode of play in which it is up to the players to ensure that their map is correct, to interrogate the fictive space that the referee is describing to be certain that they have grasped the "truth" of their representation of it.

Theoretically, the rules for getting lost in B/X D&D actually appeal to me, in the way that the sliding corridors, one-way doors, and secret teleporters that Gygax seems so fond of in dungeons are theoretically appealing. What fun it would be, I think to myself reading such rules, to be in a dungeon where I was suddenly deposited somewhere from which I don't know how to get to the exit. I would have to map myself back to a familiar space on my map!

The problem with this type of play is that most of the time I'm stuck with two or three hours for the game at most, and I've got to resolve things by the end (for my pick-up games ... same-people campaigns are a bit different, and you can put things on hold until next session). Jeff Rients' Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Chart of Very Probable Doom (scroll to the bottom) can help with resolving what happens when characters are stuck or lost in the dungeon (or wilderness--need a new table!) at the end of a session; but what happens when characters are split up in the middle of play? Do you split time between them? Cut one side out and have them roll to get out while you stay with the other group?

I know there must be good ways for referees to deal with these things effectively and without bogging play down, but I am not at the moment privy to them. Perhaps someone out there has procedures that make this part of the game as easy as the rest is--and I would be glad to learn from them!--but as of now, I haven't played in anyone else's hexcrawl, and only one other referee's "squarecrawl", so I'm just muddling things out for myself.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

When an Elf gains a Soul ...

As I've mentioned before, Elves in my game do not have souls in the same way that humans do; Elves are immortal so long as their bodies live--and they do not age or experience time--but when their bodies are slain by violence, accident, or disease, they die permanently. (Actually, they can still be raised from the dead with magic, but that just restores them to bodily life)

So what would it mean for an Elf to attain the kind of soul that a human has? Such an event is attested in old tales, chief among them the tale of Undine, though arguably the Tale of Beren and Luthien in which the Elf-woman Luthien Tinuviel is granted the Doom of death to join her human love Beren in death also entails an Elf attaining a soul. There is also the song of the Cup of Lethe and the White Sword, which involves a half-Elfin maid giving up her Elfin nature to join human society (yeah, yeah, shameless on my part, I wrote that epic).

Alas for Undine, she is actually rejected by Huldbrand
and so is doomed to return to the waters as mere seafoam ...

In my current Greyhame game, the Elfin character Blackleaf is engaged in a quest to attain a soul for herself, in which she generally ineffectually attempts to win the true love of local blacksmith Aldir. The lore is that an Elf would gain a soul if married to a Good human, because of the union of flesh and all that which marriage entails; and so Blackleaf, after having a drunken fling with Aldir, encouraged the paladin Aethelwulf to convert Aldir to Goodness. But alas for Blackleaf, when Aldir listened to Aethelwulf, he was so impressed with the tenets of Goodness that he abandoned his illicit relationship with the Elf-woman and devoted himself entirely to the Good cult and its tenets of sinless living! Now Blackleaf hangs around and tries to impress him, but he generally turns his nose up at her because of poor reactions rolls.

Still, perhaps Blackleaf could someday win back Aldir's affections and attain a soul through marriage to him. Or through some other means, like a wish spell, or some other miracle.

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So what would happen then?

My current inclination would be to adapt the rules for dual-classing from 1e AD&D. An Elf, e.g. Blackleaf, who attained an immortal soul would forever turn their back on the "class" of Elf. No more could she advance as a kind of fighter/magic-user, and no more would she be able to cast spells and fight while wearing armor. Instead, an Elf with a soul would have to choose a new class--fighter, thief, magic-user, or cleric (or paladin, ranger, or illusionist), and advance as such for the rest of her days. (Assassin and Druid would be denied as class options here, because an Elf with a soul must be Good, as the soul that was attained was through the union in flesh to a Good human ... I suppose a soul gained another way, i.e. through wish might align differently).

Per dual-classing, the Elf would start over at first level of experience in her new class, though retaining her hit points as already accrued, and taking the better saves and THAC0 between the new class and her current class. Otherwise, she must act within the abilities of her new class, or forfeit any experience gained during the session/expedition, i.e. an Elf that dual-classes to magic-user that nevertheless takes to wearing armor during an adventure would receive no experience at the end of that adventure.

As class options, fighter and magic-user would both be immediately available for the former-Elf to dual class into, as those are the classes most similar to an Elf's proclivities anyway. As a fighter, she would not be able to cast spells until attaining a level in fighter equal to her level in the Elf class; as a magic-user, she would not be able to wear any armor or wield any weapons other than a dagger, but could still cast all of the spells known to her from her levels as an Elf.

The other classes would be available, but would require a human sponsor who could train the Elf-cum-human in the particulars of her new-chosen class. Honestly, this shouldn't be much of a roadblock to selection; either the character should know another PC of the chosen class who can sponsor them, or it involves the introduction of a new NPC who can do the same. At the most, this might involve a session's worth of gaming/role playing to find an NPC who could sponsor the Elf in their chosen class.

So that's my initial thoughts on what it means for an Elf to gain a soul in my game. I can already see that I need to relax the alignment thing I mentioned above--just because an Elf married a Good human and received a soul doesn't mean that she doesn't immediately use that soul to turn to Evil. The whole point of a soul is to be able to choose!

Still, this will be my basis as things continue. Perhaps Blackleaf will be successful in her machinations with Aldir. Ultimately, I expect she'll find a means to attain a soul one way or the other, regardless, and we'll move forward from there!