Vul Yourself Together: A Halls of Arden Vul DCC Campaign Log

[JG_WENTWORTH]

This is the start of a planned series of posts that will record my thoughts on an upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) sandbox-style megadungeon campaign set in the setting illustrated in The Halls of Arden Vul, published by Expeditious Retreat Press.

The goal of the campaign will be to run one mainly aligned with the principles set out in Muster: A Primer for War an “introduction to the particular ethos and technique of playing D&D as a wargame, a kriegsspiel.”

During the campaign, I, acting as the “Judge” (DM, GM, Referee), will attempt, hopefully with the assistance of the players, to abide by the Three Cornerstones as outlined in Muster:

1. Neutral Referee

The Game Master is a referee; their task is to prepare a challenging scenario and conduct it fairly to whatever outcome. Teaching the rules, and adjudicating the events. The referee does not have a plan for what will happen in the game. They do not play favourites, they do not cheat the rules, and they will, ultimately, share in the celebration or commiseration of the outcome. A referee who is not responsible for outcomes leaves room for the other players to have real agency.

2. Real Achievement

This is a game of skill and daring, played against quantifiable adversity. It’s not a theatrical show; you’re not playacting inside the Game Master’s planned story. Naturally, this means that losses are real as well. Exhilarating to avoid, depressing to face. But you learn from them, because they are real. Real achievement, real pride, real learning and real sportsmanship are only possible when the game is real.

3. Simulation Rules

The game is a conflict simulation, its purpose to shed light to how things work; teach reality, use reality. It is not a boardgame, conveniently self-enclosed and fair. Players maneuver against the imagined scenario and how it should work. The referee exists to apply and adapt the rules to reflect the scenario. The ideal of simulating a reality, even a fantastic one, is always an aspiration and a compromise between gameability and insight. The game treads a golden mean to capture anything real while remaining fun and fluid. The right mechanical tools for the task depend on the group’s developing skills and interests.

To facilitate the above, I have implemented the following game structure, also taken from Muster:

1. Quick character generation through automated tables in Foundry VTT.
2. No backstories. More than 2-sentence backstories are discouraged.
3. Start at first level, always. Anything else skews perspective.
4. Character death is a necessity. It keeps the game honest.
5. Use of character stables. Players can make as many new characters as they like.
6. XP is goal-based, only granted for gold. 1gp = 1xp.
7. XP is consistent and serious. It is respected as a sign of achievement. There will be no pity points.
8. There is no balance. Players may retreat if they wish.
9. No cheating. I will not fudge anything, ever.

Session 1

Start time: 2993 AEP, Horasday, the 23rd day of Besemios, the 9th month, noon.

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful
2. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest
3. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful
4. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful

Hirelings:

1. Basil, Level 1 Warrior, Neutral
2. Sarnai, Level 1 Thief, Chaotic

The party began a short distance from the falls, and Waldorf came up with some hand signals to still be able to communicate over the deafening sound of the waterfall. Then the party began their journey up The Long Stair.

Spine inspected the giant stone hand of the colossal statue of Arden, and noticed that there seemed to be an area in the center of the palm that looked perfect for one person to stand on.

The group then continued to a small room dug into the side of the cliff. They found a fireplace that had been used as recently as last night, as well as a supply of firewood.

They passed the next few switchbacks before arriving at another small room in the side of the cliff. It was filled with scraps of trash, and had a spider web in the back. The party decided not to search it and began ascending The Long Stair again.

They reached the top and saw the ruins of Arden Vul before them. They moved 230’ to the northeast and searched a small ruined structure for about 30 minutes. They found nothing of value.

They then went to a tower about 200’ away from the searched ruined structure. They ran a perimeter around it, and Battista elf-sensed a secret door that was activated by pushing in one of the flagstones. They entered the tower, and explored a few rooms after having Sarnai and Basil each light a torch.

Spine took an ornate silk robe embroidered with Ibises, Baboons, and a word written in Mithric. The only party member who knew any Mithric was Battista, on account of its use in spellcasting, however, he did not recognize the word. Basil found a body with a shimmering sword, shimmering leather armor, a golden potion, a set of fine lock picks, and a purse with 20sp and 7gp. He looted it immediately and returned to the party.

Spine took the sword, Waldorf took the armor, Sarnai took the lock picks, and Basil kept the coins and potion.

End time: 2993 AEP, Horasday, the 23rd day of Besemios, the 9th month, 1:30pm.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Session 1 Judge’s Notes

This was a quick two-hour session due to attendance issues. We started with only Bill, Brad, and Jake, with Sam joining about an hour late. Attendance is my main concern for the campaign’s longevity at this point, but we shall see.

During this session, we rolled a character for Sam (Marcellus the Chaotic Cleric) and played for a little bit. I asked Sam what God he wanted to worship, and he said an “evil” god, so we went with Atashak, the Chaotic God of fire, destruction, and battle. This could set up some spiciness with Jake’s character Pif, who worships the Lawful Goddess Demma! However, Sam is new to TTRPG’s, so maybe not.

Players and their characters:

Player	Character
Bill	Spine
Brad	Waldorf
Jake	Pif
Mark	Battista
Sam	Marcellus
Earl	NOT CREATED

While looking at the map of the ruins, someone asked “what’s this thing” and pinged the Tower of Scrutiny. I told them it was a four-story tower, and they got all excited and went straight for it. They scouted around it, and Battista, of course, discovered the secret door. At this point, I was quite worried for them.

 

[Bunch]

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Session 1 Judge’s Notes

This was a quick two-hour session due to attendance issues. We started with only Bill, Brad, and Jake, with Sam joining about an hour late. Attendance is my main concern for the campaign’s longevity at this point, but we shall see.

During this session, we rolled a character for Sam (Marcellus the Chaotic Cleric) and played for a little bit. I asked Sam what God he wanted to worship, and he said an “evil” god, so we went with Atashak, the Chaotic God of fire, destruction, and battle. This could set up some spiciness with Jake’s character Pif, who worships the Lawful Goddess Demma! However, Sam is new to TTRPG’s, so maybe not.

Players and their characters:

Player	Character
Bill	Spine
Brad	Waldorf
Jake	Pif
Mark	Battista
Sam	Marcellus
Earl	NOT CREATED

While looking at the map of the ruins, someone asked “what’s this thing” and pinged the Tower of Scrutiny. I told them it was a four-story tower, and they got all excited and went straight for it. They scouted around it, and Battista, of course, discovered the secret door. At this point, I was quite worried for them.

If your going to teach someone about lethality it's best in the first session. Chargen rules are all still fresh on the mind!

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

If your going to teach someone about lethality it's best in the first session. Chargen rules are all still fresh on the mind!

Haha, that's true. To be fair, they've all played with me before (save for Sam), and they know I like to run lethal campaigns, and that's definitely how I described it when I was soliciting interest from potential players.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 2

Oct 19, 2022

Note: We've played 4 sessions total, but I'm saving some of them to post later so as to not spam the board too much.

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful

Hirelings:

1. Basil, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Neutral
2. Sarnai, Level 1 Khummus Thief, Chaotic

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer/Quartermaster: Jake

The party continued their investigation of the tower that reeked of death, looting a rope made of a bright white material, as well as a lantern and three flasks of oil. They climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor, finding two bodies: one fresh, and one ancient and dessicated. On the former, they found a scroll of fireball and a scroll of detect magic inside a scroll case, as well as shimmering chainmail and a shimmering shield. They also found a pouch with 175gp worth of hematite gems. On the desiccated corpse, they found a note with something written in Mithric. Searching the rest of the floor, they found a room containing 10 shimmering masks (five representing ibises, three baboons, and two stylized, male humans). They left the masks hanging on the pegs where they found them.

The group then marched up the spiral staircase to the third floor, where they found words written in blood on the door that said “Do not open the doors below! They are waiting!”. Circling around to the other room on the third floor, they found two bodies drained of life and the remains of a ruined administrative office, but nothing else of value. After this, they decided to leave the tower.

Returning to the ruins, the group was ambushed by six giant frogs. Pif cleverly threw five rations at them, distracting them long enough for the party to escape. The party then went to the cellar to the north west of the tower, and dug out some rubble to find a cellar. In the cellar, they found the arm of a giant marble statue. Moving to the west of the cellar, they found the marble statue that matched the make of the giant arm, but only the feet of the statue remained.

The party crossed a bridge to the west of the ruined statue, and came upon a ruined structure enclosed by a 20’ high wall. They were unable to open the ebony doors, but Sarnai was able to climb over the wall and affix a rope. The rest of the group made it safely across, but not before the Halfling summoned a bit of good luck to help his compatriot, Spine.

Moving through the ruins of the structure, they entered into a 30’ high tower. Inside, they found a ruined tapestry worth 30gp. They then descended a flight of stairs, and came across a magical circle of some kind. Battista walked through it, and Waldof threw his bowl into a nearby square container to no effect.

Continuing down the stairs, the party came across a large chamber that was filled with all manner of exotic flora, almost like a jungle. Moving through it, the party was beset by an assassin vine. Two tendrils shot out, ensnaring the left arms of Basil and Marcellus, causing them to drop their shields. The group was able to cut away the tendril constricting Basil, but not before three more tendrils shot out, with one grabbing the left legs of Basil and Spine, and the right leg of Sarnai. Pif threw a makeshift molotov cocktail, hitting the assassin vine and damaging its constricting vines (damage: 3 to the tendril on Basil’s left leg, 3 to the tendril on Marcellus’s left arm, 1 to the tendril on Spine’s left leg, 2 to the tendril on Sarnai’s right leg, and 2 damage to the assassin vine itself). Note: the Judge must remember to have Pif roll for the molotov damage next turn.

Battista cast a spell, calling on the Fates to summon the Blade of Atropos, and he stabbed the assassin vine itself, damaging it significantly, but not bloodying it. Three more vines sprouted from it, grabbing Basil’s torso, the right leg of Marcellus, and the left leg of Spine. At the end of the session, Basil had his left leg and torso ensnared, Marcellus had his left arm and right leg ensnared, Spine had his left leg ensnared, and Sarnai had her right leg ensnared. The party then witnessed three more vines sprout from the plant beast. It is the party’s turn to act…

End time: 2993 AEP, Horasday (6th day of the week), the 23rd day of Besemios, the 9th month, 4:10pm. Sundown is at 6:30pm.

 

[Korgoth]

The goal of the campaign will be to run one mainly aligned with the principles set out in Muster: A Primer for War an “introduction to the particular ethos and technique of playing D&D as a wargame, a kriegsspiel.”


1. Neutral Referee
The Game Master is a referee; their task is to prepare a challenging scenario and conduct it fairly to whatever outcome. Teaching the rules, and adjudicating the events. The referee does not have a plan for what will happen in the game. They do not play favourites, they do not cheat the rules, and they will, ultimately, share in the celebration or commiseration of the outcome. A referee who is not responsible for outcomes leaves room for the other players to have real agency.

2. Real Achievement
This is a game of skill and daring, played against quantifiable adversity. It’s not a theatrical show; you’re not playacting inside the Game Master’s planned story. Naturally, this means that losses are real as well. Exhilarating to avoid, depressing to face. But you learn from them, because they are real. Real achievement, real pride, real learning and real sportsmanship are only possible when the game is real.

3. Simulation Rules
The game is a conflict simulation, its purpose to shed light to how things work; teach reality, use reality. It is not a boardgame, conveniently self-enclosed and fair. Players maneuver against the imagined scenario and how it should work. The referee exists to apply and adapt the rules to reflect the scenario. The ideal of simulating a reality, even a fantastic one, is always an aspiration and a compromise between gameability and insight. The game treads a golden mean to capture anything real while remaining fun and fluid. The right mechanical tools for the task depend on the group’s developing skills and interests.

To facilitate the above, I have implemented the following game structure, also taken from Muster:

1. Quick character generation through automated tables in Foundry VTT.
2. No backstories. More than 2-sentence backstories are discouraged.
3. Start at first level, always. Anything else skews perspective.
4. Character death is a necessity. It keeps the game honest.
5. Use of character stables. Players can make as many new characters as they like.
6. XP is goal-based, only granted for gold. 1gp = 1xp.
7. XP is consistent and serious. It is respected as a sign of achievement. There will be no pity points.
8. There is no balance. Players may retreat if they wish.
9. No cheating. I will not fudge anything, ever.

Where can I find a copy of 'Muster: A Primer for War'? I did a quick search for it on drivethrurpg but found nothing.

If it encapsulates the above 3 key points you wrote about then it's 100% aligned with my vision of D&D and Judging style.


.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Where can I find a copy of 'Muster: A Primer for War'? I did a quick search for it on drivethrurpg but found nothing.

If it encapsulates the above 3 key points you wrote about then it's 100% aligned with my vision of D&D and Judging style.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Note: the affiliate ID above is from the author.

It's a very long read, but I'm glad I finished it. I felt the same way when I first read those three key points.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Following this with interest. While most discussions regarding DCC usually revolve around the funnels and/or the gonzo weirdness of the adventures, there's no reason (in my mind, at least) why DCC can't be used for a more traditional form of dungeon crawling and adventure. Granted, the DCC rulebook glosses over some of the nuts-and-bolts rules for that sort of adventure style, but it's fairly easy to port the specifics from your OSR game of choice (and if you don't feel like doing that yourself, there's a PDF download that has already done most of the work for you).

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Following this with interest. While most discussions regarding DCC usually revolve around the funnels and/or the gonzo weirdness of the adventures, there's no reason (in my mind, at least) why DCC can't be used for a more traditional form of dungeon crawling and adventure. Granted, the DCC rulebook glosses over some of the nuts-and-bolts rules for that sort of adventure style, but it's fairly easy to port the specifics from your OSR game of choice (and if you don't feel like doing that yourself, there's a PDF download that has already done most of the work for you).

I would agree, with the caveat that significant house rule additions are likely necessary. But then again, I always use some number of house rules in my games regardless of system. For example, I house-ruled that spellburn will be capped at +6. The 40+ rolls of Transmute Earth and other spells would likely end the game, so I think that has to be made very difficult.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Oct 20, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Session 2 Judge’s Notes

We finally had a session start at the planned time (well, almost, we stalled for about half an hour as Bill and Jake wanted to grab food and drinks or something, sheesh). We also waited for Sam, who no-call-no-showed, unfortunately. I’m going to get his number from Bill and text him next time, I don’t think he really knows how to use Discord. About an hour and a half after starting, Mark showed up.
Attendance so far as been [on time, (late), /absent/]:

• Session 0: Brad, Bill, (Mark), /Jake/, /Sam/, /Earl/
• Session 1: Brad, Bill, Jake, (Sam), /Mark/, /Earl/
• Session 2: Brad, Bill, Jake, (Mark), /Sam/, /Earl/

The average, then, is 2-3 on-time, 1 late, and 2-3 absent out of 6 players. Not great, if you ask me. I will stay the course for now, but if our player count continues to hover around 3 or 4, I might just start inviting new people, even though this runs the risk of sessions with more than six players (which can be difficult).

The party looted just enough out of the Tower of Scrutiny without stumbling upon the grave dangers there. I feel like this was extremely lucky! However, they did make the right choice based on the information they received (lots of dead bodies, a stench of death). They then went to unbury a cellar and found the arm of the marble statue. I made a mistake here, and forgot to tell them that there was a staircase here to SL-4. Whoops! I will fix this next session by telling them that they see a secret door that someone left open in the cellar they already investigated.

Despite the fact that I gave them two rumors that I hoped would point them to either the Pyramid of Thoth or Level 1 (both relatively beginner-friendly areas), they seemed to ignore those rumors and have no discussion of them and marched over to AV-29, the Palace Ruins. There, they quickly scaled the wall and went to the indoor garden level. They encountered the deadly 15HD assassin vine there. However, I made another mistake! When I read the text, I somehow thought that the vine had only 3 vine attacks per turn, when it’s actually 24! I realized this in the second round of combat, and so decided to just add three extra vines per turn. Two or more members of the party likely would have died if I read the vine entry correctly. We ended the session with Basil, Marcellus, Spine, and Sarnai all ensnared, but a raging fire started by Pif may, if the party is lucky, burn away 2-3 of the vines, leaving 2-3 that would need to be cut away for everyone to escape. They’re in trouble, but at least some of them will have a chance to escape!

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 3

Oct 26, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful

Hirelings:

1. Basil, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Neutral
2. Sarnai, Level 1 Khummus Thief, Chaotic

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad

Somehow, the party survived the encounter with the assassin vine, and some clutch healing from the party’s two clerics managed to keep everyone alive. Basil suffered a concussion after he was accidentally bonked on the head by Spine’s warhammer. Though the assassin vine went down after two rounds of burning and being shot at, the rest of the room began to catch fire. The party had to flee.

They retreated to the surface and waited out the fire while searching the ruins for anything of value. Nothing was found. However, a conversation was heard on the other side of the wall between several voices, and, shortly thereafter, a dog-like humanoid poked his head up above the wall, using the party’s own rope to scale it. It looked at the party briefly, then turned its head back to the others on his side of the wall, and said, in a strange dialect of Archontean “heh, just adventurers” and climbed back down the wall.

After the fire burned out, the group descended again, only to be confronted by a massive plant behemoth that apparently hid from the fire in the fountain with the unknown water source. Behind the behemoth, roughly in the location of the now dead and burned assassin vine, Spine’s Dwarf nose smelled large amounts of treasure. Still, the behemoth was terrifying. Waldorf rolled a natural 20 on initiative, likely saving his own life, and the group immediately ran away.

The adventuring company, which decided to name itself The Six Finger Discount, returned to the surface and scaled the wall. Weighed down by their armor, the group again struggled to surmount the wall, with Battista taking 2 damage and the Halfling deciding to burn some luck to save Marcellus. They traveled to the southern end of the island and dug through some rubble for an hour to reveal a stone staircase leading into the earth, terminating at two closed bronze doors.

As it was getting close to sundown (6:30pm during this season in Magae) the group decided to leave. They descended The Long Stair and made camp about 2 miles from Arden Vul.

After a day and a half of travel, the group returned to Glosterwick on the 25th at noon, and each gained 102gp (and 102xp, of course) from their share of the loot. The magic sword was identified as a +1 Lawful short sword of retribution against murderers and bane of goblinoids, and was taken by Waldorf. A +1 shield and +1 leather armor was also identified. Marcellus hung around in taverns and learned a few new rumors. These activities took a few days.

On the 27th of Besemios, the Festival of Demmathon occurred. It is a festival to celebrate the harvest, the beginning of Fall, as well as Demma, the Goddess of fertility, crops, households, childbirth, and magic.

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 27th day of Besemios, the 9th month, 7:00am.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 3 Notes

Oct 27, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Session 3 Judge’s Notes

The session began with Bill and Brad present initially, as usual. Jake was able to join a little late. Sam has said that he basically will have no time to play because of work, so the group is open to a new player. Jake mentioned that he knew someone who might be interested, so we’ll see if that pans out. Until then, Earl said recently that he’d be able to attend the sessions moving forward, so we’ll still have 5 players.

I was honestly shocked when the party survived the Assassin Vine. The flames burned the vines for good damage, while the party was mostly spared. Still, Basil went down a few times and suffered a lingering injury (a concussion, which is -4 REF).

After they retreated above ground, I rolled a beastman patrol encounter. I had the beastmen just send a scout to look over the wall (drawn there by the smoke from the fire), and, when they saw they were just a group of adventurers, they decided to leave. I thought this made the most sense, as I figured the patrol was mostly just in the area to either scout or forage for food.

Heading back down, the group encountered the shambling mound, which I decided would hide in the fountain during the fire. Later, I realized it wouldn’t necessarily need to do that, as it is immune to fire damage, but maybe it would make sense, as just chilling in a raging inferno is probably at least a little uncomfortable.

Seeing the shambling mound, the group wisely ran away. At this point, I realized that I made another (sigh) mistake. There’s actually a door in that chamber that leads to an obelisk that looks out towards the river. I actually forgot to narrate or indicate that to the party. To fix this, I decided to just move the obelisk a little north, out in the open where the party should be able to easily find it. I figured this would be fair, as they likely would’ve at least had a chance to find the obelisk themselves. I remember Brad said something like “so even using fire to burn out the jungle room wasn’t enough to get the treasure the dwarf smelled down here, eh?” I suppose my response to that, left unsaid, is simply that burning things with oil isn’t exactly a novel strategy, though it was effective in this case.

So, it seems I’ve made a few impactful mistakes so far. Still, mistakes are to be expected, especially with a module like this. The main issue I have with the module is that room descriptions are often several paragraphs long, with the important information buried at seemingly random points. For example, the few key sentences I’d like to narrate to the party are sometimes preceded by three or four paragraphs explaining what the original use of the room was. I’ll have to get a little better about underlining key parts of the text, though this does take a significant amount of prep time.

Speaking of prep, I recently completed the Goblin Warrens (Sub-level 4), which is nice. If I can complete the Tombs of Light (Sub-level 1) and the rest of Level 3, I’ll be in a pretty good spot as far as prep is concerned for a while. There’s enough content there to keep them occupied for multiple months, I’m sure. Of course, there is always a chance the party finds an unexpected way to journey to deeper levels (for example, the Goblin Warrens connect to levels 5, 6, and 7, none of which I have prepped at all), so I’ll have to keep trying to prep ahead of them.

I do have my worries concerning the prep time needed for running this. On the one hand, I absolutely love the “Jaquaified” (that is, non-linear) nature of Arden Vul for the great number of choices it gives the players. On the other hand, the more non-linear it is, the harder it is to predict the movements of the party, and thus the more prep time is needed. I’m hoping I’ll hit a point soon where I have basically all of the possible/likely routes forward prepped, and thus have no pressing need to prep for a long time. Because my enthusiasm for campaigns naturally wanes over time, I like the front-end-loaded nature of prep for the module. One strategy I might have to employ is to do theatre of the mind for un-prepped areas that the party might unexpectedly wander into, and then build them out in the week following the session.

As far as likely party routes goes, speaking from experience, I believe this group is very much in the camp of “clear one level at a time, top to bottom.” So far, they have stuck to this by focusing on the ruins level (level 0). One of the things I like about this module is how it subverts this common strategy through non-linearity and the fact that the ruins level contains relatively little treasure, and a great deal of danger. With perfect information, I think I can say that the best strategy for the party is to explore either the cellar that leads to level 1, or enter the Pyramid of Thoth to level 3, just as the rumors they received told them. For some reason, the party has completely ignored these rumors, and I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t trust them (they’ve been burned in past campaigns, to be fair), or if they just weren’t paying attention.

The group got back to town and totaled their earnings: about 500gp, a potion, a lock-picking set +1, and three +1 items: a shield, leather armor, and a short sword. Not bad, if you ask me! This is especially so considering that they had zero casualties, which I did not expect. I think if I ran the Assassin Vine fight as written it would’ve gone differently, but that was due to my mistake, and the creature is absolutely insane anyways, if you ask me.

I can’t help but compare this group to the one currently releasing Arden Vul episodes on the 3d6 Down the Line youtube channel. That group has had about three sessions and two PC deaths so far in their first journey to the ruins. Still, I think the 3d6 DTL group is a lot more courageous/reckless than my group, so the discrepancy is probably deserved.

At the end of the session, the party rested for six days in Gosterwick and was ready to head out at the beginning of next session. I decided to retcon the last four days, as I re-wrote the rules on downtime activities and hirelings. We’ll pick up after the party has rested for two days in town at the start of the next session. We’re also going to roll up Earl’s character, so I’m excited!

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 4

Nov 2, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic

Hirelings:

1. Anaximander, Level 0 Archontean Squire

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer/Quartermaster: Earl

While they waited for the others to rest and recover, Spine worked on his blacksmith skills for three days, and then prayed for guidance from the God of the Dwarves, Zodarrim. Waldorf prayed to a deity for 4 days, and received a single +1 bonus to a roll of his choice in the next week due to the god’s favor. He then sold the +1 Lockpicks for 50gp. Pif found two possible hirelings before praying for two days. The party hired Anaximander, a strong and swift Archontean squire (level 0), and paid 6.5gp to cover three days’ wages in advance and equip him with 5 torches, 5 rations, a waterskin, and a backpack.

Right before leaving, a new member of the guild joined the party: Everet the Archontean Warrior. Earl happened to roll a natural 12 on his level 1 hp roll, resulting in a total of 17 max hp! The party seemed very happy to have the new tank join them.

They set out on the 1st of Basilembrios at 7:30am, dawn. Soon after leaving town, the party was ambushed by several giant rats. Anaximander got his throat ripped out twice by therats and was healed both times. Still, he took an internal injury, and promptly fled the battle. He was an adventurer for only four hours.

The party marched for another four hours before settling down to camp for the night. Pif was on watch when a swarm of stirges attacked. He went down and was healed, but sustained a lingering injury: a crippled arm. He can now only hold one item at a time and cannot use two-handed weapons.

After scaring off a massive swarm of insects with a Word of Command spell, the group reached the cliffs at 12:30pm the next day. Before ascending the Long Stair, they decided to head one hour west to investigate a thicket rumored to be the site of a priestess of Mitra’s abduction. They scouted around the thicket for about 10 minutes and noticed a two-story ruined watchtower in the center of it.

The group completed their circuit around the thicket and overheard a group of kobolds walking towards them from within its tall, tangled vines. They decided to attempt to sneak up on them, but Battista stepped on a twig or two and alerted the kobolds. There were 10 of them total, but they were not immediately hostile.

One of the kobolds spoke Archontean (the common tongue of the region), and he promptly stepped forward and identified himself as “Grimblegrom.” Battista remarked that this was a very strong name, and the kobold agreed, noting that it meant “dung-shoveller” in Kobold. Battista told Grimblegrom that they were looking for a priestess to try to find her and collect a large reward for her safe return. Grimblegrom said he would share information about her, but only if promised a cut of the reward. Battista agreed, and the two became blood brothers through a ritualized exchange of food and water to cement their pact. Grimblegrom revealed that they had knocked the priestess unconscious and sold her to a group he called the “Choirans,” a race of pig-like humanoids. The kobold claimed that this group called themselves “the Children of Dieno,” and that Dieno was rumored to be some kind of witch. He also mentioned that his kobold tribe was the only one in the thicket, and that they lived in the ruined tower.

After this exchange of information, the party departed to ascend the cliffs of Arden Vul. Before they made it to the base of the Long Stair, however, they encountered a patrol of dog-like humanoids. The six troopers appeared to be led by a sergeant and wore studded leather armor. Upon seeing the Fingers, the patrol drew and knocked arrows on their shortbows with military precision, formed up in a line before the party, but did not attack. The party just held up their hands and retreated backwards. This prompted the dog-like humanoids to turn and march up the Long Stair, but not without checking behind their backs every now and then.

The Fingers decided to stay put and watch the patrol ascend the cliff to see where they went. However, they were interrupted when a mountain lion ambushed them unexpectedly. They were able to dispatch the creature, but not before Everet was wounded. The clerics kept healing, with mixed results, but were eventually able to heal Everet up to full.

The group then spent almost an hour butchering, cooking, and eating the mountain lion before returning to the base of the cliff. Upon reaching it, the dog-like humanoid patrol could no longer be seen. They ascended the Long Stair, not stopping until they reached the top at 3:20pm.

End time: 2993 AEP, Basilsday (1st day of the week), the 2nd day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 3:20pm.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 4 Notes

Nov 3, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

At the start of the session, the group still had four days of downtime in Gosterwick. I created some new downtime activities for the group, including speaking to scholars about the Halls, doing research, listening for rumors, and finding and hiring hirelings. Much to my disappointment, instead of doing any of the above activities, the group basically spent every action on praying to a diety to try to get a 1-in-6 chance of getting a +1 to a roll of the player’s choice over the next week. Waldorf got one. I didn’t like this because I view it to be a suboptimal choice, and also boring. I was playing Pif’s character, and had him scout for a few hirelings, just to show them how it would work, and that was the only reason why they were able to hire the ill-fated Anaximander. Oh well, they are free to choose their path.

Everet joined and rolled absolute rocks to get to 17 max HP. Incredible. I think this will really help the party, as they can just have him soak damage in the front and heal him if he goes down. Monsters in OSRIC (which is the game Arden Vul was written for) do not do that much damage, and when I convert monsters to DCC NPC-sheets, I typically don’t modify the damage. Currently, I only roll unmodified HD for monster hp when I convert (making total monster HP significantly lower to encourage faster combat). I may need to revisit this, but I also don’t want to be too heavy-handed of a DM. Also, it is still pretty early in the campaign, and I do think some deaths will happen soon.

Attendance was the best the campaign has had so far, with Bill, Brad, and Earl all there initially, and Mark joining about half an hour late. Jake was out sick.

The party was very unlucky with random encounter rolls today. Out of eight random encounter rolls (requiring a 1 out of 6 to trigger one) during the journey to the ruins, I rolled three, which has about a 10% chance of occurring. Pif got his arm permanently crippled by a swarm of stirges. Hopefully Jake won’t be mad about that (I doubt it).

After the party reached the falls, they again had poor luck with random encounters, with three random encounters that occurred in the 2 hours and 50 minutes (so, 8 rolls total) they spent in the area after they arrived.

In the encounter with Grimblegrom of the kobolds, I decided to just “yes, and” Battista’s negotiations. He told them he would come back with gold in exchange for information, which led to the kobolds (very reasonable) worry that they wouldn’t return. At that point, Mark just improvised a “blood brother” ceremony, and I didn’t require a roll for it to succeed, because I thought the kobolds would think it was cool. After the session, Mark wrote to the group in discord with a suggestion that they ally the kobolds and use their tower in the thicket as a base of operations, possibly even shipping in supplies from town. I think I’m going to stick to my houserule that the group can only heal through rest in a town, so this wouldn’t include the kobold settlement unless they are able to make the kobold tower roughly as comfortable as the cheapest Gosterwick inn. Regardless, I believe forming an alliance and setting up a resupply point is a good idea. The kobold numbers weren’t included in the book, so I decided that their base would support 20 combatants, 2 captains, 1 chief, and 20 non-combatant young and old (this roughly lines up with their entry in the OSRIC core rulebook). The lack of strong numbers makes the kobolds one of the weakest groups in the area, but the PC’s have exactly zero allies now, and so more at this point certainly wouldn’t hurt. Also, though it wasn't elucidated in the Arden Vul books, I decided to have the kobolds be actively worshipping the local dragon, Craastonistorex. If the group wants to use the kobold tower as a base, they will likely need to pay the "tax" of roughly 10% of their looted treasure per expedition.

Because the group decided to take an hour-long detour to butcher the mountain lion (this only saved them 1 ration each, currently 2sp due to inflation, so I’m not sure it was worth it), they missed the Canaii patrol’s (my name for the Dog-men) retreat into their secret entrance. The group seems to be laser-focused on the priestess of Mitra rumor/rescue quest, so I believe they would’ve followed the Canaii in if they had the chance to. This may have been a bit dicey for me, as I don’t have that section of Level 3 mapped out yet in Foundry VTT. I rolled ahead of time to see if they would find that secret door on their next few passes, and they failed, so that should buy me at least a few more weeks to get it finished.

As seems to be tradition so far, after the session I realized that there were several rules I was either forgetting or mis-applying. Those are:

1. Lay on Hands only heals a maximum of HD equal to the injured person’s level
2. I may have forgotten to apply the houseruled weapon-type properties bonus effects
3. At level 0, dropping to 0 hp means that person is dead. This means Anaximander would have died in the first combat (this doesn’t seem like a big deal, so I won’t retcon it unless the players protest to get their ~6gp back)
4. I need to remember that each combat takes one turn
5. I also need to remember to tell Pif that someone else needs to push the hand-cart on account of his injury
6. In DCC, Clerics reset their disapproval back to 1 each morning. This seems really good to me, and I might need to houserule it to only occur in town, or just go down by 1 per day. We’ll see.

All in all, it was a really fun session for me, and I think the others as well. The group, at one point, considered returning to town and calling this expedition a bust due to the relentless random encounters. However, they were able to get a lot of heals out due to my mistake concerning Lay on Hands, so they decided to march on (I believe correctly).

 

[S'mon]

>>I don’t have that section of Level 3 mapped out yet in Foundry VTT<<

Can't you just upload the provided maps to Foundry and size them to fit? https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/307323/The-Maps-of-Arden-Vul
That's what I did in Roll20 for my game.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

>>I don’t have that section of Level 3 mapped out yet in Foundry VTT<<

Can't you just upload the provided maps to Foundry and size them to fit? https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/307323/The-Maps-of-Arden-Vul
That's what I did in Roll20 for my game.

Well, I have a bunch of maps that I and some others have created in Dungeondraft that I have so far been able to stick to based on where the party went. I was thinking about doing theatre of the mind for areas that haven't been Dungeondrafted yet, but to your point, I think uploading the VTT maps would be a better option. I did that for Stonehell and it worked pretty well.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 5

Nov 16, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle (NPC)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad

Starting at the gates to the ruins, the group traveled 450’ to the stairs that lead down to a pair of bronze doors they had discovered last expedition. The party noticed that the dust on the stairs had been disturbed by scores of footprints. Marcellus left their cart at the top of the steps while Everet lit a torch and lead the party in their descent. They tried the unadorned doors, but they wouldn’t budge - not even slightly. Spine, using his skills as a smith, was able to determine that the doors were locked by some form of powerful magic.

The group then began to head west, but ran into two patrols of goat-like humanoids who formed up into military formations upon spotting the party. Battista called out to the goatfolk, saying they meant no harm, and told them they were looking for some pigmen who captured a priestess of Mitra recently. The goatfolk sergeants conferred with one another, and then offered to take the Fingers to the leader of the pigfolk, who they said was named “Dieno.” The group agreed, and they found themselves between the two patrols, headed south towards the gates of the ruined city and the Long Stair.

On the way to the gates, Battista talked incessantly to the goatfolk and mentioned that he had entreated with the kobolds earlier. This caused the goatfolk to stop suddenly. One of the sergeants asked Battista if the party was allied with the kobolds. Battista tried to downplay it, but the goatfolk began to look concerned, and began to nervously scan the horizon to the west.

The conversation was cut short when three giant frogs jumped before the two groups, attacking the goatfolk troopers. The party was quick to react and fired missiles from afar, killing one of the frogs. After the rest of the frogs went down in a hail of arrows, the sergeants thanked the party for assisting them.

After conferring with one another again, one of the sergeants told the group that they would not take them to Dieno and would let them go if they agreed to tell “Crastinorax” that they did so. They also asked that the group not follow them down the Long Stair, as they wished to keep their means of egress a secret for now. The party agreed, and began asking questions of the goatfolk, who called themselves the Caprae Children of Dieno. Battista asked them what other groups are included in the Children, and the sergeant identified four other groups: The dogfolk “Canaii,” the pigfolk “Choirans,” the ratfolk “Auraians,” and the sheepfolk “Ovis.” Battista and the others were very glad that the Fingers and the Children had managed to form a truce.

Pif asked the Caprae sergeant if they knew of any easy entrances into the Halls, and were informed of a tunnel within the Pyramid of Thoth and a partially-buried, vermin-infested cellar to the west of it. The sergeant then asked Battista what the position of “Crastinorax” was towards the Children’s patrols in the area. The group merely answered “we’ll have to ask him,” and left it at that. After this exchange of information was complete, the Caprae patrols left. Grateful to have escaped a very tense situation, the Fingers decided not to follow.

It was getting late at this point and the sun was setting. The party decided to rest overnight in a ruined tower by the gate. Through prayers to Demma, the Goddess of the Hearth, Pif was able to grant the party a boon of cold resistance, allowing the party to go without a fire for the night. They then attempted to hide themselves in the tower and rest until morning.

After about an hour had passed, a group of 8 humans wearing animal furs and carrying stone weapons passed by on a journey up the Long Stair and towards the north through the ruins. This group of hillfolk did not spot the party, as the group managed to stay silent enough to remain unnoticed.

20 minutes later, two Children of Dieno patrols (Auraians and Ovis) walked past from the long stair heading north. They noticed the party huddled in the tower, but simply nodded and kept walking. Waldorf nodded back.

Half an hour later, the party heard a loud beating of wings overhead, and a huge, screeching wyvern landed 60 feet away from the Fingers. The wyvern approached the party and scratched the ground before it. The group threw about a dozen silver coins at it. It was almost all they had. “Next time leave Craastonistorex tax here,” the wyvern growled in broken Archontean shortly before it flew off towards the west.

Not long after that scary encounter, the party was beset by 3 vicious ghouls. The group was absolutely on fire with their rolls, slaying the undead in just a few moments. Everet was the only one to take damage, a mere 1 hp, managing to resist the paralyzing effects of the ghoul’s claws.

Later that night, seeking to find a safer place to rest, the Fingers decided to walk partially down the Long Stair. There, they decided to shelter in the room carved in the side of the cliff face that contained a small stack of firewood. From this vantage point, they were able to spot two well-dressed humans accompanied by what looked like four guards and four porters at the foot of the cliff. The party continued to watch as the porters deployed a small boat which carried the group across the river at the base of the cliffs. Soon after, this group disappeared out of sight, blocked by the colossal statue of Arden.

Three hours later, the party heard hooting and hollering from what must have been at least four giant ape-like creatures descending from about 40 feet up the Long Stair. Waldorf did his best Wyvern impression, which seemed to scare the cowardly apes off.

At dawn, the Fingers finally finished their rest, having survived seven encounters with various groups in total during their roughly 12-hour rest. Based on the advice they had received from the Caprae, the party decided to head for the cellar to the west of the Pyramid of Thoth. After reaching it, Waldorf lit a torch and descended a 60’ staircase down into the darkness. Deciding that they didn’t want to make too much noise, the party left the cart at the top of the stairs after taking everything from it, but not before partially hiding it behind some rubble.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they came across two bodies lying face-down on the ground of a large chamber filled almost 2 feet high in all directions with trash and debris. Spine quickly grabbed a red-colored potion, while the rest of the group stripped two pieces of armor from the corpses: chainmail and banded mail. These were donned by Marcellus and Everet, respectively.

Moments after Marcellus and Everet finished strapping on their new armor, the group heard the chittering of insects coming from somewhere inside the chamber, sounding closer and closer to them by the second…

End time: 2993 AEP, Lunday (2nd day of the week), the 3rd day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 7:40am.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 5 Notes

Nov 17, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Attendance fluctuated a bit this session, with Bill, Brad, and Jake playing the entire session, Everet needing to leave 45 minutes into it (he got signed up for bar trivia by his wife), and Mark joining 30 minutes late but needing to leave roughly an hour later (crying kid). Perhaps especially because we didn't play on 11/9, I was looking forward to this session all week. I had an absolute blast, and I think the players did too. However, I think I'd really like to get the group up to a consistent five or more players who are able to usually play for the whole session. I think I've asked all my friends who play D&D already, so maybe I'll recruit online? I'm not sure.

When there is not a large number of players, I believe that group decision-making begins to suffer due to mental fatigue. I can't blame them: the decision-space is extremely broad in Arden Vul. I love that, though it does present some challenges. After the session, I asked everyone if they were enjoying it, and they all answered in an enthusiastic affirmative because they like the novelty (most have only played 5e before). Our intrepid Caller Brad mentioned that because there are so many choices, he's not always sure what to do. I think that's good thing, but time will tell as the players begin to unravel more and more of its approximately 2,000 (!!!) keyed locations - analysis paralysis is a possibility.

The party's encounter with the Caprae (goatfolk) was a potential disaster, in my view. I was trying hard to not give anything away when Battista, unaware of the fact that the Caprae and Choirans are a part of the same faction, confidently announced to the Caprae that they were looking for the priestess captured by a bunch of "pig men." I felt very strongly that there would be a TPK if they actually ended up accompanying the goatfolk to Dieno's chambers. Once there, Dieno would attempt to charm members of the group, probably Everet, Pif, and Marcellus. If she failed, or the party attempted to resist, she would simply have an unstoppable number of soldiers put them down. I'm not sure how the party would've escaped that situation.

However, the party got lucky, in my opinion, when they off-handedly mentioned their "alliance" with the kobolds. Also, the party did help the two patrols fend off some giant frogs, so I figured the martial Caprae would at least view the group with a little more favor. The truce that the two sides agreed to is enormously beneficial to the party, in my view. Even when a random encounter only indicates one patrol, the Beastmen would likely best the party of mostly flimsy level 1's in combat, though it would be very bloody on both sides. I've decided that the Beastmen are mostly patrolling the area for scouting reasons, but perhaps also to hunt or forage for food - a beast cannot live on dried mushrooms alone. However, Dieno has stopped paying tribute, so the party will need to choose a side (I think I will want to illustrate this by having the party witness Craaastonorex immolating a patrol or two).

The player's decision to rest overnight in the ruins seemed extremely questionable to me, but later one of the players said it was because the Caprae said not to follow them and they didn't know what else to do. Still, at least they had the good sense to retreat a bit into the room off the long stair.

Finally, FINALLY, the party has actually entered the dungeon proper. It only took them five three-hour sessions. I do think this is due to the large number of random encounters they've rolled, but also that the first few areas they explored (the Tower of Scrutiny and the ruined palace) were extremely dangerous, so they had to back out. I think my decision to place Gosterwick about a day and half's journey from Arden Vul is playing into this. When considering the distance and the probability of a random encounter, the players should average only about 1 random encounter per journey to or from the ruins. They've been rolling a lot more than that, but I think that's because they've spent a lot of time in the well-trafficked ruins.

I rolled a total of 6 giant centipedes on a 1d4+2 for the upcoming encounter. I think some people are going to get stung

 

[S'mon]

I'm running AV in 5e D&D, here's my own page - http://smons.blogspot.com/2022/08/arden-vul-and-gosterwick.html?zx=ce7855d9b467fa51
I made the Beastmen more CE 'Broo' types, as I like the goat head imagery and there seem a lot of potentially negotiable factions. I have two separate groups playing, one group spent a lot of time in the above ground ruins, which even at my starting 3rd level in 5e was extremely dangerous. I think they're starting to realise that the Halls of Thoth are actually safer! The players who love investigating & puzzling stuff out love AV for its deep & rich lore. It wouldn't be very well suited to a hack & slash group I think.

 

[Moonglum]

I'm a big Arden Vul fan! There are a number of superb OSR commercial megadungeons (honestly, far more than existed in the 70's and 80's), but AV is special because of its scale, complexly interconnected structure and richly detailed development of the 'factions' concept (a centerpiece of most megadungeons, but rarely as fully developed as here). I'm following this thread with interest!

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 6

Nov 27, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle (NPC)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Quartermaster: Jake
Treasurer: Earl

Six giant centipedes descended upon the group but the Fingers seized the initiative and were able to slay them all without anyone getting poisoned. They scouted the rest of the large room and decided to open a door to the west. When they opened the door, eight large spiders ambushed the group. After the first few spiders fell, Everet, for reasons unclear to the rest of the group, bizarrely shut the door behind him, leaving himself alone in the room with the six poisonous spiders. The spiders launched themselves at him, and all were deflected by his shield and freshly-looted banded mail. The group rushed in to aid their companion, and promptly slew all but one of the spiders. With just one spider left, the group had little to fear - or, so they thought. The last spider succeeded on his morale check to stay in the fight and promptly critically hit Everet, who failed his poison saving throw to take a total of 16 damage, bringing him to exactly zero HP. The next round, the Fingers were able to slay the spider and heal Everet, but not before we named the vicious arachnid “the first mini-boss of Arden Vul.”

As a consequence of being brought to zero HP, Everet lost one point of Stamina permanently (this is a DCC core rule that I forgot to apply earlier, but will now and in the future). He also failed a FORT saving throw to take a lingering injury: mental trauma (a permanent -4 to WILL saves). I, too, would be traumatized by such an event. Five successful consecutive Lay on Hands checks later (wow), Everet was healed back up to 13 HP.

Pushing through the spider webs, the party entered a dust-covered room that contained a pristine silver chalice perched atop a blacksmith’s anvil. Kicking around in the dust, Battista struck gold (technically metaphorically) and found a diamond worth 1,000gp lying on the floor. The group nabbed the chalice, which seemed to have a supernatural ability to clean itself, and marched north up a hallway.

In a room located off the hallway, the group found the corpse of a deceased halfling. On the body, the group found a note with some scribbled Archontean on it: “Use the little pyramid to access the Howling Caves. Beware of the Darkness!” The only pyramid the group had discovered so far was the Pyramid of Thoth in the ruins, which could not reasonably be described as “little.”

Everet opened the next door to find a massive stirge nest and 18 very angry stirges. They quickly threw an improvised lamp-oil molotov in the room and shut the door, causing the stirges to flee up a chimney that seemed to connect to the surface. Thinking fast, Marcellus cast Resist Heat upon himself and braved the flames to grab a cone of incense and a tattered piece of paper from the room before either item could be incinerated. The paper contained notes from an adventuring party that apparently met their end at the hands of what they called “the white ones” who “feared the light” in the vicinity of the entrance to “the Drowned Canyon.” The group also found a glowing bronze rod with a Mithric inscription, as well as hundreds of coins in the charred ruins of the nest. They scooped as much as they could into their pockets and backpacks, only leaving behind a small pile of 50 copper pieces.

The next room the party explored contained a privy constructed over a 5’ wide vertical shaft that descended far into the darkness below. The party noticed that someone had hammered iron rungs at regular intervals in the walls of the shaft. Shortly thereafter, the Fingers found a descending spiral staircase in another room to the east. The group formed a consensus of “perhaps we’ll come back to these when we’re stronger,” and continued to explore the rooms on their current level.

After searching a few more rooms, the group looted some lamp oil and a magical boot from a corpse of someone who perished in a cave-in. The group reasoned that they’d need to find the other boot to activate its magical effects. After slaying a carrion crawler without much difficulty, the Fingers found a piece of paper upon which was drawn a map of what looked like another area of the dungeon.

After this, the group entered a room that contained a corpse and a pool holding a dark, viscous liquid. They lifted a bag of gold dust (75gp) and a scroll from the corpse before continuing on. In the next room, they encountered three animated stone monkeys who immediately started screaming and flying about when the group opened the door. The group promptly turned around and fled south. Everet was hit with a magical silence effect and could not talk for half an hour, but everyone was otherwise unharmed.

Heading south and then west, the party came across a room that appeared to be a recently-used living space for someone, as it contained a cot, a barrel of water, and a bronze tripod heating a fire that was somehow smokeless. Here, the group found a gem stuffed in the cot, as well as nine unidentified spell scrolls: six of cleric spells, three of wizard spells.

Approaching the last room the group explored this session, Pif opened the door to see a non-hostile zombie staring blankly back at him. It had a dog collar with a silver pendant worth about 10gp around its neck. Enraged at the zombie’s apparent threat to the natural, Lawful order of the universe, Pif lifted his holy symbol to drive the passive undead into a corner before it was swiftly decapitated by Everet.

End time: 2993 AEP, Lunday (2nd day of the week), the 3rd day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 11:00am.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 6 Notes

Nov 28, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Welp, no one got stung ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The group rolled to go second on initiative, but, because the centipedes were only able to move halfway towards them, the party was the first to get off a round of attacks. I still like side-based initiative overall because it’s fast and engaging, but it does create situations where one side has a big upper-hand. They’ve also looted some pretty good heavy armor, with Everet wearing banded mail and Pif and Marcellus with chain mail. Everet has 18 AC and Spine, with a +2 Agility modifier, has 17, which I think is very good for level 1. However, one thing I really like about DCC is that there is a downside to heavy armor: reduced movement speed and more severe fumbles. Two party members broke their weapon on a fumble tonight, though they were able to quickly loot more.

Speaking of things I love about DCC, how about that spider from room 1-2, the first mini-boss of Arden Vul? I was actually a little annoyed when the spider succeeded on its morale check, thinking it would just cause the combat to drag on pointlessly. I love how wrong I was - the unpredictability of combat in DCC is really exciting for me.

Still, Everet was healed up very quickly by Marcellus. Lay on Hands is very good, in my view. I introduced a few changes and clarifications to curb its effectiveness, namely that Clerics who heal others of different alignments take one automatic disapproval, and disapproval is only reduced by one per day in the morning (instead of being completely reset). I felt the need to do this because I want the party’s most important resource (HP) to have some amount of scarcity to enable the resource-management strategy aspect of the game.

In the dust-covered chalice room, I had the party find a 1,000gp gem because I miscalculated a treasure amount the party found earlier by about 1,000gp and I wanted to make up for that. They were extremely paranoid about it and were convinced it was either cursed or a trap, and only pocketed it after a thorough investigation. They’ve played in campaigns run by me in the past, so I can’t blame ‘em.

On a different note, I feel like burning oil flasks are pretty good. I typically make the thrower roll a ranged attack roll, and if it’s a miss I have the flask end up in a random location, so this could backfire on the group some day. The party also started closing doors on monsters frequently, which was effective. Because we use side-based initiative, they would all attack, and then close the door as the last action before the monster’s turn. I think I’m going to have to houserule that, if someone wants to close a door, they’ll have to do it before anyone on their side makes non-ranged attacks through it.

Their reaction to the two entrances to lower levels of the dungeon this session confirmed my initial guess about them being a very “clear one level at a time, from top to bottom” style of party. This should help me with knowing what to prep ahead of time. They’re going to need to choose a path down early next session if they wish to continue. They just have a few rooms left on Level 1 - The Basement, their current level.
They looted about 2,300gp of treasure in total this session, which should be enough to get them halfway to level 2. Being six sessions in, that does feel like a very slow progression, at least compared to what we’re all used to. Still, I think I’m OK with it.

They seemed to be very much in a “kick in the door” mood this session, as they missed out on the healing properties of the deceptively gross-looking liquid in the pool and the zombie porter. The porter in particular would’ve been very useful to the group, especially considering that they’ve almost completely maxed out their carrying capacity. I hope the group will hire some porters when they get to town, but I’ll let them make that decision, of course.

Speaking of encumbrance, there was some amount of consternation and mild frustration today when Treasurer Earl was attempting to record who was taking what coinage and treasure. I still really like tracking encumbrance because of the expedition-like feel it creates and the non-linear decision making it fosters. However, I expect there will continue to be growing pains around this sort of bookkeeping, as the group isn’t used to this at all (we’ve never tracked encumbrance, not even a little, before this campaign). As time goes on, I’m sure they’ll develop speedier and less annoying ways to handle treasure acquisition (like hirelings or pack animals).

Before the campaign started, I definitely expected there to be multiple deaths after six sessions had completed. There have been two lingering injuries on PC’s, true, but no deaths. Though, all it would take is one or two failed Lay on Hands rolls (currently at roughly 50/50 odds for Pif and Marcellus) and those PC’s would’ve died. In DCC, characters at zero HP die if they are not healed before their next turn.

I have no current desire to change the difficulty of anything to try to increase the lethality of the campaign. It just feels too early to do that. Still, I will need to watch how things develop over the next four or five sessions to ensure Point 4 from the Muster game structure can be achieved.

I have a confession to make. I made another mistake. In the Arden Vul books, treasure is listed as its own category at the end of the room key sections. This is normally fine, but it can get confusing if an NPC who only sometimes is encountered in a room has a bunch of stuff on their person. In this case, I accidentally gave the party some treasure (a 500gp gem and 9 scrolls) after they searched the room. Later, after thinking about it, I realized that it makes more sense that the mad hermit and denizen of the room, Lankios, carried that stuff with him when he left the room. Whoops. I don’t see this as a big deal, because scrolls aren’t that great in DCC (the spell can still fail), and the extra gold isn’t that much after you split it between six PC’s.

In other (good) news, this was the first session where all five players attended from start to finish! Woo! I think moving it to Sunday because of Thanksgiving probably has something to do with it, but I also hope that everyone is truly continuing to have fun (as they have been saying to me so far).

In-between this and last session, I completed the prep of the final three-quarters of Level 3 - The Halls of Thoth. It is a massive level (the biggest, in fact), so I’m glad to have that done. If I can complete Level 4 - The Forum of Set and Sub Levels 3, 5, and 15, I believe I will be prepped for several (4-5?) months worth of playing, at least. The group seems hesitant to descend to lower levels before clearing everything above them, but I think they might decide to pop into the Forum of Set if they learn that it’s a protected non-combat zone. I recently finished prepping non-combat areas of Levels 5 and 6 for the same reason.

The party was able to clear 15 rooms today. If this continues, according to my rough math, clearing 70% of the rooms in Arden Vul will take us about one year and ten months if we play every week. That seems like a perfectly acceptable duration for a campaign, but if it goes longer, I won’t mind so long as we’re all having fun.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 7

Nov 30, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle (NPC)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer: Earl

The party began the session by better organizing their carried items and inventories. Marcellus put away his shield to take the lantern from the one-armed Pif, and Battista took a torch from Waldorf to allow the Halfling to utilize his dual-wielding abilities. Spine put five torches in a bag and hid them in the room with the fallen zombie to free up some space.

The group traveled west down a hallway and entered a room covered in a carpet of bones. Scattered amongst the skeletons, the Fingers found two beryls worth 25gp each, a pouch holding 88sp, and an iron spear inscribed with a word in the ancient tongue of Mithric. Even with his above-average strength, Spine could barely lift the spear, and judged it to be too unwieldy to be much use in combat.

Moving further west down the hallway, they found a room with five ancient Thothian mosaics and a stone altar. Pif attempted to channel the power of his Goddess to detect if the altar was magical, but Demma had begun to look upon his constant beseeching with mild disfavor. He spent ten minutes uttering chants and intonations to obtain his deity’s forgiveness as the rest of the group made a fruitless search of the room. Because the group believed the final door on their current floor contained the stone gargoyles they fled from earlier, they made the decision to return to the surface. As the group could carry virtually nothing else without taking movement penalties, the Fingers then began their return to Gosterwick.

On the way back, right before dusk, the party encountered a group of freshly-risen zombies in the road. They were able to defeat the undead, but not before Spine was struck down by a savage blow. Pif’s Lay on Hands to heal him was successful, and he made his DC 15 FORT save to avoid taking a lingering injury. However, because he was brought to zero HP, his Stamina score was permanently reduced by one.

Battista was also wounded in the skirmish, and Pif attempted to heal him before the group made camp. However, Demma reacted to this attempt with disfavor, and decreed that he must make a pilgrimage to a holy site six days’ travel away to be forgiven.

After resting overnight off the road, the group encountered a large group of stirges who were swiftly put down. Later, only an hour outside the city, the Fingers heard some rustling coming from the side of the road. Six kobolds emerged to converse with the group. Their leader Tringlewix immediately asked Battista where the previously-promised gold was. Batista explained that they hadn’t rescued the priestess yet, so they didn’t have the gold, but promised that the group would bring rations, slings, and sling stones to the kobolds on their next expedition to the Halls. This pleased the kobolds.

The two groups conversed some more, and the party learned that the Kobolds viewed the dragon Craastonistorex as their leader, and that he visited them in their tower about once a week. Tringlewix also revealed that he saw the Children of Dieno sell the priestess to a group he called the “slavers of the snake god.” Furthermore, he warned the group of the slavers’ duplicitous nature, and that they commonly wore red armor. Finally, Tringlewix said that, on account of Dieno's refusal to pay Craastonistorex's tax, the kobolds had gone to war with the Children, and asked for assistance against them. As a gesture of goodwill, the Fingers gave the kobolds a sling and about 10 sling stones, after which the kobolds departed.

In town, Pif resupplied and left to go on his pilgrimage. He planned to return in 12 days. Meanwhile, Spine worked on his blacksmith skills, Marcellus interviewed a potential hireling, and Waldorf unsuccessfully searched for historical information about the Halls. Battista paid the mage’s guild to identify their magic items, and they successfully identified five scrolls (spider climb, detect invisibility, neutralize poison, detect evil, and remove curse), the bronze rod (a +1 mace), and the spear. The spear was revealed to be called “Nightwind,” the very word inscribed on its haft in Mithric. After saying its name, the spear became perfectly balanced, gaining a +1 magical bonus in general combat, and a +3 magical bonus against humanoids.

The party gained 325xp each as a result of their return to town with about 2,000gp worth of treasure total. This put all but Everet about halfway to level 2. To increase their overall carrying capacity, the group resolved to bring more hirelings along to their next expedition.

End time: 2993 AEP, Tasday (5th day of the week), the 6th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 7:00am.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 7 Notes

Dec 1, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Though this may have seemed like a session where nothing much happened, I had a ton of fun. I really enjoyed seeing the party haggle over who had to carry the lantern, and what they should drop to be able to pick up more treasure. I think they’re starting to better understand the encumbrance system as well. I asked them if they found the increased bookkeeping annoying, but Earl said he actually found it really enjoyable! That’s good! I honestly think that my style these days is to run the kind of campaign I want to run, advertise it truthfully, and find people who also really like that kind of campaign. This is different from my attitude in the past, which was much more focused around appeasing current players. I’m very glad that I was able to discover this style by engaging with OSR content, because the prevailing zeitgeist is very much in the appeasement camp, from what I’ve seen.

The group totally missed the hidden treasure as a result of the failed Detect Magic roll. I was actually rooting for them, because seven sessions without leveling up is very different from our past games. I think we’re OK with it, though.

The kobold encounter was very interesting. I rolled them as a random encounter, and decided that they were sent by the kobolds to catch the party on their way back. The group definitely gained some good information from them, and I had the kobolds be amenable to that because of the party’s gift-giving and their willingness to share information in return, as well as an assumed good-word about the party from Grimblegrom.

After the session, Mark messaged me with some feedback. It was a somewhat long conversation, but the summary is that he is getting bored by random encounters where he just swings his sword against wild animals that attack on sight, and would like more random encounters like the kobold encounter, or even some custom-written ones where the party had a choice on whether to engage or not. My response was to say that dangerous random encounters are crucial for maintaining the time and resource management aspects of the game, and that I actually found them to be pretty exciting. After all, two of the three times a PC went to zero HP occurred as a result of a random encounter, and those both resulted in permanent injuries.

In the end, what really animates me about TTRPG’s is thinking of the campaign world as a massive, complex, interconnected system and building logical procedures to measure the ripple-effect consequences of player actions. "Playing to see what happens" - that’s what keeps me coming back to this hobby. Not so much the creative-fiction-writing or improv-acting side. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with those styles, but they just aren’t me. The only thing I can do now is seek out others who like that side of things as well, and play

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 7

Dec 7, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Marcellus, Level 1 Archontean Cleric of Atashak, Chaotic God of Fire and Battle (NPC)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer: Earl
Quartermaster: Jake

As the group continued their downtime activities in town, the rest of the magic items were identified with help from the Arcane Practitioner’s Club: scrolls of blessing, cure paralysis (x2), and force manipulation, a Potion of Healing II, and a cone of Incense of Attraction. The group was excited to learn that, when burned, the incense causes an unknowable charm effect for several hours on creatures who smell it.

Over the course of the next 11 days, Battista and Waldorf studied the ancient language of Mithric, Marcellus interviewed several potential hirelings, Spine trained his blacksmith skills, and Everet attempted to gather rumors concerning the Halls. Late on the 16th, Pif returned from his pilgrimage of penance, and the Fingers prepared to set out the following morning.

From the long list of those interviewed, Marcellus chose two individuals to hire. One was Hector, a quick and tough Archontean squire, hired as a retainer (will fight in exchange for a half-share of treasure). The other was Heraclion, a physically average Archontean squire, hired as a hireling (will carry stuff in exchange for 1gp/day). Vowing to never allow over-encumbrance to cut an expedition short again, two mules, affectionately named Kyle and Bernice, were purchased along with saddlebags and feed. As temperatures were hovering slightly below freezing on most days, the group wisely decided to purchase winter clothing and heavy bedrolls for everyone.

After loading most of their provisions onto the mules, including the promised gifts for the kobolds, the party began their next expedition to the Halls on the morning of the 17th. Soon after leaving town, they ran into another group of adventurers who introduced themselves rather pompously as the “Society of the Beehive.” Waldorf asked them if they were returning from the Halls. Antonis, the bee party’s front-man, answered in the affirmative, and also noted that they were able to gain easy access to the Halls through a cellar that “some other poor group of fools likely had to clear out.” This did not please the party, but they eventually decided to begrudgingly let the Society go on their way (but not before one of the players asked “if we kill them and take their gold, does that count for XP?”).

The group continued their journey, stopping to camp once overnight, and reached the cliff face at 11am on the 18th. They opted to take the 2-hour round-trip detour to visit the kobolds at their tower, who were positively delighted with the gifts the party brought them. Waldorf took care to carefully hand out roughly-equal portions of the three slings, five rations, and 90 sling stones to all ten of the kobolds present. Tringlewix, at their head, informed the party that two kobolds were killed in an ambush set by a group he called the “bad cavemen.” This group was described as wearing animal furs and carrying wooden clubs and stone weapons. Tringlewix also explained that the kobolds believed the cavemen lived in a cave at the base of the cliff face, west of the river. The Fingers said they might look into it, and would provide the kobolds with any information they acquire about these “bad cavemen.”

Returning to the Long Stair, the party began a now-familiar ascent up the cliff face. This time, however, Spine noticed something he had not seen before: a rock unnaturally jutting out from the side of the cliff about two-thirds of the way to the top. It looked almost like someone had affixed it there somehow. Waldorf grabbed it and turned, revealing a secret entrance into a dark, winding tunnel.

The Fingers entered and found dozens of rumors scratched on the rocky walls. None other than Antonis of the Society of the Beehive had apparently scratched his name there at one point, and Everet quickly scratched it out, replacing it with “the Fingers.”

After instructing Heraclion and Hector to each light a torch, the group moved forward to find a branching path. They decided to enter the tunnel on their right, and came across a few Canaii (dogfolk) corpses that possessed nothing of value. Moving on, they heard a voice in broken Archontean call out from the darkness: “who goes there?” The Fingers quickly moved forward until their torchlight illuminated three goblins crouching in a small cave to the side of the main tunnel. After a very brief discussion, the party decided that Historia, Waldorf’s magical sword, bane of goblins, needed blood. The Fingers charged in, quickly cutting down two of the surprised goblins. However, the goblin sergeant managed to get away, fleeing east down the main tunnel, screaming for his life. Only time will tell how consequential, if at all, this event will prove to be…

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 18th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 1:30pm.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 8 Notes

Dec 8, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Roughly two hours of the three-hour session were spent in town. By the end of it, the group was jokingly wondering when we all decided to stop playing DCC in favor of Medieval Townfolk Simulator 2022. I think this is partly my fault, as I made the in-town options for downtime a little too detailed. To remedy this, I reduced the downtime actions from nine to five options, and ruled that each PC will only be able to choose one activity per period of time spent in town. I also streamlined the mechanics for finding hirelings and identifying magic items. This should reduce the number of decisions down from 5-10 per character to 1 per character for each period of downtime. The whole process should really only take five minutes or so. Of course, players can still go off and do other things, as this would just cover their non-rest, all-day activities.

A fair amount of time (almost an hour) was spent by the party deciding what hirelings to hire and how to handle encumbrance, as well as buying provisions for the next expedition. I’m very glad they decided to buy two mules. In total, this only cost them around 90gp, and gave them about 80 encumbrance slots (400 lbs) above whatever they themselves can carry. I think this will help speed up loot-collection, as they’ll probably just throw everything on the donkeys instead of haggling over which PC needs to drop something every time they discover a small pile of silver coins. They only hired one hireling and a retainer, so it could be a problem if they reach somewhere the mules can’t traverse. A hireling and a retainer surely won’t be enough to guard the mules from wandering monsters should they be left behind. However, the combined party should be able to explore a significant part of the Halls with their current resources.

The Society of the Beehive was a group that I randomly generated (including the hilarious name) for situations where I might roll an NPC party on any of the random tables. I decided to make them pompous for the fun of it. I also improvised that the Society would’ve found the entrance through the now-cleared cellar, as the party did nothing to cover up the entrance after they discovered it. The entrance is also well known in town (it’s hinted at in rumors). Some in the group seemed to think I was screwing with them by suggesting that the Society only went a little further than the area the Fingers cleared out and turned back after finding a great deal of treasure. That wasn’t really what I intended to have Antonis imply. Still, I decided to just let the party read too much into that, reasoning that Antonis was clever and would not have minded giving such an impression to spur the Fingers to clear out more of the Halls for them. Also, this interaction seemed to give the group a greater sense of urgency, which is great!

In DCC, Elves have a doubled chance (a 1-in-6 becomes a 2-in-6) to automatically find any secret door they walk within 10’ of. I thought about removing this rule in favor of OSE’s (players must use a turn to search a 10’ x 10’ area containing the door) rules on this, but I think if I did so the players might never find any secret doors. I also thought it would really slow down the game, so I’ve decided to stick with the DCC rules on this for now. This allowed the party to discover the secret door connecting the southern portion of the Fungal Forest region to a location about two-thirds of the way up the Long Stair. This door is primarily used by the Children of Dieno to enter in and out of the Halls. I’m glad they found this, as it opens up more entrances into the Halls, leading to more random interactions and player choice.

The party, perhaps brashly, decided to charge the goblins unprovoked. I made sure to tell them that Waldorf’s goblin-bane sword was not forcing him to do anything. The goblin sub-chief, Bellringer, would’ve been very open to negotiation. This could have been an opportunity for the party to gain a truce or even alliance with a large faction in the Halls, but they chose otherwise. I played out Bellringer’s successful escape through the northern caves and back towards the Forum of Set (he passed a few stealth checks), ending in his return to the Arena and finally the goblin home caves. I have decided that Bellringer will inform the goblin king immediately, which will start a process of information transfer down to every goblin sergeant and patrol over the next few days. After this, the goblins will be hostile to the party. Random goblin patrols shouldn’t be too difficult for the Fingers to deal with, but it may slow down or halt their progress in navigating certain parts of the Halls. I think the party is about to learn a hard lesson in faction diplomacy.

If the group continues with their current “always turn right” navigation strategy, they will soon run into three sadistic fire mephits who enjoy torturing mortals for sport. I think their breath weapons, which will hit 1-2 PC’s per round, coupled with their high fly speed (80’/round), could easily lead to one or more deaths for the PC’s. But, then again, I’ve thought that before, and, somehow, no one’s died yet! We shall see…

After the session, two of Earl’s friends said they’d be available to join the campaign! This is great. I’m hoping they can make most sessions, but even if they don’t, I think it would help to get the average session numbers up to 4-5 players, at least. I had Earl warn them of the old-school dungeon-crawling nature of the campaign, so hopefully they’ll be OK with that! Still, I’m very excited for next session.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

What is your schedule of play? Sometimes there's a big gap and other times it seems back to back days. How long are the sessions typically?

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

What is your schedule of play? Sometimes there's a big gap and other times it seems back to back days. How long are the sessions typically?

We play every Wednesday from 7 to 10pm US Central Time. We had to skip one session in early November because I was unavailable, and later that month we played on Sunday the 27th instead of the previous Wednesday (the 23rd) because we would've had too many absences.

But you're right - my posts here are fairly erratic. That's mostly because I don't always get the logs/notes written until a few days after the session, but also because I occasionally forget to post them here for a few more days. We're all caught up now though - the next session (Session 9) is tonight.

Also: it doesn't seem like I can edit it now, but my post from Monday should say Session 8, not Session 7. Whoops.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 9

Dec 14, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Ragnar, Level 1 Wiskin Wizard, Neutral (Sal)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Spine Thundergruff, Level 1 Dwarf, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer: Earl
Quartermaster: Jake

Note: For this session, Sal joined us for the first time. We decided to simply replace Marcellus (now an NPC) with his new character, Ragnar the Neutral Wiskin Wizard.

Inspecting the small side cave where they first noticed the goblins, the group discovered a few giant centipede corpses in a corner, as well as two goblin corpses stacked on top of one another. One goblin corpse had a red-feathered arrow sticking out of his back. This type of arrow looked very similar to ones carried by the Children of Dieno. A pouch containing 35 sp and 61 cp was looted from the cave and Pif tossed it into one of the mule’s saddlebags.

The party continued east through the tunnel, which soon began to gradually rise in elevation. They reached a fork and turned right, finding a room littered with large boulders and bones. Pif raised his hands in prayer and used the power of his deity to detect several magical items in the debris. Digging through the bones, he found two 10-lb silver ingots (50gp each), a sky-blue potion, and a boot that matched the one the group found in the vermin-infested cellar on the last expedition. He also found a misshapen stone head of a vaguely salamander-like creature with bulbous eyes, a slit nose, and an oversized mouth. All of the items were loaded up on the mules while Battista, still wearing the boot from before, slipped the new one on. Walking around the room, it seemed as if his footsteps made no sound at all.

The tunnel continued north, except for a branching path that broke off to the west. Peering down the western tunnel, the group saw a wondrous sight: a cliff that descended 25’ into a vast subterranean forest of giant mushrooms, some reaching 10 or more feet in height. The Fingers briefly considered exploring the forest before deciding to continue north through the caves.

As the group marched through the now gently descending tunnel, Spine noticed a 3’ diameter hole about 5’ up the wall to their right. Reasoning that even the smaller members of the group would need to lose their backpacks and other gear before attempting to crawl through, the party decided to try to find another way to access the area beyond the narrow tunnel.

Rounding a corner, the group spotted a cavernous room containing a massive pillar of flame that somehow shot out of the ground before crashing into the blackened ceiling. The party didn’t have much time to gawk, however, as three demonic, winged humanoids wreathed in flame rushed the group with murderous intent.

As the others fired ranged attacks from afar, Spine and Everet charged into melee, while Ragnar summoned a swarm of bats. The bats descended on one of the fire mephits, biting the creature from every angle. From this, the unfortunate mephit was infected with a terrible disease borne by the filthy bats and suffered an immediate system shock, leading to its death!

Undeterred, and seemingly motivated by an unearthly joy of pain and destruction, the remaining two mephits unleashed their fiery breath weapons, scorching Everet, Spine, and scores of bats all at once. Spine, the courageous dwarf, fell amidst the flames before he was healed with a timely Lay on Hands from Pif. However, the dwarf still lost one of his eyes permanently in the process, as even Demma’s grace could not heal it that day. This would give the dwarf a -4 to all ranged attacks and all checks involving sight in the future.

Standing back up, Spine lifted Nightwind, that powerful relic crafted in ages past, and drove it into the heart of the mephit that scorched him moments ago, killing it instantly. Seb cast Ekim’s Mystical Mask, transforming his face into a horrible visage, causing the final mephit to fly over the party and out into the fungal forest in terror.

In the chamber, the group found that the hearts of the slain mephits had coalesced into two fire opals worth 100 gp each. They also found a silver case (25gp) with what appeared to be 12 cigarettes containing ground light-blue mushrooms and a broken spear haft with a large, partially-decomposed albino baboon head impaled upon it.

Pif healed Everet, and the party followed the tunnel a short distance to the south west where it opened up into the vast fungal forest. Spine put on the boots that Battista was wearing, and silently moved forward from the rest of the group, intending to scout ahead a little ways into the unfamiliar biome. Before he reached the forest, however, he spotted a thin shadow of a line stretching from one wall of the cave tunnel to the other, just before it opened into the forest. However, after looking around thoroughly, he could see nothing that might cast such a shadow. He stuck his spear over the shadow to see if he could cross the line, but then felt resistance as he triggered an invisible trip-wire. Large parts of the ceiling above the group came crashing down, injuring Everet significantly and dropping Spine. Pif was able to save Spine again with the power of the Goddess of the Harvest, but the poor dwarf suffered severe traumatic stress from the incident, giving him a -4 to all WILL checks moving forward.

As the trap was dealt with, the group was free to move into the fungal forest. Eschewing the path in front of them, the party headed south through the thick forest. They quickly returned to the path, however, as they rapidly became disoriented while navigating the alien world of the giant fungi. Moving west along the path, the group noticed a large body of water to the north, as well as another path that branched south. The Fingers continued west, eventually coming across a stone pier jutting into the water, as well as a small, three-person boat tied to it. Because they couldn’t take their mules, the group decided to continue along the path to the southwest.

Shortly thereafter, the group spotted torchlight on a ledge about 25’ above the forest floor. The party approached, and heard a voice in Archontean gruffly shout “who goes there?” Stepping forward to get a better view, Everet was able to see a human wearing red armor carrying a crossbow with a helm that was fashioned into the likeness of a snake, standing atop a ledge in the wall about 60’ away. Thinking these were the “worshippers of the snake god” the kobolds had mentioned before, the warrior shouted “we are pilgrims of the snake god who have come here to worship.” The guard, noticing his armor and weapons with incredulity, then said “well, if you are pilgrims, then you shall have no trouble reciting the First Mystery of Set.” Everet attempted to say they were merely new worshippers of Set, and thus did not know the First Mystery, but was cut short when the guard raised his crossbow to shoot.

Two other guards appeared on the ledge, while a fourth was heard running down a tiled hallway to the west. The three remaining guards fired their crossbows at the adventurers as they scattered to find cover amongst the tall mushrooms. Ragnar sent his injured bats forward, but they were quickly cut down by the Set-worshippers. Other members of the group fired ranged weapons while Heraclion grabbed the reins of the donkeys, ushering them along the path to the south.

While attempting to run south with his comrades-in-arms, Spine suffered a truly savage critical hit, the bolt shattering his torso. Pif called upon Demma to save the dwarf once more, but his prayers went unanswered. Waldorf ran to his rescue, grabbing the healing potion off the dwarf’s belt, and poured it down his throat in a last-ditch attempt to save his friend. The potion failed to have its intended effect. Spine, the gruff but courageous dwarf, was dead.

Ragnar, hiding behind a huge blue mushroom, attempted to summon another monster, but his magic failed him in the bloody chaos of battle. At one point, while most of the group had taken cover behind the giant mushrooms, the Set guards could only reload and ready their crossbows for shots against the first of the party to come out of cover. Thinking quickly, Pif took his warm weather gear and threw it out from behind his cover, causing two of the guards to waste their shots on the decoy.

Battista fired another shot with his shortbow, but tripped in the difficult terrain and fell prone into the dirt. Then Everet was struck, also with a critical hit, the iron bolt snapping his femur in two before he fell. Pif, hoping Demma would hear him now, rushed to Everet and attempted to Lay on Hands. His roll, however, was three short of what he needed. He permanently burned three luck points to make the attempt into a success. As a result, Everet was still alive, but his leg would never be the same, halfing his speed and giving him a -4 to all future REF saves.

At the end of the session, the group continued their flight towards the south, desperate to find a way out of the forest…

The Honored Dead:

Spine, level 1 Dwarf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 9)

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 18th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 2:20pm.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Man, that was a brutal session.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Man, that was a brutal session.

Agreed. During the final fight in particular, the dice weren't playing nice. Sometimes DCC's swingy nature works well for the party, like when the bats' disease scored an instant kill on the 3HD fire mephit. Other times, two critical hits can result in two of the PC's going down quickly. The second one actually dealt something like 19 damage, which was enough to bring even Everet (17 HP) from max to zero.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 9 Notes

Dec 15, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Well, that was a rough session for the group, and they're still not out of the woods yet. The session was a little more along the lines of what I was expecting level 1 adventurers to face when I read through the Halls of Arden Vul initially. I think Sal, the new guy, may have said “brutal!” four or five times that session. Coming from a mainly-5e background, he certainly had a bit of a trial by fire, but I also think he played well and enjoyed it. I’m not sure about his 2 HP, 10 AC wizard’s odds of surviving, but if he hides and never gets attacked, I could see him living long enough to get enough levels and items to increase his chances.

I have to give credit to Bill, Spine’s player - he was a very good sport about it. After his character died, he basically said “we all knew the risks when we joined this campaign” (he’s played a lot with me in the past) and “I kinda expected this to happen when I only rolled 4 HP as a front-line combatant” (I did too). Initially, I did think Spine had a shot to make it to level 2 and get a better HP result on a d10. He had a +2 to his Agility mod, giving him a solid REF save and AC. Still, it wasn’t enough.

The Arden Vul module has most Set guards classed as level 2 fighters. I’ve never played AD&D before, but my hunch is that DCC warriors are a lot more powerful than the more-vanilla B/X or AD&D fighters. In DCC, warriors get +1d4 to their to-hit and damage rolls for both melee and ranged weapons at level 2, as well as a 50% chance to perform a special, often improvised move called a “mighty deed” each round. Couple that with a few criticals, and, yeah, three level 2 warriors on a ledge is very scary for the group at this level.

I overall absolutely did not expect the session to turn out this way. I thought the mephits would kill at least one PC, causing them to flee the way they came, ending up back on the Long Stair. After they beat the mephits with some great rolls and spells, I was convinced they’d be totally fine for yet another session, despite my initial doubts. I was surprised when they approached the Set guards, and how well the guards did. Still, I love it when my expectations get totally dashed, no matter the results - it makes things interesting! I believe I have DCC to at least partially thank for fostering that.

In summary, I really enjoyed this session, and I think the players did too, despite its brutality. You need a bit of that to make the victories meaningful, as I think the players accept as well. Bill rolled a new character, and it’s going to be a Thief, which is awesome. Also, one or two other friends of Earl might join us next session along with Sal, so I’m looking forward to that! After that session, I think the party should cross their fingers that one of the new players rolls a Cleric. Going from two possible Lay on Hands per round to one was a major reason why the group had a harder time tonight, in my view.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 10

Dec 21, 2022

Players:

1. Battista, Level 1 Elf, in pact with The Fates, Lawful (Mark)
2. Ragnar, Level 1 Wiskin Wizard, Neutral (NPC)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Shogun, Level 1 Wiskin Thief, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Note taker/map maker: Bill
Caller: Brad
Treasurer: Earl
Quartermaster: Jake
Others: Mark

Note: Before this session, Sal let us know that he wouldn’t be continuing with the campaign because DCC wasn’t quite his style (he favors less-deadly, more RP-focused campaigns). For this session, it was decided that Earl would play Ragnar until his possible replacement with the characters of two new potential players next week.

At the beginning of the session, the players debated whether to continue fleeing toward the unexplored south to escape the range of the guards’ crossbows, or to turn back towards the north, risking continued crossbow fire in exchange for an escape back through known territory. Ultimately, they opted for the latter, and the members of the group began fleeing north, sheltering behind the giant mushrooms as much as possible.

The guards reloaded and prepared to fire as soon as any members of the group ran from cover. The hirelings were ordered to extinguish their torch and lantern, and Battista and Pif made a break for it. The guards fired blindly into the dark at the fleeing members of the Fingers, and one bolt somehow struck Battista, causing him to collapse to the ground. As he was too far north to be reached by Pif, the Elf knew fate had decided that those moments would be his last on this world. Battista, diviner of the Fates, was dead.

Under cover of darkness, guided by Ragnar’s darkvision granted by an earlier-cast Mystical Mask spell, the rest of the group escaped to the north. Looking behind them, the party could see that the guards had now been reinforced by three of their comrades, bringing their visible numbers up to six in total. The guards descended from the cliff, but remained in place after setting up a small perimeter. After they were out of range of the guards, the group lit torches and headed back east the way they came, south through the tunnels, finally escaping the fungal caverns and emerging back on the Long Stair where they originally entered the secret door.

Outside, the group met two new adventurers. The first was Shogun, a Wiskin thief played by Bill. The second was Hildi, a Wiskin Warrior played by Mark. Though the Fates had robbed him of his first character today, perhaps they had a different purpose, as Mark rolled exceptionally well on his attribute scores: Hildi’s stats included a +1 modifier to Strength, Stamina, Personality, and Luck, as well as a +2 modifier to Intelligence. With 10 hp, he should make a fine front-line replacement for Spine.

The two new adventurers said they had arrived in Gosterwick a few days ago with the intention of joining the Fingers, but had just missed the group. They were pleasantly surprised to have met the party so serendipitously. Still, the mood darkened when news of the two fallen was shared, prompting the newcomers to offer consolation and condolences. Still shaken by those events, Pif lit up one of the blue-mushroom blunts and inhaled deeply. His eyes turned a bright crimson, and his pupils became remarkably dilated. Now high as a kite, he suffered a -6 to his intelligence (bringing him to 2), but gained a +1 to detect secret doors and +1 to listen checks for six hours.

Undeterred, the group marched up the Long Stair, and then headed north to return to the vermin-infested cellar to see if they could retrace the steps of the despised Society of the Beehive. Along the way, Pif noticed that the basement they explored earlier which contained the broken arm of a giant statue looked a little different from before. This time, it contained a set of footsteps leading into it from the surface. Looking inside, they saw that a previously-hidden door had been opened with footsteps in the dust leading down a flight of stairs. Feeling a bit wary, the party decided to maybe come back to this later.

Descending into the vermin-infested cellar, the group headed north, and heard a strange, lilting voice that appeared to be humming a discordant tune. Pif, his head still in the clouds, called out to the voice. In response, a barefoot old hermit with an impressive white beard and tattered clothes emerged from one of the rooms in a hallway to the east. He introduced himself as Lankios, and invited the group to join him for lunch. Pif happily agreed, and the rest of the group followed. Pif was served a foul-smelling and even fouler-tasting gruel that appeared to be surprisingly nutritious. Lankios explained that for the past 280 years he had been making and eating the gruel as a “delicious” way to repel vermin by way of its pungent odor.

Lankios, alternating between ragged sobs and creaking laughter, rambled on about his missing love, a beautiful blonde mage named Guivrel, stolen from him long ago through a shocking betrayal by his former friend, described only as “K.” When asked, the hermit agreed to take the party in the direction that the “Bee people,” as he called them, went in a few days ago.

Following Lankios, the group marched north through the cellar to the spiral staircase they had discovered during the previous expedition. They left Heraclion the Hireling with the two mules at the top of the stairs, and descended down roughly 300’ until they reached the bottom. At the base of the stairs, Lankios, with an unnatural spryness for his age, made a “Walk Like an Egyptian” pose before a wall, apparently causing a secret stone door in the wall to open magically.

Moving through the door, the Fingers and their new friend entered a room with one door to the west and two doors to the south. Lankios mentioned that he had never gone through the door to the west, but had explored both of the southern doors. According to the hermit, the leftmost southern door led to a group he called the “mean Halflings,” while the rightmost southern door led to a “big chasm.”

Though Lankios remarked that the “Bee people” had gone through the leftmost door earlier, the party decided to head to the door on the western wall, opening it to reveal two monstrous baboon skeletons. Hildi the New Guy quickly proved himself by slashing one of the skeletons in twain, while the other was crushed by Everet. After a quick search, the group found a scroll of Holy Sanctuary, which, though he knew the spell, could only barely be understood by Pif because he was still really baked.

The group decided to head through the rightmost southern door, and entered a room with emerald-painted walls, choked with dust save for a pair of footprints leading to a door on the other side of the room. Additionally, a gold-filigreed chair and desk sat in the room’s middle, and the Fingers opted to come back for the items as they were valued to be worth about 150 gp.

Everet opened the door to the east, revealing another room with a thick layer of dust on the ground, disturbed only by a pair of footprints heading to the southeast. These footprints, however, seemed to turn around halfway through the room. In the northeastern corner of the room, Everet spotted an impressively-sharp looking bronze halberd and moved to pick it up. As he did so, a tornado of dust formed opposite the group, a horrific form of a man forming within it.

The group charged the cyclone, fighting through the dust and wind to engage it in melee. Only their magically enchanted weapons seemed to affect it, with Spine’s old spear Nightwind, now wielded by Hildi, being particularly effective. In the chaos, the dust spirit formed itself into a large fist, slamming into Pif’s face, causing him to double over as his lungs filled with sand. To avoid the potentially lethal damage, Waldorf had to burn two points of luck, and Pif had to permanently burn six of his own. Though he avoided biting the dust for now (ha-ha), this took him down to a scarily-low Luck score of three.

Still, when the dust settled (ha-ha), the spirit had fallen, and the group was free to continue their exploration.

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 18th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 3:10pm.

The Honored Dead:

Spine, level 1 Dwarf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 9)
Battista, level 1 Elf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 10)

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 10 Notes

Dec 22, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

When Seb reached out a few days before the session and said he did not want to continue, I was, at first, a little disappointed - he seemed like a good, active player with plenty of experience. However, his reasons are perfectly valid, of course. Recognizing that certain TTRPG systems or styles of play are not for you is a good skill to have in this hobby. Though I didn’t ask him to elaborate, I suspect that he is not a fan of the lethality or the random generation of characters. I think he’s more of an improv-acting style of roleplayer. I do believe that it’s very possible to do plenty of that style of roleplay in a DCC megadungeon crawl (there’s certainly nothing stopping anyone), I know many players like to have complete control over the creation of characters that they plan to play and develop over the course of a years-long campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy that style of roleplaying, but it’s not as exciting for me as the kind of emergent story that arises out of the “tactical infinity” (non-linear thinking) that is enabled through the right system, dungeon, and table.

I’m still not too worried about the player count, though, as we should have one or two new players join us next session. I’ve been told they’ve never played a TTRPG before, which means they’ve likely never heard of a “death saving throw” before - perfect!

There was a bit of chaos at the start of the session, as Mark wasn’t there for the end of last session, and he didn’t understand why the group was attempting to run to the unexplored (and potentially dangerous) south when the group could attempt to flee north, the way they came, instead. As it turns out, it was Jake’s idea to flee south to try to find a shortcut back to the caves to exit the way they came. Jake wasn’t present at the start of this one, so no one was really able to answer Mark’s question. I think the others may have forgotten.

Regardless, the group decided to turn north, which exposed them to another round of crossbow fire, leading to Battista’s death. Still, I think Mark’s logic was sound - for all they knew, there could have been another Set guard patrol in that direction. In reality, if they continued south, it would’ve worked out. The doors they saw were locked, but if they traveled east along the edge of the fungal forest, they would’ve been able to make it back, barring any tough random encounters.

Mark was pretty pleased with the rolls for his new character - he really didn’t think Battista was very good. I’d beg to differ, as I think magic is very strong in DCC, but it’s certainly Mark’s choice if he just wants to roll a Warrior instead of a Wizard despite the +2 to Intelligence. A d4 hit die would make things very challenging, and then you have to factor in a 5% chance of bad things happening for each spell cast. The Warrior is certainly the safer choice, and the group needed someone to replace Spine on the front-line anyways.

So, the group finally passed by the cellar with the statue’s arm, and I was able to clue them in to the existence of the secret door that I mistakenly missed in the room key several sessions ago. When I narrated the footprints leading to the door, Brad said something like “Nice try, man,” like I was trying to deter them from their march to the vermin-infested basement, but I honestly wasn’t! I didn’t tell them, but I gave them that clue only because I forgot it earlier. Of course, when I first realized they should’ve seen the door, they still hadn’t met anyone from the goblin faction. Now, thanks to their unprovoked attack on the goblin patrol during Session 8, heading down that secret door would lead them right to the heart of the goblin faction’s market. They’d probably be able to escape, but doing so would clue the goblins in to the entrance to the surface, which I would probably handle by adding goblins to random encounters, as well as maybe setting up a few goblin ambushes for the group out of revenge. So, in a way, Brad was right - heading down to the basement was the right call.

Roleplaying Lankios was fun. I always enjoy playing crazy old hermits. I actually made a mistake after the group took the spiral stairs down to level 3 - though there was no indication on the illustrated part of the VTT map I was using (there was some small text, but I missed it), the door they took to get to the gold-filagreed chairs was actually one-way, so they should’ve have been able to do that. Whoops. I think I’ll handle this by just locking the stone door on the eastern wall of the room they’re currently inside. This shouldn’t have a big effect on things.

Looking ahead, if the group turns around after this and takes a few correct turns, they have the potential to loot four to five thousand gp (I think) if they clear the right rooms, which should be enough to level up three or four of the characters. I’m honestly rooting for them! It has taken us a good amount of time to get here, but I think they have every chance to succeed.

 

[ExCrusader]

Just got caught up on this thread. Sounds like a great campaign. I’ll keep reading!

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 11

Jan 4, 2023

Players:

1. Hildi, Level 1 Wiskin Warrior, Neutral (Mark)
2. Wicktrimmer, Level 1 Imperial Goblin, Lawful (Bronson)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Shogun, Level 1 Wiskin Thief, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)

Caller: Earl
Note taker/map maker: Jake
Treasurer/quartermaster: Bill
Tactician: Brad
Others: Bronson (new)

Note: We skipped last week for the holidays, but we're back at it now!

Taking a closer look at the bronze halberd, Everet noticed that inscribed upon its pommel was an image of a red snake being slashed in two by a halberd. The rest of the group found a gaudy gold signet ring with “Gregor” inscribed around a smiling face (120 gp), and a wood-brown colored potion with iron-gray streaks. Both doors leading out of this room were bronze, and featured carvings of baboons and ibises. They were also both locked, and seemed to require a very large bronze key to open.

They backtracked to the room directly to the west of the spiral staircase they entered from, and opened the leftmost southern door. They went south, opening another door to find a cross intersection, from which they went through a western door. This brought them to a room with four large pillars and a northern, southern, and western exit. Each of these pillars had been carved with a likeness of one of the four ancient Archontean gods of the dead: Osiris, Wadjet, Maat, and Thoth.

Suddenly, out from the shadows, a goblin who called himself Wicktrimmer appeared from the east, stating that he was looking for the Six Finger Discount adventuring party. As luck had it, he had found them, and there was much rejoicing as the group welcomed him with open arms (this new character, played by Bronson, will replace Ragnar because Sal dropped the campaign).

They then entered a room to the north which appeared to be lit by a constant magical light. The room contained a raised marble platform upon which sat an obsidian table. An ostrich feather hovered above the table, somehow suspended in the air. The walls featured carvings depicting Maat handing feathers to human worshippers, who, in turn, carried the feathers with outstretched arms into a crypt.

Heading back to the pillar room and then west, the group noticed a semi-circular room that contained the corpse of a woman wearing leather armor. From the body, Wicktrimmer took a short sword, while the rest of the group pocketed 16 gp, 34 sp, and 44 cp, as well as two clear, translucent white potions.

Continuing west, the group entered a room with three portcullises and three wooden levers jutting out from an obsidian pillar. They pulled the north-most lever, and the portcullis to the north opened. The group decided to leave the (slightly scared) retainer Hector in the room, and headed north.

They entered a maze-like, ancient catacomb complex. Each 10’x15’ section of the walls there contained eight dusty burial niches. The walls and floors, however, were clean and strangely absent of any dust or other debris.

The group explored much of the maze, heading generally north, and then west. Suddenly, a gelatinous cube was sighted on the edge of the torchlight, surging towards them. Thinking fast, the party members each jumped into a burial niche along the wall after throwing their backpacks into another nearby niche. From his niche, Everet was able to wait until the cube rolled by, and stabbed it to death with his halberd.

From the ooze, the party looted a large emerald (450 gp) and a wooden wand that was carved with many different animal shapes. Heading west, the group found a hole in the ceiling, from which was suspended a rope-ladder that was roughly 6’ off the ground. The group climbed up the ladder, eventually reaching a natural cavern which contained many stalactites, stalagmites, and a recently-used firepit. Upon one of the stalagmites was carved “Stilichio was here.” Everet, as was his habit, crossed out “Stilichio” and added his own name.

As the group crept forward, they noticed a torchlight coming from the tunnel ahead of them. Shogun went ahead of the rest, taking care to remain silent, and saw the torch was coming from a group of six Set Guards surrounding a woman wearing a red dress with snake tattoos on her face, carrying an ash staff. They appeared to be guarding something…

The Honored Dead:

Spine, level 1 Dwarf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 9)
Battista, level 1 Elf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 10)

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 18th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 4:10pm.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 11 Notes

Jan 5, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

Player Name	Character	Sessions Survived	XP	Level
Brad	Waldorf	11	427	1
Jake	Pif	11	427	1
Earl	Everet	8	325	1
Bill	Shogun	2	0	1
Mark	Hildi	2	0	1
Bronson	Wicktrimmer	1	0	1

When Everet picked up the magical bronze halberd, Earl said something like “oh, could this be foreshadowing??” The inscription indicating it would be a weapon that's especially good against Set Cultists seemed obvious to me, but I sometimes forget that, as the Judge, I have perfect information, and things always seem much less obvious when I’m on the other side of the table.

Also, though I did not mention this in the notes, the group almost missed the leftmost door on the southern wall of the room adjacent to the spiral staircase. Earl is the new Caller, and began to dejectedly lead the party back up the stairwell, but I said something like “you know there’s another door, right?” He said he didn’t. Now, I don’t mind this at all, of course, as it is often hard to see doors on the VTT map I’m using, but I’m really glad I caught that and said something!

Bronson seemed to really enjoy the session and said he’d love to come back next time. I’m very happy to hear that! He’s never played any TTRPG before, but he did a great job this session.

The group knew that they should take the ostrich feathers before going into the catacombs, but I don’t think they realize that they need to either stick the feather in their hair, or hold it out in front of them (as depicted in the carvings). They might learn that soon, however, as three turns after the start of the session, four skeletons will attack them (if they are in the catacombs), with perhaps many more behind them. Hector might be in danger as well.

At the end of the session, Bill remarked “I wonder they’re guarding behind them. It seems important.” Then Earl said “I think I have a plan for how to get past them.” Considering how well Earl’s plan for getting past the Set Guards went last time (two deaths), I’m intrigued to see what they come up with, but I’m not going to hold my breath. And, even if they get past the guards, there are dozens more Set cultists and guards behind them. Of course, with my perfect information, I know that the best thing they could do is turn around and then turn south, where they can loot up to ~8,700gp from a single room. Knowing this made me really feel for them last session, as it seems they've randomly chosen to go every path but the good one.

I’m really not sure how next session will go. They might distract the guards enough to head west, which they can take to level 5, but I doubt they will want to continue downwards much, knowing their typical tactics. My guess is that they’ll attempt to talk to the guards, probably fail (as they don’t really seem to know the full strength or motives of the Cult of Set), get shot at, and (if they’re smart) run away, but probably survive as they are on a high ridge and won’t need to run far. But we’ll see

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 12

Jan 11, 2023

Players:

1. Hildi, Level 1 Wiskin Warrior, Neutral (Mark)
2. Wicktrimmer, Level 1 Imperial Goblin, Lawful (Bronson)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Shogun, Level 1 Wiskin Thief, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)
7. Bjorn, Level 1 Cleric of Gna, Neutral God of Travel (Collin)

Caller: Earl
Tactician: Brad
Others: Bronson, Collin (new)

The group briefly discussed attempting to parlay with or deceive the Set Guards, but they ultimately decided to turn around, judging the potential encounter to be too risky. As they turned around, a cleric wearing the markings of Gna, the Wiskin god of travel, messages, and speed, climbed up the rope ladder from the catacombs. In a strange, but somehow increasingly common coincidence, the cleric, named Bjorn (played by new guy Corey, not to be confused with Bjorn the wizard, formerly played by Seb), said he was looking to join none other than the Six Finger Discount adventuring party! He was heartily accepted, and there was much rejoicing.

The party continued to explore the catacombs, finding an unidentified cleric scroll in one of the niches after half an hour of searching. Suddenly, a loud crash was heard to the north, as if a large piece of stone had fallen and shattered upon the ground. After this, the sound of hurried, boney footsteps on pavement echoed through the catacombs towards the group. The party decided to return to the lever room and shut all of the portcullises, then flee east in a hurry. They succeeded in this plan and waited until they heard the sound of the footsteps recede back into the catacombs about ten minutes later.

Returning to the lever room, the Fingers decided to open the lower portcullis and explore the unknown hallway beyond it. They quickly found a staircase going up, and climbed 125’ until they reached another level of the dungeon.

In this area, they found two rotted wooden doors that had been knocked off their hinges by a significant blunt force lying amongst scattered dung and other debris. The party also noticed an ancient, dirt-covered convex mirror fasted to the wall. They moved south, and then east, before hearing the sound of ape-like hooting and hollering coming from the darkness beyond their torchlight.

Six large albino baboons charged out of the darkness, hurling dung-covered rocks and gibbering wildly. Everet and Hildi charged to the front and struck down three of the baboons. The simians’ counter-attack was fierce, however, and both Everet and Hildi were clobbered to the ground by the giant fists of the apes. Pif and Bjorn were able to heal both, but Hildi took a lingering injury: a concussion from blunt trauma to the head. This will impose a -4 to all future REF saves. Soon after this, another ape fell, causing the remaining two to flee east into the darkened hallway.

As Shogun and Waldorf had also taken damage in the fight, the clerics attempted to heal them as well as the two still-wounded warriors. However, their deities were not entirely amenable to their pleas for assistance, and each Cleric had their disapproval range increased up to 1-5. Due to this, as well as the fact that Waldorf had to spend another of his few-remaining luck points to help Everet avoid a lingering injury, the party decided to begin their return journey home.

The group made it out of the halls successfully, picking up Hector the retainer (who earlier had to play dead to avoid the attention of a group of migrating fire-beetles) and Heraclion the hireling mule-herder on the way. Heraclion was relieved to see the group, as he had been standing there with the mules for hours. He mentioned that he would have perished to a large number of giant centipedes had Lankios the hermit not saved him with his foul-smelling brown gruel. They descended the Long Stair without incident and decided to rest in the kobold tower. Though Grimblegrom and his compatriots were very saddened to hear the news of Battista’s passing, they welcomed the survivors with open arms. Grimblegrom, quite dramatically, swore on his life to get revenge on the worshippers of the snake god for killing his blood brother.

End time: 2993 AEP, Totsday (3rd day of the week), the 18th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 7:00pm

The Honored Dead:

Spine, level 1 Dwarf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 9)
Battista, level 1 Elf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 10)

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 12 Notes

Jan 12, 2022

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.


This was a really fun session. I’m very glad that the new guy Collin enjoyed himself. Both Bronson and Collin have never played a TTRPG before, which I think is great, honestly. I always enjoy onboarding new folks to the hobby! New people also come in without preconceived notions of what a TTRPG should be, which I think helps them appreciate whatever system is being run. I’m also glad he rolled up a Cleric - I think the group could use a second one because healing potions have been scarce.

The group narrowly avoided encountering any undead in the catacombs. This is partly because I rolled high for the initial number of turns until the undead rose, and partly because they played smart and just ran away. When the skeletons were approaching the party initially, some in the group wanted to attack them, but Brad spoke against it and convinced the group that, in this campaign, combat is deadly and does not generate XP, and so it’s almost always better to avoid it if possible. Very true!

When the group left Hector, I rolled for random encounters, and rolled up some fire beetles. I figured I’d allow Hector a chance to hide, as he would’ve heard the beetles coming from a distance around a corner. They were lucky this time, but if the group leaves him alone again and he gets surprised, he’ll be as good as dead. I think they also got lucky leaving Heraclion alone as well, as Lankios happened to be able to protect him after his flight from the dust monster.

Now that Grimblegrom knows his blood-brother Battista was slain by the Set Guards, I think I will have the kobolds propose a joint operation to attack the Cult of Set. If the group agrees, they’ll get 10 kobolds to tag along with them. They probably won’t be much help in combat, but their darkvision could be a massive help to the party in the Halls.

This expedition to the dungeon was the longest one yet in terms of out-of-game time, lasting about 5 sessions in total. The group had two deaths, and only managed to loot about 684gp from the Halls, which, split amongst the seven PC’s and one retainer, will give each member of the party 91 XP. However, they did find the Halberd of Set-Slaying, which will be useful, and they explored a wide area. It was a bit heartbreaking to me that they (through no fault of their own, really) missed a single left turn before the catacombs to find a room with close to 9,000gp, and another directly to the south of the final baboon fight containing about 12,000gp (though the treasure is comprised of 25 cumbersome, 10’x10’ wooden teak panels). Arden Vul really is all about the big scores.

It’s absolutely crazy to me that we’re on Session 12 and no one has leveled. Still, I don’t think anyone really minds too much, and I do believe that the group will find one of those rooms during the next delve and likely immediately turn around, go back to town, and get 1-2 levels each.

 

[JG_WENTWORTH]

Session 13

Jan 18, 2023

Players:

1. Hildi, Level 1 Wiskin Warrior, Neutral (Mark)
2. Wicktrimmer, Level 1 Imperial Goblin, Lawful (Bronson)
3. Pif Feldman, Level 1 Thorcin Cleric of Demma, Lawful Goddess of the Harvest (Jake)
4. Shogun, Level 1 Wiskin Thief, Lawful (Bill)
5. Waldorf, Level 1 Halfling, Lawful (Brad)
6. Everet, Level 1 Archontean Warrior, Chaotic (Earl)
7. Bjorn, Level 1 Cleric of Gna, Neutral God of Travel (Collin)

Caller: Earl
Mapper: Josh
Treasurer: Bill
Tactician: Brad
Others: None

The group rested and set out at dawn on the 19th before stopping to make camp after eight hours of travel. However, before they could unload their gear from the mules, they spotted a giant lizard attempting to camouflage itself on a rock. The lizard, seemingly knowing it was discovered, charged the group. It was swiftly cut down by Everet after being softened up by sling stone fire. The pelt was skinned and could be sold for 50gp.

The group arrived back in Gosterwick on the afternoon of the following day. The loot from the expedition totaled 688gp, netting each PC 92xp with 46xp remaining for Hector the retainer. Two potions of invisibility and one potion of hold portal was identified, as well as a Wand of Polymorph (3 charges). The halberd was identified to have a bonus of +1 in the hands of a non-lawful character, or, when wielded by a lawful character, +2 generally, +3 versus evil clerics, and +4 versus clerics of Set. Against clerics of Set, it scores double damage on a to-hit roll of 20. Everet named the powerful weapon “Set-Sunderer.” Unfortunately, the group had no lawful characters with proficiency in halberds, but it was still a powerful weapon.

The group paid 1,000gp to purchase a run-down former merchant’s office in a seedy district of southwestern Gosterwick to act as their guild hall. They hired an elderly dwarf named Thuddac Battlespine to act as their steward and manage the hall and guild affairs in town while they were away.

While relaxing in the Yellow Cloak in, the party heard from the barkeep that Lady Alexia Basileon, the imperial ruler of Gosterwick, put out a notice that she would pay 5gp for expedition reports from adventuring parties returning from the Halls, with the potential for a greater reward if information especially useful to her was proffered. The Fingers decided to not take her up on this offer, as they judged their knowledge of the Halls to be too valuable right now. The group also decided to collectively vow that no information should leave the guild unless it was discussed as a group first.

Pif attempted to heal Everet to reduce the time spent in town, but Demma was fickle on that day, and he was forced to convert a random tavern-goer to his faith as penance. He also spent some time creating a hydroponic setup within the guild hall to grow the bioluminescent and “Eye-Opener” mushrooms they found in the Halls. As for the rest of the group, Everet spent his time resting and recovering from his wounds, Bjorn prayed to Gna, Wicktrimmer prayed to the god of profit and wealth Lucreon, Waldorf studied the Mithric language, and Shogun and Hildi unsuccessfully attempted to find rumors.

Before setting out on the morning of the 27th, the group purchased 25 rations and 7 flasks of lamp oil for 57gp total. The large number of adventurers in Gosterwick had inflated the prices of these crucial dungeon-delving supplies to six times their normal price. Just as they were about to set out, the group was approached at their guild hall by two merchants looking for investors: Colmund the Potter and Godric the Dyer. The group decided to accept Colmund’s offer and fronted 400gp for him to buy his materials in Newmarket, make the dye, and sell it in Gosterwick for an estimated 200gp profit for the party in six day’s time.

The group’s journey back to the halls was surprisingly calm. No wandering groups of wild animals or humanoids were encountered during their roughly day and a half journey back to where they left off. Heraclion was left with the mules at the top of the spiral staircase in the vermin-infested cellar, and the door was closed behind him. The party retraced their steps until they were back at the hallway where they encountered the baboons.

While they were gone, the baboons had evidently smeared the mirrors they had cleaned off with dirt and feces. Using their waterskins, the group worked to clear off four of the mirrors in the immediate area. They next explored the room they found the baboon troop in, but found only worthless debris, trash, and defecation. The group had three options at this point: to go east down a hallway with more mirrors, south down a narrow hallway terminating at a closed wooden door, or north through another darkened hallway with mirrors.

The group chose to go north, and found a room containing four mirrors and four exits. After cleaning the mirrors, the group chose to go west towards a hallway blocked by a portcullis. They were able to lift it and cross through, but it slammed shut after they passed it. The next room contained doors to the north, south, and west, as well as a pile of partially-eaten bodies in the corner. There was also a small ivory box in the center of the chamber carved with blasphemous images of tongues caressing all manner of beings. The party also noticed that their magical items lost their effectiveness in the room, but were restored when they left it.

They decided to leave the box and approach the western door, which had a pulsating light emanating from the cracks between it and the frame. Shogun picked the lock, revealing a room with a large pentagram drawn in its center. Inside the pentagram stood a goat and a giant rat who simply stared at the group as they entered. Everet spotted an ivory box outside of the pentagram’s circle and picked it up, only to be forced to drop it after he was shocked by magical lightning. The goat and the rat laughed wickedly and showed their true form: demonic imps.

The imps began casting invisibility, but one was cut down before it could finish. The other succeeded, and Everet fell to its poisonous claws. Despite its invisibility, Hildi was able to cut down the last imp. Everet was healed by Bjorn, but he sustained a permanent internal injury, resulting in a -4 to all future FORT saves. Despite his stellar level 1 max HP of 17, three expeditions holding the front-line of the party had taken its toll on the warrior. He now possessed three lingering injuries: mental trauma (-4 WILL), an injured leg (-4 REF, halved speed), and an internal injury (-4 FORT).

End time: 2993 AEP, Horasday, the 28th day of Basilembrios, the 10th month, 2:40pm

The Honored Dead:

Spine, level 1 Dwarf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 9)
Battista, level 1 Elf, slain by a crossbow bolt fired from a Set Guardsman (Session 10)