Not Building a Chapel

A while back (link here), I had an idea for trying to build some of the buildings in the Keep on the Borderlands. I started - at least, as far as trying to do a mock-up of one of the buildings. My idea was to start with the Chapel (building 17 on the Keep floorplan). This, I was certain, was a good start. I thought I could use it as a free-standing chapel or temple building if I needed such a thing for gaming. A chapel is always useful, right? My plan was to do it in a style that would more-or-less fit medieval Europe, a Warhammer-y fantasy early-modern Europe analogue, could be in Middle-earth with a bit of squinty side-eye, would serve as an old chapel in more modern Victorian sci-fi-ish gaming, or could even be a non-ruined building in the 41st Millennium, if they have non-ruined buildings. A generic stone hall-type building of vaguely religious bent - that could cover a lot of genres of gaming. Re-using anything to do with wargaming always seems like a good idea to me (I don't have infinite space or money, so anything has to be potentially able to serve a variety of functions), so, enthused with the idea that it would fit with almost anything I was likely to do, I embarked on the planning process.

It was not a good start. 

I'm going to quote from the description of the Chapel in the module:

"This building has a peaked roof two stories tall; the interior is one large room. The altar is located at the eastern end, with a colored glass window (worth 350 g.p. intact) above it; the window is 20’ tall and 8’ wide."

This was all fairly understandable, I thought. Looking at the map, the Chapel is 60' long and 20' wide, with doors at the west end. So far so good.

Excerpt from the plan of the Keep in The Keep on the Borderlands (c) TSR/Wizards of the Coast

I got into a bit of a flap about what a 'peaked roof two stories tall' meant however. Did it mean the roof was two storeys tall, atop a building of unknown height? Did it mean the building was two storeys tall including the roof? These speculations came back to haunt me later, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm pretty certain it was intended to mean, 'a peaked roof that makes the building two storeys tall at its peak' (the quotes obviously are in American English but I'm British, a 'story' to me is a told narrative, the floor of a building is a 'storey'). On this interpretation, I just need to know what 'two storeys' means. I decided that to keep things simple I would treat each storey as 10' (though I did flirt for a while with 12' - see below for 1:72 v 1:60).

This gave me the basic (in-game) dimensions of the building - 60' by 20' by 'two storeys' = 20'.

But what does this look like in practice?

I have generally applied a 1:72 or sometimes1:75 scale to my gaming involving miniatures. Both D&D and Warhammer use Imperial measurement, so I assumed that 1"=6' (one inch = 6 feet/72 inches). This after all was the scale of minis back in the day - if 25mm = 1" (it doesn't but close enough) then a 1" or 25mm mini represents a 6' (72") person. All well and good, that's 1:72. Later I decided that 4mm might equal 1', but as I never got round to building anything related to that scale it didn't matter. My D&D playing never really got to the 3rd Ed+ 'battlemat'-style of play (maybe that was 4th Ed, I don't really know) so I didn't do the 5' square thing that became very popular. I'm an old-school-10'-blue-squares-kinda guy.

So, how to convert 10' squares into terrain? It never bothered me before, I just made what I had and hoped it would kind-of fit. But now I was making a model to a pre-existing plan, based mostly on 10' squares, and occasional descriptions to fill in details.

I spent a lot of time going backwards and forwards between 1"=6' and 1"=5'. I should not have bothered. The sheer faff of trying to 5/6 or 6/5 everything was a baffling ordeal. I decided in the course of the planning for this build that from now on, 1:72 be damned, 1:60 is the way to go. 1"=5' and that's an end to it. I think this is the scale of the D&D battlemats so that's good... though the Keep in plan is 365' north-south - if I ever get the whole thing built, that will be 73", which is an inch over 6 feet; at 1:72 it would 'only' be a shade under 62", or 5-foot-2. But even though it increases the size by 6/5, it's so much easier to work with 1'=5" so that's what I decided would be the scale. And will be for all future builds I do that concern minis (and why would they not concern minis?).

So I decided on a scale, and started with a model-of-my-model. I have some foamcore - I bought it quite recently for building models, but have not used it yet, so thought I would use it for this build. But before I started hacking up my foamcore I thought I would plan out the build in cardboard just to see if it looked right. I can get cereal-box card out of the recycling, so I decided rather than jump straight in with the somewhat expensive foamcore (more expensive than 'free', anyway) I might as well build a test model to make sure I was happy.

So, I went back to the description. OK, questions about the exact meaning of 'two storeys' aside... peaked roof... well, that's pretty clear isn't it? It's not a flat roof; the roof is not a single slope from a higher wall to a lower; it's not a barrel-vault. Fine. I can work with a peaked roof (probably easier than working out how to do a vaulted roof). It doesn't say if it's a moderately-steeply-peaked roof, as in a more 'Gothic' style of architecture, or if it's a shallower angle of roof, a more 'Romanesque' style that you might find in Ravenna, let's say (which, though not so well represented on game-boards, is something of the model for Gondor, for example, both in Tolkien's imagination, and in terms of the visual language of Jackson's films). So I thought I would explore both. These are two of the potential designs I came up with for the west (entrance) end, based on 'two storeys' being 20' (bear in mind I've now gone from 1 square = 10', as in the plan, to 1 square = 5' = 1", for modelling purposes).

'Gothic' and 'Romanesque' (Classical?) west elevations

But the description also mentions a stained glass window, 20' tall in the east end. But the whole building is only 20' tall (ie, two stories) isn't it? Maybe I'm getting my storeys wrong. 2&1/2 inches? 3 inches? This moves my 10' storeys to 12'6" or even 15'.

I can't change the storeys that much. That would make everything far too tall, I think. Maybe I could make the walls of the building two storeys, with the roof on top of that? So I started playing about with elevations for the east end. There's no indication that there's any kind of internal differentiation; in fact, in the description it says 'the interior is one large room' - no mention of subdivisions or towers or anything. So my assumption is, the east and west elevations must match. Therefore, I need to find an elevation that works at the east end, with the window, then take out the window and add the doors for the west end. Simple. These are two of the elevations I came up with (there was a third intermediate form with a 45° pitch) - now abandoning any idea that 'two storeys' meant the total - it had to be the hight of the building without the roof... maybe... because I couldn't see how the stained-glass window could start at ground-level, it had to be raised somewhat, surely?

Potential east elevations

So, this is where I got to with the elevations. I took the (perhaps arbitrary) decision that the window would start 10' up the wall. Suddenly the building was not 20' tall, but 35' tall, in order to accommodate a 20' tall, 8' wide window. And, the Romanesque version at least looked like it would be 30' to the top of the wall - that was starting to look like three storeys, and that without the roof.

But it got worse. Consulting the plan again I realised that the Chapel butts up against another building at its east end - the end with the window. Checking against the description of location 4 - the Stables, which are the building immediately to the east - one finds this information:

"4. COMMON STABLE: This long building is about 15’ high, with a 3’ parapet* atop its flat roof, so that it can be used in defense of the gate. The gateside wall is pierced for archery..."

So the parapet (leaving aside the notion that it's only 3' high for now, that can't mean what it appears to mean) is used for defence, and is on the opposite side from the Chapel. But the whole building is still 15' high and has a flat roof. The side that is adjacent to the Chapel is 15' high.

Now there is no possibility that the window starts below the level of the building immediately to the east of it, that is absurd - unless the window predates the stables, and the latter was constructed against the wishes of the Chapel authorities... I could go with that but it seems pretty far-fetched, and I don't want to waste time explaining that the building 'mistake' isn't my mistake, it's part of the history of the castle. So the window must be at least 15' above ground level, and add a further 20' on top of that, and it can't go right the way to the roof, there must be some clearance at the top... and that would put the bottom of the window on the same level as soldiers fighting on the roof of the stable, risking them toppling into the window if they were injured up there...

The simplest solution to the whole problem is to assume that the building itself was 'two storeys' - that is 20' - and the roof was on top of that, and also, that the height of the widow was included in the roof and not the height of the building (ie, the bottom of the window was also at 20').

So I came up with the following elevation...

West elevation with 'tall' roof

Gone was any notion I could do a 'Romanesque' version of this. I could just about sneak a 'Gothic' arched window under a steeply-pointed roof; the possibility to do the same with a rounded window on a roof with a shallow pitch would have meant walls 40' (four storeys, not two) high.

So this is what I went with - a 45' high, 20' wide, 60' long Chapel, with the window taking up almost the entire height of the roof, starting 20' above ground-level. It was the only way I could see to get all the pieces to fit.

And it looked rubbish.

The whole thing was a daft, spindly thing that was far too tall (and long) for its width. I hated it.

I can only assume that Gary Gygax never build cardboard models of all of this (or maybe he did and he thought it looked OK - which is fine, we all have different appreciations of aesthetics). Either way... this was a success, in that I didn't waste the foamcore (it's still in the loft in its pristine state, and I'm still playing with cardboard), but also, a failure in that I didn't get a model chapel either for my 'Keep' gameboard or for anything else.

So I shelved the plans until I came up with a solution.

My favoured solution at the moment is, there is no stained-glass window. Maybe I will revisit this sometime and see what other solutions I can come up with but if - and it's a big 'if', now - if I build the Chapel, I will probably do it without the window. It's the only way I can see to make it work. And in that case, I might do it in a Romanesque style for two reasons. The first is that I like the look of it (I went to Ravenna on a college trip in 2010, it was absolutely amazing, architecturally and historically) and don't see it on many gaming boards; and the second is that I still have plans to drop the Keep into northern Gondor (as I first hinted at nearly a decade ago here) and see what happens. In that case, the Ravenna-ish feel of the Romanesque frontage might be more appropriate.

And that is where I left the Chapel, and for a while, the task of building the various locations in the Keep.

So, then, I tried to build a tower...

Back to the Labyrinth with Labyrinth the Adventure Game

 Well it's a long time since I've been here... how are yous doing?

Inspired by a Facebook post from Dyson Logos about a Spirited Away-inspired game - Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast from Possum Creek Games https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/yazebas-bed-breakfast - I thought I'd say something about a non-D&D game I played a little earlier this year, and want to play more of.

As anyone who’s read the blog will know, I'm a massive fan of the movie Labyrinth (links to posts about Labyrinth specifically, and discussion of 'portal fantasy' where Labyrinth comes up, are here, here, here and here, and there are couple of unpublished posts too, which maybe I should look at...), so I decided to get my hands on the ‘Labyrinth – The Adventure Game’ RPG from River Horse Games - https://www.riverhorsegames.com/products/rh_lab_005. I'm going to do a little review of it here.

Dust-cover of the rulebook, (c) River Horse Games

 

First off, the book is very nicely produced. The illustrations are spot on, the maps are lovely (most of the book is the around 100 adventuring locations, mostly with maps and the occasional elevation drawing), the dice (there are 2d6 supplied with the book) have an owl in place of the one-spot, and for nerdy fans of the film like me the physical production of the book itself is a very pleasing Easter Egg.

The way the game works is that the PCs are an adventuring party and the GM takes the role of the Goblin King, who is forcing them to run through the Labyrinth, because they're trying to get something back from him. It doesn't have to be a kidnapped child, but almost anything else (in the rules there is an example party who are united in their desire to get a favourite hockey-stick back, but other suggestions include a fond memory or a singing voice) seems a bit anti-climactic after 'your helpless kidnapped sibling'. There is a time limit, as in the movie, and the PCs can fail by running out of time.

The Goblin King doesn't have to wear a wig and tight trousers, or do a David Bowie impersonation, but I plan on all three for my next attempt at running this (I don’t know if the wig or the Bowie impression will be worse, pretty sure I can manage the tight trousers).

The PCs can be one of a number of suggested races – human, Dwarf, Horned Beast (like Ludo, though not necessarily reddish-brown, and with the ability to control a particular sort of object, not necessarily rocks), Goblin, Firey (like the fire-spirits in the movie), Worm or ‘Knight of Yore’ – an anthropomorphised animal like Sir Didymus. Not necessarily a fox-terrier, you could be a monkey, a squirrel, a lizard, a blue hedgehog or Sir Reepicheep the Talking Mouse from Narnia, if you like.

Each of these character races is called a ‘kin’, and players are encouraged (once they have a little experience with the game) to experiment with creating other ‘kins’ in collaboration with the Goblin King. An obvious one might be a Fairy, as they exist in the movie, but it’s not hard to think of other potential kins, either imported from other games/properties or cut from whole cloth. Elf, Hobbit, Troll, Tinman, Wookie, Vulcan, Dralasite… I’m sure they’d all work, somehow.

Each kin has certain attributes, called ‘traits’ and ‘flaws’. As well as there being traits and flaws according to kin, such as Worms being very small (which can be either a positive or a negative, depending on circumstance), there are others that characters can choose, such as being good at running and jumping, or being forgetful. This more-or-less completes character creation – there are no ‘stats’ as such, no version of STR-INT-WIS-DEX-CON-CHA, no saving throws, no HP or AC. Just some things the PC may be good or bad at which effect the outcome of determinations.

It might be nice if the rules included some mechanism for establishing a party at the get-go; instead it's sort of handwaved, the party establishes itself out of a shared distrust for the Goblin King and the desire to get some thing or things back, and that's that - it's up to the players to add any more depth or detail.

It's not a crunchy ruleset, resolving around 'rulings not rules'. The mechanics only take up a couple of pages, and basically revolve around the Goblin King deciding the complexity of actions and either they or the player concerned rolling to see if the PCs accomplish them, using one or two dice, depending on whether there's any advantage or disadvantage - if no, roll one die, if yes, roll two and pick the higher or lower depending on advantage or disadvantage, if there are both advantages and disadvantages (someone is helping you climb but you're also clumsy, let’s say) then they cancel out and you go back to one die. The principle is very basic and pretty flexible and can be applied to multiple situations as long as the Goblin King is prepared to give everything a 1-6 difficulty rating.

There are also a bestiary and some tables that can be used to fill in extra detail between the main encounters or create unique scenes, but these don’t quite constitute a ‘dungeon labyrinth design kit’ – it would take a little work, I think, to make into a truly useful tool for extending the world significantly (or using this ruleset for other worlds of portal fantasy – Narnia I think is an obvious possible setting, or Wonderland, or Oz).

In many ways it’s a pretty gentle game (gentler than the variants of D&D I usually play anyway – obviously I tend very much to Moldvay Basic). The book has lots of quirky encounters with a really simple set of mechanics. It's great if you're a fan of the film; loads of things that evoke the setting of the movie, plenty of Easter Eggs. If you're not a fan, but are looking for an encounter source-book, it's also pretty good - you could just raid it for encounters and drop stats in for monsters from your system of choice (easy enough to find equivalents for most monsters I think). It is quite heavily rulings-not-rules so if that's not your way working you may not like that aspect. It’s not quite complete enough, I think, to use as a toolkit for running a million other games, and there’s a certain amount that has to just be taken as being settled without actually being settled (like how the party forms), but as a fan I think it’s great, and for the not-fan I think it could be a useful source of encounters. 9/10 for production and design, 9/10 for content, 6/10 for mechanics, because really I want a full game with enough tools to spin it off wherever I want.

Building on the Borderlands

This is both a reminiscence and a mission statement.

The Keep from the southwest; from the back cover, Erol Otus's evocative illustration, (c) TSR 1980 and now (c) WotC

The Keep on the Borderlands - D&D Module B2 - is an iconic module. Since its first publication in 1980, it's been estimated that more gamers have had a copy of Keep on the Borderlands than any other module, in part because it was packaged with later printings of Holmes Basic, and then Moldvay Basic (visit the wiki page if you like).

That may no longer be true; Lost Mines of Phandelver may have overtaken it, for all I know, but whether it's still number one is not really important. It is an icon because so many have taken that journey that leads to the castle on the hill, at the edge of the forest, and gone on from there to explore the forest itself, and the Caves of Chaos it contains.

It was my introduction to D&D, and to RPGs. I got the D&D Basic Set for Christmas in 1981. Years later, I thought it was Christmas 1980 - but the Moldvay Basic Set wasn't released then, so it can't have been. My brother and I were players, and my Dad was DM in those first sessions. We had a rip-roaring time. I'd forced my brother and my parents to roll up characters, and my Dad had read enough of the rules to grasp that we needed a party to go adventuring, so my brother and I each ran two characters. I ran Eilea, an Elf, and Weredath, a Dwarf, while my brother ran Gilidor and Calorian, two Fighters. We also had along Althan, a Cleric, and Retep, a Thief, who were my Dad's characters. They were somewhere between PCs and NPCs, as my brother and I controlled them. My Dad - through the Captain of the Guard at the Keep - made it known that there were a couple of demobbed men-at-arms that might be keen to sign up for a cut of the treasure, so we were joined by Aluf and Elric, also Fighters. And thus our party of eight went adventuring.

It was amazing and inspiring, and complete carnage. From memory, Aluf was the first of our party to die, but after only a few sessions, many more had joined him. I particularly remember Weredath's death, charging after the 'Bree-Yark!' Goblins, straight into the main mass of Goblinry and their pet Ogre. The rest of the party brought down the Ogre and in the stunned silence that followed, I had Eilea climb on its corpse and make a speech (I'd picked Goblin as her extra language, fortunately enough). "See, dwellers in the Underworld, how your mightiest has fallen! Begone, lest we slay you all!" I don't know if my Dad rolled for that or just ruled that she intimidated them with chutzpah (what's the Elvish for chutzpah? I wonder...), but whatever - it worked, and the Goblins temporarily fled. We took the opportunity to go further into the complex. However, the Goblins were not the only enemies we found down there and between the Goblins, now recovered from their fright, and the Hobgoblins we had also succeeded in riling, the now somewhat-depleted party was outmatched, and not long after that, we made a retreat.

Then we were attacked by Bugbears in the woods. I'm sure they took Althan, and maybe Calorian then. Of that party of eight, I think only Eilea and Gilidor made it back to the Keep, with a couple of bags of loot. But my brother and I thought it was great. We'd really enjoyed it and played a lot more in coming years, with various friends, and always from then me DMing - using B2 as the setting often, especially in the first few years.

Anyway - B2 has always held a special place in my heart, as my first gaming setting. That's why I've actually started a new campaign and the first sessions - if they even happen - will be run using Keep as the basis. But I'll talk about those in another post.

These days it seems harder to organise games than it used to. Adults don't find it quite so easy to organise their free time to fit in with other people's free time. This blog isn't just about D&D, though that has been a major part of it, it's also about tabletop wargaming - which usually only takes two. Less dependent on getting a bunch of people together. So when I'm not pondering a new D&D campaign, I often think about battle-games instead.

I'm not a very 'good' wargamer. I'm not very dedicated, usually. I like Warhammer and 40K and Kings of War and whatnot, but I don't play them often. I have loads of rulesets for tabletop battle-games I've never even played. At the moment, that includes Oathmark. But, I'm sort-of determined to try to get some Oathmark games in soon. Definitely this year if I can manage it.

So if I'm serious about getting some games in, I should get my mojo working. I need to build armies - I need to paint minis, and in fact I need to physically turn boxes of multipart kits into troops. I need to create terrain, because I need various things for my troops to fight over.

I'm sure I'll be posting about minis and army-building as well, but this post is really about terrain.

I started looking at cardboard models, downloaded some, printed them out and made some up. I don't know why, but some of the tiles and suchlike started suggesting to me that I could build a tower or a walkway of a certain size. Idly I began comparing them to the map of the Keep, the rest of the castle and its buildings, and the idea of building the Keep came into my head.

I'm not a maniac. I know that is a mammoth undertaking - the Keep, at a scale of 10'=2" is larger than a standard 6'x4' table for Warhammer. Even a table that size is too big for my dining room. But what, I thought, if I can build freestanding buildings with the same footprint as those from the Keep map? Might I be able to use them in my games of Oathmark? If I build the Chapel (17) as a freestanding building, I can use it as a chapel or temple in Oathmark. If I build the Tavern (15) and Inn (14), the Fountain (13), the Bank (11), the Stables (4) and Warehouse (5)... could I not use these to make a 'village' with my other cardboard buildings? And eventually, could I build some walls and towers, to create the Outer Bailey of the Keep?

And if I can do that, can I not create the rest of the walls and towers, and the Keep of the Castellan itself? If I could, then perhaps I'd be able to run games centred on the Keep, using my somewhat limited space to set up either the Outer or the Inner Bailey as necessary?

That's the plan anyway. Of course, as anyone who reads this blog knows (and I know there aren't many of you), I sometimes plan on doing things that never happen. But, this is really no more than 'I'm planning to make some buildings as terrain'. The fact that the buildings will be made to an existing plan will, I am confident, make things easier not harder. I may be wrong of course, I often am about gaming things. But, I expect I will get a certain enjoyment out of it anyway, even if I am wrong. But what's the worst that can happen? I think it's unlikely I'll fail completely. Even if I only build a few buildings, that's a few more than I had before. That's still a win. As long as I get one more building in a state fit for a table, that's still a win.

I shall of course keep readers informed as to progress (if any). There had better be some, I've made a new 'Building on the Borderlands' tag for this. That's how you know I'm serious. Wish me luck! 

End of an Era

 Well, it looks like the Rift City campaign is no more, and 'The Wandering Monster Table', the experiment to bring open-table D&D to Leicester is over, after a little over 5 years.

Brigham's Mule Sanctuary, his retirement plan, interpreted by 'Dream by Wombo' (look it up, I've had fun playing with it) AI art generator

I've mentioned in previous postings on the blog that it has morphed into something quite different from the original conception, becoming something more like a regular gaming group, and also (primarily because of covid, but also due to to work commitments and people moving away) migrating from meatspace (and not just face-to-face but in a publicly-accessible space) to online. However, the Rift City campaign was conceived as a drop-in game and in theory at least remained so until the end. And that was the point really, to give people a regular game that didn't involve committing to be at every session.

This was why I adopted the structure I did for the campaign - adventuring in the Rift took place during the day, and at the end of the day the PCs high-tailed it back to town to lick their wounds an count their loot. Then, 'the next day', a potentially new constellation of adventurers would brave the caves and return in glory or defeat.

It's been fun (mostly), and some hard work to keep it going. But over the last couple of sessions, only two players have turned up - Brigham and Ugli, who were the players of Polly the Magic User and Gibbet the Thief in the very first session. We decided if no-one else wanted to come to the next session, we'd knock it on the head. I put out a call on Facebook (most of the players, something like 25 of them, who'd been to previous sessions are on there) but no-one committed to coming. So, I've pulled the plug.

Thanks players for turning up and running through the games I put on, I hope everyone had fun... but it's time to find other things to do every first Sunday of the month. Ciao!

Rift City Campaign Session 60 - out of the Rift!

I'd like to start with an apology to anyone still reading this. It seems I've put two posts on the blog in the last year. I've been very bad at keeping it up to date. I originally started the blog to discuss fantasy gaming, mostly Warhammer and related topics, but after I did, I started playing D&D again and that became the main focus. But lately I've been posting neither D&D nor miniature-gaming content. So, I'm sorry to anyone who feels disappointed. Perhaps no-one is, in which case, that's OK, but in case anyone is, you have my apologies, and at least the expressed intention to do better.

I'm not really sure why it's tailed off. I have been continuing to run the Rift City Campaign, and messing about with a bunch of other things; I just haven't been good at talking about them. But, with the Rift City Campaign, and the 'Wandering Monster Table' project, now 5 years old (we had our first session in August 2017), it seemed like a good reason to sit down and say something about it. So I will.

First, the 'Wandering Monster Table' itself. This was originally conceived as a monthly drop-in game in a (relatively) public space. Our first six sessions were in a pub, on the second Sunday of the month; we had to move for a month when there was an event on for one month (there's a comedy festival that takes place every February in Leicester, and the pub was a regular venue); we met at the house of a couple of people from the group for one session; but after the festival, we went back to the pub for about another year.

Then, the pub we met at closed down and we had to find another venue. So, for a couple of months, we went back to the house of the players we'd been to previously; then we found a different pub, for about another six months.

After this however, I got a new job that involved travelling on Sunday evenings. This meant that we had to move the session, to Sunday afternoon, when most pubs are serving food and much less keen to let some weirdos use a couple of tables. But shortly after this, Covid happened and all the pubs were closed anyway. Also, people couldn't meet face-to-face. So, we started using Discord.

So for half of its life, the 'public drop-in game' has existed as an online game instead. It's still a drop-in game, in theory, but I don't think we've added any players online that hadn't come to face-to-face sessions. I'm not saying the project is a failure - it certainly isn't, it's the longest-running campaign I've been involved in bar none; three people came to the first session (apart from me) and two of them are still regular players; and hopefully people who've played in it have enjoyed it (I certainly have) and will continue to enjoy it; but it must be admitted that it doesn't really fulfil the original brief any more. But, that's OK; who in the balmy days of the Summer of 2017 could have predicted Covid? Not me at any rate. Maybe, at some point, we'll get back to face-to-face meetings in a public place; maybe we won't.

Anyway, that's the 'Wandering Monster Table'... what about the campaign itself?

At the previous session (in June) the PCs had decided that they need more magic items - specifically Bags of Holding, as they'd found what turned out over two sessions to be several dragons, and were trying to find ways of carrying back the piles of coinage that tend to be found in dragony hoards.

There are no 'magic shops' per se in Rift City. Not quite true; there are no general magic emporia, but there is an Alchemist who has opened a potion shop, and potions are sometimes available from some of the temples too, but the supply overall is erratic. Perhaps I've done this 'wrong'; maybe it would have been more sensible to have a magic shop in Rift City, but my thinking has been that magic should be somewhat more difficult to access than say torches or iron rations. It *should* make it more mysterious and 'special', but perhaps it's just more annoying.

However, the party knows that there is a more substantial city about four days' journey away. 'Rift City' is a somewhat rough frontier town, built on the momentary profits of exploiting the adventurers coming back from the monster-infested tunnels in the Rift - it's sort of like a gold-rush town. It hardly has much infrastructure. The 'big city' is actually a real city - much bigger than Rift City and, the PCs hope, with better amenities. 

So, I worked out how far away it was and estimated how long it would take to get there. In effect, it's four days' journey through mountainous terrain, unless something goes very wrong. I wondered about this, rolled up some encounters for different times of the days involved, and knocked together a rough-and-ready plan of action. My estimate was that we could do the journey in one session, then the PCs could have as many sessions as they liked in the city, and then come back to the Rift if they wanted to, or use the city as a basis to go off elsewhere.

Illustration I found googling 'fantasy mountains', to post on the group's Facebook page: © Wizards of the Coast by Alayna Danner

I've discussed at various times on this blog what a 'quest' campaign would look like and how it could be made to work with an open table like The Wandering Monster Table - most thoroughly in this post from March 2018. The short version is, as long as the PCs finish the session somewhere relatively 'safe', where people can chose to stay and new people can join the party, an open table should be able to accommodate a campaign involving PC travel. The trick is ending the action at a point where there can be a reasonable 'changeover'.

As I mentioned, I'd estimated that the journey from Rift City to the city called 'Selen' by the inhabitants of the Rift could be accomplished in one session. I really should remember Helmuth von Moltke's dictum 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy', and not just remember it, but also rigorously apply it to D&D as soon as I get any barmy notions like 'the PCs will probably do this, it should take that long'. No. Doesn't happen.

First, though the players were all agreed to go to Selen, there was no consensus on how they were going to go. I had assumed (me and my assumptions) that they would just set off and go along the road. But, instead, they decided to attach themselves to a caravan. That's OK, I know caravans come and go, some of the early plots and hooks around the Rift concerned the raiding of caravans by Kobolds and the theft of supplies destined for Rift City. Caravans are definitely a thing in the vicinity of Rift City.

So I rolled up a random caravan. I don't have any specific rules for creating caravans - maybe I should write some - but there are Merchants in the D&D Expert book. There caravans can be of different sizes, so I randomised creation and rolled one up. I got the largest size of caravan I could, about 20 merchants and 80 guards; but I don't see wagons making it through the mountains very easily (even with the relatively-OK roads that I assume exist... it doesn't matter why but 'OK roads' seem reasonable in context), so I decided this caravan would mostly be mules - a giant mule-train, basically. I randomly determined when this caravan would be setting off, and as luck would have it, the PCs only had to wait one more day.

Some of the PCs spent this day buying up all the gems and jewellery and platinum pieces they could get their hands on in Rift City, the idea being to take portable wealth to Selen. Other PCs, not so much. They mostly just stuffed money into sacks.

Some of the PCs decided to sign up as guards for the caravan. They negotiated a price with one of the merchants to provide two armoured humans, two armoured Dwarves and an armoured Elf. The party at this point consisted of Brigham and Halvor (Clerics around 8th Level), Heedor and Ugli (Dwarves around 8th Level) and Jade, a new PC (Elf of 7th Level). The price was lower than the player doing the negotiating had hoped for, but reflected market conditions; pay (3gp each for the humans, 5gp for the Dwarves and 6gp for the Elf) represent their cost as 'Heavy Foot' mercenaries. Only not for a month, for four days. PCs have to provide their own food rather than it being provided, and there is some danger on the way for sure; it isn't garrison duty in a sleepy backwater. So the pay is much higher than the minimum to get soldiers. But crucially, there are lots of people who could do the job in Rift City (the place is awash with 1st-Level Fighters, Elves and Dwarves) and the organisers of the caravan weren't going to pay loads for 'special' guards. So the five PCs were offered 22gp to be caravan guards.

However, others of the PCs decided it would be fun to get mules of their own; so, some of the other members of the party bought seven mules, mostly to carry large sacks of gold.

This led to some problems with the caravan. The organisers had agreed to pay for five guards; but on the morning that the caravan was due to depart, two guards and three merchants with seven mules turned up.

A quick re-negotiation with the merchants led to a revised offer; 8gp for the Elf and one of the Human (Cleric) heavy infantry; the remaining PCs paid 15gp for up to two mules to join the caravan (the PC with three mules had to pay 30gp). Also, these PCs hired a mule-handler-cum-extra guard, a Dwarf called Gami.

At last the PCs and the caravan were ready and the whole travelling roadshow set off through the mountains.

According to my rolled encounters, there was nothing in the morning. So, the morning passed uneventfully. I had rolled both an evening encounter, and a situation of some consternation at the end of the day. I'm trialling some rough wilderness creation rules for precisely this sort of situation, and my results were that there would be an encounter with snakes (Giant Rattlers, in this case) and the 'safe' area at the end of the day would be a village of ... Troglodytes. Hmm. Think my procedure needs tweaking a bit.

The snake encounter was fine; as originally I'd done the rolling up when I thought just the PCs were travelling (Helmuth von Moltke is spinning in his grave I presume) there was always the chance that the encounter I planned for them would have been triggered by some other part of the caravan. I just asked the PCs where they were in the caravan ('front, middle or back') and assigned a 2-in-6 chance that that was where the snake attack was. And, it was. Had it not been, I'd have said 'there's a kerfuffle up ahead/somewhere behind you...' but it was nearby. The party toasted the snakes - literally, as far as I remember, I think Jade used Fireball - and that was that. I think someone ate some barbecued snake but can't remember who - probably one of the Dwarves.

My assumption had been for the village at the end of that, that there was a (friendly) village, but the Trogs had overrun it. So, in the evening, as they approached the village, the caravan came across some bodies in the road. As so often happens in situations when I need 'people' quickly, I turned to Donjon's random generators - this case, the NPC generator. I must have also rolled for how many bodies there were, because there were definitely three of them. I read the first three entries, and from the descriptions gave the PCs an idea of the people they'd found - two middle-aged women and one younger woman. I also told them the dead women seemed to be fleeing the village and there was a horrible stench around. Several of the PCs have fought troglodytes before (everyone except Jade I think) so I thought it reasonable that they would recognise the lingering smell.

The PCs decided to Raise Dead on the young woman. It turned out that her name was Astal, she lived in the village with her parents who were farmers, and she had fled when the stinking lizards had attacked and had started running to the north hoping she and her companions could have made it to Rift City, but were caught and brutally attacked... Raise Dead leaves the raised one with 1hp so the PCs decided that Astal should sit on one of the mules and come back to the village.

As the caravan got there, the PCs seemed reluctant to go in (I described it as having an earth bank around it: in my imagination, it's a village inside an old disused fortification, and the road passed between the banks on either side). Some of the PCs turned themselves invisible, but they delayed going in for a while. In the meantime, some of the other caravan guards went inside. By the time the PCs had decided to follow suit, I ruled that the other guards had already dealt with the Trogs in the village so the PCs didn't get any experience for that (or the gems that made up the Trogs' treasure).

The PCs asked Astal if she wanted to go to her house, but she didn't - the potential sight of her murdered parents being too upsetting. So, instead five PCs, an NPC Dwarf caravan guard, a newly-resurrected peasant girl and seven mules all bedded down in a stable. They worked out a watch rota and settled down.

I knew there was going to be an attack of a particular kind during the night. There's a kind of monster from Deities and Demigods called an 'Astral Wolf'. It's in the 'Nehwon Mythos' section, and appears in the Wilderness Wandering Monster Tables for the campaign because, well, everything from the Nehwon Mythos section exists in my campaign. The PCs just don't know it yet because they've only seen the Rift so far. Astral Wolves attack by ambushing people in their dreams and forcing them into the Astral Plane where the wolves then attack them bodily.

To be forced into the Astral Plane, you have to fail a save versus Spells. Of course, all of the PCs made their saves, so they just had some bad dreams about zombie wolves pursuing them through a silvery realm. Gami the NPC Dwarf however, who was on watch, woke the party members to show them Astal, - a Normal Human with rubbish saves, who had therefore been transported to the Astral Realm, where she was attacked by the Astral Wolves, and, having only 1hp from her Raise Dead experience, had quickly succumbed to their attacks. So that was that (for the moment) - the Astral Wolf attack served only to give the PCs bad dreams but insta-killed the person they'd only just brought back.

The PCs went back to sleep as best they could but there were no further attacks that night. In the morning, the party rose and began prep for the next day.

And that's where we ended the session, it having taken massively longer to play that day than I expected. I thought Day 1 of the journey could be 'done' in about 45 minutes - it took nearly three hours. Proof positive that I shouldn't bother trying estimate this stuff, because the PCs will always do stuff I don't expect.

What will the next session bring? who knows? Not me. But I have an idea how the rest of the journey could proceed, if the PCs don't take things in strange and unexpected directions, which they might well; and, if and when they get there, I hope they'll find the City of Selen an interesting place to visit and to adventure in.

Rift City catchup...

Well, I'm not doing well posting updates to the Rift City Campaign. Session 49 (August, the campaign's 4th birthday!) has been and gone - as have Sessions 50 (September), 51 (October) and 52 (November). Session 53 is almost upon us...

What can I say? I write fewer notes with the discord sessions, and then it's harder to reconstruct what happened after the event. This makes it far less likely that I'll actually start writing a blog post, and then the next session comes round and I have more to do with less information (and I've already forgotten half of what happened at the session before...).

What has definitely happened is that the PCs have abandoned the tunnels under the ruins that they were previously exploring, and therefore the search for the tomb of Riha the Bejewelled, and instead started exploring down the hill where they discovered an entrance to a different part of Level 6. They fought Salamanders (the PCs got very hot, and turned one of them into a rabbit); they found some Spectres, Berg charged in and the rest of the PCs stood by watching - as Berg was zapped by six Spectres, making her very dead indeed. RIP Berg, there was many a Dwarf that night crying himself to sleep over his beer I'm sure. There were also some 'evil Dwarves' as the PCs called them (they definitely were evil, I'm not going to lie - some were Chaotic Evil, some were Neutral Evil, a few weren't technically Dwarves, but it doesn't really matter - they were for sure hostile to the party and paid the price) in one of the rooms but they were wiped out and all their stuff was liberated for the forces of Light.

Further exploration in the same area over subsequent sessions has yielded some snake-chickens (Cockatrices that is) and some strange big-cats-with-six-legs-and-shoulder-tentacles, which are of course Displacer Beasts, but because I'm using a Labyrinth Lord monster generator (link here) they come up as 'Phase Tigers', which is a very cool name I think. Certainly, if I were a Phase Tiger, I reckon I'd be very disapproving of people calling me a 'Displacer Beast'. Then of course there were a couple of packs of Hellhounds, which Halvor in particular is theologically very against (his god is a kind of version of the Viking god Tyr, and his mythology has his hand being bitten off by a giant Hellhound. The Hellhound is in turn worshipped by Goblins as a great flaming wolf-spirit of the Underworld).

Image of Tyr from Age of Kings, which I don't think is the same of Age of Empires II, but might be. Anyway, this is 'Yrt', one-handed god of Lawful Fighting.

Halvor's divine interventions have proved particularly useful. 'Sticks to Snakes' (one of the spells Halvor uses most often) has allowed the party to considerably increase their muscle-power, as well as giving them poisoned attacks. It's a powerful spell - though, I ruled (because I can't specifically find a rule for it) that they couldn't successfully attack the Spectres that killed Berg.

Web, from Inarra the MU, has also proved useful. In the last session, when the party was attacked by Hellhounds, Inarra webbed them. This led to a discussion on whether Hellhounds are immune to fire damage, and it doesn't seem they are. The reasoning is that, if the Hellhounds' breath destroys the web, it also harms the Hellhounds. Effectively, they spent two rounds fighting themselves by burning themselves out of the web before confronting the party.

What else...? I'm not sure, I can't remember at the moment. If you want some better detail, Lyracian (whose PC is Halvor) has written up some of the sessions on his blog (link).

Rift City campaign - session 47

 Well, once again I have failed to do the write-up of the session before the next one has arrived. However, Lyracian has done a qrite-up here. It contains the bare bones of the story - captured Orc seemingly tries to lead the party into a trap, fight with insects and then a confrontation with some death-cult clerics.

I have to agree, I thought it was a fun session too! What tomorrow will bring... well, I'd say 'watch this space' but if you want your info hot off the press, maybe you shoud watch Lyracian's space, he's much quicker off the mark than I am.

Tomorrow's session will be the 48th programmed session of the Wandering Monster Table, which I'm chosing to regard as quite an acheivement.  We've only cancelled two session in the last 4 years, re-arranged two for the third Sunday of the month,and had to move venue for a few (generally to Berg and Galen/Halvor's players' house, so thanks for  that) - not bad to be honest given that the idea was to bring an open table campaign to Leicester. I think we can be somewhat proud of how we've managed to do that.

Who knows, maybe for our actual 4th birthday (8th August is the second Sunday in August and is therefore our 4th birthday, even if the opening session was 13th August, the second Sunday in August 2017) we may even be able to meet physically for the first time since March 2020...

Rift City Campaign - session 45

Once more unto the Rift, dear friends...

On Sunday 11th April the Wandering Monster Table had its 45th session, with Halvor, Berg, Inarra and Kate deciding they needed to stock up on silver and magic weapons to fight were-creatures in the ruins in the Rift.

At last everyone was equipped with something that could do damage to lycanthropes and other similarly-enchanted creatures, and they set off for the ruins, under which they encountered the were-creatures in previous visits. Ostensibly, they were there to rescue some adventurers that had been captured by Ogres and enslaved (or worse) by the lycanthropes.

Ironic, given what happened.

Lyracian at the 'Playing Dice with Universe' blog has already written up the session (link here). All I have to add is that the adventure was proceeding in distinctly un-lucrative fashion until killing an NPC party gave the PCs a bonanza of magic items; and, as I just hinted, slaughtering the NPC party was a pretty bizarre end to a session in which our 'heroes' (I use the term very loosely) were supposed to be rescuing some NPCs...

Rift City Campaign -- Session 44

Well, the PCs had another go under the ruins in the Rift. Halvor the Cleric, Berg the Dwarf, Kate the Halfling, Brigham the Cleric and Gibbet the Thief once more ventured in search of excitement, adventure and big piles of loot.

The first thing they did was finish up exploring the tower. They've been there on two previous occasions and had failed to find the room with the trapdoor down to the lower levels. They also hadn't made a map and ended up exploring some of the areas they'd been before.

In one of the rooms, they came upon some undead presences. These proved a little tricky as the PCs don't all have magic or silver weapons. But with Berg taking two hits and losing two levels, and Gibbet losing one, they did manage to overcome the entities before they were all back to First Level. 

The PCs eventually came to a room they hadn't been before, as it was behind the only door they've found that they hadn't opened. Not in some Quantum Ogre sense, just because it was the furthest from the entrance. In the room, sitting on a rug that turned out to be top of the trapdoor, were a couple of prisoners and some Ogres. They Ogres died pretty quickly, the prisoners did not. Their names were Aben (a female Halfling) and Hames (a male Elf); they begged the PCs to rescue their friends (more prisoners had been taken down into the tunnels, it seemed), and agreed to come and help.

So, everyone rolled back the rug and opened the trapdoor, where they found a staircase heading down to the south. They followed it to a landing where stairs went east and west. The east stair smelled bad (probably Troglodytes down there) so they took the west stair. This opened into a wide E-W hall with various doors and corridors off. Taking a door on the north wall, they found themselves in a room where a man dressed in black was playing a lute and singing to to a female human, a female Ogre, and a couple of Giant Rats The female human was one of the captured NPCs, a young woman called Miranda, and there seemed to be some sort of magic going on. A fight rapidly ensued with the music-man being Held (then killed), the Ogre and the Rats being killed, and Miranda falling unconscious when the music-man died (and his spell was broken). On regaining consciousness, Miranda told them that the other prisoners had been added to a group already in the tunnels but that 'the man with the dark eyes' had taken a fancy to her and told the Ogres to hand her over to him. She agreed that coming with the party (given Aben and Hames were with them) was a good plan. So they looted the room as best they could and, after setting what was left on fire, they left.

On the way out, they ran into a couple of rough-looking fellows who seemed to be some sort of wandering guard patrol. Unconvinced by the PCs' explanation, the guards resolved to 'check with Eldwin' (the music chap with rats and women in his thrall, now dead and in a burning room). As they passed the party, a quick attempt at a surprise backstabbing was made... and failed. These guys too were immune to normal weapons apparently... so a short and vicious fight broke out between the PCs (five of them) and their NPC allies (three) on the one hand, and the two guards on the other. The only problem was that due to the lack of magical weapons, only about 4-5 of the PCs could fight anyway. But obviously, the PCs could deal with a pair of lycanthropes even so. Looting the bodies netted some sacks of low-value coins and a couple of pieces of expensive jewellery.

Deciding that by this point that is really was time to head back to the City, they made their way back to the exit. Heading out through the ruins, however, they ran into another patrol - this time 6 more lycanthrope guards. Again the fight was brutal but eventually 6 dead werewolves netted another 300GP for the coffers - and no-one from the party's side died. No-one was infected with lycanthropy either, though it was pretty close in some cases. 

High-tailing it back up the forest path the party was back in Rift City in time for tea and the division of spoils. What will happen 'tomorrow' is anyone's guess...

Rift City campaign - session 43

 The party made their... what, let's call it '43rd' visit to the caves in the Rift (it's not really, we missed a couple of sessions due to work issues, and on some sessions, they've made multiple visits, leaving after a good quick haul and going back 'the next day' during the same session... but about 43rd) on 14th Feb. 

Yes I know that's Valentine's Day, but as it turned out, the four players who came to the session are two couples. 

No I didn't do anything particularly Romantic for the session, but in line with some of my recent musings, I made extra-sure to use Reaction Roles and Morale rolls. I know I should do that anyway, but... I made extra-sure.

Anyway... Halvor the Cleric, Berg the Dwarf, Gibbet the Thief and Brigham the Cleric (that was the marching order) made their way towards the towers that they'd found last time. They'd got a treasure map at the last session that looked something like this:

In case you can't read the text, it says "In the Rift there is the Fortress of Skile, two towers with a gatehouse between. Beneath the eastern tower, a stair leads down to a crypt where lies the Fabled Hoard of Riha the Bejewelled. Gems without count and fabulous jewellery are there, adorning the bones of the last of the Sorcerer-Queens. From the tower, take the staircase, and at the landing, turn west. Foul things lurk in the darkness of the eastern stair. In the Deeps, we came to a great room with six corners, but this was a false chamber – we never found the real burial chamber beyond."

Trying to find the place where the jewels might be stashed, they headed down the path, past the spot where they killed the Giant at the last session (his corpse was still there, somewhat chewed by local scavengers, but substantially intact, so the party, deciding they didn't want a Zombie Giant rampaging around and mindful they were supposed to burn corpses, set fire to it using a barrel of oil they had in the Bag of Holding).

Going on a bit further past the smouldering corpse, the party noticed a flock of ... somethings ... flying above them. They weren't sure what they were so the PCs hid in the undergrowth for a bit. Turns out that the flying things were hippogriffs, and there were 15 of them. The party was undecided about what to do - Berg, Gibbet and Brigham kept hiding, Halvor decided to try and attract their attention. Then Berg threw out some beef jerky for one, which took it, but then the flock decided that it would rather go and investigate the burning Giant so flew off.

The party headed on to the ruins of the Fortress of Skile and found their way in. Remembering there was a pit trap, but not exactly where it was, the party unfortunately triggered it again. No-one was seriously hurt however. Now they've outlined it in chalk so perhaps they'll find it easier to avoid next time.

Making their way inside they turned to the left to try and find the entrance to the lower levels. The first room they came across seemed to be deserted, but the second contained a hideous spider-type entity.  Conscientiously rolling for the spider's reactions, the dice came up snake-eyes so straight into a vicious combat. To be fair, there's only so much interaction I'd be able to role-play as a Giant Spider I think. When they searched the room, they found a chest with some money in it, but unfortunately ripped the old tapestry hanging from the ceiling.

Pushing on, the PCs found a room decorated with a frieze of faces. Searching these carefully they found that one was hinged to come away from the wall. Behind it was a kind of safe - trapped, which Gibbet disarmed (they still don't know what the trap was, but Gibbet detected a trigger mechanism and disabled it) - and containing a potion-bottle and a bag of cash.

They'd reached the end of the corridor, but I reminded them that there were other corridors and rooms they hadn't explored in the other direction (this time they'd entered and turned left; last time they turned right). I don't often do that sort of thing but I thought it was justified in this instance. It was a month ago that the players last explored the dungeon, but for the PCs, it was yesterday. I think that the PCs would perhaps remember that there were further unexplored passages to the right even though the players didn't. So, they started to make their way back to the areas they'd explored the game-day before.

On the way they encountered some 'grey worms' - Caecilia from  the Expert rulebook. These were actually fairly straightforward to deal with, in the end. Somewhere, and I'm not certain where now, they also encountered some Giant Weasels, but as I have no real recollection of this fight I'm not sure they really gave the party much trouble either.

Having retraced their steps, they moved off to the right (east), back through some rooms they'd explored previously, and then on to new territory (actually, they may have run into the Weasels here). This led them to a room of Ogres, who the party, probably sensibly, decided would be a serious threat and a fight ensued. Halvor made good use of his Sticks to Snakes ability (the snakes this time were Spitting Cobras, which blinded several of the Ogres) and the Ogres (6 of them) were disposed of without too much damage coming to the party. However, the fight had alerted other Ogre guards and 5 more then barged into the room when the party were searching. The snakes were still around and had been tasked with guarding the door so the Ogre ambushers were themselves ambushed and soon defeated.

By this time it was the end of the session. The PCs had searched about 90% of the tower but not yet located the steps mentioned on the treasure map. I guess, they'll be heading back here next session... but one never can tell, they often end up going off in all sorts of unexpected directions.

Rift City Sessions 41-42

I didn't get round to putting up December's session (Session 41) so this is partly about that - what I can remember - but I guess it's really going to be about what I recall of Session 42 (which was only a couple of days ago).

The first thing that happened was that three new PCs joined the party. These were (alphabetically) Helvor, a Cleric; Inarra, a Magic User, and Kate Short For Bob, a Halfling. This is because of the deaths (or at least temporary petrification) of Karensa and Kraghelm, and the retirement of Galen. About 3 years ago, I asked the PCs to come up with a fact about their PCs. Galen's player told me Galen was seeking to restore his family's fortunes so he could marry his lady love. Having amassed 20,000GP he's taking that back to the Elf-lands to hire retainers and give some presents to local dignitaries to re-establish the clan's standing. So, Helvor, Inarra and Kate joined Berg (Dwarf), Brigham (Cleric) and Gibbet (Thief) to brave the caves.

The first thing the party decided to do - and I have no idea why - was go to the Level 1 cave of Ningal the Magic User and kill her as a witch. They seem to have decided that she's the one who was controlling the Undead, but having killed her, they found her journal that said she'd been having problems with them too, so that wasn't it.

Then they went back to the cave where Kraghelm and Karensa had been petrified. Nosing around there they found a peculiar upside-down pit trap: it was a patch of water on the ceiling, and Kate failed a saving throw and fell 'up' into it.

Now; things that look easy to grasp from my side of the screen look somewhat different from the other side. I thought it was pretty obviously a gravity-reversal trap, limited to a very small area. I expected the rest of the party to throw a rope so Kate could climb down (or, 'up' from her point of view).

But they didn't. They thought it was some aquatic (or at least watery-looking) ceiling-monster with a paralysing/levitating attack - so Inarra the Magic User fireballed it, with Kate still sitting in the puddle. Having done that - bear in mind Kate has now taken d6 damage from falling 'up' 10', and 5d6 damage from the fireball (half if she made her save, I guess she must have done or she'd probably be toast) - the rest of the party decided they'd then dispel the effect, causing Kate to fall again and take another d6 damage. Poor Kate, but honestly, it was hilarious. It also took about an hour before all this was done. Not bad for something from a room description that had originally read, I think, 'the water is on the ceiling'. I don't really want my PCs to know my sources but rest assured, room generator, I am very grateful, those 6 words generated a lot of gaming content. 

It took up so much time that I think there was only time for a fight with some Giant Ants and the PCs decided to head for home.

For Session 42, they decided not to head back to the Medusa Caves, as they're too difficult to map (being a bit wiggly, again, I don't want to reveal too much about my sources, thanks Dyson Logos).

So, instead, they headed on down the path to find another cave entrance.

Now, I haven't designed this area beyond a few rough notes. There is a ruin further down the path, that the party found rumours about 3 years ago (and have probably forgotten).

However, what has been established already is that the wilderness will get more unforgiving beyond the bend in the road. Given the division between 'Basic' and 'Expert' rules, this seems to me to be a reasonable way to conceptualise moving further from civilisation. We joked at the time when Gibbet went up to 4th Level that now the Wilderness could attack him, but having zones of increasing wildness makes more sense. From the Edge of the Rift to the First Bend, is a kind of liminal zone - not completely wild, not completely tame; but beyond the bend, civilised writ does not run. So, a short way down the path, the party encountered some humanoids, at some range. As Berg the Dwarf went to investigate, and the humanoids in question were Goblins, arrows soon started to fly. The party charged the Goblins and saw off about a dozen or so, either dead or chased away.

Again, not really wanting to give too much away but I looked at my maps for the 'next level past the Medusa Cave' and realised that in fact there are no cave entrances to that level. Not that I have established anyway. So they kept on going until they arrived at the ruins.

I knew that at some point the PCs would get here but did not expect to have to flesh them out 'on the hoof' as it were. I had a map and some room descriptions - but the original had 5' squares that made no sense. There is a pit-trap that is only 5' square in a corridor - I can't see what would prevent some even relatively-tall human (it was Helvor who triggered it) from just grabbing the lip at the far side to stop themself falling, or at least slowing their descent so they could hang from the edge and just drop the last few feet.

I told them the squares were 10'. That seemed to solve the problem. It meant all the room descriptions were off and I had to convert everything on the fly. The descriptions were also for a Level 1 dungeon, so I was pulling monsters out and substituting ones of a more appropriate level. As it was, the only monster I remember them finding in the ruin was an Ochre Jelly. It was a little while before they found out that fire was their friend, but they did manage to fireball it and its spawn eventually.

After that (they'd only searched a couple of rooms of the ruin) they decided to head back to civilisation, with not very much loot. But from my point of view it seemed reasonable that they could have another encounter in the wilderness on the way home (one possibility in the morning, one in the evening... both came up).

Consulting the tables it was a Frost Giant (1-2 appearing). Well, it was only one that appeared, looking for 'its' Goblins. When the PCs cheerfully admitted they'd killed some Goblins, the Giant got angry and started throwing rocks at them. The PCs being PCs charged (someone was injured by a rock but I can't remember who) and Helvor saved the day by turning some sticks (that he'd said he was collecting at the previous session) into snakes. The spell is a bit underwritten so I decided to dice for the properties of the snakes - turns out, he'd made 11 Pit Vipers. 3 of them managed to make attacks on the Giant, and of those the giant saved one throw... so, as far as I can tell, the Giant died. Cue looting the corpse where, in the treasure tables, the giant has a 25% of 3 magic items plus one scroll. I can't remember what I rolled but it was less than 25. So I told the PCs that they'd found some cash (the best haul in the session, obviously), and also that they'd found a scroll. Then I rolled the first random magic item... a scroll! And the third magic item... a scroll! And the fourth magic item... a scroll! So four magic items, all scrolls... consulting further rolls these were two scrolls of Protection from Undead, one of Protection from Lycanthropes, and a treasure map. I'm so glad they found that at the end of the session, now I have a month to knock up some sort of map for them to go and investigate for the next session...

What I'm pretty certain is that it will lead to the Sepulchre of Riha the Bejewelled (thanks Donjon for I'm sure at the very least you gave me the name!)

I really don't know where this session would have been without loads of internet content out there - thanks to all I haven't mentioned too, but some at least will have to be kept under wraps until my players have pushed on a bit further.

Rift City Session 37-40 reports - happy third birthday!

Five bold adventurers took up the call for the 37th Rift City Campaign session. This was the third anniversary of the campaign as we started in August 2017.

Marching order was:

Berg (5th Level Dwarf)

Galan (5th Level Elf)

Gibbet (6th Level Thief)

Brigham (5th Level Cleric)

Shazam (2nd Level Elf)

Shazam hasn't been to many sessions recently and is therefore trailing a little in levels.

The party decided to head back to the cave entrance they explored last time. This is a little further on from where they have been going most of the time, they hoped it might mean more loot as the caves would have been raided less often.

They found their way in OK - nothing else had taken residence in the main room behind the cave entrance. Previously they'd encountered Carrion Crawlers there but this time it was empty.

Pushing on they came to a room (I think this one also had Carrion Crawlers in last session - this area contained a little nest of them) where there was a doorway they had not previously tried. I can't remember whether Gibbet found the trap but couldn't disarm it, or didn't find the trap (Gibbet in this session was really successful at not finding traps - made all his rolls, I think, on untrapped doors - but very bad at finding the traps on the doors that had them) - either way, an axe-blade swept out when Shazam tried to go through, and the noble Elf was no more.

I have a houserule called 'Elementary Staunching' that I've used in the last 4 campaigns I've started and discussed several times before on the blog (such as here). It is intended to make combat a little less catastrophically dangerous for PCs by giving them a chance to survive at 0hp until the rest of the party can at least try some battlefield first aid. 

But... the party didn't do it. I'm a little surprised by that. Essentially, the view expressed was 'we're happy for Shazam to die because that way he's replaced by a higher-level version'.

That isn't the way this is supposed to work. Because of the stricture not to allow too much level-mixing, I ruled that new PCs begin at the lowest level in the party. I also have an 'exploration bonus' to XP to represent the exploration of new territory: this is based on the average that PCs need to reach their next level. Low-level characters drag down that average somewhat and make the bonus smaller. The upshot of the interaction between these two rules that it makes sense (from a certain point of view) to allow low-level PCs to die in order to boost the experience of high-level PCs.

That is not supposed to be how it works at all.

Anyway... Shazam died, and the PCs found a new, much higher-level, adventurer, Kraghelm the Dwarf, back at the town. I think this rule is potentially going to break the campaign.

More stuff happened. Oh, boy did it happen. But, actually, it's months ago and I can't remember what.

What I do know is that the party also went adventuring in session 38 (in September), where they visited the Bath-house of Blibdoolpoolp once more, and fought their way down corridors they've never visited before, in the furthest parts of Level 1. They do have a habit of attacking everything though, even things that aren't threatening them. Poor crystal statues...

In October (Session 39), they went down to Level 3 through one of the areas that they've been before. Marl was able to join the PCs for this one which was nice, as Marl hasn't been for ages. A highlight was a room with levers which they played about with until they opened a door. I think they sussed that the other levers opened other doors, but not that they were standing in the control-room of a prison complex. It didn't matter, they killed the prisoners (who were werewolves) anyway.

For the November session (session 40) Berg, Galan, Brigham, Gibbet, Karensa (who joined us for the first time in several months) and Kraghelm ventured down - in that order. They decided they'd dare to venture round the bend in the road and try their luck in a cave round there. That's supposed to be the scarier dungeon entrances, though I'm not sure completely certain what level they were on.

It didn't necessarily go well. Ascertaining from the number of statues in a cavern that there might be a Medusa about, there were in fact three of them. The PCs got surprise luckily but but even so, Kraghelm and Karensa were turned to stone and Gibbet bitten before the fight was over. Gibbet made his poison save so he was OK in the end (a bit hurty from the bite) but with no way to turn Karensa and Kraghelm back to flesh (you can't do that as a wizard until 11th level, apparently) the PCs lashed a rope round Karensa and dragged her back to town so Galan could claim she was legally dead and he was her heir. The statue of Kraghelm was left in the Medusae's cave...

The legal wrangling took as long as the adventuring. Galan also declared that as he now had 20,000gp in portable wealth he was off - as one of the characters that ages ago gave up a family secret, Galan has bee trying to amass some treasure to restore his family's fortunes and marry his lady-love. Her family blocked the marriage alliance when Galan's family was ruined. He's hoping a bunch of cash (and jewellery, gems and a few magic items) might allow the clan to re-establish itself and regain its influence. 

The net result is that there's going to be a lot of new PCs in coming months!

Rift City vague update

Where does the time go?

The Rift City campaign is continuing - due to social distancing, it's happening on Discord. We're still getting together once a month to dungeon the heck out of the caverns of the Rift. The PCs (now mostly around 4th-5th level) are currently beating up an area of Level 3. But, somehow, I never get around to doing the write-ups. Part of the problem is that I make fewer notes running the game on Discord and it's harder to reconstruct in the end. But really I'm just bad at this.

Lyracian, who plays in the campaign, has written up some of the sessions on his blog. Some recent sessions, only partly covered by me, can be found here:

Sessions 30-33 report

Session 34 report

What happened in Session 35? Well, the PCs were exploring the same area of Level 3 as in Session 34. One peculiar thing was that they found a room that contained four curious devices that seemed to be a bit like a cross between a chair and a covered bath. Three were empty but one contained a (possibly sleeping, possibly dead) occupant. The PCs prised open the lid, and the occupant woke up. It was a male Elf, who seemed somewhat bemused. There was also a cat in the ... sleep-chamber... which also woke up. Berg tried to kill it but the Elf cast Hold Person on her, and then berated Galen and Karensa in somewhat archaic Elvish about keeping their servant under control. It seemed the Elf had travelled in the sleep-chamber with other companions, but also inside another metal ship, a great distance from another star. What the PCs made of all of this is anyone's guess, but the Elf announced his intention to see the world of two suns (news to the PCs, they only know about one) and find some Elven leaders to find out what had been happening since he arrived. The Elf PCs at least should be starting to suspect that somehow he's been asleep for a very long time indeed...

This is the 36th session coming up. We've actually missed two while I was working away at the end of last year, so technically it might be the 34th session actually run, but for accounting purposes it should be Session 36 I think. We started in August 2017 after all, and thus have been running for 3 years now. I'm quite pleased that we have managed to keep it going - but I'm looking forward to it being face-to-face again!

Rift City - Session 27

A new day and a new party heading into the caves. Joining our regular party members (Brigham, Cnut, Gell, Gibbet, Karensa, Marl and Nelson) was a cleric, newly-arrived in town - Tanika.

The party established its marching order:

Marl (3rd Level Halfling)
Cnut (4th Level Fighter)
Tanika (2nd Level Cleric)
Nelson (3rd Level Magic USer)
Gibbet (5th Level Thief)
Gell (2nd Level Fighter)
Brigham (4th Level Cleric)
Karensa (3rd Level Elf)

The idea was a demi-human front and back to use infravision (I ruled long ago that Halflings have infravision and speak Halfling, even though neither is included in the rules); then a fighter and a cleric (in case of undead); then, in the middle, the two specialists (that is, the only people not wearing plate).

The exploration started simply enough: the PCs have for the past few sessions been checking out an area of Level 2, and decided that they'd head back there. Unfortunately, though they had a map made by Marl and Brigham, they'd forgotten to get the 'other map' off Galen (who wasn't there but had mapped the first visit to these tunnels). However, Karensa had at least sorted out before the game that she'd collected the Bag of Holding for any treasure.

They entered the cave that led to the corridor they'd previously been exploring. About 120' down this corridor, there is a door, and the party was somewhat surprised to see some people coming out of it - adventurers like themselves. These poor souls told the PCs they'd got lost in the caves and didn't know where they were, so the PCs told them that they were close to an exit, and the NPC party turned and headed back the way they'd come. This may have been a sign of things to come -or maybe it wasn't. The PCs then spiked the door shut that the other party had come through, to stop them heading back that way again - the procedure did cause some noise however, which led to me making more rolls for wandering monsters.

The PCs pushed on, and soon found more wanderers. These three were searching for a lost heirloom, a sword with a skull design on the pommel. Again the PCs talked their way through the encounter, and pushed on - through the room with a pool that didn't have a lion in it any more.

They were moving on to areas they'd never been to before when they had their third encounter. Again this was a wandering monster encounter. I hadn't realised when I prepared the list of wanderers for this area that so many of them were NPCs, but they were. Also, I kept rolling low as they explored so they got several in quick succession (of course there was also the banging, that helped). This time it was a lone Elf, who again convinced the party not to attack her.

A little further on the PCs came to a set of stairs going down. They did debate whether they wanted to go down to Level 3 ("there's eight of us after all!" I heard someone say), but decided that they'd stick to Level 2 and explore further.

They moved north and Gibbet, scouting out for traps, realised that there was some kind of magical effect on a door. Making sure that they could open the door without touching it by judicious use of an 8-foot pole (Gibbet's 10-foot pole had suffered an accident many sessions before), the PCs navigated their way  through, with little ill effect that they could determine. However, there were consequences to this that were not to become immediately apparent.

Pushing on, the PCs entered a room that appeared to have been some kind of evil temple. A pile of candles lay in the centre; a tapestry showing ghouls devouring victims covered the west wall; on the east wall, there were bookshelves covered in dust (but no scrolls). As they were searching around, a gas trap went off - Tanika, Cnut, Gell, and I think Nelson failed their saves and were caught in the cloud of poison. This was not a standard 'Save or Die' poison, which is usual in B/X, it came with specific damage attached (this part of the dungeon is ultimately derived from an AD&D source, and I believe 'Save or Die' is less common in AD&D material).

There followed a moment of shock for Cnut - what I think I told him was 'take d10 damage'. But I might not have done - what Cnut's player heard me say was 'take 10 damage', which would take Cnut down to 4hp I think. But when I asked Tanika, Gell, and (I think) Nelson to roll for their damage, Cnut's player asked why I didn't let him roll, and we realised what happened. In the end, Cnut ended up taking something like 3 points.

But, Tanika was not so lucky. I think that sickly Cleric only had about 7hp to start with and promptly fell over, 'dead' in so far as people are dead at 0hp. Time for the party to apply 'elementary staunching', or at least some sort of battlefield first aid, possibly the kiss of life. The result was, Tanika did survive, but at the cost of losing a point of CON permanently (this point is converted to 1hp), going from 10 to 9. Brigham then used a Cure Light Wounds spell to restore 3 more hp to Tanika.

I'll admit I wasn't sure about this. Cure Light Wounds is not 'neutralise poison' so I was unsure it would work. But ultimately the gas did 'damage' not 'poison damage', and what Cure Light Wounds heals is hit points not some subset of hit points relating to injuries from weapons. So I let Tanika heal the 3 points. Tanika felt able to limp on, so the party kept going, on into the next room.

Here they found another large room, but with few interesting features. While searching around however they did come across a kind of leather-covered notebook with diagrams and notes in an unknown language. Gibbet pocketed it for later perusal, and the party moved on towards the south-west. As they did the rearguard heard something behind them.

The PCs have been guilty of some pretty grim behaviour in their adventuring career. The slaughter of Orc prisoners, for example. An unprovoked assault on some Lizardmen during the last session. This time, it was the slaughter of some Lawful, curious and basically friendly Neanderthals that was not the party's finest hour. Unfortunately, the party didn't have a common language with the Neanderthals, and Karensa decided that they perhaps posed a threat, so she shot at them. This enraged them (they made their morale check) and they counter attacked.

Poor Tanika was having no luck, being part of the rearguard, as one of the Neanderthals' stone-tipped spears found a gap in the old plate armour. Then the Neanderthals were on the party. Down the unlucky cleric went went for the second time. I apologised to Tanika's player, though I hadn't done it on purpose, it certainly wasn't my intention to kill a new character twice in one session.

The rest of the party, apart from Marl and Cnut who were in the next room, made short work of the two Neanderthals, and Gell (I think) volunteered to staunch Tanika's wounds. This also proved effective - but now, Tanika's CON has dropped from an OK 10 to a frankly risky 8. Meanwhile the others looted the bodies, coming up with several sacks of coinage - all copper - which went into the Bag of Holding. The party re-organised itself and put Tanika in the middle, just to try to help with survivability! The new marching order was:

Marl - Cnut - Gibbet - Nelson - Tanika - Gell - Brigham - Karensa

This is the marching order that ran into some Rock Baboons. These are noisy but not particularly difficult for metal-clad, bow-armed PCs to deal with. Also, they don't have very high morale. A bit of shooting broke the Baboons' nerve and they fled without causing any real bother. Then few more rooms - the PCs really were getting through quite a lot of exploration, but they weren't really finding any treasure. Eventually they decided head back.

However, when they'd passed through the room where the poison gas trap had been situated, they found to their consternation that the short corridor that they expected to lead to the top of the stairs to Level 3 took them nowhere of the sort. Instead, they came into another large room. 'Oh,' they thought, 'it must be a magic door, it's a teleporter - let's try again'. But going back and trying the door again produced the same result - the door they were heading south through led to a the north-west corner of a big room.

This caused a lot of discussion. I mean a lot. The reason they'd decided to head for home was because the session was coming to an end, and now they were stuck who-knows-where?  The way the sessions are set up - the very method of the open table - relies on the party leaving the dungeon at the end of the session and it looked like that might not be possible. There was even discussion of activating the Teleport scroll that Nelson carried - at least then they would know the way back to an exit.

They were trying to work their way back to the entrance, knowing where it was but not necessarily which way they needed to go to get back to it. They thought perhaps they should head north-east, but in that direction was a room full of Undead and they didn't fancy that. Instead,  they pushed on down one more corridor, and at the end entered a room that some of the party recognised from having been here in a previous session. They'd teleported for sure, but not actually very far. It would have been very convenient at this point to have Galan's map, as this was the area that he had mapped, but it was not to be.

In the room were some Giant Ants, such as have been encountered in this area before. This time the PCs didn't try engaging hand-to-hand (mano-a-mandible?) but instead used a Web spell to try to immobilise them. Four of the five were caught in the web and the other failed its morale check and ran from the party towards an exit in the south-east.

The party took a different door in the east wall - they knew they needed to head east - and making their way through a couple of smaller rooms, they came to a door that would not open - someone had spiked it from the other side! So, they smashed the door down, Cnut retrieved his spike (for it was that very same door), and finding themselves in the long corridor that leads to the steps out, they ran as fast as they could for the entrance...

I wonder if the reason the NPCs right at the beginning had become disorientated was because they'd got themselves teleported by mistake? It's a thought.

Happy Birthday, Rift City! Session 25, and second anniversary

On Sunday 11th August, the Rift City Campaign, and my D&D group 'The Wandering Monster Table', had their second birthday. Technically, the second birthday of the Rift City campaign would not be until Tuesday 13th August, but 11th August was the 'the session on the second Sunday in August', and that's close enough as that was the day we inaugurated the group and began the campaign in August 2017. Calendar drift is not my fault! The campaign has been going for two years (and anyway, the 13th was yesterday so it's two years anyway)!

It feels like a decent time to reflect on what we've accomplished. We've had 25 sessions, which have included 30 days of playing-time (if my calculations are correct); we've had 18 players (and me) turn up to games in that time and 6 PC deaths; one of the PCs has reached 4th Level and several 3rd Level; they've explored around 100 rooms on Levels 1 & 2 of a dungeon that I've been building (slowly) that currently contains more than 1,200 rooms (I haven't checked lately, it may be more than 1,500). I suppose an average session has around 6 PCs, though the smallest number so far is 2, the largest I think 11. 22 of the 25 sessions have been in public places where anyone can join in, and that's the point (the other three sessions were held at Berg & Galan's house when we were temporarily homeless). Except one session when I was away, we've played on the second Sunday of the month in that time (I suggested that in order to keep the regular format, someone else could run a one-shot, but the players decided they'd rather I DMed so the session was moved by 1 week). That is a remarkable degree of consistency, I think

I have to mention the great staff at the Black Horse in Aylestone (Facebook page linked here). We've been going down there for the last few months, since our previous venue closed, and they've been very nice to us - making us little reserved signs with messages on saying things like 'Reserved for Elves, Goblins and Minotaurs' and 'Reserved for Questors for the Wand of Wonder' and similar messages. They really are very nice, and it turns out that one of the management used to play fantasy quest computer games back in the 1990s... which ones I don't actually know, but maybe Baldur's Gate? I have told her, she should book a Sunday night off and come and join us. We'll see.

A very different constellation of party-members this session. Of the people who were there last time...

Cnut's player is on holiday, so wasn't available.

Shazam's player was at a family wedding and also was not available.

Nelson's player however was there, the only one from last session.

Of the habitual attendees (obviously, there are a lot more people who've only attended one or two sessions)...

Galan is still suffering from a curse, and I think his player wants him fit before adventuring again.

Berg's player is also on holiday.

Marl's player was at a festival I think.

Karensa's player made!

Gibbet''s player made it!

Brigham's player made it!

Gwynthor's player... well, no-one really knows. He told us he was coming, but we didn't see him!

There was some discussion between Nelson, Gibbet, Brigham and Karensa as to whether they should venture down into the scary Level 2 or stick to the relative safety of Level 1; and as to whether they should hire some meatshields to help, but in the end they decided that it would be Level 2 with no hirelings - the most dangerous (but hopefully most lucrative) option.

The cave entrance they went for was the same as Session 23, the Level 2 entrance on the downhill side of the road. Entering they found it looked undisturbed from last time, but Karensa, remembering that last time they'd encountered a Gelatinous Cube, decided that a reasonable course of action was to shoot an arrow down the corridor and find out if it made a clattering noise or a kind of floopy plop. Happily, it was a clatter, so they crept on. As they ventured down the corridor however they realised that they'd been followed - a mountain lion had strayed inside, seemingly hunting them. They attacked it, and as it (insanely) charged them, arrows already sticking out of it, Nelson the Magic User used his Magic Missile to kill it - just before Karensa and Gibbet both shot it. Gibbet and Karensa retrieved their arrows. Nelson didn't retrieve his spell.

Not perhaps the most efficient use of a Magic Missile but Nelson really didn't want the first encounter of the evening to be up close with a rampaging mountain lion, and who can blame him? Never mind, he still had Web, as well as Read Languages... hoping that some scrolls might appear at some point. Poking around in the entrails, Gibbet found a coin-bag with some copper that the lion must have swallowed at some point.

Venturing on, the party came to wooden portcullis - 'slightly burnt' it said in my notes, as the last time they were here the PCs tried to set fire to it. It had been impossible to open, two days ago - now it opened with ease. On the far side, the PCs found a room, lit by torches stuck in sconces on the walls, that contained a semi-circular pool of water. Of course, what they did was throw the Mountain Lion carcass into the pool to see if there was any magical effect. Isn't that what you would do?

There were two other exits to the room, one opposite the door they'd entered and one to the right. They tried the door to the right and when they got it open, realised that there was a large hall-like room beyond the door. The far end was too far to make out, even with Infravision. Also, near the far end (I randomly determined how far away) there was a collection of gigantic ants. The PCs shot some arrows at them, then retreated to the door so they could control the frontage the ants could attack on. A couple more hits on the lead ant without it going down was starting to worry the players I could see. Gibbet was remembering the last time they'd encountered some, and how much carnage had ensued. This was in Session 21, and then Gibbet had had to beg a Healing Potion from Karensa because he'd sustained some heavy damage. Well, probably, this time he did too. Certainly there was some damage about. But, Nelson cast Web and the giant ants were stuck trying to get through the door.

This was the party's cue to run away (stopping only to definitely kill the one ant that had got through the doorway and grab one of the torches from the wall - Nelson was damn sure he wasn't wasting his own torches if people were giving them away for free), then start shooting arrows down corridors again, in case the Gelatinous Cube was lurking. Eventually, as they traversed a very long corridor, the Cube moved to attack; but they don't move very fast, so the party retreated up the corridor peppering it with arrows until it exploded.

Moving forward again (taking care to once more loot the gooey mess and this time pick up some gold) the PCs turned north, hoping I think to get into the rear of the ants' room. However, as they'd made a mistake with their map (they'd only drawn the corridor as 120', though I told them it was around 150') the corridor they went north up led them to a different room. This one had a sliding door on the east wall, which led to a room that contained some Shriekers, who of course freaked out at the light and noise. Shriekers don't harm adventurers, just summon things that do harm them, so butchering the giant mushrooms quickly became a priority. However, it wasn't fast enough to shut up the Shriekers' alarms, as shortly afterwards some shambling figures appeared in the room behind the party.

Zap! Karensa cast Sleep at them. Oof! the party said, as I told them it didn't seem to have any effect. Another spell wasted, as these were Ghouls. A short and vicious fight ensued, with no-one succumbing to Ghoul-touch, and the Ghouls were defeated, and quickly looted, whereup a nice haul of funerary jewellery was discovered. Also part of the treasure in the room was more coinage, and an axe leaning against a wall. In Basic D&D, Magic Users are only permitted to use daggers, and Clerics are not allowed to use edged weapons, so only Gibbet the Thief and Karensa the Elf could have taken the axe to use anyway; but Karensa already has a magic sword, so Gibbet took it.

Heading out again, the PCs realised that some more monsters were investigating the Shriekers' noise - this time some large flying insects coming down the corridor at them. The party disposed of them but several people were bitten. Again it was giant insects that ended up doing the damage, with the less-armoured Nelson and Gibbet getting the worst of it I think. I'm sure that, by the end of the session, everyone had taken damage but Brigham, and both Brigham and Karensa had used their healing magic (Cure Light Wounds and a Potion of Healing respectively, Brigham I think on Nelson and Karensa on herself).

So, somewhat depleted in resources, the party decided to head for home. As they passed the room where they'd fought the ants, they realised that the web, the ants and the lion had all gone, back they surmised into the room where the ants had been originally. Sneaking past they made a break for the exit - but between them and safety was a bunch of angry giant centipedes. However, they don't have many missile weapons, so the party again peppered them arrows from down the corridor. Five died; the other two, deciding they didn't like the hail of death much, retreated. The PCs ran the last bit I think and made it back into the clean air once more, to fight another day.

Heading for home, they would no doubt have noticed the beginning of the Lunar Eclipse that was a feature of the calendar I'd noticed recently (I generated the calendar some time ago from Donjon's Fantasy Calendar Generator). I'd told Galan's player that this was when the Elves at the Sanctuary would perform a Remove Curse spell for him, as eclipses were especially auspicious times for such magic.

Dividing up the loot the PCs found they'd come away with a decent haul - a couple of thousand in jewellery and platinum pieces and a couple of hundred in loose change, as well as a potentially magic hand-axe, which was OK between four. And nobody died!