Our family just did a no-screens weekend as a kind of mental detox. No computer, no tv, no cellphone, no nothing. And it went so well that the kids would do it again every other weekend!

And guess what doesn’t need any screen? You got it.

3 hours session

Gunderholfen by G. Hawkins: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/265629/gunderholfen

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

• Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
• Jedri, Ratman Thief, he likes his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
• Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
• Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
• Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

This session’s main goal: exploring more than half of the « dwarven city »

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

• Green Imps: adventuring but not in Gunderholfen
• The Protectors: resting/recuperating in Longfelt, Bodil is concussed, Bodil and Efram have infected wounds
• Black Axes: adventuring in Gunderholfen, Level 2 and 3
• The Musers: leisure in Longfelt

Level 4A outpost

• The Battle Brother did not leave the dungeon last time but rather, they’d rested in their Level 4A’s outpost and did so without any disturbance. Rejuvenated they went back directly to the cavern of the flaming bats, the two surviving ones were in no mood to fight.

Level 4B

• From there a passage leads to a cave with an obelisk in the middle with writings in dwarvish. Nobody can read it but Forka knows (myth & lore check) that this must the entrance to Nharzed, the City of the Masons, a place renowned for its craftsmanship before the War of the Long-Lived.
• A slight breeze is coming from the south, bringing an awful stench of death to the adventurers’ nostrils.

• There’s a set of large steps leading up and a high crenated wall a bit further with a broad entrance from which mist furtively enters.
• The PCs start to climb the steps but then a stocky humanoid gets out of the shadows, a dwarf but with dead flesh crawling with maggots: a Plague Zombie. Its stench is overhwelming and its presence is frightful to behold. Forka cannot will himself to attack it. Aracyne shoots two arrows, hitting the undead square in the chest but with no great effect. Grimoire pushes it with a Mental Strike, sending it tumbling violently backward almost thirty feet. But the undead gets up, and it is fast, and dashes toward the nearest adventurers and get into melee against Forka and Jedri, who both manage not to flee. A Fireball from Grimoire finally seems to do some real damage to the monster. Forka has a hard time with the awful stench that is even worst for his acute sense of smell and he gets wounded by a claw attack. One more Fireball from the goblin mage and then Jedri gets wounded but counters with a mighty hit (crit) to the dead dwarf’s head with his morningstar, splitting its skull open, slaying it to everyone’s relief.
• Grimoire casts Treat Wound on Forka and Jedri and after that the party enters the City proper:

« Crumbling buildings from a forgotten age and cracked, worned streets stretch away through dim, gloomy mists.The cavern walls soar upwards out of sight, the space ahead vast and foreboding. Fallen walls, piles of rubble and shattered stone line the streets, the air heavy with the stench of fear. »

• The PCs are exploring the nearest buildings and attract the attention of a group of ten skeletons. Forka, Jedri and Torch gets into melee, trying not to be surrounded, and get to work. They slay the skeletons without too much troubles, Jedri needs healing from Grimoire again but Forka and Torch only have a few scratches.

• They continue exploring, see another group of undead east through crumbled walls and decide instead to go west and south. They enter an empty building and go to the next but are welcomed again by undead, this time eight Living Dead. At one point in the fight, Forka was forced on the ground and threatened by several hungry Living Dead but his companions helped him back up and the undead were defeated. They find a golden locket and silver lyre among the rubble inside the building.
• They go east and get near some kind of temple but Forka can tell that the smell of death is even more awful in this place and they decide to go elsewhere.
• Thence they go directly to a kind of central plaza with large standing stones that they can see further south and east. When they arrive there though all hell break loose as a pack of skeletal animals, 6 ghouls and 6 civic officer-garbed undead get out of several nearby buildings, mostly from the south, and all converge on the PCs. The latter choose to make a tactical retreat and run back to the building they’ve just cleared in order to benefit from the protection of mostly intact walls. Aracyne quickly perch himself up on top of a wall as the building is roofless, and start to rain arrows at the ghouls, wounding two severely, making those flee. Forca and Jedri block the entrance and fight the skeletal animals, with Torch using his spear to attack from behind. Aracyne shoot another ghoul, hurting it badly, and now the ghouls collectively have enough of the whole getting shot at thing (failed morale check) and all flee. The three fighters finish off the swarm of skeletal animals and get into melee against the « civic officers » undead but those don’t prove to be that fearsome and the adventurers have the upper hand ultimately. The fight finished, Grimoire heal the wounded.
• The PCs decide to clear the northern area of the undead they saw earlier and soon get into a fight against ten more skeletons. Aracyne put his bow aside as it’s not that useful against skeletons, and get to work with his short sword alongside his companions. Grimoire, who was staying back, spots three ghouls (some of the group they saw earlier) that were trying to sneak up on them. He incinerates a ghoul with a big fireball and burns another with a smaller one. The two remaining ghouls flee again. Meanwhile the fight against the skeletons is under control, the adventurers got a few painfuls stabs here and there but they managed to win again.
• Grimoire uses his last reserve of mana to heal the wounds. All of the adventurers are quite exhausted by the successive fights by now (depleted willpower points) and Aracyne, the guild leader, call it a day. The Battle Brother leave Nharzed behind, and go up, by their usual method of shortcuts, all the way to Level 1 where they make a short stop to talk the newly-installed gnome merchant Frinywid – who tells them that he saw another party of adventurers a bit earlier, the Black Axes. He wasn’t sure if they were going to rob him or worse at the time as they look like a bad batch he says, but they didn’t. They’re probably somewhere in Level 2 by now.
• The Battle Brothers leave Gunderholfen, the trip through the Ganfal Swamp is fortunately uneventful and they reach Longfelt before the end of the day.

Closing comments:

• Nothing happening while they rested at their Level 4 outpost between sessions. Rolled at random of course. There’s a countdown going on though (random too, but chances are increasingly higher the more time goes on), as the orcs will understand sooner or later that the ogres aren’t there anymore and they’ll want to look into their former den. The orcs, or maybe someone or something else will.
• Several big fights in this session, there’s no xp for combat so I’m not sure that it really served the purpose of the players (apart from having fun) not to try evade them. They can certainly be systematic about it and clear one area after another but this will take a lot of time.
• Level 4B, Nharzed, is a cool place, spooky and all. There is several special locations in the area but the players didn’t explore any of them this time, instead they explored one building after another full of rubbles. I think a random table of stuff to find in abandonned buildings or things happening or whatnot, would be great to make the area even more interesting. I may do just that for the next time they go there, we’ll see.
• Crossing the Ganfal swamp in their depleted state was a bit risky, another big fight like last time could have doomed them.