RPG

The Gates of Power – Sword & Dragon (session 33)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, OSR, Roleplaying Game, RPG

We now have dragonbane’s Book of Magic and yes, suffice to say, we like it. Edmond hurried to create a necromancer character as he ‘s been playing this kind of character often enough in our couch-coop video games (Stolen Kingdom, Barony). I cannot fault his enthusiasm, I’ve introduced his new character right in the dungeon with the flimsiest of excuse. Hey, we’re here to have fun aren’t we?

2 hours session

Featuring Path of Glory’s main dungeon: The Gates of Power.

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Bumwild, Gnome Mage, wants to become a summoner (Isaac)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, fanatically loyal to Forka, (Edmond)
  • Trimbo, Human Arcanist, wields both crossbow and lightning (Edmond)
  • Letraquan, Human Necromancer, found lurking in haunted halls (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: leisure in Lonfelt after saving the Wizard Uzul Balashi
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Prickly’s End forest, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Widowmakers: training new recruits in Gunderholfen
  • The Musers: leisure in Longfelt
  • The Ravens: depravity in Longfelt

This session’s main goal: finish exploring the upper part of the City of the Blacksmiths

  • The Battle Brothers have just defeated the Death Knight, servant of Sethid the Archmage in the dwarven City of the Blacksmiths. As they were recuperating from this big fight they get the visit of a stranger, a lone adventurer named Letraquan. With Forka’s death, they have a free spot and welcome him to the group. Letraquan claims the Death Knight’s 2-h sword for himself without any objections from anyone, except from the sword itself, which considers its new owner a step below a miserable crawling vermin.
  • The adventurers resume exploring. They enter the large throne room with a large U-shaped table, with dead (unmoving) dwarves still sitting at it. They find a number of trinkets and silver and gold coins among the dead.
  • Lethraquan decides to sit on the large, ruby-adorned throne. He immediately gets visions of the area’s inhabitants (skeletons) wherabouts. Testing the power of the throne, he orders all of them to regroup on a room south-west and indeed, the undead obey and get there after some time.
  • Freed from the skeleton patrols the adventurers can explore a lot more calmly. They go north into a dining room, kitchen and food storage area and don’t find much.
  • Thence, they go west and get into a large brewery with a magical fire still going on. There’s a scaly beast, large as a pony, curled around an heated vat. The Pcs think about slaying whilst it sleeps but then decide to see if it’s hostile first. A simple hello wakes it up and it seems more afraid than anything but Trimbo persuades it of their good intentions with some dried meat. The beast, a very young dragon, is clearly smart but don’t know their languages. More dried meat convince it easily to follow the group.
  • After that they enter the abandonned room of the master-brewer. In the room’s cabinet they find some silver coins and a nice gold bracelet engraved with the brewers’ mug emblem on it, worth 100 gp or 150 if sold to a dwarf.
  • They continue eastward, go through an already visited dining room and then get into some kind highly-decorated room with tapestries, several marble tables and more interestingly for the adventurers: three metal chests. Unfortunately two are empty, the third is locked. Torch fails to force it open. Letraquan wants to smash it with his 2-h sword but is painfully rebuked by said weapon; such a lowly task is beneath Aleth-Kheloch the Death-Giver, the Destroyer of Kingdoms, whom tasted the blood of countless people, including a good deal of innocent ones which of course is the best blood to taste…
  • Trimbo and Letraquan lift the chest together and the party prepares to leave the area.

Closing comments:

  • An evil, intelligent sword and a good-aligned, young dragon – two powerful new assets for the Battle Brothers but that each come with several risks and drawbacks.
  • No combats this time, with the skeletons out of the way and no random encounters despite a dozen rolls. They finished exploring the upper part of the Gates of Power.

The Gates of Power – Death in its many forms (session 32)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

My friend Chris visited us and I’ve introduced him to our Gunderholfen campaign and he created a character for the occasion to become a temporary member of their adventuring guild. My son chose to explore the Gates of Power or what I call myself the City of the Smiths, a counterpart to Nharzed, the City of the Masons, two of several broken remnants of the underground dwarven kingdom.

The Gates of Power is basically the big, main dungeon (section 2 of 3) of the Path of Glory adventure module from Dragonbane, now only a small part of the megadungeon. They dipped their toes into it some sessions ago but now we’ll see a good chunk of it.

3 hours session

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, he rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Bumwild, Gnome Mage, want to become a summoner (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Timbo, Human Arcanist, wields both crossbow and lightning (Edmond)
  • Magnus, Dogman Thief, cautious dungeon explorer (Chris)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Uzul’s Manor
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Prickly’s End forest, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Widowmakers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Musers: leisure in Longfelt
  • The Ravens: depravity in Longfelt

This session’s main goal: explore a big chunk of the City of the Smiths

En route

  • Right before entering Ganfal swamp, the Battle Brothers encounter the returning Musers. They look exhausted and wary, even if they try their best to hide it. The two guilds talk about their progress so far in Gunderholfen, both clearly hiding many things. They say goodbye to each other, those going in and those going out.

Level 4 (Gates of Power)

  • They go through Level 1 swiftly and reach the dwarven elevator, going down directly to Level 4.
  • As before, they have to fight skeleton warriors when they enter the Gates. The adventurers take care to keep close to the wall so the skeleton crossbowmen can’t shoot them. Using a few bottles of holy water, they dispatch the skeletons and go do the same with the crossbowmen to the south.
  • They then come back to the entrance, examine a bit the dwarven statues each side but don’t find much and Magnus do some reconnaissance upstairs but can’t go very far as there’s more skeletons blocking the way.
  • They all go up. More holy water, some lightning bolts from Timbo and they shatter the ranks of skeleton warriors, with only a few remaining. But all this fighting attracts the attention of something else, something horrible: a Death Dog. A huge two-headed, undead hound. Forka, Jedri and Torch are frontline against the monster but can’t flank it because of the remaining skeletons. They manage to hurt it with several good blows and evade its claw attacks but then the Death Dog let go of a poison breath attack and Forka, who’s right in the middle of it, inhales a lethal dose. He still fights, and he and his companions defeat the monster soon after, but he’s not feeling good. At all.
  • The PCs decide to go see if the hobgoblins, not very far at the Forge, have some antidote. The fastest among them, Jedri and Magnus, don’t wait for the others and rush to go there as fast they can. The others follow behind. But it’s all futile, the hobgoblins don’t have any antidote (5-6 on d6). Poor Forka dies in agony. The Battle Brothers ask the hobgoblins if they can leave their friend’s body temporarily to them and they accept. And so, they go back to exploring…
  • Back where they fought the Death Dog and skeletons, they go south in a narrow corridor and explore a series of rooms along another, long corridor.
  • One room as a charred (dwarven) skeleton and traces of fire on a wall. Another as more (unmoving, dwarven) skeletons on the floor with obvious signs that they fought and killed each other.
  • Next, there’s a peaceful room with sea motifs on the walls, some kind of ambassador room.
  • They get into a library and a ghost librarian appear when the PCs start messing around with the books. They dispatch the ghost quickly and take some books with them, some tome of spells among their findings.
  • Thence, they go north on a long, narrow corridor. They open a door halfway into a vast banquet room but decide not to explore it and go further north. They disturbed something from the banquet room though and they a hear chilling (nazgul-like) scream.
  • A signal to which skeletons seem to be attracted, many get out of the northern door. The fight in the narrow corridor is a slog but the adventurers try their best to use a side corridor to their advantage.
  • Just when they think they’ve finished they hear loud iron boots coming from the south and soon they see a frightening figure appearing in the torchligh: a Death Knight. The adventurers brace themselves for another fight. The Death Knight can’t swipe with his 2-handed sword in the narrow space but he’s obviously a formidable opponent. Aracyne switches places with Jedri as the latter is the best suited to fight him. He’s quickly put on the defensive, trying to evade all incoming attacks. This leave time for Timbo, and then Bumwild, to cast offensive spells at the undead commander. Jedri is becoming exhausted though (no more willpower) but fortunately the Death Knight, severely wounded by now, decides to retreat but one last fireball from Bumwild leads to his demise. His corpse and armor disappear, leaving behind only his evil-looking sword.
  • The adventurers can feel that the sense of oppression they felt earlier is greatly relieved with the end of the Death Knight.

Closing Comments:

  • Turns out lethal poison is indeed lethal (if you miss your save). Second character to die in this campaign and Forka is a major component of the team as the best frontline fighter they have. Edmond was understandably distressed of his main character’s death and we rolled in advance his resurrection roll (75% of success) and succeed. Recovery is d4 weeks though and he rolled 4, starting when the ritual will happen, that’s a lot of in-game time.
  • Unfortunately Chris’ character was not very useful most of the time, as a light-armored, sneaky type put in undead territory. He’s not the kind to complain but I would have liked to offer him a better experience.
  • This session was also a kind of test for me. The Gates of Power, this Dragonbane dungeon, isn’t bad but it’s not excellent either. I find in particular that the rooms are too light in interactivity, there’s just not enough things for the players to mess around.

Pirates Campaign (under construction)

David Skelector Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, Pirate Borg, pirates, Roleplaying Game, RPG

So my dear nephew, who’s turning 18 in a few days (time flies), had this special wish to play a pirate-themed ttrpg and I’ve decided to go along with it. Yeah, pirates, not something I had in my mind in the least and now I have this sudden impulse to buy a good bottle of rum but, also, rummaging (oh! the pun) through my drivethrurpg library I saw that I had this interesting module that I’ve bought a couple of years ago:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/425300/secret-of-the-black-crag

It’s a great mini-setting, with the mysterious, eponymous Black Crag has an end goal.

It’s also old-school D&D.

And I gotta say, and I went back & forth on the subject until the last minute, but I don’t think D&D, retro or otherwise, is a very good fit for a pirates campaign. Sure, it’s doable and I know it has been done plenty, but I can’t wrap my head around the basic premise of an adventuring party of fighter, magic-user, thief and cleric (or any other d&d classes for that matter)… well, it doesn’t cut it for me.

So, I’ve searched far & wide (not) and came upon an alternate system and bought the pdf (and ordered a physical copy afterward) of this game:

This is still d20-based, but very much different in every other aspects.

I didn’t have previous experience with those Borg rpg books, I find the look of the line a bit too artsy for my taste to be honest but now that I’ve opened the book I must say I’m quite impressed. And, to my earlier point, with Pirate Borg you can play a brute, a buccaneer, a swashbuckler, a rapscallion or zealot and sorcerer if you feel magically-inclined (or some even more fantastic options like the accursed or tall-tale if you want to go there).

Check out for yourself: https://www.limithron.com/pirateborg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC6DmNex9l0&t=18s

So I’ve got a mini-setting and a cool rpg system to implement it – I’m also grafting a few other short modules to this, not a lot because I don’t think we’ll be able to play very frequently:

Other resources:

Now, I do have a copy of Stevenson’s Treasure Island somewhere if I can find it…

(We’ve played this saturday, me, my boys, my sister and nephew and had great fun. Quite refreshing as a ttrpg experience. And playing the role of vilainous scumbags seem to suit some of the players very well ha! ha!)

Gunderholfen – The Wight of Nharzed (session 31)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

The Battle Brothers hire two new members at the same time as the party’s mage, Grimoire the goblin, is taking a short break from adventuring to work on improving his magestaff. They don’t want to risk Level 5 without their main mage but they feel ready to further explore the city of the (un)dead dwarves on Level 4.

1,5 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 rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Bumwild, Gnome Mage, studies to become a summoner (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)
  • Timbo, Human Arcanist, wields both crossbow and lightning (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: Longfelt, adventuring in Uzul’s manor
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Gunderholfen, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Widowmakers: Longfelt, recruiting
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

This session’s main goal: Explore more of the city of the masons

Longfelt

  • Back in town, the adventurers rent the best rooms and have the best meals & wine of the Hare & Hound inn.
  • Grimoire starts work on upgrading his magestaff, will take a week or so.
  • Maeve, the innkeeper and ex-adventurer, has found two rookies for the Battle Brothers to hire, Bumwild the Gnome and Timbo the human arcanist. Both can do a little bit of magic.
  • The Ravens show up at the inn! Ranfurly the Depraved, is in a good mood and praises the Battle Brothers for their boldness (on attacking him), but not without a quip on how they needed to be two guilds to fight his. He wishes them all the best and leaves, onward to a long week of carousing & depravity.
  • Some basic shopping, some less basic holy water buying at the Temple of Persephone and they’re good to go.

Gunderholfen

  • Travel to Ganfal swamp is uneventful.
  • The Battle Brother go swiftly through Level 1, take the secret stairs in Level 2 to Level 3, go through Level 3, say hi to the Ogres and reach Level 4.
  • They inspect their outpost, it hasn’t been disturbed.
  • They go south from there, don’t have any encounters, reach the Flaming Bats’ cave and the surviving couple isn’t interested in a fight.

Level 4C

  • They daydream for a second on what they could do with the dwarven ballistae on the wall at the entrance of Nharzed.
  • They go directly east.
  • A dozen zombies get out of the ruins but the adventurers just walk faster until they reach their objective: a set of double doors they had spotted in an earlier delve.
  • The doors are very heavy but with Forka on one side and Timbo and Torch on the other, the PCs manage to open them. They open into dusty room – the air is stale and there’s an unnatural cold. There’s also two ranks of (standing but unmoving) skeletons (dwarves) with spears and wearing rusty chainmail.
  • The PCs hurry to close the doors behind them as the (slowly) pursuing zombies are closing in. This activates the skeleton warriors though.
  • Those are tougher than the standard skeletons by far, armored and they still know how to fight efficiently in close ranks, using their spears to good effect.
  • Fortunately, the adventurers have spent a good deal of money on holy water and now use it generously, throwing bottles on the compact mass of the undead in grenade-like fashion. Timbo tries a Lightning Bolt on the undead and damages two but also harms Forka in the process as the electric shock jumped on him too. Bumwild helps with (single target) Fireballs.
  • The PCs got a few wounds from spear thrusts but are victorious and push on.
  • There’s another set of double doors, cold to the touch.
  • They open the doors to reveal a large ominous room – an ossuary with a tall monument in the middle. On top of the monument, sitting in a stone chair, is evil incarnate: a Wight. The undead foe whispers ancient curses. Aracyn shuts it up with a thrown bottle of holy water right on its face. The Wight screams and then seizes Forka (who was starting to climb the monument) with an invisible force and throws him away like a doll. But then Timbo and Bumwild, one after the other, cast a supercharged Lightning Bolt and Fireball at the undead, destroying him before it had time to make good on its curses…
  • Three treasure chests can be found at the base of the monument with a great haul of gold coins and nice dwarven-crafted jewels. The BEST treasure the Battle Brothers have found to date! Very happy with their find, the adventurers get some rest in the ossuary, the cold and evilness of the place having diminished in large part since the demise of the Wight.
  • They fight some zombies still lingering nearby and then proceed to leave Gunderholfen and they manage to get back to town without any further hindrance.

Closing Comments:

  • The guild had 6 members for this expedition, 7 in total, this means that we might see something of a roster play in the future (to comply with the 6 members threshold). That’s interesting.
  • No random encounters rolled, zero, and the boys were laser-focused on one area of their map – so they got there and out fast.
  • The wight in the Dragonbane Bestiary is a middling foe, similar in strength to a D&D one I’d think, and per the book this one could summon undead minions each round, but the PCs didn’t mess around and BLASTED him with all they had. Good move.

Gunderholfen – Through Claws & Teeth (session 30)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

The battle with the Ravens having resulted in a bloody stalemate, the Battle Brothers and Protectors try to regain some strength in the middle of barely-explored Level 5. It quickly becomes clear that they need to get out of the dungeon and get proper resting in town. But the way out is a bit complicated, the hobgoblins at the Forge hate the Protectors and won’t let them pass without a massive bribe, if they even accept. Another way is through Balor’s Rent and then into the Dark Forest…

2 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 rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: Longfelt, adventuring in Uzul’s manor
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Gunderholfen, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Widowmakers: Longfelt, recruiting
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

This session’s main goal: Get back in town

Level 5 East

  • The adventurers fought off swarms of giant rats on two occasions but finally managed to get some rest.
  • They proceed to get to the long, main corridor and go east. Nothing stops them and they reach the exit in the canyon.
  • Grimoire casts Flight on everyone, allowing them to fly but only very, very slowly as casting the spell to so many people is quite taxing.
  • Their slow ascent soon attracts a pair of griffons, they’re under attack! Fortunately, their flying ability, however slow it is, protects them from the griffons’ favorite tactic of seizing a prey and letting it drop from high height. Still, it’s a ferocious fight but once the adventurers manage to kill one of the beast, the other flies away, disappearing into the canyon’s mist.
  • They reach ground level.
  • They get across some hills and soon enter forested terrain. Aracyne is a great guide but even he can’t evade attention from some of the forest’s denizens, a pack of worgs has picked up their trail. The adventurers prepare for a fight.
  • It’s chaotic. The Worgs do their best to separate the adventurers from each other, charging there, grabbing and pulling someone by the leg there. But the adventurers see the risks and help each other effciently. Forka, Bayard, Jedri and Torch do their best to get in the way of the Worgs and attack them when they can. Aracyne and Adalbert shoot arrows after arrows at the beasts and Grimoire spends his last bit of mana with some devastating fireballs. The few surviving Worgs have seen enough and get away to lick their wounds. Efram gives some healing to the group and then march on.
  • They manage to get through the forest without further incidents. They have a few miles to do in Ganfal Swamp and after that they get into farmlands.
  • They meet a merchants’ caravan, buy & sell some stuff and then reach the town of Longfelt.

Closing Comments:

  • Nothing extraordinary for this 30th session. Simple get-back-to-town session, so no exploration this time. Getting out alive was all that counted.
  • There’s much worse than griffons in Balor’s Rent but the dice gods smiled upon the adventurers.
  • The Protectors got out of this whole thing (the Ravens business) with two members with majors injuries (Bayard severely burned, disfigured and Bodil with a smashed jaw, also disfigured). Going along the Battle Brothers doesn’t seem to bring them much good…

Gunderholfen – Guilds Showdown! (session 29)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

The Battle Brothers have lost the trail of the Ravens but have discovered an entrance to Level 5 via Balor’s Rent, a monster-infested canyon.

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 rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: Longfelt, adventuring in Uzul’s manor
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Gunderholfen, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Widowmakers: Longfelt, recruiting
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

This session’s main goal: Explore a big chunk of Level 5

Level 5 East

  • The Battle Brothers and Protectors leave the Trolls Cave and enter Gundeholfen via the newly-discovered entrance on the cliffside.
  • The large corridor goes well beyond the light that enters from outside. There’s piles of rubbles nearby and, in one of them, Forka fishes out a skeleton in damaged armor wearing a nice, intact great helm. Forka takes it.
  • They reach a large room with a basin in the middle. There’s two Bugbears, wounded and they accept to talk. They say their lair was attacked by other adventurers and most of their clan was exterminated. « Led by a crazy dwarf? » says Aracyne. Yes, they were. The Ravens, the Ravens are on Level 5 too, somehow! The Bugbears are happy to give directions to enemies of the Ravens.
  • A bit further, 6 harpies are feasting on a dead Bugbear and are angry to be interrupted. A fight ensues but the harpies are quickly overmatch and killed except one that fled.
  • Thence, they reach an entrance to a large round vertical shaft, one that goes up and down (mostly down), with several visible passages linking with it. They don’t have much time to wonder at the sight. two greater Gargoyles attack them. There’s a tense fight as the Gargoyles try to grab targets to throw them on the emptiness and claw and headbutt them when they parry their attempts. This time the fight isn’t going great and Aracyne orders everyone to back off. Fortunately, the Gargoyles let them go when they’re far enough from the shaft.
  • Taking a side corridor, they reach another one with several small rooms on each side, an armoury among them. They quickly search those, not finding much and continue on their way to the Bugbears territory.
  • They reach a 5-way intersection. Forka’s nose come in handy again, they go north-north-east and find another corridor. Aracyne hear voices from close by, the Ravens are just over there. The group quickly convenes and set on a plan: Aracyne will sneak upon a sentry, followed closely by Forka and Bayard flying behind so they don’t make noise, followed by everybody else from further away.
  • The attack plan quickly derails when they turn the corner and see a barricade made of rubbles and spears, with an halfling and a large bastard-sword man very much not surprised by the would-be attackers.
  • Aracyne let go of a special lighning arrow but the halfling dodges the shot targeting her and yells for her other companions to join the fight. Forka and Bayard, flying over the barricade, start to attack the sentries. Grimoire casts flight on Jedri too. A woman in plate casts Dispel on Bayard and he crashes down on the spears and rubbles. The halfling thief seizes the opportunity to put the oil-soaked barricade on fire and Bayard is being immolated and soon falls unconscious. That’s a hard blow for the allies but they soon manage to overwhelm the big Ravens warrior and his halfling companion has to retreat behind. The dwarf Ranfurly, the leader of the Ravens, jumps into melee against Jedri and Forka, with the woman in plate next to him and their party’s mage lobbing Fire Birds from behind.
  • Forka falls to Ranfurly’s blows despite Torch’s best efforts to block incoming attacks. But then well-placed arrows (crits) from Aracyne and Adalbert and a Backstab from Bodil gets Ranfurly on his back, severely wounded. Right after though, the woman in plate smashes Bodil’s face with a mace blow (crit) and he’s down. Jedri is also downed when, after dodging several of them, he’s hit with a Fire Bird from the Raven’s mage.
  • At that point, the woman in plate, Eloisa her name is, asks to parley and the battered allies accept. How about each takes their wounded, heal them before they die, and call it a day? Aracyne hesitates for a moment, victory is so near, if everything goes well… Aracyne accepts Eloisa’s deal and each side, eyeing each other, cautiously proceed to pick up their wounded.
  • The Battle Brothers and Protectors retreat to a nearby room and Efram, who still has mana left, casts Heal Wound on Bayard, Bodil, Forka and Jedri. Everybody is on their feet now but still overall in bad shape so they decide to try to rest somewhere. Their best bet is an armoury they saw earlier, there’s no door to the room (few rooms have doors in the vicinity) but they can use weapons and armors’ racks to barricade the place, which they do. The noise do attract Giant Rats though but they manage to fend them off. They set off to rest but it’s interrupted by the Giant Rats coming for more. Jedri the ratman tries to convince them to go get the Ravens instead but the sneaky rats attack him (bad persuade roll) and almost devour him before his companions save him and kill a bunch of rats.
  • It’s Forka’s turn to guard and he hears and smells Harpies approaching but they’re just here to eat the dead rats.
  • The adventurers finish their rest. The Protectors are not very keen on continuing, with Bayard still badly burned and Bodil having his jaw all messed up. The allies, having reached a stalemate against the formidable Ravens, will try to get out of the dungeon together.

Closing Comments:

  • A lot of fighting this session.
  • Fortuitous encounter with bugbears led to learning where the Ravens have established a base.
  • Great fight against the Ravens, the allies had the numerical advantage but the barricade did a lot to prevent them from using it. I wasn’t sure at all if it wouldn’t end in a TPK for the players, if not in the fight, in the aftermath in unkown territory with depleted hit points and mana.
  • Great move to barricade the armoury to allow resting, it wasn’t foolproof but it was good enough.

Gunderholfen – In pursuit of the Ravens (session 27)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

The Battle Brother have convinced the Protectors to join them in their new delve in Gunderholfen for the explicit purpose of teaching the Ravens a lesson. But those are not simply waiting at the dungeon’s entrance.

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 rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: seek job in Longfelt, need quick cash
  • The Protectors: adventuring in Gunderholfen, except Delevan (convalesent)
  • Black Axes: Widowmakers: Longfelt, new leader>> gnome Havelock, new guild name
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

This session’s main goal: Give the Ravens a taste of their own medicine

Gunderholfen, entrance 1A

  • Travel through the swamp went smoothly. The two allied guilds arrive at the main « kobolds » entrance. They spot the banner of the Ravens and Forka, with his acute sense of smell, thinks that it’s been 2 to 3 days since they were there. Aracyne orders the banner to be burned, a raven flies away.
  • The adventurers go through Level 1, the gnome merchant is away, his shop is closed. They reach the rope bridge and Torch, who’s first, has a plank breaks under him and he almost fell! The bridge has been sabotaged!
  • They reach Level 2, they remove their shoes to get through the corridor of wind-blowing and Torch walks on caltrops and hurts (lightly) his foot. They sweep away the caltrops and soon reach the room split by small chasm, Forka is attacked by a cave scorpion but his armor protects him. Jedri stabs the creature with his sword and kills it.
  • They get through the inundated room, one way ot the other, and get into the room with a campfire and goblins graffitis. There’s a drawing of a raven added to the wall, that Aracyne quickly deface. The scent trail isn’t really better than before, still 2-3 days old.
  • The allies go further on Level 2, they’re spotted by a Giant Ant worker but that doesn’t lead to a fight. The dogman loses the scent trail though, seems like the Ravens did not go past the graffitis room.
  • Befuddled, the allies go back to Level ‘s entrance, trying to lure the Ravens out of hiding somehow. They attract something else, a Basilisk from the swamp, it thumps the ground when it sees them. The adventurers attack the beast from each sides. Bayard is almost turned to stone but Torch reacts quickly and protects him with his shield. The Basilisk’s snake head bites Torch but the goblin is resistant to poison (becomes exhausted instead of worse). Forka delivers the final blow to the monster.
  • They get back inside and kill a lone ghoul skulking in the « goblins » section.
  • They go to the « hobgoblins » section and soon reach the vertical shaft. There’s a spent torch on the ground. It must be where the Ravens went… They decide to send Forka and Adalbert down the dangling chains to inspect the bottom of the shaft. The perilous operation (Forka gets disheartened in the process), descending about 300 feet along the chains, is successful. Forka picks up the scent of the Ravens (still not fresh though)! There’s also a dwarven-made elevator at the ready and they use it to get all together at the bottom.
  • They seem to be in another part of the dwarven city. There’s a big, lighted room ahead. And a lot of bones on the floor…

Closing comments:

  • Not a lot happening on this session, some easy fights (they were on Level 1-2 after all), a bigger one against a dangerous Basilisk that went well. A lot of head scratching as they tried to figure out what the Ravens were up to. Quite fun for me.
  • My sons, Isaac in particular, really hate the Ravens, what with their bullying and the traps they left behind them and their FAST progress. Sure to lead to high drama some day.
  • I’ve said it before, but a good nose and good ears, are quite a must in a large dungeon.
  • The (this) vertical shaft isn’t in the module. From the beginning I had decided to replace an alternate entrance to the dungeon in order to graft another dungeon to Gunderholfen. The whole, together, is linking Level 1 to Level 5 ultimately.
  • I have a timeline at the ready (where the Ravens are at each time) and 2 days is a big head start. Rushing things in order to catch up with the Ravens would be risky in an unexplored area though. We’ll see how it goes next session.

Slug House – End of Investigation (session 26)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

Lot happening in the adventuring guilds’ world. The city council wants them organized under a single entity. Also, the Green Imps have been forced to give tribute to the stronger Ravens, angering the Battle Brothers and Protectors when they learned about it. The Black Axes have apparently lost their leader but are now back in town after being away for a while, with rumors of them having been lost in Ganfal swamp. Speaking of Ganfal swamp, it’s expanding through farmlands at an alarming rate, day after day, with only the retrieval of the Scepter of Harvest from Gunderholfen having the power to stop it, it is said. For the moment though, the Battle Brothers are still investigating a wizard’s manor in town.

4 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: back in Longfeft, complain that they’ve been preyed upon by the Ravens
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, Delevan convalescent
  • Black Axes: back in Longfeft, Kegan the Black is dead (left behind?)
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Longfelt

  • The Battle Brothers start the day at the Hare & Hound inn. They take time to listen to rumors and hear about the plight of the Green Imps whom have forced to give tribute to the Ravens. They talk to innkeeper and ex-adventurer Maeve and they learn a few things about the Ravens and their leader, the dwarf Runfurly the Depraved. They go talk to the Protectors and ask for their support for teaching a good lesson to the predatory guild as soon as they can.
  • Having done that, the PCs start their adventuring day and access Uzul’s manor the same way they did previously, through the window on the eastern side.
  • They see that the corpse of the Giant Slug is no longer there and there’s a fresh trail of mucus on the floor leading through the door and then north. They follow it.
  • They get into a library. There’s tiny floating motes of light in the room, some hovering above a wrting desk, others around… the Giant Slug. The creature is alive apparently but is visibly afraid of the adventurers. It exits the room as soon as it can. A floating mote starts to follow Grimoire.
  • The PCs follows the Giant Slug. It goes at the end of a long corridor and up a set of stairs. Into another long corridor with another staiway at the end that goes down. And again… These two corridors are connected by magical stairs!
  • The PCs stop following the Giant Slug in its perpetual circuit and explore a side door on the newly-discovered corridor. They’re in a large, dusty room and with the view through the windows they can see that they’re on the west side of the manor. With that revealed, they backtrack and resume exploring the eastern side of the 1st floor.
  • They get into a room in great disorder with a strange array of furnitures and scraps made into a « fortress ». They hear small creatures scampering away to another room.The PCs search the « fortress » and find two teared papers, notes from Uzul Balashi no doubt, in the same vein than the previous one, of him whining that his wife badgers him on his mistreatement of the staff and his reckless experiments on himself.:

« Thou shall drink one too many potions my dear » she said « and find thyself crawling around like an overgrown earthworm. »

  • In the next room they find homoncubolds hiding under the bed. They reassure the frightened creatures and barter for another note from Uzul. They find more clues of the wizard’s demise on the bedside table. They also find a secret door behind a cupbpard.
  • It leads to the manor’s tower and into an Herb room, wherein Torch gets a strange sensation but is fine due to his natural goblin resistances.
  • Going up the stairs they get into a wizard’s laboratory, with a complete set of alchemy and many potions. They don’t touch anything.
  • Going up again, reaching the top, they get into Uzul’ Sanctum and find his spellbook on a pedestal. They take it and this activates the Wood Statue from the room’s corner. The Wood Statue is very resistant to Forka’s hammer blows and Aracyne’s arrows doesn’t do much either, but Jedri’s sword slashes and more so, Grimoire’s fireballs do good damage and with some work, they defeat the dangerous guardian (forgot to activate the Splinters final detonation as per DB monster ability, oops).
  • With the wizard’s spellbook in hand and acting with all the clues they got, they go downstairs and manage to find the Giant Slug again, still on its circuit. They show it the spellbook, it seems to recognize the thing but doesn’t seem to be willing or lucid enough to get a clearer reaction than that.
  • The adventurers leave the Giant Slug, the unfortunate wizard Uzul Balashi most likely, behind and start to explore the western side of the floor.
  • They soon get into the presence of some manor’s ex-staff, now ugly, all lizard-like and having the most horrible stench to them.
  • They’re having a lot of fun rummaging through their ex-employer haversack, they’re clearly intoxicated and in very good mood. They’ll trade Uzul’s journal in exchange for the best tacos in town, from Biffro’s Bistro.
  • The adevnturers proceed to get out of the manor and buy some tacos from Biffro. On their way back they get pestered by the inivisible imp but mostly ignore hi and try to evade his tricks. They give the tacos and get the journal. One final search nearby reveals a secret door and a treasure chest in a small room. The chest has a decent amount of coins.
  • Satisfied with their gains and the clues they found, the PCs decide to leave the manor for good. They take an appointment with Merrick the High Constable and present him their evidences. Uzul Balashi foolishly experimented on himself and was turned into a Giant Slug. He probably killed his wife but no proof was found about that. Their investigation is concluded. Merrick would have liked a bit more but he’s okay with their work and he upholds is part of the bargain, giving them a nice knight’s great helm.

Closing Comments:

  • That’s the end of Slug House for this campaign. They explored about 2/3 of the mansion (82 keyed entries), missing several secrets and treasures.
  • At the same time they did accomplish their objective and taking more time outside of Gunderholfen was out of the question for them.
  • For me this adventure module was near-perfect, I would barely have any quibbles to hold against it and that doesn’t happen often at all. I’ve checked another published adventure by the same author: the heretic’s grave, and it’s also very good. An author well worth to keep an eye on for sure.

Slug House – Slaying of the Giant Slug (session 25)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, my kids, Nature, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

Nature interlude, a few hundreds meters from our home in Québec City. No Giant Slugs were slain on this specific expedition.

The real-life Battle Brothers.

And now, back to our program:

Some negociations, some shopping, a big fight and that’s all the Battle Brothers could squeeze in this session.

2 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, Delevan convalescent
  • Black Axes: somewhere in Ganfal swamp, lost?
  • The Musers: in Longfelt, resting
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Longfelt

  • The next morning at the Hare & Hound inn, the Battle Brothers find out that Dominguos (with some of his men and a woman named Phrynia) was waiting for them in the common room.
  • Dominguos talks about starting on the wrong foot but offers to come to some kind of understanding with the adventurers. How about they share some of the plunder if his gang don’t interfere with their investigation? The Battle Brothers accept, not committing to any set share though.
  • The PCs go find their thief friend Tlali, now mostly cured from her rat-form curse, and ask her if she could discreetly find out if the window form which they got out the day before (and left not quite closed) was still the same. It was still open, but it was also trapped with poison needles (which she removed).
  • Forka orders a custom, a bit heavier, warhammer from a local blacksmith used to provide for adventurers. Half the money now and should get the new weapon in three days. The PCs buy a crowbar and some other gear.

The Mansion of Uzul Balashi

  • The Battle Brothers reach the wizard’s manor and enter the front courtyard and ask Dominguos if they can explore his gang’s side of the manor. He reluctantly agrees and shows them around except for his own room (that he shares with Phynia). The adventurers manage to spot a secret door that the bandit leader swears he knew nothing about. Unfortunately the door doesn’t seem to open from this side and there doesn’t seem to be another way to access the rest of the manor from this aisle.
  • The PCs are tempted to break the door open but finally opt for the window.
  • Forka is the first to enter into the dining room and is surprised to find a strange creature already there: a Giant Slug!
  • Forka’s 2h hammer don’t seem to do much against the slug but piercing and slashing attacks from his companions, and fireballs from Grimoire, ultimately do the job of slaying the beast. The monster did spit acid on Forka, hurting him (but his magic chainmail was okay). It also produced a powerful lighning bolt that downed Torch and badly hurt Jedri and Grimoire at the same time. Once the Giant Slug was slain Grimoire proceeded to heal his companions with his magic. The Battle Brothers chose to be cautious and leave the manor without further exploration.

Closing Comments:

  • The Battle Brothers rested for the night at their usual inn, a big advantage of adventuring in the city proper for sure. But their habbit of using always the same inn also means that ther’re easy to find if someone wishes so… Plus, they were followed by a footpad.
  • The eponymous Giant Slug was obviously a big deal, could cast some spells (in my modified Dragonbane version) and was hard to defeat. It had 8 possible starting locations (and moved around afterward), at random, here it was at the dining room, their chosen entry point.
  • 3 days for this mission to date and more to come as they still don’t know what happened to Uzul Balashi.

Slug House – Curiosity Room (session 24)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

The adventurers have rested in the mansion’ safest place, surrounded by floating candles, they’re now resuming exploration of the missing wizard’s home.

2 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys 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)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, resurrection of Delevan succeed (convalescent)
  • Black Axes: somewhere in Ganfal swamp, lost?
  • The Musers: back in Longfelt, resting
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

The Mansion of Uzul Balashi

  • The PCs go back inside thew darkness-engulfed room. Checking their map, they’re convinced there should be a secret door in this room. Slowly, carefully patting the walls, they manage after a while to find the contour of an hidden door. With a bit more efforts they find a keyhole. It appears to be impossible to lockpick unfortunately.
  • They get out and go to an unexplored room nearby. It’s a taxidermy workshop. Among the paraphernalia they spot a blue opal key.
  • They immediately set out to test the key in the just-found keyhole and it’s a fit! The door opens into a small corridor with its walls covered in glowing runes. Tests, with some stuffed animals from the taxidermy workshop, reveal that intruding in the corridor activates powerful electricity discharges. Not seeing any easy way past that, the adventurers decide to go elsewhere.
  • They decide to go back to the ground floor. Forka picks up a small silver ringbell on the altar of the shrine of Death.
  • Back into the Banquet room, they find four more ringbells and start to try them one by one. Several have no apparent effects. One rings everywhere in the mansion all at once (they hear a door opens somewhere not very close). One puts some kind of beneficial effect on Aracyne. Another makes every PCs deaf!
  • Deaf as they are, the PCs still continue exploration and open a door to the east.
  • They enter the curiosity room. There’s shelves and cabinets filled with various assorted items. There’s a demonic-looking statue in one corner. The PCs move one cabinet aside and find a secret door behind it.
  • Torch enters a small vestibule and finds a trapdoor on the floor, he opens it, revealing a ladder. He starts to descend but the ladder breaks under his weight (he’s a goblin but in full armor), making him fall 15′ below. Torch is dazed (condition) but not too badly hurt. He’s in some kind of natural cave below the mansion and something is moving nearby. The tentacled beast just glimpsed at before, a Carcass Crawler..
  • Forka throws a rope down but at this very moment there’s a commotion behind him – Jedri is being attacked by the statue, it’s a gargoyle!
  • Jedri is severely wounded by the gargoyle’s claws. Torch manages to climb the rope fast enough (but get exhausted, pushed his roll) and slam the trapdoor shut before the wall-climbing creature got to him.
  • Forka switches place with Jedri to fight the gargoyle and he starts with a big attack with his 2-h hammer that does good damage to the monster. The gargoyle’s claw attacks doesn’t get through his magic chainmail. A mighty hit of his hammer and the gargoyle is now severely damaged but it counters with a claw attack on forka’s face (crit) and another one (another crit!) and the knight is down!
  • Fortunately, the gargoyle is near-death enough that Grimoire and Aracyne can finish it in no time. Grimoire casts Heal Wound on Forka and the dogman gets back on his feet.
  • By now though the adventurers are worried, their mage has depleted his mana and can no longer heal them. Following an intuition they open a door n-e, into a dining room and find a shuttered window that they can open from the inside. They get out of the wizard’s mansion and go rest at the Hare & Hound inn.

Closing Comments:

  • They spent nearly an hour of in-game time in the dark room. Something is obviously important in this area but they can’t go further for the moment.
  • Torch falling on the Carcass Crawler lair and Jedri being attacked by the gargoyle SIMULTANEOUSLY was a indeed a dire situation for the PCs. (I « activated » the gargoyle at this moment as it made sense for it to do so) They came out on top but it was a close call.
  • I was a bit suprised that my description of a demonic-looking statue didn’t elicit more suspicion from the players but I guess it’s a mistake they won’t do again.