Session Report - Into the Redlands - 3 June 2017

Characters:
Emile Durkheim and his crow totem animal, Totem (shaman 1, played by Emily)
Vodka Gimli and her automaton, Rosie (dwarven machinist 1, played by Stephanie)
Fester the Footpad (thief 1, played by Jason)
Paralee (elven enchanter 1, played by Julia)



The session opened in Lesserton, one of a few human communities clinging to the southwest coast of the island that houses the Redlands, a great swath of goblin, orc, and troll territories that cover the north side of the island. From Lesserton, the villagers can see Mount Rendon, the tallest peak on the island, said to be near the Goblin Market, where anything might be sold or bought. Lesser sits between two sites of ruin. Just to the west, the ancient Imperial city of Mor, once Empire's farthest north outpost and the seat of human civilization on the island, now a gravel pit littered with the broken remains of its Imperial owners. Just to the east of Lesserton are the catacombs, the underground burial vaults for the citizens of Mor, covered over by a graveyard of barrows and cairns.

The four characters started the game fully outfitted for adventure, but with little in the way of pocket money, and so began by picking up pieces of gossip about where best to find treasure. They quickly decided to try exploring the cemetery. Like everyone in town, they already knew that teenagers and other foolish types sometimes made the half-day journey over to the graveyard to prove their bravery or look for gold, but not everyone who went there always came back. They also knew that the Imperials had imposed both their government and their state religion on the human communities of Red Island, that like their fellow Lessers, they mostly believed in the older spirits and had their own burial practices. They knew that any gold the Imperials buried wasn't helping anyone in the afterlife, it was just being wasted in the ground, and any bodies they disturbed belonged to the very decadents who'd brought ruin to the land. But asking around turned up some other rumors - that a death cult calling themselves "the Chosen" had moved in to the catacombs, that runic tablets found in the maze of tunnels curse everyone who reads them, that the catacombs go four levels deep, and of course, that all the rumors people spread were just folk tales meant to scare away children from an essentially harmless old burial ground.

They arrived at the entrance to the old graveyard around noon, and saw that it was bounded on its north and south sides by difficult marsh. The yard itself was covered with small hills and low mounds - burial places that might hide an entrance to the catacombs below. They decided to ignore the mounds closest to the entrance, assuming those had been raided long ago, even if they now looked covered over again. They passed a stele, and made their way closer to the center of the yard, where the mounds were placed thick and dense together. Picking one close to the southwest corner of this central area, Fester got out his shovel and started clearing away the grassy turf from the entryway.

After half an hour of digging, Fester finished uncovering two stone slabs supporting the hollow earthen mound. They saw a pair of human skeletons laying on the bare dirt floor, but nothing else. Vodka Gimli and her diminutive dwarf-shaped automaton, Rosie, ventured inside to give a more thorough search. While Vodka patted the walls and examined the stonework for seams, Rosie posed and flexed her biceps, and encouraged her builder in her task. <<BZZT WE CAN DO IT BZZT>> Vodka eventually found a drawer hidden in one of the slabs where it met the floor, and pulled it open to reveal a pair of small wooden funerary figures (perhaps representing the buried duo), a bejeweled silver dagger, and a roll of parchment covered in strange and seemingly ancient writing. As she tucked these items into her pack, Vodka felt her skin go to gooseflesh and all her hair stand on end. She turned around and saw both skeletons rising to their feet, trapping her inside the mound!

Vodka Gimli brandished her war hammer at the skeletons, and Rosie performed a riveting rock-em-sock-em maneuver that cracked on the skeletons' ribs. The other lurched forward and wrapped both hands around Vodka's neck, chocking the life out of her! For a moment, she thought sure she'd be dead, but after blacking out awoke on the ground with a broken neck, her entire body feeling of pins and needles. Satisfied with the damage they'd inflicted, the skeletons turned to attack the group outside!

Emile Durkheim raised his sickle-sword in self-defense, and had his crow, Totem, carry a dagger over to his friend Paralee. Paralee used her staff to give a solid smack to the skeleton that had nearly killed Vodka Gimli, knocking off one of its hands and putting its head at a crooked angle. She then took the dagger from Totem and joined Emile in holding the skeletons at bay. Fester used his short sword to fell one of the skeletons, and Rosie guarded the prone body of her builder and friend. The remaining skeleton menaced Emile and Paralee, but with its crooked head and missing hand, it couldn't manage to connect with them. Fester quickly put the second skeleton down as well, severing its spine and then stomping on the skull.

After taking a little time to recuperate and get Vodka Gimli back to her feet, the group decided to abandon the graveyard and return to town. Emile Durkheim vowed to consult his ancestral spirits to learn how to restore Vodka to heath. Leaving the yard mid-afternoon, they arrived back in town around sundown, weary and wounded, but somewhat wiser and somewhat richer as well.



Gains:
pair of wooden funeary figures
jewled silver dagger
scroll with mysterious writing

Losses:
Vodka Gimli (almost!)

Kills:
2 skeletons

XP:
35 from the silver dagger
26 from the pair of skeletons
Divided by 4 characters, this came to 15 XP each.



(This was a short play session because we started out rolling up the characters. Two of the players had never played D&D before, and a third said he hadn't played since the early 1980s. We went around in a circle rolling up ability scores, choosing classes, writing down class abilities, rolling for templates of proficiencies and equipment, and then writing those down too. I printed out and stapled each class separately, so I could hand those printouts to the players, which worked very well. There are two things I wish I'd done differently with the templates. First, I wish I'd stapled the template list for each class to the rest of the handout, rather than having them separate. Second, since ignoring the default templates and then rolling for them on a separate table was a little confusing for the players, and since three of the four characters ended up with default template anyway, I wish that I'd just said that first-time characters get the default template. Then, when a player is on their second or third character, I can tell them that they have a choice to accept the default template or roll for a different one. For those unfamiliar with Adventurer Conqueror King, the template takes the place of rolling 3d6x100 for starting gold and individually selecting starting proficiencies. Vodka Gimli was the one character with a high enough Intelligence score to get a bonus proficiency, which she used to select Personal Automaton. This is the reason she was able to start the game with Rosie, rather than having to spend 7000 gp and two weeks trying to draw the blueprint and another 7000 gp (and another two weeks) on construction.)

(I used Adventurer Conqueror King and the ACKS Player Companion for my character generation rules. The starting village and the ruined city come from the book Lesserton & Mor, which provides details on the village, and a series of rules for procedurally generating the contents of the city. One idea I really like from that book is 120' hexes for ruin-crawling. Essentially, the characters can cross one hex in one 10 minute exploration turn, which I think is a great scale for exploring an outdoor (or outdoor-ish) area in detail. The rest of the island come from In the Shadow of Mount Rotten, which has a series of rules for procedurally generating the contents of a goblin- and orc-controlled wilderness. There's a challenge with using this book that I hadn't thought about until I started drawing the island map: first, the territory in question is just enormous, large enough that it's hard to fit a map on a single sheet of paper; second, and probably relatedly, the hexes are unnumbered on the original, which creates challenges for copying correctly. I made one hand-drawn copy for my own reference, a simplified hand-drawn copy for the players, and then started work on a 4-sheet judge's map. I got that whole thing drawn and cut out (although not numbered) in time for the game. Spending so much time on the island map though meant that I had to rely on printouts for the ruins and the cemetery. The cemetery, I should mention, is Barrowmaze Complete, which has a ruin-crawl hex map of the graveyard, and then a standard dungeon map of the catacombs. I think I need a player map of the graveyard next, and then maybe maps of the ruins and island that are large enough to lay out on the table and fill in as the players explore.)

(I usually like to get a little more exploring in a single session, but the characters had good reason to head back to town when they did. When the skeleton hit Vodka Gimli, and I rolled 5 damage against a character with 3 hp, Stephanie asked me "Wait, is that it? Am I just dead?" Fortunately, she looked amused / horrified, not angry or sad. I pulled out ACKS's "Mortal Wounds" table, and had her roll on it. All in all, I think that she and my other players all had a good time. And while they may not have found any cash, a silver weapon is a useful thing to own, and Paralee, as a magic-user and a historian, can probably translate the scroll and find out what's written on it.)

(I realized in retrospect that I read the Mortal Wounds table slightly incorrectly, and that since the party had no way to restore even 1 hp to her until they got back to town, that she should have died one combat round after being maimed. That part was my mistake, but I'm still going to enforce that Vodka Gimli needs a month of bedrest before she can adventure again. Her "mortal wound" is a broken neck, which has three consequences: first, it reduces her Dexterity to 3; second, she can't move, fight, use items, or cast spells; and third she has to save vs. death once a month or die of complications. Stephanie wants to try to save Vodka Gimli's life, and I think the rest of the party wants that too, so I've been looking into the options for that.)

(According to ACKS as written, the only way to undo a "mortal wound" is with the Restore Life and Limb spell - the same one that can bring a dead body back to life. Restore Life and Limb is a 5th level spell, which means accessing it as 1st level characters is going to be tricky. Lesserton & Mor suggests that the town church is willing to perform miracles in exchange for service or gifts (or cash, if you can persuade them to take it.) A 5th level spell is supposed to require taking on a quest to expunge an evil cult, or the gift of a major magic item, or 10,000 gp in donations. If the church believes Vodka Gimli is willing (and able) to root out one of the cults in the catacombs, they might task her with that quest. They might also accept the gift of the automaton Rosie, (who would become a mechanical church servant, I guess) although they'd want a promise to either build up her body or add another special ability sometime in the future. The availability of spells in Adventurer Conqueror King depends somewhat on whether I consider Lesserton to be a Class III or Class IV marketplace. A 5th level divine spell has only a 50% chance of being available in a Class IV market, although if it can be bought, costs only 500 gp, which seems surprisingly low. I'm thinking the other two major-ish human towns on the coast are roughly the same as Lesserton, but the Goblin Market might have someone able to cast the spell. For sure though, a goblin would want a favor as well as gold in exchange for healing a dwarf. The ACKS Player Companion adds the spell Regeneration, but it's a 6th level divine ritual, and so likely a dead-end.)

(On the other hand, maybe I disagree that Restore Life and Limb is the only way to heal Vodka's injury. One thing I like in Dungeon Crawl Classics is a set of guidelines for using healing magic to treat other injuries (like the kind you get from DCC's brutal critical hit tables.) Receive 1 HD of healing magic for example, and you can repair a broken bone, although you won't recover any hp when the magic is used to treat the injury. Organ damage (another possible interpretation of a spinal injury) requires 2 HD of healing, and paralysis requires 3 HD. (Incidentally, curing a disease takes 2 HD of healing, and neutralizing a poison takes 3.) Coincidentally, ACKS has a Medicine proficiency with 3 levels of expertise, corresponding to 3 types of medical specialists - healers, physikers, and chirugeons. As written, they can't do anything for mortal wounds, but if we take some guidance from DCC, perhaps they should be able to. They heal 1d3, 1d6+1, and 2d6+CL hit points of injuries respectively, and physikers can cure disease, while chirugeons can neutralize poison, all of which maps rather well to the guidelines laid out in DCC. ACKS doesn't give much advice regarding paralysis. The only two things that cause it (by name) are ghouls and the spell Hold Person. The monster description for the ghoul suggests that the spell Cure Light Wounds should remove ghoul paralysis, which seems like a bargain compared to DCC, and something that a healer or physiker could do.)

(So, with all this in mind, I would say that Vodka Gimli is suffering from the effects of a broken bone, and organ damage, and paralysis, but that a skilled chirugeon could treat her, restoring her Dexterity (maybe), restoring her ability to move and adventure normally, and removing her once-a-month chance of dying of complications. The chirugeon would need to retain a healer and a physiker for the delicate operation. Class IV markets have a 33% chance of finding a chirugeon, which means that one of the three human cities on the island should have one. The three day operation should cost 12 + 6 + 3 for the three workers, or a total of 21 gp, making this by far the most affordable option. Since it is ACKS, I would still make Stephanie roll on the "Tampering with Mortality" table even if it's medicine, not magic, saving her character's life. If I were following the DCC guidelines, I would probably also rule that Vodka gets a permanent -1 to her Dexterity or Constitution (her choice) as a result of the ordeal. The medical staff will also have to make a proficiency throw to pull it off correctly. If they fail, Vodka Gimli will have to survive a save vs. death ... and they probably won't be willing to make a second attempt.)

(So, those are the three answers Emile Durkheim will receive after consulting his ancestral spirits: the church in Lesserton for 10,000, the Goblin Market for 500, or the best surgeon on the island for 21. As a machinist, Vodka Gimli would also be aware that she could re-fashion Rosie into a kind of supporting exo-skeleton instead of being healed. Dropping Rosie to ½ HD and adding the vehicle special ability would cost 4000 gp in research materials to design a blueprint for, and that's because she's altering an existing automaton - it would cost 11,000 gp to design this from scratch. Rebuilding Rosie as a power armor would also another 4000 gp in parts, plus, since she's paralyzed, Vodka would have to hire skilled laborers to do the work for her. Retirement is also an option here. Especially if she can get healed enough to eliminate the risk of complications, Vodka could simply become an eccentric villager with a robot maidservant. I'll let Stephanie decide how she wants to proceed, although in terms of price, demands on her independence, and safety of travel to the healing location, one of these options stands out to me as the most likely choice.)

Session Report - Island of the Blue Giants - 4 March 2017

Characters:
Poseidon, the Majestic King of the Sea (merman warrior 1)
Jim Morrison, the Cultist (gemcutter wizard 1)

Sid "Vicious", the Astrologist (sage wizard 1)
Johnny "Rotten", the Beggar (spy thief 1)
Nico, the Witness (spy cleric 1)

Laetoli, the Zealot of Shanidar (cavewoman cleric 1)
Beast Master, the Ethereal Witness (animal trainer cleric 1)
Will, the Fresh Prince of Bravo (smith thief 1)
Kerhs, the Bandit of the Swamp (half-orc warrior 1)



The group felt stronger and wiser after their initial encounters with some of the weird denizens of the island. Poseidon and Beast Master were eager to investigate the situation to the southeast that they'd spied through Trondo's ethereal telescope, and everyone was eager to get away from the Bo-al, their dangerous houses, and their seemingly cavalier attitude toward their friends' deaths.

They set out south along the river, traveling toward the village with its one ethereal-visible house, and the mysterious giant aardvark slumbering nearby. Halfway along the route, they heard the sound of twigs breaking and branches snapping, and suddenly a giant creature burst forth from the treeline! It rushed Laetoli and gored her, sending her flying into the river! Only after the creature wheeled around after its attack could the others make out what they were seeing: an oversized rhinoceros with a skin of cracked black stone, its glowing red lava body shining through between the cracks. The grass withered beneath its feet as it pawed the ground, snorting and looking ready for another charge. Feeling invulnerable in his ethereal state, Beast Master tried to calm the magic beast (to no avail) while the others ran to the river, hoping to rescue Laetoli and avoid the waves of heat pouring off of the monster.

From the river's edge, Sid "Vicious" thought of the spells he knew, realized he could do nothing to harm the beast, and settled for casting a shielding spell on himself. Laetoli, miraculously still alive, attempted to cast a spell on herself to protect herself from the fiery heat, but no divine favor came for her. Nico likewise failed in her attempt to magically command the beast. Beast Master was able to call on the divine to lay hands on Laetoli and heal her slightly. Johnny "Rotten", Krehs, and Will all rushed forward to attack the creature. Each got a good hit in, but was, in turn, splashed with the creature's fiery lava blood, which burned each of them badly. Will used up every bit of his luck to not only hammer the beast, but also pry off one of its armor plates, but in the aftermath, he fled to the river, slipped, fell under, and began drowning. Jim cast a spell to put the monster to sleep, and the Bo-al food cubes he's brought with him from the celebration turned rotten and putrid as the magic left his hands. The creature fell into a magical slumber, unable to wake for at least an hour, or until it ate Bo-al food cubes.

With the creature briefly subdued, the party debated how to handle their situation. The grass around the slumbering beast all burned away, and the dirt beneath it blackened. The first order of business was to rescue Will from drowning (without getting pulled under as well) and to drag him to shore. They agreed that it would be easy to continue hurting the creature while it slept. It wasn't moving, and there was a hole in its armored hide where Will had pried away a piece of its flank. No one was willing to make the first blow however, because they all feared being splashed with more of its flaming blood, (rightly) concerned that most of them would be unable to survive being splashed with lava again. Will felt determined to try to harm the beast in some way, and tried to fetch some water from the river to splash on it, thinking that would harm the beast safely. Unfortunately, the luckless man nearly fell into the river again, then the shirt he used to hold water ripped, and then he finally succeeding in carrying water over to in the curve of his shield, he merely caused the creature's wound to re-harden into stoney black skin. As he finally dumped water onto the creature, the Bo-al food cubes he carried fell from his pocket right in front of it. The rhino's nose twitched and its lips began making smacking sounds, but fortunately someone rushed forward to knock them out of the way in time, and the group decided to let it sleep in peace. Laetoli laid healing hands onto Krehs before they departed, but Beast Master was unable to heal his friend Laetoli a second time.

The group continued downriver, relieved that the fiery rhinoceros didn't seem to be following them. Around mid-afternoon, the sky suddenly went gray, and they saw the sun mysteriously directly overhead, and also mysteriously eclipsed. They heard the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy playing a funeral procession, and as they continued on their way, saw a group of pangolins (armadillo-like creatures but with large bronze scales instead of bands of armor). Several of the pangolins were tying one of the smallest members of their group to a stone altar. Others played the funeral music, and small cadre stood aloof, watching. As the approached, the largest of the pangolins came forward to meet them. He introduced himself as the Jarl of the village, said that the land was cursed, and told them to go back the way they came. The group first inquired about the circular hut they'd seen through Trondo's ethereal telescope, and the Jarl scoffingly told them they must seen the house belonging to the mad widow. They asked about the curse, and he told them that Grendel stalks the lands, coming every few nights to ravage and destroy. He pointed to the altar and explained that Grendel kills someone every time he comes, but if they leave him a sacrifice, he usually kills only the person bound to the altar, and usually doesn't destroy any other property. When asked if he ever tried to fight Grendel, he laughed again at their naivete, and explained that Grendel seemed invulnerable to weapons, and even if he appeared defeated, he always came back. The group asked the Jarl if he'd be willing to let them follow him back to his village, and he laughed again. He'd lead them back, but if they came, they'd be entered into the village lottery to be fed to Grendel, and he was sure their names would be the next ones to come out of the box.

The group felt uncomfortable about leaving the whimpering, crying young one tied to the stone, but agreed they didn't know enough to interfere, and followed the rest of the creatures back to their village. The village itself was circled by a wall of spiked logs, and the houses were all huts made of woven branches. It was obvious that something had battered through the palisade several times, with only patchy repairs afterwards, that some of the huts had been smashed to kindling, and that others were empty with no one inside to light an evening fire. The guards were initially surly about letting the group in, and their mood wasn't improved when Will joked about killing them. Another character was able to diplomatically interpose themselves, saving Will from being blocked out or attacked.

The group went straight to the hut of the "mad widow," who introduced herself as Ymae. They told her that they saw her hut from a distance and could see that it was special. She said that her walls were woven with hairs from the Kyssia, and that it had taken her a long time to collect them. She pointed out that the group themselves were carrying a few strings made of Kyssia hair, and explained to Beast Master and Poseidon how they could use those strings to return to solid form. She said that if one bound the rope around his waist and the other pulled, they could be yanked back to full reality. She was also sure that anyone who had been ethereal once could learn how to go back again, and that the Kyssia did so all the time, and could surely teach them if they couldn't figure it out themselves. Beast Master and Poseidon both decided to wait to perform this trick, thinking that they might need to be ethereal to help defeat "Grendel," who (the group agreed) must be the villager's name for the giant ethereal aardvark they saw earlier. Ymae told them that Grendel could be defeated if they pulled him to solid reality as well, and (with some prompting) even explained that she could weave all the hairs that lined the walls of her house into a rope to perform the task. ... Of course, she would only be willing to do that kind of work and give that important a present to her husband.

The group shuffled to one side to debate while Ymae stood humming to herself, seemingly oblivious. (Although she did make a nasty face at Will when he looked over at her. They gathered he was the only member of the party she'd be unwilling to marry.) No one particularly wanted to marry the widow, but none of them thought they'd be able to weave the rope without her help either. While they were talking, they heard a great roaring in the distance, coming from the direction of the stone altar, then cries and screams that sounded like the young villager who'd been left behind, then horrible chomping and eating noises, and then silence. ("So I guess we're definitely not rescuing that child, then.") For the moment, no one could be persuaded to step forward, so they bid Ymae goodnight and went back into the center of town.

The friends decided to stay the night in the town's inn. Most of the townspeople were spending the night in the Great Hall for safety, but for the inn was filled too, of those who felt uncomfortable or unwelcome in the same building as the Jarl. The innkeeper was inconsolable; it was his daughter who was sacrificed that night. The friends learned that the villagers are called Carakol, and that their village was once a much happier place before Grendel came. Asking around, they also learned that Grendel is rumored to be immune to weapons, that they can't touch him, that he walks through walls. They also heard rumors that in the past, a different group of people lived here and worshiped an evil animal spirit by throwing sacrifices into a nearby swamp. They heard that there's an ancient chieftain's tomb in the hills north of town, and that the chieftain was known as a monster slayer. (The group concluded that this must be where the spear they saw through Trondo's telescope must be buried.) They also heard, from an angry young Carakol who claimed to be the fiance of the sacrificed girl, that the Jarl had no idea how to kill Grendel.

The next morning, the group members felt somewhat refreshed. Will, although still feeling pretty unlucky, no longer felt as though the entire world was conspiring to thwart his ever move. Beast Master was able to speed Laetoli to a full recovery, although Nico's power had no effect on Johnny. They returned to Ymae's hut, where Jim attempted to cast a spell to charm her into giving them the rope. The spell had no effect, but Ymae interpreted the attempt as a proposal, and seemed delighted. She began bustling around her hut thinking of preparations for the wedding. After a minute, she came back over, gave Jim a chaste hug, and told him it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. She promised she would weave the rope in time to stop Grendel's next attack, and told the group to come back the day after tomorrow. She also gave them accurate directions to the chieftain's tomb. Now that they had a plan to get the rope, Beast Master decided to return to solidity, and had Poseidon help yank him back to reality. Unfortunately, one of their two Kyssia-hair threads for performing this trick broke in the process, although Poseidon thought he could still use the other after Grendel was dead. They went into town again to look for supplies, and Will managed to persuade the town blacksmith to let him use the space for a bit. Will managed to turn the piece of pyroceros hide into a fire-resistant shield, which he gave to his friend Laetoli.

The friends spent one more night in the inn, and planned to raid the ancient tomb in the morning in order to recover the spear. Poseidon planned to use the spear to kill the ethereal Grendel, while Jim worried about how to safely break off his engagement without risking the party's access to Ymae's magic rope. Socializing in the inn, the group heard more rumors about Grendel. One Carakol told them not to worry, as Grendel supposedly only killed sinners and other wicked people. (Although the group felt a little suspicious of this information, since they'd heard Grendel eating a teenager the night before.) They also heard that Grendel could be distracted by fresh blood, and that weapons made of silver or that had been blessed by a priest could cause Grendel searing pain. They were also warned to burn the bodies of anyone who died near the village or else they'd rise up as corpse monsters, and that anyone who was bitten by Grendel transformed into some kind of naked, long-nosed beast. With all that they'd learned swirling through their heads alongside their tentative plans, the group bedded down for the night, prepared to seize the ancient spear in the morning.

Will our heroes find the ghostly spear? Will they defeat Grendel? Will one of their friends be the next name drawn out of the Jarl's lottery box? Will Jim make an honest woman out the widow Ymae? Stay tuned for these answers in our action packed season premier in the fall!



Gains:
a fire-resistant pyroceros-hide shield
Beast Master's solidity

Losses:
Jim's bachelorhood (maybe)

Kills:
none

XP:
2 for fighting the pyroceros
1 for meeting the widow (and an extra 1 to Jim only for his engagement)



(Attentive readers will recognize the scenario in play here as Goodman Games' "Doom of the Savage Kings.")

(The pyroceros the characters encountered on their trip was a truly random encounter. I rolled a d14 to first choose the CL of the encounter on Pars Fortuna's "Monsters by Challenge Level" index. Then I rolled a d5 to determine which of the CL 11 monsters to introduce.)

(In retrospect, a fire monster that burns all the plantlife it touches isn't an ideal thematic fit for either a forest encounter or a riverside encounter. Eventually, I would like to have encounter tables of mid-level monsters for each type of terrain, and I'd like these monsters to be thematically consistent with the kinds of monsters that OD&D placed in each terrain. Just like I took my starting occupations from Zenopus Archives, I'm thinking about the terrain and encounter descriptions from Initiative One. As a kind of megafauna, the pyroceros is a perfect fit for the OD&D mountains, and, yeah, a volcanic monster living in the mountains also makes a lot of sense. Eventually, I'd also like a high-level unique monster living in some wilderness hexes, like you see in Island of the Unknown. The island should stay dangerous, even after the characters get strong enough to stop worrying about most of the wildlife, and there should be some kind of special reward - or at least the potential for a reward - when one of the high-HD unique monsters is defeated.)

(After the session was over, I realized that I'd made a mistake and Laetoli should have died. She took 1d6 trample damage, plus 2d8 goring damage, plus 1d4 from the heat. This would have killed any of the other characters two or three times over, but Laetoli is a beast in the hit points department. The bonus Hit Dice from being a cavewoman, coupled with a +2 Stamina bonus means that she's ridiculously hardy. But pyroceros description says that it deals double damage when charging, which should have been an additional 2d8 goring damage on top of that, and maybe another 1d6 trample as well. She was left with only 1 or 2 hp after the attack with the damage I calculated, so if I'd done the math right, she certainly would have perished.)

(On the other hand, even though Laetoli lived, her near-death experience certainly emphasized how dangerous the wildlife on the island can be. It was interesting watching the players come to the realization that they'd be better off running away rather than killing the monster. Even fast asleep, the pyroceros could still kill them. They absolutely could have killed it, but some of them - maybe several of them - would have died too as a result of the spraying lava blood. They could have killed it, but they realized it was smarter to walk away.)

(Another thing it was interesting the players debate was how to best make use of some DCC-specific rules. The risk-reward of clerical healing and Deity Disapproval made them cautious about using that power. Burning Luck let Will the Smith pull off a cool maneuver, which he liked, although I think that player was surprised by the dangers of dropping to Luck 0. In retrospect, I wish I'd warned him, but he's my most veteran player, and since letting any other attribute fall to 0 means instant death, I thought he'd understand that he was doing something that would essentially incapacitate Will for awhile. In retrospect, I also wish I'd printed out copies of each character class's 2-3 pages of rules so that the players could pass those handouts around and consult them when they had questions about their characters' abilities.)

(I think that handouts would also be a good idea for each of the Pars Fortuna factions. Because we were focusing on learning about Grendel and the mad widow, I forgot to relay very much information about the Carakol, aside from their pangolin-like appearance. As music-lovers and ghost-haters, the Carakol are weird and interesting, and not much of that came through this session, which a handout could have solved. I think this kind of handout should have a picture of a typical faction member, a picture of a typical town, a brief description of what the faction is like, and a list of special opportunities that each faction provides. For example, I think my player who drew a map of Trondo's house should have had a chance to sell that to the other Bo-al, at a much higher price than other factions would pay for dungeon maps because of the Bo-al's interest in architecture.)

(After this session, I had trouble getting all three of my players together on the same weekend, which is why I've started a new summer campaign with a more drop-in-drop-out structure. One of the players is spending the summer abroad, so this campaign is on hiatus until he gets back in the country. We'll definitely finish out the hunt for Grendel, and then decide as a group whether to continue, or play something simpler. I want to continue running the Island of the Blue Giants, but I'm wondering if it should be something that I run online for veteran DCC players - either in addition or instead of having it as an in-person game. I'm thinking that some of the more outre aspects might be easier to introduce to players who are already experienced with DCC and who are - maybe "jaded" is the right word here? - with more standard campaign environments.)

Island of the Blue Giants - Player Map of Trondo's House

Below is a map one of my players drew of Trondo's house (The Alexandrian's Halls of the Mad Mage) over the course of the first two sessions.

 

The map is drawn on the back of the player's 0-level character sheet, so the red marks bleeding through are my skull-and-crossbone drawings  indicating the deaths of Peregrine and Batman.

Session Report - Island of the Blue Giants - 25 Feb 2017

Characters:
Poseidon, the merman
Batman, the flyer
Jim, the gemcutter

Beastmaster, the animal trainer
Will, the smith
Kerhs, the half-orc
Litoli, the cave-woman

Sid "Vicious," the sage
Johnny "Rotten," the spy
Siouxsie, the nomad
Nico, the spy



Traveling from Trondo's bedroom, the group made their way to the observatory off of the library. They were a bit surprised to realize that the sitting room, the library, the triangle room, and the aquarium all made a single circuit, since it was upstairs the whole way around.

Inside the observatory, Johnny looked through the telescope, which was initially pointed at his fellow party members. Most of his friends were nearly invisible, looking ghostly and insubstantial, but Poseidon and Beastmaster seemed solid and real. Wheeling around, he surveyed the rest of the house. Again, most of it was so gauzy and thin he could hardly see it at all, but the aquarium was obviously full of water and fish, and there was a menacing, shadowy presence lurking in the gravel on the floor... Looking farther afield, he was able to see the boulder field where he and his friends had first woken up. The field seemed sparse; most of the boulders were invisible, but the ones carved with faces were plain to see. Also plain to see were a small crowd of human-like figures (the first they'd seen since awakening) although they seemed to be shorter and paler than Johnny's friends. Wheeling around the other way, he saw what appeared to be a giant aardvark sleeping in an unknown den (it must have been giant, because of how large it appeared at a distance, even without many landmarks to judge it against,) and nearby, a single hut, and nearby that, a giant spear.

Johnny reported all this back to his friends. Beastmaster wanted to see for himself, but was unable to touch the telescope to move it. With Will's help, he managed to take in the same panorama and Johnny, then announced his intentions to return to the aquarium to catch more fish. Poseidon agreed, and Siouxsie bravely volunteered to join them. The group returned to the sitting room with the miniature aquarium, and Siouxsie deliberately touched it, becoming insubstantial like her two friends.

The group all returned to the aquarium room. To most of them, it appeared as a bare room with stone sculptures of fish hanging from nearly invisible strings from the ceiling. To Poseidon, Beastmaster, and Siouxsie, it appeared full of water, waving seaweed, and live swimming fish. The three also noticed a menacing presence lurking around the edge of the room, but opted to try catching more fish despite the sense of danger. This looked a bit silly to their friends, who saw the three darting and clutching at thin air, before triumphantly grasping the statues which had remained motionless the entire time. Unfortunately, the larger group didn't get to enjoy watching their three friends at this for long, as the dark presence revealed itself - a giant snail with four mace-like tentacles growing from its head! Unlike the fish, which existed (in slightly different forms) in both the physical world and the ethereal realm, the snail had no physical counterpart, and was completely invisible to most of the observers.

A brief, but intense combat ensued. Siouxsie tossed her lance, but it bounded off the snails invulnerable shell. It then rushed her, pummeled her body to paste, and began loudly slurping up her remains! Beastmaster also proved unable to wound the monstrous mollusk, but in two separate attacks, Poseidon first severed one of its tentacles, then slew the creature with a mighty blow from his trident. He decided to keep the severed tentacle to use as a mace, and he and Beastmaster sawed the snail's body in half to eat later. They made seaweed-wrapped bundles of escargot and fish to carry out with them, and divided Siouxsie's weapons between them. Siouxsie's body, and her armor, were irrecoverable, too badly mangled while the snail devoured her.

After their initial bold entry into the aquarium, the whole group left in a dour mood. Sid "Vicious" and Johnny "Rotten" declared their desire to kill Athern for sending them into the house, and Nico started panicking that her protector, Siouxsie, had died. "I'll be killed for sure!" she wailed. Batman stepped up to calm Nico, offering to defend her in case of danger. "I'm Batman," he said.

The group decided to retreat from the house. They had the information they'd come for, two of their friends had died already, another two had been turned insubstantial, and neither the items they'd found nor the promise of a nice party seemed to make up for the losses they'd already suffered. They went back to the sitting room and library (avoiding the triangle room because it made Jim uncomfortable and nervous,) and then returned to the balcony over the foyer.

From the balcony level they could clearly see the seven remaining weird statues, and the one that Will broke earlier. Although the statues looked like odd collections of spikes and angles, the shadows they cast looked just like the puppet-like monsters they'd fought earlier, and before their eyes, the shadows cast by the intact statues thickened into gibbering little humanoids who immediately began prying up the cobblestones to hurl at them. A couple also grabbed bits of the broken statue, a material that looked especially dangerous to Beastmaster and Poseidon. Unfortunately, they were helpless to defend their friends as the little monsters attacked, hitting Litoli and Will with rocks, and killing Batman with one of the bits of broken statue. Nico momentarily dissolved in tears at the lost of her newest defender, then started waving her knife around threatening anything that came too close to her. Jim withdrew from combat to make sure that none of Batman's valuables would be left behind in the house. Litoli slew one of the shadow-puppet creatures with her spear, Will hammered two, and Sid and Johnny stabbed three of the creatures to death. Beastmaster also found a way to contribute at the end, ordering his guard-weasel to attack the creatures (which it did with gusto, killing another) and his pack-rabbit to stand in front of the shattered statue, blocking the monsters from getting any more of its deadly stone.

Dejected and angry, the group made their way down the spiral staircases in the corners, carrying Batman's body out with them. They emerged to find the street before them more or less deserted, with only the normal town bustle going on in the distance. Storming across town, they eventually found Athern doing some gardening along the city wall, near where they first met them. Athern seemed surprised to see them, and possibly to have forgotten the task they'd asked the adventurers to complete. Undeterred, the group explained that Trondo had died of old age after completing their masterpiece, and had decided to become a ghost so that they'd have time to enjoy their accomplishment. They also explained that Trondo had named Athern in their will, and that their lawyer should have all the details that would eventually allow Athern to inherit the great house.

"You know," Johnny said, "some of our friends died in there. We couldn't even get all their bodies out." He was angry at the Bo-al for sending them on such a dangerous task, unprepared for what awaited them, but Athern seemed oblivious to the group's pain. "You left garbage inside Trondo's house?!" they exclaimed. A moment later though, the giant gardener turned wistful. "Oh poor Trondo!" (And our friends!) "It's so sad that you've died!" (And our friends!) "We'll all be diminished by your loss!" (And our friends!)

The group didn't get the satisfaction they wanted from Athern, but the Bo-al gardener was (eventually) good to their word, and by sunset a grand funeral was in order, with tents and pavilions sprung up all over town, mounds of food-cubes, and great bowls of punch. Poseidon and Beastmaster munched glumly on the cold fish stored in the pack-rabbits saddle bags, while several of the others lost themselves in a night of drinking and debauchery. Under Poseidon's guidance, Jim and Nico put Batman's body onto a reed raft, floated him onto one of the canals, and set him ablaze. Most of the others avoided succumbing to total depravity during their carouse, but Johnny had a tryst with one of the hermaphroditic Bo-al in the bathhouse (and only narrowly avoided becoming married to them) and Sid made a series of ill-advised gambles and wagers that lost him everything, including the clothes off his back, except the tome he'd taken from Trondo's house.



(We began the session in media res inside the house, got the group back outside, caroused for experience bonuses, and then spent the rest of the session leveling up their characters. I used Jeff's Gameblog's carousing table, which seemed to work well. I'm of two minds about both the beginning and end of the session.

On the one hand, I know other referees prefer not to allow their players to end a session inside a dungeon, and even make them roll on special tables (like Jeff's Gameblog's again, or like Unofficial Games's) to determine whether and how they made it out by the start of the next session. At the end of last session, I could have also simply ruled that as long as they went straight to the exit, they got out safely. We might have gotten more done in the session, perhaps even accomplishing some of the things that eventually happened in Session 3. On the other hand, if I'd done that, there never would have been a fight with the flail-tentacled snail, and the danger of the foyer guardians would have been halved. (And at 4 HD, the snail could have easily wrecked all three of the characters fighting it, especially after critting Siouxsie on its first attack.) Making the players work for their exit emphasizes that they're always in danger in the dungeon, even when they're trying to escape, and it forces them to plan accordingly - you don't want to go so deep in that you can't make it back out alive. And since we have a consistent group so far, there was no sudden appearing or disappearing of characters as they walked from one room to another. I haven't decided how I want to handle this in the future.

I also have mixed feelings about spending the end of the session leveling up (instead of doing it between session) and leveling up every surviving character (instead of having each player choose one to focus on for now.) Again, on the one hand, it took the rest of our time, and we didn't have the chance to do any more gaming. On the other hand, we got to talk through the class options and everyone's visions for each of their surviving characters. Everyone also got to learn more about the rules for Dungeon Crawl Classics as they related to each character's abilities. Crits and Fumbles, Mighty Deeds of Arms, the random nature of spellcasting, and burning Luck all got discussed in some detail. I don't generally want to force my players to memorize too many rules (that's what the referee's for!) but I also don't want anyone's character to die because they didn't know what it was capable of doing to defend itself. I don't regret doing things this way this time, but I reserve the right to consider if I want to do it the same or differently in the future.

I also made everyone decide where they were headed next, and they chose to investigate the giant aardvark and the mysterious hut and spear...)



Gains:
a tentacle mace
more spectral fish and half a giant spectral snail
a very nice funeral

Losses:
Siouxsie
Batman

Kills:
1 flail-tentacled snail
7 shadow-puppet guardians 

XP:
2 for fighting the snail (Poseidon and Beastmaster only)
0 for fighting the puppets a second time
1d6 each for carousing at the funeral (Will, Kerhs, Litoli, Sid, and Johnny)

Session Report - Island of the Blue Giants - 04 Feb 2017

Characters:
Peregrine, the pilgrim
Poseidon, the merman
Batman, the flyer
Jim, the gemcutter

Beastmaster, the animal trainer
Will, the smith
Kerhs, the half-orc
Litoli, the cave-woman

Sid "Vicious," the sage
Johnny "Rotten," the spy
Siouxsie, the nomad
Nico, the spy



A dozen humans found themselves standing in a misty hollow, the ground studded with boulders before them. Each could remember an earlier life as a professional, of one sort or another, but none could recall quite how they'd gotten to that spot. Beastmaster was a bit surprised to find his old mule and hound replaced by a deer-shaped pack-rabbit and a dog-like guard-weasel, and Souixsie was certain she used to have a horse instead of a riding pea-hen.

The group investigated the field, saw that the boulders were moss-covered and ancient, and that several were carved with faces. The faces were human-like, but with wide alert eyes, and ears that looked like spiny fish fins. Spending a little more time, they heard running water coming from the west, saw through a break in the clouds circling humanoid flyers in the sky to the northeast, and later heard the sound of marching musicians approaching from the south. Litloi wanted to secure a safe water source, and Poseidon agreed. Batman felt curious about the flyers, but agreed to follow his new-found friends.

Walking for awhile through the morning fog, the group eventually saw the source of the sound, a flowing river, with dozens of canals and irrigation ditches branching off from it, and a walled town near the water. At first, they thought the town had a low wall, with dozens of the inhabitants' faces visible above it. They saw that the canals and ditches were in extremely regular rows and straight lines with right angles connecting them, while each building seemed to be a unique structure with an assortment of towers and extensions. As they got closer, they realized the wall was human-height, and the inhabitants were at least 8' tall.

They began walking around the outside of the wall, looking for a gate, when one of the beings called down to them. The giant said they looked strange, too short to be Cadjula, their bottoms to small to be Nif, and asked them if they wanted to come in. The group agreed, and the giant used a wooden crane to lower a platform and then raise them up over the wall.

On the left: a typical Bo-al

The giant told the group that their name was Athern, and that their people were called Bo-al. Athern seemed to be guessing every time they called one of the humans "young man" or "young woman," and when asked, explained that they knew the other islanders had genders, but there was nothing like that among the Bo-al. A little more questioning revealed that the Bo-al are a town of architects, engineers, and builders, who spend a lot of their time drawing blueprints, improving their homes, and tinkering with this and that. Athern admitted that they were only looking over the wall because they were thinking of doing a little gardening. When asked where the group could secure some food or employment, Athern mentioned that everyone in town had been worrying about their greatest builder, Trondo, who'd been missing "for days and days," ever since finishing their new house. There would certainly be a find party if Trondo came outside! (Or a fine funeral if Trondo's body were discovered!) Athern explained that it would be terribly rude for any of the Bo-al to enter Trondo's house without permission, but that if some "wild animals" happened to get inside, well, there was nothing the townspeople could do to prevent it. Athern led them to the two story structure, pointed to the observatory on the roof, and then knocked on the door, holding it just ajar to call in to Trondo. "Are you there, my friend? I hope that no wild animals sneak into your house while I'm calling on you!" The group took their cue and hurried inside.

They found themselves in a great two-story foyer, with a balcony ringing the room on the second story. Light from high windows filtered in, but Krehs felt good to be indoors during the day. They saw a wide staircase on the far wall, accessible only from the balcony, a pair of hallways on the right (one on the ground floor and one overhead on the balcony), and a pair of spiral staircases in the corners leading up to the loft. They also quickly noticed that eight short skinny humanoids, with curvy limbs and pointy joints were standing on the railing of the balcony, yelling at them in gobbledygook, and brandishing rocks that looked like smashed paving stones from the floor.

A foyer guardian

Jim started to offer that they should try to reason with the creatures, but he was over-ruled by Litoli's split-second decision to pitch her stone spear, stabbing one through the chest and pinning it to the wall, killing it instantly. A chaotic few rounds of combat followed, with several of group beginning to rush for the spiral staircases, and others using missiles against the creatures. One creature hit Johnny "Rotten" hard enough to knock him over (although he survived the blow,) while another overbalanced and fell off the balcony. Sid "Vicious" and Nico threatened the fallen creature with their daggers, but it was Peregrine who killed it with his staff. He felt guilty for a moment, and then felt a divine inspiration to kill more monsters and ran upstairs too. Batman and Siouxsie threw a javelin and lance upstairs, but only Batman got a hit that way. Peregrine beat down one of the creatures on the balcony, only to be killed when it punched him with a rock in its fist. Siouxsie got revenge by shooting the killer with an arrow, and Poseidon and Beastmaster worked together to mop up. Poseidon tore one of the creatures to shreds with his trident, and Beastmaster took out the final two, siccing his guard-weasel on one and gutting the other with his knife. Jim and Nico spent most of the fight hiding under the balcony, where the creatures couldn't reach them.

Retrieving their weapons afterwards, the group noticed that the bodies turned flat, then into shadows, then disappeared completely. After the confusion cleared, they realized that everyone who had run up the right staircase ended up on the left side of the balcony, while those who'd gone up the left were now standing on the right. They also noticed eight abstract sculptures around the balcony. They looked like nothing but jagged irregular shapes, but their shadows had the same silhouettes as the creatures they just fought. Litoli and Krehs tried toppling a couple of the statues, but couldn't get them to tip. Will had more luck with a solid hammer strike that broke one in half. The group wondered if Trondo would be mad that they killed his guards and broke his statue, but then Nico pointed out that the creatures killed one of them too. She said that the death of one of their friends seemed like a pretty high price to pay just to get to go to a party, and went back to the front door to find Athern. They were gone, of course, with nothing but the usual town bustle in the distance. Dejected, she returned to the others, and Poseidon, feeling high on his victory, began striding confidently up the wide staircase.

At the top of the stairs, they found a room lined with built-in bookshelves, the books all Bo-al sized, 3' high and heavy by human standards. They began calling out for Trondo, and a book flopped itself off the shelf, and a half-dozen illustrated outlines of Bo-al emerged from the book. The illustrations were suprised to hear that Trondo was missing, and (after a really bad reaction roll) became agitated that "wild animals are in Trondo's house!" and started attacking. Poseidon was ready, again shredding one of his foes to tatters with his trident, the illustration turning to torn paper as it died. Jim used his magnifying lens to focus the light coming in from a high window, setting one illustration ablaze. Three others failed to distance themselves, and died too as the fire spread. Beastmaster's guard weasel tore the last one apart with its teeth, before licking its lips to get the taste of paper out of its mouth. Litoli quickly slammed the book shut, convinced that here suspicions of all writing were well-founded.

The group headed upstairs and into a sitting room. At first, the parlor with its couch and chairs and coffee table looked normal, but moving off the stairs, it quickly became clear that all the furniture had only three legs, and all the drawings hung on the wall had triangular frames, the sketches of the other buildings in town shown in extreme perspective. Several group members searched the room, but all they found was another three-legged footstool under the sofa. Jim felt there was something badly wrong with the space in the room, and insisted that they keep moving.

Up the stairs, they entered a room with a gravel floor, a model of the house in the center of the room, the ceiling hung with stone fish on barely visible strings. Poseidon liked the room, although he couldn't recognize any of the fish. Jim felt nervous again, and suggested they take the door to the right.

The group next entered a room with a large white circle surrounded by runes drawn on the carpet. Looking about, they quickly noticed that the 20' ceiling overhead had a circular pond immediately over the circle, with dozens of potted plants sitting on the ceiling as well. As they approached the circle, a demon appeared within. The monster (which we randomly generated on the spot) looked like a humanoid wasp with fish fins for her hands and feet and gills on her neck. She introduced herself as *the smell of salt-water* and a queen of the Nif. One by one, the group members dropped to one knee to pay homage, and Batman introduced himself: "I'm Batman." The demon told them they could ask her questions. They learned that Trondo was in the house, in two places, both ahead of them and behind, and that like anyone whose in two places at once, no, he's wasn't at all fine. They learned that the demon didn't care about Trondo, but that what she did care about was the Nif, who live in the desert to the east, and that if the group did a favor for the Nif, she would do a favor for them. Nico tried to ask who killed Trondo, but the demon said she'd answered enough questions, and disappeared.

Poseidon wanted to get a closer look at the pond, and stood on Will's shoulders. As he got up, and his head crossed the vertical center-line of the room, he became dizzy and disoriented, feeling like he was about to fall upwards. He managed not to lose his balance, but realized he'd need to get most of his body-weight above the center to actually transfer to the other side.

The group seemed to decide that Trondo had been beheaded or cut in half. They debated simply leaving with the news, but decided they needed to return with part or all of the body to be sure to get the really nice funeral they'd been promised. Sid "Vicious" led the way down the center of the next wide hall, and about a third of the way through, found himself nearly swept off his feet, but just managed to jump back in time. Litoli tried to carefully control her fall up, and took a nasty spill, but landed with nothing more than some shin splints and a bloody elbow. She asked the others to catch her when she walked back toward them, expecting to fall back to the floor, but remained standing on the ceiling. Poseidon suggested that the others should join her by returning to the pool room so that the water would break their fall.

They all went back through, with Litoli passing through a door on the ceiling, but when she approached the pool, a creature rose up out of it. This creature appeared to be a mermaid with compound insect eyes and large bee wings. She introduced herself as Ussa, and warned Litoli not to listen to the demon in the circle below her, saying that the demon lies about everything. Ussa claimed that Trondo was not dead, but was simply in the library. She also claimed that Athern was the one who built the house, and was also inside now somewhere. However, when asked to point to the library, she pointed back down the hall the group had just come through. Litoli felt suspicious, and asked the others to stay put for a minute. She crossed the hall, then entered a room where, on the ceiling with her, were the lifeless bodies of a dozen Bo-al all sitting in chairs. Litoli slammed the door and ran back to her friends. Ussa continued to insist that her Trondo was alive and well, and began inviting Litoli to join her in the pool. "I like you Litoli. You seem so nice. You'll like it in my pool with me." Litoli began to suspect that not everything Ussa said was true, and elected not to get into the water. She rolled up the room's 25' wide carpet, and used it as a bridge back down the floor, as Ussa began screaming that her friends were liars, that they're all wild animals, and they'd be much happier if they came up to be in her pool. The group quickly retreated back to the gravel-covered aquarium room.

Unsure of what was true, or how much of what they'd heard had been lies, or even who to trust, the group returned to the library, and Trondo was still not there. They debated whether Athern was the real architect here, or was responsible from Trondo's death, but then couldn't decide what they'd gain by sending humans in to find them. They spent an hour searching the library before finding a book in a language they could read, where an inscription on the front page said (in the same language) "Property of Trondo." The rest of the books were all floorplans, equations, and other engineering texts, all in a variety of unreadable scripts. Sid "Vicious" kept the book to read later. They decided there was no way Trondo planted a single book in Athern's library, and decided to trust the demon and look for the other part of their body where she said it would be. They returned to the triangular room, then the large aquarium room, and then went upstairs to find another sitting room with a small model aquarium on a table in the middle of the room. Looking around, first Poseidon and later Beastmaster stared too deeply into the fishtank and then vanished. They found themselves back in the large aquarium room, now filled with water, and the fish all alive and swimming. They also sensed a sinister presence in there with them, and both hurried out and back into the sitting room with their friends. Unfortunately, they realized they'd become intangible. The building itself seemed solid to them, but they couldn't touch their friends or the furniture.

Sid led the way from the sitting room into what turned out to be a clothes closet, then through to a bedroom. There, Poseidon and Beastmaster met the ghost of Trondo, looking ethereal and translucent even to them. (To the others, the ghost was nearly invisible and inaudible.) Trondo explained that they'd simply died of old age. After finishing the house, they'd gone to sleep in a chair in the room where Litoli found so many bodies, and then woken up dead in bed, a ghost. They were sticking around as a ghost now, because they wanted time to enjoy the house they'd spent so much time building. They authorized Athern to come inside to collect the body, and claimed to have some paperwork on file with a lawyer and in the town bank to handle the eventual disposal of the property. When asked about the dozen bodies, Trondo exclaimed, "Oh dear, it must have duplicated!" About the aquarium, "Oh the fish are harmless, although I hope my snail is okay. It might have gotten hungry!" The two personalities in the hall? "The one in the circle is alright. She's good conversation when she visits. But I wish I'd never installed that damn pool. You can't trust a thing that faerie says!" And last, of course, what's in the triangle room, Trondo? "Triangles!" Of course. Good night, Trondo.

The group thought they had enough information, and agreed that they'd skip the celebration they'd been promised if it would force them to go into any more Bo-al houses. My friends also decided to pause for the night before preparing to leave the house next session.



(Attentive readers may recognize this as The Alexandrian's Halls of the Mad Mage, with a bit of re-skinning. With 11 characters still alive, I'm a little worried I made the guardians a bit too weak, although they players were also quite cautious, and have so far managed to avoid some of the most dangerous areas of the house. The remaining foyer guardians might also be more dangerous on the way out, now that they can throw pieces of a broken statue. I'm also a little worried that not enough cool stuff has happened, but I think the book and the intangibility have promise to help make the characters unique. I also liked how the random appearance of the demon suggested an obvious faction alliance - to one of the factions Athern mentioned earlier, no less - and let me point my players toward another of the humanoid species on the island. Resolving the intangibility problem might also involve appealing to another faction for help.)



Gains:
a promise of a very nice funeral from the Bo-al
a promise of a favor in exchange for aiding the Nif from a wasp/fish demon
an oversized Bo-al architectural treatise

Losses:
Peregrine
Poseidon's and Beastmaster's solidity (hopefully temporarily?)

Kills:
8 shadow-puppet guardians
6 illustrated librarians
the faerie's dreams of luring the group into her pool

XP:
2 for fighting the puppets
1 for fighting the librarians
1 for encountering the reverse-gravity trap
2 for conversing profitably with the demon *the smell of salt water*
2 for conversing non-fatally the faerie Ussa
1 for searching the library
1 for the ethereal trap
2 for finding and conversing with Trondo

(I may try to particularize this a little bit, based on individual actions. I may also decide to give out Luck bonuses for the magnifying glass trick, and for negotiating with the demon.)

Expeditions in Urutsk

SESSION 7

After paying off Anjalik's creditors, the group decided to head over to the space-port, which Anjalik identified as the largest center of civilization in the area. On the walk over, Anjalik explained a bit about how the Vrun (the largest local human population) now lived in the remains of an earlier and much more glorious civilization founded by their ancestors. She attributed this preference to the Vrun's generally obedient and literal-minded personalities. Slunk and Merope eventually came to understand that Star Port used to be a working dockyard for metal ships that came from the sky (like the Wrecked Ship,) but that it had been innumerable generations since anyone on Urutsk had the ability to fly between the stars. The Vrun now saw a return to their ancestor's former glory as a kind of species-level or civilizational project. The Star Port itself had been transformed into a major city, with old working buildings being repurposed into homes, government offices, and bazaars.

Upon arriving at Star Port, Anjalik offered to help the pair get "credit bracelets" that would track their finances, and to introduce them to some of the guilds and "caste-clans" that organized employment throughout the Port. Anjalik revealed that she herself was a member of both the "Free Scouts" and the "Red Blade" guilds, and offered to vouch for her new friends if they wanted to join. Merope decided to get inducted into the Free Scouts, and also gained a contact with the "Scout Services" who said they planned to keep an eye on her. Slunk was interested in the "Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom," and found that the guild was quite interested in learning more about his travel between dimensions, and about the Red Cube that had brought him to Urutsk.

It was soon time for Anjalik to return to Trade Tower, but Slunk and Merope gifted her with a sliver chopstick-like wand she could use to create an illusion of black skulls, spiders, and bats. Anjalik was very pleased, and tucked the wand into her hair before departing.

Slunk and Merope explored a bit, including touring a bazaar inside a huge lobby-like room. They found that anything left over from the past was incredibly popular with the Vrun, in particular "Ancient Grains" granola bars.

The pair first visited the Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom's guild headquarters, where Slunk shared more of his story and was invited to browse some of the guild's spell books. (Which resulted in both silt-blooded Slunk and ice-blooded Merope selecting spells from Wizards of the Coast's free Elemental Evil Player's Companion.)

Next they visited the base of the Free Scouts, who threw Merope an induction party that involved drinking a cloudy white hallucinogenic liquor. Merope drank deep from the ceremonial cup, and entered a dream trance where she described a "shining obelisk on the edge of the waters" and then pinned a marker to a map, revealing the location of the spot she had envisioned. This session drew to a close with Merope drifting into a stupor, while the Scouts around her raved about the accuracy and potency of her vision, and made preparations for her to travel to her dream site.


SESSION 8

Merope awoke the next morning with a splitting headache, and found the Free Scouts still eager for her to initiate herself to their order by completing her dream quest. She and Slunk decided to hire a couple of mercenaries to join them, and after asking around a bit, settled on Lairnos (a proud young woman armed with a bow) and Vard (a slightly pudgy, devious looking man with a pair of knives.) They explained their plan to travel through the jungle to the Ancient site.

The group set out into Urutsk's jungle again, following the trail the Free Scouts had plotted to the location of Merope's dream site. Relatively early on, they were ambushed by a pair of brightly colored humans, one with orange skin and one with green. The green-skinned human was shorter, and reminded Slunk of the cannibal he'd met in the jungle. Merope, Slunk, and Lairnos quickly defeated the highwaymen, and realized that Vard had disappeared during the fight. They called out for him a few times, and he came loping back from the brush. He claimed that he'd been circling around to attack the bandits from behind, but had fallen in some quicksand. Merope and Slunk felt skeptical of Vard's story, but left him with Lairnos while they followed the trail he pointed out to them. A few minutes later, they found a pit of quicksand, seemingly vindicating Vard's story, although the friends considered him to be much more probationary than Lairnos.

They continued traveling, but were intercepted again, this time by a giant white scorpion, at least 30' tall. This was obviously an alien monster, and it reminded both Merope and Slunk of the robotic centipede they'd fought on the wrecked ship. The scorpion towered over them and both incredibly dangerous and heavily armored. Slunk and Merope quickly agreed that they couldn't hope to prevail in test of sheer strength, and that they'd have to out-think the alien with strategy. Unfortunately, the monster seemed to have some kind of psychic powers that let it anticipate and foil any plans the group made. Vard quickly gave up any pretense of loyalty, and openly ran for his life. Lairnos offered to retrieve or kill the cowardly man, but Merope and Slunk urged her to stay and help defeat the scorpion.

Finding themselves unable to penetrate the beast's armor with most of their attacks, Merope and Slunk hit upon a risky strategy of incapacitating it, by turning the ground beneath its feet to mud and then freezing it in place. This plan required both to spend dearly of their elemental blood, weakening them further, and the strategy failed with the monster danced out of reach just as the ground froze where it had been standing. In a last desperate attempt to stay alive, all three moved underneath the monster's belly, out of reach of its great claws and stinging tail. This last idea finally bought them victory, as they attacked the relatively vulnerable belly of the creature, while staying out of reach of its worst reprisals. A lucky break as Merope fired magical missiles at the monster allowed her to hit it with critical accuracy, and when combined with her mutant vision that let her see the microscopic weaknesses in things, the magical damage was too much for the beast to survive. Merope, Slunk, and Lairnos emerged shivering and on the brink of death from beneath the carcass just before it collapsed to the ground.

Merope tasted some of the alien meat, and believed that if she continued tasting unusual dishes, she might learn some resistance to dangerous substances. Slunk got Lairnos to help him carve huge flank steaks out of the beast, planning to offer them to the Esoteric Order, or sell them to the highest bidder back in the Star Port. Too weak and too tired to continue on their journey, the trio returned back to the city, wondering what had become of the traitor Vard.


SESSION 9

Merope and Slunk didn't think much of their battle with the alien scorpion. It was a setback on their journey to the Shining Obelisk by Crystal Waters, certainly. It was yet more proof of how dangerous and untamed the wilds were here on the alien world of Urutsk. And perhaps, it was a relief to come away alive after their second encounter with one of the conquering aliens who had devastated human civilization here.

But to Lairnos, the battle was a revelation. She had just survived a battle that she should not have walked away from, against an alien enemy that no one who wasn't part of a guard battalion should have defeated. Her employers, although strange, were obviously much more competent than they appeared to be. These foreigners, who seemed ignorant of the Vrun and the Star Port itself, who seemed not to fully understand the importance of their victory, also must know more than they seemed to, maybe know more or different things than the Vrun themselves.

When Merope and Slunk went to market to resupply and hire more mercenaries, they found that rumors of their victory had spread across the Star Port overnight, fueled by Lairnos telling enthusiastic tales over drinks at the bar and by shoppers encountering the startling proof in the form of Slunk's discount scorpion steaks appearing alongside the other wares in the marketplace. Much quicker than they expected, the pair hired "Inky" (a heavily tattooed assassin type,) "Blinky" (a nervous fellow,) and Clyde (big, dumb Clyde.) Although they were nervous about whether or not Lairnos would rejoin them after the disaster the day before, they found her absolutely eager to resume the quest.

The newly enlarged group of adventurers set out on the same trail as the day before, following the route Merope had mapped on her dream quest. Near the site of their first ambush, they found a rusted out antique air car. The car was covered in vines, and inside, they saw the duplicitous Vard, looking pale and bloated like a corpse. The dead bodies of the orange and green assassins lay in the back seat, and Vard, despite being dead, also appeared to be moving and attempting to exit the car. The group doused the vehicle in lamp oil and setting it on fire.

Continuing on their way, they eventually came to the site of their battle the day before. The white shell of the scorpion was there, and the ground nearby was littered with the corpses of dead animals, all scavengers and predators that must have come to taste the alien meat. Slunk felt a little nervous about having wholesaled so much of the meat to the Star Port merchants, but their newest hires were simply staring in awe. "See, I told you," Lairnos whispered to the others, as she recounted the fight again for a breathless Inky, Blinky, and Clyde. Merope and Slunk began to appreciate that their exploits were having an effect on the local balance of power, and that the consequence-free life of the itinerant treasure-seeker might not be what was in store for them.

The group continued following the trail in Merope's mind, blazing a new path through the jungle. By evening, they arrived in clearing filled with ruined buildings and curling vines. They also spotted a large, slow-moving herbivore munching contentedly at the vines, and a jaguar-like predator stalking it. The predator looked annoyed when the group entered the clearing, and broke off its hunt to get away from the humans. Approaching the herbivore, the adventurers realized it was mildly psychic and mildly (very mildly) intelligent. "Nummy!" the herbivore said to them all telepathically, and nodded at and pantomimed eating a particular berry, "Nummy nums!" Merope decided to try one of the berries, and Lairnos followed her lead. Both discovered that the nummy berry made everything else around them smell and taste delicious. (And Slunk discovered that the berry had an intoxicating effect, seemingly reducing the intelligence of anyone who ate it. He tried to communicate this fact to Merope, but found her temporarily too impaired to understand.) Merope and Lairnos gorged themselves on rations, vines, and other local greenery, all while conversing with the contented herbivore. Slunk decided that the nummy berry might make an excellent cash-crop. He collected samples of the berry, vines, and roots, planning to start a garden back in the Star Port, and hoping to sell the berries as some kind of (expensive) novelty appetizer.

The herbivore appeared somewhat menacing to Slunk ...

With his partner mentally out of commission, Slunk took charge for the rest of the night. He ordered Inky, Blinky, and Clyde to help make a camp on one of the ruined rooftops, hopefully out of reach of the predator they saw earlier, or any other hunters in the clearing. He also led the three new mercenaries on a sweep of their surroundings. They encountered another campsite, with a burned out fire and other signs of habitation, but all the campers were dead. The corpses appeared to belong to a party of treasure hunters, dressed much like the mercenaries from Star Port, but heavily mutated. The dead adventurers looked as pale and bloated and Vard had, and were surrounded by more vines like Vard's air car had been. Slunk felt the back of neck prickle, and had the distinct sensation that someone was watching him. He thought that it wasn't somebody present, but rather some kind of magic user with some sort of remote viewing or scrying technique. Slunk and the others quickly burned the dead bodies, and fled the abandoned campsite, making sure to cut down the vines around the side of their building to avoid being overwhelmed by plant life in their sleep. He tried to explain what he'd seen to Merope, but found her too stupefied to communicate with effectively, and tried to keep watch while meditating, feeling the sinister watching sensation again in the night.

... but looked much friendlier to Merope.

The Slow-Time Dungeon on Urutsk

SESSION 5

In the morning, after the rain and the night spent with their unnerving visitor, Anjalik seem desultory, and smoked heavily as she, Slunk, and Merope continued walking toward the Trade Tower. Slunk claimed to recognize the smoke as being popular with the local halfling population near his village, and he and Merope contemplated the weird world they found themselves on, while Anjalik rambled, “I'm not a good person. I've killed people. I've eaten people. Nah, I'm just foolin' with you, you guys are great!” Merope thought that Anjalik was suffering from the effects of her drugs and the influence of the cannibal hunter from the night before, but Slunk remained convinced ever after that their companion was a literal man-eater.

The walk that day was uneventful, and eventually the group found a decent place to make a campsite. They were in a small clearing dotted with ruins, though only a foot or so wall remained to show the outlines of where the buildings had been. After making camp, Anjalik announced “I'm gonna smoke a bowl. You two take care of yourselves.” Slunk and Merope decided to search the grounds for any evidence of nature of the ruins, and instead found a trapdoor that opened to a staircase leading underground. The pair called out to announce their plan to Anjalik, then headed down into the ruined basement.

Underground, they found themselves immediately at a crossroads, with two large identical hallways branching off away from the stairs. One side looked odd to Slunk's elf vision, so he threw a pebble down the hall, or tried to at least. The pebble crossed the threshold to the hall, and then froze in midair. Looking closely, Slunk and Merope saw that it was still moving, just very, very slowly. Slunk theorized that the hall led to a kind of “slow-time dungeon” that might hold treasures from before whatever disaster had befallen Urutsk. Without meaning to, Slunk had moved too close the threshold and crossed over. Merope saw her comrade suddenly freeze in place. Fearing there was no way to rescue him from the outside, she crossed over as well.

Merope and Slunk agreed that they should try to spend as little time as possible in the slow-time area, and that they should start their explorations by ensuring they had a path back across to the normal-time side of the threshold. Slunk first tried tossing the stone back across, but it bounced off the air as though it had struck a wall. He next tried pushing his hand though, and felt terrible friction. He theorized that the air particles on the other side of the threshold were moving so fast relative to him that they seemed both to create a barrier and to be super-heated. Although he expected it to hurt, he thought the solution was to get a running start and jump through as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, when he tried, he caught fire and ended up suspended in mid-air above the threshold. Merope quickly dragged her friend back into the slow-time side, rolled him on the floor to extinguish the flames, and tried to awaken him. She saw that he'd stopped breathing, and immediately administered all the aid she knew. Slunk survived his brush with death and awoke feeling temporarily feeble and in need of a night's sleep.

By this time, Merope had become not just a fighter, but an arcane knight, with an elemental bloodline of frost. She cast a shielding spell on herself and started to cross the threshold. This seemed to protect her from the friction, although the world looked weird and shimmery as she stood in the junction between the two time zones, and she thought she saw ghostly monkey fetuses floating at the periphery of her vision. She stepped back from the threshold to rejoin Slunk, unable to maintain the spell any longer or to cast it again until she'd rested. The pair slept fitfully that night, imagining what must be happening in the world overhead. The imagined Anjalik waking to find them gone, and continuing on without them. They imagined the centuries or millennia that must be passing as they slept, and feared that they'd become lost again, unable to return to a world they were just starting to know.

In the morning, with Slunk recovered from his injuries, and with the opportunity to return safely seemingly already foreclosed to them, the pair set forth to explore the slow-time dungeon.

SESSION 6

Slunk and Merope made their way out of the stonework foyer to the slow-time dungeon and into a hallway with finished walls and floors. Not fully understanding what they were seeing, they theorized that they were inside a starship which had landed (or perhaps crashed) on the surface of Urutsk and was then covered over by dirt and debris. They theorized as well that the time dilation effect might be some kind of security mechanism activated during a boarding party, and that the people onboard the ship might believe themselves to be mid-emergency. They tried asking Slunk's electronic familiar, Clippy, but she reported a massive clock-discrepancy between herself and the local computers that made it impossible to synch up properly.

Continuing down the hall, they found a branch that led to a strange room with dozens of ramps and walkways. They weren't sure what sort of room it was, but did find a security panel that Merope was able to open with a handprint. Inside the panel were new outfits that they put over their white coveralls: rubbery dark blue body suits that seemed to offer protection against fire. They each picked up a handheld fire-suppression device as well. Returning to the main hall, they found that it terminated in a room. Merope devised a plan to go in with their gas masks on, report a fire down the hall, then drop one of the gas-grenades they'd found on the big ship. She hoped that wearing the local armor and covering their faces would provide enough confusion to distract anyone they met long enough for the gas-grenade to go off, which would then provide either an even better distraction, or a major tactical advantage in a fight. (We later learned that this was not a ship, and that while the time dilation effect was a security measure, it wasn't activated as an immediate response to a bombardment or boarding party. As a result of this misunderstanding, the subterfuge element of Merope's plan was pretty much doomed from the outset.)

We all like to imagine that in times of stress or violence, we'd react like action heroes, moving gracefully and fearlessly into the fray, effortlessly doing what needs to be done. The reality is far different. One of my favorite aspects of low-level D&D is the way that it often resembles a comedy of errors, with every action the characters attempt going hilariously awry all at once. Low-level characters rarely act like action heroes, more often they act like Keystone Cops.

Merope and Slunk entered the room at the end of the hall together, gas masks hiding their faces, a grenade in Merope's hand. “We're under attack!” Merope shouted, “There's a fire in the engine room! We've got to get out!” The three occupants of the room didn't devolve into panicked fleeing though. Instead, their leader, a short-haired bulldog of a woman drew her weapon and pointed it at Merope. “Put the grenade down! Get down on the ground now!” Merope and Slunk exchanged glances, then attempted a coordinated maneuver to slide over and dive behind a countertop, using it as cover to open fire on their opponents. Instead, both of them failed to clear the counter, and both shots they fired missed entirely. They were quickly outmatched, and quickly surrendered. The leader of the dungeon residents instructed the other woman present to disarm Slunk and Merope and tie up their wrists. Slunk allowed himself to be captured, but Merope grabbed the woman, rolled them both onto the floor to use her captor as a human shield, and re-drew her weapon. The tough-nosed woman responded by shooting Slunk in the head, killing him.

Merope returned fire, clipping the leader's head, killing her as well. Merope rushed to Slunk, covering herself with her gun. She pulled two medical stimulants from her waist. “I've got medicine,” she said, “I'm going to save my friend, and we're going to go down the hall. You're not going to follow us. Let us leave, and I'll save your friend, too.” The two lackeys assented, and Merope injected first Slunk and then the slow-time leader, bringing them both back from the brink of death. She helped her friend limp out of the room, and good to their word, the dungeon residents didn't follow. Together, Slunk and Merope made their way back down the hall to the time-dilation barrier, and enacted their plan to escape.

Merope cast a shielding spell over the pair of them, and Slunk cast a spell to let them take a misty step across the veil. They passed through the barrier as though it weren't there, and made their way back to the surface. The world around them appeared strangely rainbow hued, and as they returned to the surface, they saw dozens, perhaps hundreds of ghostly monkey fetuses flying toward them. Merope pushed Slunk to the ground and threw her body over his to protect him, then tried the only thing she could think to return them to the safety of the real world, and let the shielding spell go. When she looked up, the sky was its normal color again, and nothing was chasing them. Anjalik looked over from where she'd been packing up the campsite. “Did you two spend the whole night down there? We're pretty close to the trading tower now. We should be there by this afternoon.” Merope thought of a story she'd heard of a man visited by ghosts who lived an entire extra lifetime in one evening. “All in one night!” she cried out, and wept. Merope and Slunk were both amazed to see Anjalik again, and neither could explain how the time-dilation effect had returned them to the same time they'd left.

True to Anjalik's word, by mid-afternoon, they reached a clearing dominated by an enormous structure. It looked like a steep terraced hill, or an overgrown ziggurat. It looked like it had around 20 levels, and each one was crowded with people, market stalls, and bustling commerce. As they approached, they saw that the ground level was dominated by heaps of garbage and heavily mutated people. Anjalik referred to them as “the trashy people,” and suggested that they'd be able to sell their Sensorium on 14 at least.

Unfortunately, they were quickly accosted by a pair of toughs who seemed to know Anjalik. They demanded that she repay a debt she owed them. Anjalik showed them the Sensorium the group was about to sell and convinced the two mercenaries to accept her share of the sale. The toughs initially tried to demand the entire Sensorium, but Slunk improved their negotiating position by conjuring an illusion of spiders and bats pouring from his cuffs. The pair of bravos agreed to Anjalik's proposition, and Anjalik herself was delighted by the trick. The enlarged group took to the stairs that spiraled around the structure and began climbing up. On the stairs, Slunk suggested to Merope that they repay Anjalik for her help by crafting a magical bracelet to create a similar illusion, and Merope agreed to split the cost with him out of their proceeds from the sale.

As they passed the sixth level, they noticed a great commotion going on in the market around them. The first part of the bazaar was nearly empty, then they saw a mob running away, and then a man with a glowing sword that seemed about to burst with power shouting “Everybody get back! It's gonna go off!” By the time they got to the seventh level, Merope had decided to try to help with the situation downstairs. She believed that the man had accidentally come into possession of a cursed sword, and that it was laying waste to the tower against his will. (Nope! Wrong again!) She asked Slunk to use his skills as a charlatan to negotiate a good price for the Sensorium on her behalf, and to start on the bracelet as soon as he had the funds.

Slunk, Anjalik, and her creditors continued up to 14, where the first salesman to inspect their goods concluded that it was the finest Sensorium the tower had ever seen, and that it needed to go up to 17. He spoke to some guards and got them an escort. In comparison to the slum-like conditions on the ground, 17 was a veritable bastion of luxury, with all the market stalls well-appointed and everyone healthy and well-dressed. The road-weary travelers got a lot of sideways glances from the locals, but found an electronics dealer willing to appraise the device. He made an offer that was several thousand higher than even Anjalik had expected. She managed to renegotiate on the fly. “It's four shares now. My friends get two, I get one, and you two get the other. It's still more than I owe you.” A menacing look from Slunk that intimated the return of his illusions helped to seal the deal, and the bravos left with Anjalik's debt repaid. Anjalik offered to lead Slunk on to a nearby space-port, the largest settlement in the area, and he agreed. The two went back downstairs, intending to pick up Merope on their way to the ground level.

As this was going on, Merope had returned to 6 and gone looking for the man with the sword. While trying to find someone who knew which way he'd gone, she found a group of people who looked like they were either so gothic they were actually undead, or like the Addam's Family if they were not merely ghoul-ish but literally ghouls. They pointed Merope in the correct direction, and pressed a bag of gemstones into her hands, saying they were hers if she killed him. Merope's plan had been to free the man from his curse, not kill him, but she acknowledged that he might die in the attempt, and reluctantly accepted their payment. Following after the man, Merope caught up to him in an alley.

“That's quite a sword,” she told him.

“It's my heroic burden.”

“Where did you pick up that burden?”

“It was a gift from my patron. I'm using it to bring justice to the tower.”

By this point, Merope was getting second thoughts. Whoever this man was, he didn't seem like the unwilling victim of a cursed weapon, and further conversation reinforced her impression that he did not seem amenable to surrendering the weapon to her. Around that time, the gothic ghouls were approaching from behind Merope. The man drew his sword and it started powering up again, and the two factions prepared to face off. Merope left the scene, dropping the bag of gems at the feet of her erstwhile patrons, and headed back to the central square to meet up with Slunk and Anjalik.