Dusting off the Archive

Hello, there!

It’s been over two years since I last posted anything here on the Archive. It seems that I’ve been a victim of my own success, and I’ve spent a lot more time writing adventures and running convention games than refereeing a regular campaign. That’s just one of the drawbacks of working in the gaming industry. Your recreation becomes your vocation.

I made a promise to myself that I’d have more fun in 2014, however, and as part of that resolution I decided to run a game that has absolutely nothing to do with the elves, dwarves, and other fantastical creatures that make up the majority of my day-to-day gaming work. In short, I’m running the classic 1976 version of Metamorphosis Alpha. Metamorphosis Alpha (or “Metalpha” as I like to abbreviate it because that makes it “metal”) shares a lot of the same imaginary topography as the original three little booklet set of Dungeon & Dragons. Metalpha is all about exploration, discovery, and often sudden death, with everything you need in a skinny rulebook. After carting both Pathfinder and Dungeon Crawl Classics tomes with me to gaming events, a softcover 36 pp. rulebook is a dream come true!

I also decided to give Metalpha a go based on my experiences with the OSR. Although I had been playing D&D since 1980, I never had much experience with the original White Box rules. Participating in the OSR taught me the value of returning to the roots of game to discover where certain rules and creations originated, thereby giving me a greater understanding of the game. I’ve been a big fan of Gamma World since 1981 when I was introduced to the original boxed set, but have never run Metalpha. I theorize that by doing so, I’ll be rewarded with a deeper appreciation and understanding of my second-favorite RPG. So far, that assumption seems to be true.

I’ve reorganized this blog to accommodate a new influx of Metamorphosis Alpha-related material. Like before, I’ll use this venue to post after action game reports, PC sheets, house rules, rule clarifications, and newly created material for Metalpha. All the original Labyrinth Lord campaign posts are still here; I just bumped them down the sidebar a bit. In time, you’ll hopefully get as in-depth a view of my Metamorphosis Alpha game as you did my Labyrinth Lord Stonehell campaign. I hope you enjoy the ride and find entertainment, inspiration, and things to outright steal here. So let’s visit the depths of outer space where a generational starship, forever changed by calamity, drifts through the vacuum…

Watchfires & Thrones Session #42

Baragkus, Grumble, Marlowe, Lyrax, and Kejair tumbled down a long, twisting slope, their bodies battered by the stone walls and floor of the slide. Their descent ended abruptly when they fell through a hinged door to land on the floor of an octagonal room shrouded in darkness. As they collected themselves and nursed their new bruises, Grumble and Kejair were able to determine that the chamber they now resided in contained a series of eight identical doors, one set in each wall. The party began to kindle a light so that its human contingent could see as well.

Meanwhile, back above, Mars, Korlack, and the rest began to plan how to extradite their compatriots from the shaft. From the faintness of their voices, it seemed as if the unlucky adventurers had tumbled hundreds of feet and the boys upstairs had a mere 50’ or so of cord amongst them. They decided that they needed to cross the 20’ wide chute mouth and reach the hobgoblin storeroom they had discovered earlier. At least 700’ of stout hemp rope awaited them there.

The upstairs group managed to string a line across the open chute mouth and started crossing over. Mars, Fisk, Cleopos, and Cullen had reached the far side when a trio of bugbears appeared from out of the gloom and charged down the corridor. Fisk and Mars did their best to defeat the hulky brutes, but Mars was knocked to the ground and wounds began to accumulate. Rather than perish, Mars dove into the chute, followed swiftly by the other three, leaving just Korlack and Gareth in the hallway—but on the far side of the cute from the bugbear menaces.

While this pitched combat was taking place, the boys down below had managed to get a torch going and started to examine the chamber in more detail. Their search was interrupted by two pale, wild-eyed madmen who charged into the room from one of its many doors and attacked the newcomers, jabbering gibberish and frothing spittle. The fight was brief, but painful for the party who found themselves nursing new wounds on top of their recent bruises.

The downstairs group proceeded to examine all the doors, opening each in turn to see what lay beyond them. Each stretched off into darkness: long twisting tunnels that vanished into the gloom without a clue of where they may lead. Grumble and Kejair took the chance at venturing down one to scout ahead and discovered it eventually lead to a large cave; one that their infravision determined was occupied by at least three dog-sized heat sources. They retreated back to the octagonal chamber just in time to witness Mars Markus, Fisk, Cleopos, and Cullen come crashing down the chute to join them.

Upstairs, Korlack and Gareth watched as the bugbears slinked away into the gloom and were forced to decide whether to join their companions or continue with the rescue effort. This debate was interrupted by the sound of large, running feet that herald the charge of the largest of the bugbears attempting the leap the chute and slay the two remaining interlopers. The hulking beast launched itself into the air, broadsword held high to chop down its first victim—only to miss the far end of the chute’s open mouth by three feet. Tumbling, ass over teakettle, the bugbear disappeared out of sight down the slide. Fearing this to be the first of such assaults, Korlack and Gareth sighed, pulled out the mage’s bedroll and proceeded to use it as a sled as they too entered the chute to rejoin their companions.

The party below was busy watching the doors for danger when one dropped right into their midst. The bugbear surprised all of them, but was too stunned to take advantage of his literal drop on them. Getting to its feet, it was quickly engaged by the rest of the band, dying under their blows as Korlack and Gareth came sliding into the room to reunite the party once again.

Battered, lost, and uncertain of their next step, the party chose to drink wine and bind their wounds as they planned. This rest was unfortunately interrupted by two more subterranean madmen charging into the room via the door closest to Fisk, making the much wounded hired sword their first target. Their hacking attacks were more than enough to slay the injured fighter and the party suffered their first death beneath Hob’s Hill. It would not be their last.

The party was able to defeat the two madmen in the moments afterward, but they had lost a valuable ally and were still horribly injured, tired, and desperate so they again chose to take time to bind their wounds and recoup. THIS rest was interrupted by the tramp of heavy boot steps and yet another door opened to reveal TWO ogres!

Marlowe stepped to forefront and engaged the ogres in conversation using their own tongue, an effort the giants appreciated. They revealed that they had fallen down the very same chute some time ago and were currently working for King Don III, the lord of the Underworld. They were in fact on their way to report to him right then and the party could follow them if they wished. Suspicious, but with no better options, the party joined the ogres.

Through another door and down a new tunnel, the party was brought into the audience chamber of King Don III, a pale and obviously insane potentate who sat upon a stone chair and wrapped himself in an unraveling purple rug. The party tried to gain assistance from the so-called king, but they were unable to decipher his twisted thought process and treaded very close to outright treason to the king’s thinking. He offered to allow them to rest in the octagonal chamber with the ogres as watchmen and told the party to go back to that place and await the return of the two hulking brutes. King Don III had to speak with the ogres first…

Suspecting their doom was being plotted, the party returned to the octagonal room and departed immediately after leaving Fisk’s body in the center of the room and an “N” inscribed on the northernmost door. In the hours ahead, the party would wind their way through several corridors, finding nothing but empty caves, bugbears who were willing to fight them to the death over the ownership of their pants, and a dead-end cave where ghouls were dining on the (later revealed) corpse of Fisk. All these passages eventually lead back to the octagonal room!

A side note: Jack, the player who runs Mars Markus and Anwar, loves to map out any and every subterranean space the party explores, sometime to the point of distraction. One of the reasons I decided to run Horror on the Hill (which is the basis of this part of the campaign) was because this part of it is a twisting labyrinth designed to make mappers crazy. All my directions and descriptions were vague and rapid-fire, leaving poor Jack to try and keep up with my narration of the labyrinth. At one point the rest of the group was in hysterics at Jack’s frantic effort to draw my verbal account of the dungeon. Some swear steam was actually seen rising from his ears.

The party’s exploratory efforts were finally rewarded when they discovered a dead-end tunnel, one that appeared a little too dead-end if you catch my drift. Sure enough, Grumble’s inspection of the stone revealed a false wall and the almost empty cave beyond it. In this obviously undisturbed grotto lay a long-dead wizard clutching a spellbook and bag. A page of the spellbook contained his last message to the world:

6th Day of The Blaze, 1098 GCR

To think that it ends this way: Prydaree Kuhlth, Master of Wands and Agent of the Cerulean Flame, perishes in a gods’ forsaken cave beneath the site of his greatest victory. Should anyone find my missive, please let it be known that I was successful in my task and bury me where I shall not be found and my grave remain unriled.

Four days ago, I was summoned into the presence of His Exalted Supremacy,Draz Stephan Hastane and tasked with a great service to the empire: the recovery of the Hypnopsychomachina. This device, a creation of His Supremacy’s debased but genius sister, Isodore, had fallen into the possession of the Whelps of Tsathoggua and was spirited away to their noxious fane in the hinterlands of the Empire. With the Retreat to occur in less than three faces, it was imperative that the device be recovered before the Hastane dynastic line vacated this mortal realm for good. As the most trusted agent of the Imperial Secret Watch, it fell to me to recover it.

The journey northeast into the Howling Wilderness took but hours with the Modi Goats and I located the profane temple in short order. With no time or desire for subtlety, lightning was my harbinger and the lower initiates of the Great Sloth-Bat fell twitching before my assault. Their faith was no match for my spells and I hewed them down like wheat before the whirlwind.

Locating the High Foulness’ inner sanctum was no more difficult, but I nearly underestimated my opponent. Our battle—my spells against his prayers—was fierce and I nearly perished in the combat. Nevertheless, I prevailed, albeit injured, and took possession of the Hypnopsychomachina. I prepared to return back to His Supremacy in triumph.

In my hubris, I failed to detect a simple trap that sent me tumbling in this subterranean hell. My abrupt descent was arrested by a collision with the rocky floor that shattered my left arm and right leg. Drained of spells and lacking healing draughts, I crawled about in the darkness for a seeming eternity before finding this small refuge. There are other things down here with me and it is only a matter of time before I’m found or I die from my wounds. Even if I could rest and replenish my spells, my injuries make it impossible for me to make the intricate gestures needed to perform all by the slightest of magics.

I’ve produced one final spell, a simple illumination cantrip by which I might pen this final message on a blank page within my traveling spellbook. I hope the light lasts long enough for me to finish my work.

If another practitioner of the Ineffable Path finds this, my work is given unto you free of geas or curse. Use what you may with my blessings and I regret I leave but a minor tome to you rather than my master workbook of spells. Oh what mysteries I have in those pages!

It is likely that the Retreat will have passed before this is found. If such be the case, I also entrust the Hypnopsychomachina to whomever finds my remains. Its power is ingenious if subtle. When used correctly, the device

It appeared that poor Prydaree’s light spell did indeed expire before he could complete his missive.

While this was being deciphered, Marlowe opened the bag to find an iron skull, one the size of a nine year-old child’s. Ten indentations where arranged around the skull, five to a side, and the object has black glass-like lenses for eye. Placing his fingers in the indentations and staring into the eyes, the world fell away from Marlowe…

The next thing he knew, he was standing along a roadside with various other highway men, awaiting a fat priest and his load of church gold. Robbing the cleric, the freebooter’s vision shifted to a dingy bar tavern where a fight erupted over a stolen pouch. Next he experienced a knife in that back at the hands of an “ally” and died in a pool of blood, only to find himself again plundering a chest from aboard a burning merchant ship. These visions were indistinguishable from reality and the freebooter seemed to pass several days of his life engaged in his chosen career. Then, without warning, Marlowe found himself back in the cave with the skull in hand. Less than a second had passed, but Marlowe was now a more experienced freebooter, having been trained to second level. From the skull came an indistinct voice that said “fourteen.”

The rest of the party was suspicious about Marlowe following this, but didn’t press the issue and the freebooter took full possession of the skull. The party rested, confident (and correct) that they’d be undisturbed in the cave, allowing them to heal and regain spells for the first time in seemingly forever. The next morning, Grumble discovered another false wall in the cave that led to a hidden treasure trove of coins, jewels, objects d’art, magical plate mail, sword, a ring of fire resistance, and potions of healing.

Rest, armed, and feeling confident, the party left the cave and returned to the octagonal room. They were running out of doors and tunnels and so decided to proceed down the path that Grumble and Kejair had explored much earlier. This led to back to the cave and they learned that the heat-producing forms were in truth giant killer shrews that proved to be more dangerous than they initially seemed. Baragkus took several mean wounds in the fight, but the three vicious beasts were overcome…which unfortunately meant the party had orphaned the naked, pink offspring they discovered immediately afterwards in the shrews’ nest. Despite an attempt on Mars’ part to adopt and raise the newborns, some poison was dispensed and a quiet murder in the dark settled the issue in time for the session to come to a close.

“Give Us Your Pants!”

True story: The party had a run in with a trio of bugbears during yesterday’s session who attacked them solely because they were jealous that the party owned pants when they themselves were pantsless.

I’d like to thank Otherworld Miniatures for putting this idea in the back of my head some time ago when they released their line of old school pantsless bugbears. I think I know what my next Otherworld purchase had to be now that I’ve completed my set of OW Hobgoblins.

Watchfires & Thrones Session #40

The party freed the captive dwarf from his ball and chain restraints as he introduced himself: Gareth Ironhead, slave to the hobgoblins’ forges for almost a year. He was very excited and grateful to be released and readily agreed to accompany the party on their assault against the hobgoblin high command. Gareth was able to provide some intelligence regarding the dungeon around them. He had heard that the hobgoblins had captured a new prisoner and were holding him somewhere to the north. Gareth also knew that an evil human priest also dwelt amongst the hobgoblins and that fellow had quarters to the east. The hobgoblins themselves lived in the passages to the south.

The party, looking to gather more allies, left the smithy and backtracked north. One unexplored passage led to a filthy but unoccupied lounge. Past it, they discovered what appeared to be a prison wing. One door led to an empty cell, while another stout portal was found to be locked. Grumble, perhaps enraged by the indignities inflicted on his fellow dwarf, proceeded to try and bash the door in with his steel-toed wrestling boot—only to have his blow rebound ineffectively.

From beyond the door, the sound of snorting and grumbling was detected. A voice, speaking in a gruff, unknown tongue shouted something out. Baragkus’ magic helm deciphered the phrase to be, “Idiot! Use yer key!” The party banged on the door in response and the grumbling continued, getting louder as the speaker approached the door. “What? ‘Cho loose it agan?” came another inquiry as the door swung open.

The surprised bugbear opening the door was greeted with an axe to the chest and a sword through the gut. Another of his kind, obviously just awakened and rising from bed, rushed for his battle axe but was cut down as he lifted it above his head. In moments, the party had overcome the prison’s guards. In a locked chest, the party found a suit of leather armor, some weapons, and an obvious set of thieves’ tools. Undersized for bugbears, these must belong to another denizen of the prison wing and the band moved along down the hall in search of that person.

A third door was encountered just as they heard the sound of the lounge door behind them swinging open. They spun about to see a quartet of silhouettes emerging from the dimly lit room beyond. Hobgoblins! As the two forces rushed one another, a hail of arrows brought down three of the orange-skinned bastards before the party’s fighting men clashed with the sole survivor. With two-to-one odds, the hobgoblin found a quick if not painless death.

The party opened the door they had been interrupted at to find a morose-looking human male imprisoned within. He too was relieved to see human and demihumans faces and introduced himself as Cullen, a “freelance procurer” who had run across a hobgoblin patrol on his way to Fort Wolf’s Head. Cullen was agreeable to help out the party in return for a cut of any loot found and the party returned to him his equipment, arms, and tools of the trade.

With now two more members and only a seemingly empty cave where water was collected remaining in the north wing, the party headed back the way they came and decided to see if they could find the evil priest’s quarters. Many of their number were still injured and the prospect of liberating some healing potions or curative scrolls was an alluring one. In fact, wounds had gotten so bad that Mars Markus graciously offered his sole remaining potion of healing to Grumble provided he replace it once they returned to civilization (hee hee).

The party headed east and found a long corridor that eventually turned south and passed several doors. The first portal, located down a short side passage was bypassed, but the next two were cautiously examined. Both were locked and beyond the ability of Cullen to pick, so Baragkus and Grumble went to work with their crowbars.

As the party worked to pry one door open, they suddenly found themselves under fire. A patrol of goblins had been shadowing them and took the opportunity to rain arrows down on Korlack and Mars, the party’s lantern-bearers. Korlack took a grim wound, but the missiles bounced off Mars’ seemingly impenetrable plate mail. Baragkus and Gareth charged into battle, sending the goblins scurrying and dying. As they chased their quarry around a corner, they encountered more of the green-skinned guards and the battle continued in a surprisingly simultaneously manner (The party and I tied initiative rolls consecutively for three or four rounds. No lie.). Ultimately, the goblins were slain and the door was pried open.

The room beyond contained an office. Comfortable benches lined the walls and a large desk stood in one corner. A small pumice statue depicting the sloth-bat thing the party had encountered in various places around Hob’s Hill sat atop the desk. Korlack swiftly collected this ornament as Grumble opened the first of the desk’s two drawers. After being reminded of traps, Grumble looked down to find only a sheaf of plain parchment, quills, and stoppered ink. Now, more cautiously, he called Cullen over and had the “guy who knows a guy” inspect the second drawer. No trap was found, but it was locked—a lock which Cullen quickly dismantled…triggering the poison needle trap in the process. Luckily, Cullen made his saving throw and the party was able to collect a pouch full of small, badly cut pieces of amber and a scroll of cure light wounds.

Feeling emboldened by this discovery, the party attacked the second door in the hallway and again demonstrated that brute force and a crowbar beat any thief in the business. Behind the portal lay a cozy salon. Niches holding beeswax candles lined the walls and a low table stood in the corner flanked by four chairs. A shelf hung on one wall and held four fine crystal goblets and two cut glass decanters of purple-black wine. Baragkus and Korlack availed themselves to the vino while Grumble, his suspicions raised by the party’s mapping efforts, began to inspect the walls. A secret portal was found in the west wall.

The party ventured down the occulted corridor and found the secret chambers of the evil priest. Interrupting him as he wrote his homily of evil for his next service, the evil priest didn’t have time to complete his invocation of “Tsathoggua, aid me!” before he took an arrow in the face. Moving into melee distance, Baragkus cut him down while Grumble rolled around on the floor…or at least that’s what it looked like. The dwarf’s attempt to slide under the priest’s worktable and attack were less than effective.

With the priest dead, the party rifled the room. Korlack collected the priest’s papers, which appeared to be written in the Black Speech, the tongue of Chaos. Under the bed, a long, narrow chest was discovered and it contained coins, a vial of clear liquid, and a grey-green cloak. Risking the wrath of whatever evil god the dead priest paid homage to, Korlack took the initiative to don the garment...and become dim. It must be a legendary elvish cloak! Baragkus, his magical helm perched atop his head, discovered that priest’s mace bore runes that could be read as “Tergel” when glimpsed with the helm and collected the weapon as his own.

Finding no other means of egress, the party returned to the secret passage and found another concealed portal that led the back to the main corridor. They paused to investigate the door they had passed, but it led to an empty albeit well-used torture chamber.

Heading into now unexplored territory, the party took a southbound corridor at their first intersection and came across an array of doors. The first, again pried open with much grunting and swearing, revealed a sizeable cache of supplies. There were enough torches, cloaks, rations, and other supplies to meet the needs of two hundred hobgoblin warriors.

The next door was locked, but a pair of sizeable double doors across the hall from them proved unlocked and the party ventured inside. Several of the adventurers felt an unnerving chill crawl down their spine as the passed over the threshold. In the dim light of their torches, the party saw a row of rough-hewn wooden benches marching towards a towing statue of pumice. The carving again depicted the bat-sloth deity, and the glint of gems was detected in the effigy’s eye sockets. However, the statue’s prodigious pot belly would make scaling the sculpture difficult, so Grumble and Baragkus headed back to the storeroom to loot some useful deity-climbing tools.

Outside in the hallway, the two fighters walked right into a trio of skulking bugbears and battle commenced.

Unfortunately, unlike the first duel with the bugbears, these three proved to be formidable opponents. As the two fighting men stood their ground, each suffered horrible wounds and their cries for aid roused the rest of the party to come charging to their assistance. As Baragkus tried to disengage from combat, Gareth rushed to his side. He traded blows once before he found himself facing two of the beasts and was swiftly dropped into unconsciousness by their attacks. Meanwhile, Grumble also found himself in dire circumstances and tried to move into a position where others could aid him. This left Cullen exposed to the brawny goblinoids blows and the thief, demonstrating the battle sense of his chosen profession, said “Skut this!” and scampered away in retreat.

Korlack, ignored by the bugbears thanks to his newly acquired magical cloak, was able to move into position and dropped two of the creatures into magical slumber. The last bugbear, enraged, charged into the midst of the party and began to assail Mars Markus with his broadsword. The Spider God, perhaps taking pity on the fact that Mars’ player was absent from the session, intervened and allowed the cleric’s proxy dice-roller to generate a natural 20, slaying the bugbear before he could breach the priest’s armor.

Although no lives were lost, the party was badly beaten and without spells. A suggestion was made to secure themselves in the chamber with the statue, reinforcing the doors with the benches. However, an alternate suggestion was fielded: Return to the priest’s secret chamber and take refuge there. This was decided to be the wiser course of action and the Society of Planewalkers slinked back down to the hidden quarters and prepared to get some rest…

We’re off again this coming weekend. Recaps will return after April 3rd.

An Evaluation of Watchfires & Thrones: Year One

Please forgive the cross-posting as this article appears on both Archive of the Rotten Moon and The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope. It appears on the former since it concerns the Watchfires & Thrones campaign and has been repeated on the latter as it deals with old school roleplaying campaigns in general and may be instructive to those thinking of starting or at the beginning of a classic D&D game.

This Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of our Labyrinth Lord campaign. In the past twelve months, we’ve met thirty-nine times for a rough total of 150+ hours of gaming. The original intent was to have a game schedule of three weeks on/one week off, making for forty meetings a year. As you can see, we came very close to hitting that mark.

The Hard Numbers and Mechanics of the Campaign

When the campaign began, each player created two characters to help them survive the very lethal first two levels of campaigning. Many of those characters have come and gone, and with the exception of one player, no one has an original PC left on their roster. The largest experience point total for a single character is 14,848; the lowest is 2,500. We’ve had two players leave the group due to real life issues and a third player who had to take two extended leaves of absence for the same reason. Of the original three players from the first session, two remain active.

Player character deaths were rife in the early months of the campaign, but stabilized as the survivors advanced in level, a change was made to the critical hit house rule, and the players themselves learned from the mistakes of the past. There have been a total of twenty-two PC deaths (two of which were later raised from the dead) and three NPC deaths (including two dogs). The most PCs lost by a single player is nine.

The campaign itself has spanned two worlds: the original pulp sword & sorcery venue largely centered in and around the city of Rhuun and my traditional D&D campaign world of R’Nis. Between those two worlds the party has explored a dead sorcerer’s tomb, a temple dedicated to the Black Goat, a megadungeon that was built by aliens, Stonehell Dungeon, the ruined cellars of a wizard, a series of insect-infested caves, a ruined monastery holding the blood of a goddess, and (tentatively) a crumbling temple inhabited by hobgoblins. They’ve also participated in a street fair gone amok and defended a frontier homestead against an army of goblin raiders. Although many of the adventures have been homebrewed, other material has come from “The Ruined Monastery” by James Maliszewski, Night’s Dark Terror by Jim Bambra, Graeme Morris, and Phil Gallagher, The Horror on the Hill by Douglas Niles, Temple of the Ghoul by H. John Martin, The Veiled Society by David “Zeb” Cook, and “The Pits of Bendal Dolum” by Doug Lyons.

There have been many rule selections and changes over the past year, and some have worked better than others. The campaign began using the Original Edition Characters rules for Labyrinth Lord, but changed to straight Labyrinth Lord minus thieves after two sessions, mostly due to the fact that I wanted to have monsters with variable damage dice. Character generation was 3d6 in order and two rolls allowed for starting hit points. Once the PCs left the pulp campaign world, Advanced Edition Companion rules were added to the game and starting attributes changed to 4d6 arranged where desired. Thieves also became available to players at that time. Critical hits were initially handled as a “20” results in double damage. This rule changed around the middle of the campaign to a roll of “20” meaning full damage. This resulted in less PC casualties. Clerics cannot cast spells at 1st level and must wait until reaching 2nd level to access their first daily prayer.

My intention was to run an open sandbox campaign where the players could choose what adventure seeds to pursue against a backdrop of a vibrant, constantly changing, living world. The plan was that the PCs would build their fame and fortune and eventually acquire or build a stronghold of their own. This endgame would effectively bring this portion of the campaign to a close.

Evaluation of the Campaign and its Progress

In my eyes, the Watchfires & Thrones campaign has been a successful one. I approached the game with an equal mixture of excitement and trepidation. This was to be my first time in the referee’s chair for more than session or two in almost a decade. I was confident with my decision to use Labyrinth Lord as the ruleset, but simply knowing the rules cold is by no means a guarantee of success. There are too many X factors that can scuttle a campaign before it hits its stride and I was out of practice in how to handle them. To my relief, the rust came off quickly and I’ve been able to handle most of the in and out of game issues with aplomb.

It is the rare campaign that is 100% successful, however, and Watchfires & Thrones is no exception. Looking back on the past year, I can see several missteps that I wish I had avoided and paths I should have taken. These might not have always been noticeable to my players, but they were glaringly apparent to me.

My first mistake was succumbing to gamer A.D.D. on the cusp of the campaign’s start date. Although I had been preparing to run things in my longtime campaign world of R’Nis, I decided at the last minute to switch gears and do a more hardcore pulp swords & sorcery setting instead. This meant that I effectively put myself back to square one in regards to prep work, which would continue to haunt me during the early sessions. I felt that the setting never really came to life for the players as I myself had no clear understanding of the campaign world outside of a handful of idle thoughts stung together on the flimsiest of frameworks. I was constantly trying to do work on the campaign world and was barely a step ahead of the players at any given time, which if you’re trying to use your roleplaying game as a recreational escape is not the best route to take.

That constant scramble led to my making the decision to transport the entire party to my regular campaign world via a magical portal. This allowed me to keep the campaign moving with the established characters while giving me access to all the work I had already done. But there were unforeseen, long-lasting ramifications to that decision.

The swapping of campaign worlds also occurred not long after the release of Advanced Edition Companion for Labyrinth Lord. Since the world of R’Nis had been forged in my days of playing AD&D and its inhabitants skewed in the direction of those rules, I threw open the floodgates of character generation for all subsequent PCs starting play in the new world. This meant that formerly verboten classes like thief, assassin, monk, and others were now playable. It also affected the manner in which attributes were rolled. Rather than using the 3d6 in a row method, I allowed “roll 4d6, drop one and arrange.”

While this decision didn’t result in a gross unbalancing of the game, I personally feel that it didn’t add anything to the campaign either. I had been concerned that the campaign was missing something by reducing the probability of someone rolling scores good enough to play a ranger or paladin and I wanted to allow those classes to be played. But after representatives of those classes entered the game, I discovered that they really don’t bring all that much to the table and, like I discovered with thieves, a campaign can roll merrily along without their presence. After having seen both methods of character generation in play to compare and contrast, I’ve come to the conclusion that 3d6 in order is the superior method for classic style play and I will likely be sticking to that system of character creation from now on. I’ll also be limiting other material from AEC in future games as well, preferring to rely on homebrewed materials that make the campaign world more uniquely my own over “stock fantasy D&D.”

My other major issue was my failure to take the desires of the players into account when working on the campaign. I should have questioned the players more often and earlier to better determine what they wanted out of the campaign. The problem, to my eyes anyway, was that I had anticipated running this wide-open sandbox world, one where the players would be free to chose from any number of adventure seeds. I did a lot of preparation to allow for this once we swapped worlds, only to discover that the group was pretty enamored with Stonehell and would happily continue delving there until they reached name level, uncovered all its secrets, or the campaign collapsed—depending on which came first. As the old line states: “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight…and don’t bring the whole sandbox when the guys just want to play in a hole in the ground.” It’s not a game-breaking issue by any means, but it does mean that I could have used my energies in a more productive manner by concentrating on my campaign tent-pole instead of the surrounding, never-to-be-visited locales.

There were (and remain) a few minor quibbles and reevaluations, but since this campaign was intended to get me back up to fighting weight, referee-wise, I’ve looked at these as lessons rather than problems. Amongst them are whether I will have future starting players roll up two characters and run them off and on. There are benefits to this, especially at starting level, but the dividing of experience amongst multiple characters makes for a slower level progression, which in turn limits me in regards to what fun monsters and magic I can throw at the party. I may allow a player to run multiple PCs in the future, but this would be by player choice rather than campaign design.

Somewhat connected to this issue is the use of training to advance in level, resulting in a time and money cost. I’m currently using training in my game, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is baggage from AD&D that doesn’t have a place in original or basic D&D and their retro-clones. I’ve got a simpler system in mind, one that allows for more player choice when it comes to advancement, and I think my next and subsequent campaigns will do away with training completely if this other system works as intended.

One final problem bears mentioning as it is something every referee who runs a game long enough encounters: burnout. A few weeks ago, I was feeling this to great effect. My energy levels were running low and there was even one session that I really didn’t feel like having because I was at the end of my creative tether. I thought the campaign might be overdue for a temporary sabbatical as I recouped and regained my energy. However, I’ve continued to push through these feelings and it seems that I’m getting back into the groove of the game. The last two sessions have done wonders for my attitude, and although other real-life concerns remain to plague me and I have a tendency to want to do anything but sit inside and play once spring arrives, I’m hopeful that by continuing to work through the slack times the campaign will continue until it reaches its natural ending. My advice to other struggling referees: Keep pushing until you break on through the wall. It’s worth it.

Despite all these concerns, which may be more apparent to myself than my players, the Watchfires & Thrones campaign has been a great source of fun for the guys who come to the table each week. Some have stated on more than one occasion that this campaign is simply the best one they’ve ever played in. I’m prone to be modest in the face of such praise, but so long as everyone else is having a good time and keeps coming back for more, I’ll accept those compliments as intended.

Watchfires & Thrones Session #38

The Society approached the vine-covered and crumbling masonry walls that protruded from the forest greenery like the bones of an old corpse. Beyond the largest space in the barrier they could see a vast overgrown courtyard, its former well-manicured grounds now being recovered by the forest. Their eyes detected a steaming crevasse amongst the undergrowth, a crack in the earth that emitted wisps of steam and humid air. Beyond it stood weatherworn pairs of pillars leading to block-like building. A large decorative pool lay to their right, its waters thick with green algae and disturbed by the motions of fish or other wildlife. A low bunkhouse of stone stood beside the waters, showing no sign of recent use or occupancy. To their left, a wild, overgrown garden lay. Thickets of trees, bushes, and vines turned the area into a tangle of leaves and brush. Facing the former garden was a large stone structure, obviously a temple or abbey. A well-used trail bearing the marks of hobnailed boots led from the break in the wall directly to that foreboding building.

Deducing that the temple-like structure housed the hobgoblin command, the party wasted no time in further explorations and headed directly towards the building. Baragkus and Grumble took the lead, traveling slightly ahead of the rest of the party in hopes that Baragkus’ crude disguise might allow them to pass by any unseen sentries without being challenged. As the duo approached the massive stone doors that provided entrance to the temple, a rustle in the overgrown garden caught Grumble’s ear. Emerging from the hive of vines were three goblins, spears in hand and arms cocked back to throw!

Grumble shouted an alarm and charged the trio, spears already in the air as he ran. Two struck home, glancing off both he and Baragkus’ mail with little injury. Grumble fell upon the goblins, his axe whistling in the air as he battered against their crude armor. Baragkus and the rest of the party, now recovered from the shock of the sudden attack, rushed forward to assist.

As they closed the distance, their eyes caught sight of another six goblins exiting the network of paths that wound through the overgrown garden. The two groups of three also bore spears and swords and wasted no time in lobbing their missiles at the band. Kaldar and Lyrax began returning fire with their bows as Mars, Korlack, and Fisk charged in to aid Grumble and Baragkus.

The two groups met with a clash of steel and it was obvious that most of the goblins were outclassed from the first. One was rendered unconscious by the flat of Grumble’s axe and the others were quickly vanquished. A particularly large specimen of the goblin race, armed with a shield in addition to his blade, stood the longest against the party, even avoiding a blow that Grumble was convinced should have struck home. His resistance was finally overcome by Baragkus’ attack from behind, which caused the goblin brute to collapse into unconsciousness.

The party dragged their two captive up against the temple’s wall, positioning themselves in a corner they hoped was unobserved. After tying them up, Grumble shook them awake and began to interrogate them in his overzealous command of Gobbledy. It took a moment for the goblin leader to decipher the dwarf’s, um, “unique” command of the goblinoid language, but once accomplished he proved to be more than willing to answer all the party’s questions with the provision that he and his brother-in-law be let go and be allowed to leave, never to return.

The goblin confirmed that the hobgoblins did live inside the big temple, dwelling beneath the structure in the dungeon below. As he and the rest of the garden goblins were not allowed entrance into the building, he couldn’t provide a detailed layout, but assured them that the party’s quarry was indeed inside. He also revealed that a party of humans, four in robes and two in armor, had arrived the day before yesterday, entering the temple but not seen leaving. The party thanked him and, true to their word, allowed the duo to leave unharmed, their possessions (including the magic shield that had rendered the leader so difficult to strike and whose existence is now revealed) returned to them.

The band approached the massive temple doors and gaped at the bizarre relief that adorned them: a pot-bellied, humanoid creature that seemed to bear the aspects of both bat and sloth in one unwholesome combination. The decoration peered back at its observers with a laconic expression, almost as if it knew the fate of any who dared enter the temple was grim, yet it was beyond caring of such mortal concerns. Baragkus placed an ear against the door and heard only silence beyond.

The doors were pushed open to reveal a large, high-ceiling room, its flat roof held aloft by five 20’ tall statues depicting the same entity that graced the portals. The room was lit by a dying sun allowed entrance through the now open doors and it was plain to see that the room was unoccupied, clean, and bore no visible exits. Yet the goblins had assured the Society that entrance to the hobgoblins’ lair lay within. The party carefully entered.

As Baragkus and Fisk stood watch, Kaldar and Korlack checked the walls for secret doors while Mars and Grumble investigated the statures and floor. After an hour of poking, prodding, and even attempting to disbelieve illusions, the party failed to find any concealed exits to the room. Stumped, they sat down to wait, hoping that time would reveal any hidden egresses from the chamber. (DM’s Hint of the Day: You should always have another explorer check your work when searching for secret doors and other compartments.)

An hour had passed when a section of the wall closest to Mars and Grumble swung open with a click. A bored-looking hobgoblin stood behind the secret door, his eyes widening suddenly when he noticed the unexpected visitors in the area beyond. He frantically struggled to close the door as Grumble launched himself like a missile at both the portal and the hobgoblin sentry. Grumble had apparently decided to revel in his wrestling background in this session, which would produce comical (to me) results later on.

The dwarf collided with the door, falling to the ground with a crash as his body sprawled across the secret door’s threshold, preventing the sentry from shutting it. Mars charged at the guard, swinging his sword at the orange-skinned goblin’s head. His short blade clanged against the stone without effect. The guard, muttering curses, ran Grumble through with his spear, scoring the first of several critical hits against the dwarf that session. Grumble shrugged off the wound and tried to trip the guard without success.

The rest of the party scrambled to their feet and raced across the chamber as the dwarf and cleric continued to battle the guard without success. Lyrax shot an arrow across the room and opened a wound along the hobgoblin’s arm, which convinced the sentry to flee and seek reinforcements. From his vantage point on the floor, Grumble watched the hobgoblin run a short distance down the corridor beyond the secret portal and pass through a door to the north. The party swiftly reassembled itself and set off in pursuit of the creature.

The corridor beyond the secret door ran straight for 60’ before ending. A much narrow corridor met the passage just beyond the secret door and the portal through which the hobgoblin fled lay 10’ beyond the side corridor. The party assembled themselves outside the door and attempted to open it. The door was secured, however, and it took several moments and a crowbar before they were able to pry to door open…and they immediately found themselves under attack.

The room beyond was obviously a barracks, one occupied by six goblins and a half-dozen hobgoblins. The goblins stood closest to the door and they rained their spears down on the party as soon as they sought to enter the room. At the far end of the chamber were the hobgoblins, three of whom sported drawn short bows and scanned the battlefield for targets of opportunity. The party began to try and fight their way into the room and a long, pitched battle commenced—one that would take up a great deal of the game session.

Allow me to digress and break the narrative here. One of the aspects of classic D&D that I find superior to later editions is the round-by-round initiative system. While many prefer the simplicity of rolling once at the start of a battle and then repeating that order again and again, I find that having the uncertainty of resolving initiative each round not only makes battle flow faster (strangely enough) but gives it a greater sense of urgency. You never know if you’ll get that spell off before you get perforated with arrows or cut down your opponent before his can finish you off. That’s great, tension building stuff. Of course, the downside is that when you have a session where the dice start to go against you constantly, even the simplest of fights can turn into battles whose events are remembered far and wide.

Over the course of the next hour or so of real time, the players found themselves pitted more against their own rolls than the enemy. Low “to hit” rolls plagued everyone and a disproportionate amount of those rolls were “1”s; luckily not fumbles, but it was still odd how often that single digit glare balefully up from the guys’ dice. The referee, on the other hand, was on a hot streak, and the party felt the pain.

As the Society boldly battled to cut down the goblins that stood in their way, the small humanoids avoided blow after blow, landing more than a few in return. The hobgoblin archers at the rear of the chamber fired through the doorway to strike party members in the hallway with great accuracy. Kaldar, his body clad in plate mail and his preternatural dexterity protecting him was pushed to the forefront to drop a sleep spell upon the massed goblinoids. As he did so, the archers took aim and fired, albeit with little chance of striking his AC of 0. The dice clattered: 6, 19, 20! A single arrow sailed past the massed fighters to strike the elf just before he could complete his incantation, ruining his daily spell and injuring him greatly to boot.

From this point on it was a grind. Mars managed to hold a single hobgoblin with a prayer to Mog, but the majority of the fight was an old fashioned slobber-knocker. Korlack did slip in and drop a successful sleep spell on the hobgoblins near the end of the battle, which finally freed the party from suffering through missile fire each round, but it was almost too little, too late. The party was badly beaten by the time the fight ended, but the battle ended with a hobgoblin prisoner who was both asleep and held by magic.

And that’s when the ogres showed up.

Unbeknownst to the party, a pair of ogres had quarters just down the hall from the barracks. As the battle raged, I made a check every few rounds to see if they heard the scuffle and came to investigate. They only heard the sounds of battle just as the melee came to a close, which was lucky (when looked at in a certain way) because the party would have otherwise found themselves in a pitched, two front battle with nowhere to run to had the brutes arrived earlier.

There were a few half-hearted chuckles when I dropped the ogre miniatures in the hallway as the players hoped I was joking. They had taken a lot of lumps in the fight and were not up to dealing with two ogres now but they had little choice. The fighters (and Mars) stepped up to the door to try and hold them back, but Baragkus took a door to the face when the lead ogre bashed it off its already weakened hinges with his club. To complicate matter, Grumble decided to employ his special wrestling “piggy back attack” maneuver against the brutes and leapt upon Baragkus’ back without warning. This both negated Baragkus’ dexterity bonuses and allowed the ogres to hit two targets with a single blow. The sole thing going for the party was that only a single ogre could attack at a time through the doorway.

The ogres landed a few blows, one of which would have killed Grumble outright had he not chosen that moment to cash in his “protection from death” card. Baragkus quaffed a healing potion which likely saved his own skin. Finally, the first ogre fell, allowing the party to concentrate their efforts on a single opponent and the second ogre fell seconds later.

The band had determined that there was a single locked door at the rear of the chamber during the brief interlude between battles, but decided to run for the hills before the hobgoblins could rally more reinforcements. To the party’s mind, their excursion had been a failure. The hobgoblins obviously outnumbered them and they had no hope of battling their way into the dungeon below and slaying the hobgoblin command. They gave up, utterly and completely, and I’m sure that decision will have absolutely no ramifications on the rest of the campaign.

Fleeing into the night, the party decided to lay low and nurse their wounds before heading back to the cave they had used the night before. They wanted to see if they could extract some information from their hobgoblin captive and possibly go through the pouches they had lifted from the dead goblinoids. As they reached the barren clearing at the end of the trail, they looked about for a place to hide…

How about the abandoned cemetery? Sure! Let’s go hide there.

That sound you just heard was my hand colliding with my forehead.

The party reached the thorn-filled, overgrown cemetery with dreams of taking shelter in a mausoleum so that only one worg at a time could attack them. Not long after arriving, they detected the sound of something coming their way from both the south and the northwest. In the flickering gloom of their single lantern, the party saw four lithe, leonine forms streaking out of the shadows, their long, filth-encrusted talons and slavering mouths leading the way. A quartet of ghouls!These undead, having the benefit of open ground, attacked from two directions, making it impossible for Mars Markus to turn all four at once. To make matters worse, the ghouls won initiative and closed on the party before they could react. In the first round, Baragkus, Fisk, Lyrax, and Cleopos the porter were all struck and paralyzed, leaving only Grumble, Mars, Korlack, and Kaldar standing. Of those four, only Kaldar the elf would be safe from the ghouls’ incapacitating touch.

The players stared at the carnage, fully anticipating a TPK to end the session. Luckily, Mars was able to turn two of the ghouls and Grumble, with the dice finally on his side, cut down one ghoul and then the next with his bonus attack. Mars reached into his pouch and pulled out a scroll that would ward of the undead for an undetermined amount of time and read the words swiftly. A barrier of blue fire erupted in a 30’ diameter and the party closed ranks. With four people mobile, some hard decisions were about to be made in regard to who was dragged to safety and who remained behind as ghoul chow. The captive hobgoblin was slain outright and the fate of Cleopos was in the balance when he began to stir. One by one, the paralyzed party members started to regain motion as the protective barrier collapsed. With only Baragkus still inert, the party slung him between them and departed the cemetery in the dead of night, hoping to make it back to their cave shelter and avoid any hobgoblin patrols…

Watchfires & Thrones Session #30

I’ll be honest: I hit the wall about an hour before Sunday’s session wrapped-up and I’m still feeling a little crapped out when it comes to the creative fantasy bit. Let’s get this done, then.

Play resumed with the party standing at the T-intersection and Grumble investigating the sounds of SOMETHING coming down his branch of hallway. His infravision detected nothing; his ears barely heard the sound of trickling liquid coming from the gloom. He wisely rejoined the party and formed ranks just as three ghouls came clamoring into the light of the party’s torches.

Aieglos and Waren both called upon the power of their deities to repulse the unclean things, but failed to turn them away. This left them in the position to take the first of the ghouls’ blows and Waren fell to their paralytic claws. Aieglos suffered minor damage, but his elven blood was immune to the ghoulish pathogen. Despite these early injuries, my ghouls continue to fail miserably as threats and the party’s fighting men quickly dispatched the trio of hungry dead. Grumble threw Waren’s body into a mercenary’s carry and the band headed towards the surface to heal and strategize.

After they crossed the Pit of Inconvenience and before they reached the H Room, Anwar pleaded for the party to examine a closed door that they have passed several times. The desire to find a route that leads deeper into the dungeon and avoids the 10’ deep pit the party always needs to negotiate has been an ongoing concern for the sorcerer—he’s even made inquiries as to how much time and man-power would be required to excavate a passage around the pit.

Opening the door revealed an ancient living quarters. The decrepit bunks were caked with dust and the few footlockers that lay strewn around the floor showed signs of being looted in the dim past—except for one, that is. This suspiciously unopened container drew the party’s interest and Kubik the Thief was shuffled to the party’s front ranks to deal with the situation. A nearly half-hour process then began as the two hit point thief carefully made sure that the route to the box and the chest itself were trap-free. Only after he was sure no mantraps awaited the greedy did he pry open the rotted box. Inside were twenty chapbooks and a vial of dried ink. Although worth some gold to booksellers, one could only be disappointed after all the preliminary antics that led to the books’ discovery. About this time, Waren began to stir. The ghoul tetanus had worn off.

The party left the dungeon and return to Blackpool to find a small celebration was underway in the town square. Tuns of ale had been broached , a boar was turning on a spit, and a small group of minstrels played on a simple platform. The townsfolk were imbibing with relish—a much different atmosphere than had been hanging over the town since the rumors of a Storm Crow agent being discovered. When inquiries were made as to why the town was celebrating, the answer came that Azix Tsam, the local gray-man merchant and one-time patron of the party, had recently fallen into some unexpected money and was spending a portion of his windfall to revive the Blackpoolians’ falling morale. Groans erupted around the table as the players realized that Tsam’s windfall was from the Ghost Beggars’ treasury , the one which they never discovered during their exploration of the bandit lair. Despite this ill-met news, the fighting men of the party availed themselves to the free viands and even heard a drunken tale of a giant turtle devouring boats in the Murkmire Marsh north of town. Super Mario jokes were made and you can bet that this will be the last time I try and slip an adventure seed to you bastards! You’re on your own from here on out…I hope you like Stonehell.

After a round of healing and rest at the Mad Manor, the party reorganized and headed back to the dungeon minus Waren. Aside from a brief, uneventful run-in with a mountain lion watching them from the gate house’s battlements, the party returned to the second level of the dungeon without incident and began their plan to investigate the locked door they encountered and to continue to search for a back entrance to the hobgoblin lair. Tick, tock. Tick, tock…

Finding the entrance chamber to the second level empty of hobgoblin sentries, the party retraced their footsteps only to run into six of the creatures lying in ambush in the south corridor. Armed with spears, swords, and arrows, the hobgoblins were arrayed in such a way as to allow all of them to attack the party. These were no stupid, blood-thirsty orcs. The hobgoblins displayed keen military minds, and had it not been for a well-timed sleep spell, the encounter might have turned bad for the party quickly. The party collected some loot and departed the area with alacrity. The mysterious locked door awaited them nearby.

The locked door proved to be a mixed bag. They knocked the door open, but only to discover the room was a dusty and deserted storeroom. A strangely pink salt lick coated one wall and when Anwar tasted the salt, a horrible sensation wracked his body, leaving him feeling as if something grabbed his soul and twisted. He came out of incident unharmed, but perplexed. Two bags were then filled with the substance, totaling nearly 40 lbs. of the pink crystals. Poisoning a water supply was mentioned as a possible strategy, but let’s leave that aside for now.

The party encountered a quartet of giant toads as they departed the salty storeroom and Rondo was nearly devoured by one of the beasts. If they believed in omens, the party might have turned back then…

After dispatching the toads, the party soon found themselves back at the T-intersection they had started the session at and we called it a day. I kid, but it won’t be the first time I’ve had a group of players start and end a session in the exact same place.

The party pressed on north from there and, after a turn in the corridor, came into a large angled room. A herringbone pattern decorated the floor and the vaulted ceiling rose above them to end in pointed arches. From the darkness ahead, arrows began to rain down upon them. Charging into the gloom, they found another half-dozen hobgoblins waiting for them. Once again they faced an organized group and several wounds were received just getting into position where they could fight their orange-skinned opponents. Anwar’s sleep spell was negated by a hobgoblin arrow and the melee broke out in full. The party won the day and began to pick up on some of their opponents’ tactics. Ranks were rearranged and both arrows and spears were added to the party’s armory.

Past the angled room, the party found a strangely balanced pair of rooms at a crossroads. To the east lay a octagonal room whose sole decoration was a 12’ tall obelisk covered in occult sigils. The air in the room was surprisingly fresh and the floor remarkably clean. Speculation was made that this might form part of the dungeon’s ventilation system.

To the west was another octagonal room, but rather than an obelisk, this room held a 6’ tall metal pole tipped with an flag-like iron arrow. Another passage exited the room to the north. As the room seemed to lead away from where the party expected to find the hobgoblin lair’s back door, the room was left alone for the time being, but further exploration of its mysteries is intended.

A bit further down the corridor, a small, somewhat triangular room was discovered. A carving of a three-lobed eye looked down upon a dusty altar that bore a trio of brass scrolls. Malcolm Reynolds leaned into the corridor to shout, “Trap!”, and the party bypassed the shrine.

Just down the hall, the band caught sight of a low fire burning beyond a large archway in the corridor’s eastern wall. Surrounding the fire were a handful of the crazed human descendants of Stonehell’s original prison population. Knowing these base men to be cannibals, the party charged into action…and found three more of the evil men positioned in places they couldn’t see. Battle began to rage.

From the onset it was clear that Rondo and Baragkus, now at the front of the party, were in for the worst of it. Quickly surrounded, Rondo was being assailed on all sides and his blood rained onto floor in rivulets. With Aieglos’ prayers gone for the day, only scrolls remained to heal the wounded dwarf and the tide of battle was not allowing the elf time to move into position and ready the holy writs. Somewhere, perhaps in the Scrolls of Skelos, it is written that “when the magic-user has to draw a weapon and join in the battle and enemies are fought with a hand-held arrow, things have gone bad.”

The melee continued and the initiative dice continued to thwart the party. In fact, I don’t think they won initiative once during the entire session. Although superior to their enemies, the party had to endure a round of berserker attacks before they could return the favor and Rondo was suffering from this. Just before the last of Stonehell’s grim men fell under the party’s weapons, Rondo was slain and slumped to the cold flagstone floor. Silence fell over the party as they looked down on the body of their longtime comrade-in -arms.

We ended the session there.

Watchfires and Thrones Session #21

Back in town, the Society of Plane Walkers took rest, with some member choosing to remain behind for the second expedition to Modnar’s Tower. Raijek and Lyrax Tonn were intent on returning. Mock, having completed training, joined up for this trip, as did Mars Markus who had finished scribing a scroll of cure light wounds. Kaldar, the half-even fighting mage rounded out the party.

The band returned to the tower the following morn and hustled to the Y-intersection they had discovered the day before. Picking the southeastern fork this time, it led but a short distance before coming to an X-shaped intersection. Both southern-bound corridors seemed to terminate in dead ends, while the unexplored northern passage turned out of sight. The band explored both southern passage ways and their careful searching unearthed a secret door in one of the walls.

Beyond the hidden entrance lay a long-forgotten oubliette haunted by the unquiet mortal remains of four former prisoners. When Mars Markus’ attempt to turn them failed, it was almost as if the Spider God had turned his back on his servant—a portent for things to come, perhaps. Nevertheless, the stout fighting men in the band made short work of the foul things, but were disappointed to find the chamber barren of loot. The party returned to the intersection and ventured north. A short jaunt down that corridor brought them to a door in the eastern wall.

The room beyond proved cavernous and strange. With black-painted walls flecked with mica and a softly glowing ceiling, the chamber presented an almost alien-landscape. The floor was covered in a thin layer of gritty, sand-like material, which, on closer inspection, was discovered to be a copious amount of iron filings. Protruding from this stuff, like forgotten temples sticking out of the desert dunes, were the shattered remains of articulated iron statues. Each seemed to have been destroyed by violence.

All this was overshadowed by the metal lever set in the far wall. With most of the party suspecting a trap, Mock and Raijek entered the room and pulled the lever after taking numerous precautions (probing the floor, spiking the door, searching for failing death blades, etc.). The rest of the band stood outside with weapons ready. The duo felt a moment of unsteadiness as the fulcrum was thrown and were astounded to find that the room’s gravity had suddenly undergone a dramatic reduction. In this alien atmosphere, the two found their strength greatly increased, but at the loss of coordination.

The two tested their new environment and were in the middle of kicking up slowly drifting clouds of iron filings when two partitions slid open in the walls. From niches beyond came drifting three metal orbs with a multitude of articulated arms attached to their undersides. Each of these arms bore a weapon or shield. The size of beach balls, the trio moved towards Raijek and Mock with decidedly unfriendly intentions. Mock grinned and grabbed the lever, anticipating watching the armed orbs crashing to the floor when he returned the room to its normal gravitational state. His grin quickly evaporated when he discovered the lever seemed locked in place.

The two sides clashed in a fierce melee and Mock barely escaped grievous wounds by bringing up his aegis against the floating foes. Throwing a “20” against their swinging weapons saved his life—and his shield—allowing Mars Markus the chance to revel in having an average strength in battle for once. It would prove to be Lyrax Tonn’s arrows that brought down the majority of the metal menaces.

Once demolished, the orbs were each found to contain a moonstone amongst their strange, mechanical innards. The party checked the alcoves the devices had emerged from and found that each contained a rack with four bays in it. Although only three orbs had been encountered, the dust on the remaining bays indicated that they had been empty for quite some time. Where could those other orbs be?

When an extended search turned up nothing else, the party pressed on to the north, which took them on a round-about journey and through a quickly incinerated patch of green slime. Doubling back to check their map for errors, the party return to the cellar’s entrance hall and probed the eastern corridor that departed that room. This corridor agreed with their own mapping efforts by terminating in a dead end—one that held a life-sized statue of a human male sporting a much too large grin. One of the statue’s hands was extended as if it were waiting for something to be placed into it, but, despite their efforts, the party couldn’t deduce what was supposed to rest there or what might occur once it did. Leaving the statue for another day, they returned to the point they had doubled back from.

A bit further north from this point, the party found another door that led into a dilapidated library. Already bearing the signs of being ransacked, half of the party ventured into the room as the rest waited cautiously outside. And that's when things turned deadly.

Those standing outside the chamber watched helplessly as a portion of the ceiling moved, revealing a much-dreaded, chameleon-like crab spider, which dropped down—ironically—onto Mars Markus, the Spider Cleric. Its first strike failed to penetrate the cleric’s potent plate mail armor, but, after landing on the floor besides the priest’s less protected leg, the arachnid sank its fangs into Mars’ limb and began pumping its venom into its victim.

Time slowed down.

After Aieglos’ close call with a crab spider in the caves around Stonehell, the players were well-versed in the consequences of a poisonous bite. Jack, the player of Mars Markus and the only long-time player who has yet to lose a character began stacking the deck in his favor. Already enjoying a +2 bonus to the save against the crab spider’s weak venom, Mars also bears the holy symbol he was given upon being inducted into the mysteries of the Spider Sect. That symbol grants him a +1 bonus against spider toxins. Jack was also sitting on a player reward chit that allows him to substitute a d30 for one roll when a d20 is normally required. He chose to burn this chit for this saving throw. With a cleric’s already good saving throws, he needed only an 8 or better on a d30 to make his save and avoid dying from the spider’s bite. Throwing the die across the table, he turned and walked away, unwilling to watch the die come to rest. And it did:

Despite his best efforts, that “6” effectively killed him. It seems that Mog the Spider had indeed abandoned his servant in his time of need.

Everyone asked me if Mars was immediately slain, and I replied that he was as good as dead, but if Jack wanted to have Mars spout off some profound dying words or similar action, he had a minute or so before he quit the breathing habit permanently. That window of opportunity was all the party needed to spring into action to try and save their highest-level cleric. Mock bashed the spider to bits in a single blow and the rest of the band gathered about the soon-to-be expired holy man.

Remembering they had a potion which had yet to be identified, they decided to force that down the dying cleric’s throat to see if it would save him. However, moments before they did so, the party recalled the potion of sweet water they had in their possession. No one could remember exactly what it did, but they were pretty sure it did something to poisons. But would it be enough to save Mars? They poured the sweet water into the priest’s mouth and waited.

Checking the description of sweet water, I found that the potion normally turns salt water, acid, and poison into drinkable liquids. Although it wasn’t being used as intended in this case, its properties were on record as counteracting poison and I like to reward creative thinking. After a brief consideration, I ruled that the sweet water would grant Mars Markus another roll to try and make his saving throw. He would have to use a regular d20 but the normal modifiers for poison strength and his holy symbol would apply. Jack threw the die in one last all-or-nothing roll:

Sighs of relief went up around the big blue table at Brothers Grim that afternoon. Even the clerk had been watching us with interest. Jack continues to hold his title of “Most Likely to Survive the Adventure.” Another player would soon defend his title, however, much to his continuing dismay.

With Mars slumped against a wall and recovering, the remainder of the band turned the former library upside down, discovering but a quartet of still legible books. Under a fallen bookcase, they found the crushed remains of an adventurer. Although his purse had been cut away, his leather armor was still in good condition, which was surprising because his leather boots were rotted to pieces. Suspecting magic or quality workmanship, the armor was stuffed into one of the party’s many sacks and the band moved on.

The hallway terminated in a door a bit further down the corridor. Beyond the stuck portal was a decaying lounge with a thick rug. Atop the rug, at its center, was a chest. Becoming highly suspicious in nature, the party sent Mars and Raijek in to see if the chest was trapped. After poking and prodding the rug and the container, they finally inched forward to peer inside. Once the lid was open half-way, there was the sound of a squeaky pulley coming to life and the invisible cargo net that lay beneath the rug was swiftly hoisted up to the ceiling on equally invisible ropes and pulley, turning the monk and cleric into a rug piñata.

Normally, the party would spring into action to rescue the duo, but the growling of their war dog turned their attention back down the corridor where they had come. Peering around a bend in the passage was another albino ape, who watched them uncertainly. Kaldar kept an eye on the ape while Lyrax stepped forward to cut down the entrapped two with his pole arm. When the last of the ropes was severed, the rug crashed to the floor with a loud racket, startling the ape into a murderous frenzy! Luckily, Kaldar had been preparing his sleep spell and the ape was quickly put into a slumber and dispatched.

With everyone now back on their own two feet, the party was disappointed to learn that the chest was empty and they had been lured into a trap intended to delay them and alert anyone nearby. They cautiously exited the small lounge through another door to the west, which led into what was obviously someone’s sleeping quarters. A collection of least-decrepit furnishing stood about the room and a cracked plate holding a half-eaten meal of trail rations was near a door in the southern wall. It seems that someone had heard them and chose to depart rather than confront them. Having heard from the kobolds that a “stupid man” lived in this part of the dungeon, they suspected that this was his den, even though he seemed less stupid than they were originally led to believe.

Ransacking the room uncovered a sack of silver coins that had been sewn to the underside of a divan. Cut threads beside it suggested that another sack had been secreted next to it, but that it had been abruptly cut free and carried off: Another sign that whoever had dwelled here was aware of their presence and not wishing to fight them. The party approached the southern door and listened intently. The sound of squeaking vermin was heard beyond.

The next room did indeed contain several giant rats that frolicked about a heap of trash and broken furniture. When the door to their lair opened, the rats moved towards the party aggressively, leaving Mock and Raijek to face them in melee from the doorway while Kaldar and Lyrax peppered the vermin with arrows. The battle was short and decisive, and the party smiled at the ease of their victory.

Mock stepped into the room first, only to die horribly as the short sword of the robber hiding next to the half-open door slid into the half-orc’s back. The shadow-hidden thief took everyone by surprise and poor Dave lost another character—his highest level one too! (Mock was his only character to make it out of 1st level). Shocked, then enraged by this sudden death, the party fell upon the now-revealed bandit without even pausing to parley or offer mercy. His severed head is now numbered amongst the band’s possessions.

With Mock dead and Mars a near miss, it was decided that the party should return to Blackpool immediately, but there were three other door leading out of the room. These had to be checked first, of course, whatever the consequences.

One door lead to the easternmost end of an east-west passage and was ignored. The door was even left ajar from the sheer contempt the party had for boring hallways. Another led to a plain stone room with a well set in the center of the floor. A ladder protruded from the well’s mouth, but the party didn’t so much as set foot in the chamber. The last door seemed to contain either a 30’ square room with a 10’ square locked room set in its center or a locked room completely surrounded by a 10’ wide corridor (depending on how you look at such things).

Although they knew they should be heading back, it was argued that if they didn’t get that door open, someone else would and carry off all the treasure which must lie in the room beyond. A thorough search of the junk room, the bandit, and his lair failed to turn up a key the door and Raijek’s ability to pick locks failed to coax open the tumbles, so the battle axe method of entrance was employed. A half-hour of chopping and a hell of a lot of noise later, the door stood open and the party saw an empty 10’ square room with a ceiling seemingly composed of shimmering mercury. Lyrax fired an arrow into the opaque liquid which vanished with a ripple. This was too weird to be considered at the moment and it was decided that the party had had enough exploring for the day.

As they opened the door leading back to the junk room, they were stunned to see that the room was now empty—of everything. The bandit’s body was gone; the rats’ corpses were gone; even the trash and smashed furniture was gone (luckily they had Mock’s body with them). So clear was the chamber that whispers of “gelatinous cube” began to run through the party. They closed the door without entering the junk room and began littering the floor with detritus to detect the nigh-invisible custodian of dungeons should it enter into their escape-less corner. When an hour passed without incident, they carefully left their hiding place and beat feet towards the cellar’s exit, pausing only to collect the invisible cargo net as they returned to Blackpool with Mock’s corpse weighing them down.

A new goal range through their minds and spurred them towards town: Raise the slain half-orc to life!

To be continued next week…

Watchfires & Thrones Session #20

Wherein there are monkeys.

The party safely arrived in Blackpool and split up to take care of personal business. Lace and Mock had accumulated enough experience to train and, seeing how the cost to either pay full training fees or to join the Order of Adventurers, Explorers, and Treasure-Seekers and pay half for instruction would amount to the same, chose to enter their names in the Order’s rolls. After Mock borrowed a sizeable amount of coins from Raijek, that is. Mar Markus announced that the party’s explorations were taxing his limits on healing and that he would be spending time away from the field to scribe a scroll of cure light wounds. First, however, he would use the power of Mog to determine if any of the items the party had recovered from the caves were enchanted.

Calling upon the Spider God to reveal magical auras, the party was delighted to learn that the sword, rod, vial of gray liquid, and chainmail shirt each bore an enchantment. The case holding the mysterious blue-green metal rods, as well as the rods themselves, all proved to be mundane. Fanta cast a read magic upon the sword to decipher the runes found on the weapon’s strong and determined that they read “Froghammer” and “Trabraxi Me’ak,” the last being a phrase in an unknown (to the party) but mundane language. As the party was unwilling to part with the 200 gold marks to pay a sorcerer to identify an item, they decided to wait until they could get the spellbook of Ozwald the recently deceased mage decoded to see if he possessed a spell of identification.

The mystery of the rods was solved when the party took the case to the office of Shortshanks, the Order’s appraiser and assayer. He readily identified them as being Ohaceerean trade stacks—rolls of a hundred coins sealed inside and protected by a special metal (“Starts with an ‘S’ I think, but can’t be a certain..”), much like the way a coat of wax protects a wheel of cheese. This metal defeats all attempts to magically locate precious metals, making it the perfect method for merchants to transport large caches of coins in secret. Shortshanks informed the party that according to the markings on the stacks each contained a roll of 100 gold marks, meaning they had found 2,000 gold pieces in total. But there was bad news: Only an Ohaceerean agent possessed the correct reagents to dissolve the metallic coating on the coins, and the nearest one of those was either in Ohaceer (located deep inside the Kinan-M’Nath wilderness) or back to the east in the city of Ilrahtyr. He did know someone who would take them off their hands if they were desperate for cash, but warned there would be a large percentage taken for this swift service. The party chose to hold onto the coins for the nonce.

With their business at hand completed, the party began discussing their next venture. The switchback trail in Stonehell’s canyon remained to be explored with the hope that it would lead to the Ghost Beggars’ lair and it was this goal that they decided upon initially. To that end, the adventurers checked the Mad Manor’s common room for possible replacements and/or new recruits. Here they found three souls recently arrived in Blackpool and looking to make names for themselves: Hoober, a half-elven ranger looking to earn some “forest cred” to impress the Warden Rangers; Brogo Hasslehoff, a gnomish thief of ostentatious facial hair; and Waren Loss, a cleric of the Law God undergoing his devotional period. An offer of a trial membership in the Society of Plane walkers was extended to each.

Additional fighting strength also came in an unexpected guise. As the party was recruiting, a still hurting but in much improved health gnome formally introduced himself to the party, Baragkus in particular. This was Johan Whistlewind, the poor tortured gnome that the party had rescued from the orc’s clutches when they sacked their lair. Having been bedridden for several days, Johan was now recovered enough to again seek out adventure, and as he had lost all his coin and gear to the orcs, he was desperate for the opportunity to rebuild his wealth and repay the party for saving his life. Re-equipped from the Mad Manor’s lost & found, Johan took his place amongst the party.

As the party was about to depart for Stonehell, the idea of asking about to see if there were other adventuring opportunities in town arose. Although they had been in town for almost a month, they had done very little interacting with the locals or bothering to learn of events occurring outside of their ken. It was decided that this should be corrected (much to the joy of this referee who has been stocking the immediate area with adventuring sites and working on rumor lists that he thought would never see the light of day!). It was quickly learned that strange sightings had been reported in the Nkos Forest to the north and that Lord Warden Cryt was most interested in someone investigating that. All interested beings should seek out Say’skel the Mottled, the Lord Warden’s mage and seneschal, up at the keep. So, for the first time, the party ventured off to visit the local lord’s stronghold.

The keep was more of a fort than a castle, sitting atop a motte to the south of Blackpool. A wooden palisade formerly encircled the stone keep, but the thick tree trunks were being replaced by stonework and the site was a hive of busy masons and workers engaged in their trade. The party was almost certain that they caught sight of a giant at work on the far side of the palisade, but were hustled in to meet Say’skel before they could get a better look.

Inside the keep, they spoke with the Mottled Mage, a tall, thin man with widow’s peak and precise tones who explained that one of the many small and unnamed communities of charcoal-makers and foresters in Nkos Forest had glimpsed activity around the crumbling ruins of Modnar’s Tower. Modnar was a magic-user who perished more than two hundred years ago when his tower exploded in the dark of night. Since that time, the cellar beneath the ruined tower has been used on and off by all manner of evil. It appears that the place had again become home to unseemly things and Lord Warden Cryt would very much like that taken care of. The reward for such a task would be 75 gold marks each and the good will of the local lord. This was acceptable, the party decided, and, after some last minute shopping, headed into the forest north of Blackpool.

They swiftly found the woodcolliers and learned that unseemly humanoids and strange lights had been sighted near the tower’s remains. After some less-than-clear directions were given (“Turn right before you reach the big rock.”), the party, with Hoober the ranger’s keen eyes, made their way to the ruins. And then things got interesting.

With only rubble and a moss-covered flagstone floor with a trapdoor in its center still remaining, the party decided to see if anyone was coming and going to the tower on a regular basis. It was decided that the best way to do this was to leave three of their number hidden near the tower to watch it overnight while the rest of the party moved off a hundred yards or so to camp. It was also decided that the three watchers should be placed around the clearing far away from one another so that they couldn’t easily communicate. Apparently, splitting up the party wasn’t good enough. To further ensure that this would easily become a fiasco, they chose the two gnomes (including the thief with 1 hit point) and the monk to watch the tower, with the assumption that their small size and stealth would keep them undetected. How could this possibly go wrong? (“The plan’s fool-proof!” “Fool-something.”)

So, with the rest of the party six combat rounds away if trouble started, the trio set in to watch, tossing pine cones, pebbles, and rocks at one another to wake up the next night guard as the evening passed. Just prior to dawn, Brogo the thief watched in disbelief as the tower trap door was pushed open by a large, white-furred arm. Another limb followed as an imposing albino gorilla pulled itself up into the early morning air and began sniffing the breeze.

After thrown rocks woke up the other two, Brogo and Raijek decided to attempt to sneak back to camp (since there was never any plan made as to what to do if something actually did happen at the tower during the night), but both blew their move silently rolls and the ape detected movement and strange scents. Looking about the trees (still largely bare in the early spring month of The Bloom), it saw the tiny form of Brogo slinking away in the dawn shadows. As I usually do when dealing with monsters with some intelligence, I rolled on the reaction table to determine what the big ape thought of this strange little man. The dice came up “2” indicating a very friendly and helpful response. The ape became instantly enamored of the gnome, much like Koko with her kitten, and rushed towards him to make friends. Of course, poor Brogo knew nothing of the ape’s friendly intentions and ran away screaming “We’ve got a muhnkee!” in his thick Austrian accent.
As the ape outpaced everyone but the monk, Raijek fired his crossbow at the gorilla in an attempt to attract its attention towards him, successfully striking the ape. The albino ape, now enraged that its friendship was rebuffed, turned its attention on the monk who ran towards the party’s camp some distance away. With the trio of tower guards now dashing through the early morning woods, crying warnings that the ape was amok, the remainder of the party began preparing for battle. Except for Hoober, who charged directly into the woods without pausing to armor himself. After a few rounds of running, the ape couldn’t close the distance on the monk and was led into proximity of the charging ranger, resulting in its death by longsword. It was only then that I revealed to the players the results of the poor gorilla’s reaction roll and its intentions. There was some sorrow and guilt at learning this, but the prospect of learning what else lay in the cellar was enough to renew their spirits.

Now readied for action, the party descended down the stairs beneath the trapdoor and found themselves in an octagonal chamber with passageways leading off in all four cardinal directions. Heading south, they investigated the first door they discovered. Behind it lay a disused wizard’s laboratory complete with broken arcane tools and three tables fitted with metal restraints. A doorway in the rear of the chamber led to another room.

This room contained a three-quarters finished 10’ diameter steel ring held perpendicular to the floor by a rickety wooden frame. Astronomical symbols formed in silver filigree adorned the ring and it was speculated that the device served or was intended to serve as a gateway to other lands or planes, but was either never completed or partially dismantled. Raijek plundered some of the silver wire while the rest of the party investigated a door which led to yet another room. This turned out to be a storeroom containing mundane supplies, although five silver rods were discovered partially concealed by a rotted crate. With no further options visible, the party returned to the main corridor and continued south.

Reaching a Y-shaped intersection, Hoober detected more hobnailed boot prints heading southwest. Heading in this direction, the passage swiftly turned directly south and it was at this turn that the keen ears of Brogo detected the sound of kobold voices coming from directly behind a seemingly solid wall. Inspecting the stonework, both Brogo and Fanta identified it as a secret door. Knowing kobolds lurked behind it, the party knocked politely and offered up a silver coin if the scaly humanoids would open up.

Although initially reluctant to do so, saying “Go away! We paid already!”, the kobolds finally opened up their secret portal to give the party a glimpse at the Spartan den beyond. Interrogation of the kobolds allowed the party to learn that there was a “stupid Man” living in the cellars off in the northeastern corner and that the kobolds’ bugbear landlords lived just down the hall. The party parted with the promised silver coin and left the kobolds to their rat dinner, heading down the hall on the assumption that the bugbears were likely the unseemly humanoids sighted by the woodcolliers.

A wrong turn caused the party to backtrack, but they finally came upon two doors that seemed to be possible bugbear lairs. Both door proved to be equally silent, so the party attempted to pry open the right-hand one. The door, however, was stuck and their efforts around the most god-awful hooting and howling from beyond, sounding very much like another gorilla. The sound of the beast rose and fell as if it were making rounds around the room beyond, perhaps engaging in this sort of behavior:

The party finally pried the door open (with Fanta singing a jaunty tune to “soothe the beast”) and found that an albino ape was being used as a watch-gorilla. Through a half-opened door in the room’s eastern wall, the party sighted two bugbears with spiked clubs patiently waiting to see if the ape dispatched the intruders.

The melee with the ape was short, although it nearly proved fatal to Waren, who suffered the brunt of the gorilla’s flailing arms. Luckily, the cleric of Law survived thanks to a heaping dose of hit points and his player, who had just joined our group that afternoon and never played Labyrinth Lord before, was spared his first character death in his first session.

With the ape dispatched, Hoober charged at the bugbears in a rage only possible by a ranger confronting his goblinoid foes. Johan was hot on his heels, his short sword ready for battle. As each of the warriors charged across the threshold into the adjoining room, a six-sided die clattered on the opposite side of the referee’s screen, and the covered pit located beyond the door only sprung open as Johan crossed its lid, leaving Hoober to battle the bugbears alone.

In the fight that followed, Hoober fought one bugbear while the other did his best to keep the door closed and prevent the party from assisting their friends. Eventually, Raijek kicked it open and climbed down into the pit beyond, allowing several arrows to speed into the chamber and Fanta to launch a magic missile into the fray. Waren, still suffering from grievous wounds, composed himself enough to batter the door to pieces with his mace after the bugbear had closed it yet again. This gave the rest of the party an open sightline to the battle, at the cost of dropping a broken door on poor Raijek’s head (Johan jumped away safely to the far side of the pit’s bottom). In the end, the two bugbears lay dead and the party paused to rest.

After wine was drunk to little effect, a search of the bugbears unearthed a pair of large leather gloves stained with some dried yellow substance. A chest in the corner of the room was opened to reveal more than a thousand electrum coins, all covered by a sticky yellow paste. The party decided to finally ere on the side of caution and used the gloves while shoveling this hoard into their sacks. At this point, due to the lack of restorative effects from their wineskins, the party decided to return to Blackpool to recoup (and to make things easier on their poor referee who knew there would be some changes in the player roster next meeting and PCs would have to be swapped in and out)…

Out-of-Game Note: I’d like to acknowledge Pete for stepping up to the plate to handle mapping duties while Jack the Cartographer was absent this session. Pete not only did an excellent job of maintaining a record of where the party had been, but also brought his own notebook of quad-ruled paper to the table to do so. Excellent job (see below)! What with you now checking the ceilings of rooms, utilizing a 10’pole to prod at unknown things, and mapping, most old time players would never guess you started on 3.5 D&D!

One last thing: I love dungeon gorillas. I don’t even bother to provide a logical reason for there being killer apes in dungeons. Like green slime, they’re just another accepted dungeon hazard. I would expect to see these things again in your adventures if I were you.