Session 003 Play Report
Jun 1, 2017 0:04:23 GMT -5
Admin Pete, The Semi-Retired Gamer, and 4 more like this
Post by bravewolf on Jun 1, 2017 0:04:23 GMT -5
Campaign: Arduous Adventures in the Kingdom of Arduin
Rule Sets: AD&D 1e - PHB, DMG, MMI&2, UA; Arduin Trilogy & Vol. IV for additional classes, races, special abilities, & gear; The Compleat Alchemist
Setting: Kingdom of Arduin & Stonehell Megadungeon
The Crew:
Skip: Blasto Slamo, a half-orc F1 & native Arduinian. Despite his pugilistic predilections, Blasto has always been a klutz with all weapons, excepting the dagger. Nevertheless, the warrior trained hard, specializing in shield offensives. Blasto also absconded with a laser pistol on an early adventure.
Aaron: Kelfi, human T1 & native Arduinian (native of Pavane, in fact). Lives at the Laughing Witch Inn. Despite being a city-slicker, Kelfi is at least as good as the modern, unaided meteorologist at predicting weather.
Tim: Flardin, a hill dwarf alchemist 1. Almost thaumaturgical, Flardin is capable of reading magical writings. Resides in a hovel at the edge of the city, having tired of his fellow dwarves reviling Flardin’s penchant for bookishness & arcane dabbling.
Session 3 Recap
We decided to create some new PCs because the first crew (sessions 1 & 2) is stuck in pretty well in Stonehell Dungeon and only half the players from that lot could make this session. I had Paul Siegel’s “Four Corners” one-page dungeon as backup in case the second crew didn't fancy a trip to Stonehell. I gave the players rumor cards pertinent both to Stonehell and Pavane.
It was 16th Torvaen in the city of Pavane. Flardin, Kelfi, and Blasto were bellied up to the Laughing Witch’s bar, having some drink and yarns. Flardin had a curative to deliver to the Witch’s owner, Kelfi seemed never far from the place, & Blasto just likes day-drinking. They learned of the first party’s inaugural delve into Stonehell. Another rumor loomed often in the common room’s conversations: people have been going missing after visiting the Laughing Witch Inn.
“Mishing peoplesh,” slurred Blasto, “Sounds like an advenshure widdout leavin’ home.”
“Let’s see if the proprietor can be more specific,” suggested Flardin.
Malaprond Droffell was happy to oblige his curious patrons; it was early in the day, Flardin had delivered Droffell’s salve for the gout, & the breakfast crowd had cleared out already.
“You want to know about those bums as go missing from time to time? Well, sure, okay, but lemme tell you two things first: one, it’s all true; two, I got nothing to do with it.”
“So, about once a week…”
Flardin interrupted, “Is that precisely once a week or approximately?”
“Approximately. Bums keeping schedules, like! As I was saying, about once a week a handful of these guys come into the Witch pretty late, order a drink or two, then exit out the back door. They never say a word to anybody else, just have a drink go out back. Never seen the exact same fella in here again. Probably nobody’d pay any mind but these fellas all come in wearing burlap hoods.”
“Cultists!” Blasto declared.
“They could have been kidnapped...sounds like missing persons,” offered Flardin.
Kelfi shrugged his shoulders, “Is anybody actually missing? Disappeared, in a city, that happens all the time. But has anybody come looking for these hoodies?”
Three adventurers, three opinions. Differences aside, these three souls did what any young blokes up to day drinking and naught else to do - to just keep going and lurk among till nightfall. As night approached, the thief slipped out back and hid in the alley. The half-Orc and dwarf lifted some burlap from the stables and fashioned crude hoods from the material. Flardin sat unobtrusively near the front door. Blasto sat in the gloomiest spot in the common room and glowered.
Late night, and the Witch is full. Three men come straggling in together. They are dressed in ragged, travel-worn tunics and rank-looking foot wraps. Their appalling raiment was topped off by burlap hoods. They moved straight to the bar, squeezing in among the other patrons. The alchemist donned his hood and sidled up by the new arrivals.
“Grog, kind sir,” Flardin rasped. The hoods looked at him. The nearest nodded, “Brother.” Flardin echoed the address and added, “So it is on tonight?”
“Mm,” answered one, “Did you remember your gift?”
“Gift…,” said Flardin.
“Mhm. The King don't take kindly to visitors without an offering.” He patted a bulging, shapeless belt pouch. Flardin could see that each hood carried one.
“Of course I brought the King his gift.”
“Time to go.”
The four men filed out the back door into the alley & made for the latrine. Blasto waited a moment, then went & opened the back door a crack. One of the hoods drew back the canvas sheet that covered the front of the commode, “Here we go, brothers.” The four men stepped inside & drew the sheet closed. The sheet concealed a long bench with four holes cut in it.
Back in the Witch, a drunk attempted to shove past Blasto, spitting, “Out of the way, pig-nose!” Blasto simply stiff-armed the hapless dipso and pushed him to the floor. The half-Orc then stepped into the night, lurching toward the outhouse. One hood was peering out the curtain and, spotting Blasto, hissed, “Full up, man - clear off!” Meantime, Kelfi used the distraction to sneak behind the outhouse, where he could listen & peer between the wall boards. Blasto stumbled away from the latrine to the inn’s wall and relieved himself. Satisfied that all was normal, the hood turned his attention inside the loo.
Another hood reached under the bench & lifted upward. A portion of it swung up and back on hinges. The odor emanating from the abyss below was so palpable as to nearly be visible. Flardin noticed that a rope was affixed to the bottom of the lid. The first two hoods climbed down the rope. The third grunted at Flardin, “You next.” Flardin obliged and found himself in a melange of piss and excrement. The space below was dark, but Flardin’s dwarven vision revealed the warmth of the two men who had climbed down before him. The ground also rose slightly northward. One of the hoods fumbled with flint, tinder, & torch.
Above, Kelfi saw that only one hood remained at street level. The thief stole around to the front of the latrine and put the point of his shortsword to the man’s throat. Blasto joined Kelfi & their hooded quarry.
“Where are you guys going?” Kelfi growled.
“To see the King!”
“The king of what?”
The hood stammered, “H-he never exactly said. The King of the Vagabonds, I guess.”
Kelfi grabbed the man’s pouch with his free hand. “And what gift is in here?”
“Kitties!” Blasto shouted in accusation.
Below, the dwarf and vagabonds heard voices, then a shout. One vagabond struggled to get a torch lit. The other yelled upward, “Chorley, you all right up there? Hurry down here!” In the gloom, Flardin surreptitiously dipped two darts in sleeping poison.
In the latrine, the interrogation continued. Chorley answered his accusers, “Well, I don’t think it’s cat. Look, we just buy raw meat & bring it to the King, an’ he lets us stay in the old city, okay? It’s safer down there, you know?”
“Whatever,” said Blasto & socked Chorley in the face, knocking him unconscious. Blasto & Kelfi drug Chorley fully into the latrine & Kelfi yelled down the hole, “Had to chase down a drunk - coming right down!”
Flardin recognized the voice of his adventuring companion and thrust both darts forward in the dark. The first caught one vagabond in the rump, the second dart tangled up in his mate’s tunic. The first vagabond slumped into a fetid pile of excreta with a “slorp!” His companion exclaimed, “Francois?!” Then Flardin stabbed forward again, catching the alarmed man in the lower back and sent him, too, to nap in the more.
A quick letting of bodies ensued, then the three adventurers reunited in the cesspool. “There is probably a way out to the north,” Flardin reported, “Here, Kelfi: have a torch.” Upon locating the door, well out of the stinking hole, the party lit Kelfi’s torch. Two doors beckoned, one north, the other west. Opening the northern door, the party spied a perpendicular passageway. Kelfi went right, Flardin went left, and Blasto held cover position with his laser pistol drawn.
To the east, Kelfi saw that they were near a confluence of waste streams. Occupying the land in between was a jumbled mass of stone, brick, & wooden builds, which had the appearance of having long ago fallen from above.
To the west, Flardin stole along quietly and scanned the chamber ahead with his Infravision. The room was dimly lit with oil lamps, and something like a throne occupied the raised dais in the southwestern corner of the room. A mass occupied the throne, but gave no heat signature. A large heat signature did lurk behind the throne, however.
The adventures reconvened at the door and decided to tackle the throne room first. It was, after all, clearly the place for a king.
Kelfi marched in first, followed by Blasto & Flardin. Kelfi raised his bag of meat, “I bring an offering for the king!” The thief walked slowly toward the throne. A stream of gibberish greeted his actions & culminated in an obviously imperative tone. Kelfi stopped & dropped the bag, then backed up. Flardin moved back toward the entrance and had a dart ready.
Then Blasto started walking toward the left of the throne. Again, a stream of incomprehensible imprecations issued forth from the throne. Blasto kept walking. The voice raised in anger & urgency as a bugbear stepped into view, waving a footman’s mace. In bugbear, he was telling the party that Kelfi’s offering was acceptable, but the others need to fork over or clear off. Unfortunately, none of the adventurers spoke bugbear. Before the King could try orcish or goblin on the half-orc, Blasto raised his pistol and fired. The shot took off one ear and burned the goblinoid's head. Flardin hurled a dart, while Kelfi fired a sling bullet; both missed.
Nonplussed, the King circled Blasto and clobbered the fighter with a sharp horizontal blow to the ribs. Blasto answered with a violent upward thrust of his shield. The shield bash crushed the bugbear’s mandible & forced Blasto’s spiked boss into the creature’s throat.
From there, the party looted the bugbear & his room, nabbed the oil lamps, and pressed on to the sunken city the Kelfi spotted. In the first building they entered, the party met three friendly gnomes that were scavenging for machine parts. The gnomes turned the adventurers on to the presence of a suit of Chainmail & a spear inside. After nabbing this gear, the party left the underground to sell their loot. On the way out, Flardin left an electrum piece each for the sleeping vagabonds, who weren't missing at all nor cultists, as Kelfi pointed out to his mates ad infinitum.
The session ended late on the night of 16th Torvaen. All PCs earned close to 300 XP each.
Rule Sets: AD&D 1e - PHB, DMG, MMI&2, UA; Arduin Trilogy & Vol. IV for additional classes, races, special abilities, & gear; The Compleat Alchemist
Setting: Kingdom of Arduin & Stonehell Megadungeon
The Crew:
Skip: Blasto Slamo, a half-orc F1 & native Arduinian. Despite his pugilistic predilections, Blasto has always been a klutz with all weapons, excepting the dagger. Nevertheless, the warrior trained hard, specializing in shield offensives. Blasto also absconded with a laser pistol on an early adventure.
Aaron: Kelfi, human T1 & native Arduinian (native of Pavane, in fact). Lives at the Laughing Witch Inn. Despite being a city-slicker, Kelfi is at least as good as the modern, unaided meteorologist at predicting weather.
Tim: Flardin, a hill dwarf alchemist 1. Almost thaumaturgical, Flardin is capable of reading magical writings. Resides in a hovel at the edge of the city, having tired of his fellow dwarves reviling Flardin’s penchant for bookishness & arcane dabbling.
Session 3 Recap
We decided to create some new PCs because the first crew (sessions 1 & 2) is stuck in pretty well in Stonehell Dungeon and only half the players from that lot could make this session. I had Paul Siegel’s “Four Corners” one-page dungeon as backup in case the second crew didn't fancy a trip to Stonehell. I gave the players rumor cards pertinent both to Stonehell and Pavane.
It was 16th Torvaen in the city of Pavane. Flardin, Kelfi, and Blasto were bellied up to the Laughing Witch’s bar, having some drink and yarns. Flardin had a curative to deliver to the Witch’s owner, Kelfi seemed never far from the place, & Blasto just likes day-drinking. They learned of the first party’s inaugural delve into Stonehell. Another rumor loomed often in the common room’s conversations: people have been going missing after visiting the Laughing Witch Inn.
“Mishing peoplesh,” slurred Blasto, “Sounds like an advenshure widdout leavin’ home.”
“Let’s see if the proprietor can be more specific,” suggested Flardin.
Malaprond Droffell was happy to oblige his curious patrons; it was early in the day, Flardin had delivered Droffell’s salve for the gout, & the breakfast crowd had cleared out already.
“You want to know about those bums as go missing from time to time? Well, sure, okay, but lemme tell you two things first: one, it’s all true; two, I got nothing to do with it.”
“So, about once a week…”
Flardin interrupted, “Is that precisely once a week or approximately?”
“Approximately. Bums keeping schedules, like! As I was saying, about once a week a handful of these guys come into the Witch pretty late, order a drink or two, then exit out the back door. They never say a word to anybody else, just have a drink go out back. Never seen the exact same fella in here again. Probably nobody’d pay any mind but these fellas all come in wearing burlap hoods.”
“Cultists!” Blasto declared.
“They could have been kidnapped...sounds like missing persons,” offered Flardin.
Kelfi shrugged his shoulders, “Is anybody actually missing? Disappeared, in a city, that happens all the time. But has anybody come looking for these hoodies?”
Three adventurers, three opinions. Differences aside, these three souls did what any young blokes up to day drinking and naught else to do - to just keep going and lurk among till nightfall. As night approached, the thief slipped out back and hid in the alley. The half-Orc and dwarf lifted some burlap from the stables and fashioned crude hoods from the material. Flardin sat unobtrusively near the front door. Blasto sat in the gloomiest spot in the common room and glowered.
Late night, and the Witch is full. Three men come straggling in together. They are dressed in ragged, travel-worn tunics and rank-looking foot wraps. Their appalling raiment was topped off by burlap hoods. They moved straight to the bar, squeezing in among the other patrons. The alchemist donned his hood and sidled up by the new arrivals.
“Grog, kind sir,” Flardin rasped. The hoods looked at him. The nearest nodded, “Brother.” Flardin echoed the address and added, “So it is on tonight?”
“Mm,” answered one, “Did you remember your gift?”
“Gift…,” said Flardin.
“Mhm. The King don't take kindly to visitors without an offering.” He patted a bulging, shapeless belt pouch. Flardin could see that each hood carried one.
“Of course I brought the King his gift.”
“Time to go.”
The four men filed out the back door into the alley & made for the latrine. Blasto waited a moment, then went & opened the back door a crack. One of the hoods drew back the canvas sheet that covered the front of the commode, “Here we go, brothers.” The four men stepped inside & drew the sheet closed. The sheet concealed a long bench with four holes cut in it.
Back in the Witch, a drunk attempted to shove past Blasto, spitting, “Out of the way, pig-nose!” Blasto simply stiff-armed the hapless dipso and pushed him to the floor. The half-Orc then stepped into the night, lurching toward the outhouse. One hood was peering out the curtain and, spotting Blasto, hissed, “Full up, man - clear off!” Meantime, Kelfi used the distraction to sneak behind the outhouse, where he could listen & peer between the wall boards. Blasto stumbled away from the latrine to the inn’s wall and relieved himself. Satisfied that all was normal, the hood turned his attention inside the loo.
Another hood reached under the bench & lifted upward. A portion of it swung up and back on hinges. The odor emanating from the abyss below was so palpable as to nearly be visible. Flardin noticed that a rope was affixed to the bottom of the lid. The first two hoods climbed down the rope. The third grunted at Flardin, “You next.” Flardin obliged and found himself in a melange of piss and excrement. The space below was dark, but Flardin’s dwarven vision revealed the warmth of the two men who had climbed down before him. The ground also rose slightly northward. One of the hoods fumbled with flint, tinder, & torch.
Above, Kelfi saw that only one hood remained at street level. The thief stole around to the front of the latrine and put the point of his shortsword to the man’s throat. Blasto joined Kelfi & their hooded quarry.
“Where are you guys going?” Kelfi growled.
“To see the King!”
“The king of what?”
The hood stammered, “H-he never exactly said. The King of the Vagabonds, I guess.”
Kelfi grabbed the man’s pouch with his free hand. “And what gift is in here?”
“Kitties!” Blasto shouted in accusation.
Below, the dwarf and vagabonds heard voices, then a shout. One vagabond struggled to get a torch lit. The other yelled upward, “Chorley, you all right up there? Hurry down here!” In the gloom, Flardin surreptitiously dipped two darts in sleeping poison.
In the latrine, the interrogation continued. Chorley answered his accusers, “Well, I don’t think it’s cat. Look, we just buy raw meat & bring it to the King, an’ he lets us stay in the old city, okay? It’s safer down there, you know?”
“Whatever,” said Blasto & socked Chorley in the face, knocking him unconscious. Blasto & Kelfi drug Chorley fully into the latrine & Kelfi yelled down the hole, “Had to chase down a drunk - coming right down!”
Flardin recognized the voice of his adventuring companion and thrust both darts forward in the dark. The first caught one vagabond in the rump, the second dart tangled up in his mate’s tunic. The first vagabond slumped into a fetid pile of excreta with a “slorp!” His companion exclaimed, “Francois?!” Then Flardin stabbed forward again, catching the alarmed man in the lower back and sent him, too, to nap in the more.
A quick letting of bodies ensued, then the three adventurers reunited in the cesspool. “There is probably a way out to the north,” Flardin reported, “Here, Kelfi: have a torch.” Upon locating the door, well out of the stinking hole, the party lit Kelfi’s torch. Two doors beckoned, one north, the other west. Opening the northern door, the party spied a perpendicular passageway. Kelfi went right, Flardin went left, and Blasto held cover position with his laser pistol drawn.
To the east, Kelfi saw that they were near a confluence of waste streams. Occupying the land in between was a jumbled mass of stone, brick, & wooden builds, which had the appearance of having long ago fallen from above.
To the west, Flardin stole along quietly and scanned the chamber ahead with his Infravision. The room was dimly lit with oil lamps, and something like a throne occupied the raised dais in the southwestern corner of the room. A mass occupied the throne, but gave no heat signature. A large heat signature did lurk behind the throne, however.
The adventures reconvened at the door and decided to tackle the throne room first. It was, after all, clearly the place for a king.
Kelfi marched in first, followed by Blasto & Flardin. Kelfi raised his bag of meat, “I bring an offering for the king!” The thief walked slowly toward the throne. A stream of gibberish greeted his actions & culminated in an obviously imperative tone. Kelfi stopped & dropped the bag, then backed up. Flardin moved back toward the entrance and had a dart ready.
Then Blasto started walking toward the left of the throne. Again, a stream of incomprehensible imprecations issued forth from the throne. Blasto kept walking. The voice raised in anger & urgency as a bugbear stepped into view, waving a footman’s mace. In bugbear, he was telling the party that Kelfi’s offering was acceptable, but the others need to fork over or clear off. Unfortunately, none of the adventurers spoke bugbear. Before the King could try orcish or goblin on the half-orc, Blasto raised his pistol and fired. The shot took off one ear and burned the goblinoid's head. Flardin hurled a dart, while Kelfi fired a sling bullet; both missed.
Nonplussed, the King circled Blasto and clobbered the fighter with a sharp horizontal blow to the ribs. Blasto answered with a violent upward thrust of his shield. The shield bash crushed the bugbear’s mandible & forced Blasto’s spiked boss into the creature’s throat.
From there, the party looted the bugbear & his room, nabbed the oil lamps, and pressed on to the sunken city the Kelfi spotted. In the first building they entered, the party met three friendly gnomes that were scavenging for machine parts. The gnomes turned the adventurers on to the presence of a suit of Chainmail & a spear inside. After nabbing this gear, the party left the underground to sell their loot. On the way out, Flardin left an electrum piece each for the sleeping vagabonds, who weren't missing at all nor cultists, as Kelfi pointed out to his mates ad infinitum.
The session ended late on the night of 16th Torvaen. All PCs earned close to 300 XP each.