In preparing for my first Core World Labyrinth Lord session on Monday, I have been statting up a few key races. Of course, one of the main ones I want in there for an all-underground campaign are the Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin) from Gygax's D1-2-3 series, and a new race I am introducing as a major player in the Core World campaign, the Deep Hobbits. So I have generated Labyrinth Lord stats for both races. Hopefully I am not repeating anybody's work here -- has someone else already converted Svirfneblin for B/X / Labyrinth Lord use?
At any rate, here are my stat blocks for Deep Gnomes and Deep Hobbits.
Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin)
# Encountered: 2d8 (5d8)
Alignment: Neutral
Move: 90’ (30’)
AC: 2
HD: 3 + 6
Attacks: 1 (weapon)
Damage: per weapon
Save: D3
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: XX
XP: 170
See p. 28 of Module D1-2 for a complete description of the Deep Gnome.
Deep Hobbit (Darkfoot)
# Encountered: 3d6 (5d8)
Alignment: Neutral
Move: 90’ (30’)
AC: 4
HD: 1
Attacks: 1 (weapon)
Damage: 1d6 or weapon
Save: H1
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: VII (XXI)
XP: 13
Slightly tougher than their surface-bound cousins, Deep Hobbits live their entire lives in underground caves deep beneath the surface of the ground (the second Hoard Class figure is for when Deep Hobbits are encountered in their home cavern). Deep Hobbits may hide in shadows or behind cover in underground caverns and labyrinths with 90% ability. Like Arandish rodians, deep hobbits have limited infravision (30' range). Like their allies the deep gnomes, deep hobbits may use the blur ability (as per the 2nd Level Illusionist spell) once per day.
Like above-ground hobbits, Deep Hobbits gain a +1 to initiative when alone or in parties of deep hobbits, and a +1 to all missile attacks. They prefer crossbows, short swords, and hand axes as favored weapons. Their skin is dark gray to black, and they do have hairy feet!
Playing Deep Hobbits as PCs
Deep hobbits level as regular hobbits, with the following features:
Requirements: DEX 9, CON 9
Prime Requisites: STR and DEX
Hit Dice: 1d6
Max. Level: 8
Allies: morlocks, deep gnomes, dwarves, gnomes, some surface hobbits
Enemies: deep elves, hobgoblins, drow, ponaturi (Kua-Toans), mind flayers
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Recent Developments and Future Plans
Obviously, I've been away from the blog for awhile. Part of this is because the campaign it was in large part meant to document, the Arandish Labyrinth Lord Campaign 2010, has reached a pausing point or caesura and has necessitated some recent re-thinking and re-configuring.
You see, one of our key players leaves town for fieldwork purposes four or five months of every year. That player left town just a few weeks ago, and the group cohesion / camaraderie has been so great amongst these three players and their PCs that it was unanimously decided at our final session together to put that campaign on "hold" until that player (Innominus' player) comes back to town in early July. Which isn't to say that the rest of us won't start up and play an alternative Labyrinth Lord campaign in that player's absence. . . but more on that in a moment.
The biggest development impacting this group's ongoing RPG'ing ability in the future is not so much Innominus' player's temporary absence, but the fact that not just one but two of the remaining three participants -- myself and one of the other players -- have accepted jobs in other states and cities this fall. We have been brainstorming ways to keep the campaign going via webcams and skype once we two depart, and I think we may have a viable technical solution soon. I know we have the collective will: we have pledged to keep the Arandish Labyrinth Lord Campaign 2010 going remotely via cybertronic devices! So expect that campaign (and reports on it) to resume sometime in September.
Meanwhile, I have two regular players and myself, plus a new player who has expressed interest in joining us starting next session (this coming Monday May 10). So I am using this "campaign reboot" opportunity to explore a wacky idea I have been camping on for some time: a completely underground campaign. Full of underground cities, underground civilizations, underground races doing epic battle and complex trade with each other. . . a setting I have dubbed Core World. Monday's PCs will start in a locale called Fang City, a dwarven stronghold untold miles beneath the surface of northeastern Ara. They will roll up new characters, and have been advised that while all standard Labyrinth Lord and Arandish races and classes are permitted, the most common races are dwarves and hobbits, with humans being fairly rare and elves and rodians being extremely rare.
You see, one of our key players leaves town for fieldwork purposes four or five months of every year. That player left town just a few weeks ago, and the group cohesion / camaraderie has been so great amongst these three players and their PCs that it was unanimously decided at our final session together to put that campaign on "hold" until that player (Innominus' player) comes back to town in early July. Which isn't to say that the rest of us won't start up and play an alternative Labyrinth Lord campaign in that player's absence. . . but more on that in a moment.
The biggest development impacting this group's ongoing RPG'ing ability in the future is not so much Innominus' player's temporary absence, but the fact that not just one but two of the remaining three participants -- myself and one of the other players -- have accepted jobs in other states and cities this fall. We have been brainstorming ways to keep the campaign going via webcams and skype once we two depart, and I think we may have a viable technical solution soon. I know we have the collective will: we have pledged to keep the Arandish Labyrinth Lord Campaign 2010 going remotely via cybertronic devices! So expect that campaign (and reports on it) to resume sometime in September.
Meanwhile, I have two regular players and myself, plus a new player who has expressed interest in joining us starting next session (this coming Monday May 10). So I am using this "campaign reboot" opportunity to explore a wacky idea I have been camping on for some time: a completely underground campaign. Full of underground cities, underground civilizations, underground races doing epic battle and complex trade with each other. . . a setting I have dubbed Core World. Monday's PCs will start in a locale called Fang City, a dwarven stronghold untold miles beneath the surface of northeastern Ara. They will roll up new characters, and have been advised that while all standard Labyrinth Lord and Arandish races and classes are permitted, the most common races are dwarves and hobbits, with humans being fairly rare and elves and rodians being extremely rare.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Arandish Campaign 2010 - Sessions 10 and 11
This session report could be called "A Tale of Two Modules."
Session 10 began with the PC's entering a weird valley high on Mount Fenris in Minoch, against the warnings of Zeke Duncaster, an insane hermit whom lives on the mountainside below the valley. Aficionados will recognize this as the opening of James Raggi's Death Frost Doom, and indeed I am happy to say I successfully lured my party into running through the first couple portions of it. Upon reaching the snowy valley, the PCs made straight for the cabin, and explored about half of it before deciding to head down the vertical tunnel revealed by opening the trapdoor in the main room. They made it down, and to the large chapel without much event, then Uncle Junkal (Bard-2) played the bone organ, thereby poisoning himself. He failed his save and died. At which point, already spooked by their uncanny surroundings, the remaining PCs decided to carry the fallen bard's body out of the dungeon and get him back to the nearest Minochian town (Farn Junction as it turned out) that contained a cleric of sufficient levels to cast Raise Dead.
Session 11 began with the PCs in Farn Junction. Hazel and Innominus decided to wait around in town for the two weeks Uncle Junkal needed to recover from his recent raising from the dead. The NPC Dalgoop (Ranger-2) ventured ahead to Fortinbras (and points further south) to begin gathering intelligence for the group's presumed next mission (i.e., to make contact with the Mizarians and enlist their aid in investigating the rumored trollish threat far to the south).
Once Uncle Junkal was ready to travel, the PCs made for Fortinbras, encountering a vicious rock troll on the way! I was most excited by this random encounter, as the rock troll is a badass super-troll indigenous to Ara -- maybe the first Ara-specific monster the PCs have yet encountered. Yet in a brilliant stroke, Uncle Junkal charm person-ed the sonofabitching rock troll before it landed a single attack.
The PCs -- with the exception of Uncle Junkal, who waited outside town with his newly-charmed rock troll -- then made their way into town, to make contact with Dalgoop and gather rumors about other local opportunities for dungeoneering and loot-gathering.
Hazel and Innominus began hearing tell of a nearby underground dungeon that had once been an ancient prison. Sufficiently intrigued, and unable to find Dalgoop, the PCs left Fortinbras and headed southwest toward a lonely Minochian peak called Mount Greystone. Once in the foothills, they came across a mortally wounded human adventurer stumbling through the woods. Actually, not yet realizing he was a mortally wounded human, Hazel and one of the NPCs tripped him with a tripwire, and he sprawled face-first into the muck. He mumbled something about "hobgoblins" before dying.
The group ventured uphill to find themselves in a small box canyon with ruined fortifications across its mouth. they explored the canyon for awhile, finding a strangely warm stream, and an arched entrance at the far end of the canyon with foreboding verses about a "stony hell" etched into a plaque above. The party camped for the night near a cave with a hot-spring on the north side of the canyon. In the earliest morning watch, Innominus spotted goblins moving furtively from a small copse on the south side of the canyon toward the east and the ruined fortress at the canyon mouth.
Welcome to Stonehell!
Session 10 began with the PC's entering a weird valley high on Mount Fenris in Minoch, against the warnings of Zeke Duncaster, an insane hermit whom lives on the mountainside below the valley. Aficionados will recognize this as the opening of James Raggi's Death Frost Doom, and indeed I am happy to say I successfully lured my party into running through the first couple portions of it. Upon reaching the snowy valley, the PCs made straight for the cabin, and explored about half of it before deciding to head down the vertical tunnel revealed by opening the trapdoor in the main room. They made it down, and to the large chapel without much event, then Uncle Junkal (Bard-2) played the bone organ, thereby poisoning himself. He failed his save and died. At which point, already spooked by their uncanny surroundings, the remaining PCs decided to carry the fallen bard's body out of the dungeon and get him back to the nearest Minochian town (Farn Junction as it turned out) that contained a cleric of sufficient levels to cast Raise Dead.
Session 11 began with the PCs in Farn Junction. Hazel and Innominus decided to wait around in town for the two weeks Uncle Junkal needed to recover from his recent raising from the dead. The NPC Dalgoop (Ranger-2) ventured ahead to Fortinbras (and points further south) to begin gathering intelligence for the group's presumed next mission (i.e., to make contact with the Mizarians and enlist their aid in investigating the rumored trollish threat far to the south).
Once Uncle Junkal was ready to travel, the PCs made for Fortinbras, encountering a vicious rock troll on the way! I was most excited by this random encounter, as the rock troll is a badass super-troll indigenous to Ara -- maybe the first Ara-specific monster the PCs have yet encountered. Yet in a brilliant stroke, Uncle Junkal charm person-ed the sonofabitching rock troll before it landed a single attack.
The PCs -- with the exception of Uncle Junkal, who waited outside town with his newly-charmed rock troll -- then made their way into town, to make contact with Dalgoop and gather rumors about other local opportunities for dungeoneering and loot-gathering.
Hazel and Innominus began hearing tell of a nearby underground dungeon that had once been an ancient prison. Sufficiently intrigued, and unable to find Dalgoop, the PCs left Fortinbras and headed southwest toward a lonely Minochian peak called Mount Greystone. Once in the foothills, they came across a mortally wounded human adventurer stumbling through the woods. Actually, not yet realizing he was a mortally wounded human, Hazel and one of the NPCs tripped him with a tripwire, and he sprawled face-first into the muck. He mumbled something about "hobgoblins" before dying.
The group ventured uphill to find themselves in a small box canyon with ruined fortifications across its mouth. they explored the canyon for awhile, finding a strangely warm stream, and an arched entrance at the far end of the canyon with foreboding verses about a "stony hell" etched into a plaque above. The party camped for the night near a cave with a hot-spring on the north side of the canyon. In the earliest morning watch, Innominus spotted goblins moving furtively from a small copse on the south side of the canyon toward the east and the ruined fortress at the canyon mouth.
Welcome to Stonehell!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Arandish Campaign 2010 - Session 9
Last session, the party -- consisting of PCs Hazel (Ftr-1), Innominus (Clr-2), and Uncle Junkal (Bard-1) plus NPC Dalgoop (Ranger-2) and hirelings Snikrop and Meathook (both Ftr-1) -- ventured south into the strange, mountainous land of Minoch.
Near the end of last session, four days into their southward journey, the PCs met a small group of cloaked humanoids leaving the Minochian town of Farn Junction, heading north toward Kaladar with a strangely empty-seeming wagon (most northbound travelers are contracted to haul goods to the Free City). The two groups did not speak, but the PCs got an uneasy or uncanny feeling about the five cloaked figures escorting the empty-seeming wagon. But they passed the cloaked weirdos by and, at the outset of this session, entered the town.
Once in town, Dalgoop (the NPC ranger) made for the Lazy Basilisk, a local inn friendly to traveling adventurers, to make contact with some people he knows. Innominus and the hirelings hung out at the bar with Dalgoop, while Uncle Junkal performed his juggling act in the streets (making a small amount of sp) and Hazel sent her kestrel on a reconnaissance flight over the whole town.
The kestrel soon returned, agitated about something it had seen, and it led Hazel to the southeastern end of Farn Junction, to a group of secluded, windowless, cylindrical huts in the woods a good distance off the main road. As a clever disguise, Hazel donned her bearskin, which she had had tanned in Kaladar last session, and then she crept through the woods toward the huts. At one point an arrow or bolt whizzed through the air near her, but she crouched down and froze, and no further missiles were loosed her direction. Emboldened by the sound of retreating footsteps, Hazel made her way forward through the woods again and reached the first hut, finding the door padlocked. She then decided to return to town to gather the other PCs before attempting to break in to the huts.
It was now late afternoon, and the whole party sans Dalgoop headed to the southeast end of town and crept up on the huts. Hazel used her axe to break the first padlock, revealing an empty hut with some blood and gory remains on the wood-plank wall and dirt floor. The second hut revealed a fresh grave in one corner of the dirt floor, but no sooner did Innominus expose a dead arm than the party heard footsteps approaching through the woods, and fled the scene. Night had fallen and Uncle Junkal in particular seemed convinced that the huts had some connection to the undead.
The next morning the party left Farn Junction (as planned) and headed further south -- and further up in elevation -- toward the mountain town of Fortinbras. During the three-day journey to Fortinbras, the party was twice attacked by monsters, first a large roc and then a saber-toothed tiger. In these skirmishes they lost both their hirelings: Meathook was dispatched by the roc, and the tiger slashed Snikrop to ribbons before anyone knew what hit him.
But despite these losses, the party made it to the small town of Fortinbras, and once there, fueled by rumors of an eccentric wise man thought to dwell on the mountain slopes nearby, they hired a local expert mountaineer named Crazy Ted to lead them on an expedition to find said wise man. With Crazy Ted's help, they climbed the steep mountain and soon found old Zeke Duncaster, a very strange yet dedicated man who was busy carving wooden gravestones for hundreds of people he claims have been dead a long time. The party attempted to ask Zeke questions about the local area, especially about any underground caves or passages that might lead to treasure, but Zeke was reluctant to advise them, and became extremely agitated when Innominus showed him an idol depicting Orcus. The hermit Duncaster also seemed to recognize the bone tile Innominus showed him, though he refused to speak about that either. The session ended with the party making camp in the same clearing as Duncaster's lean-to, with the intention of (next session) heading up the mountain to a "bad place" Duncaster mentioned. . .
Near the end of last session, four days into their southward journey, the PCs met a small group of cloaked humanoids leaving the Minochian town of Farn Junction, heading north toward Kaladar with a strangely empty-seeming wagon (most northbound travelers are contracted to haul goods to the Free City). The two groups did not speak, but the PCs got an uneasy or uncanny feeling about the five cloaked figures escorting the empty-seeming wagon. But they passed the cloaked weirdos by and, at the outset of this session, entered the town.
Once in town, Dalgoop (the NPC ranger) made for the Lazy Basilisk, a local inn friendly to traveling adventurers, to make contact with some people he knows. Innominus and the hirelings hung out at the bar with Dalgoop, while Uncle Junkal performed his juggling act in the streets (making a small amount of sp) and Hazel sent her kestrel on a reconnaissance flight over the whole town.
The kestrel soon returned, agitated about something it had seen, and it led Hazel to the southeastern end of Farn Junction, to a group of secluded, windowless, cylindrical huts in the woods a good distance off the main road. As a clever disguise, Hazel donned her bearskin, which she had had tanned in Kaladar last session, and then she crept through the woods toward the huts. At one point an arrow or bolt whizzed through the air near her, but she crouched down and froze, and no further missiles were loosed her direction. Emboldened by the sound of retreating footsteps, Hazel made her way forward through the woods again and reached the first hut, finding the door padlocked. She then decided to return to town to gather the other PCs before attempting to break in to the huts.
It was now late afternoon, and the whole party sans Dalgoop headed to the southeast end of town and crept up on the huts. Hazel used her axe to break the first padlock, revealing an empty hut with some blood and gory remains on the wood-plank wall and dirt floor. The second hut revealed a fresh grave in one corner of the dirt floor, but no sooner did Innominus expose a dead arm than the party heard footsteps approaching through the woods, and fled the scene. Night had fallen and Uncle Junkal in particular seemed convinced that the huts had some connection to the undead.
The next morning the party left Farn Junction (as planned) and headed further south -- and further up in elevation -- toward the mountain town of Fortinbras. During the three-day journey to Fortinbras, the party was twice attacked by monsters, first a large roc and then a saber-toothed tiger. In these skirmishes they lost both their hirelings: Meathook was dispatched by the roc, and the tiger slashed Snikrop to ribbons before anyone knew what hit him.
But despite these losses, the party made it to the small town of Fortinbras, and once there, fueled by rumors of an eccentric wise man thought to dwell on the mountain slopes nearby, they hired a local expert mountaineer named Crazy Ted to lead them on an expedition to find said wise man. With Crazy Ted's help, they climbed the steep mountain and soon found old Zeke Duncaster, a very strange yet dedicated man who was busy carving wooden gravestones for hundreds of people he claims have been dead a long time. The party attempted to ask Zeke questions about the local area, especially about any underground caves or passages that might lead to treasure, but Zeke was reluctant to advise them, and became extremely agitated when Innominus showed him an idol depicting Orcus. The hermit Duncaster also seemed to recognize the bone tile Innominus showed him, though he refused to speak about that either. The session ended with the party making camp in the same clearing as Duncaster's lean-to, with the intention of (next session) heading up the mountain to a "bad place" Duncaster mentioned. . .
Playing Clerics Wrong All These Years?
Live and learn, that's what I say.
I have never been a great fan of clerics. In fact, arguably I am no great of fan of clerics or magic-users, and I must admit that to this day I don't know how to play those character types well. But to be honest, I have known very few clerics, on either side of the gaming table; most of the people I played with growing up had preferences for fighters, thieves and magic-users, so even cleric NPCs were rare. I guess clerics were kind of seen as boring healer-types -- in no small part because my early gaming groups rarely bothered with substantively addressing the issue of gods in the game-world. I think I played many years in the hobby in fairly atheistic gaming groups, so there just weren't many clerics around because none of us found the concept of gods or divine power very compelling. Adding to this was the fact that we were all heavily influenced by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, so we all wanted to be Strider (rangers) or Gandalf (magic-users). I knew a few guys who were really into playing druids, especially as I got a bit older, but it is not until very recently (this year) that I have really began to look carefully at clerics and realize how BADASS they are.
I owe my newfound admiration for clerics to one of the players in my current campaign, who is playing Innominus the cleric. In what turned out to be a very humbling and educational exchange for me, Innominus' player emailed me recently to ask a couple questions about how cleric spell acquisition works:
What's the deal with spells? I've always assumed (though I never really played a cleric before, because I mistakenly viewed them as too priestly and therefore uninteresting) that e.g., the first level cleric selects one first level spell and that's the one spell they know, period. They pray to have use of it one time each day. In contrast to elves and MU, they don't need a spellbook, etc. But the wording of the [Labyrinth Lord] basic edition (p. 19) is maybe vague enough to leave room for me to overthink this:
"Clerics do not study spells from books, but instead receive the knowledge of how to cast specific spells through prayer to their gods. For this reason, clerics have access to all clerical spells they are capable of casting when they pray for spells."
So does 'all the clerical spells they are capable of casting' mean that one spell as I had been thinking of it (in the case of Innominus, Cure Light Wounds), or does that mean any of the 8 first level spells can be prayed for since Cleric-1 is capable in the abstract of casting any first level spell?
I dashed the player off a quick email response, saying that I
have tended to limit clerics to "knowing" one spell, so they pray for that same one back etc. and do not know a second one until they level up or get a scroll or whatever (I *think* AD&D set this in stone so that's probably where I got it from -- I will check my Player's Handbook for this). However, many DMs -- and note that I could easily be persuaded to play it this way -- interpret that passage you quote to mean that a cleric may pray for a different spell or spells every day, i.e., any of the any of the 8 first level spells that can be prayed for. Some refs. even add a twist to this and make the cleric roll *randomly* for his/her spell(s) each new day!
But then I read my Player's Handbook, and then went back once again to the Labyrinth Lord rulebook and read the spell acquisition passage very carefully, and realized that I HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT HOW CLERICAL SPELL ACQUISITION WORKS ALL THESE YEARS. I think my early disinterest in clerics and personal tendency to avoid wizards and clerics has led me to assume that those two classes work more similarly to each other than they in fact do. In my mind I overlaid the M-U spell restrictions (i.e., only the specific spells you memorize are castable) upon clerics, which is not how it reads in Holmes nor the AD&D PH! I completely made this up, because of course clerics (in Holmes onward anyway) get access to all the spells they are capable of casting via divine caveat -- each day (or perhaps each adventure as per Holmes -- though that may also mean the same thing as "day") the cleric prays for an new spell or spells! Combine this with their potent undead-turning abilities and now I see that CLERICS ARE BADASS! And now I feel silly for not understanding them and for grossly overlooking their greatness all these years.
I have never been a great fan of clerics. In fact, arguably I am no great of fan of clerics or magic-users, and I must admit that to this day I don't know how to play those character types well. But to be honest, I have known very few clerics, on either side of the gaming table; most of the people I played with growing up had preferences for fighters, thieves and magic-users, so even cleric NPCs were rare. I guess clerics were kind of seen as boring healer-types -- in no small part because my early gaming groups rarely bothered with substantively addressing the issue of gods in the game-world. I think I played many years in the hobby in fairly atheistic gaming groups, so there just weren't many clerics around because none of us found the concept of gods or divine power very compelling. Adding to this was the fact that we were all heavily influenced by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, so we all wanted to be Strider (rangers) or Gandalf (magic-users). I knew a few guys who were really into playing druids, especially as I got a bit older, but it is not until very recently (this year) that I have really began to look carefully at clerics and realize how BADASS they are.
I owe my newfound admiration for clerics to one of the players in my current campaign, who is playing Innominus the cleric. In what turned out to be a very humbling and educational exchange for me, Innominus' player emailed me recently to ask a couple questions about how cleric spell acquisition works:
What's the deal with spells? I've always assumed (though I never really played a cleric before, because I mistakenly viewed them as too priestly and therefore uninteresting) that e.g., the first level cleric selects one first level spell and that's the one spell they know, period. They pray to have use of it one time each day. In contrast to elves and MU, they don't need a spellbook, etc. But the wording of the [Labyrinth Lord] basic edition (p. 19) is maybe vague enough to leave room for me to overthink this:
"Clerics do not study spells from books, but instead receive the knowledge of how to cast specific spells through prayer to their gods. For this reason, clerics have access to all clerical spells they are capable of casting when they pray for spells."
So does 'all the clerical spells they are capable of casting' mean that one spell as I had been thinking of it (in the case of Innominus, Cure Light Wounds), or does that mean any of the 8 first level spells can be prayed for since Cleric-1 is capable in the abstract of casting any first level spell?
I dashed the player off a quick email response, saying that I
have tended to limit clerics to "knowing" one spell, so they pray for that same one back etc. and do not know a second one until they level up or get a scroll or whatever (I *think* AD&D set this in stone so that's probably where I got it from -- I will check my Player's Handbook for this). However, many DMs -- and note that I could easily be persuaded to play it this way -- interpret that passage you quote to mean that a cleric may pray for a different spell or spells every day, i.e., any of the any of the 8 first level spells that can be prayed for. Some refs. even add a twist to this and make the cleric roll *randomly* for his/her spell(s) each new day!
But then I read my Player's Handbook, and then went back once again to the Labyrinth Lord rulebook and read the spell acquisition passage very carefully, and realized that I HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT HOW CLERICAL SPELL ACQUISITION WORKS ALL THESE YEARS. I think my early disinterest in clerics and personal tendency to avoid wizards and clerics has led me to assume that those two classes work more similarly to each other than they in fact do. In my mind I overlaid the M-U spell restrictions (i.e., only the specific spells you memorize are castable) upon clerics, which is not how it reads in Holmes nor the AD&D PH! I completely made this up, because of course clerics (in Holmes onward anyway) get access to all the spells they are capable of casting via divine caveat -- each day (or perhaps each adventure as per Holmes -- though that may also mean the same thing as "day") the cleric prays for an new spell or spells! Combine this with their potent undead-turning abilities and now I see that CLERICS ARE BADASS! And now I feel silly for not understanding them and for grossly overlooking their greatness all these years.
Arandish Campaign 2010 - Session 8
I was out of town all last week, so this is a belated report on last week's session. Last night's session report will soon follow.
Last week, the party -- consisting of Hazel (Ftr-1), Innominus (Clr-2), and Uncle Junkal (Bard-1) -- began in the Free City of Kaladar. They chose to lodge at the Orc's Balls Inn, a somewhat seedy establishment near Kaladar's South Gate that is owned and operated by Fred, an old friend and street contact of Uncle Junkal's. The dawn following their first night in town, a ghoul attacked Innominus and No-name (Innominus' follower) in their room at the Orc's Balls Inn, killing No-name. Fred insisted that this was a highly unusual incident and claimed he had rarely seen a ghoul inside the city limits before.
After lamenting the passing of No-name, Innominus and the party decided to avail themselves of the services of Sawith the Scribe of Kaladar in order to learn more about the origins and possible purpose of the ivory tile they found in the wight's office beneath the orc complex. For a somewhat hefty fee, Sawith told them that the tile might be one of two things, or some combination of both: (1) a coffin marker from an ancient Noffellian civilization, and/or (2) an artifact relating to some legendary (but never proven to exist) underground planar nodes, where (according to legend) one may use the tile in conjunction with some kind of powerful inter-planar gate. But even the great Sawith himself could offer little more information than that.
In the course of inquiring with Fred about the ghoul and doing their business with Sawith, the group learned several rumors about local adventuring opportunities. The only one they concretely followed up on was a rumored meeting of a clandestine organization called the Society of the Cheetah Mask, set for midnight at the Greedy Lion. The PCs attended, and met five representatives of the SCM, who were all wearing cheetah masks. The PCs ended up hiring themselves out to the Society of the Cheetah Mask, which the representatives explained is an organization working to end the territorial disputes between Delzar and Mizar. The members of the SCM believe that the true threat to Ara lies to the south, where vicious and super-numerous troll hordes are rumored to exist. Increased trollish raids in southern Mizarian villages have caused the SCM to mobilize, hiring mercs out of Kaladar to head south and gather intelligence about the troll hordes and their plans.
So, accompanied by a ranger and SCM member named Dalgoop, plus old hireling Snikrop and new hireling Meathook (a 1st level Fighter with a flail), the party set off south through Minoch, eventually headed to the Mizarian frontier to (hopefully) spy on some trolls.
To be continued. . . .
Last week, the party -- consisting of Hazel (Ftr-1), Innominus (Clr-2), and Uncle Junkal (Bard-1) -- began in the Free City of Kaladar. They chose to lodge at the Orc's Balls Inn, a somewhat seedy establishment near Kaladar's South Gate that is owned and operated by Fred, an old friend and street contact of Uncle Junkal's. The dawn following their first night in town, a ghoul attacked Innominus and No-name (Innominus' follower) in their room at the Orc's Balls Inn, killing No-name. Fred insisted that this was a highly unusual incident and claimed he had rarely seen a ghoul inside the city limits before.
After lamenting the passing of No-name, Innominus and the party decided to avail themselves of the services of Sawith the Scribe of Kaladar in order to learn more about the origins and possible purpose of the ivory tile they found in the wight's office beneath the orc complex. For a somewhat hefty fee, Sawith told them that the tile might be one of two things, or some combination of both: (1) a coffin marker from an ancient Noffellian civilization, and/or (2) an artifact relating to some legendary (but never proven to exist) underground planar nodes, where (according to legend) one may use the tile in conjunction with some kind of powerful inter-planar gate. But even the great Sawith himself could offer little more information than that.
In the course of inquiring with Fred about the ghoul and doing their business with Sawith, the group learned several rumors about local adventuring opportunities. The only one they concretely followed up on was a rumored meeting of a clandestine organization called the Society of the Cheetah Mask, set for midnight at the Greedy Lion. The PCs attended, and met five representatives of the SCM, who were all wearing cheetah masks. The PCs ended up hiring themselves out to the Society of the Cheetah Mask, which the representatives explained is an organization working to end the territorial disputes between Delzar and Mizar. The members of the SCM believe that the true threat to Ara lies to the south, where vicious and super-numerous troll hordes are rumored to exist. Increased trollish raids in southern Mizarian villages have caused the SCM to mobilize, hiring mercs out of Kaladar to head south and gather intelligence about the troll hordes and their plans.
So, accompanied by a ranger and SCM member named Dalgoop, plus old hireling Snikrop and new hireling Meathook (a 1st level Fighter with a flail), the party set off south through Minoch, eventually headed to the Mizarian frontier to (hopefully) spy on some trolls.
To be continued. . . .
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Arandish Campaign 2010 - Session 7
This week's session provided a fine example of how the PC party continues to work and function well together, and it also ended on a particularly exciting note that I cannot wait to tell you about.
The PCs -- Uncle Junkal (Bard-1), Innominus (Cleric-1), and Hazel (Fighter-1) -- began the session standing outside the charred remains of an office, whose undead occupants they torched last session. They now searched the charred remains of the wight's desk, and by "searched" I mean Innominus beat the desk to splinters with a mace, then the PCs sifted through the rubble. The desk -- every single drawer -- was full of bones, partial skeletal remains belonging to a wide array of animals and humanoid creatures. After a round or two of careful searching though the bone-pile, Innominus found a rectangular ivory tile, roughly 3" x 2" and inscribed with a rune-like symbol vaguely resembling a humanoid-shaped skull. Uncle Junkal, the party's bard, did not recognize the inscribed symbol as belonging to any particular known religion or cultural tradition. Innominus pocketed the tile, believing it to be important or at least fairly unique.
Once they had sifted the rubble, the PCs noticed one more item leaning against the wall in a shadowy corner behind the now-destroyed desk: a small painting on a black velvet canvas. The painting was abstract but grotesque, suggestive of demonic, multi-species sex acts and the like. The PCs decided to remove the painting from its mounting frame so it could be rolled up for easy pilfering, but as soon as Hazel touched the painting, she vanished from the room!
This is where the PC cooperation piece kicks in: while Hazel calmly explored the small, exit-less room she had been teleported to, her two companions left behind in the office problem-solved how to get to her. Uncle Junkal and Innominus knew they should not touch the painting themselves, but shortly discovered that if they threw an inanimate object at the painting, the object too would vanish upon touching the canvas. So they wrote a note -- "grab the rope" I believe it was -- on a broken piece of the desk then thrust it "into" the painting. They followed this with a rope cast "into" the painting, which Hazel grabbed and was pulled back out into the wight's office. Victory!
In the exit-less room she had visited, Hazel had found two rotting corpses, one of which she looted, obtaining a nice suit of dwarf-sized chain mail, a scroll of ward against undead, and a New Steel hand axe!
The party ventured to one more wing of the underground complex, encountering and killing six skeletons (Innominus turned them), and subsequently finding another teleportation trap in the form of an immense bas relief. After looting the corpses imprisoned in the other side of that trap, the group decided they had had enough of mucking about in an undead dungeon; they unanimously voted to head back to the surface and make their way to a larger city / trade center where they could offload some of their recent plunder and buy some much-needed equipment (and possibly magic items). Uncle Junkal also looked forward to returning to civilization so that he might make some money performing his juggling act in the streets.
So the PCs left the dungeon, returned to Vedik, left Larry the farmer some money, and let two of their Vedik hirelings go. Two other hirelings, Snikrop and No-name, expressed a desire to accompany the party on their further adventures, and No-name became a follower of Innominus' while Snikrop (already a de facto level 1 fighter) apprenticed himself to Hazel. Talen, the low-level magic user the PCs found underneath the idol last session, also traveled east with the party since he is ultimately headed to Delzar, his homeland.
The party headed eastward, out of the Noffel / Western Lands frontier area, over the Freystone Pass, and onto the well-traveled Endyn Trade Route, which would take them to the Free City of Kaladar. After a couple minor random encounters on the road -- a small caravan of goblins fleeing hobgoblin threats in the northeast, a group of eight skeletons easily turned by Innominus -- the session ended with the PCs booked into a modest inn in Kaladar, the largest single city in Ara and the entire continent's commercial center. Anything can be bought, sold, or traded here, and so the PCs got right to work fencing their loot and buying new supplies. We will pick up with their Kaladarian city adventures -- and whatever the hell comes next -- in forthcoming reports . . .
DM thoughts: Well, the PCs are finally loose in Ara, and who the hell knows where they will head next? Frankly, I don't care. I am eager to see how the players and I will sort this thing out improvisationally as we go along, now that they're outside the confines of the dungeon and loose in the biggest trade center in the known world. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN, and we will figure it out spontaneously together, and that is one of the most fun and exhilarating aspects of this particular hobby -- so I am really relishing the possibilities right now. Great session!
The PCs -- Uncle Junkal (Bard-1), Innominus (Cleric-1), and Hazel (Fighter-1) -- began the session standing outside the charred remains of an office, whose undead occupants they torched last session. They now searched the charred remains of the wight's desk, and by "searched" I mean Innominus beat the desk to splinters with a mace, then the PCs sifted through the rubble. The desk -- every single drawer -- was full of bones, partial skeletal remains belonging to a wide array of animals and humanoid creatures. After a round or two of careful searching though the bone-pile, Innominus found a rectangular ivory tile, roughly 3" x 2" and inscribed with a rune-like symbol vaguely resembling a humanoid-shaped skull. Uncle Junkal, the party's bard, did not recognize the inscribed symbol as belonging to any particular known religion or cultural tradition. Innominus pocketed the tile, believing it to be important or at least fairly unique.
Once they had sifted the rubble, the PCs noticed one more item leaning against the wall in a shadowy corner behind the now-destroyed desk: a small painting on a black velvet canvas. The painting was abstract but grotesque, suggestive of demonic, multi-species sex acts and the like. The PCs decided to remove the painting from its mounting frame so it could be rolled up for easy pilfering, but as soon as Hazel touched the painting, she vanished from the room!
This is where the PC cooperation piece kicks in: while Hazel calmly explored the small, exit-less room she had been teleported to, her two companions left behind in the office problem-solved how to get to her. Uncle Junkal and Innominus knew they should not touch the painting themselves, but shortly discovered that if they threw an inanimate object at the painting, the object too would vanish upon touching the canvas. So they wrote a note -- "grab the rope" I believe it was -- on a broken piece of the desk then thrust it "into" the painting. They followed this with a rope cast "into" the painting, which Hazel grabbed and was pulled back out into the wight's office. Victory!
In the exit-less room she had visited, Hazel had found two rotting corpses, one of which she looted, obtaining a nice suit of dwarf-sized chain mail, a scroll of ward against undead, and a New Steel hand axe!
The party ventured to one more wing of the underground complex, encountering and killing six skeletons (Innominus turned them), and subsequently finding another teleportation trap in the form of an immense bas relief. After looting the corpses imprisoned in the other side of that trap, the group decided they had had enough of mucking about in an undead dungeon; they unanimously voted to head back to the surface and make their way to a larger city / trade center where they could offload some of their recent plunder and buy some much-needed equipment (and possibly magic items). Uncle Junkal also looked forward to returning to civilization so that he might make some money performing his juggling act in the streets.
So the PCs left the dungeon, returned to Vedik, left Larry the farmer some money, and let two of their Vedik hirelings go. Two other hirelings, Snikrop and No-name, expressed a desire to accompany the party on their further adventures, and No-name became a follower of Innominus' while Snikrop (already a de facto level 1 fighter) apprenticed himself to Hazel. Talen, the low-level magic user the PCs found underneath the idol last session, also traveled east with the party since he is ultimately headed to Delzar, his homeland.
The party headed eastward, out of the Noffel / Western Lands frontier area, over the Freystone Pass, and onto the well-traveled Endyn Trade Route, which would take them to the Free City of Kaladar. After a couple minor random encounters on the road -- a small caravan of goblins fleeing hobgoblin threats in the northeast, a group of eight skeletons easily turned by Innominus -- the session ended with the PCs booked into a modest inn in Kaladar, the largest single city in Ara and the entire continent's commercial center. Anything can be bought, sold, or traded here, and so the PCs got right to work fencing their loot and buying new supplies. We will pick up with their Kaladarian city adventures -- and whatever the hell comes next -- in forthcoming reports . . .
DM thoughts: Well, the PCs are finally loose in Ara, and who the hell knows where they will head next? Frankly, I don't care. I am eager to see how the players and I will sort this thing out improvisationally as we go along, now that they're outside the confines of the dungeon and loose in the biggest trade center in the known world. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN, and we will figure it out spontaneously together, and that is one of the most fun and exhilarating aspects of this particular hobby -- so I am really relishing the possibilities right now. Great session!
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