Crypt of Kings, session #1

Care for a drink, dearie?

Hi, all! Remember me? I gots a new game going. Two of the players are self-taught 4e enthusiasts, two have never played any sort of D&D, only one has any real idea what he might have gotten himself into.

Following a bit of mucking about generating characters, we open in a side street of Wintoncester, the August City. Six newly-arrived adventurers are bucking up their courage with the foul brew at the Wretched Crone Alehouse:

• The mighty warrior Simon of Sodor (Josh)
• Guy the Cleric and his sidekick, a halfling named Albert (Thaddeus)
• Istrazanne Fay, a cleric (Kelsey)
• Rogan Rumrunner, a halfling (Zak, but not the one you’re thinking of)
• Cornelia Trumbleway of Puddleglum, a surprisingly muscular halfing (Katy)

After a sufficient number of drinks to make going down into a dungeon seem sensible, the party

stumbles its way to a bustling courtyard between Shieldmaker Street and Tanner Street. In the center of this back-alley plaza is the Dolorous Well, known for the eerie moans that occasionally emanate from its depths.

After some debate, a clear course of action arises: send the NPC down first. Albert the Halfling climbs into the bucket and is lowered down to have a look-see. He reports to side passages in the wall of the well: a small one a fellow his size can crawl into and a large one that a human could stand in. After some urging he crawls into the smaller tunnel. There’s some screaming bloody murder and splashing sounds and eventually the bucket is pulled back up, but this time it contains both Albert and a giant rat locked in an earnest wrestling match! Guy the Cleric administers a sound drubbing to the rat, knocking it out of the bucket and back down into the water. Splash!

Getting down the other tunnel ends up being a logistical pain in the ass, involving figuring out who goes down next, who stays and turns the crank, who fends off the rest of the giant rats, and a side order of “oh who brought the torches? no one?” Albert volunteers to stay up top to “guard the well”.

But finally, our heroes can get Down to Business, negotiating series of chambers, tunnels and many, many staircases. The first room they find with anything of note is some sort of evil shrine. On one side of the room is an altar with a crude wooden statue of what I describe as a toad-like demon-Buddha. Opposite of it is a tapestry depicting the capture, butchering, cooking and serving of a unicorn, while high overhead a globe hangs pendant from the ceiling, flickering with an eerie green light that malevolent illuminates the chamber. Guy, like many others in the party, is disturbed by the scenes depicted on the tapestry. He opts to set it ablaze with one of the torches Istrazanne borrowed from a shieldsmith.

As the flaming tapestry falls to the floor, a rank of eight skeletons in bronze armor are revealed behind it. They spring to unlife and advance with ancient spears, but clerical turning puts the kibosh on their attack. Before they can be turned Simon of Sodor begins his session-long cold dice streak. IIRC he doesn’t land a single strike all night, much to everyone’s amusement.

Meanwhile, Rogan Rumrunner’s curiosity has gotten the best of him. He lobs his grappling hook up at the spooking glowing orb. He doesn’t catch his hook on the globe or the chain it hangs from, but he does crack the globe. A phosphorescent green gas seeps out and drifts down to the floor, into the vague outline of a humanoid form, with black holes of hate where his eyes should be. Rogan has released the dreaded Highly Visible Stalker from its prison.

I thought this encounter was going to be a Total Party Kill, which is always a pretty good way to start off a new campaign. The players did their best to make the fight entertaining. Rogan very nearly died, but Guy successfully revived him. Cornelia and Istrazanne entangled the creature in a rope in a very good attempt to make it easier to hit, but Simon couldn’t land a single blow nonetheless. Only a natural 20 from a torch-wielding Guy and blessed St. Hargrave’s critical chart save the day, as the Stalker burst aflame/apart with some Michael Bay level special effects.

Once goblins move into the
neighborhood property values
go down the drain, you know?

The other big encounters included NOT activating the additional skeletons behind a second tapestry depicting the Queen of Babylon and her Seven Headed Dragon wrecking up some saints, a brief fight with a badass skeleton guarding a staircase, and Thaddeus befriending Edbert the Recently Divorced Bugbear. The party even went back to Edbert’s lair for wine and some bowls of rat stew, which afforded Rogan the opportunity to nick some enruned arrows. After the visit with Eddy the Bugbear, they head up some more stairs to find what the bugbear described as “goblins working on something for the goblin king.” We ran out of time at this point, so rather than subject six new players to the Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Chart of Very Probable Doom (which I forgot to bring anyway), I opted to end the session in room 3 of the dungeon.

As we broke for the night it seemed like everyone had a pretty good time. The 4e players noted that it was a very different experience than they expected, but didn’t seem put off by the lack of a tactical display. So we’ll try this again in two weeks for more fun and frolic. Thanks to everyone who gave the game a go and thanks to Katy for hosting.

Wessex returns... ?

So this morning Anthony, Mike and C Huth played a little adventure that I borrowed from Simon of and the sky full of dust and hacked up a bit.  I don't have my notes with me, but the party consisted of a nameless fighter, a ranger whose name I couldn't pronounce and then promptly forgot, and Farley the Dwarf, a Wessex veteran.  Too bad Farley was way over the level range for the adventure and showed up to the crawl with two diseases and two curses, as per the rules of Article 4 of the original FLAILSNAILS Conventions.  I'm trying to imagine how one ends up like that, and all I can come up with is a rather distrurbing scenario involving unspeakable acts with a witch's favorite goat.  Probably the best part was the one curse that shrunk him to just one foot in height.

The party followed a rumor that a certain set of centuries-old tombs, long pillaged, contained a secret area below a slab of stone.  This secret second set of tombs reputedly contained three magical weapons: a black sword, a trident, and a warhammer.  Okay, they weren't really after Blackrazor, Whelm and Wave, but three magic weapons is three magic weapons.  Our hardy hereos braved perfectly ordinary spiders, tacky religious iconography, and several annoyingly unkillable skeletal undeaders.  The ranger and the fighter escaped with one of the three magic weapons, the Holy Axe of the Knight-Marshal, and some miscellaneous loot.  Poor tiny Farley was punched right in the heart by the Three-Armed Skeleton Knight of Wessex-119 and died instantly, Arduin critical style.  Too bad he was carrying the Legendary Magical Beard of Wessex.  (Actually, being tiny, he was wearing it as a cloak.)  Pour a forty on the curb for a character that Mike has been playing since December of 2011.  He got to sixth level in the FLAILSNAILS multiverse and that ain't shabby, my friends.

Running a FLAILSNAILS game again was a hoot.  I really ought to get back into it regular-like.  Unfortunately, my family and I have moved since the last time and our new place doesn't work as well as the old one for running in the wee hours.  I woke my wife up early, which is something I don't want to repeat.  But I've got an office here in the English department now, so maybe I could run some games later in the day.  That ought to amuse the folks in my hallway.

Reputed entrances to the Dungeons Below Wintoncester

A hole in an old Roman wall at the end of Crap Alley.  It's called Crap Alley because several houses along the south side of High Street are perched over it and anyone passing along the alley are in danger of sewage barrage.
Via the Chapel of St. Oswald in the Assassin's Guildhall.  Not that anyone knows where the Assassin's Guildhall is.
Beyond a triple-barred ironbound door in the cellar of the Wild Boar Tavern.  Old Bert, the proprietor, is said to allow usage of this doorway for a couple gold a head.
Through the torture chamber under Winton Castle.  This is one of the many rumored ways Empress Matilda escaped the siege of 1141.  Ask around, every gabber in the city has their own pet theory.
Under a hatch on the grounds of the Cathedral of St. Swithun.  The Cathedral is relatively new, the old cathedral was demolished to make way for it.  Rumor has it that the entrance to the catacombs are not encompassed by the new floorplan.
Down an ancient well, said to be in a small courtyard between a tavern and a blacksmithy.

Things you should know about Wintoncester

So I'm starting to gear up for a new Wessex-based D&D outing.  This time I'm going to set the game and the dungeon in/under Wintoncester, the biggest and oldest city on the map.  Here are some initial notes on the city.

• No one knows how many people live there, even though everyone generally agrees Wintoncester is second only to London as far as English cities go.  When the Domesday Book was being prepared Wintoncester and its environs were one of the many places not included in the census.
• There are no good maps of the place.  Non-natives should expect to be lost much of the time.  Even natives sometimes get lost in the maze of twisted streets, as the medieval and Roman streets are laid out in contradictory grids.  The problem is further exacerbated by by the unpleasantry of 1141 AD, when the forces of King Stephen and Empress Matilda fought within the city and much of it was burned down.  Rebuilding has been haphazard and without much central planning, while many blocks still feature one or more burned-out ruins.
• The city has been continuously occupied going back to the Anglish, for whom it served as the capitol of the kingdom of Wessex, to the Romans, to the Belgae and the prehistoric Celts.  This being a D&D type campaign, all those people built tunnels of various sorts under the city.
• The foremost lure for the adventurers are the underground Tombs of the Wessex Kings, where gold and magic await the daring.
• One of the biggest buildings in the campaign is St. Swithun's Cathedral, right in the heart of the city.  The cathedral is the nominal headquarters of the ruler of the city, the Bishop of Winton, Henry of Blois.  Do not mess with this cat.  He is often call the King Without A Throne and is reputedly the richest man in England.  You don't achieve accolades like that by being a nice guy.
• Wintoncester has services and institutions not found elsewhere on the campaign hexmap: a hospital, skilled craftsmen, an alchemist or two, a grumpy old sage, an Assassin's Guild and even a semi-secret order of magic-users one can attempt to join.  It's not quite Waterdeep or the Free City of Greyhawk, but for crapsack 12th century fake England it has a lot of possibilities.
• There are nineteen different establishments that will sell you as many drinks as you can afford.

Dig this bad boy.

This is a modern replica of a 12th century 'bar' style mace fished out of the Thames.

Scrambling for the Loot

Keith Davies has a great post on card-based looting, written in reponse to a Google+ comment of mine.  My basic concern is that I want some quick and easy rules for how long looting a place takes and how much can easily be hauled away, particularly when the scenario involves some sort of time constraint.  Does the party grab whatever is handy?  Do they focus on the obvious high-ticket items or poke around for concealed treasure?  If the player says "I dump my pack and quickly refill it with whatever I can grab" then what ends up in their pack?

The latter case I thought quite a deal about for the Caves of Myrddin expeditions.  There was a reasonable chance that the dragon's hoard could be found while the beast was away, but it could come back suddenly.  I actually worked out ahead of time the proportion of silver to gold to platinum that a hastily filled pack would yield.  A spreadsheet could make that an easy task for any big treasure pile: plug in the numbers and Bob's your uncle.

Keith's deck-based solution sounds fun, though filling out a bunch of index cards ahead of time would be a bit of a chore.  And I kinda like the idea of having a big ol' stack of cards that I would break out for special occasions.

Secrets of Myrddin Q&A

I just wanted to make sure everybody saw the questions and answers from the two Secrets of Myrddin posts:


Q: So when are you going to post the Kickstarter for The Caves of Myrddin?
A: That doesn't seem feasible given the number of other products I rehash.


Q:Were you kidding about [ripping off] level 3 of the Temple of Elemental Evil?
A: Only in that I haven't ripped off that particular module.  Other modules?  Totally ripped off.


Q: Does this map [the vertical geomorph] reflect all the interlevel connections?
A: No.  There are plenty of staircases, shafts, etc. on the level maps.  And a couple of 'secret' levels that can't be accessed via the vertical geomorph.  Philip the Bloody discovered one of these and later led an expedition specifically to loot part of it.


Q: Does horizontal distance on this map always correspond to distance on the horizontal levels?
A: Only sort of.  Any attempt to construct a complete iso-view map of the dungeon would probably discover areas that just don't work right.


Q: I'd really like to get a better idea of how people translate from the vertical layout to the overhead, especially for some of the more complex ones like the one pictured. Obviously some of the early ones where each level is just a box with interconnecting stairs and passages, it's easy to translate since on the vertical map the level is just a featureless box. But on these more detailed ones?
A: Not sure that I follow this question.  Is it the same as the next one down?  If not, please restate.


Q: What kind of cues were you given that you were mapping vertically? Did you have to figure that out, or was it made clear "you may want to switch to another sheet of paper to represent a vertical map"?
A: When you reach one of the standard dungeon levels I just tell people to switch to overhead perspective in their mapping.  I don't really do 'subtle' well.


Q: So then the vertical map was run as a separate map? Like it's own floor, but instead of horizontal vertical?
A: Yes.  Whole sessions were spent crawling that map.  Some seriously epic fights have happened there.  It has a few layers and some hidden loot right on it.


Q: Is this [the vertical map] actually it's own ant-farm style dungeon level? If so, do you think of it as being 2 dimensional?
A: Yeah, it is run as its own level.  I tell people "This map has up, down, east and west.  I might mention north and south occasionally, but don't take it too seriously."


Any other questions at this point?  What else would you like me to talk about?

Secrets of Myrddin, part 2

So about this time last year I pitched the idea of vertical geomorphs to the carto-dungeon-graphic portion of the OSR community.  The basic idea was to take all those side-view maps that show the relationships between levels in a dungeon and actually use them like you do the level maps.  The geomorph artists came through in spades, so I decided to make a vertical map the centerpiece of my new dungeon.  Here are the parts that have been pretty well explored.

Because I actually wanted to use this map I decided that all the initially available entrances to the dungeon would lead onto this map, rather than directly to one of the horizontal (i.e. 'normal') levels.  Later one party excavated the Great Heap in the center of the courtyard of Castle Dundagel, opening up access directly to a medusa-infested Level 2.  But the majority of visitors to these dungeons have spent part (or all!) of each session slogging through this map. 

This behavior amused me greatly, because I originally envisioned the vertical map as sort of an underground Wilderness Area, where random encounters aren't tied to any sliding difficulty level.  Hence the vicious metallic spiders (Dave Hargrave critters, in fact) and the vampires.  I honestly expected the players to spend less time scouting the vertical access once some decent routes to various upper levels were discovered.

But I guess I didn't count on the twin fascinations caused by the Last Dragon in England and the Great Spiral Stairs.  When first assembling the geomorphs to form the vertical level (The above map is not a product of the random generation of Dave's Mapper.  When first assembling this thing the vertical randomizer wasn't fully implemented yet, so I stiched this thing together in MS Paint.) I decided on two things:  1) I wanted to use four "top border" geomorphs that had towers on them, to give a simple four-towered castle.  2) I wanted to see how deep of a spiral staircase I could get away with.

The latter was important to me because I wanted to give a quickie way for high level or daring low level characters to get down to deep levels.  This has come up in threads at places like Dragonsfoot and OD&D Discussion.  Don't just connect level 1 to level 2 to level 3.  Give the players some options so they can influence how big of a challenge they'll be facing.  The Great Spiral Staircase gives direct access to level 8 as well as a chance at finding the lair of the Last Dragon, labeled '11b' at the bottom of the map.  The two holes leading off the bottom of the map are the known Hellmouths.  One of them is under a trapdoor.  So far no PC has fallen to Hell.

One other factor I hadn't fully counted on: players just love climbing shit.  Seriously, most of my players love spelunking around this map, pounding in spikes, lowering ropes, dropping torches to see how far they go.  In some sessions the sheer joy of exploration really seemed to trump any concern for finding loot.

Secrets of Myrddin, part 1

Okay, so some folks here and on Google+ have convinced me to let folks peek behind the screen just a bit at the Caves of Myrddin campaign.  I'm going to start with the original caves levels.  I was in a big hurry to start DMing this campaign, but the upper levels of the ruined castle weren't ready to go so we started with these nearby caves.

Castle Dundagel is vaguely based upon the real Cornish ruins of Tintagel, which really does have a nearby Cave of Merlin.  I picked Tintagel as my model because of its Arthurian associations. It's the castle Uther besieges in the first part of Excalibur, where Arthur is conceived.  But the ruins there today were actually built in the 13th century, the century after the Wessex campaign is set, almost as an early example of a lord's architectural folly.  Key changes I made to Tintagel when I made Dundagel:

• I put the whole thing on a spit of land, rather than an island just yards off the coast.  I didn't want to deal with boats every single expedition.
• Based upon this photo of Tintagel I decided I needed three 'Merlin caves' rather than the single one I'd read about.
• Since the modern understanding of Arthur and all that stuff only begins to congeal with Geoffrey of Monmouth, who is alive during the campaign, I decided that much of what we know as the standard Arthur narrative is just plain wrong.
• To whit, Arthur and Merlin weren't contemporaries.  Merlin (a.k.a. Myrddin) is a generation or two later, as is Morgan le Fay, queen of Tintagel.
• Also key: Myrddin was an evil wizard and Morgan a benevolent queen.  This got flip-flopped in later legend mostly because the only thing everyone clearly remembers from the period is how the queen used to dress like a tart.

The Caves became named after Myrddin because he used them to tunnel a backdoor into the family crypts below the castle.  The original monsters to move into the dungeons were part of Myrddin's army of evil.  For a time the good guys beat back these creatures and sealed them below, but they only dug more dungeons.  Eventually they dug so deep they reached the uppermost level of Hell.

The dragon moved in three or four generations after all this muck.  The House of Fay had spent its energies and lost many of its bravest sons and daughters trying to contain Myrddin's mess. (That guy was long dead, thanks to a vorpal sword to the neck.  Neither head nor sword have been recovered from the dungeons.)  So the dragon didn't have to do much to seize control and set up shop in a hidden lava-filled cavern just slightly above Hell.  But it got lazy and sleepy and soon it only ruled the monsters in name only.

Later, a trandimensional meteor crashed into Goblin Land so hard that it punched a hole through straight through to level 1 of Dundagel.  But that's not what we're talking about today.  Here's some maps.

Each cave corresponds to a dungeon level in terms of difficulty.  Most of the early parties stayed the hell away from the Wet Cave (see below), but no one ever figured out that the monsters in the Small Cave (pictured above) were noticably easier to beat than the other two.  Notable features include the broken teleporter in area 4 (that circular thingy) which the Gnome Submariners used once and the Spaniard tried to repair, the Stirge Nests in the stalactites of area 6 (the line across the tunnel mouth just south of the 6 is a gate of iron bars, a tar-baby sort of monster was fought there) and the chasm between 14 and 15 which may lead to something deep below.

The Wet Cave is one of my most complicated dungeon levels to DM, because the tide washes in twice a day.  Areas labeled A, B and C flood to different depths based upon the time of day.  I have a turn-by-turn tide chart for this.  Some parts of the dungeon completely flood.  At high tide a bunch of sea water pours into the chasm at area 9.  Other neat features are the magical cloud of poisonous gas (recently dispelled) at the location 5, the sinkhol in area 15 (which fascinated the sea ghouls that previous haunted much of the level) and the small tunnel (big enough to crawl) leading up out of area 3.

Here I must give Special Mention in the Dispatches to Nicholas Mizer and his elf Celumir the Bald, who led the first party into this level.  He did a fabulous job of scouting out the place before time.  It was he who first learned of the Curse of Blue Nellie.

And here's the Big Cave, a.k.a. level 3.  Monsters here were mostly unintelligent beetles, slimes, wobras (winged cobras), etc., with the notable exception of a couple appearances by Joe Mama, the trollish psycho with a chainsaw.  The corkscrew/sprial/whatever of the main corridor really made mapping this level a giant pain in the ass.  The criss-crossing in area 10 is spider webs.  No giant spiders though, just a zillion regular sized ones.  No one knows where the the corridor at the top of the map leads.

I think I got all these maps from Paratime Design.  The Caves/Dungeons complex is a Frankenstein of stitched stuff.  Some levels are entirely swiped from published modules.  Others I just used the map.  One level I use the map from one module with the key from another.  A lot of Dave's Mapper brand geomorphs get used all over as well.

Riffing off of other people's work is great for several reasons:

• I can recombine stuff for interesting new effects.
• I enjoy the challenge of presenting old material in a fresh way.
• I like secretly daring the players to blurt out "Hey, this is level 3 of the Temple of Elemental Evil, you fraud!" So far I've gotten away with a LOT with no one calling me on it.
• I'm a lazy ass.
• Besides, there's a lot of good stuff out there.  Why not use it?

Next installment I'll talk about the big vertical geomorph.  I'll even show you some of it.

one more Caves of Myrddin update

So Carl (Bishop Aethelred), Louis (Sonoma the Psycho Elf), Tom (Lankii the Diabolic Elf) and Nick (Vithujin the Necromantic Elf) were discussing a plan of action at the beginning of the session last night.  There was a bit of himming and hawing over what to do with this, the last run of the campaign, when in walks Chris (Fred the Dwarf).  He announces that he had a shitty day at work and that he intends to take it out on the Vampire Lord of Crows.  Everybody agrees that icing that particular mofo would be sweet.  And they have someone who can guide them to his lair: Billy White-Paw, the Bishop's cat.  Aethelred can communicate with Billy and once asked him to tail a couple vampires back to their lair.

So after stocking up on holy water and other provisions and Aethelred using the spell commune to get some intel from God hisself, they follow Billy into a section of the vertical map that no previous party has penetrated.  They end up spelunking like you wouldn't believe, pounding in stakes and attaching ropes, climbing mysterious chains, falling in pits that are at the bottom of other pits, abandoning their hopeless losers when they become a burden and generally clanging about the dungeons.  Billy is just leaping from ledge to ledge effortlessly, smugly waiting for the rest of the party two or three dooms ahead of them.

Meanwhile I'm throwing dice to see how many of the remaining vampires are in their lair and how active they are.  Turns out Billy is leading the party to all seven of the bloodsuckers and six of them are resting in their coffins.  So when they arrive in Coffin Central they quickly dispatch Alice Cooper's Vampire Snake.  Thanks to careful planning, casting a ton of spells (including haste), bringing along a bag full of sunshine and my crappy rolls they manage to kill every single fangy bastard in the place with no casualties.  I almost laid vampiric hands on the throat of Fred the dwarf, but then somebody remembered that Fred's henchmen hadn't acted yet and one of them put a magic crossbow bolt right through the vampire's heart.  Sweet.

It was neat how hard the party whupped up on the bad guys.  We had discussed anti-climactic boss fights in D&D earlier in the evening.  I offered my opinion that the fight against a big boss should be totally one-sided: if the PCs do their homework, they ought to win.  I didn't mention the corollary out loud.

For the record, here's the list of the vampires they murdered:

Alice Cooper (treasure: Hat of Protection +2)
Alice Cooper's Snake
The Skipper from Gilligan's Island (Gilligan was staked in a previous expedition)
Zed Zardoz (treasure: Zardoz mask of protection from gaze attacks)
Vampire Donkey (poor beast was left behind by a previous expedition)
The headless body of Spiro Agnew (treasure: iron collar of no head required)
Trevor, the Vampire Lord of Crows (treasure: unholy crystal ball that allows two-way communication with another unholy crystal ball)

After the fight in Coffin Central they located a secret door that they hoped would lead to more vampire treasure.  ("Where are these jerks' gold?")  Billy White-Paw was sent in to scout the area.  He came running back very quickly.  "There's a huge fucking spider in there!"  Sonoma wanted to throw a fireball into the room to kill it, but was talked out of it.  That's too bad.  The fireball would have blasted back into the PCs' faces and the spider, being one of those metallic Arduin jobbies I like to use, probably would have come out unscathed.

After getting their items identified the party pitches in a crapload of gold they've been saving up to build a kick-ass stone castle in Goblin Land.  Carl is leaving for an intership at the University of Versailles, so in a fit of sentimentality I decide that papal legate Alberic of Ostia makes Aethelred the legit Bishop to the Goblins.  Lankii and Fred declare themselves the elvish and dwarvish Moses respectively and lead bands of their fellow demihumans out of the realms of men into a new life under the twin suns of Goblin Land.  They seal up most of the routes between Goblin Land and Wessex, but leave one way open for those future adventurers who might want to join the good fight against the monsters of their adopted homeworld.

All in all, not a bad way to end things.  After the run is over, I pull out my vertical map and we compare it to the one Chris has made.  He did a pretty dang good job, as have several other online cartographers.  At the urging of several folks on Google+, I'll be scanning a few of the better-known parts of the dungeon and doing a sort of designer's notes thingy with them, maybe starting tomorrow.

Goodbye Wessex, hello outer space

Tonight's tabletop game is going to be the last Wessex game for a while.  I don't know if anybody has noticed or not, but I haven't run my Monday morning game for a couple weeks now.  School has gotten kinda hectic and I've needed my Monday mornings for homework.  I don't know when I will next run an online game.  It may be a spontaneous thing, with those of you on Google+ at 4:30am my time getting a "Hey, anyone want to play a game of ______?"

Meanwhile, I'm going to pitch to my Wednesday group a few session of Traveller.  I've long wanted to run Adventure 4: Leviathan, which involves giving the party command of a big merchant explorer and sending them into an unknown subsector.  Since it's a commercial interest providing the ship the scenario is an interesting hybrid of Star Trek's exploration/first contact ethos with Traveller's more grubby economic bent.

Thanks to all the super-cool players who made the Caves of Myrddin/Dungeons of Dundagel a hoot.  That dungeon still has a crapload of unexplored nooks and crannies (whole levels, in fact), so I will probably return to it some day.

Caves of Myrddin update

Fred the Dwarf, the elvish trio (Lankii, Senoma and Vithujin) and the cleric Aethelred the Unsteady have returned from an expedition to the dungeons below Dundagel.  Most folks in the area assumed they were dead, because they were last seen heading to the ruins several weeks ago.  But today they return and buys many rounds of drinks for the folks staying in the Abbey guesthouse.  Though tight-lipped at first, eventually a few details of their expedition begin to slip out.

• These guys have built some sort of permanent outpost in Goblin Land, which can be accessed via a portal somewhere in the dungeons.
• Their ally the fighting man Will Die Too is now chieftain of the Tricloptic Vikings, having defeated the previous chief in single combat.  He's sorta gone native and doesn't seem to show much interest in coming back.  That may have something to do with his two new beautiful triclops wives.
• The party may or may not have started a war with these total jerkward four-armed humanoids that ride pterodactyls.  These guys have some serious mad science mojo going on in this grand canyon-esque hell-rift.
• Aethelred has declared himself Bishop to the Goblin Lands.
• A coldalisk works just like a basilisk, except you freeze solid.
• One of the party members traded away an interesting item to Dremelza the Witch: a little four-armed fetus-mutant in a jar.  Not like pickled or anything, a live specimen that bangs on the glass and seems to really want to be let out!
• You know how Blixa the Thief likes to travel with a magic doggy?  He has apparently set a trend of sorts.  Lankii has a pet bat-winged cobra and Bishop Aethelred is often seen talking to his cat.  Of course, Aethelred may just be off his rocker.  Dude thinks he's the Bishop of Goblins, after all.

Caves of Myrddin: Everybody get out your d20.

What happened this morning in +Jeff Rients' Wessex campaign?

Roll 1d20
1 - Ool the Dandy, loyal henchman to +Taurus Hell's Heart, was imprisoned.
2 - No one is quite sure, but +Philip the Bloody has a new hydrocephalitic goblin mounted outside his cabin.
3 - +Sir Hugo le Bâtard now bears a hideous scar on his back from one of +Philip the Bloody's infamous phaser blasts.
4 - The party returned with a huge pirate-style chest filled with treasure. Some of it even had the mark of King Arthur.
5 - There are now two less vampires in the dungeon (both were pro-wrestlers).
6 - Several of the party members have horrible acid scars covering their face. They don't want to talk about it.
7 - +Philip the Bloody's new tattoo reads "True Stanist" under a picture of a golden orb spider.
8 - The party encountered strange, mummy-like creatures encased in glass.
9 - The party did battle with a mighty dung-golem. There were no survivors.
10 - Ooluu tested the power of Dagon over the undead. The results were inconclusive.
11 - The dragon has returned, and he is angry.
12 - Rakshasas were actually encountered on the Rakshasa level.
13 - +Philip the Bloody's trusty phaser ran out of batteries.
14 - The goblin henchmen of +Sir Hugo le Bâtard now possess strange, steel gloves mounted with dental equipment.
15 - They party actually entered the caves deep below the castle. There they encountered hideous crabmen.
16 - The party killed a gargoyle using a clever trick.
17 - The things without a face are highly susceptible to fire.
18 - A magic item was discovered (1-3 Excalibur itself 4-5 Merlin's wand 6 something far more stange)
19 - Add moving rocks to St. Serpentor's list of posthumous miracles.
20 - Roll twice, disbelieving both results.

Evan Elkins wrote this in lieu of a standard session report.  Some of it is even true!

Caves of Myrddin updates, part 2

"Hey, let's go hunt some medusas!"

When has that ever been an good idea?  That's what Sir Alexander Manning, Flinny the Elder, Rando the Halfing and the dwarves Farley and Blodgrist settled upon as a perfectly reasonable course of action.  Entering the Dungeons of Dundagel via the Grand Stairway under the big heap of stones in the center of the courtyard, they proceeded to track some serpent trails past several statues (a ghoul, a dwarf, a magic-user and an amazon warrior).

Sure enough, they eventually do battle with a trio of the snakey ladies.  Surprisingly, no one was turned to stone.  Sir Manning softened them up with a grenade that exploded with rainbow sparkles and deadly radiation (found in Urutsk, apparently) and some oil flasks followed thereafter.  Two of the three medusas fled at this point but the third was more angry than scared and bumrushed the party.  Farley grabbed a handy mirror and threw himself upon the gorgonous foewoman, wrestling her to the ground and trying to push the mirror into her view. 

For his trouble her asp-hair bit him in several places on the face and Farley curled up to die.  Fortunately another PC (Flinny I think) sucked the poison out, saving the dwarf but leaving him weakened.  Meanwhile the rest of the party curbstomped the medusa to death and carefully removed the head.   A test on a nearby non-giant rat established that the petrification power remained.

Following the trail of the medusas, they found another one that was finished off by the burning oil and a large hole in the floor with a rope leading down.  A dropped torch fell 100 feet or so and spluttered out in a small puddle of water.  Farley wastes no time in beginning his descent.  At 20' or so from the bottom he reaches the ceiling of the chamber and checks around as best he can with his mirror for that third medusa, but instead he only sees a room full of cheese.  Ancient wheels of red-rind cheese line the walls, ranging in size comparable up to wagon wheels in diameter.  The pungency here is fierce.

The rest of the party descends.  Most of them fall to examining the routes out of the room, while the halfling Rando decides to investigate the biggest pile of cheese wheels, awakening the Cheese Wheel Golem guarding the rest of the cheese.  Imagine the Mad Thinker's Awesome Android, only built out of wheels of stinky cheese.  The fight is epic.  Rando is beaten to within an inch of his life, including a blow that rips an ear from the side of his head (gotta love those Arduin crits) and at one point the ensorcelled cheese smothers him completely.  But he wields the might Hammer of the Gnome Kings and bursts out of its cheesy chest like a baby xenomorph!  The rest of the party are stabbing and hacking away, while Sir Manning wrestles a giant cheese-arm.  Eventually torches and oil are brought to bear, turning the monster in a harmless, melty mess.

All five adventurers return to the surface and get blitzed over at the Blue Rabbit.  Treasure for the run:

one medusa's head
19 asp-venomed arrows
2 shortbows (though I'm not sure anyone claimed these)
a stone rat
3 statues (the amazon and the two naked ladies on the surface were hauled away by cart)
as much cheese as everyone could carry, including the arm that Sir Manning wrestled
several small scars on Farley's face
one ear, halfling

I believe Sir Manning is throwing a cheese-themed party at Wike House, his newly-acquired manner in Lysnowyth, the campaign hex adjacent to the Abbey, the dungeons, Castle Bouttreaux, etc.

Caves of Myrddin updates, part 1

I've run three sessions since my last update.  Last Wednesday the game store group spent the entire session Beyond The Portal To Goblin Land*, so no real info is available.

On Saturday I ran a session at GaryCon for a bunch of players.  My notes are a little rough, but here's what the initial party looked like, I think:

4 dwarves: Balgo, Glavin, Lou and Guthouse Barrelboy.
Two halflings: Jonny Baggadonuts and the One Hit Point Wonder
Two magic-users: Simon and Robin.
Two fighters: Ragnar and Glavin
One elf who rolled so low for starting gold that he couldn't afford armor: Bellow
One cleric: Brother Steve

The One Hit Point Wonder was accompanied into the dungeon by Patsy the Loser.

Welcome to my nightmare.

This party entered the dungeon via the North Tower and had a brief run-in with Alice Cooper, who is a vampire, and his pet snake, who is also a vampire.  They then mucked around on the level with the purple raiders and the magic throne for a bit, until they stumbled upon the Goblin General Store.  Somewhere along the way Guthouse Barrelboy bought the farm.  Was he the one beheaded by the Mad Unicorn, or did the fake door with the poison gas trap kill him?  I can't recall.  Either way he was replaced by a cleric named Brodo.  Another PC died, but I can't quite figure out who it was from my notes.

Speaking of the Mad Unicorn, those bastards killed it.  I'm pretty sure Ragnar ended up with its horn.

The following a map purchased at the Goblin General Store, they attempted the south tower and the Spiral Staircase to Hell.  After finding one of the Hellmouths near the bottom of the vertical map they explored an area previously untrod by adventurers.  There they found a pool containing a stone sarcophagus, from which they released Ra-Por-Hotep, an ancient evil lich from the days when Cornwall was a colony of Ancient Egypt (???).  I thought these guys were totally doomed, but one of them finally remembered he had received a Potion of Undead Control from the Deck O' Stuff.  A few dice rolls later an Ra-Por-Hotep was the slave of the good guys.  He was ordered to surrender all of his substantial treasure hoard to them and then go jump into the Hellmouth.

The party then raced back up the stairs and ladders to the surface, fearful that Ra-Por-Hotep and/or the forces of Hell would soon be after them.  They ran into a little trouble with vampire Sean Connery from Zardoz but somehow managed to get past him and steal his paralysis pistol.

Pleased with their haul from the lich's hoard, they descended upon the Blue Rabbit and boozed it up.  Two of them woke up having joined the Church of Satan while drunk, a third donated to the CoS blood drive and a fourth came to in the bed of one of Ewella the Alewife's daughters.  One of the married ones.

Today's session write-up will come a little later.

*That's the title of Module WX3, third in The Wessex Campaign, an adventure series that doesn't actually exist.

Caves of Myrddin PSA

I've decided to teleport the Mad Unicorn into the Dungeons of Dundagel.  From a comment of mine on an old blog post:

The Mad Unicorn is a wandering monster that has appeared on multiple wandering monster charts of mine. Intruder_W encountered in at the beginning of my only 3rd edition campaign, where it wrecked a party exploring ol' Quasqueton.

The poor creature began life as a normal, well-adjusted unicorn, but ended up cursed to forever wander the underworlds. If it finds a way out of a dungeon it is immediately teleported to a random location inside some other dungeon. Years of wandering an unknown number of hellholes has driven it insane.

This backstory was written for the express purpose of beating up PCs with a unicorn.

No one has been able to slay, capture or save the Mad Unicorn.

Yet.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/



The Castle Bouttreaux Caper

So this morning's D&D via Google+ Hangout caps off an intense week of gaming.  The planning for the jailbreak of Samson Jones! took quite a bit of hashing out.  Before the game even started Farley the Dwarf introduced the wizard James of Dillington to his now-apprentice Rellyk, Uggs the Cleric obtained the vestments and a carriage so as to pass himself off as the Archbishop of Totalslava, Alexander 'De Rutebaga' Manning and his entourage invited themselves over for a visit and Elsa the Explorer got drunk with the local priest then seduced Lady Susan.  Elsa is played by Annah Shilts, who was not on my player list for the campaign.  One day she just sent me a message saying "I'm joining the jailbreak, here's my character, now what I'd like to do is..."  How could I pass that up?  That's a DM's dream, a player who shows up with an agenda!

At least two versions of what happened a few nights ago at Castle Bouttreaux eventually emerge.  The first is the tale of a party getting completely out of hand.  Lord William, knowing how high-ranking clerics are, instructs his servants to make sure the wine flows free the first night of the Archbishop's visit.  Taurus Hellsheart shows up to play his diabolical accordion music (I occasionally borrow colorful PCs for my own nefarious ends), and Alexander Manning shares around some sort of extremely potent drink, which is actually some sort of random potion thingy. 

Let me tell you a little bit about Lord William.  He is a gloomy man, given to long bouts of melancholy.  His wife no longer pays him much heed.  He fears his stewardship of the area is in doubt, because to his liege's eye the numerous adventurers may look like bands of robbers wandering the land.  He misses his own adventuresome days of his youth, when he wandered a knight errant.  And he worries greatly that when the Dragon of Dundagel returns to the area it will go on a Godzilla level rampage through the place.  Dude's got so much pent-up anxiety that too much wine plus random potion of strength results in Lord William going absolutely apeshit.  He busts up much of the furniture in the hallway in sheer ecstatic joy in his newly regained strength.  (Alexander Manning helps break the rest of it, as I recall.)  Then he challenges one of James of Dillington's henchmen, a Danish berserker named Olaf, to a wrestling match.

Olaf goes full on berserk while Sir William is still under the effect of a potion of bull's-strength.  They wrestle around the great hall and into the courtyard between the hall and the tower where Samson is being held.  I describe the fight as on par, in terms of duration and brutality, with John Nada and Frank Armitage throwing down in John Carpenter's They Live.  (If you haven't seen that flick you totally need to track it down. The only other movie fight scene comparably awesome is the one at the end of The Quiet Man.)  Literally everyone who lives and works in the whole dang castle eventually gathers to watch this fight, with the sole exception of Lady Susan's dour sister Chezmerelda who goes up to her room to pray against all this hooliganry. 

A second fight erupts between Father Andrew, the drunken castle priest, and Alexander Manning.  Taurus is playing his accordion and more ale and wine is being passed around as everyone gets drunker.  Then later the two pairs get entangled and Manning is now fighting Sir William while the berserker just wrecks the poor man of the cloth, even though he is now made of wood (don't ask).  Father Andrew's face looks like a murder scene the next day.

That's about when Satan shows up.  That's right, this party is so out of control that the Prince of Darkness himself crashes it!  He carries off to hell a servant boy, the blacksmith, the other minstrel present (who wasn't very good) and Samson Jones!  He would have claimed more souls but James of Dillington slurred some magic words (he was drunk like everyone else) and sent Old Scratch back below.  The next morning Lady Chezmerelda is the first one awake, screaming that Satan knocked her out and stole her prayer book.

Chezmerelda is so tramautized by this brush with the Devil that she leaves two days later to join a convent.  Her sister accompanies her on the journey, then writes home to her husband that she intends to stay as well.  It seems seeing the King of Hell scared her straight (in more than one way).

That's the official version anyway.  Folks at the Blue Rabbit will hear the real version from several members of Uggs' Irregulars a.k.a Team Adventure.  "Satan" was actually some sort of Guardian Daemon released when one of the party members took a crowbar to the chest containing James of Dillington's personal effects.  These brave do-gooders couldn't just bust Samson Jones! out of jail, they had to rob the place as well.  They made off with a bunch of gems and platinum pieces, the wizard's palantir, and Lady Chezmerelda's prize possessions, her high-tone chess set and her bejeweled prayer book.  Samson was pulled out of the tower (the other three victims of Satan really were killed by the demon) and reunited with his sons.  And no one's the wiser, so Alexander Manning is still a guest of Lord William and Rellyk is still James of Dillington's apprentice.

By the way, if any FLAILSNAILS pc has blacksmithing skill and wants a day job, Castle Bouttreaux has an opening.  The last holder of the position was carried off by Satan, but that rarely happens.

Elsa the Explorer's report
"Archbishop" Uggs' report
Farley the Dwarf's report
Alexander "De Rutabaga" Manning's report part 1 and part 2

Living in Wessex

Here are your options if you want to move out of the guesthouse of the Abbey of St. Emmet and get your own place.

Mad Hermit - You throw together a filthy little hut in some backwoods area.
Initial Cost: none
Upkeep: d6gp per year
Limits: No more than one Mad Hermit per campaign map hex. You quickly earn the reputation of being a creepy weirdo. Local farmers generally steer clear of you and missing livestock may be blamed on you.

Country Squatter - You clear some land and build a cute little cottage.
Initial cost: d6x100gp
Upkeep: d6x5gp per year
Limits: This option in unavailable in hexes with major settlements, otherwise limit four per campaign hexagon. Note the hex contain the Caves of Myrddin, etc., does not count as a major settlement. Some noble may show up and claim that you’ve built your place on his lands.

Villager - You buy a plot of land and build a place in a village.
Initial cost: d6x100gp
Upkeep: d6x10gp per year
Limits: Any number of people may set up base in villages, but given the civil war raging in England, don’t be surprised if someone burns it down at some point. Also, everybody in the village will know your comings and goings.

Citizen - You buy a plot of land and build a place in a major town.
Initial cost: d6x200gp
Upkeep: d6x20gp per year
Limits: Any number of people may set up base in the towns, but local law enforcement might cramp your style. Also, the nearest real town is 6 overland hexes away through rough Cornish wilderness, so for most players this is a good option for a back-up hideout rather than a primary residence.

Upstart Noble - You buy yourself a place on the bottom rung of the aristocracy. Comes with a manor, farms, your own pet peasants, the works.
Initial cost: d6x1,000gp
Upkeep: self-supporting
Limits: Only one of these is available per campaign hexagon and that jerk Sir Hugo has already nabbed the nearest one. Also, each of these comes with a liege. Roll d6 and consult this chart:

1) Lord Sutcherly, Mad Earl of Arrowshire
2) Robert the Hunchback, Earl of Mortshire
3) William de Mohun, the Scourge of the West
4) Henry of Blois, Bishop of Wintoncester
5) Guillame de Averoigne
6) Chera the Jewess, Widow of Wintoncester

If you roll a 1-5 for your liege you will probably want to spend d6x100gp per year on scutage, the fee that excuses you from fighting in your liege’s stupid wars. Sutcherly and Guillame are not particularly belligerent, but the other three are major players in the current civil conflict. Please note that if you swear fealty to one of these guys (i.e. roll a 1-5), you are now totally a knight.
 
Manors bought from Chera the Jewess are outright purchases, so you owe her no further feudal obligation. You can still call yourself a knight if you think you can get away with it.

Fred the dwarf talks back to the Arduin crit chart... and lives!

Last night's D&D game was out of control.  There was a two-headed non-purple worm, a visit to the Fairy Land Annex, tense negotiations with the vampires, a giant silver spider, intense combat with the same vampires and elvish trickery.  I don't even know how to put the whole thing into a coherent narrative today, so I'll just tell you my favorite part.

I critted Fred the Dwarf twice.  The first time was an old Arduin favorite: buttock torn off.  The second one was a spinal injury that sends you to a subtable, the follow up roll said he was paralyzed from the waist up.  Since death was specifically mentioned on another entry of the chart, I ruled that his autonomous functions were not paralyzed.  So his henchmen drug him off, his head and arms flopping useless about.  Also, that second crit was from a freakin' vampire.  Dude lost his spine and two levels!  They were able to repair his spine through a little miraculous intervention, but dude remains Fred Half-Butt.

And they almost killed the Vampire Lord of Crows.  Almost.

Castle Bouttreaux overhead sketch

This scan is terrible and my mapping skills are poor but combine this with the picture I posted and it should give some idea of what  is going on here.  Uggs the Cleric and his gang of jailbreakers have been scouting the site rigorously, so I feel they deserve some additional info.  A point worth noting is that the tower has at least four ways inside: front door, rooftop hatch, and doors leading onto the catwalks.

Fun fact: In 12th century England most castles do not have kitchens incorporated into the floor plan of the keep, so some poor schmucks have to lug every meal from the bailey kitchen up the ramp to the Great Hall.