Appendix N+ Book Review- Dwellers in the Mirage by A. Merritt

 A. Merritt- Dwellers in the Mirage 1932

Again, my opinion remains very humble, but from my perspective A. Merritt is one of the lesser revered masters of the genre.  Don’t sleep on this one, it’s an absolute classic.  In it we see the common pulp trope of the powerful western European hero in a strange land as the the protagonist, Leif Langdon, is a massive blonde guy with Scandinavian roots who impresses all with his mere size and power.  This guy has no kind of Campbell hero arc, he’s an accomplished hero before we even meet him, and this story does a good job of depicting a heroic journey of his descent into the strange world setting of the story.  Where as in Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions, the hero is mystically and instantaneously transported to the magic realm from his home world in the midst of a WWII battle with little explanation, and we get right into the fantasy action, Merritt is much more descriptive in showing Leif and his companions journey down a deep endless valley into the fantasy world of Dwellers.  It has much more of a Lost Horizons vibe, like the real world and this fantastic one are really connected through actual geography, only knowledge of the route bars entrance to the fantasy world.  What starts out as kind of an Alaskan pioneer adventure story slowly transforms into pure fantasy dripping with sword and sorcery.  He also does an excellent job of connecting real history to his pulp story, using the Uighar people as the culture that has a mystical connection to the hidden world.  The key to the story is that our hero is mystically destined to bear a magic ring that summons an all powerful and horrible creature.  In Leif's first interaction with the magic summoning he is unaware of what is actually occurring, and what he is responsible for, but by the end of the novel he is faced with a classic moral dilemma typical of many great stories, pulps and otherwise.  In its connection to AD&D, I see lots of inspiration by way of how summoning is handled, as well as the type of imagery that goes along with massive ancient underground temples that hold the means to summon terrible creatures, and the kind of thoughts and inspiration that went into books like Deities and Demigods.  Also in Dwellers, we see a well developed example of a classic pulp trope- the mystical race of humanoids that are caretakers or gatekeepers to the fantasy world.  The heroes interact with a race of very small humanoids who are caretakers of the valley and guardians of the summoning ritual.  The creature itself- the great Khal’Kru is somewhat Cthulhu-like, and came a few years after the Lovecraft story, but has its own personality/flavor, and commands a great presence in the novel, both in visions and when it is actually summoned.  Dwellers in the Mirage is must read, and I’m told his other work Ship of Ishtar is equally essential Appendix N reading.

Appendix N+ Book Reviews- Jack Vance Dying Earth and Robert E. Howard Sowers of the Thunder

 Appendix N+ Book Reviews

I thought that since I’m hoping to make the Nappendixia Campaign very much in the spirit and image of all the great literature of Appendix N, that a series of book reviews of recently read Appendix N and adjacent materials describing my impressions on the books I’ve read read would be an appropriate way to communicate this both on my blog and on the campaign’s Discord server.  I’ll be giving my impressions of where I see the N source materials inform the AD&D 1e rules, and try to give insight as to where and what Appendix N material is inspiring my own (our own) campaign world.  There is so much great Appendix N material out there, and I do not claim to have read it all, nor do I claim to be highly knowledgeable of all areas and authors of Appendix N.  My foundation authors, the ones I read heavily as a kid and a young adult are Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Michael Moorcock.  For whatever reasons, these were the ones I found most interesting, were most discussed and recommended by friends, and were somewhat findable in either used book stores or mall bookstores of the time. I have since come to acquire quite a robust Appendix N collection, and am making my way through it energetically, but there is much I have not read.  I have read very little Fritz Leiber, and have only just recently read Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions, so these reviews will not be me espousing my great literary knowledge on the topic, but more a document of my personal exploration into the body of works.  Just sort of framing ahead of time what kind of reviews I’m aiming for, and what my background knowledge is. 

Jack Vance- Dying Earth series, books The Dying Earth 1951, and Eyes of the Overworld 1966

The basics-  The Dying Earth series is an amazing collection of tales of wizards (and thieves) making their way through a world both whimsical and strange and having remnants of an older more advanced sci-fi type culture that has mostly died out but has left a few odd remnants about.  It is an amazing portrait of mad wizards ruling chaotic city states and using magic to harass and compete with other wizards and characters in the world.  I’m definitely sorry that I discovered Jack Vance later in life, because I think so far more than any other Appendix N author, once you know Jack Vance you start to look at AD&D through different eyes.  It really seems to be a heavy inspiration to so much of early D&D especially the magic side of the game.  A lot of this stuff is elementary to Appendix N people, but I’ll be clear so anyone just getting into it can hear and understand.  D&D magic is Vancian magic, it’s all spelled out in his books, beset by three basic principles that not all other literary worlds that have magic abide by.  In Vancian magic, and in D&D magic, all spells are consistent recipes, wizards cannot just produce random or spontaneous projections of magic.  Magic missile is a spell, it behaves the same no matter what wizard casts it, it is a universally known spell recipe in the world.  In Vance he describes in several places how there are only so many spells in the Dying Earth world. He says that there used to be more but many were lost over time, and spells are highly coveted by wizards and rarely shared and always for a price.  In Vancian magic spells also must be memorized or prepared ahead of time, and when cast they leave the casters memory until the time can be spent to rememorize.  And finally the power of wizards is finite, you can only memorize so many spells, and weaker wizards can memorize fewer spells until they can increase their power, exactly mirroring how things work in D&D.  Also what great to see in these Jack Vance stories is what does a world look like where the major power players are all wizards?  In the AD&D rules, only clerics, fighters, and wizards can fully access the stronghold rules and rule domains.  More often fantasy worlds and game worlds envision domains run mostly or entirely by high level fighters, with armies, castles and patrols being the means of domain management, but I think it much more likely that left to its own devices, a fantasy world would evolve as powerful wizards being the top dogs and using high level spells to take out their non-magical competition and the world devolves into wizard oligarchs moving the worlds chess pieces magically via their wizard towers.  It’s quite a cool and unique world, and one that as I read just continued to blow me away with creativity and ideas.  I keep a “Vance ideas list” as I read his stuff and write down little snippets of ideas I get while reading Dying Earth.  Pacing wise, some of the stories meander, unlike most pulp which is terse and fast paced.  I don’t dislike the pacing, but I did take a break from reading the last 2 books in the series just because there are so many books and authors I want to explore.  I have the 4 book series bound together. It has a space station on the cover, so it's a little deceptive. Other than mentions of the old high tech world, this series reads like old fantasy. Just another of many many examples of modern printings of Appendix N books that just totally get it wrong in terms of cover art.  When collecting Appendix N always look for used printings from the 80’s and earlier, the artwork is so much better.  Anyway, this is must read, I’d put it at the absolute top of Appendix N must read, (albeit from someone who hasn’t read everything, yet)

Robert E. Howard- Sowers of the Thunder 1932-1933

I’ve read a lot of Howard’s Conan and Kull stories, and a bit of his spear and fang stories, but this is my first look at Howard historical fiction, and it’s glorious.  It’s the same great Howard prose- direct, sparse in adjectives yet vividly descriptive, but applied to new characters set in an ancient historical setting.  Several of the stories are set in the fictional mideast, and Howard creates both great characters and settings representative of fictional Turks, Persians, and Huns. Several of these stories feature a western European type character of some heroic merit far from his homeland in the mideast or eastern European setting.  This is a common theme throughout a lot of pulp fantasy across many eras- John Carter Type superheroic unflawed static characters that are often hotly criticized in more modern, Campbell-influenced, and some would say marxist influenced modern fiction that is critical of strong unflawed male characters, and instead favors and proliferates weak or damaged characters that have an “arc” or rise to greatness, often through means largely not their own.  That debate is for another time and place, but several of these stories are about the theme of the heroic western European as a stranger in a foreign land where he must match wits with the strong men of the area, sometimes in alliance, sometimes in opposition. I did not ever read into these stories some kind of uplifting of the white man and denigrating of foreign nationalities.  In fact I found these stories to be much more about men of great courage and honor, negotiating each other and their different customs with respect even when in direct conflict rather than glorifications of nationalism or racism.  One of the story's main characters is a fictional Irishman, deposed from a small kingdom and wandering foreign lands as a nomad.  At no point did this character come off as haughty or belittling of foreigners.  In a lot of ways these stories read as historical buddy action movies, two mismatched characters who seem to have nothing in common work together against insurmountable odds, it’s classic high adventure stuff, well paced and action packed.  These stories are a great new angle on Howard if you like me only mainly know him through Conan and Kull.  The Howard historical fiction is the hotness- definitely try to pick up this book in the pictured edition, it’s got some amazing line art illustrations throughout the whole book, it adds some beautiful images to some great Howard fiction.

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- Session 28

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  28 Session Date-  12/14/22

Time Passed-  5 Days, 1-3 to 1-7

Roll Call- Mandigor- ½ Elf Fighter 4

Malden- Paladin 3

Gunther- Dog

Gregory- Paladin 2 Squire

Thantas- Elf Assassin 4

Gruumsh- ½ Orc Thief 4

Ulster- Druid 4

Caveman1- Ulster’s Henchman

Hirelings

Mondius- Fighter 2

LaSalle- Fighter 3

Adventure Log-  The party moves through the secret door at the rear of the slavers hideout, passes through the thick keep outer walls, and ends at the back of another secret door 10’ through the stone wall.  Mandigor is at the front of the narrow passage, and upon opening the second secret door is struck with a spiked iron bar rigged to slam into anyone who opened the door.  Quite wounded, he is given one of the primitive healing potions Malden had purchased months ago in Cedar Crossing.  Still wounded, the party presses on into an east west passage and chooses their favored direction of right.  The halls inside what is likely the inner keep of the temple are broken and charred, but still intact.  Through small holes in the walls the party can see the greater open area of the inner keep is in much greater ruin, just rubble and some ruined walls scattered about the open area.  Going right, the hall leads to a small ruined room, but the back wall of the room has been reinforced and rebricked thoroughly, completely across the rear wall of the room.  The party assumes there must be something important behind the wall, perhaps a secret pass or shortcut, maybe something valuable.  A discussion of what may be behind the wall and the best way to get through to investigate is had.  The druid offers to cast Stoneshape, and Draden also has a similar power from an odd scroll he found long ago.  They opt to use the stoneshape, and quite a bit of stone can be moved by the spell.  Ulster creates a portal in the wall roughly 4’x5’, revealing a large shadowy open area that must open into the open area of the keep.  However off to the left the party sees that a 10’ wall has been constructed, penning this area off from the larger area, still climbable, but no openings in that similar brick wall.  Then immediately notice many statues in the area, in poses of all kinds, very lifelike.  They continue scanning through the area, and that is when disaster strikes, the front of the party, Mandigor, the dog, Gruumsh, Malden and Gregory are all met by the gaze of a Basilisk who crawls forward among the statues.  Catastrophically, all but Gruumsh fail their save and are immediately turned to stone!  The party panics, averts their eyes, and Gruumsh grabs Malden’s stone body, and instructs the hirelings to grab the dog.  Draden is able to use his strange scroll to cast a form of stone to flesh on Mandigor and he returns but weakened. Unfortunately Gregory is left behind.  Fortunately the party gets initiative and the basilisk makes no effort to chase them as they back out of the chamber, through the smaller room where they firmly shut the door.  Unnerved, they retreat back out of the secret door, and return to their rocky outcropping to recoup.  Dresden is only able to use his scroll to return those turned once a day, so Mandigor rests, and the party waits until the next day they scan the horizon looking for Rev. Ramsey and his party or perhaps other adventurers headed to fight the slavelords.  Rumor has it that even the great heroes of White Plume Mountain have answered the call to bring the fight to Highport.  No parties are sighted however.  The next day the paladin is returned, and the following day the dog.  Then the dog must rest one more day or it will not be able to return to the hideout.  Should the party be able to get back to Gregory, he will have to be assisted by the hirelings until he can rest for a day.  4 days later, the party returns to the secret door of the hideout, recovers Gregory outside the door to the basilisk room, then promptly opts to go left, the other way down the hall.  It brings them to a ruined door, stuck but splintered and broken, inside reveals an equally destroyed room, roofless, revealing an upper floor that has no floss save a ledge of beams and flooring going around.  Perched on these ledges are shadowy creeping figures and the smell of death.  Predicting undead, but having no cleric, the druid procures a scroll of protection from undead, and all within 5’ are immune to their attack.  Huddled around the scroll, the party peppers the ghoul and ghasts with arrows and axes, taking out several; they surprisingly do not flee despite being unable to attack.  Another volley of missiles from the party does take out a few more and drive the rest to climb up and out of the ruined room onto the top of the keep walls.  The druid's caveman minion is sent up onto the ledge to investigate, and he brings down some treasure and a potion, identified as fire resistance by Draden.  Beyond the ghouls room the party climbs some stairs and finds itself in a room with an almost completely ruined floor, a 3 story hole in its center with a wide wooden plank set across it, and ruined floor on both sides, a little wider on the right.  Both sides of the room are tested and seem dodgy, and the plank in the center is not considered.  They opt to fix ropes and all climb down to the basement below, then have the caveman walk across the plank and lower a rope from the other side.  The caveman finds the plank to be quite solid, walks easily across it, and assists the party in climbing back up the other side.  A safe but time consuming way to manage this obstacle, it takes about 2 hours to negotiate.  Through the hall on the other side of the room the party finds an alcove with 3 barrels of what could be vinegar, sealed and dusty.  Perhaps it's something more vile, perhaps just soured wine, but the party leaves it be.  Just beyond the alcove there are stairs descending into an empty room save for what appears to be a pile of oily gray rags.  Certain of a trap or monster, the party does not hesitate to begin hurling flaming oil and arrows at the pile.  It begins flailing and sending out tentacles, but only out to 5’, so they are safe on the stairs.  After the oil burns out the creature is still alive, but the party is unwilling to engage it in melee.  Thinking, they reconsider the barrels of vinegar, could they be flammable? Unlikely, but maybe rolling the barrels down the stairs will do some crushing damage to the creature, likely some kind of plant or fungus, due to its somewhat visible roots clinging to the stone floor.  The barrels crash down the stairs, burst open, and the acid in the vinegar begins acting on the plant creature, melting its roots and dissolving its body.  Moving its desiccated body they find gold, gems, and a curious looking ring, a gold band set with 3 glimmering colored stones.  After defeating the Sundew, they move into a hall that goes 3 directions.  They listen at one door, and hear gruff voices speaking orc, and move along.  Another direction leads to a long hall ending at 2 sets of double doors.  One set of double doors has various holy symbols of many faiths crudely nailed to the doors.  Again, being unnoticed in the hall, they opt to check the 3rd direction which leads past 2 empty ruined rooms and ends at stairs down.  Bravely they decide to check out level 2 of the hideout.  The stairs descend into narrow, primitively dug tunnels supported by wooden beams, they go one direction and it leads to a small cavern with 3 pits that once contained grain, they are empty now, and there is a ladder leading up to a locked trap door in the ceiling.  There is one very narrow passage leading out of this chamber, but only large enough for a gnome or halfling to fit.  Not wanting to immediately go back up, they backtrack the other direction down the hall, but are met by 2 orcs coming down the stairs they just came from.  Tense standoff occurs as the 2 unsure orcs question the 10 man party.  The party claims to be Lareth’s (the wannabe slaver they killed back outside of Orlane) men here to pick up slaves.  The party doubts the orcs' unsure responses, but allows them to lead them to where they say the slavers and the slaves are.  They lead the party back to the lacked trap door in the ceiling, knock, and are let up into a room containing 3 half orcs and 17 slaves, chained and huddled in dirty blankets.  The session ends with the party about to negotiate with the slavers.

Session Notes-  The session started off on sort of a down note, the basilisk’s gaze really threw them for a loop.  After so many weeks of tight, coordinated, successful play, they got tunnel vision on the idea that the bricked up wall was hiding something good, and not keeping something bad contained.  It's funny because last session they found a locked door and were absolutely certain there was something dangerous locked in there and avoided the door, but here they could only see the brick wall as a barrier to something good.  Odd how that works sometimes.  The flavor text describing the statues was a very big giveaway, so i think it was fair having the gaze affect so many, they were actively scanning the area looking for clues, and in the module it is written there is a 1 in 6 chance that a player looks at the basilisk each turn, the party rolled a one on turn 2, so that was bad luck.  It was fortunate that Draden had that odd scroll and was able to use it as a form of stone to flesh, so it wasn’t a game changing tragedy, just time consuming and the party felt a little frustrated at itself for not reading the clues better.  

This brings up another point, the 1 in 6 chance of seeing the basilisk is a RAW passage written into the module.  The same was true of the spike trap that hit Mandigor at the secret door.  It is written into the module that whoever opens the door gets hit for 3-18 no save.  After asking for a save, I explained that’s how it is in these old modules, and everyone was cool with playing it out RAW in these peculiar module rulings.   

Which led to another discussion during the session- clearly the power level and danger of this module is much greater than the last one which was a novice adventure.  Several of the players have higher level characters that were played 2 years ago when this campaign started with a play through of White Plume Mountain.  Those characters haven’t been revisited since, and I offered that they may now have been called to Highport to help fight the slavers.  The players of these characters considered, and we agreed there may be a chance that they arrive at the hideout and can be available for the party to use.  But that decision is for another session.

In session I just let PCs who recovered from Stone to Flesh to immediately rejoin play, but after the fact I decided to make anyone who transformed rest for 1 full day.  That’s not harsh since there’s already a rule that if you drop to 0 you must recover with 1 week of rest.  I have been adhering to that rule.  One thing I did forget though was to have them roll on the Con table for system shock.  That could have caused a permanent death, but my mistake, I will note this and grade myself down for poor DMing.  Other things I would cite as bad DMing this session are I did not roll for random encounters on the first level, forgot.  I also did use morale and reaction roll rules in the fight with the ghouls, but have to check the modifiers, I may have messed up applying modifiers since the ghouls could not harm the party.  I should have had them throw rocks and debris at the party and not just stand there.  I also could have been more descriptive and used better imagery.  DM grade- Poor

Which leads to another point, it’s RAW to grade players actions per session, and the quality of play based on their class and alignment.  The grading rules are on DMG pg. 86, and affect training for next level, the cost and duration.  For the most part PCs played well, though I would probably deduct points from the thief and to a lesser extent the assassin, who didn’t use any skills in the room with the collapsed floor.  Letting the caveman go across the beam when 2 PCs have climb walls and don’t use it warrants a deduction.  The fighter opting not to go into melee with the sundew was close, but appropriate play.  Because the party used ingenuity to avoid melee and defeat the sundew it’s good play, but fighters need to be willing, even eager to melee most opponents.  Leaving the sundew alive to avoid melee would have been a  deduction.  Points would be given to the magic user, paladin, and druid for thoughtful use of spells and abilities.  These kinds of gradings will be applied in the future and they will affect training costs as per the rules on pg. 86.

Treasure and XP-  Monster xp-  8 ghoul, 2 ghast, giant sundew, 2803 +500 for good play.  Treasure xp- gold, gems, potion, ring, 7260xp= 10,563 divided by 6 PCs, + % bonus, - 15% for henchmen.

Graveyard-

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- Session 27 Begin Ch. 2

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Reports

Session #- 27 Session Date-   12/7/22

Time Passed-  1 month travel, 3 days adventuring

Roll Call-  Mandigor- ½ Elf Fighter 4

Malden- Paladin 3

Gunther- Dog

Phillip- Paladin 2 Squire

Thantas- Elf Assassin 4

Gruumsh- ½ Orc Thief 4

Hirelings

Mondius- Fighter 2

LaSalle- Fighter 3

 

Adventure Log-  Having defeated the Spirit Naga with incredible swiftness and stealth, and having previously defeated Lareth the aspiring slavelord, the party begins its journey east, following the human traffickers down the Sheldomar River to Niole Dra.  Here they witness the mysterious figure EH, wearing his signature spider web robes, secret away a group of kidnapees.  They make the acquaintance of a sailor and his first mate Shadisse and Rakhim, who are sympathetic to the party’s plan to fight the slavelords.  They have a ship that can take the party to Highport and a small crew.  They are eager to bring the fight to the slavers, and will help the party make landfall outside of Highport and hideout/skirmish on water against the slavers while the party infiltrates their fortress and then return them home should they all survive.  This all takes the month of December, and the party’s first arc, from green adventurer to competent mid level heroes is complete.  Along the way the party meets the druid Ulster, who agrees to join them on their journey.  They also have the chance to count their treasure, and sell off some valuables and cash out their smaller coins in the merchant areas of several port cities they visit.  They also reassess their magic item stores and best distribute their gear.  Rev. Ramsey, their Cleric companion, agrees to part with some of the magic items he acquired through the party, and he makes his way back to his and Draden’s hometown of Safeton, where he will mount his own party to assault the slavelords hideout.  After inserting onto land on a rocky outcropping outside of Highport, the party decides to observe for 2 days.  They see the ruined temple of Heironeous, inside unmanned keep walls in the primitive, despoiled city, more an unkempt and muddy camp with a few buildings still maintained and many more ruined.  Bands of unsavory adventurers and well protected merchants move in and out of the city, heading to and from the port areas, but to other areas of the city as well.  No guards appear to man any of the open gates around the city or around the temple, and no discernible patrols seem to exist.  It seems like a lawless city.  On the second day Mandigor and Thantas, those of elf blood, are made invisible by Draden and they head down to get a closer look at the temple turned slaver hideout, and to hopefully find the secret door Malden believes exists on the rear of the building.  They manage to approach the building and find that it is patrolled somewhat regularly upon its 35 foot walls, groups of humanoids moving on the walls spotting; no outside ground patrols seem to exist.  They manage to find a well placed secret door on the rear of the building as thought, and notice the protocol of several visitors to the place.  There are guards posted at the portcullis walls, and groups of merchants or adventurers/bandits were admitted through the gate after a verbal exchange.  Horses were led around to the side of the front of the temple and through a pair of large doors.  Deciding the unlikelihood of getting through the front door, they check the secret door. It is untrapped and unlocked, and reveals a passage leading 10’ in and ending at the rear of what must be a second secret door, not secret on this side, only the other side.  Backing out they return to the party with the intel.  The party returns on the third day, and approaches as a non-descript group of adventurers.  They opt to bring the fighter hirelings with them, both of whom are well armored.  Session ends on Jan. 3, with the party poised to enter the secret door.

Session Notes-  This session marks the beginning of the Napppendixia Campaign, a true 1e AD&D RAW 1:1 time game that transitioned from the former Mar-Millor Campaign, a more modern style game based on hex crawling and modules, showcasing some classic AD&D modules.  My players hadn’t played those classic AD&D modules, so I wanted them to experience some of them.  We started with White Plume Mountain, which was a blast and a great experience in learning AD&D RAW for all of us.  We then however, reset the campaign to 1st level characters through Cult of the Reptile God and part of The Village of Hommlett.  But it was a standard party centered campaign where we froze time after each session and the party continued from that point the next session.  The module play was great, but as I learned about and experienced 1:1 time I and my players wanted to try it out.  So having played through several modules, and wanting to put some kind of finale to this “story arc” the party will travel off to Highport and Go on A1 of the Slavelords series.  They will be out of the Nappendixia area and can still “freeze time” at the end of sessions until the culmination of the module and the return to Nappendixia, where we will calculate what day they return to play, and from that point on all play will be in 1:1 time.  Any new patrons, players or PCs that start in Nappendixia will adhere to 1:1 time.  

This was a super casual session, which I believe is good to have every once in a while.  Chat of family, christmas, and models was had.  And some loose talk about the game.  The campaign now has its own Discord server now, thanks to one of the players who set it up for me based on my specs, which really sped things up as I am not super computer savvy. I’m the admin now and understand how to run the server now, but saving time on the setup was super helpful and appreciated.  There are now 3 patrons involved in the campaign, and the discord is the best way to communicate and get them involved.  The discord has already been great for die rolling, posting purchases, treasure, xp, maps, handouts, it’s really enhanced the campaign.  

This was one of the last times I could do any grandiose DM handwaving, so I had opted to move the party along all the way to Highport right outside the temple due to the fact that last session's big boss fight ended early and there was time to move things along.  I’m a big believer as a DM in moving things along, trying not to put words or actions into my players mouths but trying to always keep things moving.  The players however at the beginning of this session wanted to reconsider some things they may have done along the way to Highport, or possibly alter their route back to Orlane before departing, maybe checking in on Orlane or better helping the prisoners get home. They worked out how they wanted to distribute the magic items, opened a locked chest with some scrolls in it, cashed out small coins etc.  They decided not to go all the way back to Orlane, figuring they can return there later.  Mandigor’s player decided he wanted to drop the Cleric Npc he was running and I agreed he could roll up a 4th level druid as a replacement.  Again after this no more special exceptions.  All new PCs will begin at first level.  We agreed on a rolling method since the AD&D ability bonuses aren’t as friendly- 4d6 drop lowest, in order, but 2 stats can swap places.  You also get a final +1 to any one ability.  The Current characters were rolled up and played using Advanced Labyrinth Lord and a little ACKS thrown in.  These characters will be grandfathered in to have those B/X style ability bonuses, and a few proficiencies from ACKS, they earned it from 2 years of solid play.  The session ended with players feeling all loose ends are tied up and ready to assault the temple in earnest next session.  We will be switching to a more weekly schedule moving forward.  Hoping to add new players and diversify away from just having one main group of PCs.

Treasure and XP-  none

Graveyard-

Mar-Millor Campaign 1.0 Sessions 25-26 End of Ch. 1

Session 25-  Curse of the Coffer Corpse

Day 60 4pm.  The party really has so far been trying to avoid any parts of the dungeon that are excessively muddy or partially collapsed.  They can’t recall any un-searched direction that stayed on dryish ground, so they decided to haul a load of treasure back out of the dungeon and rest somewhere on the surface.  They manage to get the treasure hauled out of the keg room and back on the surface, but no real place to hide it.  They opt to stash it against the wooden palisade and have a very uncomfortable rest on the muddy mound.  During the night they are attacked by stirges, but the party is ready and quickly handles them.  Rested they wait until dawn and re enter the dungeon.  Day 61, 5am.  Knowing they will now have to explore one of the wet or collapsed areas, the party opts for the muddy area furthest to the west.  They pass harmlessly through it, and continue to a second room, this one filled deep with putrid murky water.  Disturbing, but no encounters there.  They then opt to go east and find what they think is the other side of the large pool room they found yesterday.  Disturbing the water they are quickly engaged by 3 crocs.  The battle is ferocious, but the party is victorious.  They manage to skirt the pool room’s edge and find a southern passage, and they also see an alcove to the north that contains a large raft and likely the rear of a secret door.  Continuing south, they find a 3 way intersection, 2 ways are muddy so they go east on dry ground.  It snakes around to a barred 3 room complex containing some trog troops.  They seem to be guarding the entrance to the second level.  The party fights and defeats them and descends to the next level.  They quickly come to a wet muddy series of passages that lead away in three directions.  Two of the paths have a series of rocks set in the mud that could be walked on, so the party opted to follow one of those north. The passage breaks north and south after the mud lessens.  To the south they encounter another large cavern filled with water.  So they choose to try the door to the north.  It reveals a large, square chamber with a pillar in the center.  Emerging, an eerie undead figure emerges.  Unsure what it is, hoping it's merely a zombie the party attacks, and it falls.  But shortly after the creature collapses it rises again with a pallor of fear.  Most of the party is unaffected, but they realize that their weapons are having no effect save Mandigor’s magic dagger.  They opt to try to wield and try the fine weapons they found, hoping that they are not cursed but magical.  They each turn out to be magical, one a +1 longsword, the other a +1 Shortsword, +3 vs scaly creatures.  They quickly slay the coffer corpse.  Catching their breath, the session ends.  Day 61 9am.

Session 26-  Delve Smarter, Not Harder- Chapter 1 Finale

Day 61 9am.  The party moves beyond the coffer corpse room, finding nothing of value or interest there.  The door beyond leads to a hallway, and a heavy wooden door with an iron padlock on it.  They opt to leave whatever is locked in there alone, and move into a small open chamber with 4 benches and not much else, the hall leads through this open area.  Leery of benches, they examine them and find traces of blood and hair on them, perhaps dead or injured laid here.  They move through the chamber to a door beyond.  Listening, they hear a voice call out and tell them to enter.  No chance for surprise, but the heroes enter prepped for combat.  The Naga’s head cleric Gareth Primo awaits, his shadowy henchman lurking in the shadows behind a massive stone naga statue centered on a wooden dais.  The henchman steps forward revealing itself to be a hideous undead creature, and the cleric begins casting, gesticulating at some still forms laying behind the statue.  The archers in the party get off shots ahead of the evil magic, disrupting it and wounding the cleric.  Mandigor moves forward to engage the horrific wight, hoping a hit won’t get through his armor.  It misses several times, and he bravely stands it down while the cleric is taken down, then the wight is finally finished off.  The cleric appears to have some fine armor and a snake headed hammer, and they are kept.  The paladin, determined to desecrate the graven image of the naga, tries a few ways to coordinate with the strong people to pull it down or smash it.  Finally Mandigor climbs atop the statue with the hammer and smashes the head, revealing it to be a hammer +1, and also revealing that the head of the statue was on some kind of swivel mechanism, and by smashing it the head spun sideways, and a wooden panel on the real wall reveals a secret door.  The mechanism was the only way the secret door could have been found.  Moving through, hoping for the best, the party is shocked at the sight as they are able to quietly peek through the door.  They see the naga with a huge black and red striped muscular body, and atop the neck an unnervingly huge and realistic female human head.  The creature's back is to the party as she arrogantly paces across her pile of treasure looking out expectantly at an underground lake.  She clearly expects the party to approach her from that direction, unaware that they had found the nearly impossible to find secret door.  Having her dead to rights, the assassin and thief break forward for backstab attempts- both successful, and she is mortally wounded, but the assassination attempt fails.  However the rest of the party also bursts forth and several blows take the naga down.  Her mystical charm barely affects Mandigor for a moment before she dies.  Much treasure and magic items are hauled off from the naga’s horde including a ring of free action, ring of protection +1, some magic scrolls and potions, a bag of holding, a horn of bubbles, and some elven boots.  Almost immediately the party can sense the lifting of the magical curse and the charm thrall of the naga, they are certain this will also release the people of Orlane from the curse.  Realizing they are still in the depths of the nagas lair and the unknown remaining monsters here they discuss a way of flooding or destroying the lair, but it seems too risky at this time, so they gather the treasure and egress from the mud lair. They do find a ring of keys on Gareth, and open the padlocked door to find some captured prisoners that were immune to the naga’s charm.  They include the son and daughter of the carpenter of Orlane, and a merchant from Hookhill.  Both are rescued and helped onto a safe road home.   A Hearty xp reward is given and the party spends some time training, resting, re-equipping, and finally attaining 4th level.  They make their way down the Sheldomar river, following the logging boats that worked for Lareth.  In Niole Dra, they witness what is likely the last of Lareth’s kidnappees get handed over to a shadowy figure who magically disappears with them.  In Niole Dra they make the acquaintance of a Sailor and his first mate Shadisse and Rakhim.  They have a ship that can take the party to Highport and a small crew.  They are eager to bring the fight to the slavers, and will help the party make landfall outside of Highport and hideout/skirmish on water against the slavers while the party infiltrates their fortress and then  return them home should they all survive.   This all takes the month of December, and the party’s first arc, from green adventurer to competent mid level heroes is complete.  The next chapter will transition the Mar-Millor Campaign into the Nappendixia Campaign, where we focus on an adjacent part of the map, and go into 1:1 time.  While the Mar-Millor PCs are off the map in Highport they will be able to “freeze time”, but will have to catch up to 1:1 time as they journey back to Nappendixia.  Any new patrons, players or PCs that start in Nappendixia will adhere to 1:1 time.  End session and end Ch. 1 on Jan. 1, 2023