I was fortunate enough to run a session in the excellent Red Frontier Campaign that I am a part of. Here's a rather verbose session report. Check the Red Frontier link for more.
Red Frontier Session Report
Session #- 34 Session Date- 1-20-23
Time Passed- 2 days adventuring
Roll Call- Beacon- Cleric 1 NG
Cindy- Fighter 1 CN
Robin- Ranger 1 CG
Alfred- Fighter 1
Laughing Fox- Druid 7 TN
3 Power Station Henchmen- Lt Foot
Adventure Log- In a Sub Basement of the Power Station, a deep shaft is discovered behind a stone wall extending many stories
down. It seems ancient, and climbers plumb its depth, revealing a temple or dungeon complex of some
kind. The structure appears so old the bedrock it was carved in has shifted to a 30 degree pitch. The
climbers reach the bottom, discovering a wide antechamber with a wide passage heading north, upslope.
A call goes out to what remains of civilization in the Red Frontier, a need for adventurers to explore it
and assess its danger. Over the week 5 adventurers gather, 4 very green- Cindy and Alfred (fighters)
and Robin the ranger and Beacon the cleric. Also Laughing Fox the druid, a known hero of the land
arrives, and the people at the Power Station hope he can guide the new adventurers to success. He has
the wherewithal to bring some of the sci-fi gear given to the party by Boldvay, and the new recruits arm
themselves with plasma pistols, a few force fields, a bunch of glow sticks, and they have one of the
henchmen carry 5 incendiary bombs. After gearing up on rope, spikes, lanterns and torches, the Power
Station forces give the party a scroll of Find Traps, and Beacon gratefully accepts it. They descend the
shaft and assemble their marching order and check their surroundings. They notice a large closed eye
laid out on the floor in mosaic tiles. The 20’ wide passage slopes north, several alcoves and east-west
passages are observed. The fighters take the front and the henchmen are kept in the rear, fixing spikes
and ropes occasionally along the sloped passage. They first encounter some statues of tentacled creatures
with a large eye for a head, examining them closely the right one is seen to have some kind of clay pot
with copper tubing attached to the base of the statue. They avoid touching it. Beacon the Cleric recalls
from ancient theology the Chaotic Evil god the Eyeless Void, a powerful entity that spans many worlds
and is worshiped by insane cults. Up the corridor it has an east west passage heading 20 feet in each
direction and ending in a door. On the floor is another eye mosaic, this one with the eye ¼ open. The
door to the east is lined with yellow stone and closed, the one west lined with red stone and smashed
open, the wood dry and splintered. Avoiding whatever may have smashed the door, they opt to go east,
looking ahead along the northern corridor and seeing more statues in alcoves and wanting to avoid
those. Laughing fox bypasses the locked door with a strange, yellow stone keyhole with a warp wood
spell, bending the doors timbers. They enter a complex of a corridor and a few rooms, all lined along
the floor in yellow stone. They enter the largest room of the area and encounter some kind of silver
screen hung on the wall, framed in bronze. There is a desk with a few buttons on it and the screen
comes to life, and the room is bathed in yellow low light emergency lighting. The screen and desk begin
to hum, but before they can examine, a swirling shadowy shape, somewhat manlike, begins swirling
violently around the room and attempts to gaze it's strange shadowy eyes at the party. The plasma
pistols are effective against its form, but very hard to hit. Some damage is done, but it manages to gaze
at Cindy and Neil Young the henchman twice, aging them 10 years per gaze. A Faerie Fire spell from
Laughing Fox made the vision easier to hit and they are able to destroy it to shadowy nothingness.
Searching the room they find a yellow stone key and an arcane scroll (later revealed to be Darkness).
Now able to better look at the screen, it appears to show a few other locations in the complex, the words
“In-House Monitor” are displayed across the screen. It shows a room bathed in blue light with some kind
of cylinder with antennae on it, and a red lit room with a hallway leading out, in that hallway the party can
barely make out a staticy, near invisible man shaped figure moving down the hall. They look on the desk
and see a box with many buttons, and a switcher device with 3 settings. They click the dial, it changes to
a different setting, “Nexus Located” displayed across the screen, and they see images of their hideout in
Red Frontier, and that same hideout location, but in a different time or place. Then they see the
underground location of the Stargate to Jull-Nar in the Red Frontier, and then that same location in
another time or place, this one covered in giant spiders. It cycles through those images over and over.
They opt to click the 3rd position, and the screen goes to static, and the message reads “Seeking Outside
Source”, and a circle icon begins spinning. Not liking where this is going, they quickly click back to the
inhouse monitor, cover the monitor with some found ragged bedding and leave. They go to the last room
in the yellow area, a locked door with fancy carved woodwork around its door frame. It reveals a kind of
treasure room, an alcove across the back wall with a chest in the center, columns on either side of the
alcove of beautifully carved women in white stone. Sensing a trap, Beacon reads the scroll, and the
pillars to indicate to him some kind of trap, but not a standard mechanical trap. Unsure what to do, they
prod at the chest and the columns, nothing happens until robin moves in and grabs the chest, causing the
columns to come to life, becoming flesh and holding razor sharp scimitars they had been discreetly holding
at their sides. The party loses initiative and Robin is struck down, dropping just to death's door. Laughing
Fox casts heat metal on the ladies' swords, and Beacon tries to cure Robin, but is also struck and the
spell is disrupted. He perseveres, and gets the heal off next round when Laughing Fox engages with his
magic spear. Robin is saved and the Caryatid Columns are defeated after dropping their searing hot
weapons. The chest is untrapped and reveals a dagger, a wand, and a nice haul of gold and electrum.
Robin wields the dagger revealing it to be +2, the wand is arcane but unknown (later revealed to be a
wand of illusions). Wounded, and laden with treasure they elect to return to the shaft, extract the treasure
, and rest, heal, and rememorize spells.
Refreshed on Saturday they return. They decide to tackle the smashed door of the red lined section, anticipating
the staticy figure. They come to a 4 way intersection and spot the figure to the north. They attempt to parley
, but the creature seems to have no response, it approaches so they attack. Again Laughing Fox uses
Faerie Fire to illuminate the barely visible creature, greatly aiding the party. The rest of the party tries to
pelt it with pistol fire. It’s hard to hit but a few make the shot. It reaches out with 2 massive fists and a bite, hitting several with its staticy paws, damaging them, but also sapping their strength. Alfred and the others
who were wounded immediately worry that the strength loss could be permanent. They persevere and the
party takes out the Spirit Troll. They find the room with the screen and desk with buttons that they had viewed
previously, and searching a door off that room set off a nauseous gas trap, much of the party begins gagging
and/or vomiting, nauseous from the gas, they pull back to the previous room. Beacon does his best to tend
the nauseous and strength depleted, finding the strength to begin returning to the wounded. The nausea
takes longer, but eventually it ends after 10 turns. Behind the trapped door they find a room containing the
red stone key that opens the doors in this section. The other 2 rooms in this section reveal some kind of
bunk area and some kind of eating/cooking area. They exit the red area via a door north of the smashed
one, figuring they can get back to the main passage and avoid the statues in that hall. Across from where
they reenter the main passage, they see a door trimmed in green stone. At the intersection another eye
stone mosaic is laid on the floor, this one with the eye half open. A little further ahead the main passage
splits east and west. They decide to use Warp Wood on the green lined door, and do. They hear scurrying
from the other side of the door, as well as from behind when all their light sources go completely dark.
Shocked, someone pulls out a Glowstick, and its tech seems to cut through the magical darkness
somewhat, but when Laughing Fox Casts Produce Fire, the magical fire cancels the magical darkness
and the opponents are revealed. About 7 small wiry creatures in dark ragged cloaks pull out daggers
and attack from the rear, likely the same creatures are beyond the warped door. Cindy calls for the
hireling to hand up an incendiary bomb, drops it through the door, and boom Blinding light blasts from
the warped door. At the same time one of the party drops one of the creatures from the rear and again
the creature explodes into a flash of blinding light, blinding him. A few more of the creatures pop out of
hiding and attempt to pick Laughing Fox’s pocket, one of them getting their hands on the newly found
magic wand. They try to flee. Laughing Fox throws magical fire at the creatures, slaying several, and
the party takes out the remainder while Laughing Fox grapples and captures one of them. They find
their cloaks filled with gold coins (about 24gp each) and they find a magic ring (later identified as water
walking) and some valuable jewelry. With a temporarily blind party member, wounded and spell depleted
, the party withdraws to the surface. They rest Saturday night at the Power Station.
Session Notes- This was my first time running in Red Frontier, my first time running someone else’s
campaign world, and first time running for some pretty elite players so I was a little nervous, but ended
up hanging quite well and having a blast! We played a really long session (almost 4 hours) so I think
everyone was having fun, and I was thankful how deep I prepared because the party grinded through a
lot. I figured a good way to get my feet wet in Red F. was to have some kind of dungeon for the PCs to
run, I wasn’t ready to run free form in someone else’s game world, the dungeon keeps it contained. I
figured the Power Station consumed the first 3 “dungeon levels” to this complex, so I stocked my dungeon
as a 4th/5th level dungeon, focusing on ghosty/ planar creatures that could conceivably be sealed up in
a dungeon for a long time. I figured this would work well since I anticipated having a small party of 2-3
PCs level 6-7, which would have worked. However 4 1st level PCs and one 7th showed up for the session
, which was awesome, to have a bigger group and to have new people get involved. I was worried the
session would be unfun and just be 1st level characters getting pounded on by 4th/5th level monsters,
but it worked out. I reminded the party of the sci-fi gear they had, and they were happy to make use of it.
I ruled they were rare and special enough to act as “magic” for purposes of being able to affect creatures
only harmed by magic weapons, of which there were a lot in this dungeon. I was also concerned that a
lot of the creatures in this dungeon had very low ACs, like 2 or even 0. This wouldn’t be too bad for level
6-7s but very difficult for level 1’s. They did really well, however, I probably made a few calls on the easy
side, but they used good tactics, excellent spell usage, and perseverance to be very successful. It was a
very high xp dump for level 1’s, enough for the cleric to double level, but it was a long session, and they
managed to get 2 pretty big treasure dumps in the session.
I’ll need to review all the steps to encounters and combats, I did OK running them but definitely forgot
a few things like weapon speed when initiative is simultaneous, that definitely happened a few times in the
session. I also made a ruling on death and negative HP. It is RAW in AD&D for death to occur at -10,
but I feel that’s too much and players often take advantage of the rule in combat. I ruled that you can live
up to your level in negative hp, one more and you’re dead. So a level 1 is unconscious at 0 and -1,
dead at -2. Robin hit -1 when he fell, so that fits the rule. It gives just a little play at low levels for surviving
hits. The quality of play was excellent, really top notch players having fun, Beacon the cleric did an
excellent job taking the role of impromptu “caller”, reading the room from the party and relaying actions
to me. Players were focused, funny, and played their roles well. Excellent spell usage from Laughing Fox
was a force multiplier, the fighters were always up front and willing to take hits for the party, despite
unkind dice. Robin the ranger was super risky and always willing to take point in lieu of a party thief,
he was amazed he didn’t die! Really high grade play from everyone. I look forward to running more
sessions in Red Frontier for these players and others. I have a little adventure idea that can last just as
long as Elffinder would like to stay on sabbatical. I love being a player in Red Frontier, but this was a ton
of fun too, and I’ve got energy and ideas to do more!
Treasure and XP- monsters- Vision, Caryatid column, 20 Dark Creepers, Spirit Troll- 4822 xp. treasure and magic items-
13480= 18302 - 5% to the power station henchmen (915) = 17387xp/ 5 PCs=3477xp per PC, add % bonus if applicable.
The Cleric double levels and will require 2 weeks and 2000gp to train, the other 1st level PCs level and
require 1 week and 1000gp to train.
Graveyard-
(Death’s Door)- Robin- brought to -1 by the Caryatid Column, needs 1 week bed rest.
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