Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 31 Session Date- 2/1/23 Time Passed- 17 days 2/1-2/17
Roll Call- Boneripper- Half Orc Fighter 6
Zellmax- Gnome Thief 6
Hellenna- Human Druid 7
Thanquil- Elf Magic User 6
Adventure Log- Boneripper, Tranquil, Zellmax, and Hellenna, the Heroes of White Plume Mountain have spent most of the last year apart, resting, traveling, visiting, and spending the reward from the Lords of Greyhawk for returning the weapons from the volcanos dungeon. After nearly a year, Boneripper, Tranquil, and Zellmax each receive word from Hellenna that she has settled in the northwest forest of the Nappendixia region, southeast of the Mar-Millor region. She has found a forest that pleases her, and has already sent her druid henchmen ahead, but would like to meet her companions in New Haven and travel into Nappendixia as an adventuring team, like old times. Arrangements are made, and the group convenes on New Haven on 2/1. The renown of the heroes affords them no lack of eager citizens who want to share rumors with them and what they know of Nappendixia. They say it is a region blanketed in a haze of fine particulate belched from a tall skinny cone of a mountain. It fills the local atmosphere and Nappendixia lives under a pinkish brown haze, rumors are it may affect things in the region, creatures, magic, the unknown. It is also known to have clusters of massive flat topped mountains encircling the volcano. Each area of rock is hundreds of square miles and all manner of strangeness is said to inhabit each area. Some say dense jungle covers the land between these massive mounts. They depart the next morning for the small fishing village only known as Keoyon, the New Havenites do not travel to them, no road connects the 2 villages, and they interact little. After 5 days they arrive in Keoyon, seeing a large camp area off the road, several travelers are here and say most travelers do not go into the village. The party decides to break with convention and enters the villages to meet its people. They enter a humble fishing village with no inn, tavern, or any amenities for travelers. What commerce they do have seems to be centered around the river, fishing, and there is a dock from which a transport barge makes monthly trips downriver into Nappendixia. Before too long, the governor of the village greets them. He is a proud leader of the humble fishing village known simply as Keoyon due to its historical connections to the kingdom of Keoland. He tells them that name is just a nickname derived from the travelers who rarely enter the village. He tells them the actual name of the village is Sybar. Zellmax tries to chat him up about any opportunities for adventure, but his eagerness to “find treasure” coming from a gnome thief puts the commodore on the defensive a little. He regards each party member while touching a fancy looking medallion around his neck. It must be some kind of magical detection, and he seems guarded but still welcoming to the party. They find out that the next ferry down river is expected in 3 days, and the village will accommodate the ferry so the party’s horses can also board. They agree and camp for 3 days, being helpful about the village while they wait. They learn that the ferry transports to a riverside village known as Waygate, part of the Margravery of Lancebrass. The northwest corner of Nappendixia is ruled by the Margrave who is a Lawful Good Paladin. It is the sole source of good in the land, and the settlements include Waygate, a fort/outpost called Fort Turjmir, and the capitol village of Lancebrass. The party inquires that perhaps they will visit the margrave in Lancebrass upon arrival. On the third day the ferry arrives and they depart. They take the ferry 4 days downriver to a place past Hellenna’s forest where fresh water can be collected. From there they are told that the trip to Fort Turjmir is a day and a half to the east, and they decide to visit there first, and that will put them on the road to Lancebrass. The day and a half travel to Turjmir went uneventfully, the plains offered no encounters and they were welcomed into the fort by Pelador, the interim leader of the fort. He tells them that Myfar, a magic user, is the true leader of the fort, currently out with his party on an adventure. He tells them that they recently got word from the Margraves caravan that travels through Nappendixia and Mar-Millor that monster sign was seen across the road north of Turjmir. They inquire about meeting with the Margrave, and are told he inhabits the keep in Lancebrass and can be sought there. They ask what lies beyond the margrave’s land, and are told there is a stretch of desert known as the Sind desert that runs SW to NE just south of the Lancebrass border. It has an old caravan road that runs NE but is long out of use and no longer leads anywhere. The desert is crossable, and beyond that there is word of a wild settlement that has sprung up in the badlands beyond the desert. Beyond that lie the strange mesas and volcano. They ask if there are any adventurers or hirelings that may accompany them in their travels through this unknown land. They are told of Naima Vance a cleric, Chance Talon a fighter, and Dougal the Red a magic user. They were new adventurers who about a year ago arrived to this area and did some adventuring; they cleared out some local monster lairs, briefly delved a nearby dungeon and turned one of the nearby monster lairs into a place to train and water horses. Since doing all that they have settled into more mundane jobs helping to run the fort. Hellenna pitches to Chance that they could use a strong, knowledgeable guide who knows the area, and her passioned pitch and charisma moved Chance so that he agreed to accompany them on a local exploration of the area. He tells them about the 3 different lairs that they cleared out last year, and about the dungeon location they discovered in the forest west of here. Seeing that the dungeon location is closest to the forest vale Hellenna is settling, and the fact that it was not cleared and could still contain treasure led them to plan a trip there the following day. They ask for all the details Chance can remember, and he tells them about a long corridor entrance that triggers a magic message from Zelligar, the supposed founder of the dungeon. Chance and his party did not spend too much time in the dungeon, just 2 short delves where they discovered some dead bodies from a previous battle, giant rats in a ruined kitchen, and some kobolds that attacked them in a hallway as they were trying to break down a door. They defeated the kobolds but were injured and left the dungeon. They party travels the day and a half trip to the dungeon uneventfully, arrives mid day, and examines the ruined tower atop a forested hill. Chance explains that the dungeon entrance is on the back side of the hill, and the tower has no entrance, but was used as a camp for rests between delves. They enter and trigger the magic message, undeterred they press past the dead bodies, now largely dessicated, and head to the door that Chance’s party were at when they were attacked by the kobolds. They are able to shoulder the stuck door, and it reveals what could be the chambers of a wizard, perhaps this Zelligar mentioned in the message. A fancy bed and locked night table appear valuable, but bulky to be moved out of here, Zellmax expertly opens the locked drawer and finds a silver medallion worth 500gp. 2 rooms off this wizards bedroom reveal a study containing 4 books on local history and ecology, which are taken, and the second room is a 30’ corridor that opens up into a trapezoidal chamber containing 2 chests overflowing with treasure. Excited but guarded, they carefully probe the room and the treasure, when they go to grab it, it all disappears as if an illusion. Soon after this they decide it may be time to exit and get some rest. They consider going back to Turjmir, but instead decide to stay at least one night in the ruined tower, perhaps delving again after a night’s rest. They make camp and secure the tower door. After 17 days, the party rests in the ruined tower, and the session ends the evening of 2/17.
Boot Hill- We did have a new player join, but he’s still getting settled and needs to make a character. Of the existing PCs, 4 are still resting in bed from wounds received. Several will be able to get out of bed in the next few days. We are realizing a serious wound takes 3.5 weeks to heal from, and that’s just to be well enough to get out of bed, the PCs will still be down Strength (in Boot Hill Strength= hit points). So it’s possible that if we play with our wounded PCs and they get wounded again, they could be more likely to die. Only No Horse has avoided serious injury, and he spent some time last week to scout out the areas where the wild Bedonkohe were heading to on the trail the posse discovered on the way to Fort Griffin. No word yet on what he was able to find. The PCs also began acquiring their means of employment and began calculating food and lodging relative to how much cash they have. I know Tom Waits is currently healing up in a cheap motel with just the last bits of a bag of beans and slab of bacon to eat. He’ll be completely broke in a few days, and will need to earn cash asap.
Session Notes- This session we were a player short, and we left it to the night of to decide what to do. We could bot the missing players PC and continue working through the slavers module, we could make up new characters in Nappendixia, or the players could run their old characters that they used when playing through White Plume Mountain. This kind of session is difficult to prepare for, so I prepped the module incase that was what was decided, but the rest would have to be improvised. They decided that they would like to introduce their old PCs to the Nappendixia map, and we worked out a backstory of how the PCs would arrive in Nappendixia. I had already worked Hellenna into the campaign, telling her player about the mystic vale, and that Hellenna would be perfect as a mini patron running that area. We decided that Hellenna after arriving would reach out to her companions and invite them on an adventure traveling into the area. I decided to have them meet in New Haven, a town they were already familiar with from Mar-Millor. From there I pulled out my campaign map and the AD&D rules for travel. It was quite easy to use my map and the charts to calculate how long their various sections of travel will last. The adventure was a bit of a travelog, the PCs visiting a series of habitations and gathering observations and information as they traveled deeper into Nappendixia. In the course of the session they visited 3 settlements, traveled by horse and by boat, and briefly delved a nearby dungeon. This was our first true session in 1:1 time. We have been respecting 1:1 time since Jan. 1, but because the PCs are off the main campaign map wrapping up their final module adventure, I have been allowing that group to continue to freeze time at the end of sessions, and we will have that group catch back up to real time after they finish the module and travel back onto the campaign map. So at the end of the session I allowed the players to decide to either spend their downtime in the mostly safe ruined tower, although I told them it may incur some encounter checks during downtime. I was ok with this due to the PCs being 6th level and more likely to be able to handle a random encounter. I would probably not have allowed this with low level characters. They also have the option to at some point during downtime to travel either to Fort Turjmir or to the settlements west where Hellenna is trying to settle. The PCs got the switch to 1:1 time seamlessly, it should be an easy transition. I’m finding the need to organize my time keeping records. I keep time accurately, but need to start recording all time points in a centralized location as opposed to just jotting them down in session notes. These adventure logs are where the finalized time records will be cemented, but I need to be a little more organized in how I keep notes. Overall it was a cool session, we added some new (old) characters to the milieu, and a lot of information was revealed as the party traveled, plus a little adventuring at the end. I had no idea where the session would take us, but was able to keep the game moving, improvising and using a lot of my prewritten ideas and locations as the party explored. The session also informed me of what I need to have close at hand to be prepared to run a session that could go any direction.
Treasure and XP- silver medallion 500gp, pewter pitcher and mugs 30gp. 530xp/ 4 PCs = 132 xp each, add % bonus when applicable.
Graveyard- Larry the Caveman- died from orc crossbow bolts in the Slavers Hideout. #29
Captain Caveman- died in combat with an Aspis Drone in the Slavers Hideout #30
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