Nappendixia Campaign Session Reports
Session #- 38 Session Date- 4/12/23
Time Passed- 3 days 4/12-4/14 (2 days travel/adventure, 1 day rest)
Roll Call- Harry Flugelman- Thief 1
Ragenard- Cleric 1 of Foltus
Rollo Tomassi- Cleric 1 of Tritherion
Stewart- Rollo’s Linkboy
2 Slingers of Tritherion- Merc 0
Gregor- Half Orc Fighter 1
Zellmex- Gnome Thief 6
Thanquil- Elf MU 6
Adventure Log- (Introduction to some new adventurers to the land) “You arrive at Fort Turjmir, a small outpost of about 60 people, led by the fighter Pelador. You are greeted by a friendly but lesser fighter named Chance Talon. He shows you his rough map of the area, and tells you that he's lived here for the last 2 years, helping defend the fort and train horses for the country of Lancebrass. The kingdom is ruled by Margrave Rufus Lingabrass, a fighter, and his paladin assistant Sir Ligurd Modris. They rule from the capital village of Lancebrass. The much smaller riverside village of Waygate does some river commerce, and the tower is a garrison of troops led by Rufus and Burne, a mage and fighter. Chance tells you he and his Mburgeoning party adventured in the area a few years ago, and the various dots on the map represent different encounter locations he has been to. He tells you that the location B1 is a creepy dungeon dug into the side of a hill. Several weeks ago a group of powerful adventurers set out there and have been delving it and staying in the ruined tower atop the hill. Chance says a group of nearly trained horses are going to be taken out on a big ride, and he needs a few riders to join the group. He is considering heading out to check on the adventurers at the hilltop.”
After assembling in Fort Turjmir, the new adventurers gather and introduce themselves, and agree to assist Chance on the horse training ride. They consider some locations they would like to check on, and settle on heading west to the dungeon location the previous adventure party is camped in to see how they are faring at clearing it out. The group of 7, plus Chance and 5 light cavalry and an additional 5 horses head west on the training run. They make the half day of travel by horse, some on road and some wilderness travel, and arrive at the base of the wooded hill that holds the dungeon. They spy a ruined tower atop the hill, several archers hold guard up there, and Chance signals them. A few minutes later, from around the side of the hill a Gnome approaches. He introduces himself as Zellmex, a very competent thief, and he greets Chance and meets the new adventurers. He explains that they have been camped here for about a month, working on securing the ruined tower on the hilltop, and systematically clearing out the dungeon below. He says that they have defeated several powerful enemies within, and they think the remaining denizens are of meager power, this may be an opportunity for some fledgling adventurers to cut their teeth. They agree to enter and continue to clear rooms in the labyrinth. Zellmex walks them down the long main hallway entrance, and at one point they cross an alcove and a magic mouth triggers, announcing the dungeon belongs to Zelligar, and woe to any who enter to attempt to defeat him. It startles the party, giving Zellmex a chuckle. After that they are greeted by Zellmex’s companion Thanquil, an elven Mage. They bring the party to the first crossroads in the dungeon, a 4 way intersection and a set of doors that lead east and west. Harry starts a systematic method of checking the floors and doors for traps, Zellmex critiques his efforts and gives a few pointers. After searching
They choose to try the right door first. It opens into a moldy and mildewy room filled with furniture and a fine wooden mantle, it seems to be an eating room of some kind, benches and tables set about the place. They begin searching the room, curious about all the furniture, but find nothing until suddenly they hear a thudding sound from the door at the rear of the room. Gregor decides to burst into the room hoping to overwhelm whatever enemy lies behind the door. He enters and sees a ruined hall filled with overturned benches, empty beer kegs and some old wooden mugs, clearly a type of drinking hall, but no obvious enemy is seen. All of a sudden a hatchet comes flying out of a dark corner of the room directly at Gregor, but clangs against his armor as the rest of the party enters. Gregor looks around for something to attack but finds nothing. Frustrated, another weapon, this time a dagger, flies out and strikes Stewart, it lands at his feet and he notices it is a silver dagger. Just then the dagger and hatchet begin sliding across the floor as if possessed then launch back at the party. Ragenard, seeing there might be some kind of divine energy to the room, holds aloft his holy symbol to smite it, but is unable to overcome the force. Rollo also tries, invoking the power of Tritherion, but again the novice cleric is unable to affect the force. They grab the silver dagger before it can retreat again, and back out of the room slamming the door. They hear the thudding of the hatchet as it flies into the door several times, but the silver dagger in their hand is no longer animated. Depleted of turning ability, they elect to leave the room for another attempt later. They gather outside of the opposite door from the banquet hall, and search and open it, revealing a ruined kitchen of overturned tables and cookware. Creeping out of the refuse 7 giant rats assemble and face the party. They are quickly dispatched but manage to get a few bites off on the party with their filthy rodent teeth. The clerics do some healing on the wounded. As they search the kitchen, the only thing of note is a fine bag found laying under the table. They examine it and Harry suggests that Rollo place his hand inside to see if anything is in it. At first the bag feels empty, but then something grabs Rollo and starts pulling him into the bag. Gregor and Harry each grab Rollo and the bag and try to separate them, despite their efforts, they lose their grip and Rollo is pulled entirely into the bag, and disappears into nothingness. Stewart is horrified at the loss of his master. Thanquil is subtly shocked at the display of naivete of the new adventurers, and they despondently exit out the rear door of the kitchen into an adjoining hall that goes east back to where they came from and north to the unknown. They head north with Harry searching for traps. He finds no traps, but does find a secret door. It seems to be of excellent quality, almost an airtight seal. The moldy and mildewy conditions are not present here in this triangular shaped room, the air is cool and dry. Inside they find many barrels of non perishable foods, flour, sugar, salt, and the like, plus some casks and bottles of wine. All are still edible, if not a little stale from how long they have been stored. Harry cracks open a bottle of wine and they share a drink, several party members grab a bottle for their packs. They note where the secret door can be found, and Zellmex sets a thread across the door jamb so he can tell if anyone else enters the room. From here they move southwest, as the hall traces the back 2 sides of the triangular room, when Thanquil’s innate sense of detecting secret doors kicks in, and a second air tight room is found. This room has many supplies in it, wooden beams, doors and frames, locks, hinges, nails, and other sundry items are stored here. Again the room is marked by Zellmex. Two excellent scores for his party as those supplies will come in very handy. From here they move into the SW section of the dungeon, a place yet to be explored. They follow a hallway that keeps making left turns, as if the corridor was spiraling in on itself. They hear the echoing voices of several small humanoids, perhaps goblins or kobolds. They come around what could be the last corner before the spiral ends, and find a door to their right, after a listen check they ascertain the voices are just beyond the door. They decide to burst into the room and try to intimidate the creatures, should that fail they will simply smash them. Gregor kicks in the door and roars at a group of 5 kobolds playing dice on the floor, silver and coppers scattered about. Zellmex follows in and speaks in kobold, warning them to surrender or a fate worse than death awaits them. Outmatched and outnumbered and outsized, they surrender and the party interrogates them. They say they are among a few lower powered monster groups that were living here in this abandoned dungeon. He tells them the kobolds have been in conflict with a group of bandits who took over a different part of the dungeon. The human bandits recently got spooked by a more powerful force or forces that recently entered the dungeon. He tells them of a human woman fighter who fortified part of the dungeon with her group of troops. After she moved in, things became more dangerous at night, and the bandits got spooked and several of them ran out of the dungeon several weeks ago. After that a different group seemed to have beat her and she and her few surviving troops were forced to retreat. He tells them of hearing a big explosion a few weeks ago too. Thanquil and Zellmex laugh and confirm it was they who defeated the woman warrior, another powerful monster they found which exploded upon its demise. The party tells the kobolds to beat it back to their sleeping quarters and they realize it's getting to be time to head back to Chance and take the horses back to the fort. The large amount of searching Harry did took time, making it late afternoon, giving them just enough time to get the horses back to the road before nightfall. Before they depart their more powerful friends, Zellmex gives them a suit of plate mail, in need of repair and a fitting, but still generous gift to the novice adventurers. They thank him, and leave them thinking of what they can do with their new found supplies. Certainly ample material to reinforce parts and make them safe and defensible. Chance and the party ride back the road by nightfall, and arrive late at night back at Fort Turjmir.
Interaction with Chase on the return trip- on the way back to Fort Turjmir, you tell Chance the tale of Rollo's demise inside the bag of devouring. He tells you that you should tell Pelador about the bag. Pelador is not the true leader of Fort Turjmir, the real owner of the fort is Myfar the mage, who is often out adventuring, and Pelador leads in his stead. Pelador tells you that Myfar would definitely want to offer a fair price for the bag, 1500gp which you would also get xp for. He can pay you immediately. Also he tells you the fort's armorer will repair and fit the plate mail to whomever you would like, free of charge for helping with the horses.
During downtime, Gregor gets the plate mail repaired and fitted by the armorer, and there is a ranger at fort turjmir, An-Mar the Dervish, he returns from scouting the wilderness, and takes pity on Stewart hearing of the death of his master. he notices the farmboy is skilled in woodcraft, and takes the week to formally train him as a ranger, and gifts Stewart with one hand weapon, one ranged weapon, and one armor. The party is yet to decide what to do with the Bag of Devouring.
On the Patron Front- The rumors of the dragon attack on the party from the other world are spreading around the Bartertown area.
There could be some changes on the horizon for Bartertown.
Somewhere in Nappendixia, hidden in dense foliage, an ancient evil stirs.
Session Notes- So this marks the beginning of many changes in the campaign. I had for a while now been trying to introduce people slowly into the campaign, but it hasn’t really stuck. So I took the risk and reached out to some gamers on twitter, and asked them to boost my signal asking for new players and patrons, and it worked out. It got about 15 people to join the discord, and there are now 3-4 new patrons, and 4-5 new players, and others who are asking questions and checking out the discord. I was hopeful that a good crew would be attracted to this type of game, and so far people have been very nice, respectful, and good communicators. The first session was a little weird as it was the first time mixing my original friend group and higher level characters with brand new people and characters to the game. The OG players were very gracious and let the new people take the lead and figure out the game and figure out their party dynamics. This particular moment in the campaign is already a little awkward as the Boneripper/Helenna party is currently 6th level, but attempting to clear out a dungeon that so far has been a lot of easy, low level stuff. They think they have mostly defeated the difficult monsters, and are now going through the tedious process of clearing out the low level stuff. This made for a fairly safe session for the level 1’s, even though we did have one death. That bag of devouring gag, I never get players to bite on stuff like that, but clearly Rollo’s player wanted to have fun with it, and it was fun looking up how the bag worked, it was all very detailed, he had a high % chance that the bag would notice his hand, then another high percent chance he would get sucked in. I added a save because the party quickly jumped in and tried to pull him out, but he failed. Then there was a very small chance that the bag would spit him back out, and failing all of those rolls there was no recourse but to have the bag consume him. The party had fun with it, and Harry certainly created a bit of an instant rep for himself. Overall it was a fun session. There were several people new to AD&D and several who were mainly of a 5e background, so I enjoyed teaching the system, I got to recommend the reading of page 7, and I actually read the last paragraph in the discord chat, showing those time rules and all that stuff are baked right into the heart of the game. Unfortunately, there was little treasure for the party, so xp was meager despite several combats. The party does have the opportunity to sell the bag which will net them xp as per dmg. The bag isn’t worth any xp if kept, only if sold. The new people have already reacted to downtime, and have asked to do a few different things. Also patron play is really ramped up. We have 3 patrons who are getting quite active, and another few who are showing some interest. The patron game is still new to me and it will still be an ongoing process. What I’m finding is to do it on an individual level. Let people dictate how big or small a role they want to have, and work with them individually on what they want and what they want to do with their patron. I can’t see any kind of standard patron creation system, it needs to be individually done. This is definitely the sort of “always on” game I’ve been trying to cultivate for a while now. It’s at a point now where I’d like to run sessions weekly for a while to really create that open world feel, and to make time for any new people who are still getting started. There were a few who said they plan to show up next week, and I look forward to seeing what kind of new group emerges from all the new people who have shown interest.
Treasure and XP- Monsters- Supernatural encounter 50xp, 7 Giant rats 70xp, 5 Kobolds intimidated 50xp, Good search protocol 100xp, Treasure- 50sp (2.5xp), 100cp (1xp), Silver dagger 30gp/xp= 304 divided by 5 surviving PCs (RIP Rollo)= 61xp each. Stewart gets 100xp and you can roll him up as a level 1 PC. add 10% bonus if appropriate.
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
Rollo Tomassi- consumed by a Bag of Devouring in Zelligar’s dungeon #38
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