Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 43 Session Date- 5/10/23
Time Passed- 5 days (5-10 to 5-14, entire party arrives in Lancebrass 5-15)
Roll Call- Harry- T2
Waiofar- M2
Bart- F1
Vlana- A1
Markus- C1 of Selune
Adventure Log- Several of the PCs downtime queries found them asking for things the small amount of resources in Fort Turjmir could not accommodate. Their investigations led them to learn a little about the resources in Lancebrass, 60 miles to the east. Selling the griffin egg, finding a smith who can do custom work, researching deities and legends, seeking a better pool of hirelings and mercenaries- all of these things are much more easy to acquire in a larger settlement such as Lancebrass. They talk about traveling there soon. Ragenard’s brother, Waiofar, a mage from Lancebrass, arrives after getting word of his brother’s demise. The party greets him warmly, and brings him to the sunny hillside where he was buried, and provides him with Ragenard’s legacy share of the griffin’s treasure. He is grateful his brother spent his last days with fine companions, and agrees to join the party. Two other newcomers, also adventurers, arrive at the fort and make themselves acquainted. They are Markus, a cleric of Selune, a little known moon goddess, and Vlana, a stealthy assassin. The new adventurers are welcomed into the party, just as Harry arrives at the fort fresh from training for a new level of thief back at the dungeon. He tells them about this training, and the days he spent in the dungeon exploring and monitoring. He spent several days camped at the top of the hole that leads down to the second level. Sitting silently and listening intently, he heard vague signs of monster movement from below, the next day he may have heard similar sounds, but it may have been his imagination. Regardless, he chose not to climb down alone and risk bumping into something, but wishes the party would return one more time to explore the second level with force. They agree that this is a good course of action, and Harry purchases 2 riding horses, one for himself, and one spare for any new members who can’t yet afford their own horse. Vlana rides the spare, and they head out to the dungeon, swiftly moving on riding horses they arrive in one day. They intend to get a night's sleep in the storeroom with all the dry goods, then head to the hole room. Vlana takes some flour with the intent of spreading it on floors strategically to see if she can catch any creature movements. They emerge cautiously from the secret room, intending to head through the halls leading to the hole room, then down to the second level. A group of orcs, however, have different plans as they have set up an ambush and hurl spears and charge in with short swords at the rear of the party. Fortunately they are not surprised, and turn to cut them down with swift missile attacks and several charges that cut them down before the short swords can connect. They pause after the combat, it is quiet, and they search the bodies coming up with some electrum, and look east down the corridor and see an open door they had not noticed as open previously. They enter into a long, wide corridor that served as an armory. Racks and pegs on the walls, mostly empty, save for a few ruined shields and weapons. They find a dagger, a few spears, and a couple of other weapons that are still usable.
The room has a strange breeze blowing along it, and 2 shafts in the ceiling that open to the outside. As the breeze passes over the shafts it makes a strange whistling sound the way a wooden flute works. At the southern end of the armory, they find 2 locked wooden chests. Harry deftly opens both locks, but finds nothing inside, until Vlana regards the bottoms of the chests and realizes one is not level to the bottom, there must be a false bottom. After searching, 120gp are found in the false bottom. They move to the next room, behind a door at the NE corner of the armory. Bart tries to kick in the door on the first try, but it holds fast. Frustrated, he kicks it again, this time it flies open, but he knows any chance for surprise has been ruined. They look around to find a large barracks filled with many beds and chairs, and 7 orcs standing ready with weapons alerted by the door kicking. Missiles fly, and an orc is wounded, shortly after Waiofar’s sleep spell lands, taking all 7 to the land of slumber, and just like that the combat is over. 6 orcs are dispatched, and the 7th is tied up and woken for interrogation. He sees the deceased bodies of his comrades, and is motivated to give information to spare his life. He says he will direct the party to the orcs hidden treasure if he is allowed to leave the dungeon and not return. They agree and from the doorway he indicated a bunk and a mattress that contains the orcs treasure. Pulling out a sack thinking it is full of coin, it instead is full of lead slugs, but a heavy leather sack on top of the slugs contains 8 potions of various colors and containers. The party considers tasting the potions to see if they can tell what they are, but reconsiders and stores them until they can be identified in town. The conversation about tasting potions reminds Harry that Zellmex showed him a large nearby room filled with pools of strange unknown liquids. Zellmex paid some of the party hirelings to taste some of the pools to various hilarious and horrible results, they check the room briefly, and tuck that option away for a different time. After defeating the orcs, they make it to the hole room, listen, then fix ropes and Harry, followed by the rest of the party, descend into the darkness of rough caverns. From their entry point, they enter a corridor that goes north and south, and T intersections at both the north and south directions. They decide to go north, then west. Harry, padding ahead is about to step, but his quick reactions cause him to leap back a split second before nearly stepping into a hidden pit trap. He pulls back the tarp covering the pit, and sees that it can be skirted left or right to avoid it. They continue past it to the left and enter a large cavern with a strange statue of a human in it, and 2 smelly lizard creatures who pull out primitive axes and spears and attack. Drained from the combat, climbing, and exploring, the party struggles to land any hits either in melee or ranged combat. Vlana and one of the trogs trade missile shots, hers goes wide, but the creature's spear strikes true for 5 hp against the low hp Vlana, she collapses on the floor irrecoverably dead. The combat reaches critical levels, with the party almost out of spells, and unable to connect with blows. Bart drops his weapon and attempts to pummel a trog, taking damage from its axe, but landing several solid punches knocking him out, while a Command spell from Markus causes the other to lose his action for the moment. As they charge into combat with the stinky lizard, both Markus and Bart are overwhelmed by the stench, but markus quickly shakes it off unaffected, but Bart is totally nauseated, draining him of strength, while he gags and chokes on the terrible smell, these must be troglodytes, rumors of their terrible smell is nothing compared to actually experiencing it. Harry charges into combat to help, unable to connect with the stunned trog, but bravely putting himself in combat to assist a very wounded Bart. They are barely able to defeat the second trog, and rush to Vlana but it is too late, she is permanently dead. They consider a door at the far room of the cavern, but choose not to investigate, too weakened to go on. They make it back up the hole, taking Vlana’s body with them for proper burial back at the fort. They sleep one more night at the storeroom, and head back to the fort hopeful for an uneventful trip. They do have an encounter on the way, but fortunately it is only a herd of grazing beasts who they see far enough away to avoid. They make it back to the fort, but soon decide that now would be a good time for a trip to Lancebrass. They gather up all the PCs who have recently been staying at the fort, and make the trip east to Lancebrass, eager to investigate the town and all its resources in the coming weeks. They encounter 100 pilgrims of Pelor on a pilgrimage to Lancebrass, exchange pleasantries, and pass them on the road and enter the village.
Session Notes- The last few weeks have shown that laying a foundation for your campaign is worth the effort and generates organic NPC’s and encounter opportunities. This whole Nappendixia ame world sprung from a solo campaign I ran for myself about 2 years ago. It just started with a group of adventurers outside a dungeon with a nondescript fort a few days travel away, and a series of scenarios developed from Moldvay Basic peppered about a simple map. That fort developed into Turjmir, the party leader was Chance, the dungeon is Zelligar’s dungeon, and several of the scenario locations are currently having an effect on the game. In addition to that, Brassmark, a country designed entirely by the first patron to join the campaign (no longer active) is now a big resource I draw from regularly, the party is about to make its capital city Lancebrass their new downtime base. That stuff pays dividends, develop your world with solo crawling, solo campaigns, random tables, document it well, and just keep that stuff in your back pocket until players start poking at it. Add to that IP stealing, do this often. Steal Appendix N ideas and other cool IP that you are passionate about and throw it in your campaign. Your personal knowledge of the stories/characters are immediate feed for your own world. I personally use some of my favorite IP’s in Nappendixia- Road Warrior, Planet of the Apes, Dune, more to come. By using stuff I really know well and am passionate about I have no problems blending the existing IP into the developing game world. The stuff I’ve thrown in from my favorite movies and books, plus the solo campaign stuff, and stuff that comes up from emergent play so far have been all I need to run the game and build the world. I was recently looking at the new DCC Dying Earth Campaign books and thinking, “ooh shiny”, but I quickly snapped out of it and realized I already have the Jack Vance books, that’s all I need. This type of game has definitely changed my perspective as a gamer, as far as I no longer look for new releases, new game books, new systems, etc. The AD&D books, Appendix N, cool 70’s movies and comics (other eras work too, i’m just a gen Xer), and your friends are all you need to run a game indefinitely.
I had a campaign binder that I just wasn’t using because it was poorly organized. I took some time to reorganize it, and used it to much greater effect this session. I put the different procedures in the front- combat procedures, dungeon procedures, downtime procedures, etc, then the maps, weather, and random encounter tables. Then in the middle I have all the in-world stuff- the settlements, the dungeon maps and keys, the pre-rolled scenarios and encounter locations, all that stuff. Then at the end I put all the random tables I’m trying to use more, just lighter stuff like small campsite encounters, ruins and cave descriptions, small road encounters, stuff like that. So far I haven’t used them too much in the furor of a game session, but I’m hoping to use them more. Lastly, patron play is going better, starting to get a flow between patrons sending ideas and moves, and responding to them at a good pace. Starting to have some patrons interact with each other, and doing some downtime encounters. It’s still a process, but going in the right direction.
Treasure and XP- Monsters- 11 Orcs 148xp, 2 Troglodytes 100xp. Treasure- 120gp/xp, 55ep(28xp), 8 potions 2850xp= 3246xp/ 5 PCs = 650xp each, add % bonus if appropriate.
Treasure- 11ep, 24gp each. Divvy the potions as you like. Vlana’s player gets a legacy share and may apply the xp to any current or new PC.
Graveyard- Rollo Tomassi- consumed by a Bag of Devouring in Zelligar’s dungeon #38
Ragenard- brought to Death’s Door by a stirge attack in Zelligar’s dungeon #39 (1 week bed rest)
Caolite- brought to Death’s Door by kobolds in Zelligar’s dungeon #40 (1 week bedrest)
Bart- Brought to Death’s Door by Firetoad breath in Zelligar’s dungeon #40 (1 week
bedrest)
Ragenard- killed by Griffons exploring the plains west of Fort Turjmir #42
Vlana- Killed by Troglodytes in the 2nd level of Zelligar’s dungeon #43
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