Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 65

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  65 Session Date-  10/25/23

Time Passed-  2 days (10/25, rest 10/26)

Roll Call-  Maximilian- F4

Godhard- C5

Tomas- F5

Harry- T5

Kenku ally

Adventure Log-  After negotiating safe lodging with the Kenku and resting for a few days, the party watches the area of supernatural darkness grow and spread towards them on the 24th, the whole megadungeon area is bathed in darkness by the end of that day.  The kenku are unnerved by this and have no knowledge as to what is going on.  They are willing to send one of their own, skilled in thievery and arcane magic, off into the dungeon to see if the portal device shows any signs of activity.  Fortunately for all, the magic darkness only penetrates into the megadungeon entrance by about 30 feet, the rest of it is unaffected.  They move out to the green and the orange ringed sections of the dungeon, the kenku tells them they have not investigated these areas since the party was last here several months ago.  Moving through the green area in the corridor they spot a strange shape in the corridor, a blob-like growth anchored in the corner near the door, and 2 whip-like tentacles spreading lazily along the walls.  It is unclear if it is plant, fungal, or some other material, but it senses the party and the tentacles poise to attack.  The fighters charge and missiles fly, Tomas slays the bulbous body area while the rest of the party works on the tentacles, they take some slashing damage, but when the creature dies, it gets a burst of energy and the tentacles strike out many times, landing several critical strikes.  Badly wounded, they regroup and do some healing, then move on into the orange area.  Things are quiet in the orange area, and when they get to the strange solar system device it is inactive, the spheres in their resting position.  However it would be unable to tell if the device had activated prior as the spheres all return to their rest positions after activation.  They move on to the area where they had previously fought the rock worms.  They find a chamber south of there, very roughly mined out with many slabs of stone and boulders remaining. They carefully construct a 10 foot pole from a few staves, and affix Maxcalibur on the end and Max prods and pushes on the loose cobbles and boulders.  He prods up at the high parts of the rough ceiling and 6 piercers drop from the eaves in response to the noisy disturbance.  A little more prodding causes 2 more to fall, and they move in to slay them all before they can crawl back up into the eaves.  At the rear of the cavern they find the skeletal remains  of some adventurers or miners along with 3000gp in tattered split open sacks.  They realize they have found the western limits of this level and move back to the portal device room and go south to where the kenku warns is jermaline territory.  Harry carefully investigates the door into the area, and the party moves into a large refuse-filled room and hears the skittering sounds of rodents.  They trigger a sleep gas trap on the floor somehow and a cloud of gas puts Tomas and Max out cold on the floor.  Then 12 jermaline pop up and start peppering them with tiny darts.  They take minor damage and rally as a crowd of giant rats moves towards them but yields due to the gas cloud.  The kenku says he has a sleep spell and they pull back to the door so he can safely cast, taking more dart wounds.  At the choke point they slay a few rats and the kenku’s sleep puts down the bulk of the ratmen, and the vermin are crushed.  They procure a few nice looking gems from among the ratmens meager coin treasure, and move back to the kenku lair to rest and recover.  

Session Notes-  So I elected to start holding shorter sessions (2-21/4 hours) and still hold games weekly in light of my new job.  I’m interested to see how this interacts with 1:1 time- shorter sessions conducted weekly.  I’m wondering if it will feel too chunky; short periods of activity interspersed with longer periods of inactivity.  This issue also intersects with the issue that comes up when the party procures a temporary downtime safe spot as they have done with the kenku.  At the beginning of the session we only had 3 players and they had no henchmen or mercenaries to bring, it really limited them in that respect, and it also would/will limit the access to other PCs playing in sessions based out of the kenku lair.  A player whose PC wasn’t part of the kenku negotiation would either have to roll up a new PC that was appropriate for the kenku’s level, or the DM would have to hand-wave and say ok your character was there too.   Neither is an ideal solution.  The same is true with shorter session play.  Will PCs be up against the clock each week to get longer missions/travel done?  Will they be motivated to focus on shorter term goals and more local adventuring?  I’m interested to see how things may change, but it seems the best solution.  Session reports are essential to a robust campaign, and you absolutely can’t get behind on session reports.  Once you get backlogged it’s very difficult to catch back up.  This session report is going on 2 hours of my time so far, so you can see how much they affect my perspective on the campaign.  With zero prep style play, I was able to do everything I needed to do in a little over 4 hours of time commitment per week, despite having a very busy week getting adjusted to my new job.  A final thing we are adjusting to is going fully RAW when it comes to training and leveling.  The gp adjustment has been like a 5000gp increase from they way we have currently been doing it, so i’m interested to see how that affects the PC treasure economy.  Also we have come up against the no more xp after gaining enough xp to level.  Our thief has made it to level 6, but cannot train until he gets back to a settlement so therefore is frozen on more xp accrual.  Interested to see how that affects the party’s decisions next week.

Treasure and XP- Monsters Whipweed 220xp, 8 piercer 704xp, 12 jermaline 132xp, 4 giant rats 48xp= 1104xp. Treasure 3000gp, 2 gems 200gp, 24cp, 36sp= 3202xp= 4306xp total/ 4 PCs and Kenku ally= 861xp each. add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-  16 Mounted Crossbowmen to Dimetrodon in the jungles south of Bartertown (downtime)

1 Lt Cav to Gnoll pikemen outside Wardoof’s ruined keep (Session 60)

1 Mounted Crossbowman and 1 Sgt, killed by wolves west of Bartertown (downtime)

3 Lt Cav killed in the Gorilla Men/ Manling skirmishes outside the Megadungeon (session 61)

7 Lt Cav killed by wolves and bandit ambush in the badlands NE of Bartertown (session 62)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 64

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 64 Session Date- 10/18/23

Time Passed-  4 days 10/18-10/21

Roll Call- Max- F4

Godhard- C4

Harry- T5

Bart- F3/C4

Zophia- D1

4 Hobilar

(Tomas- F4 and 7 Lt Cav show up mid session)

Adventure Log-  10/18- Finding Brakhage/Travel to the Megadungeon-  the party wracks their brains for ways to learn more of the darkness plague.  It has spread from the south to completely darken Bartertown; it spread outwards a day ago.  Auntie and Master have both done some things to create continual light sources, as has the party, and there are several gathering points with magical light, food and water located about the town.  They party and Bartertown patrols spend time locating stranded citizens and guiding them through the darkness.  After doing that for a few hours, They decide to check out the old church where Tomas found the buried divine relics and got the prophecy of the star.  As they approach the ruins, they hear the sounds of chiseling.  They enter to find Brakhage, the person they most want to find, chiseling away on a stone.  He appears to have bloodied rags tied around his eyes as he carves without looking at his work.  The party finally gets his attention and he reveals that he has returned, he no longer had need of his eyes, due to the darkness plague, so he removed them.  He takes the bandage off to reveal two hollow eye sockets.  He continues to hammer away telling the party his next revealing rune will be ready in 6 hours.  They bivouac the building to ensure him being left alone.  That evening he reveals a relief of 2 figures, one of the eyeless void and one of a skeleton/death, touching hands, meeting at the tip of a large lit candle.  Brakhage explains how this symbolizes the juncture point where the Eyeless Void can reach through to Nappendixia has been breached, the Eyeless Void has put his avatar and has unleashed one of his many plagues on the land.  He explains how the Void has 3 different avatars he can send, and that he and they must abide by the tenets of chaos.  The party decides to make its way to the mega dungeon to see if there is anything that can be done there. They depart the next morning.

10/19-  uneventful day of travel through the magic darkness.  The animal life is definitely off because of the darkness, and it’s to be assumed that all plant life will die under the sunless conditions. Travel is slow due to the darkness but nothing is encountered.

10/20-  Emerging from the darkness/ reuniting with Tomas/Travel to the megadungeon- Early the next day they break through the darkness to find its growth did stop at some point.  They also come across Tomas and his Lt Cav who have befriended and camped at the border of the darkness with a tribe of about 40 tribesmen who were displaced by the darkness.  They part ways with the tribesmen and Tomas leads them back to show them the hooded figure hovering above the field outside the megadungeon as he discovered on his downtime mission.  Upon arriving at the megadungeon location, Tomas shows the rest of the party how their usual approach from the south up to the rocky outcropping has been covered by a unit of 12 gorilla men.  He shows them the hooded figure floating above the outcropping, its back is to them as it seems to be looking at the field in front of the megadungeon.  They can’t see what is on the other side, but they do notice that the gorilla men  are now assembled in larger groups and they seem to be more aware of spotting for oncoming encounters, likewise with the manling patrols that the party sees.  They pull back before they are spotted, and Godhard performs a divination spell.  According to the spell the hooded figure is a mid level powered magic user, cleric, and fighter.  They also get a reading on the power level of the gorilla men and the manlings, and they don’t really match up with their own personal experience.  The divination also stated that they would not encounter any supernatural evil from the creature, a curious statement.  They decide to move to the eastern side in hopes of contacting the kenku they met months ago.  Approaching from the east, they follow a low gully towards the east side, only to find it already occupied by 8 ogres.  Despite the bounty on ogres form Auntie, and the bulging sacks the party sees them carrying, they opt for stealth.  Harry sprinkles some dust of disappearance on himself and slips past the small displaced tribe to make it to the base of the mountain by dusk.  

10/21- late night talk with the kenku/ resting in the kenku lair/ jermlaine ambush/ victory-  (midnight on the 21st) Using his rope of climbing he makes it up the mountainside and into the kenku’s portion of the dungeon, only to quickly find himself surrounded by 3 stealthy kenku, one of whom managed to pick his coin purse off Harry.  Harry blows off the fact that the purse is light by a few coins and brokers passage for the rest of the party to be flown up to the lair and granted safe lodging.  He pays them a 500gp gem, and the kenku fly out and pick up the party, leaving Zophia the druid and the 7 Lt Cav to try to make their way west to Lancebrass to bring warning of the possibly incoming darkness.  Once inside the kenku’s lair, the party rests and is told they can earn their welcome by helping to clear any monsters from areas near the kenku.  They remind themselves of the solar system portal on this level, and the location of the downwards shaft that the other stranger party allegedly took to set up a different kind of portal, both possible ways they could influence the Eyeless Void’s hold.They rest and set out in the morning to the southern passage where they were told there are giant rats and the downward shaft.  Bart struggles to shoulder the door, and on the fifth pound crashes through only to land directly on a trap of tiny pointy spears and an ambush by some small humanoids and some giant rats.  Max knows them from his past, they are Jermlaine, sneaky little tricksters who live among rats.  Bart is jabbed with tiny spears set up on the floor and the rest of the party charges into the room, Tomas steps directly into a pit trap dug by the jermlaine and falls hard 10’ down.  There are 16 rat men and 5 giant rats, they snip away at the party en masse.  They party is certainly lacking some kind of area of effect attack as they take bites and tiny spear pokes until they manage to beat back the jermlaine to the last 3 who scurry away into small tunnels carved into the walls.  They quickly find their hoard and secure it back to the kenku lair to rest and count out and appraise 14 gems worth over 5000gp collectively and a glass vial labeled philter of love and a magic broadsword that the party decides to sell for higher xp when they can.  They remain in the kenku lair for downtime.

Session Notes-  So the players have fully made the connection to the darkness, the Eyeless Void, and the hooded floating figure, they’ve got some information to work with and have seated themselves into the megadungeon, which is a good place due to the impending darkness the interior of the dungeon will likely be unaffected, and they can track down some leads as to finding out if they can have any influence over what is going on.  On other fronts, I have procured yet another new job, a good thing, moving up in my career, but it of course adds time to my work responsibilities, but hopefully won’t affect gaming time too much.  It definitely will cut into the time I have to write session reports, so I'm continuing to toy with ways to write reports quickly on my end but still convey the developing events of the campaign.  The no prep thing is pretty well cemented, I don’t feel uncomfortable sitting down to a session with no prep.  Small things are still happening like the Eyeless Void rolls, and all patron actions are happening.  We will see what the coming weeks bring as far as the darkness plague.

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- 13 Jermlaine, 5 Giant Rats 172xp Treasure- 14x gems valued 2590gp/xp, Philter of Love 200xp= 2962xp/ 5 PCs = 592xp each, add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard-  16 Mounted Crossbowmen to Dimetrodon in the jungles south of Bartertown (downtime)

1 Lt Cav to Gnoll pikemen outside Wardoof’s ruined keep (Session 60)

1 Mounted Crossbowman and 1 Sgt, killed by wolves west of Bartertown (downtime)

3 Lt Cav killed in the Gorilla Men/ Manling skirmishes outside the Megadungeon (session 61)

7 Lt Cav killed by wolves and bandit ambush in the badlands NE of Bartertown (session 62)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 63

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 63 Session Date-  10/11/23

Time Passed-  6 days 10/11-10/16

Roll Call-  Harry- T5

Max- F4

Godhard- C5

Kenny- M/U3

Boyo- C1 hench

Bart- F3/C4

Tomas- F5

Adventure Log-  A massive column of pure darkness is reported to have formed south of Bartertown.  It is said to be many miles wide and reach upwards out of view.

10/11 The Iron Company sought out the rune caster due to his links to the Eyeless Void and the tablet he had created. After initially looking around for him, the group determined to their chagrin that he had vanished without any immediate leads, so they conveyed the situation to Auntie in the hopes that they had more intel on his whereabouts but alas to no avail. So far as the group knew, he was somewhere inside of the darkness. 

10/12 After trying to get the group to be sure they wanted to enter the darkness, Kenny was unsuccessful as the group decided to leave the troops behind and mount up on light horse and ride right in. Right before they reached the darkness, they did set a few rocks to mark if the darkness was expanding and then; after arranging a marching order based on magical blades from swords and a dagger, proceeded bravely into midnight itself. The group marched in and initially did quite well avoiding any problem but eventually had to set camp. They sensed some animal noises but only nocturnal ones and found that the darkness snuffed any regular light sources. Once they set watch, in the middle of the night two giant bats attacked the party. Due to a clever use of Speak with animals and a chicken, they avoided combat and proceeded to dine on an indignant farm animal when they surprised the now indignant bats and made short work of them. They had no treasure. 

10/13 The party marched on into the darkness and found a large group of herd animals that they didn't quite identify. Wanting to avoid problems, they won the surprise round and backed away without combat which the herd animals were more than happy to allow. The party camped in pitch black midnight again and things were fine until the final round when a group of harpies attacked the party. Those on watch made short work of those who initially appeared but as the rest of the group many were affected by the song and it turned out the harpies had reserves deep in the magical darkness. Charging into the foray, the group managed to kill many more until the filthy humanoids finally retreated in terror while the Iron Company tracked them back to their lair only to loot over 4000 electrum which was then evenly distributed.

10/14 The group exited the darkness and ran into two very stupid jackals that were too desperate for hunger to apply common sense and run away. The party killed them and (as was to be expected) found absolutely no treasure. 

10/15 Whilst still returning to town, the party ran into seven giant spiders that they wanted nothing to do with and wisely walked around them. The party finally made it back to Barter town where they immediately drank their fill from their parched thirst and shared the disturbing news of the darkness with the rest of the company. 

10/16 The party rested up and reported what had occurred to Auntie who asked them to consult their temples and see if they could help reconcile her situation with Master to help defend the town. They also received 1000 gold to bolster their defense and that of the town.

Session Notes-  I offered another bonus xp for player written adventure log.  It’s nice to get a player perspective on the game sometimes.  I will return to writing them next week, but leave that option open for the future.  It’s been a hectic month and it has been nice to have some players help out with the writing, but it’s critical to maintain the habit; these session reports have been consistently read as evidenced by the number of visits my blog gets each day.  The consistency of writing these, and not getting behind on them has been a big reason the campaign continues to flourish.  This big darkness event has been a fun thing to run, it’s a result of some deity based stuff going on cosmically, I can’t give too much away but be sure there will be more developments in coming weeks.

Treasure and XP-  Monsters 8 giant bats 84xp, 8 harpies 1328xp. Treasure 4000ep/2000xp= 3412xp/ 6 PCs = 569xp each, Kenny gets 484xp, Boyo gets 85xp.

Graveyard-  16 Mounted Crossbowmen to Dimetrodon in the jungles south of Bartertown (downtime)

1 Lt Cav to Gnoll pikemen outside Wardoof’s ruined keep (Session 60)

1 Mounted Crossbowman and 1 Sgt, killed by wolves west of Bartertown (downtime)

3 Lt Cav killed in the Gorilla Men/ Manling skirmishes outside the Megadungeon (session 61)

7 Lt Cav killed by wolves and bandit ambush in the badlands NE of Bartertown (session 62)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 62

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  62 Session Date-  10/4/23

Time Passed-  6 days- 10/5-10/09 adventuring, rest/light duty on 10/10.

Roll Call- Harry- T5

Stewart- R3

Dog

Kvam-  M/U1

Godhard- C5

Tomas- F5

22 Lt. Cav

Adventure Log- From the pages of Godhard’s journal 10/4: We arrived back in Bartertown after a week long sortie to the strange stone capped mountain to news of orc activity in the northeast. The last time orcs were spotted this close to Bartertown, they laid siege to the town and many lives were lost. We, the Iron Company, decided to find these orcs and put an end to their terror before they decided to invade Bartertown. We asked Auntie if there was a bounty on these orcs heads, but she was only offering money for dead ogres. We thought maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and accepted her bounty. Max and Bart were badly wounded after our recent encounter with a berserker tribe, so in their place the magician Kvam and the ranger Stewart (with his dog, Dog) decided to tag along. Kvam is a bit of a homebody, preferring to spend his time inside the town’s walls with his nose in the company’s ledgers. Recently he decided to become the keeper of the Iron Company’s annals. I don’t think anyone is jealous of that job. 

10/5: Anyways, we left the next day on the fifth, traveling in a northeasterly direction. We brought along our mercenary cavalrymen, who had barely enough time to recover from our last adventure. Thanks to Harry, we were all mounted on light horses, which greatly increased the speed of our travel. This was the first time any of us had traveled in this area and we were surprised as we started to see signs of civilization amongst the otherwise drab scrub land. Before we knew it, we had stumbled upon a thriving town just a days travel from Bartertown. We rode our horses into town, passing well dressed merchants and farmers cultivating mushrooms. We must’ve startled the town guards, being as we were a nearly 30 man warband. A group of them hailed us as we reached the city center, asking our business. We told them about the frightening stories of orc scalpers and asked them about the town. Apparently the city we had stumbled into was called Oakcross, an agrarian community of pagan nature worshippers. I’ll have to send some missionaries to convert these simple people. The guards mentioned a couple of taverns that could house us for the night. We chose to visit a tavern owned by a magic using tinkerer. The boisterous crowd at the tavern were busy slinging insults at each other. Supposedly this was called a “roast” and the villagers gathered here each month to partake in the festivity. I sat at a table playing knuckle bones and overheard a rumor about a star falling from the sky. Some of the farmers collected it and were holding it in one of the farm houses. The rest of the company spoke to the barkeep, who was more than happy to answer questions about the town. He was able to point on the map the exact spot where orcs were sighted. We thanked him for his time with a 5gp tip and rented some rooms. 

10/6: Early in the morning, we left Oakcross on an orc hunt. Stewart and his dogs are master trackers and we were sure they’d be able to lead us right to the orcs. While watching the horizon for any signs of pig-nosed creeps, we spotted a pack of wolves moving through the brush. Every time we encounter wolves, we have a bad time, so we tried our best to avoid them. Unfortunately, they caught wind of our scent and charged at us. The cavalrymen began skewering the hungry wolves on their lances as the rest of the party began to engage them in melee. We cut down most of the pack before they turned tail. Thankfully we made it out of the encounter with a few easily healed scratches. The rest of the day went by uneventfully with no signs of orc activity. 

10/7: The next day, Stewart’s dog excitedly led us into a small forest amongst the scrub. Apparently he had caught a scent. As we dodged tree branches following our furry guide, we too caught a whiff of something. Death. The dog was leading us straight into a horde of zombies! Stewart grabbed the dog and we fled the forest. Last time the company encountered these foul beings, our poor men-at-arms were decimated. The rest of the day was not as exciting and, as we camped out under the stars later that night, we decided to cut our losses and head back to Bartertown. 

10/8: We took a different path, trying to avoid the zombies from the day before. While sauntering down a ravine, we were caught in a hail of arrows. An ambush! As we fumbled to draw our weapons, a group of cavalrymen charged right at us. Before we knew it, five of our cavalrymen were cut down. We could hear the thunder of charging infantry coming from over the berm. If we stood and fought we would die or be kidnapped like Stigr and his band. Who would know what would become of us? Someone shouted “Retreat!” over the chaos of battle and we followed suit. Only through the grace of Pelor were we able to withdraw from that melee without any serious injuries. The bandit’s seemed more interested in our fallen mercenaries’ belongings and chose not to pursue. We rode like the wind the rest of the day, carried by adrenaline. We nervously camped in the scrub, but thankfully the night passed uneventfully. 

10/9: After our harrowing escape, we were thankful to see Bartertown grow on the horizon the next day. We made it back to town five men short. More names for our new monument. After a few weeks with little profit, the Company is itching for a big score.

Session Notes-  I offered 100xp to a PC if they would write the week’s session report, and Godhard took up the offer.  This is win-win elite level play as I had an extremely busy week and needed some help with the campaign heavy lifting, and the session report benefits by giving people someone else’s perspective on a session, seeing things from a player’s eye view.  It was certainly insightful to me, seeing how a player remembers a session, what they found eventful.  The player gets a little xp boost for the effort, everyone is happy.  It was a particularly low treasure/lox xp session.  For some reason I have frequently been rolling wolves and bandits often.  The former is a tough opponent that can overwhelm a party that yields no treasure, and the latter is often too large to handle and even a large party with mercs can find themselves well outmanned, requiring evasion/ escape.  Neither are good for a party’s treasure/xp efforts.  The random rolls certainly matched the descriptions I was providing for the terrain and hex info.  I used the info generated by a new patron to run the Oak Cross village, we all had a lot of fun learning in real time what all the patron had in his massive doc of prepped stuff he put together for his area.  Now that I had a chance to go through his docs and run them in session, I can have a better sense of how to quickly pull up settlement or ruin information and mix it into sessions as the party moves across the hex.  I keep being impressed by the things the patrons, as well as PCs, have added to this game.  

Treasure and XP-   Monsters- 14 wolves, 8 killed, 6 routed 618xp. Rumors- 3- 600xp = 1218xp/ 5 PCs = 244xp each add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard- 16 Mounted Crossbowmen to Dimetrodon in the jungles south of Bartertown (downtime)

1 Lt Cav to Gnoll pikemen outside Wardoof’s ruined keep (Session 60)

1 Mounted Crossbowman and 1 Sgt, killed by wolves west of Bartertown (downtime)

3 Lt Cav killed in the Gorilla Men/ Manling skirmishes outside the Megadungeon (session 61)

7 Lt Cav killed by wolves and bandit ambush in the badlands NE of Bartertown (session 62)

Grenadier Thieves 2008 25mm

 Scored another box of Grenadier AD&D minis, speed painted 5 with contrast paint.  Box is in good shape, minis were terribly painted with acrylics.