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)
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