Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 72 Session Date- 1/17/24
Time Passed- 6 days (1/17-1/22)
Roll Call- Kenny- M/U5
Boyo- C3 Hench
Mayfly- M/U1 Hench
Godhard- C6
Stigr- F4
Finnigan- Halfling T1
10 Med Cav
14 Lt Cav
Adventure Log- 1/17- Kenny and Godhard start the day with some information gathering and spell acquisition in Bartertown. The visit Beirut the mage in the common area, negotiations go well due to the Iron company’s good reputation. He casts Clairvoyance for them and views the scene at Papagallo’s fort under siege. Beirut views for a few minutes a scene of the marauders camped outside Papas walls, possibly parlaying with him or just taunting him. The siege appears to continue, but Papas forces are resisting and they believe to see evidence of food and water supplies. They then use Beirut’s Contact outer plane ability to ask the planes several questions about Papas chances to resist the siege and also they get some information that there may be more dungeon areas to explore under some of the newly risen Cubic gate locations. Lastly Beirut bestows a scroll of Clairvoyance to Kenny, knowing it will be added to his spellbook and used to help the people of Bartertown. Later that day they bump into Finnigan, a halfling thief adventurer who arrived from the west. He learned of the Iron Company’s reputation and sought them out as an ideal adventuring group to join. He reports seeing a militarized force of Gorillamen heading east, further away from the Megadungeon than they usually roam. They also hear reports of an organized force of troops emerging from the jungles south of Bartertown, near where Stigr and his men were captured by bandits then massacred nearly to a man by dinosaurs. The reports state there is a smaller scout force out ahead bearing the banner and heraldry they have seen before of a 2 headed snake. They recall what they know of Resheph and his strange jungle snake cult, and decide to investigate the next day.
1/18- The party brings some light and med cav, mounts up and travels south searching for Resheph’s forces. The first day of travel goes uneventfully, nothing but the Nappendixian badlands are revealed. After breaking camp the next day they decide to search around the area looking for tracks or any sign of the snake cultists. The morning’s light rain ends in a misty layer of fog hugging the low ground, midday as it dissipates, 7 hungry giant geckos skulk out of the mist looking for horseflesh. Fortunately the party spies them from 70 yards and wins initiative and hoofs it away before any combat can occur. In their haste they speed off only to cross a group of at least 20 moving both on foot and on horse. They follow the tracks for several hours, noticing its meandering path headed largely NE closer to Bartertown. That night they make camp thinking they are making time on the group, hoping to catch up to them in the morning. That night however on Finnigan and Godhard’s watch a den of 11 wolves pounces on one of the horses resting furthest away from camp. Godhard begins rousing the troops to holler and throw debris at the wolves as Finnigan grabs a torch and tries to shoo them off. Kenny rouses and positions a fireball to go off on the wolves, consuming the horse that was already bitten, but not hitting any other horses or party members. The wolves are incinerated and the smoldering patch of burned ground keeps away any other intruders.
1/20- Following the tracks, by late morning they are on the group of about 25, 10 of which are mounted. They see their pursuers and prepare to receive a charge, with longbowmen positioned to get off volleys of arrows from behind the footman's shield wall. The party decides to approach cautiously, seeing if parlay is an option. The snake cultists are silent as both Godhard and Finnigan attempt negotiations, unable to get a response despite speaking in several different languages. They hold to negotiating, and eventually the cultists slacken their bows and the leader heads out to reluctantly negotiate. The negotiations go surprisingly well, largely due to the cultists being a smaller and slower force. They state they have no plans to march on Bartertown, only they have mobilized some troops in response to other troop movements in the area. They warn of the Gorilla men to the NW and of a group to the east that worship a strange slime god and are fanatically obsessed with its odd religion. The party remembers encountering that group and their bizarre temple and the basin of living slime. It seems war and rumors of war are all around the Nappendixian badlands. 2 groups of cultists, the gorilla men, Bartertowns own internal forces including the Iron Company, plus the scalphunter orcs they know are out there somewhere and the siege at Papagallo’s 100 miles away, make for quite a tense situation in the area. The party shares some intel with Reshaph’s minion and he cements the positive interaction by giving them a golden serpent charm inset with 2 gems for eyes. It is both a valuable trinket, but also will prove a symbol of diplomacy for any future negotiations with the snake cultists. They depart cautiously.
1/21- The party heads back to Bartertown, no significant encounters occur. They rest and recover and the following day visit the Master’s sage to get some more intel on Resheph and the snake cult. It is known to be of ancient origin, with the historical record telling of several powerful evil persons taking the mantle of cult leader and wreaking havoc for a period. The cults' power seems to be derived from ancient stone ziggurats hidden in the jungle. Kenny later visits Beirut again to do some spell trading and acquires the spells of mending and floating disc.
Session Notes- So the amount of factions that have been generated through both emergent play and patron play has created a situation where a wargame type experience can come about organically from session play. The PCs have been discovering the different troops and their numbers and locations. They have their own troops that they have been mustering and managing, and there are other Bartertown troop units they could potentially ally with. All of this will proceed or not proceed based on player interest. The campaign is at the point where there are so many different areas and hooks and rumors that have been generated there is no way to interact with all of them. This sort of buffet style play allows players to poke around at whatever interests them, and the rest just melds into the background. Should this wargame option go nowhere, if the players don’t develop much of an interest in pursuing it, then it will take place more in the background. Maybe the PCs will stumble across battlefields of recent combat, maybe encounter rolls will be influenced by there being marching armies in the area. As Dm I can over time find a way to simply and quickly resolve some of these army interactions, some will get crushed and others will achieve their goals and become a possible future threat. If the players lean into this then we can move in a more wargame direction with armies being placed in real time on the map and we can track when they encounter each other and resolve combat using AD&D combat at a 1:10 scale. Only time and player interest will tell how things develop. To be self-critical you could argue that this type of play creates a lot of situations where a storyline develops through player interest and play, but then fizzles out due to player turnover or simply changing focus in game. You could counter this argument however, because any errant storyline left unresolved can immediately come back to life through player autonomy, as soon as they remember, re-energize interest in that area, that aspect of the story comes back to the forefront. Note the use of the word story in this discussion makes no reference to a DM derived story that he courses his players through, but quite the opposite. In this type of play player interest drives the direction of the game. It’s always a work in progress, and time and real life will always work against maintaining a robust game, but I still feel confident in saying low/no prep emergent gaming is still the best recipe for a long lived and active campaign. It keeps things fresh and interesting for the DM because he’s not coaxing the game along on rails, but instead learning how the story develops in real time as the players respond to the world. The DM gets to be surprised by the direction of the game as the group discovers collectively what will happen next. Only time will tell if the wargame elements become the focus for a while, either way we will continue to have a lot of fun with this campaign.
Treasure and XP- Monsters- 11 Wolves 748xp, Treasure- Resheph jeweled serpent totem 1500gp/xp= 2248xp/ 4 PCs= 562xp each. Kenny gets 394xp and the henchmen get 84xp each.
Graveyard- 1 Lt Foot and 1 Camp Follower to spitting snakes and 1 Lt Foot to wraiths in the dungeon south of Bartertown. (session 69)
3 Spearmen to Wraiths in the subway dungeon south of Bartertown (session 70)
