Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- Session 28

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  28 Session Date-  12/14/22

Time Passed-  5 Days, 1-3 to 1-7

Roll Call- Mandigor- ½ Elf Fighter 4

Malden- Paladin 3

Gunther- Dog

Gregory- Paladin 2 Squire

Thantas- Elf Assassin 4

Gruumsh- ½ Orc Thief 4

Ulster- Druid 4

Caveman1- Ulster’s Henchman

Hirelings

Mondius- Fighter 2

LaSalle- Fighter 3

Adventure Log-  The party moves through the secret door at the rear of the slavers hideout, passes through the thick keep outer walls, and ends at the back of another secret door 10’ through the stone wall.  Mandigor is at the front of the narrow passage, and upon opening the second secret door is struck with a spiked iron bar rigged to slam into anyone who opened the door.  Quite wounded, he is given one of the primitive healing potions Malden had purchased months ago in Cedar Crossing.  Still wounded, the party presses on into an east west passage and chooses their favored direction of right.  The halls inside what is likely the inner keep of the temple are broken and charred, but still intact.  Through small holes in the walls the party can see the greater open area of the inner keep is in much greater ruin, just rubble and some ruined walls scattered about the open area.  Going right, the hall leads to a small ruined room, but the back wall of the room has been reinforced and rebricked thoroughly, completely across the rear wall of the room.  The party assumes there must be something important behind the wall, perhaps a secret pass or shortcut, maybe something valuable.  A discussion of what may be behind the wall and the best way to get through to investigate is had.  The druid offers to cast Stoneshape, and Draden also has a similar power from an odd scroll he found long ago.  They opt to use the stoneshape, and quite a bit of stone can be moved by the spell.  Ulster creates a portal in the wall roughly 4’x5’, revealing a large shadowy open area that must open into the open area of the keep.  However off to the left the party sees that a 10’ wall has been constructed, penning this area off from the larger area, still climbable, but no openings in that similar brick wall.  Then immediately notice many statues in the area, in poses of all kinds, very lifelike.  They continue scanning through the area, and that is when disaster strikes, the front of the party, Mandigor, the dog, Gruumsh, Malden and Gregory are all met by the gaze of a Basilisk who crawls forward among the statues.  Catastrophically, all but Gruumsh fail their save and are immediately turned to stone!  The party panics, averts their eyes, and Gruumsh grabs Malden’s stone body, and instructs the hirelings to grab the dog.  Draden is able to use his strange scroll to cast a form of stone to flesh on Mandigor and he returns but weakened. Unfortunately Gregory is left behind.  Fortunately the party gets initiative and the basilisk makes no effort to chase them as they back out of the chamber, through the smaller room where they firmly shut the door.  Unnerved, they retreat back out of the secret door, and return to their rocky outcropping to recoup.  Dresden is only able to use his scroll to return those turned once a day, so Mandigor rests, and the party waits until the next day they scan the horizon looking for Rev. Ramsey and his party or perhaps other adventurers headed to fight the slavelords.  Rumor has it that even the great heroes of White Plume Mountain have answered the call to bring the fight to Highport.  No parties are sighted however.  The next day the paladin is returned, and the following day the dog.  Then the dog must rest one more day or it will not be able to return to the hideout.  Should the party be able to get back to Gregory, he will have to be assisted by the hirelings until he can rest for a day.  4 days later, the party returns to the secret door of the hideout, recovers Gregory outside the door to the basilisk room, then promptly opts to go left, the other way down the hall.  It brings them to a ruined door, stuck but splintered and broken, inside reveals an equally destroyed room, roofless, revealing an upper floor that has no floss save a ledge of beams and flooring going around.  Perched on these ledges are shadowy creeping figures and the smell of death.  Predicting undead, but having no cleric, the druid procures a scroll of protection from undead, and all within 5’ are immune to their attack.  Huddled around the scroll, the party peppers the ghoul and ghasts with arrows and axes, taking out several; they surprisingly do not flee despite being unable to attack.  Another volley of missiles from the party does take out a few more and drive the rest to climb up and out of the ruined room onto the top of the keep walls.  The druid's caveman minion is sent up onto the ledge to investigate, and he brings down some treasure and a potion, identified as fire resistance by Draden.  Beyond the ghouls room the party climbs some stairs and finds itself in a room with an almost completely ruined floor, a 3 story hole in its center with a wide wooden plank set across it, and ruined floor on both sides, a little wider on the right.  Both sides of the room are tested and seem dodgy, and the plank in the center is not considered.  They opt to fix ropes and all climb down to the basement below, then have the caveman walk across the plank and lower a rope from the other side.  The caveman finds the plank to be quite solid, walks easily across it, and assists the party in climbing back up the other side.  A safe but time consuming way to manage this obstacle, it takes about 2 hours to negotiate.  Through the hall on the other side of the room the party finds an alcove with 3 barrels of what could be vinegar, sealed and dusty.  Perhaps it's something more vile, perhaps just soured wine, but the party leaves it be.  Just beyond the alcove there are stairs descending into an empty room save for what appears to be a pile of oily gray rags.  Certain of a trap or monster, the party does not hesitate to begin hurling flaming oil and arrows at the pile.  It begins flailing and sending out tentacles, but only out to 5’, so they are safe on the stairs.  After the oil burns out the creature is still alive, but the party is unwilling to engage it in melee.  Thinking, they reconsider the barrels of vinegar, could they be flammable? Unlikely, but maybe rolling the barrels down the stairs will do some crushing damage to the creature, likely some kind of plant or fungus, due to its somewhat visible roots clinging to the stone floor.  The barrels crash down the stairs, burst open, and the acid in the vinegar begins acting on the plant creature, melting its roots and dissolving its body.  Moving its desiccated body they find gold, gems, and a curious looking ring, a gold band set with 3 glimmering colored stones.  After defeating the Sundew, they move into a hall that goes 3 directions.  They listen at one door, and hear gruff voices speaking orc, and move along.  Another direction leads to a long hall ending at 2 sets of double doors.  One set of double doors has various holy symbols of many faiths crudely nailed to the doors.  Again, being unnoticed in the hall, they opt to check the 3rd direction which leads past 2 empty ruined rooms and ends at stairs down.  Bravely they decide to check out level 2 of the hideout.  The stairs descend into narrow, primitively dug tunnels supported by wooden beams, they go one direction and it leads to a small cavern with 3 pits that once contained grain, they are empty now, and there is a ladder leading up to a locked trap door in the ceiling.  There is one very narrow passage leading out of this chamber, but only large enough for a gnome or halfling to fit.  Not wanting to immediately go back up, they backtrack the other direction down the hall, but are met by 2 orcs coming down the stairs they just came from.  Tense standoff occurs as the 2 unsure orcs question the 10 man party.  The party claims to be Lareth’s (the wannabe slaver they killed back outside of Orlane) men here to pick up slaves.  The party doubts the orcs' unsure responses, but allows them to lead them to where they say the slavers and the slaves are.  They lead the party back to the lacked trap door in the ceiling, knock, and are let up into a room containing 3 half orcs and 17 slaves, chained and huddled in dirty blankets.  The session ends with the party about to negotiate with the slavers.

Session Notes-  The session started off on sort of a down note, the basilisk’s gaze really threw them for a loop.  After so many weeks of tight, coordinated, successful play, they got tunnel vision on the idea that the bricked up wall was hiding something good, and not keeping something bad contained.  It's funny because last session they found a locked door and were absolutely certain there was something dangerous locked in there and avoided the door, but here they could only see the brick wall as a barrier to something good.  Odd how that works sometimes.  The flavor text describing the statues was a very big giveaway, so i think it was fair having the gaze affect so many, they were actively scanning the area looking for clues, and in the module it is written there is a 1 in 6 chance that a player looks at the basilisk each turn, the party rolled a one on turn 2, so that was bad luck.  It was fortunate that Draden had that odd scroll and was able to use it as a form of stone to flesh, so it wasn’t a game changing tragedy, just time consuming and the party felt a little frustrated at itself for not reading the clues better.  

This brings up another point, the 1 in 6 chance of seeing the basilisk is a RAW passage written into the module.  The same was true of the spike trap that hit Mandigor at the secret door.  It is written into the module that whoever opens the door gets hit for 3-18 no save.  After asking for a save, I explained that’s how it is in these old modules, and everyone was cool with playing it out RAW in these peculiar module rulings.   

Which led to another discussion during the session- clearly the power level and danger of this module is much greater than the last one which was a novice adventure.  Several of the players have higher level characters that were played 2 years ago when this campaign started with a play through of White Plume Mountain.  Those characters haven’t been revisited since, and I offered that they may now have been called to Highport to help fight the slavers.  The players of these characters considered, and we agreed there may be a chance that they arrive at the hideout and can be available for the party to use.  But that decision is for another session.

In session I just let PCs who recovered from Stone to Flesh to immediately rejoin play, but after the fact I decided to make anyone who transformed rest for 1 full day.  That’s not harsh since there’s already a rule that if you drop to 0 you must recover with 1 week of rest.  I have been adhering to that rule.  One thing I did forget though was to have them roll on the Con table for system shock.  That could have caused a permanent death, but my mistake, I will note this and grade myself down for poor DMing.  Other things I would cite as bad DMing this session are I did not roll for random encounters on the first level, forgot.  I also did use morale and reaction roll rules in the fight with the ghouls, but have to check the modifiers, I may have messed up applying modifiers since the ghouls could not harm the party.  I should have had them throw rocks and debris at the party and not just stand there.  I also could have been more descriptive and used better imagery.  DM grade- Poor

Which leads to another point, it’s RAW to grade players actions per session, and the quality of play based on their class and alignment.  The grading rules are on DMG pg. 86, and affect training for next level, the cost and duration.  For the most part PCs played well, though I would probably deduct points from the thief and to a lesser extent the assassin, who didn’t use any skills in the room with the collapsed floor.  Letting the caveman go across the beam when 2 PCs have climb walls and don’t use it warrants a deduction.  The fighter opting not to go into melee with the sundew was close, but appropriate play.  Because the party used ingenuity to avoid melee and defeat the sundew it’s good play, but fighters need to be willing, even eager to melee most opponents.  Leaving the sundew alive to avoid melee would have been a  deduction.  Points would be given to the magic user, paladin, and druid for thoughtful use of spells and abilities.  These kinds of gradings will be applied in the future and they will affect training costs as per the rules on pg. 86.

Treasure and XP-  Monster xp-  8 ghoul, 2 ghast, giant sundew, 2803 +500 for good play.  Treasure xp- gold, gems, potion, ring, 7260xp= 10,563 divided by 6 PCs, + % bonus, - 15% for henchmen.

Graveyard-

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- Session 27 Begin Ch. 2

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Reports

Session #- 27 Session Date-   12/7/22

Time Passed-  1 month travel, 3 days adventuring

Roll Call-  Mandigor- ½ Elf Fighter 4

Malden- Paladin 3

Gunther- Dog

Phillip- Paladin 2 Squire

Thantas- Elf Assassin 4

Gruumsh- ½ Orc Thief 4

Hirelings

Mondius- Fighter 2

LaSalle- Fighter 3

 

Adventure Log-  Having defeated the Spirit Naga with incredible swiftness and stealth, and having previously defeated Lareth the aspiring slavelord, the party begins its journey east, following the human traffickers down the Sheldomar River to Niole Dra.  Here they witness the mysterious figure EH, wearing his signature spider web robes, secret away a group of kidnapees.  They make the acquaintance of a sailor and his first mate Shadisse and Rakhim, who are sympathetic to the party’s plan to fight the slavelords.  They have a ship that can take the party to Highport and a small crew.  They are eager to bring the fight to the slavers, and will help the party make landfall outside of Highport and hideout/skirmish on water against the slavers while the party infiltrates their fortress and then return them home should they all survive.  This all takes the month of December, and the party’s first arc, from green adventurer to competent mid level heroes is complete.  Along the way the party meets the druid Ulster, who agrees to join them on their journey.  They also have the chance to count their treasure, and sell off some valuables and cash out their smaller coins in the merchant areas of several port cities they visit.  They also reassess their magic item stores and best distribute their gear.  Rev. Ramsey, their Cleric companion, agrees to part with some of the magic items he acquired through the party, and he makes his way back to his and Draden’s hometown of Safeton, where he will mount his own party to assault the slavelords hideout.  After inserting onto land on a rocky outcropping outside of Highport, the party decides to observe for 2 days.  They see the ruined temple of Heironeous, inside unmanned keep walls in the primitive, despoiled city, more an unkempt and muddy camp with a few buildings still maintained and many more ruined.  Bands of unsavory adventurers and well protected merchants move in and out of the city, heading to and from the port areas, but to other areas of the city as well.  No guards appear to man any of the open gates around the city or around the temple, and no discernible patrols seem to exist.  It seems like a lawless city.  On the second day Mandigor and Thantas, those of elf blood, are made invisible by Draden and they head down to get a closer look at the temple turned slaver hideout, and to hopefully find the secret door Malden believes exists on the rear of the building.  They manage to approach the building and find that it is patrolled somewhat regularly upon its 35 foot walls, groups of humanoids moving on the walls spotting; no outside ground patrols seem to exist.  They manage to find a well placed secret door on the rear of the building as thought, and notice the protocol of several visitors to the place.  There are guards posted at the portcullis walls, and groups of merchants or adventurers/bandits were admitted through the gate after a verbal exchange.  Horses were led around to the side of the front of the temple and through a pair of large doors.  Deciding the unlikelihood of getting through the front door, they check the secret door. It is untrapped and unlocked, and reveals a passage leading 10’ in and ending at the rear of what must be a second secret door, not secret on this side, only the other side.  Backing out they return to the party with the intel.  The party returns on the third day, and approaches as a non-descript group of adventurers.  They opt to bring the fighter hirelings with them, both of whom are well armored.  Session ends on Jan. 3, with the party poised to enter the secret door.

Session Notes-  This session marks the beginning of the Napppendixia Campaign, a true 1e AD&D RAW 1:1 time game that transitioned from the former Mar-Millor Campaign, a more modern style game based on hex crawling and modules, showcasing some classic AD&D modules.  My players hadn’t played those classic AD&D modules, so I wanted them to experience some of them.  We started with White Plume Mountain, which was a blast and a great experience in learning AD&D RAW for all of us.  We then however, reset the campaign to 1st level characters through Cult of the Reptile God and part of The Village of Hommlett.  But it was a standard party centered campaign where we froze time after each session and the party continued from that point the next session.  The module play was great, but as I learned about and experienced 1:1 time I and my players wanted to try it out.  So having played through several modules, and wanting to put some kind of finale to this “story arc” the party will travel off to Highport and Go on A1 of the Slavelords series.  They will be out of the Nappendixia area and can still “freeze time” at the end of sessions until the culmination of the module and the return to Nappendixia, where we will calculate what day they return to play, and from that point on all play will be in 1:1 time.  Any new patrons, players or PCs that start in Nappendixia will adhere to 1:1 time.  

This was a super casual session, which I believe is good to have every once in a while.  Chat of family, christmas, and models was had.  And some loose talk about the game.  The campaign now has its own Discord server now, thanks to one of the players who set it up for me based on my specs, which really sped things up as I am not super computer savvy. I’m the admin now and understand how to run the server now, but saving time on the setup was super helpful and appreciated.  There are now 3 patrons involved in the campaign, and the discord is the best way to communicate and get them involved.  The discord has already been great for die rolling, posting purchases, treasure, xp, maps, handouts, it’s really enhanced the campaign.  

This was one of the last times I could do any grandiose DM handwaving, so I had opted to move the party along all the way to Highport right outside the temple due to the fact that last session's big boss fight ended early and there was time to move things along.  I’m a big believer as a DM in moving things along, trying not to put words or actions into my players mouths but trying to always keep things moving.  The players however at the beginning of this session wanted to reconsider some things they may have done along the way to Highport, or possibly alter their route back to Orlane before departing, maybe checking in on Orlane or better helping the prisoners get home. They worked out how they wanted to distribute the magic items, opened a locked chest with some scrolls in it, cashed out small coins etc.  They decided not to go all the way back to Orlane, figuring they can return there later.  Mandigor’s player decided he wanted to drop the Cleric Npc he was running and I agreed he could roll up a 4th level druid as a replacement.  Again after this no more special exceptions.  All new PCs will begin at first level.  We agreed on a rolling method since the AD&D ability bonuses aren’t as friendly- 4d6 drop lowest, in order, but 2 stats can swap places.  You also get a final +1 to any one ability.  The Current characters were rolled up and played using Advanced Labyrinth Lord and a little ACKS thrown in.  These characters will be grandfathered in to have those B/X style ability bonuses, and a few proficiencies from ACKS, they earned it from 2 years of solid play.  The session ended with players feeling all loose ends are tied up and ready to assault the temple in earnest next session.  We will be switching to a more weekly schedule moving forward.  Hoping to add new players and diversify away from just having one main group of PCs.

Treasure and XP-  none

Graveyard-

Mar-Millor Campaign 1.0 Sessions 25-26 End of Ch. 1

Session 25-  Curse of the Coffer Corpse

Day 60 4pm.  The party really has so far been trying to avoid any parts of the dungeon that are excessively muddy or partially collapsed.  They can’t recall any un-searched direction that stayed on dryish ground, so they decided to haul a load of treasure back out of the dungeon and rest somewhere on the surface.  They manage to get the treasure hauled out of the keg room and back on the surface, but no real place to hide it.  They opt to stash it against the wooden palisade and have a very uncomfortable rest on the muddy mound.  During the night they are attacked by stirges, but the party is ready and quickly handles them.  Rested they wait until dawn and re enter the dungeon.  Day 61, 5am.  Knowing they will now have to explore one of the wet or collapsed areas, the party opts for the muddy area furthest to the west.  They pass harmlessly through it, and continue to a second room, this one filled deep with putrid murky water.  Disturbing, but no encounters there.  They then opt to go east and find what they think is the other side of the large pool room they found yesterday.  Disturbing the water they are quickly engaged by 3 crocs.  The battle is ferocious, but the party is victorious.  They manage to skirt the pool room’s edge and find a southern passage, and they also see an alcove to the north that contains a large raft and likely the rear of a secret door.  Continuing south, they find a 3 way intersection, 2 ways are muddy so they go east on dry ground.  It snakes around to a barred 3 room complex containing some trog troops.  They seem to be guarding the entrance to the second level.  The party fights and defeats them and descends to the next level.  They quickly come to a wet muddy series of passages that lead away in three directions.  Two of the paths have a series of rocks set in the mud that could be walked on, so the party opted to follow one of those north. The passage breaks north and south after the mud lessens.  To the south they encounter another large cavern filled with water.  So they choose to try the door to the north.  It reveals a large, square chamber with a pillar in the center.  Emerging, an eerie undead figure emerges.  Unsure what it is, hoping it's merely a zombie the party attacks, and it falls.  But shortly after the creature collapses it rises again with a pallor of fear.  Most of the party is unaffected, but they realize that their weapons are having no effect save Mandigor’s magic dagger.  They opt to try to wield and try the fine weapons they found, hoping that they are not cursed but magical.  They each turn out to be magical, one a +1 longsword, the other a +1 Shortsword, +3 vs scaly creatures.  They quickly slay the coffer corpse.  Catching their breath, the session ends.  Day 61 9am.

Session 26-  Delve Smarter, Not Harder- Chapter 1 Finale

Day 61 9am.  The party moves beyond the coffer corpse room, finding nothing of value or interest there.  The door beyond leads to a hallway, and a heavy wooden door with an iron padlock on it.  They opt to leave whatever is locked in there alone, and move into a small open chamber with 4 benches and not much else, the hall leads through this open area.  Leery of benches, they examine them and find traces of blood and hair on them, perhaps dead or injured laid here.  They move through the chamber to a door beyond.  Listening, they hear a voice call out and tell them to enter.  No chance for surprise, but the heroes enter prepped for combat.  The Naga’s head cleric Gareth Primo awaits, his shadowy henchman lurking in the shadows behind a massive stone naga statue centered on a wooden dais.  The henchman steps forward revealing itself to be a hideous undead creature, and the cleric begins casting, gesticulating at some still forms laying behind the statue.  The archers in the party get off shots ahead of the evil magic, disrupting it and wounding the cleric.  Mandigor moves forward to engage the horrific wight, hoping a hit won’t get through his armor.  It misses several times, and he bravely stands it down while the cleric is taken down, then the wight is finally finished off.  The cleric appears to have some fine armor and a snake headed hammer, and they are kept.  The paladin, determined to desecrate the graven image of the naga, tries a few ways to coordinate with the strong people to pull it down or smash it.  Finally Mandigor climbs atop the statue with the hammer and smashes the head, revealing it to be a hammer +1, and also revealing that the head of the statue was on some kind of swivel mechanism, and by smashing it the head spun sideways, and a wooden panel on the real wall reveals a secret door.  The mechanism was the only way the secret door could have been found.  Moving through, hoping for the best, the party is shocked at the sight as they are able to quietly peek through the door.  They see the naga with a huge black and red striped muscular body, and atop the neck an unnervingly huge and realistic female human head.  The creature's back is to the party as she arrogantly paces across her pile of treasure looking out expectantly at an underground lake.  She clearly expects the party to approach her from that direction, unaware that they had found the nearly impossible to find secret door.  Having her dead to rights, the assassin and thief break forward for backstab attempts- both successful, and she is mortally wounded, but the assassination attempt fails.  However the rest of the party also bursts forth and several blows take the naga down.  Her mystical charm barely affects Mandigor for a moment before she dies.  Much treasure and magic items are hauled off from the naga’s horde including a ring of free action, ring of protection +1, some magic scrolls and potions, a bag of holding, a horn of bubbles, and some elven boots.  Almost immediately the party can sense the lifting of the magical curse and the charm thrall of the naga, they are certain this will also release the people of Orlane from the curse.  Realizing they are still in the depths of the nagas lair and the unknown remaining monsters here they discuss a way of flooding or destroying the lair, but it seems too risky at this time, so they gather the treasure and egress from the mud lair. They do find a ring of keys on Gareth, and open the padlocked door to find some captured prisoners that were immune to the naga’s charm.  They include the son and daughter of the carpenter of Orlane, and a merchant from Hookhill.  Both are rescued and helped onto a safe road home.   A Hearty xp reward is given and the party spends some time training, resting, re-equipping, and finally attaining 4th level.  They make their way down the Sheldomar river, following the logging boats that worked for Lareth.  In Niole Dra, they witness what is likely the last of Lareth’s kidnappees get handed over to a shadowy figure who magically disappears with them.  In Niole Dra they make the acquaintance of a Sailor and his first mate Shadisse and Rakhim.  They have a ship that can take the party to Highport and a small crew.  They are eager to bring the fight to the slavers, and will help the party make landfall outside of Highport and hideout/skirmish on water against the slavers while the party infiltrates their fortress and then  return them home should they all survive.   This all takes the month of December, and the party’s first arc, from green adventurer to competent mid level heroes is complete.  The next chapter will transition the Mar-Millor Campaign into the Nappendixia Campaign, where we focus on an adjacent part of the map, and go into 1:1 time.  While the Mar-Millor PCs are off the map in Highport they will be able to “freeze time”, but will have to catch up to 1:1 time as they journey back to Nappendixia.  Any new patrons, players or PCs that start in Nappendixia will adhere to 1:1 time.  End session and end Ch. 1 on Jan. 1, 2023

Looking to Add Patron Players to My Campaign- The Pitch

 Patron Pitch

I’m looking to add patrons to my home campaign.  I have a dedicated group of PCs who have been playing solid for 2 years, and the game is about to go into 1:1 time play.  This is the perfect opportunity to add patrons, because the player's main PCs will be pulled off the map for a while, and that will give patrons time to get established.  It also will give the players the option to start up a secondary party and play some sessions with those PCs.  

The map below depicts the “Nappendixia” region.  It is located in Greyhawk, but very loosely, there is nothing of note relative to Greyhawk in this part of the map, so it is open for total creation and exploration.  Note the red line on the map denotes a change in hex size, the NW corner of the map connects to a different section of the campaign friendlier to PCs and others who are more prone to walk places.  The Nappendixia region is much more unexplored and expansive, so the hex size increases to 20 miles.  The big chunky things at the bottom represent massive mesas that will be the home location for most of the patrons.  Each mesa will start with only one way up/down into the jungle terrain in between the mesas.  Any further paths down will have to be constructed, if desired.  

I was thinking about how to provide resources to incoming patrons, and I was thinking of how to incorporate modules in a less stagnant way into 1:1 campaigns.  I came upon the idea of giving patrons modules wholecloth, and a location on the map and say have at it.  You have all the resources in the module-  all the monsters, treasure, magic items, all the map locations, you place them however you want in your area.  You can keep things located as stated in the module or you can totally reorganize whatever you want, barring a few alterations that a few modules required.  

So that’s it.  That’s the pitch.  I’m looking for people who want to play patrons in the Nappendixia campaign.  The patrons will be released in an order, a few will be available, and when they are claimed a few more will “unlock”.  If there is interest among the patrons, or among any others, I would be agreeable to running online sessions for anyone who wanted to adventure in Nappendixia as a PC.  The flavor/inspiration of the campaign world is obviously Appendix N Canon, More of a Howard/Vance/Lovecraft slant with some Den of Earth/ Heavy Metal/ Science Fantasy added.  The volcano located at the center of the map is frequently belching out weird gases and projectiles, making this a weird colorful hazy environment a lot different from a more straight Greyhawk flavored game.  Here’s what the patrons will be and how they will unlock-

First 3 Patrons-  All patrons will get 250,000 xp to build their own “Patron PC” who should make sense in connection to the module given, there would be some good reason he is connected to the module and able to move pieces around and direct things, not necessarily everything as there will be powerful leaders in each module.  Patrons will also get 110,000 xp to build henchmen and 1 magic item of their choice.  See the map for the corresponding mesa for each module.

1-  *Taken* Lawful Good Humans- will get the top NW corner of the map.  The Capitol City, the road, the riverside village, and a caravan will all be provided.  The general goal will be to guard the NW corner from evil and hopefully try to make alliances with other good or possibly neutral patrons/PCs.  The patron will receive all the keep resources from B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and all the village resources and Burne’s Tower and troops from T1 Village of Hommlett, and additionally a caravan and adventuring party from The Rogues Gallery.

  

2-  *Taken* Chaotic Evil Hill Giants-  You get G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.  Your goal is to be gross hill giants.  

3-  *Taken* Neutral Primitive jungle land with dinosaurs and weird creatures and primitive people.  You get X1 the Isle of Dread converted lightly to the terrain,  the jungle areas in between all the mesas is your area, as well as the marked mesa.  You can place things from your module wherever you want, and water based stuff can become based along a river in the jungle terrain.  You're neutral so you have options if you want to try to make alliances or just manage your terrain.

After those 3 are claimed more will unlock-

4-  Chaotic Evil Frost Giants-  You get G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.  Be frost giants.  Good treasure in this one.

I (DM) will be running G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King

5-  Good Demi-humans-  You get S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.  You really get the demi human and human troops and resources on the surface/ wilderness part of the module, and a few of the evil wilderness monsters are converted to good monsters.  You get to place the lost caverns on your mesa and either you can recruit PCs to delve it for you, or you can run your own mini game delving the caverns with your own resources.

6- Evil Slavelords- You get A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade and A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slavelords. you get no home area on the map, you have to secret all of your locations and resources in other peoples territory or on neutral areas of the map. Being a slavelord is sneaky business, act accordingly.

7- Final Big Bad type evil cleric with legions of dervishes and weird magical races.  You get X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, and X5 Temple of Death.  This could possibly pan out to be a “Big Bad” in the campaign, and it will be last to unlock.  It will require the most coordination with the DM but could be very rewarding.

If there’s real interest the final modules that would be given out as a patron would be S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and GW1 City of Gold (Gamma World).  Crazy Sci-Fi complex with robots and rayguns.

The very last mesa is S1 Tomb of Horrors, suicide for any who dare to enter.  It will not interact, only accept entrants

Mar-Millor Campaign 1.0 Sessions 23-24

 Session 23-  Good Old Fashioned Dungeon Delve

Day 59  4pm.  The party is much more comfortable delving into dungeons, and they prepare to raid this one with precision.  They start with rest, having traveled all day.  But without any other dry ground, they are forced to camp right on the mound containing the pit that opened to the naga’s lair.  A careful watch quickly noticed a patrol of trogs returning to base, but the party quickly dispatched them without rousing any interest from the mouth of the dungeon.  Stashing the bodies over the levee wall and finishing the night's rest, the delve first thing in the morning.  Tactfully using invisibility and Silence cast on a stone, Thantas gets intel on the guards in the opening chamber at the base of stairs that begins the dungeon.  They party silently rushes in on them and takes them out silently.  Faced with 3 directions, they go west to a large water filled chamber containing 2 large frogs.  They are aggressive but not poisonous, and Mandigor takes them out while the rest of the party navigates the edges of the water filled room, finding a secret spot where a pile of sand and the wall meet, and a passage to another chamber is revealed.  It revealed a couple of chests, some which were unlocked, others smashed open, and a fair amount of coin was harvested.  Moving south out of the water filled area, The party found the southern passage to become semi collapsed, just past a left turn in the hallway.  Deciding not to mess with partially collapsed areas, they take the left which ends at a T.  At the left is a door and they listen, and suspect an ambush.  To the right the corridor goes south then east and they follow.  Getting to a turn in the hall north and a southern door, they try the door.  After much effort, the door is forced open, taking up time, but fortunately still under the silence stone.  Behind the door was only a small room containing  alcohol, some ales and wines, some valuable, but difficult to carry.  The session ends there.  Day 60  11am.

Session 24-  Culling the Naga’s Troops/ Death Song

Day 60 11am.  After a quick respite in the small keg room the party weighs its options.  Ahead there is another area of the dungeon that looks particularly muddy and the wall on one side is collapsed revealing a pool or water.  So far the party has been unwilling to pass through any of these muddy or partially collapsed areas, fearing further collapse or traps.  They consider the door they left behind and did not try to open, sensing some kind of ambush.  They decide to go back to that door, continuing to avoid all muddy parts of this dungeon.  They return to the door, after a quick random encounter with a giant weasel.  Despite being heavily barred, Mandigor bashes through in one try and finds himself crashed through the door with a roguish human on either side of the door.  They immediately attack and call out for their likely leader Jarvis.  The rogues are unable to harm Mandigor, and he goes to attack them back, but the curse of his dagger of opposite alignment has strengthened due to his refusal to have the curse removed.  Now the dagger has the strength to require him to wield it in every battle for at least 1 round.  Again shirking off the curse, Mandigor guts one of the rogues with the dagger, only to promptly remove it from one foe, and slay the one on the opposite side of the door too.  Jarvis, their fighter leader is also quickly dispatched, and the party closes the door and hopes they did not make too much noise.  They find themselves in a small cluster of rooms that have no other exit.  It’s mostly the quarters of the human leadership of the cult, the nicest rooms the party is yet to come across.  There are a couple of fine looking weapons that are kept by the party for further investigation and they find a jade Naga bust which Malden promptly smashes, and 2 scrolls of Cure Light Wounds.  Again the party strains to think of a way to proceed in this dungeon without touching any of the very muddy parts, and they recall that one corridor of the 3 that branched off the first vestibule in the dungeon was still unexplored.  Tracing their steps back to that first room they find the passage east they had yet to explore.  It quickly branched east and north, but before being able to investigate, several spearmen appeared from the eastern passage and began combat.  Assessing the combat, Draden saw that it was about 8 spearmen, weaker fighters they had battled before.  A perfect scenario for a Sleep spell.  The magic was effective and all 8 went down.  Again, this area is a corridor of the quarters of the Naga’s lowest minions and their women, who the party left alone.  Traveling south from this area, the party curiously discovers two empty rooms with muddy piles in the corners, nothing of note, and they reconnect with that muddy area they were unwilling to go down by the keg room.  Still avoiding this they head further south.  To a passage that led to an underground larger body of water.  It was briefly investigated, but because the cavern twisted, they couldn’t see very far down, and left it to go investigate a door.  The door led to a large room with a much higher ceiling supported by wood beams.  The room had a wide path leading south out into another room.  The path was filled with waist high mud.  Not liking mud, they thought they may turn back, but before they could react, a haunting song began that enthralled all, well almost all.  Thantas the elf was highly resistant to charms and was able to avoid the magic.  The rest of the party helplessly marched forward getting themselves stuck in the mud.  In an instant a horrible Harpy flew down and began attacking the charmed party.  Starting with poor Gunter the dog.  Thantas thought for a moment that all was lost, but reacted with a bow shot to the harpy, wounding it and getting its attention from the party.  It leapt at Thantas thinking the agile elf would go down fast, but he held firm in combat, took several serious wounds and finally slayed the harpy and narrowly saving the party.  After dragging the party from the mud and getting their senses back there was much appreciation for the heroic deed.  The party looks around, realizes that they have been down in this muddy dungeon for at least 7 hours, and they are feeling tired and hungry.  Day 60 4pm

Mar-Millor Campaign 1.0 Adventure Log Sessions 21-22

 Session 21-  Final Confrontation With The Master

Day 43 4pm.  Agreeing that time is of the essence, the party elects not to rest and recover much needed healing spells in order to find and confront The Master in his lair before any more prisoners can be moved along the kidnap chain.  Based on their recollection of the dungeon complex, and the information given to them by Zara the ranger, they locate the last corner of the dungeon they have not yet explored.  There are 2 passages not yet searched, one leading to what Zara described as a large creature guarding some treasure, and the other passage which could only lead to Lareth’s inner sanctum.  Choosing not to mess with the large creature, the party decides to prepare for the upcoming battle.  They cast invisibility on Thantas the assassin, and cast Silence 15’ on a rock which he will hold.  He settles into the middle of the marching order hoping somehow he will be able to get off a backstab on an enemy.  With the effect of the silence spell, the party can kick in any doors without making noise, and do just that to the first door they come to in the passage leading to Lareth.  The party silently observes that through the door.  Also, just to the party’s left on the north wall is another door, which is again burst open with a silenced kick.  This time the scene reveals enemies however.  The party sees a long hallway with a guard positioned right at the open door, and 2 more spaced back down the corridor.  With fighting restricted in the corridor not everyone can engage in melee and missile fire is difficult.  Mandigor manages to push past the first guard to try to get more combatants in melee, but the party is largely off its game and few good hits get through to the bandits.  Eventually some effective melee and Draden dropping a Sleep spell puts down the guards in the hall, and likely a few more in the room beyond, but suddenly an invisible fighter appears at the party's rear and begins attacking the clerics and magic user.  Also, a spell caster on Lareth’s crew appears in the hall from the front, and casts a spell of Scare on Malden the Paladin, making him unnerved and unwilling to attack.  This is when the silent and invisible Thantas makes his move and approaches the magic user and silently stabs him completely by surprise, slaying him there.  Right when the party thinks they may be getting the upper hand, the fighter in the rear drops Rev. Ramsey to death’s door, and finally Lareth, the Master himself finally reveals himself at the end of the hall.  Several combatants charge him and one of the clerics hurls a Hold Person spell at him, but a magic phylactery wrapped around his arm seems to absorb the paralyzing magic.  He takes some wounds in combat, but charges up his magic Staff of Striking and lays a vicious blow on one of the party.  Malden, unable to fight, mustered enough courage to run back to Rev. Ramsey and apply a Lay on Hands before he perishes.  Before the party can react again, he drops a magic spell of darkness on the party, but again, Malden, unable to fight, is able to draw his sword with Continual Light cast on it and he is able to cancel out the magical darkness by centering his sword over the place the darkness spell was cast.  Finally, as the party is about to mount its last charge the party notices that Zara the ranger is in the rear room at the end of the hall and she has dispatched Lareth’s sergeant and another bandit.  Lareth gets a few more hits in on the party, but the weight of blows on him is too great and Lareth, the Master, the ringleader of the kidnappers plaguing the area, is no more.  The party searches the rear rooms of Lareth’s area and find 3 prisoners-  2 travelers from Hookhil to the north, and Solomon Stonefist, a dwarf.  Immediately, Belgium the cleric is taken by the dwarf, telling about the dwarven stronghold of the same name the party encountered many months ago.  This seems to be the henchman Belgium has been looking for, and they decide to travel together back there to see if they perhaps return it to its former glory.  Rev. Ramsey is grateful for Malden’s laying of hands, but is in need of a weeks thorough rest due to his trauma.  The party finds Lareth’s treasure, many coins and pieces including a very valuable gold necklace with 10 onyx, Lareth’s items, the magic users spellbook and magic bracers, and a fine cloak from the fighter.  The passage that sloped up and smelled of fresh air is a passage that leads back to the surface on the back side of the hill with the ruined tower.  They also find Lareth’s Journal, which should reveal a lot, should they be able and interested in reading it-  next time…  end session Day 43 6pm

Session 22-  Rest, Recovery, Revelations, and Reunions

Day 43 6pm. The session resumes with the party having just defeated Lareth and his minions.  The treasure from Lareth’s inner sanctum has been gathered, along with his journal, and Rev. Ramsey, still recovering from his near death experience, is in need of one weeks rest.  Not considering leaving him behind, they decide that convalescing in this dungeon for a week is not safe.  They know there is at least one large creature still living here, so they elect to go back to the nearest safe haven-  the forest abode of Ramne the old mystic.  They are also hopeful that perhaps Ramne’s forest creatures were finally able to get a message to the other companions still in Cedar Crossing, and they can all be reunited at Ramne’s.  It takes 3 days of relatively uneventful travel back west, out of the Dim Forest, around Orlane, and back to Ramne.  In the evenings as the reverend convalesces, Draden and others begin reading Lareth’s journal and it reveals quite a lot.  It is the journal of a young vain evil cleric and his descent into chaotic madness.  He talks of discovering the existence of the Slavelords, a powerful group of raiders currently attacking the Wild Coast, Draden’s and Ramsey’s home area.  Lareth desires to gain power and join this cabal.  He is able to make contact with them via a mysterious individual referred to only as EH.  EH brokers an audition for Lareth to the Slavelords; Lareth vows to begin capturing humans in the Orlane area and trafficking them west in the boats of corrupt loggers to Niole Dra, where EH will receive them and complete their journey to the Slavelords.  If he can successfully and consistently provide them with fresh humans, he will be made a full member of the Slavelords, enhancing his power. He selected Orlane as his criminal grounds because upon arriving in Orlane, he could tell the town was under the thrall of an evil corrupting presence.  He was able the trace the source of the corruption by following the trogolodytes back to the Naga’s lair and negotiating a truce between the 2 evil forces.  Both benefit from each other's malfeasance, and are doubly protected should any force of good try to upset either of their evil plans.  He further established his kidnapping ring in Orlane by blackmailing the good ranger Zara, a protector of the area.  He was able to kidnap her sister and deposit her in the Naga’s lair, using her as a bargaining chip to control Zara.  He forced Zara to join his companions-  an evil magic user and a fighter, the three inserted themselves in an abandoned farmhouse in Orlane and used it as a base of operations to traffic victims through and out of Orlane and on to Lareth’s main lair in the Dim Forest.  In the days resting at Ramne’s and reading Lareth’s journal, a stealth team of Mandigor, Thantas, and Grumush travel back to Orlane to observe and see the state of the village.  They spy the roads going in and out, and no longer see the 2 large mobs that were aggressively searching for the party some days ago.  Now they still see groups of cultists watching the roads, but also Orlane seems to be largely back to its normal state-  sedate but creepy.  Upon the stealth teams return to Ramne’s, the party’s companions-  Lasalle, Lance, and Phillip the Squire return with the cart of the party’s possessions, and have Father Charleston, The head of the Temple of Heironeous in Cedar Crossing.  He is pleased at the efforts of Malden the Paladin, and impresses upon him the importance of ending the Naga’s reign over Orlane.  He also entrusts the young paladin with his first big quest.  He tells him that should the party be successful in defeating the Naga, he must next travel to Highport, on the Wild Coast in the Pomarj.  There is one of the hubs of the Slavelords-  a former temple of Heironeous that was lost to chaos and is currently being used as a base for the Slavelords.  The evil must be cast out of the former temple/fortress, and only then will he be able to move on to his next stage in paladinhood.  Reunited with their cart and full complement of companions, the party elects to travel east along the road to the Rushmoors where Ramne’s weasel will be able to lead them to the Naga’s lair.  After 4 days of mostly uneventful travel, the party enters the Rushmoors, and narrowly avoids an encounter with likely a patrol of trogs.  Shortly after that they come upon an area dredged and drained somewhat of swamp water.  A circle of log palisade reinforced by piles of mud create a dryer area of the swamp upon which is a mound with a visible entrance leading down into the moist earth.  The weasel indicates that this is the Naga’s lair.  The time span for this session lasts 16 days.  End Day 59  4pm.

Confessions of a Patron Player #BROvenloft

 To readers of my blog, here is the reason for the lack of posts.  I have been spending all of my gaming time on this amazing project as a patron.

Confessions of a Patron Player   #BROvenloft

I woke up today a little groggy.  Groggy form the dense, intense, patron level campaign play that has been going on in the #BROvenloft campaign for the last week.  For those not in the know the quick and dirty of it is that Brovenloft is a live 1:1 time always on campaign based off of all the classic horror tropes found in the original Ravenloft module, showing how that concept is so much more innovative and fun when viewed through the lens of patron play.  The game is largely taking place over Twitter, but Discord has also been vital.  But I guess what I want to do here with this writing is to give my full perspective on where I am today, and how I got started in this world of online patron play, and why it’s so amazing and potentially addictive.  

Right now I’m feeling grateful that several people involved with this game have recently posted online to all of us involved that we shouldn’t forget to get outside, exercise, enjoy life, and not live on our devices playing a silly game.  I’m definitely guilty of being on my phone and laptop or with my nose in an AD&D book WAY too much this week, and I know I need to back off a bit.  But here I am Monday morning, and I’m dealing with the excitement and wreckage of last night's PC session where we did something that started out very silly, then got very serious, then potentially did a game altering thing.  A thing that resulted in the death of a few very well played and loved PCs, all kind of from a silly whim.  That’s both cool and crushing, losing a long played PC, but also being excited that  his death got to tell a cool campaign altering story.  Couple this to a Saturday afternoon where I got pulled into a discord chat to resolve a very brutal sneak attack that left me literally adrenaline fatigued and exhilarated at my super close escape from death at the last second.  Then add in all the guilt and time management stress of playing this game super hardcore, but still managing family and work responsibilities and you can hopefully appreciate the feeling of fatigue i’m feeling.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely, but ONLY IN MODERATION.  I think it's brilliant that Brovenloft was intentionally planned to last only a month.  It’s too intense for anything else.  It’s only 10 days in and people are already checking in to make sure no one's going all Mazes and Monsters.  I could not last more than a month.  I can only imagine how much herculean effort our mighty DM is putting in.  This is intense, elite level gaming.  I never really understood what that meant, I thought it was just pro wrestling grandiosity.  

But I came into this community last winter by way of this awesome youtube channel called The Joy of Wargaming who was doing these amazing videos on how you can have great, living wargaming campaigns all from the core AD&D books and he showed you step by step how to do it.  From there I became aware of the BROSR community on twitter and really got their use of kayfabe to troll the greater twitter gaming community.  Then I found Jeffro’s blog and was really enjoying his session reports, when I commented and asked how I could get involved with 1:1 Brosr games.  He immediately screenshotted my post and put it up on twitter and literally within 3 hours I had like 4 offers of games and I ended up joining up with the Red Frontier campaign who accepted me with open arms, the short lived Aegyptus Campaign, the Blackbird campaign as a patron, and a patron in Dill’s game Mentlegen and Wagons.  Though I really enjoyed all of those games, being in live online sessions of Red Frontier has been great. I highly recommend anyone who doesn’t already know it to check out session reports and join a game or two, it’s super fun, well-run games.  From Red Frontier my wizard tried to do a sacrificial thing he thought would save Red Frontier from a big problem, and he ended up in Brovenloft as a minor patron, unprepared and unaware.  I’ve had to really scrimp and scrape for everything I acquired in Brovenloft, I’m kind of a minor leaguer who got called up to Brovenloft and is now playing with super stars. It’s been very challenging and fun, getting to meet all these characters from the Brosr, and match wits or share wits.  This truly is elite level gaming and only a very few gamers are currently experiencing what we get to experience.  I salute my fellow players, and all who are enjoying the incredible banter and storytelling that is happening on twitter #BROvenloft.  It is must view content.