Nappendixia Camapign 2.0- session 87

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  87 Session Date-  7/10/24

Time Passed-  3 days (7/10-11, rest 12th)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C7

2x P1 hench

Finnigan- T5

Anjar- R1 hench

Rust- D3

Kenny- MU5

Boyo- C3 hench

Mayfly- MU1 hench

20(1) Silver Spearmen

Adventure Log-  7/10  During downtime, Godhard did some Divination spells on some of the locations the party has been delving for treasure and experience.  He is trying to better assess the risk vs reward of the various adventure locations the party has recently found itself at.  They are still seeking that big treasure score that has been eluding them for many months.  He gets some information on the Undead Subway Station, The Wizard’s Tower, and the Crevasse Dungeon, and the party asks him to divine about the North Station for  comparison.  He does that and also Kenny casts Clairvoyance on the circle of stone wagons in the desert, and Godhard later divines that location also.  Kenny sees no activity in the morning at the stone wagons, and based on all the data Godhard has gathered, they ascertain that delving the Wizard’s Tower will possibly be the most lucrative.  Rust announces that he is now trained to move the party 3 cubic gate stations due to his new training gained at North Station.  They look at the cubic gate map and though they never have been to the location, they see that it is 3 stops away and attempt to try to travel via the gates there.  They decide to take 20 of their silver spearmen, along with the 9 party members.  They also check out the newly completed Bartertown railroad, which travels on rails out to the cubic gate and back to Bartertown once a day.  The train was launched on the day after Bartertown Independence Day.  They take the morning train on the 11th and arrive at the gate at noon.

7/11-  With the new train to the Cubic Gate, rail travel is ½ a day and avoids any random encounters, and the party arrives promptly at noon.  Master is apparently obsessed with keeping the train running on time.  The party has never been to the Wizards tower, they have heard many legends and rumors of it and considered trips there several times, but this is the first time the party can use Rust’s new training to use a 3rd level spell to travel 3 stops on the route directly to the Wizards Tower.  He fires up the cubic Gate and the party and men at arms assemble on the platform.  The party passes through first and after the first silver spearmen passes through the gate it begins to flicker and fritz out, the next troop that attempts to pass is roughly shoved back onto the platform wondering what happened to the 10 who were able to pass through.  The 10 who make it through land on the other side of the magic gateway but the platform is at an odd angle and covered with piles of sand.  The platform is much larger here, and built on top of it is a 3 story tower, it leans at an odd angle but remains intact, its front door largely free of sand piles.  But the end of the structure that houses the circular gate when activated is partially buried in the sand, exposing only about half of the gate's area, and thus limiting the amount of travelers who could pass by that amount.  The gate does not seem active from this side; it seems only partially engaged or perhaps damaged somehow.  They will have to find out before using it again for travel.  As they gaze out across the landscape they quickly see within ¼ mile a second tower, this one taller, likely 4 stories in the near distance among the sand dunes.  They decide to investigate this tower connected to the gate first, and find the front door locked but Finnigan quickly picks it.  The main floor of the tower is mostly open, a receiving room of sorts, with a fireplace, scant furniture, and 2 spiral staircases, one leading up and one leading down.  They listen at both and hear nothing, and elect to go up.  Godhard casts detect traps and begins viewing the stairs and 2nd level.  The second floor they find a sitting room and 2 doors closing off 2 other rooms.  Behind the second door the spell reveals some sensation of a trap in the room.  The other door is searched and kicked open, revealing a musty old library and a crystal statue that animates and attacks upon opening the door.  It is quickly dispatched however, with 2 magic missiles and a few hammer bashes.  The shattered tiny shards of crystal litter the floor.  Kenny begins picking up the pieces and examining the musty texts, finding one that may be repairable and have some magic in it.  In the other room they find what could be the bedroom of the mage or scribe who kept the library next door.  They find a secret compartment in the floor beneath the bed, and in it Finnigan finds an iron lockbox.  Checking it he misses a poison needle trap and collapses near death, he is revived with a laying of hands form a paladin, and is able to fight off the poison just enough to survive, but still be in need of 1 week bedrest.  The party listens at the third floor and hears nothing.  Based on the locked condition of the tower, they hope to rest and recover here so Finnigan can get back on his feet and the party can complete clearing the tower and hopefully figure out how to reactivate the cubic gate.  

Session Notes-  So this session I told the players that I had noticed how much content has been created from all of our session play, rolling on the random tables generates a lot of stuff, and a lot of it has kind of been ignored over many sessions.  I asked the players if they felt this was a problem or detriment to the game.  I also offered that if there was some aspect of the game, something that had come up over the course of play and they were wondering/wanting for some kind of resolution to said topic they could tell me openly or privately, and I would invest some time in figuring out how it resolves.  None seemed too deterred by the fact that so much content gets generated in play, and much of it gets ignored over time.  Overall they felt the content generated is much more of a feature than the bug of having to ignore some of said content.  Now a more astute and time friendly DM may have more time to keep many balls in the air in the background, I simply cannot.  I have time in my week to run the session, calculate the xp, write and post the session report, and respond/follow the downtime chatter on the Discord.  They seemed to not expect a bit more from me; they all were quite happy with the sort of multi-directional shape the campaign has taken.  I guess this is some evidence of the pulpy, episodic nature 1:1 time play produces.  What the players seem to enjoy is the following-  they like a well-adjudicated but fast moving game that is basically RAW and will sometimes pause to get in the weeds on a ruling, but also tempered with some on the fly decision making.  They like interacting with character advancement, maintaining a stable of PCs and henchmen, training them, hiring troops, maintaining those costs, building constructions, and casting information gathering spells on downtime.  They use the chat largely for downtime activities, but also like a bit of leeway to declare/resolve some downtime stuff at the beginning of sessions.  They enjoy the 80s scifi references I have thrown into the campaign in as gonzo of a style as I can, and they like seeing things play out in 1:1 time and managing all of that.  Now granted this is the sentiment of my regular players who have stuck with the game for a while now.  There are certainly players no longer with the game who were less committed to this style of play.  But I think it demonstrates at least what this game has been able to achieve and focus on after what is approaching to be a 100 session campaign.  It certainly has more staying power from both a player and DM perspective than any other style of pay I’m aware of.  

Treasure and XP-  Monsters- Crystal Statue 101xp.  Treasure- 400sp/20xp, 200gp/xp, Scroll Protection from Lycanthropes 1000xp= 1521xp/ 4PCs=  380xp each,  with one hench 323xp, 2 hench 266xp, hench gets 57xp each.  Add % bonus if appropriate.

Graveyard- 1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

5 Silver Spearmen, 1 Bowman- killed by by werewolves and a weird blood thing at Outpost 31 North of Bartertown (session 81)

1 Lt Cav- killed by Ogres at the crevasse north of Bartertown (session 82)

Jirel- P1 and Maria- C/A 1/1-  killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s former ruined keep, now taken over by trolls.  Godhard and Harry brought to Death’s door (1 week bedrest) (session 84)

4 Lt Foot killed by Amphisbaena at Outpost 31, 8 H. Foot killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s ruined keep.  (session 85)

Finnigan- brought to Death’s Door by poison needle trap in the lower Wizard’s Tower (session 87)

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 86

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 86 Session Date- 7/3/24

Time Passed- 8 days (7/3-7/10)

Roll Call-  Finnigan- T5

Rust- D3

Anjar- R1 hench

20 Lt Foot

10 wagons

Adventure Log-  In the days leading up to Bartertown Independence Day, the wagons and workers return from the expedition to recover building materials from Outpost 31 led by Rust.  He was able to befriend the strange amphisbaena snake that was lairring at the Outpost and entice it to patrol the area while the crews worked in exchange for a small lair to be constructed for it.  The wagons returned laden with wooden boards, metal sheeting, nails, screws, hinges and all kinds of good building materials totaling 3500gp worth of goods.  Times are good in Bartertown, the threat of the headhunter orcs was avoided with no sign of their return.  Auntie and Master seem to have a renewed alliance in the aftermath of the void left by Papagallo’s factions departure.  The Day of Independence is festive, and the party mostly rests and enjoys the ceremonies.  Godhard, Rust and Finnigan all manage to procure some fireworks that are much more in demand this year than last year.  It seems the rumors of all the neat ways the party has employed the fireworks over the course of the last year has trickled into the populace and increased demand.  Of the revelers that enter the Iron Quarter to The second day of travel the party encounters a large horde of over 300 goblins.  Perhaps they have been emboldened by the seeming lack of monstrous presence on the Nappendixian badlands.  For whatever reasons, the party spots them amongst the scrub at 150 yards and loses initiative to them, but their short stubby legs cannot carry them into combat at this distance.  After a few rounds of the party trying to flee, they get enough distance on the goblins that they seem to give up on pursuit.  Fortunately even the wagons are faster than the goblins and they do not have to be abandoned.  

7/6-  After avoiding the goblins and traveling to the ruined keep and resting, they search the keep in the morning and find it still empty.  The engineer they brought with them begins to rig up a pulley system, and a group of largely undamaged 2 foot square blocks are found amongst the rubble.  They take the rest of the day and manage to distribute 30 of the massive blocks onto the 10 wagons.  They depart the following day and make the 2 ½ day journey back to Bartertown.  On the last day of travel, they encounter a herd of wild herd animals, similar to water buffalo.  Rust and Anjar use their nature wisdom to calmly approach the herd and identify the alpha of the group.  Then a successful speak with animal and animal friendship spells win over the alpha, and he is convinced to follow the druid and relocate the herd to some prime natural lands near Bartertown.  Rust agrees to manage the herd and cull it appropriately to maintain its balance, and provide Bartertown with a new food source.  They get the animals settled and return to the Iron quarter with the stones, considering what to do with them.  

Session Notes-  This was a solo session, only one player attended and we kept it short and light.  It was quite fun.  I had nothing prepped other than it was Bartertown Independence Day and I rolled out a city encounter for the day and for the night.  I went with the day encounter since most of what the party did was procuring information and items and prepping for travel.  The roll actually was a Gentleman, but there was a 20% chance of it being a Gentlewoman, with some guidance as to how to run each variation of the roll.  It really does give just enough to run the encounter, another win for AD&D 1e random tables.  The session was just giving the 1 player the time and freedom to do whatever they wanted.  We had already resolved the salvage mission with the snake taming, but in this session we came up wit haway to determine the value of the salvage, and to give the player opportunity to inquire about some surrounding factions like the nearby slime cultists.  It can be a big gamble going out adventuring as a solo, often resources are low, and something like 300 goblins can become a problem quite quickly.  Nonetheless smart play ensued, the procuring of the herd animals as a food source seemed worth some xp for the value of the food asset brought in from the wilderness.  I gave ¼ xp, the same I do for turning undead, so I treated the 4 HD water buffalo as 1HD and the PC chose to split that between the ranger and the druid which made the most sense.  This may have been a shorter session, but all of the play was generated by 3 rolls on random encounter tables, and each result had just enough guidance in their descriptions to give the DM direction on how to run it with 0 prep.  This style of play can only be refined through practice, you have to put in the reps before you really start getting full mileage out of the books,  and it’s well worth the journey.  I can truly not ever see a reason to go back to freeze time story gaming.  That type of play only has one inevitable result- burnout and loss of interest resulting in a suspended campaign, but with the promise that the next campaign would be that way.  That’s a little more negative than I’d like to get in these session reports, but I’ve just seen it too many times, when the onus is solely on the DM to create an endless series of hoops for the PCs to jump through it’s unsustainable, and you simply have to ignore way too many of the coolest features of AD&D.  

Treasure and XP- 1300xp shared by Rust and Anjar for taming the herd animals and relocating them near Bartertown as a food source.  

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

5 Silver Spearmen, 1 Bowman- killed by by werewolves and a weird blood thing at Outpost 31 North of Bartertown (session 81)

1 Lt Cav- killed by Ogres at the crevasse north of Bartertown (session 82)

Jirel- P1 and Maria- C/A 1/1-  killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s former ruined keep, now taken over by trolls.  Godhard and Harry brought to Death’s door (1 week bedrest) (session 84)

4 Lt Foot killed by Amphisbaena at Outpost 31, 8 H. Foot killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s ruined keep.  (session 85)

Roger Zelazny- The Guns of Avalon 1972- Book Review

 Roger Zelazny-  The Guns of Avalon 1972

The second installment in Zelazny’s Amber series continues to shine as just purely great reading of fast paced, epic fantasy story telling that leads the reader along this great vivid journey but is lacking of overly descriptive and detail oriented prose so that you the reader have plenty of room to construct your own imagery to the tale.   It picks up right where the first novel left off with the prince Corwin having escaped capture and the regrowth of his vision and a new plan to usurp the throne of his brother Eric who currently rules Amber.  There is so much great D&D related material in this book, the continuation of the use of the cards as a means of psychic communication, and in this book outright psionic combat.  There clearly has to be a relationship to psionics in the game and what happens in this novel and it’s just very inspiring to read and take in as this book was written in ‘72, and D&D comes out in ‘74- just a great book to immerse yourself in that early 70s gaming culture.  In addition to psionics being drawn directly from this book we also see the manticore and wyvern making an appearance in the book, both present themselves as quite fearsome opponents.  I’m not going to claim to be such a fantasy historian as to claim that this is the first time either/both creatures appear in literature, but again you can clearly see the connection to the Appendix N lit to the elements of the game.  Probably one thing I got out of the book, and the series altogether is the Amber series is a perfect example of faction play- each prince representing a different bent or alignment, some more good, some more evil, all with different desires and goals, and all mingling in a brew of alliances and rivalries.  It really is exactly how the rules set you up to play if you really dig into how the game was intended to be played.  It’s a literal guide or example of how players should be interacting with each other especially at higher levels.  The princes set up alliances which lead to battles over resources delineated on a map, it really is just a fantastic wargames campaign set to the novel format.  Without belaboring the point the Amber series is just clutch reading, I’m amazed the further I get into this series.  I’m a little embarrassed it took me this long to truly discover Amber, but now that I’m here I’m 100% along for the ride.  Top notch pulpy epic fantasy with a twist of 60’s humor.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but there’s plenty of meat in the story to keep you thinking about it.  I look forward to book 3.  

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 85

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #-  85 Session Date-  6/12/24

Time Passed-  8 days (6/12-18, rest 6/19)

Roll Call-  Godhard- C7

Roland- P1 hench

Harry- T6

Finnigan- T5

Kenny- M/U5

Boyo- C3 hench

Mayfly- M/U1 hench

20 H. Infantry

5 Longbowmen

Adventure Log-  The wagons, artisans, workers, and troops guided by Rust arrive at Outpost 31 to begin salvage operations.  In spreading out at the camp and assessing what material are recoverable, a group of guards are confronted by a curious snake with a head at both ends, it grasps itself into a  circle and rolls itself at the troops, killing 2 with poison bits, and another 2 as the rest of the troops could spear it and cause its retreat into some rubble.  The salvage ops are left momentarily stymied until later resolved.  

6/12-  The Bartertown crew assembles to see what kind of adventure or exploration they could get into this week.  They assess their funds and divvy up the payment of all the troops amongst active members of the Iron Co.  They discuss the possibility of constructing some kind of mobile base for bivouacking at wilderness locations, and a general discussion of the use of and lack of funds to fund so many of their future plans.  They consider some kind of temporary base of operations at the crevasse dungeon they recently discovered, and the possibility of exploring to find that desert of old car parts in the hopes of getting the Ford Bronco running.  Just as they are about to head in that direction, Kenny arrives and a new plan is concocted.  They plan to use his powerful Fireball spell in conjunction with a complement of troops armed with flasks of oil and flaming arrows to take out the trolls that nearly killed the party last time.  The day is spent acquiring oil and arming the troops and the party heads out the following day.  Travel by wagon is slow but uneventful, the large lumbering party making an imposing target.  They arrive on the 15th midday and send an advance party that spies a single troll at the ruined entrance and dry partly filled moat on watch.  The party sets up at 1000 yards, observes no other trolls and advances to a spot free of potential ambush at 200 yards away.  Godhard begins casting chant, and the archers begin a feint volley of arrows which gets the troll’s attention as it cries out into the ruins and rushes forward.  Kenny manages to cast Web on the troll as it moves forward, and archers and Harry and Finnigan begin to pepper it with missiles as it begins to rip out of the webs.  They approximate it will take 10 rounds to break free, and continue volleys, but 2 more trolls break from the ruins.  Again a well timed spell, Fireball, gets all 3 trolls midfield, and the already wounded one is slain in the incinerating web, while the other 2 wounded trolls clash into the party’s troops who bravely hold forth halberds.  In all 8 are slain but the party moves forward to assist wounding the trolls with magic weapons and a few Magic Missiles.  Eventually they fall, but again prove to be one of the toughest opponents the party has ever faced, doing large amounts of damage each round once engaged.  Their bodies are burned to a crisp before they can begin regenerating, and the thing is done.  Godhard casts Locate object, hoping to find some remnant of his loyal squire’s remains to resurrect it with his magic staff.  The spell indicates that there is some remnant of Jirel inside the one ruined structure within the ruined keep walls.  Harry and Finnigan sneak forward into the ruined keep building, really just a cavern at this point and spy a litter of bones and food scraps to the left and several sacks of what appear to be silver coins to the right.  Harry investigates the treasure sacks first and as he confirms the sacks contain silver, there is a quick motion of some kind right before him and a troll seems to grow from nothing before him, it swings out and strikes at him and Finnigan before they can run.  Harry notices a small stone fall from the troll's hand as it grows, and manages to remember where it lands.  Finnigan is small and deft, but Harry takes several blows to the chin from the mighty troll before the rest of the heroes can rush in to assist.  Again bravery and weight of blows wins the day for the heroes and again the troll corpse is burned.  Godhard locates a femur that the spell reveals is Jirel’s and uses one of the few remaining charges on the staff to resurrect her.  Harry and Finnigan check the coinage, and find a few sacks contain platinum, and are happy to take in a better yield of wealth on the expedition.  In all they recover 7900sp and 450pp, Kenny casts Identify on the stone that fell from the troll’s hand and it is revealed to be a stone of Diminution, it will shrink the holder as they hold it or it may be conferred to another by touch.  A powerful stealth item, it has limited charges and should be used wisely.  The party takes a much needed rest and recovery time, and heads back to Bartertown richer, but fewer in troops.  They arrive back on the 18th and rest on the 19th.  

Session Notes- The trolls continue to be nasty opponents, they just do so much damage per round and can strike up to 3 targets each round.  The treasure rolled by the party was pretty meager, even with my added treasure roll.  I knew there had to be at least some treasure for the trolls, so I on my own rolled the 7900 silver.  Not much xp but the party has wisely been using their silver and copper as industrial metals, not precious metals.  So that gives them a nice store of silver.  I do like letting the players roll in session on the Treasure Type tables, but lately their luck has been crappy, like real crappy. So I have been supplementing their rolls when needed with the 1977 Monster and Treasure Assortment book.  I figure it’s the most “canon” source for random treasure generation, so I’ve been using it.  Even with it the players are seriously lacking on treasure hauls lately.  They have been doing better on getting xp from monsters surprisingly, using their troops as leverage to rack up xp by killing monsters despite rolling poorly on treasure found.  It is starting to backlog some of their projects, and it is interesting how their funding of certain projects over others is influencing the game.  I am also fortunate in that players are stepping up and helping run the game in helping my find rulings in the dmg, track time for downtime travel and training and things like that, and just generally being good about having conversations in the discord on what is going on in game and future plans.  The group has certainly shaped up to be very elite level players, and it is very appreciated in sustaining the game.  I am happy to dedicate the time in running the mostly no-prep sessions, with a little extra time peppered in for fun stuff like the movie references and 80s references and such, but I will also always have time to write well-detailed and analyzed session reports.  They are essential to a healthy long-lasting campaign.  

Treasure and XP-  Monster- 4 Trolls 3284xp.  Treasure 7900sp/395xp, 450pp/2250xp, Stone of Diminution= 5929xp/ 4 PCs= 1482 each, Godhard gets 1260xp, Kenny gets 1038xp, each hench gets 222xp.  Add % bonus if appropriate.  

Graveyard-  1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

5 Silver Spearmen, 1 Bowman- killed by by werewolves and a weird blood thing at Outpost 31 North of Bartertown (session 81)

1 Lt Cav- killed by Ogres at the crevasse north of Bartertown (session 82)

Jirel- P1 and Maria- C/A 1/1-  killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s former ruined keep, now taken over by trolls.  Godhard and Harry brought to Death’s door (1 week bedrest) (session 84)

4 Lt Foot killed by Amphisbaena at Outpost 31, 8 H. Foot killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s ruined keep.  (session 85)

Roger Zelazny- Nine Princes in Amber 1970- Book Review

 Roger Zelazny-  Nine Princes in Amber 1970

This was my first time reading Zelazny, and this proved to be every bit of the essential classic that it is oft referred to as.  This would be up there with Jack Vance as far as formative Appendix N literature.  It introduces Corwin, and the city of Amber which is the setting and the main desire of Corwin and the other Princes who vie for control and make and break alliances in an attempt to gain control over Amber.  As stated I have not read any of the series before, so I am along for the ride as far as the big picture of the whole Amber series, but this first book is an easy quick read that really gets the series going and still maintains the qualities of a self contained story.  It begins with Corwin awakening on our Earth circa late 60s from an accident.  He cannot remember his princely heritage nor Amber, but he begins to reacquaint himself with his true nature and meets one of his fellow prince brothers.  They navigate the magical pathway back to Amber and find out the state of the other princes and their power struggles.  The crafty brother Eric has become leader of Amber, and Crowin assembles allies and a massive army to confront him.  There is a lack of heavy description in the battles and progression of the war that keeps the plot to a feverish pace and leaves the imagery up to the reader.  The description of the  magical Shadow, which one must pass through to reach Amber was vivid and eerie, as were the magical Trump cards, one with an image of each prince, that allows communication and teleportation among the princes.  These concepts clearly had a lot of impact on some of the fantastical elements of D&D.  I am excited to see how the remainder of this series plays out, it has a great sort of 70s vibe to it. There’s some lingo from that era embedded, and some social commentary of the period, for example Zelazny references radio DJs and their ability to enrapture teens in comparison to a magical effect that occurs in the story.  I also noticed and appreciated how fantasy of that era was more apt to connect the fantasy story and characters to the real world.  Much like early stories like Lost Horizons, there's a connection. The characters in the fantasy world come from our real known world, and you can actually get to the fantasy world from our world.  Maybe authors of earlier fiction felt a stronger sense to connect their characters to the real world for empathy to the reader, whereas now authors and readers are more willing to just immerse themselves in a separate fantasy world.  I‘m not sure if there’s any significance there, I do remember however that some of those early D&D games also had that concept, that the PCs were the actual players and the stats of those PCs were an approximation of the users personal stats and they were playing as if they personally were transported to a fantasy realm.  Certainly a cool concept and one that could be explored again at one's own gaming table.  In summation, I’m definitely late to the game on this one, Zelazny is one of the few Appendix N authors I never really investigated despite being a longtime fan of pulpy sword and sorcery fiction.  Perhaps I just never made it to Z at the used bookstore, but I am definitely thankful to have begun reading him later in life.  I look forward to the remainder of the series.  

Nappendixia Campaign 2.0- session 84

 Nappendixia Campaign Session Report

Session #- 84 Session Date- 5/29/24

Time Passed- 6 days (5/30-6/3, rest 6/4)

Roll Call- Harry- T6

Godhard- C7

2x P1 hench

Stigr- F5

Finnigan- T5

Maria- 1/2O C/A 1/1 hench

  

Adventure Log-  Play begins with 3 rangers- Jack, Anjar, and Stewart taking a scouting mission using light horse to try to find a wagon accessible route to the Outpost 31 location.  The party hopes to strip the salvageable structures of their resources.  They head out on the 27th, and eventually find a route about 50 miles that routes to the NW side of the outpost.  Unfortunately upon discovering said route, the group is set upon by Lions, and Anjar and Jack are badly wounded, Anjar’s horse is killed and the party must retreat.  After recovering, their trip back was uneventful except when they returned to Bartertown they were shocked to find it surrounded by not just the 220 Scalphunter Orcs they had spotted previously, but the group had an additional contingency of carts, slavebearers, and additional sergeants and a sub-chief.  They began loosely encircling bartertown.  The rangers hunkered down to see how the town would react.  The rangers return on 5/30.

5/30-  the PCs inside Bartertown are alerted the previous day by Bartertown patrols of the incoming orc horde, and its added caravan of troops and materials.  The party considers many options as to how to deal with the horde- open combat, spells (they consider illusory cars driving at the orcs), parley, assassination, and trickery.  While weighing their options those party members who were weeks ago affected by the Outpost 31 Blood Monster begin to feel very nauseous.  Jirel the Paladin, Rust (who is off training with a fellow durid), and 3 Light Foot all begin convulsing, and begin to vomit forth a thick worm-like creature, so thick it barely fits out of their throats.  They are all incapacitated by the ordeal and lay prone for a turn, tended by their allies.  The wormlike creature that wriggles forth from each of them however begin to grow into a disgusting slightly man-shaped creature, each flees into the recesses as the each appear to begin  developing arms and legs and scurries off into the confusion and back alleys of Bartertown.  The chaos of the orc horde provided its own level of confusion and diaspora that made perfect cover for the strange monsters' escape.  The party vow to deal with that threat as soon as possible, but first they must attend to the horde.  They settle on the idea that Harry would use his Charisma, knowledge of the orc language and the copy of Lord of the Rings he recently read to read scenes of orcish battle over Auntie’s loudspeaker to entertain the orcs and gain their friendship.  Actually he first tries to parley with them by asking them to enter into the Iron Quarter for wine drinking and fellowship.  Their response to that was cool at best, but the reading of the story about orcs, Harry is specific to only read the parts about orcish battle, gains their fellowship as they are enraptured by the story, and they humble send forth a diplomatic party to ask if they can have some of the aforementioned wine.  They are greeted and invited in to partake, and the story reading continues.  The orcs remain respectful guests, and allow the party to suggest some possible targets for the rage of their horde.  Orcs need to fight of course.  They try very hard to get the orcs to go after the Gorilla men outside the Megadungeon, and they almost bite on the offer, but refuse because they realize the gorilla men are not truly human.  The horde is a scalphunter horde, and only the scalps of men have any value in their economy.  The party realizes that yes the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the successful parley of the horde is a useful tool, but they are getting in bed with brutal man killers, and need to use them with discretion.  Harry uses his knowledge of the area to suggest the orcs head due east, threading them between Milenkos Juggalos to the north, and Sivor’s Slime Cultists to the South.  They don’t really want the orcs to attack either group, as both groups have innocents that could easily be harmed, however sending the orcs as far east as possible seemed a worthwhile gambit.  The showdown with the orcs happens at dusk on the 30th, and the parley goes into the night.  The orcs begin prepping to travel and leave the area heading east on 6/1.

On the 31st the party is able to do some snooping and investigating as to the location of the weird worm blood monster spawn.  They predict that several or at least one has left Bartertown, possibly connecting with the orc horde to spread its evil or sickness, the rest they feel are here to try to attack or take over the residents of Bartertown.  Godhard finds some residue from the worm vomit event and casts locate object on it, hoping the matter will link him back to the creature.  It fails to produce any result, which in Godhard’s mind confirms that this creature was probably prevented from mingling with and/or taking over the human host due to his casting of Cure Disease on them after the initial battle with the blood monster.  He feels like because of this the creature was forced to remain completely separate and dormant until it could grow large enough to flee.  He also confirms with his paladins through detect evil that the creature is likely not demonic or evil per se, its power is not divine, but more like a natural animal but from a totally different environment.  Some kind of symbiotic creature or perhaps parasitic.  That remains unknown.  All of this investigation occurs on the 31st.

6/1-  The party sends out its first salvage caravan, 10 wagons, the Lt Cav, and a set of artisans to recover the hardware of any salvageable buildings or mechanical things they can find.  They will use the newly found route to Outpost 31 and bring the rangers with them to help find the route.  They estimate the work to take a week, making the trip take an estimated 17 days.  

6/2-  With the favor of the orc horde won, and the mystery of the blood creatures on hold for now, the party decides to go look for some treasure, as they were able to solve their current predicaments without any, and expenses are mounting.  They elect to go check out the old Wardoof ruined keep to the east, seeing if anything has moved into the location and to assess the stability of the structure.  Upon arrival, they find several trolls have staked a claim to the lair, 2 stand out front and a third lurks inside.  They hatch a plan to have Maria and Harry creep forward to attempt a sneak attack and an assassination, then rush them with the remaining party.  The attempt fails, and they are set upon by the troll and his partner rushes to aid.  The power of trolls comes to the realization of the party as they are shocked by the damage and accuracy of their blows.  In all Maria and Jirel are slain, despite the paladin duo mounting a brave defense using their sturdy armor and Protection from evil to push back the trolls to allow Godhard resurrect a deceased Harry with the Rod of Resurrection, only to fall himself to troll blows a minute later.  The remaining paladin grabs Godhard and Harry mounts a fighting retreat as the survivors escape.  The trolls feast upon the bodies of Jirel and Maria and do not pursue.  The party makes it back to Bartertown on 6/3 and rests 6/4, lamenting the loss of their comrades.  

Session Notes-  0 xp-  the session resulted in no xp.  That’s just the way it worked out, if they had dealt with the orcs differently they possibly could have earned xp from slain monsters and/or treasure.  The same with the worm monsters, there was a possibility they could have fought and slain one or some.  And the encounter at the end was just a random check to see what moved into the empty lair, trolls are very nasty and deadly and the party learned this.  The seem determined to return with troll killing tactics to take them out..  

Rewarding the 100 roll-  The reason the party’s negotiation with the orcs went so well, and why they were basically allowed to order the orcs to do whatever was twofold.  One the plan was well thought out and well executed.  It was very clever to apply the orc stories from LOTR from the recently acquired books from B. Dalton, and the remembrance of Auntie’s intercom to make an effective ploy to appeal to the orcs.  On top of that I allowed Harry’s player to roll a d100 reaction roll and he rolled a 100!  I wanted to reward both the skillful play and the super lucky roll (Harry’s player proceeded to have bad die rolls the rest of the night, but alas) so I thought in my mind that as long as the scalphunters have the prospect of fresh man scalps they would obey the party whatsoever.  In all it was an excellent session, much fun was had and many plot threads were plucked at, the party continues to have total freedom to probe the world in whatever direction they want and I will continue to respond with fair adjudication based on the original texts, and a sprinkle of gonzo creativity thrown in from shared sources of inspiration.

Treasure and XP-  None

Graveyard- 1 Lt Foot- killed by the Werebear at the rail supply depot NE of Bartertown (session 79)

2 Silver Spearmen, 4 Kazarians, 4 Shortbowmen, 3 Hvy Hobilar- killed by wereboars and wild boars 1 day outside of Bartertown. (session 80)

5 Silver Spearmen, 1 Bowman- killed by by werewolves and a weird blood thing at Outpost 31 North of Bartertown (session 81)

1 Lt Cav- killed by Ogres at the crevasse north of Bartertown (session 82)

Jirel- P1 and Maria- C/A 1/1-  killed by Trolls at Wardoof’s former ruined keep, now taken over by trolls.  Godhard and Harry brought to Death’s door (1 week bedrest) (session 84)