The Training Dungeon is over...now the real adventure begins!

As promised, here is Junior Grognard's first foray into the world of AD&D without the soft corners. The rules have slightly changed for Team Adventure. In the campaign proper, they will get experience points and the chance to advance but once a character dies, unless they have access to raise dead or resurrection, that character stays dead.

Just so you know.

I started by going through the character sheets and explaining a bit of backstory for JG, who hadn't got round to thinking about it yet. This grounded the characters in Elesalia and gave some hint as to the possible pasts that might come back to haunt them. It also avoided the old ‘you are gathered together in an inn, when a mysterious stranger approaches you…’

They arrived at the frontier town of Antiar's Landing, which is just across the river Elfwater from the start of the wilds, and were let in by the gate guards, who gave them the once-over and not much else. JG misunderstood me when I said that they needed somewhere to stay - I guess that in our day, the first thing that you did when you arrived somewhere was hit the local tavern but despite my hints, he decided that he was going to find some wood and build himself somewhere.

(bless!)

The local timber yard was not particularly keen on people just walking off with half a hundredweight of wood, so Team Adventure went about a mile or so outside town and cut down two trees which they dragged all the way back to town. A bit of hacking with swords and axes, much to the mirth of the gate guards and voila, a bivouac to make Ray Mears jealous.

Well, that night (it had been a long time making this thing) there was a heavy thunderstorm (I rolled on Chgowiz’s weather chart) and they all got rather damp. However, during the night they did hear something moving about in the dark, and it wasn't the thunder.

Because of their bivouac escapade, the next morning, the party was in the right place at the right time as a panicked horseman rode up to the gate guards and started talking to them, then pointing up the road and looking very scared. The sergeant came up to the party and said

"You want to earn yourselves some money, get your weapons and come with us. Something big's come across the river, we reckon and we're going to sort it out"
The party needed no further bidding and off they tramped up the track that led west from Antiar's Landing.

I should note at this point that the guard party consisted of Sergeant Subaras and three men, Volse, Qual and Prebor. No-one ever remembers these guys. Subaras was 3rd level, the others were 1st.

They came to more or less the point at which they had chopped down the trees the day before. Only now there was a swathe of trampled undergrowth, snapped branches and big footprints headed off into the woods (the rain had made the ground very muddy). After what can only be described as dithering whilst I waited for JG to make a plan, Sergeant Subaras took over and divided the party into three; himself and Volse in the centre, with Qual on the left and Prebor on the right. They were hoping that the centre would encounter their prey and the right and left would come in on the flanks. JG divided the party into three groups of two, each group with one of the guard prongs.

However, the prey decided to have a bit of fun with this plan and so guardsman Qual was leading his two Team Adventure members (Hruthnor and Elise) through the undergrowth when something very big and very fierce came bursting into sight and smashed him to absolute pieces with a mighty swing of a big club. Our doughty party members took one look at this and ran like ***** for the safety of the central group, with the enemy in hot pursuit.

Subaras and Volse deployed arms and Volse, who was armed with a bow, opened fire. Other members of the party braced for impact.

What was this fearsome opponent? Well, I'd rolled for a wandering monster for the hex that day and as (bad) luck would have it, an ettin came up. Two heads, ten hit dice, one bad attitude.



The central group, which included Alurax and Lannius weighed in - the right flank (Akurath and Zhastar) would take a round or two to arrive. The ettin was not waiting around for the odds to get worse and splattered guardsman Volse to pulp with two heavy blows from his clubs. Attacks from the party rained down on him and he took some damage but not quickly enough. I diced for the unfortunate individual who got the full brunt of the ettin's attack and the bad luck fell to Hruthnor - a bang and a crash and the stalwart axeman departed for the dwarven afterlife in a hurry.
JG was not particularly happy about that, and even less so the next round when, despite having whittled the ettin down a good few hit points more, and having got at least a couple of twenties (how do kids do that?) the fickle finger of fate fell to Lannius.

Right, I thought, he's got AC2 which means that the ettin needs an 8 or better to hit him.

Both d20s came up 8.

Lannius took 23 damage - at this point, JG needed a Daddy Grognard hug; things were getting tearful. Undeterred (well sort of) an oil flask was recovered and with the use of Affect Normal Fires (a lesson he’d remembered from the Training Dungeon lesson) the ettin was set ablaze - a bad die roll or two meant that the damage didn't finish him off but, stupid as he was, the two-headed one decided to leg it at that point.

Subaras and Prebor attempted to shoot him as he fled, but it fell to Alurax to let fly with the bow and skewer the ettin between the shoulder blades. Four damage was inflicted, but the ettin only had two left and fell into the bushes, a dead 'un.

JG, I think used the words 'epic take-down', which I think was justified. A first level party (with help) kills an ettin.

Sergeant Subaras sent Prebor back to town to commandeer a cart for the ettin's body and another for the four dead heroes. The town was quite agog at what had come trundling in and after a trip to the local dwarven and elven shrines to see if anything could be done for their fallen comrades, Team Adventure were taken to see Yugaz, the town's baronial representative, who congratulated them and doled out 50gp to each survivor. In addition, I calculated the XP for helping in the ettin's demise, divided the total by half to take the guards' efforts into account and then divided the remainder up amongst the four survivors. Result - 322xp per party member living.

They are now staying the week at the Soaring Falcon, which is one of the two adventurer taverns in town. Also, after a visit to the elven shrine, Alurax is now a follower of Sessilis, the elven god of archery, hunting and wilderness survival.
Akurath, who took Hruthnor's body to the dwarven shrine met Arazak, the 1st level dwarf cleric who explained about Hrazhkag, his predecessor, who went across the river and vanished into the wilds. If news could be found of this individual, then perhaps something might be done for Hruthnor...

(I had rolled up on a d6 the level of the clerics in town, and had got a 1 for the dwarven cleric. I then had to come up with a good reason why the dwarven shrines would be staffed by such a lowly character)

And Alurax has now earned himself a surname...Ettinslayer.

They also have enough money to start looking at upgrading their armour and equipment and have earned the interest and mild respect of the townsfolk and of their fellow adventurers.

Next week, I may well dangle the Spider Farm from Dragonsfoot in front of them to see if they bite.

After the session, JG had a go on the Dragonsfoot character generator and after a few tries that were decidedly average, rolled up two new characters to step into the gaps in Team Adventure left by Hruthnor and Lannius. They are

Zhudar, an elven MU/Thief
S 10
I 17
W 13
D 16
C 12
C 15
HP 3, base AC8, starting gold 25.
I'd have made this one a female, but JG's attitude is probably No Girls Allowed so a male it is.

Argid, half-orc fighter (interesting choice)
S 17
I 12
W 13
D 12
C 14
C 11
HP 2, base AC 10 , starting gold 80

Remember the names - they'll either be covering themselves in glory or appearing on next week's obituary sheet.

At least the party have got a thief with them, so that’s all their class bases covered.


Why, Professor; this Sandbox of yours actually works!

The first session of the campaign and what a result – from a couple of interesting choices by the party and a wandering monster roll, the setting has started to unfold. We have several new NPCs who will have an impact on the party and their doings and the hints of some possible future adventures.

Before I started this week’s session, I had no idea what was going to happen. So much could have gone differently and for me, that is the key feature of Old School sandbox style play. This style of game gives all the choices back to the players in a way that adventure paths don’t.

Many years ago, I remember first encountering the Narnia stories of C S Lewis. In one of them, Aslan the lion revives creatures that have been turned to stone by breathing on them. Wherever he breathes, the stone turns to living flesh. That, in a way, is what happens with a sandbox campaign – wherever the players touch the setting, it starts to come alive.

Four and Six - Forty-six!

Evening all! Winter can't seem to make up its mind whether it's finished with us but the welcome is always warm at DG's.

I'd like to offer the following to my latest chums, Ruarigh, Leopardi and Talysman the Ur-Beatle. Ruarigh lives within walking distance of me, and I'm very glad to have him on board the blog. Leopardi, a.k.a Dungeondad is the DM for Dungeonmum, who brightens up the blogosphere with her exceptionally well-written accounts of play - if she's half as much fun to DM for as she is to read, Leopardi must be a happy man.
Talysman's Nine and Thirty Kingdoms blog is, I reckon, required reading for anyone with a claim to be part of the OSR - insightful, informative and packed with Old School goodness. You have to read his Megadungeon series...no, really, you do.

So, without further ado...

The goodies!

Miniatures Monday - The Ranger

Just got back from the Wilds, the Ranger is the second of our miniatures to grace the blogosphere. I can't remember where exactly he fits into the Citadel Miniatures range, but the figure lends itself to an individualisation by paint and this is just what's happened here.

My brother Andy, the painter of all the figures that you'll see in this series, has given our Ranger a weatherbeaten look, with the sense that this is a man who has been long in the wilderness. The greying hair, unshaven appearance and the slightly haunted look all speak of long days battling against the elements in places where civilisation is either tenuous or non-existent.

Note also the landscaping of the base - the figure was fixed to a penny to give it greater weight and stability and (if I remember rightly) a large granule of cat litter was used to simulate the stone. I'm sure that Andy will put me straight if that was not the case, but it was many years ago.

This figure is currently serving as Alurax, Junior Grognard's lead character in the Team Adventure sessions. Not to give the game away or anything but he is now known as Ettinslayer. I'll be posting about that at some point this week.

Saturday Night Fight Club - Fighting with Dinosaurs

Old School? How old is old? Will 65 million years do you? Yes, back to when dinosaurs walked the earth, Status Quo were just starting out and fights were that little bit bigger.

T-Rex


Move 15”
AC5
HD 18 (that’s an average of 81 hit points)
No of attacks 3 (although if we’re talking about his arms, I don’t think that they have much of a chance so I’m ruling them out of the equation)
Damage per attack 1-6/1-6/5-40
THAC0 of 7 so to hit a troll he’d need a 3 or better. Hmm. Will he do it? And to hit an ogre he’ll need a 2 or better.
Swallows man-sized opponents whole on an 18 or more.


Troll




AC4
HD 6+6
3 attacks
Damage per attack 5-8/5-8/3-12 (that’s an average damage of 20.5 per round)
Regenerates 3 hit points per round 3 rounds after being damaged
THAC0 of 13 so to hit Rex, they’d need 8 or better.


Ogre



AC5
HD 4+1
No of attacks 1
Damage per attack 1-10 or by weapon
THAC0 15 so they need a ten or better to hit Rex.


Okay, so we’ll send the trolls up against Rex first.

Round 1 – let’s see what happens.

Trolls move in for the kill – or so they think.

Troll 1
Rolls his attack dice – 6,5,14
That’s only the bite that hits. Damage of 6

Troll 2
Rolls his attack dice – 3,14,18 hits with a claw and a bite, damage of 5 and 8

Rex gets a 2, which actually misses the troll.

End of the first round, the trolls are unscathed and Rex is down to 62. Does he look angry? Hell, he's T-Rex, he always looks angry. I bet he looks angry on his birthday.


Round 2

Troll 1
Rolls his attack dice – 12,16,14 claw claw bite all hit home. Damage of 5,6,7


Troll 2 rolls his attack dice - 5,12,6 only one claw makes contact for 5 damage

Rex rolls an 11 and does damage of 20 on troll 1, who will start to regenerate on round 5

End of that round, Rex is down to 39, troll 1 is on 13

Round 3

Troll 1 – to hits of 13,14,19 – damage of 5, 6 and 7 (didn't we just have those damage scores?)

Troll 2 – hit dice rolled for scores of 1,13 and 18 – damage of 5 and 8

Rex rolls, gets a 5, which is good enough to hit the troll. Damage of 17 against troll 2 (I just checked for it)

End of that round, Rex is on 8hp, troll 1 is on 13, troll 2 is on 16.

Round 4

Troll 1 rolls that d20 for 13,18,16 - damage of 7,7,7
Troll 2 borrows the d20 from his mate, rolls 16,5,12 - damage of 5 and 10

Rex bites and hits with a 6, damage of 23 damage which kills one of the trolls. Unfortunately, he’s just taken 36 damage and keels over.

I did do a combat between Rex and one troll, which he won easily. Although he has great HD, a superb THAC0 and hefty damage (although the damage only averages out at 22.5 per hit), his relatively high AC and the fact that the trolls get three attacks per round means that with anything more than 1 troll, Rex is swiftly overwhelmed and brought down. Perhaps this explains why the dinosaurs became extinct – a gang of trolls arrived in the late Cretaceous via a time portal.

So the king of the dinosaurs didn’t fare too well against the green and warty ones. Let’s see how he gets on if he encounters a pack of ogres, no strangers to a bit of a scrap themselves.


Round 1

Ogre 1 rolls to hit, gets an 11 – damage of 4
Ogre 2 rolls and gets a 10 - damage of 7
Ogre 3 misses with a 6
Ogre 4 doesn't do too well either with a 7

Rex rolls a 6 but with his THAC0, he’ll find it hard to miss. Damage of 23 and he’s bitten the first ogre clean in half.

Rex is down to 70 and the ogres are looking worried. This isn’t the way that a fight usually goes for them.

Round 2

Ogre 2 he's clearly picked the unlucky d20 out of the box, as he's rolled a 3
Ogre 3 he's had somewhat better luck and scored 12 – damage of 9
Ogre 4 keeping up the good work with a 10 - damage of 5

Rex rolls a 15 and inflicts damage of 19 on ogre 2, which knocks him to the ground. He won't be getting up again.

So now Rex is on 56 and there are only two ogres left, checking their insurance policies.

Round 3

Ogre 3 – gets a 15 on his hit dice - damage of 6
Ogre 4 - rolls a 1 - good job that I'm not making him roll for fumbles.

Rex rolls to hit, gets a 9 and inflicts damage of 17 on the third ogre, who is now staggering around on 2hp.

Rex is down to 50

Round 4

Ogre 3 rolls a to hit of 4

Ogre 4 rolls a to hit die of 6

Oh dear – both miss. Hmm...I wonder what will happen next.

Rex rolls a 12 – and damage of another 17 – since ogre 4 will probably have been pressing home his attack, I’ll rule that he takes this damage.

Both ogres are now on 2hp each and Rex is on 50 still. Not much point in the ogres running, since I think that Rex can actually move faster than them, and definitely on their current battered state. Let’s fight on!

Round 5

Ogre 3 – scores 3 with his attack die.

Ogre 4 – scores an 18 and does 2 damage.

Rex bites home with a 6 and does another 17 damage, ripping ogre 3 to shreds.


Round 6 – Ogre’s last stand.
He rolls a 17, which is a good to hit, but with damage of 4, he’s not stopping Rex, who hits with an 18. This would be enough to swallow a man-sized target whole, but the ogre is just that little bit bigger and he takes 21 damage, which leaves bits of him all over the countryside.


















"Trolls? I can't believe it!"


Well, there we are – dinosaur pride recovered somewhat. Join us next week when we pit two prime specimens of simian monstrousness against each other – the Carnivorous Ape against the Yeti.

Some thoughts on clerics

Kids and Clerics

The whole notion of clerics and their relationship with their deity raises the point of whether they are a good character class for youngsters to play. I mean, if you were a seven-year-old and knew that a cleric was a priest and worked for a god, what would be the first thing you'd do when your character got into real trouble?

Exactly. And this presents us with a conundrum. Either the DM allows the prayer/importuning to work or he doesn't. If he does, then there is the inevitable 'me too' from everyone else or 'why not me too?'. Suddenly everyone wants to play a cleric so that they can get out of trouble free.

If the DM turns round and says "[insert your deity's name here] doesn't answer", then the cleric's player might start asking things like 'why not?' or 'but he's my god, he can do anything' and the carefully-constructed milieu and its theology starts to fall apart, and before you know it, you're living with a seven-year-old Richard Dawkins.

I’m aware of the argument advanced in D&DG about the limited ability of deities to respond to calls for help. However, this rather goes against the grain of what kids recognise – if they recognise it at all – as the nature of a god. They’re either familiar with the Greek myths in which the gods seem to be involved in the affairs of mortals all the time or they’re aware of the supposedly omnipotent nature of the Judaeo-Christian deity. Either way, it seems to me that they’re not really old enough to grasp the notion that a god might not answer every time, that no matter how devout their cleric, the reply might be ‘no reply’. Especially if the cleric in question is a 1st leveller and it’s his first adventure. With no precedent to which to relate the experience, any incident that seems threatening is going to be viewed as in extremis.

Now, as adults, we’re capable of contextualising our beliefs or lack thereof and relating them to the way in which deities interact in D&D. We’re much more comfortable with the notion that we might not get an answer when our cleric raises his or her holy symbol and hollers to the skies

“I’m your cleric, get me out of here!”

So, clerics – a good class for kids or not?

Clerics and healing

Which leads me on to one of the most fundamental abilities of the cleric – healing.

I was discussing clerics with Dungeonmum the other day and had the following thoughts that may form the basis of a houserule regarding our holy friends.

In my campaign, clerics may have to be divided into three:

The first type would be the Knight Templar church militant bash-unbelievers-in-with-a-mace type. Keen to smite evil and wage holy war, not so happy about handing healing out to the infidel.

The second type would be the healer type, more like druids with a knowledge of herbal medicine and the current medical practices. They would be happy to lend a hand to whoever is passing by since their deities would be gods or goddesses of healing anyway and their whole ethos would be help-based, with the hope that recipients of their services would reciprocate.

The third type would be the big guns back at the main temples, the hierarchs with a direct line to their gods. They'd have the real powers but would tend to hang around the temples and not go off on adventures (too valuable to the cult). They would have the raise deads and resurrections.

In my proposed houserule, the first type could use the various cure spells, but only on fellow believers. This would reflect the rivalries of religion and give people an incentive to get cured. There may be a 'cure at a reduced rate' service, by which the cure spells would work on non-believers but at half-effect.

The second type would have full access to all the cure spells at normal effect or at a heightened effect, which I would imagine means that every time a cure spell was cast, a d8 and a d12 were rolled and the higher-scoring die would be the one to be counted. This would work on any worshipper but only if the cleric of the healing deity was doing the casting.

The third type, as we have already said, would get the normal spells but as they would be temple-based, recipients would have to go to the temple to get the help.

This argues the case quite well for the use of healing potions, which may well be made by the second type, having access to the various plants and ingredients.

There would be no change to the turning abilities of a cleric – his faith and the divine power that guides him would provide all the power he needs to banish the undead. The cleric himself is the one under threat and an inability to turn would result in his death or at the very least, extreme danger. Whether he is with a party who worship different deities is immaterial – the cleric’s survival is on the line, something very immediate and very different from whether Kravgar the fighter gets some hit points back.

I don’t want to go down the full path of spell domains and areas of speciality and that’s why this houserule is very much concerned with healing spells only, and does not deprive clerics of the ability full-stop. If I had not devised deities of healing for my campaign, this would not have come up but it has and so I felt the need to address it.

Miniatures Monday - the Minotaur

Here he is, front and rear shots. I kind of like this figure (although I wouldn't like to get caught by that mace) and he might make an appearance in SNFC, if I can just think of someone against whom to pit him.

The Training Dungeon - the Final Chapter

A Token Victory

This morning, JG took the initiative. He told me to clear the dining table and get Team Adventure ready to roll. I needed no further bidding and things were soon in place. I remembered (but the last session was a while ago) that they were hunkered down in room 22, busily getting their spells back and curing each other. JG, after a bit of prompting thought to cast Read Magic on the spell book and duly noted down what spells it had in it. He didn't actually do anything with said spells, however.

The party then set off up the corridor, heading back towards the ogre room where they had identified several passageways as worthy of attention. They had intended to look up the corridor past the zombie room but as they were about to turn up that corridor, they heard the door opening and the chant of "Brains! Brains!" getting louder. TA decided to skeddadle very quickly across the ogre room and down to the area that abuts onto the water area. They had remembered that there was a passageway leading off it, ending up in room 17. As they approached, they spotted a large winding wheel on the wall and a bony arm sticking through a heavy portcullis.

Alurax and Hruthnor decided to turn the wheel and sure enough, the gateway raised a bit. They tried this several times, each time retreating as the portcullis lifted. Eventually, their bravery cut in and they got it all the way up. Everyone else was up at the bend in the passageway while our heroes tried to see what was inside and debated the wisdom of going in.

Suddenly, there was the sound of bowstrings and Akurath took an arrow from an unseen shooter. Another missed Elise. The rest of the party scrambled down to the entrance to 17, and Alurax and Hruthnor stepped in. They started to look around the room; I watched carefully and when they moved across the centre of the room, I deemed that the portcullis had slammed down again. Fortunately, the rest of the party swiftly raised it and got them out, just as a leathery flapping in the ceiling cavity got louder and louder.

The arrow had come from one of the three remaining kobolds who now jumped out from their hiding place at the corner of the passageway and fired again. Garazor took an arrow this time. The members of the party who were facing the right way fired back and one kobold crashed to the floor. The other two legged it.

Finally, the party decided to give the passageway to room 21 a try. They got halfway down the passage before a querying glance from the DM gave them cause for pause. I described what they saw, both thieves having failed their find traps rolls. I had to carefully guide them from conclusion to conclusion before they eventually realised that a section of the wall about six feet off the ground was marked with grubby and large fingerprints. As if someone had been pushing at that bit quite often. They cottoned on that it was some sort of switch to activate the traps and pushed it. Then pushed it again. This switched the trap back on. Lannius edged forward, using his 10' pole and set off two sets of spears that flew out of the wall, then drew back in again. Needless to say, if the entire party had moved down the passageway to the door, at least two members would have taken a possible 3d6 of damage (I'd have allowed a save vs DEX to halve that).

Finally, switching off and switching on again, using a real light switch as a prop, they worked it out and moved forward in relative safety. Both thieves failed their locks roll for the door and most of the strongest characters also failed their Open Doors rolls.

Surprise, surprise, Zhastar the hobbit got it open eventually. Inside, they could see bundles and bundles of stuff, but being very cautious (I wonder why that could be so?) they sent Lannius in, having just about made his Hide in Shadows roll (okay he missed it by one but I was in a generous mood). He made several runs, bringing all the bundles out and eventually the last stone token as well.

JG was delighted to have found the last token and they set off back to the 3rd level and the treasure chamber. But as they were heading along the passageway towards the area of 25 and the shaft, guess who they should see, coming the other way? Yes, eight lean and hungry figures. JG scented the odour of corruption and the chance for revenge. Elise and Zhastar were put to the front and in came the ghouls - holy symbols were displayed and though Elise failed her roll, Zhastar made his and rolled an 11 on the d12. An oil bomb came sailing over the heads of the party and I rolled to see where in the ghoul pack it would land. JG rolled his 2d6 per ghoul caught in the splash and three went down. (yes, I know that in the rules, a direct hit gets the 2d6 and splash damage gets 1-3 but as the oil bomb fell amongst four of them, I ruled that each was susceptible to the full damage. Hey - they could have rolled a 2, or I could have rolled and found only two ghouls were hit) A fourth was on fire but this was only a temporary setback as Alurax and Hruthnor gunned it down with arrow and crossbow bolt. The surviving ghouls shambled off up the corridor and JG and party descended to level 3. I was rolling to see if they met anyone else on their journey to the treasure room but no-one else came up.

JG took each of the tokens and slotted them into place. The pillar started to rise into the ceiling, leaving an empty space behind. JG thought that this was it, and that there was no pay-off. Then the bottom of the pillar, now flush with the ceiling, opened up and gold pieces cascaded out.
"How many?" asked JG
"Oh, hundreds" I said
"What, a thousand?"
"Yeah, about that"
Lottery factor strikes again. He was somewhat disconsolate to find that there were no magical goodies in the haul until I pointed out that they had found plenty of magic goodies elsewhere in the dungeon.

There remained only the task of dragging all this loot back to the surface. When they reached the shaft, I pointed out that the rope would not take the weight of characters loaded with stuff and so Lannius climbed up and hauled each bundle up one at a time. He was halfway through when the sound of shuffling and the words "Brains! Brains!" came down the corridor. He at once descended on the rope and waited until the zombies had gone. No-one seemed particularly interested in bundles by a shaft (the cleric's priorty is new recruits, after all) and once the area was safe, the rest of the loot and the party ascended. Pausing only to collect the bones of the friendly ghost, they left the dungeon.

I concluded it there. As a wee giftie to the party, and to equip them a little better for the nasty world outside, I've decided to list out all the magic items that they've found and either let JG pick one for each member or let the dice decide. There will be no xp for these items - just a little something to give them a chance in the big bad world.

The Hex Factor

I had come to the conclusion that eight is too strong a party to be taking on first level dungeons. I had decided quite a while ago that JG would have to reduce the character roster by two and now had come the time to do so.

He decided that Garazor and Alia would be leaving the party at this stage. JG's rationale was that the party he picked (Akurath, Hruthnor, Alurax, Zhastar, Elise and Lannius) filled the slots that he reckoned were necessary for a party. Two fighters, a F/Mu, a Cl/Mu, a cleric and a Thief. In retrospect, Alia had sleep but sleep is in the spellbook that they picked up, and Garazor, whilst very handy, was always seen, I think, as a guest character. Never mind - he may well reappear - it's a big sandbox out there!

Next time, the party starts in the real world, no soft corners. Experience points are there for the taking, but so is death in all its cold and heartless glory.