Team Adventure - It's the Fort that Counts

Darkness fell across the ruined watchtower and only Gullhar with his infravision was able to penetrate the darkness. About an hour after darkfall, the elf’s keen eyes spotted multiple heat signatures approaching through the darkness. He quickly passed the word around using Relic to relay his messages to Elysia, who was prepared, with Shield cast, at the door. She now knew that she had sixteen orcs to deal with, two groups of eight who, as they approached, split into groups of four. This was a deliberate strategy on their part – knowing that they were facing a magic user who most likely had Sleep, they set out to reduce the number of orcs who could be taken out with a single spell.

Nevertheless, Elysia did manage to sleep one group of four; two other groups opened fire with arrows and would have hit her had it not been for her Shield. She used her Wand of Illumination to cast more light so that those in the party not gifted with infravision could keep track of the attackers. Zanurax darted out to knife the sleeping orcs and became a target for the orc archers, being hit by an arrow as he headed back towards the gate.

Now, the orcs were moving up towards the gate en masse; Zanurax diverted to take them on but unfortunately, his leather armour and low capacity for damage combined with some very lucky blows from the orcs led to him  ending up face down in the dust a lot sooner than he had expected. Four orcs made it to the top of the stairs unscathed and came face to face with Elysia; she readied a Sleep spell but the orcs were quicker and tried to hit her with their swords; none of them succeeded and moments later, they were unconscious in the gateway.

Ferros, who had been standing over the gateway had fired into the darkness and managed to hit several orcs, although the number stopped was impossible to tell. Gullhar, Alurax and Alagon were letting fly with arrows at the approaching orcs, who were following the example of their fellows at the front gate and splitting into smaller squads. They returned fire but nobody was hit. It was not long until the orcs reached the walls and began to scramble up and over.

Having used up one of her Magic Missile attacks to bring down two orcs and wound two others, Elysia ducked for cover inside the gatehouse. She could not get to Zanurax and had no healing magic to use even if she could have done. She decided to cast Fly and ascend to the roof where she could be of help to her beleaguered fellows.

When she arrived at the rooftop, she found that Ferros was faced by four orcs who had scaled the wall while he was busy searching for arrow targets. Before she could get off a Sleep spell, the orcs had attacked the cleric but he took no damage and moments later, the four orcs were lying comatose on the ground. Elysia finished them off whilst Ferros scrambled down to administer healing to Zanurax.

Meanwhile, Alurax, Alagon and Gullhar were whittling down the opposition. Gullhar had been hit several times but his comrades were unscathed. With the arrival of the revived Zanurax and Ferros, the remaining orcs were soon overwhelmed and slaughtered.

The party rested overnight to lick its wounds and in the morning, set off eastwards but not before tipping the orc bodies down the stairs and into the waiting maw of the owlbear who was still there from the occasion when the party had liberated the fort from its former troll owners.

It was now 6th August; the weather was fine and the party made good time out of the rough country and into the forest again. About midday, there was the sound of a screeching cry from the sky above them. They glanced up to see a creature flying down towards them. It had the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle and the front claws of a bird of prey. The horses were getting very skittish but Ferros cast Speak with Animals and found out that it was a Griffon and a hungry one at that; it wanted their horses and seemed very keen on getting what it wanted. However, the party was in no mood for a lengthy debate on the subject and put on a display of their martial power in order to convince the griffon to go elsewhere for its meal. Somewhat miffed, but nevertheless a pragmatist at heart, the griffon screeched angrily and rose up into the air, disappearing into the blue.

Horses! Nice horses! Go well with a full-bodied Merlot

The party mopped their collective brow and rode on through the woods. In previous journeys, they had been pestered by the unwelcome attentions of goblins but the little green fellows had clearly thought better of bothering the Team today because they saw nobody threatening all that afternoon. However, getting towards sundown, Gullhar, with his elven ears picked up several sounds off amongst the trees. The first was a heavy thump-thump; something was coming and it was big. The second sound was quieter; a horse, thought Gullhar. Further off, there was another noise but even Gullhar couldn’t quite make it out.

The party decide to prepare and various members climbed various trees to get into position. The heavy footsteps got louder and louder and finally Zanurax found himself staring at a huge, woody, moss-covered and leafy face. Yes, it was Ashbone, the treant. He turned and called over his shoulder and through the trees came riding a man in a green and brown cloak, a bow slung over his back and a sword at his side.

Ashbone introduced the newcomer as Galadeus, a ranger from the north. The treant told him that the party could give him the help he needed and then suggested that they leave as a large gang of ogres were heading their way. This friendly warning fell on deaf ears and the party readied for battle. Ashbone melted into the woods while Galadeus joined the party; once again, several members took up positions in trees and awaited the onslaught. Ferros and Gullhar were on the flanks, their bows ready.

The ogres came at them and the team gave as good as they got. Three were killed by Ferros; Elysia killed two with her Magic Missiles, sharing one of the kills with Galadeus, who also chalked up another himself; it had swung at him with a huge spiked club and missed by a whisker whereupon he ducked under its guard and ran it through with a single thrust of his longsword. Alurax managed to finish off one and for his next attempt, tried the trick he had used in their previous encounter with ogres, swinging out of the tree on a rope. He actually managed it and landed on the back of one of the ogres, but the impact meant he failed to run it through with his trident. He tossed it to one side, being unable to use it whilst clinging to the back of the ogre and instead finished the job with his sword instead.

The melee finally ended with the last ogre fleeing the scene of slaughter. Both Alurax and Galadeus gave chase and tried to shoot at it but failed to bring it down.  Ashbone had managed to finish off a couple of the ogres on his own and now checked to make sure the party was well before striding off into the forest and vanishing into the twilit gloom.

It was unlikely that anything would be bothering them that night; the presence of the treant was deterrent enough and the next morning, they set off again through the woods, reaching the river about midday on the 7th.  Across on the far side, the Moat House stood, seemingly untouched since the last time they had been there.

As they got settled in, Galadeus told his story. He was part of a small group of rangers and their dependants who had settled several days’ ride further up the valley through which the river flowed. Recently, they had come under attack from a large band of hill giants. Escaping from the attack, Galadeus had ridden for help and also had some information to relate; the giants seemed to be more precise and organised than might be expected for such dim-witted creatures. Some reports had said that outsiders had been seen directing and orchestrating the attacks. It was clear that something was going on, something that required attention. Would the party ride north to find out what was happening?

DG Note - today was the thirtieth session and saw the introduction of a new player at the table, taking the role of Galadeus. I also noted that I have forgotten to post the pictures of Gullhar's miniature as painted by Brian from Lead Legion so to rectify that without further ado

Team Adventure - Christmas Special

Deck the table with our game stuff, tra-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la...

The team began to hack at the door to the cellar with axes, desperate to escape before the coffin opened. Their blows soon splintered the wood in several places but as they made holes in the door they found more wood beyond it. Hacking at that, they heard the clank of metal and the crash of ceramics.

Suddenly, the new wood began to slide aside and a helmeted head appeared through one of the gaps. The team asked the newcomer to open the door; a couple of slid bolts later, they were out of the cellar.

Profusely grateful to their rescuer, they were keen to find who he was. He was young, armoured and very handsome, with an aura of goodness about him that they had encountered before. He introduced himself as Alagon but before he could get much further, a young woman in armour, beautiful but determined, came striding down the corridor and asked what was going on and who the Team were. Introductions were swiftly made; it turned out that the young woman was a cleric named Ceritha, who was Alagon’s superior at their temple.

Ceritha

Alagon was a paladin, a warrior for truth and justice and they had both been on the trail of the Third, having traced him to the town and to that particular house. A debate began as to what to do with the coffin in the cellar. Olaf suggested carrying it out into the courtyard by the fountain, which was agreed. Once there, they settled on taking the coffin out of the town and burying it somewhere secluded, piling stones on top of it so that it could not open and keeping guard. A somewhat frenzied race to hire a horse and cart, load up the coffin and find an out of the way spot for the interment.

They found a spot with but three quarters of an hour to go and although Olaf was a swift digger, even he could not dig a six-foot hole in that short amount of time. They managed to get it half-dug and then Olaf came up with the brilliant idea of turning the coffin upside-down so that the lid could not be opened anyway. They then piled earth and rocks up on top of it and settled down to stand guard.

Alagon had been slated to appear as an NPC, along with Ceritha, on the vampire's trail but I had been informed that we had a potential new player and so decided to bring him in as the young paladin. It seemed to work very well.

The night passed without incident for once. The next morning, leaving Ferros and Olaf on guard duty, the party returned to the tavern to see what was what (and get a beer!). Whilst they were there, a messenger arrived from the auctioneer, who had managed to re-arrange the sale for that day. With no further ado, Cafaror headed off to the hotel, hotly followed by the rest of the party who were not Olaf and Ferros.

Security was tight, considering what had happened last time. The Prince was there as was Thorgrim’s employer and two men with snakes around their necks, who were sitting at a table some way back. The bidding started and at 3,000gp, the snake wearers dropped out, leaving soon afterwards. Alurax decided to follow them, with Zanurax in his pocket.

Now, the bidding was between Thorgrim’s employer and the Prince. At 8,000gp, the former dropped out and the Prince was the proud owner of an intact giant lizard skin. Thorgrim and his employer did not seem at all happy and began a muttered conversation.

...to the extremely rich NPC

Whilst all this was going on, Olaf had appeared, having arranged to swap sentry duty with Ceritha, who seemed more interested in keeping an eye on the coffin. Creeping close to Thorgrim, he overheard him discussing, in dwarvish with his employer their disgruntlement at losing the auction and suggesting that they hire the Team to journey into the wilderness and hunt large specimens of wildlife which would make good trophies. Olaf ‘appeared’ in time to discuss this with Thorgrim and agreed to take him up on the offer; the dwarf and his employer still had 8,000gp which they had not had to spend after all.

Once the auction was out of the way, the party decided to start looking for the fourth key for the coffin. Alurax had arrived back now, reporting that had had lost track of the snake wearers in a network of alleyways. Figuring that the fourth key must be back at the house where they had met the Third, they headed back there but when they arrived, the place was sealed off; the town guard were all over the place, investigating three vicious murders and the theft of a rare artefact.

Unbelievably, the party actually did what it said on the tape

The party concluded that this must refer to the three servants of the Third that they had killed when they raided the house and the coffin itself. Engaging the guards in conversation (with some very odd questions from Cafaror about their working conditions and rates of pay) they found out that the guards were also investigating reports of a missing girl; a serving wench in a tavern had vanished after her shift ended.

The party were convinced that this had something to do with the Third but yet how could this be with the vampire secured inside his own coffin?

Zanurax had gone up to the skylight on Relic again, but had managed to find nothing of any interest in the house. Frustrated and seemingly dead-ended, the party returned to the tavern where Thorgrim had sent a message saying he and his employer would meet them after breakfast the next day.

At this point, I feel it only appropriate to reveal (hope none of my players is reading this) that Alurax had encountered slightly more than he let on when he rejoined the party. He had in fact managed to trail the snake wearers to a house down an alleyway and had sneaked in, only to overhear a strange conversation in a foreign language and some sinister hissing coming from an upstairs room. Sneaking back out, he then knocked on the door, posing as a legitimate visitor and was welcomed in by one of the snake wearers, affable and friendly. He was taken upstairs and shown into the room where he was confronted by a snake with the head of a woman. She greeted him in friendly fashion, all the time attempting to meet his gaze which she eventually did. Junior Grognard failed his save vs. Paralysation and fell under the Charm ability of the Spirit naga. She bade him return to his party and wait for further instructions on how he could serve her Snake Cult.

With much of the day to use up, the party visited the burial site again, this time digging the hole deeper so that the coffin could be properly buried, just to make sure that nothing bad happened. Ferros swapped duties with Galzor.

When they woke the next morning, they were fired up with the prospect of getting back out into the wilds and wetting their blades again. Their two new comrades arrived and they were soon heading for the town gate, ignoring the gossip from the tavern delivery men about a gruesome murder that had happened the previous night. Time will tell whether they were wise to do so.

You will recall that Cafaror had been told not to leave town, still being a suspect in a murder enquiry but he was (just about) disguised as a comely elf maiden (!) and the guards, still being in that early-morning mood, waved them through with a few quizzical looks but no suspicions.

I am an elf maiden...no, really. My name is Galadriel. Do you not find me beautiful?

At the burial site, everything seemed perfectly normal. Ceritha and Galzor were happy to keep watch in case something suspicious happened, so the rest of the Team, plus Thorgrim and his boss set off up river, planning to make the Moat House their first port of call. Not long afterwards, they ran into a couple of merchants and their man at arms, who reported that the wilds were no longer safe after a gang of bandits had take up residence in an old ruined house further up river. Realising that their hard won property had been invaded by squatters (and why not, since it had been left vacant for quite a while since its liberation), the Team spurred their horses on and thus rode straight into an ambush by archers hidden in the trees. Fortunately, the bowmen were either bad shots or the Team were too hard to hit and in the firefight that followed, seven attackers were killed with no casualties for our heroes. It was noted that the bandits (for such were they) were not quite human, having pointed ears and ugly faces with large noses and sharp teeth.

They were in fact half-orcs, but as the party had never encountered this race before, I decided to keep things vague for now; that they were aware their adversaries were not human was enough to be going on with.

Having brushed this feeble opposition aside, our doughty band rode on upriver, arriving at the confluence of the stream and river where they had been attacked by wolves all those weeks ago. There was nothing to bother them now, although a giant eagle soaring over the camp site made Alurax reach for his bow; he soon lowered it again after a stern word from Elysia.

The next morning, as the sun was rising, there was movement on the far side of the river as a herd of wild horses emerged from the trees to drink at the water’s edge. Ferros, using his spell ability to Speak With Animals, chatted to them for a while, determining that they had encountered bandits and that one of the horses had been killed by them. Apart from that, the herd kept its distance from humans.

Yes, we do know where the next dungeon is...

The Team pressed on to the Moat House, arriving a little before midday. They could see a ribbon of smoke rising from somewhere inside and concluded that this meant the bandits were in residence. With Alurax in the lead, they charged across the flat ground towards the drawbridge, meeting a hail of arrows from the watchtower as they did so. A horn blast of alarm went up; Alurax and Alagon dismounted and burst into the watchtower whilst Ferros and Cafaror raced across the courtyard, past the ettin statue and quickly overwhelmed three bandits who had emerged at the top of the steps and were firing at them.

Alurax and his trident made short work of the four bandits in the tower – three were killed and a fourth leapt through a hole in the wall and slid down into the moat. As he swam for safety, one of the giant frogs saw an opportunity for a meal and headed towards him. The bandit tried to climb out and up the side of the moat but the frog hopped out of the water and dragged him back in again.

Six more bandits were waiting for the Team as they joined forces and burst into the Great Hall. Although several of the team took wounds, they were able to wipe out the bandits, as well as another four who were in a room beyond the hall. Three others managed to escape both the Team and the frogs and make good their escape into the forest. In the inner room, the party uncovered the bandits’ stash, a sizeable haul which brought a satisfied smile to their faces. Having won back their Moat House, they could begin to plan the next stage of their hunting expedition.

This session was the first time we had tried out our new, larger dining table and as can be seen from the picture at the start of this post, it seats the Team comfortably with plenty of space for character sheets, figures, floor plans etc. We also had a salad and pizza lunch for the lads today as it was the last session of the year. I'm very happy with the way that things have gone this year - we've retained the core team with one or two dropping out and another attending intermittently (through no fault of their own, I hasten to add) and have now recruited another player, who went away from the session very fired up for more. We've got a good thing going here, playing it Old School and keeping the torch burning. Long may it continue.

Team Adventure - The Joys of the Countryside

The group had decided to go off and do a bit of giant hunting. The first question, of course was – who had seen any giants recently? The party had encountered a lone hill giant in their adventure in the ruined chapel but he was dead and so would make poor prey.

Ferros hit upon the idea of just riding off into the wilderness and seeing what they found. I had just started to expand the scale of my campaign map to a 2-mile hex rate and welcomed the chance to put some more detail onto the landscape.

Once they had upgraded the armour on their horses and welcomed a new member into their ranks – Zanurax, the thief – they were on their way.

Zanurax's player joined the group this session, having been recruited by Junior and Mummy Grognards at school. I was very pleased with how quickly he fitted in with the party, although I did try to aim a lot of my "What are you doing now" questions specifically at him so that he didn't feel left out as play progressed. I await feedback with bated breath.

They followed the river valley north-west, at first having an easy time of it. However, it was not long before their horses began to get a little skittish. Wondering what could be causing the problem, the party began to look around and could hear something moving through the undergrowth towards them. As they were getting into a defensive formation, a mountain lion broke cover and hurtled towards them, keen to get its teeth and claws into their horses. Arrows and magic missiles flew from the party and the lion crashed to the ground dead; it had not even managed to land a blow on our heroes.


Heartened by their victory, the party pressed onwards and after several hours of riding, left the open plains behind and moved into more wooded terrain, where visibility was not so good and they would have to rely on other senses.

Those senses were called into play when they came across a tree that had been broken in two and had branches wrenched off it. There were also large claw marks across the bark, which suggested something big and dangerous. Then Adthar heard growling, snarling and the snapping of branches from down towards the river. He decided to lead the party off towards the source of the noise, only to find that he was confronting an irate owlbear. Nobody had seen one of these before and they launched into the attack, landing some good hits on the fearsome monster. It counter-attacked and managed to rake Adthar with both claws and a vicious bite with its beak. Despite this, the party soon managed to finish it off.


I was pleased when Owlbear came up on the encounter roll (I'd been wanting to use one for a while) and surprised when Adthar decided to go haring off after it. In the end, although he did take some considerable damage, the party was successful.

Evening saw the party finding a place to camp at the confluence of the river and a stream that came in from the east. They had set their camp and had got a good fire going when the howls of wolves sounded through the darkness. The natural reaction would have been to form a defensive ring and use the fire to keep the wolves at bay. With this in mind, Adthar decided to go off into the night. On his own.


Four wolves decided to share this tasty human morsel that had just been delivered to them in a shiny metal can. As Adthar fought to keep them off, Ferros raised the alarm, having gone to see what Adthar was up to. The rest of the party, with the exception of Alurax, Cafaror and Galzor rushed to take on the wolves and eventually killed them all, except one which had been slept by Elysia and then stung by Relic and put into a cataleptic trance. The three guarding the campsite used a mixture of torches and a burning sword (Cafaror pouring oil onto the blade and lighting it) to keep the rest of the wolves at bay.

Another encounter when the party's reaction prompted the combat. They do seem to be a little keyed up to earn XP, even if it means seeking out trouble that could so easily be avoided.

The next day, the party had little trouble making their way further up the river valley, eventually arriving at the ruins of the Moat House. The going was a little easier after the wolf encounter with the landscape slightly more open and marshy where the river became wider and had flooded recently. The party checked out the Moat House to see if anybody had taken up residence but found nothing. There was talk amongst the party of spending some of their increasing gold reserves on repairing the ruins and turning them into a base of operations for their journeys into the wilds.

Been there, done that

I have no problem with them doing this; I can put some figures together for the renovation and it'll be interesting to see if they can use it as a base for civilising the surrounding area. They are (with the exception of Elysia) 4th level now and could do with somewhere like this. Of course, it won't be easy for them if they do choose this course of action, but it will soak up some of the excess gold which, once it's served its function as an XP transfer medium, becomes just so much heavy metal.

But soon the party realised that they needed to move on if they were to find the giants that they had been intent on hunting. North they rode again but a little after noon, Elysia caught sight of something moving in the woods to their right. As they turned to see what it was, several shadowy figures emerged from the darkness between the trees. In all, ten shadows were advancing on them!

Although the party had found a potion of Undead Control in an earlier adventure, it was only good for using against ghosts. The scroll of Protection from Undead would only affect one person. So it was time for the party’s holy men to prove their worth.

Ferros and Galzor stepped forward, both holding up their holy symbols and faced with such a demonstration of power, the shadows turned and fled back through the trees. Opinion was mixed on whether they should be pursued but in the end, the party decided to mark this encounter down for a future investigation and rode on.

Another random roll that has now prompted me to select a hex and put something there to explain why ten shadows are wandering the woods. Probably a crypt with some unpleasant surprises but we shall see. I feel a trip to Dyson Logos' map page coming on.

The sun was setting when Relic started to get jumpy and excited. Elysia wondered what could be making the little familiar so chirpy and he flew off into the woods, reappearing a few minutes later with another pseudo-dragon. This was a real encounter roll, (honest!) and served as a very handy way of letting the party know about the proximity of the giants they sought.

The two little creatures darted hither and thither and finally settled near the magic-user. Elysia used her link to Relic to ask the newcomer if he had seen any trace of giants nearby. The other pseudo-dragon, Russet, was able to transmit images of a ruined tower perhaps four miles north, atop the ramparts of which strode a tall figure who could well be what they had come to find. Russet was also able to tell them that he had seen perhaps four or so of these tall figures over the previous days.

Elysia thanked Russet and the party bedded down for the night, reluctant to go blundering through the forest in the dark.

Up at a leisurely time, the party set off northwards and soon Relic reported back that they were approaching the tower. Soon, they were able to see it through the trees; two storeys high, with a front gate.


Thinking that there might be another way in, Elysia donned her cloak of Elvenkind (having bought it off Cafaror after the adventure at the Shadow House) and with Zanurax, they edged their way through the trees and undergrowth.

Soon, they could both smell something stale and sickly ahead. They realised that they were now not walking but wading through watery slime and mud that had a foul odour and an oily sheen to it. Ahead was what looked like a stream that fed into this stagnant mire. The stream flowed down from a tunnel entrance at the foot of the slope on which was built the tower. Iron bars blocked the entrance but Elysia managed to pull one slightly apart so that a single person could slip through.


They returned to the party to advise them of what they’d found and it was resolved to use this entrance, since it stood a good chance of going right into the heart of the stronghold. Unfortunately, as they made their way back through the mire, both Elysia and Adthar lost their footing and ended up going face first into the stinking muck. The figure on the battlements peered down but didn’t see anything and marked the noise down to animals. I'd had then all roll a d20 - a 1 would be a disastrous slip with shouts and cries to boot, but only Elysia and Adthar rolled 2, so I deemed they got a dunking but not so bad that the giants were alerted to their presence.

The party widened the gap in the iron bars and edged their way up the passage. It was noxious and, worried about the build up of methane, Elysia suggested to Ferros that he cast Light to overcome the risk of using torches. This he did, and on they squelched, since a stream of unpleasant liquid was running down the tunnel.

They arrived at the entrance to an octagonal chamber, high-ceilinged and with two sluices on the far walls, out of which more sewage was trickling. There was also something slimy and orange in colour blocking the entrance to another tunnel on the far side. Adthar peered through the door and heard a faint fluttering in the dark recesses of the ceiling. Elysia sent Relic through and up but the little pseudo-dragon came back very quickly, quivering with fear. Images of bat wings and sharp beaks passed through Elysia’s mind.

Before any discussion could take place about what to do, Adthar had strode into the chamber, aiming to poke the mysterious orange slimy pool with his sword. Before he could get there, a swirling mass of leathery wings descended and he was surrounded by angry creatures, all trying to stab at him with their proboscides.

Ferros and Cafaror weighed in with mace and bow respectively and soon earned a swarm of their own. Alurax and Zanurax opened fire with their bows and knocked several out of the air. Adthar was stabbed once by one of the creatures which hung on and started to suck his blood. He abandoned his attack and managed to grab it, pull it out and wring its neck. Ferros suffered similar attacks but by the time he had managed to kill both of those sucking his blood, the rest of the swarm was dead, including one that was pinned to the far wall by a perfect arrow shot from Zanurax.

With the threat of the stirges – for such they were – out of the way, Adthar now felt free to prod the mysterious orange pool of slime with his sword. It reacted, slithering towards him. He hurriedly retreated, then Ferros, Alurax and Adthar started pelting it with oil bombs until it blazed merrily and a nauseating oily black smoke rose up from its burning bulk. I had the party roll under their CON on a d20 and Elysia, being the only one who failed, lost her breakfast.

Now the way was clear to enter the next tunnel. The party had seen some small, odd looking shapes earlier – but had been too busy with the stirges and the ochre jelly – to worry about them. Now, they found that they were facing some waist-high giant mushrooms with holes all over the tops of them.


Worried about being sprayed with evil spores, Alurax fired an arrow at one but even though it hit, nothing seemed to happen. Adthar and Ferros stepped forward and as the light fell upon the first of these strange things, they began to emit a very loud, high-pitched scream that caused everybody to clap their hands over their ears. Adthar had to remove his hands in order to douse the corridor with oil and set it alight, whereupon the shriekers caught fire and the sound soon stopped. Adthar, however, had blood running from his ears and could not hear a thing.

At the end of the passage was a staircase, leading upwards. What lay at the top and what might be waiting for them?

I had wanted something reasonably large but not too big that five giants might be dwarfed by the size of the complex. I found Hell's Portal in White Dwarf 27, ripped off the two top layers, pruned back level 2 and used the basement level as the sewer entrance. I'd selected a number of minor monsters to beef up the giants and scattered them throughout the dungeon to give a bit of variety. I also noticed, while looking at the large scale map that the ruined castle and the chapel where they had met the lone hill giant were not that far apart and there may well have been a link there.

Next time, we'll see how it all works out.

Team Adventure - Skins and Snakes

Whilst resting up, the party heard the approach of two goblins who were clearly members of the gang who had been living in the Moat House. Alurax, Adthar and Cafaror burst out and finished the stunned goblins off, barely breaking a sweat. I’d rolled them up on the wandering monster table and since the rest of the goblins had been killed off, thought I’d bring these guys in as an easy sword-arm exercise for the Team.

Once their rest had ended, the party decided to move down the southern passageway off the Great Hall, checking out the rooms that they found. In the first one, they found nothing but smashed furniture and a wall cabinet. Alurax investigated and managed to recover a broadsword of particularly fine workmanship.

The next room was a bedchamber but it held nothing of interest. The party passed this by with little or no investigation. The final door opened onto a dark room in which the sound of chittering and fluttering could be heard. Elador cast his Light spell into the room which disturbed the bats roosting in the rafters but did not cause any trouble for the party as nobody went in there.

The large room at the of the passage had a pile of rubble in the south-east corner of the room and this brought back memories of the goblin room with its buried treasure. Alurax, Adthar and Cafaror headed over to the rubble to start excavating but received a nasty shock as a huge snake rose up and attacked them.




Adthar was bitten and succumbed to the poison before the rest of the party weighed in and attacked the snake. It was sluggish to begin with (well, that’s reptiles for you) and its reaction rolls were lousy, outclassed by those of the party. Eventually, it succumbed to their combined efforts. Whilst most of the party started to search for valuables, and were rewarded by the discovery of a fine jewelled dagger (with a staggering price tag), Cafaror decided to skin the snake and take the hide back to town to sell or make into snakeskin garments. This was such a cool idea, personalising his character that I decided to allow it and award him some XP for it as well. It’s difficult to make a fighter stand out and this was just what I was looking for from my players.

After this room, the party moved back to the main hall and decided to try the western passageway. There were three doors opening onto the passageway. In the first room were the battered and dilapidated remains of animal trophies, skins, stuffed heads, horns and antlers. The next room was empty but Alurax noticed an object in the wall cresset and was brave enough to remove it himself – the result was that he netted the party a silver baton – more GP for the account.

Behind the last door before the large room at the end of the passageway, the party found the remains of the castle kitchen, with tables, rotting food, old rusty knives and cleavers and a large barrel in the far corner. Alurax and Adthar, healed by the ministrations of the clerics, went in and Alurax made for the barrel. They were both surprised as a giant tick sprang out from behind the barrel and attacked Adthar. It missed him and as it leapt and came in for another attack, Adthar swung down with his sword and sliced it neatly in two – a cracking 20 on the to hit roll.

In the last room, formerly the castle barracks or so it appeared, a surprise lay in wait for the party. A huge lizard had made its lair in one corner of the room and came at the party as they entered. Adthar took a swing at it and gave it a small wound but Alurax managed to get a shot with his bow in and sent an arrow deep into the monster’s heart – the d30 strikes again. It’s nice to see this rule coming into its own and the players not having to be reminded of it in the heat of the action. The lizard fell dead, only to be systematically flayed by Cafaror who was clearly keen on adding to his collection of reptile skins.

The chest that the lizard was guarding contained some armour and weapons, but not much in the way of money. However, whilst Cafaror was skinning the beast, he noticed that there seemed to be something hard in its stomach and cut it open to reveal a shield that had a strange magical glow to it. I ruled that as he was not a professional skinner, he’d probably take quite a lot of meat off with the skin and would notice something lumpy like a shield stuck in the lizard’s gullet.

The party thought that they had more or less cleared the Moat House, at least above ground. They decided to carry out a thorough search and eventually came across two possible routes downward. One was in the corner of the great hall where Adthar had fried the giant rats with his oil bombs earlier that day. The other was a secret door in the wall of the room where the goblins had been lurking. After a discussion, it was decided to try the staircase behind the secret door and the party went down it one at a time as it was so narrow. This was a wise decision, as anyone who knows the Moat House will realise. The party did not discover their good fortune till a while later.

At the bottom was a tiny room and a door leading off it. Merlin the thief was deputed to venture beyond it and see what was there, trying to blend into the shadows and remain unseen. Unfortunately, another very bad roll on Hide In Shadows meant that the occupant of the room, a fierce ogre spotted him very quickly and leapt into the attack. Adthar and Ferros burst in to assist him but the ogre’s bardiche (how often do we get to see that weapon in action?) swung through the air and smashed into Merlin, flooring him. He scrambled to his feet as the rest of the party pitched in and pretty soon the ogre was surrounded and hacked to pieces, Alurax in particular virtually carving a massive gash in the monster’s chest – a critical that scored double damage.



The ogre had been guarding a large wooden box which was not locked and yielded a pitifully small amount of treasure, a few copper and silver pieces and some glass beads. Alurax, however, had better luck – while everyone else was examining the box, he was searching the pile of skins and rags in the ogre’s bed and found a mysterious cloak that shimmered and seemed very lightweight. As he tried it on and moved about, he seemed to vanish into the gloom. This was clearly a find of some significance, but I wasn’t about to let everyone know what he’d found or even its XP value, which was considerable. That would be a nice surprise when they got back to town.

Two doors opened off the ogre’s room. The first one the party tried yielded an interesting result – three prisoners in a bad state of health. Ferros healed them all and it was discovered that two were human merchants, who offered a reward for their freedom. The other was a gnome, the first that the party had encountered, who was cagey about his reasons for being in the dungeon – he said that he had been captured by gnolls and imprisoned. He feared that he was next on the ogre’s dinner menu but was grateful for rescue and gave the party an iron ring which, he said, would earn them the friendship of the gnome clans in the region.

This of course meant that I needed to place gnome clans somewhere on the map that, at this point, only existed in my head. However, I was looking into the West Marches campaign as the basis for my campaign’s immediate locale and that would offer ample opportunity for gnome placement.

Having liberated the captives, the party moved through the second door and found it led to a storeroom from which another door led into a much larger room with thick pillars holding up the roof, several doorways coming off and a staircase that clearly came down from the Moat House above. Over the archway leading to the stairs was a mysterious and sinister clump of slime that dripped evilly onto the floor. It was a sickly green colour and nobody felt like touching it. I pointed out that this would have dropped on them if they had come down the stairs from the rat room. As nobody had ever encountered green slime before, I’m not sure that they appreciated how lucky they were.

Alurax had moved into the room to investigate, using his new cloak but whilst he was doing that, the rest of the party came barging in and encountered two zombies who had been hiding behind one of the pillars. Battle was joined and Ferros leapt in with his holy symbol, turning the shambling husks of rotting flesh. As they retreated into a corner, Adthar hurled an oil bomb at them and set them on fire. By now, another door had opened and two more zombies emerged. Ferros turned them as well and they scuttled back into their cell. Alurax tried to hurl his oil bomb at them but missed – nevertheless, he managed to trap them in their cell while he proceeded to fire arrows at them.

The same process was repeated twice more, zombies emerging from doors and Ferros turning them. In total, he turned eight. Bows made short work of two, another hurled oil bomb set two more on fire and even Alurax nearly setting his new cloak on fire with a botched oil bomb throw did not dampen the victory against the zombie menace.

I was particularly impressed with Ferros’ player’s rolling of the turnings, which gave me an idea about developing his character. Stay tuned for further developments.

Ferros and Adthar investigated the room beyond a dark archway through which a suspicious blood trail led. Alurax and Cafaror searched the zombie cells and managed to find a scintillating peridot – another prize that reminded me of just how much wealth can be transported with a handful of gems. When we think of loot, we usually have an image of piles of coin, but gems are often a more interesting option as far as treasure, since their worth is not immediately discernible and keeps the party in suspense until they can get them valued.

Merlin was trying to pick the lock on a very solid door at the far end of the room but when he ran out of luck, the rest of the party joined him to break down the door and its neighbour and found piles of weapons, armour, arrows and bolts. They also found meat and brandy and a caseload of cloaks, embroidered with a yellow eye. Suffice it to say that they would not have to worry about running out of arrows again for quite some time.

Ferros and Adthar’s search led to a pillar that was revealed to have a secret door built into it. Behind the door was a deep shaft descending into the darkness; the rungs were neither dusty, cobwebbed nor rusty. It was clear that somebody had been using the shaft and recently too.

Team Adventure - To the Moat House!

Having had their collective backsides kicked by the ogres in the previous session, Team Adventure needed something new to get their teeth into. Ever willing to oblige, I decided to dust down an Old School Classic and got out my copy of ToEE (purchased from Mike Badolato many months ago). I turned to the Moat House and off we went.

The gang were approached in town by a representative of the Clerics’ Council (which as you may recall, was more or less invented by Mummy Grognard, so I’m picking up the ball and running with it)

The clerics had agreed to do a cut-price Raise Dead in return for a service from the party. Today was payback day.

They revealed that a building known as the Moat House, a day or so away, which had been in ruins for quite some time, had been reported as being used as a headquarters by a band of monsters led by an evil cleric. There were also reports that he had acquired a holy chalice which was an important cult item for the Clerics’ Council and they wanted it back. The party’s mission was to go to the Moat House, find out what was happening, deal with the evil cleric and get the Chalice back. Anything they found at the Moat House was theirs to keep except for the Chalice.

This ticked everyone’s boxes – a rationale for the party other than simple monster-bashing, a link to the emerging milieu, a chance to get their hands on loot and an in for the newest player. You will remember that last time, the brother of Cafaror’s player had come by to sit in and see what the game was like, and ended up playing Merlin the thief. Well, he was not put off by the experience and turned up for his first proper session. We rolled up a fighter who was christened Adthar and I announced that he was the nephew of one of the clerics on the council and was being sent along to make sure the party stayed on target and obtained the chalice.

Arriving at the Moat House, they were confronted with a description block that really had a great effect in setting the scene. I must make more use of those myself rather than just saying “You enter a room…” As adult players, we do tend to get a bit blasé about the scene-setting paragraphs in modules but the kids loved it.

They decide to try and cross the moat, rather than using the drawbridge. Merlin the thief waded across the moat and tried to climb the embankment on the far side, but alas failed his Climb Walls and slid right back down the embankment and into the moat itself. That was the cue for an attack from one of the giant frogs who was swimming around hoping for a meal. The frog missed by 1 and the rest of the gang hauled Merlin out, remarking that he was perhaps a tad smelly at this point.

I’d decided not to throw the full gamut of giant frogs at the party on the approach – a combat of that nature could well cause them to lose heart and this was not the experience that I wanted them to take away from the day’s session.

Eladar the MU used a Jump and landed on the far side of the moat, then used an iron spike and tied a rope to it so that the party could shimmy across. Soon, they were all standing at the foot of the tower in the bottom left hand corner (the one with the spider, except of course they didn’t know that yet!)

Merlin decided to try and climb up the wall of the tower and actually managed to roll under his Climb Walls percentage (a rare event with this party!) bringing him up to the arrow slit in the wall (which had crumbled somewhat, making it accessible if a bit of a tight squeeze). He was tempted to go through that but then for some unknown reason decided to head for the battlements at the top of the tower instead. He failed his roll again (00 on percentile dice) but I had him make a DEX roll and he managed to grab hold of the arrow slit sill, then hauled himself back up and in.

He lowered himself down to the floor and took a look around but failed to spot the large spider that swung down on its web and took a bite at him. It missed but in the very brief combat that followed, he took a bite and failed his poison save.

The rest of the party, hearing some odd noises, then silence, edged round the tower and in through the gateway, finding Merlin lying on the floor and something large and eight-legged hurtling down on them again. A swift attack by the party led to the spider being run through by Adthar.

First session, first kill. Always a big moment.

The party, having found a few copper and silver pieces and an ivory box (cue treasure in the form of trinkets and valuables rather than coin, a feature of this dungeon) headed across the courtyard and up the steps. Inside the great hall, they were confronted with two passageways and a door, but Adthar spotted an open archway that led to a storeroom, from which the sound of scuffling and skittering could be heard. The rest of the party quickly realised they were giant rats and – not wishing to be overwhelmed – Adthar tossed two oil bombs in there, which I ruled fried quite a lot of the waiting rats. First session, totally getting the hang of tactics!

Meanwhile, Alurax had decided to try the door and went over to it and pulled it open. On the other side was a goblin chieftain who was totally surprised by what he saw facing him. Combat broke out, with the chieftain being hacked down from 17hp to 4 before a Sleep spell from the MU floored him. By now his band (I’m using goblins in place of human brigands further to our discussions about human on human combat) had rushed into the fray and the party had to defend itself against a determined attack which, although doing some damage, was ultimately defeated. Two goblins had fled out of the hole in the wall, swiftly realising that they had no time to dig up their treasure. Their feeble attempts to extract it were, however, spotted by the party, who dug it up and opened the chest (with no thought to their own safety), revealing the hoard of copper pieces, fine cloth, flagon and goblets, fine box and arrows that had mysteriously glowing tips)

At that point, with most of the players having to go home, I had to call it a day. The party had made a good start and recovered some nice loot although they would not be able to gain from the XP until they returned to town to convert it into GP. Adthar’s player had enjoyed himself greatly and was a confirmed returner. All in all, a positive outcome for the Team.

Team Adventure - Fundraising Epic Fail

Returning to town, the party, led by Elador, Elysia's brother and 2nd level Magic User, approached the Council of Clerics to see if it would be possible to bring her back to life. They usually charged a minimum of five thousand gold pieces but after an argument for reduction from Elador, the clerics decided that they would do it for three thousand gold pieces and a service to be performed at a time of their choosing (a sandbox time bomb if ever there was one).

The rationale behind this was that I needed a way to bring Elysia back but Mummy Grognard was without a character, so we brought in Elador, the NPC MU that she had invented in an earlier session and I hand-waved him in; the involvement of the Council of Clerics was also her idea (it was great to see her getting creatively involved in the milieu as well).

Three thousand GP was still a hell of a lot for a party of very low level characters to raise, but a lot less than 5K. Nevertheless, the party’s funds didn’t stretch that far, even when, as in the case of Junior Grognard, they emptied their purses completely – he wanted to help his mum out and who can blame him? Needing cash, and quickly, they decided to hunt out gold in its natural habitat – the dungeon. Off they went, with this session’s target the ogre chambers where, as you will recall, they had killed four in a previous session.

They crept in and found the first room empty but down a passage, sinister shadows lurked. I felt sure that the ogres would be expecting another attack and had decided that they would take a fall-back strategy, luring the party into the first room and then attacking where they could be fairly sure of deploying maximum strength in a small area. So it proved.

A hefty spear came whistling out of the darkness, narrowly missing Ferros. He fired an arrow (clerics are allowed to use missile weapons but not against humans). It was a difficult shot but he managed to hit and do damage. At this point, four ogres came charging up the passage towards the party and battle was joined.

The battle didn't go quite as well as last time. Nobody brought down an ogre – the d30 was not kind to them this week. One by one, the party began to fall. Eventually, there was only one cleric left, Galzor who did the sensible thing and took to his heels, a single ogre in hot pursuit. He led the ogre through a number of rooms previously occupied by the hobgoblin tribe and finally turned and fought it. Galzor managed to get a lucky hit in using the d30 and killed the ogre but it did him some serious damage. He stayed upright and was rewarded for his kill with an advance to second level.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party were dragged off to the Ogre command post to meet the Ogre Chief. He entered into negotiations with Merlin, who had the highest charisma. As the players were only rolling up stats as and when needed, CHA was one of the last to be filled in and Merlin got the highest, 15. His player was absent and the brother of Cafaror’s player was sitting in to see what the game was like. I allowed him to take over Merlin temporarily and conduct the negotiations – he handled it quite well and managed to persuade the Ogre Chief to let him go back to town to get a thousand gold pieces to ransom the party, who would then be released with only their clothes, no armour or weapons.

On his way out of the dungeon, Merlin met up with Galzor and after a quick Heal or two, they managed to obtain the money from their town-based stash and returned to ransom their comrades.

They nearly spent themselves into poverty to buy more stuff when they got back to town, but everyone more or less managed to re-buy all that they'd lost. There was a definite dearth of gold by now and Junior Grognard was particularly upset as he’d given up all his gold earlier to the Raise Dead fund and had nothing with which to buy himself more armour or weapons. Elador helped him out with a gift of the necessary money to get back to AC3 and weapon readiness.

An unproductive session from the point of view of advancing the party’s fortunes. I had not anticipated that the fight with the ogres would go quite so badly this time; the use of the house rule regarding minus hit points meant that rather than a near-TPK, we had a situation where the party was humiliated by their enemies – a sure-fire cause of vengeance desire on the part of the lads. I felt sure that this was going to inspire some in-game developments in the future; story generated by the actions of the party is always more involving than externally imposed DM plotlines.

Next time, we’ll see how the party got its mojo back and decided to explore different avenues for raising the much-needed funding.

Team Adventure - Fire and Sorrow

At the start of the next session, the party was not going to enjoy their victory for long. Doorways at the end of the cloisters led to stairways and it was down these that something big and mean came pounding. Yes, there were more orcs and they were now backed up by two bugbears, tough opponents for any warrior, let alone those who had just spent time and energy fighting their way through orcs. The party pitched in and with the use of another Sleep spell, arrows, maces and swords, managed to overcome the second wave, but only just.

With no further threat apparent, Elysia turned her attention to the captive orcs. She was keen not to have to kill them if she could avoid it and despite their refusal to compromise, they said that they had no idea what the inscription meant or what the fire pit was for. Extracting a promise from the orcs to leave the area and not attack them again, she released them.

I was quite pleased with the way that this particular encounter went. I’m trying to ensure, having got rid of alignment, that the lads behave in a more or less acceptable fashion and killing bound opponents is not something that I want to encourage. Mummy Grognard agrees with me and that’s why I allowed her to take the moral lead on this issue. You will remember an earlier incident in which a hobgoblin surrendered to Junior Grognard’s character Alurax and was spared in return for co-operation.

With that out of the way, it was time to investigate the flame pit. There were five burners in the pit, arranged in a quincunx pattern. There was also a stone disc and a great many charred skeletons and bits of bone. It was clear from the inscription that the flames would have to be doused in a particular order and by someone climbing into the pit but what order?

Fortunately, a search of the bodies of the bugbears revealed two halves of a stone tablet, on which were inscribed some scratchy numerals. Placing the two halves together gave a list of numbers and it became clear (after a lengthy deliberation that demonstrated very positively just what resources of intellect and reasoning the boys had) that they related to the five burners. However, there was a degree of ambiguity about four and five so it was decided eventually that one of the party should go down, tied to a rope and lay the stone disc across each of the burners in the order suggested and take a chance with the fourth and fifth. Alurax volunteered for this task, which was quite brave since the evidence of what had happened to those who had failed was clear to see, scattered across the floor of the pit.

As luck would have it, they chose the right order and the bottom of the fire pit opened to reveal a set of stairs going downwards. The party ventured downwards then found that a passageway ran south-west. There was a faint flickering light from its far end. As they reached the end of the passage, they found that they were on the brink of a large chamber with at least two stairways leading off it and doors as well. Several black-robed hooded figures stood on the far side of the room and Elysia entered the room and walked towards them. At once, she was enveloped in searing blue-white forks of electricity and fell to the floor, motionless. Battle was joined and strange words of command from the figures plus crossbow bolts left the party struggling to keep the upper hand. Bows managed to kill two of the figures but it was clear that the party was getting nowhere and a retreat was declared. Alurax grabbed Elysia’s body and they moved back up the passageway to relative safety.

I had originally intended that this area would be full of evil clerics of various levels but as soon as the combat kicked off, I realised just how difficult it would be to administer a battle with multiple spell users and so limited things to a Command and a Darkness spell. Once the party had made their retreat, I made a few notes and amended the layout so that the low-level clerics became men at arms and only the 5th level leader retained his powers.

Elysia had failed her save and trodden on a glyph of warding which dealt out 15 points of damage. This brought her down to –11 and therefore under the house rules, she was now permanently dead and in dire need of a Raise Dead, which, according to the DMG would set the party back 5,500gp, a steep target for a gang of 1st levellers.
I was happy enough to go with that; it gave the party the prospect of getting their MU back and also incentivised them to go treasure-hunting although this did not work out quite as well as they had first envisaged as we shall see in the next session.

Team Adventure - Orc Attack!

The party clearly thought they’d had enough of ogres because in the next session, they decided to try another direction in the dungeon. They reasoned that the ogres had probably prepared for another attack. So at the t-junction after the bridge with the iron bars at the windows, they turned north instead and headed up the passageway. There was an encounter with a band of wandering kobolds who were given the sword treatment and the survivors fled. The party encountered a door in the side of the passage and, having opened it gingerly, discovered a flight of steps leading downwards. At the bottom was another door through which they gained access to the wide passageway that they had seen from the iron-barred windows.

They chose to go south and for a good few hundred feet, followed the very wide passage, under the barred-window bridge. Ahead were some stairs that descended into the darkness. As the party approached, they were fired on with arrows. Ferros the cleric slumped to the ground, an arrow sticking out of him. The party returned fire and battle was joined. The arrow stocks were dwindling but eventually three of the four attackers were killed and the fourth one fled. The party entered the room from which the attacks had taken place and found the dead bodies of their assailants, riddled with arrows.

At that point, I revealed their assailants to be orcs, which they had not encountered before, which is why I was being cagey about naming them before or during the combat itself.

Across the far side of the room was an archway that was inscribed with a language that nobody recognised. Elysia cast Comprehend Languages (nice to see that particular spell getting an outing) and revealed that the writing read as follows

Beyond the Yellow Tongues
You find the way but wary
As you go; the tongues cannot
Be stilled in any order so
The way to quench them needs
To be done aright or dead you’ll be

The party peered through the archway and saw, down another flight of stairs, a wide square pit in the floor of a room, along the edges of which were pillared cloisters. At the far side of the room were a band of orcs, ten strong, standing there and waiting for the party to make its move. Nobody wanted to commit to more combat; eventually, they party moved in and battle was joined. Elysia cast Sleep and managed to take out five orcs, whilst the party’s fighters, thief and clerics set about reducing the odds against them. Just as they thought that they were gaining the upper hand, more orcs armed with bows stepped out of the shadows of the cloisters and started firing. It was a tense and risky combat and only by skill and good luck were the party finally able to overcome their foes and emerge victorious. Several characters were down and the clerics had their work cut out to bring them back up to fighting fitness. More importantly, the question of what to do with the slept orcs who were now bound and disarmed was preying on everyone’s mind.

We took a session break here; in a development that really made me happy, the mother of one of the players had turned up to take him home and he pleaded with her to be allowed to stay until the end of the combat. She agreed and stayed to watch the game play out. Quite what she thought of it, I'm not sure, but the player keeps coming back, so I'm doing something right.

Team Adventure - Against the Ogres

Our gallant party returned to the dungeon and headed straight for the hobgoblin chambers, aiming to see what lay beyond them. I had decided not to restock that particular set of rooms at this time, but kept the option open if the situation arose that the party left the dungeon for a substantial length of time.

A flight of steps led down to a long, wide passageway, running north to south. Unwilling, or perhaps uninterested in what lay at either end of that passage, the party spotted another tall and wide doorway on the far side of the passageway. Its design matched that of the door through which they had just come, namely large carven heads which, as the party stood in the middle of the passageway, animated and began to speak, telling of things such as ‘the sea of doom’, ‘the golden book’, ‘the cathedral’ and such like. Elysia hurriedly transcribed these phrases for later pondering. I was basically using these features for what I term “sandbox bombing”, tossing evocative phrases and ideas into the mix to tempt and intrigue the party and see which way they went. I could then flesh out new features and adventures from the phrase that they had chosen to explore.

The decision was taken to investigate what lay beyond the second Talking Arch. Galzor headed through the arch, down the stairs and into the room beyond without checking first. His reward was to be attacked by not one but two ogres! The rest of the party piled in with the exception of Elysia and Ferros, who was kept out of the combat to ensure that there would be an intact healer available if anyone needed assistance. As it turned out, this was exactly what happened, since with the party committed to action, two more ogres came up from a passage deeper into the section.

It was hard pounding for all concerned and all the more so when two ogres managed to break through the melee and up the stairs into the wide passageway. This break-out manoeuvre could have led to real trouble for the party but it was at that point that Mummy Grognard’s MU, Elysia used one of her spells to cast Magic Missile and chose to use the d30. This was an overwhelming success and the ogre crashed to the ground, dead. A second use of the d30 by another of the party took out a second ogre. The awesomeness of the d30 helps to reinforce the rule in the minds of the players and ensures that they wont’ forget to the big purple one in future games.

A third ogre had been killed in the room and a fourth fled down the passageway up which it had come. Judging that the time was ripe for a tactical withdrawal, the party healed its wounded, picked itself up and left the ogres to brood on what had just happened. It was probably just as well; with healing and spells depleted, although some were held in reserve in case of wandering monsters, the party would not have been well-placed to take on any more of the big beasties.

The party had got lucky on that particular encounter. D30 rolls, just like healing and magic are expendable resources and while their judicious use can tilt the balance in a big way, once they’re gone, they’re gone.

The Return of Team Adventure

I’m sure that there are some of you out there who read the by-line for my blog, Raising the Next Generation of Old School Gamers and think “Oh yeah, Daddy G, where’s anything relating to that? You’re all mouth and no trousers. What about the kids?”

Well, grumble no longer. Because for the past few weeks, I’ve been gaming every weekend and during the Easter holidays twice a week with a group of four or five youngsters, aged 8 to 10 who are exploring a megadungeon that is growing as they go deeper, sandbox stylie.

Wowser, I hear you cry. That’s impressive. How did you achieve this?

Well, it started small. Junior Grognard had a friend, henceforth referred to as F over to play and during the visit, we mentioned D&D and what it involved. We’d been playing the D&D Top Trumps and he was getting used to the concept of monsters (this is recommended as an intro for kids and D&D – it seems to work very well so far). F sounded interested and so I drew up a simple three-level sixteen room dungeon that was light on fatality (after a chat with Mummy Grognard who outlined her worries that F might not be able to cope with full-on dungeon mayhem including death). She agreed to play a MU in order to keep the boys on track and ensure that they behaved themselves.

So, I had two boys who wanted to get into action straight away and I did not want to delay this through having to explain the rolling up procedure, choosing a character class, rolling the money and buying the equipment etc, so I decided to go down the route of pre-gens and did five sheets, one for each character (each player would run two characters except Mummy Grognard who would be running the MU and doing the admin) - two fighters, a thief, a cleric and a magic-user.

The initial set-up was a small (quarter of A4) character sheet with just four numbers on

HP
THAC0
Damage
AC

with the armour and weapon pre-selected. All very basic, easy to understand and follow.

No requisites were rolled up to begin with. I figured that they were not needed to start playing and could be rolled up at the point at which they were called upon, sort of “Oh you want to bend the bars? Okay, we need to roll up your Strength, and that will tell us what you need to bend them”

I decided to give the cleric four Heal slots per dungeon day and the MU would get four Spell cards to be expended on a selection of 10 spells from the 1st level spell list in the PHB. I made small cardboard tokens for these, which were given to the relevant players and they would hand them to me when they used one of the Heals or Spells. No cards meant no more magic. This was a tactic that I have since expanded to cover arrows and oil bombs.

I also ruled that being reduced to 0 means unconsciousness rather than death (although I have since qualified that a little). This means that the emotional upset of having a character die on the first adventure and - for kids of this age, to all intents and purposes, losing - was avoided)

Now, I was fully prepared for the two lads and their adult mentor to game on until they got bored. But then, just after lunch, another friend (who we’ll call K) from across the road turned up purely by chance to see if Junior Grognard wanted to play. We dragged him in and asked him if he wanted to join the game. Seeing the dice, the figures and the floorplans out on the table, I guess that curiosity got the better of him and he was in. We had a high old time with kobolds, goblins and an underground river down which the MU dived, using it as a helter skelter and we called it a day at that point. K went home and to be honest, I was not sure if we’d see him again.

How wrong I was. Mummy Grognard, who does volunteer work at the local school was busy working away on my behalf, taking every opportunity to mention D&D to the kids there. We got another boy, T, the next week who joined in and although he was a quiet soul and rather reserved (although anyone would be quiet compared to Junior Grognard) he came back again for another session, as did K. Although family commitments meant that F was not present for all gaming sessions, his dad seemed to buy into the gaming experience quite quickly, getting his son a new set of dice and printing off OSRIC in its entirety (that’s what I call dedication). We got another friend, M, to join the group which now numbers five (or six if F is available). As it was T’s birthday a week or so ago, we bought him his own set of dice and a bag in which to keep them, which he has brought to each session since. It’s a ritual that we intend to continue as the birthdays keep coming. We also had K stand up and receive a round of applause when he was the first to level up.

Of course we now have a problem in that Mummy Grognard’s efforts on publicising the game have borne fruit to such an extent that we have more interested children than seats at the table. I’d dearly like to give them all the opportunity to dungeon-delve but DM capacity is limited. Perhaps an emergency training programme for DMs could be instituted. I don’t know. I don’t want to waste the enthusiasm that’s been generated but I can’t see a way past this.

After discussion with Mummy Grognard, I also found and downloaded the Labyrinth Lord character sheets as they are clearly formatted and legible enough for the boys to use without getting things cluttered and having to write very small. They’ve been using them for a few weeks now and I was delighted to find that they were all filling in their character sketches during a break in the action for some banana milkshake.

Next time I’ll be recounting how we moved from a simple sixteen-room dungeon to something that has grown and grown until it has taken on the dimensions and complexity of a megadungeon, along with the expansion of the rules we’re using to bring things closer to the way that I used to play 1e.

The young DM

Regular readers of this blog may remember last autumn that I was busy introducing Junior Grognard to the delights of AD&D via my Training Dungeon concept (click on the Training Dungeon label to review this series). We then moved into a bit of sandboxing but with the lengthening days of spring and other demands on Sundays, things went quiet. As he was the only player, the workload of running a party of six or so got a bit much and if he didn't feel like doing a session, there was no game, full stop.

There was also some trouble with the degree of scariness involved in my adventures (hell, I like CoC, I'm a dark dude) and after some discussion with Mummy Grognard, we decided that it would probably be best if I put things off for a couple of years (he's seven and a half at the moment).

However, just the other day, we were walking from school back to the car and our route took us past the cemetery. I made a few comments about skeletons and turning them, he countered with a comment that he would use his hammer (as it was a blunt weapon) and before we knew it, he was wanting to game again. He wanted to re-do the Training Dungeon but his conversation left me in no doubt that he remembered all the tricks and traps and it would be no good going down that route.

Then I had a flash of inspiration and proposed the following:

If he could get three or four of his friends to form a party and he felt he was up to it, he could DM the Training Dungeon for them. The responsibility of selecting and recruiting his players would be up to him, giving him an incentive to be a bit more evangelical about the game. I would sit in and give advice and adjudication on points (if required) where his understanding or confidence was a little short. I even dug out and gifted him a downloaded AEC so that my vintage 1e books would remain free from creases, stains and notes.

I'm quite keyed up for this; I hope it comes off for a number of reasons, not least because it gets us gaming again, expands his knowledge of the rules and the skills of DMing and hopefully establishes a group of players who can then spread the word that D&D is cool - and good - for kids.

Anyone got any ideas as to ways that we could make this work out?

Where can I get...

...a D&D t-shirt that doesn't have an in-joke that only gamers will understand? I want one that just says D&D or something very similar. And doesn't make me look like a dork (I can do that just fine by myself). All part of my Reach out and Recruit strategy, raising our profile, etc.

Any ideas?

Many thanks.

We could do that...

I saw this poster a while back, and thought "It'd be great if the OSR could do one just like it" (of course without the logo that might upset m'learned friends). The problem is of course that the OSR currently has what might be termed brand multiplicity. We're all annoyed (well, I am) that WotC is stopping us calling a spade a spade and now we have to proceed by allusion rather than directness.

The poster is WotC's attempt to woo the MMORPG constituency and very effective it is too. What can we do that is as direct and effective at getting more newcomers to the Old School side of the hobby?