The Broken Lands Session 2

The greedy adventures saw opportunity in raiding the cellars and crypts below a ruined wizard tower along the Road of Tombs.

The Party:

• Vanuatu the Vegan (Magic-User 1)
• Elu (Elf 1)
• Steefe (Halfling 1)
• Barak (Fighter 1) - I think I may have this name wrong
• Plus a retainer - Father Mug (Cleric 2 - from Black Pudding #1)

The Adventure (aka there will be spoilers below):

The Tower of Zenopus from Holmes Basic. I am: 1) making some cosmetic changes; 2) adding a sublevel accessed by the hallway going north in the top-left corner of the map; and 3) Since this is no longer located on a body of water, the sea caverns will be changed.

What Happened:

• Before adventuring, Van decides that there is no way he would be willing to sell the huge gem, the Blood Egg, that they pillaged on their last adventure. They then hire Father Mug as a retainer.
• Descending the stairs into the cellars below, the party heads south at an intersection - using the always turn left mode. They enter a chamber and quickly overcome 4 skeletons.
• They proceed through an empty room and enter a gloomy room with piles of rocks and rubbish. They defeat 3 giant rats and then find a silver dagger and a bag containing 50 ep.
• Cautiously exploring a hallway going north they are surprised by two ghouls that attack them from the rear (a wandering monster). Father Mug failed his turn attempt, but the ghouls are defeated thanks to the halfling’s low AC and the elf’s immunity to ghoul paralysis.
• Proceeding into the next room, the party finds two more ghouls gnawing on bones from smashed coffins. Again, Father Mug fails his turn attempt but the ghouls are defeated with abundant missile attacks.
• The party next explores a huge room where the northern wall has collapsed scattering stone sarcophagi into the room. Ransacking the sarcophagi, the party first deals with poison gas, an animated skeleton, and then an animated sword. They find a magic sword, a golden coronet, and jewelry.
• Deciding that this was a good haul they decided to head back to Jekarra.
• Taking the magic sword to a sage they learn that it is Bittercut - a sword forged from the tears from a forgotten goddess.

The Tally:

• Killed/overcame 4 skeletons, 3 giant rats, 4 ghouls, and an animated sword.
• Valuable jewelry
• Bittercut the magic sword (yoiked from Black Pudding #1)
• Vanuatu the Vegan advances to 2nd level!

What Worked Well/What Didn’t Work Well:

• The old school practice of map keeping is working well - one of the players is keeping a rough map. During this session it helped them modestly by planning the quickest escape route (thus limiting wandering monster checks) once they decided to head back to the city. However, in session 3 it became quite valuable for decision making.
• Wandering monsters are working well - I just used the tables on page B53. They provided uncertainty and tension. The fact that they resulted in ghouls just before a keyed room with ghouls was just a nice coincidence.
• I replaced the magic +1 sword with something that has a bit more mystery/backstory/interest (but in the hands of PC's not much of a mechanical impact. Go get Black Pudding if you haven't already!)
• I made a mistake on the conversion of types of coin to gp for experience point calculations. For some reason I couldn't find the table on page B47 at the time. We rectified it by the end, but I told the players not to revised their XP reward (I over awarded them).
• I am using reaction rolls to determine who and how many retainers can be hired at any time. However, I think that the players aren't aware of my mental process when we roll so I may have to walk them though it. This really impacts session #3.

Isle of Dread Point Crawl

I took 10 minutes the other day and traced out the map of the Isle of Dread and quickly drew out how it might look as a point crawl. I'm not too sure how this would work, but I'm finding it to be an interesting thought exercise.

Adventure Hooks for Broken Lands Session #2

Sent by email to the players prior to Session #2...

Available Adventure Hooks:

1. Either Elu or Vanuatu may attempt to take the Oath of Vengeance and seek to exterminate the vicious Bird-Men who so cruelly butchered your friends Buz and Twig.
2. You’ve been hearing rumours of a strange event near the bottom of the Tartarus Road. About two months ago, lightning filled the skies over a monastery dedicated to the Iron God. Rumours say all the buildings of the temple were destroyed in one night by hundreds of bolts of lightning. Some say that the Iron God destroyed his own monks as a punishment for their greed; they claim that the heretical monks had been accumulating great treasures in the underground catacombs beneath the temple instead of maintaining the spartan life required by their God. So far, no one has dared to explore the catacombs, so the monks’ ill-gotten treasures must still be there, ripe for the taking.
3. Long ago a wizard built a tower atop some barrows overlooking the Road of Tombs. Rumour has it the wizard made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower in search of ancient treasures. Fifty years ago the tower was engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their master had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower. The supernatural conflagration destroyed the tower, but rumours persist of magical treasures still hidden in the cellars.
4. Word has gotten back to you that a man named Emmiss Sladentail is looking for you with a job offer on behalf of his benefactor who is supposedly a powerful wizard. Emmiss has left word that he can be found at the Scarlet Moon Inn.
5. Gallagorgon the Man-Bull, ancient and mighty progeny of the Immortal Omnithrox, desires that there be brought unto him an intact Penanggalan, a ghoul-maid of beauteous aspect and unspeakable thirsts. Those who bring the Man-Bull his prize will be granted an incredible boon -- a full day and night, dawn to next dawn, of unthinkable debauchery within his Pleasure Ziggurat. It is said that a Penanggalan, as well as other unwholesome things, haunt the Crypt of Llatai, though it goes without saying that such details are the sole concern of the boon-seeker. The Man-Bull cares not.

Other News/Rumours:

• An adventuring party, the Doombringers, was slaughtered by a group of bandits wearing gold armour out to the west of the Dragon’s Teeth.
• One of the Troll-Seers (you know, the ones that tell the future by reading their own intestines that they spill on the table…) ran out of the chapterhouse of The Seers, Soothsayers, Fortune Tellers, and Wainwrights Guild (SSFTW #432)  screaming about some impending doom about to befall the city and fell over dead in the middle of the street. Its guts were all over the place.

========

Bonus old-school cred points to those that can tell me in which adventure Emmiss Sladentail can be found.

(without googling it)

The Broken Lands Session 1

We had our first session of the online Broken Lands game a while ago. Picking from the list of Adventure Hooks that had been provided the party set off for the Tower of Birds.

The Party:
Vanuatu the Vegan (Magic-User 1)
Twig (Thief 1)
Elu (Elf 1)
Buzz (Dwarf 1)
Plus two porters to carry torches and caged chickens in and hopefully treasure out.

The Adventure (aka there will be light spoilers below):
Tower of Birds by Gabor Lux in Fight On! #2
I made a few minor changes - statuary was changed to being statues of Pazuzu and I added Spectral Ravens to location #9 and toned down the laser damage (however, the party never made it to this room).
I also mis-read the map and swapped locations #7 and #8.

What Happened:
The party was dogged in driving towards the top of the tower driving a squawking and flapping chicken in front of them up the stairs (in most dungeons this would have resulted in MANY wandering monster checks).

In the final encounter Twig, the thief, sprinted for the huge gem while the other party members battled the Bird Monsters. He was able to grab it and throw it to Vanuatu the Magic-user (who was back at the stairs) before being slaughtered by the Bird Monsters (he had the magic sword and pegasus helmet). Buzz the Dwarf was also killed. Elu the Elf and Vanuatu (scooping up the gem) made a hasty tactical retreat and hauled ass after the fleeing porters (leaving behind the chickens).

The Tally:
Killed 2 Bird Monsters
The Blood Egg
A sword with a golden pommel
A small statuette of Pazuzu
A small sack with 34 gp
The pegasus helmet and a magic sword remained behind with the fallen.

2,035 XP for the two surviving party members.

What Worked Well/What Didn’t Work Well:
I tried to set up two cameras on my end - one for my face and my viewing (my laptop) and one to show the table, combat maps, drawings, etc. (my phone). However, my lack of technical know-how prevented me effectively setting this up. We defaulted to me just swinging my laptop around to show what I wanted. Also, instead of using the table map I just sketched a lot on scrap paper and held them up to the camera.

Prior to setting out, one of the players asked about a library to do some research about the Tower. I was unhappy with how I handled it.

B/X Sages and Libraries

In a recent online game one of the players asked about a library to do some research regarding an adventure hook. I gave a quick answer to keep the game moving, but was unhappy about how I handled it.

Afterwards, I was thinking about how to handle this circumstance. Going forward, I think I will handle it in one of two ways: 1) The simplest way - there are no accessible libraries. They all belong to sages who obsessively guard access; or 2) If there is a library it provides the same service as a sage but the players have to do the work without the benefit of the expertise and knowledge of a sage to help them.

Using the very brief blurb about sages on page X21 as a starting point, below are some quick (un-play tested) rules I came up with for Sages and Libraries.

The Scope of Work
Ask the question(s) you want answered. The number of words in the question(s) will determine how much it will cost and how long it will take to answer. For each word, there will be a base cost of 100gp and 1 day. Each additional question will add +1 to the word count (in effect putting an “and” in the question). The number of words is a quick and dirty estimate for the level of detail in the question and answer. If using a library instead of a sage, the time is doubled but costs are halved.

• For example, asking a sage, “Where is the blade of the sword of Akekemmon? How can it be fixed?” is 14 words plus 1 for the additional question is 15. These questions will have a base cost of 1,500 gp and take 15 days to get an answer. The same questions at a library will cost 750 gp but take 30 days.

Or you can hire a sage on retainer for 2,000 gp per month. 

And the Answer Is…

Roll 2d6:
2 - Incorrect answer (insert evil laugh).
3-5 - Question answered but at twice the cost and time.
6-8 - Question answered at base cost and time.
9-11 - Question answered. Cost and time are 75% of base.
12 - Answer plus another related fact. Cost and time halved.

If you have the sage on retainer the roll is still made for time required. The DM can determine if the cost varies based on the die roll (additional materials required, sage travel expenses, etc.)

Possible Modifiers:
Sage specialty or library facilities: Up to +2/-2
Difficulty/Obscurity of Question: Up to +2/-2

Note: I have the sneaking suspicion that I have read something resembling this in the past. My apologies for not being able to properly attribute this to whomever it was that provided the inspiration.

The Octozoid

A combination new BX monster and Stupid Art post! Not so hot in the grammar department, but oh well.

The Broken Lands

With our Nightmoor Abbey game going on hiatus, I decided to try running an online BX game for the same crew. I didn't want to run Nightmoor Abbey as for some strange personal reasons I want to play it at the table. Therefore, I sent the following to the players...

Goal: A picaresque, episodic, beer-n-pretzels game

• Using Google Hangouts
• Designed to let me use a bunch of classic and OSR modules
• There will always be 2-4 adventure hooks available to choose from (initial 3 below)
• A few house rules
• Dice rolls are honour system. I will try to roll the DM dice on the camera.

Characters:

• 3d6 in order
• Any class/race for BX or Labyrinth Lord is usable (just run it by me first so I know the source)

The Broken Lands

Welcome to Jekarra the Wicked, the city of thieves, the city of adventure. Throughout the known world, no city is half so notorious. Blackened by fire, soiled by pestilence, and scarred by war, its sandy collection of spiderwebbed tenements and rat-ridden bazaars have birthed some of the worst rogues and villains to ever stalk the storied thrones of the south.

But the City of Thieves, is also a city of chance and adventure, where fortunes are won in a night and lost before dawn. Where gems glint and flare in the lamplight, the might of magic knows no bounds, and a warrior's quick blade and shirt of mail are his best defense. The City of Jekarra sits atop the Cliffs of Leng. The huge 1,000-foot cliff face is pocked with caves, balconies and passageways - some made by the residents of Jekarra over the centuries for uses both mundane and illicit and some predate the founding of the city by millenia.

Cutting across the face of the Cliffs of Leng, the Tartarus Road descends from the city to the Broken Lands below. What caused the terrible landscape of the Broken Lands none know. It is a blasted and forsaken land full of pits, ruins, and dungeons. Wandering this inhospitable land are fearsome monsters, religious fanatics, savage raiders, and worse. However, it is also rumoured to contain treasures beyond measure.

So loosen your sword, keep a hand on your coin pouch, and take these first steps out of the tavern, and through the shadowy, torch-lit streets. A black mist is roiling beyond the precipice of the Leng, and adventure beckons below…

Initial Adventure Hooks:

1. Gerod, the Silver Man, sold you a map for 1 sp. He swore it will lead you to the Tower of Birds in the Broken Lands which contains the Blood Egg, a fantastic red gem.
2. You’ve been hearing rumours of a strange event near the bottom of the Tartarus Road. About two months ago, lightning filled the skies over a monastery dedicated to the Iron God. Rumours say all the buildings of the temple were destroyed in one night by hundreds of bolts of lightning. Some say that the Iron God destroyed his own monks as a punishment for their greed; they claim that the heretical monks had been accumulating great treasures in the underground catacombs beneath the temple instead of maintaining the spartan life required by their God. So far, no one has dared to explore the catacombs, so the monks’ ill-gotten treasures must still be there, ripe for the taking.
3. Long ago a wizard built a tower atop some barrows just south of the Red Massif overlooking the Road of Tombs. Rumour has it the wizard made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower in search of ancient treasures. Fifty years ago the tower was engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their master had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower. The supernatural conflagration destroyed the tower, but tales persist of magical treasures still hidden in the cellars.

Many will likely recognize the hooks.