Campaign Interlude: Azin the Flying Merchant

 

From our summary of Session 16:

This is the first appearance of Azin in this campaign. he is an NPC that first turned up in my 3rd edition Greyhawk campaign featuring Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and it seemed appropriate that he reappear here. He is partly here to provide a source of outside news and possibly rumors but he is mainly here to be a trading post for magical items and truly exotic things. Operating out the village means there is not a great way to do anything with excess magic items and super-expensive stuff without a trip to Verbobonc at least. In 3rd edition there was a need to be able to trade out and upgrade magic and I thought it would be interesting to try that option here and see how much the players would use it. Short version: They like it a lot ...

So in 3E (and subsequently Pathfinder) it was handy to have a way for characters to be able to craft, modify, and trade magic items as a lot of the system's math assumed magic items were present, especially in combat. Now in a big enough city or maybe an extraplanar setting this would be easier to justify but I was running Return with the PC's hanging around Hommlet and running around out in the wilderness much of the time so I needed a way to work in this option - enter Azin.

He appears to be human (he is not, not that the players know this) and uses a flying carpet and presumably a bag of holding or three to transport magical items and occasional exotic goods. No he is not going to bring you a ballista but he can manage a sword or a suit of armor. I have him making the rounds on a pretty set schedule so my players know when he will show up and this gives them one more reason to care about the passage of time in-game, so he's a nice little enhancer there as well.

When we decided to play this campaign using Tales of the Valiant I realized it would be a good opportunity to bring him back. ToV has prices and rarity levels on all of its magic items and crafting rules for them as well so now we have a hard value on everything and several ways to compare one thing to another. It has been 20-odd years since that prior campaign but a few of my players were around back then and they did remember him and were pretty happy when they realized what that meant.

So here's how Azin works in this campaign:

• He comes through Hommlet once a month (adding it to his usual Greyhawk - Dyvers -Verbobonc route)
• If they are interested then I roll up "What does Azin Have?" for that visit and the haggling begins:
• 4x Common items 
• 2x Uncommon items
• 1x Rare item
• He doesn't do potions & scrolls - just hard items
• Azin starts at double the book price to buy something but he is willing to trade item (or items) directly as well and he will even occasionally offer to buy something if it catches his eye but that's not really his main interest.

ToV has random tables for all categories of magic item so that's the universe of what could be available and I moderate it a bit if something really stupid comes up. 

That's really it - he's turned up 4 or 5 times in the 40-ish sessions so far and some visits are more productive than others. It gives the party another reason to head back to the village or to wait longer in it which breaks up the dungeon crawling a little more. It also lets them tune up their characters a little and try out the occasional odd item they might not otherwise find or know or care about. Attunement requirements keep a lid on the "real" magic items so a lot of what they end up trying out are the lesser items like lucky dice or anklets of alacrity. Most of what they have comes from the temple and if they want something custom or to pick and choose from more sellers they have to go to Verbobonc - which they do!

As far as magic items in this campaign I tend to run Greyhawk as less heavy on the magic than the Forgotten Realms, but while people may think the old school stuff had less magic in it if you look at the old modules they are absolutely stuffed with magic items. From Keep on the Borderlands to this one to Against the Giants and beyond there are a ton of magic items in there and (even if you consider the larger party sizes we tended towards in the old days) any party that makes it most of the way through will be absolutely decked out in magic gear. So there is quite a bit of magic to be found, despite my preferred take on Greyhawk. Oddly enough the modern 5E-type games' attunement rules keep this under control pretty well as even at say 9th level you're only allowed to attune 4 items. Most of the "good stuff" requires attunement, then there's a bunch of "OK" stuff that does not, and there is a very narrow range of "very good and does not require attunement" and my players pounce on those hard when they encounter one.

So there it is - Azin and magic items in our campaign in general!

40K Friday - Slow Motion & Kings of War 4th

 

The miniatures side of things is fairly slow here right now.  I'm still working mainly on the Blood Angels stuff I mentioned before but it's not a super-high priority as we aren't playing  much and there are a lot of other things going on. My online interests have been fairly intensive lately with constant events in Star Trek Online, a big long event in World of Warships, and now WoW Legion Remix coming out (it's a lot of fun, like the remix for Pandaria last year). I'm also having to do more prep for the Temple campaign as big things are happening and it's more than just easy monster swap-outs at this point. I have friends painting Space Wolves and Votann so progress does continue.

Beyond the direct 40K work I've been watching the Kings of War 4th Edition updates as they have come out and it all seems positive in general but I'm just not motivated to dive back in. Edition changes are seen by companies as a way to draw new players in but it's also a reason for existing players to just stop. If all of the books I've picked up in recent years are now not valid, well, I can just not worry about the new stuff and when we get the very infrequent itch to play KoW we can just play one of the versions we already have. 

Also this: "We also have the chance now going forwards to make some armies more “Mantic” and less generic ..." yeah, that's the problem. I came to the game looking for ways to use some old school Warhammer armies and maybe some old Hordes of the Things armies and so the more world-specific you make it the less useful it is for me. I get it from a company perspective, how it benefits you, but it's not what I'm looking for. Having a mix of generic and Mantic-specific factions is great - it means someone can bring their fantasy human army in as Kingdoms of Men while someone else could play Trident Realms or Nightstalkers which are two Mantic-specific very cool armies. The more they drive to phase out the generic part the more it damages their game in my opinion. 

I mean who wouldn't want units of frog-men with frog-cavalry? That's a cool army!

I'm sure I'll play around with it at some point but right now the interest meter is low.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 17 - Ambush!

 

"According to Mighty and Illustrious, Xyzzifax"

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• The Mighty Xyzzifax (Human-ish Wizard) played by Blaster
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 4 at this point. We begin on Day 51 of the campaign.

The party sleeps, telling stories, with Minion Kentor cooking more of his disastrous chili, which once again incapacitates minion Malice.

This has become the accepted cover story when a player is absent - bad chili renders them out of action. Inigo misses most sessions so he doesn't get a specific cover story. It's just assumed he's lurking somewhere nearby with his own agenda and just pops up now and then.

In the morning, Xyzzifax attempts to utilize his new artifact, the crystal ball of true sight! Attempting to scry their old foe, the hobgoblin (or was it a bugbear?) chief from the moathouse, and finds that he has been killed. Good, such fate befalls all who dare cross the mighty Xyzzifax.

As the group reenters the tower, they proceed through the trapdoor, and continue exploring. A secret door opens into a small passageway with an ascending staircase.

The party finds a broom.

Minion Samson touches it.

The party holds their breath but nothing bad happens.

The party proceeds through the passage and up another trapdoor which opens into a circular shaft, covered in very old spider webs. The room is searched, but no spiders are found.

A singular passageway leads off. Minion Bubo surveils the passage, finding a door, and another passage to a room with statues of monsters.

The party moves up to investigate the door. The door opens into a triangular room, with eyes depicting various negative emotions of hate and fear painted on the wall.

A stairwell, and 4 doors are present, with a fire pit and large gong dominating the center of this strange room.

Party approaches from the south. The gong is in 314, giant is in 318, and the rest are scattered about the other rooms.

Minion Kentor hears deep voices behind one of the doors, but fails to recognize the language. Minions Lantor, Braedon and Samson move up to quietly cut down the gong, wrapping it in Xyzzifax’s cloak. More low voices are heard at 2 more doors, although Minion Braedon listens at the final door; and hears snoring. Xyzzifax advises his minions to quietly enter this door first, and dispatch the evil that no doubt lies within.

Xyzzifax unlocks the door, and upon opening it, the party sees a hill giant sleeping in the corner, and a dire wolf that is awake and alert, gnawing on a bone! The wolf howls, immediately waking the giant and alerting the forces of evil to their presence. The party retreats back into the triangular room, with Xyzzifax loosing a fire bolt at the dire wolf.

In short order, all hell breaks loose.

In mere seconds, all 4 doors are sprung open, the giant and his wolf being joined by 2 bugbear chieftans, 6 bugbears, and 4 ogres, the shortest of which is some sort of shaman.

Minion Samson is struck down by a mighty blow from an ogre, but is quickly healed by the cleric, and thrown behind the frontline of fighters. Blows are exchanged as the party retreats further to a bottleneck hallway. Xyzzifax reads a scroll of stinking cloud, causing many of the misters to begin retching and reeling, while proving cover for Xyzzifax and his minions.

The ogre shaman summons a spiritual weapon to beat on minion Jaric. Who in turn sends his spiritual weapon after a retreating bugbear chief.

I do love the idea of two spiritual weapons being summoned by opposing casters the zooming around a room beating on things ...

The stinking cloud allows the party to focus their efforts, with the 2 ogres and their shaman, as well as the giant and the wolf retreating as they retch from the noxious fumes. In short order, all but the ogre shaman, a single ogre, the giant, and his wolf are left.

Minions Kentor and Lantor sprint through the cloud, having consumed potions of speed, ambushing the shaman, felling him in seconds with a flurry of blows.

The cowardly giant, his wolf, and the remaining ogre flee from the might of the mighty Xyzzifax (and his minions).

The party elects not to pursue, and falls back to the tower.

This session was mostly one big fight but it started with some cautious exploration and then escalated dramatically from there. A lot of the fun I am having is watching the guys poke around an old school dungeon waiting for death to leap out from behind something. 

Stinking could is remarkably effective in this version of the game. I will need to pay more attention to that in the future. In fact a lot of this campaign is the DM re-learning how 5E-type spells work - often at the expense of that session's monsters. I am making notes for my own lurking spellcasters though so there will be payback one day.

Another thing I am being reminded of is that one of the biggest brakes on combat resolution time is when the DM has to run a bunch of different monsters. In this case I was running:

• A hill giant
• A worg
• An ogre shaman
• Some ogres
• A bugbear chief
• Some bugbears

Numbers-wise it's about 15 critters but there are six different statblocks in there and while I've gotten pretty good at tracking things I was feeling it a bit here with a big, lingering spell effect going off and then having to check saves every round while running all the normal parts of a fight. Templates for AoE spells are a big help here as is the usual benefit of a battlemat where we can just draw things out, and then we also use condition rings to mark individuals as conditions go flying around during a battle. That said as I started adjusting the opposition going forward this was one of the things I looked over - how many different statblocks and how many spellcasters did I want to manage in combat?

I'll put up a post about how we manage this next week.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 16 - Dangerous Explorations

 

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• The Mighty Xyzzifax (Human-ish Wizard) played by Blaster
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike
• Inigo Vulnstack (Elven Rogue) played by Invisible Paddy

 All are level 4 at this point except for Inigo. This account is mainly written by Malice. We begin on Day 44 of the campaign.

Over the strenuous objections of Sir Kentor, the party returns to Hommlet. Malice suggested we turn some of the treasure into scrolls of Raise Dead. It takes us the better part of a day to make the journey. When we get to town, Sir Kentor goes to see to the village girl he is courting, and Malice heads to the temple of St. Cuthbert. Jaric heads to the inn, and Xyzzifax and Inigo are there! The base price for a scroll of Revivify is 500, and a scroll of raise dead is 1150. Terjon haggles with Malice, its going to take him five days to create the Revivify scroll for 800 gold, and 7 weeks to create the scroll of Raise Dead for 2000 gold.

Azin is a travelling sky merchant, a dealer in unusual items and rare artifacts that is talking with Inigo at the Inn. He travels between Dyvers and Greyhawk, and he is now adding a stop at Hommlet, as doing business with us interests him. At present time, he has anklets of alacrity, a returning charm, a reciprocating pole arm, and a ring of swimming. We purchase the anklets of alacrity and give them to Xyzzifax. We also purchase the returning charm and Sir Kentor uses on his hammer. After those purchases, Azin lets us know he has a bag of tricks, and boots of striding and springing, and wings of flying. We trade the +1 leather armor to him, and Xyzzifax trades a pair of magical daggers and a magical mace, as well. We purchase the Wings of Flying, and it goes to Jaric. And, Malice ends up with the Cloak of Elvenkind. Finally we purchase the boots of Striding and Springing for Sir Kentor.

This is the first appearance of Azin in this campaign. he is an NPC that first turned up in my 3rd edition Greyhawk campaign featuring Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and it seemed appropriate that he reappear here. He is partly here to provide a source of outside news and possibly rumors but he is mainly here to be a trading post for magical items and truly exotic things. Operating out the village means there is not a great way to do anything with excess magic items and super-expensive stuff without a trip to Verbobonc at least. In 3rd edition there was a need to be able to trade out and upgrade magic and I thought it would be interesting to try that option here and see how much the players would use it. Short version: They like it a lot. I'll post a separate entry on how I make it work in this campaign.

While we’re in town, Malice turns over the books we found to Xyzzifax, expecting that they were the spellbooks of the wizard that we killed. He prepares comprehend languages, and learns that the books are gibberish, not actually spellbooks. We return to the temple, and once again we use the trap door in the temple, and take the secret door to deep within the dungeon once more, after sharing stores and a meal.

Our explorations begin in the wizard’s room. Samson begins by checking over the secret door to the south, making sure its not trapped. Sir Kentor opens his awareness to supernatural forces, and he still feels a jawdropping evil. Samson presses forward, looking for the next secret door that must obviously be there. Then, Xyzzifax follows the pair of them. Sir Kentor finds the expected secret door, and Samson confirms that it is free of traps. Then, he opens the door, and reveals another partial hallway – or at least a room the size and shape of hallway.

This long room is full of all manner of magical apparatuses, a long workbench and a fireplace, barrels full of gear. Bookstands and unopened tomes, a green cup, an iron box, several . A cabinet holds a set of various treasures, and magical accoutrements. Sir Kentor moves into the room, towards his feeling of great evil. Xyzzifax sends Bubo forward as well, and he lands on the desk.

Xyzzifax steps into the long room, and activates his magical sense. The cabinet glows, as do the books. An iron box glows. The bottles of potion glow. There’s a glow coming from a leather case. A crystal ball is magical as well, and a statue as well. But, he doesn’t note any creatures with spellcasting ability. A quick discussion between Xyzzifax and Sir Kentor says that both the desk and the iron box detect both magic and evil. Bubo is scampering on the desk that is detecting evil, and nothing seems to be happening. Then, he hops down to the chair.

Sir Kentor pours some acid on the desk, and again nothing happens. Malice prods Samson, and he finally goes into the room, a little bit reluctantly, and touches the desk. He can tell it is enchanted. Sir Kentor pulls out his hammer, and smites the iron box. Xyzzifax pulls Bubo back as the empowered hammer smashes down, but the blow glances off and impacts on the desk. Part of the desk is sheared off, and one of the books falls over, and there is a flash! A massive devil appears!

He is a tall, red, spikey devil. In a reflexive action, Samson swings his armor clad fist at the devil. He hits! And it looks like he managed to actually cause some pain! But, striking the spikey creature manages to puncture his hand, though the wound isn’t terrible. Xyzzifax steps into sight of it just long enough to send some magic missiles down range, and then pull back around the corner. Malice shouts Lantor forwards, and for Samson to retreat, and Inigo needs to get into a shooting position. Lantor swings with the mighty greatsword, but it is unfortunately non magical, so the wound is not as bad as it could be. It is like the spines move to react, and Sir Lantor is barely injured by it.

The devil claws at Sir Lantor, and slaps at Sir Kentor with his spiked tail. Sir Lantor parries with the greatsword, but is still impaled by a number of spines. Sir Kentor reacts with a slash of his own, but the devil avoids the blow. But, that was enough to keep the devil’s tail from finding its mark, but instead slamming into the paladin’s shield. Braedon rushes to behind Sir Lantor, and places his hand on the fighter’s shoulder. He is now protected against the devil! Jaric calls forth a Spiritual Hammer, and it slams into the devil, sparking with radiant energy. Then, he hurls his own and axe towards the devil, but the throw is off balance, and it thunks loudly into the cabinetry. Inigo shoots the devil with a non magical bow, still, his aim is true.

Sir Kentor calls out loudly, judging the devil, and calls that he will be send back to hell. Then, he slashes at the devil with the Mighty Verminax, as holy energy rings around it. And that blow is enough that the devil is obviously wounded by the blow. Samson fires his crossbow at the devil, but the non magical bolt doesn’t look like it does that much. Xyzzifax once again steps into sigh, and sends a trio of magic missiles into the devil. Malice calls out in the black tongue, trying to lock the devil in place. But, its infernal power is too great, and it resists the spell.

Sir Lantor crashes down with his powerful greatsword, and once again, even though the blade is not magical, it still is a notable blow. The devil swipes at Sir Lantor, but Braedon’s protections are effective. Both of the knights react, blades scything through the devil. The devil splatters, showering the area in viscera and spikes. It begins dissolving slowly. Sir Kentor gives a brief prayer of thanks. He can tell that the desk is no longer radiating evil, and Xyzzifax notes that it doesn’t radiate magic any more, either.

As an example of where ToV characters are at power-wise this fight with the barbed devil (Ac15, 100 hp, various devil defenses) lasted all of two rounds. Granted there are 8 PC's but they tend to blast through the opposition even when there are only 5 or 6 of them. This will continue to be an issue going forward.

Jaric has his spiritual hammer slam into the iron box. It rings loudly at the blow, but it manages to hold. No new devils immediately appear, either. We give it enough time for the spikes to dissolve, and Inigo parkours over the far side of the room. Jaric treats the wounds of both of the Knights and Samson. Then, Samson touches the box – the box is just a box. Xyzzifax tells people to just calm down, and there are lots of magical items we need to collect before we begin further messing with the box.

Samson moves to the cabinet and opens a set of coffers first. The crystal ball is a crystal ball of true seeing – a legendary item of magic that will allow us to scry, and the scrying user will have true sight (taken by Xyzzifax). The pointed hat has cryptic runes, but is itself non magical. Xyzzifax takes it for himself. The ceramic statue is of a frog eating an insect, and the insect itself is a figurine of wondrous power, the ebony fly. The reddish wood box is an unfolding shrine inlaid with gold, and a black interior with an ebony statue of a spider thing, standing before webbing. We discuss what to do – Jaric may need to consecrate it, and then Samson may be able to disassemble it, and then we would have access to the valuables. Or, Sir Kentor can just smash it. Well, that works, too.

The crystal ball of true seeing - an immensely powerful item to most. My party will end up selling it not too far down the road. Sigh.

There are a number of books that we take a moment looking through, as well as a trio of ivory scroll tubes. Inigo gives them a once over, and assures us that they’re not trapped. There are six spells between them. The books are bound in strange leather, bound in iron, and locked. Xyzzifax makes quick work of the locks, and finds that each of the five are spellbooks. Finally, a long brass wand is not magical, but it has an odd notch on one end. Samson takes that one. And carefully considers it, while looking over the cabinet itself.

As Samson inserts the tip of the wand into just the right indentation, the side of the cabinet opens and there is a magic mirror within. It is a mirror of mental prowess – a legendary wondrous item that requires attunement. We plan to take that back to Hommlet, because adventuring with a mirror is dangerous for said mirror. And maybe us. There are potions of clairvoyance (taken by Malice), mind reading (taken by Malice), speed (taken by Braedon), and an elixir of health (taken by Malice). In the leather case, there is a wand of binding (taken by Malice). The two books that were near the desk are both magical, bound in leather and bronze. One effects your Charisma, and the other your Wisdom. Jaric takes the Tome of Understanding, and Malice takes the Tome of Leadership and Influence.

The mirror of mental prowess - an immensely powerful item to most. My party will actually realize this and use it regularly.

Sir Kentor is suggesting that we not open the iron box – he is concerned that it is a prison. The box is a foot and a half squared. Between the two knights, they can carry it. We have a good amount of discussion about the box, and what we should do with it. After a good bit of discussion, we decide to pull out of the temple, and it is quickly discover that Sir Kentor isn’t even able to touch the iron box. Neither can Jaric. But, Sir Lantor can lug it with him. Malice quickly asks him to try putting it down – which he can, which is great! And then, we leave with it, taking it up out of the tower, and up out of the ruins. We search for a good place to bury it. We’re able to dig down ten feet, and then sink, and then Braedon does all he can to hide it.

Alright, so the tower-trap-door-side-entrance puts characters right into the lair of Falrinth, one of the more powerful wizards in the temple and part of its leadership. So yes, he has a bunch of powerful items waiting to be looted by a 4th-ish level party - if they can beat him, and mine did. The box contains the ORB OF GOLDEN DEATH (!) which if you have run this adventure before you know is tremendously important to actually destroying the temple for good. They are 3-4 rooms into the dungeon and they have this in their possession although they don't know it, have no idea what it represents, are a little bit scared of it, and won't even take it out of the box! So they end up burying it. I can tell you we just played Session #44 and they haven't even thought about it in months but they will probably discover it's purpose and power in the very next session. Then they will likely try to remember where they buried it!

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 15 - Down the Hatch!

 

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

Everyone is level 3/4-ish at this point. We begin on Day 43 of the campaign (in game time).

Before the Valiant Swords head down into the secret passage, we share some old stories and Sir Kentor’s chili. Jaric returned to camp, having gone to collect the elven cloak that Inigo had left for us. Having our cleric with a possibility of sneaking is not an entirely bad thing. And then the waiting is over! Back into the tower, and down thirty feet into the darkness we find a small room with several boxes in it. Samson checks them out, sees that they’re untrapped, and is able to pick their locks to find a small stash of treasure. And, a trio of potions. We can also see that there is only a single passage out of the room, a 5’ wide tunnel hewn into the stone beneath the temple, following what looks like once a natural fissure that had been widened.

They were a bit annoyed with Inigo's player bailing on so many sessions so they went and got the one magic item his character had acquired. He was OK with it.

We have a brief discussion about how best to test the potions, and given that there is a chance that it is a poison, or, mystical urine, we - somewhere between a joke and bullying - get Samson to dip a tiny finger into each bottle. They are a potion of greater healing, speed, and water breathing. Malice recommends, with a fair amount of dripping disdain, that Sir Lantor should carry the potion of healing. With much less acrimony, Braedon takes the potion of water breathing, and Sir Kentor takes the potion of speed.

Verminax glows, and Sir Kentor takes the lead. Malice casts the light spell on Sir Lantor’s greatsword, and it glows as well. The more targets, the better. Then, single file, we progress down the tunnel. It goes about five hundred before it opens into a natural cave, where there is an opening on the north side to continue on. We move slowly through the cave, checking the walls as we go. Braedon and Samson find a secret door on the East side of the room! Before we continue to the north, Braedon pivots the secret passageway open.

We change directions, following the secret tunnel. It travels a long way, sloping deeply, and then the passage doubles back on itself and widens up. We form up to two abreast for the first time, and then make our way into a larger room. The knights, Sir Lantor and Sir Kentor are the first around the corner, and they are horrified to discover that there is a basilisk staring right at them. Sir Kentor is petrified – standing still as if he was turning to stone! And, flames ignite, and trough channels of what might have been well soaked wicks, or perhaps even clear oil, the dancing fire lights the room well.

The basilisk shuffles around the room, getting to where it can gaze at Jaric and Braedon as well – though like Sir Lantor they remain mobile. Malice calls out quick, but obvious advice, lacing it with words of magic for Sir Kentor. Jaric and Sir Lantor to rush the Basilisk. Braedon is fast to react as well, moving into a position on its flank, and puts an arrow into the six legged beast – but it doesn’t look like it caused much damage at all. And this is even with his bow enchanted by Samson. Jaric slams into it with the staff of striking, and it crackles with power. It should do an amazing amount of damage, but instead, the beast is unharmed. Jaric isn’t sure that its really there, this could be an illusion! But then, what happened to Sir Kentor? Sir Lantor waves his hand through it, and confirms that its just an illusion. As we shout back and forth, Sir Kentor is finally able to move.

Malice calls out to stay on our guard, we’ve made only slightly less noise than a small army. She asks Samson to listen at one door in the small room, Braedon to listen at the other, and then everybody else to shush so we might hear what would be coming. Appearing in our midst is a blur, and a shortsword stabs into Sir Lantor, and the wound is deep and bloody. Only after the attack does a half orc female become clear to our sight. She snarls in a bloodlust.

Malice takes a few steps and is right behind Jaric, lunging with her glaive, but the nimble half orc dodges the blow. Braedon, though, is able to find his mark with his bow. The arrow sticking out of her does not seem to slow her down much at all. Sir Lantor spins, swinging his greatsword in a wide arc, and it is only through a stroke of luck that his blow lands. Still, any time the powerful knight is able to connect the blow is going to be of significance, and she finally shows signs of the wound. Samson darts from the door, attempting to punch with his magical gauntlets – but there is no way for his short reach to land on the fast moving half orc. Sir Kentor turns, shouting that stabbing from behind is a cowardly move, and he judges her unworthy! Verminax’s glow becomes more blessed in nature, filled with the Paladin’s fury, and he drives it into the would be assassin. The wound is deep, but the half orc still stands.

The door that Samson had been looking at is opened just a crack, a finger points into the room, and a single magical word is uttered. Lightning cracks, blasting through Malice, Jaric, and Samson. Malice and Samson, at least, are able to avoid the worst of it, but Jaric takes the full force of the blow. The Assassin attempts to move away from the mass of melee, and only Sir Kentor is able to get a swing at her, but she is quick enough to avoid even his skilled blow. Malice flings a firebolt at the fleeing half orc, burning her slightly, but Braedon gives chase and hits her from nearly point blank, and the assassin woman finally falls. Sir Lantor takes a few steps, and tries the door that the wizard is behind, and discovers it was locked. With a mighty boot, he kicks the door open.

The room behind the locked door is obviously the chamber of a wizard, with a thaumaturgic triangle, and shelves with many stuffed creatures, and magical accoutrement throughout the room. Sir Lantor attempts to jump over the triangle, but his foot crossed the threshold of the triangle. Nothing happens, yet, but the wizard is given the time to stay away the knight’s bloodsoaked blade. Samson is fast to follow Sir Lantor, and punches the wizard square in the knee. Ooh, that has to hurt, but there isn’t a satisfying crack of a broken bone. Sir Kentor charges into the wizard’s room, and only with a well timed flash of light as a distraction does the wizard keep mighty Verminax from hitting its mark.

A terrifying bat creature appears flying next to the wizard. It screeches, and a lock of Sir Lantor’s hair turns white. His teeth chattering and his hands shaking, the Knight tries to slice the wizard as he repositions himself in the room, and blasts again with lightning. Samson is out of the way again, and manages to catch the wizard with another quick punch. Both knights and Samson are all caught with his electrical attack, and both knights are in bad shape after the blast.

Malice warns Jaric that there is going to be something coming through the other door, and then rushes into the room. She has to quickly decide whether to heal or to attack – and her longer term healing magic is still empowered, so she chooses to stab the wizard. Braedon darts to where he can see the bat thing, and shoots it – and it responds with an exclamation in some infernal tongue. Jaric is quick on Malice’s heels, and the staff of striking crackles with energy, and the thrust of the long pole blasts clear through the wizard, who is thrown back against the wall, and slumps down unmoving. The bat thing screeches again!

Sir Lantor, still in the grips of the magical fear, swings weakly at the bat-thing, but is nowhere near connecting. Samson jumps on the bed, then leaps at the bat-thing, punching it midair, giving the creature nearly a full body bruise. Sir Kentor, his skin scorched by the lightning, still closes with the evil bat thing and slashes it with Verminax. It proves its strength by remaining in the air. It curses once more, and then disappears from sight.

Malice watched its move, and calls out that the creature is still here, but is just invisible. She steps up and grabs the blanket and swings it in a wide arc, hoping to possibly to reveal where it might be – but doesn’t manage to actually catch it at all. Braedon tries to spot it, and while he heard it flying by him, he has no idea where it is now. Jaric gives a quick word of healing, and the knights, though still wounded, are neither at death’s door. Sir Lantor pulls his crossbow, and stands at the ready. Samson pulls the sheet off the wizard’s bed, and runs past Braedon swinging it wildly. Then, much more calmly Sir Kentor walks to beside Braedon, and reaches out with divine senses. To his holy eyes, the demonic bat comes into sight, and he is able to charge it! Bats are sometimes known as flying rats, Malice thinks, as Verminax bisects the evil thing.

A rare exception to the rule in this fight

We break into groups and search. The wizard was carrying Bracers of Defense and has a magical scroll. The assassin has a short sword +1, leather armor +1, a shield +2, and a ring of spell storing, with two invisibility spells. Braedon takes ownership of the short sword. As a group we decide to sell the magical leather armor. Sir Kentor takes ownership of the half orc’s round shield. and then Jaric takes his kite shield. Malice takes the ring of spell storing. We decide to hold the Bracers of Defense for Xyzzifax. Malice takes the scroll of wall of force.

In the wizard’s chambers, there is a map on the south wall, and a parchment on the east wall. The room also has an oddly branched candle holder of forged electrum worth 1500 gold pieces. Samson starts to examine the map, and realizes that it is trapped with explosive runes. Malice notes that makes it a trap we can bring with us. Then Samson examines the other parchment, and finds a second glyph of explosive runes. Samson is the one to carry both of those.

So close ... the Artificer is already ruining my fun ...

Surprising nobody, a short hallway that lead to nowhere has a secret door at the end of it that was Braedon was able to suss out. So, we have four choices before us – a door from the room with the illusory basilisk, a door from the wizard’s chambers, the secret door in the short hall, or back the way we came to the cave with a passage north. And, additional searching reveals a hidden door in the Wizard’s room as well – a fifth option! As we discuss things, no spellbook was found in the wizard’s room, or on his body. Sir Kentor is sensing something unsettling on the door on the Wizard’s room. Before we press on, Malice casts a healing spell on Sir Lantor, completely healing him, and both Malice and Sir Kentor have their wounds dressed by Jaric, and they too are fully healed.

Braedon suggests we look into what is almost certainly the assassin’s lair. We agree, and he finds that the door is not locked. A plainly furnished room, with unusual weapons on the walls. But only a narrow cot to sleep, a table with full set of chairs, a wardrobe and chest. Samson follows Braedon into the room, and is quick to the chest to check it for traps. He finds the poison needle, and quickly disables it. The tray in the top of the chest has 1500 gold pieces worth of gems and a pair of gold rings, both worth 2000 gold. And, there is a belt with a pouch with fifty pieces of platinum. In the wardrobe we find six bottles of poison, which Malice takes. And there is a second potion of speed, which is taken by Sir Lantor.

We discuss once again which direction we should go, and finally decide to use the standard door out . Inside is a simple work room, with even additional magical gear, and a chest with a large lock. Samson goes to the chest, and Malice casts detect magic and can see that there are 9 wands that glow, and three bottles on the shelf that glow. Samson can see the trap has been sealed with wax all the way around the chest. Whatever this is, it will be tricky to disable. We decide to look at the wands and potions before Samson does anything more with it.

The potions are Diminution, Healing, and a potion of Poison. Malice takes the potion of poison. Braedon takes the potion of Healing. Samson takes the potion of Diminution, to the snickers of the rest of the party. Samson’s examination of the wands are all magic, but he is not determining a type from them. They perhaps have a magic aura cast on them, or they may be blank slates, ready to be turned into a real wand. We clear out of the room, and Samson is able to disable the chlorine gas trap. Inside he sees books, and a blank scroll. The books are written in an alphabet we do not immediately recognize.

Malice is building quite the collection of these

We gather our treasure, and pull back to the surface to prepare to face the evil that Sir Kentor had sensed. Malice and Jaric work together, and the ring of spell storing is now prepared with an Invisibility, a See Invisibility, and a 1st level circle Heal.

So much fun this session! I managed to get two lightning bolts off with a wizard, a familiar contributed something useful, lots of good intra-party interaction, an illusion actually worked, an assassin actually got to strike ... it was a lot of fun to DM this one. Also, a proper level of paranoia has been instilled as they carefully check everything this time. They know they are in the real temple now and they are cautious. 

One thing to keep in mind with these recaps is that they are written in real time by my players - often Malice, sometimes Xyzzifax (you can tell when it's him, trust me) so you get blow-by-blow combat moves, treasure numbers, magic item ID's , etc. I do light some editing when I post them here but I decided to leave most of this kind of thing in as this is what a real game session can look like so why not?

When someone mentions "luck" or "lucky" that's usually a flag that Luck was used on the relevant roll. It's a great mechanic that is in constant use and as time goes on I start using the DM version of it - Doom - to help keep the opposition in the game too.

Also after this session they started to realize they did not come in the normal "front door" of the dungeon. They don't know it but the trap door + tunnel leads down to level 3 - of 4. So the opposition here is a definite step up from the Moathouse and Nulb. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 14 - The Bandit Tower

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

Everyone is level 3/4-ish at this point. We begin on Day 41 of the campaign (in game time).

There was some discussion of how things should be approached and they settled on the one intact (ish) tower as the starting point. Our sessions now always start with "chili and stories" as the ToV backgrounds give various small abilities and the Paladin has the ability to make some food and the Ranger can tell stories to raise morale. The game effect is to grant a few temporary hit points which becomes less important as they level up but the ritual is important. Kentor makes chili - typically out of whatever creature they have fought most recently. Spider chili was much discussed during the moathouse run. Braedon is not a great storyteller and constantly re-tells the story of how his brother was killed by a werewolf to quiet groans from the party. It was funny to see how quickly this became a thing for the group.

Sir Kentor catches up the party as we come into the clearing, and look upon the Temple. We look upon the complex, and the only thing standing besides the temple itself is a ruined tower. It is chained and barred from the outside, as if somebody is trying to keep something trapped within. Samson picks the locks on the chains and pull them off, and leaves it to Sir Kentor to slide off the bar and open the door as Jaeric casts light on his shield. Kentor draws Verminax, and throws the door open.

The tower in question is in the upper right corner

There were archers and crossbowmen waiting inside, who loosed their weapons immediately, filling both Sirs Kentor and Lantor with hits. Still, they are hardy warriors, and keep their feet. They charge inside, followed by the rest of the party. Malice provides magical support to them with a dripping with sarcasm “Watch out, there could be archers.” Samson is close on their heels, but the first of us to get a shot at the enemy is Sir Lantor with his forearm crossbow.

The ravens at the top of the tower croak out a warning to the bandits inside but they have no reason to join the fight as it develops. I think this: "An illusion at the Tower's top renders all creatures thereon to appear smaller." is a stupid thing to have at the top of a ruined tower and it punishes players for paying attention when you have what appear to be normal ravens suddenly turn into giant ravens. As a random encounter they are fine but as this weird magical ambush thing ... I am not running that in my game.

Braedon moves in, and shoots a piercing shot at what is apparently the leader of the the bandit gang. Malice fires a trio of scorching rays, mostly missing, but one does hit one of the enemies now in melee with the Paladin. The enemies continue to pour fire on, with only Sir Lantor taking a hit. Sir Kentor’s shield of faith keeps him well protected, and he follows it up with a slash from mighty Verminax against the leader of this troupe of n’er do wells, cleanly beheading him. More enemies charge Sir Lantor out of the darkness, but he is able to parry their blows. Jaric rushes to Sir Lantor’s side, but they are able block with their shields. Samson swings at another with has magical gauntlets, a blow powerful enough to kill. Shortly afterwards, Sir Lantor swings his greatword in a wide arc, hitting a pair of the assailants.

Breadon shoots and kills one of the enemy crossbowmen. Malice finally gets into the swirling melee, and leads with an arc of burning hands, killing a footman and wounding half on the enemies. An enemy crossbowman is able to hit Sir Lantor, but fail to find their mark on Sir Kentor, who a blink of eye later runs an enemy swordsman through with Verminax. In a clash of arms, the heroes get the upper hand, with Jaric killing an enemy swordsman. Samson once more jobs with his tiny but mighty fists, killing an unfortunate enemy. Sir Lantor’s foe manages to keep his blade in the way of the greatsword, but leaves himself open to Braedon’s shot. An arrow to the eye is a heck of a way to go.

Malice thrusts with her glaive, slaying the last of the enemies on her side of the battlefield, then moves to cover behind the table that the now dead enemy bowmen were taking behind. Sir Kentor closes with an archer, who attempts to flee – but it is futile. Verminax claims another life. But, that just means that the crossbow men take their shots at the Paladin, now the nearest of the Valiant swords to them. But he is not done, charging them, and wounding the same crossbowman who shot him.

One of the enemies has a heavy crossbow, but Sir Kentor is quick with his shield. A second with a heavy crossbow does manage to hit Jaric – not a bad hit, but Jaric dashes towards the enemies. On the other side of the room Samson mimics Jaric’s advance, and then Sir Lantor follows as well. Braedon moves out of cover, and takes a clean shot at one of the men with heavy crossbows, and in a rare moment misses. Malice fares no better, throwing a firebolt that slams into their makeshift mantlet.

The evil crossbowmen who’d been charged drop their ranged weapons and come out with axes. Only Jaric is hit, but he weathers the blow. Sir Kentor makes a quick tactical move, and with a spirit filled with justice, swings at one of the men with a heavy crossbow, but he keeps his distance and Verminax doesn’t connect. Then, he draws a morning star, but has no luck with it. Similarly, the other heavy crossbowman tries to hit Jaric, who then closes and connects with the Staff of Striking. With a blow that echos through the tower, he staggers the man, but surprisingly enough he is still standing. Samson makes a powerful uppertcut, killing a man with his gauntlets of power. And Sir Lantor gives a mighty yell as he thrusts at an enemy, but his powerful blow is parried.

Braedon is back on his groove, hitting his target, neatly killing his mark. Malace moves up one of the bandits and drives her glaive through his chest. The last of the crossbowmen takes a shot at Jaric, and once again the cleric is struck, and he continues to just keep powering through the blows. Sir Kentor gets a lucky blow in on the morning star wielding bandit, but he empowers it with a smite killing his foe. From off in the distance, a voice calls out to the few remaining bandits to fight on, and then we hear a door slamming shut, and the really perceptive of us can hear that the door is quickly locked. Jaric, tired of being shot, closes with the crossbowman and jabs him in the throat with the staff, dropping the foe. Samson takes just a few steps to the last of the still standing bandits, but he is able to stay clear of the halfling’s fists. But Sir Lantor closes as well, and that is all that is left of the enemies of the fight, the last one being split from crown to crotch.

As Jaric crosses the room to the door, he illuminates a second one with his glowing shield. A flight of stairs winds up the side as well. We search the room and see where there are torches that the enemies doused, and we relight them. It quickly becomes clear that the stairs don’t really go anywhere as the upper level is collapsed. The main tower room is well lived in, and there is plenty of food around. Jaric moves to patch up the knights, and then we press on. Samson checks the locked door, and finds that the lock is well built. At Malice’s suggestion, Samson turns his magical crystal into a prybar. The knights put their backs into it, and the door pops open.

Sir Kentor is the first into the room, and it looks like the room is obviously a leader’s – with the only comfortable bed in the tower. But, the leader himself is long gone. Obviously there is a secret way out of the room, and it is Kentor himself is the one that finds it. There is a loose flagstone in the floor, once covered by a rug that was hastily thrown aside. It lifts silently, revealing a bronze ring set into the floor. There is a three foot square passage leading down into the darkness.

We close the trap door, and drag the chest of drawers on top of it. And then we take to searching. We find a few valuables – a jeweled sword and fur lined finery. Checking the chest, and Samson disarms the poison needle that he was expecting, and then find that its full of coinage. It turns out the best way to carry it all is the chest its already stored in. The other room looks like a barracks, and it too has strong box. Malice checks over the dead, and finds keys on a few of the them, so the strong box is no trouble. It contains a potion of healing, coinage, a jeweled dagger, and four bolts of silk. Sir Kentor reveals that he is in a courtship, and wants to keep the silk. We talk about the treasure, and decide that returning to Hommlet is a better idea than to try going back to Nulb. Before we go into tunnel, Jaric performs a prayer of healing for himself and Sir Lantor, and both are ready to venture forth.

All the times I have run this adventure and no one has ever found the trapdoor in the tower! They didn't realize it, heck, I didn't realize it - this has a huge impact on how the exploration of the dungeon flows as we will see in future installments. 

40K Friday: 40K, One Page Rules, The Old World, and Kings of War

 

One of the downsides of playing a Games Workshop game long-term is that they drop models and units out of the game - often without any kind of immediate replacement. This can wear on one's soul. Between buying it, building it, painting it, and playing with it - possibly for years - many of us get attached to these tiny figures and it feels bad to see a kind of forced retirement of something like that.  Blaster has just about burned out on the game after being into it for years. He is really displeased with the current state and edition of 40K and the whole 3-year cycle of book-buying and the regular replacement of perfectly good models. I get it and I've been doing this long enough that a lot of that bothers me less but it has been piling up for me too this year as a big chunk of the classic Blood Angels army was culled in the latest Codex and it really took the wind out of my sails for a while.

As just one example back in 2nd edition when dreadnoughts were still metal the BA's got a special dread with a unique combination of weapons called the Furioso. This continued into 3rd. Then somewhere in 4th or 5th we got a brand new plastic kit that made 3 different dreadnought versions unique to the chapter:

This kit made the Furioso, the Death Company dread, and the Librarian dreadnought - all unique units. There was some weapon interchangeability with the Furioso and the DC dread but but you still had the options of dual fists, dual claws, or mixing in a frag cannon with one of those and then the librarian dread had his own special gear and look.

These were all great and the librarian dread was very unusual in being a vehicle that could lead your army since it was a character. 

If you can't tell I love this kit and have built it multiple times. In fact I still have a couple that need to be built which didn't help my feelings on this.

Well, fast forward to the 10th edition Blood Angels release and these options are now gone from the codex. The librarian dread is no more. We do still have the standard space marine 'dex options for the Redemptor, Brutalis, and Balistus - fine. The Furioso is gone - if you paint your Brutalis red it looks the part at least but no special rules or equipment apply anymore. The Death Company dreadnought is still a separate datasheet at least but it's not all that different from the regular Brutalis and neither one has a frag cannon option so that's gone too. For this particular edition we do have the index rules for these things and so we can still make it work but it's debatable if and what kind of Legends rules these will have for the next edition and going forward. So it's going to be swimming upstream to use any of these models in 11th.

Dealing with this for years means you expect it here and there but when it hits a big chunk of a favorite army it hits harder. You might start looking for a refuge from the constant grind. I dug back into One Page Rules looking for relief. It's there, to a degree. Grimdark Future (the 40k type module) has rules for many obsolete 40K units that are perfectly valid and they even divided "Battle Brothers" (firstborn marines) from "Prime Brothers" (primaris marines) and then each of those has subdivsions into the various specialist chapters like "Blood Brothers", "Wolf Brothers", "Dark Brothers" etc. Under the Blood Brothers list there are options for all of these dreadnoughts including the psyker option. So there are ways to keep them on the table within a modern set of rules. This is honestly pretty gratifying to see.

The other option of course is to just play an old version of the game. I have kept all of my old rules and codexes from each edition so I have the full range of options. I do like this idea but I can also tell you "edition bleed" is real so trying to play an old version at times and the current version at other times ... it's more challenging than you think as rules from various editions collide in your head. There is defintely some nostalgia at play here too and if I can get one of the crew to try it I will make the attempt but I suspect using a different set of rules - like OPR - is probably smarter in the long run.

The only downside to OPR is that they change up the rules and the army lists once per year. They did make the promise that it will only be once per year - unlike GW's quarterly (or more) rules updates - but it still does change once per year, which can cause some upset when your army gets nerfed. I still think it's easier to live with than GW's current approach. 

A similar thing happened with fantasy. When GW killed off classic Warhammer Fantasy after 8th edition and replaced it with Age of Sigmar we were left with a completely different setting, the outright elimination of many armies and dramatic changes to others, and a completely different approach to the rules. If you had been playing Warhammer for 20 or 30 years when it happened there just was not much left that looked very familiar. Along comes Kings of War and, well, look at this - square bases, large blocks of units, similar maneuvering, and a lot of very familiar-looking armies. It was an incredibly welcoming refuge for orphaned Warhammer players. It was also willing to make some interesting changes such as eliminating individual model removal and cutting way back on magic items and spells. It was a little less flavorful in some ways but it worked really well and felt like your units were doing the bulk of the work, not your tooled-up level 4 wizard with Von Carsten's Ring riding on a dragon. Hey, nobody said Warhammer didn't have a few problems - but this was a well-done approach that respected what had come before. 

The only negative thing I will say is that over the course of 3rd edition and now going into 4th edition (coming in December) is that Mantic is really looking to promote their own setting and put it out in front rather than being a simple shelter for old Warhammer players. If I'm being honest I don't care at all about their World of Pannithor - not the background, not the armies unique to it, and not the fiction they are publishing. I get it, they are trying to build their own thing and I certainly understand that from the company's point of view, but there is no lack of settings in the fantasy genre and for miniatures I am anchored pretty deeply into the Old World of Warhammer.

Now when a beloved game goes out of print there are usually some fan driven options as well  - like OPR -  and they can be really good. Heck I played some NetEpic 25+ years ago when GW dropped support for Space Marine/Titan Legions and it is still around today! Warhammer had Ninth Age and Warhammer Renaissance seems to have some fans but GW eventually did the unthinkable and brought it back!

They even added a new army this year - Cathay!

Warhammer: The Old World is a truly unexpected gem. They brought back the old setting (pretty much), the old armies (pretty much), and even the old miniatures line (pretty much). The rules are new and are a really nice mix of things from old editions with some new ideas mixed in and I think most people were genuinely shocked to see this kind of product line coming from this company. It was a real effort to bring something back to life, not a token Specialist Games one-off book. It's just amazing and it absolutely kneecapped my interest in Age of Sigmar and even some of my feelings for Kings of War. 

I have a few armies for Sigmar that I will keep for Sigmar, either because they are unique to that game or because I am not going to rebase yet another army. These are my Stormcast Eternals, my Fyreslayers, my Seraphon on team law, then my Chaos Warriors and all of my chaos daemons for team chaos. The rest, including Undead, Beastmen, and some of the Chaos Warrior stuff are being retasked for Old World and I am pretty happy about going square-based with these. 

Who thought we would see these guys hitting tables again as part of a new army?!

So yes, as the years and the editions roll by it is possible to find refuge from much of the chaos. I'm still going to play 40K, but I'm also going to play some OPR. I will pay some attention to Age of Sigmar and Kings of War but I am heavily leaning in to Old World, and I am happy to have the options - some really good options.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 13 - Destination Nulb

 

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

Everyone is level 3/4-ish at this point. Xyzzifax and Sir Kentor are out this week.

After some discussion, the Valiant Swords decide to return to Hommlet, and see about bringing the Glass jar with a cat floating in it, the smoked glass bottle, and the ring to Burne, to see if he is able to determine what might be going on with them. He charges us 100 gold, and will take a look at them. The magical ring is, in his words, worthless, it is just a ring with magical aura cast on it. The jar with the cat, well, its just a cat that was preserving it for who knows how long. The cat isn’t itself magical. Finally, the smoked glass bottle is filled with sleeping gas. If we use it as a weapon, make sure we’re far enough away from it. After a bit deliberation, we decide that Xyzzifax should end up with the sleeping gas. For now, Braeden is carrying it.

Here my players learn that there is Old Magic in the world sometimes - in this case Nystul's Magic Aura. Watching them try to figure out the ring was entertaining while it lasted. They also decided that with most of the group back they didn't need to waste time with a side quest. We had an almost two month gap between last session and this one and that played a part too - it was time to get back to the main event!

From there, we decide to travel to Nulb the next day, and see what we are able to learn – is there information that we might be able to learn about the Temple? We take the Low Road, and we’re not attacked by bandits – and being on the road it means that we don’t run into much in the way of monsters.

Nulb is on a river, and as we approach we can see that it is filthy and ramshackle, but fairly active despite the destruction of the Temple years ago. The majority of the inhabitants are boatmen, herders, or farmers – and it looks like it has long been ignored by the people of importance in Greyhawk. There appears to be some river trade that happens as well. The one inn in the town is the Waterside Hostel, one of the few two story buildings in the township.

We wander the village, getting the lay of the land. The village does have a blacksmith and stable, an herbalist, an open market, the boatman’s tavern, a curio shop, a chiurgeon, a taxidermist. And near one of the roads out of town there is a large barn that is also a butcher. What there is not is a real temple. The people here all seem to dislike each other. And, we get the idea that coming back to this township laden with treasure ... we may well get jumped.

The curio shop has a mismatched appearance, crammed with all manner of items and junk. Some look new, but most are old and in some cases even rusty. The proprieter is a thin man with violet eyes. Going through everything would take a very long time indeed. Jaric finds a small table with ancient dialect of dwarvish, and though he’s having trouble translating. It give directions to what seems to a lost mine. Samson finds a thick tome with a locked metal clasp, keeping it shut. Lantor finds a gnarled walking stick with a crystal set into the top. Braedon finds a trio of throwing daggers in a leather case. And there is a sale! It looks like just about everything is for sale for a hundred gold. Samson comes to take a look at the table that Jaric found, and is able to translate the test, a hidden mine on the Wild Coast. All Malice finds is an interesting rock.

From the curio shop, we then go to look at the herbalist’s shop. Malice is interested not only in what is available, but also word of what is going on in the forest. A venerable bent woman is the herbalist, along with a younger (or slightly less old) woman who is her assistant. Malice asks about the concoctions that they’ve mixed. She also asks about who gathers the herbs, and it is locals that collect the herbs for them. Braedon is given a list of herbs that they’re most interested in, should he run across them in the woods. Asking about trouble in the woods, sometimes there’s bandits, sometimes there’s orcs, sometimes it is just the dangers of the forest. The older woman behind the corner notes Jaric’s holy symbol. The old lady gives him a creepy jar of liquid to take with him if he is going out to (whispered) “the Temple”. Jaric tastes the liquid at her prodding. It’s a healing ointment, poison cure, and disease curative. If we get into trouble, they have more.

Next up is checking the blacksmith. It is one of the rare stone buildings in Nulb. The smith is a powerful man named Otis, and has a unattractive apprentice. Attached are a set of stables, worked by a dull young man. The smith doesn’t keep a deep stock, but instead makes items as they’re ordered. Jaric is able to tell the quality is good – he clearly knows what he is doing. Talking with Otis, he does a fair amount of work for people passing through as well as the villagers. Lantor can tell that he’s a retired mercenary, and Braedon can tell that he’s spent much of his life outdoors.

Finally, we return to the hostel, where we can see about getting a few rooms, and picking up rumors. There is a innkeep, a bartender, and four other employees. The prices are roughly half of what is charged at the inn in Hommlet, and the quality is similarly lower. Malice plays darts and plies the locals with libations, and picks up that the Temple of Elemental Evil has a potion repository that would be the envy of any alchemist.

Braedon hits it off even better with the locals at the dart game, and hears over the course of the eveing that the Temple Dungeon’s upper levels have sub temples with different factions. The true source of the power, though, is a wicket demoness and her followers. Sir Lantor tries his luck at arm wrestling, and is undefeated throughout the evening. One of the losers boasts that the Temple is haunted by the remains of clerics that are unusually powerful wights. And, hidden somewhere in the temple are gateways to quasi planes connected to the elemental planes.

Samson is at the bar, sharing what he knows about the history of the area, and in return learns that there’s a group of dangerous brigands in the temple ruins, and he also hears that within the depths of the temple, cultists worship an elemental god made of fire, earth, water, and air. Jaric patches up people who didn’t fare so well in the arm wrestling. While doing so, he hears that a basilisk lairs in the temple ruins, and somewhere in the upper levels is an augury chamber that lets a person see the future id they sacrifice precious gems. By the end of the evening, the hostel’s grown to have more than twenty locals here in addition to all of us. We get one of the larger rooms, and even so, one of us keeps watch at all times throughout the night.

The next day, we head to the temple. It’s an hour walk from Nulb at a leisurely pace, or an hour and a half if we take it slow and stealthy. We choose the latter. As we’re sneaking towards the temple, midway through the journey we hear the sound of scraping on bark, and Sir Lantor takes point to investigate. As he comes to a small clearing caused by a fallen tree, he sees a pair of bird-like creature pecking at a it. The bird things turn and begin hissing at him.

Braedon moves up, and takes his shot. A single arrow is not enough to fell one of the things, though. Samson sneaks through the underbrush, closing distance. Sir Lantor charges and slashes it deeply, bloodying it. The bird-like creature lets out a startling call, but the warrior keeps his footing. Then it hits him with its serrated beak. The other one more hops than flies over to Sir Lantor as well, who is able to keep it just far enough away with the swipe of his blade. Jaric callas a prayer of guidance, but we’re not able to really see the result from it. Malice darts out of stealth, and begins calling out to her team to move up, and gives words of encouragement to Sir Lantor.

Braedon looses another arrow, hitting the more wounded of the two cockatrices, killing it. Samson fires a crossbow at the other, cleanly putting a bolt into it. Lantor follows it up with a mighty swing, bloodying the creature. But, it strikes back, snapping at him, and Lantor doesn’t let it close enough to connect. Jaric calls forth a holy flame, and the creature is killed!

After the fight, Samson searches the felled tree that they were picking at. It looks like they were just after grubs. Jaric goes and tends Sir Lantor’s wounds, and then we continue on our way to The Temple.

Lots of social exploration in this one, not as much combat. Looking for magical trinkets, making some potential contacts, and trying to figure out who are temple spies still makes for a fun evening. Next session we get to the temple itself ...