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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 19, 2022 9:58:44 GMT -5
Last Saturday we resumed the AD&D Campaign. It was the day after getting back from Las Vegas (for work, not another vacation) and I was exhausted but forced myself to run the game. I'm glad I did as we all had fun. The short synopsis is that early in Goodmonth, CY 575 the party was joined by Brakazar (Brian) outside the walls of the town of Gorna, and in exchange for identifying magic items the party went up into the mountains to retrieve spell components for the Green Wizard. They killed some giant bats and shriekers. I'll write more details later.
Side note: I had a Dwarven Forge cavern set ready to go, and we had miniatures on the table, but I ran the whole game "theater of the mind" style when I realized we were pressed for time, and it worked out fine.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 23, 2022 10:05:28 GMT -5
On the last Game Night Cindy was out of town in Atlantic City visiting a friend, but Brian was able to play. The party was:
- Aeray, 3rd level paladin of St Cuthbert (Randy)
- Dain, 4th level cleric of Pelor (Eric)
- Krak, 4th level mountain dwarf (Mark)
- Balul, 5th level mountain dwarf thief (Ray)
- Brakazar, 1st level half-orc fighter (Brian)
Goodmonth 5, 575 CY: After returning from their adventure in the barrow, the party continues to camp outside the town walls of Gorna. They are not alone as in the midsummer trading season many merchant caravans and other travelers also camp just outside the town. Dain continues his self-appointed mission to feed the poor, and buys 200 dinners and beers to give away... People show up, of course, and as they do Dain delivers a sermon that ends by attempting some pithy saying about Pholtus ("Fool me once shame on you, but Pholtus twice shame on me!" or something like that). I rolled for reactions and it went over the crowd's head, but they did enjoy the free food! We called this "Pelorfest!" During this, Brakazar wandered up to check out the free food and talk to the party. As it turned out, they knew him when he was quite young so they had a nice reunion! [Side Note: I have a house rule that starting characters already know each other to avoid any in-game trust issues, and also it was a real life reunion since Brian hasn't been playing in our group for about a year]. Later, the Green Wizard, Ganter Gall, showed up to observe Pelorfest from the rear of the crowd. Dain had paid beggars earlier to let them know if they spotted the Green Wizard, as he wanted to see if he could cast spells for the party and/or recharge magic items. The Green Wizard was very interested in the party's past adventures, especially their exploration of the old magicians' school in the Oytwood named Toadwarts. They spoke to the Green Wizard late into the night after Pelorfest was over, around the campfire, and he told them his fees to cast identify (1000 gp per casting) and recharging the staff of striking (7500 gp for all 25 charges restored). Dain thought those fees were absurd ("Do you know how many people you could feed with that amount of money!") and refused to pay. Master Gall proposed to negotiate... He considered the information they provided him of their past adventures to be of value, including them drawing him a map to Toadwarts. Also, if the party would do a task for him, he could consider lowering his fees. "What task?" They asked suspiciously. He told them he needed material components for magic which they could recover from the Cavern of the Bats -- guano and fur of giant bats, along with essence of moving mushrooms and rock crystals. The site was located up in the hills above Gorna, near where they join the Crystalmist Mountains -- a two day journey. They agreed to do this task and Master Gall agreed to identify their magic items (500 gp per casting).
[More to come later...]
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Post by grodog on Oct 23, 2022 11:11:35 GMT -5
They spoke to the Green Wizard late into the night after Pelorfest was over, around the campfire, and he told them his fees to cast identify (1000 gp per casting) and recharging the staff of striking (7500 gp for all 25 charges restored). Visrtrion, my Wizard of the Striped Tower in the City of Greyhawk, has a higher-level version of Identify (which is already a 2nd level spell IMCs), and he charges 300gp per casting (which is a rate set by the Guild of Wizardry that he must conform to). He (and his apprentices) also identifies potions at 75gp, and decants potions with multiple doses at 50gp per dose. The PCs just recovered a wand of magic missiles, so I need to think about casting costs to recharge it (none of the PC MUs have learned MM yet). Allan. |
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 23, 2022 12:44:50 GMT -5
I thought of the Wizard of the Striped Tower (Klinchak in EGG's game?) when I came up with the Green Wizard NPC. I remembered EGG's tales about how PC's had to bribe an underling first just to get an audience with Klinchak! And the he charged high monetary costs and/or magic items for his spell casting services! I was thinking of that when coming up with an NPC who is not evil but neutral and businesslike -- his purpose is to get players to spend some of their wealth. Why give the players everything for free? Or even cheaply? I set the cost of recharging a staff of striking at half the gp value of the staff reasoning that it should be cheaper to recharge it than create or buy a new staff.
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Post by Scott on Oct 26, 2022 22:05:29 GMT -5
Do you have a long term plot in mind, or a reoccurring/main antagonist that you plan on introducing to the campaign?
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 27, 2022 10:37:37 GMT -5
The first long term plot hook I threw out was avoided... Which is fine, since I'm all about player agency. My attitude is that it's their campaign, not mine. Later, I introduced an annoying magic-user named Ubbel the Hoad who may become a recurring NPC (they stole his spell book, put it in a barrel, and sent it down the Realstream River)! He is like a semi-incompetent enemy or comic relief rival. I had vague plans to use witches and hags as big baddies in the future. The party already saw a night hag riding overhead on a nightmare during a storm, once. I may use the Judges Guild module "Witches Court Marshes" with Mordridda in a role similar to Iggwilv for this region.
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 7, 2022 8:35:15 GMT -5
When the Green Wizard told the party to recover essence of moving mushrooms for him, the players kind of freaked out. They were using metagame knowledge and assumed this meant myconids. They were horrified at the prospect of harvesting innocent, neutral, sentient mushroom people for spell components! They asked the Green Wizard if the mushrooms were sentient, and he shrugged and said "I don't know... I've never tried to talk to them." I let the players assume away! It turned out the moving mushrooms were shriekers. I had noticed they have a movement rate of 1" and so they actually are moving mushrooms!
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Post by Scott on Nov 7, 2022 11:45:38 GMT -5
I love those incorrect player assumptions the party runs with. I always think of Rob's HB = Hyrda Barracks story when I hear something like this.
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Post by grodog on Nov 8, 2022 0:31:11 GMT -5
I love those incorrect player assumptions the party runs with. I always think of Rob's HB = Hyrda Barracks story when I hear something like this. I don't recall that one, Scott? Allan. |
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Post by Scott on Nov 8, 2022 8:30:09 GMT -5
It was an up on a Soapbox article. Yrag was looking for a Horn of Blasting. While exploring the dungeon he fought a hydra. Shortly after that he found an HB. I don't remember if it was magical writing, or runes, etc, but he assumed it meant Hydra Barracks, or something to do with Hydras, so he didn't go that way. It was, of course, a marker Rob included that meant Horn of Blasting.
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 8, 2022 12:29:22 GMT -5
Goodmonth 6: Early in the day, the party set out from their camp outside the walls of Gorna, and rode their mounts up past Grandcourt and into the Stark Mounds on the road that led up to the mountain baronies. They rode all day, going higher and higher into the hills, and finally made camp by the side of the road. Right at dusk, a group of men holding torches approached singing a hymn: “O Blinding Light, O Light that Blinds, I cannot see, look out for me!” It seems they were pilgrims from the mountain baronies and a bit overzealous for Pholtus but peaceful. After exchanging greetings with the party, they passed by heading down towards Gorna.
Goodmonth 7: The party woke to dark clouds and then some freakish weather as sleet and hail came down upon them in the middle of the day. This slowed their progress. At the end of the day, they came to a dead Yarpick tree that the Green Wizard told them marked the point where they should take a side track to the right (west). They decided to make camp near the dead Yarpick tree. They did not have encounters, but did see giant cave bear tracks...
Goodmonth 8: The party broke camp and rode west along the overgrown track and came to the stony cliff which had the cave entrance. Entering cautiously, they found a natural cave with uneven floor that descended into a valley that had an opening above, and then turned and descended into another much larger cavern. Here they could see stalactites and stalagmites and many mushrooms near the center of the cavern floor. Directly above them and hanging from the stalactites were three giant bats. The party shined their bullseye lantern at the bats, and then began shooting missile weapons at them. The bats immediately woke up and took flight, and screeched in such a way that it temporarily incapacitated two of the party members. The giant bats -- they were mobats -- attacked and bit and clamped on when they scored a hit -- one knocked over Balul the dwarf and was on top of him! All of this commotion got the mushrooms to begin shrieking. It was chaos in the cavern with the shrieking of mobats and mushrooms echoing everywhere! The mobats were tough opponents but eventually the party was able to kill them all with their weapons. They skinned the giant bats to take their fur, and saw that the cavern floor was covered in bat guano around where the shriekers were. Krak and Brakazar made their way down there to try to strike at the shriekers, who tried to get away on stubby little leg-like appendages! The characters had to make dex checks to avoid slipping on the bat guano... They succeeded, but it was a funny image of these brawny fighters chasing mushrooms around while trying not to slip. Balul noticed the far wall had rock crystals in it, and he climbed up to collect some... Up near where the mobats had been hanging was a natrual ledge where he also saw some shiny objects: a silver arm ring, a silver necklace with gems, and a silver shield. Recovering the treasure along with the materials the Green Wizard sent them to get, the party made their way out of the cave and back as far as the dead Yarpick tree, where they again camped for the night.
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 9, 2022 15:06:22 GMT -5
Goodmonth 9: The party woke up to some more odd weather and a fog that was so dense it kept them from travelling. They had to wait for the fog to lift and lost about a half day of travel, and once again camped along the side of the mountain road.
Goodmonth 10: Early in the morning before dawn, while Krak was on watch, he had an encounter. First one head peeked over a rock, then another, then another. Each head looked like a little old man with a nut brown skin, long white beard, twinkling blue eyes and a peaked cap. "Hullo cousins!" Krak said, recognizing them as gnomes. "Greetings, kinsdwarf!" one of the gnomes said, eyeing the other sleeping members of the party dubiously. They exchanged some pleasantries and basic information, and then each head went back down behind the rocks... The rest of the party woke up and broke camp and had an uneventful day of travel. At sunset, they arrived at the valley of Gorna and, tired from the adventure, returned to their camp outside the town walls.
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