Good morning. It has been over a month since I last sent out a letter, and, while I’m not exactly beholden to doing so, I feel compelled to put something out saying what’s up. This is that something. It’s not that complicated, really. Summer is a time of year that’s generally pretty busy for my family. Our schedule basically gets inverted, so that when my motivation to write something is at its peak, I’m busy doing other things. When there’s free time to write, I’m in the mood to do other things, like making dungeons and doing other developments for the campaign I run. I overestimated the amount of time I’d have to devote to everything I have going on. Normally, I’d say “be back after summer break”, but there’s another factor to consider, which is the coming of my second son in August. It’ll be tough to try to keep this up while also spending time with my family during that time. It’s no contest, this little blog loses to that all day. I do have some letters partly written, so there may be a rare time I can finish one, but that’s a bridge I’ll cross if it comes. I just figured I would say something about the current situation I’m looking at. I don’t exactly have a billion followers or whatever, but the few dozen that have subscribed, even though it’s free, you kind of expect something when you do that, right? There’ll be a time I return, I expect before the end of the year, but I can’t put a date on when that’ll be. I’ve never had two kids before, so who knows what kind of a time I’ll have. Anyway, thank you for reading this, doubly so if you understand, and triply so if you remain subscribed haha! In the meantime, though I may not post letters, you may still find me now and then on the Basic Fantasy forums and a few OSR/tabletop groups on MeWe. I’ll see you all around. God bless you, and pray for my wife as we approach her due date.
Good morning everyone. It feels nice writing something that isn’t a play report. This week, I am going to start a series of letters going through The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg by Greg Svenson et al. The book is divided into eight parts: history, general DM advice, the dungeons of Tonisborg, game rules, treasure, monsters, spells, and appendices. For the sake of this series, history and advice will be together, the dungeon will be on its own, and the rest, which will be under the umbrella “ZED”, will be together. The parts are presented in the order just given, but I will be working in reverse order. The latter parts of the book are the outlines under the paint put on by the former. In other words, reading the book as presented raises questions which are answered as the reading continues. The layers are removed one by one until you finally get to the rules, and everything else clicks into place at that moment. I would guess it was done like that intentionally, but I would rather point at past letters when giving examples than point to an unreleased future one. It works for reading the book, but not so much for how I want to talk about it.
This week, then, I am reviewing ZED: Tonisborg Edition (ZED meaning Zero Edition Dungeoneering), the dungeoncrawling system included in the book The Lost Dungeons of Tonsiborg, as impressed on me merely by reading through the rules. A full review requires actually playing the system and applying its methods, so this review should be taken with the grain of salt being that I have not personally tested its mettle at the table. This version of ZED is only available in the Tonisborg dungeon book as of the writing of this review, but perhaps, once the last of Kickstarter rewards are delivered in full, a POD option will be released for general purchase. This review will correspond closely with the order of information as it is presented in the book, going section-by-section.
Introduction (and Pre-Intro)
The book gives a general statement about the rules merely being guidelines, and that one should frankenstein it apart and back together as desired to make a fun game experience. There is also a clarification that the rules are a revision to only the dungeoncrawling rules in a previously-released and currently-unavailable product called Champions of ZED by Dan Boggs. Rules for the wilderness are stated to be included in some future product, an Egg of Coot campaign book according to Boggs (Source). The Introduction begins properly with describing ZED as a “fantasy adventure role-playing game” in a time when law and chaos are in a continuous clash for power. It distinguishes itself from other simulacrum games by its intention not to take a snapshot of any game system from a specific point in time, instead focusing on presenting mechanics that reinforce concepts and ideas for its genre that were actually practiced by the original creators before any games systems were published until the conclusion of (many of) their lives. The primary influences are Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, but, as anyone who plays original or retroclone systems is surely aware of, there are ideas from many others that made their way into the rules. Additionally, editorial freedom was maintained in choosing to ignore revisions to some rules from the original minds as well as revising others. What this meant to me as I read it was that Arneson and Gygax would probably not recognize the rules as-written, but, if they watched the action play out, it would be very familiar to them.
Dice, You, and Your Character
Dice
The dice are described in terms that everyone who is already involved in tabletop gaming would understand. One thing to note is that that rules sometimes reference ranges of numbers (i.e. 2-5) rather than always calling them by their dice notation (1d4+1). This explanation is followed by a prompt for the player to consider what role they would like to play in their referee’s world.
Races
ZED has four included playable races: halfling, elf, dwarf, and human. Only the human may be of any class, and the elf is the only non-human who may be a magic-user. Further, all non-humans are prevented from becoming clerics and are limited in the highest level they can achieve in their available classes. This is offset by powerful abilities such as seeing in the dark, boosted saving throw values, various immunities, and special other senses. Players of the original edition of D&D will find familiarity in that elves may gain experience as either a fighter or magic-user, making the decision at the beginning of an adventure, while having access to the abilities of either (with restrictions). There are also some guidelines for playing races not mentioned, including playing monsters using a race-as-class convention.
Classes
Following the races are the classes, as well as an explanation about the name of the classes not being descriptive of exactly how a character should be. A fighter is not pigeon-holed into being a knight in plate armor, rather the class confers certain capabilities that a character can utilize in their own way. The background of a character is given a mention to point out that such a detail may describe some capability of a character that is not covered by the rules. Many games also do this, including AD&D 1E, where the player characters are assumed to have some skills besides those directly related to adventuring. The mechanical application, of course, is left to the Dungeon Master to decide. ZED: Tonisborg gives more ideas for the DM and player to allow characters to become specialized as a campaign progresses, such as creating subclasses and allowing background or secondary skills to develop and improve. Lastly, there is some advice given for DMs who are soured by level caps and ways to work around it. The classes themselves are normal fare, being the fighter, cleric, and magic-user. The cleric stands out to me from other games I have played, since clerics can cast any spell they know and do not have to prepare the spell. The caveat is that, unlike the clerics I know, the ZED cleric does not automatically gain access to new spells. They are similar to magic-users and must learn the spell from a book or scroll to be able to cast it in the future. There are also financial duties that a cleric owes the church, and severe penalties are given for clerics that hoard wealth. The cleric is also where we see a special restriction on experience awards for treasure; experience from treasure is only gained by a cleric if donated or used for religious purposes. The magic-user also has its own quirks. For starters, the amount of time necessary to prepare spells is vague but also apparently very short. Only a few moments to read the scroll or book containing a spell is required to have it available to cast. These few moments must be undisturbed, however, otherwise a magic-user cannot concentrate on the task. There is also an interesting effect that iron has on magic. Rather, the effect is simple, which is a chance for spell casting failure depending on the amount of iron, but the fact that the rule is there is interesting to me. Before you run off and buy a set of bronze armor for your magic-user, though, there is a secondary property associated with spellcasting, which is that the body of a casting magic-user becomes irradiated with energy. Wearing armor of any kind, or even just having very tight-fitting garments, will reflect this energy back into the caster and fry him like an egg. These restrictions and effects are only applicable to the mystical, arcane means of accessing magic. The cleric is safe on this one. Near the end of the magic-user class description, special elven armor is mentioned that can be worn without interfering with the flow of magic, providing an early goal for these characters.
Character Traits and Their Effects
ZED Tonisborg uses the same six ability scores common in D&D and simulacrum games with similar benefits for high and low scores in each. The stat-generation method is unique and can be done with either a pair of d6s or of d10s and generally creates above-average characters. Of course, any standard method may be used instead without issue. The only real issue I have is that the d10 method could potentially generate a stat with a score of 2, yet the ability tables only range from 3 to 18. It’s a small issue anyway, and I’m sure most DMs would give the extra point for free or decide on the spot what the penalty should be. Each character class does gain a benefit specific to each with a high score in their respective prime requisite, and especially intelligence and constitution are useful for every character by granting extra languages and shortened recovery times, respectively, with high scores. I appreciate the description for strength, where the authors say exactly how much weight each point in the ability allows the character to carry, and encumbrance values are given in both coins and pounds but only for this table. The table that immediately follows, “Standard Item Weights”, lists each item in pounds only. It’s a small, minuscule even, peeve, but there definitely would have been room on the table for it. A suggested method for tracking encumbrance on the character sheet follows that, which basically is just a matter of using the weights from the standard weight list and only keeping closer calculations of your character’s remaining encumbrance as you collect items from the adventure.
Saving Throws
After the ability scores are the saving throws. The book explains what saves are and the situations they normally are referenced and rolled, but it also gives them different titles than other games do, at least on the character sheet. There are six saves, and they are called Type I, Type II, Type III, etc. up to Type VI. This is all you find printed on the character sheet, although the book explains what they actually represent. Type I is for life and death situations, II is for poison, III for tests of will, IV for gaze and aura effects (I might call them exposure effects or something like that), V for how quick your reflexes are, and VI for magic in all forms. Although the value of saving throws are related to character level, they do not follow a fully-detailed matrix for each class. Instead, the values are generated by rolling dice, and they are improved as your character gains levels. Unlike D&D, you want your saving throw values in ZED to be high. I also find it interesting the way the phrase “saving throw” is used. It seems to me that a “saving throw” simply means rolling dice to determine an outcome. Consider the following sentence at the end of the “Making Saving Throws” section:
Most Saving Throws will involve either the six Character Traits or the six Saving Throw types…
It then mentions saving throws for when a character falls, as well as saving throws for items, but the phrase is also used in instances I would not have expected it to be used, like when referring to making a morale check.
Experience and Leveling Up
Next we arrive at the section detailing experience and gaining levels. There are four tiers of play, which contain a different range of levels for each class. Each tier confers benefits which apply to all characters of every class and are given in addition to any benefits gained by leveling in their classes. A promotion in tier always adds a fixed amount to saving throws, but there are also benefits that are meant to emulate social progression and what I call “adventure sense”. For example, reaching the third tier of “Superhero” gives characters an imprecise sense for invisible creatures automatically and instantly, like spidey senses. These powers may trivialize some portions of the game, but they occur after those portions become a meaningful or novel obstacle, in my opinion. They are also very easy to adjust. I would probably limit the spidey sense ability to a distance of 1” (yes, ZED measures distance in inches) and with a blind spot directly behind characters, but I would at least try it as-is before doing so. After each tier is described, there is a section with guidelines for granting creatures, monsters, classes for individuals of high exception, such as “the great prince of orcs” as the book suggests. Following that are the two tables for cleric and magic-user spellcasting ability for each level 1 to 20. Curiously, by the time 20th level is reached, a cleric actually has one more spell than an equivalent level magic-user, although a magic-user has access to an additional spell level that a cleric does not. As is the norm in these games, the ability to cast more spells does not automatically grant any additional spells to cast. The book does say at this moment that a cleric may obtain new spells automatically, but I would personally lean toward the acquisition method from the class description, that new spells must be taught by another religious figure or learned from some other source. Besides that, the spell lists contain nothing revolutionary, which is a good thing to me, because that means there is plenty of room for players to brew up their own spells through research.
After the information for spellcasting characters, we come to experience points, including how to award them and how many each class needs to advance at each level. The first source of experience is from “winning prizes”, or finding magic items. There is a concise table which explains how much XP to award for each type of magical item, although some listings simply have ranges, leaving it up to the DM to decide where within that range a specific item should belong. The book notes that XP awarded from a prize is only earned once, and that selling the prize later will net no experience whatsoever. That’s important, because acquiring loot is part of the second method for gaining experience points, which comes at a rate not exceeding 1 XP per 10 GP recovered. It is not merely granted either, as that gold piece value must be spent on class related activities. The example given in the rules is a character who recovers 500 gold pieces. The character can spend 50 of it to gain 50 XP; spending more will not net any further XP, but, of course, there may be in-game benefits for doing so, as determined by the DM. It is also suggested that players may simply deduct 10% of their treasure and convert it into XP if deciding how to actually spend it is not fun. The final means of gaining experience is by killing monsters. Characters gain XP equal to the hit points of the slain monster, nice and simple. There’s a special section about magic-users gaining XP by casting a new spell for the first time, as well as calculating XP for hirelings and the impact that prime requisites have on XP required to advance in level. Yes, ZED does not grant an adjustment to the actual XP values earned, instead the amount needed to reach the next level is reduced (or increased) based on the score of your character’s primary attribute.
I would personally aim to adjust the sources of XP to match closer to things I want the party to be doing in the campaign world. I would keep the prizes as-is, but I would change how loot grants XP as it relates to clerics in particular. First, Clerics would have to donate 10% of their treasure right off the bat. They would not get XP from that, since it would be part of their duty, and their reward for being dutiful is that they can continue to be a cleric. Clerics would then have their possible XP calculated based on what’s left after their tithe, which they can either donate on top of their tithe or spend while performing acts of selflessness, such as clothing the naked and feeding the hungry. I would also add more onto how XP is awarded from monsters. Rather than simply say “dead or nothing”, I would look at it as whether the monster was dealt with in a permanent way or not. For example, wild dogs may be either tamed or killed and grant the same amount of XP, according to my way. It mostly only affects beings of animal intelligence, but it is also possible to overcome certain humanoids (e.g. the playable races at minimum) without killing them, because, surely, if the PCs may alter their alignment, then NPCs may as well. Of course, there may be consequences divine and diabolic as a result, but the same goes for players anyway. Ultimately, what’s considered permanent would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Even “killing” some monsters doesn’t truly kill them, or at least I run some monsters that way, so monster XP requires a broader set of terms to be awarded.
Level Loss and “Life”
ZED encourages the referee to deal out consequences for tragedies that affect the paramount devotions of each class. Destruction of towers, temples, and fortresses, for example, are massive losses for player characters. Equally as lamentable are the characters’ divergence from their chosen alignment or class-related duties. In these and other cases as determined by the referee, a loss of 1 to 4 levels of experience should occur, but only after being warned of its looming presence. I think that the system sounds harsh on paper, but, when it comes to actually applying it, I think most DMs would use common sense. I would not, for example, simply have a player character’s fortress besieged while the party is on an adventure and have levels be lost for it, at least not without warning. If a player is aware of an invading force and chooses to go dungeoneering anyway, I would explain at that point that, if the fortress falls, levels would be lost. Then, a choice would have to be made by the player.
Losing levels has its own negative effects, and there are monsters that can cause a loss of levels, but there is also a “life” currency separate from hit points that characters have. It does not have its own space on the character sheet, at least not a space labeled “Life Points”, because it is already on the character sheet as the Type I saving throw value. The authors leave it up to the DM to decide whether “life drain” has the same effect as the level drain mentioned previously, but losing “life” makes the character reduce the value of their Type I save value. I would definitely run it that way, at least to try and see how it works out at the table. It also opens the door to monsters and effects that can reduce the value of other saves. Perhaps a rust monster would reduce the Type III or V save as it imparts an arthritic effect on characters, the snakes on the head of a medusa reduce Type IV saves, and so on. I will probably carry that concept forth into my weekly Basic Fantasy game and see how it plays out.
End Part I
I intended to include all sections relating to ZED in this letter, but I think splitting it up a bit further will make it easier to take in, as well as allow me to give each subsection greater attention. The next letter on this topic will address the economy of ZED, equipment, exploration rules, and maybe combat. I may give combat its own letter, especially if the other sections come out rather lengthy. Thank you for reading, and stay blessed.
Are you a new reader of the Asheraven Play Report? Consider reading from the beginning with part 0.
Good morning readers. Last week’s report left off with Gandolfo giving commands to his circus performers that clearly were for nothing good, although they were given vaguely. The party overheard this while hiding around the back of his trailer, waiting and listening in the pouring rain. Before that, the party performed their siege and invasion into the fortress of the slavers on the island in the river, making sure that the slavers would think twice before resuming their operations; the masterminds behind the group of bandits were left alive, although the procurers were eliminated, so they were not stopped permanently. Let’s resume with what the party did outside Gandolfo’s trailer.
After the party heard what Gandolfo said, the clowns, acrobats, and beastmasters exited the trailer and broke off into separate groups. The party waited for the performers to gain some distance and then went to the tavern that they had originally seen the smaller group of performers at. They reconnected with Stinky, Justice, and Plate Guy who told them that the clowns and acrobats in the bar had left several minutes earlier. (Justice, the former slaver, also accompanied the other two at the tavern, which I neglected to mention in the previous issue. Even in-session, I often forget about Justice’s existence. He’s just forgettable to me, I suppose.) Before any extensive response could be formulated, the party felt the ground shake and people outside shrieking as the entire stock of circus animals - elephants, monkeys, lions, and more - came crashing through the town’s gates and barreling through the streets. The party remembered the corpse robbery of Narwell’s cemetery occurred during a similar rain storm, and. after hearing what Gandolfo said coupled with the stampede of circus animals, the party was sure he was behind it. The party waited for the animals to pass, so they didn’t get trampled, and ordered their three NPC henchmen to stay in areas already passed by the stampede to help the townspeople. The PCs followed the stampede and noticed the circus’ acrobats jumping into buildings and coming out with wriggling and thrashing bundles of burlap as they expertly parkoured out of sight again. The party eventually caught up with an elephant elephant from the stampede and noticed there was one of the circus’ beastmasters trailling it. However, rather than attempting to corral it, the animal handler seemed to be suggesting - nay, commanding - the elephant to act the way it had been. They got into a brief combat with him, but while the man only held a knife, he was also armed with a 5+ ton bull elephant, so the party turned tail and ran to the cemetery, avoiding the path the stampede was taking. They climbed up onto the wall of the cemetery around the temple, and saw two things of note during lightning flashes. The first is they saw the patrolling paladin struggling to maintain his route in the heavy rain while is lantern fought with the torrent and winds as well. The second is they saw around half a dozen clowns digging up coffins and removing corpses into wheelbarrows with alarming speed, almost as if they were aided by magic. The guard ambled hopelessly in the rain. Between the weather, his helmet, and his barely-lit lantern, he couldn’t see anything.
The party took advantage of their surprise on the clowns with Figlar firing off a Sleep spell that put all but two of them to sleep. Laurana and Logar attacked with missiles, and Asora climbed over the wall to engage in melee with her maul. The two clowns, now aware of what was going on, ran to two other clowns, clearly their superiors in some way, and woke them up. Those two “superclowns” turned out to have casting capabilities themselves, so they used some of their spells as more clowns were awakened. Some of the normal clowns were able to escape with wheelbarrows of corpses, running over the paladin who stood guard at the cemetery’s gate like a steel carpet runner. Figlar cast another Sleep spell, which put the two clowns asleep who did not fall asleep before, but the superclowns got away, and any other normal clowns either did the same or were killed. At some point during the combat, the party noticed the stampede - more specifically, the elephant - had reached the central square of town, which was where the front of the temple was. Logar broke off from the fight with the clowns to try and catch the animal handler off guard. Instead, the druid got into a game of tag with him as they both chased each other round and round the area. The elephant was unable to maneuver with the agility required to partake in the fun, so it simply smashed more buildings. The party joined Logar, who was the one being chased at that point, and ended up routing the beastmaster with his elephant. The sleeping clowns were delivered into the temple to be held for their acts of desecration. The party went to Narwell’s north gate, where the stampede was headed, to see if they could locate where it went afterward. They did not see any animals or people around, but they could see that the ground showed clear tracks of the circus’ wagons. With the deluge still coming down, the party would have to try later once it had lessened if they were to make any meaningful attempt to follow them.
The party did what they could to help the townspeople be sheltered from the rain for the night. They met back up with Stinky and Justice but saw that Plate Guy had apparently been trampled. Worse than that, when they inspected his body more closely, they saw that his armor and helmet were empty and that his body seemed to have been turned to black liquid. They disposes of the armor and helmet, knowing that at least the latter item was cursed, and remained sheltered themselves until morning, which gave way to a gray, quiet day but one without rainfall. Most of Narwell was in shambles, and dozens of people were missing, so an immediate reconstruction effort was begun by Lord Tarban for the town. The temple was also among the people, providing shelter for some and caring for others. Otherwise, it was a drab and depressing sight. The party went to the temple to interrogate the two clowns they had captured the previous night to learn where Gandolfo and the rest of the circus would go. They were not very helpful, even when they were being truthful, but the party learned that Gandolfo had a constructed fortress about two days northwest where all the circus performers and the ringleader stayed at. The party surrendered the clowns to the Narwellian guard and rested for several days, since they had taken some hits from the previous night’s encounters. During this period of rest, Figlar performed a familiar-creation ritual. (I modified and added in my own Familiar spell and rules with it. Figlar was allowed to channel some of his Magic-User experience points into the fabrication of a creature resembling an amorphous mass of mercury about the size of a baseball. This would cause him to lose levels, but, in exchange, the familiar would give him extra spell slots, extra HP, and a higher effective Magic-User level, all of which would depend on the HD of the familiar, which itself depended on just how much experience points were spent on the endeavor. Those benefits would be present so long as the familiar was alive. Additionally, Figlar would have telepathic empathy with it if they were both on the same plane of existence. The creature itself would benefit by higher HD by having greater fighting capability and HP itself. The great downside would be that if the familiar ever perishes, the spell slot, HP, and effective M-U level effects as well as the XP cost would be applied in a reverse and permanent on Figlar. There were also some effects specific to this particular familiar, namely that it would give Figlar a bonus to saves against toxins and an sensitivity to “big” creatures that would give him a chance to become supernaturally aware of their nearby, but not exact, presence. Maybe someday I will give this a proper supplement with the exact details.)
With all of that out of the way, the PCs, along with Stinky, Justice, and a hired dwarf thief mounted on their cow-drawn cart to go to Gandolfo’s fortress, using the tracks in the mud as a guide. They found the fortress on the first fringes of the mountain range that was in the same direction. The lower part of it was obscured by short trees, but they could see once they got closer that it was a three-story structure, with the top floor covering a smaller area, similar to a tower but much shorter. They could also see a tall metal rod resembling a flagpole, about 50 feet tall, standing on the top of the tower, although there was no standard flying from it. Since the party did not actually encounter Gandolfo the previous night, they thought to maintain the investor ruse. They left the cow cart hidden in the trees as they approached the structure on foot. They noticed there were no visible patrols around the fortress, so they went to the large door at the front of it and gave a loud knock on it. A couple full minutes passed as the party knocked a couple more times, and an acrobat finally answered the door asking the party what they wanted. They were allowed entry into the fortress, coming into a hazy mess hall. They saw an open kitchen in one corner of the large square room, a door going out the wall opposite of the one they entered on, and a staircase that went both up and down. The smell of salt, sweat, and meat hung in the air, coming from the kitchen. Gandolfo met the party several minutes later and the two parties went back and forth on an “investment interview” while Gandolfo in particular tried to convince the party to drink the tea and coffee he had specially prepared for them by the cook. Some of the party drank, and they were led on a very guided tour of the fortress. Many of the areas, Gandolfo said, were off-limits to protect the privacy of his performers, but the party was shown a means of entering the basement of the building, which was where the animals were shown to be kept. There was no sign of the freaks, but there were plenty areas not shown that they could have been hidden away into. The party eventually requested to stay a night in the fortress before traveling back to Narwell, as they said they were satisfied with Gandolfo’s operations and willing to make an investment in the enterprise. Gandolfo allowed them such accommodation but essentially charged them a few hundred gold pieces “to prove they really were investors” for the privilege. He showed the party to a room next to the entry door and allowed them to settle in. The ringleader, who was also a rather high level illusionist, went upstairs to his own quarters and cast ESP, moving his consciousness about the party’s room and hearing, through the detection of their thoughts, what they were planning to do.
Eventually, Figlar decided to send his familiar, which took the shape of a rat - a metallic silver rat, but still a rat - up the stairs they saw to scout what the area looked like. It eventually found Gandolfo’s quarters, but he was ready and put a lead cup over the blob. Moments later, Gandolfo, along with all of his performers, entered into the party’s room and demanded their immediate surrender. The party, of course, refused, entering a combat they were doomed to lose. Their hired dwarf thief immediately bailed, jumping out of a window in the room and fleeing back to Narwell. The rest of the party got as far as putting Gandolfo at under half health and taking out most of the performers in one way or another, but, in the end, they were defeated, although they were not killed. No, Gandolfo had greater plans for them. At this point, Logar and Asora went on a recess from the campaign for the time being, and the party gained a human ranger named Robin. Thus the unconscious party consisted of Figlar, Laurana, Robin, Stinky, and Justice. When the party finally reawakened, they immediately knew something was not right. They had the sensory capabilities of newborns, barely able to see or hear clearly. They were numb all over and could not move effectively. They were able to see their own bodies with relative clarity. Figlar had a massive torso and pair of arms belonging to someone of great physical ability, but puny legs. Laurana had a normal torso and legs, but she had eight arms at her shoulders that, if viewed from above, would have the appearance of an hourglass shape like a spider’s legs. As for Robin, his face was elongated forward with a mole’s nose on the end, and his human-looking arms stopped at the elbows, where giant mole paws were located in place of forearms. Justice had the body of an anaconda and head of a humanoid, and Stinky had the legs of a strong man that matched Figlar’s torso but a puny upper body that matched the gnome’s legs. If nothing else was clear to them, it was that they had been turned into freaks. They also saw that they were kept in cages, likely in an area in the basement that Gandolfo kept them from seeing, separate from each other but housed with other, dumb freaks. Gandolfo made an appearance some time later to gloat both about his victory over them and that he would soon coerce the king to allow him to marry the princess, since it was he who had her held somewhere in the fortress. He gave a series of demoralizing statements to the party before leaving their presence with the echo of his trademarked cartoonish cackling.
The party noted the routine that would follow through the day. They were fed nutritious but foul-tasting slop at three mealtimes. They were allowed out of the cages two times in the day, one for exercise and one to have their cages clean. Figlar distracted the guards at this first exercise period, and Robin was actually able to escape, rolling and flip-flopping away, but the mole man returned once night started to set in and made him realize he would be hopeless trying to survive in his current state. The next day, Figlar regained the use of his unspent 1st-level spells, and he cast Sleep on the clowns that came to remove them from their cages for exercise. He was able to take the keys to the cages from him and unlock the rest of the cages. Once all the freaks were free, they just bumbled about, but the party managed to whip them up into a frenzy and send them to the ground level of the fortress above them to cause mayhem to all the circus performers. The party spied a dumbwaiter that went upward. It was large enough to stand in comfortably, but they could contort themselves into the space and send themselves upward one by one. Anyone who would have seen them on the ground level was busy trying to calm and contain the freaks, and the room the dumbwaiter stopped at was empty. Unfortunately, it also contained an uncovered Mirror of Life Trapping close by to the dumbwaiter, and every single PC both looked into it and failed the save to resist being pulled out of it. Fortunately for them, by the time the last party member had been taken by the mirror, Stinky and Justice were both there to witness it. I gave them a chance to decide to break the mirror, and they rolled within that value, breaking the mirror and freeing the party and a few other unknown people from the mirror. Most of the strangers immediately fled the room and the fortress altogether, but two other magic-users stayed behind and were convinced to aid the party. One wanted the satisfaction of seeing Gandolfo get done in and the other wanted any magic items that would be discovered in the fortress. The room they were in was Gandolfo’s, so at least the second magic-user was immediately paid his due, and his goal was then turned into also making Gandolfo suffer and pay for trapping him.
There was a staircase going upward in this room, and they followed it upward into a laboratory. In the center were two operating tables, one which had a woman on it and one which had a large glob of clear-blue slime on it. Gandolfo stood nearby, connecting wires which hung from the ceiling to the two entities on the tables. Once he became aware of the party's presence, he threatened them to back off or he’d zap the princess with his Wand of Lightning. Figlar ended up blinding him with the Light spell, and one of the unknown spellcasters shot Magic Missiles at him. Gandolfo wound up fleeing out of the laboratory facing the back of the fortress, finding his way through memory of the lab’s layout, and used his Wings of Flying to go… somewhere. On the levels below the lab, the freaks had been settled, and Gandolfo called for his followers to flee with him to exact revenge at a later point in time. The magic-users that accompanied the party made their departure at this time, stating intention to increase their power to get back at Gandolfo. The party was left with the princess as well as the device he used to turn everyone into freaks. With access to all his tools and manuals, on top of having no external pressures, the party was able to figure out how to reverse the operations on themselves. Even if the other freaks were still around, too much time had passed to succesfully return them to their original bodies. The princess, as the woman on the table was identified as, was unconscious but unharmed. They searched the fortress quickly for a meager reward of treasure and thought about what to do with the princess. They were definitely going to return her home, that was not in question. The choice they had to make was whether they would obey the social rules of honor and ettiquette by letting Lord Tarban take the credit and, therefore, the glory in the rescue of the princess or if they were going to deliver her to the King themselves, thereby snubbing Lord Tarban but gaining great favor from the King. In the end, they decided it would be better to give the honor to Lord Tarban in hopes to regain his lost favor from the clumsy slaver attack. (A note on the module scenario. It rewards varying amounts of XP at its conclusion, depending on how quickly the party completes it. They have up to five days to complete the adventure and be able to revert to their original forms. Once the sixth day begins, they are permanently freaks. The XP reward ranges from 6x the “normal amount” on day one when they are as useful as babies to just the “normal amount” on day five and later. The only issue is that it doesn’t mention what the “normal amount” of XP should be. The party completed the module’s events on day two as freaks, which is five times this elusive “normal amount”, so I just gave them 5,000 XP.)
Once they’d returned to Narwell and completed the formalities with Lord Tarban, they were invited to accompany the detail returning the princess to Asheraven, although they would be under the command of Captain Oliver Farrier for the duration of the journey and festivities that would surely follow. The PCs agreed and had no other pressing deadlines to meet. (I also opened the party up to allow each player to control more than just a single character at a time, since they had become proficient enough in Basic Fantasy and the way I run the game to not get overwhelmed by it. They are also seemingly allergic to hiring henchmen and other hired help, so the only option to pad their party number would be by adding more PCs.) The party then added two paladins to the group. A dwarf named Bhelrum and a human named Stanley; Stanley is Plate Guy’s brother. The party thus consisted of Bhelrum, Figlar, Laurana, Robin, Stanley, Justice, and Stinky. (I’m not sure if I explained some time before why Justice is still with the party. He is an opportunist, so, even though the Charm on him wore off weeks ago, he will follow the party as long as he is making decent coin in their adventures. Should the party at any point leave him behind while they adventure, it is unlikely he will be waiting for them when they return.) The party gathered itself and made its way to a cave nearby their shithole that they had discovered a month or so back. They entered and saw that it was a mine. It had four branches off a large central chamber, and the party found a crack to squeeze through into a natural cave system down one path before turning back. The second had a natural river bisecting it, and the party turned back once they reached that. The third path came to a T-intersection with a patrolling Hulk Wickhead. It went down one way empty-handed, came back about a turn later rolling a barrel full of liquid, operated some equipment that sent the sound of turning gears echoing throughout the tunnels, and repeated this process for as long as the party waited and watched it. When the party returned to the main chamber again, they noticed an approaching light coming from the fourth, the unexplored, tunnel, and the end of the session was called.
Fellas, this is finally the end of playing catch up with the ongoing events of the campaign. Okay, technically the two sessions that happened after the end of the events I just recounted have already happened, but I’m just going to roll all of that into the end-of-May play report, #12. Feels good to be at this point, and I look forward to writing about something else next time. I’m not sure if it’ll be next week. I’ve been focused on getting the play reports finished, and I haven’t given much thought to any other topics of intrigue. I’ve been reading portions of the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg again, so maybe it’ll have something at least tangentially related to that. We’ll see. Until then, stay blessed and have a good day.
Next: Play Report #12 (To be published…)
Are you a new reader of the Asheraven Play Report? Consider reading from the beginning with part 0.
Good morning, and thank you for coming to read the 10th Asheraven Play Report. By the end of the last one, the party had completed dealing with the urgent matter of the cyclopes’ invasion and expulsion of the hill giants. They received a large rock, perhaps a coin or token of some kind, from a stone giant that kept them from advancing farther into the mountains. The party then liberated some prisoners from a band of slavers on an island in the nearby river, but not before releasing an ice devil from an orb in an abandoned temple-shrine on the same island. The party left with Stinky being blinded by a magic-user who is with the slavers, and Figlar managed to charm one of the slavers and convinced him to join the party for the time being. While the party recovered from all this, they prepared a couple river boats with onagers to besiege the slavers’ fortress from the water.
The party had their plan well-cemented, but Stinky had not yet recovered his sight, so the party acted on a rumor regarding ne’er-do-wells that they had heard in the meantime. It was being said that the road going south of Narwell was being preyed on by a group of thugs who robbed indiscriminately, taking near everything including the cloak off your back and boots off your feet. Once they were all rested up, the party decided to take a look at the southbound road to see if they could put a stop to the bandits. They figured it would be a good way to give Stinky more time to recover from the spell cast on him as well as earn some decent coin. They followed the road out of town without having a solid plan together but hoping it would be simple to handle once they found where the bandits were located at. On the road, however, before any bandits were encountered, the party were face to face with a proud fellow dressed head to toe in plate armor wielding a poleaxe. The warrior approached the party deliberately and respectfully, following all the etiquette expected of a knight but clearly missing the title itself, evidenced by his lack of plumage, and announced his intention to patrol that road while on the lookout for the highway robbers. He said that the party should inform him of any signs of the thieves, a command countered by the party’s own insistence that he should inform them of anything out of the ordinary. He continued his patrol with a scoff, as the party continued south. They could hear, however, even as they went on their cow-drawn cart, that the steel-plated man had begun following them just out of sight. After some time traveling, the party spotted an area in a grassy meadow off the road that looked like it had a patch of grass missing, so they decided to see what would have caused that. As they approached the spot, they noticed that the missing grass was due to a tunnel dug into the gentle slope of a knoll. At the same time as they saw this, a pair of arrows seemed to materialize out of thin air as a couple of the bandits let loose on the oncoming PCs. The party reacted in line with my expectations. That is, they threw their flasks of oil both at the pair of enemies and the opening of the thieves’ den. If there were any other enemies in the hideout, they never made it to the outside. The thieves that were outside were killed pretty easily, although the party took some heavy hits during the combat. The fire that was made from the oil flasks would have spread disastrously, but it had been rather rainy recently, and the party was able to help the rest of the way to putting it out. Curiously, in all that time, their armored stalker never made an appearance, and the party did not see him as they went back into town to recover from their new wounds. They would have plundered the lair, but they were concerned that there were even more enemies inside. What they did see, the next day, was the same fellow from the road in Tipsy’s sporting a shiny new helmet and telling tales of his alleged past adventures. The bar crowd seemed to hang on every word as if he were some local hero, though the party had certainly never heard of the man. They confronted him about the helmet, assuming he must have taken it from the hideout, but they never got a clear answer out of him from their confrontation. They went to the hideout once they were patched up and recovered the treasures within. The tunnels were not extensive, so it was just a matter of loading everything onto their cart and taking it home. They returned some of it to the victims of the robbers but kept most of it. Nobody mentioned a stolen helmet, so whether “Plate Guy”, as the party started calling him, actually gained his new helmet as a result of their efforts or not was never confirmed. They did learn over more days of rest that Plate Guy’s new helmet was cursed, and he could not lift the face shield let alone remove it even if he wanted to. The bright side was that it also seemed to negate his need to eat or drink. Still, he wished to end the curse, and the party took pity on him and invited him to their upcoming attack on the slavers’ fortress. Plate Guy agreed, he would help them against the slavers and, in return, would be compensated with help removing the cursed helmet.
Stinky’s affliction, which was an extended form of the Light spell that was cast on his eyes, had passed, so the party gathered their men, being some Narwellian guards as well as some friends of Stinky, and set sail on the river toward the island. They went around it so that they were approaching the slavers’ fortress from the front and had the boats begin hurling large rocks at the structure. There were no visible forces, but the party managed to breach one of the structure’s towers, negating the need to go through the main entrance, which would almost certainly be heavily defended. The boats pulled over to the breach and allowed the party and their allies to enter the fortress, room 2 on the key. The boats, with the minimum crew required to pilot the boat and cycle the onagers, returned farther out to continue damaging the face of the fortress. The party followed the halls, fending off small parties of slavers who mostly retreated elsewhere after taking a few hits, and ended up going back where the slaves were kept last time, room 9. They saw somebody exit the room just as they entered it, so they followed after. This had them confronted by Renaldo and Valto, two human thieves who were responsible for the dirty work of slave acquisition. The thieves were formidable, causing great pain for the party, but ultimately were no match even with pulling tricks. The party continued out through room 7 and followed the halls again to room 6. Here, the party found many of the slavers that had retreated from earlier as well as some of the higher ranked men with magical +1 battleaxes. Most of the enemies were taken out immediately with a Sleep spell, and the rest were taken care of easily after that. Now the party passed through the curtain in room 6 to enter room 5, where they found a man in plate mail, similar to the other slavers but also bearing minor ornamentation, standing and leaning over a high, rectangular table. The room also had chairs and card tables as if designed for greeting and entertaining guests.
The man was facing the party as they came through the curtain. He introduced himself boldly as Morgath, and entreated the party to lay down arms and settle their quarrel “civilly”. Morgath said he knew the party did not have nearly as many men at hand as he did, and that obeying his command would be the only way to remain among the living. The party decided to bamboozle Morgath by sending Asora forward with an outward intention of treaty. Once she got close, she tried to surprise him by swinging her maul at him. Morgath was prepared for that, however, and combat began as he also threw away any chance for diplomacy by swinging the axe he was holding under the table. While combat broke out with Morgath, several slavers appeared around the room as they attacked various party members. They had been made invisible by Dumystor the magic-user, who also appeared in the room as he began fighting with spells. The combat was ugly, and the party was eventually routed. Neither Morgath nor Dumystor were killed, and Sharana joined the fray mid-combat and did not die either. The party charged out of the main entrance, taking parting shots as they did so, and Figlar used a candlebomb to light the door and nearby area on fire to prevent the enemy from pursuing them. Both of the boats had run out of boulders to throw, so they sailed back and forth about a hundred yards from shore. One of the boats pulled in while Figlar set another few fires behind them to further stall the enemy. The party and what remained of their allies boarded the river boat and returned to Narwell. Almost all of their NPC forces were depleted, and there were only a few Narwellian guards remaining. They returned to Lord Tarban to tell him of the events, and he expressed great disappointment and disfavor toward the party. He informed them that they should not expect any kindness from him except after extensive repayment to Narwell and himself in their future actions. On top of that, the party did not even recover any treasure from the incursion.
While the slavers were not permanently dealt with, they were heavily crippled - most of the regular/unnamed slavers were killed - so the party considered the job done for that time being. There would surely be a time later when they will likely be faced with the threat of Morgath, Sharana, and Dumystor, but they would not be a concern in the near future. The party took a few days to rest and recover, during which time they heard a couple rumors buzzing around town. One rumor concerned farmers, several of whom claimed that they have had some of their tools stolen. The other one was that some of the dead buried in the cemetery near Narwell’s temple were stolen. The party set out for the circus of Gandolfo that had opened up as a centerpiece site for Narwell’s Harvest Festival, but they went to the temple first and found a guard posted at the entrance to the cemetery. Between the guard and some of the clerics, the party learned that a couple nights prior, someone exhumed multiple corpses from the cemetery and returned many of them back into earth the following night. Those that were returned seemed untampered with besides being in odd positions from being moved about roughly, although it was noted that the only people who were not returned were those who died within the last month or thereabout. The temple stationed to paladins to guard the cemetery beginning the morning following the return of the coffins; one would stand at the entrance while the other would patrol within the cemetery. The cemetery is fairly expansive since it is the main burial site of Narwell, but having a paladin walking around was expected to at least deter further attempts to unearth anymore corpses. Naturally, there was also an ongoing attempt to figure out who would have done that in the first place, but nothing substantial was yet procured. The party was not interested in yet another, likely purely in their eyes, investigative inquiry, so they left it in the hands of the guards and the temple.
The party went to the festival grounds just outside town, ignored most of the actual festival, and went straight toward the big top to secure tickets for the night’s show. An enthusiastic ticket salesman took care of their admission needs and also encouraged them to check out the freak show and wax statue museum in an adjacent tent just before or after the main event. The party did check out those two sights before the show, and Figlar managed to keep the exhibitor busy while the rest of the party inspected the freaks. As mentioned in a previous report, the freaks were truly deserving of the title. They appeared in all manner of hybrid forms somewhere between man, beast, and monster. The freaks babbled in mostly incomprehensible speech, but one or two were able to say a few recognizable words, though nothing that could be construed as a coherent message. (The scenario in I13 has the freaks saying such things as “help us” and “Gandolfo made us like this”, but those seemed to merely be ways to entice players to take an interest in Gandolfo and the circus. My players were already interested in the affair going back to when they first met the hill giants Rag and Tag, who were enslaved by the circus. The party would seek the undoing of the ringleader and his clowns even if his circus had no other foul elements. Besides, they would see soon enough just how sick things could get.) The party left the freak show but were surprisingly completely uninterested in the wax displays, which were a collection of various hyperrealistic humans and demi-humans dressed in unerringly authentic costume for the supposed event, culture, or time period they were supposed to represent. Yes, the party took a brief look but not too closely, and they left the tent to “catch up” with Figlar and the exhibitor. The party also decided to explore the areas around the tents, and found the small herd of wagons that the circus travelled in nested behind the large tent and shielded from view on the other side by vendors. The most distinguished wagon, which had more resemblance to a trailer than a hauling vehicle, was in the center of the lot and had an outward appearance of luxury.
The party knew the trailer must be Gandolfo’s, but they saw candlelight within it, so they decided to knock on the door and pretend to be prospective investors for the circus. The candlelight was extinguished and a wary Gandolfo cracked the door open to see what they wanted. At the mention of money, Gandolfo slid out of the door, keeping the party from seeing within more than they needed. Well of course, if the party wished to invest in the circus, Gandolfo would have loved to reach an agreement, perhaps in his favor, to steal secure the funds. The only issue was that both Gandolfo and the party were lying through their teeth the entire time, and both saw through each other’s ruses, although the party was unaware of the latter fact with Gandolfo. During these talks, through which a completely unfulfillable agreement was reached, Logar searched Gandolfo’s trailer while the rest of the party had the ringleader give them a tour of the circus and its other attractions. Logar found a couple books, which he took, as well as some coin, which he did not. As both tasks were being completed, the party rejoined and decided to watch the circus since it was going to begin at any moment. During the next day’s show, they would have “VIP access” to the other chambers of the main tent, most of which consisted of dressing rooms and animal pens, so the party wanted to watch the show first as a normal person would. All things considered - the hype, the crowd size, the fact that Lord Tarban made the circus the focal point of the entire Harvest Festival - the circus was very bland, even bad. The clowns told jokes that even kids wouldn’t laugh at, the acrobats performed technically correct stunts but without any flair or personality, and it was a very short show being only about 30 minutes. The only part that was remotely interesting was the part with the animal handlers, who gave their animals such outrageous commands that would surely require an immensely deep trust between the handler and animal, at least under normal circumstances. Still, the handlers themselves wore sour expressions and were clearly putting in the bare minimum of effort into showmanship. Gandolfo himself was a great showman, but he did nothing of great appeal, sticking to being an announcer of events and master of ceremonies. With the unfathomably plain demonstration of mediocrity over, the party left the festival grounds to await the next day’s show to observe the unseen areas of the circus.
Some time between the previous night and the morning, heavy gray clouds moved in over Narwell, and it rained all day from before sunrise until well into the evening. It began as a drizzle, before becoming more steady until breaking out into a full thunderstorm by the time the circus was set to perform. There was no change to the circus’ plans at all. The wax museum, the freak show, and the circus show would all still go on as normal. The other festival events, on the other hand, and all the vendors, would not be present. As the party intended, they pretty much just waited for the time to come that the circus show would start, and they went to the big tent to observe from their VIP locations. Where they decided to go made no difference, they all saw the same things they saw the previous night. Even “backstage” the performers seemed unenthusiastic but uninteresting. There was no indication of malicious activity, and it really just looked as if a bunch of people were putting on a show that they had no desire to put on, as if they were only doing it for whatever money they would make. After the show, Gandolfo told the party to meet him back at the festival grounds the next morning to fully close the deal on the “investment”, and he otherwise told the party and all the audience members to shoo so that the tent and equipment could be dismantled and packed. The party recalled that Rag told them that the circus performers typically spent their nights drinking excessively in town, likely at one of the seedier spots. They wanted to go where the performers would be and learn more about Gandolfo, so they set back into town to do so. The party was accompanied by Plate Guy and Stinky, and they found the bar the circus troupe frequented and went inside to join the festivities. They intended to question Gandolfo’s employees, but they were not very receptive to any mention of their work. The beerman was similarly of no help, and had in fact grown quite tired of dealing with especially the clowns night after night, listening to the same lame jokes over and over again. As far as he was concerned, his brain turned off after sunset and tried its hardest to forget anything that happened during that time. The party did get a sudden gut feeling to check back in with Gandolfo back at the site of the circus. While there were a few performers at the bar, they knew there were many more not there. They had Stinky and Plate Guy stay at the bar to make sure nothing odd happened while the PCs went back to the festival grounds. (I told the party Plate Guy’s name, I had one when I generated him as an NPC. They insisted on calling him Plate Guy. At this point, I can’t even remember what his name was without going and looking it up. We still call him Plate Guy.)
The PCs were right to make that decision. As the storm, which had been developing all day, seemed to reach its height of severity, they went around the back of Gandolfo’s trailer. There was light coming from inside, and the silhouettes in the windows told the party that the space inside was full of people. They could hear Gandolfo’s booming voice even over the sound of pouring rain. The ringleader gave a short but well-spoken speech, giving vague instructions to those within the trailer. He said something along the lines of “The conditions could not be more in our favor right now, tonight is the night we do what we are here to do! Clowns, keep your tools handy and leave no trace! Acrobats, let nothing get in your way and most importantly do not be seen! Beastmasters, the night's success falls on your shoulders, so put on a good show! Now… GO!”. With that, everyone inside burst out of the trailer and dashed off into the stormy night to follow the commands given by Gandolfo. Gandolfo himself remained in his trailer cackling like a villain, which he was.
That brings us to the end of this issue of the Asheraven Play Report. The slavers are all but dealt with for now, and at least will not be showing their faces any time soon. This new chain of events involving Gandolfo is developing quite nicely, and once I am done writing how they unfold, that will finally bring the play report up to the present. There will be about three sessions occurring after the incidents with Gandolfo’s circus by the time that play report comes out, and then there will be a final report, #12 if I can count right, at which point I would like to resume writing non-play report stuff and keep the play reports to a once a month publication. I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel, so I’m interested in hearing from whoever’s kept up with these, what your thoughts on the events of the campaign so far are. I know that some of the timeline of events is kind of nonsensical, and that's partially because I don’t have every detail exactly right and also because the party does things that don’t always seem logical. Games sometimes go like that. With all that being said, I am glad you read all this. Thank you and bless you.
Next: Play Report #11
ATTENTION CHRISTIAN READERS
I know there are some of you who subscribe to me, some of you I know personally. I just wanted to share some good news with you all in particular. On this past April 23rd, I was baptized in the name of Jesus, making my public statement of faith then. I grew up in church my entire life, but I have now decided to go public with my personal decision to follow Christ. That’s all I had to say about that, thank you all.
Are you a new reader of the Asheraven Play Report? Consider reading from the beginning with part 0.
Good morning. This is part 9 of the Asheraven Play Report, where I continue my seemingly futile efforts to simply become current with campaign events. Remember when I boldly said it’d take three of these bad Boyz? Wishful thinking. Anyway, by the end of the previous report, the party was gifted a property south of Narwell by Gingledoof’s family. They had also applied the cure for the guards’ rot grub infestations, and Sergeant Renault and a few lesser men passed away from the effects of the toxifying elixir. The party also began to render aid to the hill giants west of Narwell to expel the cyclopes that displaced them. They have made a temporary alliance with a nomadic tribe of bugbears to do battle with the cyclopes in the near future.
The party rested a couple nights at their new home, a decrepit shack under a high canopy deep in the woods that seemed to stand only by the sheer will of the ancients who built it. This hovel the party called their “shithole”. Over the period of rest in the shithole, the party caught sight of a lone wickhead several yards from the structure dragging a greatsword in one hand as it ambled slowly about in the middle of one night. Although wickheads have no discernible eyes, the party got the feeling that it met their gaze when they spied it. The wickhead was gone before morning came. Nothing else of note passed in that time. The party then returned to the hill giant camp to plan an assault against the cyclopes. Their previous scouting excursion revealed that there were about a dozen cyclopean warriors, and it allowed them to demoralize them with a rot grub infestation of their own as well as decorating the perimeter of the village with animal carcasses. Perhaps due to confidence from this information, the party planned for a direct assault on the cyclopes. There were about as many hill giants as cyclopes and twice as many bugbears. The party had the hill giants begin the attack, and then the bugbears came from one direction as the party came from the other to surround and cut down the cyclopes. No heed was given to whether and how the stone giants might respond, and that topic never made it into the prior discussion. The combat went in the party’s favor, with all the cyclopes being killed, although the bugbears lost a little more than half their number, and they cursed the entire operation and fled before the battle concluded. The hill giants had no serious casualties, and Stinky fled after taking serious but not life-threatening wounds. The PCs themselves all survived as well. Just as the combat was winding down, rocks began to rain from the sky as the stone giants hurled boulders to quiet the noise. The party and giants deserted the area and waited back at the temporary camp until all was quiet again, and, fortunately, nobody was crushed by the rocks.
The party figured the hill giants could handle the situation from there, since the stone giants were merely acting in reaction to being disturbed in the first place. Since there would be no more noise, there would be no more stone giants. The party did want to chance the mountains and see if they held anything of interest to them. Before the cyclopes stirred everything up in the region, the stone giants were in a sort of hibernation state, so the party hoped they would go back to it and allow them to explore. Once the stone giants stopped their missile attacks, the party hiked across the hills and began up into the mountains. They did not get far before meeting a stone giant. It regarded the party stoicly and unmoving for several moments before rolling large boulders both behind and before the party to keep them anchored where they were, and the giant turned and bounded away. The party discussed different ways to escape their situation, but the giant returned before it was necessary to make any attempts. The stone giant placed a large flat oval stone - about five feet long, three wide, and one thick - in the party’s midst. The stone had a symbol carved into its upward face, but its meaning was unknown to the party. The giant nodded as if satisfied and lifted away the stone behind the party, which allowed them to return the way they came. They all joined efforts in picking up the large stone and brought it back to the shithole, where they rested and learned of some of the recent events in Narwell. With the guard back in force, the Lionheart mercenaries were moving on. All of the caravan, except for Gandolfo’s circus, had also left to continue its route. A rumor in town sprouted up that claimed there was an insect-filled warren that a small number of adventuring parties had not returned from after declaring intentions to plunder and conquer the den. Lord Tarban announced that the harvest festival would begin in a few weeks’ time, and Gandolfo’s circus would be the cornerstone of the affair. Finally, the party was called on personally by a courier of Lord Tarban to lend him their presence.
Of course, the last part intrigued the party most, and they felt it would be a terrible idea to snub the summons from Lord Tarban, so they immediately gathered their gear and delivered themselves to his estate in Narwell. They were led to Tarban by a servant, and he told them of the recent disappearance of his son, Gerald. The younger man has given his heart to one Lady Noëlla, and Lord Tarban would rather Gerald marry a woman whose status would be of greater strategic advantage for the Tarban household. Gerald stormed from the household one night a few days prior, taking off with his Noëlla to live in peace elsewhere. This alone did not trouble Lord Tarban, as he remembered doing something similar when he was a young man. However, it was reported recently that the couple, along with others in the region, had fallen into the hands of a large band of slavers. Lord Tarban, conscious of some of the party’s recent activities, implored them as capable adventurers to seek out the slavers and secure the return of Gerald and his betrothed. Tarban promised 4000 gold coins to the party for their success, as well as an additional 1000 coins for bringing back alive anyone commanding the slavers. He knew that the slavers’ lair was on an island in the middle of the river to the east, but that he did not want to make it common knowledge that his son was being held by slavers in case some other adversary gained custody of him. Tarban was able to provide the party a riverboat, however.
The party accepted the task, and immediately set off to accomplish it. It was a few miles to the riverbed, and then they boarded the riverboat to paddle to the island with. (The island I am using is the “Island in River” mini-setting from Basic Fantasy’s Adventure Anthology 1 by J. D. Neal. I’m using it as-written, except that I place the Slaver’s Fortress from the same book on the island to the east of the South Docks. Also, the cardinal directions are rotated 90 degrees clockwise, so, when I say north as a general direction, I am referring to what is east on the map.) The party landed on the south side of the island and soon came across the block of buildings that were once a resort of minor reputation. The party, apparently having less urgency now that they’d reached the island, poked around some of the buildings curiously. Nothing of note was found on the lower level of an inn, but the party heard a sound above them as if a heavy cloth were being dragged across the floor. The party made its way slowly upstairs, which was a straight hallway with rooms on either side all the way down. The party counted ten rooms in total and made its way down the hall while pushing doors open to the rooms as they passed. As they neared the end of the hall, they heard a small number - from two to four - of impacts that might be made by dropping something heavy into sand. They heard in one room ahead more of that sliding sound. The party kicked the door in and immediately entered combat with a lizard man, as the reptilian won initiative and attacked them. They neutralized that foe, found some minor treasure in the upper level, and went back outside, where they entered combat with another two lizard men who also won initiative and attacked them without making small talk. These two were also taken care of, but the party knew then that there was a population of lizard men somewhere on the island. The party moved northward toward the center of the island and found a temple. It seemed long abandoned, but they entered anyway with torches lit. The temple contained rows of pews which led to an altar of a plain nature. On top of the altar was a glass ball resting on a pewter bowl-like stand. It looked like a classic-styled crystal ball. The sphere seemed to entice those of elven ancestry to collect it, as Asora and Laurana felt a strong mental tug. The party debated what to do, but Laurana failed her save against the orb’s siren call to her. She went to lift the orb and stow it in her pack, but it split and then shattered as she touched it. From where the orb was, a front of icy fog washed over the area, and the torch seemed to be fighting with all its might to just stay lit. A spiritual being made completely of ice and snow appeared in the party’s midst, an ice devil. It gave special thanks specifically to Laurana before deserting the temple, and the party was left to think about what had just transpired. After that encounter, the party was in no mood to search the island further besides just what they went to the island for.
They were able to see the larger structures from the island’s center, since it was at a higher elevation and spotted the only fort-like structure, the likely location of the slavers. They went back to their boat to move it from the south end of the island up to the northwest by the location marked as the Overlook. They went to the structure they saw before, approaching it from the rear, and entered it through a window with the use of a grapple hook and rope. (The “Slaver’s Fortress” module doesn’t have any windows on the building, but I figured the bedrooms at the least would have windows in them.) The only window they saw from the rear entered into a 20-by-20 bedroom, room 11. Inside, there was a large bed, a wardrobe, and a floor-to-ceiling painting of an armored woman in the room, as well as a single door exiting the room. The party investigated the painting to find it lifted out from the wall to reveal a small vault set into the wall, which seemed to be a new addition based on the clean look of the stone around the vault. The bed had nothing in or under it, but it was upholstered with very fine black satin. The wardrobe was found to have a false back to it, which opened into a short corridor that came to a dead end with a button on the side. Everything in the room suggested that it was currently being occupied by a man and a woman. The party put the room back the way they found it, entered the secret corridor, and pressed its button. The wall opened to a perpendicular passage continuing both left and right. The space was illuminated by magnifying lanterns, and the party heard multiple armored footsteps coming from their left. They pressed the button again to close the wall and waited about thirty seconds before opening it again. They saw to their right this time a pair of men in plate mail with shields and sheathed longswords that were walking away from them down the corridor. The party decided they would not allow the men to get away and opened combat with the Sleep spell, the saving throw for which the two men failed. The party quickly dragged them into the secret corridor and into the bedroom, and they used their own manacles - apparently these were jailers or guards - to link them to each other and the bedframe. Once they were secured in place, the party removed the patrolmen’s armor and had Asora and Stinky don the suits. (Normally, plate mail is made specific to the measurements of the wearer, but due to the fact that these were slavers, I figured most of the armaments of the “grunts” would be repurposed from stolen equipment. In this case, the plate mail would be rendered more or less universal as long as the wearer was within the normal range of human size. The tradeoff would be that gaining surprise would be impossible as long as they wear the suits of armor.) The plan was to have the two party members act like they were delivering more slaves to be held prisoner. They awoke the sleeping men and demanded the location where slaves are kept, so the party could enact their plan. One of the guards gave the location away, room 9 which was the first room found by going left from the secret door. The party stuffed gags into the mouths of the men and followed their directions to find the slaves, except for Logar who stayed at the secret door to operate the button, since there was no way to control it from the regular hallway.
They entered the door to the room they were told about, and spotted another man with the same type of gear as the other two on the other side of the 40-by-40 room by the only other door in the room, but this one also had a shortbow and quiver of arrows within easy reach. As the party entered, he drew the bow and ordered them to halt and then explain what they were doing. They did so, attempting to explain that they were delivering some slaves as planned. The guard scowled at their excuse and pointed out that Morgath and Sharana did not employ women, as he nodded toward Asora. He let fire his bow, and the party attempted to take him down at range as Asora and Stinky charged forward. They were too slow to eliminate the guard, and he ran out of the room through the door near him. The party attempted to follow but found that the door would not budge to allow them through. Inside the room they were in were several people who were obviously slaves being kept here, which included Gerald and Noëlla. The party decided they would save the slaves first, bringing them back to Narwell, and then come back to settle things with the slavers. They brought the slaves back the way they came and found one of the cuffed men had escaped and was nowhere to be seen. The other one, Figlar cast the Charm Person spell on and took him with them. They reached the boat without issue, but, as they were pulling away from the island, over two dozen men swarmed over the beach and fired arrows at the boat. None of them struck any people, but what the party was not expecting was another magic-user, who cast a spell that caused Stinky’s eyes to immediately begin discharging blinding light, and the man-at-arms was rendered himself blind. Other than that, the party returned to Narwell unharmed. They were able to discreetly deliver Gerald back to Lord Tarban, who rewarded the party as agreed. The party, through Figlar, noted that a normal Light spell should have worn off on Stinky by that time, but they did not make any attempts to look into why or how to cure it.
The party discussed a proper assault on the slavers’ fortress with Lord Tarban. Now that his son was rescued, he had no reason to keep any information hidden from the public and could spare a few Narwellian guards to help handle it. The party would need to rest themselves, since they took a few hits between the lizard men and slavers, and they used their time resting to get some preparations taken care of. They purchased a riverboat of their own and two onagers. They’d wait and see if the light on Stinky’s eyes would ever go away on its own. If it did, they’d have him see if he could convince any of his friends from the lower castes of Narwellian living to volunteer for pay and also have him train with some of the Narwell guards to learn how to operate an onager. They had one onager put on each of their riverboats - the one they purchased and the one Lord Tarban has been letting them use. The party planned to approach the fortress from the front, using the onagers to hurl rocks at its face while the PCs would enter on foot. The charmed slaver, Justice was his name, would accompany the party.
The situation with the giants is, for the time being, resolved, but now the party kicked a hornets nest by becoming known to the slavers. The frontal assault may pay off, but it’s a great risk of men and siege equipment. Besides that, since they were going to wait for Stinky to have use of his eyes back, that would delay the assault and give the slavers more time to recover from their initial intrusion. There’s also the uncertainty that remains in the wake of the appearance and disappearance of the ice devil. The beings of hell are crafty and intelligent, and it’s unlikely that the fiend will simply leave the party alone. Thankfully, there were no surviving lizard men to remember the party. With that, I end this report. God bless, see you in the next one.
Next: Play Report #10
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