Session 2 Downtime: The Fine Art of Carousing

Having reconnoitered the area, our crew decides to return to town to see if they can dig up some information on their newly discovered sites. They hit the local taverns and learn that the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad (Hex 300.298) was a derelict stronghold that has existed for hundreds of years. It gained its moniker due to the herds of ice toads that inhabit the keep's moat and always seem to protect the castle master, regardless of who it might be. 

Recently, Kophyn Mizzar, a human female warrior of local renown, has taken possession of the castle and started taxing the nearby villages for "protection donations", ostensibly to rebuild the castle and secure the surrounding areas. She has attracted a group of followers and utterly destroyed four sizable warbands of orc marauders, and the peasantry has gone along with the taxation imposed by their new "lady"...for now.

The Croaking Castle and its eternal batrachian watchers seem to have likewise accepted the new mistress. Several local tradesmen have left Valthrun to join her stronghold staff directly and rumor has it that Kophyn has begun excavations in the nearby ruins (Hex 299.298). No one knows for certain what she's doing, and numerous wild tales are swapped in drunken confidences by the tavern hearths throughout the city.

Lord Jirex, overt master of Valthrun, has remained silent on the latest developments and most assume he is indifferent to Kophyn's machinations don't impact the flow of trade to the Obsidian Portal. If she wants to practice her swordplay on the orcs and squeeze the peasants a bit, who cares? As long as she knows her place and doesn't develop delusions above her station, all benefit.

Less is known about the small keep to the east of the Croaking Castle (Hex 302.298). The master of the keep is Belgos Trith, a very famous human male fighter who had great success against the savage barbarian horsemen far to the west and has seemingly retired to this keep to enjoy some well earned rest. He has patrolled the surrounding areas for years and rescued countless caravans from various monsters and bandits on the North Road. He collects reasonable road tax for his services and rumor has it that he secretly made a mutually beneficial agreement with certain hidden hands to ensure trade, and the fat merchants that accompany it, flow uninterrupted to Eternal Valthrun. Whether or not these rumors are true remains to be seen.

Of course, the true masters of Valtrun, Kirenos the Thief and the Night Hag Bilious Yarena, do not care at all what happens with these petty lordlings. So long as the trade flows and these delusional upstarts do not interfere in the affairs of their betters, they are of no interest...for now.

Regularly Scheduled Rant

I'm really enjoying this solo campaign so far and I think it highlights why the #BrOSR old school style of play appeals to me so much. Over the first series of posts, we have created a pretty decent campaign setting in a few hours using the tables from the 1979 AD&D DMG. Our burgeoning world has inherent dynamics, plenty of gaming hooks, variety and sufficient verisimilitude to suspend disbelief and promote player engagement. This is far superior to any commercial offering because you and your players can make this world your own and go completely insane with it because there is no railroad story to knock off the tracks.

This was done without cost, without lore dumps, and without prepackaged ideology imposed upon us. 

Don't give money to people who hate you.

I've been playing RPGs since I first discovered the D&D Basic boxed set (with the awesome Erol Otus cover) in 1981 when in the fifth grade (via the famous Dynamite Magazine #82 article, for those old enough to remember). I quickly graduated to AD&D and these tables are how we would create dungeons and the surrounding environs (albeit in a flawed a cheesy manner that only 1980s pre-internet adolescents could execute, given the lack of tutelary resources at the time). Of course, I played all the classic modules (with Against the Giants/Descent into the Depths of the Earth being clear favorites), but only recently realized, in  hindsight, why those modules are truly classics and why all Current Edition content will never achieve any lasting impact on the soon-to-be dwindling tabletop market. 

All TSR-era modules were intentionally generic so you could insert them into your world. The designers always left room for customization (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not - looking at you T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil and Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits). Sure, they assumed a World of Greyhawk background, but once you get past the intros, you could essentially place them anywhere. "Lore dumps" were typically 3-4 paragraphs max, all of which could be easily summarized, changed or omitted. Especially when High Gygaxian prose took over...

The classic designers didn't cram political ideology down your gullet and were active fans of the medium. They genuinely wanted you to enjoy playing the modules in actual AD&D game sessions. 

They weren't failed authors with delusions of grandeur, hoping their magnum opus would be optioned for the next doomed Hollywood affront against common human decency. 

They weren't self-obsessed navel gazing idiots who wrote the "adventure" as a testament to their enlightened vision of how you should view the world.

They weren't interested in building a "lifestyle brand" by writing adventures...with cookbook/cocktail recipe tie-ins that will only end-up in landfill.

I've read far too much Current Edition official product as well as indie/OSR content and have come to what should be a fairly obvious conclusion.

It sucks.

Most is poorly conceived, poorly written (seriously: use MS Word and hit F7; also use this and this), and poorly produced (it literally falls apart whereas my 1980s era TSR rulebooks are still in near mint condition despite heavy use). 

The only objectively good material that is getting produced is at the indie level (just a few personal faves: Operation Unfathomable, ACKS, RPG Pundit's stuff - there are many others) and most definitely NOT by purple-haired WOTC Wokesters. Even at the indie level, easily 90% of the material falls into the "failed author with delusions of grandeur" category and not anything that would be useful to the core audience of TTRPG players. I'm not the first to ruminate on this. I refer you to Walker's Retreat for more detailed, and excellent, commentary.

Why would you spend your hard earned dollars, in an inflation-fueled recession, with a company that produces an objectively physically inferior product containing subjectively poor content? Buy the old books from eBay or yard sales if you require physical media, or get creative with your internet searches for digital options. Try to avoid feeding the beast by giving it your hard-earned cash for official reprints via DriveThru RPG unless that is your only option.

Don't give money to people who hate you.

Once viable source material is in hand, use it to make your own content - for free! You'll find it to be infinitely more enjoyable that being harangued by the Current Edition propaganda spewed by mentally ill proselytes.

Session 2: Hexcrawling and the Glories of AD&D DMG Appendices

Since our new group is a little wary of the Shrine of Lethria given how badly it went for our previous crew, they decide to explore the wilderness around Valthrun. 

For map scale, I've gone with a 6 mile master (blue outline) subdivided into 1 mile sub hexes. I think this gives me enough to play with for quite some time and it's easy enough to expand if I get bored. 

Since everyone knows where the Shrine is located, I've added it to the map gratis. I roll a d6 and get a 4 so that means the group originally came to Valthrun from the southern road. This is a nice synchronicity since I've already decided the empires of Man are to the south. Some quick rolls on the tables Appendix B tables fill out the road's environs and encounter checks don't reveal any hungry critters. So far so, so good.

Our group decides to explore the immediate area around Valthrun and then begin working their way outwards based on what they find. They start in hex 300.299 and begin exploring clockwise. The terrain is generated as shown and yet again, no encounters. They return to the starting hex and then randomly strike out from each hex. I'm using a d6 to determine direction of travel with 1 indicating north and subsequent numbers continuing clockwise around the hex (e.g. 4 is south and 6 is northwest).

The dice take us in a northeastern direction and end up generating a shrine in hex 299.298, a castle in hex 300.298 and another one in 302.298. Nice! After some rolls on the Appendix C castle and inhabitant tables (with a detour to a random castle name generation site) we get the following:

Hex 299.298: A Ruined Shrine

I roll a 15 and a follow-up 82 which means we have another ruined shrine located between Valthrun and the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad (see below). This is pretty awesome since this means the entire 6 mile hex seems to have been some sort of pilgrimage in the distant past. What caused the collapse of these religions? Why did they spring up around Valthrun and be surrounded by fortresses? This is awesome - I'm getting vibes about hidden cults, buried secrets guarded by some sort of Knights Templar order and the hidden hand of the Chaos Gods or the Great Old Ones. 

Hex 300.298: The Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad

This is a large fortress complex (97 on CASTLE TABLE I: SIZE CLASS AND TYPE) inhabited by an NPC and retainers (68 on CASTLE TABLE II: INHABITANTS). We roll on CASTLE SUB-TABLE II.B for the castle master/henchmen (a 50/50 rolls tells us this is a named castle and we use random alignment rolls of d6 for Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic and another d6 for Good/Neutral/Evil) to get the following:

Kophyn Mizzar, human female, Lawful Neutral L11 Fighter with 2 henchmen:

• Chalbale, human male, Neutral Good L6 Illusionist
• Tar Ahlys, human male, Neutral Good L6 Magic-user

The men-at-arms are determined to be:

• Squad 1: 9 Heavy horsemen (Men-at-Arms) (Heavy horse, splint mail & shield, lance, long sword, mace); Squad leader is Kophra Era (human male, Lawful Evil L3 fighter)
• Squad 2: 15 Light horsemen (Men-at-Arms) (Light horse, studded leather, light crossbow, long sword); Squad leader is Thirn Phyn (human male, Lawful Evil L4 fighter)
• Squad 3: 16 Heavy Infantry (Men-at-Arms) (Men-at-arms, scale mail, shield, spear, hand axe); Squad leader is Velgara (human female, Neutral Good L4 fighter)
• Squad 4: 10 Heavy Crossbowmen (Men-at-Arms) (Men-at-arms, scale mail, heavy crossbow, morning star); Squad leader is Alarra Durdana (human female, Lawful Evil L4 fighter)

Lots of interesting dynamics here, based on the alignments. Why is this place named the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad? Why does a fighter have two magic using henchmen? Who knows? We haven't gone there yet! Let's see what the other castle is doing.

Hex 302.298: A Nameless Stronghold

This is a small walled castle with keep also inhabited by an NPC and retainers. Interesting...do we have competing warlords in the area? Let's find out who's running this place:

Belgos Trith, human male, Lawful Neutral L12 Fighter with 5 henchmen:

• Kyonithmyn, mountain dwarf male, Neutral L7 Thief
• Lymma Keldana, human male, Chaotic Good L7 Fighter
• Jael Kyorlicar, human female, Lawful Good L7 Paladin
• Myrra Tazennarin, human male, Chaotic Neutral L7 Illusionist
• Imra, human male, Lawful Neutral L7 Fighter

The men-at-arms are determined to be:

• Squad 1: 9 Heavy horsemen (Men-at-Arms) (Heavy horse, splint mail & shield, lance, long sword, mace); Squad leader is Ildia Houndraern (human male, Neutral L3 fighter)
• Squad 2: 12 Light horsemen (Men-at-Arms) (Light horse, studded leather, light crossbow, long sword); Squad leader is Xundara Kophyn (human male, Chaotic Evil L3 fighter)
• Squad 3: 18 Heavy Infantry (Men-at-Arms) (Men-at-arms, scale mail, shield, spear, hand axe); Squad leader is Lymeoynet (human female, Neutral L4 fighter)
• Squad 4: 7 Heavy Crossbowmen (Men-at-Arms) (Men-at-arms, scale mail, heavy crossbow, morning star); Squad leader is Tazena Urmeoynrae (human male, Chaotic Evil L3 fighter)

What is up with all the evil men-at-arms squad leaders (in both castles, no less)? Are they just waiting to turn rogue and become highwaymen? Do their good-aligned masters not know of their nefarious  natures? Is the paladin Jael Kyorlicar weak in her faith to tolerate this? What is the relation of this stronghold to the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad? Who knows? We'll figure all that stuff out if and when the party explorers the area. What happens if they don't? Who cares? We'll roll up something else equally awesome. If this turns into an ongoing tabletop campaign, we'll give these areas to patron players and let them expand the areas in downtime/Braunstein sessions.

I think that does it for this session. The crew is going to return to town and plan their next moves.

New Murder Hobos Enter the Fray!

While Brother Fitzy and the Mighty Redneck are nursing their wounds with booze and babes, I rolled up a new group of miscreants that just rolled into town. I picked a random direction from the roads on the map as their arrival point and rolled the terrain per Appendix B. Luckily our group didn't have any encounters so they arrive at Valthrun fresh and ready to delve.

New party stats:

I forgot to roll for age on the first batch of PCs and they were subsequently punished for my sins (let's pour one out for the fallen). I remembered to do so for this group and adjusted their stats appropriately. Let's hope they fare better than their predecessors.

Since I rolled a cleric, I'm going to say he's in the same religious order as our battered friend Brother Fitzy. It seems Brother Sully has become concerned for his missing cohort and has come looking for him with some boon companions he met on the road. He finds Fitzy in a local watering hole in a sorry state of drunkenness and pain, which does not sit well with his rather unpredictable CN nature.

A reaction roll (AD&D DMG pg 63) comes up at 14 with a +10% adjustment since Fitzy is a lovable kinda guy bringing the total to 24%. Oh crap - Brother Sully is majorly pissed off!

Although somewhat sympathetic to Fitzy's sad fallen state, he was unable to hide his rage at Fitzy's lack of faith and utter stupidity for going into the Shrine so woefully unprepared. 

"You're making us all look bad, Brother Fitzy! How could you be so careless to undertake such a dangerous expedition without the support of our Order! With BLOODY HERETICS, no less!!! And to shame us even further, where do I find you? IN A TAVERN with a - ahem - hill person and harlots! Harlots, Brother Fitzy!! And ugly ones at that!!" 

As senior member in The Order, Brother Sully grants a penance of one week in cloistered prayer to Brother Fitzy which means he's out of action until 8 March 2024 now. See kids? Charisma is NOT a dump stat in Real D&D...

Considering the alignments of our new group, Brother Sully seems a lot more "morally flexible" than lovable Fitzy. He soon learns of the Shrine of Lethria and some other potential leads to some potential loot ("For benefit of The Order, of course!"). He commandeers the late Sir Stabbington's horses from Brother Fitzy ("Pay you?!? Be grateful I don't flog you for your sins!") and learns of the men-at-arms. Some quick negotiations (a reaction roll of 65 plus his Charisma bonus of +25% brings it to 90%) and they ethusiastically agree to join his group under the command of Brogallo. Let's hope Brogallo can keep his sadistic side in check for the time being...

Brother Sully decides that the rumors of loot in the wilderness are too good to ignore. The Shrine of Lethria is clearly too dangerous with hordes of orcs and fire breathing cockroaches. "Donations" to The Order can probably be found more safely...elsewhere.

Next time, we explore the wilderness!

Session 1 Downtime: Travails of AD&D Healthcare

Our intrepid band of murder hobos had a pretty rough night in the Shrine. Blasty, Shifty and Sir Stabbington are feeding the worms under boot hill, our new resident badass ranger is at 4hp and Brother Fitzy is contemplating his many and creative sins after nearly crossing the veil. I'm ruling that Brother Fitzy is out for 7 days since he went to 0hp and won't be able to cast any spells for that period (AD&D DMG pg 82). The Mighty Redneck isn't going to waste precious gold on healing, and has decided he's going old school grizzly man and will nurse himself back to health with booze and food. He'll be out for 11 days which means the earliest that both will be available is Friday 1 March 2024. 

Since this is the first real adventure the crew has undertaken, I'm assuming they already paid upkeep for February and will not hit them with February upkeep expenses. Funds are running low (85gp for Fitzy and 76gp for Redneck). That gives them 161gp total which is not enough to cover 100gp per level expenses (AD&D DMG pg 25), so they're going to be in desperate straights if they don't get some cash flow in March. That's another problem for another day.

Looks like we're rolling up more murder hobos...

Solo Session 1: Murder Hobos Delve the Shrine

Since I hope to expand this campaign to an in-person group at some point, I'm using this as an exercise to relearn AD&D (cuz it's been a while) and want to essentially test out the #BrOSR style of game. I'm running this as a solo campaign with 1:1 time with real world calendar and weather used in-game. I think this adds to the verisimilitude of the campaign while avoiding the frankly idiotic world-building nonsense of fictitious calendars with faux-medieval sounding month and week names. No sane bastard gives a flying fuck about learning the Calendar of Harptos or the Needfest rotating Starday start-of-month dates. Fuck you, Ed (especially) and Gary, respectively. Seriously, there's NO FUCKING WAY your players memorized that shit and used it in game. Stop. Please.

Our lovable murder hobos have decided to finally try their hands at the Shrine of Lethria. Accompanied by the light horse mercenaries that Sir Stabbington elected to hire with his starting funds, our intrepid group sets off through the frigid Cold Wastes surrounding the Obsidian Citadel of Valthrun. It's sunny mild February day and, not being complete morons, our crew thinks they can sneak out of the city and take advantage of the good weather to plunder the shrine without worrying about getting ambushed by bandits. It's much nicer in the taverns by a warm hearth, after all.
I check for random wilderness encounters which all come up empty. Our crew makes it to the Shrine's desolate ruins with no troubles and quickly establish camp. The first question is whether or not the party orders the men-at-arms to guard the horses and camp or have them accompany the expedition to the depths. A 50/50 check comes back as "guard the horses", and the crew starts searching for the entrance to the Shrine.

Room 1 - The Shrine of Law

Our murder hobos quickly find the rubble chokes stairs down to the Shrine depths and cautiously descends. I've described the level previously, and won't bore you with repeating it here. They find the (False) Shrine of Law (Area 1) and start exploring. Their search for secret doors completely fails (not feeling good about your chances after this bad start, guys...) and they flip a coin to select the left door next to the altar (Area 6). A turn has expired and a wandering monster check comes up blank, so they're free to proceed.  They luck out this time and find the secret door on the north wall.

Room 5 - Visitor Reception Area

Not wanting to expose themselves to a potential ambush, they elect to explore the remaining altar door (Area 5) before continuing. Unfortunately, this is where a couple of fire breathing giant cockroaches (ok "fire beetles") live. Let's hope somebody has a lot bug spray because these filthy critters are 2 feet long.

The party wins surprise and Mighty Redneck immediately drops one of the bugs with his longsword. Sir Stabbington skewers the second bug, but it's a disgusting tough critter and isn't yet dead.

We roll for initiative and the Dice Gods favor the murder hobos again. The Mighty Redneck finishes off the fire roach and the group disgustingly notes that these things seem to have more legs that normal. May mean something, or not...

Room 4 - EHP Private Chambers

The group makes its way back to Area 6 and continues down the secret corridor before making their way to the Evil High Priest's chamber. Amazingly, they find the secret door in the west wall AND the secret trap door! Starting to look better, boys...
They flip another coin and decide to try the trap door first. It opens into a tunnel leading east and the crew waste no time making their way to Area 3, The Plundered Treasury. 

Room 3 - Plundered Treasury

Unfortunately, I'm rusty and didn't think to send the Thief ahead as a "move silently/listen at doors" scout so the group stumbles into a group of orc raiders who have somehow found their way into the Shrine. Luckily, neither side is surprised so the party avoids a potentially devastating ambush.

Round 1: Orcs win initiative

This got ugly very quickly. Brother Fitzy takes 8hp from the orc battleaxe and goes to 0hp. He's down but not yet dead.

Sir Stabbington isn't so lucky. He takes 8hp and goes to -1hp so his soul has been devoured by the bloodthirsty Chaos Gods. Luckily, the mercenaries got paid up front and won't have to immediately find a new boss.

Mighty Redneck takes a 6hp hit, but he's a hulking badass with 15hp so he eats it and laughs in the orc's hideous face.

Blasty is throwing his daggers like a boss and drops an orc. Shifty guts another one, leaving 9 orcs and 3:1 odds against our heroes. Things are looking grim.

Round 2: Murder Hobos win initiative

The Mighty Redneck continues to hulk out and chops the head off another orc. Covered by the spurting red rain of Redneck's last victim, Shifty opens the throat of an especially disgusting orc specimen and laughs as he bleeds out on the cold floors of Lethria. 

This enrages the orcs and kindles their bloodlust to new heights. In a rare example of orcish tactical brilliance, two of them double up on Blasty and quickly reduce him to a julienned mess (0hp with a coup-de-grace from his partner). Another orc wields his great axe with savage skill and avenges his comrade by burying its edge in Shifty's head, taking him to -4hp.

There are 7 orcs left. I check morale since they've lost 25%, but they roll a 15 so there's still a lot of fight left in them.

Round 3: Orcs win initiative

Brother Fitzy lies on death's door, covered by the blood of Blasty, Shifty, and Sir Stabbingtom. The Mighty Redneck, battered, bloody and full of rage makes his last stand against the animalistic orcs. With bloodthirsty cries, the frenzied orcs press their attacks against our heroic hillbilly to now avail. The Mighty Redneck tries to kill as many of his foes before falling, but it unable to land a killing blow in the press of filthy sweating orcflesh.

Round 4: Orcs win initiative

The dice gods hate Mighty Redneck tonight. One of the orcs lands a hit on our ranger for 4 leaving him at 5hp. Although having lost a tremendous amount of blood, our hero still stands but can't land a killing blow of his own.

Round 5: Mighty Redneck wins initiative

The Mighty Redneck despises these vile monsters (he IS a ranger after all and orcs are the "giant class" group) and kills another one. The crude savages are able to land another minor blow for 1hp taking our ranger to 4hp.

There are 6 orcs left. 

Round 6: Orcs win initiative

6 to 1 odds are what orcs like so they press the attack. In a dazzling display of martial superiority, the Mighty Redneck batters aside their attacks and runs his sword through the heart of one more orc, taking their number to 5.

They've lost over 50% of their number so I make a morale check for the orcs. Per AD&D DMG pg 67, I give them a -40% bonus for the downed party members and a +60% penalty for their slain comrades for a total of -20%. Base morale score is 50% with a -20% penalty for a 30% chance of passing their check. They roll a 34, so they make a fighting withdrawal through the secret door on the southern wall.

The Mighty Redneck, near death himself, allows the scum to flee while he attends to Brother Fitzy. After binding Fitzy's wounds, and making a quick search of the room, they strip the gold from their comrades, and grab the sack of electrum pieces in the room.

They stagger back to the surface and regroup with the men-at-arms. The Mighty Redneck makes quick return with reinforcements to retrieve the bodies of the fallen and wraps them in shrouds for burial in the springtime. 

Decisions about the group's future will be made during this week's downtime activities.

To date, this is all the party knows about The Shrine of Lethria. Let's see if they return...

Experience

Fire Beetles: 74xp

Orcs: 90xp

Treasure: 92ep = 46xp

90gp from KIA party members = 90xp

Total: 300xp (150xp each to the Mighty Redneck and Brother Fitzy plus 10% attribute bonus for 165xp total)

Book of the Dead:

The fallen heroes will be listed in The Book of the Dead at https://easternarchon.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-book-of-dead.html