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://thedeathmetaldm.blogspot.com/p/the-book-of-dead.html