Session 4 Downtime: Rocking Out at Fort Rackham

The party breaks camp in the morning and returns with Tazennarit to the Croaking Castle of the Miraculous Toad (hex 300.298). Lady Kophyn does an admirable job of covering her surprise, but Brother Sully is a student of humanity and sees that she didn't expect them to actually succeed in the mission. Negotiations are quickly concluded with Tazennarit and she is established as the commander of Fort Rackham (hex 300.297) with the title of Knight-Protector. Lady Kophyn provides her with sufficient materiel and tradesmen to repair the fort and begin settlement. The fort is in the mountains overlooking the northern roads with excellent views and has a small thorpe nearby with some hardy villagers. The surrounding land is suitable for shepherding, lumbering, quarries and sustenance farming. With some work, the former bandits should be able to fit in with the villagers and prosper in their new home.

Flush with the reward money, Brother Fitzy and Bro-thazarr are dispatched to Valthrun to settle as many of the party's outstanding debts as possible and restock their supplies. Lightfingers Louie and Slicer join them to see if they can pick up any leads on some loot, since their collective finances are still in shambles. Brother Sully, Brogallo and Mighty Redneck will spend time among the denizens of the Croaking Castle and Fort Rackham to see if they gain get more information about the nearby environs (and leads to some cash, or course). Brogallo's mercs are quietly drunk and passed out in some hidey hole...as usual.

Based on campaign events so far, the party was able to shake loose the following rumors/information:

1. Orcs have been sighted poking around the Shrine of Lethria (hex 301.300) for unknown reasons (and killed 3 former party members, but nobody outside our group knew that). There is a larger group somewhere south of Valthrun but they've been suspiciously quiet, if they exist at all.
2. The ruined shrine (hex 302.296) north of the Croaking Castle glows with an sickly green light during the new moon. The shrine is apparently dedicated to a now-forgotten serpent god. The Tazennarit's troops have all heard there's fabulous treasure to be found in the ruins, but were never in any condition to try to find it themselves.
3. The metropolis of Tallow Watch (hex 301.295) has fallen to a junta of former officers who were driven from the city of Old Brightwood (hex 302.295) by the nomad/hobgoblin wars. Both cities have sizable populations (50,000+) and Tallow Watch is home to many of the bandit refugees. All of them still have family in the cities and desperately want to discover their fate, but are fearful of the likely tragic news.
4. The new rulers of Old Brightwood have made a truce with the invading hordes by enslaving a sizable portion of the population and offering them as tribute. All orphans and children of criminals have been forced to become jannisaries in a wretched attempt to replenish the decimated military and maintain some sort of control over the city. The hordes are leaving the city unplundered...for now.
5. The hobgoblin hordes that broke the human defenders were driving towards the ruined shrine (hex 301.294) north of Tallow Watch. Nobody knows why they have an interest in it, but it can't be for anything good. On a side note: WTF?? I'm rolling these things everywhere based on DMG pg 173. I better switch to different clacky math rocks...
6. The city of Orchard Hollow (hex 302.294) are still somehow resisting the nomad/hobgoblin/ogre forces. Though smaller than the other nearby (14,000 inhabitants), it has been a famous bastion of Law since time immemorial and has a strong contingent of clerics with heroic paladins as their chamber-militant. This has doubtlessly contributed to their strength but nobody believes they will last long in face of the superior humanoid numbers.

OK we've got a lot of gameable content here. Note that I really haven't done any heavy lifting here. All of the above was generated via the fucking epic AD&D DMG Appendices and I just added some fluff to tie it all together by spending a few minutes thinking about the implied relationships of the random rolls. All names came from free online generators (take your pick - there's a lot of them). I'm harping on this (again) because it repeatedly makes the point that you don't need to endlessly purchase product from people that hate you. Seriously, this stuff is great and blows away the agenda-driven dreck that WoTC is trying to cram down your throat with current edition. 

Let's roll a d6 and see what our next session will explore. We get a 2 so Serpent Shrine it is! Let's hope the party has overcome their PTSD from the last dungeon delve and has better luck. I really would like to see my murder hobos make it past first level at some point...