Session 20: About Voon's Goons...

Since the Bros have now done a one-way Plane Shift to the afterlife, let's check in with Voon's goons to see how they're doing. When we last left them in Session 17, Voon had enough of Bloody Brogallo's reckless battles and decided to put some serious distance between himself and the Bros. We headed west and continued for several months, ultimately settling in the western city of Averdivock. 

Voon as a L9 fighter is thinking that it would be nice to take over a castle for his own and start carving out his own little empire. Extorting peasants and merchants for "military protection" is far more appealing that watching your comrades getting eaten by hydras, after all and Averdivock is well known for having all the creature comforts any respectable gentleman could want. He sends the Hench-bros out on recon while he starts making a list of the more interesting brothels in the city...and the richer caravan routes.

A week later, the Hench-bros return with a map of the environs, including a well maintained nearby castle occupied by a large group of bandits. Voon decides to try to convince the bandits to join him on a caravan raid and then turn on them after they've been weakened by the irritating caravan mercenary guards.

Voon's Goons make a slow and obvious march towards the bandit keep and approach under a flag of parley. The bandit leader, naturally suspicious but impressed by the balls on this "batshit crazy" fighter, agrees to the parley and hears what Voon has to say. 

Voon informs the bandits about the large caravan that is on the way to the city and that it's too heavily protected for him to plunder on his own. He knows a location where their combined forces could hit the caravan out of view of the Averdivock authorities and easily take the plunder to the nearby city of Ashtel for easy liquidation. A reaction roll of 72%/15% means that the bandit leader is suspicious but goes along with the plan as his greed wins over his black heart.

The combined group surprises the caravan and quickly dispatches the guards and takes the merchants captive. Voon executes his planned betrayal...and it does not go well.

Voon's mercenaries are wiped out to a man. His henchmen all fail morale and surrender to the bandit lord. A rare natural 100 on the reaction roll means the Primo Bandito decides he likes the way they fought and accepts them into the band. As for Voon? Well...as a famous man once said "I'll keep the money and you can have the rope."

Thus ends the saga of Voon de Goon.

Session 19: The Quick and the Dead

 

It's been a while since we've journeyed with the Bros and they're in pretty dire financial straits. Since I'm doing a BrOSR solo campaign, I'm using 1:1 time and that means the clock has been running during my unanticipated prolonged absence. I set up a spreadsheet some time ago to track expenses and update as the calendar ticked by so I didn't have to worry about tracking minutiae during downtime or extended breaks and the results are in!

As a refresher, Blastikus started rehabbing and expanding the Obsidian Tower to make it a base of operations for his future endeavors. This required an outlay of 207,909gp to rebuild and refortify the Citadel as well as to recruit sufficient mercenaries to man it against the numerous enemies the Bros have acquired over the past few years.

My real world hiatus has meant I haven't been able to send out the Bros since last summer and I was hilariously surprised when I looked at the spreadsheet and saw old Blastikus was 30,810gp in the hole due to the classic accounting challenge of "expenses > income". Time to hit the road for loot if we ever expect Blasty to level up again!

I roll on the Rumor Table and come up with The City of zul Korizik. This is pretty cool since Blastikus had previously sent the Hench-orcs to scout it, so I randomly generate the dungeon and we're off to the races.

The journey to the city is uneventful and the Bros leave the Brocenaries on the surface while they make their way below. The first few rooms are empty, but the Bros quickly stumble upon a rival adventuring party of 9 characters and fall upon them in a greed fueled bloodlust.

They win surprise and the first round of melee, quickly dispatching 4 mook henchmen and injuring two of the leaders. The remaining NPCs put up another round of resistance before horribly failing a morale check and surrendering in the hopes of ransoming themselves.

Some skillful interrogation by the Bros causes the L7 druid and L11 Magic-user to reveal that they were investigating new reports of Chaos infestation seeping upwards from the lower levels. The Bros decide to investigate further and leave the captives in the hands of the Brocenaries while they resume the delve. They proceed downwards to level 2 where they encounter a pack of giant scorpions, resulting in the death of Krall due to the poison stingers of the beasts. The Bros collectively shrug their shoulders and press on where they run into a pair of Stone Giant scouts who confirm the druid's story and let the party know that the western part of the dungeon level seems to be a strong source of the Chaos emanations that their own shaman have detected.

Parting on relatively good terms from the giants, the party makes their way westwards and ultimately meet group of 7 Blue Slaad. This ill-fated encounter ends with the complete elimination of the Bros...in 3 rounds of combat. 

Damn.

21 months of blood, sweat, and tears in the pursuit of glory, empire and fame brought crashing down in the depths of an ancient corrupted city...in under 3 minutes. New chapters have been written in the Book of the Dead

This is why AD&D fucking rules.

There's no delusional power fantasies of insecure mentally ill societal rejects pondering over "well what would my character do?" fucking garbage. Just raw, unfiltered brutality reminding you that there is no "story" to your character, just the hard reality of bad luck and poor choices cruelly teaching you the consequences of your actions. 

Go ahead and cry your eyes out, you fucking weakling. Crom hears you and cares not. Cthulhu can't tell you apart from the bacteria that cover your meatbag skin suit. Your mewling protestations of "that's not fair!" are worth less than a flea's fart in the wind to the Knight of Swords.

Weep quietly, you loser. Step aside for the next delusional wannabe hero that thinks HIS story will be different and superior to YOUR story. Until, of course, he meets his end in the dark, covered in his own excrement as the rats feast on his still beating heart.

I am going to kinda miss Blastikus, though...

THIS is D&D

THIS is D&D:

 

THIS is mental illness:

Choose the mythic journey of the hero, NOT the ravings of the insane pederast.

Don't give money to people who hate you!

Murderhobo 4 Life

 

Let's see what the party looks like after I had a chance to stat up the replacement murderhobos:

Backstories? THIS IS OLD-SKOOL DAMMIT! Fuck that theatre kid bullshit!! FINE. One liners are more than sufficient!

Bro-jira was made a ronin by the hobgoblin hordes that destroyed his clan and caused him to go quite insane in the process.

Blastikus dominates all with his arcane arts, for there can only be one master and he alone is the obvious choice.

Brother O'malley is a chronic addict that found the Order's rules stifling and sought out the borderline heretic Brother Sully for "spiritual guidance" that was more to his liking.

Kleptikos doesn't really see anything wrong with "borrowing" other people's stuff since he clearly needs it more than they do and would like to settle down with a small, but profitable, smuggling operation that will keep him in the manner which he deserves.

I hope Blastikus and Bro-jira stick around since I like MUs and would also dearly love to have a legendary psycho-samurai of the Cold Wastes. Also, Kleptikos and Mighty Redneck could be my own meth-fueled hallucinogenic Fafhrd and Grey Mouser clones. Ahhh the possibilities!!!

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.

I Cast "Summon Murder Hobo"

 While I'm still ruminating on the background of the initial environment we generated, I thought I'd start building out the murder hobo clan that will be the protagonists of our sordid tale. I decided to go with Method I (AD&D DMG pg11) but keep them in order to add some difficulty to my future solo expeditions.

My results:

Ooof...lotta dogs in there, but let's see what we can make of the hand we've been dealt.

The campaign is going to have a lot of dungeon crawling (duh), but there will be a lot of wilderness exploration, so I want a ranger and a thief. I love blasty wizards, and will definitely need one of those, assuming he can live long enough to get some decent firepower.

I threw 5 of the losers back to civilian life and ended up with a party of 5 murder hobos:

Let's roll up hit points, starting funds and kit out these guys for their foray into the forbidden shrine. I also randomly rolled for alignment in order and got the following:

Yeah...Shifty and Blasty better not get delusions of heroism cuz they're pretty frail.  They're also the only evil characters, but since everybody came up on the Neutral axis, I'm going to say they can keep their nasty tendencies contained when the other guys are looking and the NG PCs are looking for the good side of their unfortunate brethren. Clean country living has made the Mighty Redneck into a pretty serious badass so Shifty and Blasty better watch their mouths around him.

The random rolls have already paid off with an interesting dynamic (Note: no bullshit session zero, or 3 page character backstories are needed!). Are Brother Fitzy and Sir Stabbington members of the same esoteric order that have fallen in with the like-minded Mighty Redneck? Are Blasty and Shifty two scumbag siblings that are using the stronger members as cover for their rapacious looting tendencies? Time will tell...

A quick trip to the local outfitters and we end up with:

All are mounted on light horses (with saddle, bit and bridle as well as saddle bags), and have backpacks, 10 torches each, iron rations, 50ft rope and iron spikes). Sir Stabbington has opted for studded leather and put the savings towards hiring 4 light horse mercenaries and equipping them with leather armor, shield and spears to act as additional guards and help haul treasure. I'm going to say they're former brothers-in-arms that are down and their luck and as their former commanding officer, Sir Stabbington is trying to take care of his comrades in their hour of need. Let's see what the first morale check tells us about their feelings towards the old boss...

Next time, we'll flesh out the background of the city and maybe get to the forbidden shrine we rolled up last time.

New Year, New Project!

Happy New Year! 

I've decided to try the #dungeon24 challenge using the hex starter described here. I'm going to aim for weekly updates so let's hope real life doesn't conspire to change that.

If you haven't used the random tables in the One True Ruleset, you really should give them a try to see what the dice will generate. It's surprising how well the results hang together to form an amazingly coherent world (with a little creativity to plaster over any unseemly warts). This has the huge benefit of creating some really fun adventures without supporting the Death Cult and their anti-life agenda. I might extend the rolls to the lesser (though still valid IMO) works of the FF, MM2 and UA (sorry! I still like it in spite of the general disdain) but for now I'm going to stick to the challenge as issued. 

Let's see what we get, following the rules from the link above:

Start with a Single Hex

OK - I'm starting with a single 30 mile hex. Check out the classic article In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex for some really great info. 

Let's determine the climate (@pearsesd forgot this part in his post - you'll need it for the wilderness encounter tables). Roll a d6 for cold/temperate/tropical. I got a 2 so we're in a cold climate.

Roll d8 and d20 on Terrain Type Table (d8 selects initial type Headers. D20 on table)

I rolled a 5 (desert) and a 3 (plain). I wanted a little more flavor and looking at the Terrain Guide entry on AD&D DMG pg173, the sub types have some nice flavor so I d4 and d8 combo to get 1 (barrens) and 2 (steppe). Nice - this already starting to look good!

Roll on 1e DMG Appendix B for population (d6+2 on population center table will avoid populations of 80 or under)

I rolled a 6 (city) and considering the listed size is 10,000-60,000 another d6 gets me a population of 40,000. I'm getting heavy Lankhmar vibes now.

Roll on 1e DMG Appendix B for dungeon type (d4 on Ruins table)

I roll a 3 (shrine) so we're already starting to get a sense of atmosphere for the area.

Roll d2 and d4+1 on City/Town Encounters

I roll a 2 (nighttime encounters) and a modified 3 for the number of encounters. Three d100 rolls (62, 87, 99) which means I have a Night Hag, Thief and Wraith. This is awesome! The Night Hag is going to be a hidden hand pursuing a nefarious agenda behind the scenes via a network of catspaws, flunkies, and cultists. The Thief is, of course, the local guildmaster and the Wraith must be linked to the forbidden and desolate shrine of the dark gods near the city.

Roll on Terrain Type Wilderness Encounter d4 times

A d4 roll gives me 4 encounters and 4d100 rolls give me (10, 16, 32, 34) which means I have a flock (?) of griffons flying around, a hill giant tribe (41 on the giant subtable), a group of leucrottas probably being hunted by the pride of lions (or maybe the hill giants). Lotsa potential here...

With 17 rolls we've established a completely workable skeleton of a campaign setting in under 10 minutes. It honestly took more time to write the post that it did to generate the content.

More to come...