Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 11)

We played the eleventh session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 3 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 1 (Maya)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)
• Bronson, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

Last time we played, the party rallied their goblin allies for a counterattack into orcish territory. They used some barrels of water to barricade one of the doors leading to the orcs' throne room, then went around the other way. Llombaerth scouted ahead but was detected by a pair of orcs, who he led back down the corridor into a volley of arrows from the rest of the party. The wounded orcs retreated, and the party pursued.

After running down one injured orc, the party found Drak, the orcs' leader, waiting for them. Another orc lost morale and broke rank. Drak fired an arrow, slaying the party's man-at-arms, Armstrong, then fled. The party pursued, but another orc stood in their way, allowing Drak to escape through a secret door. They slew the last fighting orc as well as the one who had fled and failed to escape.

The goblin Numbnuts stumbled upon the means of opening the secret door, and the party found Drak in a hidden bedchamber. He fled through another secret door and the party followed, emerging into the hallway outside the throne room again. They chased Drak down again, denying his pleas for mercy. Llombaerth slew him with an arrow and bestowed his stone shirt upon Grilk's squire, Viss.

We picked up from there. Llombaerth went about looting Drak's corpse. Mirkle unbarricaded the door. The door to the secret bedchamber had closed behind them, so Robbernar and Rory started searching for the means to open it again. The goblin Rekk managed to find it. Mirkle took Numbnuts and Viss to explore the orc lair while the rest of the group gathered in the secret bedchamber. 

The four corners of the bedchamber were hung with tapestries. They depicted (1) A dragon being slain by a group of warriors, with one at the front thrusting the killing sword into the dragon’s neck, (2) A great battle in a mountain pass, with a small band of fighters led by a wizard and a lone hero putting the entire enemy army to flight, (3) A warrior and a maiden on horseback, holding hands against a backdrop of mountains, and (4) A hero and a wizard grasping hands atop a deserted hilltop against a setting sun. There was also another large, ornate bed, this one with the letter R engraved on the baseboard, and a wardrobe pushed against the wall. 

The party searched for secret doors, knowing that one led back to the throne room. Again, Rekk found it. The party asked whether Rekk had considered a career in delving. He had not. He was the goblin chef. Who else would make the rat stew? He then casually leaned on a wall next to said secret door and accidentally discovered a third secret door, this one opening on a corridor. The party decided not to search the room more thoroughly in the goblins' presence, in case there were valuables to be had. They spiked open the two familiar secret doors and spiked shut the third, in case some hitherto unknown monster came crawling out of it while their backs were turned.

Meanwhile, Mirkle, Numbnuts, and Viss entered the treasure room, which had been marked on Numbnuts's map. Inside, a 40' long dragon skin hung on the far wall, its greenish bronze scales glittering in the light of their torch. A statue of a fearsome 7' long multilegged lizard stood in one corner, a taxidermized lizard chicken in another. A stout, diminutive skeleton hung from the ceiling by irons. The walls were decorated by a pair of mounted giant moose heads, two pairs of dragon claws, a giant-sized black shield, a pair of ram's horns, a pair of crossed two-handed swords, a bearskin, an entire door etched with inlaid symbols, and a trio of colorful flags on long iron poles.

The rest of the party joined them, and convinced the goblins that the moose heads would make a fearsome display in the goblins' lair - enough to ward off any would-be attackers. Robbernar and Rory helped Numbnuts and Rekk bring them down and carry them back to their lair. They weighed 250 pounds each, so it would take all four of them to move a single head back and forth. 

They would be moderately encumbered (moving at half speed), but traveling along a known route (moving five times as fast). They were limited by the goblins' base movement rate of 6 (60' per turn, 30' when moderately encumbered, so 150' along the known route). The goblins' lair was 230' down some corridors and they had to make two trips. Then they helped the goblins mount the heads (one on a barricade and another on the wall in the room with the marble statue of the nude woman). In short, all of this took an hour.

You may have noticed by now that the entire time the party has been wandering around this dungeon, they've never once had an encounter with a wandering monster. Yeah, that's my bad. I am rolling for wandering monsters, but not super consistently. I'm meant to roll once every three turns, or when the party makes a lot of noise or does something else to attract attention, but I don't always remember in the moment. When I do, there often is not an encounter, and when there is, I often have a hard time justifying it in the moment. I also do a lot of my timekeeping after the session, as I'm writing the play report and reconstructing the party's actions after the fact. It's something I'm hoping to get better at, but it has made the dungeon a bit easier for the players.

Anyway, while half the party was occupied with the moose heads, Llombaerth went about appraising the items in the trophy room. Mirkle convinced Viss to come with her to loot the remaining orc corpses, leaving Llombaerth to work in private.

Llombaerth estimated that the dragon skin weighed 1,000 pounds and was worth 1,500 gold pieces. Due to its size, it would take 6 to 10 people to carry it safely. 

The statue of the lizard was very lifelike, clearly the work of a master mason, its head turned so that its eye gazed balefully on the observer. Llombaerth estimated it at 2,000 pounds and another 1,500 gold pieces, but it would require a sled, rollers, crowbars, and ropes to remove it, plus 8 to 10 people or two horses to transport it.

The skeleton was that of a dwarf, and appeared to be worthless. Why it was here among such treasures was anyone's guess.

The two sets of dragon claws appeared to be from the same specimen as the hide on the wall. Each weighed 80 pounds and was worth 300 gold pieces. Two people would need to carry each between them.

The ram's horns weighed 50 pounds and were worth 40 gold pieces. The door with its engraved iconography weighed 250 pounds and was worth 400 gold pieces, although to whom it would be worth something was anyone's guess.

The giant shield was 6' tall and weighed 150 pounds. The crossed greatswords weighed 15 pounds each and were etched with unidentifiable runes. The bearskins weighed 70 pounds. The great iron flag poles weighed 15 pounds each, and the flags depicted unrecognizable symbols. Llombaerth could not determine the worth of any of these items.

The taxidermized lizard chicken weighed 60 pounds. It was clearly a fake - separate chicken and lizard specimens shoddily stitched together to resemble some fearsome monster, like a jackalope in a cryptozoology museum. Whatever this creature was meant to be, it was nothing that existed in the real world! Llombaerth rolled a natural 20 on his Appraisal check, which in this situation is a bad thing:

The entire party reconvened at this point. The goblins did not see the value in any of these items, so the party convinced them to go ransack the storage room way down the hall, where Lumpknuckles had originally been. Meanwhile, the party and their porters moved the door, the dragon hide and claws, and the shield back to the secret bedchamber. This took a few turns, mostly because of the dragon hide. They tapestries hanging in the bedchamber were 60 pounds each, and the bedframe looked to be worth something if salvaged, but the party did not attempt to appraise either.

They made a makeshift litter using two of the flagpoles and the bearskin. Inside, they wrapped the flags, the ram's horns, and the two swords. The whole thing weighed 180 pounds. Even four people carrying it between them would be lightly encumbered.

Next, they went down the corridor to the captain's chamber. The door was embellished with a brass-studded leather skin which read "ERIG". Inside, they found a chest, a crude bed, a table holding a stoneware crock, and earthenware tankard mug, and a small hand mirror. A barrel marked "SD" stood in the corner, and two shields and footman's mace hung on the wall.

Robbernar identified the liquid in the barrel as old, sour ale. Llombaerth checked the chest and found pants, cloaks, a coat, and two pairs of boots. He tossed all of these out and, underneath, found a broken dagger, a leather pouch, and a sack bursting to the brim with coins.

Inside the pouch was a walnut plaque inlaid with silver, engraved "To Erig, great and trusted fighter by my side, and captain of the guard at Quasqueton - against all foes we shall prevail!” It was signed with an embellished "R". They took the mirror, the shields and mace, the broken dagger, and the plaque. They sorted through the coins in the sack, taking 290 silver, 120 electrum, and 25 gold for themselves. They left 840 copper pieces in the sack and brought it with them.

They took the shields and mace back to their hoard in the secret bedchamber. They backtracked all the way to the storage room and found the goblins tossing it, though there was nothing there but tables, chairs, stools, a woodworking bench, a wood shavings on the floor. They gifted the goblins the sack of copper, which the goblins were delighted to receive.

They agreed to meet the goblins back at their lair, then returned to the secret bedchamber, picked up their makeshift litter, and closed the secret doors behind them, planning to return to town with their loot.

This was a good session! Lots of logistics stuff. Not the most exciting sort of thing, but after like, four sessions of chases and combats, it's a refreshing little breather. These sessions are the unsung heroes of a long-term campaign, where the players get to decompress and focus on exploring and interacting with the world. It makes the moments of tension and high octane action stand out that much more.

I tried not to get too bogged down thinking about encumbrance and movement rates and tracking time in the moment, but having figured it all out after the fact, all of this took about two and a half hours of in-world time. Here's what my time tracking looks like, by the way:

The party has been in the dungeon for nearly nine hours at this point, so the characters are likely exhausted. I'll need to keep that in mind during our next session.

I would also like to add that I added all of the treasure items in the trophy room! Or, rather, I made the items in the trophy room into treasure. Seriously, Rogahn and Zelligar have all this cool stuff in there and the module doesn't suggest that any of it is worth anything at all! Boring! I saw this as an opportunity to not just beef up the meagre treasure offered in the module as written, but also to present the players with a logistical challenge. It's a bit of a headache, but the kind I genuinely enjoy in a game like this.

Developing the Sandbox: Monster Lairs

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

"Wilderness" monster lairs (really "outdoor" monster lairs, since they can appear in inhabited as well as wilderness areas) have much in common with other location types in the sandbox. They're kind of like dungeons, and kind of like strongholds. Monsters can have lairs in dungeons. A stronghold is essentially the lair of its ruler or occupants. The Caves of Chaos is the quintessential monster lair in classic D&D, but it looks very much like a dungeon and plays very similarly to a stronghold, the difference being mainly one of aesthetics and the "personhood" of its inhabitants (i.e., whether or not it is socially acceptable to kill them). The Hall of the Fire Giant King is a monster lair but is also literally a stronghold.

Lairs look different depending on who lives there. A monster lair might just be a room in a dungeon. Outdoors, it could be a cave full of owlbears, which is very obviously a lair, or it could be a leprechaun's burrow, which is visually almost indistinguishable from a hobbit hole. Your character might be a hobbit. To them, that's just a home! Orcs sometimes live in villages, and an enclave of elves is probably like a village too, albeit with a different aesthetic and inhabitants. Giants and vampires and such live in castles. All sorts of monsters can inhabit deserted strongholds.

Despite their similarity to other locations, monster lairs serve their own gameplay purpose and satisfy a unique niche in the sandbox. They vary in complexity. The cave which is home to a small pack of dumb beasts is simpler than the ruin where a dragon slumbers, surrounded by a few dozen sycophantic humanoid worshipers, which in turn is simpler than the underground city inhabited by hundreds of highly intelligent, organized Drow. 

In my own musings on the subject, I argue that monster lairs of lesser or greater complexity serve as "stepping stones" from one level or tier of gameplay to the next. Using my B1 sandbox as an example, the owlbear den offers something for the players to do after they finish exploring Quasqueton, but before they're prepared to infiltrate or lay siege to Fayette's Hold. The ogre den similarly offers a transition from that stronghold - with just a meagre garrison and a relatively less powerful fighter ruling it - to the strongholds of Lambrecht and Blachefleur, the Evil wizard and cleric who hold dominion over the town of Timbershore. If there were also a lair of, say, 300 orcs out there in the wilderness, that would likewise offer some "endgame" content for the players, perhaps after they've liberated the town from its sinister rulers.

Keeping in mind the relative complexity and challenge level of your monster lairs, you can make an educated guess as to which will be easiest to detail and which your players are likely to explore first, which will in turn inform the sequence you should follow when developing these locations. Going by complexity alone, I might first detail the giant eagle nest, Jinglepuff's Burrow, and the owlbear den first, for example.

You can also anticipate your players' likely actions based on the locations' proximity to inhabited lands. Going by this metric, I might first choose to detail any monster lairs found in Timbershore, then take on Zerelda's Camp (yes, a camp of adventurer NPCs is a "monster lair") and the ogre den because they are close to inhabited lands and relatively easy to get to. The giant eagle nest, Jinglepuff's Burrow, and the owlbear den are comparatively remote, so they could wait for later.

In reality, none of these locations should take long to detail, and any of them might become relevant sooner or later depending on the players' interests, so they all end up being developed during the same "phase" of my process. I just kind of jump around from one to the other depending on whichever one interests me next. 

The owlbear den seemed really straightforward, so I knocked that out right away. I had never keyed a leprechaun burrow before, so I did that next because it seemed fun. There was also a monster lair in Timbershore which really caught me by surprise (and which I won't spoil here), and was so delightful that I simply had to do it next. Have fun with it! Keep the momentum going however you see fit.

As usual, I will start with a minimalist sketch of the location. For monster lairs, this includes what type of monsters live there, who their leader is (if they have one), and how the monsters as a group react to adventurers (or the outside world more generally). 

Are the bandits led by a fighter? A wizard? A cleric? Are they actively riding around the countryside, killing, looting, and burning, or are they simply threatening and demanding tribute? They might be Robinhood types, stealing from the rich to give to the needy. Are the orcs causing problems, or just keeping to themselves? Are the elves reclusive, or interested in trading with the human population? Just because the "monsters" are not hostile "enemies" doesn't mean the place where they live isn't worth detailing!

Next, I'll hammer out specifics, like the number of monsters present and what treasures they possess. If you're using something like AD&D, the Monster Manual will simply tell you these things, which is awesome (keep in mind that the actual number of monsters appearing compared to the total possible number will affect the amount of treasure they have). X number of goblins appear in dungeons, Y wandering the wilderness, and Z in their wilderness lair. If they're in their lair, they have so and so leaders and a such and such percent chance to have this or these monsters as guards. It's great stuff.

You might be using some other resource depending on your system of choice, in which case you might have to fill in the specifics with your imagination. The thorough procedural structure of AD&D is one of the many reasons I find myself coming back to it when wanting to run a game.

Honestly, if you're running something like modern D&D, the AD&D numbers work just fine. Even if you're running 5e, try having a bandit camp with 200 bandits in it. That will throw your players for a nasty loop when they hear about the bandits plaguing travelers on the road and assume it's a quest hook for 1st level characters with a carefully balanced combat encounter designed for them to easily defeat, only to find that they need a small army to root the bandits out. The number of monsters suggested by AD&D is less about adhering to some esoteric underlying math and more about creating a lifelike world.

Once you know how many monsters there are and how much treasure they have, you will need to figure out how that's all distributed throughout the lair and convert it into a table-ready key. For small-scale lairs, I think it's quite easy. I use a variation of the same "chunking" method outlined in my post on developing dungeons. Let's revisit this table from the AD&D DMG:

In a dungeon, I treat a roll of 15-17 ("Monster and treasure") as a lair. In a 20-room chunk, there will be three of them. In this case, I really only need one. Since there are normally three, what if I just divide the whole table by three?

Since there are normally 12 "empty" rooms per three "monster and treasure" rooms, my smallest lair needs only four "empty" rooms. There is about a 67% chance of there being another room with just monsters, and about a 33% that there is a "special" room, a trick or trap room, and a treasure room, respectively. That means your smallest monster lair is most likely going to have about seven rooms (four "empty", one with the primary inhabitant and its treasure hoard, probably one with another monster, and probably at least one special, trick/trap, or treasure room).

This works pretty well for a single leprechaun's burrow or an owlbear den with just a mated pair and their cubs. If the lair contains 300 orcs, you'll obviously want to adjust it up so that there's room to breathe. You also don't need to take it too literally - just because there's only two "monster" rooms doesn't mean those are the only two rooms with monsters in them. There is probably an ogre monitoring the room with the hidden pit trap and another standing guard by the treasure den. This is where they live. Spread them out!

You will also want to loosely interpret the results, since this isn't a dungeon. The number of "monster" rooms isn't actually telling you how many monsters are there, since the Monster Manual (or whatever is available in your system) is probably providing that information. Those are just the rooms where the monsters congregate (i.e. where they eat or sleep). 

A "trick/trap" room isn't going to feature the same sorts of tricks and traps you'd find in a Mythic Underworld-style dungeon, but rather whatever sorts of devices the monsters in question might employ in their home, depending on the type of home they keep. These might be proper traps or simple obstacles, fortifications, wards, hazards, etc. Kobolds will set traps in their lair, but owlbears won't. A "trap" in an owlbear lair is going to look like something different. Similarly, the "special" room in the owlbear's lair might be a forgotten druid's shrine in the back of the den, accessible via a narrow tunnel, which offers some boon entirely unrelated to the owlbears themselves.

All this method is doing is providing the number of rooms and the proportion of gameplay features to include. For example, let's say I roll some dice and determine that, in addition to the requisite four empty rooms and the room where Jinglepuff is found with his treasure, his lair also contains an additional "monster only" room. 

Since Jinglepuff is the only leprechaun who lives here, and the Monster Manual doesn't suggest that leprechauns keep other monsters in their lair, I refer to my indexing of AD&D 2e monsters by level. According to that, leprechauns are a 5th level monster, so I go looking for something comparable that might reasonably be found there as well. Blink dogs are also 5th level monsters, and are associated with fey creatures, so I might decide that Jinglepuff keeps a mated pair and their litter of pups as pets (great for capturing and selling into slavery).

If I were to have the same rooms in my ogre den, however, I might say that the "monster only" room is just where the majority of the ogre rabble congregate to eat and sleep, while the "monster and treasure" room is where the chieftain and his favored consorts and bodyguards dwell. This is because the ogre lair contains more than a dozen ogres, while the leprechaun lair has just one leprechaun. In the former example, I'm spreading out a greater number of monsters across multiple rooms. In the latter example, I'm bolstering a single monster's numbers with additional pets and guardians which make sense for that monster to keep.

For a lair of 300 orcs, I could do a full 20-room chunk, with huge garrisons of orcs living in each of the "monster only" rooms, and the chief and sub-chiefs (or whatever) making their own individual "lairs" in the "monster and treasure" rooms. That's still 60 orcs in each room (or, more accurately, 60 orcs spread out across the rooms each group is responsible for protecting), so I might make it a lair with 40 or 60 keyed areas - as I said, these larger lairs can become very complex! 

This also prompts me to consider turning each of the sub-chiefs into their own factions within the larger orc band, since each has its own mini "lair" within the greater lair. This allows for more social gameplay and for turning one faction against the other to start an internecine war between them, not all that dissimilar from the Caves of Chaos. Might I suggest using opposing reaction rolls to determine how the different monster groups feel about one another?

Remember that just as strongholds and settlements assert their dominion via patrols, monsters will control their territory as well. Put some wandering monsters from the lair on your outdoor encounter tables. When monsters are found in a given area of the lair, note if who or what is there differs by time of day. If one cave is where the owlbears sleep, they're probably not there at all times. Perhaps one goes out to hunt for part of the day, while another stays behind to watch the cubs. Orcs hate sunlight, so you probably don't want to raid their lair during the day when everyone is home. If you go at night, some will be out hunting, which will make the raid that much easier.

Many of the same principles you might keep in mind when designing a dungeon apply to designing a monster lair. Jacquays it. Create a wandering monster table. Make sure the "empty" rooms still have interactable elements. If possible, include something to talk to, something to kill, something to be killed by, and a secret to find. 

You'll want the place to feel like what it's supposed to be - a place where monsters live. This is not the Mythic Underworld, impossibly old and inscrutable, with weird rules of its own, where the ancient and alien nature of the place can explain away a lot of the weirdness in layout or features. If your dungeon is filled with undead or fiends or elementals, you probably don't need to worry much about dungeon ecology, but a monster lair is usually home to a type of monster which is much more grounded in the physical world and its requirements - humanoids and beasts that need to eat, drink, sleep, procreate, raise young, go out and hunt, entertain themselves, make themselves comfortable, and the like.

Just as dungeon history informed the specific way in which I stocked my hypothetical dungeons in my previous post, the nature of the monsters that dwell in the lair (and the nature of the lair they dwell in) will inform the way in which I stock their lair. Elves will use magic and warp natural features to suit their needs, dwarves will use shifting stone and have lots of room for crafting, and halflings will keep cozy lairs with full larders. Orcs will decorate the place with the skulls of their enemies, kobolds will employ lots of traps, and cackling will echo through the gnolls' warrens.

Another key element is to ensure the lair suits the monster's strengths. This is probably less so the case in a dungeon, where the monster is more likely there by happenstance, and some other creature originally designed the space for their own ends. The monster chose its outdoor lair for a reason, or modified it to suit its needs. Giant spiders will carpet the floor with webbing to detect prey entering. Fire giants will carve channels for molten lava to form moats. Black dragons will flood some portion of their lair and keep their treasure on the far side of a submerged tunnel. A beholder carves tunnels using its disintegration ray, and it can levitate, so it isn't creating its lair to be easily navigable by pitiful grounded bipeds.

Not all lairs are dungeon-esque. An informal camp home to adventurers, bandits, berserkers, or the like it not going to play like a dungeon crawl at all, nor is a giant eagle nest situated in the branches of a tree atop a tall bluff. These are much simpler, and you can probably imagine easily enough what the place looks like once you have the specifics figured out.

Monster lairs are excellent sandbox fodder, which is great, because you'll probably have a good amount of them, depending on the method you use to stock the sandbox. I determine the number of monster lairs based on the terrain. They are less common in grasslands and desert, but more common in swamps and mountains. If my sandbox is in a more "rugged" "untamed" region, there will be more monster lairs.

They vary in complexity, but are not overly complex until you get to the huge humanoid warrens and villages. At the lower end of complexity, they're dungeonesque, offering turn-based exploration and heated skirmishes in narrow confines. These are not overly difficult to bring to fruition. At the higher end, they're akin to strongholds, forcing the player characters to accumulate power and bring real strength to bear to lay siege to them. These will require significantly more effort to design.

Because there are so many different types of monsters, and each monster will have its own unique version of a lair, they also offer a variety of thematic flavor which will keep your campaign interesting. Bear caves, elf villages, ruined giant strongholds, ankheg burrows, giant beehives, ghoulish graveyards, vampire castles - these are all lairs, and they're all wildly different because of who lives there.

Monster lairs are great because they affect the world around them. Most dungeons are kind of just there. The players will want to explore them because that's what the game is about, and because that's where the treasure is. Monster lairs also have treasure, but the game is also about dealing with monsters, and the lair is where you deal with them. 

That doesn't necessarily mean killing them. You might visit the goblin lair because the goblins have a powerful shaman who can cast a spell you need. You might wish to recruit them to attack the "civilized" frontier fortress where the really good treasure is kept. Maybe the local ruler wants to incorporate the goblins into their territory, the goblins are on the fence, and you're being sent to negotiate terms. Maybe the goblins are ruled over by the neighboring ogres, and they ask you to deal with them.

Be open minded about your monster lairs, what the monsters want, how they affect the world, and how the powers that be feel about them. That will color the way in which you expect the players to interact with these locations. Unlike dungeons, which monsters inhabit almost incidentally, lairs are where monsters choose to live. Why have they chosen to live there? How have they made the place their own? How has their choice to live there affected their neighbors? What, if anything, is to be done about it?

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 10)

We played the tenth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 1 (Maya)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Armstrong, human man-at-arms (NPC)
• Bronson, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

Last time, the party and their goblin allies engaged in a heated skirmish with the Stonespeaker orcs of Quasqueton. The party avenged the fallen mage Malkara when they slew the goblin Lumpknuckles, and convinced the goblin Numbnuts to throw down his arms and surrender, rather than die in battle. The goblin Narka took a grievous wound from the orcish vanguard, but was saved by Robbernar. The goblin leader, Grilk, was ambushed by a second group of orcs while leading a flanking party. Sadly, he was slain. The party eventually killed the orcish vanguard and forced the rear guard to retreat back to their lair.

The party and their goblin allies gathered the dead. The player characters were allowed to keep the orcs' pocket change for themselves when they showed Narka how to open the secret door leading to the hidden room with barrels and casks of provisions, which was christened the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder.

We picked up from there. As the party debated its next course of action, they heard the magic mouths in the entrance corridor activate. The goblins armed themselves again and ran to investigate with Llombaerth and Robbernar in tow. They found a female human fighter in studded leather, wielding spear, shield, and longbow. She introduced herself as Mirkle, and said she had come in search of Quasqueton's great treasures.

The goblins wanted to fill the newcomer with arrows, but Mirkle tossed them a gold piece, and the remaining party members convinced the goblins to let her pass.

The party decided to go after the remaining orcs, but wished to recruit some of the goblins to accompany them. Robbernar gave a rousing speech to rally the goblins, to which Llombaerth added "For Grilk!" This managed to embolden Grilk's squire, Viss, who raised his mace and echoed "For Grilk!"

The rest of the goblins were unmoved. Rekk was eventually convinced when the party pledged to be in the vanguard themselves. The goblins would bring up the rear, and would not need to engage in melee combat. In addition, every goblin which participated would receive a half-share of any treasure recovered. 

Numbnuts wished to stay put and hide. Robbernar tried to convince him that if the party failed, the orcs would come for Numbnuts next. Numbnuts countered that he would simply run away and hide amongst the rats, to which the party responded that the rats outnumbered Numbnuts, and wouldn't it be more glorious for Numbnuts to die in battle against the orcs than to be eaten alive by rats? This convinced Numbnuts to join the group.

Narka was still nursing her wound from the previous battle, so she decided to hang back and guard the goblins' territory. The traitorous goblin Pigmug was still a captive, after all, and someone would have to keep an eye on him.

With that, the party decided that they would retrieve a few barrels of water from the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder and use them to barricade the northern entrance to the orcs' territory. They would then loop around to the southern entrance and attack the orcs from the rear. They enlisted the goblins' help in transporting the barrels.

With the whole group in position at the southern entrance, Llombaerth snuck on ahead to scout the area. The long, winding corridor went left, left again, right, right, right again, and then left, upon which Llombaerth came to an intersection - one corridor straight ahead, and another to the right. 

Llombaerth was in hearing range of an orc sentry, so I had him make a Move Silently check, which he passed. To the right, the corridor went 60 feet and then opened up into a larger room, lit by flickering torches. Where the corridor ended, two orcs stood guard, facing straight ahead, so their left flank was exposed to Llombaerth. He decided to move through the intersection and continue straight ahead.

Shortly after passing the intersection, Llombaerth failed a second Move Silently check, stumbling over a loose flagstone. He heard a grumbling orcish voice from the corridor just ahead, and heard orcs cautiously approaching from both directions. He attempted to Move Silently back the way he came, but tripped again, and the orcish grumbling turned to shouts. The orcs' cautious steps turned into a full pursuit.

Llombaerth had a lead on the orcs, and was faster besides, so he led them on a chase back down the winding corridor until he was able to rejoin the rest of the party and alert them to his pursuers. Armstrong and Robbernar moved forward into the corridor, shields up, while Mirkle and the three goblins lingered just beyond the threshold, their bows at the ready.

An orc came stumbling around the corner, and Mirkle and the goblins loosed a volley of eight arrows down the hall. One of Mirkle's and one of Viss's arrows connected. A staggering six arrows missed the orc, who survived the initial attack, though only barely. The orc reeled and made to retreat, and the party pursued.

As the party rounded a corner, a second orc was waiting for them. It loosed an arrow at Armstrong, but the shot went wide. The second orc fell back as well. The party pursued both orcs at full speed, leaving the slower goblins behind, but gained ground on the orcs each round. 

At the intersection which Llombaerth had come to previously, the wounded orc went right, while the other continued straight. The party ran down the injured orc and Robbernar drove his sword into its back, killing it.

As the orc fell, the party spotted another two orcs just ahead, waiting for them with bows drawn. One of the orcs wore the usual suit of studded leather, decorated with rough stones and pebbles which clattered as it moved. The second orc looked to be one of those injured in the prior battle. As the party charged, the second orc lowered its weapon and fled, leaving the stone-armored orc alone. It loosed an arrow at Armstrong and landed a critical hit for 8 damage. The arrow went through Armstrong's eye, and the man-at-arms fell dead in a heap. The orc retreated into the room, its back to the far wall.

Before the party could pursue, the remaining uninjured orc emerged from around the corner to the left, blocking their path. An arrow from Llombaerth was deflected by the orc's shield. Mirkle took up Armstrong's position in the vanguard and stabbed her spear into the orc's side. As it twisted in pain, Robbernar slashed with his longsword, slaying the orc.

Meanwhile, the stone-armored orc turned and fled out of sight. The party heard the sound of grinding stone somewhere up ahead. As they emerged into the room, they found the remaining wounded orc trying to escape through the door they'd barricaded shut. Llombaerth loosed a pair of arrows and Mirkle threw her spear. All three attacks caught the orc in the back for maximum damage - 22 total damage to an orc with 1 hit point left! The various projectiles handily killed the orc and pinned its body to the door.

The party found themselves in a throne room. Two great white marble thrones sat upon a red granite dais overlooking a rectangular court of black slate flanked by red granite pillars. Dusty, moldering yellow and purple drapes hung from the wall behind the thrones. They did not see where the stone-armored orc had gotten to. The goblins had caught up with them at this point, so they set about searching for secret doors.

They nearly didn't find any, until Numbnuts got tired of searching and decided to sit on one of the marble thrones. In doing so, he accidentally pressed a button on one throne's armrest. A secret door in the back-left corner of the room slid open, and they heard an orcish curse.

The party offered the orc surrender. Instead, they heard the sound of grinding stone again. They pursued through the first secret door and entered into a bedchamber decorated like a log cabin or woodland lodge, its walls lined with strips of finished wood. Rich tapestries hung from the corners of the room, a great bed and cabinet pushed up against the right wall. The orc fled through a second secret door to the left.

The party pursued again, and found that the second secret door deposited them in the hallway in which they had barricaded the door with barrels of water. Mirkle fired another arrow at the orc's back as it fled. The orc was wounded, but wasn't brought down. Robbernar ran down the orc at a full sprint, with Llombaerth and Mirkle bringing up the rear.

Too slow to escape pursuit, the orc turned and surrendered to them, begging for its life. They pressed the attack. Both Mirkle and Robbernar's attacks glanced off the orc's shield. Llombaerth climbed atop one of the barrels to get a clear shot and finally put an arrow through the orc's head, killing it.

Llombaerth took the orc's stone armor and bestowed it upon Viss, declaring him Stonespeaker. The armor was too big for Viss and he could barely stand while wearing it, but it seemed to earn him respect from the other goblins. Viss thanked the party and said he hoped that he would have the party's support in the upcoming Goblins' Moot. While the party were not goblins and so did not have a say in choosing their new leader (or any rights in goblin society), their endorsement might encourage more of the goblins to throw their support behind Viss's bid.

Lastly, Mirkle took the stone-armored orc's flail as a trophy. With that, we concluded the session. 

This was another fun one. The twisting corridors of Quasqueton continue to present unique challenges and really liven up what could otherwise be dull dungeon skirmishes. There was a 50% chance that the orc leader's critical hit arrow could have instead targeted Robbernar, which would have killed him in one shot as well (and it was even a below average damage roll). The margin for error in low level AD&D is very small, so the party really needs those lucky breaks to survive (and in this case, a "lucky break" is their hireling dying instead of them).

The orcs have been a big to-do for the party since the early sessions of the campaign, so I'm excited to see what direction the players go in now that they're finally dead. Llombaerth got enough XP to reach 3rd level (which comes with a THAC0 improvement in addition to more hit points and points for his thief skills), but the rest of the party is still 1st level, so Quasqueton's remaining challenges will continue to pose a series threat to them, even though they've come so far!

AD&D's Most Expensive and Irritating NPC

No NPC embodies the Gygaxian maxim that dealing with NPCs "should be expensive and irritating" quite like the sage.

Like the spy, the sage is a special class of expert hireling which follows its own bespoke rules and procedures. Also like the spy, their main gameplay function is the recovery of information on behalf of the player characters. They are the "encyclopedias" and "computers" of the AD&D milieu:

Each sage has a chosen field of study (their major field), expertise in two to four special categories within that field, and some knowledge of one or two other fields of study (their minor fields):

Intuitively, the higher one rolls on the above table, the better the sage, with a roll of 91 to 100 indicating a sage with knowledge of four special categories in their major field of study as well as knowledge of two additional minor fields of study.

A sage's major and minor fields of study are determined by rolling on the table below:

Let's say I roll d100 and get a result of 76, which is a sage with knowledge of three special categories in their major field and knowledge of two additional minor fields. I next roll 53, so the sage's major field of study is humanoids and giantkind. I then roll 66 and 38, so the sage also has minor knowledge of physical universe(s) and demi-humankind. Tragically, there are no subtables to determine the special categories known to the sage, but there are eight listed under humanoids and giantkind, so I'll roll 3d8. I get 5 (legends and folklore), 4 (languages), and 3 (history).

Whether or not a sage knows the answer to some question is based on whether the information is within one of the sage's fields of study or special categories, as well as the nature of the question (general, specific, or exacting):

As you can probably imagine, determining whether a question is of a general, specific, or exacting nature is left to the judgement of the DM:

Here's where we get to the good stuff. In order to conduct their studies, sages require no fewer than four rooms (living quarters, a study, a library, and a workroom) and a total of at least 800 square feet of space for all their materials. The DM is specifically instructed to "make a point of asking for far more than is actually needed", with the example sage specialized in flora requesting an additional root cellar, greenhouse, fungi beds, and several acres for growing plants:

800 square feet is is eight 10' squares or 16 5' squares, so it's not a lot of real estate on a sheet of graph paper, but one can imagine a sage with even just the bare minimum amount of space required occupying at least an entire floor of a tower in, say, the player character's stronghold.

You can roll to determine the sage's ability scores, alignment, and hit points:

As you can imagine, sages have high Intelligence and Wisdom, average Dexterity, and slightly below average Constitution and Charisma. For some reason, they tend towards average Strength (11.5, the same as if you rolled 3d6), but with a higher minimum score (8). They also have 8d4 hit points before Constitution bonuses are applied, which is the same as an 8th level wizard! They are most commonly Lawful Neutral or Neutral in alignment, and most rarely Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Good.

Interestingly, sages are capable of casting spells, and which spells they can cast is determined by a die roll (d4+2 to determine the maximum level of spells, from 3rd to 6th) and their fields of study:

This also suggests that 70% of sages have clerical abilities, 20% have druidical talents, and 10% have magic-user or illusionist abilities (referring back to the table for determining fields of study).

My hypothetical sage with knowledge of humanoids and giantkind, physical universe(s), and demi-humankind is a natural fit for clerical spellcasting abilities. I roll 5 on d4+2, so they can cast up to 5th level spells and will know 1d4 spells of each level. Like a magic-user (or even a cleric, if you choose to take to heart a brief aside in OD&D), a sage's spells are "contained in various source books." This is thematically excellent and evocative, and is maybe the only (?) mention of druid spells being written down somewhere, which is neat.

I'm less sure what to make of the assertion that sages cannot cast "Spells such as bless, chant, prayer, commune, raise dead, commune with nature, and contact other plane." The prohibition against raise dead makes enough sense, as - if no one in the party is capable of casting it - the player characters are expected to pay out the ear to get an NPC to cast such a spell for them. The commune spells and contact other plane are thematically within the sage's wheelhouse, but their inclusion on the list makes some sense, as their use undermines the very purpose of the sage (and makes it far too easy for them to retrieve knowledge on the party's behalf). If other basic spells like bless, chant, and prayer are forbidden, it raises the question: What spells exactly are sages supposed to be allowed to learn? I wish the DMG offered some guidance on that front, but alas.

Note that, because the sage is the most annoying NPC in AD&D, they "will tend to keep [their] spell knowledge as highly secret." The player character is only providing employment and room and board, after all - why should the sage be upfront with them about their abilities?

The next paragraph is not especially remarkable, but take note that sages are all middle-aged to venerable in age:

We'll come back to that in a moment.

Only certain classes can hire sages:

The notable exclusions from the list are magic-users, illusionists, clerics, druids, and monks - which, aside from monks, are the very classes to which sages kind of sort of belong. Perhaps this indicates another aspect of the sage's particularness - they cannot bear to be in the employ of someone with abilities similar to or greater than their own.

Any character can "consult" with a sage (which will later be referred to as "short-term employment"), but any character of the aforementioned eligible classes seeking to employ a sage on a long term basis "must have a stronghold with ample space for the sage" (the four 200-square-foot rooms mentioned above, at the very least) and must be willing to employ the sage for the rest of the sage's life! Very demanding, these sages.

Sages are found only in large towns and cities:

How many sages might be found in such a place? We can work backwards to figure that out. If you have a means of identifying what character-type NPCs live in your settlements, you could decide that any middle-aged to venerable magic-user, illusionist, cleric, or druid in the area capable of casting 3rd to 6th level spells is available for employment as a sage. Using my B1 sandbox as an example, I might decide that Sigismund, a 7th level magic-user, is a sage.

You can then keep working backwards to determine such a sage's fields of study. Sigismund, as a magic-user, would presumably major in supernatural and unusual studies, with minor knowledge in other fields.

I'm fascinated by the assertion that sages belong to an informal "Brotherhood" (but note that they're not all assumed to be men), and that all sages in the area will know about the employment of a sage. The sages are hanging out at the forums, gossiping about all the dumb questions you ask them!

A player character who consults with a sage is employing them on a short-term basis, which is limited to one week's time. After which, the sage is unavailable for one month, because sages don't like to waste their time with "foolish questions" (especially if the fools aren't offering lifetime employment and room and board):

The one-week restriction on short-term employment will affect the sorts of questions a sage so employed will be able to answer, which we will get to later. Note that this service costs at least 100 gold pieces per day!

Sages employed on a permanent basis are also incredibly expensive, costing 400 to 2,400 gold pieces per month:

The "initial material expenditure" represents the purchasing of "reference works, experimental equipment, and so on." The minimum amount (20,000 gold pieces) allows the sage to answer specific and exacting questions at just 50% "efficiency" (unclear to me if this is referring to time spent researching the answer to the question or the sage's actual ability to find the answer). 60,000 gold pieces gets the sage to 90% efficiency, and only after 100,000 gold pieces are spent does the sage operate at 100% efficiency:

The player character can spend additional gold to increase the sage's question answering ability in the general and specific areas. The player character can spend up to 25,000 gold pieces to increase the sage's knowledge outside their fields of study by up to 5%, up to 50,000 gold piece to increase their knowledge in their minor fields of study by a like amount, up to 300,000 gold pieces to add three minor fields of study, and 200,000 gold pieces to add a major field of study! 

Payments are made up front. Increasing knowledge requires a month of game time per percentage point, and adding a field of study requires 2 years of game time. If the player character dares ask a question of the sage during this time, "all is lost" - the sage completely "forgets" all they have learned so far, and presumably demands more money and more time to begin their studies again.

Discovering information takes time, and this is determined by the type of question asked:

A sage can answer a general question in just a few minutes, but specific questions require hours, days, or even weeks. Exacting questions require days or weeks of time. Remember that a sage employed on a short-term basis charges a 100 gold piece fee per day in addition to the costs shown on this table, and that they will only accept employment for a week's time. Thus, the specificity of question which a sage so employed can answer is greatly limited.

There is a chance that answering the question will require more funds, if for example the sage must travel to some town or city for materials. There is also a small to good chance that the reference material is readily at hand, meaning that no additional expenses are incurred:

It is always best to find a sage who has knowledge of the relevant special category of study, but especially so if the sage is being consulted on a short-term basis.

One especially irritating characteristic of the sage is that they will "continue a fruitless search" for knowledge even if a question can never be answered positively:

This sounds as if the sage is not aware that the question is impossible to answer and is simply trying their hardest to find the information, but I choose to interpret it as the sage deliberately wasting the player character's time and money, because it fits my narrative that these NPCs are being annoying on purpose.

Researching a fruitless line of inquiry will always take the greater part of the maximum time required, but at least the sage will only charge half the usual amount for their ineffectual services:

I really like the image of the sage sitting and looking wise for 4 to 6 minutes before simply saying "Yeah I don't know."

Let's say the player characters seek out a sage to consult on a question of an exacting nature. The sage agrees to try to find the answer for them, but will only spend one week doing so. The subject is one of the sage's minor fields of study, so they demand 1,100 gold pieces per day to research it. I roll 5d8 and determine that it will take the sage 23 days to find the answer, so it is impossible for them to do so in the timeframe given. After a week, the sage meets with the party, shrugs their shoulders, and demands their payment of 3,850 gold pieces (half the agreed upon amount). Money well spent! And no, the sage will not try again or spend another week continuing their research. They have more important things to do. See you in one month!

This is my favorite part. After spending more than a day researching the answer to a question, the sage requires time off (1 day for every 3 spent working - quite the PTO policy):

If you bother the sage during their R&R time, they demand additional days off for the intrusion! Until you give them their time off, they will (presumably, deliberately) take the maximum amount of time and require the maximum amount of gold expenditure to answer any questions. The sage has excellent work-life balance, and the Brotherhood, while apparently informal, is presumably a strong and demanding union. Good for them!

Before you start to sympathize with the plight of the sage, let me add that they are also racist:

In a world of scammers and jerks, these guys really are the worst of the worst. You do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them"!

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 9)

We played the ninth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
• Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)
• Armstrong, human man-at-arms (NPC)
• Bronson, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)

The last time we played, the party enlisted the help of three goblins (Numbnuts, Lumpknuckles, and Slug) in disassembling an antique bedframe. They paid Slug - the goblin who was good at counting - a gold piece to tell them how many orcs were in the dungeon, to which he said seven. They tested his counting ability by laying fourteen copper pieces on the floor, but stiffed him on payment for this service when he got the count wrong. 

Things escalated, and a fight erupted. Numbnuts fled from the room, screaming. Lumpknuckles was badly wounded by the mage Malkara, but came back and delivered a fatal blow to her with his mace, then fled after Numbnuts. Slug alone stood and fought, and was killed by the party's man-at-arms, Armstrong.

The party fled the scene, with goblins screaming and orcish drums pounding in the deep. As they reached the secret door leading back to the dungeon's entrance, they found a pair of orcs lying in wait down the corridor. The orcs loosed arrows at them, but missed, and the party charged. Rory slew one orc and the other fled back to orcish territory. The party dragged the dead orc back through the secret door and began planning an ambush.

We picked up from there. Llombaerth spiked the secret door half shut so that it would provide the party with partial cover from missiles and force any attackers to come through the breach one at a time. He also scattered caltrops on the floor on the party's side of the door. Grilk, his goblins, and the party's porter, Bronson (who had befriended the goblins and was staying with them) were nearby, so they coordinated with the party to defend their own territory from the enemy orcs.

Rekk, the goblin chef, manned a barricade at the top of a short flight of stairs at the end of the hall to the left of the party's position, 60 feet away, ready to fire arrows at any orcs that breached the doorway. Narka, the goblin ratcatcher, manned a second barricade 30 feet to the left of Rekk, allowing her to cover the intersection just outside of the secret door. Grilk, his "squire" Viss, and Bronson (wielding a rusted cleaver and wearing a cooking pot helm) would loop around a long back hallway to catch the orcs in the rear.

The trap was laid, so all they had to do was wait. The drums had gone silent for some time, so the characters could hear their own hearts beating. They heard footsteps from the corridor to the right of the intersection beyond the secret door, straight ahead of Narka's position, along with the crack of a whip and commands bellowed in orcish. Narka screamed out in goblin, and Rekk informed the party that the orcs were sending in the goblins first. Rekk pleaded with the party not to kill his misguided friends.

The party saw Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts rounding the corner, charging through the secret door. Lumpknuckles looked out of it, dried blood caked to the side of his head from the wound Malkara had dealt him. Numbnuts looked terrified. The party wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for Malkara's death. Knowing that Numbnuts was a coward, they yelled at him to throw down his arms and surrender.

As the goblins charged through the breach, they ran over the caltrops, stumbling and hopping and shrieking in pain. Armstrong easily cut down the off balance Lumpknuckles with his longsword. Numbnuts clearly did not want to fight. He threw down his mace and Robbernar stood aside to let him pass. Numbuts threw himself to the floor at Llombaerth's feet, picking caltrops out of his feet with one hand and clinging to Llombaerth's leg with the other.

As the goblins occupied the party, they watched as a pair of orcs armed with long bows moved quickly past the secret door, advancing on Narka's position. They heard arrows fly on both sides, followed by an orcish grunt of pain and a goblin's shriek from a substantial wound.

Rekk moved to reinforce Narka, and Robbernar followed. Robbernar tried to rally Numbnuts to come with him, but Numbnuts stayed clinging to Llombaerth's leg. Llombaerth saw Bronson, Grilk, and Viss emerge from the corridor at the edge of the light shed by Walgretor's lantern, and heard orcish battle cries just beyond that. The orcs waiting in the shadows fell upon the party. Bronson turned and fled immediately through the secret door, stumbling over caltrops and hiding behind Llombaerth along with Numbnuts. Grilk and Viss were trapped in melee with the second group of orcs.

Robbernar found Narka nursing an arrow wound to the shoulder, and swapped places with her just as the orcs came crashing into the barricade with their flails. Llombaerth kicked Numbnuts off of him and advanced into the corridor beyond the secret door. He lit a flask of oil and flung it at the back of the orcs storming the barricade. He missed, but because he had been aiming low, the flask smashed on the floor just behind the orcs. The orcs were splashed by fire, now trapped between the barricade and the flames.

The second group of orcs and goblins battled at the edge of the lantern's light. Grilk let out a blood-curdling shriek as an orcish flail smashed him in the head, and Llombaerth heard a small body hit the floor. Rory and Armstrong left their fortified position to join the fray. Rory led with a deadly slice of his halberd, standing astride Grilk's corpse, but the blade was just barely deflected off an orc's shield. Armstrong pulled Viss out of the way and cut at the other orc with his longsword, delivering a serious blow.

Back at the barricade, Rekk struck with his "mace" (a meat tenderizer) and smashed an orc in the face. The orc fell back onto the flames, its corpse burning and filling the hall with the stink of cooked flesh. Robbernar slashed the second orc with his longsword, but it was only a glancing blow. Llombaerth fired a pair of arrows into the orc's back. One was a direct hit, the arrowhead protruding from the orc's chest right before Robbernar's eyes. The orc slumped forward onto the barricade, dead.

The melee in the second corridor was a series of frantic swings and misses, but the orcs' morale broke. They turned and fled back down the corridor and through the door into orcish territory. The party considered a pursuit, but chose to regroup instead.

In the lull that followed, the party and their goblin allies gathered the dead - Lumpknuckles, Grilk, and the three orcs. The party found fourteen electrum pieces and five platinum pieces on the orcs' bodies. Narka insisted that the party share the loot. Instead, Llombaerth showed Narka how to open the secret door to the room filled with barrels and casks of provisions, where the party had first encountered the rats which Narka was so intent on catching. This was a true treasure trove to the goblins, so they agreed to let the party keep the coinage, and the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder was founded.

The goblins and the party used one of the barrels of lard to lay grease traps in front of the barricades in case of a future attack. Robbernar used a cure light wounds spell to heal Rory (who hadn't actually taken any damage in the battle, but had been burned by flaming oil a few sessions ago in the fight against the carrion crawler). The party planned to launch a counterattack into the heart of orcish territory next session, and we concluded there.

This was a really fun one! This was one of those combats that you kind of just let take up the session. We had been building to this for a while, and while the battle didn't exactly occur on the players' terms, they had plenty of time to make a game plan and set up. It was cool to watch that plan unfold, even if it didn't go as expected, and to see how the players responded to the twists and turns.

Speaking of twists and turns, while the Quasqueton map is hilariously nonsensical with all of its long, winding, narrow corridors, it is really fun to play out a dungeon skirmish in an environment like that. The narrow corridors meant that the orcs couldn't bring their full strength to the fight, while the party and their goblin allies could set up strategic choke points. At the same time, the multiple avenues of approach allowed the orcs to set up counter-ambushes that caught the party and their allies off guard more than once.

The whole combat was maybe four or five rounds at most, meaning it was over in five minutes in game time. Low hit point totals on both sides meant that every blow struck felt significant. While the player characters themselves took no wounds, if they had gotten just a bit less lucky they might have, and any such wound could have killed them instantly.

It was a lot to track at first, with three player characters, a man-at-arms, four goblins, and an unskilled NPC on one side, and two goblins and four orcs on the other. I used individual initiative, which certainly didn't simplify things, but the individual approach affects the ebb and flow of the battle in an interesting way, and prevents one side from easily overwhelming the other with an alpha strike-type round. Combatants quickly die, surrender, or are wounded and must retreat, and the aforementioned narrow corridors limit the number of active combatants at a time, which keeps things manageable.

Do not underestimate the power of naming your monster NPCs! It was super satisfying to me that the players were able to recognize Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts when they came running around the corner. They wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for killing Malkara, and they knew that Numbnuts was a coward and would probably surrender if given the opportunity. They were distraught that it was Narka specifically that took the arrow wound, and her life-threatening injury instilled a sense of urgency in Robbernar as he moved to reinforce the barricade. Rekk, the goblin chef, is now a known badass with a meat tenderizer. It's meaningful that it was Grilk, the goblin leader, who died fighting the orcs, rather than some other generic goblin. It was much more interesting knowing that these specific goblins were putting their lives on the line fighting alongside the party, not just four generic, unnamed goblins. 

The orcs all had names too. While the players don't know which is which, I do. I know that the orc who died in the initial attack last session was Muv, the friendly orc who was considering defecting to the heretical orcs in the lower level. I know that the orcs who died in this session were Brubar the drunk and Rheev, the orc with an interest in barbarian history. I also know which two orcs survived and how they are likely to respond now that they've survived the initial bloodbath. It's a little extra work, but it goes a long way!

Developing the Sandbox: Villages, Hamlets, and Thorps

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

The subject of this post is the development of villages, hamlets, and thorps - that is, small settlements. For larger settlements like towns and cities, see my earlier post on the subject. The process of developing a small settlement will look similar to that for developing a large settlement, so it's worth it to revisit that post before proceeding.

Villages, hamlets, and thorps are the bread and butter of low level D&D. This is, I think, because they are relatively small environments filled with simple people with simple problems and a relative lack of agency in solving those problems themselves. It is much easier to come up with a low level adventuring hook like "Kobolds are stealing chickens" or "Bandits plague the roads" when there aren't high level character-type NPCs around to solve those sorts of problems themselves (although as I've argued in past posts, there are plenty of reasons why these powerful NPCs would not deal with these problems themselves).

Players characters tend to have more agency in these environments, regardless of their level, which makes them a great place to start adventuring, relative to towns and cities. Their actions have more impact in small settlements - they can offer immeasurable aid to its inhabitants, push them around, and make the places theirs, for better or worse.

That isn't to say you don't also need towns and cities. The latter offer a more complex, fantastic, and dangerous urban gameplay experience, alongside greater utility. It doesn't make much sense for the player characters to be able offload their vast sums of treasure in a poor village, hamlet, or thorp. There probably aren't many henchmen in such a place, nor are there likely to be high level NPCs to offer training, or sizeable factions to contend with. That's what towns and cities are for.

I don't find true-to-life medieval demographics to be much use in D&D, but they can occasionally serve as a helpful reality test. Take donjon's Fantasy Demographics generator, for example. Here is an example of what sorts of tradesmen might be found in the average AD&D thorp (population 50):

I don't really care how many chicken butchers and rugmakers there are in my D&D game, but things like blacksmiths, furriers, inns, jewelers, locksmiths, magic shops, spice merchants, and taverns can all be extremely relevant.

Here is an example representation of the average AD&D hamlet (population 250):

Here is an example representation of the average village (population (population 750):

And finally, for comparison, here is an example of the average town (population 4,000):

It's not until you get up to town-sized settlements that you start to have most of the trades reliably represented. Again, most of this is useless for your D&D game, but it is a handy reference point when conceptualizing these locations. If the player characters are truly in need of some specific good or service, they can't count on a village, hamlet, or thorp to have it. They must seek out the town or city.

What then are villages, hamlets, and thorps for? As stated previously, they are a great place for the player characters' adventure to start. They offer low level hooks and agency. They are a training ground for the more complex urban gameplay environments to come.

As with towns and cities, the first step in developing these locations will be to create a minimalist sketch including the settlement's population, any character-type NPCs who live there, who rules there, and the general population or ruling power's initial attitude towards the player characters. You can do this exactly the same way as you would for towns and cities. The population will be smaller, which means fewer character-type NPCs, which means less work for you.

The only settlement of this type in my B1 sandbox is Ebongrove, a thorp of about 30 people. There are 26 humans, 2 dwarves, 1 elf, and 1 half-elf. There are no character-type NPCs. I'll make a point to detail the four demihumans that live here, since they will stand out. If there were character-type NPCs, I'd detail those as well, and since there would be so few, I could really go into detail if I wanted to.

Since the thorp lies in the shadow of a castle to the north (Fayette's Hold), I decide that it is under that stronghold's protection. However, the stronghold has been taken over by brigands, who have imprisoned its ruler. The brigands are agents of Lambrecht (the Evil wizard who rules Timbershore) but are now in conflict with him. They lord over the thorp and terrorize the surrounding countryside. I place a detachment of 20 brigands with a 3rd level fighter leader in the thorp as an occupying force.

Another thing which distinguishes these locations from towns and cities is their size. Obviously, they are smaller. Unlike towns and cities, where the player characters must crawl from district to district and from one location to another within each district, possibly incurring random encounters, these settlements are all basically one "district", and the player characters can travel from one location to another more or less as they please. Nonetheless, I like to have a few locations and their relations to one another laid out, like so:

This is a small settlement in AD&D, so of course there are trifling treasures buried in cellars and gardens and hidden in taxidermized animals, saddlebags, and under floorboards. I also note where NPCs can be found at different times of day. There isn't really any rhyme or reason for the number of locations or nodes, aside from the fact that I wanted a seven-node "flower".

Since the thorp has a population of 30, I decide there are three militia people among them, which the party can recruit to help fight against the brigands:

The "-2 to recruitment attempts" is just an interpretation of a standard reaction roll. In this case, I rolled either a 4 or a 5 for this NPC, which is an "unfriendly" reaction. As you can see, I justified this modifier by leveraging the NPC's relationship to another NPC in the settlement.

Here, then, is the list of the remaining NPCs:

Because these settlements are smaller and more tightly knit than towns and cities, we get to zoom in on these otherwise unremarkable NPCs and focus on their relationships with one another, the small favors the player characters can do for them, and the favors the NPCs can offer in return. Player characters can earn the NPCs' aid by simply going up to them and asking them (which is where the modifier/reaction roll comes in), by doing them a favor, or by earning another NPC's trust (similar to how militia people are more likely to lend their aid if their family members have already been helped). This creates a web of relationships which is much denser than what I would prep for a town or city.

This is ultimately what distinguishes small settlements from larger ones. Because there are so many people in large settlements, we have to focus on the most important ones, and the rest become fuzzier as a result. Small settlements offer a different sort of "slice of life" gameplay wherein even woodcutters, charcoal burners, and shepherds become important. The player characters can show up and simply fight the brigands and run them out of town (or thorp, in this case), but they also have a bunch of places where they can get help, if they need it.

Again, there's no real rhyme or reason to the number of NPCs I've chosen to detail here. Including the militia (and not including the brigands' leader), I've detailed 14 here, which is almost half the thorp's population. That's probably a bit much, but I just tried to think of who all might be here and what sorts of aid they might be able to offer. Five or six NPCs might have been a perfectly fine amount.

Also worth noting are single dwellings, which are home to just 1d12 occupants, but appear in 3% of all hexes according to the AD&D stocking method. These may seem rather dull and unimportant, but they're a lot of fun. With just 6 or 7 occupants on average, you can really flesh these out as homesteads with either multiple families or as single family dwellings with lots of children, elderly parents, adult siblings, hired hands, and the like. 

These places are extremely vulnerable to depredations by monsters, so you can have the same sort of "Kobolds stealing chickens" hooks, or even something like "Our kid wandered off and there are wolves out there." There's also always at least a 1% chance that any of these people can be character-type NPCs. One of these days I'm going to roll up a single dwelling with just a 20th level wizard living there inexplicably and it's going to be awesome.

Since my B1 sandbox has just the one thorp, you can check out my B2 sandbox for an example of a village and some single dwellings or my B3 sandbox for a bunch of villages and a hamlet, albeit much less fleshed out than the example provided here. You can see how I'm able to give each of the character-type NPCs just a little bit more detail as a result of there being fewer of them overall.

Hopefully I've demonstrated how villages, hamlets, and thorps differ from towns and cities. It may be tempting to include just a grand city to cover all your bases, just a village because it's easier, or just a town because it sits in the sweet spot in between, but different types of settlements offer different things, both in utility to the player characters but also in terms of gameplay experience. Not every sandbox will have both. Not every sandbox needs both. But the variety will make your sandbox - and the gameplay which takes place there - richer for everyone.