Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 23)

We played the twenty-third 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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)
• Rhonodel, NG elf cleric 1 (Jack)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 2 (Nael)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling porter, and his dog, Ripper (NPC)
• Ejiofer, human porter (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
• Steinbach, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
• Hadric, Wilda Brambletoe, Corvin, Aelwen Riversong, and 20 oarsmen - the crew of the Mossy Turtle (NPCs)
• The party's guard dog (Spot), hunting dog (Vincenzo), and four war dogs (Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Phooey)

Last we played, the party met with their wizardly ally, Albertyna, and exchanged what information they had learned since their last meeting. Albertyna filled them in on town politics. She told them about Blanchefleur, the sinister cleric who ruled the religious stronghold in the Chapel Ward, and about the Horned Mother, the deity or demon which they worshipped. Blanchefleur was, in her way, the real power in Timbershore, but Lambrecht seemed to tolerate her. Albertyna was not sure how the Horned Mother might relate to the horned demon carving the party had found in Quasqueton.

The party also informed Albertyna that they suspected that Lambrecht was scrying on them. Albertyna told them there was little they could do to prevent this from happening, but that Lambrecht's ability to spy on them was limited in terms of success, frequency, and length of viewing by how well he knew them. If he met them personally or came into possession of an item belonging to them or a part of their body, his powers would be greatly enhanced.

The  party asked Albertyna if she could call in any favors with the town guard so that they would be somewhat protected. Albertyna said she would talk to Manolito, the captain of Llombaerth's household guard. While Manolito served Lambrecht, Albertyna had a friendly relationship with him, and believed he would be able to help. 

The party had much to think about. They returned to the Mooring Post to get some rest and to wait for prospective henchmen to respond to their advertisements. That evening, Llombaerth found a pair of eyeballs in his fish stew, staring up at him, blinking. They decided to leave town as soon as possible, scrambling to gather their henchman and hirelings and animals. They would meet on the barge and depart town for Quasqueton at first light.

They did so, sailing downriver in a hailstorm. As they were moored along the river's edge at dusk, they spotted half a dozen humans - who appeared to be followers of Blanchefleur, hunting in the forest. The hunters did not notice the party, so they elected to stay hidden. They reached Quasqueton the next day, encountering a pair of giant birds that flew low overhead as they ascended the hill.

Llombaerth snuck inside the dungeon and found the entrance corridor lined with heads on spikes. First he saw the heads of Mangug and his orcs, then the heads of the party's remaining zombie followers, then the head of Indur, their friendly gnoll. Llombaerth could smell someone cooking in the kitchen. He triggered the twin magic mouths to lure whoever it was out of the room, then hid in an alcove to see who showed up.

A nine and a half foot tall monstrous female humanoid emerged from the kitchen, inspected the area, grumbled to herself, and returned to the kitchen. Llombaerth snuck back out to report this to the rest of the party.

We picked up there. We were joined by a new player, Jack, who is playing Rhonodel, an elf cleric. This is our first new player since Maya joined in session 6! Rhonodel wandered up to the group as Llombaerth was rejoining them, inserting himself into their conversation. Introductions were made. Rhonodel's deity, Minara, had sent him a vision of Quasqueton and told him he was needed here. Simple. He joined the party.

They discussed what to do about what they presumed was an ogre in the kitchen. Llombaerth would once again sneak inside, trigger the magic mouths, and hide in the alcoves halfway down the corridor, while the rest of the party hid in the first set of alcoves, closest to the dungeon entrance. Llombaerth would attempt to talk to the ogre. Failing that, the rest of the party would emerge from hiding to back him up.

They enacted their plan. The ogre came stomping out again, but this time Llombaerth called out to her, asking if the goblins were still alive. The ogre stomped towards Llombaerth and grunted, "Goblins marinating." Llombaerth tried to tell the ogre he meant her no harm, but she kept approaching at a threatening pace. Llombaerth squeezed out of the alcove and slipped away just as the ogre was closing into melee range. He ran back to the rest of the group.

At this point, the ogre noticed the rest of the party with their mercenaries and dogs huddled together in the further alcoves. She stopped in her tracks, scratching her chin. "You no mean Yamda harm? What do you want?"

The party attempted to negotiate the release of the goblins. Yamda said she would trade two goblins for one elf and the halfling - salivating as her gaze fell upon Brazile. The party declined. Yamda counteroffered with one goblin for one of the party's dogs, which they also declined. They ordered Yamda to release the goblins, or else they would loose their dogs on her. Yamda snarled, "You no want to treat in good faith with Yamda. Go away!" She began backtracking down the corridor towards the kitchen.

Brazile let the dogs loose. They raced down the corridor. Three of the four dogs landed hits on Yamda. Two were critical hits. The first dog seized Yamda by the leg and brought her low, while the second dog leapt for her throat, ripping and tearing. Here the players learned that each of their war dogs has 2+2 HD (average 11 HP) and does 2d4 damage per hit. The dogs are an insanely worthwhile investment.

It was over quickly. The dogs fell upon the ogre, tearing her apart until Brazile called them off. The party left the body and went to inspect the kitchen. 

The kitchen had been converted into an abattoir, with piles of gore splattered across every surface. A cast-iron pot hanging from the ceiling by a chain above a cookfire was roiling with a thick, fatty, rich broth. At the far side of the room, the party spotted the goblins Pigmug and Tobb, tied up and sitting in a wash basin full of liquid, smeared in a sickly sweet sauce and crusted with seasoning. Tobb had a rotten apple shoved in his mouth.

They freed the goblins and asked them what had happened. After the party had left, Tobb had reunited the goblins. They had retreated to Drak's throne room for safety. A few days later, the goblins had been attacked in the throne room by an ogre. The goblins had fled, but Pigmug and Tobb had been captured by a second ogre in their flight, whereupon they were brought here.

Where were the rest of the goblins? Tobb pointed at the gore piles around the room. It was hard to tell, but that one might be Narka, and maybe that was Viss...or Numbnuts? If the party was able to find their heads, it would be easier to identify them.

Not liking the sound of a second ogre wandering about, Rhonodel went to close the door to the kitchen. As he did so, he spotted the second ogre rounding the corner just outside. The second ogre spotted the body of the first, then saw Rhonodel, bellowed with rage, and made for the door. Rhonodel decided not to fight with the ogre over control of the door, and retreated back into the kitchen.

The party had their dogs form a line and prepared to engage the ogre with ranged weapons. The ogre charged into the room before they could ready their weapons, and entered into melee with the dogs. Huey managed to get a glancing bite for just 3 damage, but the rest of the dogs missed.

Llombaerth decided to use the kitchen's rear exit to try to flank the ogre. He went to the opposite end of the long kitchen, threw open the door...and found another ogre on the far side! He stumbled back, swinging his short sword, but missed. The party's mercenaries, Bilodeau and Graves, moved to reinforce Llombaerth with their spetums. The ogre tried to grab Llombaerth, but the long reach of the mercenaries' polearms held it at bay.

The rest of the party loosed projectiles at the first ogre. Mirkle and Egbert each got a critical hit, but in the chaos of melee, Mirkle shot Louie in the hindquarters for 5 damage, and Egbert stuck Huey for 3 damage. Huey bit down on the ogre again, this time for 6 damage. Both the ogre and Huey seemed badly wounded.

Llombaerth slipped back behind the mercenaries' wall of spetums, then tossed a flask of flaming oil at the second ogre, scoring a direct hit for 10 damage, setting the ogre alight. Maya joined the group with her own spetum. The second ogre, wishing to get to Llombaerth, attempted to barrel through the front rank. Bilodeau and Graves, who had not yet acted, set to receive the charge. Bilodeau skewered the ogre for a massive 22 damage (11 x 2), stabbing through its midsection and spilling its steaming guts on the floor. The front rank stepped back as the flaming ogre's corpse collapsed in front of them.

The rest of the party continued firing at the first ogre. Both Rhonodel and Zommernar scored hits with their short bows, but both hit Louie instead for a total of 9 damage. Louie whimpered and died at the second arrow struck him.

Finally, the ogre surrendered, begging the party to call off their dogs. They did.

The ogre, named Gruda, would trade information for her life. She told the party that she had found two chests of treasure in a room down the hall - gold coins, jeweled items, and gems. It was more than Gruda had seen in her life. The party informed Gruda that the treasure was illusory. "Of course...Gruda knew that..."

The party asked Gruda how many ogres were in her group. Gruda said there were six of them - now four, including her. Where were the rest? Gurgak had gone that way - she pointed towards the opposite door to the kitchen, where the second ogre had been slain. Gugg had gone that way - she pointed towards the door nearer to her and to the right. Rugg had gone the same way as Gruda - out the door nearer to her and to the left - but had gone straight while Gruda had gone right.

Why were the ogres here? Okorg had sent them here to find the people who had stolen their treasure. Who was Okorg? He was the ogre chieftain. He ruled the cave in the forest. What treasure was stolen from Okorg? Several small things - his silver dagger, his looking glass, his bone cup and dice, his silver horn, his drinking tankards, his collection of belt buckles, his soft cloak...The party mentioned that something had been stolen from them as well, and they suspected some sort of gnome trickster which lived in the forest.

Why did Okorg think that his treasure was here? The lady from town had come to Okorg's court and told him so. What lady from town? Gruda described someone the party did not recognize - a young lady in blue traveler's clothes with a silver emblem. The party recalled that the banners which hung from the walls of Lambrecht's castle were blue with a silver emblem.

The party informed Gruda that Okorg had been tricked. Gruda did not accept this at first - Okorg was the smartest ogre - but eventually she was convinced that Okorg could be deceived. In that case, Okorg must be informed. The lady from town was being kept with the other prisoners until Gruda and the others returned, so there was still time to eat her. 

What other prisoners? The ogres had captured several people while raiding Timbershore's farmlands, among them a dwarf which Okorg used as a truffle hound for smelling out treasure. Okorg had not trusted Gruda's ogres with the dwarf, since he knew they wanted to eat him.

When would the other ogres - Gurgak, Gugg, and Rugg - return? Was there a safe place to meet with them to discuss this? Gruda was not sure - ogres didn't really plan ahead like that. She could try to find them, but it would take a while. Maybe if the party lent her their delicious halfling and one of their scrumptious dogs, she could find the others more quickly...

No - the party decided that Gruda would be their hostage. She would come with them and help smooth things over with the other ogres if they ran into them. If the party found any of Okorg's treasures, the ogres could keep them. If Gruda's friends were amenable, the party might enlist their aid in moving a certain large statue out of the dungeon.

To ensure Gruda's compliance, Llombaerth tricked her into carrying an "oath-keeping device" in her pocket - one of two bombs which Llombaerth had fashioned in town using the party's ample supply of bat guano from the dungeon's lower level. Gruda would remain 20 feet in front of the party, and if Gruda did not behave, Llombaerth would activate the device.

Before they left, the party informed Pigmug and Tobb that the goblins' experiment in occupying Quasqueton was over. Clearly, it had been a disaster, and they should leave while they still lived. The goblins were still unconvinced and unwilling to leave their "home", but they would at least find some new area in which to hide, where monsters were less like to find them. 

We ended the session there. This was fun! I'm excited to have some new blood in the player pool. It's funny to see the players exploiting their new war dogs, which were a great pickup. This session also made the players aware of another element of the sandbox - the ogres whose treasure has been stolen, who have been raiding the lands around Timbershore and have some sort of relationship with Lambrecht. Can the party somehow use them to tip things in their favor? We shall see!

Developing the Sandbox: Rumor Tables

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.

This post will focus on creating rumor tables for your towns and cities. 

What is the purpose of an in-world rumor in a TTRPG? According to the Designing Dungeons course (which is of course preoccupied with dungeons specifically), rumors provide clues to the dungeon, reinforce its themes, and point the players back towards elements of the dungeon they may have missed. More broadly speaking, in a sandbox setting, rumors drive investigation and exploration of the world and help make the world feel more lifelike.

In short, rumors are information. Information allows the players to make choices - as always, the better the information, the better the player's ability to anticipate their choice's impact. Thus, we need to make sure our rumors provide good information.

What about false rumors? That's a thing in Dungeons & Dragons, right? False rumors are, at times, delightful. I'm as big a fan of "Bree-yark" is goblin for "We surrender!" as the next guy but, more often, false rumors are just kind of detrimental to play. As Gus L. points out, they waste time and erode trust  between players and the DM. They serve a purpose opposite to what rumors are meant to accomplish, muddying themes, sending the players on wild goose chases, or paralyzing them entirely.

Since I am currently running my B1 sandbox, let's look at B1's rumor table as an example (as an aside, see this post about B1, Caverns of Thracia, and the hunt for the first rumor table.):

This is not a bad rumor table. It tells the players what sorts of monsters might be found in Quasqueton, that it has multiple levels, that there are secrets within, and what sorts of rooms the players might expect to find there. The information is somewhat pedestrian, but this is an introductory module. The rumors are not only telling the players what to expect from the dungeon, but what to expect from the game itself. 

The false rumors, however, are largely terrible.

Zelligar does have a workshop in the stronghold, but the rumor is "false" because he didn't work on magic stronger than any known to man (he just used it to torture barbarians, stocked it with containers full of mundane junk, and kept a ghost cat in a jar to troll adventurers). There is no 100,000 g.p. gem hidden in the stronghold. There is no curse upon the place or its treasure. The "treasure" hidden in a pool of water is a totally pointless illusion. The dungeon is not filled with guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have not returned.

While there are kernels of truth to some of these rumors, more of them either set up the players for disappointment or actively discourage them from going to the dungeon - you know, the single adventure site upon which the entire module depends. What happens when the players comb the whole place and don't find any sign of magic "stronger than any known to man" or of a 100,000 g.p. gem? What happens if they decide the dungeon sounds too dangerous? It's full of guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have come back, too. It's treasures are all cursed anyway, so what's the point?

"But wait," you might say, "you talk all the time on this blog about running AD&D the Gygaxian way, with constant taxes and annoying NPCs who hate the player characters and want them to go away and die. This adversarial bullshit should be right up your alley!"

And you are kind of right. I am trying to run my game in some approximation of that style, and I do find it quite fun. For some reason, I draw the line at false rumors. Why? I don't know. I think I just have a lot of information about this setting that I want to communicate to the players, and I don't want to waste space on my tables with four different (false) rumors about how the dungeon is dangerous. The players know the dungeon is dangerous. What actually makes it dangerous?

That's not to say I'll come right out and tell the players that the magic stone in Quasqueton has a 5% chance of granting a limited wish specifically. Unreliable rumors are good! "An enchanted stone within the stronghold will grant a wish to anyone who chips off a piece of it and places it within their mouth" is a false rumor because the stone does other things besides granting wishes, but the fact that it grants wishes is true. The rumor itself is a bit too on the nose for me, but that's besides the point.

Now, in a sandbox, I don't want all my rumors to be about the dungeon. I want my rumors to also point to other settlements, strongholds, and monster lairs. I want them to give hints about outdoor encounters. I want them to indicate what sort of monsters prowl the town's streets and to clue the players into the political landscape of the settlement or what events I have scheduled on my campaign calendar.

How do you create a rumor table? These posts each have a sort of "generic" rumor table you can roll on almost like a spark table to create more specific rumors. This is neat! I personally don't need this tech, but you might find it useful if you're having a hard time coming up with ideas.

What I've done recently is split my rumor table into three tables. How do I structure that? I will give you a hint - the three tables are derived from this page of the AD&D DMG:

I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out, so I will tell you. Much like modern D&D puts forward three "pillars of play" (combat, exploration, and social interaction), here I think Gygax is putting forward a different (parallel) set of three pillars - dungeon expeditions, outdoor exploration, and town adventures. Thus, my three rumor tables list dungeon rumors, wilderness rumors, and settlement rumors.

"Wilderness rumors" is a bit of a misnomer. Just as the "exploration" pillar is more like the "everything else" pillar in modern D&D, "wilderness/outdoors" is the "everything else" of the sandbox. This includes rumors about other settlements, strongholds, monster lairs, and outdoor encounters. The town and dungeon are both complex enough environments to warrant their own tables, but the other locations in the sandbox really just need one rumor to point the players in that direction (or, in the case of outdoor encounters, give them fair warning).

While dungeon rumors will be hyper-specific, providing information about specific rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets, all other rumors can be somewhat vague - again, just kind of nudging the players that way. Dungeon exploration is the default mode of play in the early game. In most cases the players will not need to be directed towards the dungeon, but they will need specific information about its contents. As the campaign evolves, however, you'll want them to slowly become aware of adventuring opportunities in the town/city and elsewhere.

For my dungeon table, I included those rumors from B1 which I liked, then supplemented them with my own. I basically combed through my version of B1 and thought of every bit of information I might give to the players about the place - again, rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets. These are very broad, and complement each other when combined. Some rumors might simply say "There are goblins in Quasqueton" or "There are orcs in Quasqueton", while others might be more specific: "The goblins and the orcs of Quasqueton hate each other", "The orcs of Quasqueton worship a magic stone" or "The orcs of Quasqueton are at war with one another."

For my town rumor table, I generated one rumor for each element of the town which I wanted to put on the players' radar - that is, its locations, NPCs, and potential encounters. There's a rumor about the wizard who rules the town, a rumor about the lesser wizard who serves him, and a rumor about the cleric who rules her own stronghold. There's a rumor about beasts attacking people, a rumor about spirits haunting the streets, a rumor about a corrupt official blackmailing merchants, and a rumor about a derelict house from which strange lights are seen at night. All of these point to locations or warn the party of potential encounters. I also include a permanent entry on the table for whatever town event is coming up on my calendar.

Likewise, my wilderness rumor table has one rumor for each "wilderness" location, plus a few more for particularly noteworthy outdoor encounters which aren't otherwise covered by my other locations. Brigands terrorizing the countryside would be covered by the rumor about the brigands' stronghold, and owlbears in the forest would be covered by the rumor about their lair - I would not include an additional rumor for those outdoor encounters just because they also appear on my encounter tables. If there are unique or interesting monsters wandering the wilderness who otherwise don't have their own lairs (fey "river women" who don't live anywhere in particular but are sometimes encountered deep in the forest), those get their own entry on the table.

Since I replace outdoor encounters on my tables once they've been used, I update my rumor tables accordingly. You may not have to do this, but I do think a rumor table should be a living document, assuming that the status quo is changing even when the player characters are being somewhat inactive. 

This goes for rumors about the town and dungeon as well. If the first rumor discloses that the wizard and the cleric in town have an uneasy truce, then the next might disclose that the cleric has attempted to assassinate the wizard. If the players already have the rumor about the orcs in the dungeon being at war, the next rumor might tell them that one side has triumphed over the other.

You can go down a real rabbit hole with this stuff, creating subtables for each entry on the main table (you could have a d4 table of rumors about the wizard overlord or the plundering brigands specifically), but I think this is overkill. The rumor just makes the players aware of the thing. If they want more information, they can start asking specific questions, and I have most of the information to answer those questions, if appropriate, as needed. No need to make your rumor tables maddeningly comprehensive.

With three separate rumor tables covering distinct topics, when players go hunting for rumors, I can ask them: Do you want rumors about the dungeon, the town, or the wilderness? I view rumor-gathering as an active pursuit, not a passive one. The players don't just accumulate rumors by existing in town. The players have to say they want to do it, and they have to spend time and money doing it, just like with almost anything else they do in town. Since they are choosing to gather rumors, it also makes sense to me that they be able to choose which rumors they're looking for.

I like this rule of thumb for rumor-gathering from OD&D:

Delta's post on the subject clarifies that this was likely intended as a means for players to find out about expeditions by rival players operating in the same campaign simultaneously, but I see no reason why it can't apply more broadly. I feel there has to be some cost to gathering rumors, and, as Delta points out, this is seemingly the only guidance provided in any edition of D&D. It is a little bit cost prohibitive for player characters just starting out, but that's okay with me. They can either spend less on equipment and get some information instead, or they can go in blind for their first expedition.

It's also worth considering how you choose to present rumors to the players. Do you attribute each rumor to a specific NPC? Personally, I'm fine with abstracting it. I have enough NPCs to worry about as it is, and I can kind of wing it when it comes to where a rumor is coming from based on the nature of the rumor and where the players hear it.

Do you roleplay out the dispensation of rumors? I don't know, do you roleplay shopping? Again, I'm perfectly fine with abstracting this and simply telling the players what they hear. I don't need to tell it to them in a gruff sailor's voice. If they start asking follow up questions, maybe, but I'm only going to spend a significant amount of game time on this of the players decide that it's worth their time.

I also like this post about tying rumors to settlement events, however, again, I think it might not be for me. I have a separate procedure for determining when events happen, and events already provide information about what's going on in the world. It makes sense to me that players should be able to learn about something that's going to happen before it happens. That is, the players should be able to learn that loggers have spotted kobolds in the woods before the kobolds launch a raid on the town.

There's even more to explore. Player characters may have the choice to live at different economic levels and in different conditions. The character who is unwashed and flea-ridden and sleeps in stables does not have access to the upper classes, and the haughty character who dresses in fine silks and gold rings might be shunned by the downtrodden and class-conscious folk. Their affiliations may likewise affect their access to rumors. A paladin will not have access to criminal networks, and a thief may not be privy to the church's scuttlebutt.

What rumors are exchanged by loggers and hunters? How about dockworkers and fishermen? Merchants and officials? Mages at the Wizard's Day ball? Do monsters know rumors? Can you gather rumors in the dungeon?

You can clearly get deep in the weeds with this stuff. For now, I prefer to keep it simple. If you were out drinking at the tavern and heard tell of some cool new rumor tech, I have 10-60 gold pieces with your name on them!

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 22)

We played the twenty-second 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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 2 (David)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 2 (Nael)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling porter, and his dog, Ripper (NPC)
• Ejiofer, human porter (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
• Steinbach, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
• Hadric, Wilda Brambletoe, Corvin, Aelwen Riversong, and 20 oarsmen - the crew of the Mossy Turtle (NPCs)

Last we played, the party allowed a wood elf to board their barge and inspect the goods they were transporting back to Timbershore. The elf was satisfied that the party were neither brigands nor allies of the wizard Lambrecht. The elf seemed amenable to aiding the party in ridding the forest of its owlbear problem sometime in the future, and indicated where the party might locate he and his fellows at their forward scouting post deeper in the forest. 

The elf also told them that, in the past, when his people were in conflict with the Black Crag barbarians, the barbarians had worshipped a horned demon, which might be related to the ancient, possibly evil stone carving the party had found within Quasqueton. He also shared that, in addition to the brigands and agents of Lambrecht, the forest was plagued by another group of humans - zealots who wore crude furs and horned headdresses, worshipped some primordial beast or demon, and were searching for something in the forest.

The elf and his retinue (who had until then hidden amongst the trees, unnoticed by all aboard the barge) departed into the forest. The party continued on to Timbershore the next morning. Egbert spotted a pair of illusory eyes watching them from the sky. The party concluded that this was Lambrecht scrying upon them. They pretended to fish along the river until the eyes disappeared, then continued on.

They arrived in Timbershore shortly after that, but elected to continue pretending to be humble fisherfolk until night fell, whereupon they lit a signal fire to summon their smuggler friends to their location. They offloaded most of the treasure plundered from Quasqueton, paying 10% of their earnings to the Black Crag barbarian accompanying them, then disembarked in town, parting ways with the barbarian and the gnome, Wilros Wackledeckle. They impressed upon their remaining hirelings the importance of secrecy, and paid them each an additional month's salary to reinforce their point. Everyone scattered to go about their business, and the party headed to the Mooring Post to get a good night's rest.

The next morning, they set about their errands. They advertised that they were looking for another magic-user to bring on as a henchmen, reprovisioned, purchased a bunch of dogs, asked a dwarf miner about the blue ore they had found in Quasqueton (it was basically worthless), and headed to Albertyna's manse to meet with her.

We picked up there. Albertyna was pleased to see them again. They told her about the encounter with the wood elves and what they had said about the human zealots prowling the forest. 

Albertyna told them that it sounded like they were describing worshippers of the Horned Mother. The Horned Mother was the deity of Blanchefleur, a powerful cleric who ruled a religious stronghold in the Chapel Ward. The Horned Mother was either a predatory nature goddess or a demon, depending on who you asked. Her worshippers believed that all the world was prey, except for the Horned Mother and her children. Blanchefleur was the second most powerful individual in town, besides Lambrecht. There was no love lost between she and Albertyna.

The party asked about the relationship between Blanchefleur and Lambrecht. Albertyna told them that the two had an unsteady alliance. Lambrecht had allowed Blanchefleur to build her stronghold and collect tithes from the townsfolk, under the condition that Lambrecht received fitting tribute. Once the stronghold was complete, however, Blanchefleur had attracted a small army of zealous followers and soldiers, which dwarfed Lambrecht's household guard. While Lambrecht was individually more powerful, Blanchefleur's followers were more numerous, and served out of devotion, not for coin. Lambrecht was insular and rarely left his stronghold, so it was not unfair to say that it was Blanchefleur who truly controlled the town.

The party asked if there was a more secure location in which they could speak, as they feared they were being magically watched. Albertyna relocated them to her personal study, the walls of which were lined with lead to prevent such intrusions. There they told her about the eyes they had spotted watching them from the sky the day before. Albertyna said that it was rumored that Lambrecht used a magic mirror to spy on his enemies from afar.

The party asked how exactly this magic worked. If it worked as Albertyna understood it, Lambrecht had likely started looking for them based on a description provided by the man-at-arms he had captured. If it was true that Lambrecht had found them once, it would be easier for him to find them again, since he now knew what they looked like. His ability to locate them, how frequently he could attempt to do so, and for how long he could view them was determined by how well he knew them. It would be easier for him to find them if he met them personally or came into possession of an item belonging to them. And, just because he had found them, that didn't necessarily mean that they would notice.

The party asked if there was some way to prevent this viewing. A nondetection charm would achieve this, but only for a limited time, and it was not magic to which Albertyna had access. There were magic items such as certain amulets which could prevent it as well, but each of them would need to be so equipped, and such items were not easily obtained. The party asked if they could be viewed in a place such as Quasqueton. Albertyna told them there was no limit to the distance at which Lambrecht could observe them, unless Zelligar, in his paranoia, had accounted for such things in the construction of Quasqueton.

The party asked what it was that made Lambrecht the rightful ruler of Timbershore. Simply put, he was the most powerful person who had arrived there first. When Timbershore was but a humble village, it was Rogahn and Zelligar to whom the villagers looked to for protection. When the two left the region and did not return, Lambrecht arrived some time after, claiming to be Zelligar's apprentice. He erected a stronghold from which to project power, and under his guidance, the village had grown into the town it now was.

Albertyna had arrived some time later. Now, she hoped to erect a stronghold of her own, but required Lambrecht's assent. She hoped to earn it by dutiful service as Lambrecht's loyal servant.

Since Albertyna was responsible for enforcing Lambrecht's laws, the party asked if she might be able to protect them, perhaps by pulling strings with the town guard. Albertyna explained that the town guard reported to Manolito, a warrior who was himself captain of Lambrecht's household guard. Manolito served Lambrecht loyally more so by nature than by any sort of devotion to the wizard, and he and Albertyna had much in common and had good rapport. It was something she could work on.

The party considered their options. Blanchefleur and her worshippers were clearly not people to trifle with. What was the relationship between them and the Horned Mother, the Black Crag people, and the stone they found in Quasqueton? Could they be leveraged against one another or against Lambrecht? For that matter, how did Lambrecht relate to these supposed demons and their followers? What were these groups after, and how could the party use it to their advantage, if at all?

They departed from Albertyna's manse and returned to the Mooring Post, deciding to wait a few days to see if any prospective henchmen turned up. The snowy rain persisted the following day, so the party remained indoors. That evening, Llombaerth found a pair of piercing blue-grey eyes floating in his fish stew, staring up at him, blinking.

The party decided to leave town immediately and return to Quasqueton, abandoning their search for a new henchman. The split up, scurrying about town under cover of darkness to round up their hirelings and retrieve their mules and dogs. Their men-at-arms' and porters' term of employment would end in just a few days, so they paid them up front for another twenty days of service. They arranged for their hirelings to meet them at the barge first thing in the morning to depart - the last minute orders seemed to have a negative effect on the group's morale. The party themselves would sleep on the barge that night, just in case.

The night passed without incident, and the party woke to hail storms raining down on them from above. These were not ideal conditions for travel, but they had made their minds up. Once the barge crew arrived, the party set out with their hirelings, heading downriver.

The day's travel was uneventful, and they made it more than halfway downriver and deep into the forest. Around 5:30 pm, with the barge moored along the river's edge, they spotted a group of six humans in crude fur cloaks and horned headdresses stalking through the forest some fifteen feet from the barge. Somehow, the group had not spotted the barge. The party debated whether to ambush them and attempt to capture one for questioning, but opted to remain in hiding. The hunting party passed them by, as did the rest of the evening.

The weather cleared the following morning, and the barge was able to make it the rest of the way downriver and to the edge of the lake by noon. The party disembarked, bringing just Egbert, their men-at-arms, their dogs, and two hirelings - Lendeborg and the halfling Brazile, who would be their hound master. They would return for the rest once they had assessed the situation in the dungeon.

The party made their way into the forest and up the hill, following the river to Quasqueton. At around 4:30 pm, the party had just begun their ascent of the hill when two giant birds with 20' wingspans came swooping down low over the tops of the trees, screeching loudly. Loosened leaves and twigs came rustling down to the forest floor, along with several huge feathers. Fortunately, the giant birds had not intended to make a meal of them, and flew onward out of sight.

They arrived at the dungeon at nightfall. They circled around the crag to the main entrance, and Llombaerth snuck inside.

Again, the dungeon appeared differently than last they had visited. The entrance corridor was lined with spikes planted between the flagstones, with heads skewered upon them. Near the entrance were the heads of Mangug and his orcs. As Llombaerth proceeded further inside, he saw, to his dismay, the heads of the party's remaining two zombie followers. Beyond that were the heads of two gnolls. One was unknown to Llombaerth. The other was recognizably the head of Indur.

Could this be the work of the party's goblin allies? Perhaps the psychotic goblin Tobb was responsible?

Llombaerth could smell the rich aroma of a heavy broth being simmered over a fire, wafting into the corridor from the kitchen area. He decided to trigger the twin magic mouths at the end of the corridor to lure out whatever might be up ahead, then retreat to an earlier pair of alcoves to hide and see what emerged.

He did so. The magic mouths made their loud warnings, and Llombaerth retreated and hid. He heard a deep voice grumble to itself in a language he didn't understand, and felt heavy footsteps shake the floor as the creature made its way out into the corridor. A 9' tall female humanoid emerged from the kitchen and glared out from the top of the short flight of steps, but did not spot Llombaerth. It advanced to the alcove with the magic mouths, inspected the area, grumbled to itself again, and returned to the kitchen.

Llombaerth crept back out of the dungeon to reconvene with the rest of the party and share what he had seen. We ended the session there.

These social interaction-heavy sessions are always hard to recap! So much information is exchanged, and I don't take as good of notes when I'm running those encounters as when I'm running a dungeon exploration. Still, I think I captured everything.

I'm delighted to see the party graduating from simple forays back and forth to the dungeon to learning about faction politics and the complex web of NPC schemes which they're bound to get roped into eventually. Lambrecht's scrying has made the players feel an immense sense of time pressure, for better or worse. There's nothing they can really do about Lambrecht right now, and they know it, which feels a bit bad, but so long as I don't have him teleport into their camp and blow them up with a fireball, I see no harm done. Such is life when the local government is ruled by an evil wizard! 

There is a palpable feeling of tension, like things could pop off at any moment, and the party making a hasty exit from town was a fun moment. It really feels like the party's time in Quasqueton is coming to a close (the players speculated that this may be their last foray into the dungeon), so naturally the players have begun speculating as to what it is they might do next.

Ridding the forest of the owlbears seems a likely endeavor, and the players are convinced that whatever lives beneath the "Great Oak" is what stole their precious oriental emerald. There are two powerful evil NPCs in town which they'd like to be rid of, but it will probably be some time before they can accomplish that. And there's plenty more to the sandbox which they are yet to discover...

Developing the Sandbox: The Campaign Calendar

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.

A man of disputable wisdom once said that "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT." This has since become a bit of a meme in the TTRPG community. It is an emphatic declarative statement written in all caps by a larger than life figure in the hobby whom a lot of people enjoy ridiculing, often for good reason. But is there truth to it?

Kinda! Honestly, I've actually never kept a calendar for any of my D&D games. They still felt pretty meaningful to me. Nonetheless, at the end of my longest-running campaign ever (a three and a half year 5e game that took the player characters from 3rd to 20th level and beyond), I felt myself regretting not having a calendar. 

How long had it taken for the characters to make their ascent to power? How long had they known each other? When did they first meet that henchman? How many seasons, moon's turns, and holidays had passed them by? I didn't know.

I was running the campaign by the seat of my pants. I randomized the weather every day. It was an NPC's birthday or the day of some festival when I needed it to be. If a PC became a lycanthrope, only then would I bother to figure out when the next full moon was. Dungeons were restocked, new monsters moved into the region, and factions moved against one another and towards their goals when I felt like they should.

It worked for me. I didn't need a calendar, but I felt myself wanting one all the same.

One of the benefits of running a small sandbox (like the one I created for B1) is that you stand a reasonable chance of, at some point (possibly even before play begins), actually finishing prepping the whole thing for play. Technically this is possible for larger sandboxes as well, but it's a more Herculean task, and you are more likely to burn out before play even begins or to fall behind during play (if, like me, your interest waxes and wanes naturally as the campaign goes on), likely resulting in a lesser quality experience for you and your players.

The sandbox is never actually finished, because running the sandbox is its own thing that requires maintenance between sessions. The benefit of having most of your sandbox prepped and ready to go is that you have more time between sessions for those more ancillary pursuits. When you're not rushing to detail the owlbear den the players intend to clear out on their next expedition, you can instead spend that time restocking the dungeon, updating your outdoor encounter tables, and figuring out if those NPCs succeeded in their most recent scheme.

This is also a great time to work on your calendar. Now, the calendar might be one of those things you want to have prepared ahead of play. Perhaps you want to generate a month's worth of weather. That's pretty reasonable. But I've run nearly two dozen sessions of my B1 campaign, and I'm only just now feeling the need to create one of these bad boys.

What made me want a campaign calendar? Well, part of it was that I just thought it would be neat. That's reason enough. Part of it was remembering the regret I felt at the end of past campaigns. A big part of it was that the party started to accumulate an absurd number of NPC hirelings and paid them in advance, and the way that I was tracking the length of their employment was totally impractical. 

So, I made a calendar.

If you like, you can go on rootring and search "calendar", read all the advice, and come up with something that works for you. Like making a dungeon, there is tons of advice on this subject, and it's impossible to summarize without conducting a meta analysis.

Here's what I did. I got a calendar template from Google Sheets (I used the first option, which is just a sheet for each month of the year and a cell for each day of the month). This is a 2026 Earth calendar. There are no fancy names for the months of the year or the days of the week. You can do this if you want, but it isn't important to me, so I didn't do it for now (I remember really liking the vanilla fantasy names for the month presented by Shamus Young on his Twenty Sided blog...21 years ago?!).

First, I went back through my play reports and figured out when the campaign began. I had already decided that the campaign began in Spring, because that seemed like a reasonable time when adventurers would embark on adventuring activities. For simplicity, Spring is March, April, and May, Summer is June, July, and August, Fall is September, October, and November, and Winter is December, January, and February (this will be important when determining the weather).

I looked at when my first session took place in real life - March 12th. Perfect! I decided that was the in-game start of the campaign as well. Then, I went through my play reports, looking for any mention of the party resting or time passing. I also noted when the party brought on their hirelings and for how long. I ended up with this:

After 20 sessions and 6 months of play, just 13 days had passed in game. Wow! You could go more in depth, noting which sessions occurred during which days and what specific activities the party engaged in - and I might do that still - but it felt unnecessary at the moment.

Since one of the main reasons I wished to start work on the calendar was to track the length of NPCs' employment, I went into the future on the calendar and marked the days when each hirelings' employment would expire. At this rate, it will be another 5 or 6 sessions before the party's porters' and mercenaries' contracts need to be renewed, and 18 or 19 sessions before the crew of the party's river barge can retire, but it's useful information to know. Time passes weirdly during a campaign. A single day might be several sessions, and the next session might cover several days.

I also liked the idea of pre-rolling weather for a month or so. In the real world, you can often tell when it's likely to rain in the coming days, and I want to be able to foreshadow that (the players might not want to embark from town if it seems like they're going to get a torrential rainstorm the next day). It also allows me to skip rolling for weather at the table, and makes me less likely to forget to do so. So, I rolled weather for the rest of the month (as well as the following month, since we're nearing the end of the current one).

I used these hex flowers to determine the weather:

I like these because they're evocative, they only require a single roll for each day, they're based on the seasons, and each day's weather affects the next day's weather. Depending on your system of choice and how weather mechanically impacts things like overland travel or encounter chances, you'll likely have to do some interpretation of the results, but it works reasonably well. In addition to marking daily weather on my calendar, I noted if the weather imposed penalties on overland movement or modified outdoor encounter chances for that day.

Since I am using a real-world calendar, I could also look up what the weather was actually like on each day in some area of the real world comparable to my setting, but in practice I found the information I was looking for too difficult to find, and the information I did find too fiddly for my uses. It would be fun to use a system where the weather can change throughout the day, as it does in real life, but I personally don't need that.

Another thing I thought would be fun and necessary to track is the phases of the moon. This information can be based on the real world and is pretty easy to find, but you can also just make it up. Pick a day during your first month that the moon is full, then have it be full again every 29 days or whatever. Or decide that full moons in your setting are more or less common if you like. You'll have to come up with that yourself. You can also track other celestial events like eclipses and supermoons the same way.

Why is the moon important? Well, don't tell my players, but my sandbox has lycanthropes in it. I want to know when there's increased lycanthrope activity. The player characters might in turn become lycanthropes, and I want to know when they're going to transform and wreak havoc, or do whatever it is werebears do (for example). The AD&D DMG has this whole table breaking down the percentage chance of a cursed individual transforming into a werebeast based on the current phase of the moon:

Clearly you will need to accurately track the phases of the moon to use this thing properly! Also note that you will need to know for how long the character has been a lycanthrope. Another win for the campaign calendar!

You might also decide that the local Evil temple does some nefarious stuff during the lunar eclipse or that magic is more powerful during that time. That seems like a fun application of this tech.

Another fun thing you can do with your calendar is track settlement events like holidays, festivals, NPC birthdays, or whatever. If the players plan for their characters to spend a week in town, it would be nice if they knew that it was the friendly wizard NPC's birthday so that they can arrange to get her a gift. If they're planning to venture out into the wilderness but they learn that tomorrow is the annual Cheesemonger Parade, they might decide to stick around an extra day to attend the festivities and rub elbows with important contacts in the cheese industry.

I roll a d20 for each day on my calendar, and a result of 18+ is some day of significance in the settlement. I like this table from the 2014 5e DMG:

This is one of the many unsung tables of that oft-maligned book, which is honestly full of useful little stuff like this. You'll have to ignore some stuff - seasonal events like equinoxes and solstices, midsummer/winter festivals, fertility/harvest festivals, and celestial events which you're already tracking by other means - but overall this is pretty good stuff!

I wouldn't bother determining events like this for every settlement in the sandbox. I simply rolled for the largest settlement - the one the PCs are most likely to spend extended amounts of time in. You can probably safely assume that the villages, hamlets, and thorps which surround your town celebrate more or less the same events as the town itself.

There's also no reason to limit this to settlements only. Do the denizens of the dungeon celebrate holidays? Is there some mutually recognized armistice day where they come together and parade through the dungeon? Do monsters in their lairs celebrate birthdays? Is a tournament being held at the fighter's stronghold?

You might also want larger events going on in the background - wars and famines and natural disasters and stuff. Joel at Silverarm Press wrote a post which highlights a neat table from uh...Oriental Adventures, on which you can roll for a single yearly event which in turn influences which monthly events are likely to occur. This is pretty neat tech. I haven't tried it out yet, but it's worth a look if you want like, a war happening somewhere "off screen" (or maybe even on it). Warren D. of I Cast Light! also reworked the table on his blog.

Just as you might do with weather or the phases of the moon, you can also pull yearly/monthly events from real life. Simply pick a real-world year that corresponds roughly to the period during which your campaign takes place, Google it, and look at the Wikipedia article to see what happened that year.

The calendar is also useful for tracking faction events. I know that the wizard that rules my town has a tenuous truce with the cleric who rules her own stronghold. The wizard also has a mutually friendly working relationship with a subordinate wizard who wishes to build a stronghold of her own. The cleric wants to kill the subordinate wizard. Will the cleric achieve her goals? Will the truce deteriorate? When does that happen? You will probably want some way of running factions.

You might also use the calendar as a simple timer. One of my biggest bugbears in adventure design is when some time-limited event is happening in the setting (a monster is growing in power, a city is being overrun with plague, or a bad guy is working on a nasty ritual), and the conditions of those ongoing events don't change unless the player characters intervene somehow. 

There's something to be said of a "powder keg" scenario where everything exists in a tenuous equilibrium, requiring some "X factor" (the player characters) to move things decisively in one direction or another, but that doesn't mean everything has to remain static. If some event is going to occur if given enough time to gestate, you should track it somehow. No more Big Bad Evil Guys waiting until the player characters show up to complete their rituals!

There's a party of adventurers camped out in the wilderness, clearing land to build their stronghold. When do they finish? The wizard in town is plotting against them, trying to recruit a band of ogres to root them out. When does he get the ogres to act? There are brigands who have usurped a stronghold and keep its rightful ruler prisoner. When do they execute her? Set dates for all of these things on your calendar. If the player characters take actions to aid or thwart these plots, adjust the timeline on your calendar.

These are the broad strokes. The campaign calendar is of near infinite utility, and there are many things both big and small which it can be used to keep track of. Here are some examples of what else you might track:

• When does a disease or parasitic infestation run its course or kill the afflicted?
• When do followers arrive at a player character's newly built stronghold?
• When does an NPC spy complete a mission and, if the mission fails, when can the characters safely employ another spy on the same mission?
• When does a slow poison kill?
• When does a character or NPC finish crafting an item (magical or otherwise)?
• When does a sage find the answer to a question (or discover that the question is unanswerable) and when can another question be asked of the sage? When does the sage finish acquiring a new minor or major field of study?
• When do henchmen respond to recruitment attempts?
• When does an unfaithful cleric finish atoning for their sins?
• When must an Evil cleric reassert control over their undead minions?
• When does an injured player character make a full recovery?
• When do effects like psionically induced comas, magical enchantments, or temporary insanities end?
• When does a character who mixed an oil of slipperiness with an oil of etherealness return from being lost in the Ethereal Plane? 
• When is a soul no longer trapped in an amulet of life protection, when does a character finish reading a manual of bodily health, and when can a character again invoke the Goat of Terror, and other magical item effects?
• When does an assassin finish their study of poisons?
• When does a character finish their training and level up?
• When is construction of a font or basin for holy water completed?
• When is spell research completed?
• When does an Evil artifact inflict its malevolent effects upon its possessor?
• When has a character known a hireling or henchman long enough to warrant a loyalty score increase?
• When does a character finish training a griffon as a mount and when do they finish training to fire a bow from its back?
• When does the next peasant rebellion occur? When does the rebellion evolve into a civil war?
• When do the characters have to pay taxes?
• When does a cleric or magic-user finish creating a golem?
• When is a paladin's warhorse or a conjured demon released from service?
• When is construction of a stronghold (and mazelike dungeons thereunder) completed?
• When does a character die of old age?

(This list was created by combing through the AD&D DMG with Ctrl+F, keywords "days", "weeks", "months", and "years". There are undoubtedly a great number of many other things you can track as well!)

The calendar is not just for the DM's benefit. Just as players can master a dungeon's layout and use their knowledge of such to plan optimal routes for exploration, treasure extraction, and avoidance or ambushing monsters, they can master the calendar and use it to their benefit. If the DM knows when it will rain, when the hirelings' contracts expire, and when the NPC's birthday is, this should be telegraphed to the players in some way so that they can make informed choices.

Do they wait another day in town to let the weather pass? Do they prioritize their next expedition, before their hirelings demand more money? Do they make sure to be back in town so they can attend the wizard's birthday? There's a full moon tomorrow night. Should they plan to patrol the streets of town and lay a trap for the werewolf? When are the owlbears out hunting versus sleeping in their lair? What can they do before the royal ball to improve their chances of getting an invite?

These are all more or less things you will have to track as a result of player actions - they are less about developing the sandbox than they are about running it. You can wait until your game is underway and until you absolutely need the calendar before creating it (as, admittedly, I did), but hopefully I have demonstrated why creating the calendar upfront can be beneficial as well.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 21)

We played the twenty-first 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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 2 (Maya)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• A barbarian warrior (NPC)
• Wilros Wackledeckle, gnome (NPC)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling porter, and his dog, Ripper (NPC)
• Ejiofer, human porter (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
• Steinbach, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
• Hadric, Wilda Brambletoe, Corvin, Aelwen Riversong, and 20 oarsmen - the crew of the Mossy Turtle (NPCs)

Last we played, the party cleaned up after their fight with Mangug's orcs, carrying loads of heavy treasure out of the dungeon with the help of their mules, hirelings, and - with a promise of a 10% share of the gold value of the treasure recovered - Girthil's barbarians. 

They found the remaining goblins, Narka, Numbnuts, and Viss, and freed them from the shackles Mangug's orcs had put them in. They learned that Pigmug and Rekk had been subdued or killed by Tobb somewhere near the chamber of the Stone that Speaks. Viss asked them to retrieve Grilk's ring, which Mangug had taken. Girthil had already taken the ring, claiming it was a relic belonging to one of her tribe's druids, indicated by the familiar barbarian runes etched inside the band. The party decided to let her keep it.

The party made the long, arduous descent down the hill and through the forest back to the lake, where their barge waited for them, which took nearly three days. Along the way, they encountered a small group of "river women" bathing in the waters. Girthil mentioned that fey beings still lived in these woods, and that the mere sight of them could blind a man or strike him dead. Llombaerth had already laid eyes upon them, but had resisted the magic at play.

The party at last reached the lake and loaded their goods onto the barge. They parted ways with Girthil and her barbarians, save for one warrior, who travelled with them to ensure the tribe's 10% due was collected. They also sent Indur the gnoll back to Quasqueton with their two remaining zombies to reinforce the goblins.

The rest of the party set sail on the barge, crossing the lake and sailing upriver. At the end of the second day of sailing, a lone wood elf emerged from the forest, asking if the party were brigands or agents of the wizard in town. They denied this, and agreed to let the elf come aboard to inspect their cargo.

We picked up there. As the elf climbed aboard the barge, the party gave him the heads up that they had items from Quasqueton in their hold, which had belonged to Zelligar, and which Lambrecht the wizard was seeking to obtain, but that they were not delivering these items to him, and were planning to sell them in town and definitely not paying taxes on them. To prove this, they gestured towards the Black Crag people's warrior. The Black Crag people hated Zelligar, and this one was with them, so surely they were not in league with any nefarious wizards.

As it turns out, the wood elves of this forest were ancient enemies of the Black Crag people. Before Rogahn and Zelligar had come to this land and forced out the Black Crag people, the wood elves had called the forest home, and it was the Black Crag people who had forced them out. The elf and the Black Crag warrior exchanged insults in their native tongues, but did not come to blows.

The party brought the elf into the hold to examine their goods. While many of the items might make fine decorations in a wizard's sanctum, there was no evidence that the party was smuggling the sort of items which the elves hoped to keep from Lambrecht. It all seemed above board.

The party asked if there might be items in Quasqueton which belonged to the elves. The elf answered that, while the Black Crag people had taken from the elves, and Rogahn and Zelligar from the Black Crag people, there were no outstanding items that came to mind which the elves would claim for themselves. They had retreated deeper into the forest as human encroachment had become apparent, taking their choicest artifacts and relics with them to save them from such plundering.

The party asked if, at some point, the elves might like to reclaim the forest as their own, and if they might aid the party in facilitating that. The elf said that it would depend on what was required of them, but that the forest was plagued by goblins, orcs, ogres, owlbears, and humans. The forest was tainted, and human civilization was eroding the edge of the forest every year. From the perspective of an elf, there wouldn't be much of it left by the end of their lifetime.

To that point, the party mentioned their intention to rid the forest of its owlbear problem, and asked if the elves might aid them in that. The elf replied that the owlbears were created by the humans' meddling with nature. They were a human problem to be cleaned up by humans. 

Llombaerth removed his owlbear helm, indicating his ears, and said in Elvish that he was an elf as well. The wood elf visibly scoffed at him, stating that the two of them were not the same kind of elf. Llombaerth replied that this was so, but to the humans - and the wizard Lambrecht in particular - they were all just elves. 

This resonated with the wood elf. He would not commit his people to helping the party at this time, but perhaps something could be arranged in the future. He said that his people kept a small scouting outpost in the deep forest to the east, and indicated this on their map. It was just northeast and across the river from where the party suspected the owlbear den to be, which was convenient.

Lastly, the party asked the elf if he was familiar with any magical, possibly evil stones in the region, particularly at Quasqueton. The elf did not know of anything specific, but said that there were a great many magical things in the forest - things from before even the elves' time. During the conflict with the Black Crag people, it was said that the barbarians' druids worshiped a "horned demon" which gave them power, and the elves' druids said that Rogahn and Zelligar had chosen the site of their stronghold because of ancient powers which dwelled beneath the crag.

There was one more thing. In addition to the human brigands and agents of Lambrecht, the elves had encountered another group in the forest - human pilgrims and zealots, worshipers of a horned goddess of some kind, who came from civilized lands to the forest in search of some ancient power. They wore crude headdresses of animal horns and antlers. Whatever they were looking for, the many monsters which prowled the forest had kept them from finding it.

With that, the elf departed back into the forest. As he left, the party spotted about half a dozen more elves, unnoticed until now, dropping from the nearby trees to join him. The elves had bows drawn on the party the entire time.

The party finished resting for the night, waking the next day to continue their journey. They had about three hours before they made it to Timbershore.

At around 9:30 am, Egbert noticed something strange in the sky. He pointed it out to the party - two faintly shimmering, almond-shaped distortions hovering in the air above them, following at they moved up the river. The party concluded that they were being scried upon. Egbert didn't know how long it would last. They ordered the barge to a halt and instructed the oarsmen to cast nets, as if they were simply fishing. They had to convince the captain, Hadric, but eventually the crew carried out their orders.

By the time the equipment was hauled onto the deck, the apparition had vanished. It had been only fifteen minutes. The party ordered the crew back to their positions, amidst some grumbling dissent, and they went on their way. 

The party arrived in Timbershore at around 10:30 am, but decided to stick to the far side of the river until nightfall. They would continue to pose as simple fishermen until dark, then signal for the smugglers to meet them on the far shore. Once their cargo was unloaded, they would dock in town with the day's catch, and hopefully none would be the wiser.

The day passed uneventfully, and the smugglers responded to their signal around 8 pm, floating a barge of their own across the river under cover of night, crewed by ne'er-do-well sailors led by a familiar face - Lethariel Vaen, the elf underling who was second-in-command to the smugglers' leader, Tavin Underbough.

The smugglers came aboard and surveyed the party's treasure. In total, they had some 200 g.p. in assorted old coinage, about 1,500 g.p. in gemstones, and about 2,500 g.p. in other treasures. The party opted to keep the gemstones and convert the remaining treasure into spending money. The coinage would need to be converted into the local currency, and the other items would require forged documents which stated that duties, tariffs, and sales taxes had been paid for each. Since the party was holding onto the gemstones, they would still need to pay sales tax and the special surtax on those if they ended up selling them.

The smugglers' cut was half what it would be if the party had gone through the official channels. The party got a few sacks of platinum and gold coins. 10% went to the Black Crag warrior to bring back to his tribe. The rest was divided five ways, with equal shares for Llombaerth, Mirkle, Rory, Zommernar, and Egbert. 

Mirkle and Rory both gained a level (Mirkle is 3rd level and Rory is 2nd). Llombaerth and Zommernar came close to leveling up, and Egbert is about halfway to 2nd level. I determine experience shares by totaling the number of sessions each character has participated in on the current expedition, with henchmen counting for half the highest number. Llombaerth and Mirkle participated in 7 sessions each, Rory and Zommernar in 3 sessions each, and Egbert counts for 3 sessions (half of 7, rounded down). The total is 23 sessions, so Llombaerth and Mirkle each got a 30% share of the experience points, and everyone else each got a 13.33% share.

With their contraband loot unloaded, the party finally disembarked for town, bringing in the day's catch of fish as a cover. Before parting ways, they impressed upon the crew the importance of not sharing any of what had transpired with anyone. If people were made aware of their activities, they were likely to be rounded up and questioned, and likely would not come back alive. This obviously troubled everyone a great deal, but their worries melted away when the party paid the entire crew a month's salary (some 700 g.p.) as a bonus for their silence. Wilda Brambletoe, the barges shrewd old halfling second mate, reminded the crew that "loose lips sink ships".

With that, the company scattered throughout town. The Black Crag warrior hefted his sack of coins and, seeing no reason to return to his tribe immediately as it was so late, wandered off to gamble and drink. I forgot about Wilros Wackledeckle (shame on me!), but presumably he also parted ways with the group. The party went to the Mooring Post to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning, the weather in town had turned for the worse. A snowy rain fell from the sky, covering the streets in cold water and slush. The party set about their errands.

They decided they would like to recruit another magic-user as a henchman, and spent 60 g.p. posting notices and hiring a crier. They travelled to the High Ward to shop. They bought some locks, thinking they could use them to secure certain areas of the dungeon, and bought two guard dogs, a hunting dog, and four war dogs! I asked them to think about what else they might like to buy and to get back to me with their final lists.

They returned to the River Ward to seek out a dwarf who might know something about the ore they had found in Quasqueton. After a brief inspection, he told them it was ordinary blue earth. A cartload of it was worth just a few copper pieces. It was somewhat useful in creating cheap pigments, but not usually worth mining. They paid the dwarf a gold piece for his time.

Next, they planned to seek out Albertyna to exchange information. They travelled to her manse and found her in her study, but we decided to end the session there.

Nothing too crazy happening in this one! The encounter with the wood elf was fruitful for the information exchange and the new potential allies, and it was fun for the players to learn that they're being magically observed from afar, but the rest was kind of standard bookkeeping stuff. It was good for the characters to get a big payout of XP and gold. I'm glad a few of them leveled up. It was also interesting to see once again how quickly those coffers get drained! The party still has a nice chunk of change in the bank (and in the form of gemstones), but we'll see how much is left once their shopping is concluded!

I'm looking forward to another interaction with Albertyna and to finding out what the players plan to do next.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 20)

We played the twentieth 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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 2 (Maya)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 2 (Nael)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• Girthil, barbarian leader, and 8 barbarian warriors (NPCs)
• Indur, gnoll (NPC)
• Wilros Wackledeckle, gnome (NPC)
• Zhukk, orc (NPC)
• Two friendly zombie adventurers (NPCs)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling porter, and his dog, Ripper (NPC)
• Ejiofer, human porter (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
• Steinbach, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
• Hadric, Wilda Brambletoe, Corvin, Aelwen Riversong, and 20 oarsmen - the crew of the Mossy Turtle (NPCs)

Last we played, a band of barbarian warriors (the Black Crag people) demanded that the party hand over any plundered relics of their people. Due to a bit of a miscommunication, the players thought that the barbarians wanted them to surrender all their treasure. They weren't too keen on that, so they had Egbert put two of the barbarians to sleep, Llombaerth and Indur killed another two, and the barbarians' leader, Girthil, surrendered.

The party negotiated a truce. They gave Girthil the chieftain's sword they had found and promised to lead her to the chieftain's remains which they had found elsewhere in the dungeon. In return, Girthil ordered the rest of her warriors stationed outside the dungeon's secret entrance to release the party's hirelings, who they had taken captive.

The party led Girthil to the chieftain's bones and convinced her to lead some of her warriors in an offensive against Mangug's orcs upstairs. They made their plans and launched the attack. The party and their allies slew Mangug and all six of his orc underlings, though Llombaerth and Zommernar both took wounds, and two of the party's pet zombies were killed.

We picked up there. The party had agreed to let Girthil and her warriors loot the bodies of Mangug's orcs, which they did. Meanwhile, the party went down the hall to Rogahn's secret bedchamber to survey the treasure they had left there.

There, they found the a shield, a mace, and some clothing looted from the captain of the guard's chamber, two pairs of mounted dragon paws (80 lbs each), the giant-sized shield (150 lbs, requiring at least two people to carry), the door etched with esoteric religious symbols (250 lbs, requiring at least three people to carry), and a massive dragon skin (1,000 lbs, requiring at least ten people to carry). Still in the nearby trophy room was what appeared to be a taxidermized cockatrice (60 lbs) and a statue of a basilisk (2,000 lbs, which would have to somehow be lifted onto a sled or rollers to be moved).

The party checked with Girthil to ensure none of these items would be claimed by the Black Crag people. She confirmed that none of the items belonged to them. The party asked if Girthil's warriors would be willing to help them move this stuff down to the lake, where it could be loaded onto the Mossy Turtle and hauled upriver, in exchange for some 150 gold pieces.

Girthil was reticent to consign her proud warriors to manual labor for the party's material gain, and asked why the party's numerous hirelings would not suffice. Llombaerth explained that the forest was very dangerous, gesturing towards the owlbear skull helm he wore. In that case, Girthil said, it seemed her people should be entitled to some share of the treasure. They eventually agreed to give the barbarians a 10% share in exchange for their assistance.

The party suddenly remembered their goblin allies and went looking for them. They found Narka manacled at the ankles in the kitchen. The party asked her what had happened, and she explained that after the party had left the dungeon the last time, Viss had declared that a Goblins' Moot could not be held until Tobb was reunited with the group. The party had left Tobb to guard the room containing the Stone that Speaks, back in Drak's old territory.

Apparently, Numbnuts, Pigmug, Rekk, and Viss had gone to get Tobb. Tobb had not listened to reason, and had attacked. Numbnuts and Viss fled and escaped, but Pigmug and Rekk were either killed or subdued. That night, Mangug's orcs had arrived at Quasqueton. They had been interested in negotiating passage inside, but Viss understandably did not want more orcs lording over them. A fight broke out, and with the goblins outnumbered three to one, they were easily defeated.

Narka told the party that Numbnuts and Viss were in the rooms across the hall. The party found both of them and liberated them as well, but told them to stay where they were for the time being, to avoid any potential conflicts with Girthil's people. Viss asked about Grilk's ring, which Mangug had taken from Viss when the goblins were captured. The party figured that this must have been on Mangug's person, and that Girthil's people likely had it.

The party easily carried the mounted dragon paws and the giant-sized shield out of the dungeon by way of the main entrance, then circled around the crag to the secret entrance to gather their hirelings and mules. Night had fallen over the forest while the party had been inside the dungeon. They broke down their camp and returned to the main entrance.

The party decided that they might be able to use one of the mining carts downstairs to haul a lot of treasure out at once. They hitched the carts to their mules and, along with their hirelings, hauled the carts to the secret bedchamber. They were able to load the cart with the dragon skin and the miscellaneous items found in the captain's chamber (I treated this as a wagon or cart, which triples a mount's carrying capacity at the cost of halving their movement speed, allowing the two mules to haul these items out somewhat easily). They and their zombies, hirelings, and NPC followers carried out the door with religious markings as well as the stuffed cockatrice.

They hauled all of this back around the crag to the secret entrance. The party made a deal with Zhukk to release him if he promised not to return to Quasqueton. He agreed, the party agreed to give him arms and armor from Mangug's orcs so that he would not be defenseless in the wilderness, and he parted ways with them.

The party had not yet engaged in any overland movement that day, and they still had a couple of hours before they had to rest, so they began making their way down the hill, following the river. I reasoned that there was probably some overgrown, disused trail leading from Quasqueton to the lake, since Rogahn and Zelligar likely would have moved vast quantities of stone and other materials downriver to the building site, then used carts and wagons to haul it all up the hill. This was important, since carts and wagons (such as the mining cart being used to transport the heavy items) can only traverse difficult terrain if a road or trail is available.

Normally, it would take the party three hours to descend the hill. Loaded up with treasure and slowed down by their zombies, it would take twice as long. They were able to make it a third of the way down the hill before needing to make camp.

The night passed without incident, and the party woke the next morning to find a cold mist had crept into the forest. This obscured their vision and would impose additional movement cost on the day's travel. It would now take five hours and twenty minutes to finish their descent. They reached the bottom of the hill without incident.

It would normally take four hours to cross the forest and reach the lake. Their reduced movement speed and the mist meant it would take ten hours instead. They were able to make it about a quarter of the way before needing to rest for the night.

Another night passed uneventfully. When the party woke, they found the mists had cleared. The air was cold and dry. It would take another 6 hours to reach the lake.

After traveling along the river for an hour and twenty minutes, the party heard the sound of women's voices from the direction of the river, about 70 feet away, though they could not see the source. The women were speaking - or perhaps singing - in an unknown tongue. 

Llombaerth decided to sneak ahead to get a better look. He succeeded on his Move Silently check, creeping about 30 feet up to the edge of the tree line. There he saw four young graceful elfin women with sleek figures, long, thick hair, and radiant skin, dressed in lengthy, sheer robes which glowed with golden thread and rainbow hews. The breeze blowing in off the river carried a delightful, enticing scent.

Llombaerth found it hard to look away. I called for a saving throw vs spell. Adam asked if his elven resistance to charm and sleep magic would apply here, and I decided it made sense. Llombaerth managed to resist whatever magic was at work without needing to make a saving throw. His eyes burned as if he was staring at the sun itself. The women began to disrobe as they entered the river. Llombaerth quickly pulled himself away and returned to the rest of the party.

After sharing what he had seen and the danger he had felt, the party's followers had input. Egbert was curious about what sort of magic was at work. Indur was incensed that these river women had frightened Llombaerth so, and threatened to kill them and devour their smooth flesh. Girthil mentioned that certain fey beings were known to inhabit the forest and to bathe in the sacred waters which flowed through it. They were known to befriend good-looking, kindhearted men. Their kiss could make a man forget his troubles, and women who bathed in the same waters as them were said to be blessed with renewed youth and beauty. However, the mere sight of them could cause a mortal to lose their sight or be stricken dead.

The party decided not to trifle with the river women, and continued on their way. They reached the lake at about 1 pm and found the barge and its crew waiting for them. They loaded their treasure onto the barge. They decided to head back to town now, returning later for the basilisk statue. They sent Indur back to Quasqueton with their remaining zombies (Hadric did not want them on the boat), instructing Indur to protect the goblins. 

They thought to send Indur back with Grilk's ring as a sign of legitimacy, and asked Girthil if she had found it among Mangug's things. Girthil was wearing the ring around her neck. She said that it was one of her people's relics, and that it had belonged to one of their druids. She had hoped to find the druid's remains in Quasqueton, but hadn't seen them. She showed the party the ring, and they saw that it was etched with runes similar to those found on the chieftain's sword. They asked to take a rubbing of the runes so that they might identify other items belonging to the Black Crag people, to which Girthil agreed.

Girthil sent one of her warriors with the party to ensure that they received their 10% share of the treasures recovered. Girthil and the rest of her warriors parted ways with the party, wandering off into the surrounding forest.

The party, Egbert, Wilros Wackledeckle, and all their hirelings set off on the barge. Though they had traveled overland for six hours already, the barge's crew still had a full 8 hours of travel in them. It took about an hour and forty minutes to cross the lake to the river's mouth. From here, it would be all upriver. By 9 pm, they had made it about nine and a half miles upriver. The crew moored the barge along the shore for the night.

The cold and dry weather persisted the next day, and they continued sailing upriver. They reached the edge of the forest at about 1:15 pm, with Timbershore's familiar farmland stretching out to the north and west, and the forest still to the east and south. They ended the day on the river bordering town, with just three more hours of travel before they could put into port in the River Ward.

Shortly after stopping for the day, around 5:30 pm, they heard a rustling from the trees to the southeast. A lone elf emerged from the forest, and Llombaerth and Zommernar recognized him as a a wood elf. The elf was cautious, calling out to them to ask if they were brigands, agents of the wizard, or traders. 

The party identified themselves as traders of a sort, denying any affiliation with brigands or wizards. The elf asked if, in that case, he might come aboard to investigate, to see if they were who they said, and not catspaws of the wizard. The party asked how this might be proven, and the elf said that he would look for items bearing the wizard's mark, or anything plundered from the old stronghold which the wizard claimed as his own, which they might be delivering to him.

We ended the session there. This one was a doozy! In contrast to our last session, there was no combat whatsoever, but lots of logistics puzzling, social interaction, overland movement, and a couple of outdoor encounters. 

This was the party's biggest logistical endeavor yet, and the challenge of getting all that treasure out of the dungeon really manifested itself here. The overland travel math is a bit challenging for me on the fly, and I had to go back as I wrote this post and correct some of my timekeeping math, but I think it all checks out. It is a bit of a relief to finally shed some of the party's accumulated NPC hangers-on! The "river women" encounter was a bit awkward to play out. I definitely felt like a bit of a lecher as I described it, but decided to lean into it and play up the male-gaziness of it all.

Next time, we'll see how the wood elf encounter plays out. Then, hopefully, the party will make it back to town and engage in some fun shenanigans there.