AD&D 2e Play Report: Session 12

We played the 12th session of our AD&D 2e campaign last night. The play report for our last session is here.

To briefly recap, the party spent some time in town to recruit henchmen to help them root out the ankheg nest plaguing the halfling village of Grimerun. Ash recruited Derrell, a druid, and Haymond Baler recruited Yuliana, a cleric. The party returned to Grimerun and hired two halfling bounders, Panster Keenblossom and Sylyra Softleaf, to watch their mules, dogs, and supplies while the party went into the ankheg's den.

While camping outside the ankheg's burrow, the party ambushed a pair of ogres who wandered unawares into the party's camp at night. They handled them easily. 

The party descended into the ankheg den and followed a trail which Jakayla, their temporary ranger companion, picked up. They traveled through the tunnels for a full day before needing to rest. 

In the middle of the night, Haymond and Yuliana were ambushed by about a dozen shrieking, stinky gremlins that leapt out of the shadows and attempted to subdue them with tiny clubs. Both Haymond and Yuliana were seriously wounded in the attack, but the party collected themselves and killed most of their attackers, with the few remaining fleeing into the shadows.

Bernhardt Dalton cast some healing spells to aid the wounded in recovering, at which point the party finished their rest.

Pop Goes the Weasel

The next morning, the party left the scene of their nighttime ambush and pressed on ahead. They didn't get far before they heard the sound of dozens of tiny feet scampering about in the walls of the tunnel all around them. The party braced themselves for another attack.

To their surprise, one of the gremlins stepped out into the open, declaring in broken Common that he meant them no harm. The gremlin's name was Weasel, and he apologized for the attack from his fellows the previous evening. They had to "test" the party's "mettle" to see if they might be strong enough to help them.

I rolled another random encounter with gremlins - I think it was 15 this time. Luckily for the party, I rolled a "friendly" reaction, and decided that the gremlins wanted something from them other than a fight.

Weasel explained that his people were at war with another clan of slightly bigger creatures - though still small, in comparison to the party - with wings, who roosted in the tunnels' ceilings and dropped rocks on the gremlins from above. Bernhardt made an Intelligence check and concluded that Weasel was referring to a winged species of kobolds known as urds. He didn't think they would be a problem for the current party to handle.

The gremlins and urds were at war over a "big people shrine" which was once on the surface in the forest above, but had sunken into the earth due to the tunneling of the "armored worms". Both groups had concluded that the shrine held immense wealth from the surface world.

If the party would help Weasel and his people defeat the urds, the gremlins would reward the party with a trove of treasure collected from the armored worms' victims (the armored worms have no use for treasure, so the two groups sneak into their nest for loot and fight over that, too).

I had already determined when prepping this adventure that there was conflict between the gremlins and urds. Any time more than one type of intelligent creature is found in a dungeon or other adventure environment, I try to determine their relationship with each other, usually with opposed reaction rolls. In this case, both groups were hostile towards each other, and the shrine was right between their two lairs, so I decided that it was the cause of their hostility. When I rolled a friendly reaction for the gremlins, I knew instantly what they were after.

Bernhardt was secretly motivated to investigate the sunken shrine himself. Haymond did not want to trust the gremlin, but gave in to the rest of the party. They told Weasel that they were here to kill the armored worms - they taught him the word "ankheg" - and asked if he could show them where the nest was. If he did, they would help him. Weasel agreed, and proceeded to lead the party in that direction. 

It was difficult for Weasel, as a tiny creature, to scramble over all the roots and rocks in the tunnel, so he asked if he could ride along on one of the big people's shoulders. Bernhardt said yes, and Weasel climbed aboard, delighted by how tall he now was. The gremlin smelled awful, and sang a vulgar little song in his own language, kicking his feet with delight.

A tiny, friendly, smelly little monster should always ask to ride on a larger person's shoulders or head. The party will agonize for several minutes over who is willing to actually grant such a request.

They're Coming Outta the Goddamn Walls!

After almost another full day of traveling, the party reached a large, open cavern, honeycombed with tunnels and smelling of rotten fruit. In a depression in the center of the cavern was a mound of small, dead ankhegs, plus the corpses of wildlife, farmers, and foresters. The heap of bodies was bristling with insect eggs, which were coated in glistening acidic slime.

The party decided that the eggs had to be destroyed, and wished they had brought some flasks of oil. Weasel protested, saying that the eggs were delicious and that the party should try eating them, or at the very least bring them to the gremlins' lair for a proper feast. The party was not enthused. Bernhardt cast bless on the party in anticipation of a fight. Bless grants everyone in a 50-foot cube +1 to attack rolls, saving throws vs fear, and morale checks.

Karven Stone threw a handful of darts at the eggs, which wriggled when struck, then burst into slime. The party heard movement in the tunnels around them, and decided to move into the large cavern to avoid being ambushed in a tight space. They could hear large creatures converging on the cavern from the surrounding tunnels. They readied themselves to attack. Weasel hid in a hole. Bernhardt cast aid on Yuliana (which doubles the effect of bless and grants d8 temporary hit points), and Derrell cast shillelagh.

An adult ankheg emerged from the northwest. Karven threw a few darts at it and Yuliana fired with her sling. Before the bug could react, it was dead. 

Another emerged to the east, and Ash moved to attack it. He missed. Since one ankheg was already dead, I made a morale check for this one (-4 for being outnumbered 3-to-1, -2 because the ankhegs had already lost 25% of their numbers, -2 because none of the party had been slain yet, +1 for a defensive terrain advantage, and +3 because the ankhegs were defending their lair, so -4 overall). The ankheg failed its morale check. I had decided that if they lost half their hit points or failed a morale check, the ankhegs would use their acid (which they can only use once every six hours, so it's reserved for desperate situations only) and retreat into the tunnels. Since this was their lair and they were protecting their eggs, they wouldn't flee - they would just retreat and emerge elsewhere to make a more advantageous attack.

The ankheg spewed acid at Ash, who failed his save vs poison, taking a whopping 19 points of damage. He had 12 hit points left. The ankheg turned and fled, so Ash attacked it, dealing about half its hit points in damage.

Another ankheg emerged from the northeast. Haymond charged it and missed. It also failed its morale check, so it spewed acid at Haymond. He successfully saved versus poison, taking just 6 damage. Haymond attacked the ankheg as it fled, again dealing about half its hit points in damage.

Game Over, Man! Game Over!

Finally, the ankheg queen emerged to the south. This one was huge - about 15 feet long. I decided that it wouldn't make morale checks. It would die defending its eggs. Seeing Ash covered in acid and brought to a knee, the queen attacked him. Ash was caught in the queen's mandibles, which crushed him and burned him with acid. He took another 10 damage, dropping him to 2 hit points, and he was trapped in the ankheg's jaws unless he or someone else could pry him loose, or the ankheg was slain.

The party moved to surround the queen. One of the wounded ankhegs emerged behind Haymond to attack, and the other targeted the henchmen, Sheyla and Yinvalur Sparkguard, preventing these three from focusing on the queen. The rest of the party landed some hits on the queen, but she hardly seemed to notice. Ash fought desperately, but was unable to escape.

On the queen's turn, Ash took damage from the mandibles and acid automatically, since he was still trapped. He took another 16 points of damage, killing him instantly (our house rule is death at -10 hit points for player characters - Ash was at -14). The party watched in horror as Ash's body was cut in half. The ankheg sprayed digestive acid over his body, melting flesh from bone, then slurped up the liquified elf like soup. It turned to face the rest of the party, who had been attacking it from behind, and spewed Ash's sizzling bones all over them.

Immediate morale checks for the henchmen were in order. Despite having a +3 bonus (+1 for aid, +1 for bless, and +1 for being Good-aligned), Yuliana failed. She began screaming like Hudson from Aliens (how could I resist?) and turned to flee. The ankheg queen attacked her and seized her in its jaws. If not for the bonus hit points from aid, she would be dead immediately (the dead at -10 rule doesn't apply to NPCs).

Bernhardt beseeched everyone else not to run. The remaining NPCs passed their morale checks and pressed the attack. I gave Ash's player access to Derrell's character sheet so that he could keep playing - it's what henchmen are for!

The two smaller ankhegs missed their attacks and attempted to flee again. Haymond slew one as it fled, and Yinvalur the other. It was now Yinvalur's turn, and since he has specialization with the longsword, he would have two attacks this round (specialization at low levels grants three attacks every two rounds, so one attack on the first and two on the second). It was time for everyone to be amazed by the chad elf NPC.

Yinvalur ran over to the ankheg queen and attacked twice. He hit once and landed a crit with his second attack. The first attack did 14 damage (he rolled an 11 on d12 and gets +1 damage from Strength and +2 from specialization) and the second did 21 (he rolled two 9s on 2d12). I kid not, the queen had exactly 34 hit points remaining. She was dead.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed that the 1st-level henchman upstaged the player characters here, but the players didn't seem to mind. Yuliana would have been dead next turn, and any one of them could have been next.

The ankheg queen collapsed, and Yuliana wriggled free from its jaws.

Looting the Lair

The party went about smashing the ankheg's eggs, much to Weasel's dismay. While Haymond hacked up the ankheg carcasses for their shells, Bernhardt searched the pile of bodies, and Karven snuck over to (the lower half of) Ash's body to see what he had. Luckily, his coin purse was still there, which Karven nabbed while no one was looking. Ash wouldn't be needing it now. Then, Karven harvested the acid from the two ankhegs who hadn't managed to use it during the battle.

Haymond used some rope to secure the ankheg carcasses so that the party could drag them back through the tunnels on their return trip. Bernhardt collected some sentimental trinkets from the corpses in the pile, with the intent of returning them to the victims' families in Grimerun. Among the bodies was what appeared to be a cleric. Though the body was badly eaten by acid, Bernhardt could make out on its tabard a symbol of a jawless skull on a purple and black sunburst. With an Intelligence check (with a hefty bonus for being a cleric), he was able to identify it as the symbol of the Dark Sun, the Chaotic Evil God of Lies (Cyric, in the Forgotten Realms pantheon, which again, I use for its generic D&D-ness). 

On the body was some treasure, including a bejeweled eyepatch worth 3,000 gold. Bernhardt also found an acid-eaten journal, which he decided he would read when he had some downtime. 

Weasel tried to convince the party to accompany him to his home, but they preferred to return to Grimerun first. They asked the gremlin to give them an idea where his lair was, as well as the location of the shrine and the lair of the urds, which he did. They said they would return via the surface and reunite with Weasel in order to lend the gremlins their aid, as promised. Weasel demanded to shake on it, and spit a big gross loogie into his hand. Bernhardt reluctantly shook his tiny, slimy hand.

Getting Back

The party turned back the way they came. It would take them the rest of the day, plus another day and half to get back. 

On their first night camping in the tunnels, Bernhardt heard a voice calling to him from a tunnel in the ceiling above. One of the urds had found them. Its reaction was indifferent, so it simply engaged in small talk (in this case, I totally forgot that the urd wouldn't speak Common, and the party would likely have a hard time communicating with it - oh well).

The urd asked what they were doing, and seemed impressed that they had killed the armored worms. It asked if they had met the "puny, stinky" gremlins, to which Bernhardt responded in the affirmative. They had been attacked by the gremlins and had killed them - he left out the deal with Weasel. 

The urd seemed delighted by this, remarking that it was fun to drop big rocks on the gremlins' heads and watch them burst like melons. Afterwards, apparently, the urds lay their eggs in the headless corpses. Whether or not this is true is unclear - I just thought it would be a disgusting little detail to add on the fly.

Since the urd wasn't friendly, it did not invite the party back to its lair or attempt to recruit them in the war against the gremlins. It simply talked with them for a bit and then left, but at least now the party has met the other faction. Before it could leave, Bernhardt asked who their leader was, and got a name - Zabu.

On their second night camping, Karven heard another voice - this time a gremlin - calling out to him. These ones were unfriendly, so they demanded that Karven hand over all his gold, or else they'd "call the worms on him". Karven informed the gremlins that the worms were dead - the party had killed them. The gremlins didn't believe him. Karven namedropped Weasel, and the gremlins' demeanor changed. "Oh, you know Weasel? You gonna help us get those nasty winged jerks? You know they drop rocks on our heads and lay their eggs in our headless bodies? Well I guess you're alright then. Sorry for bothering you." Karven tossed the gremlins a gold piece and they scampered off into the dark.

On the last day of traveling back, the party noticed some stalactites hanging down from the ceiling above, which was odd - they had come this exact way before, and there weren't any stalactites. Haymond was suspicious, so he stood back and slung a stone at one of them. He hit it, and the "stalactite" trembled and fell to the ground. Suddenly, an eye blinked open on its side, staring at Haymond. The party noticed the rest of the stalactites on the ceiling slowly shuffling towards them.

Since piercers are so slow, and the primary "dramatic question" of an encounter with them is simply whether the party notices them or not, I ruled that the party could simply wait for an opening to run quickly past them, which they did. If we weren't close to our ending time, I might have wanted to spend more time on it, but it seemed inconsequential. 

With that, the party finally made it back to the entrance to the burrow. They had paid the halfling bounders for three days of work, and it had been five days by now, so I made a couple of morale checks to see if they had stuck around or returned to Grimerun. They passed both checks, so they were still there waiting for the party, although they were worried, had nearly left. Panster reminded the party that they were owed two days' pay.

With that, we ended the session. The party earned a chunk of experience points for the fight with the ankhegs and for finishing the quest, but still no one leveled up. Next time, they'll return to Grimerun, collect their reward, and decide what to do next. They might keep their word and return to help Weasel and the gremlins, mainly because they want to investigate the shrine themselves, or they might investigate the City of Oni to see about rescuing villagers who were kidnapped by hobgoblins and taken there. In either case, it seems they'll be in Grimerun for a bit.

Ash's player is working on a new character, and is currently planning on playing an elf fighter/mage. He asked about playing a bladesinger, which I'm not enthusiastic about, because I don't want to open the 2e splatbook floodgates. He asked if maybe bladesinging is something he could learn from a quest, or an ability he could acquire through a magic item, and I quite like that idea. Maybe he could find a bladesinging sword which unlocks those abilities for him. Something to think about.

Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable session, with delightful roleplaying, weird little guys, and an intense combat which quickly swung in the players' favor after seeming for a moment like it could be disastrous. 

That seems to be a pattern in 2e, at least how I've been running it. No encounter has felt like it had a foregone conclusion. In the early stages, the players are often fearing for their characters' lives, but they're usually only a fortuitous roll of a die away from triumph. It's been very satisfying. We'll see if their luck holds up.