AD&D 2e Play Report: Session 20

We played the 20th session of our AD&D 2e campaign earlier this week. Last session's play report is here.

To recap, the party had concluded the previous session by ambushing a heretical priest and zombie lord, Themar, and his zombie minions. The clerics in the party used their godly powers to turn the majority of the lesser zombies. The warriors in the party - and their numerous elf henchmen - held the remaining zombies at bay and picked off the turned zombies at their leisure while a select few battled Themar. Themar unleashed a powerful burst of dark energy which instantly slew the party's beloved elf henchman, Yinvalur, and raised him as a zombie.

Eventually, the party defeated Themar, made the hard decision to kill the Yinvalur zombie. They found a bunch of gems on Themar's corpse, and we concluded the session.

Party Roster

• Bernhardt Dalton, NG human cleric 5
• Magicheart, NG pseudodragon
• Orlina, CN human cleric 1
• Corym Vadercast, NG elf fighter 3/mage 3
• Haymond Baler, LG human fighter 4
• Yuliana, NG human cleric 3
• Karven Stone, LE dwarf thief 5

The party had an hour of overland travel left in the day, and they had some elf hirelings to return, so they headed off towards the wood elf camp, which was about a day's travel from Themar's lair. As they set up camp in the forest, I rolled a random encounter. The party was approached by another group of adventurers.

I determined that this was a low-level group, and had already prepped one for such an occasion: the Combatants of Composure. This was yet another iteration on the Gladiators of Patience, and got a bemused chuckle from my players.

The Combatants, it turned out, were on their way to Ryl Themar. The party had been gone for a while, so another group had gone looking for them. The Combatants were led by the LE human fighter Corbyn, so I reasoned that they were probably hoping that the party had cleared out some of the tomb's monsters while, unfortunately, dying in the process, allowing the Combatants to mop up and take the treasure. I described the Combatants as friendly, but maybe somewhat disappointed to find the party still standing.

The party was certainly in a weakened state, but they also had a total of thirteen members (four PCs, two henchmen, and seven hirelings). The Combatants had four characters with class levels (one 2nd-level and three 1st-level) and six hirelings. If the numbers were more in their favor, the Combatants may have tried strong-arming the party into surrendering their plunder. I rolled a morale check for them and concluded that they weren't willing to risk a fight.

One of the player characters let slip that they had left a few areas of the tomb unexplored - namely, burial chambers where there might be treasure. This piqued the Combatants' interest, and they began to entertain the idea of continuing on to the tomb and poking around. The elves in the party didn't like the sound of that, and urged Corym to convince them to reconsider, or else they might have no choice but to stop them.

The party worked together to convince the Combatants that there were powerful undead still haunting the tomb, along with traps and ancient elf curses. Haymond's +6 reaction roll modifier from Charisma managed to persuade them. Instead, the Combatants joined the party at camp, intending to head back to town in the morning.

In hindsight, I could have pushed things a little more here. The wood elf camp is supposed to be a secret. The party was accompanied by a band of wood elves and wasn't immediately returning to town. The Combatants could have pressed this issue, inquiring as to where the party was headed, or even attempting to follow them there. The elves would probably have done quite a bit to prevent these brigands from finding their camp. 

That night, Corym's watch was interrupted by a piercing shriek. A pride of griffons crashed through the forest canopy, talons outstretched towards the party's many mules.

This was something of another flub, as technically griffons are active only during the day. Not a big deal, but I wanted to mention it.

The most interesting thing about griffons - besides just looking cool, or the possibility of riding one - is their love of horse meat. When horses or horsekin are present, griffons have a 90% chance of attacking, foregoing the need for a typical reaction roll. It doesn't matter how sizeable or well-armed the party is - the griffons simply can't resist.

The party currently had five mules, including one which the Combatants had brought along. So, the griffons attacked. The party was roused by the griffons' shrieks, and moved quickly to defend their mules. I made it clear that the griffons were after the mules, and that the player characters could choose whether to stand in their way or let them go.

There were five griffons in total. After the first round, two of the griffons lost morale and flew off. The remaining three were eventually killed by the large party. Many of the player characters were bloodied during this fight. One of the elf hirelings and one of the Combatants' men-at-arms were killed. 

The party harvested beaks, talons, feathers, and eyes from two of the griffons, allowing the Combatants to harvest the third one. I use The Thieves Guild's Harvesting and Loot tables to determine what valuable resources can be collected from monsters as a quick and easy reference in the event that players want to carve up their kills. According to that resource, griffon feathers are used in the fletching of +1 arrows, and their eyes can be used to craft eyes of the eagle, both of which are fun, thematically satisfying applications that excited the players. They preserved the griffons' eyes in Bernhardt's ever-present barrel of pickled fish.

The next day, the parties parted ways. The elves carried their dead with them. The Combatants left their fallen mercenary to rot. The party made it back to the wood elf camp without incident, returned their elf hirelings, and set out again. They had two hours of travel left in the day, and it would take them ten hours to get back to Mythshire, so if they spent the rest of the day traveling, they would reach town at the end of the following day. It might have been safer to stay with the elves and recuperate, but they decided that they were in a hurry.

While they were making camp at the end of the day, they heard a large group of small humanoids approaching. Bernhardt cast obscurement to create a 50-foot-wide blanket of fog around their camp. The approaching creatures split into two groups to encircle the fog. A voice cried out that they knew the party was using magic to hide, and the creatures would wait until the fog cleared and then they'd take all their treasure.

Karven snuck silently out of the fog past the creatures, then around the perimeter to count them. There were about thirty kobolds. Karven silently backstabbed one and pulled its body into the bushes. He tried to take out another, but was detected. 

The kobold who would have been Karven's victim cried out that there was a heavily-armed, scary-looking dwarf hunting them in the fog. I made a morale check, which the kobolds failed, and they scattered into the woods. Karven threw three darts at them as they fled, hitting for maximum damage with each. With their d4 hit die, three more kobolds were killed.

Satisfied with this result, the party continued setting their camp. The night passed without incident, and they reached Mythshire the following day. They met with Zylra, the matriarch of the elf enclave which had given them the quest to defeat Themar. They collected their reward of gold, and Zylra presented Corym with a suit of elven chain, which would have been Ash's, had he lived.

I new that Karven's player was fiending for some elven chain, and I had already decided that completing this quest would net the party some. It made sense that a young elf warrior like Ash would be gifted some eventually, and now that the character was dead, it made sense to gift it to another elf who had helped the enclave; especially since Corym is a fighter/mage. It made less sense to give the chain to an evil dwarf.

Still, I made it clear that this was Corym's to do whatever he wanted with it. If he wanted to give it to Karven, he could. The player chose to keep it. There will be more elven chain down the line, I'm sure - just keep helping out the elves.

The party rested in Mythshire, then traveled for a day to Southreach. This is where we concluded the session. The party has plenty of errands in the city, and we were close to our end time, so it made sense to leave all that for next session.