Session L: The Dungeon and the Dragon

After our long holiday gaming break we got back into our Swords & Wizardy campaign and continued where we left off, towards the end of the classic Horror on the Hill adventure module.

With the party holed up on a small shelf above an underground river, they had rested so that Arg the incredibly mighty Half-orc can recover from his panic attack about being wet and lost deep underground.

After their breakfast of smoked Owlbear they began planning on how to get to the next shelf where there was a cave opening and a Lizardman guard.  It was decided that Arg would float downstream like a dead body and when the Lizardman investigated the Half-orc would attack.  To help the fully armored warrior float the party backtracked and gathered some of the dead followers of the mad King Arthur.  With these tied together, Arg was able to float downstream while the rest of the party followed commando style.

As the floating pile of bodies passed the shelf, the Lizardman called over his other two companions and stuck a spear into one of the bodies (luckily not Arg).  Stepping into the water, the lizardman pulled the bodies over and that's when Arg attacked.  The rest of the party, revealing their presence attacked as well.

Arg, back to his old self, skewered two of the lizardmen as the last one tired to escape.  The half-orc perused him, and after getting his spear stuck proceeded to pummel his fleeing foe.  Suddenly, out of a side cave, four more lizardmen rushed out and attacked the party.  With some hack and slash, the party was victorious.

Hiding the bodies it was decided best to avoid the passage where the fleeing lizardman was headed and instead explore for a way out going the other direction.

Exploring some cave tunnels they found two that were blocked with fifty foot high cliffs guarded by a concealed lizardman.  Avoiding these, another passage found that the cliff-face had crumbled and the party was able to scramble up.

A few more tunnels and they found two sleeping lava-lizards.  Instead of avoiding these sleeping creatures Arg and Throkmorton, follower of the chaotic god Kaulk-Ru, began to butcher the hapless lizards who fiercely fought back.

Once the lizards were slain, the party found a stone slab door.  With some effort they opened it.  Inside, was an armored skeleton sitting in a chair with a sword and other items.  Once they were sure it was indeed dead, they removed the sword and armor with both appeared to be magical.  Televon cast speak with dead and found out that the skeleton was one Sir Henry who also was lost in these tunnels and eventually died here.  He also told them that the sword was a powerful weapon against dragons.  Sir Henry asked them to bring his remains back to surface and bury him near his beloved in the cemetery outside of Caladan.

In this 'safe' tomb, the party decided to lock themselves in and camp to heal their long standing wounds.

Four days were spent in this sealed chamber and eventually Gnarly and Televon discovered a secret door.  Through the door and following a narrow passage, which ended, they found another secret door.  Opening this door and entering a very large cavern they found a pile of treasure beyond their wildest dreams on top of which was lying a Red Dragon, who appeared to be quit conversational.  The party was overwhelmed with awe and hopelessness as they looked into the eyes of their doom!

Gnarly, speaking the dragon's native tongue, introduced themselves.  The dragon introduced himself as Gorrokk the Fierce and asked the party to admire his hoard of gold.  Televon started telling the dragon about all the gold that could be found in Caladan and eventually began to insult Gorrokk's own hoard.  That's enough to anger any Red Dragon and Gorrokk the fierce attacked the doomed party with his full force against the cleric of Morpheus.  But earlier, Televon had found a magic ring that proved to be of fire resistance which protected him from the flames.

Gnarly the druid and Arg had nothing left to do but attack the dragon and defend their companion.  The dragon, however, fought back with tooth and claw and picked up the druid in his jaws, snapping bones and tossing the mangled body across the cavern.  Gnarly, initiate of the 4th circle, was dead!

Defending himself against the dragon's attacks, Arg raised Helkris the Dragon Slayer and plunged it into the breast of the beast.  The beast raised up and roared mightily but alas, fell down dead!

With the dragon dead, the gold theirs and the cave exit exposed, the weary party made their way back tot he surface....

Composed by Corey, Gnarly's player.

Epilogue

With the death of Gnarly Blunderbrush and the slaying of Gorrokk the Fierce, a deadly red dragon, the wounded and weary party finally clawed their way back to the surface and sweet air of freedom.

Exiting the dragon's cave back into the thick forest within the Howling Hills, it took the rest of the day  to get some sense of where you were.  Figuring you were somewhere east of the ancient ruins and the entrance of the Hobgoblin king's domain, Televon and Wolf carried Gnarly's mutilated body back towards the town of Blackmoor and to the temple of Morpheus.  There the high priest of the dreamweaver raised the druid back from the dead (for a promise of 6,000 gold coins for the temple coffers and an additional 10 tithe from Televon).

Meanwhile Arg, Skwanky and Throkmorton went searching for their horses and cart left back at the ruins.  There they found their cart but their horses had been killed and eaten by three ogres.  These ogres were beat into submission (mostly by Arg, though Skwanky continues to take the credit for it) and were uses as beasts of burden to haul the dragon's hoard out of the cave.

After a number of laborious days hauling a wooden cart weighted down with coin through a gnarly forest and back onto a trail, the party with their enslaved ogres, worked their way back to Blackmoor.

After days of rest, the party informs Lord Blackmoor of the events in dealing with the Hobgoblin king.  With the Hobgoblins no longer being a threat to the lands of Blackmoor, the lord decides that he can aid you in retaking Caladan from the Stygian forces of Kushana.

But that is another tale.....


So, with this session, we've brought our campaign to a satisfying plateau, a nice conclusion to fifty sessions which we've played since October of 2009.  And ending a dungeon adventure with the rare dragon was just too perfect!  These last handful of sessions were based upon the classic adventure module "Horror on the Hill" which I'll be talking about more in the next day or two.

We'll be continuing these adventures in the future but, for now, our gaming group will be branching off into some other RPGs and board games.  All of which I will keep you posted about here at the Home Brew.

Session XLIX: The River Of Despair

Still lost and trapped in the caves beneath the palace of the hobgoblin king, our party of fearless mercenaries were face to face with a swarm of Steam Weavels and a Lava Lizard!  The insects swarmed the half-orc Arg but Gnarly the druid called forth a ball of flame which attracted the swarm to the heat and he tossed them down into the steam vent.  With Arg free he lead the charge against the Lava Lizard and soon hacked him to pieces with the only loss being a melted sword.

As they decided what path to take to find a way out of these caves, they cut the lava lizard up to make armor out of him if and when they ever escaped.

Exploring more tunnels they ran across another lava lizard then some Piranha Birds and eventually found a large cavern with a running river through it an out into a larger cave opening.

Thinking it best to backtrack and cover all their ground in hopes that they have maybe missed an escape route, they found a secret room guarded by some hungry striges guarding three chests of valuable treasure!

Not finding anyway out of their situation short of trying to build a scaffolding to gain entrance to the pit that sent them down here they headed back to the underground river.

To their right was the roar of underground rapids while to the left the river meandered deeper into the underworld.

Thinking that the traversing the rapids would lead them up towards the surface they began walking against the current but the further they traveled the stronger and more treacherous it became until one by one, they were being knocked down and sent tumbling back to the main cavern.

Hopeless and wet, they decided to travel downstream in the warm shallow river occasionally finding a dry shelf to rest upon.

Alas, being wet, wounded and lost was too much for the mighty Arg and he succumbed to fatigue and broke down and wouldn't leave the shelf.

At a loss of how to keep moving forward with an unwilling half-orc, Gnarly sent Tuk the owl on ahead.  Further down the river, the owl spied another shelf, larger with a cave opening and with an armored lizard-man standing guard!

It was here that the party decided to rest; on a tiny shelf, inches above an underground river hundreds of feet below the surface, wounded and wet...

This was our last RPG session of the year as the holidays become too hectic to gather together.  I was hoping to finish with more of a bang, and those of you who know the adventure know what I'm talking about, but, as usual, the players didn't go along with my unspoken plan.  So we ended on a bit of a grim note.  Not a bad thing by any means, actually.  It kind of felt like the ending of the middle of a trilogy.

So, a break for now and when we return there will be plenty of action and perils ahead!

Encumbrance: A Managed Resource

One aspect of a classic FRPG that is often overlooked or disregarded after the initial character generation is Encumbrance.

Encumbrance is the foundation of all movement and time based aspects of the game session.  It lets the GM and player know how much the character is carrying which in turn determines that character's movement rate which in turn determines distance traveled during a round or turn or day which determines when an encounter may happen or a resource or spell effect is used up.  Remember, a party only moves as fast as it's slowest character, which can cause all sorts of trouble during a dungeon delve or wilderness journey

As you can see, there is a lot tied into encumbrance but it is often something that is glossed over and estimated throughout a session by both players and GM.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Players and GMs have plenty to keep track of during a session; treasures, hit points, equipment resources, NPCs, quest clues, etc., and making encumbrance just one more thing to keep track of ends up being at at the bottom of the priority list, kind of like a dump stat. But I believe that every stat or ability is important and can and should be used in a game as well as encumbrance.

Encumbrance is a dynamic resource and fluctuates often; weapons picked up, dropped or armor exchanged and treasure gathered.  It changes more than most other 'managed resources' such as provisions or money spent or spells used.  Usually there is no place to recalculate a character's encumbrance and therefore movement rate on a character sheet which has always caused a problem with this very important rule.

I came up with an encumbrance tracking sheet for my Swords & Wizardry campaign and used it this past session.  It seemed to work out well and got all the players to constantly manage who was carrying what and how much coins one was carrying and what to drop in case of retreat and who wanted to stay spry and who didn't mind being bogged down.  It brought a whole different aspect of resource management that was missing from the game.  It didn't slow the game down a bit and added much more party cooperation at the table as they always thought about how weight would be divided up and ditching those 1,000 copper pieces.

No more unlimited weapons!  No more chests of thousands of gold pieces, accurate wandering monster checks!

I liked it and the players didn't seem to mind.

I used the Swords & Wizardry weight and STR/movement breakdowns which you should be able to use in almost any classic style game or feel free to use this format and come up with your own with what ever game you are playing.

Download PDF

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Circle the armor that is being carried and used and figure the total weight in the black box.
2. Circle the type of weapon(s) being carried and multiply the weight by the number of item being carried.
3. General pack weight is considered to be 10 pounds which include rations, ropes flasks of oil etc.  GMs and players should make exceptions to extreme items being packed and add weight accordingly using judgement call.
4. Figure amount of coins being carried and divide by 10 to determine weight.
5. Add Total weight and compare to character's STRENGTH in chart to determine base movement.
6. Adjust weights and base movement throughout session as needed.

Wings of War - Solo Game

Like any great game, Wings of War has quite an enthusiastic online community built up.  Over at the Wings of War/Glory Aerodrome you can find all manner of house-rules, missions, campaigns, tutorials, rule questions answered and camaraderie!

Though the game Wings of War is geared for two or more players the Aerodrome has a great set of solo rules.  I gave them a run this weekend and found them to be quick and easy to use and kept the game pretty thrilling!

Here's my usual over-dramatic take on my first solo game duel...

From the flight journal of Q. E. Watson
23 November, 1915

I was flying a solo patrol at 6,000 meters over the French countryside which had now become a dreary landscape of desolation, when J.R. Martin, my observer, spotted a Hun over his territory in what appeared to be one of those new Albatross bi-planes. 

The both of us moved in for the engagement, guns blazing! I know I scored some hits as I saw his canvas flapping in the wind. 

 Martin let loose as we passed and I immediately spun around to catch this devil again! 

 With the colorful plane in my sites I pulled the trigger on my Lewis MG.

But this Hun was crafty and he flew his maneuverable plane like the devil himself, twirling and spinning...

  and we danced in the air like two crossed lovers, firing our guns trying to steal that kiss.

 Suddenly I faltered and this German got in tight behind me and riddled me good! My engine smoked, my wings shredded. Martin tried his best to finish our enemy off as he was stuck right in my observers sites but curse our luck, Martin's gun jammed!

I thought it best to head low into the safety of the French territory to gain some cover from friendly troops. The German airman must have thought himself lucky as well and choose not to press his luck and did not peruse us.  Martin and I were happy to escape with our lives and looked forward to some brandy back at the canteen to calm our rattled nerves.

Solo Game Thoughts

This was the first solo game I ran using Richard Bradley's rules with the altered maneuver card sheets (with the die roll of a 1 or 6 giving a separate result). Running the single plane AI went surprisingly quickly and the game moved along well. It was a bit nerve wracking as I thought I would be able to press my early advantage but the AI was relentless in it's maneuvering and attacks. I did get the Albatross in my sites a number of times but kept drawing zeros from the B deck and couldn't finish him off. He did get fewer hits on my but they were more damaging. We both ended up with only 1 or 2 HP left when I decided to retreat. I'll probably add the pilot attitude table to my solo games as well. It may flesh out the AI pilot a bit more and give him the option to retreat if wounded too much which would aid me a bit as he wouldn't just be a killing machine!

Wings Of War Custom Mat

One game I don't talk about much but really enjoy is Wings Of War, a card based World War I dogfight game distributed by Fantasy Flight Games. You have a plane printed on a playing card. Each turn you pick three maneuver cards as does your opponent(s), then reveal, move and then fire.  A fast paced war game with no dice involved at all.

But what really kicks the game up a notch is using the Wings of War plane minis.  The dogfights become quite amazing as the planes buzz around each other on the playing surface.

After spending some money collecting the planes, many of which are not in production any more (the game has since been picked up as Wings of Glory and new models are on their way), I felt that the battle mat was the next item.  However, looking to purchase or print one on my own would cost quite a bit more than I was intending to spend.

So what do we do here at the Warlock's Home Brew?  We makes our own!

Some research on-line brought me to this example and tutorial by Wombat

I loved his final product of the hand painted battle mat.  It looked easy enough so for only a few dollars ($9) and just a couple hours of my time I'd have myself a pretty classy Wings of War battle mat.

 

Instead of the thicker plastic based faux-grass material Wombat went with, I purchased some nicely colored wool for only $9.  This was very nice material and had some tooth to it which I felt would help with applying the acrylic paint.  I wanted a 40 inch by 50 inch piece of fabric but the widest this particular material came was 36 inches.  I ended up with 36" X 50" which ended up working just fine.

 

Based on the tutorial linked above I quickly drew in black the field patterns, roads and rivers.

 

Following Wombat's directions, I used a sponge and painted in some of the fields trying to stay as close to the outlines as possible. I used a brush for the roads.

 

I added No-Man's Land across the center of the fabric using layers of black, browns and reds.  At this stage I still have to add the craters and trenches but...

  

...as you can see it was quite usable as it.

So this holiday weekend we played a couple of games on the mat. It worked out great, and the game was fun (thought I got shot down all three games).  My wife, who had played the card version of the game and wasn't all that impressed enjoyed playing with the minis and actually requested to play the game again the next day - which we did and she proceeded to shoot me out of the sky again!

Looking forward to getting the group into playing some Wings of War in the near future.

Session XLVIII: King Arthur and the Fonzarellis

Still lost in the twisting caves beneath the hobgoblin king's domain, the party's Bugbear prisoner demands to be untied  and given a sword so that he may fight along with his captors for his life.  You see, no one has ever returned from these pits says the Bugbear Thak so "let me die like a Bugbear, with sword in hand, or just slay me now!"

Gnarly takes pity on the creature and votes to free him and reluctantly the others agree and hand Thak a rusty sword to fight with.

They continue exploring the winding tunnels eventually coming across a small cavern with shabby stone throne upon which was a mangy kind sat.  "Bow and pay tribute to the Lord of the Underworld" he shouts to the party. Surprisingly, Arg bows towards the "king" as his four rag-clad followers are already doing.  The rest of the party bows and King Arthur invites the visitors to come feast with him and the Fonzarellis as they are willing to share their single rat roasting on a stick.

The "king" is quite mad and Thokmorton, however, refuses to bow which enrages the king.  He sends his Fonzarellis to attack the cleric.

A battle ensues in which Thak falls as well as the Mad-King and his followers.

A quick search of the cave reveal a small chest and a secret passage.  Following the passage the party finds another eight sided room with doors on each wall very similar to the room they landed in from the pit-trap above.

Marking these doors they decide to back track and explore some of the side passages they missed.  In doing so they come across an Owlbear which they hack to pieces and a couple of giant shrews.  They collect the meat from these dead animals and lock themselves into their original eight sided room, resting and smoking their kills.

Continuing their exploration they are ambushed by a Gelantious Cube which is slowly burnt as it peruses the party. 

Continuing down the cave that the Cube had blocked, they once again, find themselves in the second eight-sided room. Exploring the passage beyond one of the doors they come across a cavern with a steaming chasm in front of which was a giant lizard.  But before they can react to that creature, from the steam vent comes a swarm of Steam Weevils.....

Session XLVII: Between A Throne And A Hot Space

After having defeated the Hobgoblin king and sending his guards on the run, our so-called heroes locked themselves in the throne-room for a little rest and looting.  However their resting is sporadically  interrupted by taunts coming from the gathering of Bugbears and Hobgoblins on the other side of the barred door.  Realizing that there is no other way out except the way they came they prepared themselves for their final battle with the Hobgoblins.

During a lengthy lull in the taunting, they peeked out the door and discovered that the hallway had been littered with wooden furniture.  Suspecting a trap of some kind, Gnarly sent Tuk the owl down the hall to investigate.  Through the eyes of his trusty owl he spied the Bugbears and Hobgoblins gathered together and hidden down a side passage.  

Examining the floor they also discovered that it has been covered with oil.  The humanoids have set a deadly trap! 

To beat them at their own game, Televon ignited the oil spoiling the Bugbear's trap.  Throkmorton wanted to rush out there an confront the enemy in combat.  Seeing as there is no other way out they slowly moved forward down the corridor with Throkmorton singing insults at the Bugbears and Hobgoblins.

Finally face to face, the Bugbears offered the party their freedom if they let the Bugbears into the throne-room to declare themselves the new kings.  Throkmorton challenged the leader to an arm-wrestling match - winner takes all.  The Bugbear leader took him up on that and as they sat down to the match, Throkmorton clobbered him with a mace.  The Bugbear just grinned and all hell broke loose!

A melee began in the tight confines of the hallway but with a hold person spell cast upon the bugbears and flaming oil being tossed, the battle was short lived.  As Arg the half-orc cut his way through the hobgoblins and began to pursue the fleeing enemy the rest of the party captured the remaining Bugbear and tied him up.  

Giving up his persuit, Arg returned to the party and after a brief interrogation of the Bugbear they found that they have slain most of the opposition.  What better plan then to loot the place!

Confidently walking down the corridors suddenly a forty foot long portion of the floor opens up dropping most of the party into darkness below with Gnarly being the only one left up top!

Tumbling down hundreds of feet through the rocky vertical shafts, they found themselves battered and wounded in an eight sided room with a door on every wall.

Suddenly, two crazed and dishevelled men burst into the room and attacked the party but Arg and Throkmorton made quick sport of those devils.

Without a way to get his companions our of the lower depths, Gnarly climbed and slid down the opening to meet up with his comrades.  

Having numbered the doors with chalk, the party explored through one of the natural passages beyond.  Passing through a very stinky area they avoided any side passage and continued forward. 

After exploring a cavern and coming across a number of side passages they were attacked by some ghouls!  Not to worry, there were two clerics in the party!  But, alas, the ghouls were resistant to both of their holy symbols and attacked! (Both clerics need only a 4 to turn them but both rolled under!)

After slaying the ghouls and sifting through the trash to find a smattering of treasure play ended for the night.

Looking forward to the next session.  It's always fun (for the GM) when the party is lost/trapped underground!