Yora
2014-05-03, 04:30 AM
Yesterday we started playing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperbora. Three of the players had already been playing in my two games of Castles & Crusades earlier this year, but with a very short term reschedule, we ended up playing friday afternoon after classes in university, so two of our friends who just happened to be around joined in as well. Good thing I already copied more than enough character sheets. Since we switched system and needed to switch to the new character sheets, and I had to guide the two new players through the whole process anyway, the other three also wanted to make new characters.
The system we're using is AS&SH, which I feel is mostly a much better edited repacking of AD&D 1st Edition with a few simplifications. House rules I am using are a simplefied encumbrance system, which makes it actually practicable to track encumbrance and leave some items and treasure on pack animals or carts; a custom magic system based on the psionics from Expanded Psionic Handbook; an alignment system consisting of Natural Oder, Unaligned, and Primordial Chaos; and we're not using XP. The setting also has nonhuman character races (which AS&SH does not have), and stats were rolled 2d6+6, assigned as desired. We now got the following party:
John Nuncius the Younger: Human male Fighter; Str 17, Dex 16, Con 17, Cha 13 (Unaligned). Son of a local warrior (John Nuncius the Elder, his previous character), who feels a strong duty to defend the village from threats. Bit of a natural leader as the player plays him.
Burdidinkle Berryspring: Gnome female Scout (wilderness thief); Dex 16, Con 15, Cha 13 (Unaligned). A young gnome woman who has left the lands of her kin to improve her skills learning from the neighboring peoples and currently residing in the village of the human characters.
Kendall Khalitzburg: Human male Cleric; Str 15, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8 (Order). A young monk who has been a pupil of a hermit living in the nearby hills. A man of strong faith, but mostly uneducated about the world outside the hills and lacking in social skills.
Isagoki Ruuna: Half-elf male Priest (noncombat cleric); Con 15, Wis 15 (Order). Fancies himself a highborn who lives in exile from the elven lands because his mother fell into disgrace and married into a human family. To everyone else, he’s just a bastard.
Aeoren Moonshot: Elf male Mage; Dex 14, Int 16 (Unaligned). A young elf who was found by the local witch who raised and trained him in magic.
We’ll get at least one more player, maybe even two. And maybe the fourth one from the previous games may rejoin us again later.
The game is set in my Ancient Lands setting, which means it's a world of warlords and barbarians living in a world dominated by vast and unexplored wilderness. It's less european middle ages or early modernity, and more based on Mongolia, Scandinavia, and the tribes of North America, with vast jungles to the south losely inspired by central Africa and Southeast Asia. There are nine moderately sized city states, the rest of the world is just villages, some larger towns, and huge expanses that are completely unsettled. The game starts in one such village in the northern regions of the Ancient Lands, at the edge of the areas that have been settled by human nomads from a distant land only 200 years ago. There are also elves and gnomes who have been living in the area for much longer, but even compared to the rest of the Ancient Lands, the region is more on the periphery of civilization. The lands beyond it are practically unknown even to the oldest cultures.
Since I didn’t know what the characters would be, or even who all would be playing, I didn’t really have a good opening prepared. The game started on an evening shortly after sunset, when the PC (except Isogaki, as the player had still one class that afternoon) were leaving the great hall of the village, when they heard a terrifying howl and barks coming from a farmhouse at the edge of the village. As one of the villages defenders, John immediately ran down the hill, with the others following right behind him. At the house, they found a huge, half-starved black hound running up and down in front of the main gate, barking and growling (a yeth hound, but without immunity to nonmagical weapons). Burdi tried to sneak up on the distracted creature, but failed and became its new target. Together with John, she was able to deal it some decent damage, while sustaining a viscous bite, but in the second round everyone failed their saving throw against it terrifying howl. Thankfully the beast wasn’t really interested in them and they had made a good distraction for two warriors inside the house to shot at it with their bows, slaying it. However, almost as soon as the beast fell dead, sickly yellow smoke begane to rise from the body as it started to decompose with unnatural speed.
Hurrying inside, they got some more detail from the old woman who was the head of the family. Two of her nephews had left the day before to explore a stone circle in the hills a few hours travel from the village. There they had found a hidden entrance to an underground chamber and awoken the sites guardian, who came after them as they ran for their weapons back in the stone circle. The younger of the two brothers managed to slay the beast, but not before it had ripped out the elder ones throat and hurled his corpse against the ancient stone altar. The beast had started to decay into yellow smoke just as the one did this evening. The surviving brother had been walking all night, carrying his elder brothers corpse, and arrived back in the village in the late morning, but apparently the creature had managed to follow him home. With the dead beast outside completely vanished, it was decided that they would set out the next morning to explore the stone circle themselves.
On their trek into the hills, they ran into a troll, but being able to suprise him had no problem with killing him. At the stone circle, they found the scene as described. Burdi went looking for tracks, finding signs of boots and large paws near the altar, which was covered with a large and recent blood stain. Following the tracks, they had no problem with finding the entrance hidden between some bushes and descended into the ancient chambers under the hill. Two passages led from the central chamber. The first one was flanked by two rotten spears with blackened tips, which the gnome Burdi identified as tarnished silver and put into her pack. The passage lead through a chamber with wall carvings showing humanoid figures with bows and spears hunting bears, boars, and deer, acompanied by large black hounds. Beyond the chamber they found a natural cave with a large puddle and a small nest of fire beetles. In addition, the far end of the cavern held a large stone idol of a massive black dog with a strange face and pointed ears. Assuming that the beasts they fought and that attacked the brothers is a manifestation of the idols spirit (they were right), they tried to destroy it. Lacking any mining or stoneworking tools, John tried to topple it over, and with an Extraordinary Feat of Strength managed to do so. I had kept destroying the idol a backup option if the players screwed up the alternative options, but since they were only about a third into the adventure I had planned for, I decited that it didn’t break and simply rested intact on its side.
The other passage led to a room with similiar wall carvings, but these ones showed scenes of a ritual taking place in a stone circle. They showed two priest sacrificing a person on the altar in the stone circle while a large hound watched sitting between the two largest stones, cutting out his heart, and offering it to the hound, after which the landscape was pictured to be filled with lots of vegetation. The final chamber was a crypt with lots of shelves cut into the walls, that still held some bones almost decayed to dust and a sacrifice table in the center. The party returned back to the cave with the idol and had a rather tough fight against the fire beetles, who are quite well armored and have a rather nasty bite. However, they still managed to pick one up as they tried to escape (with a Test of Dexterity) and took it to the sacrifical table to kill and collect it’s blood in a shard of pottery. However, spilling it on the altar in the stone circle above didn’t seem to do anything, so it was decided to return to the village and see if anything more could be learned and what might happen next.
At that point, the player of the priest rejoined us, which was a quite convenient moment. The other PCs met him at the farm house, where he was preparing the corpse for burial, and it had been a minor ritual against bad spirits he had performed the previous day that actually kept the beast from entering the house. At that point, Burdi got the revalation that the beast might be trying to get the heart of the man whose blood had been spilled on the altar when it killed him (which was indeed the case). Unsure what might have caused the hound to attack before the blood was spilled, they questioned the surviving brother with the suspicion that he might have murdered the other one, but according to his story, the hound first appeared as they entered the underground chambers and chased them all the way to the altar, where they had left their gear.
It took some convincing to get the old aunt to allow the heart to be removed from the body and be sacrificed to a terrifying spirit, but the two priests assumed that it was neccessary to appease the spirit and John made a good point that the two brothers had all the blame for disturbing an ancient ritual site against better judgement. However, the process took some time and the sun had already set when the PCs where ready to leave the house and they could already hear the howling in the distance. There was some debating about just throwing the heart out of the door and let the hound have it, or sticking to what was shown on the images and present the heart at the altar in the stone circle. With four against it, it was agreed to slay the beast for this night and set out to the altar first thing in the morning. Burdi snuck out a backdoor while everyone else prepared to charge out at the front. Kendalls player suggested to use his Turn Spirits ability, but since he only had a 1:12 chance to scare it away for a few rounds, I told him it would be irrelevant this time and I didn’t want to look up the turning rules just for that. Aeorens ice bolt spell did a punny 1 point of damage, but this time Burdi managed to backstab the beast and John made short work of it.
The next morning, the whole party set out for the stone circle again and placed the heart on the altar, but nothing happened. Thankfully they also thought it quite obvious that the hound would probably only show up after sunset, as it had always done, so they just wated. As soon as the sun had set, the hound emerged from the underground chamber and ignoring the party went to his spot between the two largest stones behind the altar and waited. It was decited that Kendall should go, since he’s a priest but also better armored and having more endurance than Isagoki. Despite his very great reluctance and even greater care, he managed to take the heart from the altar and give it to the hound without any complications. The hound devoured the heart in one gulp and just a few seconds later glowing whisps came flying from the forest and the surrounding hills to gather around the stones, while the gnarled vines that covered them began to grow new leaves. With the ritual complete, the hound returned to the chambers, ignoring the presence of the PCs. Before they returned to the village, the players decided that they want to seal the chamber. Even though they still didn’t have any digging tools with them, someone reasoned that they could pour water into the cracks of the stone supports in the entrance and use Aeorens ice spell to freeze it and crack the rock. Worked for MacGuyver, so who were I to complain. With the roof support cracking, the entrance collapsed, hopefully preventing anyone else from disturning the guardian of the chambers.
One thing that suprised me, but was very noticable, is how much fighters rock. With a scout and a cleric to compare, there wasn't much competition, but in light of all the other characters doing 1d4+1 or 1d6 damage, having a big two-handed sword that deals 2d6+3 points of damage and being able to attack more than once per round made a huge difference. It regularly outperformed even the scouts double damage backstab.
Playing entirely without skills was also fun. Characters simply make test of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution for most things, if a roll is neccessary in the first place. (Chance ranges from 1:6 to 5:6, depending in score.) There is also a much lower chance for an Extraordinary Feat of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution, which John already tried when toppling the idol. Thief skills are also nice, if you, as I consider it, understand how to correctly use them as a GM. Using Move Silently is not a requirement to sneak around. It only allows a thief (or scout, ranger, ...) to sneak around while being perfectly silent.
Great game so far, but not quite sure what the next adventure will be yet. It was a great idea to have the players come up with three sentences about their character before I told them the first scene of the adventure, as they had no problem at all with making something up on the spot, that still provides me with some good material to work with. I already have a decent idea how the characters will be reacting to hooks I might throw them. That makes it all a lot easier.
The system we're using is AS&SH, which I feel is mostly a much better edited repacking of AD&D 1st Edition with a few simplifications. House rules I am using are a simplefied encumbrance system, which makes it actually practicable to track encumbrance and leave some items and treasure on pack animals or carts; a custom magic system based on the psionics from Expanded Psionic Handbook; an alignment system consisting of Natural Oder, Unaligned, and Primordial Chaos; and we're not using XP. The setting also has nonhuman character races (which AS&SH does not have), and stats were rolled 2d6+6, assigned as desired. We now got the following party:
John Nuncius the Younger: Human male Fighter; Str 17, Dex 16, Con 17, Cha 13 (Unaligned). Son of a local warrior (John Nuncius the Elder, his previous character), who feels a strong duty to defend the village from threats. Bit of a natural leader as the player plays him.
Burdidinkle Berryspring: Gnome female Scout (wilderness thief); Dex 16, Con 15, Cha 13 (Unaligned). A young gnome woman who has left the lands of her kin to improve her skills learning from the neighboring peoples and currently residing in the village of the human characters.
Kendall Khalitzburg: Human male Cleric; Str 15, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8 (Order). A young monk who has been a pupil of a hermit living in the nearby hills. A man of strong faith, but mostly uneducated about the world outside the hills and lacking in social skills.
Isagoki Ruuna: Half-elf male Priest (noncombat cleric); Con 15, Wis 15 (Order). Fancies himself a highborn who lives in exile from the elven lands because his mother fell into disgrace and married into a human family. To everyone else, he’s just a bastard.
Aeoren Moonshot: Elf male Mage; Dex 14, Int 16 (Unaligned). A young elf who was found by the local witch who raised and trained him in magic.
We’ll get at least one more player, maybe even two. And maybe the fourth one from the previous games may rejoin us again later.
The game is set in my Ancient Lands setting, which means it's a world of warlords and barbarians living in a world dominated by vast and unexplored wilderness. It's less european middle ages or early modernity, and more based on Mongolia, Scandinavia, and the tribes of North America, with vast jungles to the south losely inspired by central Africa and Southeast Asia. There are nine moderately sized city states, the rest of the world is just villages, some larger towns, and huge expanses that are completely unsettled. The game starts in one such village in the northern regions of the Ancient Lands, at the edge of the areas that have been settled by human nomads from a distant land only 200 years ago. There are also elves and gnomes who have been living in the area for much longer, but even compared to the rest of the Ancient Lands, the region is more on the periphery of civilization. The lands beyond it are practically unknown even to the oldest cultures.
Since I didn’t know what the characters would be, or even who all would be playing, I didn’t really have a good opening prepared. The game started on an evening shortly after sunset, when the PC (except Isogaki, as the player had still one class that afternoon) were leaving the great hall of the village, when they heard a terrifying howl and barks coming from a farmhouse at the edge of the village. As one of the villages defenders, John immediately ran down the hill, with the others following right behind him. At the house, they found a huge, half-starved black hound running up and down in front of the main gate, barking and growling (a yeth hound, but without immunity to nonmagical weapons). Burdi tried to sneak up on the distracted creature, but failed and became its new target. Together with John, she was able to deal it some decent damage, while sustaining a viscous bite, but in the second round everyone failed their saving throw against it terrifying howl. Thankfully the beast wasn’t really interested in them and they had made a good distraction for two warriors inside the house to shot at it with their bows, slaying it. However, almost as soon as the beast fell dead, sickly yellow smoke begane to rise from the body as it started to decompose with unnatural speed.
Hurrying inside, they got some more detail from the old woman who was the head of the family. Two of her nephews had left the day before to explore a stone circle in the hills a few hours travel from the village. There they had found a hidden entrance to an underground chamber and awoken the sites guardian, who came after them as they ran for their weapons back in the stone circle. The younger of the two brothers managed to slay the beast, but not before it had ripped out the elder ones throat and hurled his corpse against the ancient stone altar. The beast had started to decay into yellow smoke just as the one did this evening. The surviving brother had been walking all night, carrying his elder brothers corpse, and arrived back in the village in the late morning, but apparently the creature had managed to follow him home. With the dead beast outside completely vanished, it was decided that they would set out the next morning to explore the stone circle themselves.
On their trek into the hills, they ran into a troll, but being able to suprise him had no problem with killing him. At the stone circle, they found the scene as described. Burdi went looking for tracks, finding signs of boots and large paws near the altar, which was covered with a large and recent blood stain. Following the tracks, they had no problem with finding the entrance hidden between some bushes and descended into the ancient chambers under the hill. Two passages led from the central chamber. The first one was flanked by two rotten spears with blackened tips, which the gnome Burdi identified as tarnished silver and put into her pack. The passage lead through a chamber with wall carvings showing humanoid figures with bows and spears hunting bears, boars, and deer, acompanied by large black hounds. Beyond the chamber they found a natural cave with a large puddle and a small nest of fire beetles. In addition, the far end of the cavern held a large stone idol of a massive black dog with a strange face and pointed ears. Assuming that the beasts they fought and that attacked the brothers is a manifestation of the idols spirit (they were right), they tried to destroy it. Lacking any mining or stoneworking tools, John tried to topple it over, and with an Extraordinary Feat of Strength managed to do so. I had kept destroying the idol a backup option if the players screwed up the alternative options, but since they were only about a third into the adventure I had planned for, I decited that it didn’t break and simply rested intact on its side.
The other passage led to a room with similiar wall carvings, but these ones showed scenes of a ritual taking place in a stone circle. They showed two priest sacrificing a person on the altar in the stone circle while a large hound watched sitting between the two largest stones, cutting out his heart, and offering it to the hound, after which the landscape was pictured to be filled with lots of vegetation. The final chamber was a crypt with lots of shelves cut into the walls, that still held some bones almost decayed to dust and a sacrifice table in the center. The party returned back to the cave with the idol and had a rather tough fight against the fire beetles, who are quite well armored and have a rather nasty bite. However, they still managed to pick one up as they tried to escape (with a Test of Dexterity) and took it to the sacrifical table to kill and collect it’s blood in a shard of pottery. However, spilling it on the altar in the stone circle above didn’t seem to do anything, so it was decided to return to the village and see if anything more could be learned and what might happen next.
At that point, the player of the priest rejoined us, which was a quite convenient moment. The other PCs met him at the farm house, where he was preparing the corpse for burial, and it had been a minor ritual against bad spirits he had performed the previous day that actually kept the beast from entering the house. At that point, Burdi got the revalation that the beast might be trying to get the heart of the man whose blood had been spilled on the altar when it killed him (which was indeed the case). Unsure what might have caused the hound to attack before the blood was spilled, they questioned the surviving brother with the suspicion that he might have murdered the other one, but according to his story, the hound first appeared as they entered the underground chambers and chased them all the way to the altar, where they had left their gear.
It took some convincing to get the old aunt to allow the heart to be removed from the body and be sacrificed to a terrifying spirit, but the two priests assumed that it was neccessary to appease the spirit and John made a good point that the two brothers had all the blame for disturbing an ancient ritual site against better judgement. However, the process took some time and the sun had already set when the PCs where ready to leave the house and they could already hear the howling in the distance. There was some debating about just throwing the heart out of the door and let the hound have it, or sticking to what was shown on the images and present the heart at the altar in the stone circle. With four against it, it was agreed to slay the beast for this night and set out to the altar first thing in the morning. Burdi snuck out a backdoor while everyone else prepared to charge out at the front. Kendalls player suggested to use his Turn Spirits ability, but since he only had a 1:12 chance to scare it away for a few rounds, I told him it would be irrelevant this time and I didn’t want to look up the turning rules just for that. Aeorens ice bolt spell did a punny 1 point of damage, but this time Burdi managed to backstab the beast and John made short work of it.
The next morning, the whole party set out for the stone circle again and placed the heart on the altar, but nothing happened. Thankfully they also thought it quite obvious that the hound would probably only show up after sunset, as it had always done, so they just wated. As soon as the sun had set, the hound emerged from the underground chamber and ignoring the party went to his spot between the two largest stones behind the altar and waited. It was decited that Kendall should go, since he’s a priest but also better armored and having more endurance than Isagoki. Despite his very great reluctance and even greater care, he managed to take the heart from the altar and give it to the hound without any complications. The hound devoured the heart in one gulp and just a few seconds later glowing whisps came flying from the forest and the surrounding hills to gather around the stones, while the gnarled vines that covered them began to grow new leaves. With the ritual complete, the hound returned to the chambers, ignoring the presence of the PCs. Before they returned to the village, the players decided that they want to seal the chamber. Even though they still didn’t have any digging tools with them, someone reasoned that they could pour water into the cracks of the stone supports in the entrance and use Aeorens ice spell to freeze it and crack the rock. Worked for MacGuyver, so who were I to complain. With the roof support cracking, the entrance collapsed, hopefully preventing anyone else from disturning the guardian of the chambers.
One thing that suprised me, but was very noticable, is how much fighters rock. With a scout and a cleric to compare, there wasn't much competition, but in light of all the other characters doing 1d4+1 or 1d6 damage, having a big two-handed sword that deals 2d6+3 points of damage and being able to attack more than once per round made a huge difference. It regularly outperformed even the scouts double damage backstab.
Playing entirely without skills was also fun. Characters simply make test of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution for most things, if a roll is neccessary in the first place. (Chance ranges from 1:6 to 5:6, depending in score.) There is also a much lower chance for an Extraordinary Feat of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution, which John already tried when toppling the idol. Thief skills are also nice, if you, as I consider it, understand how to correctly use them as a GM. Using Move Silently is not a requirement to sneak around. It only allows a thief (or scout, ranger, ...) to sneak around while being perfectly silent.
Great game so far, but not quite sure what the next adventure will be yet. It was a great idea to have the players come up with three sentences about their character before I told them the first scene of the adventure, as they had no problem at all with making something up on the spot, that still provides me with some good material to work with. I already have a decent idea how the characters will be reacting to hooks I might throw them. That makes it all a lot easier.