World of Prime: Campaign Journal #1

[Yahzi]

I started a campaign using my World of Prime stuff (available free from DriveThruRPG) and decided to write it up for your enjoyment. Also because I need to write it down or I'll totally forget it all before the next session.

We started with my beginner's adventure (cleverly called Humble Beginnings), which is a bit different than usual. Rather than spend the first session drawing up 1st level characters, the group began as 0th level peasants. They got to pick their father's profession, which gave them 2 points in a craft skill and a single attribute at 12 (with the rest at 10). We had two miners, two farmers, a lumberjack, and a shepherd.

They each got a sheet of paper, wrote down their profession, their bonus attribute, and their name. And then we started playing.

Humble Beginnings

I was a bit rusty - it's been a few years - and I had some trouble getting into the first few NPC characters. Fortunately my players were even rustier (including three total newbs) so they didn't notice.

A group of young people, just a few days or weeks before the age of majority when they will become adults with adult responsibilities and therefore consigned to the bleak, miserable future of serfdom, are standing outside the village tavern, looking disconsolately at the one poor consolation that adult offers. When they turn sixteen they'll be allowed inside, to spend what few copper coins they can scrape together on trying to drink away the meaningless of their short, hard lives.

The worst of it is knowing that when they die, Baron Darcio will harvest their souls to fuel his sorcery. There is no escape from servitude, in this life or the next.

A traveling peddler by the name of Gareth takes a bit of pity on them. He offers them a drink - but not at the tavern's prices. He has a couple of kegs with his mules in the tavern's stable.

The players were instantly suspicious and had a bit of debate about whether they should go into a dark stable with a creepy old man. Kids these days... no respect for their elders.

While they have a drink, Gareth drops a few hints about the wider world. There's Wild Lords out there, making their own fortune, and always eager to hire ambitious lads. It means running away from home and becoming a fugitive, but it also offers a chance to rise up in the world, without Baron Darcio's foot on their heads. He's had a few mules go lame, so if the boys are willing to carry his supplies, he'll put in a good word for them. And if they don't like it, they can come home in a few days. Sure, it'll mean a whipping, but that's a small price to pay for a bit of adventure.

The players very kindly took the adventure hook and ran with it. Otherwise it would have been a pretty dull campaign.

So in the middle of the night they creep out of bed and out of town. They were allowed to take a winter cloak and one item from their homes, without any harm to their families' economic situation: a choice between a) a bag and three torches, b) a knife, c) flint and steel. The stuff of grand adventures! Over the next few days they walk through the wilderness, following the old man's lead.

At this point I asked if anyone wanted to make a Survival check to see if they could mark the way home. The goal was to slowly introduce aspects of the game, such as skill checks. Instead, the players refused. They were all-in; they didn't want to know how to back out. I was very happy to see this level of role-playing from even the newbs so early on.

Also, it became obvious that the party would be playing for Team Good, as no one tried to rob their families blind.

As they're strolling through the forest on the third day, a shower of rocks flies out of the bushes. Gareth, their NPC leader and guide, takes a plot-coupon to the head and drops unconscious, and eight hobgoblins charge out waving stone-tipped spears. A tense and yet hilarious battle ensues, as the party realizes they have no weapons. The shepherd starts picking up rocks and throwing them back with incredible effectiveness, murdering two hobbos in a row. Two characters pull out torches and put that flint and steel to use lighting them. The two with knives draw them and charge into combat. The last one runs over to the unconscious Gareth and takes his shortsword. He starts to toss it to another character, thinks better of it, and just hands it off instead of throwing a sharp piece of steel around.

It's a good combat, what with people getting stabbed, some flanking and maneuvering, flaming hobgoblins, and lots of hunting for rocks to throw. The lumberjack goes down, having fought bravely but futilely - against uncooperative dice the dogs themselves contend in vain. At least he makes his roll to not bleed to death. It looks dicey for a moment, but then several hobbos drop in a single round. The last two try to flee but don't get more than twenty feet.

Hobgoblins on Prime are short, stunted semi-intelligent humanoids, more akin to traditional goblins but less sophisticated. My goblins are a civilized but evil race of medium-sized humanoids known for their stealth and trickery.

They patch up the wounded lumberjack, leaving him at negative HP but conscious (as long as he only takes partial actions). He reasonably suggests they head for the hills in the distance and try to find some high ground to fortify. On the way, he spots a blue gleam in the hills. They toss him on one mule and the unconscious Gareth on another and keep moving - but not before collecting all the hobgoblin heads. Turns out taking a sack was a great idea.

In the World of Prime, players don't get experience points. Instead, they harvest the souls of the dead to fuel the supernatural powers of rank and class. They do this by boiling the brains of sentient creatures for a purple dust called tael.

A storm blows in and it starts getting dark. Hobgoblins in large numbers begin shadowing them a few hundred feet out. The lumberjack directs them towards the blue flash he saw, which leads to a cave mouth. They have a brief discussion, but as more and more hobbos are appearing, they quickly decide they have little choice. The torch-bearers fire up their torches and follow the brave miner inside.

It's a smallish cave, perhaps forty feet across, full of old bones and dust. At the back of the cave a gleaming sword with a blue sapphire is stuck upright in the ground. While most of the peasants are smart enough not to touch anything valuable, knowing they'll just get hung for stealing, the brave miner proves a bit too brave. After some hesitation he reaches for the sword.

At the same time, the hobgoblins make a mad charge for the cave. The sword disappears from under the miner's grasp and reappears in the hands of a ghost at the mouth of the cave. The ghost swings; several hobbos explode and die; the rest run off into the night, howling in fear.

The ghost is Tyvek, a paladin who led his party into this cave years ago, only to fall prey to hobgoblins. He soon realizes he is a ghost, and after a bit of grief, tells the party to help themselves to what is left of his. Which is to say, sufficient tael to advance each party member to the second apprentice rank of a class. The shepherd becomes a bard; the lumberjack goes for ranger; one miner goes for priest and another one for wizard; the brave farmer becomes a barbarian and another chooses druid. He also heals the lumberjack, but declines to heal the comatose Gareth, saying he doesn't play for that team. However, he makes it clear the party cannot murder Gareth, as the man is their sworn leader.

At this low rank they have only the attribute point-buy, weapon proficiency, and skills of their class, but none of the other goodies. There was a pause in the action as we worked all this out. I hadn't succeeded in developing skills on the fly; instead they spent most of their points here. It was all a bit confusing but rather than focus on the details I kept the game moving. After the session I reviewed the character sheets and corrected a few minor details.

In the morning the ghost is gone. The party spends the day exploring and getting a feel for how safe they are; a lucky roll finds the goblin village, though they don't get too close. That night the ghost reappears, but with no memory of the previous night. He goes through the whole ritual of grief and acceptance again, including the part where he refuses to discuss the existence of the sword and his eyes turn red if anyone gets within a few feet of it.

The next day Gareth comes around. He sees the sword and immediately advances on it. The party, having concealed the existence of the ghost and the fact that they now have some apprentice ranks, keeps mum. They want to see what happens.

Much to their surprise, nothing happens. Gareth claims the sword and explains the Wild Lord will pay handsomely for it. But he's still too wounded to travel, so he sits down again to rest.

The party isn't sure what to do next. They absolutely don't trust Gareth, but they haven't got a better plan yet. Most of them go out foraging and exploring; while hunting a rabbit they sneak up on a pair of bandits hunting the same rabbit. To his everlasting credit, the wizard talks everyone into applying diplomacy rather than violence. He and the priest stand up and say "Hi."

A brief conversation ensues, which does not go well, as the two bandits are half-mad with hunger. Violence follows as they argue over who owns the rabbit that no one actually caught. One of the bandits draws a sword and charges; the other fires his bow at the priest and misses. The ranger and barbarian try to sneak into position to attack the archer, fail miserably, and the ranger gets rewarded with an arrow to the shoulder. That guy has no luck at all.

But the party has blossomed, thanks to their apprentice ranks; both bandits go down to one hit each. The party strips them of weapons, armor, and boots; the druid even takes one's clothes. The archer wakes up, being at only 0 HP, and proceeds to pledge his loyalty in exchange for an apple. He's really hungry. He terrifies them with tales of how vindictive his Wild Lord is.

They take their prisoners home to see what Gareth's reaction is. It's as bad as they feared; the vicious Wild Lord that Par the archer tried to threaten them with is the same Wild Lord Gareth has been leading them too. Both Par and Gareth immediately fall to bickering, asserting that the Wild Lord Boros will kill the other one for being such a failure (one for getting captured by peasant boys, the other for not showing up with the supplies). Much swearing and arguing occurs, and the sun starts going down; the party discreetly retreats outside the cave.

As soon as it gets dark, a blue flash explodes in the cave. Par the archer comes running out, screaming for his life, and throws himself at their feet. Eventually the barbarian sneaks back up to the cave mouth (did I mention he was brave? Perhaps foolhardy is a better word). The ghost is there, but he's red now; no one dares approach him any closer. They all sleep under the stars.

In the morning the ghost is gone. Gareth and the unconscious bandit they had left in the cave are scattered around the floor in pieces. The wizard makes his Knowlege: Arcane check and realizes they need to move the sword back to its original place to reset the ghost. Par tells them they're in deep trouble, because the Wild Lord is going to hate them for stealing his supplies; he's come completely over to their side - well, as loyal as a man of his character can be - due to the fact that they have food and apparently a pet ghost.

Now they're plotting their next move. Should they flee into the wilderness? Although they seem rather under-equppied for that. Should they sneak to a different town and try to buy gear? They don't know the way and they don't have a lot of gold. They do have some left-over tael, which represents a fortune, but peasants dealing in tael would be extremely suspicious. Should they attack the goblins? They had been inclined to ignore them, since the hobbos weren't actively hurting their kingdom, but now they think they may need their tael to take on Boros, who absolutely is preying on people from their home. Should they confront Boros now, either with violence or to try and make a deal?

Tune in next month for another thrilling installment!

All in all, the game went quite smoothly, though we only got through half as much adventure as I had expected. Mostly I was worried that the very small scale of the game would make it too boring, given that D&D is often very High Fantasy, but I think the spareness of the process really worked to put them in the role. It's a very sandbox world; I've used my Sandbox World Generator app to map out the entire continent, so they can totally march off in whatever direction they want; but it would be nice to get them to 1st level before they do that.

[haplot]

Seems like a great beginning. I would be interested in how it all pans out

[Yahzi]

Seems like a great beginning. I would be interested in how it all pans out

Hopefully they end up running their own kingdoms, because that's what I wrote all those rules for.

[SpamCreateWater]

I've always had a soft spot for starting out as an apprentice dirt farmer It'll makes it a bit sweeter when they look back at how far they've come.

Looking forward to next instalment.

[Yahzi]

It'll makes it a bit sweeter when they look back at how far they've come.

I agree! Unfortunately the next installment will be a month or so. We all have jobs and families, so we don't get to play like we're in college.

[weckar]

Why did they have to return the sword? Seems to me the ghost was limited to the cave.

[Quarian Rex]

I'm really glad to see this. I'm planning a campaign using World of Prime as a basis (but using ACKS for kingdom building and mass combat, modified by some prime bits, and a bunch of other elements that I'll never get to see in use unless I run a game with them) and it will be great to see how some of the 'prime' aspects play out.

Seems like you had a great start and I'm looking forward to more.

[Yahzi]

Humble Beginnings (Continued)

The party decides to deal with the hobgoblins first, as a stepping stone to the rank necessary to take on the Wild Lord. They track the horde through the grass while the trail is still (relatively) fresh and find a dilapidated village, taking their new bestest buddy Par the Archer with them because they don't trust leaving him behind with the mules and the food. And this despite the fact the ghost Tyvek now heals Par. If that's not a stamp of approval/alignment change, what is?

Hiding in the grass on a rise about 500 yards away, they spend an inordinate amount of time discussing tactics, torn between a full frontal assault during the day while the hobbos are Dazzled, or waiting to ambush their hunting parties at night. Finally they decide on the latter, or perhaps they just argue so long the sun goes down and they don't have a choice.

And thus we see a D&D trope seamlessly blended into the narrative. The Side Quest is a staple of the DM's art, but in this case the players chose it themselves. Making XP a concrete quantity that the players control puts them in charge of the pacing.

The party is a bit disconcerted to discover that the hobgoblins, who sleep during the day and hunt during the night, use no light. It's hard to spy on a village at 500 yards at night when the village doesn't so much as strike a match. Still, they hold their course, and eventually a hunting group wanders out to their position.

The ranger and barbarian move to flank; the ranger (who has the worst luck with the dice) totally gives away their position. Par stands up and shoots a hobbo with his longbow, the group's only missile weapon. Most everybody else throws rocks and javelins, save for the wizard who lights a couple of torches. As usual, the bard is the only one who inflicts any real damage, killing another hobbo with a rock. Why does this guy even want a weapon?

The hobgoblins respond with a shower of javelins, knocking Par out of the fight. Melee is joined; the hobbos lose, of course, but give a good accounting of themselves. After three or four rounds it's all over, and the party belatedly realizes that lighting torches in the plains in the middle of the night gives your location away to everything within ten miles. They snuff the torches, and after only a lengthy discussion, decide to retreat.

The next day they head back to the village, simultaneously emboldened by their victory and worried over how much damage they had suffered. They notice that the central fire pit of the village contains a large chunk of roasted meat. While trying to get close enough to determine what it is, they are discovered; the hobbos marshal for war, forming into four squads, and advance at a measured pace.

The party falls back slowly, letting Par fire into the oncoming formations. Because the hobbos move slower than the party, the archer gets off all 19 remaining arrows, killing ten hobbos. The rest charge through the party's final javelin assault (again, only the bard does any real damage) and melee is joined.

My squad rules makes the hobbos less dangerous, in that I don't have to roll thirty attacks per turn, but also frustrates the players a bit as the hobbo squads are harder to hit now that they are helping each other out. A classic battle line is formed, with the players strategically retreating their wounded to prevent fatalities, but then the wounded step back up, realizing that if they get knocked out the party can probably save them with a Cure Minor Wounds spell - but only if the party wins. Things could have gone either way, but the party is sporting several short-swords now, and Par's arrows hurt a lot more than I realized. One of the hobbo squads is reduced to two figures; they break out of squad formation and attack as individuals, only to get immediately murderized, and the party rolls up the hobbo line from the flank in true battlefield style.

To their credit the party had carried on a long discussion of whether or not to murder the hobgoblin's children. To their relief, there are none; the village had fallen on hard times and was not capable of spawning (goblins lay eggs, which they treat more as commodities than as children, not that the party knows that). The village yields little treasure, just ten rabbit skins and a wicker basket full of throwing rocks. The meat on the spit turns out to be the remains of the hobgoblins they killed the night before. Meat is definitely not back on the menu.

The next day they are lounging around outside their cave when three bandits come out of the woods, shouting for Par. They have been sent to rescue Par and his fellow, who had been sent out hunting a few days ago. Par suggests turning the men to their side; the bard comes up with the perfect line to open negotiations: "Are you hungry, boys?" An easy die roll later, three more hirelings are stuffing their faces with salted pork and porridge, made extra delicious by a Prestidigitation spell.

Now they have more information about their foe. Boros is down to a few days of supplies; he will soon lead a raid on a village for more. Some members of the party (you know who you are!) think this is an excellent opportunity; they'll wait for Boros to leave, occupy the keep, and surprise him on his return. Other members note that this will allow innocent villagers to suffer, which is not really acceptable for Team Good. The druid appropriates the wicker basket of rocks, turning it into a rattan shield with his Survival skills, and then gives it to the barbarian. Hey, it's a +1 to AC, so you know, that's something.

They give it another day to see if they can catch anymore of Boros' men out of the keep. My module calls for the remaining five to show up in force, which seemed like a good idea when I wrote it, but doesn't work out now. All five come marching through the woods; they are met by the entire party plus their bandit turncoats armed with pork sandwiches; and now the entire enemy team (save the one unfortunate slain by Tyvek) is working for the party.

They take their new lads back to the cave, feed and rest them, and return the next day to beard the Wild Lord in his den. Boros is not completely stupid; he tries to make use of his fortifications, but most of the party goes around behind the keep to climb in the back window while the bard, the druid, and bandits hang out in front. Boros then makes an extremely poor choice: he charges out to fight.

The bandits are fighting in squads, Par can't get a clear shot, and the rest of the party is still in back of the keep. Things look decent for a whole round. Boros targets his turncoats first, because he's mad at them, and besides they're the ones who look dangerous (some of the party is still fighting with stone weapons). The bandits do some pathetic stabbing, Boros kills one of them, and then everything goes south.

Boros, scourge of the Wild, muffs his rather easy Will save against the druid's Daze spell. He loses a round while the party flanks him. Suddenly the party has figured out how to roll dice; they are flanking, aiding each other, and throwing sixteens all over the place. Boros gets hit hard by the barbarian, among a few other successful attacks.

Next round Boros hits the barbarian, rolls a bit low, and leaves him with one hit point. Then he muffs another easy Will save. More important than the unanswered attacks is the fact that Boros keeps losing his chance to retreat to the keep, where he can at least be protected from flankers.

Combat continues; Boris swings again at the person who hurt him the most, the barbarian, and misses by exactly one. The rattan shield saves the barbarian's life! The party responds with a flurry of attacks and Boros goes down, another BBEG brought low by the action economy.

They cut off his head rather quickly, concerned that he might spring back up again. The tales of how dangerous he was seemed to have stuck with them, despite his poor showing at the end. They are now wealthy beyond their dreams, with enough tael to get everyone to first rank. Much to my surprise, they spend a lot of time talking about how much to share with their new bandit army, even though this would leave one of them below first rank. Unfortunately, they do this out of the hearing of said bandit army, having sent them with Par back to the cave to fetch the mules and supplies to their new headquarters, the keep.

The bandits are not at all impressed with Par's new-found outlook on life. Once at the cave, surrounded by food, and free of any influence by the party, they murder Par, steal everything (except the sword, assuming its curse is what messed up their ex-buddy's head), and run for their lives. The party comes looking for them the next morning, only to find Par's stripped corpse.

Now they face a moral decision: chase the bandits, or go back and take care of the handful of women that Boros had kept imprisoned in the keep to do the bandit's laundry (hey now, we have a pre-teen in our player group). Ultimately they choose justice over mercy and set out after the murderers. The druid's hawk does invaluable service here, telling the party which way to go. The bandits, realizing they are being tracked and that they have no Animal Handling skill, abandon the mules so they can move faster.

The trick works; the party, retrieving their valuable mules and supplies, suddenly loses the appetite for justice (funny how that works). They return to the keep and the prisoners. Old Bob, the crazy hermit who sewed up the bandit's clothes and wounds, says he'll stay in the keep and take his chances in the wild. The three women are escorted to the nearest village on the edge of the county of Edersarr and released with a gold piece each to find their way back to their homes. Not exactly the triumphant return of paladins, but the party is trying to lay low at the moment, still adapting to their new-found identities as nobles.

They spend the night in the local inn, living it up. A whole gold piece for food, drink, and board! This is the high life, at least as peasants conceive it. While they're partying, the bard ferrets out an interesting story about a lake monster snatching a young couple out of the very room they will be sleeping in

You know you've succeeded when a roast chicken and several pints of cheap ale excites your players.

Despite being ennobled, they are still quite poor, down to their last three gold pieces. They sell off the mules and spend the money on shields, staves, and a spear and a warhammer. Only the barbarian looks the part, wearing the chainmail and masterwork longsword they looted from Boros. Now they're trying to figure out how to make money for equipment, and their finely tuned senses smell an adventure opportunity in the lake. Tune in next time, when we discover that only the barbarian thought to take Swimming as a skill.

[Yahzi]

I'm really glad to see this. I'm planning a campaign using World of Prime as a basis (but using ACKS for kingdom building

If I had ACKS before I started all this, I might never have created all this. But once I had the concept of tael, I didn't need ACKS; everything else fell into place quite naturally.

Why did they have to return the sword? Seems to me the ghost was limited to the cave.

They wanted to sleep in the cave. For the record, the ghost travels with the sword; he will manifest wherever it is, but will be homocidal unless it's in the proper spot in the cave. They briefly discussed using it to deal with Boros, but ultimately decided that was just too unpredictable.

[Quarian Rex]

Glad to see this continuing. I've never been able to do low level adventuring well (either as a player or as a DM) so seeing how this is playing out (especially with sub-first level characters) is fascinating. Btw, what level was Boros? I'm curious what you thought was a good balance point considering a single longsword hit could drop any given character.

If I had ACKS before I started all this, I might never have created all this. But once I had the concept of tael, I didn't need ACKS; everything else fell into place quite naturally.

I actually find that the two systems complement each other extremely well. Right now I'm just trying to find a way to apply the government and economy modifiers from Prime to kingdoms in ACKS in a way that I'm happy with.

[Yahzi]

what level was Boros?

3rd. I had him primed to go after any turncoats first. It was a good fight, in that they were very scared, but he went down way too easily. Lesson learned: more mooks!

I actually find that the two systems complement each other extremely well.

That's neat! Now that I've finished writing all my stuff, I ought to get a copy of ACKS and compare it.

[Quarian Rex]

3rd. I had him primed to go after any turncoats first. It was a good fight, in that they were very scared, but he went down way too easily. Lesson learned: more mooks!

To be fair, you had plenty of mooks. They were just defeated by the overwhelming power of a well made sandwich.

[Yahzi]

The Devil's Handmaiden

The party decides to investigate this local legend. Ancient history claims a high rank priest tried to baptize an idol in the river, but it was not deep enough to submerge the ten foot tall statue of pure gold, so he called an earthquake to damn up the river and create the lake. Rumor insists the statue is still there, under the lake, an affront to the god and therefore the source of the curse upon the lake. The locals will not fish from the lake or even enter it.

The druid goes fishing, hoping to find some physical evidence; the bard is chatting up the inhabitants; and the rest of the gang heads out into the woods to do some old-fashioned legwork - save for the cleric who holes up in the inn to study his new-found religion (the player couldn't make it to this session).

Naturally they find the secret dungeon entrance on the first day, because fate! (And because players always roll 20's when it's least convenient.) The ranger casts a light spell (possibly the first time I've ever seen that spell used) and he, the barbarian, and the wizard push aside the hanging vines to enter a small cave.

There are suspicious looking lumps on the ground and an iron grate in the middle of the floor. The ranger carefully investigates and determines that the lumps are the remains of bodies, decayed and grown over with mold and fungus. He finds the tael still in the skull; these men (women? humanoids?) died of something other than violence, as their souls have not been harvested.

The barbarian immediately trashes the rest of the lumps, kicking up more tael, several silver bracelets, and a cloud of dust. Of course the barbarian makes his Fortitude save (despite having no CON bonus - this is a very slender barbarian), but the other two are not so lucky. They develop a nasty hacking cough.

Peering through the grate they can see a ladder descending into darkness. As the day is getting late, they return back to the inn, just in time to find the druid trying to give away fresh grilled trout. He's getting no takers, and the bard is explaining why: another local legend tells of a man whose entire family turned into fish-people after eating from the cursed lake. Their house still stands abandoned and empty.

The new arrivals are trying to break into this fascinating discussion about provincial mythology to reveal their discovery, communicated around a series of coughs. While this impromptu conference is occurring at the edge of the lake, the bard witnesses an epic battle: an old homeless woman has crept up on a raven helping itself to discarded fish guts and ambushed it.

The old lady is losing, because ravens are actually pretty tough (it is a staple of D&D that the average housecat can beat a commoner in a straight fight). The druid intervenes, mostly to rescue the raven, and the bard extracts her story.

She claims that the raven murdered her husband, a beekeeper who used to live three miles outside of town. The druid, concerned, asks if she means this particular raven, to which she confesses she can't actually tell one raven from another, but they're all in on it anyway. She also happily devours the trout, which should question her sanity but only endears her to the druid.

The party nobly invites the woman back to the inn, where they argue with the innkeeper about adding her to their bill without increasing it. Yes, our heroes are quibbling over silver pieces. They are now faced with several options: pursue the cave entrance, investigate the abandoned house, hike out to the beekeeper's cottage, or spy on the haughty Grayson Palek, a fire sorcerer with a summer mansion in the village.

(Always give them too many options. It keeps them from doing anything clever.)

Pity moves their hearts and they decide to help the old woman. She gives them clear directions to her cottage and stays behind in the inn with the cleric - the ranger was leery of leaving her on her own, in case she developed a sudden case of gills and fins.

In the morning they pool their skills and spells very resourcefully to give the two infected characters the best possible saves against disease, and both make it. Only two more successful saves and they will have beaten the disease. There's been a discussion about how they are nobles now, subject to the Law of Arms, and the villagers are treating them differently now. While they are still very young men, the old innkeeper calls them "sir" and the farmers smile and hide their daughters. Everybody likes having nobles around, because they kill monsters, but nobody wants to get too close to dangerous men who do danger for a living. So they set off for the beehives full of vim and vigor. And then, of course, everything goes south.

The cottage is ransacked and contains nothing interesting. The beehives themselves seem normal, until the druid's hawk alerts them to the presence of a raven in a very large tree. Once again fate favors their die rolls and they all instantly realize this raven is behaving in completely unnatural ways. The ranger takes a shot at it, but misses (as expected - he really does have terrible luck with dice).

The raven flies into the tree and caws; a half-dozen giant bees fly out of the tree and attack. Now we're talking about really giant bees here; three feet long, in fact. On top of that, the ordinary bees are forming themselves into a huge swarm. The party falls out into battle formation.

It turns out the party really doesn't understand battle formation yet. The ranger is on one flank, the barbarian on another, both too far to help the center, where the wizard is holding the fort. He casts a Sleep spell and chooses to target the natural bee swarm (a mercy on two fronts, as he rolls incredibly low, not even enough to knock out one giant bee but just enough to subdue the swarm, which makes the DM happy because now we don't have to look up the Swarm rules).

The giant bees descend to battle; one stings the wizard right in the chest. He fails his pretty easy Fortitude save (which of course is already diminished because he's sick) and the bee's poison rips through his system. Now his CON score is even lower.

The barbarian gets stung, but as usual seems immune to poison. The ranger is doing his typically ineffective thing. The druid has discovered the joy of the Shillelagh spell and wades into battle. The bard rushes up to help the wizard.

By the end of the fight almost everyone in the party is half (or worse) dead and poisoned. Only the bard is untouched; at this point we realize the bard has never actually suffered any damage, in any battle. Apparently his face really is too pretty to hit. While the druid and bard try to collect more poison, which is futile because all of bee's poison currently resides in the party, the barbarian saws off the heads of the bees and makes his knowledge roll to realize that none of these are queens. The druid sends his hawk up to see if there are still more in the tree, and when the answer is yes, the party beats a hasty retreat.

They boil the heads down in the cottage and are gratified to discover a substantial amount of tael. Under cover of darkness they retreat to the inn, where the cleric mostly heals them. In the morning, the wizard fails his Fortitude save; so while he recovers a bit from the bee's poison, he gets worse from the disease. (This is a man with a CON of 10, so he didn't have a lot of room from the start.)

They talk about going back and finishing off the bees, but instead wind up searching through the woods for a herb that will give their sick guys a better chance to beat the disease. While there out there, they get the drop on a band of ruffians with a pair of pack mules - yes, the same two mules they had sold before. Being good guys, they decide to parley rather than commit unprovoked homicide.

There happens to be a raven sitting on one of the pack mules, so the bard, in his charming way, calls out, "Nice bird you've got there." Surprisingly, this results in immediate hostilities. The raven points them out to the men, who form up into a line and charge.

Our heroes are concerned about this fight for all of six seconds. The very first round shows how far they've come. These mooks are essentially the same quality of troop that the Wild Lord Boros had intimidated them with, but our heroes are no longer common farmboys. They drop three of enemy with fatal injuries, and the remaining two immediately surrender. The raven caws in disgust and flies off.

Bluster and intimidation can't get the survivors to explain the significance of the raven. "It's worth my life to tell you," says one. The prisoners want to be taken to town and handed over to local law enforcement, which at this point seems like a better option than summary execution in the woods. The party plies them with the beer the mules are carrying on the way back to town, and eventually one warms up enough to the bard to offer him some advice. "Join us - I'll put in a good word with the boss, and you guys are so tough you can probably sign in at the second level." Turns out he's a member of a secret demonic cult that is patterned off a good multi-level marketing scheme.

In town they decide to dump the prisoners on Grayson Palek, because he's the closest representative of the crown (outside of themselves) and because they think it might clarify the man's relationship to the matter. He radiates suspicion every time they talk to him. It doesn't help that they saw a raven on top of his mansion.

That night the bard is awakened by his dear mule's annoyed snort. The party peeks out the window and sees ruffians making off with their animals. They sensibly take a few rounds to armor up before sneaking down the hall to the main room. Just as they start to open the door, it opens from the outside: a whole squad of thugs is staring them in the face.

The ranger sensibly fights them from the doorway, where they can't overwhelm him. The barbarian takes up a position against the wall, so that if the enemy does charge into the room, he can attack them from the flank. (He's already picked up on Attacks of Opportunity, which is neat because he is the youngest player.) The bard and druid head out the back, and then he wizard casts a Sleep spell, knocking out the entire enemy squad. (Too bad he acts last every round.)

The ranger and the wizard charge out to start murdering helpless men before they can wake. Except there's a second squad out there, and the back door has a squad too. There are lot more thugs this time, and they are fighting in formation, so they don't fold quite so quickly; but the party chews through them, with only one dramatic moment: the bard actually gets hit! And almost dies. But he doesn't, and a song of healing later, he's heading for the front door.

Where some excitement finally occurs. The wizard chases down a straggler and clubs him from behind, only to be surprised himself when a demonic imp plunges its poisoned tail into his back. Now he's suffering CON damage from sickness and bee poison, and also suffering DEX damage from Quasit poison. The barbarian finishes off the last squad - his Cleave feat is turning out to be the perfect counter to squads of mooks - and both he and the ranger leap into battle against the imp.

Only to discover their swords don't seem to hurt it.

The imp spends a few rounds murdering the merely wounded on the ground - making sure the party won't have any prisoners who can talk. Everyone else sensibly retreats into the inn, but the barbarian won't fall back, and finally lands a solid blow on the imp, injuring it slightly. That's enough to scare it off and it flees.

Lord Grayson finally shows up with his half-dozen bodyguards, long after the fight is over. He doesn't really have satisfactory answers for the party, but they're in no shape to press the issue. Their cleric heals them all again (save for the various poisons, which are beyond his power) and in the morning, after long discussion and many covetous glances cast toward the city where they could buy healing, they head into the bush to find the rest of the bandits and their mule.

They find a cave with thugs lounging around outside, and despite being out-numbered three to one, decide to give battle. This time the bard and barbarian flank, the wizard prepares Magic Weapon spells, and the ranger sneaks into position where he can fire on the imp when it appears. The wizard realizes he hasn't enchanted the ranger's bow yet, so he sneaks up to the ranger... and of course gives their position away.

More men come out of the cave and form up squads. Now they're facing twenty armed men and a imp hovering just behind the battle line. The ranger shoots but as usual can't hit the broad side of a barn while the line advances. Still, once melee is joined, the barbarian springs out and gets a flanking attack which decimates a squad, and the bard remembers to sing Inspire Courage, giving everyone a better fighting chance.

The plan works; the barbarian and druid bring down the imp with their magic weapons. This inspires the remaining thugs to a berserk fury, as they've just seen their promised hopes of power and glory brought low. They lay into the barbarian, cutting him to an inch of his life, and he retreats behind the wizard and the druid.

Two men with sticks is not tenable defense against two squads. The wizard goes down, bleeding to death; the ranger is back to being useless, and the bard is tanking an entire squad by himself on the other side of the field. The party starts seriously discussing how to retreat, until the barbarian throws caution to the wind and leaps back into battle. He makes short work of another squad, even though a single hit will take him out; the druid gets the wizard back on his feet with some healing spells; and the remaining two squads see the writing on the wall. They break off and flee; the party retreats into the cave.

They find their mules, a bunch of useless junk, and a receipt for six kegs of beer made out to... Grayson Palek.

Battered, bruised, out of spells, and many still sick and poisoned, they limp back to town again, planning to give it a wide berth and head on into the city for healing and possibly reinforcements. The ranger sneaks into the village to get the cleric, and of course muffs his die roll. But it doesn't matter, because the town is deserted. The cleric comes out of hiding to tell them that Palek's soldiers forced the villagers into the mansion, where even now a scream of agony can be heard. Palek appears to be trying to summon another, possibly larger demon.

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion... but hopefully only to The Devils' Handmaiden, not the entire campaign. Those imps are pretty tough, and they are out of spells. Only true heroes would wade into such a dangerous battle in such poor shape. Are they true heroes? Will they risk a TPK in only the fourth session? Can the ranger finally roll some decent dice? Find out next month!

[SpamCreateWater]

I am liking the use of status effects at low levels along with a multitude of "quests". It really makes them think on their choices and do some of the plebeian foraging work that they'll never do (again) in a few levels.
Also, fighting things like Imps that, once they have access to a bit more magic, become speed bumps. BEEEEEEES!

[Yahzi]

BEEEEEEES!

I was panicking when the wizard started casting sleep at the bees, because I had forgotten they were 3HD, so Sleep was never that much of a danger. On the squads of cultists, though, it was absolutely devestating.

Oops I forgot that that the sleep spell at the inn also knocked out the barbarian and the ranger.

The status effects are definitely fun. They are generally under-used, I think.

[Yahzi]

The Devil's Handmaiden (cont.)

The party struggles into town, bleeding, sick, and poisoned. Nonetheless they know their duty and charge into battle. Well, first they scout around the house a lot and break in through a second floor window - turns out the Ranger rolls great dice when it's not combat related. None of it matters, though, since the action is all in the basement.

They charge down the stairs. The Barbarian wipes out a fistful of guards, leaking hit points like a sieve; the rest of the party is following his lead and forming a decent battle line. Finally, they've learned some tactics... but the wrong ones. Pro tip: always, always, always take out the spell caster first. The party discovers the power of area-effect spells when they eat a Flaming Hands spell. For max damage. And no one saves.

Now most of the party is inches from death and in no shape for combat. The Ranger grabs the unconscious Barbarian and they all retreat up the stairs. There's some last minute healing from the Bard, getting everyone at least back to functional and enchanting a sword. The guards decide to interrupt the chanting and counter-charge up the stairs but get creamed in a tight corridor face to face with the Barbarian and Ranger.

The party counter-counter-charges downstairs again. They play hot potato with the only sword capable of hurting the imp as one by one their front-line combatants fall, and eventually the Ranger brings the demon down.

Lord Grayson promptly surrenders. A fair number of the party votes for summary execution, but he talks them into delivering him to justice in the city.

Another pro tip: never let the sorcerer get a word in edge-wise. They have a high CHA stat for a reason.

The dead guards yield up some decent chainmail armor and shields. The party also loots the house, stealing the silver and cracking open a safe with a few pounds of gold. Only the lack of a wagon stops them from hauling off the furniture. On the way out, the Druid somehow convinces the rest of them to burn down the mansion, in case the sorcerer gets let off by the law and wants to return to his demon-summoning ways, I guess? I don't know, but mad props to the Druid for striking a blow against conspicuous consumption.

An uneventful trip to the city ensues. They deliver their prisoner to the castle and find an inn to rest in, still suffering from disease and poison. In the morning they meet Count Kird, paladin and Minister of War. He has a not unfavorable impression; after all, they've done for a fair number of monsters on their own initiative with relatively little damage to the realm. He cures their various ailments and pays them the tael value of the sorcerer as a reward. Sadly, as the more cynical ones had feared, the sorcerer will be facing a court trial rather than an immediate execution. This is going to come back to haunt them, and they all know it.

Kird wants to keep these guys on-side, since adventurers are always an asset to the realm, and having them on the border is a double-plus. He offers them the sorcerer's house as a base of operations. A few sheepish mumbles later, they confess the place was rendered collateral damage. Kird is not overly put off, but he does remark on how the house was essentially worth the price of a first-rank.

After only a day in the big city, perusing the markets and walking the streets, the party is eager to get away. Partly because they are village kids, but also because their Cleric is a heretic, their caster is a Wizard (instead of the nationally approved practice of fire sorcery), and their Barbarian is a loaded crossbow with a hair trigger. And also because the city is expensive.

They return to the village, where the innkeeper offers them a free room for as long as they like. After all, these kids just saved everybody... well, most everybody from a horrific death and the enslavement of their souls to a demon. They could have been a little quicker on the whole interrupt-the-demon-summoning ritual and reduced the body count, but nobody is impolite enough to mention it.

(And thus concludes The Devil's Handmaiden, a free adventure available on DriveThruRPG).

Now they are free to investigate the mysterious cave. Their first challenge is a rickety old ladder and a Cleric in armor with no Climb skill. He makes it down, but not without taking some of the ladder with him.

They follow a dark, damp, low tunnel under the lake and into a barrow. While investigating the decaying skeletons laid out on the biers, one sits up and bites the Druid in the face. A brief combat ensues with several animated but legless skeletons. The Barbarian very quickly figures out what Damage Reduction 5/Blunt means, and switches from sword work to shield-bashing.

This was a great moment where the rules really worked to drive a creative solution - and by our youngest player.

After this, they actually sit down and rest while two of them go back to town for more supplies. Rope and torches, mostly, but also a few spare hammers. How... heroic.

After three more rooms of increasingly functional skeletons and traps, they are low on health and spells, and decide to call a retreat. Wisely, they bring the Cleric up the ladder last; it does not survive the attempt (and he almost doesn't - at first level you can still die from a simple fall). The Ranger was prepared with a rope, so they winch their metal-clad mate out of the hole and troop back to the inn. Just another hard day of dungeon delving - such is the life of an adventurer.

[Yahzi]

The Lake of Ill Repute

(The lazy, bad DM didn't get around to posting the last recap until the day of the next session, so now you get two in one day.)

The Cleric and the Druid are heavily involved in religious observances, or perhaps just having a religious argument (their players missed this session). The rest of the party sneaks out the back of the inn and heads off for some real adventure. The Wizard, who was still recovering from his many illnesses last time (i.e. he missed the last session), is keen to revisit the site of the infection - the mysterious hole in the ground.

The Ranger sensibly loads up on adventuring gear: tools, rope, and torches. He makes sure everyone has food and water, since you never know how long you'll be trapped underground surrounded by ravenous undead monsters. And off they go, singing hi-ho, hi-ho.

They quickly pass through the rooms they had already explored and immediately come to a fork. Now they have a choice: carefully and methodically empty every room, or charge heedlessly into the lair, taking turns at random. Obviously, they choose caution. Just kidding! Headlong rush into danger it is.

Passing through a half-collapsed meeting hall, they loot the corpse of some previous hapless adventurer. The Shadow hanging around in the rubble at the back of the room avoids their lights, but otherwise gives them no trouble. They let it be and press on. But not before picking up a brass jug with three ounces of mysterious liquid.

Another room with a pair of skeletons wearing silver crowns gives them little trouble, mostly inflicting Fatigue on the Barbarian. They wander through a large natural cavern with a pool of water that appears to connect to the lake through some underground channel. A dozen dead fish are laid out neatly on the bank; the party considers this unappetizing treasure and leaves them undisturbed.

Continuing on they finally encounter some trouble. In the hall of a larger and more elaborate barrow, a skeletal huntsman summons a Fiendish Wolf with a magic whistle. The wolf knocks the Bard to the ground (yay Improved Trip!) and the huntsman is heavily armored in bronze. It looks to be a good fight... until Wizard happens. Color Spray shuts down the wolf while the melee team stalls the huntsman. The Ranger continues to be nigh-worthless at melee, while the Wizard deploys his staff to surprisingly good effect. The wolf actually survives through the first few phases of the spell, but the Bard and Wizard beat it down before it recovers enough to act again. Then they all surround the skeletal huntsman and bash it. It never even lands a blow.

The Wizard turns out to be the only one who can pick locks; he opens a large wooden chest to find three ancient scrolls. Those will go straight into his spell-book.

(A nice find, as I had just finished explaining how wizards get their spells to the Wizard's player.)

The Barbarian, always willing to take a risk, tries the magic whistle but nothing happens. The Bard realizes it needs to recharge and drops it in his pocket for another day.

Next up is a room shrouded in magical darkness and a floor covered in spikes. The Wizard tears up the wooden biers and gets the team to lay planks over the spikes, building a bridge through the room. Halfway through they are jumped by skeletal wolves lunging out of the dark, which have a nice scare factor but get crushed without too much effort.

A bit of a change of scenery; the tunnel connecting the next barrow is lower than the rest and infested with vines, mold, and fleshy pink flowers. The party notices its one torch guttering (their other light is a magical lightstone, a torch that never goes out) but presses on. Another pair of skeletal wolves is even less trouble, as their room has no magical or mundane defenses.

(This room inflicts a secret status condition which goes completely unnoticed in this particular game - though, if they had done different actions, it would have mattered! This the nature of sandbox worlds vs narrative worlds. Narrative games are perfectly efficient: nothing is wasted or lost, everything affects the story. In sandbox games the players can walk past a door and leave it unopened. The DM's preparation for that door then ceases to matter. While this is expensive, in terms of DM effort, it is also rewarding, in that the DM doesn't know what's going to happen either. The game is truly driven by the player's choices, even when they don't know they are making them.)

The next room gives them some difficulty. A skeletal Adept stands at the back of the hall, casting Fear spells. It is flanked by a pair of skeletons with suspicious silver claws. The Barbarian shrugs off the Fear effect - he's nothing if not brave - and then lobs a javelin across the room. The Ranger joins him in this game of darts. Needless to say, these attacks have no impact, and the next round the Barbarian fails his Will save. He turns and flees in utter terror back through the room of vines and flowers.

The party takes this very calmly - apparently they consider the Barbarian to be nigh-indestructible. They let him go and continue chucking odd bits of stone at the skeletons. The Bard fails next, running off in terror, and finally the remaining two (Ranger and Wizard) decide to retreat. They catch the Bard just in time; he's trying to open a new door in his panicked flight. The Wizard wrestles him to the ground until he recovers, and then they go in search of the Barbarian, who sensibly (i.e. randomly) retraced their old path. Fortunately they left nothing dangerous behind them, so the Barbarian is also safe and sound once the Fear wears off, though not exactly thrilled with his companion's lack of concern for his well-being.

Back to the room they go. The Ranger has come up with a plan. Their Cleric had cast a blessing on three vials of water (an ad hoc ruling that allows the party to use his Turn Undead ability even though he isn't present for the adventure, as it's a bit much to send them into a dungeon of undead without it). The Bard, famous for his throwing ability, steps into the room and lobs a vial at the enemy. It's a simple attack, so naturally he completely muffs it, dropping the vial at his feet and immediately falling victim to the Adept's magic. Off the Bard runs in utter terror with the Wizard in hot pursuit.

The Ranger realizes that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. He tosses a second vial; the skeletons shudder and go inert. The two warriors wait, but when the Wizard and Bard don't return after a few rounds, they enter the room, take careful aim, and obliterate the skeletal adept in a single murderous round.

They know the skeletons will only be inactive for a few more rounds, so they quickly move on to the next one. This turns out to be a different proposition. The creature is not nearly so easily defeated, and a general melee ensues.

The Wizard had caught the Bard opening the same door, and this time had failed to stop him, his grappling attack simply shrugged off by the panicked Bard. The Bard thus charges into a new and uncleared room. Fortunately it's a court full of dead bodies; the Wizard keeps tackling the Bard and succeeds this time as he's struggling with the next door. This one would lead to a new Hall, almost certainly containing some deadly new foe, so it's good that the Wizard holds the Bard down until the spell lapses. Together they race back to the sounds of combat just in time to see the Turn Undead wearing off and the other skeleton moving to join the fight.

The Wizard takes a blow from the silver-tipped skeletons, but easily makes his saving throw - he's developing some resistance to various diseases and poisons, it seems. However, the damage is enough to knock him out. The skeletons fall to the rest of the party quickly, and they spend all the rest of their magic healing the Wizard back up to disabled (0 HPs).

Robbed of their pretend rogue - the Wizard is too injured to concentrate on lock-picking - the Barbarian simply smashes down the door to the court. The roof shakes alarmingly, but nothing worse than a temporary trickle of water occurs. Searching this room yields a pair of potions in clay vials. Wounded, tired, and out of spells, they decide to rest, in a room full of corpses, stealing their shrouds for pillows. Now that's chutzpah. If there were a roll for "bad dreams," surely they would fail it; but these are heroes now, and sleeping the sleep of the dead literally with the dead doesn't bother them.

This is a classic D&D trope: out of spells and low on health, the party simply camps in the middle of the dungeon. I'm actually proud of this, because it means I've recreated the classic D&D experience even while I've adhered to World of Prime rules.

In the morning they have enough minor magic to get the Wizard up to 1 HP. He can cast and fight now (though with a house-ruled -2 for his lingering injuries). They press on, drawn by the lure of treasure - so far they've filled their pockets with silver, gold, and tael, without ever once feeling like they were all going to die.

A curious sight greets them in the next room: a large iron bird-cage hanging from the ceiling, containing a small kobold skeleton. The kobold emits a thin green ray which the Barbarian easily dodges. The party charges into the room and begins battering the bird cage and the kobold inside. The Wizard ignores the fight and starts trying to pick the lock on the next door.

The kobold is hard to hit, protected as it is by the iron cage. The Barbarian breaks out his pick and starts trying to batter open the bird cage; the Ranger and Bard attack through the bars with sword and halberd. (This means piercing damage only, which is reduced by the skeleton's DR, but this is no new handicap to the Ranger - he has simply refused to acknowledge this unpleasant fact and used his sword throughout. Everyone else switched to hammers or halberds, but apparently Rangers are very traditional and make up for Damage Resistance by just hitting harder). The Ranger gets in a glancing blow, knocking a few chips off the skeleton. It responds by finally scoring a hit with its Enfeebling Ray, and the Ranger loses a point of strength .

The Bard finally stops his ineffective attacks and switches to Inspire Courage, boosting the rest of the party's efforts. The Wizard almost picks the lock; the Barbarian inflicts minor damage on the bird cage; the Ranger misses; and the kobold lands a good roll, knocking the Ranger's strength down to 7 - roughly equivalent to a strong child.

At the other end of the room, a delayed trap goes off, dropping a heavy iron portcullis over the entrance. They're trapped!

Now the party is concerned. Fortunately the Wizard gets the next door open; they all dash through and slam it shut behind them. Wisely, they are on their guard and prepared for a new attack, but this room is merely storage for bodies. A careful search turns up a locked iron chest, two gold bracelets, and some unharvested tael - but for the first time, no hidden exit. During the search the Ranger recovers his strength. Realizing the damage is only temporary, they charge out, surround the bird-cage, and prepare to administer a savage beat-down. Instead the Ranger destroys the kobold on his first attack.

The Barbarian vents his rage by smashing open the cage and then demonstrates his wisdom by searching it. He turns up a gold key, which opens the iron chest, which yields three more potions in clay vials. The party then attempts to open the portcullis, as it is the only way out. The Ranger heaves to, but it's too heavy, even with help from all the rest of the party; the Barbarian tries and fails. Now things are bit worrying; they take a second try (with an increasing penalty) and the Barbarian just barely forces it open. The Wizard cleverly props it open with the Ranger's crowbar, and the entire party slips out to safety.

Oddly, this final challenge is the last straw, despite inflicting no damage. The party decides to retreat and collect the rest of their team. The Wizard claims to remember the way out, but the issue is moot as the Ranger can easily track their own footsteps in the undisturbed dust of the ancient tunnels.

As they are re-entering the collapsed meeting hall, the Shadow attacks them. Apparently it was fine with them entering the barrow complex, but has a problem with them leaving.

The Ranger wants to ignore its clumsy, incorporeal lunges, and simply rush on through the tunnels, but the Wizard is curious about this strange yet hostile unlife-form. He enchants the Ranger's sword and convinces him to give battle. The Barbarian needs no encouragement, of course, and the Bard is equally willing.

The enchantment turns out to be necessary. Mundane attacks pass through the Shadow with no effect. The Bard tries a basic energy attack (i.e. a burning torch) to no avail; only the Ranger's enchanted sword has a chance of hurting the Shadow, and even it fails half the time. The party's fate hangs on the Ranger's swordsmanship, sheer luck, and the durability of the Wizard's enchantment.

Since one of those is a proven non-starter (i.e. the Ranger's combat skills), the Bard pulls out the magic whistle, reasoning that a summoned creature might count as a magical attack. It's not bad logic, just poor judgment, because the magically summoned Fiendish Wolf immediately attacks every non-Orc in the room, starting with the Bard.

The wolf hits hard, dropping the Bard in a single bite. Now the Barbarian has something useful to do - wolf-fighting! The Ranger is actually doing surprisingly well, landing a serious blow on the Shadow, but it's a CR 3 Undead creature, which means a lot of HPs. The Wizard has finally worked through his spell list and discovered the cantrip Disrupt Undead - that's 1d6 damage to an undead creature with no chance of failure, three times a day. Nice to discover this on the way out!

The Shadow strikes, weakening the Ranger. He lands another solid hit, inflicting plenty of damage, and the Wizard's cantrips add up. The Shadow is looking ragged but it strikes again. The danger here is not the slow loss of strength, but the expiration of the enchantment. Without it, the Shadow can pick them off at its leisure.

The Ranger is finally rolling well, but his third hit is negated by the Shadow's incorporeality. The Barbarian gets a face-full of Fiendish Wolf, dropping him to a single hit-point. The Bard heroically rolls to stabilize, stopping his own bleeding by sheer force of will despite being unconscious.

On the last round of enchantment, the Ranger lands another hit and sticks it. The Shadow evaporates in a shower of purple dust, releasing all of the tael it has gathered for its next spawn. This is a fortune - half again of everything they've won so far! A comical battle of misses ensues with the Fiendish Wolf, until suddenly everyone hits at once, obliterating it. The Barbarian shoulders the incapacitated Bard and they trudge back to the inn, bleeding, battered, and spell-less - and this all from merely trying to leave the dungeon.

"Anything I should be worried about?" the innkeeper asks as they stumble in.

"Just... bandits," they reply. Dungeons are precious resources, and they don't want to share this one with any other Free Companies (like the ones they saw hanging around in the city). Of course, that also means that if they fail to come home next time, no one will know where to send the rescue party to, or even that they should send a rescue.

But that's an adventurer's life. Thankless toiling in dark tunnels fighting undead monsters, and nothing to show for it but fistfuls of bright purple tael. And silver. And gold. And magic items. But mostly tael - surely by now they have enough to purchase the most valuable prize in the world - another rank!

[Yahzi]

So we missed several sessions of recap as Bad DM was busy meeting a book deadline. The good news is Black Harvest is with my editor; the bad news is I don't have a release date yet.

The Wet Wedding

We last left our intrepid band after they had defeated the Shadow in the orcish beer hall. Many, many days were spent crawling through the increasingly sophisticated and dangerous layers of orcish tombs. There was the eight-armed water troll that was supposed to be a fearsome foe; the party chased it into the water and mercilessly beat it to death. On the other hand a kobold skeleton in a bird-cage shooting Magic Missiles almost did for them all.

It was while they were exploring the koboldic era of the dungeon (built when the orcs had dealings with a kobold tribe) that they met Asha the water naga. She told them her tale of woe: falling for a silver-tongued bard who stole her Pearl of the Sirens. In human hands this artifact makes breathing and moving underwater easy (though you still can't smoke a pipe); in her hands it did the same for living above the surface. She was the source of the innkeeper's broken window; it was not a young couple being carried off, but rather a broken-hearted sea creature pursing her thieving paramour. Being chaotic she is unwilling to make deals or bargains, but she does give them the ability to breathe water for a few hours and accepts a present in return. The Bard got a bit of a workout coming up with a succession of interesting but different presents as they re-visited Asha several times over the next few weeks. And the Wizard discovered the joys of Command Undead; now one of the barrow's best skeletal temple guardians carries his laundry around when it's not dicing his enemies.

Eventually they passed into the clerical era, built when the orcs had adopted religion for a while. The curses and undead guardians were not much of a challenge to our intrepid band, though a well full of octopi (regular old octopi, not magical or anything) almost claimed the life of several of them. Then they discovered four locathah smoking weeds in one of the tombs. Restraining their immediate murderous impulses, they managed to get themselves invited to a party. They went home, freshened up, got more water-breathing from Asha, and went to town... well, went to the underwater village.

As they had suspected, Lars, erstwhile paramour of Asha the water naga, made an appearance. He stood on a stage and warbled incomprehensibly, which is what passes for entertainment at the bottom of a dirty lake. Apparently he had fallen for the charms of a nixie and had spent the last ten years playing house with her in an underwater graveyard of orcs. At this point he was clearly deranged but the party was more interested in the unnatural bulge in his throat. They started trying to get closer to the stage when the chieftain announced the bad news. The celebration was supposed to be a wedding between one of the locathah girls and a handsome villager from the surface. Unfortunately the human had succumbed to the horrible curse that just randomly kills people in the village. He had turned blue, waved his hands frantically, blown some bubbles, and then stopped moving. This curse, the chieftain noted, had struck the last five surface dwellers who had moved into the village over the years: two other suitors and a young family, all suddenly struck down by evil magic.

Not one to waste an opportunity, the chieftain put the poor deceased fellow on the dinner menu (literally, he was served in tiny bits as hors d'oeuvres) and continued with the gala. Then he offered the handsomest of the visitors the chance to marry into the village without going through the normal time-consuming background checks.

This, of course, meant the Bard. Much to everyone's surprise the young Bard was willing to give it a try. However, once the rather quick ceremony was concluded and events moved to the nuptial chamber, everything fell apart. It turned out the two newlywed's conceptual ideas of what occurred in said chamber were horrifically incompatible.

The Bard came swimming out in a hurry, pursued by a shrieking jilted bride. Hell hath no fury like a locathah scorned! This commotion interrupted the rest of the party, who had finally gotten into Lars' presence. Thinking quickly the Ranger performed a tracheotomy, freeing the pearl from where it had lodged in Lars' throat, and amazingly not killing him in the process. The party then beat a hasty retreat, aided by summoned dolphins. Lars, unfortunately, was suddenly struck by the village's curse despite being immune to it for all these years, and soon blew a few final bubbles and stopped moving.

The locathah were unwilling to chase the party through the barrows, so they made their way back to Asha and returned her property. She rewarded them with sacks of gold she had collected from the barrows over the years and promptly fled, returning to her distant sea-borne kingdom. Our heroes trudged back to the inn, loaded down with gold and the pleasure of doing a good deed - which was, despite their alleged alignments, a surprisingly rare occurrence.

That night the locathah struck back. The entire village swarmed up from the lake, armed with spears and supported by the nixie's magic, and attacked the inn. Unfortunately locathah are as handicapped out of the water as humans are in it, and all of them died ingloriously. The Barbarian did get a nasty scratch on his ankle while stomping the fish-men into paste but otherwise the fight was anti-clamatic.

A Business Proposition (or two)

While the party rested up and dried out, Old Bob wandered in. They had last seen him the Wild Lord's broken down keep, where he chose to stay rather than submit to civilization. He had been driven out, he said, by all the singing. The keep had new occupants, a bandit gang of some kind, and they sang all the damn time.

Before the party could respond to this appropriation of property they had abandoned, a sly fellow also appeared at the inn. He had heard of a new adventuring party and wanted to offer them a job. He purported to represent the merchants of House Tempest, who allegedly wanted to find a land route to Varsoulou. This was a dangerous proposition because technically Edersarr and Varsoulou are still at war, though active hostilities had ended twenty years ago when King Rogonar the Ambitious had gotten himself killed on one of his many invasions. His son and heir, Cardinal Ragnar, was not nearly so keen on the exhausting and impoverishing continual war, and hence peace had reigned, especially since the invasions only ever went one way, from Edersarr to Varsoulou. Now some people, such as the Cardinal, were happy with this state of affairs; and some people, notably the Earl Theodorick, were not.

The party seemed to be leaning towards the peace faction, but mostly they were so sick of crawling around in dead orcs that they decided to take the job. But first, the most exciting awesome adventure ever conceived of in any epic ballad of heroism (or D&D campaign): they made a trip up north to Pay Their Taxes.

The King, you see, gets a quarter of whatever tael you take out of the Wild. This is the price you pay for having somewhere safe to rest up and heal after your adventures. You don't have to pay the tax, but then, you don't have to come home again either. (As a DM I am obviously tickled pink to have successfully imposed taxation on my players. I am sure all the other DMs out there know exactly how I feel.) The cost left them bankrupt, though they had gotten everyone but the barbarian and ranger to third level first.

They also blew some gold on stuff like better armor and weapons but that's just boring.

So a few days later they set off to the east, with two donkeys, supplies, and a full load of adventuring gear (the seasoned players revealed themselves when they spent fifteen minutes discussing how to carry their gold so it wouldn't all get stolen at once). Quite a step up from their poverty-stricken origins only a few seasons ago. (Seriously, it's been like three or four months of game-time.)

Along the way they had a few adventures. (This is where my Sandbox World Generator app really came into its own: they picked a map direction and marched, and I just looked up what was in the way.) At first the two undead dinosaurs looked like it could be a dramatic fight, but then the Druid discovered the power of Entangle (the spell that defines OP, and at 1st level!). The Ranger destroyed one immobilized dinosaur through archery with his new strength bow; the other one successfully resisted the wizard's attempts to Command it (thus sparing the DM a heart-attack) and was destroyed by arrows and Barbarian axery.

Next they encountered a mysterious wheeled machine that drove around in circles. Dissuaded by its thick iron armor (and a few hints from the DM who hadn't finished writing up the adventure that creature leads to), they avoided it and moved on. Just when they were thinking this whole exploring thing was a piece of cake they met a couple of other people leading donkeys.

Their practiced eye recognized them as bandits, or perhaps it was just the dirty clothes and heavy weaponry. These bandits, however, were incredibly welcoming. Recognizing the party as heroes by the simple expedient of noting that they came from the west and thus had passed through un-tracked, monster-infested wilderness, the bandits invited them to a free dinner. All they would have to do is attend a short lecture on an exciting multi-level marketing business opportunity.

For some inexplicable reason the party politely declined. The bandits shook their head in dismay, but offered helpful traveler's advice, pointing out a good camping spot just a short way ahead. Again, the party behaved unreasonably, setting camp in the suggested spot but stuffing their bedrolls with hay and hiding on the hill above while wearing their armor. In the middle of the night the Druid's hawk started staring at the sky while emitting small, terrified sounds; but the Druid was preoccupied with the company of bandits sneaking up on their campfire.

Once again Entangle struck, trapping half the bandits in its grasp. They fired their crossbows but in the dark it was completely ineffective. The Wizard sent his killing machine Sir Rattles to intercept one of the two remaining squads; the Ranger started exchanging fire with the other and winning handily. Then the Druid decided to summon a swarm of bats and sent them after the helplessly immobilized bandits, an act that will go down in the annals of unnecessary force and over-kill. Swarms are one of the more dangerous foes as they require area-effect damage to destroy them, and this is not easily come by in a medieval world. The bandits, unarmored and defenseless, were stripped to the bones in a bloody cloud of screaming horror. The Druid was thinking about maybe feeling bad when he was distracted by his own screaming horror.

A skeletal, winged demon with a scorpion's tail dropped out of the sky. It bellowed a magically terrifying sonic attack and lashed into the Ranger with claws, fangs, and poisoned tail. Well... it was supposed to. What actually happened is that the party uniformly shrugged off the fear, dodged most of the attacks, cast Magic Weapon on their swords and axes, and chopped the thing into bits.

Two of the cultists managed to slip away in the dark. The party moved its camp to a different location and tried to sleep, the sounds of men being flayed alive by tiny sharp bat teeth still ringing in their ears. In the morning they tracked the bandits back to their cleverly concealed cavern complex (cursed Ranger!).

The Wizard bravely sent his toad in to scout. It reported nothing of interest, save for a brief sound that let them know the cave was in fact occupied. Now they stand on the precipice of danger, preparing to march yet again under the earth.

[Quarian Rex]

I'm enjoying this, and quite glad to see that it didn't die.

[Yahzi]

I had to improvise the adventure last time; while my Sandbox World Generator told me what was in the square it didn't provide all the details. Between sessions I fleshed out the cult and discovered that it had a name, in addition to a signature calling card in the form of golden crossbow quarrels. Eventually I'll publish this adventure on DriveThruRPG like all the rest. The only reason The Lake of Ill Repute isn't up there is that they haven't finished going through it yet.

The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow

The party (retroactively) marveled over all the golden crossbow quarrels they looted off of the bandits that had attacked their camp, until the Wizard made his Appraise check and realized they were just well-polished bronze.

The party sent in Sir Rattles, again to no effect. Now that they had two independent reports that the tunnel was empty it only took them twenty minutes to raise the courage necessary to actually enter the tunnel, and even then they only went in because the Barbarian got tired of "strategizing."

Once inside they were greeted by ten skeletons. The toad had not noticed them because they don't move, breathe, emit heat, or otherwise appear differently than dead bones, and they hadn't attacked Sir Rattles out of professional courtesy. Undead make excellent ambushers.

The Barbarian smashed one while the Cleric looked up the rules on Turn Undead. A few dice rolls later and all of the skeletons collapsed, utterly destroyed by the puissance of the Cleric's holy words. Sadly this cleansing of the unnatural also included Sir Rattles (a tip o' the hat to the Bard for pointing that out!). It turns (haha) out that the Cleric had missed the latest dungeon runs, so no one was aware of just how potent he was against low-level undead.

After that they briefly examined a closed door but decided to push further into the cavern. They didn't get very far before being greeted by a company of guards with a spell-casting senior office. Twenty cultists, fighting in formation: the ones in front knelt defensively behind their shields while the back row fired over their heads with crossbows. The Ranger cleverly pocketed his light-stone and started sniping from the Dark while the Barbarian charged; the Wizard and Druid summoned acid-spitting beetles; and the Bard and Cleric went down a side tunnel hoping flank the attacking group but instead ran into a smaller group which included an junior officer of the cult.

The absence of treacherous vegetation and the presence of spell-casters turned the battle around. Expecting the relentless slaughter of the previous engagement, the party found they had a fight on their hands. Fear spells were particularly useful, sending the the Ranger, the Bard, and the Barbarian (twice!) in and out of combat like yo-yos. The Barbarian made it all the way to the front line and slew three foes in a single great blow before eating half-a-dozen quarrels and being sent running by magic. Healing also paid off as the two cult spell-casters put men who had been incapacitated but not outright killed back into the fight; when the Barbarian came back half the men he had killed were alive again.

Finally the Druid decided to unleash the swarm. Thousands of spiders crawled up out of the sandy cavern floor, biting and stinging. Fortunately their poison weakened before it killed, so the men's shrieks of horror as they were devoured alive were slightly muted. The senior officer, revealing a sophisticated understanding spellcraft, got the swarm's attention and led it away from his men. This took him out of the fight but not out of the battle as he succeeded in healing himself several times even in the midst of the swarm. It was a fair trade, as concentrating on the swarm kept the Druid busy.

The advance party came back to the main battle, having been chased off by Fear after killing all but the junior officer in the side passageway. The Wizard called up another acid beetle after the first one exploded and dissolved several men's faces in acid. Fortunately this horrific sight was only poorly illuminated by torch-light so likely the party won't have too many nightmares. The Barbarian, operating off of courage rather than intellect, charged the line once again, and this time they broke and fled. Just in time, as the side passage was once again active after the officer had healed several casualties. The Wizard, Cleric, and Bard ran to deal with that while the Ranger followed the fleeing remnants of the main group. The Druid sat in a corner and concentrated fiercely on his swarm of vicious insects, no doubt struggling with remorse over the horrible deaths he had caused.

The junior officer in the side-passage turned out to be wearing decent armor (note to self: more bronze breastplates!). Half the party beat on him while the Wizard kept him dazed and yet he remained standing. The side passage did indeed join up with the other one, as both passages opened into a vast cavern. Which contained another entire company of troops, all bearing torches and charging the swarm.

The Ranger picked off a few men while they dealt with the spiders by beating their torches against the ground and occasionally the officer in the middle of the swarm. This bought the rest of the party enough time to finally finish off the junior officer. They looked up just in time to see the retreat stemmed by demonic authority. Which is to say, a nine-foot-tall demon bit the head off of one of the retreating men, and the other two decided to go back into battle. Not the typically recommended courage-inducing rally cry but it worked. Beside the demon stood the cult's leader, a wild-haired shaggy man in bronze armor and wearing a golden crossbow quarrel around his neck.

Everything froze in that movie-style magic where the really dramatic bits seem to take forever. (Meaning we broke for pizza.) After a surprisingly lengthy discussion which included checking the side-door for a defensible position (spoiler alert: it wasn't) the party decided to retreat, having run out of spells and hit-points. The cultists, for their part, were not about to take lightly an enemy who had caused so much slaughter, and advanced with caution, allowing our heroes to escape.

Outside, under the open sky, the party set their own ambush, hoping to bottle their pursuers up in the narrow tunnel. While the Wizard was asking if there likely to be any other entrances to the lair he noticed a company of men coming out of the ground about a quarter-mile away. Again the party chose retreat, heading west (back the way they had come). The cult pursued them, but not aggressively, as the party was walking into wilderness rather than towards the nearest city. At the banks of a river the cult stopped and watched them go.

But it was not retreat, merely a strategic advance to the rear. The party camped, healed their wounds, refreshed their spells, and came creeping back under the cover of darkness.

Now they found the entrances guarded by cultists armed with gongs. The Ranger tried some diversions (oddly including throwing a desert tortoise) and sniper fire, but only succeeded in setting off the alarm. Discouraged, the party began retreating again.

The cult did not let them go so easily this time. The Druid's hawk stared nervously at the sky as they fled. This time the Druid paid attention and realized they were being followed. Trapped on the open plain under a star-lit sky (the world of Prime does not have a moon, but it does have so many stars that clear nights are as illuminated as a full moon), stalked by a flying demon, they had few options. They stood in a circle, back to back, like heroes facing the horde. Soon enough a black cloud swelled up from the ground, resolving into the fearsome visage of the demon.

The party responded quickly, with spells and arrows. The monster continued to advance and the Barbarian bravely leapt forward to strike with his temporarily magic-blessed sword. The blow passed through the creature without harm; the Barbarian realized it was merely illusion.

The party lowered their arms but the damage was done. Those spells were wasted. Tense minutes passed as the demon's allies came into position. Again, crossbow quarrels flew through the night. In the darkness accuracy was difficult and it wasn't clear whom the battle of attrition would favor. Until the demon struck from behind.

The Cleric was its chosen target. He proved hardy enough to survive the claws and fangs, but the poisoned stinger in its tail left him as weak as a baby. The fighting men turned bows and swords on the creature and it immediately fled. But as they resumed their archery contest with the cultists, the demon returned, having been fully healed by unknown powers.

This time the Bard went down in a spray of blood, and only a timely spell from the Cleric kept him from bleeding to death in the grass. Once again the warriors drove it off. The Wizard luckily caught a hint of chanting. He quickly called up some illusionary lights and sent them forth, discovering the hiding cult leader (the only time I have ever seen Dancing Lights actually used). As the demon left his side to fly back to the battle, the Wizard starting summoning apes (apparently impressed by the 1d6+5 damage roll) and sent them to attack the leader.

Now the cult leader was well-prepared, having certain spells of devastating effect against human foes. Which unfortunately expressly did not include animals. He sound found himself wrestling in a most undignified manner with two apes and the Druid's wolf as the spell-casters charged him (the warriors were still occupied with the demon). The cult leader called his demon back to save him; it broke off and flew threw the air, snatching up the leader on its way.

Until the mess of animals pounced on him, sinking claws and fangs into flesh and holding on for dear life. It proved too much weight; as the warriors charged, the demon shrugged its shoulders and let go. It flew off into the night while its erstwhile master screamed for mercy. "I'll let you in!" he cried, hoping to buy them off; the Wizard and Druid, unmoved, did not call off their beasts. Consequently by the time they got to the man he had been torn limb from limb.

The remains of the cultists fled after seeing (well, hearing) their leader so savagely destroyed. The party tallied up the enemy's losses and grimly resolved to end the threat of the demon once and for all. In the morning they marched east, covering the familiar ground they had already twice retreated over, until they stood at the mouth of the entrance, with vengeance on their minds and blood on their hands.

[Yahzi]

I'm enjoying this, and quite glad to see that it didn't die.

I'm enjoying the fact that someone else is enjoying it. Eventually I hope to get to some political action too, not just massive running battles that rage back and forth over the desert for three days.

[Yahzi]

The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow (conclusion)

In an act of either divine grace or random chance, our heroes were washed clean by a summer storm as the approached the cave mouth that led to the demonic cult's lair. Soaking wet, they un-bundled the Cleric from the donkey he had been strapped to. In the night he had succumbed to the secondary effects of the demon's poisoned sting and was now completely paralyzed.

Reviewing their resources they considered using their three strength potions to restore him to temporary vitality; or just using one to get him mobile enough to walk and cast (though too weak to wear armor or fight) and use the other two potions on the swordsmen. After a lengthy discussion, much of which was disparaging to the Cleric's martial capabilities, someone had the clever idea of casting Delay Poison, thus temporarily negating the effects (this is not strictly according to the rules but DMs always flex a bit when players are being creative). Then the Cleric and Druid realized they could cast the Strength spell themselves, thus gaining the effects of the potions without using them up. However, in typical fashion, they delayed casting these spells until they were sure they wanted to use them. (The end result was the most typical D&D experience ever; none of the potions got used. It is a universal maxim that adventurers are penny-pinching skinflints that would put Scrooge to shame.)

Thus prepared with plans and strategies they crept into the cave mouth and were immediately confronted with... a campfire. Someone had left a small fire burning in the middle of the room. This fearsome and ingenious barrier kept our brave demon-killing adventurers hiding in the shadows for a good twenty minutes while they discussed what to do about an unexpected campfire. Eventually the Wizard summoned Dancing Lights in the fire while the Ranger used Create Water to douse it. The illusionary fire then moved slowly forward while the party followed, still hidden in darkness. This clever plan was abetted by the cultists' miserable Spot checks, and the party managed to move the illumination to cover the squad of men before they were aware anything had changed.

The Ranger, granted a clear shot for once, put an arrow straight through a cultist's head. The others scrambled to their feet as the illusionary campfire changed into a glowing humanoid figure. This would have been a clever ruse, drawing the panicked crossbowmen's fire, except that the Barbarian charged right through it and gave them something else to think about. With a mighty swing he bashed three heads together like Moe slapping the Three Stooges around, but with more blood.

Two enemy officers appeared and cast at the Barbarian, who shrugged off their paltry attempts to frighten him. The Druid, emboldened by the example, charged into melee accompanied by his faithful wolf du jour. Falling upon the surprised crossbowmen the pair made a hash of the squad, killing them all as they attempted to reload. The officers, realizing the Barbarian was fearless, transferred their attention to the Druid and his bloody-muzzled wolf, and sent both of them fleeing in terror.

The Cleric stopped the fleeing Druid with a comforting hand (and a Remove Fear spell) while the rest of the party supported the Barbarian. The enemy troops fell quickly, entirely unable to deal with the out-of-control Barbarian. But before the party could enjoy their easy victory, more troops rushed from the darkness while hordes of skeletons poured in behind them (they really should stop walking past closed doors without investigating).

Not to worry; with a word the Cleric sent a dozen undead monsters to their eternal rest. Confidently he strode forward into the hordes that remained, chanting his holy words. The Wizard, trusting to the Cleric to hold the rear, knocked out a squad of archers with Sleep; the Druid summoned his dreaded swarm and the shrieks of men being murdered by a thousand tiny razor cuts echoed through the cavern.

The enemy officers switched tactics. They stepped up to the Barbarian, reaching out with grasping hands. Every time they touched him black energy flowed from their fingertips, flaying his life-force away. He fought back, battling through their heavy bronze armor, but these were not common soldiers. As fast as he battered them they were healed by their fellow officers.

Then two dramatic developments: the Cleric stumbled over a phrase and the horde of undead pressed forward, clawing eagerly for living flesh. The Bard's music filled in the silence, preventing a total disaster (the Cleric's roll would have failed utterly if it hadn't been for the Barid Music bonus); the front wave of undead, confused, fell back for the time being. The next wave, however, reached the party's rear lines and began flaying the Wizard like ginsu knives. And in the front line the demon made its dramatic appearance from the shadows and pouncing on the Barbarian.

The Cleric recovered, though his divine authority remained shaken - he could only send the skeletal hordes fleeing now instead of reducing them to dust. The cultists, made of merely mortal flesh, soon disintegrated in the blender of intense melee, leaving only the officers and the demon as foes. Which proved to be a potent combo: supported by healing spells the demon could stand toe-to-toe with the Barbarian, slowly wearing him down. Eventually the monster figured out the Barbarian's tactics; the fight went from the Barbarian administering a beat-down to the demon landing a massive combo on the Barbarian, though the poision was only moderately effective. If not for his own healing support team that would have been the end of the Barbarian's brief but rage-filled career. The Druid stepped up, using his magic (Barkskin and Shillegleah) to fill in as a front-line fighter when the Barbarian was chased off by Fear and Doom effects - once again to be saved by the Cleric. The Ranger proved he could hit when he got a clear shot, but as the Barbarian returned to the battle the Ranger drew his sword and joined him, tired of trying to shoot past a milling crowd.

The demon had one last surprise - he waved his hand and animated the corpses of his slain soldiers, who rose up all around the party forming a confused mob of men and monsters. The Cleric chanted one last time but his power was growing weak; only half the undead fell. Yet this last gambit could not tilt the balance; with everyone swinging wildly the remaining undead were quickly destroyed, and worse, the officers had finally run out of spells. They drew maces and bravely waded into combat, but the demon finally went down to the Barbarian's mighty hammer and the officers followed scant seconds later.

Save for one, whom upon seeing the golden crossbow quarrel around the Wizard's neck, threw himself to the ground prostrate. "Spare me, oh glorious leader," he cried. In a slightly uncharacteristic act the party tamed its blood-lust while the Wizard interrogated the man. It turned out that "Z", as he was quickly nick-named (his official title being both too long and pretentious) assumed the demon's destruction had followed from the Wizard's use of the magic crossbow quarrel rather than the Barbarian's hammer. They decided that Z would be a handy source of information and spared his life - for the time being. Their first demand: a guided tour of their newly acquired property. In the leader's quarters they found two pieces of treasure: a chest full of gold and the scraps of hastily burnt correspondence.

The letter spoke to conspiracy against the Queen:

should not have told him the Queen has a demon paramour. He is beside himself with wrath – no pun intended – and moves daily closer to rebellion. He is still too weak, though; the Queen will defeat and replace him; and I will lose my grip on the spice harvest. If you do not want the money to run out you must...

While they did not understand this information they knew it had to be useful to someone.

The Cinnamon War

The party mission was to find a land-route to the spice fields, either for trade or invasion. In either case a large and comfortable cave complex well-hidden and stocked with dried supplies would be a wonderful bonus. After only a week of hard labor, transporting bodies out to the plains to bury in shallow graves, the effects of the poison wore off enough that all of their party were ready to finish the journey and finally see fabled Varsoulou. Dressing in the local costume they loaded up their donkeys with gold and set off, following their guide Z. The man had proven to be a obsequious and disgusting servant but had not otherwise given them cause to end his life.

Reaching town they tried to lay low, succeeding mostly with the help of Z, who as a local naturally fit in. Taking up residence in a cheap inn they were surprised to discover exotic cinnamon served in even common meals. They tried to arrange a meeting with the principals of the Amalgamated Spice Company though without much success, finding the corporate bureaucracy difficult to engage. Searching for more sources of information, several members decide to brave the fearsome skeletal guards and visit the local Church of the Shepard. Though, obviously, the Cleric was not among them - nor was Z, who steered well clear of the clergy on account of him being a criminal and them being able to detect lies.

Here the Druid found himself the target of the hard sell, as a junior priest offered him a divine reading and personality test for the low price of a single silver. The result of the test was a lecture on self-discipline and an offer of a long-term but affordable program designed to put the Druid on the correct path to a higher-floor apartment in the Tiered City, where all souls go after death. In the meantime the Bard had extracted some useful information from the conversation, such as the oddity that the local Curate was not part of the feudal government, that Curate Wulseth blessed the spice harvests and hence received 10% of the income, and that the local ruler and owner of the spice fields was Count Wrathfus. Or "Wrathful Wrathfus," as he was sometimes named by people who weren't afraid of having their necks stretched for insubordination.

So now the party has put together the outlines of a plot. They have a piece of paper that shows that the Count is plotting treachery against his Queen. They know that the Curate is wrapped up in it somehow. And they are sitting in the Curate's chapel, a short stroll from the Count's stone keep. Suddenly the Wizard's desire to visit the capital and see the fabled Golden Library of Arcane Arts seems like a brilliant idea.

Only a few days easy travel through civilized countryside finds them staring at the sea for the first time, the salt spray in their faces as sailors from many nations buy and sold fortunes in cinnamon and cloves on the docks. The Golden Library, a tall stone tower framed at night by neon lights of many colors, is the most exotic thing they have ever seen. They have momentous decisions to make: will they back war or peace between their home of Edersarr and the technically evil but not actually all that bad Varsoulou? Should they help the Queen against her plotters or help the coup against the possibility that the Queen is herself demon-compromised?

[Dawgmoah]

The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow (conclusion)

Soaking wet, they un-bundled the Cleric from the donkey he had been strapped to. In the night he had succumbed to the secondary effects of the demon's poisoned sting and was now completely paralyzed.

How did the player of the cleric react to being paralyzed?

First time seeing any of this: I like how you started them off at 0-level. Reminds me of the old 1st edition days.

[Yahzi]

The Company of Glorious Destiny

The lure of the city lights proves too strong for some - the Wizard disappears into the bowels of the Golden Library with a sack of gold, hoping to be inducted into the secret mysteries. Meanwhile the rest of the party wanders the docks, trying to appear as merely some of the many travelers from distant lands.

Laying low is hard, though, when your tour guide is a border-line sociopath. Z, the sole remaining member of the Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow and now reluctant (on both sides) party minion, is bumped into by a distracted townsmen hurrying to an appointment. Z reacts with immediate offense, back-handing the poor man and absentmindedly including a Cause Wounds spell along with it. The man's face turns grey and rots instantly as he collapses to the ground, dead.

A cry goes up for the watch as Z, belatedly realizing what he's done, bolts for the alleyway. The party decides that the man knows far too much to fall into the hands of the authorities, in addition to being a cold-blooded murderer. They give chase and a very brief battle ensues. The Cleric and Druid keep guard in mouth of the alley, trying to keep their hands clean or least keep the blood off of their boots. Just as Z goes down two local guardsmen come around the corner. One of the party (we can't say who) discreetly shivs the unconscious Z, ensuring he's beyond healing.

The guardsmen recognize that these are adventurers, aka nobles, and thus out of their league. They do claim the body and its tael for the family of the slain. The party chips in a few gold, too, out of "charity," and get off with no more than an admonition to not leave town for a few days.

Later that night they are hanging out in a seedy tavern, as adventurers are wont to do, mostly because reputable establishments would rather have nothing to do with them, when they get a visit from the cool-as-a-cucumber and obviously well-fed Erligil the Dealer. Nobody knows what he deals in but it's clear he makes deals. In fact, after he leaves the bartender pretends not to have seen him, despite having served him a mug of ale.

Erligil chats them up and establishes that they are available for hire. He lets them know he'll get back to them later with a job. It won't be pretty or clean but then, neither are they. He also helpfully suggests a few tourist attractions - for instance, there will be an open training session of the Varsoulou cavalry the next day. The townspeople love to watch a few friendly jousting matches in the same way townspeople love to watch young men batter their heads together while chasing a leather ball. Even better, one of the vaunted members of the Hammer of the Desert will be there. This is a troop of ten knights, all of whom are Baronets or higher, and all clad in the best armor money can buy.

The party is justifiably impressed when the knights take to the lists. They may be third ranked heroes but just one of those lance charges could kill them immediately. The desert knights ride fast, nimble coursers instead of the huge plodding destriers of Edersarr but that doesn't seem to lessen their effectiveness. Erligil meets them in the crowd, appraising their appraisal of the military prowess of Varsoulou.

He takes them back to a tavern and fills them in on the job he's lined up for them. The Castle (meaning the national government), he says, has gotten word of Edersarrian spies hanging around the city, evaluating the defenses, and otherwise scoping out the lay of the land. Given that Varsoulou is still technically at war with Edersarr, this is obviously a problem. Erligil suggests that if the party could round up these spies before the Castle does, they could sell them to the Castle for a pretty penny.

Now this is a sticky wicket for our team! Much to my surprise, they go for it. The Ranger convinces the Bard to eavesdrop around town, looking for the kind of Edersarrian give-a ways that only an Edersarrian would catch. (DM's note: I had not actually intended for there to be another group of Edersarrians - Erligil was clearly just messing with them. But when they readily agreed I changed plans and whipped out one of my pre-generated adventuring parties from Edersarr to play the role - that is, the aforementioned Company of Glorious Destiny.) And lo and behold, after a few days they come across hints of a man who likes pickles with his breakfast - a uniquely Edersarrian preference.

They track the rumors down to an inn and confront the fellow at his table. He's accompanied by a sturdy warrior in heavy armor, and since he is a bard of rank himself he quickly realizes that he is dealing with fellow countrymen. "Not so loud," he says, "You'll give us all away. Why did you even try to make contact? Do you have new orders?"

The Druid, who doesn't like being indoors in the best of times and is also the only party member who is appropriately paranoid, goes outside to see if they are being followed, only to discover an entire squad of knights just hanging around on the other side of the street. In full armor. Quickly he passes back through the building, past the deep discussion in the corner of the room, and out the back, only to find an entire company of halberdiers slowly filling up the back garden.

He returns to the barroom and warns the others. "We're surrounded!" Now the party faces a difficult choice: fight their way out past the ranked knights in front, the common but numerous soldiers out back, or find some way to slip out the side unnoticed. The warrior, Branford, charges out the back to check it out, followed by the Barbarian who recognizes a fellow hot-head.

The Ranger, thinking well outside of the box, decides they are in the soup and they have no choice but to fulfill their commission. He attacks the leader of the other group (Dacey, though I'm not sure anyone bothered to learn his name). A confused fight follows, during which many members of the party are not entirely sure which side they are on. The Druid is holding the front door against the knights hammering on it, the Barbarian is out back mixing it up with the halberdiers along with Branford, and the Ranger and Bard are trying to murderize Dacey. The enemy bard cries out for help; Branford comes charging back in, laying waste with his massive two-handed sword, forcing the Cleric to get involved before his people start dying. In the middle of the fight the enemy party's servant turns out to be a master assassin and almost brings down the Ranger with a surprise double-knife attack. The Barbarian abandons the losing battle out back and rejoins the party just in time to watch the Bard chop Branford to the ground.

Then the knights force open the door and the fighting stops as Varsoulouean soldiers swarm the room from fore and aft. The last one in the room is Erligil, and the party has the pleasure of discovering that first, he is in fact the Queen's Minister of Coin (a position that traditionally encompasses spy-master and head torturer, among other duties), and second, that they have managed to surprise and disappoint him at the same time. He reveals that he knew they were Edersarrian all along, of course; he just wanted to see what color of cloth they wore. Now that he knows, he's not particularly happy (since they're clearly willing to be traitors) but at the same time he's got an even bigger job for them.

This is no penny-ante step-and-fetch it quest; this is the real deal. Erligil knows there is a faction in Edersarr agitating for restarting the war. He wants the party to terminate their influence with extreme prejudice. The Order of the Tower is a small knightly order on the edge of Edersarr (with, of course, their own tower). Their commander, Godard, is a Viscount but most of them are only first rank knights, If the party can kill Godard, either by assassination, siege, or duel, they can keep his tael and Erligil will pay them 5,000 gold pieces. Each. Whatever other members of the Order they kill are just a bonus.

The Ranger readily agrees to the deal. The rest of the party is perhaps less enthusiastic but once Erligil throws open the Castle armory and outfits the Barbarian in full plate armor he's won over the swords, and the spell-casters come along for the ride. After only a few more days they set off again, this time heading west. The Ranger decides to lead them on a different path than the one they've already cleared, just for the sake of adventure.


The Black Knight

Only three days into the wilderness they discover a bridge, a ferry, and a challenge. A knight has a small wooden keep (really more of a manor house) with a working village. He is a foreigner from far away who had come to fight in the Edersarr-Varsoulou war, only to discover it had effectively ended. Annoyed, he set up his own domain and intends to become a new state, profiting as a power-broker between the two nations.

In the meantime he challenges passer-byes to jousting tournaments, both for excitement and to relieve them of the excess coin in their pockets.

The Barbarian almost goes for it, especially once the Knight offers to lend him a horse and lance. But wiser heads (i.e. the Druid) prevail and they convince the Barbarian that it's obviously a trap. More to the point, a potentially fatal trap despite his fancy new armor, as they have already seen how deadly lances can be. (DM's note: they were right.) The Knight won't take no for an answer, though, and summons his company of glaivemen to a general attack.

The Druid launches the cursed Entangle spell followed up by the horrifying Swarm spell, thus condemning half the common men to a screaming death as they are pinned to the ground while their flesh is slowly ripped away by thousands of vicious insects. He also calms the Knight's horse, taking it out of the battle. The Knight is nonetheless a fearsome foe and he drives the Barbarian back with furious sword fighting from atop his immobile but still advantageous mount. The rest of the party is engaged with the remaining soldiers which is going pretty well for them. Until the Black Knight swaps horses, mounting the spare he'd brought out to lend to his challenger. One sword-charge later the Barbarian is looking death in the face close at hand.

The Druid shuts down the new horse, and worse, the Bard shuts down the Knight with a magically induced laughing fit. Even so the man is hard to kill, having plenty of HP and good armor. As he crawls across the ground trying to avoid the blows the Cleric summons an acid beetle. The Knight cleverly provokes the beetle into spraying acid on him... and splashing his horse.

The attack breaks the spell and beast reacts with fury, stomping the beetle into paste. It then proceeds to put the fear of hooves into the party, dishing out plenty of damage. It buys the Knight enough time to get to his feet; but before he can start killing people, the Bard chases the horse off with a Fear spell and Barbarian and Ranger cut the Knight into pieces.

Somehow during the battle literally every other common soldier was also killed. This leaves the small village with only women and children, since the soldiers were also the farmers. The party takes possession of the keep and spend a few days recovering from their battle. They also loot the vault, collecting a thousand gold pieces of treasure, and doling out a handful of gold to each woman to sustain the village until they return. Then they set off to the west again on their murderous quest, promising to return in due time to protect their new holdings. The women of the village are oddly eager to see them go, even though it leaves them alone and undefended in the wilderness. Perhaps they did not consider a pack of sixteen-year-old bravos to be a suitable replacement for the men they had lost.

(DM's note: The Black Knight can be found in Brigands of the Stinging Sea at DriveThruRPG. It's on sale for 99 cents right now, mostly because I know my players are too cheap to cheat even at that low price. I'll make it free once they've dealt with or out-leveled all the encounters in that book.)

[Yahzi]

How did the player of the cleric react to being paralyzed?

First time seeing any of this: I like how you started them off at 0-level. Reminds me of the old 1st edition days.

He took it in stride, but probably because everybody else looked out for him. Half the group are newbies and all of them are friends outside of the group, so we don't have the usual one-up-manship narcissistic power squabbles. Yet.

Starting them at 0th was the smartest thing I've ever done. Especially for newbies, but even the seasoned players were hooked by it. It does limit character creation (it would be hard to work in another race, for instance) but it pays off huge in party cohesion.

[Dawgmoah]

He took it in stride, but probably because everybody else looked out for him. Half the group are newbies and all of them are friends outside of the group, so we don't have the usual one-up-manship narcissistic power squabbles. Yet.

Starting them at 0th was the smartest thing I've ever done. Especially for newbies, but even the seasoned players were hooked by it. It does limit character creation (it would be hard to work in another race, for instance) but it pays off huge in party cohesion.

Those type of situations have always been a mixed bag for me. Sometimes the players will cooperate with each other. Then other times someone is ignored or left behind. Glad it worked out for him.

Next time I start a game I may try the 0 level bit; get them to roleplay into whatever class they want to play in.

[Endarire]

This feels like an awesome experience!

I also tried your Sandbox World Generator but it kept crashing when clicking 'Apply' since I didn't click 'New' first. May we get that fixed?

(This was my first time using it.)

[Yahzi]

I also tried your Sandbox World Generator but it kept crashing when clicking 'Apply' since I didn't click 'New' first. May we get that fixed?

Ok, I will look into that. Though I am not sure why you would click Apply first? You need a world to apply changes to.

I am more than happy to answer any questions or fix any bugs (if I can - the program is a bit of a bear). Don't hesitate to PM me.

[Yahzi Coyote]

Apparently the user Yahzi doesn't exist anymore :( So I created a new account to continue this thread. If any admin wants to fix that, it would be awesome. :)

A minor detail from the previous entry; the players assured me the reward was 10,000 gold pieces, not 5,000. Trust players to remember a little thing like that.

A new mission

The party continues traveling west through new territory. This is the stuff of adventuring! Even if it is occurring in the relatively safe area between two major kingdoms.

And rendered safer by a dose of extreme caution. They discover a beast most foul, a huge lizard surrounded by broken statues, and like heroes of old they... bravely fled. A minor encounter with a ghost of a woman trapped by an ancient tragedy - she lacks the strength to close the valve that is drowning her husband - is resolved by the Barbarian's rage against injustice. (This was supposed to be the start of a quest for a minor magic item but I didn't have it properly planned out, the party brute-forced the solution, and they already have too many open threads anyway.) After a few more uneventful days they reach civilized lands again, finding a stone tower commanding the plain.

The tower is aware of their approach, sending out a herald to greet them. People don't normally come out of the west, after all, other than invading Varsoulouean armies. Their native Edersarrian accents establish their right to be there; meanwhile, the platoon of knights that have formed up in front of the tower establishes the the balance of power. Our brave party looks upon its quest target, encased in steel, mounted on a massive warhorse, and surrounded by a dozen other such figures, and... bravely flees. "Just passing through," they assure the herald, and quickly head to the village behind the tower to have a drink in a tavern full of pictures and stories about how totally awesome the Order of the Tower is. After much consideration they decide their true duty lies in finishing their first quest, i.e. to find a safe path to Varsoulou (safe being defined as the absence of monsters). Thus they head back east on their original path, deciding that the mysterious wheeled creature would be easier to resolve than the petrifying lizard.

They find the machine's tracks and discover a blockage: a log is preventing it from crossing a ford in the river. The machine keeps driving around in a huge loop, always returning to this spot. Curious, they remove the log and wait in hiding for the machine to come around again. The machine detects them, however, and provokes a confrontation (I had to fudge it a bit here as the party was being pretty cautious), eventually resulting in one of them being caught by its huge stone fist and pinned against its side by dozens of stone clamps. The rest ride to the rescue and are soon captured as well. Only the Druid is safe, for mysterious reasons, and yet as he watches the machine begin to trundle away with his companions to some unknown destination, he attacks it, knowing it means his own capture. Sadly he watches as the machine carries him away from the party's two mules, treasured pets and companions and not incidentally carrying all of the party's gold.

The machine trundles south at incredible speed, never tiring and never stopping, for an entire day an night. Our heroes begin to fear they will die of exposure or thirst before the fiendish journey ends, until it turns down into a shallow valley that houses the ruins of a once-great city. The machine delivers them to center of town, where automated prisoner processing in the form of stone tubes and hands strips them of their weapons and armor and deposits them in an ancient stone prison.

But they are proper adventurers now and not to be undone by simple traps; one Soften Stone spell later they are free. They find their equipment on roof in an old stone box full of rusted metal. A careful search reveals that a mace and a dozen arrows are buried under the detritus but still in perfect shape - certain proof that they are magical. Re-armed and armored, they quickly work out how to avoid the wandering patrol cars (there are two other machines already patrolling the city, and their new one returns to its duties without any fanfare) and set out to explore the ruins.

Whereupon they stumble upon many and various beasties and... bravely flee. They climb a tower and rob a harpy's nest of her gems but don't wait around for her to return. They spot some owlbears engaged in a mysterious ritual but decide not to interfere. The Barbarian does attempt to play with a pride of lions, but after they begin to flay him the Druid turns the party invisible to animals and they creep away. They find an old library inhabited by ogres and politely decline to stay for dinner. (This is entirely my fault for creating a sandbox world. The players know that there is no plot and thus no plot armor; if they pick a fight with a dragon they'll have no one to blame for their deaths but themselves. So they keep looking for the easy marks, like any professional criminal gang would.) When they spot some lizardfolk in a grove of trees it looks like there might be a little action, but the lizardfolk run away from the bard's opening chords and the party runs the other way. Eventually the lizardfolk return in force and the party has the brilliant idea of setting the lizards against the ogres. They lead their pursuers to the ogre's door, only to find the ogres and lizardfolk are apparently old friends. Trapped between two sets of monsters, they choose to charge the ogres and seal the doorway behind them with magical mist, hoping it will dissuade the lizardfolk for a least a little while.

A pair of ogres proves to be an engaging but short fight, made more exciting when another pair of ogres joins in. The Druid's wolf pet rips out the throat of all four ogres, which is just as well as the Barbarian takes a tree branch to the face and almost dies. (The party has discovered one of the major weaknesses of D&D as a game system: an attack that can credibly threaten one of the martial classes would extirpate one of the casters. This is a flaw I'm not even attempting to mediate; it's on them to adapt to the nature of the world as created by the rules.) When the mist expires they are relieved to see that the sounds of combat (and their victory) have apparently convinced the lizardfolk to retreat. Obviously they search the library for treasure, turning up a set of arcane scrolls only the Wizard can use (but he's still back in the Golden Library in Varsoulou, where he has plenty of scrolls without ogre stench all over them). They spend the night being bitten by tiny poisonous spiders and wake up in the morning cranky, hungry, and surrounded by rotting giant corpses.

[Yahzi Coyote]

The City of Tomorrow

(Note: this recap will be a spoiler for the adventure The City of Tomorrow, available at DriveThruRpg.)

The Bard steps outside to answer a call of nature, only to be ambushed by a harpy that snatches him up and carries him away. It's not a total loss, as the harpy drops its previous victim, preferring the handsome bard to the scrawny Wizard it had snatched off the streets of Varsoulou in the middle of the night. He doesn't remember a thing, having been dazed by the harpy's song through the long flight. The party is thrilled to welcome him back, heroically overlooking the sheer unlikeliness of the event and also the fact that their friend is now trapped in the untracked wilderness just like they are. (This was my clever DM trick to bring the Wizard back in and take the Bard out, as their respective players had missed the previous and current sessions.)

The party sets out to rescue their mate and are immediately jumped by hungry owlbears (yay for random encounter tables!). Once again they retreat behind library doors, the warriors bravely taking up a front battle line with the casters far behind. This works wonderfully for about twelve seconds. Then one of the owlbears gets a claw into the Ranger, pulls him into its deadly embrace, and flays him like a fish fillet.

The Wizard had been futilely casting spells, running up against the twin problems of magic being all-or-nothing (known as save-or-die, as in the target either shrugs off your spell with no effect or is wholly incapacitated by it) and infinitely finicky (i.e., he was targeting the owlbear's Fortitude saves, which is a poor choice against twelve-hundred pound beasties). Now he gets creative; he casts Grease on the Ranger, giving the poor man a fighting chance against the owlbear's deadly embrace. A spot late, however, as the Ranger is already unconscious and bleeding out by the end of the round.

The Ranger slips from the owlbear's grasp and it steps over him to attack the Cleric. Meanwhile the Druid bravely ducks in and heals the Ranger. Only the smallest of spells, but enough to bring him back to the waking world. The Ranger, apparently channeling the Barbarian, draws his dagger and stabs the owlbear standing above him, despite the near-certain knowledge that it could stomp him to death without even trying. As it happens he finds a vein and the beast collapses in a howl of dying agony (i.e. he delivered the killing blow - a trivial amount of damage and yet just enough to finish off the monster. This is the same way the wolf got the credit for the ogre kills and one of the more amusing quirks of the rules). He's till in danger of smothering under the corpse, so the Druid pulls him free. While being dragged to safety the Ranger throws his dagger at the other owlbear, still battling the Barbarian, and pierces its brain right through an eye-socket, killing it instantly. (Again with the last point of damage - a joke that never gets old.)

After cleaning off and healing up a bit they go to the owlbear's lair, but can make nothing out of the old stone dais the creatures had been circling. Traveling slowly and stealthily they make their way to the far end of the city to examine what turns out to be a graveyard. As it's night they choose to camp here rather than returning to the stinky library. The weather changes unpredictably as the temperature drops to freezing. Of course, this turns out to be the effect of a ghost haunting. Natch!

The Barbarian is on watch when the ghost arrives, and he chooses to wake the Wizard. They let everyone else sleep, on account of they want a fresh set of spells the next day. Apparently the Wizard has a calming effect on the Barbarian, because he doesn't try to attack the ghost. Instead they listen to its complaint and debate what they can do to help it.

In the morning they fill everyone in on the ghost's quest. They recite its monologue from memory (and the Wizard decides that from now on his character will be writing things down, since the wicked DM made him actually recite the monologue from memory). They dig up its grave, looking for a body, but that is long lost to dust. The Cleric assures them a handful of grave-soil will serve well enough, and they set off to the north to deliver the remains to the Hall of Refuge, thus releasing the ghost from its unfinished task.

The Hall of Refuge starts out as a small tunnel in a cliff face which leads to a marble and iron grate, long since broken open. Behind it is a vast cavern the size of a large football stadium, shrouded in darkness. Upon the ground are row after row of empty stone circles, each about three feet across. A huge iron pot and a load of firewood clearly don't belong here, but there they are, right behind the gate. A path leads back into the darkness; after finding the two sides of the cavern hundreds of feet to either side, they follow the path.

The last quarter or so of the cave reveals a change; now the stone circles are occupied by statues of men on one side and women on the other. At the very end of the path is a statue in the middle; a regal man with the scepter of a king. While the party debates what this all means, lizardfolk begin coming in through the gate.

At this point they are half a mile from the entrance, so they extinguish their lights and hide. The lizardfolk seem to be having an argument; after a while several dozen of them come walking down the path. Eventually they reach the kingly statue. The lizard chief rolls his eyes and assures his fellow tribesmen that all men taste the same, but they are adamant. They want a special treat for dinner tonight. The chieftain lifts a silver censer that hangs around his neck, mutters a mysterious word, and suddenly the statue is a living and breathing man again.

Before the king can speak the lizard warriors leap on him and bind and gag him. The party is understandably distraught and ready to intervene. However, they are scattered in the darkness, heavily outnumbered, and concerned that the lizards might just retreat and seal them in the cave; the confusion (and a little nudging from the DM to make sure his cut-scene went off as planned) result in the lizards reaching the entrance, where they leave the helpless man in the hands of a group of lizard women clearly preparing to cook dinner. Listening to the squirming man, one says, "There, there, it'll all be over in a few minutes," while another one observes, "As long as he's been standing up, you'd think he'd appreciate a bit of a lie-down."

Now that the enemy is reduced to scullions and kitchen drudges, our party feels confident enough to attack. A quick spell and few slit throats later they release the man. His first question - "Does Theronius the Doge still rule?" When the answer is confusion - the party has never heard of such a person, and in any case the ruins outside are ruled by no one, the man relaxes.

He introduces himself as Rialto, a noble of a long dead civilization. Having come to an impasse with the rulers of his day, he and his followers chose retreat rather than civil war. Specifically, they retreated to the cavern, turned themselves to stone, and set a timer for a thousand years. They would then come forth into a world which had never heard of their foes, let alone bowed to their rule. With the equipment they had set by they would issue forth and build a new kingdom.

Unfortunately, at some point the lizardfolk chieftain had discovered them and figured out how to activate the magic item that restored them to flesh. He and his tribe had consequently been eating a few people a day for the last several decades. Rialto is beside himself with rage and the need to save what remains of his people. The party quickly convinces him that they can be trusted to help. He opens a secret door and arms them with potions of Healing and rods of Scorching Ray.

Issuing forth from the tunnel, they find the lizards on their way to dinner. A huge battle ensues, or tries to ensue; most of the lizardfolk get trapped by the Druid's Entangle spell (still the most OP first level spell ever) and are slowly consumed by various swarms of vicious vermin, as the Wizard has now joined the Druid in inflicting the most horrifying death imaginable.

Several squads of lizardfolk do break free and give the Barbarian and Ranger a tough time. Turns out these guys are no mooks; they are hard to hurt and hit like pros (though still not as hard as ogres or owlbears). Another Entangle from the Ranger (who has graduated to real magic now) and a couple of spells from Rialto (who is apparently a high-level wizard), plus some blasts from the rods, finishes them off. But reinforcements are spotted in the distance.

And finally, the unintended consequences of magic: they can't harvest the souls of most of the fallen, because they're still trapped inside the writhing grasses of the Entangle spell, which would trap the party as effectively as it did their foes. Frustrated, they loot what they can, and flee the oncoming horde which looks to be even stronger than the one they just defeated.

Retreating to the library for lack of a better fortification, with the druid covering their tracks, they buy a night of relief. Rialto gives them a bit of history, revealing their actual location on the map of the continent they gained several months ago. In the middle of the night they receive a knock on what remains of the library doors (mostly destroyed by several battles). An attractive and refined young woman, by all appearances unarmed and harmless, wants to make an alliance against the lizardfolk. She desires the Censor of Animation, the item that turns stone to flesh, and is willing to let them have all the rest of the treasure in exchange for their help in destroying the chieftain. Much to everyone's surprise it is the Ranger who coldly rebuffs her in favor of helping Rialto. (By the way, this is perfect Chaotic Good behavior - the Ranger is fair and just with people he has a personal relationship with. Selling out random Edersarrian nobles doesn't bother him because he doesn't consider them part of his peer group. But Rialto is a brother-in-arms, the closest personal relationship a professional murder can form.) The Wizard stalls, asking her to come back the next day after they've had a chance to discuss things. She is dubious, but leaves with a warning that she doubts they can deal with the lizards on their own - it appears she has mistaken Rialto for merely one more of their merry band, rather than the kingly figure (and dispenser of powerful magic items) that he is.