Die Troglodytes Die

This follows last week's Greyhawk write-up.

Tuckras woke up while they were recovering,‭ ‬and they worked out a plan to take on the troglodytes.‭ ‬He was also really excited about the chance to see the fish priest,‭ ‬which he suspected was a kuo toa.‭ ‬Back in the smaller chamber,‭ ‬they found that a couple of troglodytes had moved ahead and camouflaged themselves for another ambush.‭ ‬Despite this,‭ ‬however,‭ ‬they went down fairly quickly.

To keep from being surrounded again,‭ ‬they had Jinso go out to pick a fight while they waited in the tunnel.‭ ‬In the narrow hallway,‭ ‬the troglodytes had to fight one at a time.‭ ‬The troglodytes were sitting around the priest while it chanted in some fishy language which no one could understand.‭ ‬Apart from Jinso's momentary temptation to abandon the plan and run off into the cavern,‭ ‬it went as planned.‭

Advancing again into the now troglodyte-free cavern,‭ ‬they found the kuo toa standing alone.‭ ‬Undaunted by their numerical advantage,‭ ‬it proceeded to lecture them in fish-speak,‭ ‬gesticulating emphatically as it did so,‭ ‬and occasionally throwing in a random thunderclap by waving its staff.‭ ‬Violence eventually broke out,‭ ‬at which point the priest called up its pet,‭ ‬a giant crayfish,‭ ‬from the pool.‭ ‬They still killed the kuo toa and wounded the crayfish enough that it fled into the underground stream.‭ ‬The kuo toa‭ ‬had‭ ‬some goodies.‭ ‬There were lots of tunnels branching away.

And that's the end of the notes. Next, they wandered through a portal to the Feywild, completely skipping the rest of the cave complex. After some poking around, they found their way to Castle Amber. They explored quite a bit of that before the campaign stalled out.

Ambush After Ambush

This follows last week's Greyhawk write-ups.

At the bottom of the stairs,‭ ‬they found a stinky rubble-strewn basement.‭ ‬Tuckras,‭ ‬the last one in,‭ ‬suddenly collapsed by the entrance.‭ ‬Vyph saw a shadowy figure dart up the stairs.‭ ‬Sakura checked on Tuckras while the others chased the shadow.‭ ‬Tuckras had a small wound like a bee sting on the back of his neck and wouldn't wake up,‭ ‬but seemed to‭ ‬be okay.‭ ‬Sakura stayed to make sure he didn't get eaten or something.

The shadowy figure ran out into the courtyard,‭ ‬pursued by the heroes.‭ ‬Jinso attacked him hand-to-hand while Vyph cast entangle on both of them.‭ ‬The assassin was a human with a big scar‭ ‬down the right side of his face.‭ ‬He had Anton in a big burlap sack for some reason.‭ ‬The fight dragged on,‭ ‬but eventually they bashed his skull in.‭ ‬They found vials of sleep poison and lethal poison,‭ ‬but‭ ‬no antidote.‭ ‬Tuckras seemed stable,‭ ‬but still refused to wake up.‭

In the course of searching the basement,‭ ‬they found some money and a three-foot high worked passageway.‭ ‬Dragging Tuckras along,‭ ‬they decided to investigate.‭ ‬The passage led to a vertical shaft of the same size.‭ ‬Anton cast light on a coin and dropped it to see how deep it was.‭ ‬Once they knew it was a manageable depth‭ (‬35‭')‬,‭ ‬they tied a‭ ‬rope to Tuckras‭' ‬bedpost staff and laid it across the shaft to anchor their rope.

At the bottom,‭ ‬they found a natural cavern.‭ ‬Sakura saw a threatening shadow‭ ‬with raised claws and blasted it with a thunderwave,‭ ‬revealing that it was actually a petrified troll.‭ ‬The arm broke off,‭ ‬so they kept that for Tuckras.‭ ‬A passageway with chiseled-out stairs led down past the troll.‭ ‬At the bottom was another natural cavern with several branching passages and a stream running through at the far end.‭ ‬There were lots of columns‭ & ‬other formations scattered about.‭

Once they all moved in,‭ ‬six camouflaged troglodytes popped out with spears and attacked.‭ ‬A fish-man with a weird‭ ‬eclectic staff kinda climbed out of the pool and commanded them to bow to the majesty of Demogorgon and‭ "‬Auntie Olga Pigtooth.‭" ‬While the troglodytes attacked,‭ ‬he made impressive thunderclap sounds and his eyes glowed.‭

The fight didn't go well.‭ ‬Both Jinso and Sakura went down,‭ ‬and the other two were wounded.‭ ‬Vyph cast darkness and,‭ ‬while the troglodytes stumbled around and picked fights with each other,‭ ‬he and Anton dragged the others out and retreated as fast as they could.

Silence of the Gnolls

I  found some notes I wrote down for the Greyhawk campaign but never shared, so here's another couple of sessions. This one wraps up Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and moves on to some spinoff adventures I added. More next week.

Silence of the Gnolls

They went back to town,‭ ‬sold some stuff,‭ ‬stashed some money at the Temple of Bralm,‭ ‬and decided to lure the smugglers in and...‭ ‬whatever.‭ ‬Stop them or something.‭ ‬They used a magical disguise and a less magical one made by skinning one of the gnoll heads.‭ ‬They managed to get aboard the Sea Ghost without incident and see the captain.‭ ‬After taking out both the captain and his wizard buddy,‭ ‬they said they were taking over the ship and offered the‭ ‬#2‭ ‬spot to the former bosun.‭ ‬Everybody went along.

The Rainbow Bridge

The party wanted to investigate the place where Sanbalet had been meeting other weevils,‭ ‬so they sailed off in the Sea Ghost to Dunwater,‭ ‬another coastal town between Saltmarsh and the Javan River.‭ ‬Anton wasn't feeling well,‭ ‬so he stuck around in Saltmarsh.‭ ‬Tuckras worked on his sailing skills and got to know the pirates better.‭ ‬It wasn't a long trip.

The trading camp at the mouth of the Dunwater River had been ransacked.‭ ‬There were dead weevils,‭ ‬dead lizard men,‭ ‬dead humans,‭ ‬and debris.‭ ‬There were tracks heading off to the north,‭ ‬into to Hool Marshes.‭ ‬The road ran along a narrow causeway.‭ ‬Eventually they came to a bridge along over a gap in the causeway.‭ ‬Blocking the bridge in an arch shape,‭ ‬they found a transparent gelatinous creature which attacked‭ ‬them when they got close.‭ ‬During the fight,‭ ‬it managed to‭ "‬swallow‭" ‬Jinso,‭ ‬but he survived.‭

The trail ended at a small castle,‭ ‬more a guardhouse,‭ ‬really with a sludgy moat around it.‭ ‬The building was in ruins except for‭ ‬a fortified tower in the back.‭ ‬They poked around the courtyard,‭ ‬then decided to investigate a crumbly tower by the entrance before moving on to the solid building.‭ ‬The ruined tower was full of creepy shadows and whispering voices,‭ ‬and a spider-like creature that could teleport through the‭ ‬shadows.

The next room had a couple of carrion crawlers that attacked them from the walls and ceiling.‭ ‬Beyond,‭ ‬they found an ominous stairway.

Greyhawk Again

Couple more Greyhawk sessions:

Secret Rooms

Undaunted by scary voices, they soon found a hidden trapdoor with a stairway under it. They found a barracks room with a big dining table and a pirate-looking dude whittling. Creeping up on the dude, they took him captive. They asked about Ferok and the dude said he was Dobbins, Ferok's butler. He said they preferred to keep "troublemakers" away, which was why they didn't do much to maintain the place. Looking around, they found a dead knight of Keoland covered with mold, and Sakura was attacked by giant centipedes in the kitchen upstairs (different stairway).

In a different nook, they found a bedroom/office which apparently belonged to the bossman. After looting it, they moved on to the door in the back that said, "DANGER" in big letters across the wooden slab that barred it from their side. In this room, they found a bunch of skeletons with bright green slimy stuff crawling all over their bones. Beyond this room, another secret door led them to an alchemist's laboratory. They snuck up behind him and clocked him on the head, knocking it clean off because he was actually just a skeleton (the non-reanimated kind) sitting in a chair. He had some books on alchemy, a number of goldified items on his table, and, clutched in his hand, a weird pale gold pebble, which Jinso immediately claimed.

Smugglers and Sneks

They started to explore the rest of the house, but some weird screams brought them back to the basement, where they found Dobbins edging his way off towards the other end of the big room. He said he was trying to get himself a bit of grog, but he was going the wrong way for that. A bit of searching revealed yet another secret door, this one leading into some artificially-enlarged caverns.

Out thataway, they found a bunch of nautically themed dudes moving bolts of cloth and casks of something around. They tried to be sneaky, but got caught so there was a big fight. There were also some gnolls hanging around and a guy in a hood slinging spells. Upon his death, the hooded wizard turned out to be some kind of wingless insect creature with a long mosquito-like snout.

They also found a sea cave with boat anchored in it and some more silk and brandy. They explored the rest of the house and then went back to ask their captive some more questions. Seeing that they already knew what was up, he gave up trying to hide anything and told them about their smuggling operation and the illusionist Sanbalet who made the house look haunted and how they signaled the ship.

Dobbins seemed genuinely surprised that Sanbalet was really a giant weevil, but said he had seen him talk to similar creatures on one of their stops near the mouth of the Javan River.

Sailing to Saltmarsh

The end of the previous session saw Tuckras, Jinso, and Vyph marooned on an island with a bunch of vegepygmies. This session, we met Anton, a young human cleric of Pelor, and Sakara, an elf rogue from the Lendore Isles. They were on a ship headed to Monmurg for reasons of their own when a storm blew them off course.

The ship crashed on -- you guessed it -- the island where the other three were. After rescuing everyone who didn't drown or get eaten by the giant eel, they got to know each other a bit. Vyph noticed that a large lifeboat thingie had survived the crash in pretty good condition, but didn't say anything until they started talking about building a ship of their own to get back.

The sailors knew where Saltmarsh was, but advised them to head for Monmurg first because it was much closer and they would already be rowing for a week in the crowded boat. Luckily, Anton and Sakara had managed to hang on to their provisions and were willing to share. And Vyph spent a lot of the time swimming on his own. They all made it back to Monmurg, where the sailors went their own way and the others headed for a nearby inn.

Everyone decided to stick together and buy passage to Saltmarsh, a smallish town on the edge of Keoland's border, between Dreadwood and the Hool Marshes. At Nick's Tavern, Tuckras spoke with a half-elf adventurer named Koral while Vyph terrorized Yuri the trapper for sporting a lizard skin (lizardfolk skin?) jacket and boots.

After steering the naive young Anton into a dockside brothel for giggles, they visited an apothecary and an abandoned shop on Crest Street where someone who might have been Ferok (the alchemist they were looking for) probably worked. They found a really moldy book and a note that led them to believe Ferok had relocated to the creepy old mansion five hours down the road to the east.

They picked up Anton and headed off to the seaside mansion, finding it overgrown and dilapidated. Inside, Sakara picked up some footprints, which they followed down the hall, investigating side rooms along the way. While poking around the living room, they were confronted by a ghostly voice which proclaimed their doom and laughed maniacally.

We stopped there for the night.

A Lizard Walks Into a Bar

(Two of our gang had to cancel at the last minute, so this was a quickie intro adventure. The character backgrounds for this session and some recent events are at the bottom.) After an awkward meeting in Monmurg involving Tuckras's spirit guides, Jinso had a few drinks and expressed his interest in finding more of his kind. Vyph, fascinated by the prospect of more "tiny meats," was willing to help, and Tuckras, after a brief argument with no one, also agreed.

Asking around, they discovered that a colony of halflings with "a bit of the same look about 'em" had been established on an island out past Fairwind back before the wars. They poked around a bit more, then hired some sailors to drop them off there. They found an overgrown jungle island where, after a bit of exploring, they noticed that small creatures were stalking them in the canopy.

This led to a fight with a bunch of fungus midgets, which they eventually won. Later they found a compound with several sheds and an abandoned laboratory. In the notes, the author wrote about having run out of subjects to "convert" so further research would have to be conducted elsewhere. The prospect of contacting the alchemist, Ferok, in Saltmarsh was mentioned.

They decided to go to Saltmarsh... once they figured out how to get off the island.

Recent Events

In CY 579, the devil-worshipping Overking of Aerdy declared war on several of his kingdom's former vassal states in an attempt to reunify this Empire. This, combined with Rary's betrayal of the Circle of Eight, marked the beginning of the Darkfang Wars, a period which saw the destruction of Geoff by invading giants, the invasion of the Sea Princes, Idee, Onwal, and other territories by the Scarlet Brotherhood, and uprisings from the Pomarj, The Horned Society, and Iuz. The name of the war comes from the curved, obsidian-like knives that proliferated during the period, but utterly vanished afterwards.

The Great Kingdom is gone, its former capitol a fiend-haunted wasteland, but its successors are relatively stable. The Horned Society is no longer a nation, although the order remains a widespread cult. The Scarlet Brotherhood has not been heard from in years. Their former vassals are reforming, with the exception of the Sea Princes, which remains only a tenuous alliance of city-states. Geoff is still mostly wild land, even though the organized invasion of giants was driven off. It's CY 591 now,

Players So Far

Jinso Kuna - Halfling Monk
Jinsokuna Ashi Gosutodoragon was raised at a remote overseas monastery.  According to his masters, he was stranded at the monastery as an infant when he was the sole survivor of a shipwreck.  He was raised and trained -but not respected- by his masters because of his diminutive size.  Hence, his extreme dislike of being called small or tiny.  He left the monastery answering the call of wanderlust and in search of his own people to learn more about himself.  He struggles between his inherited chaotic Kender nature and the structured training of his masters.  He will often speak of the teachings of Master Furui.

Tuckras Grigorrin - Human Cleric/Warlock
An orphan in Ket, Tuckras was raised by priests of Istus, wandered for a while, then settled in the Bramblewood Forest to hang out with the spirit voices that constantly plague him. Then he wandered off again. He is very tall and lanky with fair, almost pale skin. His long, black hair is disheveled as is his long beard. His eyes are a piercing blue. The overall effect is one of wisdom beyond his years, but with, perhaps, a touch of madness. His presence, though, is compelling. He carries a staff that looks suspiciously like a tall bedpost. The globe at the top of the bedpost staff is intricately carved to represent Oerth, and it appears to have some bird's foot and tail feather tied to it.

Vyph - Lizardfolk Druid
Yep, he's a big ole lizard.

Greyhawk!

Even though I never had many people at my local Keep on the Borderlands sessions, I was really getting into the module and the World of Greyhawk development I was doing around it. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for geeky things to put on the wall of my new study, and I came across this old map. It's far too fragile to fold and unfold on a regular basis, but it's a great poster. 

Once it was up, I just sat there and stared at it for, like, two hours. Possibly the absinthe had something to do with that. Anyway, I kept revisiting all the places we'd been on that map, and I finally decided that, with the in-store game getting less appealing and my Icons campaign on hiatus, I might as well go for it.

I went with Hangouts because there were people I was hoping to play with who live a long ways away, and ended up with a significant portion of my old D&D group from way back. Started them out on the coast in Sea Princes territory for a quickie intro adventure. Next time we start Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.

#RPGaDay 22: Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

Kind of a meh question for me, but here's a second-hand purchase that was kind of fun. I found this at a used book store, filed with travel books and maps from real places. I don't know if the shop owner didn't know or just didn't care what it was. Anyway, I was still a kid and the fact that it was only $1.95 was a big plus. This is actually still my preferred World of Greyhawk reference. The others all filled in details that I had already made up for myself, and of course there's that irritating thing where they insist on moving the date forward and including the effects of events that didn't happen in my campaign.

Lost in the Barrier Peaks

I run a lot of convention games, and I've noticed some people actually use it as venue for sort of disjointed campaigns, posting the events of each session online and catching new players up at the start. And I'm sure lots of people have tried running campaigns that work along the lines of the TV series Lost, with a group of characters starting off in a limited environment, surrounded by tangled history and tantalizing partial revelations. That being the case, there's nothing magically inspirational about combining those two, but...