Keep on the Borderlands Session 1

I'm sorry I didn't post this sooner.  This session actually occurred on Monday but due to several distractions I forgot to post a session recap.  Sadly, we didn't play on Wednesday as originally planned, but we should have more fun in the keep this evening.

For this session I stole two rules from the Rules Cyclopedia.  One was the alternate death mechanics presented in the back, and the other was the way that neutral Clerics can eventually become Druids.  Obviously the second change wouldn't affect any party going to the Caves of Chaos much, but my wife decided to play a neutral Cleric anyway.  The PC Paladin that had delved into Nightwick Abbey returned and was grandfathered in.  Future Paladin's will have to be Lawful Fighters of name level and above.

The party arrived at the famous Keep and exchanged information (read: rumor table results).  However, two members were rather tight lipped about what they knew.  They had both been told that they should be wary of betrayal, and were not quite comfortable with their compatriots yet.  The Keep was largely welcoming, despite the fact that the party was overwhelmingly Neutral.  The Magic-User assured the guards that they were there to kill "icky monsters" within the caves.  This seemed satisfactory to all who heard it.

After getting a few supplies, and suffering through the constant repetition of the only British accent I was able to conjure up that night, the party set off to the Caves.  One of their hirelings had just returned from a failed foray that had been repelled by an Ogre working with a tribe of Goblins.  Still, he was willing to lead the party there and join them in their endeavors if they payed him enough.  I wanted to get them to whatever location they wished to explore fairly quickly and this NPC seemed to do the trick.

Once there, they entered the Kobold cave.  Before they had entered a full 10', they already heard footsteps heading down the corridor to their right.  Shortly after, the front rank of the party fell into a large pit.  A large number of Kobolds soon appeared in what could best be described as a phalanx formation.  The party engaged in some heavy fighting, losing their Magic-User in the process.  One of there number was captured, but they were able to ransom him back before returning to the keep with their tails between their legs.

Back at the keep the party met two thieves (one was a replacement for the Magic-User, and the other player had arrived late).  After a bit of negotiating in the tavern they set out once again.  This time they were considerably luckier.  They attempted to enter the Ogre cave, which only woke up the rather ornery beast.  They were greeted by something that more or less looked like this:

They attempted to negotiate with the lummox, but eventually talks broke down.  The party won initiative and killed the creature before it had time to swat at any body.  They search the lair and found a considerable amount of treasure within.  Bolstered by their success, they decided to take on another rank smelling cave a bit further west down the ravine.  This was the Shunned Cavern, and the Fighter was absolutely delighted by the sheer number of bones within.  He went about cracking them open to find treasure, as is his custom.  He did in fact find a few electrum pieces.  He also attracted an Owlbear.  Though the beast managed to get a few good shots in on the Paladin, it too was slain before being able to inflict any real damage on the party.

Crushing even more bones attracted an army of rats which quickly swarmed over party and ended one of the thieves.  Now significantly lower on supplies, the party beat feet back towards the keep.  The thief was quickly replaced by a Frogling who was apparently a traveling gourmand.  The Paladin was a bit irritated to find that the local Curate was quite uninterested in lending him any aid but was able to secure a bed for himself within the church.

Their final foray took them to the Goblin caves.  They were attacked by two organized forces of Goblins, but somehow managed to repel both with some effort.  The Paladin took to killing his surrendering opponents.  Since Goblins are born and bred for devil worship, I'm not sure whether or not this count's as an alignment infraction.  If he were Lawful Good I would say it does but since I only use the Lawful v. Chaotic scale I wasn't sure about what I should do.  Next they found a large chamber with a bottle necked entrance that they were certain contained Goblins.  Some negotiation took place, and the Paladin made a lone suicidal rush for the creatures, but was quite unwilling to engage once he discovered most were females and children.

This, combined with the perceived slight by the Curate, led the Paladin to renounce his ways and become a fighter.  Normally I probably would have handled this differently, but since i was eager to switch as much as possible over to the RC I let it go.

The last leg of this foray took them to the Hobgoblin's common room.  Tough fighting here led to the third character death of the Night (the other thief) and the party's general unwillingness to deal with non-combatants has soured them a bit.  The players themselves had quite a bit of fun, it is their characters who are a bit worried about returning for future forays.

All in all a good session.  I am a bit disappointed with the Caves of Chaos, but I do like the keep itself and the accompanying map.  The expeditions to the Caves did wind up being guerrilla attacks on humanoid encampments, but they were at least entertaining.  I would have liked to have a bit more exploration.  The "women and children" issue continues to bother me and my players, but hopefully we shall come up with some way to mitigate it before tonight's session.

I'm beginning to think that I've made the Church a bit draconian.  I'm perfectly fine with Neutral characters (and usually play one myself) but out of the three parties that have been created for the Dark Country only a handful of characters have been of Lawful Alignment.  I'm not sure if this is merely player preference or if I have unwittingly made the Church a bit too dickish.  I don't want them to be the "right answer," but they aren't supposed to be the bad guys of the setting either.

What Santa Brought

Here is my Old School Gaming hall:

D&D Rules Cyclopedia
T1 The Village of Hommlet
B4 The Lost City

Plus the Keep on the Borderlands, which I mentioned earlier.

Not a bad hall if I say so myself.  Are are in immaculate condition, and I'm quite tempted to switch over to a Rules Cyclopedia based game.

Edit:  I also received the 3rd, 4th, and 5th books of Lankhmar.  Not entirely D&D related, but I'd wager most who were interested in what D&D stuff I received would also be interested in my ever increasing Leiber collection.

Borderlands Update

I thought I'd do an update of where I am in the preparation process.  I've read over the module a couple of times, but will need to do so a few more so that I can better internalize the relationships between the different cave complexes.

The first thing I did was write up about 30 male names and 20 female names to use for the various unnamed NPCs in the keep.  I plan on assigning them in play rather than doing it in advance.  Most of these are names taken from the various crusade chronicles I've read in my academic career and therefore are medieval French in origin.  I rather like the fact that the module doesn't name the NPCs as it allows an enterprising DM to better customize the names to fit his or her campaign.

I've also written up room descriptions to replace the Orcish common rooms in B and C.  I won't be revealing what's inside until after the players have encountered it or until this whole thing is over, whichever comes first.

I'm working on a background for the Borderlands area that fleshes out the origins of the various dungeons and the Keep and also ties it into the World of Nightwick.  I'll post it here when I'm finished.

I still need to label the different geographical features on the wilderness map.  I'm not going to rename the Keep because I think people are generally unoriginal in their naming patterns and the Keep on the Borderlands might be as much of a name as such a structure could ever have.  I also need to figure out which demon the Shrine of Evil Chaos is dedicated to.

I'm also going to put my largely unfinished homebrew dungeon in place of the Cave of the Unknown.  I'm not very far in stocking it, but I may have more time to do so.  I also need to figure out a background for the Cave of the Unknown to explain why it's filled with all the weird shit I'm going to put in it.

The wilderness map is by far my favorite part of the module.  It really allows for the kind of exploration that I think is the heart of OSD&D.  I do have some issues with the Caves of Chaos.  They seem fairly deadly.  They also are a bit too inhabited to really provide the kind of exploration that I feel is so necessary to a good D&D experience.  I might be proved wrong once play commences, but it seems more like expeditions to the caves are guerrilla assaults on the forces of evil rather than exploring a location.  Still, the Shrine of Evil Chaos is the kind of thing that fits very well into the World of Nightwick.  I just wish there was a tad more weirdness and empty space.

My dungeon is going to largely be stocked along the lines of the Mentzer basic book and as such will have a bit more weird elements and empty space than the Caves do.

Board Game Idea

Players each take the role of a group of Dwarves seeking to take back their mountain home.  Each group has its own claimant to the throne of the Mountain King, but only one can actually sit upon it.  There are also the denizens of the hall itself to contend with.  It will not be easy to rebuild the kingdom of the Dwarves.

Each player gets to select a Dwarf Prince and the members of his retinue.  A combination of randomness and player choice decides the layout of the Dwarf Hold.  Same goes for the reason it was abandoned, which then also decides what terrors lurk inside for the Dwarves.  The winner is the group that survives the longest, or gets enough treasure and followers to clear out the mine and declare their claimant king.

Keep on the Borderlands

I have received Keep on the Borderlands as an early Christmas present.  I was quite surprised how just flipping through a few pages and scanning a few maps fired my imagination.  This is partly because my copy is in pristine condition and largely because of the quality of the product.

I'm currently in my home town, and next week I'm supposed to run three sessions of D&D for my old gaming/high school buddies.  Originally I was going to run a homebrew adventure, but now I'm dead set on running them through the Caves of Chaos and the surrounding wilderness.  I've never run this module, which as I understand it means that I haven't completed one of my OSD&D rites of passage.  I aim to rectify this.

The module itself is, from my skimming, broadly compatible with the World of Nightwick.  So far I've just had to change the word "Elf" to "Changeling" in a few places.  The biggest change I will be making to the module is designed to accommodate my take on Orcs.  Since they don't breed normally, I have removed non-combatants from those caves and replaced them with a rather nasty surprise for potential delvers.  Otherwise the caves will go untouched since the other humanoids of the World (at least the ones in this module) do mate in the usual fashion.  I may replace the Kobolds with Mites, but I may not.

I'll post play reports and development updates here.  Hopefully I'll be able to give you a good dose of behind the screen information in both.  This will be my first time running a TSR D&D module.  I'm very interested to see how it goes.

Wish me luck.

Have a Scary Solstice

Monster Monday: Gibberlings

Gibberlings are horrible creatures who lair in the deep places of the world.  There they spring forth fully-formed from great, black pools.  When they emerge they are already armed with a strange sword that bears no resemblance to anything made by a human culture.  These weapons are horrible to look upon and bear strange patterns and etchings that seem to be a mockery of human art.

Their faces are bat-like, like the demon Azazel who they serve.  Their bodies are covered in a blue-black fur that makes them difficult to see in the darkness.  They are rarely seen outside of their lairs, and since there exist few people brave enough to enter the dark places in which they dwell they are rarely seen at all.  They communicate using only chaotic meepings.  They whine and gibber and cackle and pop and smack and screech.  Due to the large numbers in which they are encountered, the noise they make can be deafening.  Many a brave warrior or noble follower has fled even before the creatures came into sight.

Due to the fact that they seldom venture out of their dark lairs, the are the subject of scant few folk tales.  Those that exist are used to caution naughty children.  There is one which breaks this mold however.  Though the Gibberling connection is tenuous, some bards sing of a town that made yearly sacrifices to some force out in the forest.  One day a wandering priest entered the town and demanded that the good folk stop this demonic practice.  The next day the town was barren.  Not man nor beast was seen in the town or the woods around it for miles.  All was stillness.  And all still is, or so the stories say.  The legend places the town as whatever nearby ruin the bard finds convenient to scare his patrons. Still, stories start somewhere.