Game log for 18 January 2015

Dramatis personae

Anêr, a swashbuckler who shares a name with an NPC bargeman

Yémos, a cleric of Dōsaútōr, goddess of wisdom and magic

Mayhem, a barbarian who is vertically challenged

Caleb, a wizard of the Order of the Sun

Quid occurrit

Anêr the bearded man set them forth on a fair spring day. He had four mules, which dragged the barge on the left side of the river. He steered and his two orc slaves pushed with poles from the barge. He knew of a few ideal camping sites, and wanted to reach them.

They passed by the village of Órkōn Wall. After this, they ran into ten soldiers wearing khaki tabards over their armor. They were leading an orc in chains towards Órkōn Wall and Rēlaístis. Yémos looked to Anêr the bargeman, and Anêr chuckled. The orc slaves cringed.

Yémos asked the soldiers what they are doing, and they told him, “We think he’s the leader of a slave insurrection. The others are all dead.” Both went on their merry way.

That evening, a man in mail and a shield showed up, and watched them from afar. Yémos asked Anêr the bargeman about him, and Anêr scoffed. “We’ve seen him before. We’re armed. He won’t do anything. Just ignore him.”

That evening, there is a light rain. The night passed with no issue.

21 Blôs went without issue. It again was a fair day with a light rain in the evening. In the middle of the night, a rainstorm hit, making the banks of the river muddy.

On the morning of 22 Blôs, the group spotted a hippogriff flying low. Anêr the bargeman says, “Oh shit! If it gets one of the mules, it’s coming out of your pay!” The hippogriff dove to claw the mule, then flew around for another pass as Yémos and Mayhem miss with their bows while Caleb misses with Sunbolt. It came around, and right after it got another swipe at the panicking mule, Yémos hit it with an arrow, then Caleb felled it with Sunbolt. Yémos healed the mule after Anêr the bargeman calmed her.

They made it to the landing of the river, and passed the night there after dining on hippogriff. The morning of the 23rd, Anêr the bargeman loaded the mules and the orcs with the grain, and they trekked until they came in sight of the mining camp. Once there, ogres took the grain, and other ogres went back to the barge to get the rest.

Pellê, the head slaver, greeted them. Thickset and craggy-mugged, she lisped as she gleefully met the new, strong men who came, especially Anêr the swordsman. A burly woman brought cinnamon buns and cookies to the newcomers while overseers passed out grain to the humanoid camps: orcs, goblins, kobolds, and ogres. Many chickens ran free in the sunny weather.

The next morning was also sunny. Pellê gave the heroes two orc slaves: Kuflaug, who had a big ring in his septum, Gaddurub, who had wet hair.

Kuflaug and Gaddurub led the gang into the mines. They walked past some miners, then a flock of bats flew into their hair before Caleb blasted them. After a few twists and turns, they came to a fork where the body of a man had started to crystalize. Some more bats flew out, and Kuflaug called the body a “landmark.”

After winding down a bit farther, they find another dead body, this one of a kobold. His lips still bore his last grin, and there was a big wound from a spear or a pick in his chest. As they were looking at the body, the baker and a kobold slave came from behind them, and offered breadstuffs. The kobold slave cringed upon seeing the body, which was only a few weeks or so old. The baker and her slave then left.

After going through a room with a small patch of small bell-shaped mushrooms, glowing emerald green that Kuflaug said they were edible, another passage came from above and back. This one was smaller, more kobold size. There is a mound of dirt against the wall opposite the passage, clearly from the surface. The dirt was not new. They marked the room and went back after Mayhem heard hubbub up the small tunnel.

Trivia

The gang wants a kobold slave for traps and small tunnels. No word if they’re going to put a red shirt on him.

I have an adventure I want to run in the mines: Caverns of Thracia. I’m adapting it to GURPS and my game world, which does mean no Dog Brothers. (Awww.) I’m putting it under some working mines, so I rolled up each encounter on the Location Crafter, since I have no yen to draw a bunch of mines that have lots of nooks and crannies and are mostly only dirt and slaves. I need to learn to use this thing better to get my three dollars worth.

I gave out three character points for the session before and two for this one.

Alia

I’m working on a few blog posts. One might wind up at the GURPS Repository, since it’s D&D dragon converted to GURPS. Right now, this is an Excel spreadsheet of the evil dragons, since there are loads of tables. Another has to do with dynamic lairs and lair detail in general. I might move that to April and make a series of lairs for the April blogging challenge. No, not A-to-Z monsters, but 26 from the original Monster Manual that I’ll convert to GURPS (or use existing GURPS stats), and write up a lair with notes for both D&D and GURPS.

Game log for 4 January 2015

Dramatis personae

Caleb, a wizard

Mayhem, a barbarian

Yémos, a cleric

Anêr, a swashbuckler

Quid occurrit

The gang started the game on the night of the 8th of Blôs. Over the next seven days, they trained. Caleb studied the craft of the Order of the Sun. Yémos worked out. Anêr learned the ins and outs of his rapier. Mayhem learned how to live up to his name better.

After almost a full moon quarter of training, they set forth on the 15th. Mayhem told the others that the weather was always bad this time of year, so they needed to be careful and not get wet. After all, rain had fallen on six of the seven days they trained. Mayhem was wrong, as the only blight to the weather was a little rain in the early evening. They were too careful, so they moved only about 10 miles, about halfway to Rēlaístis.

On the way, they passed through the village of Drūkûros, where the villagers sighed as they saw more wayfarers pass through. A few miles afterwards, they happened upon a marker of a pyre that someone made but a few days before. Whatever body had been in it was as much ash as everything else, and the rain had made it mud.

For the night, Mayhem led the group in making camp. That night, on his watch, five goons struck the camp as they slept. They caught Mayhem unaware, and one, a burly man with wood sticks in his beard, smashed Caleb while Caleb was poking his head out of the tent. To be fair, Caleb had zapped him with a Sunbolt. The bearded man and a scrawny one dealt hurt to both Anêr and Mayhem, while Yémos could not heal Caleb as his Major Healing spell fizzled. Two bandits tried taking the gear off the pony, and an archer shot arrows at Mayhem in the night.

At long last, Anêr beat down the bearded man’s defenses with two quick strikes (Rapid Strike), and he went down. The scrawny man, whom Mayhem could not harm, bolted, as did the archer and the two thieves trying to get the gear off their pony. The heroes looted the body of the bearded man, and they bound each other’s wounds before going back to bed.

The next day, Mayhem’s warnings about the rain rang true, and their care helped them get to Rēlaístis after the rain early in the morning. Late in the morning, they found a rune stone, but nobody knew what the runes meant. They passed through Térrivīš, a big but run-down village, but nobody bothered them. Pity nobody bothered them the night before.

At last, they made it to Rēlaístis, while the market was still open. Yémos sold the gear of the bearded bandit for 60 silver pennies, and then bought four healing salves. After checking in with the agents of the Zúbrēs Mining Company down at the docks, Yémos, Anêr, and Mayhem check in at the Chessman Inn for the next three days. There, Yémos chatted with Séttora, a gnome with long earlobes who owned the Chessman. After showing Yémos a bit about chess, she told him a few things about the mining company and the town.

• Those agents who have to tend slaves stay at the Hellgate tavern on the docks. The town is paranoid about slaves.
• Agents have brought weird carved items from the mines and asked around town for help identifying them. Nobody, not even the Lady Lummenólē, knew what they were, though Séttora added with a smirk, "That really isn't her area." They then brought the items down to Mīstássun.
• Speaking of Mīstássun, that's where most ore goes for smelting. Rēláistis has such an inferiority complex that its dockhands spit on the ore going south. Séttora herself cursed the Count but praised the Queen.
• The ore comes on a barge from the mines, and some of it stays in Rēláistis for local smelting. The ore barge goes then to Mīstássun, where slaves unload the ore for smelters. They then but some supplies on the barge, and send it back north to Rēlaístis. There, on market day, which happens every fourth day, they load grain and other farm goods onto the barge, and send it north to the mines. Thus, the company always has four barges on the Sarkērrêne River.

Caleb, however, stayed with Magós, an old lady with the Order of the Sun. She spoke little, but let Caleb learn spells from her books.

They stayed for three nights, and it rained often. On the 20th, the gang went down to the docks in the morning, and met with Anêr, a man with a braided beard coming from the camp. After a few remarks about there being two men named Anêr and Mayhem taking umbrage about a short remark, they all agreed they would go north that day.

Triuia

Eric asked about using Extra Effort in combat. I told him sure, but then we have to be more careful to note FP lost after ten seconds of combat.

We spent a bunch of time going over level ups for Yémos. Chris and I took care of Mayhem and Caleb before Christmas, while Anêr was easy, since it was mostly Weapon Master, which paid off right away with that Rapid Strike. He mostly bought ST; DX or IQ would also have paid off fast.

I did roll "tween" stories for while they trained. This is from Mythic Variations, since I wanted to move fast through training but have a chance of something happening. Both times I rolled, I got a 12, so whatever they were doing went quite well.

I told them I'm adapting Caverns of Thracia for the mine dungeon, and we all praised Jennell Jaquays's adventures. Eric is running Dark Tower for a bunch of kids.