Game log for 24 July 2018: Strange things are afoot at Érrōn Point

Dramatis personae

Xóran, fox-man scout
Kim, thief
Mayhem, short barbarian
Ash, squire
Grymálkus, whiny cleric of the war god
Caleb, wizard
Áttikos, holy warrior of the sun god
Kôštē, cleric of the farming goddess

Quid occurrit

The heroes set forth for Érrōn Point, taking Bašêr with them, along with Áttikos. On the road, the heroes ran into eight older bandits. The leader, a man with bloodshot eyes, shouted, “Pay up on the toll for the Queen!” Xóran bade the old man to back down, but he spurned Xóran's handout.

The battle was short (in game time; it took over an hour of real time) and swift. Kim went down after her backstab didn't get through a bandit's armor, but otherwise it went fine. Bašêr, the High Cleric of Saundīvós, healed Kim after moping for a bit.

After looting their gear, which included many doses of Monster Drool, Xóran drilled the bandits to see whence they came. One came from Érrōn Point while another two were from Rēláištiš; they were the only ones still awake, as the others were down. They were farmers who had been mercenaries in their youth and now had taken to striking wayfarers owing to bad harvests. Xoran told them to go home and live with their grown children or to kill themselves, and it he saw them trying to rob others again, he would kill them himself. After that, he bade the living bandits to take their knocked out or belimbed brethren with them, and to bury their dead.

They made it to Érrōn Point not long before nightfall. They knocked on the door, and Néttōr’s manservant opened. Right after opening, he spontaneously combusted.

Uh-oh.

Néttōr didn’t like this one bit. Bašêr said nobody did anything to his servant, but didn’t want to upset anyone. Grymálkus, however, gave a long-winded speech about giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, while Mayhem gathered some herbs and gave them to Bašêr to chew.

After a speech and some chewing, Bašêr was ready. “Bring me the foul girdle!” He grabbed Dīdótē and took her outside. Then, with the last light of the day, he undertook the long ritual of casting Remove Curse. While Bašêr was casting, Áttikos was looking into the sky and looking for some sign from Saundīvós.

With the last light of day, the whole crowd lit up so bright that they cast no shadows. That is, the whole crowd other than Néttōr. Áttikos took that to mean that somehow he was shrouded in darkness. Meanwhile, Dīdótē got her godly gastric bypass surgery and went back to being curvy instead of fat.

After all this, the group trudged back to Praigên’s house, and spent the night there chatting. Both Áttikos and Bašêr agreed the shadow was a sign from Saundīvós. However Grymálkus, who took a good look at Néttōr, didn’t think he was possessed. Bašêr said he would undertake an Augury the next morning, which he did do, finding out that Lord Néttōr was indeed in league with dark forces.

So, they took Bašêr back to Mīstássun, then trudged back to Érrōn Point. Áttikos, Kôštē, and Grymálkus chose to preach to the flock of Érrōn Point to give the others cover for snooping. (Kôštē was also bothered to find out that Krellévos, the cleric of Rōripermónē in Érrōn Point, was a womanizing hack.) Mayhem and Kim hid to get a good look at the manor house.

And so they watched it for eight days, until the Love Feast of Lutōdîvē on the Winter Solstice.

Res aliae

Hey, you give your players some rope, and they take it in unintended directions. Which is totally cool. Actually, when I wrote the basics of this, I had no idea just how they'd handle it if they ever ran into it. I’ve given no hints beyond what is here about what is going on with Néttōr. Roman, who plays Xóran and Grymálkus, thinks it’s a vampire.

This is definitely a non-standard Dungeon Fantasy scenario, and some of the players are relishing it. Much of it comes from my attempt to build something of an urban crawl into the setting. Since this area isn't heavily populated, I treated the whole lot of human settlements as a big, dispersed city, and made sure to have the different layers interact with each other. I think this one comes from the noble crawl layer.

My random encounter tables for civilization are the Road Encounters in the D30 Sandbox Companion, and I'm starting to get sick of all the bandits. So I wound up rewriting them this afternoon for future use. Mind you, I still think this is one of the greatest supplements ever written, but I'm getting way too many encounters, especially weak bandits.

Game log for 13 March 2016

Dramatis personae

Anêr, swashbuckler
Mayhem, barbarian
Caleb, wizard
Yémos, cleric

Quid occurit

After Kim's death, the rest of the gang slept through the night, then left the dungeon.

However, as they were almost to the tunnel out, they ran into five little children with bulging eyes and bloated heads, all bearing knives. The little doomchildren rushed at the heroes, and the heroes fought back. Nobody's blows struck true until Caleb shot one with a Sunbolt, and that little bugger blew up. Caleb, Mayhem, and the horse all took some of the blast. Everyone got up from the ground, then started fighting again, though Anêr tried grabbing at the leg of one of them instead, which he could not do. When they got up, another doomchild stabbed Anêr, who was still on the ground. Caleb, thinking that his spell made the first doomchild blow up, stepped forward and stabbed one, and …

Chain reaction. When the heroes looked up, they saw only the burnt husks of the doomchildren and their knives, which they took. They healed each other and their horse, then took off down the tunnel out. In the tunnel, they fought off six centipedes as big as men, killing four before the others ran off.
When they got out of the tunnel, they walked out to see a lovely sunny morning. They headed out of the woods, and after two days of no bother, they spent the night in Lúrās, in the home of Dergíā, a middle-aged widow with deep-set eyes. After breakfast the next morning, they walked towards Mīstássun, where maybe someone could resurrect Kim.

On the road, about midday, they saw some folks in the bushes along the side of the road, and both Mayhem and Caleb ducked away from their hail of arrows. Mayhem and Anêr rushed to fight the goons who came out, Caleb started casting an Explosive Fireball, and Yémos got his bow ready. Caleb singed three of the bandits before one bandit each shield rushed Mayhem and Anêr.

Anêr stabbed the bandit who had rushed him, and with a twitch of his sword, he gave him a good slash that the bandit could not block. The bandits then struck, and all either missed outright, saw their blows parried, or only hit armor. However, they did step aside so their bowmen could shoot Mayhem and Anêr, who took their arrows in their chests. Mayhem then killed the goon afore him with his axe, and Caleb lobbed a Fireball at one of the goons, who got out of the way.

Anêr stood fast, and both he and Mayhem parried the blows of two of the goons. The other four turned and fled. Mayhem knocked down one of the two goons left, while Yémos missed both him and Mayhem with a bow shot. Anêr gave a quick feint and a stab at the heart of the last one. Afterwards, the gang ransacked the bodies and found 201 copper farthings, 201 silver pennies, and 14 gold pieces. Yémos bound the wounds of the two goons who still breathed, and they went on to Mīstássun.

Once in Mīstássun, they went to the church of Saundīvós, where the midsummer Festival of Light was wrapping up. The guards went to fetch Bašêr, the high priest, while the heroes ate the last of the cheese with caraway seeds and crescent rolls with bacon and onions. Bašêr came and seemed glum, but after a two-hour ceremony with as many lay worshippers as he could find, he brought Kim back to life.

Since the heroes didn't have anywhere near the 6,000 copper farthings, Bašêr instead told them of a quest. As Bašêr wanted to make a bigger church but couldn't get the money for it from the main church in Gōkêsun, he thought having a holy relic would raise the worth of the church in Mīsarkênē. So, he told them of the Boots of Saint Hubbins, the patron saint of quality footwear, which were in the swamp.

That night, they went back to the Pantry, where there was only four folks. Arrūnús told them that the Princess of Gold, a bard from Kešūmménē, was in town, playing the town's taverns. Tonight she was at Wild Cats, a tavern in the Smelters Ward, so that is where the crowd was. One of the four folks in the Pantry was Ash, a young man who was well-armed and looking to link up with a group of heroes.

Meanwhile, the next day, Caleb went to the sage Prainêr, and looked through his books for anything about Saint Hubbins. He found that Saint Hubbins's last battle was against a big—like 100 ft. long big—snake with an eye on an eyestalk.

Res aliae

As bad as all the random encounter rolls were last session, this time they were good. Little happened. They made it back to town with few hitches, and they got a quest in the swamp.

The battle with the bandits was a random encounter, which took the place of the idea I had of running a mock battle so the players could try combat tricks without any problems. The bandits were weak enough, so John started trying things like Feints and Hit Locations. I don't think he'll have trouble remembering All-Out Defense as well. The more they remember this stuff, the more I can remember other things.