The group examined more rooms in the southeast quadrant — a gymnasium/training room connected to a barracks, and a bedroom belonging to Zeligar, a wizard and former master(?) of this domain.  The group found two magical weapons (mace +1, hand axe +1) over the course of their searches.  Their exploration of the southeast area now complete, the party backtracked to the room containing the elf-maiden statue that resembled the tapestry of Zerissa.  Wondering if this statue was the selfsame maiden under an enchantment, they attempted to use some of her personal effects to revive her — alas, to no avail.  Shrugging, they made their way over to the passage near the secret laboratory (southwest quad) to check out some of the other passages there.

The party was soon ambushed by a band of armed halfling bandits, members of the Greenleaf Gang!  The PCs got the drop on the Greenleafs, and a sleep spell laid out the whole bunch.  The gang members were stripped of their weapons and armor, tied together, and dragged to the room containing the strange pools.  The Lawful heroes Calveric and Detmar were struggling to keep their desires for revenge against the gang (who had previously robbed them of a fine mule and a bunch of loot) in check, and refrained from tossing any of the prisoners into the green slime pool.  (To intimidate the halflings into talking, they did throw one into the similar-looking sleep pool…)  They learned that the gang boss was waiting outside with a large contingent of gang members, and some dubious information about the extent of the complex and its denizens — the halflings boldly asserted that they had descended five levels, where they had encountered a dragon and other beasts.  The group decided to send one prisoner out with a message for the boss, to set up a meeting; the plan was to make an arrangement with the gang based on the intelligence received: the two groups would team up to delve into the deeper levels for mutual profit, with the the gang providing extra manpower to fight monsters, and the party offering healing and magical support.  The boss didn’t show up for the meet, so the PCs went back to their exploration with a string of prisoners in tow.

After acquiring some tools from a workroom, the party was trapped in a dead-end passage by a portcullis that had clanged down.  Eager to try out his new hacksaw, Detmar began sawing at the rusty bars — without thinking about using combined strength to lift the bars.  It wasn’t until after a stinky lizardlike creature appeared and observed the characters through the bars that the group decided to try to lift the gate.  They contemplated shooting the troglodyte in the back, but curiosity won out.  After following it down several passages — all the while unsuccessfully attempting to communicate with it in a smattering of human and humanoid languages — they ended up having to fight it and the two other trogs it met up with.  The battle against these tough foes was complicated when the halfling prisoners started acting up, attempting to entangle Rowley (who had guard duty) and steal daggers from his belt.  The two-front melee was taxing on the PCs, but they managed to defeat the trogs and slay the halflings, a task they fell to with grim enthusiasm.

They decided to dump the carved-up, arrow-riddled halfling corpses at the junction where the failed rendezvous with “the boss” was to have happened, along with a note: “Dear Greenleaf Gang, the blood of these halflings is on your hands and heads.  By refusing our offer to parley, you betrayed and doomed your loyal followers.”  They then retreated to the mess hall, barricaded the door, and hoped to rest and recover from their wounds…

• Over the Christmas holiday I had a chance to re-watch one of my favorite fantasy movies, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.  During the movie I kept thinking about how fun it could be to run a similarly-themed adventure.  I’d probably use BoL for the system and the Wilderlands’ Isles of the Blest region for the map and some hex descriptions.  I could actually see something like this happening after the Pter Nuum adventure wraps up, but time (and the PCs) will tell…
• Fading Suns or Traveller: New Era 1248, two sf settings I really dig.  In either case, I’d double-up my new game accomplishments by running it with a different system: I’d most likely use Under the Moons of Zoon, Barbarians of the Aftermath, or Stars Without Number, but I’m not sure which.
• On the boardgame/quasi-RPG front, reading about Lego Heroica at Grognardia and elsewhere has got my brain churning.  My 5-year old nephew is bananas about Legos right now, and I can’t think of a better “gateway drug.”  Contemplating picking up one of the sets, he may not quite grok the rules but we’ll see.

After climbing the stair again, the party decided to examine the sealed rooms.  Both released wights that immediately attacked the group, but fortunately the adventurers were able to overcome the monsters with relative ease.  Among the treasure found in the wights’ sarcophagi was a magical copper bracelet that seemed to improve Khelios’s balance when he put it on his arm.  They also found a scroll tube containing a map, annotated to state that the Axe had been secreted out of the city to another hidden location.  Despite this information, the party decided to pursue their original plan — to capture or kill a snake-man and present his body to the statue in the tomb shrine.

Before leaving the tomb, they decided to explore the secret westbound tunnel.  After neutralizing a trap (set to spring on anyone traveling east through the tunnel towards the tomb), they made their way west and then northwest for several hundred yards before the tunnel dead-ended at a door.  Looking through the spy-panel, they saw a storeroom lit by a flickering torch, which was soon taken out by a misshapen, hairy humanoid figure…

***

The session went pretty well despite its brevity — actually it ended at just the right time, as my map for the next dungeon area wasn’t keyed yet!  I based the tomb area on Dyson Logos’ Burial Mound of Esur the Red, albeit with a good bit of tweaking.  (Thanks Dyson, hope all is well!)

Still working out the monster conversions.  Sometimes I feel like the monsters aren’t enough of a challenge to the party, but I don’t know how much of that is monster stats versus luck of the dice.  In the wight encounters for instance, the party rolled well and the wights rolled poorly.  Only Swervy was hit by their draining ability.  Since BoL doesn’t use levels, I had the wights drain a point of a random attribute; I haven’t decided yet the duration of the drain, but since Swervy’s player wasn’t present I feel like I shouldn’t make it permanent.

Until next time!

The arrival of morning found the trio of adventurers — monk-assassin Swervy and sword-maidens Ada and Basula — preparing breakfast and re-examining the strange black obelisk in the jungle clearing.  They were soon joined by their wizard colleague Khelios, who arrived on the back of a summoned giant dragonfly.  (During the course of his research, Khelios was informed of the party’s expedition to the lost city; believing the ruin to be a potentially incredible trove of magical knowledge, he decided to seek them out by means of a magic spell and join the adventure.)

Using his copper bowl, Khelios cast another spell to try to determine the direction of the city; due to his extremely limited knowledge, the spell only gave a general northerly direction.  With no further ado, the party set off deeper into the jungle according to the spell’s indication.  Their first encounter was with two human corpses riddled with poisoned darts.  Closer inspection turned up a strange snake-fang necklace on one of the bodies.  They carefully avoided a sandy clearing where tentacles snaked from the sand to try to draw in prey and eventually came to a larger clearing where many of the trees had been pulled down by climbing vines, leaving only broken, ivy-covered stumps stretching like broken towers (inspired by Kauai’s “Green Room”).  As the adventurers made their way through this verdant space, they were beset by ropy vines that snaked out from the undergrowth to curl around legs and bodies.  Once coiled around prey, the vines would attempt to draw the victim towards the vegetation-covered mounds from which they emerged.  The group fought to chop through vines, stay upright and resist being pulled towards the tooth-filled mouths of the mounds.  After a fierce struggle the characters managed to slay the monsters; through a combination of skill and luck, they emerged from the battle somewhat shaken but physically unharmed.

The narrow trail led from the large clearing through the jungle to a steep rocky slope cut with switchbacks.  Three cave openings were visible at points along the ascending trail.  The group opted to avoid the first cave (thick with cobwebs) and the second (some slithery snake-like tracks leading in), but were curious about the third (booted humanoid footprints).  They eschewed the caves in favor of continuing to the top of the slope in hopes of spotting the city.  They didn’t see it immediately, but a short trek into the jungle led them to a massive crater.  The 100′ cliff looked down onto the ruins of Nem Piat below; the city’s great ziggurats and a grand domed structure of crystal still stood watch over the crumbling buildings and courtyards.

The party decided against rappelling down into the massive crater for fear of disturbing any unseen creatures potentially nesting in the cliff face.  Returning to the uppermost cave entrance (with the boot prints), they carefully made their way through a long, winding tunnel (and a large spiked pit trap) and entered the city at ground level.  Almost immediately they encountered the remnants of the expedition, who had set up a camp in the southeastern part of Nem Piat.   After conversing with the guard posted near the tunnel entrance, the group was taken to Rhys Gorlak.  Their attempts to persuade him to return to Humbleton fell on deaf ears, as his assistant and lover Erelna had recently been captured by “snake-men” — Rhys refused to leave without Erelna, and beseeched the party to help him get her back.  Realizing their position, the party reluctantly agreed, discouraged by the idea of having to fight their way through 100+ snake-men to gain Erelna’s freedom.  Was there another way?  Perhaps…

After talking with Jandar, leader of a group of escaped slaves living close to the expedition’s camp, the party learned of a conflict between the snake-men (to the west) and “frog-men” who controlled the northeastern part of the city.  Perhaps the party could stir up trouble between the two factions and sneak in to rescue Erelna in the confusion…  Rhys also spoke to them about helping him find the Axe of Bal-Astur, an ancient hero of Nem Piat who led an unsuccessful revolt against the lords of the city.  According to legend, the warrior’s enchanted great axe would strike fear into the hearts of foes and instill courage to allies; Rhys was certain that having such a potent weapon would increase the likelihood of a successful rescue.

The party agreed to go with Rhys to Bal-Astur’s crypt, which he believed to be in a nearby building.  After negotiating the heavy, rusted iron trapdoor, the party began their exploration of the tomb.  A scything blade trap wounded Ada and Basula, and as the session ended the party thought they could hear the sound of metal on bone and bone on stone approaching; looking down the curving stair into the hallway below, they saw several shadowy forms moving around…

***

This evening’s game went pretty well.  I wasn’t entirely satisfied with some of my narration and refereeing, but I was pleased with the session overall.  In retrospect it may have been better to have the PCs wander around in Nem Piat a bit before having them encounter Rhys Gorlak’s expedition, but I wanted to keep the action moving — it had been nearly a year since we last played, and I wanted to maximize the four hours we had this time…

After the session I told BB that one of the things I really like about BoL is that the PC power level seems to do the 3rd-6th level “sweet spot” of D&D play really well; magic-wise it’s arguably even better, because of the flexibility of the open-ended system.  (This isn’t to say that I’m done playing D&D, because sometimes — well, sometimes I just crave the feel and flavor of the classic D&D rules, and no substitute will suffice.)

When the PCs were fighting the vine-creatures in the “green room” clearing, I had to remind the players about using Hero Points; their “luck of the gods” re-rolls didn’t seem to help that much, but ultimately they escaped without sustaining any injuries.  Those creatures were completely improvised, and I realized later that they should have had far more Lifeblood than they did.  Oh well, live and learn…

We’ve scheduled our next session for 12/18, hopefully I’ll have more to report shortly thereafter!

The characters:

Calveric, 2nd level Magic-User (PC)

Detmar, 2nd level Dwarf (PC)

Meeiria, 2nd level Cleric

Rowley, 2nd level Fighter

Carnas, 1st level Cleric

Blodget, 1st level Halfling

Following the untimely dissolution of their delving party, Calveric and Detmar opted to remain in Dragonsfoot towne for a while.  The lure of adventure and loot was strong as ever, and rumors of a corrupted elven Lifespring to the west of town prompted the duo to join forces with a clerical party to investigate the spring and (hopefully) identify and neutralize the source of corruption.

The group struck west from Dragonsfoot.  As the party neared the lifespring, they rescued a halfling (Blodget) from a corrupted treant.  With their new ally in tow, the adventurers arrived at a ruined tower perched on a hilltop.  The tower itself was unoccupied and devoid of interesting features, but set into the hillside below was an opening leading into darkness.  The intrepid group steeled themselves for their subterranean foray and set off.  Soon they encountered an old battle scene at a four-way junction.  On a wall, the rusty-red scrawl “QUASQUETON” was the only epitaph for the now-decomposing remains of the fallen combatants.  A grim reminder to the would-be explorers of the potential dangers lurking in whatever maze of tunnels and chambers that lay before them….

The group struggled to map the strange, twisting tunnels and oddly shaped rooms.  Battles with bandits and “vegepygmies” — strange green, semi-gelatinous humanoids that seemed to have been grown in a noxious wormy vat — took their gradual toll.  The variety and strangeness of some of the rooms added to the air of mystery that hung in the stale underground air.  An exotic fungal garden,the vegepygmy birthing room with its towering idol of the Mad God, the tapestries and statues whose depicted events hinted at tragic events; how did these pieces fit together?  Would the descending staircase they found lead them to more answers, more danger, more strangeness?

The party enjoyed a brief respite for two days above ground, holed up in the ruined tower, as they rested and recovered from the wounds and fatigue of their first foray.  When the group returned to finish mapping the western part of the complex, they fought more vegepygmies and encountered a room full of strange pools.  Detmar, ever brave and willing to imbibe strange substances, drank from several of those deemed safe by the party — each pool was subjected to careful probing with the 10′ pole or, in the case of the two greenish pools, a broken dagger.  (The party’s caution paid off here, as the second pool dissolved the dagger.)  The first liquid sampled by Detmar made him mute and the last healed him of all his wounds; those in between seemed to be normal water.

Thus ends the recap of the first two sessions.  More on the second foray into the QUASQUETON complex in a couple weeks…

As these thoughts gently percolated with increasing frequency, I found myself blindsided last week by an urge to reexamine the Pavis/Big Rubble Runequest supplements.  My print copies of the Moon Design “Gloranthan Classics” were all long sold-off but thanks to the glory of PDF I was able to revisit the sprawling ruins of the Rubble, this time with the intent of mining ideas and details for my version of the Forbidden City…

The other old gaming flame I was driven to review was Necromancer Games’ Wilderlands of High Fantasy box set, a contender for my favorite published campaign setting thanks to its relatively low-powered feel, S&S flavor, weird science-fantasy twists, and open-ended sandboxiness.  I was encouraged to revisit the Wilderlands by a blog post by Fr. Dave at Blood of Prokopius, wherein he mentioned that the map for his great Lost Colonies campaign is one of the JG Wilderlands maps.  My Pter Nuum campaign — and Zhontaar, the world in which it is ostensibly located — is very lacking in the map department, so I figured I’d leaf through the maps and books to see if any of them jumped out at me.  I found myself drawn to two regional maps : Barbarian Altanis, the setting for my previous WL campaign, and Isles of the Blest.  Plenty of steaming jungles, interesting cultural and political factions to potentially incorporate, and an abundance of ruins make either section of the Padizan Peninsula a perfect fit for the Pter Nuum.  I’m not quite sure where to place the Forbidden City yet, but I’m sure the perfect location will present itself in due course.

Looking at those has me making fresh notes for the Pter Nuum game, adding details and denizens to the ruined city and expanding the content of the surrounding lands.  As usual, the X factor for this game is scheduling.  If I can get the same players, we’ll continue on from where we left off; if I get a different batch of responses, I may re-boot the adventure.  One way or another, I sure am looking forward to getting back in the game!

If memory serves, I finished Boy Scouts with around 30 merit badges.  Looking through this sweet new GM list, it appears I’m eligible for a few of these:

My games rely on a lot of Improvisation rather than pre scripted content

My games focus on Exploration & Mystery

My games are Gonzo and can include a lot of strangeness

I roll Dice in the open and don’t fudge the results in my games

I frequently Tinker with the rules of the game

Tactics are an important part of my games

Players in my game should be prepared to Run when the odds are against them

Now then, where do I get my GM sash?