BSSS - Session 5, Swords Edition

These session recaps and overviews somehow keep getting longer and longer. I am not entirely happy with that, so I'll try and keep this one as short as possible, while also hitting the points I want to make. 

Note: I almost forgot the most important part of this session - the adventuring company now has a proper name! There was a vote held by the members currently present in the game (6 players), and the name chosen was Hedgehogs of Mercy! Company banner is planned, but not yet created.

The Death of Enlil Kishar. Art by his player, Roman.

Summary

Finally having found the Sword God's temple there's multiple sword fights, two of the characters die and a vampire is freed.

Characters

• Athra - Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko
• Esho - Sorcerer
• Shimsusa the Archer - level 1 Fighter
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Enlil Kishar - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Apsu Kishar - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Rajini - Sorceress

Recap

During a very very rainy week spent in their rather poorly equipped camp the party interrogates the bandit leader, who they decide to keep around and use as trap bait in the dungeon. They finally get into the Temple of 1000 Swords, fail to trigger the alarm and run into some mutated duck people. They chat for a bit, the bird people leader challenges one of them to a duel for the hell of it, wins, then a fight breaks out and a few of the bird people are left dead. They surrender and chat with the party some more, giving them the lay of the land of the temple, ask them to help them fight the "stupid fish bastards" that live in the underwater section, then head off. The party, as they recover...get accosted by a group of said fishy bastards. The party chokepoints them in the hallway, but in the fight the merfolk manage to kill two of the 1st levels in the party, the Kishar brothers, before being driven off. 

During all the fighting Iva, the bandit leader had tried to escape, was topped and managed to singe off the eyebrows off of one of the sorcerers. In the end the party compromised and had her climb the giant statue of the Sword God, pry the gem off it's forehead and bring it back to them. She did with little to no trouble, being a level 3 Fighter and a professional criminal type. She set off on her way...immediately falling into the alarm pit trap. 

The party then went to check out the immortal person stuck to the wall with a sword the bird people had warned them about, and discovered a charming and very well spoken and well mannered vampire, Bel of the Lotus. After asking for assistance and offering them one of his properties back in the Undying City the group pulled the sword out of him, he wrote a quick letter of recommendation to his servant who takes care of the property and bid them farewell. With that the group decided to just head back home to the city as well, their trip back being thankfully uneventful. 

My thoughts on the session

So, a lot of things happened in this session - We had the first PC death in combat in the entire game (mostly due to me finally rolling good in a fight for once!), we had them get a good idea of the place they were in without too much danger, making some tentative allies in the bird people. The party also freed up what will almost certainly be a recurring character in the game and made a good impression while doing so. 

It was rather unfortunate, even if predictable, that the deaths were from the two new players who only had level 1s and were also with rather low HP due to sleeping in bad conditions over the week. We also had another new player, but due to her rolling up a sorceress she was mostly safe throughout this whole nonsense. 

Overall I like where the game is heading, and it's starting to finally reach that stage where there's enough different factors at play that make an OSR world feel alive and, ya know, not staged. 

BSSS - Session 4

 This weekend I resumed my weekly game, after a few weeks of off time around the holiday season. As usual below will be a quick recap of what happened, and my observations and thoughts. 

Summary

The group heads north to find the lost temple of the Sword God, runs into some refugees, a duel breaks out between two of the fighters and they manage to drive off a midnight raid by bandits through magic.

Characters

• Athra - Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko
• Esho - Sorcerer
• Shimsusa the Archer - level 1 Fighter
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Enlil Kishar - Fighter
• Apsu Kishar - Fighter

The Session Recap

With the start of the rainy season in the Fertile Lands the party had multiple choices on where to go. They knew at least two different locations that were of interest, and after the downtime carousing of a party member, they learned of a third new one as well. None of them seemed interested in returning the infested temple in the ruins near the Undying City. Finally they decided to pursue the lead of a lost temple (how does one "lose" a temple?) of a Chaos god of swords upriver from where they were. 

Preparations were made for travel, as the journey would take several days, even if it actually took them a few days of just sitting around in town before they could head out, a torrential rainstorm just beating against the city and making any travel a fool's errand. After the weather calmed down to a more manageable rain, they were on their way! The first day of travel was mostly uneventful, until the party decided to camp out for the night.

A horrible dog-like thing, the size of a horse and with feathered wings and a twisted skull-like beaked face swooped in from the rainclouds, falling upon the Fighter that was currently on watch, luckily the commotion allowing the rest of the party to get up and get armed so they could swarm it and kill it. The party's giant lizard wanted nothing to do with this thing though, neither did some of the mercenaries one of which simply stood her ground, another outright fleeing the fight and coming back later a bit sheepish at his reaction. 

On the second day of travel the storm picked back up, making marching even along the old imperial road miserable and slow. What was more interesting was the giant group of some 300 ragged looking people walking from the opposite direction. After some greetings and exchange of information, the group learned that these were refugees from one of the cities further up the river, who were fleeing an attack from some strangely armored and powerful warriors which had burst through their city gates and started slaughtering everyone.

The party had some thoughts on how to handle this situation, especially as they learned that these people were heading into the already overcrowded and Undying City. One of the mercenaries from earlier, a female skirmisher, also declared that she was going to leave her contract, handed back the silver paid to her and requested that she go with the refugees to help them out. An argument among the party on how to deal with her broke out, ranging from "give her extra money to spread the good word about us" to "I will publicly execute her for reneging on the contract as a warning to our other mercenaries". The argument got heated enough that two of the fighters ended up having a duel to determine how to proceed. The result was that the merc was allowed to leave with the refugees, who kept going down the road towards the city, with the party heading towards the river to look for this lost temple.

In the evening they were attacked again, this time by a rather large group of bandits who were shadowing the refugee group and were looking to grab whatever they can off them, but had decided to go for an easy detour and rob the party as well while they were in the area. Negotiations didn't go great, so a fight broke out, the party and the bandits fighting in almost pitch blackness, until one of the Sorcerers released a lighting trapped in a copper rod, frying 12 of the bandits on the spot and blinding everyone in the area, which routed the rest of them, save for their leader, who the party took captive. 

Pictured: An accurate rendition of the fight against 60 bandits.

Observations

The session ended up being mostly downtime, prep and then overland travel, which was honestly fine. For the overland travel rules, I ended up using a mix of what Yochai Gal has been writing up for Cairn, along with the movement speed rules from Wolves Upon the Coast. It's rough and quick, but it got the job done. 

Encounters were quite interesting - two fights, one very easy for the party, one in which they were distinctly outnumbered, and then a very interesting social dilemma in how to deal with these refugees. The duel in the middle of that whole thing was also great and a very nice organic action arising from the party's differing opinions. 

The fight against the bandits worked okay enough using my current combat system (it still only lasted 4 rounds total!), but I suspect the better way to do it would have been to use some kind of wargame set up using squads and warbands and whathaveyous. I am already eyeing the Warband mechanic in Errant and I need to figure out how to adapt that to OD&D combat, but I think it will make fights go even faster in real life time, which for me is always a plus! Overall I am quite happy with the session, the players enjoyed themselves greatly and it showed how a properly used ability or item (in this case, a copper rod with a trapped lightning in it) can swing even what should be a nearly unwinnable fight into a win! 

Oh yeah and the party got exp for ALL of those 60 bandits. Because as far as I am concerned routing the enemy absolutely counts as defeating them, so this was a good 7000 exp for the party, and they haven't even gotten into the dungeon yet!