BSSS - Session 3

 Another Sunday, another game of Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel. Since this is going to be the last session for the year (the campaign being on hold until January because holidays), I figured I'd give my players a few hooks, but for the sake of metagame comfort steer them towards the small dungeon that could be cleared through the course of the session.

Summary

The characters explore a sunken temple on a small island and make a lizard friend!

Characters

• Esho- Sorcerer
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - Sorcerer
• Athra - Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko

A Very Quick Recap

The party did not really want to go back to the temple they visited the last two sessions, so they spent some money and time in their Downtime activities to look for some more hints. They got several, in fact, but the one they went for was a small cave and ruins on an island in the middle of the river, south of the Undying City. 

They hired a ship, since they realized that despite there being 3 PCs, between all the mercenaries and porters their entire party was 19 people. After an uneventful trip down the river (uneventful because I've not gotten around to writing encounters on the river yet) they arrived at the small island. 

The dungeon exploration itself is hardly remarkable, like the dungeon itself - a partially flooded underground ruin of a shrine that was once dedicated to the Serpent of Smoke, the river the island was on. 

The net total of their escapade were two dead mercenaries and a giant gecko that befriended one of the fighters and a magical spear, a magical light armor and a helmet of Telepathy, a treasure map, and of course some coin. 

Satisfied they headed back. 

Observations 

Combat in this game was, finally, not a simple one-sided affair, with a skeleton managing to take down a merc in a single sword thrust, while everyone else managed to bring it and its fellows down. 

A player character also got banged up fairly well, but managed to patch himself up after the fact. We spent probably an hour or so before the actual adventure simply handling downtime, including stuff like Carousing, finalizing a deal with a Mentor for one of the Sorcerers so he can learn spells from that person, getting hints and leads for new dungeons, hiring people, buying stuff and also trying to safely leak information about the Chaos cultists that had taken over the temple in the previous sessions, without the party itself getting under too much scrutiny 

It's up to the players, but things are very much moving in the direction of having at least one session be simply back in the Undying City just to be able to handle all the various threads and activities that are starting to weave together. 

So, the giant gecko...the party ran into one as a random encounter, however the gecko was generally neutral and not that interested in dealing with them, mostly just hanging off a column and observing them curiously. The party decided to leave it be, as it headed down. Later another random encounter roll ended up again with the gecko, so I just decided to rule that it had simply followed them down the stairs (nobody had closed the big rusted doors behind them). 

As they explored the dungeon they ended up running into ANOTHER giant gecko, and after feeding it some food, combined with a very high reaction roll I ended up deciding that it took a liking to the party's Fighter and started to follow him around. It helps that he said he'll use one of his language slots for Beast Speech, a language used by animals, beast men and other such things. Obviously communication with what is, ultimately, an overgrown lizard didn't amount to much but hey, it's something!

They later looped back around to the first one, with the two lizards becoming aggressive, unhappy with the other being their territory - the party decided to kill the first lizard, and with that act the second one officially became a Companion to the fighter, and is now named Gal-Naha! 

It pleases me immensely that the first ever Companion in the campaign so far was not only a monster befriended in the dungeon, but a giant fucking lizard to boot! A great confluence of lucky rolls and treating it quite well. 

Ending on a  more general observation on the game - with OD&D rules, as they are, each HD worth of enemies killed gives the party 100 exp. Yes there is the comically stupid and convoluted formula for adjusting it based on dungeon level, character level and so on - I don't use that. It's impossible to arbitrate, for one thing. So I just stick to 100 xp her HD. 

With that, combat and killing enemies actually now gives WAY more experience in this game than in something like B/X. I am not entirely sure how to feel about that yet, and I am curious if anyone has had experience with running OD&D this way and how it affected progression and general gameplay patterns in their game. 

Slime Priests

Slime Priests are mortal followers of a Chaos Lord referred to as The Decomposition. 

They occupy a strange space in their Lord's army of followers, due to their blessing and curse of sentience. The Decomposition is partial to slimes, oozes, molds and other things as an expression of Chaos - as such it views sentience and intelligence as an unpleasant necessity in some of its followers.

The Slime Priests therefore tend to the various oozes, slimes and molds, helping them grow, feeding them and also creating new variants. 

Slime Priest

HD: 2; AC: 5; Movement Rate: 10; Alignment: Chaos

Attacks - As weapon 

Special Abilities: 
Slime Blast - The priest vomits a torrent a slime at 1d4 targets, which must Save vs paralysis or become paralyzed for 1d6 turns. This ability can only be used once per fight, as it takes a few days for a slime priest to build up enough slime in their guts to use it again. 

Treasure: Slime priests usually only carry a dagger, and 1d3 scrolls with spells on them. 

BSSS - Session 2

 Today we had session 2 of my campaign, and here is a quick recap and observations on it. 

Summary

The PCs head back to the dungeon from last session to try and retrieve the treasure and gear from the dead. It goes very poorly and they manage to all come back alive only through sheer force of luck.

Characters

• Esho - Sorcerer
• Apsu - Fighter
• Athra - Fighter

A Very Quick Recap

The party this time consisted only of 3 player characters (2 fighters and a sorcerer) who  had a good number of hirelings along. They decided to investigate the ruined house they just passed by last time, before going into the main dungeon.

After some random encounters they did get to the house, meeting a Chriot Nomad warrior who was there, in her own words, "looking for Chaos." They split amicably with her and she left, with them exploring the ruins, fighting a seven headed serpent (although it only had 5 heads as they managed to kill off 2 of them which had separated from the main body). They got some very nice loot and went off to the dungeon.

There they beelined directly towards the room with the statue in order to retrieve the gem and possessions of the people who died last session. They found neither, however, and when they tried to leave the room saw a floating orb slowly heading towards them. They closed the door in front of it, then went through the now revealed secret door in the corner of the room, and down some stairs.

Unfortunately for them, there was a slime creature of some kind waiting for them on the bottom of those stairs, and worse still - it had the big gemstone from last session inside it! They tried slashing at it, smacking it with a magically charged copper rod that had a trapped lighting inside it - nothing seemed to do much beyond simply splitting the thing into smaller sections of itself. Luckily for them I managed to roll a 1 five time in a row when rolling its damage! They gave up and just left it down there and ran back upstairs.

From there, once they tried to exit the room, again, they were confronted by the orb which now had two middle-aged men keeping it company. The orb grew and opened a myriad of eyes and through a rather unfortunate roll paralyzed everyone except for 2 hirelings and one of the fighters who was in the opposite side of the room, guarding against the slime. Once he saw things were going badly he ran over...and gat paralyzed as well for his trouble.

Luckily for them the slime-covered priests were in a good mood, and offered them a choice - join the services of their Lord or be killed. The party, once allowed to move and talk again, lulled them that they would join, then a fight broke out in which the party overwhelmed the priests (3 more had come at that point, but it was still not enough) and after looking a whole bunch of magic scrolls from their bodies decided to just head back home.

Due to the small number of player counts and their shockingly good luck TWO people actually got to level 2 - one of them the sorcerer who was in the last session and the other a new character, who's player got an extra boost from the party throwing a feast in his processor's honor and also just getting extra experience for player-roles (you can see what that is like in the Player's Handbook )

Observations

The theme of this session was the luck of the dice. It was the luck of the dice that the slime, despite hitting the players five times, only managed to do 5 points of damage spread over two characters, instead of simply killing them on the spot. 

It was the luck of the dice that the floating orb of many eyes managed to paralyze the entire group, save two people. Normally this would have just been a TPK - in my game a character who is helpless does not have the benefit of any defense or their Hit Points. If you choose to kill a defenseless person they simply die. However, the luck of the dice is also what saved the players - the priests rolled a shockingly high reaction roll, apparently unaware that the group had been here before, and decided to try and recruit/press them into service! 

The party should have died at least twice in this session, and yet luck was clearly on their side and instead they prevailed! They returned with all limbs intact, with a good amount of money and a magical gemstone that one of the players has plans for. 

My OD&D Box

 Some of you may have heard me mention about how this or that thing is going into my OD&D Box. For a while that was mostly metaphorical, as I didn't actually have a box to keep all of the related booklets and other things inside. 

Until now! 

I present to you, my OD&D box with all of its current contents!

What's actually inside the OD&D box currently?

1. Printed version of the Premium edition of the Three Little Brown Books. 

2. White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game

3. Delving Deeper (v4)

4. Holmes Basic D&D rulebook.

5. Chainmail 3rd edition

6. Original Edition Delta Book of War

7. Original Edition Delta Book of Spells

8. Outdoor Survival (for the game board)

9. Printed version of Philotomy's Musings 

10. Printed version of The Original D&D Setting

11. Original Edition Campaign house rules 

12. Printed version of Magic Swords for Swords & Wizardry

Close up of the box art. I tried to keep up with the tradition of writing a needlessly verbose description of what is inside it.

So what's the point of all this? There are so many versions of OD&D, and so many related texts that I all found fascinating, that I just decided to collect them all in there. Plus, it's just plain funny to have a big box with a whole bunch of OD&D booklets all stuck inside it. Speaking of which...

Plenty of space left in there!

What else is going into the OD&D Box? 

Currently I have a few documents that I still have in just pdf that I would like to eventually have a physical version put into the OD&D box. In no particular order, the things I look forward to getting in there are:

* Fantastic Medieval Campaigns (OD&D and Chainmail rewrite) by Marcia B.

* Unchained Fantasy (OD&D with Chainmail combat) by Daniel Norton

* Grognard (Chainmail retroclone) - this one I am not so sure about. 

And potentially anything else that I feel fits within the loose and unspecified definition of OD&D! 

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - Player's Handbook

 

Artwork by the wonderful Ellie! 

I figured it would be nice to have this uploaded here. I made a Player's Handbook sort of document for my campaign containing the various house rules, inventory system, weapons, armor and item lists and other such useful information. 

You can get it by clicking >>>OVER HERE<<< to see the pdf! 

BSSS - Session 1

Today was the inaugural session of my new campaign - Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel (BSSS for short). I've been posting a few things about it here as it approached, so now I'd like to talk about how the actual session went.

While I would not delude myself that any of my players actually bother reading this blog, they do have access to it so I will not be sharing any referee-facing information on here, just a quick recap of what happened and some observations and thoughts on it from my own perspective. 

The session had a full table, which in my case means 6 players. I find that 6 is probably close to the maximum number I can really handle well for an OSR game, and even then that is with a help from a caller to keep things moving along. 

People showed up and generated characters, which ended up with a party of 3 fighters, 3 sorcerers. After a quick introduction to the set up they headed out into the Old City ruins, in search of a lead they got from some of the Scavengers back in Riverside. 

Characters

• Shem - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Ushar - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Tibidun - Fighter [Now Dead]
• Maru the Witch - Sorcerer
• Esho - Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - Sorcerer

Overview of the session

As I don't have a finished encounters table for travel outside the dungeon yet, this was uneventful, but the players did wisely mark general landmarks they ran into in order to be able to navigate back to the dungeon later.

Also as part of the pre-game set up the party divided the three major Player functions between them two - a party leader/caller, a mapper and a quartermaster. From my observation during the game all three did their jobs quite well, so good job on that!

Anyway, the actual dungeon itself was not explored that deeply - the party had a fight against eight bandits that were guarding the entrance, managing to negate very effectively four of their archers by one of the Fighter PCs rushing at them from the side and engaging them in melee, making them essentially lose a round in trying to scramble and pull out a weapon. 

What followed was a very quick and brutal fight, with the Players ganging up on individual fighters, one of the sorcerers disabling two more people with blindness and just general mayhem. 

That, unfortunately, did not stop as just as everyone was catching their breath the bandit's leader along with some more people came out from the dungeon, with a second fight ensuing. In the end, one bandit was allowed to simply leave, 2 were pressganged to march in front of the party and act as trap detectors, and the others were dead.

Once into the actual dungeon, their plan paid off as the bandits spotted an obviously raised stone plate on the floor, clearly some kind of trap, and avoided it easily. One of the mercenaries that the party brought along was left to guard the room, and the rest of the group continued exploring, eventually finding a large hall with some more bandits (which managed to spot the lights of the players and ducked into a nearby room). The players followed, another fight happened (I had rolled a 2, 4 and 2 for each of the reactions so far, the bandits clearly not being interested in talking!) and 3 bandits were all that survived.

The group forced one of them to pry open the enormous gem in the middle of the statue that was in the room, while one of the fighters guarded him, two others were near by the braziers with unearthly blue flames lighting up the room, in case something odd happened. The party clearly knew that something would happen when the gem was messed with, but they didn't know what. Well, the captive managed to pry the gem open and they realized what was to happen quite soon - the room started to fill VERY rapidly with a poisonous black cloud, and everyone on near the statue was blasted directly into the face.

Some saving throws later, and the tally was 1 surviving mercenary, and one bandit and 2 player characters dead from poison. The others had only a few seconds to act, most simply booking it out of the door, while one player decided to rush into the poison cloud in order to grab the gem. Another failed saving throw, and another limp body on the floor.

From there the group decided to leave, inspecting a second site they knew of from a map the bandits had given them in an effort to save their lives (it didn't work). They found another ruined building with a merchant's hand-pulled cart upturned in front of it. They got the cart upright, which luckily only had one of its 4 wheels broken, and found a very nice bounty of tanned leather and spices. Deciding to not push it any more for the session, and also with nightfall fast approaching on the characters, they headed back to town and for a month of downtime. 

Observations

* I am so far pleased with combat in the game. Both fights were relatively fast (though could have been faster in real world time. Something to think about), brutal and none lasted beyond I think 2 or 3 rounds. That for me is ideal! 

* Conversely, I was genuinely surprised just how unscathed the party made it out of both encounters. Bad rolls on the side of the bandits I suppose.

* Three dead in the first session is not that surprising, although I did not expect it to be due to a trap. Then again, the party as I said was aware that something was going to happen, they simply would have had no real way of knowing what, and so decided to take the risk of simply "poke it and see what it does." After the fact someone did have the idea that they could have just all stood back and only had the bandit up by the statue, so maybe they will learn from this experience in the future! 

* All of the Sorcerers were tempted by the ability to simply cast extra spells at the risk of Corruption, though also nobody actually decided to take the plunge. For me that's a good sign that Corruption is working as intended - as both a deterrent to Sorcerer power, but also a temptation that...hey if you ever really need that extra spell, you can get it! 

* Something I knew I would need, but was shocked by just how much its lack made the process slow, are quick reference sheets for several rules not easily found within the player's books that I made. Something to try and get done for next week! 

* On first impression it seems the players mostly enjoyed the game overall. How much of that will continue onwards I don't know, but I hope the game gets more enjoyable, not less, as more sessions happen. 

Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel - The Undying City

 

Background

The Undying City wasn't always called that, of course. It was renamed after the fall of the empire as a move of political propaganda, as the city was one of the last to actually fall.

Back in the days of the Empire the city was on both sides of the river, however war, raids and other devastation has made the rulers of the city pull back and concentrate things only on the southern bank. 

The other side of the river is now a vast field of ruins, often crawling with scavengers from the poor side of town, as well as barbarians, travelers and various nasty things that go bump in the dark. 

General Description

A view from the north side of the river into the Merchants' Quarters

Buildings are mostly made from adobe and mud if poorer, or bricks and stone in the wealthier parts of town. The entire city is surrounded by very tall and sturdy brick walls, doted with towers at regular intervals. There are two main gates that enter and exit the city, along with the so called Eternal Bridge that offers connection into the ruins of the old city. 

All but the poorest of slums are at least whitewashed, with richer buildings being covered in ornate patterns painted on their facades. Most people who can afford to have gardens or greenery around their house or on their roofs, which help with the hot sun of the dry season. 

In all areas except the Noble District and around the Great Temple, things are very cramped. The city maintains a population about 3 to 5 times its actual capacity. 

Key Areas or Locations

1 - Riverside or Poortown

A vast slum of tenements, cramped houses and shanties makes up this part of the Undying city. The majority of the population of the Undying City live here in misery and squalor - the few who get enough money to leave usually move into the merchant quarters, or buy out and fortify some of the old larger houses that still stand in what used to be the more prosperous part of Riverside. 

With all of that said, the people living here are still citizens of the city and as such at least have the benefit of being on the inside of the great city walls, as well as having access to clean water wells - a benefit people living in the slums reserved for outsiders rarely get.

2 - Merchants' Quarters

Most of the traders, merchants and free artisans of the city live in the two districts surrounding the grand central market plaza. The area is a curious sight, a mixture of modest one story buildings sitting next to opulent complexes with multiple houses belonging to rich members of the Golden Fraternity. 

If you want to purchase anything beyond simple food or livestock, the Merchents' Quarter is where most of the markets that offer such things are located.

3 - Central Market Plaza

The heart of the Undying City is taken up by the vast Central Market plaza, which is where most of the weekly markets are held. The poor citizens rarely go there to shop, at most just selling their wares in the smaller stalls. The plaza is also where the larger roads in the city converge. Because it is located right next to the internal gates that lead into the Noble and Great Temple districts, violence anywhere around the Plaza is ruthlessly punished and suppressed. 

4 - Noble District

The nobility of the Undying City spend their days in a walled off part of the city living in decadence, leisure and pursuits of fighting and occultism. The entire district houses vast mansion complexes, each of them walled off and surrounded by lush gardens. The entire district is itself walled off from the common parts of the city, the nobles preferring to not see the squalor and overcrowding in places like Riverside. 

Anyone who is deemed to look too poor or like they don't belong will never be allowed through the gates of the Noble District, and carrying a weapon without the explicit permission of a noble is not allowed. Weapons are confiscated at the gate, and anyone found sneaking a weapon will be promptly attacked and put to death by the various bodyguards and mercenaries that work for the nobility. 

This doesn't mean that fights and violence are rare in the Noble District, mind you. It's just that the nobles are very specific about who gets to do it. 

5 - Great Temple District

This walled off district houses the true power in the Undying City - the sorcerer-priests of the Great Temple. Very few are permitted entry into the district, the internal gate leading to it being even more heavily guarded than the gates to enter into the city itself. 

The Undying City has firmly pledged itself with the forces of Law, coming under the protection and patronage of the Lord of Order known simply as The Pale Stillness of Justice. Statues of this benefactor can be found everywhere around the city, and offering of worship, sacrifices and devotion to them is mandatory. The old gods of the Empire are still worshipped, of course, but their religious organizations have dwindled in relevance. 

While the Nobles would never allow for it to be publicly stated, everyone in the Undying City knows that the High Priest of the Pale Stillness is the true ultimate ruler of the Undying City, along with his lesser temple priests. The sorcerer-priests are easily recognized by the pale alabaster masks they wear whenever outside of the Great Temple District - a practice of veiling and masking that has been common among the religious castes even back in the heyday of the Empire. 

Attached to the south-eastern part of the city is a walled off district that can only be entered through the Great Temple district itself. Nobody has any real knowledge or idea of what is housed there, as so few have even seen it. 

6 - Visitor's Quarters/Slums

Just outside the gates of the city are vast sprawling slums filled with hovels, tent cities and the occasional fortified and walled tavern or inn. This is where Outsiders, people who have not been granted citizenship, are allowed to stay. Anyone who travels to the city along the road and not the river must stay in one of the two Visitor's Quarters during the night. During the day people are allowed to enter the city to do trade or to travel through of course. 

In general the north-eastern Visitor's Quarters is much safer and less slum-like, as it is located near the Merchants' Quarters and thus often caravan people, mercenary companies and others tend to stay there instead. 

7 - Old Bridge and Tower Ruins

This used to be the second bridge that spanned the Serpent of Smoke river in order to connect the two parts of the old city. On the sizable island in the middle of the river was located a guard tower which would defend against attacks by ship, along with buildings that housed bureaucrats that kept track of the ship traffic. 

About 20 years ago or so the tower was abandoned and the bridge was demolished, leaving only one single entrance into the Old City. This was done on the command of the Priesthood, with the safety of the city being cited as the reason behind the act. 

More recently, people from Riverside report that sometimes in the night they can see lights from the buildings on the island, however nobody has dared really do much about it. 

8 - The Eternal Bridge

The second of the old bridges that connected the two parts of the city, it was renamed the Eternal Bridge by the priesthood after it withstood a ferocious attack by northern barbarians and their strange beasts. It is now the only way to cross into the Old City (except of course by boat). There are guard towers located on both ends of it, and anyone going into the Old City must be catalogued by the guards there. The main traffic into that dangerous area consists of Scavengers and adventurers, both of which must pay a toll of 10% of any treasure or money they find in their expeditions, before they are allowed back into the city.

While it's absolutely possible to simply cross the river via boat, doing so is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, boats like that often get attacked by bandits or other scavengers as soon as they reach the other shore. Secondly, crossing into the Old City through any other means besides the Eternal Bridge is technically a criminal act. 

9 - The Old City Ruins

A vast sprawl of ruins from what used to be the old city, along with the various smaller towns and villages that were close to it. A lot of treasures, rare materials and other things are still left there, as going into the ruins is dangerous. They are full of bandits, barbarians, as well as other more inhuman things like dangerous animals, monsters and even demonic forces, keeping an eye on this established stronghold of Law. 

The majority of the citizenry of the Undying City simply refuse to even look at the ruins, let alone go anywhere near them. The only ones to go there are people exiled for various crimes (a punishment often equal to a death sentence), adventurers willing to make their fortunes, and the Scavengers. 

The Scavengers tend to be poor members of the citizenry who make short ventures into the ruins and back. They often are looking for old treasures or valuables left behind, along with precious resources they can sell to the merchants. It is a desperate career with a very short life expectancy, however plenty of the richer people in the Merchants' Quarters actually made their fortune by leading Scavenger bands, and plenty of them still do. 

This is also where most of the initial dungeons and other locales will be. None of them are easy to reach - the closer and safer ruins have long ago been stripped of any value by the Scavenger bands, but deeper into the ruins there is plenty of forgotten things just waiting to be claimed!