Now is as good a time as any to make a real and proper post, and not just make a couple Star Trek-themed test posts! But, how to begin? Perhaps I’ll just jump straight to it with a recap of the most recent session I ran, which was regrettably several months ago.
Big changes have transpired in my life over the past year or so, one of which involved my wife and I moving across town into a place of our own. Our previous apartment always felt a little too cramped to respectably host any games, but as of this fall, we’ve got the luxury of having our dining room table in a space big enough to seat six (but only four chairs!), and the prospect of having friends over for a night of gaming was much more plausible.
The evening’s agenda? Something I’ve been wanting to try for years: a good ol’ dungeoncrawl into Stonehell Dungeon, using the Lamentations of the Flame Princess version of the Basic D&D rules. Since it was just going to be a one-off session, I opted to bypass character creation, and made a stack of some forty pre-gens. I had the players grab whoever looked appealing, make a few cosmetic changes if desired (i.e., weapon changed from spear to mace), and select a “bonus trait,” inspired by this (link to PDF) “sushi menu” equipment list.
Players could choose to have (pick one!): a torchbearer (wages paid up to end of day), a flask of holy water, a silver dagger, a lucky medallion (one re-roll per day), a healing potion, a pack mule, or a scroll of Protection from Evil. There were a few wrinkles about that I’d iron out for “next time”… the intention was to ease the experience of old-school dungeon-crawling with a little bit of a potentially useful “fancy item” of a player’s choice that might lead to interesting game play, but there were just a few exploitable traits about them that might need regulating. I might adjust the “lucky medallion,” for example, to be useful once per session, and useful only to the character “owning” it… not something that could be useful looted from a fallen companion, except as a trinket!
But enough preamble… we soon had a party assembled, consisting of:
- Monkeybeard, Lvl 1 Dwarven Thief
- Raisin, Lvl 1 Cleric of The Unpronounceable K’Pflghewio’thpt
- Oleander, Lvl 1 Magic-User
- Rebecca’s Lvl 1 Human Fighter, whose name I can’t remember, but her torchbearer is named Sebastian, I think?
- Marianne’s Lvl 1 Human Fighter or Possibly Elf or Magic User, whose name I also can’t remember… this was all back in February after all, and I didn’t take very good notes.
Finding themselves at the entrance of the dungeon, the party bravely descended into the depths of Stonehell.
The first chamber they investigated proved to be largely uninteresting, seeming to be some manner of ransacked, former kitchen. Investigation of a pump spigot yielded an ominous green slime, but the hazard was quickly dispatched with a torch by Monkeybeard, who was no stranger to the old-school method of dungeon-crawling. The intrepid dwarf immediately set to work laboriously dismantling the other door in his room. He wasn’t about to go using the door in the conventional method, and insisted on removing each door from its hinges like a slab, rather than risk traps. Fortunately, luck seemed to be on his side, and the work was uninterrupted by inquisitive dungeon residents.
The next room explored seemed to be some manner of decrepit dining hall, with remnants of benches and tables littering the room, and tattered tapestries draped about the walls. It also, regrettably, proved to be the residence of several giant spiders, who soon descended from the ceiling upon the erstwhile adventurers.
At this point… well, let’s just say the DM’s dice were on fire, despite the player’s best efforts. Critical hit after critical hit inflicted poisonous bites around the room, and arrow after arrow missed the spiders. By the time the melee concluded, poor Oleander and Raisin lay dead upon the ground, poison coagulating in their veins, and most of the rest of the group nursed their wounds. The survivors decided that this was as good a point as any to take a break and recover, just as they were joined by their two hitherto unseen companions: Raisin’s twin cleric whose name I don’t remember, and Martha, a replacement Magic-User. Monkeybeard set to work replacing the door upon it’s hinges, and the group made camp. Weirdly, they opted to immediately resort to cannibalism of their fallen comrades, despite having plenty of rations on hand.
After spending days camping in the ruined dining hall recovering (at the cleric’s insistence… K’Pflghewio’thpt only answers prayers for healing once a day, and he didn’t want to roll out at anything less than fully healed!), and encountering little more than a small party of curious kobolds that were easily chased away, the adventurers pushed a bit further into the dungeon. Suspicous noises heard around a corner turned out to be from a benign source– an archeological expedition lead by Snorri Something-Or-Another! Monkeybeard was quite happy to encounter one of his kinsmen, and soon set to negotiating (in Dwarven) for secret rations. Snorri obliged.
Following some chit-chat, the party decided to leave Snorri and his associates to their labors, but not before swinging open a secret door that they thought Snorri had missed. He hadn’t overlooked it, he just didn’t care for what was on the other side… Orcs! Fortunately, the party had the drop on them… the orcs weren’t aware that their storage nook had a secret hatch, and the party was able to attack their idle garrison from behind, before drawing them back to Snorri’s chamber.
Since this recap is getting a bit long-winded, I’ll cut to the chase: the party waged a much more coordinated assault against the orcs they found in the chambers beyond, and thanks to some clever strategy (at one point involving distractions and tripwires) they managed to prevail… and score some loot too. Rebecca’s Fighter scored a very nice looking axe the Orc Captain was carrying (an axe that nearly claimed her!), and a bit of gold was discovered. Additionally, the orcs still had plenty of Rations of Suspicious Origin on hand in their supplies, so the party likely wouldn’t have to resort to cannibalism for a little while… at least by necessity.
By the time the end of the player’s evening had come around, the party had discovered a chamber with two larger than life statues in it… stone swordsmen in dueling stances, facing each other from across the room, with their metal swords held in front of them. The party was suspicious, but their investigation will have to wait for another time…
Fallen Comrades: Oleander the Magic User; Raisin, Cleric of the Unpronounceable K’Pflghewio’thpt