Attronarch's Athenaeum

Campaign journals, reviews of TTRPG stuff, and musings on D&D.

Adventurers

Character Race Class Description
Tikatu Human Druid level 3 A dirty little man with dark and dirty skin, wearing loincloth with no back. “What will be, will be” is his favourite aphorism.
Amari Human Ranger level 2 Black hair that shines blue. Scarred like a gladiator.
Kho Rimbo Human Magic-user level 3 A knife throwing wizard extraordinaire. Covered in ritual knife scars. Cuts himself whilst casting. Prone to being sarcastic.
Ambros Human Cleric level 6 Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time.
Ignaeus Elf Fighter level 4 / magic-user level 5 A slightly weathered looking elf with dull blonde hair and chiseled features. Seeks wealth and knowledge.
Foxglove Human Thief level 6 A willowy human, long hair ties in a pony tail, looks a bit dangerous and dainty at the same time.

Thistleburn 5th, Earthday

The party of six, plus porter Irial, had found the cave Old Crus had pointed them to few days ago. Kho Rimbo begged the old wizard to tell him of any dungeon or lair worth plundering. He endured insults, and in return was rewarded with a scribble illustrating a path to a cave system inhabited by former slaves and servants of the vampire lord that Old Crus had driven out.

It was late morning when the party descended into the cave. First chamber they encountered reeked of body odour. Six pig-faced orcs were resting in their filthy bedrolls.

“Surrender in the name of Law and we might spare you!” Ambros thundered.

A prolonged, wet fart was the reply he received.

Dissatisfied, the adventurers had killed them all. Ambros smashed two, Ignaeus hacked two, while Amari and Foxglove each stabbed one to death. The chamber was some a natural cave of some thirty by forty feet. There was a tunnel on each side. Leather curtains served as sort of doors to the south and west.

“Look, chests...”

Indeed, lazy orcs had three broken chests. They contained a total of four thousand and ninety three copper pieces, as well as eight hundred and one electrum pieces. Adventurers took the latter, but left the former.

Peeking through the south curtain revealed the tunnel thirty feet long terminating in a t-shaped junction. Peeking through the west curtain revealed a phalanx of eighteen kobolds ready to fight.

Adventurers stepped through the curtain with confidence of Lords. Then they proceeded to butcher the pesky critters, crushing their morale. Survivors scattered, fleeing for their lives.

The kidney shaped cave had three exits, all curtained. Party came through the central one on the east side. There was another on the north-east side, and one on the far west side. Adventurers pursued the west exit, which led them to a winding a tunnel, which in turn led them to two cultists inhaling some sort of smoke.

Approaching them did not help too much. The cave the hooded figures were meditating in was roughly circular. A dugout firepit in the center burned and cackled. Figures were men-like, or at least their tattoo-covered faces indicated so. Four dead kobolds close to them.

Communication attempts were rebuffed.

“We are far too busy to waste time on the likes of YOU!”

At that moment the party was surprised from behind by a pack of gnolls and kobolds. Although outnumbered, the adventurers used the narrow tunnel to their advantage. They slowly hacked beastmen to death. But the war of attrition was not going to their advantage.

Ignaeus made the call to cast Sleep. He knocked out all the remaining beastmen. He also put to sleep Tikatu, Amari, and Irial. Victorious, the adventurers plundered the corpses, recovering a total of three hundred and seven silvers pieces, and five hundred and eighty-eight gold pieces.

Leaving behind the rude cultists, adventurers backtracked to the kidney-shaped cave. From there there went north-east, traversing another curving tunnel. This led them to a largish, foul smelling chamber. Size of straw mats suggested this might have been the gnoll's chamber.

Curtain to the west led to a long tunnel stretching from south to north. The further south it went, the narrow it got. North direction passed by another tunnel—smelling of bear faeces—eventually ending with an elongated cave.

Exploring it was rewarded with spiders surprising the adventurers from above. Amari the Ranger had proven her worth in this encounter. She had slain two of the large spiders herself, while Ambros crushed the last one. Tikatu somehow survived.

Foxglove found a desiccated corpse with intact leather belt. Upon the belt were two coin pouches, holding a total of two hundred and fifty seven platinum pieces.

Opting to avoid going down the tunnel smelling like bear shit, the party followed the tunnel leading out of the spider cave. They eventually reached a junction splitting left and right. They turned right and confidently marched straight into the owlbear. In its lair.

The owlbear was thoroughly displeased with such display of disrespect. It promptly barreled into Ignaeus and Ambros. The duo deflected and dodged the onslaught.

“RAAAAAAAAH!!!”

Tiny roars echoed from behind them as a small army of kobolds wearing little pointy green hats charged from around the corner.

Kho Rimbo spoke in languages and summoned a large python made of smoke. It hissed and bit at the pathetic critters, sending them crying back to wherever they came from.

After getting bear-slapped, Ignaeus fell back from the front line. The Ambros nearly got beaked in half. Elf cast Mirror Image and then rejoined the fray. Although outnumbered, owlbear fought ferociously, clawing and beaking whomever dared to attack it.

It was momentarily confused when it hugged Ignaeus, and the elf just disappeared in a puff of smoke. Foxglove the Wise attempted to exploit the moment, and deliver backstab to the creature. The animal sensed him.

The thief was struck by one claw, almost severing his hand. Then he was struck by the second claw, tearing his chest to shreds. And, as if that hadn't been enough, the owlbear bellowed and then bit into his side.

Foxglove was dragged to the back.

Bleeding profusely from its many wounds, the beast roared and charged Ignaeus in its last moment of defiance.

“Poof!”

Mirror image disappeared with a poof of smoke. Real Ignaeus capitalised on the opportunity by driving his broadsword into the creature's maw. He twisted it, jerked upwards, and then jumped back as the creature slumped, dead.

Ransacking its lair revealed a bone case with Protection from Undead scroll. From then on the adventurers rolled through rest of the cave system, indiscriminately slaying everyone and everything they encountered.

There are two happenings worth mentioning.

First was greedy Tikatu pouring himself some pomegranate juice from yellow chalices. As he did so he felt increasingly heavy. Others observed in horror as the pygmy bubbled and inflated by the second, until the transformed into deformed, obese blob. Ambros sighed and rescued him with Remove Curse spell. Second was recovery of a small, metallic, boxy hand-sized object from a stiff corpse of man dressed in red shirt and tight black pants of unfamiliar textile.

Loaded with treasure, the adventurers returned to Ironburg.

Ironburg, where miners refused to work.

Ironburg, where Rall Kyle was drinking himself into lunacy.

Ironburg, where Kho Rimbo lied to be the Eyes of Wizard-King Klekess Racoba.

Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.

#Wilderlands #SessionReport

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OSRIC 3.0 PDFs are now available on DriveThruRPG:

Offset print version will be available from Mythmere Games later this year.

#OSR #OSRIC

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Looking back, I realise I wrote much more than I remember! 182 blog posts, mostly session reports, news about new releases, crowdfunding campaigns, and sales, and various challenges (Character Creation Challenge and RPGaDAY). Regardless, I am still a bit shocked by the volume.

I blog for fun, and write what I want when I want. Turns out I like to write more often than I thought! Looking at analytics, I see that the blog was visited 23 000 times. Five most visited blog posts in 2025 were:

  1. Goodbye to Alarums & Excursions APA. Legendary RPG APA ceased publication last year, and this was my humble farewell. The post was picked up and re-shared in the blogosphere, resulting with many views.
  2. Swords & Wizardry: White Box Editions. It seems that differences between various white box editions remains a popular topic.
  3. Swords & Wizardry: Which Monster Book to Pick. A comparison of all major S&W bestiaries, including a monster index, is still bringing in traffic.
  4. Swords & Wizardry: 400 Pregenerated Characters and 288 Equipment Packs. I love sharing useful material, so I am happy to see pregenerated characters and equipment packs used.
  5. News: Ever & Anon roleplaying APA launched. Following the demise of Alarums & Excursions APA, we started a successor APA named Ever & Anon. The same focus, same contributors, and same dedication to do it for years to come.

Three of the above are posts from 2024, and I am happy to see they are still useful to people. Two were about big news and were circulated and picked up by others, which I believe contributed a lot of views.

After going through all the last year's posts, I would like to highlight the following five as my favourite posts of 2025:

  1. Convention: Preparing for the Cauldron 2025. I pull the curtain on how I prepare for an OSR-focused con, from choice of adventures to why I choose OD&D to preparing supplemental material for players.
  2. Convention: Cauldron 2025 Reflections. I share my thoughts on all three games I ran at the con—including the six hour marathon session with 24 characters and 17 players—as well as general impressions of Cauldron con. Spoiler: it was awesome. Get on the wait list for this year if you can.
  3. 2025 Character Creation Challenge Day 31. 80 fourth-level OD&D characters ready for play.
  4. Wilderlands Hall of Fame 2023. Wilderlands Hall of Fame represents the most legendary gaming situation of the year, as voted by the players in our Conquering the Barbarian Altanis campaign. This one was illustrated by FSF-INK.
  5. Seventy Magical Weapons for Old-School Roleplaying Games. In 2023 year I rolled 70 magical weapons as part of the RPG Blog Carnival: Wondrous Weapons and Damning Dweomers. Since then several people asked me for a print-friendly PDF versions. So I made them!

What about this year?

I have decided not to participate in challenges as usual. I will focus instead on finishing old projects—Dragon Magazine reading list, S&W supplement, and two adventures for Fight On!—as well as supporting good people like Rob of Bat in the Attic Games, Matt & Suzy of Mythmere Games, Calithena & Iggy of Fight On! zine, and Jim of Ever & Anon.

This will be an exciting year.

#Blogging

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DriveThruRPG is running a New Year, New Game Titles sale, with up to 75% off on select titles. The sale runs until January 16th.

Here are six old-school systems worth getting:

  1. Dungeons & Dragons Original Edition. The game that kicked it all off. Still very playable, still very inspirational.
  2. Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia. The best edition of Classic D&D, combining content of Basic, Expert, Companion, and Master into one tome.
  3. Arduin Trilogy. Contains first three Arduin Grimoires, which were supplements for OD&D.
  4. Arduin II. Combines and restates Arduin Grimoires into a self-contained game.
  5. The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game Revised Edition. Reads like a heartbreaker based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It has a ton of interesting concepts and ideas, knows nothing of “balance,” and features a lot of nice art.
  6. Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine. An original d100 engine that powers RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, and many other games, all in one tome.

And here are six OSR systems worth checking out:

There are more than 4000 titles that are discounted—do let me know your favourites. And as always, spend responsibly!

#Sale #OSR

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Adventurers

Character Race Class Description
Thorm Dwarf Fighter level 4 / thief level 5 Ashen hair, beard, and eyes. Left his own clan due to financial trouble.
Ambros Human Cleric level 6 Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time.
Ignaeus Elf Fighter level 4 / magic-user level 5 A slightly weathered looking elf with dull blonde hair and chiseled features. Seeks wealth and knowledge.
Foxglove Human Thief level 6 A willowy human, long hair ties in a pony tail, looks a bit dangerous and dainty at the same time.
Tikatu Human Druid level 3 A dirty little man with dark and dirty skin, wearing loincloth with no back. “What will be, will be” is his favourite aphorism.
Amari Human Ranger level 1 Black hair that shines blue. Scarred like a gladiator.
Kho Rimbo Human Magic-user level 3 A knife throwing wizard extraordinaire. Covered in ritual knife scars. Cuts himself whilst casting. Prone to being sarcastic.

Sunstrong 15th, Spiritday

Adventurers roamed around the eight-sided chamber tilled with alternating obsidian and redstone slabs. An altar carved of black marble dominated the south side of the chamber. Subtle runes adorned its smooth surface.

Chamber had three egress points—doors to the north and west, and tunnel to the east. It was from the latter that the party had arrived from, crawling over damp, loose soil. Ignaeus and Thorm forced the west doors open.

A ten by ten chamber, nay an alcove, filled with damp soil. Loose ground was almost the same as the one in the tunnel to the east. Ignaeus stepped forth and vanished. Ambros exhaled and followed.

Other adventurers followed as well. Even Hazard, their torchboy, followed. Courage or cowardice? Either way, eight of them in total found themselves in a twenty by twenty chamber with low ceiling.

They stood on damp, loose soil. Walls and ceiling were bereft of anything interesting. Everything was completely featureless. A single alcove housing a blackened skull was the only noticeable thing.

Ignaeus investigated the alcove and skull while others sought secret passageways and openings. Ambros, standing in the center, holding his Gold Gavel of Justice, observed how everyone sank a bit into the ground. All the commotion had moved the soil.

Minutes turned into turns as adventurers desperately tried to figure out how to escape their predicament. Foxglove remembered a lyre he had recovered from the hands of a dead man earlier today. He took it out and played a discordant tune.

Skull flashed with emerald green light. Its eyes sparked green as the lyre played. Music turned into words, whispered effortlessly. Each person heard the words speak in their native tongue.

“Your presence here constitutes your agreement to the Tests. Choose your measure: Test by Strife, or Test by Wit?”

“Wit!”

“Hey, wit hasn't served us well so far!”

But it was too late, for the lyre sang its next tune.

“Answer me this and free you shall be.

Think well, for the wrong answer means you remain here with me.

A tormented soul sought to escape the House of Pain but was not privy to the password.

The spirit observed a few other souls who managed to escape.

When the first soul knocked to be let out, the door-wight hissed “twelve,” the soul answered, “six.”

When the second soul knocked, the door-wight spit, “six,” the soul answered, “three.”

The tormented soul saw a pattern, so it approached the exit and knocked to be let out.

The door-wight coughed, “ten,” the poor soul answered, “five.”

It was unable to escape the House of Pain.

Why?”

Adventurers sat in silence for the first half an hour.

They were stupefied.

Some of them were cursing algebra.

But they did not allow desperation to take them over.

They ruminated.

They calculated.

They discussed.

And then Foxglove got it.

And then they discussed how to answer.

For presenting the answer in the wrong way might mean certain doom.

And Foxglove played the lyre and spoke thus:

“Three. The word six has three letters in it.”

And flashed as tune screamed BAH!

Soil vomited a leather bag.

Adventures looked at it cautiously.

And then they found themselves stuffed in a ten by ten chamber.

They jumped out with further delay and slammed the doors shut.

Alive and kicking, they kicked down north doors, marched through long corridor with damaged statues, and reach the terminus with doors on west, north, and east walls.

Heading east led them to dead end with foul monster that fled Ambros's divinity—a spider-like abomination capable of turning incorporeal. Chief Justice turned it once again. Brave adventurers boxed it in, preventing it to escape.

Thorm, wielding a magical blade, cut it down. That did take some time though. Tikatu, courageous pygmy and door blocker, was bitten several times. Hellish insect pumped him full with venom. But little pygmy did not give in and crawled to safety.

Thorm cut off the creature's appendages and finished it by thrusting the sword through its deformed elven head. Kho Rimbo orchestrated butchering that followed. He was fully intent of bringing as much of this creature as possible to his Master, Old Crus.

“Come on, lets not go out just yet. We are all healthy and strong. Let's check just one more room!”

Thorm the Adventurer convinced others to push on.

Lords of Luck reward guts with glory.

Adventurers moved through two chambers to the west. Then they followed the corridor south, into a wider corridor. Peeking down the open archway revealed little except that there was a rather long passageway ahead of them. Two opening emanated sickly green light, now quite familiar to the party.

“Let's check those doors we passed.”

Forcing them open revealed an empty chambers, some twenty by thirty feet. South doors were hanging ajar. Adventurers approached, with Thorm at the lead.

His keen senses kicked in, and he saw shadows moving. He jumped to his right, barely dodging the exploding doors. Large, seven feet tall, featherless bipedal monstrosity with large sharp claws, and massive axe-like beak towered over the dwarf.

Ignaeus and Thorm wounded the animal. Elf wounded it once more, and then attacked with the flat side of the blade. He successfully subdued the creature—hoping that alive specimen would impress Crus. Then Thorm killed it by accident.

Another, even larger, animal jumped out of the chamber. This time Amari contributed too. But it was yet again Thorm whom had killed the beast. He slashed across, and then vertically, cutting its head in two neat halves.

Investigating the chamber revealed animals' nest with thirty five gold pieces, one hundred and thirty one silver pieces, four sealed crystal vials with thick copper brown liquid, and one bone ring.

Thorm put on the ring.

Kho Rimbo once again orchestrated the butchering. Packing various monster parts took some time, but was done nonetheless.

“Now, let's head back to Ironburg!”

Sunstrong 17th, Waterday

Adventurers arrived into the miners' thorp on the evening of Sunstrong 17th. There were less men than usual. Hog's Head Inn was empty. Ambros and Ignaeus looked at each other wearily.

Kho Rimbo was too consumed with his geas to care. He took all the rotting monster parts and carried them off to Old Crus, some half an hour of hiking from the thorp. Amari accompanied him.

This time they did not have to wait long for Old Crus to open the doors. Not because he got any faster, but because his current student, Heinrik, opened them. Conversation was as slow and as miserly as usual.

Kho Rimbo boasted and boasted. Old Crus was very unimpressed. But he appreciated the monster parts greatly. At least the arachnid ones. Bird he did not care about—they are not Woelands natives, and therefore are of no interest to him.

“Am I free of the geas now?”

“What geas?”

“The geas you had put on me?”

“There was never any geas? That was all you?”

Kho Rimbo stood there, mute and dumbfound.

“Will... will you teach me other spells as we agreed?”

“Yes, of course. But you can always get more more monster parts if you wish.”

While Kho Rimbo was doing his thing with Old Crus, Ambros, Ignaeus, Foxglove, and Thorm were learning what was wrong in Ironburg.

Stroud Granger, the innkeeper, stammered:

“I-I-I would n-not like to insult you. B-but it all started with y-your friend Kho Rimbo. After he left Lord Kyle had miners rounded up. Then he ordered three of them to be brutally flogged.”

He gulped audibly before continuing:

“Including Darvin the Foreman, who is most outspoken about miserable work conditions. Following that, the miners have holed up in the mines and are boycotting further work. They refuse to return to Ironburg until the drunk tyrant has been removed.”

He sobbed audibly:

“There is no one drinking anymore. No one eating. You are my only customers. My best customers! Will you please stay here!”

Ambros leaned back in his chair. Gold Gavel of Justice was in his hands. “Kho. Rimbo. Kho. Rimbo.” he uttered, gazing into the distance.

How will adventurers help now? Should they even help?

Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.

#Wilderlands #SessionReport

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A zine chronicling the Conquering the Barbarian Altanis D&D campaign.

This issue details sessions 91, 92, and 93.

Adventurers deal with spiders, crypts, and kings.

You can download the issue here.

Overlord's Annals zine is available as part of the Ever & Anon APA, issue 7:

#Zine

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This was an impromptu session with my brother, father, and partner. Try to guess who played which character.

Adventurers

Character Race Class Description
Dita Afrodita Human Cleric level 1 Lover of everything intellectual.
Holy Biggus Dongus I Human Cleric level 1 Worshiper of the Dong.
Holy Biggus Dongus II Human Fighter level 1 Also worshiper of the Dong.
Bobby I Human Fighter level 1 A fighter.
Bobby II Human Magic-User level 1 Thrown out of the academy due to his immense wisdom. Relative of Bobby I.
Bobby III Human Magic-User level 1 Thrown out of the academy due to his massive bulk. Friend of Bobby II.

Summer of year 4435 according to the Balozkinar’s Corrected Commoners’ Calendar

“Screw this, let's go drinking in the village.”

Three adventurers—cleric Dita Afrodita, cleric Holy Biggus Dongus, and magic-user Bobby—immediately abandoned dungeon in front of them, judging the place to be too dangerous.

Therefore they headed back to Ahyf, a fishing village overlooking the Winedark sea. There they partied and wasted their coin for days.

Dita entertained the villagers, Bobby was telling everyone what is real and what is not, and Biggus Dongus was asking around for other places of interest.

Wise Bobby collected pine cones and filled them with resin. Then he asked Dita to bless them. These, he was sure, would be perfect firebombs.

Weighing their options, the trio decided to return to the dungeon overlooking the sea. It sounded way better than going up the Ghinarian Hills swarming with cannibal barbarians flaying passerbys.

The dungeon was in fact an old fort carved into the side of the cliff. A narrow ledge, barely sufficient for one person, led to the entrance, an opening in the cave. The tunnel then led to a bridge over the river spilling into the sea, which connected the tunnel with the stone dock.

Stone platform stretched for some hundred yards. Stone wall was to the right, while three lower platforms were to the left. Rubble and debris covered the pathway.

Adventurers could see three ancient rowboats attached to each of the three piers. Visually inspecting them confirmed that all were in a rather poor shape. There was an interesting chest in the middle boat.

While the adventurers dreamt of treasure, half a dozen stirges surprised them from above. The fight was brutal. Monsters dive bombed with ferocity.

Dongus swatted one off Dita, opting to ignore the one sucking him dry.

“Forget the pine cones! Get them off me!” he yelled to Bobby. Alas, the magic-user was preoccupied with his “magical” cones. Another stirge rammed Dongus, driving its proboscis through his soft neck. The cleric was dead.

Dita crushed stirge after stirge. She also crushed Dongus's head, missing the monster on him. By the time she was finished there was no one and nothing breathing but her.

Overtaken by grief she left the dungeon, travelled to Ahyf, and then travelled to Hara. She hoped to gain audience with the Great Wizard-King Klekless Racoba, so she could ask him to bring her two friends back to life.

Alas, that did not go as she had hoped. So she recruited two new adventurers instead: Holy Biggus Dongus II and Bobby II. Together they travelled to Ahyf and prepared for the dungeon expedition.

They spent weeks following Bobby's plan to create three resin filled strawmen. Bobby II argued that burning them would surely keep the stirges away.

Dungeon was where they left it. Corpses were gone. Adventurers left a strawman on each pier. Then they focused on the pier with rowboat that housed a single chest.

Dongus II was smart. Instead of going into rotten boat he threw the rope around the chest and pulled it out. Boat creaked as it snapped and capsized, and eventually sunk.

Opening the chest revealed a thousand or so silver pieces, a silver necklace, and a dagger with pale bluish glow.

The party discussed what to do next for so long that they were surprised by four lizardmen jumping out of the water. Two jumped at the far side of the pier, while other two jumped out quite close to Dongus II and Dita.

Bobby II was promptly driven down and stabbed to death. Dita and Dongus smashed their opposition, cutting them down and crushing their limbs. They collected the treasure and left for Ahyf.

Back in the village they recruited Bobby III, another magic-user. This one was a fan of Magic Missile. No pine cone nor resin fetish.

Dita led the refreshed party back to the dungeon. This time they ignored the piers and explored rest of the dock.

At the far end was a twenty feet wide gate with rusty portcullis. Iron grates were rusted, locking the portcullis hanging some three feet off the ground.

In the center of the dock was another portal, albeit with no obvious gates. It was more like a twenty feet wide and tall alcove with flame motifs. Bobby III carried one of the strawmen into the alcove and then set it on fire. Nothing happened. Except smoke.

The trio reconvened by the rusted portcullis.

A large domed hall sprawled beyond the gates. A spiral of mystic runes and scrawls dominated the floor. Three corpses laid on the floor, their garments rotted beyond recognition.

Bobby III cast his single Magic Missile at one of the corpses. It turned over from the force, but otherwise remained dormant.

Dongus II the cowboy lassoed the corpses closest to him and then dragged it towards the portcullis. Corpse twitched and rose. Veteran pulled on the rope, pinning the undead to the iron grates. Dita and Bobby III quickly dispatched of the corpse by smashing and stabbing it.

Dongus repeated the process on the second corpse. Adventurers' tactic worked brilliantly once again. Third corpse was a different story. This one was powerful enough to pull itself free from the mighty thews of Holy Biggus Dongus II. It ducked under the grates, and lunged in savage assault.

Dita blocked, but was clawed. She found it difficult to move, and was soon entirely immobile. Dongus did not fare much better. It was Bobby III and his glowing dagger that saved the day. He drove it into the neck of vile undead. Then he touched his paralysed allies with magic dagger, silver necklace, and other items from the backpack. Nothing got them to move. So he dragged both to the dungeon entrance.

An hour or so later both Dita and Dongus regained control of their bodies. Adventurers called it a day and returned to Ahyf.

Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.

#Wilderlands #SessionReport

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Adventurers

Character Race Class Description
Thorm Dwarf Fighter level 4 / thief level 5 Ashen hair, beard, and eyes. Left his own clan due to financial trouble.
Ambros Human Cleric level 6 Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time.
Ignaeus Elf Fighter level 4 / magic-user level 5 A slightly weathered looking elf with dull blonde hair and chiseled features. Seeks wealth and knowledge.
Foxglove Human Thief level 6 A willowy human, long hair ties in a pony tail, looks a bit dangerous and dainty at the same time.
Tikatu Human Druid level 3 A dirty little ma with dark and dirty skin, wearing loincloth with no back. “What will be, will be” is his favourite aphorism.
Amari Human Ranger level 1 Black hair that shines blue. Scarred like a gladiator.
Kho Rimbo Human Magic-user level 3 A knife throwing wizard extraordinaire. Covered in ritual knife scars. Cuts himself whilst casting. Prone to being sarcastic.

Sunstrong 13th, Earthday

“What do you mean?”

Rall Kyle, a minor noble in charge of Ironburg, squirmed in his chair. Just minutes ago he was yelling at one of his servants for not letting in Kho Rimbo sooner. But now he was growing suspicious.

“I was waiting for you to hear about latest news. How could I inform you? Is this... is this another test?”

Rall squinted at Kho Rimbo quizzically. Foxglove and Thorm sat in silence. They were in Rall's house, a two-story building with six rooms, situated some twenty minutes east of the village.

Kho Rimbo acted before Rall had time to think.

“That's about right! You are always being tested! RAKOBA HAS HIS EYES EVERYWHERE! I AM HIS EYES! HE KNOWS ALL! NOW, SPILL YOUR GUTS!”

Rall Kyle began sweating profusely. Adventurers' intimidating ruse worked.

He stammered and stuttered, trying to explain how he did his part of the bargain, but mining is getting harder and harder. Miners are lazy and incompetent and always ask for rest and wages. He was hoping that orc miners Racoba had promised would arrive any day now.

“D-D-Darvin. He is the foreman. He is guilty for the delay!”

“Fix this! I will be watching! Wizard-King Racoba will be watching!”

Satisfied with what they have learned, the adventurers left Rall to marinate in fear and anxiety while they headed back to Ironburg. There they decided that it would be most opportune to work on Kho Rimbo's geas—which the conjurer accept in exchange for tutelage by Old Crus, and experienced wizard. All he had to was bring some monster parts from Woelands.

Ignaeus and Ambros knew the closest entrance into the Wilderlands' underbelly—the stone circle atop the Midnight Goddess Hills. A party of seven adventurers and one porter—young Hazard—set out for the hills.

Sunstrong 15th, Spiritday

Sun was brutal. Heat was immense. Adventurers did not care, for they marched on. They reached their destination around noon. Descending down long, spiral stairs, worn by time, chilled everyone down.

This dungeon was familiar to Ignaeus, Foxglove, and Ambros, whom had been here several seasons ago. This was the place where Tagoler of the Castle of the Wode lost a patrol of rangers. A place where abominable spider-men walk about. A place where abyssal monstrosities weave pale green webs that paralyse men, and melt flesh.

Entry chamber was filled with azure blue haze, preventing anyone from seeing further than their own palm. The elf remembered all the traps and thus warned others accordingly. It took adventurers two hours to navigate this humble chamber and figure out how to open doors with a pit trap in front of them. But they succeeded.

Once they were in the long, dark corridor, they opted to head east for some hundred feet. The corridor bent south and then west. They stopped to inspect broken doors through which pale green light emanated. Empty.

Moving on, the party followed the bending corridor, until they reached a sixty feet long stretch with three doors on the west side. Behind first doors was an empty room. Behind second doors was a room with tattered greenish webs. Third doors revealed a chamber filled with intact webs pulsating with sickly green hue.

Thorm took a peek, pushing in the arm he was holding the torch with. A disgusting spider-like monstrosity surprised him from above, but failed to bite him. The dwarf slammed the doors shut. Adventurers spent some time planning how to overcome this threat. Military oil was the solution everyone agreed upon.

One of the adventurers pulled the doors wide open. Thorm chucked in a flask of burning military oil. It splashed on strings of web. Amari, followed by few others, charged in from the adjoining room, the one that was behind second doors, only to be assaulted from above by the same monstrosity that tried to impregnate Thorm.

She got bit, and felt getting weaker by the round. Tikatu soon suffered the same fate. Adventurers were unable to strike the abomination for every time their weapon was about to connect the monster would simply become immaterial.

“Begone!” Ambros thundered, holding up his Golden Gavel of Justice. Abyssal spider-like creature hissed and fled through the webs. Carefully following, adventurers moved slowly through the webs, making sure they do not accidentally touch them.

There was an opening on the south side, an alcove, leading into three feet tall crawlspace. Ground was covered by damp soil. Foxglove and Ambros got down on all four and went it. The former spotted something glowing in the soil, some fifteen feet westwards.

Coming closer, the thief could see this was a hand harp of sorts. He tried to gently pull on it. As his reward two rotten arms burst from the loose soil and grabbed him around the neck, choking him. Luckily, Ambros was right next to him. The arms disintegrated into dust as soon as the cleric began chanting the holy words.

Foxglove played with the harp a bit, but produced nothing but disturbing and discordant tunes. He tucked it into his backpack and continue crawling forward, into an octagonal chamber.

This eight-sided chamber was tilled with alternating obsidian and redstone slabs. Slanted ceiling rose from north to south, from eight feet around the walls to reaching twenty feet high on the south side. Beneath the highest point an altar carved of black marble sat, with subtle runes carved upon its smooth surface.

Adventurers spread out to investigate the chamber and altar.

What will they learn? And will Kho Rimbo find something to bring back to Old Crus? Or will he disappoint him once more?

Discuss at Dragonsfoot forum.

#Wilderlands #SessionReport

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OSRIC 3.0 Player Guide PDF has just been released for free on DriveThruRPG. Offset print and print-on-demand will be available next year, as well as GM Guide, adventures, and a host of other material.

OSRIC, Old School Reference and Index Compilation, was the first retroclone of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Released almost 20 years ago, it led the charge during early days of OSR, providing means to legally publish content compatible with AD&D.

OSRIC 3.0 brings a host of improvements, focusing on providing more explanations and examples of play, replacing dense blocks of text with more accessible layout, discards OGL, and brings the rules even closer to AD&D, just to name a few.

Learn more about OSRIC 3.0 on BackerKit.

#News #OSRIC #OSR

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Pilots' Almanac: Maritime & Piloting Rules is currently DriveThruRPG deal of the day for 50% off. Although for Hârn, I found it to be a great resource in my OD&D game, especially the sections on crews, ships, and maritime trade. An expensive book that rarely goes on sale.

Frog God Games is also running a 50% off sale. From what I can see some of the products are 75% off. Good sale to pick up some of the more expensive tomes and bundles like Razor Coast, Northlands, and Necromancer Games supplements.

#Sale #FGG #NG #Harn #OSR

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