Berghawk play report (the last month and a half or so) part 1

 I thought I better write a play report summarising my first few sessions of running OSE in Berghof (Greyhawk). I've drawn heavily on the maps and locals of UK 2 & 3, but Ive expanded the region into a sandbox hexcrawls. I made my own random encounter tables, created a couple of lairs, fleshed out hexes using a mix of the D30 Sandbox Companion, Filling in the Blanks, and some other materials. I also sprinkled around some proper dungeons from old and new sources. I'll get into this process some more in another post. 

For now here's a summary of what's happened in play so far. 

The crew started off in media res in an abandoned lakeside Villa, the Villa Manticore. There are many such villas along the shores of Lake Spendlowe. Rumour had it this one had been avoided by adventurers so far due to its forboding name. 

 

Speaking of the crew, it consisted of:

The magic user Igon Hasenclever, the cleric of St Cuthbert Stern Defurer, and the Elf magic user Magnus Volz. All level one.

The adventurers managed to ambush the drunkenly passed out Xvarts who'd taken over the eastern wing of the manor (the first hunt that this manor might have a wine cellar). They also successfully outsmarted a giant badger in the western wing with some good old ham-on-a-rope baiting shenanigans. After fighting an iron cobra and finding some treasure the gang decided to leave on a high note, and returned to the village of Kusnir, a few kilometers south.

In Kusnir the crew were able to recruit Bilbur the Dwarf and Loridil the Elf (I'm allowing both race/class splits and race as class. It's really made me appreciate the race as class options...). They heard a rumour of some skulks that had been terrorising the town and countryside, and decided to take them on. The adventurers were well prepared with bags of flour and some decoy bodies. They hid in the woods while the decoys "slept" by a campsite fire. Sure enough the Skulks showed up and began strangling the decoys. The heros threw flour on some of the skulks and even managed to charm one. So far so good... But in the next round a third skulk snuck up on Igon and struck him from behind with a murderous backstab. The survivors decided to flee for their lives.

Despite not defeating the skulks entirely, the adventurers were welcomed back to Kusnir as heros. Until then nobody had even gotten that close to defeating the creatures. The adventurers had won free board and the admiration of the townsfolk. Igon's larger brother Roland Hasenclever arrived on the scene swearing revenge for what was done to Igon. He also hired a torch bearer the young David Fischer, grandson of Kusnirs village Elder. 

With that, the party returned to the Villa Manticore after resting up. They took their first steps towards befriending the giant badger by bribing him with rations, and explored the lower levels of the Villa (which turned out to just be Manticore themed rather than having a real Manticore in it). In the cellar, the crew met a fellow adventurer a half orc whose name escapes me (a drop in player). The half orc was unfortunately swiftly dispatched by giant rats! I'm not sure whether I did the best job of selling this player on OSE but I hope he at least enjoyed giving something a bit more lethal a go (he usually plays 5E I believe). The adventurers soon realised that the cellar was partially flooded - the manor is in a swampy region near the lake. The managed to defeat giant leeches and a crocodile that the Xvarts were rearing in the cellar. They made off with the manors magic items, as well as the most expensive wines and whiskeys (the latter brewed all the way north in the Yeomanry). 

The next few events may be somewhat out of sequence but it's probably not that important. Back in Kusnir, the party hired another retainer, the Barbarian Arnold Schwarzenkorder (I'm not very nuanced with my roleplaying), and decided to go for some easy wins by clearing out some lairs in the hex surrounding Kusnir: they hit a giant frog lair where they retreated a (dead) missing townsman, and fought a bunch of witherstenches that had congregated around a statue of Vecna. This is another little feature I've come up with that I think works really well in hexcrawls: evil statues. I'll go in-depth on them in another post, but basically there are statues dedicated to the worship of evil gods all over the wilderness and they can be destroyed for XP, treasure and as a favour to local clerics. My players godda smash em all!

Kusnir houses a temple, and Garden, dedicated to Ehlona and when the temple's head cleric Mountain Dew (I can't help myself) heard about the statue she was happy to identify a magic item for free for the crew. The party then decided to head North East to the larger village of Chiswell where they were told they could store gold and treasure in a lockbox. On their way to Chiswell they also visited the site of another statue of Vecna. And that's where I'll leave it for now!