Forlorn Skulk

In-game date : Earthday the 27th of Readying, Common Year 560.   I’m trying something a little different with this play report. On PigDog’s suggestion, I’m going to focus a bit more on player choices over in-world descriptions. I’ll still use character names though, just in the interest of folks’ privacy! What this means is that it may be a bit less narratively engaging but might give people a better idea of how the session actually went down (vs whatever head cannon we’re collectively building). I’d checked ahead of time whether the party made it from the Temple of Vecna back to Chiswell without complications. Because they did, the party got to start in Chiswell and get straight to the good stuff: distributing treasure and XP.  Treasure and XP complications Because the party had been away from a safe haven for three sessions in a row, I took it upon myself to update the treasure/coin they’d collected, and divide it up. This created a few hitches, because I’d made some as...

I'll keep this one so short. The Stone Smashers toasted the cultists of Vecna with their fireball wand. A decisive victory. Much XP was earned as this was a campaign goal (and we're awarding feats of exploration 3D6DTL-style). They made it back to Chiswell with no further interruptions.  The only question that remains is: how many charges are left on that Wand of Fireball?! 

In-game date: 23rd of Readying, Common Year 560.  (Because there was only one established player and three new players this week, I decided to start them off on a side quest rather than continuing the mainline story). The Ranger Sepp Wininger, the Hobbit Thief Max Dash, the Dwarf Konrad Stonebarrow, and the Flan Clanswoman Kalista Stein (technically a Barbarian) had formed a small adventuring party in Goldhafen, a small prospecting village (population of 49) on the Western outskirts of Berghof. Calling it a town almost gives it too much weight. Picture a couple of wooden houses around a fire, and a bunch of tents. The only reason Goldhafen hasn't fallen to monsters yet is because most of its citizens are armed, and tough. The watch that patrols the Keep on the Borderland doesn't make it out here often. On their way from a failed excursion encountered four Al-Miraj - rabbit-like animals with unicorn-like horns. And highly aggressive! The crew dispatched of them handily and sold ...

Evil Statues and their Gods In remote locations, far from the prying eyes of the city watch, cultists erect and worship statues dedicated to their unholy masters. Across the multiverse, wizard priests read profane secrets to their acolytes beneath Vecna’s watchful eye. In the deepest, darkest swamps of the Flanaess, Wastri’s toadies gather around his likeness and croak sermons of hatred. And in the remote steppes of the Arctic Circle, the mad followers of Rhamiel build evermore complex effigies in tribute to their unknowable god/dess. These evil statues form the central nodes of cultist networks that span entire regions. Any one such statue is likely to contain hints to the whereabouts of others - be it through a map, messages left behind for other cultists, or hissing magic mouths. And so, adventurers who stumble upon one such statue often end up pursuing leads that ultimately culminate in finding a fully fledged temple dedicated to the god in question. Running Evil Statues  Evil ...

The gang (who are currently debating whether they should keep the name "Stone Smashers" or pivot to "The Punishers" - due to the high volume of puns) planned to ambush the followers of Vecna on their way to the human sacrifice at Vecna's hidden temple. But first they had to deal with the morale of their retainers, who just yesterday witnessed the death of the well loved retainer Loradil. Bilbur the Dwarf and David the Torch Bearer both decided to stay after a well placed motivational talk from Roland and Stern respectively, but Magnus was not able to convince his retainer Arnie to stay on. Arnie told the Magic User Magnus to "gif zem haiiil" before disappearing into the night. The party found some healing herbs and set up camp. The next morning, the party crossed the Hool River and scouted the terrain surrounding the temple of Vecna to find the best spot for an ambush. They searched a dormant volcano crater, which now housed a small forest and rain wat...

Still playing catch-up here, this report should get us to the present session. We're playing in Berghof in the Greyhawk campaign setting. This statue of Vecna was better defended than the previous one. The party fought their way past skeletons with rubies in their right eye-socket (a sign of Vecna), towards the big boss: an elk ghoul. Thanks to the cleric Stern Defurer's undead turning maneuver's this ended up being quite a one-sided beat down! The adventurers deftly disarmed the Vecna statue and found a map pointing to a temple of Vecna, along with an invite to a human sacrifice under the Luna new moon (about 2 weeks away). Around this time, the party also encountered a lone adventurer, the Elf Feuersicht. Feuersicht decided to throw his lot in with party ( and IRL we gained another player! ) The adventurers begun an initial incursion into the temple of Vecna - hidden inside a grassy mound west of the Hool River. The runes on the temples front door ominously said...

 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...

If anyone is interested in joining me on my stupid journey to check out the adventures published in Dragon magazine, I've created a chart. Sorry it's not nicer, I'm bad at technology and this is already a endeavor without me learning html.  Shout outs to DragonDex for creating the original list . All I did was fiddle around with it a bit in excel to sort it by "location" (issue number). I am trusting that whoever compiled this list didn't miss anything. But so far, when it comes to meticulously documenting fantasy nonsense, hobbyists have not led me astray. This was prompted by me asking the Canonfire Discord for good low-level, vanilla fantasy/Greyhawk adventures. A user suggested Citadel by the Sea from Dragon #78. I was vaguely aware that there were adventures in Dragon Magazine but didn't know there were this many, and more importantly that some of them weren't horrible trad slogs (most of them are though). I'll definitely be plonking this some...