Post by diogenes on Mar 9, 2023 6:36:24 GMT -6
Hello everyone, here is the second “Session Report” from the ongoing Viper Archipelago campaign. If you haven’t already, feel free to check out the Session Report for the first game, as well as the accompanying “Player’s Review”, which offers an un-edited player’s perspective into the events of that inaugural session.
If you’ve already read those, or just want to push on with this second tale, then ensure you prepare yourself properly for this one. This is a story of narrow escapes and near-misses, so batten down the hatches and get ready for a thrilling tale.
The players for this second game were:
L: A new player, who hadn’t played OD&D before.
M: An experienced player, who has played in a number of my games. It should be noted that although M has played in a few of my past B/X and OD&D games, he maintains a strong dislike of the mechanical aspects of these systems. However, he generously offered to give (or perhaps, was cajoled by the referee into giving) OD&D “one last try”, and so he joined the game.
R: An experienced OSR player and referee, who also played in this campaign’s previous game.
Like last time, R was playing his two characters, Hamilton (F-M 1) and Colby (W-P 1). The remaining two players preferred to play a single character each, with M playing Cornbread (W-P 1), and L was playing Egnus the Frail (M-U 1).
The pre-game rumours provided for this session were:
“A whale carcass has washed up on shore further to the south, and the rotting stench permeates the air in the pirate camp. Disgusting, but if you get down there with a decently-large crew of hirelings, maybe you could extract some valuable resources, like whale oil. Be careful though, as there's no telling what large predators might still be skulking around, feeding on the carcass...”
“So, I heard you were over at the lighthouse? If you keep going north past the lighthouse, you'll see the rocky shoals which the lighthouse is meant to warn ships away from. Of course, not everyone has been so lucky, especially after the lighthouse ceased operation, so there's a couple of shipwrecks off the coast. I heard some treasure-hunters sent their best diver down to the wrecks to see if there was any treasure left over, but he never came back up. According to one of the party who stayed on the shore, they felt a huge jolt on the safety rope they had around the diver's waist, and then they reeled in a broken line, with no diver on the other end. Poor f**ker.”
After some initial discussion amongst the party, the main two topics of interest were continuing to explore the lighthouse visited in the previous session, and checking out the beached whale to the south. The party reasoned that checking out the whale was a more “time-limited” option, as the carcass would likely be eaten up by scavengers before too long, whereas exploring the lighthouse further was something that could be done at a later time.
The objective of going south to the beached whale was to collect whale oil, and in pursuit of that goal, the party rented a cart, and contracted the services of three hirelings for the expedition. Two pirates, McDuff and Sandwich, were willing to come along for a price. A third pirate came along as a volunteer, this being Karbash, the pirate who received the healing potion in the previous session. The party hitched the cart’s to Colby’s mule, wrapping the cart’s wheels with rags to prevent it from sinking into the white sand of the beach. Together, the party set off, with the hirelings pushing at the rag-covered wheels to keep the cart moving across the sand without too much difficulty.
Before long, the party sighted the beached whale in the distance. As they moved down the beach towards the whale, more detail become visible. It was a sperm whale, and it was readily apparent that large chunks had already been bitten off the carcass. As they continued to close, two huge crabs, each about the size of a small car, scuttled around from the opposite side of the whale, coming into view for the players. The crabs didn’t seem to take any notice of the players just yet, as they were mainly pre-occupied by tearing chunks out of the whale carcass, and greedily devouring them.
M decided to try to sneak up on the crabs, and so Cornbread crept forward. The bulk of the party wanted to remain at a safe distance, but after a moment, R decided that Hamilton would go forward as well. Together, this brave (or perhaps foolhardy) pair of characters advanced towards the crabs. As they closed to about ten yards, the crabs turned around.
Cornbread and Hamilton froze, as the crabs watched them impassively with beady black eyes, which wavered on the ends of thick eyestalks. Each of the crab’s claws looked like they could cut a man in half at the waist with ease, and a sizeable chunk of torn-off whale flesh held in one of the claws of the larger of the two crabs attested to their power.
This stand-still staredown went on for what seemed like an eternity, but was only about a minute (and a lucky Reaction Roll). The crabs turned back to the whale carcass, seemingly dismissing the two small creatures who had crept up to them as being beneath their notice. Here, the players could have crept away, but M was evidently feeling the need to get stuck into a fight, as he wanted to have Cornbread run up, and leap onto the back of one of the crabs, and cling on like he was playing Shadow of the Colossus.
I rolled to see how this would play out, and the outcome wasn’t good for Cornbread. He leapt onto the back of the nearest beast, but was unable to secure a handhold on the smooth exoskeleton of the crab, and so he was shrugged off like a bothersome horsefly. Falling to the sandy ground, Cornbread landed on his back, and the wind was knocked out of him. He was now in a difficult position, with the crab that he just attempted to jump onto now looming over him, pincers poised and ready to strike.
With this, Initiative was rolled, and fortunately for the players, they would be acting first. As part of his Movement phase, Cornbread scrambled forward, diving between the crab’s legs and getting under it’s torso, so as to be out of reach of its claws. Hamilton also advanced into the fray, brandishing his spear at the second crab as it closed in, waving its pincers in a menacing threat display.
Hamilton struck first, but his questing spearpoint was turned aside by the hard carapace of the crab, and no injury was inflicted. The crab retaliated, and although Hamilton was able to sidestep one of the pincers, the second caught him around the upper arm, and began shearing into his flesh with bone-crushing force. Before the pincers could close completely and relieve him of his limb, Hamilton twisted and tore away, staggering backwards as blood ran down his arm and soaked into his sleeve. Hamilton was badly wounded in this first exchange, but was not slain.
The other crab was turning and scuttling about in all directions, trying to reach the adversary who had just crawled underneath him. I applied a penalty to the crab’s attacks in this case, owing to the awkward positioning of Cornbread under the crab’s torso, but even with the penalty in place, one of the reaching claws was able to find its mark, inflicting a full five points of damage to Cornbread. Fortunately for Cornbread, he had rolled a six when determining his number of starting hit points, and so he survived this round, although he was now reduced to one hit point as the crab’s claw caught his forearm, crushing it badly before he was able to pull away from its grasp. On Cornbread’s turn, he struck out with his mace, smashing his mace-head into the crab’s underbelly, but he only succeeded in inflicting a small amount of damage, and the crab seemed unfazed.
It wasn’t looking good for the players at this point, with two of their number badly wounded, and engaged in melee with these ferocious creatures. Prior to Initiative being rolled for the second round, M announced that Cornbread would be conducting a Full Retreat, and R announced that he would be conducting a Fighting Retreat, with both parties moving away up the beach, distancing themselves from the crabs. Initiative was rolled, and it was determined that the players were going first yet again.
Cornbread scrambled out from under the crab, and began a stumbling, staggering sprint northwards up the beach, fleeing from the crabs in terror. Hamilton carried out a steadier retreat, keeping his spear between him and the crabs as he backed away. At this point, I rolled another Reaction Check for the crabs, to see if they would aggressively pursue the fleeing players. I wanted to treat these monsters more like “real animals”, instead of video-game monsters that would just mindlessly fight to the death in all circumstances. The result of the reaction roll was fairly positive, so I ruled that the crabs would advance, but their main intent would be to drive the players away from the whale carcass and out of the crab’s territory.
I asked the players if they were intending to continue to retreat up the beach, and I got an affirmative answer. So, the players were able to continue to back away, maintaining distance from the crabs as the crabs came towards them. After the players had been driven about two hundred yards northwards by the crabs, the crabs came to a halt, and observed the players impassively as they continued to retreat back in the direction of the pirate camp.
Reconvening after this disastrous outing, the players decided that they wanted to return to the pirate camp, and rest up for a few days while they regained some hit points. While his wounded companions recovered, the Magic-User, Egnus the Frail, asked around the pirate camp for any rumours, so I gave them this additional rumour:
“I was scouting around the perimeter of the fortress, there's big cracks and breaks in the outer walls, probably a long-ago siege or battle in the area. Anyway, I was going to sneak into the fortress and have a look around, but I saw this bunch of wild-looking tribesmen with spears, all of them wearing these freaky wooden masks, feathered headdresses, necklaces decorated with human skulls, and so on. I didn't want to linger around any longer after I saw those guys, so I snuck away. Last I saw though, there were gathering out the front of the keep, and were doing some strange war-dance while chanting.”
Two days later, the wounded party members had recovered most of their health, thanks to some high rolls. For reference, I was allowing the recovery of 1d3 hit points for each day of full rest. The party members discussed what should be the objective of their next foray, and it was concluded that they would venture northwards, and further explore the lighthouse. In support of this venture, the party hired Karbash as a hireling, and hired Barlow as a retainer.
With their course of action decided, the party set off northwards along the coast, and reached the lighthouse without further incident. For further information on the lighthouse and its surroundings, refer to the Session Report covering the first game, if you haven’t already done so. Going forward, I’ll assume that these previous Session Reports have been viewed, so as to not burden the reader with repeated explanations and descriptions of previously-visited locations.
Entering into the lighthouse courtyard through the broken-open set of double doors on the western perimeter wall, the party swiftly made their way back over to the shack that stood near the southern perimeter wall of the courtyard. Opening up the trapdoor in the floor, the party looked down into the darkness, and saw the remains of the two giant tiger beetles that they had slain in the previous session lying near the foot of the basement stairs. The remains of these creatures were in the process of being devoured by a number of large rats that clustered around the corpses, with these rats each being about the size of a large cat. As soon as the party lit a torch and began to descend, however, these rats turned and fled, scurrying away into the many cracks and crevices that could doubtless be found amongst the heaped refuse that cluttered up almost all of the room.
As the party waded through the accumulated, piled-up junk, they found their way to a workbench pushed up against the east wall of the room, with this bench being cluttered with alchemy equipment and unidentified potions. There was a small “eye dropper” bottle filled with clear liquid, a tall slender bottle filled with lavender liquid, and a large, squat, square-bodied bottle filled with a dull orange liquid.
All of these unidentified potions were quickly stowed away, with the exception of the orange-coloured potion, which was immediately drank by Cornbread. The effects of this potion took place immediately, with a strange supernatural chill sweeping through Cornbread, before frost started forming around his extremities, starting from his fingertips and spreading up his arms. The sensation of cold was soon replaced by a burning internal heat, almost like a furnace had been lit in Cornbread’s chest, making him feel as though he would be able to withstand any ordinary heat or flame that he was exposed to. As you perhaps have guessed, this was a Potion of Fire Resistance.
Returning to the surface and existing the shack, the party approached the lighthouse. Instead of entering through the door at the base of the lighthouse, L asked about using his Magic-User’s spell, Levitation, in order to bypass the bottom floors of the structure. His intention was to levitate all the way up to the lantern room at the top of the structure, from which point he could fasten a rope to the railing, and throw it down so that the rest of his companions could climb up.
Unfortunately, upon checking the spell description, we found that when cast by a first-level character, the Levitation spell can only raise the caster up to a maximum distance of 20 feet off of the ground. As the railing of the lantern room was about 60 feet up, this plan of action wasn’t possible to execute. Nevertheless, the idea was a good one, and it’s this sort of creative application of spells that should be held up as a great example of how to play a low-level Magic-User effectively.
With the initial entrance plan foiled, the party approached the front door. Cornbread gave the door a mighty blow with his mace near the handle, and the door flew open, the locking mechanism shattered by the force. The party were in a small “entrance hall”, seeing little of interest except a set of curving stairs on the east wall of the room, which spiralled up to reach the level above. Barlow entered the lighthouse with the party, but Karbash remained outside, as he had only been “hired on” as a hireling for this expedition, instead of a retainer.
Ascending, the party found themselves in a disused storeroom, scattered with crates and barrels. On the west side of the room, there were two large mushroom-like growths, each about four or five feet tall and as thick as a barrel, growing out from behind a couple of crates that are pushed over near the north wall of the room. These fungal growths were a strange purplish-violet colour, something that was ringing alarm bells of the more experienced players in the group, and is no doubt doing the same for the learned readers of this forum.
For now though, these fungal growths didn’t seem to have any reaction to the presence of the players, and so the bulk of the party moved across to the set of stairs that were on the west side of this room, similar to those that led up from the previous level. As the party assembled on these stairs, and prepared to move up to the third level, Cornbread wanted to check out one of the round porthole-like windows that were fitted throughout the lighthouse. The closest window was on the north-west wall, roughly halfway between the stairs where the rest of the party were assembled, and where the violet mushroom-growths were growing from behind some crates next to the north wall.
I’m sure our readers are yelling at their screens in despair just now, as Cornbread is admirably filling the role of that one character in the horror movie who wanders off on their own, and gets dragged off by the monster. Cornbread wanted to see if it was possible to scale the tower from the outside, and in order to do this, he took his mace, broke the window, and began clearing the broken glass from the frame so that he could lever his upper body out and have a proper look.
However, just as he finished clearing away the last of the jagged glass with his mace, the two mushroom-things, which were in fact the dreaded Violet Fungi, shuddered into motion. Purplish tendrils erupted from the “mushroom cap” of each of these creatures, and began twitching and turning in the air, as each of the Violet Fungi began pushing their way through the boxes surrounding them, making their way towards Cornbread.
Initiative is rolled, and once again, the players are going first. Cornbread turns and runs, pushing past his allies on the stairs, and fleeing to the level above. The remainder of the party arranges themselves in “fighting order”, and prepares to meet the oncoming fungal monstrosities. Hamilton is in the front rank with his spear, and Barlow is alongside him with his cutlass. Behind these two frontline fighters, Egnus is frantically pulling a torch from his satchel, and scrambling to light it with his flint and steel. I asked for a roll to see if the torch could be lit before the creature’s closed in, and at least for the moment, it seemed like luck was on the player’s side. On the first try, Egnus lit the torch, and promptly lobbed this burning projectile at the nearest of the two creatures in the Missile phase. Unfortunately for our Magic-User, his thrown torch missed, passing between the two creatures, striking the wall, and bouncing back to land on the cold stone floor of the tower, where it sputtered for a moment, before continuing to burn merrily.
As the first of the Violet Fungi shuffle into range, Hamilton strikes first, scoring a wounding hit with his spear. Barlow hacked deep into the second creature with his cutlass as it approached, and cannily deflected a flailing violet tentacle with his blade as it lashed out in retaliation. Egnus brought his quarterstaff down from his place in the second rank, battering the bloated fungoid pod that served as the origin point of the second creature’s deadly tendrils. Despite the combined efforts of the players, both of these Violet Fungi were still active, and keen for a fight.
Hamilton drove his spear deep into his adversary a second time, and the beast wobbled in response, but didn’t fall. This one was tough! A moment later, the creature’s flailing violet tentacles scored a glancing blow against Hamilton’s arm, seemingly in answer to the piercing strikes he had landed on the creature a moment before. It seemed that such a light blow would inflict no injury, but even the slightest brush from these strange appendages brought a searing pain to any exposed flesh. Looking down, Hamilton saw that his arm was rapidly necrotising, leaving disgusting blackened, half-rotted flesh where the tendrils had merely brushed him. Pulling away in disgust and agony, Hamilton prepared to strike again in the next round.
Besides Hamilton, Barlow was experiencing similar difficulties. The creature he was facing had scored a blow across the right side of his torso, inflicting that same dreadful necrotic effect wherever the tendrils had came into contact. At this point, I hadn’t rolled Barlow’s hit dice, so I rolled them now. Would this blow be the end of Barlow? As the (virtual) dice clattered to a standstill, it became apparent that Barlow would not fall, not yet, at least. Fighting through the pain, Barlow drew his arm back, and delivered a massive horizontal cut right into the body of the creature that had just wounded him. The creature collapsed sideways, cut almost completely through the middle by Barlow’s mighty cutlass strike. The near-bisected form of the creature rolled clumsily to the foot of the stone stairs, where it lay dying, it’s violet tentacles still twitching weakly in death.
The battle was turning in the player’s favour, but with one of these creatures still active, the party wasn’t out of the woods yet. Hamilton was wounded, and the next blow from this creature could easily slay him outright. Before that had a chance to happen, however, Hamilton would be able to deliver the initial strike with his spear. The creature came in aggressively, tentacles stretching out to engulf Hamilton in a deadly embrace, and Hamilton met the beast’s lunge with a full-power spear thrust. The spearpoint sank home all the way to the handle, and Hamilton twisted the buried blade, inflicting even more grievous injury. The creature seized up and fell backwards stiffly, rolling down the spiral stairs to join its slain accomplice at the bottom. The fight was over, and despite receiving wounds, none of the player characters were slain.
The session was drawing to a close, but the party wanted to check out one more level before they returned to town. Ascending the stairs, the party found themselves in a compact kitchen area, with some alchemy equipment set up on one of the tables. There was a foot-wide hole in one of the walls of this room, allowing the wind to enter. There was a small knee-high cabinet near one of the tables, but this cabinet appeared sagging, damp and mouldy. This didn’t phase R, however, and he had Hamilton walk over, and pull the cabinet open.
As this occurred, L made certain to inform me that his character was on the far side of the room, and the rest of the party quickly followed suit. This was a good decision, as when Hamilton pulled the cabinet door open, there was an eruption of yellow-green spores, as the Yellow Mould growing inside the cabinet was disturbed.
Hamilton was completely engulfed by this cloud of choking spores, and he stumbled back, spitting and coughing, eyes watering and burning. I called for a Save vs Death, and Hamilton passed with flying colours. Evidently, he was able to twist his face away, and stumble out of the cloud before inhaling too many of these deadly spores.
As the spore cloud settled, the party looked into the cabinet, finding a leather pouch containing 100 strange silvery coins, as well as a sky-blue potion in a faceted glass bottle. With this treasure in hand, and the end of the session approaching, the party decided to return to town. As they left the tower and made their way across the courtyard, they looked back, and saw a leathery-winged, roughly-humanoid figure perched on the railing of the lighthouse lantern room, impassively watching the party leave. However, the party made it back to town with no further issue.
The coins they picked up were valuable relics from the days of the High Elf occupation of the island, and so each coin could be exchanged for fifteen silver coins. The party engaged in some experimentation with the potions they had obtained, quickly finding that the eye-dropper full of clear liquid acted as a Potion of Infravision when dropped into the eyes, and the faceted bottle full of sky-blue liquid acted as a Potion of Invisibility when drank. At the time of writing, the effects of the slender bottle full of light purple / violet liquid have not been discovered. L had Egnus give the liquid a sip, but he quickly regretted his decision, as the potion gross greasy texture, and tasted like modern engine oil or some other kind of petroleum-based lubricant. After involuntarily retching and spitting the potion out, he noticed that the liquid was emanating a gentle purple glow, but didn’t feel any harmful or beneficial effects.
With that, Session 2 of the Viper Archipelago campaign comes to a close, with each of the characters receiving a total of 300 SP, and 380 XP, once the Monster XP has been accounted for as well. Both Hamilton and Barlow will not regain any HP between the time of this session, and the time of the next one, as a result of the lingering necrotic wounds inflicted by the Violet Fungi.
After reading up on the various possibilities in AD&D, OSE Advanced, and OD&D, I've decided to hew as close to the 3 LBB as possible in this case, and treat the effects of this creature’s necrotising tendrils as being akin to Mummy Rot. So, the players will have a chance to regain those hitpoints in another four days, unless of course they find something in the game world that will alleviate the effect sooner.
At the time of writing, the third session of the Viper Archipelago campaign is planned for tomorrow evening, so keep an eye out for the session report for that game in the coming week. Until next time, readers.
If you’ve already read those, or just want to push on with this second tale, then ensure you prepare yourself properly for this one. This is a story of narrow escapes and near-misses, so batten down the hatches and get ready for a thrilling tale.
The players for this second game were:
L: A new player, who hadn’t played OD&D before.
M: An experienced player, who has played in a number of my games. It should be noted that although M has played in a few of my past B/X and OD&D games, he maintains a strong dislike of the mechanical aspects of these systems. However, he generously offered to give (or perhaps, was cajoled by the referee into giving) OD&D “one last try”, and so he joined the game.
R: An experienced OSR player and referee, who also played in this campaign’s previous game.
Like last time, R was playing his two characters, Hamilton (F-M 1) and Colby (W-P 1). The remaining two players preferred to play a single character each, with M playing Cornbread (W-P 1), and L was playing Egnus the Frail (M-U 1).
The pre-game rumours provided for this session were:
“A whale carcass has washed up on shore further to the south, and the rotting stench permeates the air in the pirate camp. Disgusting, but if you get down there with a decently-large crew of hirelings, maybe you could extract some valuable resources, like whale oil. Be careful though, as there's no telling what large predators might still be skulking around, feeding on the carcass...”
“So, I heard you were over at the lighthouse? If you keep going north past the lighthouse, you'll see the rocky shoals which the lighthouse is meant to warn ships away from. Of course, not everyone has been so lucky, especially after the lighthouse ceased operation, so there's a couple of shipwrecks off the coast. I heard some treasure-hunters sent their best diver down to the wrecks to see if there was any treasure left over, but he never came back up. According to one of the party who stayed on the shore, they felt a huge jolt on the safety rope they had around the diver's waist, and then they reeled in a broken line, with no diver on the other end. Poor f**ker.”
After some initial discussion amongst the party, the main two topics of interest were continuing to explore the lighthouse visited in the previous session, and checking out the beached whale to the south. The party reasoned that checking out the whale was a more “time-limited” option, as the carcass would likely be eaten up by scavengers before too long, whereas exploring the lighthouse further was something that could be done at a later time.
The objective of going south to the beached whale was to collect whale oil, and in pursuit of that goal, the party rented a cart, and contracted the services of three hirelings for the expedition. Two pirates, McDuff and Sandwich, were willing to come along for a price. A third pirate came along as a volunteer, this being Karbash, the pirate who received the healing potion in the previous session. The party hitched the cart’s to Colby’s mule, wrapping the cart’s wheels with rags to prevent it from sinking into the white sand of the beach. Together, the party set off, with the hirelings pushing at the rag-covered wheels to keep the cart moving across the sand without too much difficulty.
Before long, the party sighted the beached whale in the distance. As they moved down the beach towards the whale, more detail become visible. It was a sperm whale, and it was readily apparent that large chunks had already been bitten off the carcass. As they continued to close, two huge crabs, each about the size of a small car, scuttled around from the opposite side of the whale, coming into view for the players. The crabs didn’t seem to take any notice of the players just yet, as they were mainly pre-occupied by tearing chunks out of the whale carcass, and greedily devouring them.
M decided to try to sneak up on the crabs, and so Cornbread crept forward. The bulk of the party wanted to remain at a safe distance, but after a moment, R decided that Hamilton would go forward as well. Together, this brave (or perhaps foolhardy) pair of characters advanced towards the crabs. As they closed to about ten yards, the crabs turned around.
Cornbread and Hamilton froze, as the crabs watched them impassively with beady black eyes, which wavered on the ends of thick eyestalks. Each of the crab’s claws looked like they could cut a man in half at the waist with ease, and a sizeable chunk of torn-off whale flesh held in one of the claws of the larger of the two crabs attested to their power.
This stand-still staredown went on for what seemed like an eternity, but was only about a minute (and a lucky Reaction Roll). The crabs turned back to the whale carcass, seemingly dismissing the two small creatures who had crept up to them as being beneath their notice. Here, the players could have crept away, but M was evidently feeling the need to get stuck into a fight, as he wanted to have Cornbread run up, and leap onto the back of one of the crabs, and cling on like he was playing Shadow of the Colossus.
I rolled to see how this would play out, and the outcome wasn’t good for Cornbread. He leapt onto the back of the nearest beast, but was unable to secure a handhold on the smooth exoskeleton of the crab, and so he was shrugged off like a bothersome horsefly. Falling to the sandy ground, Cornbread landed on his back, and the wind was knocked out of him. He was now in a difficult position, with the crab that he just attempted to jump onto now looming over him, pincers poised and ready to strike.
With this, Initiative was rolled, and fortunately for the players, they would be acting first. As part of his Movement phase, Cornbread scrambled forward, diving between the crab’s legs and getting under it’s torso, so as to be out of reach of its claws. Hamilton also advanced into the fray, brandishing his spear at the second crab as it closed in, waving its pincers in a menacing threat display.
Hamilton struck first, but his questing spearpoint was turned aside by the hard carapace of the crab, and no injury was inflicted. The crab retaliated, and although Hamilton was able to sidestep one of the pincers, the second caught him around the upper arm, and began shearing into his flesh with bone-crushing force. Before the pincers could close completely and relieve him of his limb, Hamilton twisted and tore away, staggering backwards as blood ran down his arm and soaked into his sleeve. Hamilton was badly wounded in this first exchange, but was not slain.
The other crab was turning and scuttling about in all directions, trying to reach the adversary who had just crawled underneath him. I applied a penalty to the crab’s attacks in this case, owing to the awkward positioning of Cornbread under the crab’s torso, but even with the penalty in place, one of the reaching claws was able to find its mark, inflicting a full five points of damage to Cornbread. Fortunately for Cornbread, he had rolled a six when determining his number of starting hit points, and so he survived this round, although he was now reduced to one hit point as the crab’s claw caught his forearm, crushing it badly before he was able to pull away from its grasp. On Cornbread’s turn, he struck out with his mace, smashing his mace-head into the crab’s underbelly, but he only succeeded in inflicting a small amount of damage, and the crab seemed unfazed.
It wasn’t looking good for the players at this point, with two of their number badly wounded, and engaged in melee with these ferocious creatures. Prior to Initiative being rolled for the second round, M announced that Cornbread would be conducting a Full Retreat, and R announced that he would be conducting a Fighting Retreat, with both parties moving away up the beach, distancing themselves from the crabs. Initiative was rolled, and it was determined that the players were going first yet again.
Cornbread scrambled out from under the crab, and began a stumbling, staggering sprint northwards up the beach, fleeing from the crabs in terror. Hamilton carried out a steadier retreat, keeping his spear between him and the crabs as he backed away. At this point, I rolled another Reaction Check for the crabs, to see if they would aggressively pursue the fleeing players. I wanted to treat these monsters more like “real animals”, instead of video-game monsters that would just mindlessly fight to the death in all circumstances. The result of the reaction roll was fairly positive, so I ruled that the crabs would advance, but their main intent would be to drive the players away from the whale carcass and out of the crab’s territory.
I asked the players if they were intending to continue to retreat up the beach, and I got an affirmative answer. So, the players were able to continue to back away, maintaining distance from the crabs as the crabs came towards them. After the players had been driven about two hundred yards northwards by the crabs, the crabs came to a halt, and observed the players impassively as they continued to retreat back in the direction of the pirate camp.
Reconvening after this disastrous outing, the players decided that they wanted to return to the pirate camp, and rest up for a few days while they regained some hit points. While his wounded companions recovered, the Magic-User, Egnus the Frail, asked around the pirate camp for any rumours, so I gave them this additional rumour:
“I was scouting around the perimeter of the fortress, there's big cracks and breaks in the outer walls, probably a long-ago siege or battle in the area. Anyway, I was going to sneak into the fortress and have a look around, but I saw this bunch of wild-looking tribesmen with spears, all of them wearing these freaky wooden masks, feathered headdresses, necklaces decorated with human skulls, and so on. I didn't want to linger around any longer after I saw those guys, so I snuck away. Last I saw though, there were gathering out the front of the keep, and were doing some strange war-dance while chanting.”
Two days later, the wounded party members had recovered most of their health, thanks to some high rolls. For reference, I was allowing the recovery of 1d3 hit points for each day of full rest. The party members discussed what should be the objective of their next foray, and it was concluded that they would venture northwards, and further explore the lighthouse. In support of this venture, the party hired Karbash as a hireling, and hired Barlow as a retainer.
With their course of action decided, the party set off northwards along the coast, and reached the lighthouse without further incident. For further information on the lighthouse and its surroundings, refer to the Session Report covering the first game, if you haven’t already done so. Going forward, I’ll assume that these previous Session Reports have been viewed, so as to not burden the reader with repeated explanations and descriptions of previously-visited locations.
Entering into the lighthouse courtyard through the broken-open set of double doors on the western perimeter wall, the party swiftly made their way back over to the shack that stood near the southern perimeter wall of the courtyard. Opening up the trapdoor in the floor, the party looked down into the darkness, and saw the remains of the two giant tiger beetles that they had slain in the previous session lying near the foot of the basement stairs. The remains of these creatures were in the process of being devoured by a number of large rats that clustered around the corpses, with these rats each being about the size of a large cat. As soon as the party lit a torch and began to descend, however, these rats turned and fled, scurrying away into the many cracks and crevices that could doubtless be found amongst the heaped refuse that cluttered up almost all of the room.
As the party waded through the accumulated, piled-up junk, they found their way to a workbench pushed up against the east wall of the room, with this bench being cluttered with alchemy equipment and unidentified potions. There was a small “eye dropper” bottle filled with clear liquid, a tall slender bottle filled with lavender liquid, and a large, squat, square-bodied bottle filled with a dull orange liquid.
All of these unidentified potions were quickly stowed away, with the exception of the orange-coloured potion, which was immediately drank by Cornbread. The effects of this potion took place immediately, with a strange supernatural chill sweeping through Cornbread, before frost started forming around his extremities, starting from his fingertips and spreading up his arms. The sensation of cold was soon replaced by a burning internal heat, almost like a furnace had been lit in Cornbread’s chest, making him feel as though he would be able to withstand any ordinary heat or flame that he was exposed to. As you perhaps have guessed, this was a Potion of Fire Resistance.
Returning to the surface and existing the shack, the party approached the lighthouse. Instead of entering through the door at the base of the lighthouse, L asked about using his Magic-User’s spell, Levitation, in order to bypass the bottom floors of the structure. His intention was to levitate all the way up to the lantern room at the top of the structure, from which point he could fasten a rope to the railing, and throw it down so that the rest of his companions could climb up.
Unfortunately, upon checking the spell description, we found that when cast by a first-level character, the Levitation spell can only raise the caster up to a maximum distance of 20 feet off of the ground. As the railing of the lantern room was about 60 feet up, this plan of action wasn’t possible to execute. Nevertheless, the idea was a good one, and it’s this sort of creative application of spells that should be held up as a great example of how to play a low-level Magic-User effectively.
With the initial entrance plan foiled, the party approached the front door. Cornbread gave the door a mighty blow with his mace near the handle, and the door flew open, the locking mechanism shattered by the force. The party were in a small “entrance hall”, seeing little of interest except a set of curving stairs on the east wall of the room, which spiralled up to reach the level above. Barlow entered the lighthouse with the party, but Karbash remained outside, as he had only been “hired on” as a hireling for this expedition, instead of a retainer.
Ascending, the party found themselves in a disused storeroom, scattered with crates and barrels. On the west side of the room, there were two large mushroom-like growths, each about four or five feet tall and as thick as a barrel, growing out from behind a couple of crates that are pushed over near the north wall of the room. These fungal growths were a strange purplish-violet colour, something that was ringing alarm bells of the more experienced players in the group, and is no doubt doing the same for the learned readers of this forum.
For now though, these fungal growths didn’t seem to have any reaction to the presence of the players, and so the bulk of the party moved across to the set of stairs that were on the west side of this room, similar to those that led up from the previous level. As the party assembled on these stairs, and prepared to move up to the third level, Cornbread wanted to check out one of the round porthole-like windows that were fitted throughout the lighthouse. The closest window was on the north-west wall, roughly halfway between the stairs where the rest of the party were assembled, and where the violet mushroom-growths were growing from behind some crates next to the north wall.
I’m sure our readers are yelling at their screens in despair just now, as Cornbread is admirably filling the role of that one character in the horror movie who wanders off on their own, and gets dragged off by the monster. Cornbread wanted to see if it was possible to scale the tower from the outside, and in order to do this, he took his mace, broke the window, and began clearing the broken glass from the frame so that he could lever his upper body out and have a proper look.
However, just as he finished clearing away the last of the jagged glass with his mace, the two mushroom-things, which were in fact the dreaded Violet Fungi, shuddered into motion. Purplish tendrils erupted from the “mushroom cap” of each of these creatures, and began twitching and turning in the air, as each of the Violet Fungi began pushing their way through the boxes surrounding them, making their way towards Cornbread.
Initiative is rolled, and once again, the players are going first. Cornbread turns and runs, pushing past his allies on the stairs, and fleeing to the level above. The remainder of the party arranges themselves in “fighting order”, and prepares to meet the oncoming fungal monstrosities. Hamilton is in the front rank with his spear, and Barlow is alongside him with his cutlass. Behind these two frontline fighters, Egnus is frantically pulling a torch from his satchel, and scrambling to light it with his flint and steel. I asked for a roll to see if the torch could be lit before the creature’s closed in, and at least for the moment, it seemed like luck was on the player’s side. On the first try, Egnus lit the torch, and promptly lobbed this burning projectile at the nearest of the two creatures in the Missile phase. Unfortunately for our Magic-User, his thrown torch missed, passing between the two creatures, striking the wall, and bouncing back to land on the cold stone floor of the tower, where it sputtered for a moment, before continuing to burn merrily.
As the first of the Violet Fungi shuffle into range, Hamilton strikes first, scoring a wounding hit with his spear. Barlow hacked deep into the second creature with his cutlass as it approached, and cannily deflected a flailing violet tentacle with his blade as it lashed out in retaliation. Egnus brought his quarterstaff down from his place in the second rank, battering the bloated fungoid pod that served as the origin point of the second creature’s deadly tendrils. Despite the combined efforts of the players, both of these Violet Fungi were still active, and keen for a fight.
Hamilton drove his spear deep into his adversary a second time, and the beast wobbled in response, but didn’t fall. This one was tough! A moment later, the creature’s flailing violet tentacles scored a glancing blow against Hamilton’s arm, seemingly in answer to the piercing strikes he had landed on the creature a moment before. It seemed that such a light blow would inflict no injury, but even the slightest brush from these strange appendages brought a searing pain to any exposed flesh. Looking down, Hamilton saw that his arm was rapidly necrotising, leaving disgusting blackened, half-rotted flesh where the tendrils had merely brushed him. Pulling away in disgust and agony, Hamilton prepared to strike again in the next round.
Besides Hamilton, Barlow was experiencing similar difficulties. The creature he was facing had scored a blow across the right side of his torso, inflicting that same dreadful necrotic effect wherever the tendrils had came into contact. At this point, I hadn’t rolled Barlow’s hit dice, so I rolled them now. Would this blow be the end of Barlow? As the (virtual) dice clattered to a standstill, it became apparent that Barlow would not fall, not yet, at least. Fighting through the pain, Barlow drew his arm back, and delivered a massive horizontal cut right into the body of the creature that had just wounded him. The creature collapsed sideways, cut almost completely through the middle by Barlow’s mighty cutlass strike. The near-bisected form of the creature rolled clumsily to the foot of the stone stairs, where it lay dying, it’s violet tentacles still twitching weakly in death.
The battle was turning in the player’s favour, but with one of these creatures still active, the party wasn’t out of the woods yet. Hamilton was wounded, and the next blow from this creature could easily slay him outright. Before that had a chance to happen, however, Hamilton would be able to deliver the initial strike with his spear. The creature came in aggressively, tentacles stretching out to engulf Hamilton in a deadly embrace, and Hamilton met the beast’s lunge with a full-power spear thrust. The spearpoint sank home all the way to the handle, and Hamilton twisted the buried blade, inflicting even more grievous injury. The creature seized up and fell backwards stiffly, rolling down the spiral stairs to join its slain accomplice at the bottom. The fight was over, and despite receiving wounds, none of the player characters were slain.
The session was drawing to a close, but the party wanted to check out one more level before they returned to town. Ascending the stairs, the party found themselves in a compact kitchen area, with some alchemy equipment set up on one of the tables. There was a foot-wide hole in one of the walls of this room, allowing the wind to enter. There was a small knee-high cabinet near one of the tables, but this cabinet appeared sagging, damp and mouldy. This didn’t phase R, however, and he had Hamilton walk over, and pull the cabinet open.
As this occurred, L made certain to inform me that his character was on the far side of the room, and the rest of the party quickly followed suit. This was a good decision, as when Hamilton pulled the cabinet door open, there was an eruption of yellow-green spores, as the Yellow Mould growing inside the cabinet was disturbed.
Hamilton was completely engulfed by this cloud of choking spores, and he stumbled back, spitting and coughing, eyes watering and burning. I called for a Save vs Death, and Hamilton passed with flying colours. Evidently, he was able to twist his face away, and stumble out of the cloud before inhaling too many of these deadly spores.
As the spore cloud settled, the party looked into the cabinet, finding a leather pouch containing 100 strange silvery coins, as well as a sky-blue potion in a faceted glass bottle. With this treasure in hand, and the end of the session approaching, the party decided to return to town. As they left the tower and made their way across the courtyard, they looked back, and saw a leathery-winged, roughly-humanoid figure perched on the railing of the lighthouse lantern room, impassively watching the party leave. However, the party made it back to town with no further issue.
The coins they picked up were valuable relics from the days of the High Elf occupation of the island, and so each coin could be exchanged for fifteen silver coins. The party engaged in some experimentation with the potions they had obtained, quickly finding that the eye-dropper full of clear liquid acted as a Potion of Infravision when dropped into the eyes, and the faceted bottle full of sky-blue liquid acted as a Potion of Invisibility when drank. At the time of writing, the effects of the slender bottle full of light purple / violet liquid have not been discovered. L had Egnus give the liquid a sip, but he quickly regretted his decision, as the potion gross greasy texture, and tasted like modern engine oil or some other kind of petroleum-based lubricant. After involuntarily retching and spitting the potion out, he noticed that the liquid was emanating a gentle purple glow, but didn’t feel any harmful or beneficial effects.
With that, Session 2 of the Viper Archipelago campaign comes to a close, with each of the characters receiving a total of 300 SP, and 380 XP, once the Monster XP has been accounted for as well. Both Hamilton and Barlow will not regain any HP between the time of this session, and the time of the next one, as a result of the lingering necrotic wounds inflicted by the Violet Fungi.
After reading up on the various possibilities in AD&D, OSE Advanced, and OD&D, I've decided to hew as close to the 3 LBB as possible in this case, and treat the effects of this creature’s necrotising tendrils as being akin to Mummy Rot. So, the players will have a chance to regain those hitpoints in another four days, unless of course they find something in the game world that will alleviate the effect sooner.
At the time of writing, the third session of the Viper Archipelago campaign is planned for tomorrow evening, so keep an eye out for the session report for that game in the coming week. Until next time, readers.