Post by diogenes on Mar 25, 2023 11:40:41 GMT -6
Hello everyone, here is the fourth “Session Report” from the ongoing Viper Archipelago campaign. This was a particularly exciting and action-packed session, and I think an appropriate title for this game would be something like “The Lighthouse Massacre”, with the majority of this session’s two and a half hour runtime consisting of an extended mass casualty incident. With that grisly-sounding introduction out of the way, let’s get into it.
The players for this fourth game were:
J: A new player, who has not played any OSR game before.
L: A semi-experienced OSR player. L has played in the majority of games in this campaign so far, and was the most experienced player in the party during this particular session.
S: A new player, who has played an introductory OD&D one-shot with me previously, but who has not played a game that is part of this particular campaign before.
In this game, J was playing Marco Verma (M-U 1), L was playing Egrus the Frail (M-U 1), and S was playing Jeff Jefferson (F-M 1).
The pre-game rumours provided for this session were:
Some pirates who had newly arrived on the island decided to spend their "shore leave" exploring the coastline to the south. About half a dozen left the camp, only half that number came back. On their southwards journey, they went past where the whale carcass was, and as expected, the whole thing has been devoured or dragged away by the local wildlife by now. The pirates continued down the beach, until the noticed a strange white structure on top of the cliff, looking out over the sea. Even more strangely, there were these weathered stairs cut into the cliff face, leading up to the structure. The pirates climbed up these winding stairs, and found this temple-like structure, built from white marble.
This structure was located in Hex 1128. There were these strange-looking people there, all wearing white robes and beautiful silver jewellery, seemingly engaged in some weird religious ritual. The pirates were a bit spooked by this, and didn't want to get any closer, but one of these robed figures spotted one of the pirates, who was trying to hide behind a leafy bush a short distance away from the structure. As soon as the pirates were spotted, the robed figures let out a cry in an unknown language, pulled out curved silver daggers, and began approaching the pirates.
The pirates were outnumbered, so they turned to flee into the jungle, but before they could fully escape into the trees, two of their number were slain by deadly bolts of arcane energy. It was obvious that the robed figures were Magic-Users of some kind.
While trekking back through the jungle, the group lost a third member to some huge black feline-like beast that leapt out from the dense jungle. The pirates didn't stop to get a proper look, they sensibly turned and ran like hell the rest of the way back to the pirate camp, while the beast was distracted by their unfortunate companion.”
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“Some pirates were talking around the campfire, and they mentioned that further to the north of this settlement, there is a larger bay, and in the mouth of the bay, in Hex 1321, there is the ruins of some kind of large city with very unusual architecture. Some young, inexperienced pirate speaks up, and asks why they don't land there instead of this beach, but an older, more experienced pirate quickly sets him straight, informing him that the ruined city is one of those that was once home to the dreaded Serpent-Men, and the ruins are infested with monsters, and are best left shunned.”
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“Some brave divers had another shot at the shipwrecks in Hex 1624. These guys were luckier than the last bunch, they were able to pull up a substantial treasure haul. In additions to the coins and jewellery, one of the divers pulled up a beautiful sword, clearly made of the highest-quality steel. Next to that fine blade, the common cutlasses, falchions, and messers favoured by the pirates in this region look like dull butter knives in comparison. A blade like that is sure to give him an edge in the contest that's coming up. Oh, you hadn't heard? Yes, there's a bit of sport coming up, a series of one vs one duels. Costs 15 silver pieces to enter the contest, winner takes the lot from the prize pot (after a bit has been skimmed off the top by the organiser, of course). Fights happen with whatever weapon you want, but no armour, unless both fighters agree to wear armour. You can yield at any time, no shame in that, but if both participants don't yield, then the duel can go all the way to the death.”
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Initially, the players seemed interested in going south to the temple where the strange Magic-Users had run off those pirates, but they also wanted to check out the lighthouse first. I told the players that I reckoned that it would be possible to tackle both of these locations, if they moved quickly. Little did I know, that we were about to engage in the biggest battle of the campaign, which would represent a full session of blood-soaked swordplay and cunning “combat as war” old-school tactics.
The party decided to head to the lighthouse, and see if they could clear it out. Once again, Barlow was taken on as a retainer for this expedition. Together, the party travelled north along the picturesque beach, a route that is now familiar to the regular readers of these actual play reports. They climbed up onto the spit of rock, and cautiously advanced into the lighthouse courtyard. Facing no opposition, they proceeded east, ascending the short flight of stairs that lead into the lighthouse. They entered, weapons raised and ready for action, and were confronted with the sight up a dead White Ape of some kind, lying in the centre of the floor. It was obvious that the dead creature had been ripped apart by natural talons of some kind, but there was an absence of bloody drag-marks to show that the creature had been dragged inside after being killed. The blood splatters on the stone floor around the creature indicated that the creature was killed in this room.
This strange sight put the players on edge, but for now, the lighthouse seemed to be otherwise abandoned. The party ascended the first two floors without further incident, passing by the inert forms of the two Violet Fungus that they had previously slain at the bottom of the second-floor stairs, but before they could climb the stairs to the third floor, they heard a scratching, squabbling, squawking sound coming from the floor above them. They heard drawers being rifled through and slammed shut, they heard animalistic scratching, and a bird-like squawking.
Jeff bravely volunteered to poke his head up, and see what was going on. He crept up the stairs to the next level, an arrow nocked on the string of his longbow. As he raised his head up to the next level, he saw two humanoid creatures, with the bodies of gaunt old women, and the wings of birds. These creatures also had bird-like legs, with great taloned feet. The two creatures were squabbling over a piece of bloody raw meat, and as Jeff poked his head up, one of the creatures gave a fierce pull, and tore the piece of meat out of the other’s claw-like hand. Unfortunately for Jeff, the piece of meat fell to the floor, and rolled in his direction. As the creatures turned to go after the meat once more, they caught sight of Jeff’s head poking up from the stairwell, and gave a squawk of alarm as they spotted this intruder.
As they turned towards him, Jeff loosed an arrow that tore a ragged hole in the wing of one of the creature’s, causing it to shriek in pain. The two creatures scrambled towards Jeff, but Egrus and Barlow came rushing up the stairs to support their team-mate. In a short, decisive melee, Barlow parted one of the creature’s bony heads from their scrawny neck with a cutlass stroke, and the other was brained by Egrus’s quarterstaff.
These first two harpies were dealt with, but it seemed like the sounds of the fight had attracted some attention. There was a squawking sound from the floor above, sounded like another half-dozen or so of these creatures had been alerted to the presence of these intruders. The party prepared to make a hasty retreat, but this is where L had a moment of old-school clarity. He had a bar of soap in his backpack, so he asked if he could scrub the stone stairs to make them slippery and hazardous. The player S quickly contributed to this effort, as he had some clay marbles that he could scatter on the stairs to further increase the precariousness of the terrain.
Working quickly, these two characters descended the stairs to the previous floor, all the while scrubbing the stairs with the soap, and a few splashes of water from their waterskins. The clay marbles were also scattered on these stairs. Just as they finished their retreat down to the previous level, the harpies came chasing after them from the floor above. In a confined, low-ceilinged indoor space like this, the harpies weren’t able to fly effectively, so they were forced to move along the ground with a hopping, birdlike gait. In total, there were five harpies. As the pursuing harpies reached the top of the stairs, I had the first two make a Save vs Paralysis. This first pair of harpies failed their Saving Throw, and slipped on the marbles and soap-slick stairs, toppling down the stairs, and finally crashing to the stone floor on the level below. Both harpies were badly wounded by this hard fall, but neither were slain.
As the two injured harpies struggled to their feet, they were confronted by Barlow, who had positioned himself at the foot of the stairs, with Egrus right behind him with his quarterstaff ready. Marco had positioned himself to the rear of the stairs, ready to strike from behind, and Jeff had established himself in an advantageous position behind some wooden storage crates and barrels, deeper into the room. From this position, he could fire his longbow at the harpies, while benefiting from the cover offered by the crates and barrels.
The remaining three harpies successfully passed their Save vs Paralysis, and made their way haltingly down the treacherous stairs, joining their injured companions on the ground floor, but not before two more of their number were felled by precisely-placed arrows, delivered at lethal speed from Jeff’s longbow.
From there, melee was joined, and in the “heat of the moment”, I accidentally had the harpies attack first, even though the player characters had longer weapons, and should have had “attack priority” in this situation. Despite the unintentional advantage his attackers had been given, Barlow was able to successfully defend himself from every one of the tearing, animalistic blows the harpies aimed at him. Given that he was the “front-most” fighter, the harpies were focusing on bringing him down, but they were unable to defeat this stalwart fighter.
When the party answered with their own attacks, they were a great deal more effective. Seemingly in answer to the barrage of attacks that had been levelled at him a moment before, Barlow immediately cut down one of the already-injured harpies with his cutlass, proving himself to be a very sound investment in terms of taking him on as a retainer for this expedition. Egrus lightly wounded another of the harpies with a glancing blow from his quarterstaff, but it didn’t fall yet. However, it was quickly apparent that the ferocity of the harpies was going to be unable to overcome the party, and so the harpies’ morale broke, with the remaining two harpies turning, and beginning to scramble back up the stairs.
Before they could make it to safety, however, Marco, who had been hiding behind the stairwell, emerged from his place of concealment, and hurled his dagger straight into the back of the nearest of the creatures, sending it sprawling to the ground, dead. The final creature reached the top of the stairs in a desperate rush, where I checked to see if would there was any last remnants of slippery, soapy residue still present, or if there was a stray marble or two that hadn’t yet been trodden on and dislodged. The dice made the decision in the favour of the party, but before I could resolve the creature’s Save vs Paralysis, there was one final arrow to be delivered from Jeff’s longbow as part of the round’s “Pass-Through Fire” phase.
True to form, Jeff nailed this fleeing creature in another deadly display of archery, dealing 5 points of damage. This was more than enough to slay the creature outright, but I decided to roll to see if it would have slipped on the soap and marbles at the top of the stairs anyway. I made the creature’s Save vs Paralysis, and saw that it would have failed miserably. For purely gratuitous purposes, I rolled to see how much damage the creature would have taken in the fall, and my dice came up with another 5.
With such a great deal of damage being inflicted, I felt it was only reasonable to rule that this creature was mortally-wounded by Jeff’s arrow as it pierced deep into its monstrous heart, with the subsequent headlong fall from the top of the stairs, and the accompanying crash onto the hard stone floor below only serving to make the creature’s certain demise even more instantaneous.
With the harpies dealt with, the players ascended the stairs up to the “watch room” of the lighthouse, just below the lantern room itself. This room was somewhat well-furnished, with a bed, a wardrobe, a writing desk, and so on. The players wasted no time thoroughly looting the room, down to turning out the pockets of the overcoats that were hidden in the wardrobe. In the course of their search, the party turned up some curiously anachronistic tools and equipment, including a strange metal tube with a kind of catch or trigger, that was entirely unfamiliar to our player characters, but to a modern person, might look suspiciously similar to an American-made M203 grenade launcher. Some other curious relics uncovered from this room included round metal tubes with a rounded top, found alongside the “grenade launcher”, as well as some flat, smooth metal discs with buttons on it.
Just as the players finished packing up these curious, my “wandering monster check” finally came up with a one, and the players heard the sound of beating wings from the floor above them, that sounded like they were getting closer and closer. A moment later, they heard excited squawking, the thump of some creatures landing on the floor above, and the sound of a human screaming and yelling “get off of me, get away from me!”.
Upon hearing this, the players had a strong urge to rapidly exit the lighthouse, and escape with their loot. As they packed up and prepared to leave, however, their curiosity got the better of them, and L wanted to have Egrus poke his head up and check out what was happening on the floor above. So, Egrus climbed the stairs, and upon taking a peek into the floor above, he saw that the only room left above them was the lighthouse’s lantern room.
The floor of this lantern room was scattered with a thick layer of sticks and branches, as well as bones. In amongst this nest-like floor, there were a number of shiny trinkets, including jewellery of various kinds. In the centre of this room, there was shattered array of crystal lenses that had once acted as the beacon for the lighthouse, and on the south wall of the room there was a control panel of some kind. There were windows all around this room, giving a great view of the sea and the surrounding landscape. However, there was no time to stop for sightseeing at the moment, as the room was currently occupied by six squawking, squabbling harpies. Amongst the harpies, there was one that looked particularly old and cruel, with greying, lank hair, and a beaten leather satchel around its neck.
This group of harpies had just landed on the catwalk that surrounded the lantern room, and had made their way inside, dragging with them a terrified victim, in the form of a bloodied, struggling pirate, who was kicking and thrashing about with all his might in a vain attempt to escape. This unfortunate pirate had likely been snatched off the beach somewhere by this harpy hunting party, and was now about to be ripped apart and devoured, right in front of the party’s eyes.
This grisly scene prompted a hasty discussion from the party. Initially, the players considered leaving the poor pirate to his horrible fate, and escaping while the creatures were distracted, but as they heard the pirate’s terrified screams, and saw the harpies converging on him, their common humanity overcame their avarice, and they launched into action.
Egrus literally kicked off proceedings with a bang, as he lobbed a lit string of firecrackers right into the midst of these creatures. I checked their Morale to see if they would scatter in fright, but their resolve held! Nevertheless, the creatures were distracted and surprised, allowing the beleaguered pirate to scramble to his feet, and begin a mad rush down the stairs.
Meanwhile, the players sprang into action. Barlow and Egrus turned and ran, following the fleeing pirate in a desperate dash for the exit. Marco ran up the stairs, and tried to snatch up some of the nearest pieces of the fine jewellery that could be seen strewn throughout the nest. Jeff, however, decided he would not be fleeing, and would not be scrambling for treasure. Jeff levelled his bow, and made ready for a final stand, as the six harpies turned towards him, and prepared to attack!
Now, to give an insight into the referee’s mind at this point, I was thinking that this was a noble, self-sacrificing act from a player with a new character, with S laying down his characters life so that the characters with a greater amount of experience, that being Egrus and Barlow, could successfully escape, and level up from the treasure that they had accumulated. Now, that may have been the plan, but it certainly wasn’t the outcome.
As the creatures swarm forward, one is killed stone-dead on the spot by an arrow delivered at point-blank range, which buries itself into the creature’s skull. Five harpies remain, with four rushing forward, but only three are able to crowd around and attack the characters at once, given the tight confines at the top of the stairwell. I rolled to see who the harpies would attack, and it was the Magic-User, Marco, who was in the process of secreting away the treasure that they had grabbed during the previous round, while Jeff was providing cover fire.
Three attacks were made against the unarmoured Magic-User, and by some miracle, only one managed to land a hit. Four damage was rolled against Marco, and when I inquired if Marco had been slain, J informed me that they hadn’t yet rolled their initial hit dice for this character. This provided yet another epic moment in this session, as the character’s hit dice was rolled for all to see, with a 5 or better needed to survive. Drumroll please…the result appeared on the screen…a six! Marco’s run of good luck seemed to be holding, at least for now. Marco’s forehead had been slashed open by a talon, turning his features into a mask of blood, but he was still up and in the fight.
The next round rolled around, Marco declared they would be making a Full Retreat during this round. During the previous round, the old crone amongst the harpies had withdrawn a wand made of gnawed bone from the leather satchel around her neck, and was now pointing it in the direction of Jeff, while muttering some dark incantation. I declared that the old harpy would be casting a spell on their turn. Sensibly, Jeff declared they would make a Fighting Retreat down the stairs, and continue to fight as a rearguard.
The players won Initiative, and the characters began their manoeuvre, successfully breaking line of sight with the spell-casting harpy. Meanwhile, Egrus and Barlow were nearing the bottom of the tower, along with their fleeing pirate companion, having continued their flight while the battle was raging upstairs.
As Jeff completed his half-movement retreat, he gave a sharp blast on the whistle that hung around his neck, a sound that pierced down to where Egrus and Barlow were, causing them to pause in their flight. They debated whether to return upstairs and assist their team-mate, or whether to continue their escape. The pirate had no such hesitation, and continued running right past them, fully focused on leaving this accursed lighthouse. Marco too, continued to run, coming into sight of Egrus and Barlow as he ran down the stairs to the floor they were on.
Above, however, the battle continued. As the four pursuing harpies rushed down the stairs to attack Jeff in melee, another one of their number became a perforated victim of Jeff’s close-quarters longbow marksmanship, leaving only three remaining that would be engaging him in melee on this round. I looked at the distance between Jeff and the harpies, and accordingly, I informed S that if he intended on making a melee attack on his turn, he would have to drop his longbow, so that he could draw his hand axe quickly enough to muster an effective retaliation against the harpies.
This was a tough decision for S, as his longbow had been a great advantage so far, and he was wont to cast it aside in favour of fighting in melee with his axe. However, he knew he was going to be pressed into melee on this coming round, and so, with three bloodthirsty harpies closing in, Jeff dropped his longbow to the stone floor of the lighthouse, drew his axe, and prepared to meet the charge.
Two out of the three harpies successfully hit. It wasn’t looking good for Jeff, but when I rolled the damage, both of the creatures only inflicted one point of damage! Just as I was thinking these players should be buying lottery tickets or going to the casino instead of playing in my game, S informed me that he too, hadn’t rolled his character’s initial hit die. We rolled that on the spot, and after the damage was resolved against the total, Jeff had two out of four of his hit points remaining, so one more decent blow would be enough to slay him outright.
Before we moved onto the next round, Jeff resolved his melee attack, his axe smashing one of his attacker’s skulls to smithereens. With this, only two harpies remained engaged in this combat. I asked S if he planned on disengaging and retreating on this round, but he informed me that he would be fighting this engagement out to the end, whatever form that may take. This brave example evidently inspired Egrus and Barlow, who wanted to charge back into the fray, summoned by the whistle blast from earlier. I looked at the movement rates of each of the characters, and determined that Jeff and the two harpies he was fighting were just within the movement range of Egrus and Barlow, who were one floor below at this time.
Like heroes in a classic Hollywood movie, Egrus and Barlow came thundering up the stairs in support of their teammate, arriving just in time for the resolution of the Melee phase to take place. Fittingly, the arrival of these heroes turned the tide of battle, with Egrus and Barlow both slaying one more of the harpies each, ending the battle in a truly thrilling fashion.
The party took some time to re-gather themselves, before moving up to the lantern room. There, they saw that the old crone amongst the harpies had flown away, now that her flock had been entirely wiped out. The party wasted no time in looting the room thoroughly, acquiring a number of valuable items. These included a pair of wands, a ornate sword with a mirror-polished blade, and a bunch of jewellery. After packaging up their loot, the party made their way back to town without further incident.
That concluded the session proper, but there was plenty of experimentation with the treasures that occurred during downtime, and some interesting developments that arose from that. However, further details of these developments will have to wait until the next Session Report, as this one has ran on long enough, and the experimentation is still ongoing.
Until next time, readers.
The players for this fourth game were:
J: A new player, who has not played any OSR game before.
L: A semi-experienced OSR player. L has played in the majority of games in this campaign so far, and was the most experienced player in the party during this particular session.
S: A new player, who has played an introductory OD&D one-shot with me previously, but who has not played a game that is part of this particular campaign before.
In this game, J was playing Marco Verma (M-U 1), L was playing Egrus the Frail (M-U 1), and S was playing Jeff Jefferson (F-M 1).
The pre-game rumours provided for this session were:
Some pirates who had newly arrived on the island decided to spend their "shore leave" exploring the coastline to the south. About half a dozen left the camp, only half that number came back. On their southwards journey, they went past where the whale carcass was, and as expected, the whole thing has been devoured or dragged away by the local wildlife by now. The pirates continued down the beach, until the noticed a strange white structure on top of the cliff, looking out over the sea. Even more strangely, there were these weathered stairs cut into the cliff face, leading up to the structure. The pirates climbed up these winding stairs, and found this temple-like structure, built from white marble.
This structure was located in Hex 1128. There were these strange-looking people there, all wearing white robes and beautiful silver jewellery, seemingly engaged in some weird religious ritual. The pirates were a bit spooked by this, and didn't want to get any closer, but one of these robed figures spotted one of the pirates, who was trying to hide behind a leafy bush a short distance away from the structure. As soon as the pirates were spotted, the robed figures let out a cry in an unknown language, pulled out curved silver daggers, and began approaching the pirates.
The pirates were outnumbered, so they turned to flee into the jungle, but before they could fully escape into the trees, two of their number were slain by deadly bolts of arcane energy. It was obvious that the robed figures were Magic-Users of some kind.
While trekking back through the jungle, the group lost a third member to some huge black feline-like beast that leapt out from the dense jungle. The pirates didn't stop to get a proper look, they sensibly turned and ran like hell the rest of the way back to the pirate camp, while the beast was distracted by their unfortunate companion.”
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“Some pirates were talking around the campfire, and they mentioned that further to the north of this settlement, there is a larger bay, and in the mouth of the bay, in Hex 1321, there is the ruins of some kind of large city with very unusual architecture. Some young, inexperienced pirate speaks up, and asks why they don't land there instead of this beach, but an older, more experienced pirate quickly sets him straight, informing him that the ruined city is one of those that was once home to the dreaded Serpent-Men, and the ruins are infested with monsters, and are best left shunned.”
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“Some brave divers had another shot at the shipwrecks in Hex 1624. These guys were luckier than the last bunch, they were able to pull up a substantial treasure haul. In additions to the coins and jewellery, one of the divers pulled up a beautiful sword, clearly made of the highest-quality steel. Next to that fine blade, the common cutlasses, falchions, and messers favoured by the pirates in this region look like dull butter knives in comparison. A blade like that is sure to give him an edge in the contest that's coming up. Oh, you hadn't heard? Yes, there's a bit of sport coming up, a series of one vs one duels. Costs 15 silver pieces to enter the contest, winner takes the lot from the prize pot (after a bit has been skimmed off the top by the organiser, of course). Fights happen with whatever weapon you want, but no armour, unless both fighters agree to wear armour. You can yield at any time, no shame in that, but if both participants don't yield, then the duel can go all the way to the death.”
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Initially, the players seemed interested in going south to the temple where the strange Magic-Users had run off those pirates, but they also wanted to check out the lighthouse first. I told the players that I reckoned that it would be possible to tackle both of these locations, if they moved quickly. Little did I know, that we were about to engage in the biggest battle of the campaign, which would represent a full session of blood-soaked swordplay and cunning “combat as war” old-school tactics.
The party decided to head to the lighthouse, and see if they could clear it out. Once again, Barlow was taken on as a retainer for this expedition. Together, the party travelled north along the picturesque beach, a route that is now familiar to the regular readers of these actual play reports. They climbed up onto the spit of rock, and cautiously advanced into the lighthouse courtyard. Facing no opposition, they proceeded east, ascending the short flight of stairs that lead into the lighthouse. They entered, weapons raised and ready for action, and were confronted with the sight up a dead White Ape of some kind, lying in the centre of the floor. It was obvious that the dead creature had been ripped apart by natural talons of some kind, but there was an absence of bloody drag-marks to show that the creature had been dragged inside after being killed. The blood splatters on the stone floor around the creature indicated that the creature was killed in this room.
This strange sight put the players on edge, but for now, the lighthouse seemed to be otherwise abandoned. The party ascended the first two floors without further incident, passing by the inert forms of the two Violet Fungus that they had previously slain at the bottom of the second-floor stairs, but before they could climb the stairs to the third floor, they heard a scratching, squabbling, squawking sound coming from the floor above them. They heard drawers being rifled through and slammed shut, they heard animalistic scratching, and a bird-like squawking.
Jeff bravely volunteered to poke his head up, and see what was going on. He crept up the stairs to the next level, an arrow nocked on the string of his longbow. As he raised his head up to the next level, he saw two humanoid creatures, with the bodies of gaunt old women, and the wings of birds. These creatures also had bird-like legs, with great taloned feet. The two creatures were squabbling over a piece of bloody raw meat, and as Jeff poked his head up, one of the creatures gave a fierce pull, and tore the piece of meat out of the other’s claw-like hand. Unfortunately for Jeff, the piece of meat fell to the floor, and rolled in his direction. As the creatures turned to go after the meat once more, they caught sight of Jeff’s head poking up from the stairwell, and gave a squawk of alarm as they spotted this intruder.
As they turned towards him, Jeff loosed an arrow that tore a ragged hole in the wing of one of the creature’s, causing it to shriek in pain. The two creatures scrambled towards Jeff, but Egrus and Barlow came rushing up the stairs to support their team-mate. In a short, decisive melee, Barlow parted one of the creature’s bony heads from their scrawny neck with a cutlass stroke, and the other was brained by Egrus’s quarterstaff.
These first two harpies were dealt with, but it seemed like the sounds of the fight had attracted some attention. There was a squawking sound from the floor above, sounded like another half-dozen or so of these creatures had been alerted to the presence of these intruders. The party prepared to make a hasty retreat, but this is where L had a moment of old-school clarity. He had a bar of soap in his backpack, so he asked if he could scrub the stone stairs to make them slippery and hazardous. The player S quickly contributed to this effort, as he had some clay marbles that he could scatter on the stairs to further increase the precariousness of the terrain.
Working quickly, these two characters descended the stairs to the previous floor, all the while scrubbing the stairs with the soap, and a few splashes of water from their waterskins. The clay marbles were also scattered on these stairs. Just as they finished their retreat down to the previous level, the harpies came chasing after them from the floor above. In a confined, low-ceilinged indoor space like this, the harpies weren’t able to fly effectively, so they were forced to move along the ground with a hopping, birdlike gait. In total, there were five harpies. As the pursuing harpies reached the top of the stairs, I had the first two make a Save vs Paralysis. This first pair of harpies failed their Saving Throw, and slipped on the marbles and soap-slick stairs, toppling down the stairs, and finally crashing to the stone floor on the level below. Both harpies were badly wounded by this hard fall, but neither were slain.
As the two injured harpies struggled to their feet, they were confronted by Barlow, who had positioned himself at the foot of the stairs, with Egrus right behind him with his quarterstaff ready. Marco had positioned himself to the rear of the stairs, ready to strike from behind, and Jeff had established himself in an advantageous position behind some wooden storage crates and barrels, deeper into the room. From this position, he could fire his longbow at the harpies, while benefiting from the cover offered by the crates and barrels.
The remaining three harpies successfully passed their Save vs Paralysis, and made their way haltingly down the treacherous stairs, joining their injured companions on the ground floor, but not before two more of their number were felled by precisely-placed arrows, delivered at lethal speed from Jeff’s longbow.
From there, melee was joined, and in the “heat of the moment”, I accidentally had the harpies attack first, even though the player characters had longer weapons, and should have had “attack priority” in this situation. Despite the unintentional advantage his attackers had been given, Barlow was able to successfully defend himself from every one of the tearing, animalistic blows the harpies aimed at him. Given that he was the “front-most” fighter, the harpies were focusing on bringing him down, but they were unable to defeat this stalwart fighter.
When the party answered with their own attacks, they were a great deal more effective. Seemingly in answer to the barrage of attacks that had been levelled at him a moment before, Barlow immediately cut down one of the already-injured harpies with his cutlass, proving himself to be a very sound investment in terms of taking him on as a retainer for this expedition. Egrus lightly wounded another of the harpies with a glancing blow from his quarterstaff, but it didn’t fall yet. However, it was quickly apparent that the ferocity of the harpies was going to be unable to overcome the party, and so the harpies’ morale broke, with the remaining two harpies turning, and beginning to scramble back up the stairs.
Before they could make it to safety, however, Marco, who had been hiding behind the stairwell, emerged from his place of concealment, and hurled his dagger straight into the back of the nearest of the creatures, sending it sprawling to the ground, dead. The final creature reached the top of the stairs in a desperate rush, where I checked to see if would there was any last remnants of slippery, soapy residue still present, or if there was a stray marble or two that hadn’t yet been trodden on and dislodged. The dice made the decision in the favour of the party, but before I could resolve the creature’s Save vs Paralysis, there was one final arrow to be delivered from Jeff’s longbow as part of the round’s “Pass-Through Fire” phase.
True to form, Jeff nailed this fleeing creature in another deadly display of archery, dealing 5 points of damage. This was more than enough to slay the creature outright, but I decided to roll to see if it would have slipped on the soap and marbles at the top of the stairs anyway. I made the creature’s Save vs Paralysis, and saw that it would have failed miserably. For purely gratuitous purposes, I rolled to see how much damage the creature would have taken in the fall, and my dice came up with another 5.
With such a great deal of damage being inflicted, I felt it was only reasonable to rule that this creature was mortally-wounded by Jeff’s arrow as it pierced deep into its monstrous heart, with the subsequent headlong fall from the top of the stairs, and the accompanying crash onto the hard stone floor below only serving to make the creature’s certain demise even more instantaneous.
With the harpies dealt with, the players ascended the stairs up to the “watch room” of the lighthouse, just below the lantern room itself. This room was somewhat well-furnished, with a bed, a wardrobe, a writing desk, and so on. The players wasted no time thoroughly looting the room, down to turning out the pockets of the overcoats that were hidden in the wardrobe. In the course of their search, the party turned up some curiously anachronistic tools and equipment, including a strange metal tube with a kind of catch or trigger, that was entirely unfamiliar to our player characters, but to a modern person, might look suspiciously similar to an American-made M203 grenade launcher. Some other curious relics uncovered from this room included round metal tubes with a rounded top, found alongside the “grenade launcher”, as well as some flat, smooth metal discs with buttons on it.
Just as the players finished packing up these curious, my “wandering monster check” finally came up with a one, and the players heard the sound of beating wings from the floor above them, that sounded like they were getting closer and closer. A moment later, they heard excited squawking, the thump of some creatures landing on the floor above, and the sound of a human screaming and yelling “get off of me, get away from me!”.
Upon hearing this, the players had a strong urge to rapidly exit the lighthouse, and escape with their loot. As they packed up and prepared to leave, however, their curiosity got the better of them, and L wanted to have Egrus poke his head up and check out what was happening on the floor above. So, Egrus climbed the stairs, and upon taking a peek into the floor above, he saw that the only room left above them was the lighthouse’s lantern room.
The floor of this lantern room was scattered with a thick layer of sticks and branches, as well as bones. In amongst this nest-like floor, there were a number of shiny trinkets, including jewellery of various kinds. In the centre of this room, there was shattered array of crystal lenses that had once acted as the beacon for the lighthouse, and on the south wall of the room there was a control panel of some kind. There were windows all around this room, giving a great view of the sea and the surrounding landscape. However, there was no time to stop for sightseeing at the moment, as the room was currently occupied by six squawking, squabbling harpies. Amongst the harpies, there was one that looked particularly old and cruel, with greying, lank hair, and a beaten leather satchel around its neck.
This group of harpies had just landed on the catwalk that surrounded the lantern room, and had made their way inside, dragging with them a terrified victim, in the form of a bloodied, struggling pirate, who was kicking and thrashing about with all his might in a vain attempt to escape. This unfortunate pirate had likely been snatched off the beach somewhere by this harpy hunting party, and was now about to be ripped apart and devoured, right in front of the party’s eyes.
This grisly scene prompted a hasty discussion from the party. Initially, the players considered leaving the poor pirate to his horrible fate, and escaping while the creatures were distracted, but as they heard the pirate’s terrified screams, and saw the harpies converging on him, their common humanity overcame their avarice, and they launched into action.
Egrus literally kicked off proceedings with a bang, as he lobbed a lit string of firecrackers right into the midst of these creatures. I checked their Morale to see if they would scatter in fright, but their resolve held! Nevertheless, the creatures were distracted and surprised, allowing the beleaguered pirate to scramble to his feet, and begin a mad rush down the stairs.
Meanwhile, the players sprang into action. Barlow and Egrus turned and ran, following the fleeing pirate in a desperate dash for the exit. Marco ran up the stairs, and tried to snatch up some of the nearest pieces of the fine jewellery that could be seen strewn throughout the nest. Jeff, however, decided he would not be fleeing, and would not be scrambling for treasure. Jeff levelled his bow, and made ready for a final stand, as the six harpies turned towards him, and prepared to attack!
Now, to give an insight into the referee’s mind at this point, I was thinking that this was a noble, self-sacrificing act from a player with a new character, with S laying down his characters life so that the characters with a greater amount of experience, that being Egrus and Barlow, could successfully escape, and level up from the treasure that they had accumulated. Now, that may have been the plan, but it certainly wasn’t the outcome.
As the creatures swarm forward, one is killed stone-dead on the spot by an arrow delivered at point-blank range, which buries itself into the creature’s skull. Five harpies remain, with four rushing forward, but only three are able to crowd around and attack the characters at once, given the tight confines at the top of the stairwell. I rolled to see who the harpies would attack, and it was the Magic-User, Marco, who was in the process of secreting away the treasure that they had grabbed during the previous round, while Jeff was providing cover fire.
Three attacks were made against the unarmoured Magic-User, and by some miracle, only one managed to land a hit. Four damage was rolled against Marco, and when I inquired if Marco had been slain, J informed me that they hadn’t yet rolled their initial hit dice for this character. This provided yet another epic moment in this session, as the character’s hit dice was rolled for all to see, with a 5 or better needed to survive. Drumroll please…the result appeared on the screen…a six! Marco’s run of good luck seemed to be holding, at least for now. Marco’s forehead had been slashed open by a talon, turning his features into a mask of blood, but he was still up and in the fight.
The next round rolled around, Marco declared they would be making a Full Retreat during this round. During the previous round, the old crone amongst the harpies had withdrawn a wand made of gnawed bone from the leather satchel around her neck, and was now pointing it in the direction of Jeff, while muttering some dark incantation. I declared that the old harpy would be casting a spell on their turn. Sensibly, Jeff declared they would make a Fighting Retreat down the stairs, and continue to fight as a rearguard.
The players won Initiative, and the characters began their manoeuvre, successfully breaking line of sight with the spell-casting harpy. Meanwhile, Egrus and Barlow were nearing the bottom of the tower, along with their fleeing pirate companion, having continued their flight while the battle was raging upstairs.
As Jeff completed his half-movement retreat, he gave a sharp blast on the whistle that hung around his neck, a sound that pierced down to where Egrus and Barlow were, causing them to pause in their flight. They debated whether to return upstairs and assist their team-mate, or whether to continue their escape. The pirate had no such hesitation, and continued running right past them, fully focused on leaving this accursed lighthouse. Marco too, continued to run, coming into sight of Egrus and Barlow as he ran down the stairs to the floor they were on.
Above, however, the battle continued. As the four pursuing harpies rushed down the stairs to attack Jeff in melee, another one of their number became a perforated victim of Jeff’s close-quarters longbow marksmanship, leaving only three remaining that would be engaging him in melee on this round. I looked at the distance between Jeff and the harpies, and accordingly, I informed S that if he intended on making a melee attack on his turn, he would have to drop his longbow, so that he could draw his hand axe quickly enough to muster an effective retaliation against the harpies.
This was a tough decision for S, as his longbow had been a great advantage so far, and he was wont to cast it aside in favour of fighting in melee with his axe. However, he knew he was going to be pressed into melee on this coming round, and so, with three bloodthirsty harpies closing in, Jeff dropped his longbow to the stone floor of the lighthouse, drew his axe, and prepared to meet the charge.
Two out of the three harpies successfully hit. It wasn’t looking good for Jeff, but when I rolled the damage, both of the creatures only inflicted one point of damage! Just as I was thinking these players should be buying lottery tickets or going to the casino instead of playing in my game, S informed me that he too, hadn’t rolled his character’s initial hit die. We rolled that on the spot, and after the damage was resolved against the total, Jeff had two out of four of his hit points remaining, so one more decent blow would be enough to slay him outright.
Before we moved onto the next round, Jeff resolved his melee attack, his axe smashing one of his attacker’s skulls to smithereens. With this, only two harpies remained engaged in this combat. I asked S if he planned on disengaging and retreating on this round, but he informed me that he would be fighting this engagement out to the end, whatever form that may take. This brave example evidently inspired Egrus and Barlow, who wanted to charge back into the fray, summoned by the whistle blast from earlier. I looked at the movement rates of each of the characters, and determined that Jeff and the two harpies he was fighting were just within the movement range of Egrus and Barlow, who were one floor below at this time.
Like heroes in a classic Hollywood movie, Egrus and Barlow came thundering up the stairs in support of their teammate, arriving just in time for the resolution of the Melee phase to take place. Fittingly, the arrival of these heroes turned the tide of battle, with Egrus and Barlow both slaying one more of the harpies each, ending the battle in a truly thrilling fashion.
The party took some time to re-gather themselves, before moving up to the lantern room. There, they saw that the old crone amongst the harpies had flown away, now that her flock had been entirely wiped out. The party wasted no time in looting the room thoroughly, acquiring a number of valuable items. These included a pair of wands, a ornate sword with a mirror-polished blade, and a bunch of jewellery. After packaging up their loot, the party made their way back to town without further incident.
That concluded the session proper, but there was plenty of experimentation with the treasures that occurred during downtime, and some interesting developments that arose from that. However, further details of these developments will have to wait until the next Session Report, as this one has ran on long enough, and the experimentation is still ongoing.
Until next time, readers.