Post by diogenes on Oct 15, 2023 23:10:43 GMT -6
I ran some new players through a really exciting game of OD&D the other night, and I wanted to put out a session report. For context, two of the players had played with me once before, the rest were totally new to OD&D. Some of them had played B/X, AD&D, and so on, but others hadn't had any experience with old-school gaming.
The party started off outside a large earthen funeral mound (kurgan, tumulus, barrow, whatever you want to call it), located in the sweeping grasslands in the eastern part of my campaign setting. If you imagine a sort of a Mongolian-Scythian-Hunnic vibe for this region, you're pretty much on the money. The party knew that these "steppe people" were known for burying their esteemed warriors, rulers, and other "high-status" figures in these sort of mounds, with these notable people usually being buried with their treasures and prized possessions from life. With this in mind, the party entered the mound, intent on doing some tomb-robbing. As they entered, they passed by these stern-looking "stone head" statues (like the Moai statues on Easter Island) that appeared to be positioned almost as if they were guarding the entrance to this burial mound. In the first room, the party encountered a single, shambling skeleton in ancient rusted armour. This solitary undead guardian was immediately struck with a hurled spear from one of the Fighting-Men, smashing off its bony arm, and then another spear-thrust from one of the front-liners finished the job as melee was joined.
The party pushed west, then hearing the sound of a slow funeral dirge being played on a lyre, they turned south, and followed the sound of music. The party came to a circular chamber with a large wicker effigy of a griffin there, with a spear sticking out of the effigy's chest. Scattered on the floor near the griffin effigy, like some kind of religious offering, there were many silver and gold coins. At the other side of the room, there was a cloaked humanoid figure in tattered black robes, sitting on a stool, playing a lyre.
The figure seemed insubstantial somehow, like an incorporeal spirit or a ghost. The figure interrogated the interlopers on why they were "trespassing on sacred ground", and when the party indicated that they were there as tomb-robbers, the cloaked entity stood up, revealing that it was almost seven feet tall, with a gaunt, deathly-pale face under its hood, like that of a long-dead corpse. The Cleric began casting their "Turn Undead" spell, as the creature came rushing towards the front-line of the party with a unearthly howl. Once again, a spear was thrown, but it passed straight through this creature without inflicting any harm, as if the creature was made of smoke or fog. As the first spear clattered to the floor behind the creature, the Fighting-Man in the front rank of the party thrust his own spear forward, but again, it just passed right through the incorporeal apparition, again without leaving any wound.
Now that the creature was in close proximity, the party could feel an unnatural chill radiating off the creature, as if it was draining all the warmth out of the surrounding air. The creature stretched out a emaciated white hand, and clawed at the warrior who had struck at him. The warrior seemed to shrivel-up at the wraith's touch, growing rapidly older as the creature's hand raked across his chest. Hair grew white, eyes became milky and clouded-over, muscle wasted away, and bones grew frail. Wispy white mist seemed to being drawn from the body of the quickly-ageing warrior, being absorbed into the body of the creature. In moments, a withered corpse slumped to the ground, hitting the floor not with a meaty thump, but with the rattling, rustling sound of a bag of dry leaves being thrown to the floor.
Even as this first warrior fell, and the creature turned to the remainder of the party, the Cleric's "Turn Undead" spell went off, and by a stroke of luck the Cleric rolled exactly the result they needed (a 9!) to send this creature packing. A flash of holy light momentarily illuminated the chamber as the foul spectre was banished, disappearing into a cloud of ice-cold black smoke with a piercing death-shriek. In the silence that followed, the party busied themselves with gathering up the scattered coinage, and packing it into sacks for transport. One of the other Fighting-Men stepped forward, and pulled the embedded spear free from the wicker effigy's chest.
As they turned the weapon over in their hands, and gave it a few experimental swings and thrusts, they marked that the weapon was clearly of exceptional quality, with a shaft of hardened darkwood, and a glittering spearhead made of an unusual silvery metal. Owing to its outstanding quality, balance, and the subtle craft-magic woven into its creation, this spear acts as a + 1 weapon. Moving on from this chamber, the party pushed further south, passing by some branching hallways that led off from this corridor. At this time, the party were joined by another Fighting-Man, a newly rolled-up replacement from the player who had just seen their first character slain by the life-draining ghost in the previous chamber. This new Fighting-Man came from a corridor to the east, perhaps separated from their previous party, or perhaps exploring this burial mound on their own. In any case, they are glad to have found some allies in this wretched place, and the party quickly re-joined forces.
The party came to a stone door at the south end of this corridor, and spent some time trying to force it open. However, they were unsuccessful, despite working vigorously with a crowbar, and combining the efforts of several stout party members. While the party were working on opening this door, they heard a scratching, scraping, clicking noise from the north end of the long corridor they were in, coming from beyond the reach of the party's flickering lantern light. This sound was described as being like "the sound of a big dog's nails when it runs across tiles, except much bigger".
Here, the two players who had played in the previous session started freaking out a bit, as they knew full-well what sort of creature this scratching sound heralded, as in their previous game with me, the entire party met their end at the claws of these ravenous beasts. The party were caught in a bit of indecision here, some wanted to flee down the corridor to the east, taking the risk of running into unknown territory, and others wanted to hold their ground at their current position. As the party considered their options, a terrifying creature emerged at the edge of the party's torchlight. It was a seven-foot tall raven-man, covered in oily-looking black feathers. This creature's long, powerful arms ended in great claw-like hands like those of a bird of prey, with cruel black talons.
The creature was dragging the torn-up, partially-devoured body of a human, dressed in the manner of a steppe dweller. Blood coated the creature's sharp beak, which jutted forward from the beast's head like a black sword. As this first raven-man regarded the trembling party with cold black eyes, two more of these creatures emerged from the shadows. The lead raven-man tossed aside the ravaged corpse, and the trio of creatures charged the party, shrieking a terrifying battle-cry of "Doom, doom!". As the creatures closed the distance, a thrown naphtha flask from one of the Magic-Users shattered against the body of the lead creature, dousing it in highly-flammable, adhesive "Greek Fire". The creatures were fast, however, and before a follow-up attack could be made with a thrown torch, the beasts were among the party, slashing out furiously in melee!
The Fighting-Man who had picked up the + 1 spear in the other chamber was in the front rank, and he attempted to skewer one of these huge raven-men as the lines of battle met, but the creature batted away the questing spear with a backhand swipe of its feathered forearm, and followed-up by brutally slashing the spearman across the face and neck with its talons, slaying him on the spot. The creature's nearest companion pressed in on the other side, trading blows with the Cleric. The Cleric was grievously wounded in this exchange, being reduced to one hit point. However, he was able to retaliate, cracking his adversary hard in the body with his mace. Behind these first two, the last raven-man anxiously hopped up and down, keen to get into the action and spill some blood, but unable to move past his two allies, who are obstructing the corridor. With one of the party members already slain, and another on the cusp of joining him, the party elected to turn and flee on the subsequent round of combat.
As the party turned to run, two of the creatures gave chase. The last one stayed behind, and began to tear apart and devour the body of the fallen Fighting-Man. Brutal stuff. The party's "group formation" had gone out the window at this point, and everyone was basically rushing eastwards in a loose gaggle, trying to not be the "last man" in the back of the group. I noted that one of the remaining Fighting-Men was carrying the full sack of coins picked up from the room with the griffin effigy, and I asked the player if he'd like to drop the bag of treasure, so as to run faster, and catch up with the rest of the party. The player pulled a true "old-school" move here, and instead elected to drop the rest of his rations instead, and try to draw off the pursuing monsters, instead of discarding his hard-won treasure.
One of the creatures paused to greedily dive into the dropped rations, but the other one was evidently intent on the hunt of "live prey". I described what happened next from the perspective of the other players who had ran ahead, telling them they glanced back over their shoulders in time to see two great black-feathered arms suddenly reach out of the dungeon's shadows, and snatch the treasure-bearing party member off their feet. There was a scream, that was abruptly cut short, as the party member was dragged away into the darkness.
The surviving three party members saw another stone door looming up ahead, and they decided to cast caution to the wind, intending to maintain the momentum of their rush, and barge through the door without stopping. Unfortunately, this door seemed to be particularly sturdy, and despite the force of two party members crashing into the door at a headlong run, it didn't budge. As those two party members recovered from their encounter with the stubbornly-stuck door, the last of the party, the last surviving Fighting-Man of the group, turned and faced back into the darkness of the corridor, gripping their axe and shield in sweating, shaking hands.
At first, no sound came from beyond, but then, that dreaded, now-familiar sound of "dog nails on tiles" came scratching up the corridor. The solitary Fighting-Man bravely held their ground, while the two other party members frantically worked at forcing open the door by flickering lamplight. Their initial efforts were unsuccessful, even with the employment of a crowbar, but just as the first of the raven-men came into view, the door finally scraped open, and the two party members hurriedly rushed through. The trio of raven-men had evidently regrouped, as all three were present in the corridor now, their beaks, talons, and feathers covered in the blood and viscera of the fallen party members.
In the face of this terrifying sight, the Fighting-Man turned and fled as well, narrowly slipping through the doorway a half-second ahead of the pursuing ravens. The two party members who had already passed through (the Cleric and the last remaining Magic-User, both of whom had survived from the very beginning of the session) slammed the heavy stone door closed in the face of the lead raven-man, sealing off the corridor. There was a furious scratching at the other side, and a "thump" as an unsuccessful attempt to force the door was made, but these efforts quickly ceased, and the raven-men appeared to withdraw for the time being. The party continued to hold the door shut for a minute longer, before turning to inspect the room further.
This room was clearly an ornate "burial chamber" for a high-status individual of some kind. There was a armoured chariot in the middle of the room, festooned with weapons (spears, arrows, axes) with a skeletal warrior in armour standing on the chariot. The chariot had bladed wheels, and was harnessed to four skeletal horses. All of the skeletons were inert, but had obviously been posed in such a way to mirror how they would have looked in life. At this point, the party was joined by two replacement members, as the players who had lost their characters to the raven-men finished rolling up their new characters. These new characters came in from an adjoining door, in the north-east side of the room. As the characters quickly became acquainted, a plan was hatched amongst the party to deal with the raven-men.
Taking their arrows, they bundled them together into three separate clutches, and wrapped the ends in cloth. They soaked these cloth-wrapped ends in lamp oil and naphtha, forming some improvised torches. While this construction project was underway, and these impromptu torches were lit, one of the new Fighting-Men busied themselves with trying to open the weighty stone chests that were present in this room. Working with a crowbar, they managed to open two out of the four chests, revealing that one was full of strange-looking bronze coins with square holes in the centre, and the other was full of dry, broken human bones, apparently drained of all marrow. The top-half of a human skull was sitting neatly on top of this pile of bones, with a word in an unknown language carved into the skull's forehead.
Before the party could give much consideration as to how they would extract this treasure, there was a renewed pounding at the door, and the door flew open, revealing the three blood-soaked raven-men from before. The party elected to flee through a door in the north wall, risking the passage through unknown territory, rather than face down these ferocious avian abominations. Amidst this chaotic scene of flight, the Magic-user threw their improvised torch at the naphtha-soaked creature from before, and the creature's feathers ignited with a "whoosh" of flame as the burning projectile connected! As the creature caught fire, it was thrashing around like crazy, screaming, stumbling against the walls, and generally contributing to the overall terror of the situation. The other raven-men were shrinking back, evidently more hesitant to approach now that their ally had been turned into a Roman candle.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to escape, the party rushed northwards, shouldered open the door without losing stride, and found themselves rushing up through a long north-south corridor. The walls on either side of this corridor were decorated with mounted shields, but the party didn't stop to admire the heraldry, instead (sensibly) focusing on putting as much distance between themselves and the raven-men as possible. As the screeches and screams of the raven-men receded into the distance, the party found themselves running into another circular room, which they recognised as the very first chamber they had entered. There was the shattered remnants of a skeleton on the ground, and a shattered jar of naphtha, which had been thrown in the previous session. The party didn't waste any time here, instead moving northwards, towards the pale daylight that could be seen pouring in from the mound's entrance.
With that, the session came to a close, as the party made their way back to town. This session was great fun all round, and I felt really lucky in being able to share a table with such an awesome group of players, and be their introduction into the world of OD&D.
Until next time, readers.
The party started off outside a large earthen funeral mound (kurgan, tumulus, barrow, whatever you want to call it), located in the sweeping grasslands in the eastern part of my campaign setting. If you imagine a sort of a Mongolian-Scythian-Hunnic vibe for this region, you're pretty much on the money. The party knew that these "steppe people" were known for burying their esteemed warriors, rulers, and other "high-status" figures in these sort of mounds, with these notable people usually being buried with their treasures and prized possessions from life. With this in mind, the party entered the mound, intent on doing some tomb-robbing. As they entered, they passed by these stern-looking "stone head" statues (like the Moai statues on Easter Island) that appeared to be positioned almost as if they were guarding the entrance to this burial mound. In the first room, the party encountered a single, shambling skeleton in ancient rusted armour. This solitary undead guardian was immediately struck with a hurled spear from one of the Fighting-Men, smashing off its bony arm, and then another spear-thrust from one of the front-liners finished the job as melee was joined.
The party pushed west, then hearing the sound of a slow funeral dirge being played on a lyre, they turned south, and followed the sound of music. The party came to a circular chamber with a large wicker effigy of a griffin there, with a spear sticking out of the effigy's chest. Scattered on the floor near the griffin effigy, like some kind of religious offering, there were many silver and gold coins. At the other side of the room, there was a cloaked humanoid figure in tattered black robes, sitting on a stool, playing a lyre.
The figure seemed insubstantial somehow, like an incorporeal spirit or a ghost. The figure interrogated the interlopers on why they were "trespassing on sacred ground", and when the party indicated that they were there as tomb-robbers, the cloaked entity stood up, revealing that it was almost seven feet tall, with a gaunt, deathly-pale face under its hood, like that of a long-dead corpse. The Cleric began casting their "Turn Undead" spell, as the creature came rushing towards the front-line of the party with a unearthly howl. Once again, a spear was thrown, but it passed straight through this creature without inflicting any harm, as if the creature was made of smoke or fog. As the first spear clattered to the floor behind the creature, the Fighting-Man in the front rank of the party thrust his own spear forward, but again, it just passed right through the incorporeal apparition, again without leaving any wound.
Now that the creature was in close proximity, the party could feel an unnatural chill radiating off the creature, as if it was draining all the warmth out of the surrounding air. The creature stretched out a emaciated white hand, and clawed at the warrior who had struck at him. The warrior seemed to shrivel-up at the wraith's touch, growing rapidly older as the creature's hand raked across his chest. Hair grew white, eyes became milky and clouded-over, muscle wasted away, and bones grew frail. Wispy white mist seemed to being drawn from the body of the quickly-ageing warrior, being absorbed into the body of the creature. In moments, a withered corpse slumped to the ground, hitting the floor not with a meaty thump, but with the rattling, rustling sound of a bag of dry leaves being thrown to the floor.
Even as this first warrior fell, and the creature turned to the remainder of the party, the Cleric's "Turn Undead" spell went off, and by a stroke of luck the Cleric rolled exactly the result they needed (a 9!) to send this creature packing. A flash of holy light momentarily illuminated the chamber as the foul spectre was banished, disappearing into a cloud of ice-cold black smoke with a piercing death-shriek. In the silence that followed, the party busied themselves with gathering up the scattered coinage, and packing it into sacks for transport. One of the other Fighting-Men stepped forward, and pulled the embedded spear free from the wicker effigy's chest.
As they turned the weapon over in their hands, and gave it a few experimental swings and thrusts, they marked that the weapon was clearly of exceptional quality, with a shaft of hardened darkwood, and a glittering spearhead made of an unusual silvery metal. Owing to its outstanding quality, balance, and the subtle craft-magic woven into its creation, this spear acts as a + 1 weapon. Moving on from this chamber, the party pushed further south, passing by some branching hallways that led off from this corridor. At this time, the party were joined by another Fighting-Man, a newly rolled-up replacement from the player who had just seen their first character slain by the life-draining ghost in the previous chamber. This new Fighting-Man came from a corridor to the east, perhaps separated from their previous party, or perhaps exploring this burial mound on their own. In any case, they are glad to have found some allies in this wretched place, and the party quickly re-joined forces.
The party came to a stone door at the south end of this corridor, and spent some time trying to force it open. However, they were unsuccessful, despite working vigorously with a crowbar, and combining the efforts of several stout party members. While the party were working on opening this door, they heard a scratching, scraping, clicking noise from the north end of the long corridor they were in, coming from beyond the reach of the party's flickering lantern light. This sound was described as being like "the sound of a big dog's nails when it runs across tiles, except much bigger".
Here, the two players who had played in the previous session started freaking out a bit, as they knew full-well what sort of creature this scratching sound heralded, as in their previous game with me, the entire party met their end at the claws of these ravenous beasts. The party were caught in a bit of indecision here, some wanted to flee down the corridor to the east, taking the risk of running into unknown territory, and others wanted to hold their ground at their current position. As the party considered their options, a terrifying creature emerged at the edge of the party's torchlight. It was a seven-foot tall raven-man, covered in oily-looking black feathers. This creature's long, powerful arms ended in great claw-like hands like those of a bird of prey, with cruel black talons.
The creature was dragging the torn-up, partially-devoured body of a human, dressed in the manner of a steppe dweller. Blood coated the creature's sharp beak, which jutted forward from the beast's head like a black sword. As this first raven-man regarded the trembling party with cold black eyes, two more of these creatures emerged from the shadows. The lead raven-man tossed aside the ravaged corpse, and the trio of creatures charged the party, shrieking a terrifying battle-cry of "Doom, doom!". As the creatures closed the distance, a thrown naphtha flask from one of the Magic-Users shattered against the body of the lead creature, dousing it in highly-flammable, adhesive "Greek Fire". The creatures were fast, however, and before a follow-up attack could be made with a thrown torch, the beasts were among the party, slashing out furiously in melee!
The Fighting-Man who had picked up the + 1 spear in the other chamber was in the front rank, and he attempted to skewer one of these huge raven-men as the lines of battle met, but the creature batted away the questing spear with a backhand swipe of its feathered forearm, and followed-up by brutally slashing the spearman across the face and neck with its talons, slaying him on the spot. The creature's nearest companion pressed in on the other side, trading blows with the Cleric. The Cleric was grievously wounded in this exchange, being reduced to one hit point. However, he was able to retaliate, cracking his adversary hard in the body with his mace. Behind these first two, the last raven-man anxiously hopped up and down, keen to get into the action and spill some blood, but unable to move past his two allies, who are obstructing the corridor. With one of the party members already slain, and another on the cusp of joining him, the party elected to turn and flee on the subsequent round of combat.
As the party turned to run, two of the creatures gave chase. The last one stayed behind, and began to tear apart and devour the body of the fallen Fighting-Man. Brutal stuff. The party's "group formation" had gone out the window at this point, and everyone was basically rushing eastwards in a loose gaggle, trying to not be the "last man" in the back of the group. I noted that one of the remaining Fighting-Men was carrying the full sack of coins picked up from the room with the griffin effigy, and I asked the player if he'd like to drop the bag of treasure, so as to run faster, and catch up with the rest of the party. The player pulled a true "old-school" move here, and instead elected to drop the rest of his rations instead, and try to draw off the pursuing monsters, instead of discarding his hard-won treasure.
One of the creatures paused to greedily dive into the dropped rations, but the other one was evidently intent on the hunt of "live prey". I described what happened next from the perspective of the other players who had ran ahead, telling them they glanced back over their shoulders in time to see two great black-feathered arms suddenly reach out of the dungeon's shadows, and snatch the treasure-bearing party member off their feet. There was a scream, that was abruptly cut short, as the party member was dragged away into the darkness.
The surviving three party members saw another stone door looming up ahead, and they decided to cast caution to the wind, intending to maintain the momentum of their rush, and barge through the door without stopping. Unfortunately, this door seemed to be particularly sturdy, and despite the force of two party members crashing into the door at a headlong run, it didn't budge. As those two party members recovered from their encounter with the stubbornly-stuck door, the last of the party, the last surviving Fighting-Man of the group, turned and faced back into the darkness of the corridor, gripping their axe and shield in sweating, shaking hands.
At first, no sound came from beyond, but then, that dreaded, now-familiar sound of "dog nails on tiles" came scratching up the corridor. The solitary Fighting-Man bravely held their ground, while the two other party members frantically worked at forcing open the door by flickering lamplight. Their initial efforts were unsuccessful, even with the employment of a crowbar, but just as the first of the raven-men came into view, the door finally scraped open, and the two party members hurriedly rushed through. The trio of raven-men had evidently regrouped, as all three were present in the corridor now, their beaks, talons, and feathers covered in the blood and viscera of the fallen party members.
In the face of this terrifying sight, the Fighting-Man turned and fled as well, narrowly slipping through the doorway a half-second ahead of the pursuing ravens. The two party members who had already passed through (the Cleric and the last remaining Magic-User, both of whom had survived from the very beginning of the session) slammed the heavy stone door closed in the face of the lead raven-man, sealing off the corridor. There was a furious scratching at the other side, and a "thump" as an unsuccessful attempt to force the door was made, but these efforts quickly ceased, and the raven-men appeared to withdraw for the time being. The party continued to hold the door shut for a minute longer, before turning to inspect the room further.
This room was clearly an ornate "burial chamber" for a high-status individual of some kind. There was a armoured chariot in the middle of the room, festooned with weapons (spears, arrows, axes) with a skeletal warrior in armour standing on the chariot. The chariot had bladed wheels, and was harnessed to four skeletal horses. All of the skeletons were inert, but had obviously been posed in such a way to mirror how they would have looked in life. At this point, the party was joined by two replacement members, as the players who had lost their characters to the raven-men finished rolling up their new characters. These new characters came in from an adjoining door, in the north-east side of the room. As the characters quickly became acquainted, a plan was hatched amongst the party to deal with the raven-men.
Taking their arrows, they bundled them together into three separate clutches, and wrapped the ends in cloth. They soaked these cloth-wrapped ends in lamp oil and naphtha, forming some improvised torches. While this construction project was underway, and these impromptu torches were lit, one of the new Fighting-Men busied themselves with trying to open the weighty stone chests that were present in this room. Working with a crowbar, they managed to open two out of the four chests, revealing that one was full of strange-looking bronze coins with square holes in the centre, and the other was full of dry, broken human bones, apparently drained of all marrow. The top-half of a human skull was sitting neatly on top of this pile of bones, with a word in an unknown language carved into the skull's forehead.
Before the party could give much consideration as to how they would extract this treasure, there was a renewed pounding at the door, and the door flew open, revealing the three blood-soaked raven-men from before. The party elected to flee through a door in the north wall, risking the passage through unknown territory, rather than face down these ferocious avian abominations. Amidst this chaotic scene of flight, the Magic-user threw their improvised torch at the naphtha-soaked creature from before, and the creature's feathers ignited with a "whoosh" of flame as the burning projectile connected! As the creature caught fire, it was thrashing around like crazy, screaming, stumbling against the walls, and generally contributing to the overall terror of the situation. The other raven-men were shrinking back, evidently more hesitant to approach now that their ally had been turned into a Roman candle.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to escape, the party rushed northwards, shouldered open the door without losing stride, and found themselves rushing up through a long north-south corridor. The walls on either side of this corridor were decorated with mounted shields, but the party didn't stop to admire the heraldry, instead (sensibly) focusing on putting as much distance between themselves and the raven-men as possible. As the screeches and screams of the raven-men receded into the distance, the party found themselves running into another circular room, which they recognised as the very first chamber they had entered. There was the shattered remnants of a skeleton on the ground, and a shattered jar of naphtha, which had been thrown in the previous session. The party didn't waste any time here, instead moving northwards, towards the pale daylight that could be seen pouring in from the mound's entrance.
With that, the session came to a close, as the party made their way back to town. This session was great fun all round, and I felt really lucky in being able to share a table with such an awesome group of players, and be their introduction into the world of OD&D.
Until next time, readers.