Post by diogenes on Jun 15, 2023 20:50:45 GMT -6
Hello everyone, here is the tenth “Session Report” from the ongoing Viper Archipelago campaign.
The players for this tenth game were:
R: An experienced player.
G: An experienced player.
M: An experienced player.
In this game, R was playing Colby (W-P 3) and Hamilton (F-M 2), G was playing Davlan (F-M 3) and Willow (M-U 1), and M was playing Thorvald (M-U 2).
For today’s game, the party wanted to check out an alternative location they had seen on the hex map, some kind of lost city in the jungle. They hired a smattering of mercenaries for additional protection as they walked through the wilderness. They set off, with 17 Fighting-Men in tow, 7 hired by R, and 10 hired by G. They also took a mule with them on this adventure, and one retainer.
The party made their way inland, travelling the direction of where they suspected this city to be. As they closed in on the suspected location, they began to see tall marble spires rising up through the jungle canopy. The party made their way to this lost city, finding a ridge that gave them a good overlook. Their scouting from a distance revealed no movement or signs of life, but it was readily apparent that this was once a city of substantial size and sophistication, that had fallen into neglect and ruin, and had subsequently been overrun by the jungle.
The party moved into the city, which was eerily quiet. There appeared to be a cluster of marble spires towards the centre of the city, which the party gradually made their way towards. Before they reached this set of central spires, the party wanted to look at some of the outlying smaller buildings.
They went up to the stone double doors of an outlying building, and forced them open, revealing a cavernous entrance chamber beyond. The party proceeded into the darkness, leaving the mercenaries and mule outside. The party took note of deep scratch marks on the floor of the entrance hallway, and decided to push east deeper into the complex. There was a ramp that led down south from the entrance hall, but the players decided to avoid that pathway for the time being.
The party made their way through a series of dark, silent, cavernous rooms, including a great dusty dining room with a huge darkwood table in the centre, and crystal chandeliers hanging overhead. The party considered bringing down the chandeliers, and trying to drag them out as loot, but wanted to delve in deeper, and see if there was loot that was more easily portable.
The party entered another vast hallway, and as they made their way down, they heard very light footsteps at the far end. They caught a glimpse of a grey shape ducking back around the corner, and faint footsteps moving around. Unnerved, the players retreated back to a side-corridor that split off from this main hall, and backed down it, putting their back against a set of sturdy stone doors at the end, facing out with their weapons ready. At this moment, my computer started acting up when I was trying to roll dice, as there was a big storm outside, and I believe Discord itself was having widespread issues, so I had to resort to physical dice from now on.
They continued to hear faint footsteps, quiet whispers, and then they get an odd sensation of goosebumps, and their ears pop, as if the room pressurized. The party suspected a spell had been cast. Before they could ponder the topic any further, they heard a thin, reedy voice address them, seemingly from thin air.
The voice warned the party that they were trespassing, and demanded they leave. The party held their ground, and after a moment of tense silence there was a mechanical “snap” and a slender crossbow bolt whipped through the air, missing Davlan’s head by a hairs-breath, and striking off the stone wall.
Behind the screen, I was shocked, I had literally rolled the lowest possible result, a double one, “snake eyes”. Even with all the bonuses for attacking an unaware opponent, it still wasn’t sufficient to hit. I figured that just as the adversary squeezed the trigger of their hand crossbow, Davlan had by some stroke of blind luck jerked his head to the side, perhaps reacting to the faint footsteps that continued to emanate from all around the party.
In any case, as soon as that crossbow bolt was loosed, there was a “whoosh” sound (as the creature’s Invisibility spell deactivated) and a figure appeared as if from thin air. It was a tall humanoid, with charcoal grey skin, long white hair, pointed ears, and wearing blackened leather armour. In one hand, this creature held a small hand crossbow, and in the other, it held a long curved sabre. This was one of the Drow, that dreaded race of Dark Elves.
The creature turned to run, and Davlan and Hamilton rushed out in pursuit, along with the retainer. Unfortunately, they ran right into the trap this cunning Drow had laid for them. There were more mechanical “snaps” from all around, and four more Drow appeared from thin air as they fired their hand crossbows. Miraculously, the players luck held out, and the bolts that were sent their way were deflected by their armour. Only the unlucky retainer took a bolt, as the players had not purchased armour for him before they headed off on their expedition.
I rolled the dice, and the retainer slumped to the floor, dead, with a Drow crossbow bolt in his throat. A moment later, melee was joined, with Davlan and Hamilton fighting back to back. Outside my house, the storm was growing increasingly intense, and it honestly added a dramatic audio backdrop to this fight as it took place. However, it also seemed to be causing my computer to act up and run slowly, so I had to continue using my physical dice, even after another quick computer reset.
Nevertheless, we wouldn’t let these “technical difficulties” get the better of us. We continued, and the melee went back and forth without much damage being inflicted on either side. I should take this opportunity to apologise to M, who wanted to use his Telekinesis spell to telekinetically disarm one of the Drow, by wrenching their hand crossbow out of their hand. I was going to put that through, but because of me needing to reset my computer, it totally slipped my mind, and I forgot to do that during the appropriate Magic phase. So, sorry about that M!
Anyway, at the top of the next round, Colby declared he would be using one of the Clerical scrolls he had acquired previously, “Flame Strike”. As he declared that, Davlan and Hamilton made it known they would be engaging in a “Fighting Retreat” this turn.
The players won Initiative, and the pulled back. The Drow re-assembled themselves and prepared to follow. At that moment, Colby’s spell went off, and a column of blinding holy fire smashed down through the ceiling of the building like the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War (the good ones, meaning the first three games, not the new ones, those are rubbish). Two of the Drow made their saves, and three failed, but regardless, Colby’s damage roll was high, and all five of the Drow were incinerated in a blast of furnace-like heat, leaving only scorched bones and the charred metal of their equipment on the floor.
The players picked through the smouldering wrecks, but didn’t find much of value. The party proceeded onward, hoping to find where these creatures may have stored their treasure. They advanced through a few corridors, and then went up a long northern corridor, which had a very sturdy wooden door, reinforced with iron.
They spent a substantial amount of time forcing this door open, and found themselves looking at stone stairs, that led down into the darkness. After some hesitation, the party descended to the next level. The part came to a medium-sized room, with a number of heavy stone sarcophagi laid out amongst the cold stone walls. Suitably frightened by the possibility of powerful undead, the party were inclined to retreat, with this inclination being solidified by the room suddenly growing colder, to the extent that the character’s exhaled breath was making mist in the air around them.
The party began retreating back up the stairs, except for Colby, who held his ground. A fine white mist seemed to appear from the corners of the room, gradually coalescing into a human-like form in the middle of the room. Still, Colby bravely held his ground! The misty figure seemed to solidify a bit more, and took on the form of a noble-looking young woman, with a bit of an “Elvish” look to her features. She looked at Colby, and appeared to have tears rolling down her cheeks. Colby tried to speak with her, but she didn’t seem to understand what he was saying, or give much sign she had heard him at all. I’ll lift the curtain for a moment here, and reveal that behind the referee’s screen, I rolled a reaction check for this situation, and got a very positive result! This greatly influenced what happened next.
R, the player, then did something very clever, something I didn’t expect. He cast his spell, “ESP” on this ghostly figure, giving him an insight into the ghost’s thoughts. His mind was filled with glimpses of a great marble city, and then the sound of many voices screaming, and the crackling of raging fire. There was a great beating of wings, and the glimpse of a great Red Dragon, sweeping over the city, razing it with its breath weapon. Then, there was a glimpse of that same Red Dragon curled up in a huge cavern somewhere, with many Fire Giants kneeling in apparent servitude in front of this great beast. This “mental image” seemed to “zoom out” from this interior scene, revealing a great mountain set amongst lush green jungle on all sides.
With that, the glimpses seemed to fade from Colby’s mind, and a moment later, the ghost too, faded away into nothing, leaving the room as it was when the party first entered. Not wanting to linger any longer, Colby left the room, re-joining his party on the level above.
Re-assembled, the party travelled down another hallway, finding the “camp” where the Drow had been hiding out. The party decided they would drag out the Drow’s cached backpacks, taking them as loot. As the party made their way back to the entrance, they saw a long, feline shape slinking towards them down the hallway. They caught a glimpse of striped orange fur, as a tiger came into view. The party responded by shouting, yelling, making themselves big, banging their weapons on their shields, and were successful in scaring the creature away (with a great reaction roll). The tiger disappeared back into the darkness, and the party hot-footed it to the dungeon entrance.
The party dropped off the acquired loot with their hired mercenaries who were guarding the exterior of the building. There was still some time left in the session, so the party decided they wanted to stick their head back into the dungeon, and check out that sloping ramp to the south.
As the party prepared to descend the ramp, the head of a great lizard appeared from the darkness ahead. It was a huge monitor lizard, its tongue flicking from between sharp teeth. As the players readied themselves to flee from this huge “Komodo dragon” as they called it, G remembered that he still hadn’t cast his Sleep spell. As the monitor lizard loped towards them, G’s character, Willow the Somnomancer, waved her hands, said the magic words, and unleashed the spell that I’ve heard described as the “first-level nuke” in praise of its great effectiveness. The monitor lizard swayed for a moment, tottered, and then slumped over, fast asleep. Once again, the famous Sleep spell has been of great assistance to an imperilled party of adventurers.
The party prepared to finish off the sleeping lizard, they suddenly had the idea to bind the creature, and carry it back to camp. They had plenty of rope, and plenty of manpower for this job, so a minute later, the beast was trussed up securely. At this point, the party decided they were keen to return back to town, with their acquired loot and the captured lizard in tow.
They were able to exit the dungeon and return to town without further incident.
With that, this tenth session brings us to the conclusion of the “Viper Archipelago” campaign, at least for the time being. Going forward, I plan on running some Boot Hill and Classic Traveller in the near future, before returning to running OD&D as a referee at a later time. In addition, I’m keen to get stuck into various games as a player, and at the time of writing, I’ve been fortunate enough to play in a game run by L already, and I believe G is running a game of their own this weekend.
For those of you who have been following along with these ongoing session reports, I’d like to extend a genuine “thank you” for your interest, and I hope that you guys enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed running this campaign. I truly had a blast running Viper Archipelago, and that’s all thanks to my players. As I’ve mentioned previously on my own server, I couldn’t ask for a better group of regulars to game with, and I look forward to playing with them in the future, whether I’m in the player’s chair, or the referee’s.
Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to extend a special thanks to the server regulars at /OSRG/, the Clerics Wear Ringmail Discord, and my own OD&D Discussion Board. I appreciate the great discussion, advice, and inspiration that I continually get from these communities.
Until next time, readers, and happy gaming.
The players for this tenth game were:
R: An experienced player.
G: An experienced player.
M: An experienced player.
In this game, R was playing Colby (W-P 3) and Hamilton (F-M 2), G was playing Davlan (F-M 3) and Willow (M-U 1), and M was playing Thorvald (M-U 2).
For today’s game, the party wanted to check out an alternative location they had seen on the hex map, some kind of lost city in the jungle. They hired a smattering of mercenaries for additional protection as they walked through the wilderness. They set off, with 17 Fighting-Men in tow, 7 hired by R, and 10 hired by G. They also took a mule with them on this adventure, and one retainer.
The party made their way inland, travelling the direction of where they suspected this city to be. As they closed in on the suspected location, they began to see tall marble spires rising up through the jungle canopy. The party made their way to this lost city, finding a ridge that gave them a good overlook. Their scouting from a distance revealed no movement or signs of life, but it was readily apparent that this was once a city of substantial size and sophistication, that had fallen into neglect and ruin, and had subsequently been overrun by the jungle.
The party moved into the city, which was eerily quiet. There appeared to be a cluster of marble spires towards the centre of the city, which the party gradually made their way towards. Before they reached this set of central spires, the party wanted to look at some of the outlying smaller buildings.
They went up to the stone double doors of an outlying building, and forced them open, revealing a cavernous entrance chamber beyond. The party proceeded into the darkness, leaving the mercenaries and mule outside. The party took note of deep scratch marks on the floor of the entrance hallway, and decided to push east deeper into the complex. There was a ramp that led down south from the entrance hall, but the players decided to avoid that pathway for the time being.
The party made their way through a series of dark, silent, cavernous rooms, including a great dusty dining room with a huge darkwood table in the centre, and crystal chandeliers hanging overhead. The party considered bringing down the chandeliers, and trying to drag them out as loot, but wanted to delve in deeper, and see if there was loot that was more easily portable.
The party entered another vast hallway, and as they made their way down, they heard very light footsteps at the far end. They caught a glimpse of a grey shape ducking back around the corner, and faint footsteps moving around. Unnerved, the players retreated back to a side-corridor that split off from this main hall, and backed down it, putting their back against a set of sturdy stone doors at the end, facing out with their weapons ready. At this moment, my computer started acting up when I was trying to roll dice, as there was a big storm outside, and I believe Discord itself was having widespread issues, so I had to resort to physical dice from now on.
They continued to hear faint footsteps, quiet whispers, and then they get an odd sensation of goosebumps, and their ears pop, as if the room pressurized. The party suspected a spell had been cast. Before they could ponder the topic any further, they heard a thin, reedy voice address them, seemingly from thin air.
The voice warned the party that they were trespassing, and demanded they leave. The party held their ground, and after a moment of tense silence there was a mechanical “snap” and a slender crossbow bolt whipped through the air, missing Davlan’s head by a hairs-breath, and striking off the stone wall.
Behind the screen, I was shocked, I had literally rolled the lowest possible result, a double one, “snake eyes”. Even with all the bonuses for attacking an unaware opponent, it still wasn’t sufficient to hit. I figured that just as the adversary squeezed the trigger of their hand crossbow, Davlan had by some stroke of blind luck jerked his head to the side, perhaps reacting to the faint footsteps that continued to emanate from all around the party.
In any case, as soon as that crossbow bolt was loosed, there was a “whoosh” sound (as the creature’s Invisibility spell deactivated) and a figure appeared as if from thin air. It was a tall humanoid, with charcoal grey skin, long white hair, pointed ears, and wearing blackened leather armour. In one hand, this creature held a small hand crossbow, and in the other, it held a long curved sabre. This was one of the Drow, that dreaded race of Dark Elves.
The creature turned to run, and Davlan and Hamilton rushed out in pursuit, along with the retainer. Unfortunately, they ran right into the trap this cunning Drow had laid for them. There were more mechanical “snaps” from all around, and four more Drow appeared from thin air as they fired their hand crossbows. Miraculously, the players luck held out, and the bolts that were sent their way were deflected by their armour. Only the unlucky retainer took a bolt, as the players had not purchased armour for him before they headed off on their expedition.
I rolled the dice, and the retainer slumped to the floor, dead, with a Drow crossbow bolt in his throat. A moment later, melee was joined, with Davlan and Hamilton fighting back to back. Outside my house, the storm was growing increasingly intense, and it honestly added a dramatic audio backdrop to this fight as it took place. However, it also seemed to be causing my computer to act up and run slowly, so I had to continue using my physical dice, even after another quick computer reset.
Nevertheless, we wouldn’t let these “technical difficulties” get the better of us. We continued, and the melee went back and forth without much damage being inflicted on either side. I should take this opportunity to apologise to M, who wanted to use his Telekinesis spell to telekinetically disarm one of the Drow, by wrenching their hand crossbow out of their hand. I was going to put that through, but because of me needing to reset my computer, it totally slipped my mind, and I forgot to do that during the appropriate Magic phase. So, sorry about that M!
Anyway, at the top of the next round, Colby declared he would be using one of the Clerical scrolls he had acquired previously, “Flame Strike”. As he declared that, Davlan and Hamilton made it known they would be engaging in a “Fighting Retreat” this turn.
The players won Initiative, and the pulled back. The Drow re-assembled themselves and prepared to follow. At that moment, Colby’s spell went off, and a column of blinding holy fire smashed down through the ceiling of the building like the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War (the good ones, meaning the first three games, not the new ones, those are rubbish). Two of the Drow made their saves, and three failed, but regardless, Colby’s damage roll was high, and all five of the Drow were incinerated in a blast of furnace-like heat, leaving only scorched bones and the charred metal of their equipment on the floor.
The players picked through the smouldering wrecks, but didn’t find much of value. The party proceeded onward, hoping to find where these creatures may have stored their treasure. They advanced through a few corridors, and then went up a long northern corridor, which had a very sturdy wooden door, reinforced with iron.
They spent a substantial amount of time forcing this door open, and found themselves looking at stone stairs, that led down into the darkness. After some hesitation, the party descended to the next level. The part came to a medium-sized room, with a number of heavy stone sarcophagi laid out amongst the cold stone walls. Suitably frightened by the possibility of powerful undead, the party were inclined to retreat, with this inclination being solidified by the room suddenly growing colder, to the extent that the character’s exhaled breath was making mist in the air around them.
The party began retreating back up the stairs, except for Colby, who held his ground. A fine white mist seemed to appear from the corners of the room, gradually coalescing into a human-like form in the middle of the room. Still, Colby bravely held his ground! The misty figure seemed to solidify a bit more, and took on the form of a noble-looking young woman, with a bit of an “Elvish” look to her features. She looked at Colby, and appeared to have tears rolling down her cheeks. Colby tried to speak with her, but she didn’t seem to understand what he was saying, or give much sign she had heard him at all. I’ll lift the curtain for a moment here, and reveal that behind the referee’s screen, I rolled a reaction check for this situation, and got a very positive result! This greatly influenced what happened next.
R, the player, then did something very clever, something I didn’t expect. He cast his spell, “ESP” on this ghostly figure, giving him an insight into the ghost’s thoughts. His mind was filled with glimpses of a great marble city, and then the sound of many voices screaming, and the crackling of raging fire. There was a great beating of wings, and the glimpse of a great Red Dragon, sweeping over the city, razing it with its breath weapon. Then, there was a glimpse of that same Red Dragon curled up in a huge cavern somewhere, with many Fire Giants kneeling in apparent servitude in front of this great beast. This “mental image” seemed to “zoom out” from this interior scene, revealing a great mountain set amongst lush green jungle on all sides.
With that, the glimpses seemed to fade from Colby’s mind, and a moment later, the ghost too, faded away into nothing, leaving the room as it was when the party first entered. Not wanting to linger any longer, Colby left the room, re-joining his party on the level above.
Re-assembled, the party travelled down another hallway, finding the “camp” where the Drow had been hiding out. The party decided they would drag out the Drow’s cached backpacks, taking them as loot. As the party made their way back to the entrance, they saw a long, feline shape slinking towards them down the hallway. They caught a glimpse of striped orange fur, as a tiger came into view. The party responded by shouting, yelling, making themselves big, banging their weapons on their shields, and were successful in scaring the creature away (with a great reaction roll). The tiger disappeared back into the darkness, and the party hot-footed it to the dungeon entrance.
The party dropped off the acquired loot with their hired mercenaries who were guarding the exterior of the building. There was still some time left in the session, so the party decided they wanted to stick their head back into the dungeon, and check out that sloping ramp to the south.
As the party prepared to descend the ramp, the head of a great lizard appeared from the darkness ahead. It was a huge monitor lizard, its tongue flicking from between sharp teeth. As the players readied themselves to flee from this huge “Komodo dragon” as they called it, G remembered that he still hadn’t cast his Sleep spell. As the monitor lizard loped towards them, G’s character, Willow the Somnomancer, waved her hands, said the magic words, and unleashed the spell that I’ve heard described as the “first-level nuke” in praise of its great effectiveness. The monitor lizard swayed for a moment, tottered, and then slumped over, fast asleep. Once again, the famous Sleep spell has been of great assistance to an imperilled party of adventurers.
The party prepared to finish off the sleeping lizard, they suddenly had the idea to bind the creature, and carry it back to camp. They had plenty of rope, and plenty of manpower for this job, so a minute later, the beast was trussed up securely. At this point, the party decided they were keen to return back to town, with their acquired loot and the captured lizard in tow.
They were able to exit the dungeon and return to town without further incident.
With that, this tenth session brings us to the conclusion of the “Viper Archipelago” campaign, at least for the time being. Going forward, I plan on running some Boot Hill and Classic Traveller in the near future, before returning to running OD&D as a referee at a later time. In addition, I’m keen to get stuck into various games as a player, and at the time of writing, I’ve been fortunate enough to play in a game run by L already, and I believe G is running a game of their own this weekend.
For those of you who have been following along with these ongoing session reports, I’d like to extend a genuine “thank you” for your interest, and I hope that you guys enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed running this campaign. I truly had a blast running Viper Archipelago, and that’s all thanks to my players. As I’ve mentioned previously on my own server, I couldn’t ask for a better group of regulars to game with, and I look forward to playing with them in the future, whether I’m in the player’s chair, or the referee’s.
Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to extend a special thanks to the server regulars at /OSRG/, the Clerics Wear Ringmail Discord, and my own OD&D Discussion Board. I appreciate the great discussion, advice, and inspiration that I continually get from these communities.
Until next time, readers, and happy gaming.