Terrinoth #17 - Bad Moon Rising Part I

A'bomb'we is ambushed by a ferrox

Campaign Diary

Nine days after they left Dawnsmoor, Entana, Gio, and A'bomb'we were traveling on the road to the town of Nornholt when they heard a commotion ahead of them. Moments later, a riderless horse came charging towards them. Entana caused a burst of light to appear before the horse, which caused it to panic and run into the brambles on the side of the road, where it became trapped. A'bomb'we calmed the frightened animal and led it back onto the road, and our heroes found that it appeared to be a draught horse.  Proceeding down the road with the horse, they found a cart tipped on its side. The contents of the cart were spilled onto the road, and a gnome was pinned under it; another gnome was standing next to the cart, looking helpless.

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Gio approached the gnomes and offered the party's help. Together, they lifted the cart and pulled the gnome out from under it, but he was severely wounded. A'bomb'we's offer to heal the wounded gnome was met with doubt by his companion, but Gio "explained" that the orc was his servant and could be trusted. Calling on the healing powers of Nature, A'bomb'we mended the broken ribs on the gnome's chest. The gnomes were profuse in their thanks. They explained that they were merchants from Nornholt who have decided to leave the town for good after a spate of attacks in the recent months on gnomish and human merchants traveling to and from the town. The attacks were blamed on werewolves, although there have been no survivors or witnesses to the attacks. The gnomes informed the party that their horse had been jittery all afternoon, and that something in the woods seemed to have spooked the horse just now, causing it to bolt and upsetting the cart.

Even though they were by now close to Nornholt, our heroes (being heroes) decided to accompany the gnomes back south towards the nearest village.

Later that night, as A'bomb'we looked out of the window of the inn where the party was staying that night, he felt a strange presence in the woods outside. The party ventured out of the inn to investigate. A'bomb'we caught the scent of death as he entered the woods, and it became stronger as the party traveled deeper in. Then suddenly, a humanoid form glided from the side of a tree nearby and landed onto A'bomb'we and attacked him with its clawed hands. Entana and Gio raced to help A'bomb'we, but two more of the creatures leapt down from nearby trees and engaged them. After a short, sharp fight our heroes slew one of the creatures, but the other two escaped by climbing onto trees and gliding from tree to tree. One had torn a lock of hair from A'bomb'we's head before it fled.

Under the light of the gibbous moon our heroes saw that the dead creature had pale green skin and hook-like claws at the end of its fingers. Thin membranes which stretched between its arms and torso had allowed it to glide. Entana recognised it to be a ferrox, a creature said to be a servant of Waiqar the Undying, but which was seldom seen outside of the Mistlands. A'bomb'we was anxious to hunt down the ferrox which had taken his hair, fearing that dark magic would be done to him with it, but it was impossible to track the swift creatures.

Our heroes decided to continue their journey to Greyhaven the next day, and arrived at Nornholt that evening. Chatting with the locals at the inn, they soon realised that the people of Nornholt were a superstitious lot who seemed to attribute every good or bad thing to supernatural causes.

The cause of the recent attacks on merchants was attributed by many to the prophecy that bad things would happen to the town if the position of the burgrave was not passed on to the eldest son of the previous burgrave: the previous burgrave died two years ago, but as his only son had died before him, leaving only an elder, illegitimate son and a younger, legitimate son, the position had passed on to the younger son; some townsfolk believed that the elder grandson should have been made the burgrave, as the previous burgrave had recognised his grandson after the death of his son, but others argued that the prophecy referred only to legitimate sons.

The next morning our heroes sought an audience with the burgrave to inform him that the so-called werewolf attacks were in fact committed by ferroxes. When they arrived at the towerhouse they were conducted into the great hall, where they were met by Gleeson, the burgrave's steward. Gleeson listened to their tale with concern, and then told them that the young woman also in the hall had arrived before them with the news that she had spotted a creature matching the description of a ferrox entering a cave in the nearby woods. Steward Gleeson offered the party a reward for the carcass of the ferroxes, which he hope would convince the townsfolk that the culprits of the attacks had been eliminated.

The young woman introduced herself as Percy Hazard, and claimed to be a servant of Kellos. She told them that she had traveled to Nornholt from the north the night before, and had spotted a strange creature in the woods which she trailed to a cave. Wary to entering the cave alone, she decided to bring her account to the burgrave, and now she offered to lead our heroes there. As our party was about to leave the hall, a young man dressed in rich clothes entered. He introduced himself as Reynard, the burgrave's half-brother and his chamberlain. He asked about their story and listened with interest, and his eyes lingered on the face of young Percy, before he wished them good luck on their journey.

The party left town and made their way towards to woods. Just outside the woods, A'bomb'we picked up a scent on the road leading north: it was the same scent of death he had met two nights ago. Hoping that it was the scent of the ferrox which took his hair, he took the form of the wolf and turned to track it, leaving Entana, Gio, and Percy to hunt down the other ferrox in the cave.

Prepping and Running the Game

This campaign diary actually covers one-and-a-half session - I have decided to cover the first part of the second session for better narrative flow.

The scenario is based on Bad Moon Rising, from Frog God Games' Quests of Doom compilation. The module has a rather interesting background, which I have more or less adopted 'as is', but the bulk of the session we ran was focused on the ferroxes.

I had introduced the ferroxes not just as an encounter combat, but to impress upon the players that their characters have now earned the attention of the dark forces.

I had initially assumed that the party would continue on their journey to Nornholt after they helped the gnomish merchants, and had planned to launch the attack on them when they were closer to the town. I did not expect them to go the extra mile and accompany the gnomes southwards, effectively losing a day of travel time - I had earlier impressed upon them that winter was closing in and that they had a narrow window to reach Greyhaven and/or Nerekhall to pursue the plot-hooks. I had to adjust things a bit to make sure the attack still took place, but I was proud of their decision.

I had one of the ferroxes grab A'bomb'we's hair as I was planning to curb the character's Wild Shape ability - the original plan was to have the bad guys utilise some form of voodoo magic to perhaps enchant a collar, which when placed on the beast form of the character would "lock" it in its beast form; finding a way to remove the enchanted collar would then be a challenging side-quest for the party, and an interesting (I hope) roleplaying opportunity for the player.

Unfortunately, A'bomb'we's player had to drop out of the A Team, so the whole hair thing became a plot device to separate him from the A Team. At the same time, Whisper's player asked for a spot in the A Team too, which helped me fill up the roster.

So far A Team has suffered three drop-outs, but I am happy to announce that Strigoi's player will be rejoining the table in January next year, which will add some much-needed melee power to the party.

Terrinoth #16 - Moonspike Tower Part II

Dalkon holds Therion hostage

Campaign Diary

In the month of Hailag, at a time when most sensible folks would not venture into the wilderness on account of the cold, we find our party wading through the frigid waters of Blackwing Swamp.

Having learned about the long-forgotten causeway through the swamp, Therion Lakemane, entrepreneur and adventurer, had put together a crew to explore and claim the use of the causeway for himself. Joining him on the expedition were Whisper Blackmane and Risver Tellir, elven adventurers, and Tom Kelloson and Giso Meyer, priests of Kellos who had come along on the prospect of setting up a shrine long the route. They had need for haste, as soon snow would arrive and render all travel impossible.

(Click here for PC profiles)

Following the marks left by Whisper on their last foray into the swamp, the party arrived at the causeway just as the sun began to set. From here they planned to strike out northwards to the ruined keep where they battled goblins and a wyvern, and then to the northern end of the causeway, to see where it ended, before turning south again to find the other end.

Arriving at the ruined keep the next day, they found the wyvern still roosted at the top of the tower, warming its wings in the morning sun. The party waited until the wyvern had flown off to hunt before they entered the keep. There were no signs of the goblins - their carcasses had presumably fed the wyvern over the past weeks. Whisper laid a bear trap in the wyvern's bed of branches and anchored it to the floor below, and disguised the scent of the party using swamp mud. Our adventurers laid in wait inside the tower, hoping to take down the creature once it was caught.

Eventually the sound of flapping wings announced the wyvern's return. On the floor below, our heroes waited with bated breath. They heard a sniffing sound, followed by shriek as the wyvern took off into the air again - it had detected the trap! The party scrambled to the rooftop, eager to catch the creature before it can flee again. The wyvern defended its nest fiercely, but this time it faced more foes, and it was felled by an arrow as it tried to escape once more.

Therion had the wyvern skinned for its leather, hoping to recover part of the cost for the expedition by selling it off later. Exhausted from the fight, the party spent the night inside the relative comfort of the tower.

The next day they followed the course of the causeway northwards. As the afternoon wore on they found the ground now drier and the tree cover more sparse. Here, towards the edge of the swamp, the water gave way to boglands covered by moss and ferns. As the sun began to set, they saw the remnants of a tower by the side of the causeway, this one without a curtain wall, and in worse state of disrepair - only the first storey of the tower remained, and someone had laid a thatched roof over it, and smoke emerged from one corner of it. As the party observed the ruined tower from a distance, the form of an old woman emerged - it seemed that she had made a dwelling out of the tower.

Therion strode to the dwelling and introduced himself to the old woman, and asked permission for the party to be admitted to her home. The old woman introduced herself as Mama Peat ('on account of my using the peat for cooking and smoking lampreys, you see'), a 'wise woman' who had been living at the tower for years, living on smoked lampreys, moss and other plants, as well as other food and items which folks from the nearby villages would bring to exchange for potions which she would brew.

The party were given lamprey stew for dinner as Therion tried to interest Mama Peat in his business, but she replied that she had little use for money but had an interest in magical items, and asked if our heroes had any they were willing to trade for her help. Tom offered his throwing knife, but it was turned down. As the evening wore on Tom fell into a deep slumber. Talk continued to revolve around the subject of magic. Mama Peat began to tell our heroes of a tale of an evil witch who lived in the swamp and claimed the lives of babies born before the full moon... and revealed herself to be the sister of the witch whom our heroes have slain several weeks before! She demanded that the gem that Whisper plucked from the body of her sister to be returned to her, and in return she would leave their business with the causeway alone. Before Whisper could give a reply, Therion drew his rapier and attacked the witch, but instead of staying and fighting, she stepped into the fireplace and vanished in a blaze.

Our heroes searched the rest of the dwelling and found little else besides smoked lampreys and dried herbs and moss. They set watch and spent a fitful night in the dwelling.

The next day they found the northern end of the causeway a short distance away from the dwelling, and turned south to find the other end.

On the fifth day of their expedition dark clouds rolled in from the north. Late in the afternoon they came upon the remains of yet another tower by the causeway, this one so worn that only the foundations of the tower remained. As they approached the tower they saw that its floor had given way and now opened to a basement some ten feet below. They heard the jingling of chains, followed by voices crying for help.

Whisper crept close to the edge and saw that two men and a woman were imprisoned inside there, each chained by their ankles to an alcove in one of the four corners of the basement floor. Tom leapt onto the floor below and started to question them.

The three gave their names as Dalkon, Feck, and Tilsa, and claimed to be residents of Tamalir who woke up about a week ago to find themselves chained there. They had no knowledge of how they came to be there, nor who had brought them there or for what purpose, and they begged our heroes to free them from the chains.

Whisper cast a rope down and climbed down, followed by the others. As Giso examined the chains around Tilsa's ankles he noticed them to be of good quality steel, and that the manacles were not locked but forge-welded shut. Setting the chain against a rock, he set to work with his hammer, and after some effort broke one of them.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party grew more and more suspicious of the circumstances the prisoners were in: despite not having a source of food or water, the trio had remained alive for a week in the middle of winter, and indeed there were no signs of waste or excrement there. Whisper sensed magic on the three prisoners, but could not make out its nature.

Tension began to rise as our heroes pressed the prisoners for answers, and were met only with protestations of ignorance and increasingly desperate pleas to be freed. Eventually patience wore thin and Risver drew his knife and approached Dalkon, thinking to cut him and see if he bled. As he came within reach Dalkon struck out at him, throwing Risver several yards back. Enraged, Giso charged at Dalkon with his hammer. Therion stepped before Dalkon, shielding him from Giso's attack... and felt Dalkon's hand close around his neck in a vice-like grip.

Release him and the other two, he demanded, or he would kill Therion.

But the party was in no bargaining mood - they attacked Dalkon, even as he shielded himself with Therion. Unable to break himself free from the strangle, the bard passed out, only to be revived by Whisper chanting a healing word. Seeing this Dalkon cast Therion aside and seized Whisper by her neck instead. In the confusion that followed Whisper was struck by Giso and passed out, but her companions were able to wrest her from the grasp of Dalkon. As the three prisoners strained against their bonds to try to grab at our heroes, they one by one climbed out of the basement, and from the safety of their vantage point above called down holy fire against the now-defenceless trio.

When the prisoners were vanquished the party recovered the chains, noting the maker's mark upon them - they might solve this mystery yet!

Leaving the ruined tower behind, the party trekked on southwards, until they came to the end  of the causeway. Their journey had come to an end.

***

Having returned to Tamalir, Whisper recovered her gem from the vault of a merchant house where she had deposited it. Holding it in her hand, she called out silently to Mama Peat, but received no reply.

Then one night she awoke in her room at the Leaky Tap, and found the witch standing by her window. The witch repeated her offered to leave the dwelling in the swamp and not interfere with the party's business in exchange for the gem. Whisper in return told her that now that she has learned of the nature of the gem, she did not want it in her possession. She handed the gem to the witch, who stepped back into the shadow... and vanished once more.

Prepping and Running the Game

I apologise in advance if I blow my own trumpet too much in this post, but I feel the session was a good example of how an 'improv' style of GMing can work with experienced and engaged players.

This session was the first in the Terrinoth campaign that I did not base off a specific module, but rather the elements of the scenario came from loose threads left over from three previous session. There was very little to prep for in the specifics - I prepared the monster stats, a couple of terrain mats, and did some reading on peat, lampreys, and smoking lampreys with peat.

To begin with the whole reason for this expedition was based on an idea supplied by the players themselves. As the GM all I needed to do was to make up some reasonable challenges to provide more information on the causeway and its history (indirectly).

The first part of the session was to me the most straight-forward, so I was a little surprised when the players took a long time trying to decide how to tackle the wyvern. Eventually I decided to make it fly off to hunt for food so they could get close to it without being detected.

The second encounter was a follow-up to the session where they encountered and killed an evil hag. I had wanted to introduce the idea that the hag was once one of three hags in a coven, and when I needed to populate another location for this session, I decided to make use of this thread, I left the encounter very much unscripted, hoping to react to how the PCs acted instead. I had actually a model of a purple worm (painted in flesh colour) on my table to use as a giant lamprey ally for the hag if a fight broke out, but it didn't seem to fit the feel in the room at the moment, and I decided not to use it.

I had imagined that Whisper and the two priests of Kellos would want to attack the hag once they learned her true nature, and that Therion would rather strike a bargain with her, so I was rather surprised when it was the other way round.

The third encounter was my favourite. The mysterious nature of the prisoners and their reluctance to provide answers, and their physical prowess displayed later really puzzled the players. I will not spoil the story here, but this location is tied to the Blood & Gold scenario. One of the players even asked if his character knew if this was in anyway linked to the Cult of Nordros - as a GM it is always gratifying to have bits of lore you told the players thrown back at you in a later game.

I could feel the tension and the frustration (a good kind, I thought) at the table rise as the players and PCs started to disagree on what to do and then each went ahead and did what he or she felt was right - it was a little like the scene in The Avengers when they started to turn on each other. But as in the movie, once the enemy showed himself, the team acted together and defeated their foes.

When Therion's player placed his figure in front of Dalkon to shield him from Giso, I saw the perfect opportunity to raise the stakes and took it, actually physically moving to behind the player and passing my hand in front of his neck (which unfortunately meant I could not see the look on his face when that happened). The player was so traumatised by the event that after the game he told me that Therion's alignment had shifted from Neutral Good to True Neutral after this.

Despite the fight being fought on a fixed location on account of Dalkon being chained, it was actually one of the more tactical fights in the campaign as the PCs tried to rescue their comrades without hurting them, trying instead to pry them loose from Dalkon's grasp. I thought I did rather well too when I made Dalkon take the risk of letting go of a hostage and grabbing the healer instead.

Once the PCs were all out of reach of the prisoners, it was basically shooting fish in a barrel as they had ranged-attack cantrips. It was however fitting for the prisoners to not have any ranged attacks, so I allowed them their victory.

Once again the players were experienced enough to bounce off elements I had included in the scenario without much thought, in this case looking for a maker's mark on the chains, which I had described as well-made. This will allow them to trace the buyer of the chains (presumably the person who imprisoned the trio there), but in fact it will be the other way round: allowing the person to find those who have killed his prisoners!

All in all this was a very enjoyable session, and it has given me more confidence in running a less prepped game.

Terrinoth #15 - Retribution

The heroes fail to stem the tide of zombies...

Campaign Diary

Giso and Tom's recent adventures had earned the attention of Abbot Kostel, who decided that it would be best if the two priests did a spot of penance at St Olfryc's Priory until after the Winter Solstice mass. They would be accompanied on their journey to the priory by Whisper Blackmane, who had been employed as a guide.

(Click here for PC profiles)

Our reluctant priests headed north from Tamalir, with a mule carrying winter supplies in tow. St Olfryc's Priory, our priests knew, was founded as a hermitage several centuries ago, and was later expanded to a priory when a childless noble obtained permission from the Baron to bequeath the land to the church upon his death. For a period the priory was home to a sect of the church of Kellos known as the Order of the Cleansing Flames, whose members practised self-mortification by branding themselves. The practice gradually fell out of favour, and had stopped in the past few decades.

On the third day of the journey, as the party climbed the hill to reach the priory, a snowstorm began. The trio struggled on, but found their path ahead blocked by two large wolves. The wolves growled menacingly at the party, but would not attack. Faced with a long trip back to the nearest village or a long detour, the party chose to attack, and after a hard battle managed to kill the wolves and continue on their way.

The winter sun was close to setting when they finally arrived at the priory. They were welcomed into the compound, and introduced to the monks who lived there: Prior Ruan, his assistant Dean Leland, Brother Rosen who ran the scriptorium, Brother Enthel who did most of the cooking and cleaning, and the young novice Brother Malven.

The party reported their encounter with the wolves, and were told that the woods had been strangely quiet the past week. With the storm showing no signs of letting up, Whisper was invited to stay at the priory until the weather improved. Giso and Tom were assigned to work with Brother Rosen to copy scriptures during their penance, while Whisper volunteered to help around the place.

Th next morning when the monks left their dormitory for morning services, they found five dead ravens on the snow-covered garth in the middle of the priory. The birds were frozen solid, with no signs of injury on them, and there were no tracks leading to or from where they were laid.

At the scriptorium, Tom did his best to impress Brother Rosen with his calligraphy, while Giso, protesting his exile to the priory, deliberately did a mediocre job, and earned the disapproval of Dean Leland. Whisper meanwhile earned the attention of the dean when he found out that she was not a follower of Kellos, and found herself being proselytised to at each meal time.

Later that night, Giso and Tom were awakened from their slumber by a repetitive knocking sound. Tom dragged the reluctant Giso from the warmth of his bed, the two followed the noise to the door of the scriptorium, where they found a dead fox hung by its tail over the door - the winter wind slammed its frozen body against the wooden door periodically, creating the irregular knocking sound. Closer examination of the carcass showed a jagged wound on the chest of the animal, and that its heart had been ripped out. Again, there were no tracks leading to the door. Giso recalled from his reading that cultists of Nordros removed the hearts of the animals that they sacrificed to the evil god of Death and Winter. Tom and Giso alerted the other monks, but with no clue as to who the culprit was, there was nothing to do but to return to bed.

The mood at the refectory was subdued the next day. Dean Leland behaved coldly to Whisper, perhaps suspecting that she was responsible for the events. Brother Melvan suspected the villagers, whom he believed to be protesting their tithe to the priory.

Work continued at the scriptorium for our priests, while Whisper took a walk outside the priory walls during a lull in the storm, eventually chancing upon a nearby graveyard, where the deceased monks and worshipers were buried.

Thankfully, nothing strange happened that night.

On the third day, the priests were interrupted in the work at the scriptorium when Prior Ruan came to ask for help: someone had left the window to his chambers open, and the snow had blown in, wetting the floor and furniture. While the party helped the old man clean up, they noticed that he had brand marks over his forearms. Prior Ruan revealed that he had been an adherent of the Order of Cleansing Flames in his youth, and that he had been a zealot who forced self-mortification onto novices, which eventually resulted in his transfer out of the priory. It was only with the death of the previous prior of St Olfryc's that he had been reassigned to the priory. Age, he said, had mellowed him, and he now regretted his actions.

When they asked Prior Ruan about who had access to his chambers, the party also learned that the monastery had been missing some gold and silver candlesticks and goblets, and that the remainder had been kept under lock by the Prior.

At this point they all heard a loud sound followed by a scream coming from the nearby kitchen. Rushing there, they found that the lintel over the kitchen door had fallen, nearly missing Brother Enthel, who spilled the pot of pottage he was holding. Examination of the broken pieces of the lintel showed signs of sabotage, and our heroes volunteered to help investigate, which would also conveniently take them away from their duties in the scriptorium.

The next day our trio kept a close watch on the monks. Giso spied on Dean Leland from outside his office, Whisper feigned interest in the scriptures to spend time with Brother Rosen, and Tom watched Brothers Enthel and Malven from a discrete distance.

In the middle of the morning, Tom noticed Brother Enthel leaving the compound surreptitiously. While he trailed Brother Enthel, he noticed Brother Malven behaving around the tool shed in a suspicious manner. Making the decision to check on Brother Malven first, Tom crept next to the tool shed and saw the young novice rummaging in a corner. After Brother Malven left, Tom entered the tool shed to search it, and found the lost gold and silver items buried behind various tools in one corner. Leaving them in their place, Tom left to try to track Brother Enthel, but the falling snow had covered his tracks.

By now our heroes were on edge and suspected something bad was going to happen. They knew not what it was, but they resolved to keep a watch over the priory all through the night. Whisper stood watch in the scriptorium, while Tom and Giso guarded the two entrances to the priory: the door to the antechamber that led to the garth and the prior's chambers, and the door to the chapel respectively.

At around midnight the storm abated. Then Brother Enthel opened the door from the garth to the antechamber and walked in nonchalantly. Surprised but not suspecting anything sinister, Tom thanked him for the nice dinner he made earlier. Brother Enthel walked slowly over to the door and replied:" I'm glad you enjoyed it... because it was your last meal."

Then he lifted the bar across the door, opened it, and zombies spilled in.

Tom's cries alerted Whisper and Giso, who rushed to aid him. In the confusion Brother Enthel managed to slip past our heroes to enter the chapel and open the other door to the outside - more zombies entered.

While Whisper and Tom fought to contain the zombies in the antechamber and Giso faced off against several zombies alone in the chapel, Brother Enthel led a few zombies into the garth, heading towards the prior's chamber by a different route. The party despatched the zombies, sustaining grievous injuries while doing so, and chased after them.

Tom threw the throwing knife he had found in the wyvern's lair at Brother Enthel, imbuing it with the holy flames of Kellos as he did so... the knife missed its target and stuck in the door to the scriptorium, setting it alight. Tom called out to Brother Rosen, who had thus far been hiding in the dormitory with Brother Malven. Alerted to the fact that his beloved scriptures were in danger, the monk overcame his fear, rushed out, and began shoveling snow onto the burning door, eventually extinguishing the flames!

While Whisper and Giso held off the zombies in the garth, Tom entered the kitchen to find Brother Enthel strangling Prior Ruan - like the older man his forearms bore brand marks too. Tom struck at Brother Enthel's neck, killing him. Searching his body, they found more brand marks, and a tattoo of a skull, marking him as a worshiper of Nodros.

As the party gathered around him, Prior Ruan revealed that Brother Enthel suffered under his tutelage when he was a novice and was made to brand himself many times. When the two met met again on Prior Ruan's return, the older man had apologised and asked for forgiveness, which was given - but now it seemed that Brother Enthel had never forgiven his erstwhile mentor, and had plotted a terrible revenge.

In the aftermath of the chaos Tom took Brother Malven aside and questioned him about the stash in the tool shed. The young monk, already shaken by recent events, spilled the beans: he was a wanted thief who had joined the priory to escape from the law, and was plotting to return to civilisation now that he thought things had blown over. Tom flipped the young man a Gros, and ordered him to depart, which he quickly did.

With only three members left, Prior Ruan realised that the priory could not sustain itself any longer. Packing their scriptures and as much supplies as they and the mule could carry, the monks and our heroes left the priory, and made their way to the nearest village.

Prepping and Running the Game

As this was the Halloween game, I thought it would be a good time to run Retribution by Raging Swan Press, a mystery-horror scenario. This is probably the third or fourth time I have run a "stranded in a monastery in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm with suspicious monks when murder and fire happens" scenario. It is not an innovative premise, but Retribution excelled in laying out how the GM can slowly rack up the tension in the game.

The original scenario has more content than the scenario I ran, with some details on the village near the monastery, and a whole dungeon section which I left out. It also has more combat encounters and a larger cast of villains and NPCs. The scenario as written would probably require more than the three hours we had, so in the interest of time and make it easier for me and the players to keep track of the NPCs I cut out most of the combat encounters, locales, and trimmed the list of NPCs down to five.

With a mystery scenario it is always difficult to strike a balance between giving the players enough clues to allow them to pinpoint a suspect, and not giving them so much information that the solve the mystery in the first hour. Retribution takes this into account, and has advice on what to do in case your players correctly identify the suspect early in the game.

In this case I think I did too good of a job making Brother Enthel low-key, such that the players suspected Brother Rosen, Dean Leland, and even a Prior Ruan with a split personality, but not Brother Enthel. The last one is an interesting idea which I may actually use for my next monastery mystery game.

For the layout of the priory I chose to use the beautiful 30" x 30" St Olfryc's Priory from Heroic Maps, specifically the winter-themed one, which was perfect for my purpose. I adjusted the plot to the map, which almost proved catastrophic at the critical moment in the game: there were only two main entrances into the priory which Brother Enthel could let the zombies in, and they were each guarded by a PC! If a PC attacked Brother Enthel before he could open the door, the game's climax would not happen.

The scenario had not predicted that the PCs would be guarding the route by which the zombies would attack, no did I expect them to stand guard all night. I literally stood hunched over the map with the figurines placed on them for a whole minute before I decided to let the dice fall where they may be and let Brother Enthel make his entrance. The seconds when I casually moved Brother Enthel's figure across the antechamber to the door and then uttered his line was the high point of the game for me.

I think the players were genuinely surprised by the suddenness of the zombie attack. Giso's player was so taken off guard that he did not think to turn undead until several turns into combat, when the PCs had all taken heavy damage.

The comic moment of the game happened when one of the players noted that the flaming throwing knife might set the scriptorium door on fire. I went with the suggestion and had Tom's player roll for fire damage. When they called to Rosen to help put out the fire, I decided that the natural thing for him to do would be to shovel the snow on the ground onto the burning door. I rolled to see how effective he was, and rolled high: he was a human hurricane, as one of the players put it!

I had not thought about how to end the game, but when one of the players made the remark that the priory would probably be too understaffed to continue, I went with it and had them abandon it for the season. This actually provides me with another site for a possible "holdings" campaign, so if either Giso or Tom's player do decide they want to "settle down", we have a site which they can feel a certain connection to.

Over all it was a fun session with plenty of opportunity for roleplaying. If you are looking for a horror-mystery scenario based in a monastery, I recommend you check Retribution out.

Terrinoth #14 - The Road to Damnation and The Golden Banner Part II

Campaign Diary

Our heroes raced through the abandoned streets of Dawnsmoor, as A'bomb'we in his wolf form followed the scent of the assassins south towards to dock district. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted a green glow approaching from the south. Gio, Entana and A'bomb'we hid and waited for the green glow to come closer.

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As it came near, the party saw that the source of the glow was a disembodied skull, floating purposefully towards the north, at just below the level of the roofs. It seemed to be headed towards the Venier residence!

For a while the party was unsure if they should return to the residence in case the skull meant to do the people there harm, or if they should carry on to find Geldrey's girl before she was killed, but Gio made the decision for everyone when he used the magic granted by Fortuna's coin to conjure an invisible hand to tug at the skull. This certainly got the skull's attention, as it turned around and started charging at the party! Entana threw magical flames at the skull, but it seemed unaffected by fire.

"You will not find it so easy to kill me this time!" the skull cried, before it shot beams of sickly green light at Entana, who felt his limbs weakened before he fell to the ground, unconscious. A'bomb'we caught hold of Entana's robe and hoisted him onto his back, and together the trio fled down the streets, pursued by the skull.

They were able to shake their pursuer by ducking into an alley, but Entana was still unconscious and growing weaker by the minute. Faced with no other option, A'bomb'we resumed his orc form so he could heal Entana with his druidic magic; but this meant he could no longer take wolf form and find Geldrey's girl. Undaunted, Gio climbed to the roof to see where the skull had gone. To his relief, the skull seemed to have changed its plans and was now heading south! Sending A'bomb'we to return to the residence to give them a warning, Entana and Gio resumed their journey to the south, until they came to the docks, where Gio saw the skull disappear at the base of a warehouse building.

Approaching the building, they found light coming from the basement windows. Moving closer, they looked into the basement and saw the skull in conversation with an elf and a few men.

Ravik, said the skull, has failed in the mission, the skull argued, and that they should kill the girl as planned. At his order the men began to move the crates by a wall, exposing a hidden door. Despite the odds, our heroes decided to take a risk: Entana jumped through the window and summoned a gust of magical wind, throwing the skull against a wall and causing the elf and some of the thugs to fall. He then followed it up with a magical fog, and under the cover of this Gio rushed into the secret room, where he found Geldrey's girl and led her out. With their enemies still in confusion, Gio helped Entana lift the girl to the basement window, before returning to the room to grab a chest and some papers he saw on the table inside the room. Out of the basement, our heroes ran as quickly as they could back to the Venier residence, where Geldrey was reunited with her grand-daughter.

Our heroes examined their find from the secret room. The chest held several hundred Gros. One of the paper was a promissory note for the sum of 300 Gros, issued in Nerekhall to one Maczko Neihart; the other was a letter addressed to Faenwyn (an elven name), informing him that "Mondock has failed but he still serves our Undying Master", and that Ravik was now in command.

Suddenly the skull's words made chilling sense: Mondock was the name of the necromancer they had killed and decapitated several weeks ago, whose head was displayed on pike on the walls of Skydown Castle, and had subsequently gone missing!

As Gio and A'bomb'we returned to their rooms, Entana was summoned to meet with his father. The elder Venier thanked his son and his friends, and finally gave his approval for his choice of a career in the magical arts. He too had a longing for adventure in his youth, he revealed, but had been prevented from pursuing this path due to his obligations. Now, he planned to hand over business to his eldest son, and travel to the lands of Al-Kalim, where he had seen but briefly during his "business trips", but had never had the chance to explore.

The next morning, our heroes joined in the procession as the relic made its way through the city to the docks, where it was carried across the river on a barge to arrive at Kellos' Landing, and there in a pompous ceremony formally presented to the Temple of Kellos.

The party took a well-deserved rest in Dawnsmoor, and after two days they set off to Greyhaven, where they hoped to learn more of the pendant that they had found on Mondock's body.

Prepping and Running the Game

The report above covers only the first part of the session - I have broken it down into two parts for narrative purpose.

This part of the report is essentially the continuation of the previous episode. I had introduced the floating skull as a dramatic element, knowing that A'bomb'we had run out of Wildshape slots for the day, and that the party would be forced to choose between saving the girl, returning to defend the house, or else split the party. I had expected them to split the party, with Entana returning home and Gio and A'bomb'we carrying on to the docks. I had not counted on them drawing the attention of the skull right there and then, and had to improvise so they still had a chance to locate the villains' den.

I made "props" documents for this session as I thought it would be an interesting way to present the clues to the players. These were made in a rather "primitive" way: I first searched for free fonts of the appropriate type, then created the text. I then looked for png-s of wax seals, and pasted them onto the respective letters. To give the parchment look I first printed a parchment pattern onto the paper, then printed the text onto the same sheet of paper.

The use of a font type to represent the 'handwriting' and the use of a seal will allow me to present future letters as further clues to my players, which is something I plan to work into the future scenarios.

Entana's father's retirement and his acceptance of his son's career choice resolves part of the arc for the character. The choice of traveling to Al-Kalim is however not random - the player has come up with the idea that the family wealth came from trade with Al-Kalim, and as I plan for the next arc of the campaign to be a larger sandbox encompassing all the lands outside of Terrinoth, this will give me a hook to draw the PCs to Al-Kalim if the players chose to explore that region of the setting.

Terrinoth #13 - Moonspike Tower Part I

Campaign Diary

Our tale opened in the taproom of The Leaky Tap, a dingy inn on the south side of Tamalir, where Whisper had made her temporary home. As she came down from her room on the second floor this evening, she heard a small figure wearing a broad-brimmed hat calling to her, or to be exact calling:"Hey, white-hair!".

The wearer of the hat turned out to be Erkiss, the kobold the party had encountered in the Blackwing Swamp a few weeks before, now disguised as a gnome, and sporting a black eye. Against her better judgement, Whisper sat down at Erkiss' table and listened to his tale:

After the events of the last adventure, Erkiss had found a ruined keep in the middle of the swamp where a dragon laired. He offered to lead a tribe of goblins to the dragon and its treasure hoard for a 10% cut. The goblins drove the dragon off, suffering many casualties, but afterwards reneged on the deal and gave him a beating before kicking him out of the keep. Now Erkiss had come to Tamalir to find his 'friends', whom he hoped will drive the goblins away and give him his 10% cut afterwards.

Time, Erkiss explained, was of the essence - the goblins have suffered many casualties, but with the treasure they have found their leader could attract more followers, and very soon their numbers would swell and they would even become a threat to the humans!

Leaving Whisper to pass the message to the others, Erkiss left The Leaky Tap, promising to meet the party at the south gate at dawn the next day.

At dawn the next day, Whisper, Giso and Tom left the city gates as they were opened and found Erkiss waving at them from behind a tree outside. The kobold led the party westward into the swamps, with the party keeping a close eye on him and Giso insulting him every step of the way.

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Retracing his step by the means of a series of chalk marks made on tree trunks, Erkiss led our heroes deeper and deeper into the swamp. Whisper made marks of her own, but she also found that she could sense the presence of the green cat's-eye gem (which she had gained from the last adventure) that she had left in Tamalir even from this far.

As dusk fell, our party found themselves before an ancient causeway that ran from the south to the north. Here they made camp for the night. During the second watch of the night they were woken by a deep roar in the distance, which was followed by the sound of something approaching the camp site. Giso cast a light spell on a rock and threw it towards the sound, and found a few panicked deer, which fled away.

The next day saw the party make faster progress northwards along the causeway, and by mid-morning they have arrived at their destination: a ruined fort by the side of the causeway. The design of the fort dated it to the days of the Dragon Wars; much of its walls and three of its corner towers were in ruins, but the largest, the east tower, still stood tall. There, Erkiss informed them, was where the treasure of the dragon was held. Two goblins kept watch from the top of the tower, and another two guarded the gate-less gateway.

The party planned a stealthy infiltration of the compound from one of the smaller ruined towers, dragging the reluctant Erkiss with them. One by one our adventurers scaled the tower, moving only when the vision of the goblin sentries were directed elsewhere; everything seemed to be going well, until Tom's foot dislodged a loose rock, sending it to the swamp below and making a loud splash. The time for stealth was over!

Moving to the ground level, the party ambushed the first two goblins sent to investigated, and then cut through the reinforcements, sending them fleeing back to the east tower. The party gave chase, and for a while did not notice that Erkiss had not followed them.

Climbing up the spiral staircase in the east tower, our heroes quickly despatched a couple more goblin archers. The third floor seemed unoccupied, so Whisper stayed as a rearguard while Tom and Giso continued to ascend.

Arriving at the roof of the tower, Tom and Giso found neither goblin nor treasure. Meanwhile, in the floor below, Whisper heard heavy breathing coming from behind a doorway to her right...

Before she could raise the alarm, a two-headed giant burst through the doorway, swinging a huge spiked club at her. At the same time, two goblins rushed out of a doorway on her left - she was surrounded!

Tom and Giso rushed down from the rooftop upon hearing the commotion, evening the odds in the combat, but beset on both sides, Whisper was knocked out and had to be healed by Giso.

After a hard fight, the party slew the goblins and the giant, whom they noticed was already wounded before the fight. Searching the room where the giant had emerged from, they found a chest filled with old silver coins dating from the Dragon Wars.

Our heroes limped out of the tower to find Erkiss waiting for them outside. When questioned about why he did not warn them about the giant, the kobold grinned sheepishly and claimed he had forgotten to.

Any thought of punishing the kobold for his amnesia was forgotten, however, when the shadow of a large winged form moved across the courtyard of the keep. The party ran for the gateway, but the winged form descended before them: it was a large winged reptilian creature, with... two legs and a tail with a stinger on its end - a wyvern!

It was no dragon, and it too bore wounds from an earlier fight, but it was still a formidable adversary and our heroes were still in no shape to take it on. The four scattered in different directions, yelling out an agreement to meet back at their camp site if they made it out alive. The wyvern roared - a sound which the party now recognised from the night before - and swooped at Whisper, clawing at her as it passed. Whisper turned and dodged as best as she could, until Tom and Giso, regaining their courage, halted their flight and turned to her aid. Together, the three pelted the wyvern with missiles and spells, until it decided they were too much trouble and flew away.

Erkiss emerged from his hiding, and together the party hurriedly made their way south on the causeway. When they returned to their camp site, they counted their haul: some eleven hundred silver Gros. True to their word, our heroes gave 10% to Erkiss, and split the rest among themselves. The kobold used his hat as a coin pouch, declined the party's offer to return to Tamalir with them, and disappeared into the swamp. Tired but fearful of the wyvern finding them, our heroes trekked through the night to return to the city.


Prepping and Running the Game

The planned A Team game did not materialise, but fortunately I had a B Team scenario ready, and Whisper's player was once again able to step up at short notice.

The scenario was a mash-up of a few modules and adventure hooks, but I used Moonspike Tower for the title of this session as the module was the inspiration of the main location of the session.

I got the idea of having a goblin be the quest-giver from a module I read, and decided to use Erkiss from the last session as the players seemed to dislike him for no good reason - sure he worked for a witch and taunted an unfortunate man, but he never really did the PCs any harm!

I ran him as Leslie Chow (international criminal!) from the Hangover franchise - to top it off, I told the players OOC after the game that contrary to his claim, Erkiss did not lead the goblins to the wyvern's lair, but merely chanced upon their attack and hatched up the whole plan, and gave himself a black eye to make the story more convincing.

I enjoyed playing Erkiss, and hope to bring him back in future sessions - who knows what he will do with his small fortune in the meantime?

The scenario was pretty straightforward otherwise, with just two small twists to make things a little interesting. The main fun from the session came after the game, when the players started discussing the significance of their discovery of the ruined keep and the causeway.

I had used the causeway and the ruined keep as they were an element from the Moonspike Tower module, and had earlier had some vague idea about criminal organisations using the causeway as a smuggling route, and my players saw the same potential right away.

The players asked me if they knew anyone they could sell the information to, and I pointed to Therion Lakemane, another B Team character. Whisper's player sent a text to Therion's player (in real life), offering to sell that information to him (in-game). While we were waiting for his reply, Whisper's player discussed her plans for a day job for her - there weren't really many career options for an elf in Tamalir, but she was looking for a job that had a lot of outdoor time...

Then Therion's player replied: not only would Therion buy the information, he would employ Whisper to police the smuggling route as his enforcer!

The offer was quickly accepted, and now I find myself having to plan a whole new arc to the campaign. Thankfully, it is close to winter in our game world, so any plans would have to wait a few months before they could be implemented, which leaves me some time to plot while we play through a few winter-time scenarios in the future.

At this point I am glad I have backed Matt Colville's Stronghold and Followers, which will be delivered soon. Hopefully there are enough numbers in there to help me come up with the costs it will take to refurbish the causeway and the keep, and some numbers for the potential revenue their venture will make.

There are many potential complications and therefore adventure hooks that arise from this: what if another criminal organisation wants to muscle in on their business? How will the two priests of Kellos feel about this? Will Erkiss return and try to claim a piece of the pie?

I have no idea, and I can't wait to find out.

Terrinoth #12 - The Darkness Before Dawn

The party escorts Mama Clay to Maiden's Vale

Campaign Diary

In the month of Herbist Giso Meyer and Tom Kellosson, priests of Kellos, were tasked by their superior to escort Mama Clay, an experienced (and elderly) postpartum nurse, to Maiden's Vale, a village on the edge of Blackwing Swamp that was held by the church. The wife of the reeve of the village was due to deliver, and the church wanted to reward his loyal services by sending the best nurse they could find.

Acting as guide for the party was Whisper Blackmane, newly returned to Tamalir after attending her father's funeral in the Aymhelin Forest.

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It was a short two-day journey from Tamalir to Maiden's Vale, but the incessant autumn rains and even more persistent complaining from Mama Clay about the effects of the cold weather and rough roads on her geriatric frame made the trip seem longer.

On the evening of the second day the party arrived at Maiden's Vale to find it curiously quiet. As they passed through the wooden palisade that surrounded the village, they saw a thin man being locked in the stocks in the village square. As they party got closer to the stocks Mama Clay recognised the man as Solly, a servant in the reeve's household.

The party soon learned that Sir Olvar the reeve had ventured into Blackwing Swamp soon after the birth of his son, on account of the local legend, and that his cousin, one Sir Klock, had soon afterwards with the help of ten thugs who had just arrived in the village thrown his wife and newborn child out of the manor house; when Solly protested, he was beaten by the thugs and locked up in the stocks as a example to the other villagers who might dare challenge his authourity.

Our heroes, incensed by this treachery, wanted to release Solly and then march straight to the manor house and eject the usurper, but Solly and Mama Clay argued that it would be foolhardy to do so, and that their first task should be to find Lady Angela, Sir Olvar's wife, and her child.

While the adventurers considered their words, a pine cone struck Solly on the head. It had been thrown by a kobold hiding in a nearby tree. The kobold ran off before Tom and Whisper could catch it and disappeared into the darkness, cackling as it did so.

The party decided that for the present discretion would be the better part of valour, and made for the unnamed public house in the village, where they found some villagers huddled around a table, speaking in whispers. After ascertaining that the new arrivals were not more thugs come here to reinforce Sir Klock, the innkeeper brought them food and drink, and told them of the local legend.

It was said that a long time ago, the villagers of Maiden's Vale offended a witch who lived in Blackwing Swamp, and in revenge she had laid a curse on the village, such that every child born in the three days before a full moon would die upon the midnight of the full moon; Sir Olvar's child had unfortunately been born three days ago, and tonight was the night of full moon. On the same day that the child was born, Sir Olvar had ventured into the swamp, seeking to beg the witch to spare his child, or die fighting her if she refused to do so. Sadly, the legend also told that all those who tried to do so had never returned from the swamp.

The party also learned that Lady Angela had taken refuge at the miller's home, outside the palisade, and under the cover of darkness the innkeeper led our heroes and Mama Clay to the place. There the found mother and child safe, at least for now. Speaking to the miller, they learned that he too had a child born close to the full moon a few years ago, and that he too ventured into the swamp the evening when his child was born, hoping to find the witch. He followed a trail into the swamp until he scaled a cliff and saw a green light in the distance. Following the green light, he eventually came to a hill overlooking a clearing, in the middle which stood a hut. Here he was overcomed with fear, and could not continue, and so returned to the village, and his child died at midnight on the night of the full moon as predicted. Now, seeing another child in danger, he volunteered to lead the adventurers into the swamp.

Leaving Mama Clay to care for Lady Angela and her child, the party traveled towards the swamp - it was now just five hours away from midnight, and they needed haste.

The rain stopped as they entered the swamp, and by the moonlight Whisper found fresh footprints in the path before them. Scouting ahead, Whisper and Tom found three armed men hiding in ambush ahead on them. They launched a surprise attack on the three, and in less than a minute one of the ambushers were dead, and the other two subdued. Interrogating the two survivors, they learned that they were among the thugs hired by Sir Klock to take over his cousin's manor. Sir Klock had predicted that his cousin would go into the swamp to try to save his child, and had in fact encouraged him to do so, but secretly, he had hired mercenaries from outside to help him take over the manor house, in the belief that Sir Olvar would not return - possession being nine tenths of the law, he hoped that the church would make him the new reeve of the village once they had learned of Sir Olvar's fate. His plan looked to be working well, until a villager arrived earlier in the evening with news of the adventurers' arrival, and the three thugs were sent to ambush the party in the event that they ventured into the swamp in an attempt to bring Sir Olvar back.

Our heroes stripped and tied the two thugs up, and sent the miller back to the village to summon help in bringing the thugs back, and continued deeper into the swamp. Soon they came upon the cliff which the miller told them about. Whisper deftly climbed to the top, but the cliff wall, wet with rain, caused her to be covered in mud. From here, she saw an eerie green light in the distance. Giso and Tom climbed to the top with the help of a rope lowered by Whisper, but while walking down the slope on the other side of the cliff they slipped and fell, covering themselves in mud too.

The party trekked in the direction of the green light, which seemed to be at the same distance ahead of them regardless of how far they have walked. After struggling for another hour through the swampy ground, the party ascended a low hill to find a clearing at its top. In the middle of the clearing was a tree stump. Here, someone had piled tree branches and bark on the stump, making a sort of a puppet booth. As they watched the bark curtains of the booth parted, and a candle was lit. A wooden figurine, with white hair made from moss, was mimed climbing a cliff represented by a piece of tree bark - the puppeteer then smeared the front of the figurine in mud, cackling to itself as it did so. Then two more figurines, each made to resemble Giso and Tom, were shown walking down a slope and tumbling, before they too were smeared with mud, all accompanied by the shrill cackle of the puppeteer.

The party recognised the laughter as that of the kobold that had taunted Solly earlier, and rushed forward to try to catch it. When it narrowly slipped Tom's grasp, Whisper nocked an arrow and shot it through its leg. The kobold fell to the ground, howling in pain. The adventurers tied the creature up, and healed its wound. Questioning it, they learned that it called itself Erkiss, and that it had been acting as a scout for "the mistress" who lived in the hut at the bottom of the hill. It also revealed that a man matching the description of Sir Olvar had come this way two days ago, and had come under her spell.

Leaving Erkiss by the tree stump, our adventurers walked to the far side of the hill. Here they could see a hut in a clearing at the base of the hill. Green light glowed through the windows of the hut. Standing before the door of the hut were four human forms. As they got closer they saw that them seemed to be in a trance, standing still with weapons in their hands, their eyes glazed over and staring into the distance. Three of them looked disheveled, as if they had been here for ages, while the fourth looked liked he had recently arrived - Sir Olvar.

Tom walked forward and tried the door - it was unlocked. He slowly opened the door to find the interior lit in the orange light coming from a fireplace in the far corner. A long-haired woman was seated on a chair before the fire, her back towards him; in her arms she seemed to be holding a baby, but neither the woman nor the baby made a sound. Whisper joined Tom in the small room, while Giso kept close to the entranced men outside. When their attempts at starting a conversation was met with silence, Tom and Whisper moved closer to the woman. Each approaching the woman on one side, they found her face covered with her long hair, but even as the edged closer towards her, they could not catch a glimpse of her face...

Then suddenly, the woman, child, and chair vanished. And just as suddenly, another figure, this one of an old woman with cruel features, clawed fingers and ragged clothes appeared out of thin air behind Tom and leapt at him, tearing a great wound in the back of his neck. At the same time, the four entranced men raised their weapons and started attacking Giso. Giso raised the golden hammer he had won on his last adventure and fought back, trying not to hurt his attackers more than he had to, but when Sir Olvar struck him, he was filled with a blind rage, and found that he could not stop himself from striking back.

Whisper joined Tom in fighting the witch, and soon forced her into a corner in the hut. She fought back in a frenzy. Tom called down the fury of Kellos and cast flames from his hands, scorching the witch and setting the wall of the hut on fire. Maddened by the fire, the witch struck Tom a mighty blow, knocking him to the ground. Whisper called upon the aid of the elven gods, and rained a flurry of blows upon the witch, throwing her against the burning walls, which collapsed from the force of the impact.

Now the roof of the hut was also burning, and the hut itself started to sink into the swampy ground. As flaming debris rained on her, Whisper helped Tom to his feet, and together they exited the hut just as the roof collapsed. Outside, the four entranced men had stopped fighting, and came back to their senses - they were all fathers who had come seeking to save their children from the witch's curse in the years past, and had come under her enchantment until now. Giso felt his rage ebb. Now they all watched, as the witch lay writhing on the ground as fire consumed her. Soon she stopped moving, and the fire began to die down. Whisper saw a green glow inside the witch's charred body, and reached to recover it. As her hand closed around the glowing object she felt a sudden chill in her arm, as if she had plunged it into a frozen lake - but the feeling soon passed, and she found a green cats's eye gem the size and shape of a cuckoo's egg.

Our party of seven limped and staggered its way back to the village even as the full moon climbed steadily into the night sky. Erkiss the kobold had freed itself from his bonds and was nowhere in sight when they passed the tree stump. They arrived at the base of the cliff to find that several villagers have joined the miller. By the time the enlarged group returned to village it was past midnight, but even before they reached the door of the miller's house they were greeted by a happy noise - the sound of a crying baby. Sir Olvar rushed through the door and hugged his wife and child in a tearful reunion.

The innkeeper arrived soon after, bearing food and drink for everyone. As our heroes rested, they noted that despite the lateness of the hour, slowly, more and more villagers have joined them. Encouraged, Sir Olvar decided to launch an attack on the manor house to catch his treacherous cousin by surprise. While Giso was eager to join him, Whisper and Tom persuaded everyone to let them scout ahead in case there was an ambush. The crowd agreed with their proposal, and sure enough, Whisper and Tom found the manor house abandoned, apparently in a hurry, with its treasures gone - it seemed that once again, someone had tipped Sir Klock off.

Prepping and Running the Game

Due to a miscommunication, I could not run an A Team game as I had planned, but fortunately a B Team player stepped up and we ended up playing a B Team game for the evening instead.

I had a hour to come up with a scenario, and instead of learning a new one I decided to re-use the one from the 2008 edition of Dragon Warriors, which I ran for my family in April this year. The game as it was written was a good introduction to gritty, low magic feel of the Dragon Warriors world, but in my view the ending was too contrived. Still, the pdf of the whole book is available for free on RPGNow, so I encourage you to download it and have a read.

I ran the first part of the game pretty much as is, substituting a kobold for a goblin for Erkiss. The players were unnecessarily harsh towards Erkiss, I felt, so I plan to bring him back as a recurring foil, or maybe even an unlikely ally in the future.

I used the name Mama Clay, forgetting that I had used it (and the same voice) for a herbalist in an earlier A Team game - apparently she made enough of an impression to make the player remember her name! I decided that she has many sisters living all over Terrinoth, so Mama Clays will now make appearances in my future Terrinoth games.

For the villain of the scenario I used a hag instead of the 'White Lady', which I also did for my previous game. The hag in the hut in the swamp is an old trope, but there is a reason why it is a trope. In my rush to start the game I had not decided on any loot for the session, and it was only after the fight was over and the hut was sinking into the swamp that I remembered to come up with something. I went with the theme of the green glow, and told the players that I will tell them what it was they found once I have thought it over. My current plan is to make it a hag's eye, and to make the hag who was killed one of a coven of hags; with the hag's eye in the possession of a PC, the other two hags can learn of where the PC is, and will most likely want to recover the artefact, which gives me hook for future adventures.

Over all it was a fun session, which while low in combat had many opportunities for role-playing. I guess one lesson for me from this session is that I should always have an additional scenario ready for contingencies just like this.

Terrinoth #11 - Blood & Gold

Campaign Diary

Our story began in The Black Bear, a pub in the working district of Tamalir, where Tom Kellosson, Whisper Blackmane, and Risvir Teliir have been invited to lunch by a man who called himself Lazar.

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Without revealing too much (or anything at all) about himself, Lazar explained that our adventurers have been invited based on their reputation, and that he had a job to offer them, with a pay of 20 gold pieces upfront, with another 20 afterwards.

He produced a small glass vial containing a small amount of red powder from his cloak. The substance, he explained, was an addictive drug called Red Mist. Its use had become widespread over the past few months, and he wanted our adventurers to find out who was producing it, and where it was being produced.

Having seen the effects of the drug on the addicts that had been taken into the care of the shelter set up a few months ago by the Order of Kellos, Tom questioned Lazar's intentions, but the payment of an additional 10 gold pieces persuaded him that they were entirely honourable.

Once the party had accepted the job offer, Lazar gave them three leads, and left them to finish their lunch and plan their first move.

It still being early, our adventurers decided to visit one Starker, known to be supplier of the distinctive glass vials that the drug was sold in. Arriving at Starker's shop, they found it closed. The view through the shop window showed the interior to be in disarray. After a brief interview with the baker across the street from the glassware shop, Whisper learned that Starker had become increasingly unhinged over the past few weeks, and that the opening hours of his shop had become more erratic, until it had altogether stopped operating for the past two weeks.

The party checked out the rear of the shop, and found that the backdoor had been left unlocked. Entering the kitchen, they were greeted by the sight and stench of rotten half-eaten food. Risvir moved to the front of the building to search the shop, while Tom and Whisper decided to explore the living quarters on the second floor.

Risviir found the floor of the shop to be strewn with broken glassware, among which were a few glass vials identical to the one shown to them by Lazar. Flipping through the ledger left on a table, he learned that consignments of 500 vials had been sold to one Kiemen every week for the past few months, until three weeks ago. While he pondered on the significance of his finding, he heard a commotion coming from the kitchen. Rushing back, he found Tom and Whisper on the stairs leading to the second floor, in a scuffle with a disheveled-looking man.

It took all three of our adventurers to subdue the gaunt man, who had the strength of a few men. When he was finally knocked unconscious, Risviir drew arcane patterns in the air with his hands, and the shadows of the banister on the walls warped and then peeled off the wall, took form, and then wrapped themselves around Starker, binding him.

A search of the bedroom upstairs revealed several more glass vials, this time with traces of red dust in them. It became clear that Starker had himself become an addict, and had succumbed to the long-term effects of drug use. The party roused Starker and interrogated him, but managed to learn nothing more than the confirmation that Kieman was the buyer of the glass vials. But Kieman was a common name in Terrinoth, so with little more to be gained at the shop, the adventurers arranged for Starker to be brought to the shelter, and proceeded to their next lead - a high-end brothel called The Pasha, where the drug was rumoured to be sold.

It was early evening when our adventurers arrived outside The Pasha, a grand building in the Terrinoth style, with an incongruous faux Al-Kalim style domed roof. Two bouncers, dressed in Al-Kalim style costume stood by the main door. Our party passed through the door to find a large, marble-clad hall decorated and furnished in the Al-Kalim style. Scantily-clad women and their clients lounged on large cushions placed on the marble floor, drinking wine from ostentatious goblets.

The presence of two elves and a monk of Kellos gained the attention of the Madam of the place, who approached them and inquired what services they sought. When our adventurers asked about Red Mist, they were told that The Pasha no longer dealt in it, and when it became clear that they were not interested in other forms of entertainment on offer, they were left politely alone with a pitcher of wine. The party refused to leave, and their obstinance eventually paid off, and they were led to the office to meet with Silas Hess, owner of The Pasha.

Tom used his position as a priest of Kellos to convince Hess that the party was working to end the widespread Red Mist trade. Seeing a possible ally, Hess revealed that he had previously sold Red Mist to the clients at The Pasha at a gold piece per dose, but a few months ago a new seller had moved into Tamalir, selling the same drug at half the price, making it no longer a viable business for him. Hess revealed that his men have found out that the new seller went by the name of Weiss, but not much else. He offered the party his hospitality for the evening, and wished them success, noting wryly that the vices of the rich are not always suited to the poor.

Tom returned to the ground floor for some wine, and tried to glean some information from a serving girl, while Whisper and Risviir took a working girl into one of the private rooms and questioned her. As it turned out Hess' staff knew more than he did: some of the working girls gained a taste for Red Mist from their clients, and after The Pasha stopped dealing in it they have found a supplier by the docks. Having learned the location of the dealer, our party headed to the river.

It was late when our trio arrived at the dock district, where they found a dealer on the street corner. Across the street, by the river, was a building with the sign 'Kieman Trading'. They were getting close to their target. Approaching the rear of the building, Whisper climbed to the rooftop and lowered a rope to Tom, and together they climbed in through the second floor window, while Risviir kept watch below. Whisper and Tom found themselves in an empty office with several ledger books, each detailing transactions that included purchase of glass vials from Starker, several alchemical components, as well as payment and delivery of food and other items to Weiss. While they debated whether this information was sufficient for Lazar's needs, the door to the office opened and a man entered to find the intruders. Whisper leapt out of the window and proceeded to climb up to the rooftop. Tom likewise jumped out of the window, but missed the rope, falling to the ground below. Things might have ended badly for the priest, had not Risviir rushed forward and broken his fall. While our heroes picked themselves up from the ground, bruised but still alive, the alarm was raised and soon a few thugs were running after them.

Whisper leapt from rooftop to rooftop, throwing darts at the pursuers to dissuade them but with little success. Tom managed to knock out one of the pursuers and outpace the others, leaving Risviir behind. Desperate, Risviir conjured up a shadowy version of himself, which proceeded to run into a side alley, while he himself jumped into the river. Under the cover of darkness, the trio evaded their pursuers.

The next day our heroes were back at The Black Bear, where they presented the ledgers to Lazar. Pleased with what they have brought him, Lazar paid each of them another 30 gold pieces, and left them to finish their lunch as before. As he exited the inn Whisper, filled with curiosity, decided to follow him, but only caught sight of him entering a carriage outside the pub, which quickly drew away. Who was Lazar really? And who was Weiss? For now, these questions must remain unanswered...


Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on Blood & Gold, an excellent module by Adventurer's Inn. I will not reveal too much of the plot as there are still elements from the module which have not been revealed to my players, and which I am hoping to incorporate into future sessions.

I ran the module pretty much 'as is', changing names and place names, and some locations to suit. It was primarily an investigation scenario, with some potential for combat. Investigation scenarios can sometimes be difficult to pull off, being either too straightforward and railroady and thus unchallenging, or too dependent on the discovery of a single clue to proceed and thus stalling when it is not found. In this module the author provided three leads, each of which gave enough information to lead the players to their quarry.

I took the premise of the story and the idea of there being three leads/locations, got my story straight, and worked backwards and placed enough information in each to get the party a step closer to the quarry, but not enough that they can get to the end after visiting just one location; in this case, I decided to give them enough information after visiting two sites in the interest of time and also to reward their role-playing.

The module itself is quite open-ended, and gave a lot of latitude in what Lazar would consider as a 'success'. In our game the party did not actually find Weiss, or what Lazar's interest in the trade was (although they did suspect he was the original dealer of the drug). This allows me to use the two characters in future scenarios.

If you are looking for an urban adventure for a low-level party, with some interesting NPCs which can become recurrent quest-giver/antagonist, I recommend you check this module out. I shall certainly be keeping an eye out for future offerings from this publisher.

Terrinoth #10 - The Road to Damnation and The Golden Banner Part I

Campaign Diary

With heavy hearts, Entana, Gio and Strigoi bade farewell to Orglath and returned to Skydown to report to the baron.

(Click here for PC profiles)

When they had returned to Skydown, the baron listened to their tale with interest, and rewarded them for their work. But rather ominously, they learned that the head of Mondock had disappeared from the pike it was mounted on one night, and his two captured followers had killed themselves in their cells rather than to reveal what their plans were.

The party reunited at Market Town on the 27th day of Windhume, where together with the band of pilgrims led by Johannes and, they started on their journey to Dawnsmoor. Orglath had yet to regain his full strength, but felt strong enough to go on.

The autumn rains meant going was slower than expected, and on the third night of the journey, unable to reach the next village at where they had planned to stay that night, the band had to make camp in the open.

A few hours before dawn, the company was woken from their sleep by the sound of combat - someone had attacked the camp while Strigoi was on watch. Four orcs had come into the camp grounds, and one was in melee with Strigoi.

Entana, Gio, and Orglath quickly grabbed their weapons and engaged the other three orcs, while Johannes herded the pilgrims towards safety. But battle had hardly been joined before it was interrupted by a loud roar; out of the bushes a huge brown bear came charging towards the orcs in combat with Gio, and before he knew what had happened he had been mauled in the chest and had had his throat ripped out.

The other orcs and our heroes bolted from the camp grounds at the sight of the beast, who instead of chasing after them, stopped are scanned the camp grounds. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the bear transformed into an orc himself, and called the party's attention to a figure who was just now emerging from Johannes' tent.

The heroes turned and saw Talfen, one of the pilgrims, leaving the tent with a wooden box in his hands. Talfen took to his heels, but Gio used the favours of Fortuna to trip him - Talfen tumbled, and the content of the box fell out onto the ground. Without pausing to retrieve the item, Talfen picked himself up, and disappeared into the darkness.

Johannes ran forward and recovered the item - half of a horn. This, he later explained, was one half of the Horn of Kellos, a relic from the Second Darkness, when it was carried by Kellos' champion. It was cloven in half during the final battle, and the two halves had been revered as relics since then. One half of the horn was lost many centuries ago, and the other had been enshrined in the cathedral in Vynevale. Recently, a rich merchant in Dawnsmoor revealed that he had acquired the lost half, and offered to donate it to the church on the condition that the two reunited halves would be enshrined in the temple at Dawnsmoor instead. After ascertaining that the offered relic was in all likelihood genuine, the church tasked Johannes with delivering the Vynevale half to Dawnsmoor in secrecy. Entana asked for the name of the donor, and was not surprised to learn that it was his own father, Arwium Venier.

The party thanked the shape-shifting orc who had came to their aid. He told them that his name was A'bomb'we, and that he was a spiritspeaker among the Broken Plains Orcs. He had come to the west on a vision quest, and was camped nearby when he heard the commotion; once it became obvious that the orcs were the aggressors, he stepped in to help. At Johannes' invitation, he agreed to join the party.

Strigoi, on the other hand, declared that he would leave to pursue the orc who had attacked them, for it was Shaglot, his old comrade.

Fearful of another attack, the company broke camp and continued west in the pre-dawn darkness. Fortunately, the remainder of the journey was uneventful, and two days later the band arrived at Dawnsmoor.

The city of Dawnsmoor had no city wall, but the Temple Quarter, located on the south bank of the Flametail river and centred around Kellos' Landing, was protected by three layers of walls. The relic was handed over to the priests for safe-keeping. Here the party parted with Orglath, who had to remain to continue his healing. Entana decided to return to his family mansion in the High Quarter on the north bank with Gio and A'bomb'we as his guests.

At the gate of the mansion Entana was prevented from entering by a guard he did not recognise. A brief altercation ensued, with peace restored by the timely arrival of Bram, the head of the guards. Jeras the old butler then conducted the party to the sitting room to meet Arwium Venier.

Inside the Venier home Entana was warmly received by his father, who mistook Gio and A'bomb'we for his servants. When asked about the relic, the elder Venier explained that he had purchased it at great expense from some adventurers, and that he would be presenting it to the church at a lavish ceremony at the temple in a few days. He had also planned to have a dinner at his home the night before to show it to some of the city elites, and with his other sons away on business, he wanted Entana to attend. Entana informed his father that an attempt was made to seize the other half of the relic, and bade him to guard against a similar attempt on his half. Arwium replied that he had doubled the number of guards on his payroll, and that the relic was held in a safe place in the house.

As they did not share the elder Venier's confidence, Entana, Gio, and A'bomb'we decided to make their own plans against a move on the relic. Suspecting that the enemy would strike during the dinner, when the relic would be presented, Gio agreed to perform music during the meal so he too would be in the dining hall. A'bomb'we made friends with the servants, impressing them with his ability to make plants grow at accelerated speed. Entana meanwhile managed to coax his mother into revealing that her husband had a secret room in the basement.

Once they have found the door to the secret room, the party made their plan: Entana and Gio would be at the dining hall, while A'bomb'we would shape-shift into a giant spider and hide in a dark corner, after spinning webs over the door to alert him to any movement.

The day of the dinner came. In the basement kitchen the cook Geldrey served an early dinner to the guards and servants before they would all have to prepare for the feast. A'bomb'we, eating with the servants as was by now a custom, detected a strange taste in his stew and called for everyone to stop eating. The stew was laced with blackroot, a herb he was familiar with, and a soporific that would have made those who ate it become drowsy and then fall asleep. Geldry the cook was questioned, and quickly broke down: her grand-daughter had been kidnapped the night before, and someone had threatened to kill the little girl if she did not put the herb into the servants' meal on the day of the feast. Having tasted it herself to make sure it was not lethal, she obeyed the stranger.

Entana, the butler, and the head of the guards were called down, and a conference was held. Bram, head of the guards, wanted Entana to convince his father to call the dinner off. Entana, however, wanted to have all the staff play along and catch the attackers off guard instead. Jeras considered the proposal for a few moments, and decided that it was perhaps the best way to make sure that Geldrey's grand-daughter did not come to any harm.

The guards were given instructions to act sleepy and slack on their rounds, but to keep an eye out for any intruders. As the guests started to arrive, Entana took his seat by his father's side, Gio donned his newly tailored performing clothes, and A'bomb'we took the form of a wolf spider and hid near the door to the secret room.

The dinner passed without incident, and when dessert was served, Arwium gave the signal for Jeras to fetch the relic. The butler descended to the basement, unlocked the hidden door with a key, and opened a wall safe in the room behind with another key, and brought out a richly decorated box. As he returned to the dining hall, A'bomb'we, still in spider form, followed behind him upon the ceiling, hidden from the sight of the guests.

Arwium unlocked the box and with a flourish revealed the relic to the gathered guests. At that moment, a window to the dining hall broke with a loud crash and a masked figure clad in black landed inside the hall. A split second later the door to the dining room was thrown open, and another masked and black-clad figure entered.

Before anyone could react, the first figure had sprinted to Arwium's side, grabbed the box and turned to run back to the broken window. But before he could reach it, Gio played a magical tune on his flute, which caused the man to fall to the ground, laughing uncontrollably.

The other figure then crossed the room, leaping over the dining table, and seized the horn that had fallen onto the floor. A'bomb'we jumped into the room, and took the form of a giant spider, which caused most of the guests to scream or faint in terror.

In the ensuing melee the second black-clad man was killed, but the first one fled through the window with the relic. He tried to climb over the wall around the mansion, but A'bomb'we, in his spider form, cut him off. He turned and sprinted towards the gate, and was mere seconds from escaping when two of the guards, alerted by the din and fully awake, engaged him in combat. Outnumbered and surrounded, he was soon taken down and paralysed by the venomous bite from A'bomb'we.

The party pulled off the man's mask... it was Talfen, the "pilgrim". The bound Talfen and brought him into a storeroom in the basement, and once the venom had worn off they interrogated him, demanding to know where Geldrey's grand-daughter had been taken to. Talfen sneered - he threatened that if he did not return to where he was expected, the little girl would be killed.

Realising that time was of the essence and that Talfen would not talk, the party decided they would have to find the girl themselves. A'bomb'we took the form of a dire wolf, and picked up Talfen's scent on the streets outside the mansion. Gio climbed astride the back of the dire wolf, and the trio made set off in the darkness.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on two modules: The Road to Damnation by Megaton Games, and The Golden Banner by Sneak Attack Press.

The first part of the session was based on the main plot from The Road to Damnation - a fake pilgrim who is leading a band of bad guys to attack the pilgrims and steal a relic. This could have been omitted in the interest of time, but I decided to run it as an encounter as I wanted the players to feel that the villains are constantly plotting and acting to achieve their goals.

As the players of Orglath and Strigoi had to drop out of the campaign for a while, I recruited another player, who chose to play a Broken Plains orc shaman. As I expect the final arc of the campaign to involve the Uthuk Y'llan, I used the opportunity to weave it into the character's back story.

The Golden Banner supplied the plot for the second half of the session: the bad guys trying to seize a relic from a rich merchant. This plot line allowed me to tie a few threads together: Orglath's association with the Order of Kellos, Entana's strained relationship with his father, and the increasing boldness of the villains.

The structure of The Golden Banner was in a way flawed: the central plot of the scenario is that a rich merchant has received a tip-off that an attack was planned on his dinner party, and the meat of the adventure was supposed to be an investigation on whom the likely attacker was. However, players being players, they are likely to see this as being unnecessary legwork - if an attack is coming, they will just wait for it to come and fight it off. There was also no way the attack could be prevented or aborted in the scenario, regardless of how successful or bungled the investigations went. I found this unsatisfactory, so I decided that instead of a single event when the relic would be exposed, I would have two events: the private dinner at the Venier residence, and the public ceremony at the temple. This gave the villains and me some flexibility in terms of the timing of the attack. If the PCs were really good at preventing a planned attack on the dinner party, I could shift the attack to another time, either during the movement of the relic to the temple, or even at the presentation ceremony itself. I would also have to be open to the players failing in their mission and the villains succeeding in theirs, but the open-ended nature of this campaign meant that failure in one mission will just mean the hook to the next.

An open scenario is always risky, as players may become bored or frustrated when there is no clear direction to plan or work towards. In this case the players focused on the room where the relic would be hidden, which allowed me to play out how they determined the location of the room and let them spend some time on planning how to keep the relic safe, and made it clear to me that the attack would take place at the dinner as planned.

One thing I did not anticipate was the players doubting the authenticity of the relic. A fake relic would have made an interesting plot twist, but I could not come up with a way to use that to take the story in an interesting way.

The final fight turned out to be under-challenging again, but this time perhaps not due to the "weakness" of the bad guys (which on paper would outclass the party), but by some really good rolls on the part of A'bomb'we's player and some really poor saving throws on my part - we used my Gamescience dice so I can't even blame unfair dice.

In retrospect I had made a mistake in sending only two bad guys to seize the relic; having seen A'bomb'we's shape-shifting power, Talfen should have attacked with more men. Or perhaps he thought that A'bomb'we and Gio would have eaten the drugged stew and would not be in fighting form? I would have gone with that had they not discovered that the stew was drugged, and given them the "poisoned" condition for the fight, but even here I was betrayed by the dice, as A'bomb'we's player rolled a '20' when he tasted the stew!

Dealing with "wild shape" is always challenging for a GM. The ability to change into smaller or larger sizes, never mind the form, easily allows a PC to escape bonds, jail cells, and cages. However, now that my villains know about this, I feel justified in making specific plans in countering, if not negating it.