Actual Play Report from the Fringes of Wermspittle (Session Three; Happy Thanksgiving!)

Not everything wants to eat you...and it is always good to have friends, especially in weird places...

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J's Notes from our Thanksgiving weekend game.

1. Camping in field outside Gadra's tomb. N hears horns and dogs barking on other side of river, calls on the Hobyah (using their Mark on her hand) and asks them to check it out. We break camp and head toward the yellow brick road away from the sounds. I almost step in a dodo nest. Take 3 intact dodo eggs. They're as big as ostrich eggs!
2. The new-new-kid S (N's guest) comes running toward us, hands bound, chased by three Pruztian hunters and dogs. We cut her free from her bonds. All of us run up hill to hide. One hunter leaves with his dog, we guess for reinforcements.
3. We spot three 9-foot albino penguins in the Red Weeds on other side of hill. N asks her Hobyah allies to scout so we can avoid them. Hobyah discover penguin-diving -- literally jumping into the gaping maws of the huge birds, sliding down into their stomachs and them disappearing only to come back and do it again, and again, and again. The Hobyah are immensely pleased and soon there are close to a hundred of them diving into the highly distressed giant albino penguin's mouths. Hunters hear the noise, approach the spot and are quite befuddled. Penguins are traumatized. The hunters leave.
4. We cross river away from hunters. Shallow water, but everyone falls. No injuries. Supplies soaked, some lost. Feels like we're being watched. There are Basajun, Woses, Jub-Jub Birds and Slithy Toves in the area, so it might only be something like that--some inoffensive being or animal not ouot to eat us all...besides there are three huge penguins lying exhausted and weakened behind us for any predators to go dine on at their leisure.
5. Farmstead downstream. Lots of bomb craters. One UXB, Franzikaner make. We decide to check out the farmstead. Avoid Slow Sand and Black Thorns getting there. Fields of mega cabbage and radishes. Hobyah use cabbages as trampolines. S makes comment about eating farmers. Morlock blood? (Dice were rolled, S does indeed appear to have some slight Morlock lineage in her background, but it is not entirely definite--she needs to be tested).
6. Farmstead has house, barn, mil; all bomb damagde and / or overgrown. No signs of recent habitation.
7. Check out house. 3 levels. Lower 2 looted or filthy from blown leaves, rain and elements. Seed company calendar on wall. Attic looks fairly intact. Q (The Thief-to-be) climbs up. He discovers a well-built Shooting Platform, where the farm families would fight-off the Biters and such over the long. dark winters. Lots of homemade weapons. He tosses down what might be useful, including family's Farmers and Mechanics Manual
8. Mill is overgrown. Sara uncovers a fox nest and takes red speckled fox egg. since when did Foxes lay eggs? Weird...
9. Barn empty except owls and mice. Root cellar under barn. Door has Achuin lock with symbols for cleanliness, air quality, and pest control. Door is clear of debris and footprints. N consults books (currently carrying Every Good Child's Guide To Things To Bash and Burn, a gardening book, Our First Blue Book written in Etrurian, and the Farmers and Mechanics Manual) and turns off wards. Q picks lock. A (the Fighter) opens door. 12 steps down. A stays top as guard. Cellar has smoked meat, veggies, and herbs. We all take what we can. Go back up stairs. 3 Landsvattir at top. We think that they knocked A out. These things don't immediately attack us. N quickly consults her growing arsenal of books again. These creatures are protectors. They have watched over the farm for decades. Now that it is abandoned, they need to be released, or else in time they may curdle, spoil and turn into something rotten, vile and nasty. The group need to find their pact-anchor to release them since the family is gone. Leave all cellar-goods behind, so as not to offend the creatures, walk past landsvattir. They seem sad. Let us pass.
10. We dig through rubble. N calls on her friends the Hobyah for help. Eventually we find the anchor-object, a ceramic vessel that clearly radiates a slow, deep magical aura. We give it to landsvattir. They are released from their pact and we take cellar-goods. Landsvattir withdraw back to the Tulgey Wood, what we now can see was once an orchard.

We camp at farm for the night.

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One of the funnier moments came after the game session was wrapping-up, when people started to realize that there was no way that Q could carry anywhere near as much loot as he was lugging around, all rolled up in his carpet...which was definitely magical.

The Hobyahs have really taken a liking to N's character, especially now that she helped them invent 'Penguin Diving,' which will cause no end of stress and turmoil back in Wermspittle when these little creatures start spreading the word to their fellows and they begin launching themselves into the attic-pens of the Tsalalians...

J did not get into the details regarding how the group handled the Pruztian hunters and their dogs--they were hunting after whomever stole the local Castellan's new armor and short sword from the shop back in Kridlist in our first game session. Not only did the group avoid getting spotted, the Hobyahs muddled-up all the tracks and signs of their camp-site that the hunters were not able to figure much out, other than a small group had spent time there recently...and this being a notorious area filled with nasty beasts, bandits and worse...there was no guarantees that it was a small group. Then they followed the sounds to find the penguins and Hobyahs and pretty-much decided it just was not worth it. Besides they now had a story worth telling back at their base-camp. something that might earn them a few free drinks, and that beat trudging about in the thickets on a fool's errand.

It was also quite a lot of fun to watch a group really make use of things they've found in the course of the game to solve a situation that might otherwise have gotten really, really ugly. Now besides the Hobyah's, the group has three friends out in the Tulgey Woods who might remember their act of kindness someday...

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Unfortunately we did not encounter the Jabberwocky, any Damned Things, nor the Bandersnatch...this time...but we'll see what happens next time!

Tomb of Gadra: Actual Play Summary

Recently we were able to run a second session for our friends who had their first adventure just outside the village of Kridlist. This time we started off safe within the bounds of the camp set-up by Gnosiomandus. After a good night's sleep the party did an inventory of their loot and considered where they might want to go from there. The old man and his two companions were headed off to Wermspittle with the newly-captured tiger (the same one that the party had managed to avoid previously). Since it turned out that the tiger was in fact pregnant, Gnosiomandus was in a good mood and offered to barter with the group to help them get themselves together so they would be prepared to face whatever lie ahead of them. Q took advantage of the opportunity to unload some of the bulkier items he was lugging about and was interested in acquiring a good short sword or something along those lines. When J's character, a run-away from one of the three circus families in Wermspittle, offered Gnosiomandus the little pouch of White Powder she had recovered last time, he was in a tremendously good mood and offered everyone their personal choice of any three weapons or what-not contained within his traveling fold-box panoply (literally a tesseract-container fitted-out as an arsenal filled with all manner of weapons, devices, mechanisms and such-like).

While the group did a bit of shopping, the winged-monkey that they had found earlier took off to go scout a number of limestone formations in the vicinity that might have caves or some other sort of explore-able locations in, on or around them.

In short-order the group finished-up their various transactions, said farewell to the sleeping (and very pregnant tiger), and headed off to a likely looking location discovered by the winged-monkey, who led them to the spot, pointed it out, and left to rejoin its master Gnosiomandus who was in the process of trundling down the closer spiral of the yellow brick road on his way back to Wermspittle.

The location in question was none other than The Toxic Tomb of Gadra, an adventure that has been in dire need of some play-testing for a good long while now. Oh, to be sure, there were several other possible locations available, but this was the one the group settled upon, so it is where they went. The only rail-roading around here is underground as part of the Unter-rail...and they have not yet found a way down to that yet...

So...here are J's notes:

Here are my raw notes for Gadra. They're numbered to make them a little easier to follow.

1. Gnosiomandus's flying monkey scoped the area for us and pointed us to the outcropping where we found the tomb.
2. On the way there we went through some ferns and avoided a poppy field.
3. We found a cave opening that had been sealed with glazed yellow bricks. Most had been removed and stacked to the side.
4. There was an inscription at the entrance that said Gadra and the words for "toxic" in Pruztian, Franzikaner, and Achuin. They glowed purple.
5. There was a pit with spikes that had already been released. There was a dead child's body.
6. There was a chamber with a vent shaft to one side.
7. The corridor went down and up. We used R's pitchfork to trigger another pit trap and used rope to cross it.
8. New chamber. Walls have been scraped clean. Floor did have mosaic tiles. Three spiral mounds. One mound chipped at the top. Chipped area has had something removed.
9. R (the Archer) found a gold and silver pendant with a teardrop pearl. Pearl has a purple sheen. Chain is unclasped. She keeps it.
10. We opened a mound. It's a Minken barrow. Bottom falls out, no one hurt. We pull the casket out. Dart trap sprung. Each person takes 1hp damage. Open the casket. Spider-hand symbol on inside of lid. N thinks it's moving. We move the body. Casket has a false bottom. We count 14 hand spider eggs in it. 7 are crushed in extraction. R has other seven eggs.
11. We hear second party come in. We wait to ambush them. They get as far as the gas trap. They trigger it. Two looters dead, the kid leading them leaves quickly (Scared). Gas sinks, is heavier than air, leaks through cracks in lower walls, revealing a chamber below.
12. Open third mound. Uncover then open an ornate casket. Smash another nasty hand spider. Take six more eggs.
13. Come to a spinnable door. Room behind it is weird, "feels bad." Door shuts once we're in. Open chamber, painted white, metallic under dust. Cinnabar carvings, mercury dripping from ceiling. We break through a wall section. Air quality in here is really bad. Something in the walls hurts our eyes when we look at it, especially N (the spell-caster).
14. Chamber with pool of mercury and a man-sized sarcophagus. Q figures out how to drain pool and raise sarcophagus. R's pearl necklace is pulled toward the sarcophagus. We decide not to open it and it's too heavy to take with us but we have info to sell.
15. Tomb is spirally. Use rubble in final chamber to build ramp to entry corridor so we don't have to go back through everything, then re-seal hole in corridor wall and leave.

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As you can see, this place included some nasty traps, some of which were already set-off by previous explorers...and one of which was set off by a trio of opportunists who followed the party into this place.

The level of mercury fumes in this place varies a bit, but no one can last for very long before showing signs of mercury poisoning. Luckily for the group, they managed to open some ventilation and moved past the worst of the traps--even avoiding a couple of deathtrap situations by using good, common sense and a bit of intuition and strategy. For first-timers and newbies, this group played more old school than I've seen in ages and it was truly grand. They managed to get a lot of loose low-end loot here and there, which made the Thief-in-training very happy, but they also managed to acquire some very valuable information regarding this tomb that they can now sell to some interested party, including a rough map outlining the known hazards, identified traps, and the spots best left alone by the next group...unless they come prepared with gas-masks and hazard-suits.

Now I am at work revising the adventure a bit to take advantage of the group's feed-back to make things run a little more smoothly in places, and to incorporate some of the changes they've made into the final version of the manuscript.

Thank you to all the members of our little adventuring crew. I hope you all had as much fun as I did exploring Gadra's Tomb!

Actual Play Report from the Fringes of Wermspittle

The map is a work-in-progress...

We recently had the opportunity to run a session of Labyrinth Lord for our friends and their offspring, one of whom is about to head off to college later this month. Our first session went very well, considering that they all began in an isolated village being bombed during the night by unidentified airships...

The following Actual Play Report was written by Jody. We both hope you enjoy it. We're looking forward to the next session!

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The party consisted of Q (Potentially a thief), N (Probably a Spell-caster), R (An archer-type Fighter), A (Fighter), and J (Another Spell-caster). Everyone drew a random index card for the gear they were able to grab on their way out of the village during the bombing and everyone had the opportunity to choose a Class for their character based upon how things went as we played through the morning after the bombing...

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Session 1

The bombing stopped around daybreak. It had been a long night but the group I fell in with (five of us in all) managed to stay out of sight and uninjured, which is pretty good considering we met in our mutual runs for cover. Everyone was hungry and thirsty, though. We left the relative safety of the woods and walked a bit on the road toward the nearest village. We could hear a few other groups of folks rummaging around in the debris, looking for fallen comrades or fallen goods, but they were all on the other side of town.

The first house we came to still had its walls, more or less. We figured the stench from the flaming outhouse would keep the others away for a while so we decided to some scavenging. Q went first, entering through a broken window as the door was locked or blocked. We heard a bit of a scuffle and some squeaking from inside but no screaming so N and I decided to check it out. A quick peek in the window showed three short, black-furred critters doing their best to hang on to all the goods they’d gathered. Hobyahs. Q had one in hand, thus the squeaking. N decided to go through next to try to talk to the Hobyahs. After a few words and a lot of gesturing N was able to convince the Hobyahs that we weren’t going to kill them out of hand and that we could work together to find more goods, and maybe some food, if they could be quiet.

We met R and A outside. They had checked out the rest of the little farmstead and found an ax, a bucket, and a nice jug of hooch. The bucket would come in handy if we could get to the town well. Unfortunately the well was close to a bomb crater that showed all the signs of being contaminated with Black Smoke. Yuck.

The next closest building to the farmstead had been a blacksmith or arms storage of some kind. Now it was mostly rubble. No food, but we were able to dig out various bits of armor and weaponry, enough for everyone to have something they could use. Some of it had Franzikaner markings, others were Pruztian. The Hobyahs were more interested in the boxes the stuff was packed in than in the goods themselves. I took a nice Vinkin coat and hat and some Pruztian gauntlets. I gave the chausses to A as they fit him. I figure the better armored my companions are, the more protected I am.

N managed to get a pretty nasty cut in their hand digging through debris. I was going to clean it and bandage it up but as soon as I pulled out one of the bottles of wine I had reserved for medicinal purposes one of the Hobyahs became very interested. At first I thought it just wanted to drink it but, with more gesturing, I was pretty sure it was trying to say it could take care of N’s hand. Knowing I had more bottles I decided to see what the Hobyah could do and gave the bottle in hand to it. It took a drink and slapped N’s hand right over the cut. N held up their hand to show the cut was gone. Hobyah can be helpful creatures, apparently.

Things were getting noisier off to our right. At least two of the other groups were fighting over something in another pile of rubble. R and N decided this was a good time to head for the well and fill up all of our containers with water. Q wanted to keep an eye on the fray and snuck around to see what he could see. He’s pretty good at being quiet. A and I chose to stay in the mid-ground so we could go in any direction we needed to.

Pretty soon R and N returned with full water containers. The Hobyahs were playing around with the boxes we had found, trying to get in them. One finally managed to get the lid closed on itself. When its companion opened the lid, the Hobyah inside was gone! We had checked the boxes out pretty thoroughly and they didn’t seem to be designed for helping things disappear, so we decided it must be a Hobyah thing.

Q came back with a report that the fighting seemed to be done and the losing party was heading our way. He also said he had shared the observer role with a winged monkey who was on the other side of the rubble. You never know who you’ll run into out here.

We moved back into the trees to observe and avoid interaction with the wounded group, if possible. They followed the road where it spiraled just past one of the craters and, poof, they were gone. Most likely a Weak Point. Hopefully they ended up in a better place for them.

Once the coast was clear we decided to check out the crater to see if there was anything worthwhile left from the bombing. We got lucky and found a couple of storage caverns. N was able to grab a couple of nice books, with some help from the rest of us holding the anchoring rope. We also found a meat larder and grabbed some sustenance.

While things were still fairly quiet we investigated a few more buildings. One had been set up as a temporary camp for the “winning” group from the skirmish Q observed. Since they didn’t bother to leave a guard we relieved them of an electric lamp and a couple of other goodies. The winged monkey showed up again, watching us through a hole in the roof. We attempted to communicate but didn’t get very far. I guess we’re better at Hobyah.

The rest of the day is a little blurry. I don’t know if I inhaled some Black Smoke by that last house or if I was just too tired to make clear memories. I do remember hearing a tiger in the woods, which we were able to avoid, and that there were five or so Yeren involved in the rubble skirmish that also headed our way. The winged monkey made a beeline for the mountains so we followed. Good thing we did, too. Yeren are nasty critters and none of us were up for a fight.

Turns out the monkey was with a traveler who introduced himself as Gnosiomandus. Nice old fellow. He offered us the sanctuary of his camp for the night, which we gladly accepted. We could all use a good rest before we figure out where we go from here.

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The group did very well for themselves and managed to gather a decent amount of usable equipment and avoid some pretty dangerous encounters. It was remarkable to see a group cooperate and communicate as well as these players did--and for most of them this was their first time at the table rolling dice and all that. I'm looking forward to seeing how N deals with the Hobyah Bond-mark and where the group decides to go from here.

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Joy's First Adventure: Jody's Play Report

A Little Cave...

Hi Everyone! Jody here. We thought it would be fun for me to post on playing Joy in Wermspittle, to give a player's perspective on all of this. We played our first session the other night and I had a wonderful time! My experience with gaming has taught me that if I don't walk away from the table saying, "How are we going to get out of this one!" and if I don't wake up in the morning still gnawing on that same question, then I'm not really playing. I've done both with this one.

 Jim's already posted a bit on Joy's initial background and character development. She's a ten year old Mostly Human girl of average build for her age. Like many kids, she loves to explore, which is how she ends up one fine summer's day at the mouth of a little cave she found on her family's property....

Joy enters the cave, poking the ground in front of her with a stick to make sure she doesn't step on anything sleeping. It's cooler , leaf-covered, with some tracks, both animal and human, but none particularly new. There's no sound of movement from inside. After about 15-20 feet she feels something is definitely wrong and pokes at a spot in front of her. She finds a shiny bit, a gold hoop earring of the style a Wanderer might wear. She looks around more closely and sees signs of definite obfuscation. Someone's been carrying stuff back and forth a few times in this passage. She uses the stick to pick up the earring and drop it in her pocket.

Her curiosity piqued, Joy wants to explore further but doesn't want to use a torch. She does have the ability to alter her senses (part of being Odd, to be detailed in another post) and takes some time to adjust her vision to the darkness. A bit further in the passage branches in two. She takes the left branch, following the tracks. It opens into a chamber [A] containing six reddish pods, packed in leaf-litter. They're moist and look like large, people-sized milkweed pods, tapered on either end. They seem inert and there is a spell holding them quiescent. They make her skin crawl. As she stands on the edge of the chamber one of the pods splits open slightly and a small bit of foam slowly starts oozing out. She backs away from the chamber and it seems to stop.

She goes back to the split and takes the other branch. The ground is moist but undisturbed by human feet. After a short way it opens into a larger area [B]. To her left there's a small rise with some stonework at the top. Joy climbs to the top and finds its a sarcophagus. There are niches on the side that are full of debris and the top is caked with dust. She clears the top of the sarcophagus. It belongs to Elsbeth Winfree, a distant grandmother. Joy is saddened by the neglect of this ancestor's burial place and decides to clean it up as she has been taught to do for the rest of her family in the family plot. She clears all of the elaborately carved niches along the sides. Once she clears the top she notices it's chipped a bit, as if someone had tried to break into it. When she steps back to admire her handiwork she sees a mangy cat watching her. She says hello but the cat just watches her, as cats are wont to do. It has one gold eye and one not, so Joy decides to call it Goldie.

The tomb is clean but not decorated. Joy picks some pretty purple roses she noticed outside the entrance of the cave and puts them on the tomb. As she surveys the rest of the platform she notices picks and axes and crowbars and parts of skeletons embedded in the far walls. They look like they've been blasted into place. Joy congratulates Grandma Elsbeth on her defense and moves deeper into the cave.

A bit further back she finds a branch to her right that slopes deeply down to a still pool [D]. The ground is becoming muddier and the cave cooler. It looks like there are more shiny bits in the pool, maybe coins, but Joy decides they're not worth getting wet for so she leaves the pool alone.

To her left the passage widens and there is another rise [C]. At the top of this one Joy finds the skeleton of a winged monkey, curled up in a fetal position and covered in ochre. It is encircled by a chain belt on one side and three monkey-sized javelins on the other. After spending all that time cleaning up Grandma Elsbeth's tomb, and seeing what happened to those who tried to disturb her, Joy decides not to mess with the monkey's final resting place.

Further back the passage narrows and slopes down more. It quickly becomes muddier and muckier and slipperier. Joy has to work to find firm spots to step on or she'll be in the yuck up to her knees or maybe hips. The passage opens to another chamber [E] with a rise at the back. As she enters the chamber she smells something nasty. Realizing it's Soporific Aether she quickly works her way as high on the rise as she can before she succumbs.

Joy wakes up cold, wet, and hungry. She decides to head for home. Everything in the cave is the same until she peeks in on the pods. The one that had been foaming is now entirely open. There are tracks leading from the chamber that look like Joy's footprints, only barefoot. This freaks her out a bit and makes her want to get home more.

The entrance to the cave has lots of dry vines and leaves covering it, not at all like when she came in. Outside everything is definitely fall. Joy realizes the Soporific Aether had her out for quite some time. All of her landmarks are the same, though, so at least the Moundfolk didn't find her and take her somewhere else.

Joy makes her way back to the house. It's quiet. No lights, no smoke, no voices. One of the hives is missing, the rest are destroyed. The shutters are already on the house, some are half-open. Everything seems to be set for Winter, but neglected. It shouldn't be like this.

Knowing not to approach any of the doors when the house is Winter-prepped, Joy works her way to one of the family's hidden entrances. The tunnel brings her to the root cellar, where she hears a tiny voice singing a sad-sounding song. She opens the door to the root cellar and says hello, but the singing stops. There are some things left in the cellar, a box or two of cabbages, some old and questionable jars of preserves, but for the most part it's been cleared. Joy notices a stinky mass in the corner. It quivers and moves toward her a bit. She quickly heads for the stairs up but they've been locked into position as a ramp. Starting to panic a bit Joy throws her weight into the lever and is able to flip the stairs back into steps. She quickly climbs to the top and enters the kitchen.

All three hearths are cold. As she approaches the table a hand-fashioned candle lights. There are bundles of stuff and a note from her parents. The whole family has moved East to start a new farmstead. "It's just not worth staying here any more." She can try to join them, if she wants. Her uncles are supposed to come back "sometime." Her father left her the Ledger and the Key to the house. It's all Joy's, now. She's the last member of the family here.

Joy hears a slight rattling. Quickly, she goes to the window, grabs the pitcher on the shelf below it, and pours some water in the tin cup on the windowsill. She almost forgot the libation to keep the potato peeler still. She could have been flayed alive. So many little wards and traps and tricks to be aware of.

Joy eats one of the cans of peaches her mother left, gets into a clean, dry set of clothes, and lays down for a quick nap. She has a lot of decisions to make.


So that's Session One. I'm ready for Session Two!

Delving Rappan Athak at Unseen Servant: Progress Report 1

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Intro Post  |  Ushnab  |  Delving Rappan Athuk  |  Unseen Servant Forums  |  Unseen Servant Dice Roller

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First off, if you'll excuse a personal note, I've been really ill the last few weeks. I had a lot of stuff in the queue over at my writing blog, or else it would have been as quiet as this one has been lately. Missed a convention. Even missed last Thursday's episode of Bujilli. I'm getting better. Slowly, but surely. The warmer weather helps. But even through all this, I still managed to keep up with the game on Unseen Servant. Mostly because I could check in on it at anytime during the week, and post whenever I had a lucid moment to spare or something to add to the ongoing dialogue. That has made a believer of me.

I plan on setting-up a small-scale Wermspittle game on Unseen Servant before too long...as a sort of test-drive/play-test sort of thing.

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Our group of player characters met in an inn located within a small frontier outpost on a river. Aside from selling passable ale, bad wine and not having too many fleas in the bedding, the place wasn't much to speak of...yet. It was still a bit raw; the place had the feel of one of those little enclaves that might someday grow into a town, if it survived long enough.

Eventually, some of us slept in that morning, we all gathered in the common room and over went about making preparations for our impending expedition. First off, we needed to decide upon a destination. We considered our options, asked a few impertinent questions of the locals, and finally determined that this "Mouth of Doom" sounded like the most promising place to go rummaging about for treasure and loot.

In the course of getting properly outfitted and supplied, we wound-up with two mules, loads of delving equipment, and a few hirelings. Ushnab made sure we had ten-foot poles, sacks, rope, iron spikes, all that sort of thing. Including extra rations and plenty of ale, not so much of that wine. The soil or weather hereabouts must not be conducive to good viniculture. I made a note to investigate the bee situation in the area. Perhaps a meadery might be a good investment, down the road...assuming we survived our foray into Rappan Athak, of course. But if we do survive our delving efforts into this notorious place, our fortunes will be made. Ushnnab, having been raised by dwarves, was taught from early on that one should consider their options, always look out for opportunities. Real fortunes didn't get dug out of the ground; they were made from getting those who did the digging to hand over their gold for things that they needed or wanted.

Ushnab negotiated a basic contract with the hirelings, mostly because he was flush with gold. [I rolled extremely lucky for starting gold for a change.] He also was able to get a decent deal on a sturdy if somewhat scrawny mule, named Bessemer. He also made a deposit with the the local blacksmith so they'd fashion a suit of barding for his guard dog, George. The dog-armor would be ready after we returned from our first exploratory foray. We needed to take a look at this 'Mouth of Doom,' and see what we could do about it...either in terms of looting the place or whatever.

Some of us met or crossed paths with a pair of Rangers and learned a few things about the local region, but nothing that seemed particularly troubling or immediately useful, but it was good to know that they patrolled the area and that two of them were deemed adequate for the general level of threat to be expected in this region.

Our respective business taken care of, all preparations all made, we assembled on a rather pleasant morning in front of the Inn. We looked like a small group of merchants. Mostly Elf merchants.

We set off toward the Mouth of Doom.

Not far from the little outpost, we were accosted by a band of gnolls.

Ushnab used a Sleep spell, then discovered the limits of his skill with a scimitar (lots of misses). Thankfully others in the group are more competent combatants and our group prevailed. We even managed to capture a pair of the gnolls. Interrogating them proved unsatisfying and unproductive. Ushnab advocated for hanging the gnolls as bandits, should they be released, they would only go on to attack anyone else that looked like suitable targets. Others wanted to release them. Some of the group stated that they felt it would be somehow wrong to kill what were now seen by them as helpless opponents. unfortunately, in the course of our interrogation efforts, the gnolls were allowed to learn where we were headed. An honest mistake, really more of an oversight. It was a real moral dilemna.

Ushnab is a practical sort. An Elf raised by Dwarves after getting mauled by an owlbear as a child. He knows about ambushes and bandit tricks, having rown up with tales of his foster parent's run-ins with crooked merchants, devious brigands, and so on. He knew that if the gnolls got a chance, they would kill everyone in their sleep or trail them until an opportunity to attack them presented itself. He wasn't going to let them go just so they could stir up mischief later...or run off to their raiding band and lead back a lot more of the mangy things to wipe us out. Sure, they said they were the last of their group. They were most likely lying.

So once it looked like the gnolls were going to be released, Ushnab killed them. He wasn't happy about it. But it didn't make sense to do anything else. He would have preferred to have hung them as bandits. And a warning to other bandits in the area. But hey, stuff happens. This act seems to have put off Otikas, our Magic-User. So Ushnab tends to give him a wider berth, a bit of space. It was no one's fault that the gnolls learned our destination and thus were too dangerous to let go. What had to be done, had to be done, and he did it. That's what Ushnab tells himself. Regularly and often.

After gathering up the gnoll's paltry loot, our group continued on the trail until we reached the Mouth of Doom. It was literally a large, stone face with a gaping mouth and stairs leading down into the dark depths below a hill. The group set up camp overlooking the 'Mouth,' while some took a look around the immediate area and Ushnab tied a length of rope to his belt and went down the stairs to see what he could see.

He's not a thief, but Ushnab did learn a few things from his foster-parents. So he did what he could to check for traps, to find out how far the stairs went (roughly 40'), and what he could see at the end of the rope-length with a lit torch.

There's a room of sorts down there. It has six doors, each set into a 10'x10' alcove. The whole place reeked like an open grave. Much as expected.

Ushnab returned to the group and made his report. Drank some ale. And waited to find out if the group wanted to look for an alternative entrance, or head on down the 'Mouth.' someone mentioned a small sandy patch out behind the hill to the South. That might be worth taking a look at. Some of the others were headed out that way, to take a look-see, maybe poke about with a pole or something.

Ushnab re-coiled his rope and started putting together the gear he meant to take down first. Things like spikes, a pole, more rope, that sort of thing. He was considering setting-up a cache beside whichever door they went through...if they decided to go through the 'Mouth' entrance. He liked Logan the Fighter's suggestion; start with the door that showed the most signs of recent use, or lacking that, go through the one in the direction of the sun rise. Working with the sun made a sort of symbolic sense, especially in a place notorious for being infested with undead...


To Be Continued...

Delving Rappan Athuk at Unseen Servant: Ushnab the Elf (Character Sheet in progress)

I recently signed-up to try out a Play-by-Post excursion into Rappan Athuk using the Labyrinth Lord rules over at the Unseen Servant Forums. Each of us in the group used the Unseen Servant Die Roller tools to build our characters. This is my first experience playing a game via a forum, so it should be interesting. I know it's not quite as cool as playing via G+ Hangouts, or using Skype, or Roll20 or any of that sort of 21st Century technology, but it is fairly asynchronous and fits into my schedule a whole lot easier. And that makes it a lot cooler to me right now. I have a ton of deadlines and commitments, and setting aside the same time on the same bat-night just hasn't been workable, so this way of doing things is something of a godsend for someone like myself. In fact, you might consider this sort of a Transition for me, as I've never done this sort of gaming before. I think it will be a lot of fun. The people I've interacted with at Unseen Servant have been really nice, very helpful and very welcoming to someone completely new to this sort of thing.

The Unseen Servant site offers some very powerful online tools for setting up all sorts of special die rolls, including special macros just for your character, or based upon the specific requirements of a particular campaign. Our group's DM posted a special 'Campaign ID' to the Character Generation thread. Using that code allows each of our character sheets to be directly tied into that specific game. Unseen Servant also makes it really easy to show your rolls by way of a link, to cut down on cheating or fudging. It also will show how many times you re-rolled, and I think it will show if you swapped stats around, which is kind of useful, if you care about that sort of thing, which quite a few osr grog-types do care about.

I rolled four or five times for my character's attributes. I wanted to see how this gizmo worked. I also was hoping for a spell-caster. I kept all the attributes in order, as rolled. The first few couple of sets of attributes were definitely fighters. Then a '16' popped up in INT, and I took a closer look. 13 in WIS and CHAR. 12 CON. 11 in STR and DEX. Not too shabby. Not your Conan or Gandalf type, but decent. I've rolled far worse over the years. This character felt like it might be a good character to try out. The stats I rolled, in order, left me with a character that would make either a good Magic-User or an Elf, so I opted to make them an Elf. I flipped a coin, it's a boy. Made up a name: Ushnab. Then I started filling in the blanks, using the online die roller to calculate Starting Gold (3d8x10=150gp), and consulting the Labyrinth Lord booklet for prices, damage inflicted by the weapons, etc. We were each given 8,500 XP which made Ushnab a 3rd Level Elf, since we're using Race-as-Class.

I bought a few things, starting with weapons first (Short Bow, Scimitar and Dagger. Later, I added a Mace, for those times when blunt force trauma is indicated). Old School rules: If you have weapons, you can get the rest of the gear. Thankfully, Ushnab had a decent bit of gold to work with, so I bought Scale Mail, and a bunch of supplies right off of the list in the book. Even had a few GP left-over. But I wasn't done just yet.

Our DM thoughtfully provided some Extra Equipment to each of us based on our picking a number off of a blank table for each class-type on another thread. I picked number '4' under Elf. Thus Ushnab received a set of +2 Chain Mail, a Potion of Healing, and some bonus gold (400gp), plus his spell-book and starting spells. With the additional funds, I bought a few extra items, and I'm considering picking up a guard dog. But I want to see how much a few meatshields, I mean Retainers/Hirelings might cost, first. This being a delve into Rappan Athuk...well...a little extra oomph couldn't hurt. I added all that stuff into the character sheet. It was super easy to update the entries.

All in all, the Character Building tools over at Unseen Servant are a breeze to use and building Ushnab's sheet took only a few minutes after only a cursory consultation with the online User's Guide. Once I had the online character sheet all filled-in and ready to go, I was able to copy-and-paste a link into the forum that provided a copy of the character to the appropriate thread. This copy of Ushnab's Character Sheet will automatically update every time I adjust things on the original, which is very handy. There are multiple options for various formats, allowing you to copy-and-paste a snippet of code over to a forum or bulletin board, etc. and have your character sheet display there, which is what The Unseen Servant was intended to do, and it does a great job. However, there didn't seem to be a good (i.e. obvious) way to extract a version of the character sheet to re-post it to our blog, so I had to copy-and-paste chunks over by hand. It would be even more handy if the characters generated within Unseen Servant were printable or exportable, and maybe there's a simple trick for doing this in javascript, but I don't know it. So this will have to do for now. That's a minor quibble, and frankly it isn't what they're set up to do, so it's definitely an unreasonable expectation. But hey, we're used to that sort of thing...ahem.

We still have a few things to sort out, like the background-fluff and the description, but they're not so important and I'll update the entries as we go along. Our DM has given me permission to post play reports from our sessions, so I'll be summarizing our group's expedition into the depths of Rappan Athuk as we go along.

So, without further ado, here's Ushnab Belagarg...

Personal Attributes Name: Ushnab Belagarg XP/Next lvl: 8,500 / 16,251 Class: -- HP: curr/max 18 / 18 Alignment: Neutral AC: reg/rear/no shield 3 / 3 / 3 Race: Elf Level: 3 Age: Young Height: 4'10 Weight: 130 Gender: Male Description: TBD Background: TBD Abilities STR: 11 (+0) INT: 16 (+2 Additional Languages, Able to Read & Write.) WIS: 13 (+1 Saving throw Modifier.) DEX: 11 (+0) CON: 12 (+0) CHR: 13 (-1 Reaction Adjustment, 5 Retainers, 8 Retainer Morale.) Saving Throws                                                                          Death, Paralysis, Poison: Petrification, Polymorph: Rod, Staff or Wand: Breath: Spell: 11 12 12 14 14 Weapon # Att Damage sm/l 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Short Bow 1 1d6/ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18    Scimitar 1 1d8/ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18    Dagger 1 1d4/ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Mace 1 1d6/ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Equipment Qty Item Location                 1 Scale Mail Sell to Retainer?    1 Quiver of 20 Arrows Back    1 Backpack Back 1 Bedroll Pack    1 Scroll-Case Pack 1 Crowbar Pack 3 Flasks (empty) Pack    3 Flasks (Oil) Pack 2 Flask (Wine) Pack    1 50' Rope Pack 1 Flint & Steel Belt Pouch 1 Hammer Pack 3 Quill Pens Pack 1 Vial of Ink Pack 3 Wooden Stakes Pack 12 Iron Spikes Pack 5 Parchment sheets Pack 10 days Trail Rations Pack 10 Small Sacks Pack 5 Large Sacks Pack 1 Spade Pack 10 Candles Pack 1 Pair of Gloves Pack 1 Spell Book Belt Pouch 1 Guard Dog? By Side Wealth                                                                PP GP EP SP CP 0 413 0 0 0 Magic Items Qty Item Location Actions (1) +2 ChainMail                          Worn (1) Potion of Healing (1d8)            Pack Spells Level One Erase Message Protection From Evil Sleep Spider Climb Level Two Locate Object

A Fateful Encounter on Xudriss II

Mr. Till over at the FATEsf blog has recently  posted a nicely detailed report on his gaming group's experience in playing through our Quick Score on Xudriss II adventure for Rogue Space, but in this case it was adapted into a Diaspora one-shot game. We really appreciated the way John adapted the bare-bones structure of Xudriss II, including his bringing in more Achernarians and even a Space-Shen mercenary/henchman! Very cool.

We're currently exploring Diaspora, based in large part on account of John's advocacy and glowing praise of this FATE-derived RPG. We have a Cluster under development and expect to run a few in-house scenarios over the next few weeks in order to properly kick the tires and check things out for ourselves.

In the meantime, we're still building stuff for Rogue Space, including our on-going series detailing the mysteries of Lithus Sector which will finally get back on-track and on-schedule this Tuesday.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!