On Adventuring Sans Dungeon

There is a shift in mentality when your group of players finds itself in an adventure outside of the dungeon. The walls of the mythic underworld oppress and funnel energy in a series of fixed directions. Every decision point is binary, every scenario considered for survivability, and an expectation exists of a conclusion to the endeavor; the ruby to be acquired, the big bad boss to be killed, the princess to be freed.

Adventures that take place outside of the dungeon are different. A broader world awaits where the players must have considerations beyond the tactical. Creative juices flow, resulting in a changed dynamic among the party as those normally passive players in the dungeon use this freedom to provide more input and take more action. Priorities and goals are set with broader parameters as the unknown variables multiply dramatically.

DMing these adventures is challenging. It’s easy to see many steps ahead in a dungeon by following the binary decision points. You can still get curve balls but you know, unless you’ve been forced to zero prep the dungeon, the likely results of any given action that the party takes deeper into the depths. Conversely, few decisions are binary outside of the dungeon. Most events will depend heavily on subjective inputs. The efficiency of the session relies on your ability to parse declared actions and provide feedback that the players can use. Hone your skills with reaction checks, encounter tables, and abductive reasoning to keep up with your players.

Playing in these adventures is challenging. It’s easy to see the options available to you in a dungeon; left or right, open or close, fight or run. When offered the breadth of an urban sprawl or vast wilderness, many players simply seize up with analysis paralysis. Avoid this by maintaining your bias for action. Observe your environment, Orient yourself towards desired outcomes, Decide what actions to take, and Act to realize those outcomes.

Calling in these adventures is challenging. It’s easy to guide a group through tactical challenges, apply binary inputs to binary decisions, and maintain an effective tempo in a dungeon. All that goes out the window when you leave the dungeon. You are figuratively herding cats, good luck. Your goal is to pick an objective out of the cloud of ideas that will thunder above the party’s head and try to maintain some kind of focus of action. The alternative is a diffusion of “can I”s and “what if”s that will kill the session flat.

The game doesn’t have to take place in a dungeon and many of the most memorable sessions that I’ve had over the years have been in the wilderness or an urban environment. The key is that you make the most of your session time and MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN. The DM’s temptation to exposit on setting details that no one cares about and the players’ temptation to scout and recon and acquire intel and ask questions and discuss options must be curbed by action. Play the game, don’t talk about it.

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Bloodfall 27

Following the attack on Bloodfall by Frostvinge and Isfang the Ice Dragons, our heroes gathered to deal with the menace once and for all. Long ago, promises and oaths were made and today was the day they would be fulfilled.

Raylan had the helm, using scrying from Ojisan's Palantir to help zero in on the dragons' lair. They had moved from their previous glacial spot after the PCs robbed their hoard some months back. Turns out satellite surveillance wasn't on their bingo card.

Using a bunch of math to convince me to roll 2d6, Ojisan worked with the rangers to locate the long ravine that the dragons had holed up in along with the remainder of their gnoll army. They scouted a bit and located the gnoll tribe underneath a large overhang. The adventurers did not see the cave one of the dragons was sleeping in because it was hidden behind ILLLLUUUUSION. Ooooh, aahhhh.

Anyway, Thorgal wanted satisfaction from the very same gnolls that chopped off his hand after agreeing to set him free during a prior captivity. He rolled up with some mercs and demanded a duel with Chief Biter. See, gnolls are chaotic evil and not very honorable or trustworthy. Biter said suuuure buddy let's duel, with no real intent of risking himself to danger. His 7 bodyguards were to jump in if Biter got hit or after a few rounds.

So that happened, alerting the rest of the party hidden away that things had not gone Thorgal's way. They rushed in to engage the gnoll tribe with their small merc army as Thrice-killed parried for all he was worth. A battle made too long by unlikely morale rolls dragged out. Once contact was made, I had determined there was a chance the patrolling Isfang would return. Ojisan on overwatch discovered the ancient dragon was inbound and warned the party.

Raylan bolted to go fight the dragon at the top of the ravine while the rest of the warriors finished off the gnolls. Ojisan flew invisibly and threw his Rope of Entanglement at the dragon, hoping to cause it to crash. A white dragon is longer than a storm giant is tall, which is the largest creature mentioned in the item description. It was close enough that I left it up to chance, requiring an attack roll from the magician. He hit, Isfang crashed to the ground, and Ojisan jumped on her back to stab her with his dagger. A 50 year old magic user that "speaks with spirits" btw.

Tons of noise from the dragon fight above woke the sleeping dragon in the cave, who started to stomp and rumble. I failed to roll the dragon fear for Isfang as Raylan arrived and Ojisan flew away. Oops. With leveled PCs it wasn't that impactful anyway. Isfang broke the rope and charged Raylan who drew the dragonslaying blade Istand and met it. Raylan chopped off a dragon wing, took a shot from a bite, and Isfang collapsed. Ojisan dropped flaming oil on her head and that was that. One down, one to go.

Frostvinge, with Leadbelly's spear sticking out of his eye, emerged from the illusory wall and roared. This time I remembered the fear and then realized it really only matters for mercs and low level folks. The party found themselves without their dragonslaying sword since Raylan was up top. They were undaunted, declaring unanimously that they would charge the beast (except Floki who was paralyzed with fear). Initiative would decide how impactful that charge might be.

Frostvinge reacted faster, breathing a cone of deadly ice shards on most of the party. That killed Thorgal and Rune the warriors outright, severely damaged Ormr and Broderick, and killed some horses. It was do or die, so Broderick and Ormr charged. Frostvinge rocked from the initial blows, but killed Broderick the Neon, Hersir of Bloodfall, with a wicked 123 combo. Ormr hung in and Ojisan flew his last flaming oil in to drop it on the dragon's head. The beast fell, the terrors of Bloodfall slain, but at what cost? Ormr plucked the glowing raven tipped spear from the dragon's eye.

Floki and Ormr ate of the dragons' hearts, the party recovered what hide and scales they could, and the group returned with their friends on their shields. Cairns were raised with the arms and armor of the heroes interred within to continue the fight in Valhalla. A great donation was made in Thorgal's name to finally get Thor some mfing representation in Bloodfall. Temple will just need a priest.

Grading:

I don't want to. The death toll on this one hurts. ~11 PC levels gone, like tears in rain. Funny thing, Norse gods can't really heal or raise dead. Not the ones you'd want to do it anyway. Deities and Demigods stays winning.

Thorgal: Excellent. RIP
Ormr: Excellent. Held the line, supported his brother warrior, no guts no glory
Raylan: Excellent. Led, bled, slayed.
Rune: Excellent. RIP
Broderick: Excellent. RIP
Floki: Excellent. Used his single spell to effect, tried to be useful. MU1 is a mfer.
Ojisan: Superior. Great use of magic and magic items to locate and engage the enemy. Jumping on the dragon's back, while metal af, was outside of MU territory.

Combat
Total XP:	3940
Cuts:	8
PC:	985.00

Touched

Back into the tomb for the umpteenth time, now with Zimon the Touched, Chosen of Sirlios. We had hoped to trigger some kind of response simply by proximity but that didn't fly. Zimon used a scroll to get some divine guidance, we rested outdoors, then returned once he had his prophetic dream.

He jumped in the moon pool and met with Sirlios, Goddess of Time or Dimensional shifts or something. He reported that Sirlios was in danger both in the future and in the past, threatened on each of two dual timelines that we were interacting with. Combined with the discovery at the gnome village, it appeared that some antagonist was angling for the destruction of all time by having her killed.

Being the heroes that we are, of course we jumped right to trying to solve the problem. Unfortunately we're really bad at guessing the DM's intent behind things. We conscripted some halflings to provide the security and supply line to the mage Scuba Steve at the gnome village like we had previously agreed and bounced back to town.

The elven court was concerned and intrigued by the problem and promised some level of magic research to be done in coordination with Steve. We traveled back to Horizon where we will continue to muster arms and consolidate resources to point at the problem. Bala Soto of Bastia needs to be in the loop, Boblin the diviner could help narrow in on the date in question maybe, and I am owed favors by Keoland that I intend to collect.

Bloodfall 26

Small group this time, with only Raylan, Thorgil, and Pius showing up to Raylan's call to arms. He'd had this Blackblade crazy evil sword locked away in a lead lined box for ages now and finally had a lead on a volcano to throw it in.

Captain Fili, some swarthy foreigner at the helm of a Viking longship, agreed to ferry them out to the volcanic island east of Sland, but only within about 1000 yards. Wreathed in smoke and guarded by a giant sized castle, it was a formidable fortress that guarded the only approach from a black sand and rock studded beach.

They poked around, found a tough way to climb, and managed to dodge any detection from whoever might be home in the castle (it's fire giants). The way ended at a drop into a pit of refuse, discarded bones and gristle of humans deposited from a trash hatch that hung ajar in the volcano's wall. Pius was in the process of fashioning shields to his feet as "gore shoes" when Thorgil tossed a rock in and saw the whole mass quiver.

Pius was lowered down to investigate and nearly killed by an abominable monstrous segmented arm of gristle and sinew that rose out of the pit and thrashed about. The rangers reeled him in before he was clobbered and they shot arrows and threw oil at it until it submerged itself back in the gore. A massive boulder was pushed off their ledge to try and crush it but it missed. It did make a ton of noise no big deal.

The group spent some time discussing various options while I determined if the occupants had heard the noise. Eventually a fire giant poked his head out of the hatch, saw the rock, but didn't see any arrows and figured it was just a landslide. He closed, and latched, the heavy metal hatch behind him. One point of ingress was made more difficult but they had some good recon on the place and bounced.

Back to Sland and nervous about fire giants they opted to avoid the island for now. Temple of the Jotun time. The eastern buildings held a runed stone that gave of Thor vibes in tones of approval. They cleared the east wing and went upstairs, finding a patrol of goblins that had exploded into bone shrapnel. Wisely, Thorgil tossed a piece of bone into the room before entering, triggering the trap? Trick? Whatever that animated the bits and pieces with black lightning and sent another corpselike abomination at them. Despite their separation, it seemed to the group that the two monstrous beings encountered this session were linked.

The rangers held the line, Pius successfully turned undead, and the thing cowered as they beat it to death. Good thing, it was a nasty bugger. There was some black scale mail stowed nearby with Hel themed decoration, too. They finished the map of the 2nd floor and went down to the disgusting pus-lined rift in the central room. Thorgil tried to approach it and light it on fire but succumbed to the smell again and ran to the corner to puke. Raylan tossed oil and a fireball erupted for a minute or two from the gap. Good thing Thorgil failed his first time.

They dropped into the rift, poked around some narrow cavern hallways, and found a shrine to Hel, goddess of death, pestilence, and disease. Pius's Find Traps spell shone around the rune-rimmed iron bowl sitting atop the pedestal. Raylan threw a javelin, disturbed the bowl, triggered the spear trap, and they found some loot stashed. Off they fucked back to town with a bit of ruby and some intel about both locations.

Grading:

Raylan: Excellent. Called, bold
Thorgil: Excellent. Good teamwork w/ Raylan, bold
Pius: Excellent. Good use of spells. Turn undead clutch

Combat
Total XP:	630
Cuts:	6
PC:	210.00

Davids the Gnome

Back in Ahtet's Tomb, more wandering around, this time Cassian went to some alternate time line where ranks of terracotta soldiers waited in the massive chamber. It's clearly extradimensional and tied to the Sirlios stuff that our other pirate party had mostly interacted with. We couldn't really dope anything out so we planned to return with one of our Sirlios touched members to see if they could spark something off.

En route back to the house we ran across a little village of gnomes. Of course, they were all named David. They were kind and hospitable and we spent the night, but our watchman noted the gnomes got up and did some crazy ritual death spiral thing around a big obelisk in the woods. Poof, they disappeared, and the day reset. All the food we'd eaten, interactions we'd had, etc with the gnomes were as if they never happened and the gnomes just reappeared back in their village. We'd seen things like this as players before but little of it as these characters.

A human mage was incognito in the gnome village, the only one not named David. Steve shared a lot of theories about the obelisk, the gnomes, and the weird time dimension stuff. He also shared that the moon pools we keep running across were fixed portals between the two timelines. It was all very interesting but we lacked any mages or anything to really engage with it in character. He remained at the village studying the phenomenon and agreed to exchange more info and magic items in exchange for supplies and guards. Off we went back to Lijiang Tower where Cassian bought a Potion of Tongues to hench up an incredibly friendly griffon and we could interact with the Class 1 market to help out Steve.

Downtime in Bloodfall or How 2d6 Preserves My Sanity

You must keep a strict record of time that passes in the game in order to run a proper campaign of AD&D. One result of doing so means that time becomes a measurable resource that both players and NPC factions will want to make use of. You will quickly realize, particularly if you're still on the Always On side of the spectrum, that you need a method to manage the incoming drags on your time or you will drown. Always On is not sustainable. No, I don't care about your anecdotal one shot that's run for 3 months.

The challenge then is how to manage the downtime requests of your players without either drowning in daily requests or ignoring them and compromising the buy-in of the table to the campaign. As the Always On methods evolved, some similarities with play by post and wargaming came to light, most importantly a schedule of turn adjudication to stem the never-ending adjudication. The efforts of the DMs of Sojenka, Torpenhow, and various wargame pbp games proved to me that a turn-based system for downtime was the balance that DMs needed in order to maintain momentum over the span of a campaign.

Next, the discussion around convergence and diffusion demonstrated that downtime really should develop the game state in some way. It's not about collecting resources, or power-leveling for the vidya crowd. It's about collecting hooks, threads, and opportunities for interaction to be used with other players. Some diffusion to collect these tidbits makes the inevitable convergence hit with a different energy. To that end, players need to understand that the energy spent on their downtime will feed the campaign state, one way or another.

I started the campaign Bloodfall in the Urf club to get experience DMing AD&D. I've run an awful lot of ACKS, both Always On and evolved away from that, but AD&D is the better system for what we do. I love ACKS and will only say that running AD&D is less likely to miss the forest for the trees. Macris suggests that a successful long-term campaign must be consistent and my extensive history confirms the same. Barring RL complications, Bloodfall runs once weekly hell or high water.

Staying with the consistency theme, I run downtime orders like a play by post wargame. There is a deadline, I check for ways that the various actions can intersect and provide outcomes to the players. I then post an update to the game state for all to see. This is a wonderful opportunity to use the GOSS method to determine if it's good or bad info or doesn't make it out at all. Parties can then use information gained this way to inform their actions during session.

Orders should be submitted clearly, with clear intentions and resources willing to be spent to achieve the goals. I talk more about submitting orders in this post. The DM has to run 4-20 of these, depending on the game, and doesn't have time for back and forth. Remember, we're trying to reduce the demand on the DM's bandwidth. 

I use a simple method in Bloodfall to resolve actions. When there's a mechanic to resolve an action, like an assassin's spy mission, I use those rules. They're the rules. When it's a matter of determining an unknown, like it is 99% of the time, I roll 2d6 where a low result is against the order's intent, high result is for, and the most common middle result is some marginal success.. If the player has made some effort to improve his chances, especially at the expense of some actual resource, I may modify that roll in their favor. Conversely, if the order is boring or outside reasonable expectations, I may modify that roll against them. But in any event, I'm not arbitrarily deciding the outcome of any event mostly because I'm lazy.

I use 2d6 because I like the bell curve. I like never remembering the exact percentage breakdowns. It has a different feel. If you like hard %, use percentile, but develop a system that is consistent and does not require you to decide the result of every small thing.  It's a DM mini-game to abduct why the dragons have relocated from their lair or why there's a job available for the assassin from his handler, in the same way that you'd abduct the action around a random encounter during session. 

Keep strict time records. Set a consistent schedule that your players can trust. Use something quick and simple to adjudicate orders. DMing doesn't have to be a second job.

On Warlords of Pergamuth

It's that time again. I've won another stein-style event, this time a pbp Traveller/RECON mashup refereed by Joshinyu. What follows is my general strategy for victory and observations about the setup, pace, and conclusion of the game from my perspective.

I played as Captain Bellisarius "Whiskey" Woltievsky of the WTF PMC. My nod to the storygamer Ref was that CPT Whiskey was being fed 40k Imperial propaganda from an unknown source; Inquisition, Astartes, Chaos agent, who knows?! It didn't matter at all to mechanical choices that I made but it certainly fed the flavor. Our mission was to overthrow The Great Leader of Pergamuth and establish rule in our image.

The setup of the game was surprisingly involved. We had a budget to purchase men and equipment of various levels, from infantry grunts to ballistic submarines. Ref wanted us to roll up individual Traveller stats for our personnel which was quite the ask. I wasn't doing that so we negotiated a middle ground of establishing skills. Still a lot but I got through it. 

I built out Whiskey as a spec ops sniper a la Mellowlink from VOTOMS. I then had two identical squads of infantry with a versatile cross section of roles. One squad had an aerial craft in support, the other an ATV. Rounding out my loadout was an artillery piece, which the ref considered a mobile combination arty/AA gun. I essentially made templates for each type of infantry; rifleman, medic, AT, etc. This made tracking stats and capabilities of each squad easier to see at a glance. With the advantage of hindsight, I think part of the budgeting would have been to buy a template, rather than a blank slate, for infantry if those skills were required to be known.

The next stage of setup was placement on the map. Ref gave me a few options so I chose as close to the Starport as I could get. A plan was forming to take over the means of resupply and reinforcement and then strangle the game by capturing the Starport. I couldn't do it alone and I couldn't do it without the fog of war. The other players were gonna help me out with both of these challenges.

I needed an ally. Glancing at the roster I had a handful of known lunatics, a handful of unknowns, and one player of honorable and noble character, HootOwl (nevermind that I had to blast his character in the face in the previous stein event that I undisputedly won). I approached him with my plan and after some negotiation and light RP we formed an alliance. Our loadouts complimented each other well and he had his eyes on a village near him to capture for uh, reasons. At this stage of the game we didn't know how anything worked or what anything meant so we really leaned into a bias for action.

Turn one came around and I needed recon, I was blind. I knew I wanted to work towards the Starport so off I went. My scout team turned up with a native smuggler who had lost his team. He was starving and cagey but after some encouragement I got some critical local details. Another warlord was destroying river crossings nearby. The smuggler, who I named Snowman, also knew a smuggler's route into the Starport area. 

This first turn had a lot of back and forth and I sensed that that wasn't gonna be the norm. I identified two targets, the river guys and some guys laying mines at the Starport. I had set my objective at the start so I opted to engage at the Starport. I attempted to set an ambush, was mostly successful, and after a brief fight had control of the only means on or off planet. So far so good.

Thankfully, it seemed most of the other groups were scrapping well away from me. This gave me and Hoot a chance to consolidate our forces at a fortified position. It was around this time that my side project of running through the USMC Decision Making Tactical Games workbook with Belloc bore practical fruit in the form of how to issue orders. The light bulb moment was that someone else was going to process your orders, either a subordinate or a referee in a game, so they needed to be delivered in an easy to understand and direct manner. 

The second turn put the river guys in our crosshairs. Since we were consolidated, I would use one of my squads to act as a fixing element and Hoot's highly mobile squads to flank and destroy. I'd keep my other squad for a QRF and defense of the base. My new order format was a hit with the ref and really helped organize what I actually wanted to achieve with a turn. I also sensed the scope of game the ref wanted, one of strategic maneuver and scheming rather than fiddly tactical shot by shot combat. I let him adjudicate the results of orders based on my declarations without needling him with detail and took the good with the bad. Hold on loosely, baby.

Our second engagement was successful, destroying the river mercs to the south with air strikes, flanking, and a little help from unknown third parties who dropped an ATV on some of Hoot's men. Meanwhile, I was attacked at the base! Good thing I'm a strategic mastermind and my defense force was able to repel the counterattack from The Great Leader's men trying to recapture the Starport. The Great Leader was goin' through it, one warlord was KIA, and we had our target secured. I got reinforcements from off-world and set my sights on capturing TGL's island base nearby.

Turn three, we established a screening force of Catechan jungle fighters, a mine field in the water to combat the threat of Frogmen in Submarines, and Hoot's highly mobile platoon as a QRF. I consolidated my entire force and struck at the island fortress. We captured the base while TGL fled in a VOTOMS, which he ditched to try and sneak off world. Our minefield disabled a submarine, man am I smart, causing it to surface and be destroyed. The warlord aboard mounted the ditched VOTOMS but was destroyed by focused fire from the remaining resources on the island.

Meanwhile, the Frogman's indigenous ally struck at the Starport but fell to a Catechan ambush and artillery. With both the functional power and symbolic seat of Pergamuth in our control, Hoot and I declared victory. He definitely was not considering betraying me and is a good and loyal subject of the Imperium. The remaining warlords spent their turns scrapping amongst themselves and their stories are their own (cuz I have no idea what went on over there).

The game went very well for me, equal parts teamwork, forethought, and luck. I'd also like to think understanding what type of game the ref was trying to run helped me to communicate my turns effectively. My take away from this game was all in the orders. I made a good alliance and then really didn't communicate with anyone else outside of a clearly sketchy attempt to fish for details from one of those aforementioned "known lunatics." 10/10 would play again. 

Bloodfall 25

The death of the Duke of Sland following the party's killing of the devil witch Helsja prompted a moot to decide the new Duke. The session could have gone several ways, including a braunstein, but the party chose to get back after the Temple of the Jotun.

They earned a little cash gambling on the fighter Bjorn to win a wrestling match, but lost the good will of the ringmaster since he felt Wooderson duped him into increasing the odds against Bjorn. Silverhand the Magic User implied that he'd be grateful to learn about a dungeon within Sir Marko's domain and even more grateful of evidence that the dour nobleman was complicit in it's activities. The players filed that away for later and off they went.

Rune was the only one that had been here before and led the show, driving straight for the room where they fought the spiders last time. There were still spiders. Bjorn and a wardog were poisoned in the fight but the party won. Bjorn, feeling death upon him, charged off to another room to find a way to die blade in hand. The rest of the group searched around and found a sekrit door.

The high priest's chambers were well-appointed and maybe had some treasure in them, but they heard the roar of combat from an adjacent room and rushed to "help". Bjorn vs. six (6) ogres had the lower level party backpeddling pretty fast. Bjorn died valiantly to buy them time to escape is how they'll tell the story in the taverns at Sland.

Much chatter and planning and such. We had a different lineup of PCs and players so it was fun to see more of the quieter guys get involved. I deliberately ignore player chatter so I don't subconsciously counter their plans. The plan was sneak in, steal spider corpses, and sneak out. Oh ok easy.

The group succeeded in that and bounced back to Sland, hiring a medicine woman to harvest the spider's venom based on a plan to poison the ogres. WeatherReport has a way with NPCs apparently cuz this lady loved him. Back to the dungeon with poison arrows to kill ogres and avenge Bjorn.

They set an elaborate trap at the stairwells, weakening one by chopping at the supports with the intent to draw the heavy creatures onto it and trapping the other with oil to help funnel. Wooderson had the poison arrows and Rune was going to lure them out while the rest ambushed them. Chopping at the supports was going to take 1d3 turns with 2d6-1 chance of being heard in the large building. 3 turns, support was weakened, and they were only heard on the last one.

Rune hollered and bolted, avoiding falling through the weak stairs by 1. The ogres chased, their first rank crashing through and taking quite a bit of falling damage. The second rank leapt over to the landing beyond, the third rank tried to go around the other stairs but oh no, FIRE! Floki set off some oil and fled.

The ogres couldn't roll to hit to save their lives, literally, missing most of their attacks against the dangerous members of the party. The fire delayed but didn't stop the flanking group, who eventually bonked Floki unconscious and murdered Camberlain. Poisoned arrows were actually working, even with only a 10 or 15% chance to fail their saves, but the ogres were all killed before the poison could take affect. Two dead, one comatose, 6 dead ogres, and a decent treasure haul.

Poison use is pretty subjective in AD&D. Availability and application are the big obstacles, then the morality of the thing. A paladin or non-evil cleric will not abide the dishonor of it. Basically everyone else is "?". The ranger was afk while the talk was had and came back mid-execution of the plan. For his part he was clear that he was challenging them in Thor's honor. The only one that used poison was Wooderson the fighter. Is poison use explicitly evil? Chaotic? There's a whole host of restrictions suggested by Gary about poison and their use. For my part, assassins are the poisoners, weirdo classes like thieves, MUs, and druids who aren't Good aligned have some wiggle, but Good aligned fighters are taking a risk with their honor.

Grading:

Bjorn: Excellent. RIP
Tadg: Excellent. Druid re-roll, nothing aberrant
Rune: Excellent. Led, risked, fought, won.
Wooderson: Superior: Risked, fought, won. Poison is a coward's weapon but a force multiplier. Dishonorabu.
Impius: Excellent. Risked, fought, won.
Floki: Excellent. Schemed, helped as he could, shame about his face.
Camberlain. Excellent. RIP

Combat
Total XP:	1824
Cuts:	10
PC:	364.80

Bloodfall 24

In a rare bit of luck and planning, the boys settled on a location for their adventure AND a target! Hot damn. The Tower of Helsja and the scried eeeevvvil within called to our band of mighty heroes.

They made friends with gate guards, scouted the area, talked to the Duke, and READ HIS MIND. Sorta. But enough to verify Ojisan the Spirt Theurgist's suspicions that the visions he viewed in the definitely fair and not game-breaking in anyway Palantir was indeed the Duke making some heinous pacts with a devil lady. Ojisan was nearly hanged for witchery but narrowly passed suspicion by the Duke's Elite Guard.

Broderick marched directly to the Tower of Helsja with the intent to knock and gain entrance, but runes above the door flared to life and paralyzed him! In what would be a series of advantageous rolls related to this session, there were no witnesses to this and the party pulled him free. A very rude servant woman opened the door, bitched at them in weird monosyllables, and slammed it in their faces. Ormr tried to scale to a balcony high above their heads but failed to throw his grappling hook and thought better of it.

The night is for scouting, which they went to with gusto, coming up miraculously with Fitzerg the Warrior, a known associate? Employee? Consort? of the witch Helsja. Ormr was able to gain a favorable reaction with the drinking fighter and introduced him to the rest of the party. An attempt to gamble magic short sword for magic longsword was rebuffed, but then a different offer was made.

Broderick the Neon, Hersir of Bloodfall wagered to the warrior Fitzerg that the witch was evil, and not only that, that the witch would attack Broderick ON SIGHT. Fitzerg, knowing the witch to some degree, claimed otherwise and accepted the bet. A deal was struck to meet at the same tavern the following day and Fitzerg would introduce the party to Helsja, but that would never come to pass. They were also able to get the password to the front door protection runes from and share Raylan's endless supply of deer jerky with their new best friend.

The scheming paladin had a different plan and used the bet as a ruse to keep Fitzerg from the location as a potential enemy combatant. This was very clever, but one may recall that the last time the paladin was clever didn't go great for him in almost exactly the same type of scheme. While Fitzerg was distracted, the party used their friendly contact on the gate to gain entrance to the Keep's compound and access to the tower.

The password worked like a charm and in they went. A round foyer and big spiral staircase greeted them, but no defenders. Up they went where they discovered a caged elemental of each of the four primary types being dusted incongruently by feather dusters in the hands of the rude maidservant people things. When the creatures struck out like Plastic Man, the party knew something was amiss!

Protection from Evil is a powerful ability, especially when confronted with devils and outer planar things like these creatures were. The fight was over quickly, but the things looked to regen from every sort of damage the party could offer. Some time was spent on ways to deal with that, settling on throwing half of them down the stairs and the other half into the cage with the earth elemental who was happy to pound it into silly putty.

Ormr moved up the stairs to discover what other foulness laid ahead. A dungeon grossed them out and they passed that pretty quick. The next level held wispy curtains flowing in an unknown breeze and a bajillion beautiful spirits meant to entice. Ormr, running ahead, got got. The rest were able to resist again due to Protection from Evil. They collected Ormr, who was irresistibly dancing to an unheard tune, and continued their climb.

The final level of the tower was larger than logic could account for, clearly some sort of pocket dimensional space. There was a massive ritual design in the middle and nerd stuff on one wall. Personal affects were opposite and everyone spread out to search. The waiting invisible Erinyes and plastic lackeys struck, targeting the apparent weak link in the magic-user Ojisan.

Thorgal noticed a puff of dust from a foot print and warned the party, avoiding being surprised. The fight was on, but the plastic things could only fight Thorgal who was far enough away from Broderick to be vulnerable to their touch attacks.

Helsja deployed her whip of entanglement which nearly spelled disaster, but she had suffered enough from the slings and arrows of valiant warriors that Raylan's brave wardog Ole tore out her throat and Ojisan finished her off with her own wicked poisoned dagger. The rest of the devils disappeared in inky puffs of black putrid smoke.

Miroslav and Broderick destroyed the ritual circle, breaking the containment spell on the pocket dimension and shrinking the room to normal size. They found a hefty haul of treasure and a bunch of scrolls detailing the bargains made by the Duke with Heljsa, sacrificing mostly heinous criminals but some pickpockets and tax evaders to her for her fell magicks in exchange for repelling evil beings from Sland.

The group marched to confront the Duke only to find him dead in a pile of ash and them "guests" of the seneschal of the keep until the issue could be investigated. Again the 2d6 went their way and they were released shortly thereafter. A moot is scheduled to take place among the landed noblemen of Sland's territory to see who will take the throne.

Musings:

Another successful city adventure. Am I a city DM? Idk, I think my strengths are executing, if not designing, dungeons, but the players seem to enjoy these. Maybe the change of pace is it? Whatever the magic is, this one went well. They knocked over the evil, freed the town from the horrible pall of boringness that was smothering it, and developed some interesting flavor and contacts. I don't know what any of that means yet but welcome to emergent play.

The paladin was docked in a previous session for making a deal and then not holding up his end of the bargain. He did the same here and will be docked as a repeat offender. Much has been said about Paladining around, but the core of the issue as an observer is A) the party needs ideas in the moment and 2) whoever matches the idea best, preferably he who presents it, should act on it. I dropped hints in the tone of "are you sure you want to do that" a few times and the rest is history.

This is the kind of magic that comes from playing out of your comfort zone. It's easy to always play one role because you know how to respond to basically everything, especially a role that best fits your personality. Be brave, play outside your box, grow. Yeah you'll take some lumps sometimes but that's part of the fun.

Grading:

Thorgal: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat
Raylan: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat
Ormr: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat, LOL's with RP RE: witch love
Ojisan: Excellent. Creative/effective use of notably limited spell list. Stupid Palantir.
Broderick: Poor. Repeat offender of breaking his word once given. Bold in combat, queller of evil. Paladins designed to fight devils man.
Miroslav: Excellent. Used what spells were called for, busted up evil circle, flavor of Ukko the Finnish deity? tf? Idk, it's Norse adjacent I guess.

Combat
Total XP:	1790
Cuts:	12
PC:	298.33

Bloodfall 23

This marks the second week in the row that the group's Plan A didn't pan out. Raylan had discovered in downtime that a high tower at the keep in Sland displayed strange red and purple lights around midnight every night. The party tried to find a spot that would allow them to observe it and also for Ojisan to use the palantir to scry it during the... whatever it was.

A trip down a dark alley, the feel of being surrounded, and an abundance of caution had them abandon their site and head back to the Temple of the Jotun. Unfortunately, things went even worse there, after an encounter with venomous spiders saw Gunnar of Syf and Thorgal Twice-dead killed and the party retreating post haste.

Thorgal suggested that maybe Thor would respond to his pleas as he lay frothing at the mouth, since the party had freed him and bore his mark. Boxcars on my trusty 2d6 said what the hell, why not? He traded 3 permanent points of dexterity for another saving throw vs poison. He failed that one too and was doornails dead.

Raylan guided the party back to Bloodfall where they cashed in the remainder of the original credit carried with Fost and a significant amount of cash from Thorgal's saddlebags in order to raise him from the dead. Gunnar was not so fortunate, but the ever-resilient Hollyfelled whom I seem to kill every time he plays laughed it off that Gunnar was happy with the Valkyries.

I let dice decide the effectiveness of certain actions and modify them by the players' input, but this time they couldn't get right. I swear I'm not pushing them to this dungeon I don't even have prepped.

Grading:

Raylan: Excellent. Called, led, scouted, tracked, exfilled.
Rune: Excellent. Bold, aggressive, helped with exfil.

Combat
Total XP:	539
Cuts:	4
PC:	269.50

Percival, Lijiang Tower's Greatest Ally

Having recovered from our brutal prior session, we were hell bent to cleanse the evil that we'd been battling (and get fucking paid). We'd hired some thief henches to help us with the many traps of the Tomb of Amonkhet (or whatever the BBEG's name is) and spent quite a bit of time chit chatting and catching Zimon up to speed after his absence.

The BBEG was a Lawful Crusader turned mummy through poor/corrupt/inept embalming practices in a notEgyptian tomb bloated with corporate bureaucracy as indicated by power point presentations, safety regs, and dubious PPE. Someone's expressing their frustrations with RL corporate life. Originally we thought to cleanse the evil of the place through some sinkhole or something, but it appeared that the evil was the HR policy writers that ruined the company along the way. If there was no hub of evil, there might still be treasure, and we had yet to GET PAID FOR OUR EFFORTS. Inexcusable.

Off we set on fresh mounts, with fresh trap fodder, into the wilds of the Dreadwood. Some burnouts interrupted our progress briefly, I gave them the ultimatum I give all such, and Cassian preached at em to get right with Pelor. They didn't actually have anything on them, much to Zimon's disappointment, so we let them go with stern warnings. The elf patrol we met next we set after the hippies to encourage them to move along.

The graves around the mausoleum had all been dug up by scarabs. They weren't graves at all! Turns out they had the canopic jars of the mummy lord stashed away in plain sight basically and all indication was that he had collected his improperly preserved organs and flown/teleported/disappeared from the edge of the property. We wracked our brains for ways to track him down and came up empty, so into the tomb we went.

The thieves did their job well as we searched over every inch of the place. Benny the Thief was lost to a falling rock trap, paralyzing him from the neck down. Oof. We pulled him out and laid him with the fallback group to be restored upon our victorious return to civilization, or Lijiang, whichever came first. Tia the Other Thief led us through the remainder of the dungeon skillfully.

We picked up some fresh unused canopic jars and some tomes from a library in the hopes of using them to track down the BBEG. We sat through a magical power point presentation and learned a little about the organization that ran the joint before everything went tits up. Finally we came to what appeared to be the final room of the dungeon. Unfortunately it was infinitely large, both wide and deep, at least to our ability to scout.

Football fields left and right, massive giant columns at least 500ft tall as supports, and running low on session time. We poked around as best we could, Zimon and his mage hench Aunt B trying to scout some with magic. Tia fell into a coma from falling off a magic staircase that the mage produced to interact with one of the columns and we had to bounce.

We arrived in elf town empty handed. Again. We'll throw some magic at the thieves to get them back in action but they're probably down for a while. We've got some things our studious folk can hopefully use to research some additional information. This nut will crack, eventually. Let's hope it's worth it.

Play by Post: Reducing Friction

If you want to succeed at a play by post game, your first challenge is identifying the intent of the scenario that the Ref has prepared. Whether a wargame, a Braunstein, or downtime during an RPG campaign, you must deliver your orders with the least friction possible. You must avoid friction by coming to a common understanding with the Ref.

It doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are in 19th century military logistics, the exact placement of your overlapping fire in the jungle, or the equipment loadout of your Space Marine Squad if the Ref isn't utilizing that information. You have to identify what information the Ref needs from you in order to be successful and deliver that information as clearly and concisely as possible. Remember he's fielding the same orders from 6-20 people.

I have observed this as a pain point during the wide breadth of play by post games that are basically always happening in our sphere. Whether it's a slice of life Western experiment in Livingstone or a gritty Kriegspiel set in NW Canada, the first step is always the same. What does the Ref need from me and how can I clearly communicate my desired outcome without A) Pixel bitching him to death with needless minutiae and 2) Leaving him to guess at necessary information?

Belloc and I have recently been reviewing the USMC Mastering Tactics Workbook in an effort to improve our performance during GI BRO Ref'd by BrainLeakage. This valuable resource explains some fundamentals that might not be readily apparent to the uninitiated. One such is the advice on giving orders:

During the set up and initial turns of the Warlords of Pergamuth Ref'd by Joshinyu, it occurred to me that issuing orders for a play by post is not so dissimilar to issuing orders to subordinates in these tactical exercises. The recipient of the orders needs to understand the:

- situation that you find yourselves in,
- mission that needs to be accomplished,
- intent behind your orders,
- general concept of the operation,
- main effort upon which the mission relies,
- subordinate tasks that your moving pieces need to accomplish,
- coordinating instructions between different factions, allies, or units

A subordinate player commanding a unit in your faction, an ally in your endeavor, or the Ref that has to adjudicate the action all share the same requirements to most successfully execute your orders. The specifics will naturally change with the scale involved in the scenario but these fundamentals remain the same.

Consider using this format the next time you find yourself issuing orders. The less friction the better, for you and the Ref both.

Bloodfall 22

We took a week break which allowed everyone to train up and get back on their primary PCs. We had a few bonafide Heroes in the mix this session, with Broderick, Raylan, and Ojisan clocking in at level 4. More on that later.

The crew started out looking at the dragons based on some (old) recon from the rangers that the gnolls might be away raiding. It turned out that everyone was back safe and sound at their glacial fortress and the PCs figured it wasn't the right time.

Thorgal shared that he had used Frigga's bowl to locate Thor's chainmail, pointing them at the weird Temple of the Fallen Jotun to the northeast. The party made it there without complication and left their handful of mercs to guard the horses while they delved.

It was a compound of 4 smaller buildings around a large central structure. A massive corpse laid across the top of the building, impaled on it, and dripped an unending stream of gore down the sides which pooled in a nasty pond around the place. Scrying let them see into one building that seemed accessible without having to brave the putrid goop so that's where they started.

Dinklage kept them from twisting an ankle on a rotten board and they entered the first building. It was a guest house of some sort, with old musty linens and wardrobe that held a small jewelry box. The box was trapped with lightning which Dinklage discovered after a failed open locks check.

The next building also smelled bad, but this time more like rotten garbage. It was a study with some fiction novels along the bookcases, some overstuffed leather chairs, and a bar. Dinklage found a nice crystal decanter and serving set and Thorgal cut open a chair to find a hidden satchel. That's when the ghasts hiding in the rafters chose to strike!

The party tried to collapse around Broderick to gain the benefit of his holy aura but the ghasts were faster, striking and paralyzing Thorgal and nearly finishing off Ojisan and Dinklage. The rest of the fight went better for the PCs and eventually they won out, only Raylan becoming paralyzed of the remaining group. There was treasure in the satchel and a key which fit the box, containing more treasure. We love treasure.

While the group rested, adventurers from the nearby city of Sland entered the room. Neither side was surprised but it took quite a bit to calm everyone down. Drugr's Warriors agreed to depart after sharing some recon about the place with Dinklage, who paid them for it. Ojisan sekritly read the mind of Drugr to ensure he was honest and was satisfied by what the spirits told him.

The central temple had statues to several of the goodly norse gods, doors leading out, stairs leading up, and a giant disgusting rift in the floor oozing pus like an infected abscess that had burst. The group didn't want to investigate the gross mystery so went up the stairs. They found a storeroom and kitchen, the latter which had a golden bowl filled with clean water and runes around the rim about hope.

Thorgal drank from the bowl and gained 2 inches in height and several points of strength, joining the other bigswole fighting men in the party. They figured that was as good as it was gonna get and bounced, heading to Sland to sell off some treasure.

Musings:

There were some differing views on how to begin the campaign originally among refs in the club. Some chose to start their PCs at higher levels or bonus experience for particular class/race combinations that they wanted to encourage. I started at 1st for a couple reasons. I wanted to DM from the ground up having never run AD&D before. I also wanted players to earn the status of "experienced" as referenced in the DMG when discussing starting players at higher level. My internal milestone for that qualification was reaching 4th level organically, which shows that the player can navigate the game well enough to survive.

Going forward, any player who has reached 4th level in Bloodfall will be considered "experienced." This means that if they have no other characters in the game and need to reroll due to PC death, they will start above 1st level. The gist of the idea is referenced DMG 111. The details will be determined as we cross that bridge.

I tried to poll the players on what they planned before the session but they were very hush hush. I don't think they really knew themselves. They have a crystal ball of sorts in the definitely not cursed or evil palantir they pulled out of the cursed swamp so they can pick and choose hooks to scout until Ojisan's brain melts. Unfortunately 2d6 went against them here putting each of their targets in a situation that was not ideal. There was some intraparty chatter about taking initiative, but that's not a DM problem. I didn't really mean to point them at a dungeon I wasn't prepared for but there it was and the rest is history.

Grading:

Thorgal: Excellent. Scouted and tried to be bold, but got paralyzed. Can't dock a man if he can't move.
Rune: Excellent. Bold in the face of ghasts.
Ojisan: Excellent. Good use of resources, especially limited combat ability.
Dinklage: Excellent. Good use of thief skills.
Broderick: Excellent. Bold, diplomatic to fellow norsemen
Raylan: Excellent. Bold, scouted, tracked.

Combat
Total XP:	774
Cuts:	12
PC:	129.00

Walk like an Egyptian

We froze time last session and had a bit of a logistics issue. The party was stuck in the middle of nowhere with heavy casualties and minimal mobility. First we had to tend to the wounded, then burn the undead bodies, then figure a way out.

Cassian sent a message to Elftown requesting an evac while we took care of the local business. It took basically a whole day to round up the horses, collect Zimon, and tend to the dead/wounded. Elves showed up and offered to pull us out, which we accepted, but not before trying to ensure the problem was dealt with permanently.

We located a mausoleum of sorts which revealed an Egyptian style tomb dedicated to a Lawful Crusader of an ancient deity. Already something wasn't right. In we went to find the sinkhole or whatever other source of corruption that had turned this apparent hero into a mummy lord.

As one might expect, it was a maze of twists and turns and traps and mysteries that we simply weren't equipped to deal with. We were hoping to find the source (and collect the loot) since we fought so hard for it last session, but with a larger undertaking in front of us we pulled out to regroup. We could fight pretty well but lacked significantly in thief skills for trap finding and such.

The elves flew us back to elftown. We had to release our horses but they were able to rig up a swaddling net for Fiddlesticks the Kali, much to the groaning anger of the cat thing, and airlift her out like Operation Dumbo Drop. The rest of the session was marketplace stuff that bears no repeating here.

Bloodfall 21

The Blackjack session had a B team of misfits and cutpurses running amok in the occupied city of Svartalfheim. They were unwelcome as travelers and suspected by the local dwarves of being elven sympathizers and nosy neighbors. This friction led to the action in the session as racial tensions boiled over into a near brawl and then vow of vengeance.

The planned murder and robbery of the dwarven tax collector was essentially flawless, aside from the two dead and one unconscious PCs. Using illusory magic to divert the tax cart into an alley didn't work, so they started blasting. A heroic charge by the fighter/thief Treeman was met by the leveled dwarf, who cut him down to exactly zero. The powerful illusion was inflicting heavy damage so the dwarves finally did run into the alley where an assassin and druid waited to strike. In a frankly miraculous 1v1, Tonga Lua nearly defeated the very tough dwarf but was slain, joined shortly thereafter by Cathbad the druid as bloody footnotes in the gutter. RIP valiant highwaymen.

A final arrow from Aelrond the elf killed the wounded dwarf leader and the one survivor didn't last long. The escape from town hinged on their wisely forethought exit strategy of "find elves, be elves." A frivolous and petty sentry squad taxed Skelbroj the human illusionist for being human but let Aelrond go, aided by groveling and swallowing of ego.

The score was real, but heavy, and the boys opted to hot foot it all the way Bloodfall before passing out for three days due to the exhaustion. This type of session is always electrifying, with PCs that have less player investment willing to take bigger risks and the zero prep nature of looking for trouble in the city being extremely swingy.

Grading:

Tonga: Excellent. Scouted and planned an ambush, struck when he could. Unfortunately outmatched. RIP.
Aelrond: Excellent. Annoyingly good theatrekid funny voice RP, planning and executing a heist.
Cathbad: Excellent. Nobly persuaded the dwarf mule to seek freedom. Funded the expedition. RIP
Skelbroj: Excellent. Smart use of his one spell, smart RP to escape, integral to planning, proper care of the dead.
Treeman: Excellent. Bold in the face of danger, sneaky part of the planning, scout.

Combat
Total XP:	558
Cuts:	6
PC:	186.00

#FuckCassian

We had a few treasure maps from our last score that we were going to hunt down, hopefully to destroy some evil and get some loot. They weren't terribly far away and we opted to tackle the most lucrative one first, a note from some Egyptian sounding mfer we found in the dragon's hoard. On the way, our park rangers of Yogi and Smokey received their uniforms and informed us that they were making progress with the territory around their lair. June of Ehlonna was spearheading that operation and would soon have picnic tables and hiking trails and other park services available for the peasants of Horizon.

We ran across some likely bandits who didn't want the smoke and a weird obelisk formation that led us to a secret treasure trove. So far so good. We camped near the trove to give us the most time in the following day for searching the treasure map location out, which was just a hex over. Fresh off of a good rest, we searched. And searched. And searched.

We failed to find the location by the end of the day and needed to rest again. We considered the danger of camping in the hex of our target, but if it was that hard to locate, surely the terrain was rough enough it'd be easy to hide in. We were wrong.

Essentially every randomly determined roll that could be rolled went against us, resulting in crusader Fr. Cassian Dominated by a Mummy Lord and 100+ HD worth of mummies, zombies, and greater hell hounds ambushing us while we slept. Without the ability to turn undead, fighting in our underwear, and having a powerful PC added to the enemy as a force multiplier, we basically got our asses kicked after a slog of a battle.

Zimon was able to pull June and Fife the henchman out while Percival and his henchman Abraham escaped on some horses. Everyone else was dead while Fr. Cassian, the Bishop of Horizon was Dominated by a Mummy Lord. We were able to heal up thanks to some consumables and equip ourselves but we were still pretty outclassed. Unfortunately, I couldn't abide surrendering Cassian to the Domination. I was going back in.

We buffed as best we could and returned with the intent to strike hard at the Mummy Lord and maybe break his hold on Cassian, the other undead, etc. After another brutal, bloody fight, only June, Zimon, Percival, and of course Cassian remained standing. We won, but at what cost? 

Garth the Bard PC was dead, along with the small roc mount Sam the Regal, Zimon's ethereal mount Springer, June's monstrous cat Fiddlesticks, and all of our henchmen. We were not particularly close to home and our mobility was seriously hampered. If we were going to recover our many levels of henchmen with any hope of success we needed to do it ASAP, but we were already two hours over session time so we broke there.

Our next priorities are finding the den of evil to make sure any sinkhole related to it is destroyed and escaping the wilderness with our asses. We'll have to see what we can salvage from the disaster. Ultimately, if you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs. It wasn't a TPK and I didn't hear no bell, so I'm calling it a win.

Bloodfall 20

The boys were hard up for a ruby, lamenting their failure to secure any real scores for several sessions. They dance around big hauls by bad luck and when they do bring home the bacon they split it among a million PCs. There are hooks out there, but everything outside of "go delve the dungeon" is intimidating because it's dragons or bandit forts or some other dungeon or region altering events. Treasure tables have produced a lot of magic items too and less liquid wealth, impacting the early level training/upkeep loop.

Clever use of the crystal ball made them think the dragon glacier was ripe for looting and/or whittling down the gnoll guardians. The dragons were out hunting. The group gambled that the big lizards wouldn't return and made their way to the glacier.

Through a sekrit tunnel and into combat with the off duty gnolls in their barracks. Oregano and Rune went down, but the party killed a couple dozen gnolls. They were tying up the subchief when another patrol came down the hallway. The party beat them too, but not without some fleeing to warn the rest of the complex. Time to go.

They carried out the subdued subchief and charmed him. He told them all about the complex. Broderick the Paladin was very sneaky in duping the gnoll into a feint to draw out the tribe while the PCs could loot the joint and free the prisoner Thorgal and Wooderson encountered many sessions ago. Paladins have to be careful about being sneaky. It would have been much more on role to actually challenge the gnoll chief to single combat or actually meet them in the field. Oops.

The chief bought the ruse and drew the clan out to go fight the humans, except the humans weren't there. They were busy liberating the captive man and treasure from the lair. Did they get it all? No, but they got enough, and they were happy about that. They also freed Thor, the God of Thunder, from chains binding him by his word. He thanked them, summoned Mjolnir, and flew off to go beat Loki's ass.

When generating the region however many months ago, this lair came up with a captive. Ok what's that mean? 2d6 and a 12 says it's a very important captive. Thor's always gettin' himself in trouble. Bam dropped him in there and forgot about it until Thorgal and Wooderson got captured in downtime and imprisoned beside him. Dropped a bunch of Thor-themed campaign events pointing at hooks and threats. 

Then they decide to use their palantir to scry the white dragons. 2d6 and 11 says the dragons are in an advantageous position. They aren't asleep and helpless, but maybe they aren't there. That's enough to draw the players in and off they went. I don't like dictating or preparing moving parts, and parts that move without interaction or observation from a player simply don't matter anyway, so I'm content to determine what's happened with X faction at Y interval. If I think they should be doing something, I'll do it in downtime, but the dragons have been mostly idle while their gnolls [redacted].

They free Thor who's been there for ages. 2d6 and 10 says he's super thankful and remembers Thorgal's name, shakes his one remaining hand. How thankful? 2d6 says 2 oh shit he's just gonna run off and thank them later maybe gods are fickle. I polled some of the URF refs after for ideas and quite liked that the thanks the party got was more adventure. Thor's legendary equipment was scattered by Loki cuz he's an asshole and the PCs are tasked with getting it back.

I'm happy with how this session turned out, especially with threads coming together and explaining some of the other regional nonsense like the weird temple they found and the storms. The dragon hoard, while substantial, was more magic items than liquid loot which I know they were disappointed in. This party is what I'm calling "adventurer poor". Covered up in magic items, hooks, and experiences but desperate for a payday of hard cash. Also, robbing the two big dragons will definitely not be a problem.

Grading:

Broderick: Superior. Bold, frontline destroyer of evil. Pursued the liberation of the captive. The means do not justify the ends and takes a hit for his plan of luring the gnolls out and sneaking in behind them. Pretty Norse thing to do tbh and had it been one of the fighters or rangers it could slide. But paladins are held to a different standard in exchange for being so bloody powerful.
Raylan: Excellent. Bold, frontline, scout, Gnollsbane indeed.
Thorgal: Excellent. Bold, frontline, scout, tie in with Thor.
Rune: Excellent. Bold, frontline. Got his bell rung but hung in there and survived.
Ojisan: Excellent. Clever use of spells and items. Crystal ball MVP
Oregano: RIP, KIA.

Combat
Total XP:	1678
Cuts:	10
PC:	335.60

Sparkystan the Dragon

Another week, another victory for the Holy Rollers.

Our goal this session was to explore west of our domain and scout the route to a valuable treasure map that we had from way back. Historically, these types of things are plagued by distractions and various other adventure hooks and we rarely actually make it to where we want to be. This was not that.

The party of June, Cassian, Garth, and Percival struck west through the Dreadwood, missing our mage Sanji and assassin/bounty hunter Zimon. I was not confident in our ability to really engage with anything super tough so we aimed to scout, maybe pick off some smaller lairs, and develop a plan to engage with whatever uber guardian there was to this hoard.

We met some elves and offered them safety at our fire. Cassian healed their ailments and sent them off with a prayer and blessing of Pelor. My insistence that elves aren't people just does not hold water in this campaign that's heavily influenced by Tolkien. DM loves elves so elves are just awesome all the time. I've seen this show before and will adjust play accordingly. They are now uber allies in the battle against Chaos and we're gonna win.

The land near to our target was inhabited by enormous celestial or divine or otherwise blessed feline creatures with long reptilian tails. They guarded an ancient monument to Ehlonna, Lawful goddess of the woodlands and nature, so we felt safe to stage the rest of our activity out of there. The creatures recognized our intention and welcomed us in their way, responding well to Garth's songs and our offerings at the altar there. June even converted to Law, finally.

Our treasure map indicated a central location and a hidden trail or route around it. It bore the lines, "_____ on the mountain, lightning in the air, gold in them hills and it's waiting for me there." June spotted a scorched part on a nearby peak and we narrowed our search to that location. Garth communicated with some of the local critters and found a sealed sekrit door. I suggested that he sing the song, which opened the door, and in we went down the stairs.

We had no details from the map and the DM dropped on us that oh yeah it's a big blue dragon that lives here. Ok great timing. We'll scope it out and fall back with the real party later. We overheard some gnolls planning a revenge raid against elves and figured we could take some beastmen. Charge!

Unfortunately the dragon was leading them in an inspiring speech disguised as a Viking warrior, planning to kill elves and get revenge for you know, something. It was too late to change our minds so we started blasting. The gnolls were cleared out pretty easily by a Seismic Horn (Horn of Blasting) and June's basilisk mask. The dragon was much tougher but we weathered a few breath weapons and were able to put him down after some serious magical buffing from Cassian.

We freed some captive elves who led us further west into the territory of the elven empire. We renewed our relationship with the Emperor, sold off some goods, and took his offer of teleportation home where we start our downtime after about a week. It was a good session, surprisingly successful given our habit of "ooh squirrel" moments in the wilderness. The dice were with us.

Bloodfall 18

Grading:

Thorgal: Excellent, pathfinding, scouting, bold.

Raylan: Excellent, pathfinding, scouting, bold.

Ojisan: Excellent, spells, "sage advice"

Broderick: Excellent, bold, virtuous, honored the gods

Kirk: Excellent, warrior priest combat medic hybrid role, spells, bold, honored the gods

Gunnbjorn: Excellent, bold, leader of men

Combat
Total XP:	9117
Cuts:	12
PC:	1,519.50