Bloodfall 6

We had the sixth session of Bloodfall and it was a doozy. The rangers located a camp in downtime. It was empty but had a fresh campfire and vague humanoid footprints nearby. They immediately imprinted orcs on it which was interesting. Planning was all based around killing some orcs. Broderick the Paladin had a goat sacrificed for their good fortune, Kirk offering it to Forseti, the god of Justice. Maybe it worked.

Off they went, scouts in the lead. Held off, located the empty camp, investigated better in session to learn it was truly empty with no sign of habitation. The rangers found some tracks leading away and the scout team followed. Mutual surprise of a bugbear ambush sent them running.

Tense, the party waited at the decoy camp for the bugbears to chase them. The monsters did not. After the second hour, some ogres bumbled in and were surprised to find the group there. In a short, bloody fight the party demolished them, their shield wall and advantageous initiative rolls too powerful for the big dumb idiots.

The call was made to fall back, find another position to lure the bugbears to. The rangers located a defensible position, essentially a dungeon room in the rocks with three narrow paths or "hallways" leading to it. They were satisfied and set up.

Bugbears are tricksome and sneaky. Rangers and elves are, too. The bugbears chose late at night to attack, hoping to gain advantage of infravision over the humans. For the second time that night, the rangers were surprised. The bugbears attacked from all three sides but focused on the east. They outnumbered the humans 2:1 and had them on HD 3:1. It was, uh, not good.

Raylan and Thorgal plugged their holes. Leif the elf made a bold play to try and execute one of the bugbears on his side and intimidate the others to flee. Raylan took a beating on a bad surprise round, Leif was killed, and Thorgal held the line with his dogs while the sleeping party woke and armed themselves.

You can't sleep in armor. It was tossed out that they could try, I assessed a likely too light penalty, and they decided against it. Good and proper play. Anyway, most of their party was unarmored for the fight of their lives. Tactically, they had three choke points and were holding. The next move changed their lives forever.

Dramatic pause.

We didn't really have a caller for the session, so Broderick had stepped in late. He pulled everyone back to focus around the fight where Raylan, Gunnbjorn, and Aevarr were holding their bottleneck and making ground. It immediately looked like an awful decision from my end, allowing the enemy to flood into the clearing and potentially overwhelm them. But the goal was a morale check by defeating their leader. The clerics suggested they could use magic to help but they couldn't get after the cowardly bugbear chief that was leading from the rear.

It was a huge gamble. The bugbear chief filled in and Broderick and Gunnbjorn led the charge to make space for the clerics who needed to be close. The Command spells worked, the chief and subchief groveled and surrendered respectively, and the warriors crashed into them, killing the groveling chief and forcing that morale check. It was *awful* and the bugbears that weren't engaged fled into the darkness. Those who were surrendered in confusion and the subchief was subdued before the magic wore off.

Had initiative gone differently, had attack rolls gone differently, had basically *anything* not gone their way in that moment they were doomed. But Forseti had their backs and they collected a bunch of prisoners and treasure, including a magic axe with the head of a stop sign. Aevarr sacrificed a captive to Tyr, the god of battle, in thanks for their victory.

Lots of math and such for encumbrance and they walked back to town. A cluster of goblins watched them pass from a cave in the side of a hill hundreds of yards off and definitely won't be a problem for later, but they sacrificed one of the prisoners as a threat to them just in case. Jarl Fost of Odin was *super* pleased with their results and will feast them in the week to come.

Musings:

Surprise was the mechanic of the day. The bugbears modified the ranger surprise bonus and evened the playing field, but the ogres were dopes and stumbled right into the trap. Leif the elf made a wild play that could have really changed things, but he only had 1 hp. RIP. Shieldwall vs the ogres was clutch, too.

From the DM perspective, the primary ruling of the night was allowing the charging warriors to target the bugbear chief specifically during that final melee. I ruled that way because he was groveling despite the general assumption that melee is a chaotic scrum where targets can't be chosen. The shock of the turning tide was enough for me to justify it.

Grades:

• Raylan the Ranger: Excellent. Scouted, held the line, bold. Bearer of "Heartstopper"
• Kirk the Cleric: Excellent. Sacrificed to Forseti, cast much magic
• Thorgal the Ranger: Excellent. Scouted, held the line
• Broderick the Paladin: Excellent. Bold, caller, pushed milieu well
• Ævarr the Cleric: Excellent. Sacrificed to Tyr, cast much magic
• Gunnbjorn the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, shield wall
• Leif the Assassin: Excellent. Risky murder attempt. RIP.
  

Session time: 4/1/25-4/4/25, free 4/5/25

Combat
Total XP:	3679
Cuts:	12
PC:	613.17

Forests and Trees

There's a tongue-in-cheek schism of sorts between wargaming and storygaming. One is the aristocratic pursuit of clearly defined objectives and the other is prancing about in search of your character's motivation to not retire on the last score of treasure and open a coffee shop.

I think balance is important. Wargamers are generally going to establish an objective and then pursue it by the most efficient and expedient means. The wargamer is coded to "win". Storygamers concern themselves more with the journey and less with the destination, focusing more on the interactions and social aspects of the game. The storygamer is coded to "play". An Urfling recently noted that distinction and it stuck with me, as I've had some trouble trying to balance my wargaming nature with the storygaming tendencies around me.

Holding to an extreme view in either case is limiting your potential to play the game to its fullest. If you're only focused on the next objective, then any interaction that draws away from or delays pursuit of that objective is seen as a complication to be excised. It flattens play with your other players, particularly ones who don't share the same dogged mindset.

If you're only focused on playing off of the social aspects of the game, then when it comes time to actually pursue and achieve an objective you don't have the skill set or resources to contribute. You are a drag on the party's efficiency when it's crunch time.

In either case, a player needs to see the forest, the bigger picture, and find the ways to engage with the game during the appropriate phases. The trees are important and help a player identify what's most fun about the game to them, but the game is the forest. It's the combination of and interaction between all phases, all mechanics, all tiers, all... whatevers... that makes RPGs the most exciting and broadly satisfying experiences to their players. Don't get lost.

Bloodfall 5

Open tables are the best. Some players couldn't make it, new players joined, and the game kept going. Session 5 was a dungeon delve, with the party actually arriving at the dungeon and even making it to level 2. The spooky, tense environment of the dungeon continued, with fewer monster encounters than one might expect but lots of tricks and traps. Lots of treasure, too, if they could find it.

The group knew of a few stairs leading down, the most interesting of which was in the eastern section of level 1. Thorgal the ranger had a rumor that led that direction so he gently guided the party to choose that path. Moonglum the elf and scout was running at 90' ahead of the party, basically isolated in dungeon environments but getting that sweet elven surprise bonus. It didn't help him when he hit the chute trap that the stairs were hiding.

The party followed into an unknown dungeon level below, taking some incidental falling damage. They quickly discovered a 3 ft tall golden idol of Loki surrounded by swirling fog. Yngve Steinersteen put it in a headlock and disappeared. After consideration, Broderick the Neon, paladin of Heimdall from Brozer, chose to follow and the rest agreed. They were teleported to the entrance of the dungeon amid their surprised squad of mercs that were guarding the door. Could this be used to traverse the dungeon?

Back in the Fist towards a less problematic stair. Some angry badgers and their kobold handlers made a run at them, the rabid animals attacking forward while the kobolds flanked around a side passage. The dice never fail to surprise me. Kobolds were a random encounter from the side passage direction. Badgers were pre-existing. A little imagination linked them together, of course. There was also an inexplicably placed portcullis that suddenly became explicable. A randomly stocked badger encounter became a kobold mushroom farm developing a cure for the badgers' rabies.

Kobolds are dogmen, not dragon-kin

Anyway, the kobolds used the portcullis to hold off the adventurers, killed a merc with crossbow fire, and retreated deeper into the dungeon before the group could loop back around and catch them. The party kept forward, looking for some kind of score or the little dogmen, whichever came first. They quickly dispatched a few shriekers in the next room before reinforcements could be called in, making these alarm fungi like 0-3 in The Fist so far.

There was some treasure stashed inside the shriekers covered in a tacky white goo. Yngve hauled the bulk of this in two large sacks like a bank robber and they carried on. Viscous ropey tendrils of mucus obscured the view of the next room, which was protected by a gas trap that drained Moonglum's strength. Chopping at them revealed nothing but shooting the ceiling kicked off an attack by a large amorphous blob of goo. I had them now!

Yngve Steinersteen, genetic freak

Except it rolled poor hps and was quickly dispatched without landing a single blow. The corrosive nature of it claimed some of their blades and it left behind a large black pearl when it dissipated. They scooped the pearl and bounced, arriving back at town without complication and squaring away some funeral and shopping activities.

I worry sometimes that I'm a slave to the dice. If no monsters are rolled, there ain't no monsters. If the monster has low hps, its easy to kill. Maybe that's boring? Idk, but that's how it is. Some of the sessions can be combat light. Some are ogre lairs. I suppose it's only a problem if players stop playing.

Broderick the Paladin: Excellent. Boldly sought evil, suspicious but not unjust towards elf.
Kirk the Cleric: Excellent. Interjected at religiosity of Loki statue, healed as needed.
Rollo the Fighter: Excellent. Front line, caller, bold, direct.
Thorgal the Ranger: Excellent. Rear guard, mapper, pathfinder in wilderness.
Yngve the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, front line, direct problem solver.
Moonglum the Fighter/MU: Excellent for Fighter. No opportunity for MU. I forgot to get role declaration, but clearly Fighter-focused as dungeon scout/archer.

Loot
Total XP:	3100
Cuts:	12
PC:	516.67

Combat
Total XP:	390
Cuts:	12
PC:	65.00

Everything is an Adventure

This report will find Knight Captain Dawes well and comfortable in the knowledge that Pelor's influence in the south is growing.

The Holy Rollers and I intended to rest a spell and then expand our collective footprint within the Dreadwood to include the ancient elven temple. The magician Sanji had plans to do... whatever it is wizards do with that kind of thing. We just had a little business to do first.

Our contact, a strange cat creature named D'anconio, had offered to purchase some treasure from us. When we arrived for the deal, it appeared that our most valuable piece had been stolen. We immediately suspected the sketchy pawn broker in town named Pinkman. The sheriff Kai'lan offered some vague information but otherwise was no help.

Rakshasa? Something else? Who knows?

I retired to the villa so as not to impede the investigation of Zimon and Sanji. I am unforgiving of the types of interactions necessary to be effective and we did not need any more friction with Kai'lan after having repaired that relationship. I must remember that social conventions prevent me from cleansing evil from society on first contact. The burden of proof of misdeed is an inconvenient necessity. I will repeat that to myself daily to avoid further complications.

Investigation discovered Pinkman and "Methany", Zimon's alleged henchwoman, had fled town on a ship south. D'anconio was helpful by offering his divination skills and demonstrated the value of an arcane caster of significant power. Sanji will continue to cultivate his talents and one day rival the cat creature, I'm sure of it. "Methany" was actually a doppleganger, Pinkman was at the bottom of the ocean, and the ship was bound for a strange port called Freyyard.

D'anconio magically warned the captain of the ship of his danger and suggested he delay his arrival to Freyyard until our party could arrive to confront their danger with our unique skills. Meanwhile, we chartered teleportation while Zimon and June flew on the bounty hunter's magical steed. The risk of teleportation was negligible with Pelor on our side and we arrived in Freyyard whole.

There was a misunderstanding with local officials after one foolishly attempted to extort us for "taxes" when approached in his capacity as Dockmaster. While taxes are a necessary function of right society, attempting to shake down the righteous in the middle of the street is at best in poor taste, at worst bad for one's health. Rattled teeth, a crushed tin whistle, and reinforcements saw us paying their silly tax and collecting the appropriate papers to exist without further harassment rather than display our might to the detriment of our mission and Pelor's standing in this foreign land.

The enemy's ship had not arrived. Sanji sprung for fine rooms overlooking the harbor so that we could watch for its arrival and we waited. Our stay was interrupted by a sewage backup in an adjoining alley, demonstrating that the local taxes were little more than bribery and extortion. Despite my frustration with ineffective bureaucracy, it was not the common man's fault. Indeed, they suffered daily under this petty regime and whatever aid that I could offer to ease their suffering was my duty.

So there I was, shirtless and plunging a sewer with tools borrowed from the innkeep, when something gave and the foulness drained away rapidly to reveal a natural cavern of sorts. The sewer line was clearly damaged. I had the stable boy fetch my sword and I slid into the cavern to investigate in case of foul play of some sort. A sewer is a perfect place for evil to infiltrate a city.

I was joined by members of the Holy Rollers, never ones to shirk their duties to the people, and we explored a short series of tunnels before encountering two abominations called Skittering Maws. Pelor protected me from their shark's teeth and poisonous bites in lieu of my armor that rested in my room. We dispatched them and displayed their carcasses for the locals to understand what service that we had rendered (Well, there's your problem). They were rightfully impressed and lauded us for our efforts.

The ruler of Freyyard, styling himself a "Prince", hosted us and awarded us medals for our bravery. He also exempted us from the frivolous taxes that cursed the land. He was a gracious host but despite his silvered tongue no righteous man. His town was a den of slavery, a haven for thieves, and an example of many missteps made by selfish and petty rulers. But he was sympathetic to our mission and offered what aid he could.

Zimon spent time on his flying mount to scout the approach to town, eventually locating our enemy's ship adrift, a horror show of carnage on deck. He landed to investigate and single-handedly captured the doppleganger who had killed the entire crew when discovered. A merchant mariner came upon the scene and after a tense exchange, Zimon had to destroy the creature to demonstrate that it was indeed a monster and not some damsel in distress. We recovered our stolen property, traded the ship to the Prince for passage home, and set sail.

We are restored financially and physically to Bonevale. FOB Horizon is established and growing, with Father Cassian's temple to glorify Pelor drawing peasants from all around. Our next goal is to clear the territory around of evil and expand our grasp on the region with Sanji's planned tower.

In Pelor's Light,

Knight Justicar Percival, FOB Horizon 

Musings:

Long report I'll keep it short. DM set this hook ages ago with a vague notification that "we weren't replaced by dopplegangers" in downtime. We cleared the immediate personnel, but Methany wasn't local. When two Methany's responded to Zimon's search for her, in two different cities, we knew of course that that was a problem, but it was Zimon's problem. Zimon leaned into his poor wisdom and let it ride and there we were.

The crown we sold had great potential for adventure. I wanted to utilize it but it would take over the game and the other players weren't interested, so we sold it. Every time we try to sell a very expensive item it's a complication, which turns into some kind of adventure. Smart play by the DM, however annoying to us at the time.

This session frustrated our plans but was a good one, interesting and creative and broadening the world. It highlighted Zimon's player's greatest strength, his ability to lean into the game and enjoy the experience without getting caught up in "winning". DM set a great and frustrating foreign environment, with a unique feel. Also expanded on the random sewer encounter that became relevant to the scenario. We grew our renown as Lawful heroes and I got more opportunities to clash with the DM over religious extremism. I'll only get worse and he'll continue to throw subjectivity at me until I remake the world in Percival's image or die. Live long enough to become the villain, or something.

Bloodfall 4

We're rapidly approaching the 6 session benchmark with no sign of slowing down. Several returning players were joined by yet another new add, bringing the total ranger pool of the PCs to 3. We love rangers.

It was assumed by everyone at the table that the party would attack the Fist of the Angry God dungeon again. There was even chatter of exploring level 2 since they found some stairs last session. Everyone got geared up for that including the DM. Naturally, the first random encounter became the session.

The local armorer was missing, abducted by ogres. Tragic, mostly because upgraded armor wasn't available to the PCs until his return or replacement. The ogre lair was and always had been in the same hex with the dungeon. The random encounter, a 5% chance by terrain, was ogres. It's like magic or something.

The party's rangers easily tracked the ogres back to the lair, witnessed heinous acts by the foul creatures, and determined to do something about it. There was lots of chatter about how to approach the scenario, especially since it was over a dozen ogres and a party of 1st and 2nd level PCs. The elf assassin tried to sneak in and cause a distraction, which he did when he was discovered and fled. Most of the ogres chased him, but a handful were left. The rest of the party attempted a raid to rescue one of the captives and succeeded, killing the remaining ogres and losing a horse.

The group learned that the armorer was held captive and the women were being mistreated. This would not stand. They decided, including the LG cleric, to poison the ogres with laced wine. They sourced some mysterious herbs from the laconic druid Moltan and delivered a cart with a cask of poisoned wine by way of donkey and a fleeing elf.

I lean on 2d6 for these kind of open-ended "what happens now" kinda questions. Is there enough wine for sale? Does the wizard have poison? Does the druid have poison? Does the druid give a shit? Do the ogres fall for it? Is the poison even effective? The dice went their way, helped by my inexperience with AD&D in regards to the effectiveness of the poison. I've since found the poison table. Interesting.

After a round of saving throws and some waiting for the onset time, most of the ogres fell out. The leader and a few boys were left. Time had caught up to one of the first gen PCs who had some armsmen and they'd swapped out their new fighter. Some DMs might not allow that during a session. I couldn't think of a compelling reason at the time, but looking back why would that first fighter pussy out of the fight? The grading system reveals itself as a more elegant tool than previously believed.

Anyway, the battle was on, the party liberated the camp, and an armsmen and Hussein the new ranger fell in combat. He was saved from instant death by his high constitution modifier and Kirk the cleric. He'll still be down for a week. They exfil'd with some treasure, rescued captives, and pats for themselves on the back. Got a deal from the armorer, too.

Grading:

Hussein the Ranger: Excellent. Tracked, scouted, planned, executed. Bold in the face of overwhelming odds in the pursuit of Good (rescuing the prisoners).
Hymir the Assassin: Excellent. Sneaked, snaked, snuck. Executed helpless ogres. Murder over theft.
Kirk the Cleric: Superior. Drove action towards rescue of the prisoners. Cast buffs and heals as often as possible. Only aberrant behavior was engaging with the poisoning.
Yngve the Fighter: Superior. Bold during the first delve, bailed on the venture to be replaced by the same player's other Fighter. Is he a coward? Lazy? Who knows!
Raylan the Ranger: Excellent. Tracked, scouted, bold in support of the prisoner rescue, brought the heat during both ogre clashes.
Ormr the Fighter: Excellent. Bold in confronting the ogres, joined the spear wall.
Gunnbjorn the Fighter: Excellent. Led his men into combat against the ogres. Replaced the coward(?) Yngve.

Hussein, Hymir, Kirk, Yngve, Raylan, Ormr
Combat
Total XP:	785
Cuts:	12
PC:	130.83
Hussein, Hymir, Kirk, Gunnbjorn, Raylan, Ormr
Loot
Total XP:	7400
Cuts:	12
PC:	1,233.33
Combat
Total XP:	1720
Cuts:	12
PC:	286.67

Joes vs The Volcano (Finale)

From the journal of Knight Justicar Percival, Order of Daybreak:

Mar 3: Our defensive preparations on the beach were successful and the denizens of this cursed island thought better of challenging us. Rested and resolved to see our mission through, we entered the dungeon down one PC and one henchman.

The first chamber was the lava room, the place of elemental power that we understood to be half of the significance of the location. We searched for some connection with the alleged sinkhole of evil but could find none. We did uncover an abomination claiming to be Kyros the henchman who had fallen in an earlier delve. Sanji bought the thing's story and they had a heartfelt, albeit uncomfortably warm, reunion. Zimon, with his new powers bestowed by the deity and cause of all this mess Sirlios, read from some scroll he had tucked away (?) and absorbed the elemental place of power.

This influenced the environment on some planar or dimensional level and everything quaked and shifted, revealing the heinous altar that anchored the sinkhole of evil. Atop the altar was a foul scene of depravity depicted in stone from which we would need to rescue Annie the priestess from the clutches of two large demons.

Pelor blessed us and we drank many potions and used scrolls to prepare ourselves for an assumed battle. We did not know what the demons were but we were certain they would be powerful. I approached and freed Annie with an elixir of depetrification, but this also released the demons. We expected this but underestimated just how powerful they might be. After a brutal battle, Zimon, Kyros, and I were downed, the party fled, and Fr. Cassian captured.

I'm told that Cassian negotiated our release by bartering the entirety of our magical equipment. The demons were confused as to their presence on our plane and traded his life and our bodies for more information. Our party extracted to the ship and departed the island, Zimon suffering permanent hearing loss but Pelor guiding Cassian's skills to restore me without any lasting wounds to more than my pride. We rescued the captured woman which was half of our mission and arguably the more important.

Mar 4: We ran afoul of some obstacle that damaged our ship. The sailors got to work repairing it but morale was low. I spent the rest of the voyage bolstering the spirits of the men. A passing privateer known to the sailors as Johnny Two-Timbers offered aid and we accepted, his reputation being of an acceptable sort, and we got underway faster because of it. I will pray for Johnny's safe sailing.

Mar 5: Bastia. A long and challenging adventure culminating in partial success and defeat in the face of Chaos left us frustrated and spent. We reported to Soto, delivered the girl, and collected our reward. I admonished the fence-sitting heretic to pick a side. In the face of such evil, remaining Neutral is as bad as swearing to Chaos. I hope he does not make himself my enemy. For his part, he was thankful and offered his ship to us to return to Bonevale. We accepted.

Zimon established contacts to offload some of our treasure and attempt to replenish what was lost. In terms of treasure, we're at a net loss. Two of the items traded to the demons were irreplaceable and priceless artifacts gained from the glade in the Dreadwood many months ago. This is a hit to our cause, but we remain in the fight. We will lick our wounds and rejoin the perpetual war against Chaos.

Musings:

This was a long and extremely difficult dungeon. We took the quest from the patron Soto after his inadvertent creation of his own problem. I think our assumption about the adventure was misguided, a much more casual beer and pretzels endeavor given that it seemed custom built for our party, was fabricated from thin air, and was extremely isolated on a deserted island. This did not lend itself to the type of preparation we might make for say a known dragon lair or a particularly valuable treasure map. These locations could be researched further, scouted, and approached with an eye towards logistics.

The dungeon itself had a bespoke mechanic or pattern to its layout that did not follow any conventional wisdom. Our frustration with it was that there were no clues to follow or puzzles to solve. We had to just figure it out, which we failed to do. The power level of the place was significant as well, the DM's attempt to offer us a challenge as he felt we were too easily defeating the encounters up to this point. Any missteps were unforgiving, compounded by an assumption that fleeing from combat into an indecipherable maze of seemingly random tunnels was going to get us to our objective.

There was quite a bit of treasure, commensurate with the fights that we could win, and we were doing quite well until the final battle despite our set backs. This was a mis-step of mine as Caller. I knew what the demons were, ACKS Pit Fiends or Balors, I think they're called Baleygr. I knew that we couldn't kill two of them. But I have trouble using meta knowledge to make in-character decisions. I'm also playing a paladin. I can't simply flee in the face of demonic forces. I will have to be better about utilizing my game knowledge effectively to make better decisions for the party as a whole, which is justified in-game as the Adventuring proficiency. I'd have still fallen in the battle, but Zimon and Cassian could have retreated with the rest of the party.

Ultimately our approach as players did not live up to the challenge offered to our characters and we suffered for it. The final result was anti-climactic due to just how large the gap was in the challenge faced versus our actual power level. Our only hope in that moment was to retrieve the girl and flee, which was only half our objective and a frankly unacceptable course of action for the paladin. Despite lacking role grading a la AD&D, I will not compromise my role.

We got out, we got paid, we rescued the girl. We failed to destroy the sinkhole and even worse had our (Zimon, Percival, and Cassian's) equipment taken as a result. It's a partial victory and an interesting point of contention with the Sirlios faith. If they insist on remaining Neutral while also introducing Chaos into the world, then we will unfortunately end up at odds. No quarter for Chaos.

Bloodfall 3: Team B

The party scored big last session and was able to offload the big magical statue to Fost the High Priest of Odin in town. His offer was the least immediately lucrative and caused no small amount of consternation among the group, but the matter was settled by Holmgang between Vigi the Dwarf and Kirk of Forseti. The cleric won, all acknowledged his victory, and the gods were pleased even if the players weren't.

The big score put most of the party into time jail for training. The clerics reloaded with thieves while one of the fighters rolled a very powerful ranger. We love powerful rangers. The target was the dungeon and more treasure.

Thorgal the ranger of the original party was still present acting as scout and pathfinder. They arrived without incident to the dungeon. It was a solid delve and I'm going to continue with a very broad look at the dungeon to avoid the play by play.

Samson the dwarf fighter/thief was very lucky in trap finding, disarming several and only missing two. Or three? I don't remember, but there were a lot of traps. They found a sekrit room with treasure, Thorgal dueled an Einheri named Goshal to release him from the dungeon, and they suffered several casualties from random encounters. This included piercers that ambushed them with a 95% chance of surprise. Even reducing that chance for the rangers made that pretty brutal.

Slowed to a crawl by carrying casualties and treasure, and waning armsmen morale, they eventually had to bounce but not before acquiring a respectable bit of treasure.

Musings:

There are a few DM facing things as take aways from this session. 

Adjudicating an oversized party in the dungeon: I make comms between front and rear difficult and only apply ranger surprise bonus for the first 12 members around the ranger. Their column was 50' long! This showed itself when surprised by orcs during a rest period and the rear element had to resolve the first round or two by itself.

Grading multiclassed PCs: A new wrinkle for me. The multiple classes taken are often quite at odds with each other in role, like Fighter/MU or Fighter/Thief. This makes it difficult to play both well and challenging to grade. Opinion among the Bros seems split on different ways to approach this, but the club is going to require the multiclassed PC to declare the role to focus on for the session and grading will be assigned accordingly. Come level up, if they have no grade in one of their roles, that role gets a P.

Gunnbjorn F1: Excellent. Lead his men, engaged with rear guard, bold in revenge against Trogs for eating his casualties.
Thorgal R1: Excellent. Scout, doors, duel with Einheri to free him.
Raylan R1: Excellent. Lead element, bold vs. Trogs and orcs.
Herb T1: Slain in combat with Piercers. Excellent in memoriam. RIP.
Samson F1/T1: Clearly focused on thief this session. Excellent. Scout, traps, doors, locks, primed to evade with treasure should Trog fight go south. Will require pre-session declaration of role moving forward.

Loot
Total XP:	3005
Cuts:	8
PC:	751.25

Combat
Total XP:	585
Cuts:	8
PC:	146.25

Bloodfall Session 2

The boys were back in town, with the clerics driving the action towards cleansing the corrupted Freya altar they had found in The Fist during the first session. They had a map to the dungeon which prevented them from getting lost. The players were organized and ready to go so we didn't waste a lot of time dithering. 

My strategy with developing this dungeon was to generate it randomly, then tweak it to do what I wanted in regards to treasure, subsequent levels, etc. The layout is interesting to me but the dice have not been providing the amount of encounters that I had anticipated. It's led to a moody vibe where most of the danger appears to be environmental in the form of weird terrain, tricks, and traps. I think there's value in not having back to back combats in every room but I'd be interested to hear how others feel about the balance of combat to other threats.

The party is developing a good rhythm with Thorgal scouting and calling and Vigi mapping. They're focused and mostly decisive, which is leading to efficient room clearing. The altar was cleansed after a short battle with shriekers that had clearly been placed there. I used my trusty 2d6 to see what, if anything, would happen as a result of the cleansing. A feeling of divine satisfaction graced the clerics, but otherwise nothing.

Despite several rounds of shrieking, no reinforcements arrived. This would set the tone for the rest of the evening. Such is the spiky nature of random encounters.

The most notable event of the night was their discovery of a solid gold statue of a falcon in the pose of the Trans Am logo. It was huge, heavy, and clearly worth a lot. They worked through the brambles that guarded it and were able to tote it out with only a little damage to both it and them suffered. They suspected it had something to do with the brambles and confirmed that it was magical.

The rest of the session was discussing what to do with it, with the clerics lobbying for leveraging it into local stability and the warriors mostly wanting to just sell it at Svarthold, the larger city a day's travel down river. They settled on having the sage and magic-user Malzith the Speckled look into for them, aiding him in collecting rare and silly wizardly things during downtime to reduce the time frame involved. By next session, they should know a little more about the cumbersome item and make some kind of decision about it.

Delve on 3/4, downtime starts 3/5, party committed to aiding Malzith collect materials.

Grading: I'm not a particularly harsh grader. I view it as a broad tool to prevent grossly aberrant behavior in terms of role, not as a switch to goad players into specific actions. I absolutely do not want it to turn into "guess what the DM wants from me" in terms of playstyle. Stick to what your role and alignment should be wanting to do and it'll all work out ok.

Vigi the dwarven Fighter: Excellent, engaged the only combat, lobbied for acquisition of a longship to go a-Viking.
Rollo the human Fighter: Excellent, engaged the only combat, all about that Viking.
Kirk the human Cleric of Forseti: Excellent, drove action towards cleansing the corrupted altar, supported aiding the local community and strengthening the faith.
Thorgal the Ranger: Excellent, engaged the only combat, scouted and led effectively, supported warrior-centric Viking angle.
Ævarr the human Cleric of Tyr: Excellent, supported aiding local community and strengthening the faith.

Loot
Total XP:	2570
Cuts:	10
PC:	514.00

Combat
Total XP:	28
Cuts:	10
PC:	5.60

Joes vs. The Volcano (Part 2)

From the journal of Knight Justicar Percival, Order of Daybreak:

Feb 24: We made camp on the beach. Our rest was disturbed by Zimon, who approached a spell tyrant (ACKS Beholder) he found wandering on the beach for some reason. The subsequent shakedown cost us a suit of magical armor to avoid a fight that we couldn't afford to take. The abomination wanted more but I drew a line in the sand. Bad enough to have to bribe the creature at all, but there are limits to what indignity I will endure. It is unfortunate that we engaged with it at all. It sensed my resolve and decided better of battle, wandering off after stuffing its bribe into some fleshy cavity.

We moved our camp away from that area and found another adventurer washed ashore. He called himself V and shared some of Zimon's feelings and experience with Sirlios.

Feb 25: Located the ground level cavern entrance to the volcano from this side of the planar veil. After a short scout, we decided to go back in the top. The fire elemental on guard was compelled to defend itself and the place against our entry no matter how much we bartered. With immunity to fire I dispatched the being back to its home plane.

The bronze golem that had chased us was quite close to our return entrance. The ensuing fight was very tough but we prevailed through the grace and might of Pelor. We found some treasure and carried what we could forward, attempting to either locate our targets or the way back to our camp.

Zimon reported a lone fire salamander in the next chamber. We engaged, it summoned four others, and a brutal battle left us with one dead and many wounded. We fed the fallen henchman Kyros to the lava with Fr. Cassian blessing his journey then carried on. The only way is forward.

Sunlight. The beach. Our waiting men. Reprieve. We fell back to our camp and established a defensive perimeter. We would recuperate as best we could before returning. Evil must still be vanquished, the kidnapped Crusader liberated.

Musings:

We did our best to try and understand the logic behind the place. There is a pattern, but as is the way in these things it is not as obvious as the DM thinks. It never is. We have some theories, we can try to test them next time.

The battles in the place are punishing, even the "easy" ones costing us in resources, which doesn't give us a lot of wiggle room for experimentation. Being able to drop off loot at the boat will at least make us faster.

DM was surprised that we didn't run from the fire salamanders, but we were just too slow. We're doing well in treasure but it's heavy. Such is the way. We could have dropped our packs and fled, but we didn't, we fought, we won. It just beat us up pretty good. Hopefully our rest isn't disturbed by too many more spell tyrants.

Welcome to Bloodfall

I began my AD&D arc tonight with Bloodfall on the LivingUrf club server. I've played quite a bit of AD&D over the years but I've never DM'd it. Now is the time. The club is attempting to mix several parties of players in one setting and Bloodfall in conjunction with Crom's Brozer Aftermath are the first steps being taken towards eventual competing parties in the shared milieu of Urf Prime. I've experienced this on a limited basis in the Sojenka campaign and it has potential for top tier fun.

We have several club members who are new to AD&D as well, so we can get ourselves trained up together. The roster tonight included:

Hollyfelled as Vigi the Dwarven Fighter

J. LeTourneau as Gunnbjorn, Squad Leader of 10 mercs

Joshinyu as Rollo the Human Fighter

AngrySteak as Kirk, Acolyte of Forseti

Matthew as Thorgal the Ranger, Scout, and Caller

WeatherReport as Ævarr, Acolyte of Tyr

One town, one hex, one dungeon. You've heard it a hundred times and there's a reason. If you're gonna do the unfamiliar, start simple. I prepped a declining Viking settlement with a nearby dungeon, the surrounding wilderness, and a few important NPCs to act as trainers, hooks, and generate tension. I've done the zero-prep thing enough to know that it is an invaluable skill to have in your quiver but there's nothing wrong with having a few answers to likely questions ahead of time. Use all the tools you have.

The players were mostly on top of things, with several taking the initiative to get organized prior to the session starting. This allowed them to hit the ground running once we began. Some recon around town got them a feel for the environment and some information to utilize during session, most notably directions and landmarks from locals to aid in their getting lost checks. I ruled this would reduce the severity of getting lost, which helped when they set out and immediately got lost.

The dungeon was underneath a giant stone arm, hidden by a plastered over passage, and obscured by magical mist falling from the clenched fist of the arm. Despite all this, the group found the entrance eventually and cut their way in. Dungeon delving is dungeon delving and I won't go into the play by play much here as you generally have to be there to appreciate it. The highlights were intelligent calling and scouting from Thorgal keeping the momentum going, some unfortunate rolls with traps costing most of the resources expended in terms of spells, and a very large party costing them their ranger bonus to surprise during an ambush by giant rats.

What went well:

• Players were organized, with only a few dead air moments. First session, new group, dynamics have to be settled into. All within normal limits and I think these guys are gonna stack rubies.
• I had a good handle on the town, the travel to the dungeon, and the pacing once inside. I was nervous in that I just haven't interacted with the DM facing mechanics of AD&D much at all. These pieces went well and eased some of my tension.
• Party engaged with the town more than I anticipated. Pleasant surprise and is going to yield dividends. Hell, it already saved them 5% on taxes on the haul they recovered and scored them some holy water to aid in evil altar cleansing goals.

What needs work:

• Book control. Chart control. Practice practice practice. Not a surprise, just a reality. Random encounters, morale checks and mods, traps. I'll improve.
• I did some dungeon prep but for some reason stopped at "here's a trap". Not the end of the world, but trying to be considered based on uncle Gary's suggestion that traps and tricks match the difficulty of the environment.
• Party engaged with the town more than I anticipated. I've DM'd for a long time, with a focus on action over dialogue and story setting. These have always been weaknesses of mine and I need to get stronger at improvisation with NPCs.

We ran for just under 4 hours. The boys cleared 7 rooms with several traps and 2 fights, after solid intel gathering in town. A good session IME. I want to capitalize on the momentum they've got. I'm already getting downtime pings. This is gonna be fun.

Grading:

Vigi the Dwarven Fighter: Excellent. Utilized dwarven abilities underground, bold in the face of danger.

Gunnbjorn, Squad Leader of 10 mercs: Excellent. Maintained unit cohesion, saw to his casualties in a responsible manner, bold in the face of danger.

Rollo the Human Fighter: Excellent. Shared temporary responsibility of mercs. Bold in the face of danger.

Kirk, Cleric of Forseti: Excellent. Engaged with religious threads of session, aided party with spells fitting of his alignment.

Thorgal the Ranger: Excellent. Filled scout and Caller role effectively. Bold in the face of challenges.

Ævarr, Cleric of Tyr: Superior. Only aberration of role was an attempt to memorize Curse rather than Bless as a good aligned cleric. Engaged well with religious threads of the session and aided the party with (other) spells fitting of his alignment.

Loot
Total XP:	1315
Cuts:	12
PC:	219.17
Hench:	109.58
Combat
Total XP:	198
Cuts:	12
PC:	33.00
Hench:	16.50

Joes vs. The Volcano (Part 1)

From the journal of Knight Justicar Percival, Order of Daybreak:

Feb 23: Bastia. Claims of great evil are intriguing and we will do all within our power to destroy it. Met with Bala Soto, a priest of a heathen and mysterious god Sirlios, the same that touched Zimon after he pressed the button. It's an austere faith, with little in the way of pomp or ceremony. Practical, pragmatic, uninspiring.

The un-aligned Sirlios spawned this evil by her followers tampering with the cosmic balance. In their folly, these heathens attempted to erect a pinnacle of good and succeeded, but a sinkhole of evil appeared to balance it. Any right-thinking man of proper (Lawful) faith can see the relation. You cannot have your cake (benefits of Lawful metaphysical power) and eat it too (remain Neutral). My opinion of this Sirlios is reduced by every interaction with her. I wonder if her followers are not dupes in some plot of Chaos.

When the sinkhole of evil sprung into being it sucked one of the priests of Sirlios through a portal or time warp or...? Soto was able to divine her location, a volcanic island far to the east. He wants us to rescue his follower and cover up the damage he has done by his meddling. A lot of vague and evasive talk of timelines and dimensions and choices and paths and whatevers. Maybe Fr. Cassian or Sanji can grasp the intricacies, but it sounds like the reaping of what's been sown to me. Ultimately, the danger we face is mostly unknown. Pelor will light the way.

An expected long voyage on Soto's ship was cut short by interaction with a great elemental of water. June was able to communicate with it and after convincing it that our cause was pure, we traded several hymns of Pelor for its aid. It sped us unnaturally along and we arrived at the target destination within a day.

Landfall, seemingly deserted island. Jungle. Volcano. Wildlife appears to be unfamiliar with men. Camp.

Feb 24: Soto's pathfinder Buck led us through the jungle in search of a way into or onto the volcano. Zimon flew on his magical steed to scout. We found two ways in, a cave and a walking path to the top. We opted for the cave.

The environment was evil and clearly supernatural within, natural caverns that warped and bent at each branch as though time and reality itself were uncertain. We fell to old tactics, choosing the same direction at each junction to keep our bearings. We fought bat demons in one chamber and a massive spider demon in another. Wounded and low on resources, I called for a retreat, but going back was not an option. At each branch, our choice mattered not, the outcome of a chosen path decided by fate or worse.

We pushed forward instead, reaching the caldera of the volcano, a bowl with a winding path and several landings or plateaus along the rim. Advancing brought us to a landing with a great bronze statue of an ancient warrior in the center. Suspicious of possible animation, we tried to skirt it. It staggered towards us as expected and we fled, attempting to reach the rim of the caldera and hopefully a way down. It was slow and we outran it.

An elemental guarded the next landing, this one of fire. Taking a cue from June's interaction on the sea, I burned my hand on a torch in order to connect with it and speak. It was willing to allow us to leave but warned it was tasked with guarding entry into the place and would be compelled to battle should we return. We broke onto the slope of the volcano and began our descent.

Our ship is missing. Crew gone. The brains think we've passed beyond our reality into another. I again suspect this Sirlios of perfidy, a petty fiendish god meddling in the world we are sworn to safeguard. Some explanation will be owed, some oaths required, once we've overcome this evil and returned. For now, we camp on the beach and lick our wounds. We'll have to re-enter the volcano in search of our targets.

Musings:

Soto is a Patron player, a known entity to our table who never fails to produce interesting NPCs and environments to work with. I quite like the vibe of the growing port of Bastia with it's weird, foreign religion and pseudo-Libertarian presentation.

Live look at Bala Soto and Patrick when they get blamed for this mess

A Neutral cult tampering with Lawful divine mechanics is an interesting thing and I'm glad that repercussions for it are showing in the game. Conflict is bred on the messy nature of Neutrals trying to claim the benefits of Lawful society without paying the price so we're bound to have a lot to work with. I don't really want to go on a holy crusade to exterminate the followers of this goofy faith, but if they keep fucking around, they're gonna find out. Maybe this is a learning opportunity. There's definitely more going on we aren't privy to.

The dungeon was all probability rather than a set environment, which is an interesting convention. Consider a random encounter table consulted at each intersection of a dungeon, with little to no emphasis on the physical environment given that it simply warps and changes as needed. It makes it quite difficult to determine a logical course of action, leaving the players to stumble forward. I of course don't know every detail, but that's the gist. I don't know if things restock or if we have to stumble through the entirety of the place before reaching the McGuffin. We have yet to see the same room twice, even backtracking. Our pirate crew had a much smaller, similar experience in a time-diluted dimensional space around Halloween. This is clearly more involved.

We paused the session but considering we're in some dimensional reality-bending scenario I don't think it's a problem. There is precedent with Ravenloft and Castle Amber for tinkering with time keeping so I'm not gonna stress it. Hopefully we can power through next session and save the girl and kill the evil and purge the heretic return home safely.