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.
