Session 34: Return to the Center of the Earth

Time 4/16/23-4/21, rest 4/22, active 4/23
PC: Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton
Hench: Selena, -Andi, Goda, Plat, Jahanaray, Kissere, Isabel

#ACKS

We were in danger of having one of those hapless sessions with no plan or stated goal, but the group came together begrudgingly to aid Bigtoe in trying to find more of what he’s calling “purple cake”, a mysterious rock-like substance that appears to have electrical and combustible properties. The Machinist had put in the work in downtime to reverse engineer the revolver and ammunition that they had found on their first trip to the center of the earth and he wanted more.

Not really having a good source for the extremely rare material, they did recall that there was a generator that seemed to use it as a fuel source from their first adventure there that they just couldn’t escape with the first time. So off they went cake hunting.

The first bit of the session was setting a proper Order of Battle for Bigtoe’s MASSIVE ARMY (6 platoons). If they ran into anything overland they were almost certainly going to engage it. Again much frustration was expressed over how in ACKS the General of the Army dictates how rewards are split, but them’s the breaks. I reiterated that if they’re going to get into the mass combat stuff, they gotta get on board with how it works. These are growing pains that I think anyone who’s made that Tier transition in ACKS can attest to.

Unfortunately, they didn’t encounter anything hostile on their way to the wide gash in the plains northwest of Teutch’s domain. They descended down into the canyon along a wide ramp in the northern side, eventually curling into the earth and continuing miles and miles down. They finally reached the entryway to the small dungeon that they recalled from their previous trip, still without an encounter.

They formed up their principals and made entry through heavily verdigrised bronze doors where the gravity promptly reversed and dropped them to the ceiling. Some of the PCs had experienced this already and were prepared (since they reminded me that it was a thing. Listen it’s been months, shut up) but others had to get situated before they could continue.

I had rolled restocking for this place after it had been empty for ages and stopped at an ogre lair that was just gonna squat here and hold it against most other threats. The big bronze doors in the place were notoriously loud and/or difficult to open due to weight and time so I rolled whether or not the guards in the first room had heard the groaning hinges and grinding. They did and the reaction wasn’t particularly hostile, so the ogres gathered a welcoming force of like 5 or 6 and waited in their barricaded room like they’d probably done many times before.

The group did their best to creep up on the door and listen and check for traps and all the things that PCs do. Once convinced that there were no traps, Bigtoe tried the door but it didn’t budge. After a moment a bang on the other side was followed by a poorly voiced, “Go ‘way” from the DM.

Blair tracked around while Bigtoe offered some gold for the inhabitants to retrieve the items that they came for and bring them to him. The ogres were keen on getting gold but not so much with fetching things that they didn’t understand. They opened the door to discuss in earnest and it boiled down to them demanding to see the gold before they let the party through to wherever.

Negotiations devolved due to a mutual distrust which was just tragic, eventually leading to combat. The ogre champion to the rear identified that these conditions were not to the ogres’ advantage and called to pull back to a much larger chamber behind them. Several of them did, but three didn’t follow orders and kept attacking, convinced they could squash the little annoying dwarf in the doorway.

Some military oil was thrown, arrows were fired, and a lot of swings were missed against Bigtoe’s obnoxious ac, but eventually the party got a foothold in the smallish entry chamber. A theme throughout this walking battle was my leniency with firing missiles through doorways, over heads, to back ranks, etc. Looking back it was a little ridiculous BUT had the enemy had any ranged weapons they’d have done the same thing so I guess it’s a wash.

The ogres had pulled back to their primary chamber, the old throne room where Bigtoe found the original pistol. The party formed up to follow, again trying to offer gold to go get the things from underneath. The ogre chief beyond demanded that they leave the gold and once satisfied that it was enough, would allow the party to go get whatever small-people things were so important.

The party threw a torch down the wider entry hall to the throne room, revealing many more ogres than they had previously seen. One of the ogres threw the torch back at the party but now they knew they were facing a much heavier threat. They didn’t have a map from their previous visit here but they had a surprisingly good take on the place. They knew there was a way around the flank to a side passage but the group decided on a frontal assault and the fight was on since they clearly weren’t just going to leave thousands of gold to the whims of stupid and greedy beastmen. Again the DM poorly voiced the ogre chieftain, this time apparently I sounded like a vampire.

Here is where I had to determine how the ogres were going to react. I love the 2d6 gradient for quick decision making. They rolled in their own favor so the chief used his big brain to send a flanking force around the same side tunnel that the party had thought about using. I tracked how long it would take with a penalty for some smaller doors/hallways that they’d have to squeeze through.

Meanwhile, the double doors and larger entry way to the throne put the ogres in ranks of two as they charged in under a hail of fire and magic from the party. The fight took a long time, mostly due to the ogres’ large pools of HP and the party’s front line having high AC. I missed so many attack rolls by 1 point that I started to consider having shields start breaking but I’m a big softy and gave in to “but it’s magic!” when I told Bigtoe his shield and shoulder were about to give out.

The ogres did down one of the henchmen and landed a few good blows on Bigtoe and Braxton who filled the gap briefly, but otherwise the bottleneck was working and the party was slowly dwindling them down. The enemy made each of their morale rolls even after the chieftain was slain which wasn’t helping matters.

We joke at our table a lot about Summon Berserkers being extremely useful for a first level spell and this fight was no different, using them to hold a breach in the line and get some much needed damage on target. Coincidentally, of the friendlies that were in position to hear the flanking ogres burst through a door down an adjoining hallway, only the berserkers heard it and immediately rushed off to engage. This would prove to be critical to the party’s survival as they still had several ogres on the front line and their high AC members engaged.

Berserkers have like 2 ac and 1+1 HD. There’s no reasonable explanation why three of them could hold a hallway for more than a round against an ogre subchief. But after the first was immediately crushed, the second and third stood their ground for rounds and rounds of single digit attack rolls by the ogre, giving the party enough time to try to react by closing the double doors leading to the hallway and hammering spikes in and barring door handles and whatever else they could think of.

Finally the berserkers were killed and the subchief, backed by another champion, charged the braced door and slammed into it but was unable to burst it open. The ACKS forcing doors rules are pretty cool, a simple +/- for various modifiers giving you a throw that’s quick to calculate and super tense in the moment. After the third try, the subchief burst in, but the party had positioned and prepared for it as best they could and wore him out. Blair the Nightblade had some absurd strikes, one as a backstab due to clever positioning, before being swatted down. The cleave into Plat the bard was very low damage so the chain stopped there and really it was mopping up time.

Before all was said and done, Blair, Andi, and Goda were downed by ogres with a fate point and luck saving Blair and Goda respectively. Andi the cleric needed too much healing to recover and expired. Braxton was out of arrows, Jahanaray’s staff of healing was smoking from overuse, and the crew was discussing their next steps. They were sure there was a score here but they were worried about going straight at it. Someone commented about there being tiers of rooms so the next one would have even MORE ogres. I don’t think they were joking.

The wounded were left with the mercs outside and the party went the flanking route to see what they could discover. They found a trail of coins and goods leading into a natural cavern mouth in one room and were convinced all of their loot had been stolen! They followed the trail easily through a few winding tunnels, eventually cornering some ogre females and young with armloads of food, clothing, and some small treasure.

Gestures were made about murdering them but I pointed out that ogre noncombatants can still fight and would when cornered, so given their extreme lack of resources Bigtoe and Braxton convinced them to just give them the treasure that they had and they’d let them live. The ogres gladly did so and the party looted the remaining lair treasure from the chamber behind the throne room.

Once convinced that the level of the dungeon was clear of threats, the mercs were able to assist in loading the party’s wagons while Bigtoe and Braxton went down the spiral stairs to the next level to retrieve the ultimate goal of the session, a generator, fusebox, and core of “purple cake” material that powered it all. The generator and fusebox had apparently been bashed and mangled, but the core was intact so they called it a win and exfiltrated with their weird items.

Again there were no random encounters on the way back which was a little disappointing as I wanted them to get a taste of mass combat now that they had it organized properly. But that’s alright, we’ll see it next time.

Musings:

Writing session reports is relatively new to me as a gamer. I’ve been playing for decades but only in the last year or so have I started recording anything. I suppose it’s kind of like journaling in that you revisit what’s happened and what it means. I’ve never journaled either but maybe I should?

This session’s only encounter was many pieces of the party’s makeup fitting together well to keep from being obliterated by a superior force. The decision to attack the ogres head on was interesting, but it worked out ok. The flanking subchief would have absolutely killed most of the party’s squishier members without the delaying sacrifice of the berserkers. Maybe I should have only rolled for the PCs and henches to hear the ogres, but once summoned I treat the berserkers like essentially unruly henchmen.

Braxton lamented the lack of a frontliner that can actually do damage. They’re light in fighters right now so I wouldn’t be surprised if some efforts were made to correct that in downtime.

I love memeing things into play from feedback from the players. When they said my masterfully delivered ogre dialogue sounded like a vampire, I considered making the chieftain a vampire ogre. I draw the line at spontaneously feeding into things that will likely kill the party from a one off joke about a bad accent. Ogre chief is tough enough, adding vampirism was a wrinkle too far. Maybe. Probably. But it seemed dirty at the time so I stand by it. Maybe Ug von Borglstad will make an appearance later.

I don’t know what the ogres would have done if offered the gold that was discussed. 2d6 would have driven that for sure. Distrust played a huge role in this session for sure.

Bigtoe got more material to experiment with so I expect a rocketship or a cannon or something here soon. There’s no telling what automatons will pop up soon, although 1:1 time will eat into the bigger ones I’m sure.

Stay tuned for more exciting action from Oberholt, with vampire ogres, mad dwarven scientists, and an all-threatening demonic presence lurking in the shadows.

Session 33: Attack of the notSymbiote!

Time: 4/2/23-4/13, rest 4/14, active 4/15 

PC: Gwendolyn (bard), Luther (paladin), Cracaryn (ranger)
Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Madrof, Eggie, Jerrod, Jalen, Beydaan

#ACKS

The player group, especially Luther’s player, has done a great job in Downtime trying to get hooks and things situated prior to the game session in the last few weeks. It’s really helped them get the action started. Of course then they decide to hire a bunch of henchmen which slows down the start a bit, but hey can’t win ‘em all.

There was some discussion with Lord Issac (Patron Paladin) about purchasing a treasure map at an absolute steal of a price. It had been sitting on his shelf since the campaign began and was priced to move, so the party snatched it up. Redcorn’s powerful cleric PC was otherwise engaged, so enter Team C’s elven ranger Cracaryn.

They made a special note to visit the grave of Team A’s long time henchman and mascot Cemil, who was slain and failed on a Restore Life and Limb check after the last adventure. They dropped big money on a sweet headstone and Cemil’s hench buddy Amadayo expressed great anger at the loss of his friend and eagerness to take it out on some monster somewhere. Luther the Paladin made some prayers, including an absolutely canon religious gesture suspiciously similar to “jazz hands”.

With map in hand and a general idea of the area to begin the search, they departed for the hills around Bellport, the capital of the region and seat of Baron Heinrick of Donwall. They took an unusual path for this group, traveling the road through the more settled parts of the interior of the region instead of through the borderlands area.

They passed through a town called Millon, a modest sized market where they learned of a local folk hero named Billock who single-handedly killed a band of brigands that attempted to burgle his mill. They didn’t show much interest in Millon and continued on.

Just outside of the agricultural town they discovered a young woman dancing naked around a strange tree in a field. Cracaryn was eager to discuss, you know, anything with her but the party shouted down the idea as a needless distraction and continued on. They made it to the capital with no further interruptions and rested up.

The treasure map that they had was drawn some time ago by an obvious bandit, detailing some hideout with an inventory in one margin of various gems that they had collected and many failed rhymes and verses in the other margins. It appears the author fancied himself a poet but Gwendolyn quickly realized that his talents were not up to snuff on any professional level.

The party trekked out into the hills using one of new henchman’s mapping proficiency to try to narrow in on where to find the score. They surprised a group of hippogriffs and we had to remind Cracaryn that he was not playing Redcorn who is typically obsessed with trying to tame every animal in the wild. For whatever reason that player was struggling throughout the session to separate his new PC from his old, which he doesn’t normally have much trouble with. Made for some laughs throughout as the two personalities are generally quite different.

The hippogriffs were pissed and wanted blood but the party was able to eventually evade them, narrowly avoiding a very dangerous encounter. They were missing the Explorer’s bonus to Wilderness Evasion that the Elven Ranger doesn’t have, but they dodged disaster by virtue of encounter distance.

A few hours into their search they found an area of the mountainous region where the plant life seemed to be afflicted by some sort of pollution or foul magic. They tracked it closer to the source, through a narrow winding cut into a small holler. Several destroyed shacks were in the space, with giant globs and strings of viscous black ooze spread in huge swathes as though exploding from the mangled and destroyed copper stills within. Bodies, undisturbed by scavengers or nature, were strewn about in various forms of death.

Mahin the assassin, who has alchemy and sneaky assassin things, was voluntold to sneak close to see what he could learn. He leapt from being startled and scampered backwards, swearing one of the tendrils of ooze had moved. Channeling their best Imperial Doctrine of the 41st Millenium, the party decided to CLEANSE IT WITH HOLY FIRE.

They didn’t have enough military oil to burn all three of the ooze origin points, so they picked the closest and drilled it dead on with fire. It popped and sizzled and all of the tendrils contracted into larger blobs that were clearly animated. The notSymbiotes had traits like Venom’s symbiote suit from Marvel Comics. When this blog goes viral I’ll have to edit that out so I don’t get sued.

The symbiotes shot out tendrils to nearby trees and slingshotted at the party. I thought for sure they’d do MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF DAMAGE but single digit attack rolls ain’t it. They learned that non-magical weapons that dealt damage to the creatures would disintegrate and even magic weapons would show visible signs of damage. The same held true of armor/magic armor, with damaged armor reducing the wearer’s AC by 1.

The fight was over in short order and the party poked around, discovering a mine shaft in the back of the holler. Luther’s mage hench also collected a sample of the ooze, which they had used Loremastery to discover was some kind of crossbreed experimental thing gone wrong.

They formed up and entered the mine shaft, expecting a dungeon but it didn’t lead very far in before getting to a dead end and partial collapse. There was a lone survivor of whatever happened crouched in behind the caved in spot. He was a thin, malnourished human male tucked in behind a spear and freaking out. The party tried various methods of calming him, but because he registered on Luther’s Detect Evil, he eventually got knocked out when the Paladin ran out of patience with the soft touch techniques.

Cracaryn’s passive elf senses picked up on some cubbies with gems hidden in them, which prompted a full search of the area and revealed the inventoried treasure from the map much to the party’s delight.

They weren’t getting much out of him even when he wasn’t losing his mind, so they gagged him and carried him back to Bellport. Luther wanted to take him to Issac because Paladin but the party opted to try the biggest temple in Bellport first, mostly because any time they mentioned Tharizdun the dude lost it all over again. Fortunately the Bishop Dante Relos was in, meeting with them at the huge gothic cathedral to Heironeous that overlooked the second highest tier of the city’s several levels.

After some discussion, the Bishop indicated that he may be able to help the poor chap for an appropriate donation to the temple’s coffers which the party obliged, putting many gems into the ornate collection dish set aside for just this purpose. Bishop Relos proceeded to drag all sorts of paraphernalia from a compartment under the primary altar and began his ceremony, splashing holy water and waving incense and casting a spell.

As more time elapsed and nothing seemed to happen, the Bishop seemed to grow more frustrated and aggressive with his actions. The afflicted bandit started frothing at the mouth and his feet raised off of the ground, his thrashing form trapped before the altar of Heironeous. Bishop Relos came around the altar and again grew more frustrated, gesturing forcefully and violently with his aspergillum before finally planting it with extreme force into the forehead of the floating, seemingly possessed man.

His skull was crushed, the Bishop Relos being an accomplished member of an extremely martial religion, and his body collapsed anticlimactically to the floor. Relos withdrew the dented and deformed implement and handed it to a waiting acolyte. While the Bishop wiped his hands clean on a white cloth, he spoke to the party in a relatively nonchalant tone, “I am sorry, my children, but he could not be saved.” He dismissed them to the care of another waiting acolyte and retired further into the cathedral.

While being shown the exit, the party was advised by Titus the acolyte to share any more information that they learned regarding Tharizdun or the black ooze with the temple. The party was pretty perturbed about getting no results from their previous interaction and left on rather tense terms after a back and forth about charging for their services and a gentle admonishment about greed that they took as hypocritical.

They contacted Issac’s store in Bellport where they traded a bunch of gems at a loss and some cash for some magic items. Seemed everyone was happy with the trading that happened so who am I to judge? They departed back through Millon and with session time to spare decided to poke around. Gwendolyn wrote a song in the style of the Hero of Canton (the man they call Jayne) about Billock the folk hero. IYKYK.

An attempt was also made to speak with the mayor after finding out he had three wives and a bunch of daughters but they were stuck talking to the butler. When they offered their services as adventurers, the butler said actually, one of the Mayor’s many daughters had been abducted some months back and he was offering a reward for her return. The party was convinced that the Mayor was up to no good, asking all kinds of prying questions about the health and welfare of the women of the household, none of which were present. They didn’t get much to work with from the butler who stayed mostly professional and started to grow uncomfortable with the prying.

The group decided they didn’t really have time to fool around with this town any longer and left for Talston where they arrived without any hassle and ended the session.

Musings:

The session was driven by a treasure map that has been in the game for nearly a year. The original circumstances of the map and treasure had to have changed in all that time right? So I started working through what that might mean. The bandits got into some things they clearly didn’t understand and the Dark Hymn took its toll on their lone survivor. Plus I like Venom.

I gave a chance for an Atonement to work from Bishop Relos, with a save being required by the bandit to repent and allow the exorcism or whatever to happen. My man rolled a 1, so it went another way. The party ran up against things that I’d written into the game a long time ago in Millon as well that I’d frankly forgotten. We’ll see if they care enough about it to take the Mayor up on his offer in another session and how those circumstances may have changed in all this time.

Session 32: Encyclopedia Draconis

Time: 3/25/23 - 4/4/23, rest 4/5/23, active 4/6/23

PCs: Blair (nightblade),, Bigtoe (machinist), Braxton (explorer)

Hench: Selena, Andy, Jahanary, Isabel, Kissare, Goda, Platt

Mercs: 1 platoon light infantry, 2 platoons mixed cav #ACKS

A lot was made over the mysterious door found in the Mad King’s Grotto during downtime, with Teutch the Alchemist doing some research and discovering that it housed a rock dragon (?) of mythical prowess named Dufrense the Condescending. Ole Dufrense was said to have killed a Frutzii (notviking) warlord, his whole army, and pillaged his entire domain before retiring to slumber in some hidden lair. Evidence pointed to this location as his abode.

The party got excited, certain that they were going to catch some fat dragon hoard. They hired Augustus the sage to learn about rock dragons and were extremely disappointed to discover that the sage was not all that certain about what a rock dragon was. Red? Yep. Gold? Certainly. Rock? TF? He speculated on some likely traits of a rock dragon to which the PCs responded “Well no shit we coulda guessed that” and claims of “this is bullshit”, a phrase oft repeated during this session by one explorer eager to be murdered by something devious. We are above petty revenge, however, and leave justice to the dice.

Teutch explained to the party: "The sealed door has draconic text which states to not disturb 'Dufresne the Condescending'. This fellow is a rock dragon of at least 100 years of age who long ago killed a fruutzi lord around that mean years back. Mine research tells me he is in hibernation from a powerful blow placed from the hero at that time. I believe the dragon absconded with such viking treasure behind this door. To open the door you are to make a blood sacrifice of a sapient creature near it. This could be an orc so no great loss or evil required. The payment I ask for this information is 100% of all scrolls and/or spell books or wands/staves you find beyond the door. If such items are found and left behind due to laziness or cowardice I will know and consider this a refusal of mine payment."

He also offered a bunch of loaner magic equipment including some pretty useful consumables. The opportunity to score some scrolls or wands or something is apparently of great value to the Purple Mage.

This information prompted Bigtoe to take his recently hired mercs out and try to find some poor beastman to sacrifice at the door. With a few platoons of fresh recruits, he fortunately stumbled across a kobold raiding party which he easily dispatched, capturing half of them. They also had a chance to confirm with Father Sebastian (hench of Issac the Paladin) that the shrine to Heironeous had been completed in the first level of the dungeon, counteracting the previous sinkhole of evil that had persisted there. Sebastian and his crew were en route back to Riverstride after their successful mission.

At the Grotto, the recently departed armed force had left things cleared out as far as anyone could tell. The party visited the shrine to see how the work had ended up and allowing their clerics to ooh and ahh, then continued deeper into the dungeon to the hidden door. The PCs themselves are murderhobos and not prone to religiosity.

Issac’s specifications of the shrine: The rather small temple will have a facing with 4 ionic columns flanking a wide doorway with no door. The columns are inscribed with swords and lightning bolts. Inside the altar of white marble stands center room. On the back wall a bass relief depicts Heironeous slaying two demons. He stands on the throat of one while the other is impaled upon his sword which emits lightning bolts.

The large bronze door lined in draconic runes was still closed. The party unceremoniously executed the kobold that they had brought and slung its blood all over the door and waited. Nearly at the edge of their patience, the door began to absorb the blood and slide open to the ceiling, revealing a chamber beyond. They sent a single 0 level henchwoman back through the dungeon to grab another kobold in case they got trapped inside, entering to explore in the meantime.

I’ve been using Appendix A of the AD&D DMG for a little while to generate dungeons randomly, but at the encouragement of fellow DMs decided to try it live during the session. I am clumsy and need practice for sure, but I definitely see the value of it. It’s exciting to have everything unfold for everyone, including the DM. It can also lead to a bunch of hallways and/or empty rooms which are much less exciting.

The first chamber had a bunch of fire beetles who eagerly ate the kobold corpse that the party delivered to them and otherwise remained passive. The floor was also covered in gold and silver pieces which the PCs ignored much to my confusion. They inspected a large set of double doors embossed with a massive dragon before a teeny tiny army, giving it a cartoonish scale, but decided to take an open hallway instead that happened to loop around into the chamber beyond the doors. This was the first of many observations that dungeons don’t make sense. They aren’t built with logic in mind. They are the darkest depths of the subterranean underworld, dank and dark and filled with horrors. Like empty rooms and hallways.

They explored a bit more, poking into several empty rooms before discovering a large round chamber filled with a great bellows in the center connected to what appeared to be a smelting apparatus of some kind. Scouting of the room beforehand had them sure a great beast was beyond, but once they could clearly hear the bellows Bigtoe the Machinist easily identified the sound for what it was. Upon inspection, the molten metal in a wide basin gave off hardly any heat and was in fact some kind of dense smoke that swirled when Bigtoe ran an unlit torch through it. Utterly baffled, Blair and Braxton tracked around, discovering some sort of scat that they could not identify.

It turns out that Selena the hench that they had left behind had the Naturalism proficiency, so Braxton scooped a double handful of turds into his pouch and they returned to the door to discover that the hench had not returned! Some quick tracking showed them a blood trail which they followed to the old high priests’ chamber of the cult that previously inhabited the dungeon. They kicked the door in and engaged the ghoulish hobgoblin creatures beyond, desperate to save the hench that was crumpled in the back corner of the room.

Dice were rolled, only one person was paralyzed by the Throghrin, and the good guys won. It was a close quarters fight where Blair’s summoned berserkers tipped the scales in the party’s favor. They recovered the henchman with notoriously awful stats and miraculously rolled the highest mortal wounds rolls possible so turns out she like bumped her noggin or somethin’ and was back in the fight.

She successfully identified the pouch full of turds as Stirge droppings and then the party escorted her out to the merc camp to chill. They returned with two more kobolds which they killed and propped inside the first set of double doors “just in case”. Then they continued to the bellows room and beyond, finding a wide stairway leading down into a chamber flanked by two large bronze urns. Bigtoe inspected the urns for traps and discovered some sort of film on the lids. He used rope to tip them over where they spilled electrum pieces over the ground and the party scooped the cash up, leaving the sketchy urns behind.

Down the stairs into the next level, the party entered a large room with a single door leading out. What followed was a series of passages, hallways, and doors of no great importance and yawns from the table. There’s only so much aesthetic flavor one can add to a series of empty spaces. I’ll need to practice making these stretches more interesting, but even the random encounters weren’t hitting.

Eventually they discovered a man cave with a foosball table, poker table, and a hole in the floor that exposed a cool stream wherein several bottles of beer rested. Tracking revealed many humanoids made regular use of this room. There were a few doors leading out, one of which the party stacked up on to enter.

Braxton threw the door and stepped aside, revealing a waiting handful of dude bro bugbears with backwards caps, tribal tattoos, and besocked feet in rubber slides. They also had a few flasks of flaming oil and two handed weapons.

The two groups exchanged oil volleys then the bugbears engaged, the doorway acting as the limiting factor. Despite his amazing AC Bigtoe took some big hits due to my absurdly hot d20. It was a tough fight with a few losses on each side, but holding them at the doorway was a smart tactic and the room beyond was a deadend so the bugbears, despite gradually depleted numbers, had nowhere to retreat to and no belief of quarter.

Again Blair’s summoned berserkers turned the tide of this fight and eventually the team prevailed, discovering a den beyond with some frat boy couches and tie-dyed bean bag chairs. There were also several glass jars sitting in one corner that as I described them I could tell the players expected to be filled with something gross. However, they were just copper pieces with a dragon’s head stamped on them. While not jars of piss, copper could be considered pretty gross by mid level PC standards so maybe that was fair.

The party decided after some more amazing mortal wounds rolls not to push their luck and checked out, again no random encounters to be found on their way out. They finally collected the coins from the beetle room. Gathering their mercs and making a big deal about their expended resources, they headed for Teutch tower. Nearly back, they saw at a distance a lone stone giant ducking into a cavern carrying some meat or something. Bigtoe, eager to utilize his new troops, declared “We set an ambush!” I was confused, the other PCs were confused, but ok, let’s see what happens.

Unfortunately it was a meager Stone Giant lair, only 3, which is not that tough in terms of battle rating. Bigtoe had enough troops to set it up that way so we did. The party opted not to take any Heroic Forays considering their battered state and I rolled a fistful of d20s just to add to the tension but really I knew it was a done deal and was just hoping for a lucky hit from their 1 or 2 BR or whatever. It was not to be and the party scored big on a random lair encounter at the end of the session limping back to safety with few resources left.

Musings:

I need to streamline my Appendix A usage. It’s fun but a little slow yet. I’ll get better with practice. We had our first real BR encounter, unfortunately very lopsided. Targets of opportunity are a thing so grats to them for taking advantage. So far our treasure maps and hooks and things have led to relatively small dungeons/lairs, but the party is discovering not everything is a quick hit/score. Dungeons take some commitment to get the most out of, but you’re not likely to find anything unique or cool in a random lair. Overall fun session with a bit of a dead spot in the middle with all them hallways. We’ll see if they keep up the pursuit of Dufresne the Condescending next time!

Session 31: In Search of the Butzkrag

Time: 3/19/23- 3/31/23, Rest 4/1/23, Active 4/2/23

PC: Gwendolyn, Luther, Redcorn, Max
Hench: Cemil, Amadayo, Mahin, Eggie
Merc:  mixed cav

#ACKS

Last session the crew took on a mission for Lord Issac de Molay (Patron Paladin) in which they pushed into the wilderness and beastmen occupied territory to gather information on something called the "Butzkrag". There is some suspicion that it is tied into the Dark Hymn in some way and Issac wants more info.

This week they were back at it, pushing to locate the site of the Butzkrag, whatever that is, and scouting the territory leading up to the supposed location. Redcorn was back in the mix, significantly increasing their overland power level with his weaponized animals and some newly acquired mercenaries.

The early part of the session was pretty standard, they retraced their steps from the previous weeks, moving eventually into new territory along the Yellow River. The Butzkrag was allegedly somewhere near the source of this tributary of the Teesar, but they hadn't found it yet.

Using speak with animals and a griffin, Redcorn took the skies and located a series of low hills with a poorly screened entryway. He led the party to the location where they tore down the brush hiding the cavemouth and narrowly avoided falling in a pit trap with some wicked poison on stakes. 

They sent their mercs up on the high ground to be ready to charge down if anything came out and the principals of the party entered the cave. After 100ish feet, they heard a steady chopping sound. They also heard their mounted mercs above their head. They cautiously approached and were met with a rush of dust and debris as the cavern mouth was collapsed in front of them. They decided against trying to dig their way further in considering their lack of tools and unwillingness to waste the time.

Another day, another aerial scouting mission, and Redcorn reported a gathering crowd of stone statues around the entrance to an very old temple ruin. They discussed various schemes to approach and investigate the large bronze doors on the ancient building but determined that the risk/reward of tangling with what they assumed was a Medusa lair wasn't favorable.

 

They left and kept after it, tracking down some giant spiders in another old ruined town of some sort and killing them. They scraped out a little loot including a magic shield that drank blood from a little mouth on the bottom after Gwendolyn joked it should nom nom nom blood. She was spot on with her guess and it was totally pre-planned and absolutely not the DM leaning into memed up flavor during the session.

So far the crew had had some small success but were not finding beastmen to capture or the site of the Butzkrag. They moved into the next hex on which should include the location of interest if their previous recon and Issac's interrogation of the gnoll captive from last session were any indication. Using trained hunting animals to track led them eventually to a spot near a large hill where they could hear the murmur of a large crowd of sorts.

They sent their assassin hench to check it out who returned at a sprint telling everyone to run with very little else to say. He jumped on his horse and fled back the way they came because he had been discovered by the enemy sentries. The party followed and after confirming that they weren't pursued got some additional information. There were countless beastmen camped around this hill, thousands probably.

They moved off and camped in a spot with good visibility. The terrain was pretty open grasslands with some rolling hills. There weren't great spots to conceal their location so they opted to have a better chance of seeing the enemy coming. Fortunately, the sentries didn't seem overly concerned with pursuit so they were able to camp and discuss strategies.

They knew Issac wanted a captive from close to the area and this had to be a significant gathering. That many tribes in one spot was unusual for sure. The next day, Redcorn went aerial at a distance, couldn't really see much other than big gathering, some permanent structures up top, and a well travelled path to the northwest. He returned and the crew decided to lay an ambush along that path to catch someone coming or going.

They split wide and laid in wait while I sketched out the chances for something of significance to happen. I love the 2d6 scale for random things. It's easy for me to think what is more or less likely to happen and fire away. I rolled for a random encounter and hit on the first hour. I rolled in the party's favor, a lightly guarded treasure caravan leading away from the area. I rolled which types of beastmen were escorting it which was less to the party's favor, bugbears and lizardmen, some of the tougher beasties in ACKs. Rolled for surprise and the fight was on.

Fight took a while. We weren't really at BR level yet so I scaled up the enemy and went to town. It was a slog, with heavy casualties on both sides. Eventually the bugbear commander succumbed to a Command spell to "surrender" and the party rolled up the fight. They were smart in staying far enough away from the primary camp that the fight was not likely to be overheard. Dice were in their favor there and they made full use of the good fortune.

With their dead and wounded stacked on wagons and captive bugbears slung across saddles, they extracted as fast as they were able and were fortunate in their return trip with random encounters. They force marched on their last day to make Northbridge where Redcorn cast Restore Life and Limb on the party's mascot Cemil. Unfortunately, his Tampering with Mortality roll was insufficient and Cemil was no more. RIP to the Rowing Team. IYKYK.

They rested then departed towards Issac's keep at Riverstride, where they turned in their captives and debriefed with their employer. He was pleased with the results and eager to interrogate the captives. He paid them their due in hard cash this time and the rest of the session was them Restoring their dead henchmen and traveling to larger markets to offload goods.

Musings:

I was unprepared for the mass level combat. I rushed through scaling it up and I'm not super happy with the results. Ultimately it was a challenging encounter for the party with more than adequate reward, but going forward I think I'm going to stick to the D@W: Campaigns abstracted BR for army sized battle and focus on forays for the party. We'll see how it goes as they progress and hire more troops and such to put it on an even footing mechanically.

Mass combat and battle ratings and such are all very new to our table's players so before we run into it again I want to make sure there's a basic understanding of the rules we're going to use. ACKS is great in that you can get as detailed as you want with it. For our table, I think the Campaigns level abstraction is enough to keep the flavor without boring the players that have less interest in battlefield stuff. If you're into a more wargame feel, check out Domains at War: Battles for a more robust experience.

This session revealed some of the events that have been unfolding for quite some time now in enemy territory. There may be some additional collaboration with Issac and this team. We'll see in the coming sessions if there's any crack back from the Butzkrag gathering after the PC's lightning raid.

Xp from Kills:	3000
Xp from Loot:	22023
Total XP:	25023
Cuts:	11
PC:	0%	4,550	5%	4,777	10%	5,005
Hench:	0%	2,275	5%	2,389	10%	2,502

Session 30: Full Frontal (Assault)

Time: 3/5/23-3/14/23, Rest 3/15/23, Active 3/16/23

PCs: Gwendolyn (bard), Max (barbarian), Luther (paladin)

Hench: Cemil, Amadayo, Mahin, Mushu, Eggie, Kit

Mercs: 6 Horse Archers

#ACKS

A very rare session missing Redcorn/Bigtoe’s player had the crew a little rudderless during the week about what the session was actually going to entail. Late in the week, Lord Issac de Molay (Patron Paladin) dropped a hook requesting recon into suspected enemy territory with a bonus for a captive to interrogate:

Planning an operation near the headwaters of the Yellow river. There is an old road running North from North Bridge Fort along the river. I need to know what lies along this road. Will pay 1,000 GP for each hex scouted from North Bridge along the road/river as far as Hex 17.10.

Will pay an additional 2,000 GP for one Healthy Beast man captured in Hex 15.11 through 17.10 and brought to Riverstride. Interested in an area called "Butzkrag" by the beasts. I will pay 3,000 GP for exact location of this evil hole. This mission is meant to be a quiet, small party recon not an attack. See Sir Eversly in North Bridge Fort for further details.

The party liked the sound of this as they have done well with Issac’s recon missions in the past. The session fired off from Northbridge after some downtime bookkeeping where the party sought audience with Sir Eversly. They were appalled to learn that they had to wait in a petitioners’ line like some kind of common adventuring party, but after a while they got in front of Issac’s vassal. They learned some details about the area and that Issac was offering to hire out an explorer henchman for wilderness guidance.

The group decided to hire Kit the Explorer and hit the road to the north, which was an old causeway fallen into disrepair after years of neglect from the beastmen occupiers. They determined it was still serviceable but heavy weather or random events may cause trouble to heavy wagon trains.

They explored a few hexes north along this broken road and found a few animal lairs which they determined were not likely a threat to Issac’s army. Kit coincidentally had the mapping proficiency so I ruled that he was going to attempt to map this scouting expedition on his own initiative.

On the second day of scouting they located a freshly raised palisade and watchtower manned by gnolls. They crept close on foot, using tall grass for cover, and watched for a bit. Then they tried to approach and talk to them but were warned to keep their distance with warning shots from the gnolls’ longbows. They bantered back and forth a bit, learning that the gnolls had prisoners and that they really did not like music, which infuriated Gwendolyn who had to be held back. 

They tossed around a few ideas about attacking the gnolls, even asking Kit’s opinion. Kit the explorer advised guerrilla warfare to ensure victory. Wait for them to patrol or go hunting, pick them off in small groups. PCs weren’t fond of that due to time involved.

They didn’t really settle on anything so they opted to search the rest of the hex for more lairs just to make sure nothing was gonna hit them in the rear. They found a den of rust monsters that Kit noped right out of. They couldn’t find anything else so they returned to the gnolls.

I ruled that the gnolls set an ambush, waiting on the party to return to attack. But they got lazy and went back to their fort when the PCs were gone for so long searching for other lairs. The PCs still didn’t have a plan, but gathered some firemaking supplies with a half-formed idea of trying to set the place ablaze. As they approached they heard some screaming of almost certainly some innocent captive being murdered. ACKS Gnolls explicitly say in their monster entry they prefer intelligent food that screams. Boy them beastmen are somethin’ else, I tell ya what.

This had Luther the paladin in a lather about not standing for it, which pushed the action forward into a front assault on the gate/entry area of the fort. The martials charged forward, with big swole Max charging the entry door under a hail of arrows and bashing it down. The meat of the party followed in, with the ranged guys exchanging fire with the gnolls crouching along the palisade.

A hard-fought battle reached a climactic scene with the gnoll chieftain surrendering from on top of his watchtower after Max began lighting the base of it on fire. Some gnolls were taken prisoner and promptly executed by the vengeful Luther, leaving just the chieftain bound and ready to deliver to Issac. Half their mercs and one of the henchmen was also killed.

The party found and freed Tab Delaney, a petty nobleman from the interior of the Barony who offered to reward them with a magic item if they were to safely escort him home. I played in an AD&D session where the DM used freed prisoners as treasure maps and I liked it so I stole it. I also made them roll the treasure so I couldn’t be blamed if they got something lame like a checks notes Potion of Polymorph.

Laden with a modest gnoll lair’s worth of loot, a captive gnoll chieftain, and a prisoner that they kinda (?) wanted to take home, the party chose to pack up and head for home. They were excited to keep scouting but had to address the more immediate concerns.

They got to Northbridge, offloaded some goods, then carried on towards Riverstride, Lord Issac’s stronghold to the east. They stopped at a roadside merchant compound led by Hakim and offloaded some more goods, then arrived in Riverstride. They turned over the gnoll captive and told him of the map that Kit was in possession of in Northbridge. These things pleased Issac and he offered them rewards, a little less since their captive was not from the indicated hexes closer to Issac’s primary point of concern, but a little more since there was a map that Issac did not plan for.

The party chose to take this reward in “store credit” with Issac’s venturers who sell his magic items in some of the bigger markets of the region, earning them a 20% markup of value but only usable with Issac’s stores Talston Arms and Townhouse Arms of Bellport.

The dice were mighty kind for most of their journey, only running into one sticky situation with some Frost Giants who were immediately hostile. Only Max’s adjustment to surprise saved them, allowing them to evade before the Giants became aware of them. They took Delaney to the house, had a celebratory feast with his family, and parked in the capital of Bellport.

Musings:

Just when I think I might actually have to create a session or something, Patrons come through again. I am the laziest DM ever and it’s funny how much it doesn’t matter. Just trust the dice, run with things that are fun or impulsive in the moment, build on them as it goes.

Joking aside, it really is a strategy to not waste your energy creating every detail of every part of your world. If the players don’t interact with it, it just doesn’t matter. Use that energy efficiently. Build on where the excitement is. Give the players the reins and let them drive the game. 

Delve 1
Xp from Kills:	850
Xp from Loot:	3098
Total XP:	3948
Cuts:	11
PC:	0%	718	5%	754	10%	790
Hench:	0%	359	5%	377	10%	395