Game Time Covered: 22nd - 28th August
The white mist fades from the eyes of The Friends as they step through the Tayan Theras portal. On the other side they are greeted by a fortified camp. Barriers face the gate, guards in chainmail level crossbows toward them, and presiding over it all: a knight of the black rose. She holds a hand up toward them.
“Stop.” after a moment she recognizes them “You are The Friends of Orthos! Guards, arrest these men.”
Talari holds a spell in his hands and there’s a stand off between the gate guards and the friends. Some of the earliest Friends recognize this knight as Lady Alindra, the right hand knight of Baron Amecouth in Fort Duvno. After some bickering about “sullying the name of the sorcerer baron” the tension breaks and a fight ensues. An unlucky crit knocks Talari unconscious in one hit. Lady Alindra strikes him once more (two failed death saves!) and poises her sword over this throat-
“Lay down your weapons or the wizard dies!”
We “paused” initiative here (I am starting to really dislike turn based initiative) while the fight entered a standstill. This served two functions: it represented in fiction a stop to the fighting and it gave the players a chance to respond before their wizard was cut down. This comes dangerously close to plot armor, but Lady Alindra genuinely did want to pause, and throwing the players a bone after one-shotting one of them seemed nice. Something cool to do would have to put a 30 second timer, how it ended up playing out was a bit of strategizing and looking at different abilities and forming a plan of action. Overall a cool scene moment, but not a very OSR one.
Balthazar raises a hand to attempt a spell, but before he can, Vespertine retrieves from her robe the Orb of Zentokar, a mysterious and forboding relic she acquired during her travels from The Winnowhead Monastery to Orthos. Shadows lunge from the orb and scream as they wrap around Lady Alindra like inky tendrils. They crush and contort her, dragging her into the orb.
When Vesper joined the game, I had her blindly pick from a random hand of magic item cards (I have a big stack) and she drew the Orb of Zentokar - a crazy powerful object I put in there as a wild card.
The knights maintain morale, but they fall quickly without their leader. Two try to run but don’t get far when Icoriols spell heats their armor red hot.
While Icoriol gathers the horses (they got spooked after Siriels gun backfired in the fight) Vesper questions the prisoners. They learn the Baron Voghtairi has a few hundred men amassing as an army (hardly a surprise) and has used the gate several times. They ask the prisoner if there are any other gates. If there are, he doesn’t know. Siriel executes him while The Friends are bickering about his fate.
This was Vespers players first experience with a prisoner. She immediately leapt to torture, before even asking any questions. This is like a formative experience for player characters it’s happened alot.
Before reinforcements can arrive, The Friends choose to move down the pass and camp a ways into the pine forest surrounding them. In the morning, they head west.
They spend a few days travelling. The avoid a cave full of two-headed dogs, find a river flowing south and follow it. They are searching for a town called Ord Cabare, but all they know is it lies somewhere to the west of Orthos. Along the river they find a frustrated bugbear. They feed him and ask him for directions to the nearest town (using pictures - he does not speak their tongue). He points them south.
Enzo, Balthazars retainer, informs them if they head too far south they will come to Hemesh, his rainforested homeland. The Friends are wearing, but wish to find a crossing for this river. The follow it south until they spot a small collection of houses. The approach one morning.
I roll a reaction - 9! I don’t entirely recall what that is, but I know its something relatively positive. I’m not really rolling to see the fine detail reaction, more like the towns general attitude to newcomers.
The villagers are astonished and intrigued at the strange travellers. The Friends ask about Ord Cabare but (I decide there’s a 2-in-6 chance they’ll know about it. A 4) they don’t. They have heard rumors of temples far to the northwest that they believe hoard knowledge. The best way is south through Fort Fenod. The Friends Depart.
Over a bridge and into some swampland, they find the remnants of an old stone wall and the settlement of Fort Fenod. Their pompous lord comes and asks for tithes, which The Friends supply, and then ask about the surrounding lands. They learn of a castle to the west which was taken over some years ago, now known as the Castle of Chaos. The castle sits near the only bridge crossing the a major river on the way to the temples. Before they leave, The Friends acquire Klaas, an old man who was there when the Castle of Chaos was taken over. He wants to see the temples one last time, so The Friends take this grumpy old timer along with them.
The move west and, using Talari’s familiar as a scout, find the castle of chaos with no difficulty. The courtyard and ground outside swarm with men with paper-white skin - Hemeshan footmen, like Enzo. With them are four giant serpents. The Friends don’t really feel like battling 40 guys (I use some rather nasty warband rules, they don’t want to take on crowds of guys) so after some discussion they plan to make a break through the clearing and across the bridge.
Morale is rolled.
The horses break into the clearing and across the bridge. The footmen suit up behind them and a chase begins.
I used the B/X evasion rules, which gives the characters a very good chance at running away. I don’t actually know what happens if they get caught - they get surrounded? I’m pretty sure B/X makes a distinction between evasion and pursuit. Luckily The Friends get away, they rolled a 43 on their 50% chance to get away.
Giant snakes swarm after The Friends through the jungle land across the bridge. The rainforest thins and turns to grassland, and after some frantic minutes The Friends lose the footmen.
They come across another river and follow it North, looking for crossings. They see distant lakes and bicker alot about Icoriols map.
This was really rad, just by describing the local terrain we got that old-world “I have no idea where I am” feeling. A player later commented that it they were trying to make sense of the local landscape and felt totally lost. I didn’t even have to bust out the rules for getting lost.
They orient themselves and continue heading north. Talari’s owl finds a golden statue standing in the middle of a field but it’s across a river they can’t find a crossing for, so they continue to head north. To their east is a river and mountains, to the west is another river. Up the column they move and (after a short encounter with 48 giant beetles that Vesper (as a gnome) is luckily able to convince they pose not threat to) find a tiny hamlet, a collection of 4 hovels in the mud. Outside, an old woman sits crying.
We ended the session there because of time. Bit of a slow end compared to other sessions. Overall this session was a neat foray into old school generative play. I really enjoyed it, but lots of literal yawns from my players. I don’t necessarily think thats a bad thing (or even the games fault, we do tend to stay up late) but it definitely wasn’t as action packed as other sessions. I was pretty exhausted by the end of the session in a way I am when I don’t have full control over the game. I’m trying to get better at generating stuff on the fly, no way to get better but practice. Hopefully my players don’t get too bored :P I think there was a lot of value in this session. I don’t think it’s quite clicked yet that this is the adventure. Finding Ord Cabare isn’t an obstacle in the way of D&D, it is D&D. Or maybe I’m seeing value where there is none and you just don’t get the same rush as you do from more prepped games. Future sessions will tell.
Wanted to give a little interlude about what I do between sessions. There are around 10 primary faction in Orthos. I have a list of goals and resources and between sessions I roll to see which of them progress. It took ages for this to click for me but now it’s working great.
Additionally, Balthazar recently learned of the importance of some magic orbs from his past. The other secret gloopies at the end tell the fate of the latest orb to be stolen by Baron Voghtairi. Enough are missing that there is now a 1% chance in between sessions that the barrier breaks. This weeks roll…
Nestled deep in the mountains of Nildazi, behind an impenetrable barrier of divine light, there sits a motionless dragon clad in chrome. It is nameless, though it was called Sanarm by the people of Orthos over 200 years ago. In a history now destroyed in the sunless age, it was trapped here by Balthazar. Now it waits like a statue, motionless, unfeeling. But its eyes are open. It watches cracks in the barrier grow, creeping their way ever so slowly across the sheet of light.
With the abduction of another of the orbs of power locking the dragon away, the barrier weakens. It’s in freefall now. The dragons escape, inevitable. Soon, it will break, and the reign of chaos will begin anew.