The party
Skeggi Arnbjorgsson, the Elf Thief
Basil Cydones, Archontean Magic-User, member of the Order of Thoth
Lucius Virillius the Archontean Lyan, Hand of the Emperor
Freydis, the Wiskin Cleric of Thor (hireling)
Summary
The date: 2993 AEP, also known as the 8th year of Constans XXV. 1st day of Fourth-month.
We return to our party hunched together at the top of a boulder with a hidden campsite at its peak. They decided to follow Bellringer, the leader of the 3 goblins they encountered last session, to the Arena, deeper inside the dungeon.
Bellringer led them east, to the room where they encountered the rock lizards earlier. The lizards seemed to be sleeping or absent, and the party looted a few treasures from the room (2 silver ingots, a lizard head broken off of a sculpture, an ethereal-looking potion, and a single magical boot of Elven make).
They followed the cave north and after a small turn, discovered an exit that led into a underground mushroom forest. They climbed down the 20 foot wall that their exit led to (and Skeggi used his thief skills to secure the rope and climb down himself).
Bellringer confidently led the party through the mushroom forest to the edge of a large lake (by falling in). They were able to retrieve him and he led the party to a small trail with a dock at the end of it, with a few boats.
The party and the goblins got in one boat and rowed to a center island, protected by two giant crabs. Daunted, they left and found the cave entrance Bellringer and crew traveled from initially, which was 10 feet above the lake. Luckily, Skeggi's thief skills again came in handy as he climbed and attached a rope to a giant crystal coming out of the cave.
The party and goblins each made their way into the cramped cave, which was full of large, soft crystal pillars that criss-crossed the cavern. They heard an omious warning from deeper inside and the goblins recommended they rush through and run away from the guardians of the cave. They did so and the crystal beings inside did not chase them.
The party traveled through a few damp caves. Basil braved going through a small exit from one that was lit with a mysterious blue light and found himself an enchanted staff that shone with blue light in a large radius.
Bellringer led them to another guarded cave, where a ground of mushroom people gathered in quiet contemplation. The party and goblins excused themselves and walked around the perimeter of the room. The mushroom folk acknowledged their presence but did not intervene.
Bellringer, excited to be past the danger, led them through a few empty old Archontean chambers to a stairwell that would take them down to the arena.
On the way down, the party passed a group of Trolls dragging a captured monster behind them.
Down more stairs, over a rickety bridge above a chasm, and into a huge hallway, made of black, polished stone, built with proportions unusual for Archonteans, the party and their guides arrived outside of the Arena. They were greeted by another Troll, this one running a ramshackle bar at a busy crossroads. The bartender informed them of an impeding spectacle and answered many of their questions about the area.
Bellringer offered to give a tour of the Arena to the party and the other two goblins rushed off.
My take
Yay second session! We ended an hour early for a few different reasons (I ran out of prep for one).
This one was kind of a bitch to prep for. The goblins come from an explicit room (where all their history and offer to help the party came from). There was a bit of info about where the goblins ended up but I decided to reconstruct their journey and figure out exactly which rooms they went to and how they could have possibly ended up where they did.
The difficulty came from their being many many paths that they could have taken. I ended up decided on one that seemed the least dangerous for a party of 20 goblins and assumed they did some scouting/had some general knowledge of the area and were able to get around the aggressive elements of this section of the dungeon.
The party also rolled no encounter rolls which certainly helped things.
This had the effect of making this journey go far quicker than I was prepared for. Maybe I should have had Bellringer know less information? Regardless, it was a fun session, and the party is in way deeper than I thought they would be at this point. They have a lot of avenues to explore from here, they've already been informed that a few of the more 'civilized' areas are close to the Arena, but they may go back up to the floor they were on and explore.
One of the complexities of Arden Vul is what culture created each room is important for making sense of the place, but that information is not usually detailed in the room descriptions (or sometimes it is and I just miss it). I described the Arena hallway as 'Archontean' which is not necessarily true. The session report above is a little more accurate.
I am realizing as I prep for the next session that Arden Vul will not hold all the answers for me, as much as I want it too. Just like any pre-existing adventure, I'll need to build off what is there to flesh out my own game, and just accept that there may be something written that contradicts something that I make up.
I'm also thinking about implementing an xp bonus (100 * character level) for good class-y adventuring. When a thief does good thieving, when a magic-user casts a well-timed spell, etc. I'm not sure about the frequency of when to give it out quite yet, but I am thinking about giving the first one to Skeggi for this session for climbing walls real good.
The idea for the xp bonus comes from some bullshit that Gygax said he did for ADND, and I like the idea. I don't want the game to take years and years and increasing the xp gain a bit will help with that, and it's fun to encourage people to play their class.
An important question: Does Lucius' incredible combat skills from the last session count as a paladin-related activity? I'm not sure it does. I think the Lyan will get one when he starts getting judgey or makes rash decisions based on smiting chaos.
That's it for this session, take care!