Arden Vul - Session 2

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!

Arden Vul - Session 1

Welcome to the first session report! I'm going to try to keep these pretty basic and hopefully will not spoil my players too much, if they want to read them too. 

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, played by my dad for this session)

(Archonteans and Wiskins and both human cultures in the world of Arden Vul)

Summary

The date: 2993 AEP, also known as the 8th year of Constans XXV. 1st day of Fourth-month.

Among other rumors, the party had heard the Pyramid of Thoth and a particular basement of a building in the ruined city above were good starting points for fresh-faced newcomers.

The party arrived at the base of the cliffs underneath the great city of Arden Vul. The imperial road took them to the base of the cliffs, with the ruins of Arden Vul 1500 feet above them. They could make out a series of switchbacks that climbed up the cliff, in-between two huge statues of Arden and Vul, the legendary adventurers. A massive waterfall made communication difficult and made the surrounding area slick.

The party searched around the base of the cliff to find secret entrances but didn't find any.

They declined to search the tower at the base and started up the switchback. At the first switchback, Lucius and Basil lost their footing and slipped at a broken flagstone. Freydis and Skeggi luckily were able to grab them both in time.

The party decided that using rope to tie themselves together was the better option, so they did so and Lucius took the lead and pounded iron spikes into the walls, slowing down their pace but helping keep everyone safe.

Around the third switchback, a piece of masonry from the city above fell and knocked the party off balance. Luckily, the rope and iron spikes kept the party from falling.

Between the 3rd and 4th switchback, Skeggi's keen Elven senses led him to notice a secret door on the path. The door opened easily and the party headed inside.

Entering the Dungeon

The door opened up to a cave system. The first room was covered in detritus and refuse from common use, and the floor was covered in obvious footprints, although they were smaller than human sized.

From there, they ventured into the cave system and got into marching order. They came across two decomposing bodies, both a few months old. Both were humanoids, a few feet shorter than human, with dog-like faces and fur and imperial armor that looked to be a few hundred years out of fashion. They found no loot and carried on.

After searching through more passages, they found a bust of a human face (typical of an ancient Philosopher figure) with empty eye sockets built into a small alcove. Skeggi found no traps but did find mechanisms that suggested something was meant to be placed in the eyes.

After leaving the room, the party heard a strange cacophony approaching them. Suddenly, a group of 8 albino monkeys appeared in a turn beyond them and pelted them with shit and fruit and began sprinting away. The party stopped mapping the rooms and began persuing them, curious where they came from.

They passed by a large Archontean chamber with a big door, a large boulder, and chased the monkeys up a long slope and another turn. The monkeys bounded through a small cave with several large rock-like lizards. They dropped meat and sprinted through, leaving the party unable to keep chasing them.

The party headed back the way they came, but at the edge of their torch light were 3 large segmented worms with multiple horrific mouths, heading towards them. Possibly attracted by the noise of the chase?

The party backed themselves into a small crevice, just beyond the doorway to the rock lizards. Lucius kept himself in front (and exposed to the rock lizards to the side.)

Two of the worms rushed forward as Lucius cleaved one through the armored head with his mighty thews and greatsword. Other parties members threw darts to no avail.

The other worm attempted to bite the Lyan and paralyze him. Although he was struck five times, the might of his god kept him safe.

The third worm crawled over the walls and targeted Skeggi. The party was able to slay it before it did any harm. The remaining worm attacked Lucius again, who kept standing after many bites and was now immune to the worm's venom.

The remaining worm was attacked by one of the rock lizards and finished off by Lucius.

The party ran off with one corpse and extracted a use of paralytic venom from its glands. The rock lizards took the second corpse for themselves and were sufficiently distracted.

The party headed back the way they came and encountered three lost goblins who were trapped by the Beastmen (and had plenty of bad things to say about them). The goblins asked for assistance getting back the Arena where they had came from originally in exchange for leading the way. The party accepted.

Basil asked the goblins about a particular mushroom they had heard about (and did not share that they heard the Beastmen were looking for it) and the goblin leader pointed them to a large boulder they had passed during their Monkey chase. Basil was able to use Spider Climb to check the top of the boulder and found a small campsite and a few large mushrooms, not what he was looking for but took one to examine later. 

My take

The entry into Halls itself was a surprise, I forgot that door was there and I didn't prep those rooms beforehand. The game said anyone had a 1-in-8 chance to notice the door. Wasn't sure if that was while active searching or passing by. I started rolling dice for each party member and got a 1 immediately, so I just decided that roll was for the Elf and off we went.

I'm honestly not sure how fast the monkeys were supposed to be, given they didn't have any stats. I was running this whole section blind so I didn't even know where they came from. I was relieved when they escaped, although the chase was fun though so I was happy with it.

I thought the fight was a blast. I heard from one player that they were a little confused why things were happening the way they were, but I was okay with that. this was my second Adnd comabt using Huso's amended rules and I like it quite a bit. I intentionally made the combat a bit opaque since I wasn't used to the rules yet and needed to make some decisions on the fly.

What was tough was not being able to find the monster stats immediately. Arden Vul used a slightly different name for the beast in the monster manual during the combat, which I didn't have printed and just had on my phone. Arden Vul usually included a tiny stat block which was helpful but didn't mention that they could crawl on walls. Also do monsters in ADND not have morale? I need to re-read the monster manual. I arbitrarily decided on a Morale for them when things got dangerous (and just used morale from B/X on a 2d6 since that is what I am used to) and it worked fine in the moment)

By the time we hit combat, I had like 4 binders and many pieces of paper I was referencing (as well as the monster manual on my phone) and that was beyond the upper limit of how much my brain can handle. I'm not sure how to fix this for the future. A big one will be getting the next couple levels of the dungeon printed, or just finally giving up and buying the books.

Again, since I get migraines I prefer to use as much physical media as possible when running games, but I'm not particularly skilled at doing so yet. My notes were a mess after the session.

I think I ran everything fine, I ended up doing a lot of reading room descriptions out-loud instead of absorbing it and re-telling it in my words. There was a lot of information I was juggling and I'm looking forward to it become easier and more rules becoming second-nature.

Lucius is a ridiculous character, his massive strength (18/75 I think) plus a great sword meant he was wiping out 3 HD enemies with a single hit. A ton of fun, but the party is in a lot of trouble if he eats it. He definitely took the spotlight in combat, and I imagine that will be the case for now since he is a lot beefier than his companions.

I think everyone got a moment in the spotlight eventually. I'm sure Basil and Skeggi will get more as time goes on and as their class abilities improve.

It was fun having my dad there for an adventure! He got along well with everyone and was happy to be included.

The players decided to map and I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. This initial section doesn't line up on a grid and it was difficult to communicate. I'm going to shift to describing just the current room and not what it connects to, even if they can see it (the chambers in the cave were quite small so the torchlight usually lit up where they were and the rooms connected to it).

Most importantly, myself and everyone seemed to have fun and are excited to play more! We'll be playing weekly so expect to see a lot more of these!

My Arden Vul Campaign - Resources

I am running a campaign set in the Halls of Arden Vul using ADND 1e mostly by the book (using Anthony Huso's interpretations for most things)

You will see session summaries eventually!

I wanted to put together all the different resources I am using for the game. So here you go!

Resources

Original Books

    PHB, DMG, Unearthed Arcana, the various Monster Manuals, this full price list someone made

I originally told my players to read OSRIC instead of the original books but there are too many changes. 

For Unearthed Arcana, I'm pulling out bits that seem fun and discarding the rest. I haven't brought in the changes to level caps or extra races. I am using all the spells because why not. I'm not using the Cavalier class, mostly just because Huso doesn't use it and I am using his automated character sheets.

The game is still somewhat in flux still. It'll keep developing as we play. 

Someone also made a full price list in google sheets, but I forgot to write down the blog post. Thanks random blogger!

Huso's resources

    Blog (and this unofficial compilation pdf), playables, paladin supplement

His blog is really the only reason I got interested in running 1e. I didn't make any changes to the character sheet, we're just using what's there. I might need to make some alternations eventually but it's fine for now. I think it's meant to be printed out which is hilarious to me.

We're also using his new Plurisy of Paladins supplement, based on some classes from Dragon. Its really absurd and extra and I like it a lot. One player is playing a Lyan (LN paladin, the judge) as an arm of the empire and it's going to be a lot of fun.

Halls of Arden Vul

    The pdfs, the maps, the facebook group.

We're using the default setting with a few minor changes, with more to come as time goes on likely. I could just seek out the creator on facebook for every question, but I'd rather just make it my game. 

There's a lot of random maps and images people have made for use from the facebook group that I have grabbed, plus it fun to see random bits of info from the creator.

Personally, I am slowly printed out the books and putting them in binders. I get migraines when looking at screens for too long so I rely on analog for running games (even though I do run games online).

Dragonsfoot

    Gygax's opinions, Footprints zines

I've also been reading a lot of Gygax's opinions, which you can find plenty of on Dragonsfoot. Boy, what a piece of shit. He truly hates women. I do love using systems that he didn't use, like psionics and attack adjustment per AC. It's really enlightening to read more of his words because it becomes more and more clear that any published rpg is: 1. One brief instance of rules that are ever-changing and. 2. Made up of a lot of people's opinions, it's never just one auteur.

I read through a bunch of the Footprints zine. It was fun and I'm going to pull a few things from it. Really, I was on the look for an expanded equipment list since ADND seems focused on magic items and weapons and less on miscellaneous items. I might end up pulling in BFRPG's big equipment supplement.

That's all I am using for now. Next up should be the report from our first session, which was a ton of fun and went entirely in a way I didn't expect. Take care!