Company of the White Oak - sessions 18 & 19

Readying 25, 621 CY
City of Greyhawk

The Company of the White Oak spent most of their time between the City of Greyhawk, the Castle of Greyhawk, and sometimes the Village of Hawfair Green in between, but today they were in a tavern in the Town of Barge End, the semi-autonomous suburb on the west side of the city, lower than the plateau on which the city sat, lying between the city and the Selintan River. Haruspex Niv, Brother Langdon, Percy, Vask, and Reed Underbough had delayed their latest expedition to the castle and gathered here in this tavern’s back room for a special conference to discuss the horrible attacks on their partners, culminating in a second vicious assault that nearly claimed the life of Grandma Erin. 

It was Brother Langdon who had bribed a merchant into giving them their first good lead, that the description Erin had given them of her glassy-eyed assailants reminded the merchant of the bear-wards working at The Bear-Baiters Pit here in Barge End. Reed had asked the New Thieves Guild to look into this and they had confirmed it. Lastly, they knew The Pit was open today and was having two shows, at the sixth and ninth hours of the day. It was too close to noon for the first show, so they delayed until the second. Unsure how much of the operation was legitimate and how much was just a cover for something more sinister -- they had a show to see.     

They paid two silvers each for admittance, sat in the stands with about 40 others, and Vask and Reed bet on the upcoming match of bear vs. dogs. It was a grueling blood sport that excited Reed’s new hireling, Herv, and made Haruspex Niv look away. Bear-baiting and gambling were not illegal in Barge End so the Company had no excuse for getting violent yet. They left as a group to go fetch Langdon (he had not felt comfortable being seen at so lowly an establishment as a customer) from the tavern and returned as the last of the customers were filing out of the arena. They bribed the guard at the door for information and learned that the bear-wards no longer listened to their boss, Baldwin, and only answered to their guest of the past two weeks, a man named Cuth-something or other. 

The Company knew it had to be Cuthbrid the Fair, their nemesis. They bribed the guard more to admit them into the kitchen where Cuthbrid had been spending most of his time, drinking up all their whiskey. The kitchen was, in fact, the next room over. Being cautious, the Company talked about sending Herv and Saraband in first, since Cuthbrid knew everyone else, but ultimately decided this was not fair to the new hirelings in case Cuthbrid turned immediately violent. Reed listened at the door and only heard one person inside. 

It was decided instead that Haruspex Niv would open the door, doff his cap, and reveal the coiled wand of paralyzation he wore on his head underneath it. When he opened the door, Cuthbrid was sitting at the kitchen table, but his sword and shield were at hand. Unsurprised, Cuthbrid managed to resist being paralyzed and prepared himself for battle as Vask, Langdon, Herv, and Reed came into the tiny kitchen, filling in the rest of the available room to fight. Cuthbrid was kept on the defensive for almost all of two minutes, only hurting Vask once, minimally, before being backstabbed by Reed as the hobbit leapt off the table at his throat -- and brought Cuthbrid low. 

Meanwhile, the door to the north in the curving corridor opened and the bear-wards came to investigate. Haruspex paralyzed the first one out, freezing him like a statue, but more were ready to emerge and fight. 

Also meanwhile, the west door they had entered by opened and the guard they bribed opened it, having betrayed them by fetching Baldwin. Baldwin, it turned out, was a magic-user and he cast Sleep at the party. Percy and Saraband in the corridor, Vask and Herv in the kitchen, and the bear-wards at the north door, were all put to sleep. But Niv followed up with his own Sleep spell and soon their only remaining opponents were slumbering peacefully. 

By now, Langdon was curing Cuthbrid so he would be spared to face justice, and the rest of the Company was being woken up. Baldwin was tied and gagged, and everyone else was stripped of armor and tied up in their own clothes. 

Cuthbrid felt he was being fair to the end, and that the fair thing to do would be to confess to his scheme. He had been kicked out of the Black Cobra’s covert thieves guild, the Iron Workers Guild, for “losing” his magic key to the sewers when he had actually loaned it to the Company of the White Oak. He had sought revenge, first with an ambush on the way to Castle Greyhawk that had failed miserably, and finally by hiring someone to charm the bear-wards here to obey him. The bear-wards would not only give him a new base of operations, but provide muscle for robbing members of the Company, one at a time, whenever they were alone and vulnerable, and this was how both Erin and Lumpy had wound up being robbed in recent months. Their mistake was robbing Grandma Erin twice, which had brought the swift retribution of the Company in almost full force. Cuthbrid only got in one parting threat of a cryptic nature -- saying that “the bugbears have returned” and will come after the Company next. 

As for Baldwin, once un-gagged, he denied knowing anything about all this, and Cuthbrid did not refute his denial. It was decided to let Baldwin and the others go free and, to make sure they were not making new enemies, take nothing from them (other than some of the bribe money still on that door guard, which Reed had already lifted off him). They did take Cuthbrid, and kept anything of his that might be magical and explain his fantastic leaping ability, and a chest of Cuthbrid’s that was hidden in the larder and contained most of the gold stolen from Erin and Lumpy. Then they dragged him out of town and back up to the city, to the nearest Greyhawk watch station. The watch members recognized Cuthbrid, said they had a few warrants out on him, and after hearing the Company make their case, the watch station captain said he would recommend Cuthbrid be put to death for his crimes. 

In the days that followed, the Company identified three magic items that Cuthbrid wore or carried -- magic Boots of Springing, that were given to Reed to wear (his first boots ever, which magically shrank to fit his feet); a magic javelin (Vask is hanging onto that, for now); and a magic Potion of Healing (paying to identify it came out of the recovered money, the rest all going to Erin). They had left contact information with the authorities, and were all invited to watch Cuthbrid’s execution -- death by hanging -- performed in Barge End.  

Moonday, Coldeven 3, 621 CY

The Free City of Greyhawk

The Green Dragon Inn

"What's this?" John Grond asked, taking the piece of parchment from the stranger.

"My letter of introduction," Rom Riverbluff said. 

Reading from the parchment, John said out loud, "It's from Grandma Erin…"

He read it outloud, for most of the Company of the White Oak was assembled around him and eager to hear from the adept who had become like a mother figure to the assembled adventurers. 

"Thank you for taking care of the thieves, I was worried they would possibly attack one of my family members next. I'm recovering well, and with spring coming a lot has to get done on the farm. I will have to miss out on this adventure to help my family, but after this we should be set for the spring crop, and will have added some new animals to the farm. I'll do my best to meet you wherever you end up. In the meanwhile, I'm sending this friend of the family to take my place and help you out. His name is Rom Riverbluff." 

Rom noticed all eyes upon him. "I'm a veteran of Greyhawk's standing army," Rom explained. "I can fight, and shoot a bow."

No one asked him to prove it. "What do we do now?" is all Haruspex Niv asked.

"Now -- we fetch Brother Langdon," John answered.

Godsday, Coldeven 4, 621 CY

Castle Greyhawk

The Chapel of Boccob

Brother Langdon was confused to see his companions already. "I thought we were not delving into the dungeon again for another week?"

"The castle dungeons can wait," Vask said. "We need to be ready for when those vampires come back, and my master, Prospero, is our best chance at that." 

"How many days until we leave?" Langdon asked.

"Tomorrow."

Brother Langdon looked from face to face at his reassembled companions. "What is this nonsense? You know I've been tasked with watching the chapel this whole past week. I haven't had time to prepare for an expedition elsewhere."

"I'm not thrilled either," Percy said. "If I run out of grooming supplies, where will I find them on the road? But if we are going to get to Veluna and back before those vampires return, we should leave sooner rather than later."

Langdon sighed, knowing Vask had been asking to track down Prospero for a while, and now he had the whole rest of the company on board with this plan... "I suppose I can buy rations from some village on the way…"

Rom spoke up next. Being an old farm hand before his military service, he knew the countryside best. "You can find what you need in the village of Hawfair Green, sir, because we need to go back the way we came…"

Waterday, Coldeven 5, 621 CY

Near Domain of Greyhawk

Menhir Road

Once Brother Langdon and his hireling Saraband had fresh rations from Hawfair Green, they followed the road back towards the Free City of Greyhawk, but bypassed it entirely, making their way quickly through the nearer suburb of Barge End until they reached the south side of Greyhawk. Here they began following the River Road as it followed the Selintan down towards Woolly Bay. 

After passing a fork in the road heading to the Village of Three Mile Mill, they followed the road for another league until they reached Zagyg's Bridge. It was a route seldom traveled because the old bridge was heavily enchanted and tended to prank unwary travelers trying to use it. But to not use it meant another half-day going south to Ford Keep and crossing the river there. 

John Grond volunteered to take the bridge first, along with his hireling Harvard. 

"Be wary of trolls," Langdon joked.

Not only did nothing bad happen to them, but John found an old gold piece sitting at the far end of the bridge. Seeing it as a sign of good luck, he picked it up. Haruspex Niv crossed the bridge next with his charmed hireling, Gregory. and nothing happened for him. Brother Langdon crossed next with Saraband and they found a heaping plate of stewed meat, a bowl of grapes, and a cup of wine waiting for them. Langdon and Saraband ate and drank everything and found them delicious. The same thing happened when Reed Underbough crossed with his hulking hireling Herv. Nothing prankish happened when anyone crossed.

It seemed they were meant to go this way. The old overgrown road on the far side plowed straight west through a rolling plain full of tall grass, low scrub, and thick brambles. Still the same morning, they came to a fork where the trail met the Great River Road, coming from  Ford Keep to the southeast and heading northwest in the direction they wanted to go. There was an unnamed village here they passed without stopping. 

Mid-afternoon, the road spanned a stream with a short, low bridge. By now, weary from walking, no one made a troll joke.

Before nightfall, they reached an unnamed hamlet with a side trail to the west. The broken signpost lying in the grass read "Harrowstone." The Company ignored the side trail, but the hamlet seemed a safe place to spend the night. There was a common house for travelers to sleep in that was already occupied by five pilgrims, heading to Greyhawk to pay their respect at the shrine of some minor deities even Langdon and Percy were not familiar with. The pilgrims reported their luck on the road, having encountered nothing dangerous since the Town of Malaven. Indeed, they had the good blessing of having seen a pegasus! The pilgrims gave up the common house for the company, since the company had 11 members and the house was too crowded for 16.

Assembled in the cozy confines, most of the company choked down their hardtack while Brother Langdon and Saraband ate fresh fruit in front of them. There was plenty of water from the cart they had brought, that was outside where the mules were tethered. Inside, Harvard tried to entertain with traditional folk songs from Blackmoor he had learned, but his singing voice was terrible. Gregory, his eyes still not fully adjusted to sunlight after years in the dungeon, complained of a splitting headache that Harvard was worsening. John, to make peace, suggested to his hireling that wine made his singing better.

Being cautious travelers, they kept six two-hour watches through the long night, but there was no trouble. Percy alone was the final watch, from the seventh to the ninth hours of the day, and the extra task fell to him of feeding the mules, making sure everyone ate and then was packed for the next day's leg of the journey. 

Earthday, Coldeven 6, 621 CY

Far Domain of Greyhawk

Great Western Road

That morning, the Company found the thirteenth milestone along the road missing and, past that point, the road was less well-maintained. It also started turning due west again. 

It was at this point that they observed something large and white flying towards them. As it drew closer, they could see it was something small and white flying around and behind something large and white, and as they drew closer still they could see it was a pegasus mare and foal. And as they drew even closer still, they could see the foal had a saddle on its back, and something in the saddle. And as they swooped low, just 50' overhead, everyone could make out it was a hobbit-sized person. He (or she? It was hard to say, as obscured by heavy clothes as the hobbit was) called out to them, then came around and swooped past once more.

Which was exciting news to Reed Underbough. He was looking for a certain hobbit and thought he might find her on the road...but could this be her? He stayed there and stared, long past when the rest of the company started to move on, after deciding the hobbit and pegasi were no danger to them. But soon they were all moving on, so focused were they on their goal.

Late morning, they passed another unnamed hamlet They then passed a second side trail, this time heading south. The Gnarley Forest also was looming much closer now, just two miles away. It looks like it used to be closer but had been intentionally cut back, and the field was full of tree stumps to prove it.

Two more unnamed hamlets come and went, their occupants better armed each time than the last and less and less welcoming to armed strangers. And always the Gnarley Forest was at their left flank. It drew closer and closer to the road, with fewer stumps between them and it.

The cart brought them convenience -- it carried all their heavy armor, the freshwater barrel kept them hydrated throughout the long march, and the back of the cart was used frequently to sit and rest one's feet -- but it also slowed them down. The mules were uneven in their speed and it made judging how long it would take to get from location to location difficult, so that they mistimed things that night and ran out of daylight before reaching the next hamlet. This would be their first time camping outdoors, ever, as a full company. Watches remained the same as the previous night. Each watch heard weird noises coming from the forest all through the night, but nothing emerged to trouble them.

Freeday, Coldeven 7, 621 CY

Far Domain of Greyhawk

Great Western Road

There was hardly a cloud in the sky this day. This morning the road began to meander a bit through a rolling plain of tall grass, shrub, and the occasional tree -- so that the company was only 50 feet away when they noticed something stretched across the road, which was either a snake over 10' long, or the long thin tail of some much larger creature hiding in the grass! 

The company hung back and waited for it to finish crossing, and eventually it did slither completely into the grass on the north side of the road. Determined to keep their distance even more, the company moved off the road and moved through the tall grass on the far side -- where they were surprised by a second one! They were huge adders, this one 12' long, and it nearly bit Reed, no doubt thinking him a bite-sized morsel. The company wanted to back well out of range, but there was no putting a mule-drawn cart in reverse. Worse, the mules were panicking and threatened to overturn the cart. So the company worked to lure the snake away towards them instead of the mules. This not only worked, but the company was able to keep enough distance between them and the snake to bring their slings to bear -- and the snake was killed two sling stones later. 

Everyone else was ready to move on, but Langdon saw a type of treasure to be had here -- snake meat! As they were skinning the snake, John and Langdon had a debate about what the snakes were doing out here in this still-cold weather. 

Mid-morning, they reached a small village called Greenleaf, with a tavern and hostel. Here they passed their first side trail that led straight to the forest. A sign here pointed that way and read “GAWKES MERE - 11 Miles.”

Ignoring Gawkes Mere, the company did stop and spent some time in the tavern. The tavernkeeper woke his serving lad and put him to work. The tavernkeeper laughed at John when he asked for bread and offered them gruel. The gruel wasn't bad, though, and the ale there was even better. Indeed, it was so good that Reed offered to buy a cask of it and, after a little haggling, he got it for nine gold. John and Harvard were ready to lose a day getting drunk on ale, but the rest of the company remained focused on the journey, so a tipsy John and Harvard kept up with the company as they pressed on later that morning.   

That afternoon they passed through another hamlet, but after that the entire day was spent traveling through wilderness. The Town of Maraven was their next destination and was surely somewhere up ahead, but there was no sign of it when they burnt through the last of their daylight. Although the road had done plenty of zigzagging to this point, Rom was convinced they had so far traveled only 90 miles west of Greyhawk as the crow flies. 

That night, while John and Harvard were on guard duty, and everyone else was just falling asleep, and from the position of the moons it was an hour to midnight, they noticed a fire being lit not far away. Someone had made a campsite just 400 feet from their own in some clearing behind the tall grass! Or some things, as became apparent when they heard the monstrous laughs of the creatures. Somehow, they had either failed to notice the company's campfire or didn't care, but John dimmed the light from the fire just in case. They watched the other campfire, unable to make out the figures around the fire in the dark. When it came time for Langdon and Saraband to take over their shift, they were informed of the mysterious neighbors, but these neighbors got up and left shortly after the shift change, heading due east.

Starday, Coldeven 8, 621 CY

Domain of Dyvers

Great Western Road

There were no further incidents in the night and soon, that morning, the company came face-to-face with Eastguard Fortress, a massive square-shaped castle rivaling The Citadel in Greyhawk City and Castle Greyhawk itself for size. Eastguard, with its two east-facing towers, protected the Town of Maraven from the Gnarley Forest, doubled as a lighthouse for the Nyr Dyv (the Lake of Unknown Depths), and served as a reminder to Greyhawk that this land, from this point west, belonged to the Free City of Dyvers. Eastguard Fortress stood on a low hill overlooking the town and stood over a stream that served like a moat on the town’s east side.  

The small port town was relatively new, less than a hundred years old (with Eastguard Fortress being only 30!), and just over 1,000 people called it home. Although the fortress was imposing, the town itself was surrounded by a wooden palisade, with a walled inner portion of the town where, one would presume, the richer residents dwelt. The walled inner town extended to the far west side, surrounded by a crescent-shaped outer ward on the north (where the docks on the lake were), east, and south sides.

Instead of exploring the town, the company made a beeline for the docks, for the plan was to navigate the rest of the route by river travel. And there were plenty of boats at the piers -- many barges and longships, and a few cogs. The cogs were merchant vessels, but they either did not want additional passengers, had no need for additional mercenary guards, were not heading to Veluna, or were not heading there soon. Which left the longships to try next. 

Captain Sigurd of The Dragon's Bane was more than happy to transport them as far as the City of Verbobonc, if they rented his boat for 85 gold. This was a significant expenditure for the company, considering that everyone had left 90% of their treasure hoarded away back in Greyhawk. Not everyone was trustful of the riverboat captain and his team of two dozen rowers either, so a compromise was reached where the company would pay him half now and half on arrival. 

The Dragon's Bane was 57' long, 10' wide, and 3' deep. Bringing the mules and cart was doable, but required the entire company to huddle up at the fore of the ship to balance the boat. Captain Sigurd took the initial payment somewhere ashore to secure it, foiling Reed's unspoken plan of stealing it back at some point. That afternoon, they cast off, Verbobonc bound!

The lake was not only infamously deep, but huge -- there was no seeing the far side of the lake from where they were. They sailed west, following the south shore. But there was no sleeping on a longship, so they had to stop where there were ports for the night. Captain Sigurd always slept on land, while the crew took turns guarding the ship or sleeping. The mules would be taken off the ship so they could stretch their legs, as would the company, who also posted their own watches through the night. That first night was spent at a small lakeside inn between Maraven and Dyvers.

Sunday, Coldeven 9, 621 CY

Domain of Dyvers

Nyr Dyv

Although they reached the Free City of Dyvers at midday, they had to stop here and rest for the remainder of the day, as every stop they planned to make was measured in days out from Dyvers. 

Moonday, Coldeven 10, 621 CY  

Domain of Dyvers

Nyr Dyv

Moving back out on the lake, they followed it to where it narrowed at its western end. By noon they could see the far north side of the lake. By evening, the north and south shores were only a few miles apart. They camped that night at a small lakeside inn just outside the Town of Caltaran.

Godsday, Coldeven 11, 621 CY

The Westlands

Velverdyva River

Now the crew took down the sails on The Dragon's Bane. The longship was a riverboat now heading upstream, so it was time for the rowers to earn their keep. The 24 rowers rowed in shifts, pushing further upstream, away from the Domain of Dyvers and towards the wilderness. They passed Westguard, the smaller mirror image of Eastguard Fortress, just after noon. The longship docked at a small lakeside inn again, this time by no nearby community.

 

Waterday, Coldeven 12, 621  

Gnarley Forest

Velverdyva River

Late this day, the ship sailed into the Gnarley Forest. The forest pressed tight against the banks of the river. There was no sign of civilization except when river traffic passed them in the opposite direction. That night, the ship docked at a small riverside hostel, the last land-based structure they would see for two days.

Earthday, Coldeven 13-Freeday, Coldeven 14, 621

Gnarley Forest

Velverdyva River

Again, the ship sailed through thick forest, though the river was always wide enough that the forest canopy did not shade much of the river. The rowers pressed hard, always knowing that there was only so much space on the lonely piers erected along the river's length and they were in trouble if they found no berth. But they were in luck -- that, or it was still too cold for most rivergoers. They would have to share a pier with a barge or two, but that was it for this stretch of lonely river.

Freeday, Coldeven 15, 621

Veluna

Velverdyva River

The ship finally sailed out of the forest this day, where the Att River merged with the Velverdyva at the port Town of Stalmaer. There were clear plains to the right, but always the forest to the left, either near or at least in sight. The river came around and followed the forest, heading south. All was calm until -

Large shapes crashed out of the forest and took to the air -- dragons! Or at least dragon-like creatures. Two of them flew towards the river. The crew literally hit the deck, trying to hide. But they did not need to; the dragon-like creatures turned north and followed the river in the opposite direction.

Everyone returned to their oars and the rowers went back to gaining on the river. The upcoming Village of Thaymouth brought a welcome sense of normalcy, oblivious to the dragon-like creatures. But the ship did not stop; they had to press on hard to make the Town of Oakham by nightfall. And they did!

Starday, Coldeven 16, 621

Veluna

The City of Verbobonc

More villages came and went. By late evening, they reached the City of Verbobonc, the first and closest city on the edge of Veluna! 

The City of Verbobonc was a busy river port, with traffic of barges and cogs and even the occasional caravel coming and going most any day. The city had grown up, literally, around the river, with quarters on either side of its banks. The river was spanned by three low bridges with breakaway sections that could be lifted out by cranes if anything taller than a barge wished to sail through (and after paying a toll to the River Warden’s Office). Security was tight along the river, but not sternly so, with the inspections requiring more patience than anything else. The riverfronts were manned by the River Warden’s Dock Guild, but guarded by men-at-arms of both the First Army of the Church and the Viscount’s Standing Army. Visitors had some of the laws explained to them, usually by someone with a crushed hat and a cudgel in his hand (signifying the Order of Saint Cuthbert) including keeping bows unstrung, bladed weapons sheathed or otherwise hidden, not to openly worship an evil deity, and never killing someone of a social class higher than yours.

The Company of the White Oak presented their letters of introduction to the Dock Wardens and were admitted in. 

Verbobonc was a walled city, with a worked granite curtain 15’ high and 8’ thick surrounding it. The north side of the city had three gates leading out and the south end had but one gate. Also, a breach in the north curtain wall had long since been filled in by the Olven Wall -- a tangle of thick forestry said to be more impassable than the real wall. The wall's defenses seemed modest, perhaps even a token effort, which was perhaps not surprising given the city had probably never once been invaded in its history. Engraved over each outer gate to the city – and there were three – was the city’s motto, “Earth and stone, man and gnome.” Inside the city, surrounding the only grassy hill in sight, was a second curtain wall, a solid granite wall the same height and width as the outer one. Up close, this inner wall was revealed to be highly decorative, with bas relief carvings of gnomish warriors all over it and sayings in what was surely the gnomish language carved under them. It was clearly much older than the other wall.

The city's inner wall was occupied by a castle next to a cathedral. Both buildings looked new, or had undergone extensive renovation, to reflect the new gothic style. The castle was the Viscount's castle and the cathedral was known as the Temple of the Heavenly Virtues, and their twin presence here reflected the balance of power between the nobility and the clerical class in Verbobonc. The bells of the cathedral rang, up to three at a time, at every hour on the hour.

The city was tightly packed, its population having outgrown the outer wall and spilled out of it. Easily 24,000 people must have called Verbobonc home, with at least 23,000 more living in the outskirts surrounding it. The streets of the Inner City tended to be narrow and curvy, with the longest being Tarry Road that encircled over half of the city. Tarry Road, Way Down Road, and Hegoaldean Road -- muddy ruts in the best of times -- sported the majority of the larger businesses. Only the Viscount’s Road was cobblestone.

One of the reasons the city had filled up so fast was that so much of it had been set aside for gardens and parks. The city was divided into six quarters, but with no visible borders between them; only residents knew the distinctions between the quarters.

The architecture consisted primarily of timbered row houses; starched white buildings with brown, green, burgundy or navy timbers. Domes, pillars, arches, and sweeping wide stairways were common features.

 

One uncommon feature was wizards' towers -- the city boasted only one, and this was the home of Scottenkainen, the man who contacted Vask about Prospero's whereabouts. Only, when they finally met Scottenkainen -- a bald-pated, clean-shaven man of 50 years of age, wearing expensive spectacles, dressed in blue robes -- did they learn that they may have come all this way for naught. 

"Prospero...is not here," Scottenkainen explained to the assembled company (hirelings, though, waited outside). "He went to Veluna City, but came back much changed. I fear something may have affected his mind. He was raving, asking me when the Crook of Rao was broken. The Crook of Rao is, of course, the most powerful relic in the world, wielded by the Pope of Veluna. It has never been broken. Prospero muttered that something had either affected his memories, or those of the rest of the world. To find out which, he teleported to the Great Kingdom. The Royal Demesne of Ahlissa. Portum Keep, to use the Augury Mask.

"I tell you this because you are known to me, by name at any rate, Vask, and Prospero would trust you with this information. But also because I am unsure what to do with this information myself. The things Prospero has told me, particularly about Castle Greyhawk, troubles me deeply. You see...by the year 599, the forces of Law had won a great victory. Indeed, one for the ages -- the last portals to the underworld on this hemisphere had been sealed shut. This was supposed to usher in a new golden age for the world in what we measure our seventh century. Yet, it seems that the forces of Chaos have succeeded in reopening some of the portals already, when it was never meant to be possible that they should ever be reopened.

"How many of you have ever heard of the Temple of Elemental Evil? Long ago, Veluna and Faraz had to join forces to stave off the army of Chaos that issued forth from the Temple of Elemental Evil. Many years later, the temple was finally razed. But...I am very worried what would happen if the portal to the underworld were reopened there. Would you go and check? I would be willing to pay 200 gold, to be divided among you, if you would. I would require no proof other than your word, magically verified, of course."

Sunday, Coldeven 17, 621

Veluna

The Viscount's Road

South of the city was farmland as far as the eye could see, and a well-maintained road, uniformly 20 yards wide, that zigzagged gradually between fields of crops that abutted the road. Copses of fruit-bearing trees could be seen here or there further from the road, but little grew along the route that would offer shade -- or conceal bandits.

At the third milestone, the travelers came to the small Village of Kleinmere, home to about 200 people. Most of the people they saw about were humans, but they also spotted a halfling and a gnome as they proceeded through the unwalled village. They did pass a guard patrol of 12 of the Viscount's soldiers, gathered outside a tavern called The Muddy Well. The soldiers eyed them suspiciously, but did not stop the travelers.

There were some simple shops for travelers – a cobbler, a farrier (horseshoes), and the like. There was also a roadside shrine to Fharlanghn and -- most importantly -- a crossroads. The Viscount's Road continued to the south and a sign continued to point that way towards "Etterboek". A road to the southeast appeared much rougher and overgrown -- still used, but perhaps not tended to in some time. This road's sign read "Penwick".

The Town of Etterboek, they had been told by Scottenkainen, was one such town on their route. They were also looking for the Town of Hommlet, and this second town they reached by late evening. Neither town had been walled, though Hommlet boasted an impressive keep and large chapel. Hommlet was home to some 1,500 people and, luckily, the Inn of the Welcome Wench did not turn them away despite the lateness of the hour. 

Moonday, Coldeven 18, 621

Veluna

The High Road

The road east out of Hommlet was the High Road, and this led to the Village of Nulb and, from there, the Temple of Elemental Evil's ruins would be reached. But, long before reaching Nulb, the company found their way forward was blocked.  Ten men in chain and ten orcs in chain, commanded by a man in platemail armor, blocked the road.

"This road is closed to you," the commander said. "Turn back."

John was clever, though, and quickly came up with a story that gave their commander pause. "We've come as recruits for the Temple," he said.

"Indeed?" the commander answered. "Well...then let us test your mettle and see if you are worthy. Orcs...test their mettle." And the orcs advanced.

They never really had a chance. John Grond, with his ferocious strength and skill, could skewer two orcs on his spear at once. Two members of the company were hurt -- Saraband seriously so -- but just as the last of the orcs were going down, Haruspex Niv brought his sleeping spells to bear on the commander and his human brigands, which turned the battle first into a rout, and then a complete victory. Many were slain, but the last three men, including the commander, were taken as prisoners. As far as the company was concerned, they did not even need to visit the Temple ruins directly -- this was all the proof they needed.

Two days later, Scottenkainen agreed, and paid them the promised sum.

GaryCon XIII Post-Con Report

I attended GaryCon XIII virtually these past four days. I also worked two of those same days, so it wasn't a full convention for me. 

Thursday

Day 1, slot 1 of GaryCon was my first of three games I was running over Zoom. It was the classic AD&D module A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords - part 1 (getting to Suderham through the salt mines). I had eight players sign-up and eight players show, which was a great start. After three hard-fought battles, the last two just barely won, the Slave Lord Hunters succeeded in clearing their way through the salt mines.

Some fun notes about our game session:

Elwita the Dwarf was played by Jonathan, the player who had been in my Lost Caverns of Tsojconth/Tsojcanth game at virtual GenCon last year.

Karraway had a Scroll of Remove Fear, but was the only member of the party affected by Fear (and while paralyzed). He cast almost none of his spells (so he has them for next time), and was the PC who came closest to dying.

I wasn't keeping track of Blodgett's Strength loss from those shadows, but since he started at a 9, he must have been very feeble by the end of that fight. Between that and being held and chewed on by the storoper, he was likely the second closest to dying.

When we were turning shadows at the end, we forgot that Eljayess was also a cleric! Eljayess was played by Neil Christiansen, one of the early players in the Hobby Shop Dungeon campaign, who also taught us that Eljayess stands for LJS, Larry J. Schick's initials!

We also learned that Phanstern's name was combined from two Shakespearean characters, which made it, coincidentally, even more apropos that I had replaced the "to be read out loud to the players" prologue for the adventure with one based on the famous "O for a muse of fire" prologue from Henry V.  

Despite being forewarned that limited resource management was going to be critical to surviving both rounds, the spellcasters Delgath and Phanstern had to burn though a lot of spells, and in Phanstern's case all but two spells!

Design Notes (SPOILERS, if you ever plan to play this as-is!)

I took the final encounter, dissembled it, and spread it around. Wimpell Frump, instead of being the powerful illusionist masquerading as Yeenoghu, became Wimpell Frump the slave accountant (and minor illusionist, not that he ever got a chance to cast a spell) the PCs had encountered first. Instead of being an illusion of an ankylosaur (and how would Frump even know what one looks like...?), the ankylosaur became real, their second encounter, and what I thought was a logical explanation for the Earth Dragon alluded to later in the module.

As written, the salt mine had gnoll guards, but they aren't guarding any prisoners/slaves/miners, so I did add those throughout and the PCs heard some of them murmuring from the gnoll lair they didn't visit. As-is, the gnolls aren't supposed to reinforce each other. I planned on having the gnolls from one room come and aid the other, but could not have anticipated that my players would lure one group (although unintentionally) back into the tunnel with them, so they would encounter both groups in the tunnel -- probably the toughest way to fight that joint encounter you could have possibly chosen.

As-is, the map railroads you through every encounter area one after another; I shook up the map and added tunnels that crisscrossed and let them take the rooms out of order or miss some altogether (plus I had added a few more!). By then I thought Wimpell would have been able to escape, but they were way too good at keeping him prisoner.

The storoper is supposed to be able to inject that paralyzing poison that makes it look like it petrified you, with no save, twice only -- but as the storoper's most interesting attack form, I decided to ignore that limitation. To balance it, I took away how you fight for the storoper after the initial paralysis wears off. Wandering aimlessly is only supposed to happen after the storoper dies, but moving it up made the "heh heh, you're stoned, guys" joke more obvious. This battle nearly did in the party, with over half the party wandering around "stoned" before it was over.

Yeenoghu and his attendant gnolls and ghouls were illusions in the original version, but the gnolls needed a leader better than Frump, so I invented Goom the Gnoll King, a gnoll 8th level fighter, with his 3 HD gnoll vassals. As the spawn of Yeenoghu, he could save vs. spells as if a magic-user and summon his vassals' shadows (the ghouls got a little upgraded). I figured the PC clerics would turn the shadows easily. Oops! It turned out to be a very hard battle, only barely won.

Friday

This was my one all-play day, with no events I was running. And, ...well, let's take them one at a time.

In slot 1, I was supposed to play "Lowdown in Highport," an original AD&D prequel adventure to the Slave Lords modules, which seemed highly apropos for me to play. However, it was run over a new site called Fantasy Grounds, and I could not get my computer to play any sound from that site. This had happened to me before, last year, when I tried playing a game over Discord, so I was ready with backup this time and tried listening over a laptop -- but I could not get sound to work over that device either! The DM did try cutting and pasting descriptions into the chat for me, but I couldn't interact with the setting at all, so I quit in frustration. Not a good start to the day -- and NOT a good first impression of Fantasy Grounds!

In slot 2, I played another original adventure (this one for Swords & Wizardry) called "Green Fire," over Skype. Skype worked okay, but it seemed to lag more than Zoom. It was fun playing a magic-user with a 5 Charisma and everyone was very appreciative of me choosing to memorize Strength to boost the already-strongest fighter in the party. The scenario was extremely simple -- travel away from the village and find a hut that a seemingly endless number of goblins pour out of and kill them until the time runs out and our DM had a very slow, leisurely pace to him. 

To be fair, it's possible that we weren't supposed to do that; I had suspected from the start that we were supposed to interrogate the prisoners in the village and find out more information of stuff to do in-town, and that the House of Endless Goblin Spawning was a red herring that got retconned into the end encounter after my vote was overruled by the party, who all wanted to head straight after the goblins. Either way, the point of the scenario seemed to be to introduce us to the DM's campaign setting, in the hope that we would want to revisit it.

Slot 3 of day 2 of GaryCon was Tim Kask's "The Wheel of Blame." Because of technical difficulties, it started over an hour late, but still ended on time.  One of the thrills of GaryCon is the chance to play with the Old Guard, the chance to walk back in time and see what it would have been like to game with them in the Early Days. 

But. 

But....What Tim ran was five unconnected escape rooms, and I hate escape rooms. Now, some of the time he was obviously flexible about what the escape was, but other times he was more adamant that we had to think of his way or we weren't getting out.  Interestingly, I played with my afternoon DM, from "Green Fire," so that was quite the coincidence. The best part was the few minutes I got to talk to Tim one-on-one after everyone else left.

Saturday

Slot "1" was not a real GaryCon event -- I ran my OD&D campaign's 20th session, wherein the Company of the White Oak (all 1st-4th level PCs) started exploring the Temple of Elemental Evil! Brigands were fought, treasure was found, and an attack on the Town of Hommlet was averted!

Slot 2 was part 2 of the Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. Seven players (not all the same ones as last time, plus some new ones) explored Suderham, the middle third of the adventure that is all city-based. I had planned on tweaking Suderham, as I had the dungeon parts, but I had run out of time to do so and had to run this part as-is. Well, mostly as-is; getting into the city proved more interesting, as we roleplayed out the part only summarized in the module, where they capture some merchants and then pretended to be the drivers and guards working for the merchants to get in. Once they were in the city, the players, all or almost all of whom knew the adventure already, tried real hard not to use too much player knowledge, but easily followed the clues to get to the sewer entrance in one of the bawdy houses. And, again, we spent a good amount of time -- what amounted to more than our first hour -- on roleplaying through all this.  

More SPOILERS

When they found the dungeon (and then found it again, because they had overshot the concealed door in room 1 that led to the rest of the dungeon), they had a rough go of it with the flesh golem, which I treated as an almost full-strength flesh golem and not the watered down one found in the module. This sent them fleeing to rest and heal, which was tough on the scenario because it was supposed to be timed and their ability to regain spells was supposed to be limited. I did cop out and gave them some cleric spells back, and then they felt brave enough to go back and tackle my tweaked version of the sewer dungeon. 

They found the secret door that, in the original version routes them straight to the big boss battle, but I detoured them to the minotaur maze, as we had lots of time left. They spent what felt like a lot of time in the minotaur maze; the thief wanted to search every single 10' x 10' square for traps and I had to talk him out of it, for the good of the rest of the night. Things picked up when they found their way out of there. The gelatinous cube trap I kept as-is and that was very deadly. They also encountered some extra encounter areas I had added to the scenario, including one that gave them a chance to find a much-needed healing potion -- but of two potions they found, which was the good one? The ranger solved it by mixing them together and drinking both, so it both healed him and made him sick. They dodged the shambling mound in the "Grotto of Terror" by slowing it down with a Slow spell and floating across the water. Because we were now running out of time, I skipped the last encounter areas and got them to the final big boss battle.

As written, this was meant to be the Big Boss Battle of all big boss battles, and yet I had run this fight with the Slave Lords before and they always lose. So I fixed things -- the five figures on the thrones were the hirelings of the real slave lords, all half the level on the original versions. The two sides lobbed fireballs at each other first thing and the party's fireball did more harm, killing or knocking out three of the fake slave lords right off the bat, while only two of the party were seriously hurt. Captain Feetla and Brother Milerjoi went down in round three. Thinking it was all over, the PCs went around decapitating their foes and looting treasure.

And then the first of the REAL Slave Lords started arriving. Lord Feletheus, for example, was a 9th level fighter with a -5 AC, 77 hp, and hit the ranger with a Rod of Smiting, held with Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and struck her dead in one hit, with maximum damage -- 39 points. NOW the Slave Lords were going to be a tough fight!

The real Nerelas the Assassin teleported into the room, invisible (they could tell because magic chessboard squares were serving as teleportals in the room and lit up when used; the chessboard had become a repeating motif in my tweaked version). It was getting late, I was getting tired and making mistakes and, as the party's magic-user looted the fake Mordrammo, I accidentally read off the real Mordrammo's long list of magic items to him, then said, "Oops -- that's the real Mordrammo who's coming..." This only helped to make them very afraid. Overwhelmed, they distracted Feletheus and Nerelas with an illusion and fled up the stairs -- straight into waiting cages. Trapped! And ready for the Dungeon of the Slave Lords, just the way the module was meant to end. 

Everyone had stayed 30 minutes late so we could wrap up the whole thing. I was told that my version of the ending was better than the published version -- high praise indeed!

Sunday

Day 4 had one event today, Hideouts & Hoodlums: Assault on the Aerie of the Nazi Slavers -- taking what I ran using D&D and updating it to 1945, the Ore Mountains on the German-Czech border. 

Although H&H had done well at GaryCon two years in the past, it was not popular this time; only three people signed up and two showed to play. Those two were Lee and Timothy LeMaster, both experienced with H&H. I gave them the option of two heroes each, but they each wanted to play only one character. To try to balance things, I gave each of them two really good healing pills they could take in a pinch. They chose Superman (the Czech version of Superman) and Golden Guide, a mysteryman (woman, actually). 

Both this and my AD&D version of the scenario began with a Wimpell Frump stand-in being encountered first thing in the adventure, but this time the LeMaster's missed the fact that Wimpell (or Vlastimil here) was leaving them but not heading back towards the camp. Missing the shortcut, they planned a direct assault on the German-controlled Czech mine camp outside the mine entrance, with just one big diversion for cover. It used up their one stick of dynamite, but it was a very big distraction when it blew up the ammunition supply point building. Superman wrecked them through the fence and they dashed into the main building, fighting their way past guards to get to the bridge from that building's tower that led to the ancient gatehouse that was the mine's entrance. They had to fight their way past a dozen armed guards, eating up some of the superhero's better (but not best) powers, and even then I was already going easy on them, having planned on their being twice that many defenders at the gatehouse if the heroes tried this direct route. 

Once in the mines, it was more like a straight D&D session, with them exploring two caves, running into small guard patrols in two of them (as originally planned). Superman burnt through more powers and Golden Guide had terrible luck with her guns jamming a lot, but they finally found their way to the big boss battle. This time, King Goom was replaced by Vlastimil, an ultra-mad scientist, his Nazi lieutenant, six bestial Nazis (oh yeah, in this version, the guards weren't gnolls, but they had been surgically altered to be more animalistic and 2 HD), plus six more that had been fully transformed fully into beast-men -- ghouls -- and there was a three-man crew manning a Panzer II tank in the room. The chamber was no longer an audience chamber, but had been converted into a mad scientist's laboratory (or at least the back half had). 

They played pretty smart, trying to wreck the tank (with the superhero's wrecking things) and shooting at the lab equipment to blow it up. But they were badly outnumbered and the ghouls paralyzed Superman. Golden Guide led a lot of their opponents away, got them into a fight with miners the heroes had liberated earlier, then left the miners to get slaughtered as she doubled back to save Superman. By now, Superman was being hauled away down an escape tunnel, kept chloroformed by Vlastimil and his lieutenant. Golden Guide caught up and, while a firefight went on between Golden Guide and the lieutenant, Superman recovered and broke the man's gun. But then Vlastimil used a hypno-monocle to charm Superman and set the two heroes against each other! Golden Guide kept dodging to stay alive until it wore off, but the two leaders had escaped ahead of them to warn the Slave Lords in Dresden...and there we stopped, just 15 minutes over our time slot. They said they want to play the rest some time. If they get some help next time, I won't have to fudge so much to keep things easy for them!

And now GaryCon is done for another year. It was a great experience, but really more for the games I ran for the players I had, not the games I played. I'm glad I get the opportunity to play other people's games, but I don't think I'd ever do a campaign again as a player only, just in case. 

Addendum: But wait -- it still wasn't over! At 7, there was 

Jay Scott

's Twitch show, which was a who's who of famous Greytalkers! 

Anna Meyer

, who remapped the Flannaess! 

Denis Tetreault

, who remapped the City of Greyhawk! 

Mike Bridges

, who drew the World of Greyhawk! 

Allan T. Grohe Jr.

, seen by many as the ultimate authority on Castle Greyhawk and Old School publisher! Eric Boyd and Erik Mona, who parlayed their early entry into Internet fandom into long publishing careers that extended well beyond Greyhawk! And 

Gary Holian

, who practically invented Greyhawk fandom online!

And that still wasn't the end because, while I was watching the show, 

Arch Zenopus

 messaged Facebook and revealed that there were open spaces in "Temple of Diklah and the Helm of Valasdum," the second part of the GenCon IX Dungeons, and it was starting soon!! Having long owned it but never played it, I longed to see if my assessment of how much of that tournament needed a complete overhaul was accurate. Casting the Twitch show and my laundry duties for the evening aside I jumped in! And I daresay my dwarven king was vital to keeping the game entertaining, as inexperienced gamers in the group slowed us down in a railroad of encounter areas that betrayed the primitive game design skills developed by 1976, with just occasional flashes of ingenuity. Everyone was half-asleep by the time we reached the big boss battle with the lich and, as the game dragged on past midnight, I was not prepared to reach 12:30 still in the game, so I curtly bailed on them just as the lich and two golems had two members of the party cornered!

Reviewing the Beatles Solo Albums in Order - part 6

And things don't get better from here, since Paul follows it with McCartney II. This album feels like Paul just discovered John and George did experimental electronic records years ago so he cobbled together his own version to catch up. "Coming Up" has been re-recorded by Paul since and is a good song, but you wouldn't know it from the original version, with its Alvin & the Chipmunks-like refrain. "Temporary Secretary" is ...comedy? A few years back I got to finally see Paul in concert and was floored when he actually performed "Temporary Secretary" as part of the show. He must like it! "Waterfalls," if you listen closely to the lyrics, could be mistaken for a joke song too. There are two verses that seem like just placeholders (don't go ...chasing polar bears? What?), but the first verse and the refrain and the melody are so gorgeous that these flaws can be overlooked; "Waterfalls" is the one gem on this album -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbvdQBz65tM -- and I was so pleased he performed this one too! Side B is a complete waste, though "Bogey Music" might have been one of his competent retro songs had he not cranked the reverb up to 11.  

John Lennon's Double Fantasy has high highs and low lows, and you'll never guess who's doing the vocals on each of them. Yes, it's a "double fantasy" because Yoko gets just as many songs as John and, true to form, most of hers are pathetic exercises in egoism masquerading as art -- with one exception, "Yes, I'm Your Angel" is a simple, retro song she sings with her normal voice instead of her screechy obnoxious voice.  That doesn't make it good, but it's ...actually not bad. They also try to make this synergy between the songs, so that Yoko's songs tie in to the John song before it, or answers one of John's earlier songs on the album. John, meanwhile, produces the best songs of his solo career, "Beautiful Boy" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt3IOdDE5iA -- , "Watching the Wheels," and "Woman." With nothing but these three songs on it, no filler, this would still be a must-have album. "Starting Over" and "Dear Yoko" are B-grade songs, either deep or catchy, but neither both.    

How lucky we are that we got this one last album from him. John was, in life, a terrible person on so many levels, but as a musician he truly achieved greatness. 

I never hear anyone say George Harrison's Somewhere in England is their favorite album, but it is indeed a good album. "All Those Years Ago" is, of course, the big hit on this album and an excellent song -- basically a Beatles song in almost every sense, with all three remaining Beatles on it, and John there at least in spirit. "Unconsciousness Rules" is apparently seen as such a slight song that it has no Wikipedia entry, but I really like it. "Life Itself" is also good, though I don't seem to like it as much as some critics did. I really thought George wrote "Baltimore Oriole" as a more whimsical sequel to "Blue Jay Way," but apparently I was way off. That, and "Hong Kong Blues," are covers of Hoagy Carmichael songs. Of the two of them, "Hong Kong Blues" is the one I like. I think side B is even stronger than side A; there's not a song I didn't like on side B. None of them are great, but they're all good. There is, apparently, been some effort to overinflate the reputation of the three songs cut from this album and only released years later, but of them, "Lay His Head" and "Sat Singing" are only pretty good, and "Flying Hour" is subpar. The obvious choice for the song to share from this album is still "All Those Years Ago," but since I like to defy expectation, I'm going to go with the extra-catchy "Teardrops" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN2Sbcu6BN0&list=PLnif9Rfb5AdlIne-lnuIc-XpgkJ26t8nf&index=6 -- instead. 

 Ringo is back to full strength again on Stop and Smell the Roses. Rather than stretch in new directions and challenge us to follow again, Ringo retreats to the familiar territory of fun songs and dishes up the lovely "Wrack My Brain," "Drumming Is My Madness," "Stop and Take the Time to Smell the Roses" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4mcNIqnX_8 -- and an expanded version of "Back Off Boogaloo" that adds a winking Beatles medley into it. Though the rest of the tracks are just of average quality, these four are so enjoyable that I don't understand why this album did not do better. "Attention" was apparently written for Ringo by Paul, but Paul rarely gave out his best material to Ringo and this song is no exception. There are two covers on Side B and one of them, Carl Perkins' "Sure to Fall" has a lot of history with the Beatles and could have been better, but Ringo goes full-on country on this track and the song suffers for it.

Following that new release was a best of album for Ringo, Blast from Your Past. At a brief 10 songs, it was clearly meant to re-whet fans' appetites and leave them wanting more again. By then, it should have been easy to fill a two-disc album with his best songs. "Early 1970" is probably the weakest link on this album, but there's not a bad song to be found here, and most are truly great.

Paul's Tug of War is a pretty good album. "Take It Away" and "Here Today" are great songs. I should probably not like "Ballroom Dancing" as much as I do; it's a retro song, in topic but not style, and specific to something I never experienced. But it's super-catchy and nostalgic for me in a different way, as the filmed segment of this in Give My Regards to Broad Street -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOxAtnQomM -- is the only part of it I remember watching when this was on cable TV back in the '80s. I probably also like "The Pound Is Sinking" more than it warrants. Is it a silly song with random lyrics, or an anti-capitalistic screed? I can't tell, but I think I like it better thinking of it as the latter. "The Pound Is Sinking" and "Wanderlust" sound so similar, I wonder if they were originally meant to form one of Paul's medleys -- which I think would have added strength to both of them here. What really shocks me is reading about this album afterwards and how it was heralded as Paul's masterpiece and a return to form for him at the time. Sure, it's much better than Back to the Egg, but nothing on here measures up to "Waterfalls" in my estimation. The title track, "Tug of War," does nothing for me and the many duets are just so-so. Kudos to doing one with Carl Perkins -- though, like Ringo covering Carl, it comes across as more country than rock-a-billy -- and "Ebony and Ivory" is too cliched (and I'm not a big Stevie Wonder fan). 

Company of the White Oak - Sessions 16 & 17

Fireseek 21, 621 CY
Castle Greyhawk

The full company -- Haruspex Niv, John Grond, John's hireling Harvard Oslo, Brother Langdon, Percy, Tuko "Lumpy" Burrstone, Vask, Reed Underbough, and Grandma Erin, as well as the company's two pack mules -- were on foot on the north side of Castle Greyhawk and found the drawbridge was down again. No one molested them as they made their way into the castle courtyard. This was Grandma Erin's first trip to the old castle and everyone paused, reminisced, and let her soak in the moment.

Then they made a beeline to the stables in the southeast corner of the castle grounds to look for Oslo, see if he survived the last two weeks at the castle. He did! He was in the stables, as was Tom, the captured guard who had been left as Oslo's prisoner, and an orc as well. Half the company moved into the stables to talk to them before they spotted two other occupants, as familiar as they were terrifying. It was the two vampires they had seen in the city sewers last year.

Everyone either backed out of the stables or at least to the doorway where there was lots of sunlight (John and Lumpy stayed in the doorway to talk). Oslo, Tom, and the orc didn't react at all and stayed where they stood.

The vampires wanted to know what the message they received was. As the company hemmed and hawed and obfuscated, they compelled John to come back into the dark stables and tell them the secret of Prospero's message. But when they heard it was "open the box" they reacted angrily. The angrier of the two said "the most important message in the world cannot be 'open the box', but was shushed and they stepped away to discuss. One was heard saying they may have been too early, while the other said this must be a trick.

While John was their prisoner in the far corner, the two vampires bickered. Grandma Erin snuck into the stable and left her holy symbol around his neck to see if it would protect him -- but didn't stay to make sure he was safe - she beat a hasty retreat outside with the others.

But after two minutes, the vampires revealed that they needed further instruction from their master and would let the company go until they knew more. Who was their master? "You will meet your Great Adversary in time."

Lumpy: "Next time, have your master come talk to us himself instead of using such incompetent middle men."

"When we return, kill him first."

Before the stand-off could turn violent, the vampires turned into bat form and fluttered upstairs to the higher floors of the stables. No one wanted to follow them to see where they went.

Since John was compelled to stand in the corner while they talked, he was free to act on his own now that they had stopped talking. Oslo and Tom were free to leave now too. The orc had been compelled to guard the main doors to the stables without any end duration, so it was stuck here, and the company just left it behind.

The company hastened to their favorite dungeon entrance and, en route, they asked Oslo what had happened. He had found the stairs down in the dungeon like they asked him to, and kept Tom his prisoner all that time. But, this last week, a party of orcs tried to take the stable from them and Oslo and Tom defended it while the orcs laid siege to it. The next night, though, the vampires showed up, killed all but one of the orcs, and became all their masters.

The company was still interested in seeing the stairs, but they had decided that finding the Master who ruled the first dungeon level was their new high priority and they told Tom he better take them there. Tom knew a route to take, but it turned out to be a long one....It took them east, past the old orc lair, where they saw there was light inside again. Rather than leave a threat at their backs, they burst in through the second door, ready to throw spears at any orcs inside.

There was one orc standing guard at this entrance and they took that orc down very quickly. A second orc was guarding the other door and Reed fired his crossbow at that one as it fell back into the large chamber and joined the only other remaining occupant. And, again, it was someone awfully familiar. It was "Arlo," the transmuter whose real name was Osloban, they had encountered before in the Moat Caves. Osloban cast a spell, but it was his familiar trick of going invisible.

It did not work; Harvard and Brother Langdon managed to land lucky blows despite his invisibility and took him down. The remaining orc lasted a little longer, but not much longer. The company gathered around the bloody outline on the floor. They found, when they pulled things off his dead body, they became visible again. So they looted everything and found a handful of treasure, including what looked like a potion, a brightly glowing stone, and an opal worth 500 gold.

Tom was ready to lead them on. The route ran past the huge weasel dens, the berserkers' chamber and where Gorvernal was met, the room where Lindol was met, and came to the first new area off their map -- two long parallel north-south hallways with an arcade separating them. Here was also a spiral staircase leading upwards into the castle itself.

Both hallways were paved in white tile, but the east hallway's tiles had markings on them. The company thought this screamed trap, and Tom said most guards down here avoided it as well for that reason, plus the elves that patrolled this area. Everyone was surprised to hear this, but they saw no sign of any elves as they made their way to the end, where Tom opened a secret door for them. A few more corridors and a few stuck doors later, Tom said they were there. The Master often kept hobgoblins, and sometimes orcs, as his personal guardians. Some people kept pressing Tom for more and more information, but ultimately it was necessary to burst through that next door and see what awaited them.

The next room was a sparsely furnished, unoccupied room, but as they were walking in and checking it out, the north door opened and a hobgoblin was there. Anticipating more, Haruspex cast a Sleep spell into the next room and they heard six hobgoblins hit the floor. The hobgoblins' room seemed to be full of old junk, though a chest in the room held some items of possible interest, with Vask having his eyes on a wavy-bladed dagger. The sleeping hobgoblins were slain, except for one that Erin spared and was left tied up instead. The company was just discussing if they had any way to communicate with it when the door to the next room north was listened to and more monsters were heard on the other side. John flung the door open so the company could hurl their missile weapons into the next room, and they found a small group of gnolls facing them.

The missile fire softened them up so bad that the company was meeting little resistance from them. Then the north door opened to another room and a robed, turbaned man who must surely be the long-sought Master stepped in -- and was promptly dropped by two missile weapons. Mopping up the gnolls was also a piece of cake after that.

That was the last of their opponents. By now, Tom had run off, but the mules were still just hanging out in the hallway unharmed. They were brought in to load down with treasure. They took the chest and all its contents from the junk room. They took a pouch of 10 gems off the Master and his ring of keys. They took his valuable-looking turban. From his room, they took the chairs, the blankets, the rugs, the lantern, his collection of books, and his collection of wooden figurines; they only left behind the bookcase and couch because they wouldn't fit through the door.

They also found a secret door behind the bookcase that opened onto a torture chamber. Killing sleeping enemies was okay with most of the company, but they all drew the line at torture. They wrecked the rack and wrecked the hinges of the iron maiden (that held a dead goblin inside). There were also five vials of ...something. It had a faint, unrecognizable order, and was sticky and viscous. They took it all anyway. They even took the Master's corpse with them, recalling how Niv had a 400 gold bounty to collect on him!

Rather than explore further, it was decided to leave with the treasure they had now. They took the same route back and this time, at the two north-south hallways with the arcade between them and the white-tiled floors, they did encounter the elves they were told about. Although bows were drawn on them, they trusted the elves to parlay with them and learned their leader was named Garadlius. They were no fans of the Master and offered safe passage for having defeated him. They were asked about Gorvenal the Furrier, who Niv had met many months ago down here, and he knew Gorvenal's family was still looking for him. The elves revealed their purpose here; there were lost souls like Gorvenal who had not turned to chaos and the elves' purpose was to protect them; but they would also let help one of them if still needed in the surface world and they promised to push Gorvenal to the surface when they next saw him.

They were no further than the north end of that hallway, near the spiral staircase, and debating about if they should use it, when a hidden ogre lunged out at them. John Grond took a glancing hit, but the ogre was overpowered quickly, being so outnumbered. They took its sack and added it to their treasure.

It was decided to take a brief detour up the stairs, just to see where they went. The stairs went up to a landing with north- and west-facing archways that went further into the castle proper, plus the spiral staircase continued to a higher level. All was dark and quiet inside, so far. But rather than explore further, the company tabled this exploration for another visit, and went back down to continue the way they came.

And so, they came back up into the courtyard, on the west side of the castle's keep, and made their way to the drawbridge. They left unmolested -- but once outside they encountered four orcs coming back from a hunting trip -- and dropped them all with Niv's second sleep spell. Again, Erin saved one, though tied up in the winter cold, his survival seemed uncertain once they were gone...

Readying 7, 621 CY
Nearing Castle Greyhawk

Spring was not coming. Fresh snow was coming down today and it was getting colder instead of warmer as the day went on. It turned out to be a terrible day to choose to return to Castle Greyhawk. The only person who was comfortable, warm in his magic cape, was Haruspex Niv, but he grumbled like the others so they would not feel so bad.

With Haruspex was most of the Company of the White Oak, John Grond and his remaining hireling Harvard, Brother Langdon, Percy, Vask, Reed Underbough, and Grandma Erin (and the company’s two pack mules). They were trudging through the snow, almost within sight of the castle, when eight rodents of unusual size leaped out of the snow at them in a surprise attack. Harvard was pulled to the ground, seriously hurt. One of the mules was hurt. Giant rats had been the company’s most vicious antagonists since the death of Baron von Hage and these were no different, fighting in a frenzy of desperation, and it took three minutes of violent struggle before the last of them were put down.

Harvard needed magical healing on the spot; Brother Langdon and Vask, both lightly injured, needed magical healing too. Not even to the castle yet and already almost out of clerical spells, Percy suggested they camp the day and night in the Chapel of Boccob in the castle as soon as they got there.

The drawbridge is once more down at the castle when they arrive, but the small round guard towers on either side of the drawbridge are occupied, as the company can tell by the roaring fires inside them. Luckily, as cold as it is, the occupants are not posting outside guards and the company sneaks over the drawbridge and into the courtyard before anyone from the towers come out to investigate. The company makes a bee line for the chapel and find that it is currently unoccupied, giving them their first opportunity to actually explore the place. The chapel is four stories high and the upper floors have some sumptuously decorated guest rooms. Reed, footpad that he is, cased the joint and thought there was a fortune in furnishings here he could take, if he could just sneak them past the ever-watchful eyes of Brother Langdon. Langdon and Percy, meanwhile, had found the chapel’s greatest prize -- a prayerbook, chained to the altar at the rear of the nave. With the prayerbook, both of them could invoke the gods to gain new spells in the morning.

But there was also the issue of the mules, which Langdon forbade to come into the sacred chapel. To make sure the mules were safe from becoming ogre snacks in the night, John, Vask, Erin, and Harvard all camped out in the stables with the mules, all five huddled together in the hay to stay warm. And they stayed safe all night long, but…just before dawn, when Grandma Erin was on watch duty, they were surprised by six large spiders the size of cats that had silently descended from the upper floors. John Grond was bit, as was one of the mules. John, Vask, and Harvard all woke and picked up weapons and shields to defend themselves. Three of the spiders were killed and the rest fled up the stairs. No one wished to pursue. John and Erin checked out John’s bite, but it proved to be just a scratch and he was not envenomed. The mule, however…John and Harvard pulled the mule, already weak from the poison, outside and put it out of its misery. Inside, Erin cried for the poor animal.

Readying 8, 621 CY
Inside Castle Greyhawk

And soon they were back at the chapel, rejoining the party and with an exciting story to share. a By now, everyone else was up and getting ready for their day. Spells were prepared, and the company continued -- on a historic first for the company. They had been in the dungeon many times, even come up into the keep through the dungeon, but now they were ready to try exploring the keep itself. They had seen the main double doors on the south side, and the side entrance in the southeast corner, several times already, but had never dared explore behind them. Thinking the main doors likely barred, they tried the side door and found it only stuck.

Once inside, they found a short, crooked entry hall led into a mostly empty room with a statue of a figure in full armor standing at attention in the corner. Reed checked the floor for tracks and found some really odd ones -- man-sized, bare, clawed feet spread so far apart that whatever left them was hopping or had really long legs. Reed determined the statue was not anchored to the spot, but his intuition told him there was some magical trap attached to it. Brother Langdon feared worse, recalling legends of medusae that could turn men to stone with their gaze. In short, they left the statue alone.

Leaving them with three options -- a door in the north wall, a doorway that led into a kitchen to the south, and the room opened into a larger chamber to the west. Reed checked the threshold of the opening to the larger chamber and it seemed safe. The chamber itself, though… The chamber was an octagonal room 40' wide and 20' high, with three gargoyle statues decorating shelves higher up on the walls. Well, the theory they were statues ended when one of them spoke, asking the others if it was time to attack yet.

Reed jumped back into the smaller room with the others. The gargoyles tried to coax the company into coming into the chamber, claiming they meant to say they had a riddle, not an attack, for them. The company wasn't buying that. Although the chamber had a grand staircase leading upstairs to the west, and double doors to the north and south, the gargoyles seemed too dangerous to mess with. And this left them with two options left, the door and doorway in this room. The strange footprints had come from, and led back to, the kitchen.

The kitchen looked deserted, but this turned out to be not so; three ghouls were concealed behind a table, in the fireplace, and inside an oven -- and jumped out to ambush the company (the third time they had been ambushed this expedition!). Brother Langdon was hurt, resisted paralysis, and more importantly recognized these things for what they were (as did Percy). The two priests, joined by the acolyte Grandma Erin, all attempted to turn the ghouls with their crosses - and it worked (actually, thanks to Percy). The ghouls fled from melee, one being chopped down as it turned to flee. The remaining two tried to flee up the chimney. Reed followed them into the fireplace and shot his crossbow into one of them, and it fell down and landed on top of him, dead. The remaining one clambered out of the fireplace on the upper level, out of sight.

Searching the kitchen for treasure, they found a painted stone tablet (depicting a woman holding an apple) that looked good enough to be valuable. Not wanting to climb the chimney, or squeeze through the two arrow slits overlooking the courtyard, they backtracked into the entry room, and this left them just the door to the north. Behind that door was a short hallway leading to a narrow spiral staircase going up.

But did the company want to go up? Langdon worried about if the challenges upstairs were any greater than the ones here. John worried about how this was taking them away from their goal of finding the stairs into the dungeon. There had been another door outside, leading into the six-story central tower that connected to the keep. It was decided to go check that out instead. And the company hit pay dirt; inside the tower was an abandoned shrine to Zagyg, two side doors, and stairs leading both up and down.

Descending, the company found themselves somewhere new. At a landing there was a lever in the wall, connected to some machinery behind the wall. There was no way anyone wanted anything to do with that lever. Below, the stairs continued down 10 more feet to a room. Reed, with rope tied to him, proceeded in alone to check it out. He found broken tables, smashed glass, and puddles of oil and other liquids. It was a large room with just one door heading out. There were tracks, booted feet, coming into the room from the door and going back out. The coast was clear, so Reed signaled for everyone to join him.

The company left the room, entered a hallway, and checked out the door on the other side. This room was also new to them, an almost empty room covered in sand. It was actually covered in a lot of sand, using their spears they found that the sand was at least 7' deep. It was fairly well-packed right inside the door, but became looser the further into the room they prodded. There was a door on the opposite wall, but with no safe-looking path to get there, the company wanted no part in reaching it.

Exploring more of the hallways, they found a wide intersection where bright, warm light seemed to be magically issuing from the ceiling. Near there, they found another kitchen, this one better stocked than the one in the keep. They were looting it for iron rations when Reed heard feet shuffling towards a door on the opposite wall. The door opened as the company was forming up into defensive lines when a woman in heavy shawls and other drab clothes shuffled in, holding a torch in one hand and pulling shoes and boots on ropes behind in the other. She did not seem worried at all about the weapons aimed at her, for she was Elspeth the Cobbler and she saw them as potential customers. She had safe passage through the dungeon because so many boots needed repair down here. Who made sure she had safe passage? The Master, but he was gone now, killed by somebody. Gregory now. Where is Gregory? Someone looted his chambers and he was probably holed up with Herg (Haruspex Niv recalled this name, Herg the Half-Goblin, from a year ago!). Where was Herg? If she promised to lead them to Herg and Gregory, they would pay her to fix all their shoes.

Elspeth led them out of the kitchen, to the muralled hall (Harurspex recalled this also led to the berserker lair!), and to a series of smaller rooms. There was a room with three doors and Elspeth said Herg would be behind one of those three doors.

John was angry, thinking Elspeth did not know where Herg was or had led them astray. The rest of the company seemed to understand that these rooms were all part of Herg's lair and they just had to explore them one at a time. The first door led to a cobwebbed room where Reed had heard scratching, but no one (or nothing) was there by the time they got the door open. The second door led to a furnished room, but no one was in it. The third door led to a hallway that wrapped around the furnished room and came to another, bigger room -- and this is where they found five goblins -- one of them being the biggest goblin they'd ever seen -- and Gregory (who some of them had met before).

Actually, it was only Reed who saw all this, sneaking ahead to check out Herg's spacious bedroom. The five of them were standing there in conversation, but spotted the hobbit. Reed shouted for help and Haruspex cast his first spell of this expedition -- a well-timed Sleep spell that dropped all the adversaries in that room. The ordinary goblins were slain. Herg and Gregory were tied up, to be taken back to Greyhawk and claim any bounties on them (and see if Zig would honor his old bounty on Herg).

Finally, the company found a good assortment of treasure. Not on Gregory, who was carrying nothing of any apparent value, but Herg, with his silver shield, gold ring, the tapestries around the room, and the decorative box on his table -- that contained a map! And it pieced together nicely with the map the company already had, detailing much (but not all) of the first level.

Herg and Gregory were going to take up a lot of room on the back of the mule, so it was time to end the expedition. They backtracked out the way they came (after Percy snuck Elspeth a generous tip). They made it out of the dungeon, out of the tower, and out of the courtyard just fine. It was after they left the castle that the orcs from the foremost guardhouses finally mustered to stop them -- but they only had seven orcs! Haruspex dropped them with his second Sleep spell. And soon they were gone!

Reviewing the Beatles Solo Albums - Part 5

George was understandably upset when the Best of George Harrison album was released and half the songs were Beatles songs. Which begs the question: how hard could it be to come up with 13 great solo Harrison songs by the end of 1976? 

Obviously, the All Things Must Pass album would be well-represented here. The actual album only includes "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life." I would include "Isn't It a Pity," "Let It Down," and "All Things Must Pass," even if that does make more than one-third of the album a re-release of All Things Must Pass. "Give Me Love" from Living in the Material World, "Dark Horse" from Dark Horse, and "See Yourself" and "Crackerbox Palace" from Thirty-Three and 1/3 are musts. Dang, still need four more....I guess I would need to include at least one song from each album, so I would add "Bangla-desh" from The Concert of Bangla Desh and "Tired of Midnight Blue" from Extra Texture so those albums are represented. Two more...gee, this is tough!  Sorry, George, but I gotta go back to mine more from All Things Must Pass. "Wah-Wah," "Apple Scruffs," and "The Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp" are better than anything else on the latter albums. There, 14 songs, culling the least from All Things Must Pass and replacing them with the best from the latter albums.

I debated whether or not to listen to concert albums in this project. I'm not generally a fan of them. But Wings over America is a great album. This is where the extended, far superior version of "Maybe I'm Amazed" first comes from. This version of "Call Me Back Again" is superior to the original and this version of "Hi Hi Hi" is more rocking than the original. There are fun variants of the Beatles song "I've Just Seen a Face" and Wings' "Picasso's Last Words." There is a terrific cover of "Go Now" that I have never heard Paul sing before. The only flaw in the album is a new song, "Richard Cory," an attempt at a folk song, that thankfully disappears from all McCartney albums after this (looking this up after the fact, I see it's a cover of a Paul Simon song based on an old poem, but...bleh. You'll never find this on a Best of Paul Simon album either!).  

Goodness, I'm getting sidetracked. While working on this project I discovered the existence of Live! At the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. There are 26 songs on this album, some of which would find homes on their early albums, some I recognize from Beatles Live at the BBC, and some I've never heard before! 

I got sidetracked there for awhile, listening to concert tracks and BBC tracks, and a lot of great Beatles music. That made it difficult to go back to solo records and...Ringo the 4th. Not a memorable song on the album and ...ugh... all so disco-y! 

Quick, need to wash it down with "Mull of Kintyre." ...Phew!

But Scouse the Mouse, Ringo's children's album? That was a lot of fun! It's a shame the animated special was never made...and kind of weird that the album was produced before the special. "Scouse's Dream," "Scouse the Mouse," and "I Know a Place," are all breezy fun, enjoyable tunes, while "S.O.S." and "A Mouse Like Me" have some weight to them.

Equally enjoyable is Bad Boy -- man, Ringo was really cranking them out fast, trying for a hit! Well, not the song "Bad Boy" itself, which is more Ringo the 4th-type silliness, but "Who Needs a Heart" is pretty good, "Heart on My Sleeve" is even better, and "Where Did Our Love Go" is a real nice cover. Side B is pretty solid except for "Old Time Relovin'" (Reloving...?), and "A Mouse Like Me" sounds even better as "A Man Like Me," becoming my favorite track on this album - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0zN9Axo7g&list=PL7C3C0039597B5677&index=10

Whew, I just listened to Wings Greatest Hits -- twice! It's hard to find any fault with this sterling selection of songs. My only complaints would be that the order of the songs seems very random and they don't fit well next to each other, and this should have been a two-disc album for twice the songs!

George Harrison's next album is George Harrison and it was really nice hearing George get serious about music again. "Blow Away" is a great song. I've liked "Not Guilty" since I heard it on the Beatles Anthology albums -- what a long time to sit on such a good song! I'm also partial to "If You Believe" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw8rp5RScp8 - I've never heard this one before but it sounds real pretty; love the guitar work on it. In fact, everything on Side B is at least pretty good, what I like to call "one draft away from perfect" songs. 

Now it's back to Paul and, oh dear...Wings Greatest Hits was followed by Back to the Egg? It's been a long time since we got a Wings album full of filler, and such mundane filler that "Getting Closer" and "Arrow through Me," the good songs, sound too good for this album, like they wound up here by accident. To be fair, "Old Siam Sir," would probably make a good instrumental. "Baby's Request," alone on Side B, is promising. But the rest are...some of them are paired-up like mini-medleys, but while Paul has done some beautiful things with medleys in the past, here they feel crudely mashed together. Some of them are barely, or even literally not, even songs. "The Broadcast" seems like it was accidentally recorded over a real song.