Prymptown Courier - v. 4 no. 3

PRYMPTOWN COURIER


Vol. 4, No. 3 (August 2001)

EDITORIAL

I want a co-DM.  I mentioned this over supper at GENCON with some of my players.  They thought the idea ludricrous.  Still, I have noticed for some time now that the implementation of game mechanics holds less and less interest for me, and I am filled with an impatience to get back to the role-playing.  It was suggested that Enlock's player could whip up a computer program to handle the math, and I'm sure similar programs already exist.  It's bad enough, I feel, that I've become so dependent on a word processing program and e-mail.  If my computer takes over anything else for me, will I be reduced to a mindless zombie?  Don't answer that.

A lot of important things have happened since the last Courier came out.  For one, GENCON 2001 has come and gone.  I'd have to say it was the best one I've ever been to, over all.  The first half of my GENCON report is part of this courier, for the benefit of anyone who's not on the
Greytalk, Taerre, or Living Verbobonc listservs. 

For another thing, Vlad's player has created a message board for playing the campaign between live sessions, and this time e-campaigning has been hugely successful.  By the time of the next Courier, I'll have polled the players and found out if everyone thinks it would be okay to open the board to viewing for our Courier subscribers.  I, for one, do not look forward to re-writing everything from the boards into the next few campaign writeups.  The message board can be found at www.geocities.com/southprovboard.

Enlock's player has revamped the South Province Website, and I'm really proud of the results.  In addition to campaign-specific articles that will be in the Gazetteer section, there will is an archive of all Courier issues.  And did some numbering snafus ever come to light while compiling the archives!  The South Province can be found at 64.193.32.161:8080/southprovince/index.html.

Lastly, the Greytalk listserv finally has its own official Website, called Canonfire!  I'm proud to announce that, as of this evening, my "Oerth Summary" article in Canonfire!'s Geography section has the sixth highest number of hits of any article on the site.  Plus I've got a mini-adventure on its way to the site that I plucked out of my classic tournament, The Rock of Aukmaugjanzimir!   
Canonfire! can be found at www.canonfire.com.

SOUTH PROVINCE CAMPAIGN SESSIONS 33
Continuing Chapter 3:  SEPARATE JOURNEYS
PC Role Call (of those present):
Vladamir Kostitov, Lawful Good Oerdian male trickster (3rd lvl illusionist).
Andel Mooriv, Lawful Good Oerdian male acolyte of Pholtus (1st lvl cleric).
Alexander Petrok, Lawful Neutral Oerdian male protector (2nd lvl templar - variant paladin).
Godrum, Lawful Good Mentherim ("Common")-Dwur male veteran (1st lvl fighter).
Perpegilliam Brown, Chaotic Neutral Hobniz male robber (4th lvl thief).
Maldrik Moonharvest, Neutral Oerdian male aspirant of Beory (1st lvl druid).

Growfest 5, 581 CY.  Waterday.  The trail to Vecheld Gesto, south of Prymp.

Andel Mooriv had walked all day from Prymp, heading south instead of west.  His goal was to circle wide around the beseiged town of Porton and the dangerous Skull Keep, and then take the Lantern Road the rest of the way to Shargallen.  What was happening to Porton was tragic, but Andel's training was his highest priority, and that meant returning to the Abbey of Vargas. 

Andel sought out a farmhouse on the outskirts of Vecheld Gesto, pounded on the door, and asked for sanctuary in the name of Pholtus.  Reluctantly, the farmer agreed, and then Andel still had to convince the family inside that he was not a bandit or soldier.  The farmer gave Andel permission to sleep in his barn, which was acceptable to the weary acolyte.

Growfest 6, 581 CY.  Earthday.  Around Vecheld Gesto. 

Andel thanked the farmers.  He was warned away from
approaching the Graf's Castle in the village, for it was now a dangerous place filled with the Herzog's orcs.  Andel moved on, taking the western trail to the village of Aluk.  As the day wore on, Andel thought all dangers were behind him.  That did not turn out to be the case.  Standing in the trail ahead of him was a huge, rust-red hound with glowing eyes.  It spoke a single word, "Die!" before the two were joined in melee.  The hound was powerful, but seemed to be toying with him.  It snatched away Andel's mace in its jaws, then smashed his shield, between nips at Andel's flesh.  Andel beat on the hound with his fists before the beast breathed fire, and Andel went down in flames. 

Growfest 7, 581 CY.  Freeday.  Porton.

Maldrik was still running from the town watch of Porton
through streets unfamiliar to him.  He came to an open door and barrelled through.  Inside, an old couple sat across from each other.  They neither spoke nor acknowledged him.  Maldrik found the situation awkward, so after a minute he checked on the street outside.  He saw watchmen down at the street corner, and failed to sneak out without being seen by them.  The chase was on again.  Finally, Maldrik managed to loose them behind the Tavern of the Mystic Arts.  A worker there was throwing out garbage and invited Maldrik in the back door.  The worker was Hugo Olinov, and the clientele of the tavern seemed to be just his circle of friends.  Maldrik entertained them by relating his problems, and impressing on them his urgent need to escape. 

Because of the state of siege, the gates leading out of the
Inner City where sealed at all times, but it was suggested that Maldrik could bribe the guards at the gates to let him slip out.  Maldrik had little of coin on his person, so another suggestion was that he go to the Chapel of Olidamarra and try to win some quick cash gambling.  Maldrik decided to give this plan a try.

The chapel of Olidammara was still a popular spot despite the seige, so much so that the clergy were bustling between tables where the holy dice games took place.  Maldrik was cautious with his bets, but still found that he lost as often as he won.  Maldrik abandoned solving his problems through gambling with roughly the same amount of coin he'd started out with in his pouch. 

Luckily, Maldrik hit upon a better, or at least cheaper, plan.  He returned to the Mystic Arts Tavern, turned as much money as he could spare over to Olinov, and asked his help in disguising Maldrik as a sickly leper.  Make-up was hurriedly acquired, and rags to complete the disguise.  Soon after, Maldrik the Leper limped towards the gates of the city.  Maldrik was again lucky that the guards did not cut him down on sight, but instead took pity on him and hurried the leper under a hastily raised portcullis.

Removing his disguise a safe distance west of the town,
Maldrik found a safe-looking spot and fell asleep for the
night.

Growfest 7, 581 CY.  Freeday.  Aluk.

Much to his surprise, Andel woke up.  The dog-like monster had not slain him, though the pain from the fire had made him black out.  Andel rose to his feet and staggered forward down the path.  As weak as he was, it would have taken much longer to reach the village of Aluk had not a farmer discovered him.  Andel was brought to a farmhouse on the outskirts of Aluk, where he could eat and rest.  Andel called upon Pholtus to grant him healing miracles, which sped his recovery greatly.  He then accepted the hospitality of the farmer and his family and agreed to stay with them for the night in their house. 

That night, asleep in a bed, Andel woke up to the sounds of
a great commotion coming from outside his room.  Andel
donned his armor as quickly as he could, and grabbed his
staff to use as a weapon in lieu of his missing mace.  Just
then, the demonic hound burst into his room.  "Found!" it
shouted before it leapt to attack.  Andel performed a tricky
fighting withdrawal, circling the beast and drawing it out of the house.  The beast had grabbed Andel's staff and snapped it in half with its powerful jaws.  Andel again brought his brute strength to bear on the dog, and succeeded in grappling it.  The beast merely ran towards the nearby barn, dragging Andel behind -- and then ran right through the side of the barn.  The impact had jarred Andel loose, and both combatants were now groggy and weakened from the vicious battle.  The beast again breathed fire, this time setting the barn ablaze.  In the midst of the blazing inferno, Andel kept savagely punching the dog as it tore into his armor with its teeth and rent it apart.  Its next bite sunk deep into Andel, and again he knew only blackness...

Planting 5th, 581 CY.  Waterday.  Aluk.

This time, Andel had company when he awoke.  The stranger was handsome, though a dark tan had deeply wrinkled his features.  He called himself Estophon, and the story he told Andel was that Estophon had been one of the villagers who came running to investigate the barn fire.  The demonic hound had fled, startled upon being discovered, and Andel had been rescued from the flames.  Estophon's own healing had restored Andel so quickly.  Now Estophon wanted answers from Andel about what the beast was and why it had attacked him, but Andel had no answers to give.  Satisfied for the moment, Andel was told he could remain in the village until he was well enough to travel again. 

Planting 6th, 581 CY.  Earthday.  Aluk.

The beast had not returned, and Andel was at last back to
his full strength.  At long last, Andel was ready to strike
out again for Shargallen.  He had no armor or weapons left,
for those had all been destroyed by the hound, but he still
had some gold in his pouch, and his backpack had come
through intact.  So he packed up his meager things, and hit
the trail that would take him to Porton.  Only he chose to
veer off the trail, far wide of Porton, to avoid the Provincial
Army.  This proved to be his undoing because, though he
was a miraculous cleric, he was a poor navigator.  He was
soon hopelessly lost. 

Planting 7th, 581 CY.  Freeday.  Trail from Prymp to Vecheld Gesto.

Perpegilliam left on his pony, intent on meeting up with
Vladamir early in Hexpools.  He was careful to travel slowly, off the trail, and avoided anything he might encounter.  In this way he managed to dodge a band of humanoid monsters moving north.  He avoided entering Vecheld Gesto as well, though he was near enough later to see the Provincial soldiers, and the blue boar's head flag of South Province flying overhead instead of the green and yellow colors that Prymp and its allies had borne.  Instead, Peri chose to head further south and camp outdoors.  There
was no road or trail leading south, but Phillip Petrok's
instructions had been to head due southeast until he
reached the town of Arogaz Avon.

Planting 8th, 581 CY.  Starday.  Hexpools.

Godrum was working the night shift at Emil's blacksmithy.
The night apprentices, led by a young, brash human named
Kliment, seemed to hate Godrum from the start.  Luckily,
Godrum was getting used to this -- people had been hating
him just for being a dwarf since he reached Arogaz Avon.
An errant chicken strolled into the blacksmithy, disrupting
the work flow as everyone watched the chicken look around
for a place to nest.

Planting 9, 581 CY.  Sunday.  Hexpools.

By the next morning, the chicken was the mascot of the
blacksmithy's night crew.  The mood had lightened, and his
coworkers had become a little chummier after the chicken
incident.  Still, it was a weary Godrum who dragged himself across the city to reach one of the few inns where he was allowed to stay.  Even weary, Godrum was alert enough to notice a new threat.  He had stumbled upon a group of over a dozen black-haired, olive-skinned men in strange garb.  He knew from Prymp that these were a disreputable type of human called the Attloi.  They surrounded him and began cajoling him.  The last group of humans to do that to Godrum were either dead or had fled, but when Godrum drew forth his warhammer this time, the Attloi backed off.  The plaza they were in was nearly deserted, but still too open a place to deal with violent Dwur.  Godrum made it the rest of the way safely, and slept half the day away in the Fountain Inn.

Upon awakening, Godrum decided to see more of the city,
starting with a return visit to the marvellous fountain square.  He could not tell if the Hexpools were some amazing feat of hydrotechnology, magic, or both -- but he decided not to worry about it.  He was distracted, anyways, by a fool who began following Godrum, pointing, and laughing at him.  Godrum left the public square in disgust, now intent on spending as little daylight time out of the Demi-Human District as possible.  He did make a brief foray to find where Vladamir was staying, and discovered the home of Boris Kostitov.  Vlad's instructions were essentially for Godrum to remain in the city until he was needed. 

Planting 9, 581 CY.  Sunday.  Arogaz Avon.

Peri stopped in the walled town along his way, but found it
not to his liking.  He made note of some of the important
-looking buildings like the inn, but since nothing of interest
jumped out and bit him, he was convinced that the town had nothing to offer.  Away he sped on the remainder of the trip to Hexpools.

Planting 10, 581 CY.  Sunday.  Hexpools.

The paladin Arkovna nearly ran into Godrum on his way out of the Bone Dry Inn.  Apparently, a woman of ill repute had flirted with him and he had fled in disgust.  He asked Godrum about going on an expedition to the Calling Mines but, not wanting to get separated from Vlad in case he was needed, Godrum again declined.

Planting 10, 581 CY.  Moonday.  Vecheld Gesto.

Andel had been wandering lost for four days, but at last
could see buildings up ahead.  Then, to Andel's horror, he
recognized them as belonging to the village of Vecheld
Gesto!  What a cruel trick, he thought, to have worked so
hard to reach Shargallen, when in fact he had made a
complete circle! 

Crestfallen but not defeated, Andel walked into Vecheld
Gesto to assess the situation.  Where half the village had
been wiped out by the army, construction crews were now
building a fortified compound.  Andel, feeling brave, went
straight into the village and found the Green Hawk Tavern.
The locals inside were hesitant to talk of specific atrocities,
but they readily informed Andel that half the village about
the Graf's castle had been burnt down by the Provincial
Army. 

While they talked, three Provincial soldiers entered and
began harassing Andel and the locals.  When Andel
made it known that he was a cleric of Pholtus, the soldiers
mocked his deity.  That was more than Andel could
stomach, and he grabbed the nearest chair and used it as
a club to beat the soldiers.  Within minutes, two soldiers
were beaten unconscious, and the third was fleeing for
reinforcements.  The villagers urged Andel to flee while
he could, and he took that advice to heart.

Planting 11, 581 CY.  Earthday.  Prymp.

Having come full circle, Andel had continued northward
from Vecheld Gesto until he was back at Prymp.  It was
evening, but Andel could not yet rest.  There was too much
he needed to do!  He raced to the Old City and the Chapel of Pholtus to consult with Curate Recar Adderal.  The gruff
Pholtite listened closely to Andel's tale of woe, and offered
a theory.  Perhaps Andel's answered call for divine
intervention during the Battle for Prymp had garnered
additional otherworldly attention, such as this demonic
hound.

Worse news Andel would yet hear.  The Ahlissan Fist,
Prymp's other adventuring party, whom Andel had hoped
might help him now, had been defeated during the Battle for Prymp when they circled around the army and tried to re-take Vecheld Gesto themselves.  And word from Porton was that the neighboring free town was free no more -- siege had broken them. 

Planting 12, 581 CY.  Waterday.  Hexpools. 

Peri finally arrived in Hexpools, and was intent on finding
Vlad.  It had become his all-consuming passion to reunite
the party once more, and surely here he could accomplish
that goal.  Like Godrum before him, Peri found the city
folk here tended to ignore demi-humans as if they weren't
even there.  Peri say fiendish possibilities in this, but filed
that thought away for later.  By day's end, he had a
discovered the Demi-Human District in the northeast, and
Boris Kostitov's house in the far west ends of the city. 
And unlike Godrum, Peri was pushier and managed to talk
Vlad into letting him stay there with him.

Planting 13, 581 CY.  Godsday.  Dreamlands.

Vladamir woke up in another dream -- but this time he appeared to be on a pirate ship, wearing a chain-coifed helmet and holding a broadsword.  And Pilf was there, clad in a white fur-lined robe and crown.  Pilf related the tale of how things had got rough for him in Hexpools, and he had been forced to flee back into the Dreamlands.  Now he was the pirate king of the Cerenarian Sea.  Pilf's uncle, the Guardian of the Dawn, was acting as Vlad's dream host.  The Countess Shadella had been brought there the same way.

Shadella listened as Vlad explained how his training had ended, and then she related a few, cryptic details as to how her dream host was not available since the Gorgon encounter.  Shadella had little news, except that she was fairly sure the Agent of Acererak had left the Rieuwood and was somewhere in the Sud Grafault region already.  She had rangers in her employ scouting the southern half of the Sud Graufult to no avail.  Vlad vowed to cross the Greyflood River into Sud Graufult soon. 

Just then, a huge caravel, bearing the name The Morpheus,
could be seen swiftly coming alongside the pirate ship.  A
booming voice from The Morpheus called over, and
demanded the pirates surrender.  But Pilf jumped up on the
rail and warned them away, or else his wizard Vladamir would blast them with spells.  The crew of The Morpheus answered with a hail of cannonfire so loud that it shocked Vladamir back to the waking world.

After getting enough sleep, Vlad arose late that morning.  He left Peri to watch over the house, and went to his trainer
Balagros to serve out the end of his temporary servitude. 
However, when Vlad arrived at the villa, Balagros met him with an evil grin and showed him a certificate he had just purchased at city hall.  Apparently, the laws in Hexpools allowed for any period of indentured servitude to be renewed indefinitely by the master.  Vlad was impotently furious, as he had no desire to have the Law in Hexpools against him.  Balagros offered Vlad two ways out.  One, Vlad could give him his uncle's magic stone.  Two, he could go on a quest. 

The Laird of Hexpools was an old man, and one obsessed with the legend of a Pool of Healing somewhere in the Province that could even restore youth.  Balagros would void the contract if Vlad would represent him on the quest to find the fabled pool.  He was even prepared to introduce Vlad to the leader of an adventuring party that was prepared to take up the quest.  But Vlad was true to the Band of the Grinning Gargoyle, and would have nothing to do with this quest.  He returned home, and discussed the matter with Peri.  They both agreed on the only solution.  Vlad returned and gave Balagros the stone.

Planting 14, 581 CY.  Freeday.  Hexpools.

Godrum had by now earned enough at the blacksmith's shop to buy new armor and weapons.  And it was just in time too, for Vlad fetched him and announced that they were leaving.  Both Vlad and Peri felt they had tarried too long in Hexpools already, and that it was time to enter the Sud Grafault region to the south and confront the Agent of Acererak.
  
GENCON 2001 REPORT (Part I)

Warning: The following contains numerous acts of name-
dropping and tournament spoilers!

Sunday, July 29th (GC-4 days)

Noel Graham, Sam Weiss, Erik Larsen, and I had all made plans to get together when Noel and Sam came to Chicago early on their way to GENCON. I called their hotel at 3 pm, and found out that they'd been there since 1 pm. I brought my wife and son with me to meet them (though Tammie had met Noel and Erik already). The three of them were already deep into a conversation about Verbobonc's agriculture that ended only when we left to caravan to the Woodfield mall. Our cars were separated from each either by traffic en route to the mall, and we weren't able to find them once there.

Monday, July 30th (GC-3 days)

Noel Graham, the world's richest gamer, invited everybody to supper at the expensive Millrose Brewery in Barrington. Sam Weiss displayed his ability to down large quantities of heavy liquor, and Noel quizzed me on what languages I knew.  My son, Tyler, became fussy towards the end of supper (though he did eat all of his hot dog), and I had to take him for a long walk around the restaurant after I'd finished my ribs. Before leaving, I showed Noel some medieval history books from my public library's collection, but they weren't academic enough for his liking.

Wednesday, August 1st (GC-1 day)

Stuck at work until five, I gleefully counted down the hours
until I could leave for Milwaukee at 5 pm. At least the four
more-academic books I had ordered through inter-library loan for Noel had come in by that day. Tammie called me that afternoon, however, and told me that she'd balanced the checkbook and found that I'd have to put one-third of my GENCON spending money back into the bank to cover bills.  The bank trip, plus stopping for gas and traffic, delayed my arrival to my rendezvous point by 40 minutes. Luckily, my roommates for the con were still waiting. Ronny ("Vlad"), Bryant ("Enlock"), and I sped our way northwards to join up with our fourth roommate, Ron ("Alex"), aleady at the convention center.

Pre-registration pick-up was a breeze this year, with the wait in line taking less than five minutes to get my tickets. While in line, I immediately spotted Council of Greyhawk ex-president Tom Harrison. Tom was enthusiastic about trying to get into a Castle Falkenstein event together, since we had been thwarted in the same effort a few years ago.

Next, I convinced my roomies to wait on driving back to our hotel until after we'd met Noel at the Hyatt next door. I went to the concierge to ask for Noel, and there Noel was!  I gave him the books, and then Noel proceeded to slyly talk my friends and I into going to a later supper with his group. Noel mentioned his recent raise to my friends and I, which I had heard about on Monday. "Alex" chided me for not introducing him to Noel. In truth, we were all famished, and the notion of dining at a brewery was irresistable to my booze -guzzling comrades. I can't recall the name of the brewery (nor, curiously, could Noel on Sunday. Apparently, Noel had visited numerous breweries during his stay...), but it had some of the most exquisite root beer I've ever tasted. Sweet and licorice-flavored, more like saspirilla.

Our table of four only sat near Noel's table, but Noel's table
included such luminaries as Denis Tetreault, Erik Mona, Sam ("I'm still important!") Weiss, and Russ Taylor.  Sam, ever the locquacious one, was spinning stories of some nature at the far end of their table. Denis, perhaps sensing we were kindred spirits of a more shy, reserved nature, engaged me in conversation for a bit (leading off, of course, with some yak-men banter). Eric Mona was sporting shorter hair than ever this year. Russ Taylor was the largest surprise of the evening, as I'd never met him before. Instead of the quick-tempered, combatitive Greytalker who once made Sean Reynolds run for the hills, this Russ was warm and friendly. "Alex" again chided me for not introducing him, and -- giving up on me -- introduced himself to the gang.

Our motel, incidentally, was 20 minutes to the south, in a
suburb called Oak Creek. The Value Inn was a rambling
collection of one-story buildings spread out so far that a
simple trip up to the front office for ice was nearly a mile-long hike. We never did get up there to see if there was a
continental breakfast. It took some time to find in the rain and the dark, but eventually we did. We slept well, for we knew from experience that we would not sleep well again until the con was over.

Thursday, August 2nd (GC, day 1)

The day I'd set aside for RPGA gaming started early with the 8 am time slot. I delayed our arrival by stopping to get
breakfast at Burger King on the way, as it was certainly not
fast food, and the French bread sticks had obviously been
reheated in a microwave. Still, we got there on time for me
to go play the Living Greyhawk Benefit.

"The Forbidden Choice" was great. It was set in Highfolk,
which was an awfully long haul from the City of Greyhawk.  Personally, I've never had any desire to play in Highfolk, but the LG people certainly are more on the ball in that region.

The highlights of the scenario were accurate GREYHAWK
information, detailed dungeon maps for the players to view
(truly inspiring!), and a dungeon full of puzzles that ranged
from okay to well done. The near constant presence of a
telepathic NPC was a useful aid for keeping the puzzles
from overshadowing the plot.

The low points of the scenario was lack of travel detail
(hundreds of miles glossed over in a paragraph?), a low
promise of reward for a mission so obviously fraught with
peril, and the potentially awkward fact that the PCs are told
to explore the ruins of Delven Brass (sp?), but then aren't
expected to actually explore them.

We had a good, energetic DM with a firm grasp of both D&D and the scenario itself. The rest of the players were a different story. I played with a family of five from Michigan/Furyondy who had the annoying habit of saying, "My character says --" instead of actually saying it in character. And I ended up with 990 xp - 10 short of getting to go up a level! And in tournament play, you can't just kill an extra orc on the way back to town to get that xp; I have to attend another tournament! Still, as previously mentioned, the DM was good, and the writers had obviously put so much hard work and preparation into the adventure that I still give it a review of GREAT.

For the second time slot, I had made plans via e-mail to join Russ Taylor in the Living Greyhawk Feature. However, the two Ron's I roomed with were eager to incorporate me into their group for the D&D Open. I had told Russ the night before that I might game with them instead, though it was only at the last moment that I decided to play in the Open. The LG Benefit had run five minutes past noon, so by the time I got to the marshalling area for the Open, the two Ron's had found someone else to replace me in their group.  After shouting some aspersions against their moral character, I was quickly absorbed into a more ragtag bunch of players. There was a turbaned occidental and his androgenous "son," a young man with an obscenity on his t-shirt, a father who had brought his nine-year old son along, and two other gamers without amusing quirks. Our DM, it turned out, was my long-time player Darren ("Abraham"/"Gabriel"), now full-time RPGA volunteer. His style of play, not well-suited for the slow pace of my campaigns, does fit well with the frantic pace of a four-hour tournament.

The scenario for the D&D Open, on the other hand, was pretty loopy. It all took place in a setting with a Hawaiian
climate and an English culture pasted over it. There was
the cliche of caravan guarding, orcish raiders attacked, and
because the PCs were all 8th level there was no problem
dispatching them. However, we learned that the orc shamans were being empowered by Anith, the evil god of turnips. I kid you not! Despite some laughable elements, the scenario wasn't really bad, and I resolved to check later and see if our team advanced.

I went over to where the two Ron's were gaming, and learned to my amusement that they had been stuck with an awful DM.  He had changed the adventure, railroaded the players along, slapped them down when they tried to do something creative, and chastised them for wanting to win in combat. Since the three of us went to the nearby mall for dinner together, I got to hear a lot of their grievances, which had been backlogging in their minds for the last four hours.

At 5 pm, Ronny ("Vlad") and I went back to the Arena to try to get into the Living Greyhawk Feature. I was bound and determined to get those 10 xp I needed for 2nd level! But, much to my sorrow, I had misunderstood the true nature of the Feature. It was a two-round tournament, but the two rounds were always back-to-back! So there was no
marshalling going on at five, because the game had really
started as noon and was just continuing. Dismayed, I
wandered back to the main building to look for some games
that were open. What I found was a Lejendary Adventures
scenario, "Castle Wolfmoon." I plunked down two generic
tickets, while Ronny went to play (shudder) Magic.

I had never done more than glance at the LA rules before,
but I quickly learned that they had more in common with
Pendragon than with Dungeons & Dragons. A lot of the
players that night had little or none Lejendary Adventures
experience, and although the DM grumbled that wasn't good enough, we went ahead with the scenario. Due to the noise in the room, the DM skipped the three-page introduction, and boiled the set-up down to this -- we had to break into a castle and kill some wolfweres. Creeping up on the castle through some bushes triggered an alarm spell, and after that I was ready to forget stealth and just charge the wall. You can take a lot of arrow damage in LA, but magic damage really hurts. When the rest of the party came to rescue me, they too were attacked by some kind of arch-mage on the battlements. We would have been toast, but a "magic-user" in the party cast some kind of battering ram spell on the curtain wall, and sent the "arch-mage" tumbling down at our feet. It was pretty easy after that to kill him off, and then the entire castle surrendered. We had it wrapped up in less than three hours, which was good, because I was not impressed with the DM, the game mechanics, nor the scenario itself.

At least getting out of that early gave me plenty of time to
prepare for running T1 The Village of Hommlet. I looked in room 201A, where my signs said I would run it, and decided that it was way too small and crowded for that. I set up in 201B, and wrote on my sign on the door of room 201A that it was my marshalling area. With half an hour until game time, I had one player show up interested in the game. The half hour ticked by, and only my friend Ronny joined us to play.  Neither of them wanted to play with just two players, so the first guy left. Then someone else came to play, and we had the same problem all over again. This time, the new guy went out in the hallway to look for more players before giving up. He ran across a party of four, told them that it was a 1st ed. AD&D game, and they came running.

Now with a party of six, we got down to business. I handed
out pre-made 1st-3rd level PCs, based on some of my own
stock, made on reproductions of the original 1st ed.
character sheets. They chose two human clerics, the human
ranger, the half-elf druid, the halfling thief, …and one guy
insisted on playing his own PC so he could have an INT of 4.  Next, I read a new introduction I had written for the
module, one that starts the PCs in the Gnarly Wood still on
their way to Hommlet. The module suggests that experienced PCs encounter a leprechaun or bandits to relieve them of burdensome possessions, so that's just the encounter we started off with. The fighters on watch were all too trusting of the leprechaun, and the party was completely surprised by the bandits. They picked up what they could and ran away.

Once in the village, I showed them a tracing of the village
map I had made, and did my best to describe the gorgeous
Trampier illustrations. They were smart and looked for
people in charge. This let me introduce them to Priest
Calmert at the Church, Rufus at the Keep (and I got to show them the Jeff Lee illustration on the back cover), and Jaroo at the Grove. Calmert had them practically ready to convert to Cuthbert. They were suspicious of Burne and Rufus, especially because of the scorpion as their heraldic device.  Rufus told them about sabotage on the keep the brigands had been responsible for (I added that part), and agreed to let the PCs investigate. Jaroo knew all about the brigands but was hesitant to share it. He agreed to do so only if the PCs could fill three baskets with red berries by dusk.  Thanks to some good dice rolling (I gave them secret door checks to find berries), they won over Jaroo and got to
learn about the Moathouse. At the Welcome Wench Inn, they met Zert and Spugnoir, and teamed up with them to explore the Moathouse.

The halfling thief snuck in first, while the rest waited
outside. The thief didn't find anything, but the rest of
the party was attacked by the giant frogs. It was a lengthy
battle, but they had fun squishing the frogs, and one of
them even stumbled across the one with the gem in its
stomach. After that, they regrouped and explored together.
They found a broadsword, the bats, and the giant adder.
Spugnoir cast Sleep on the snake, making for an
anti-climactic battle to end the night on. However, the
four recruits were particularly enthused about how it had
went, and vowed to return the next night.

TO BE CONTINUED