Company of the White Oak Campaign - sessions 42 & 43

 Session 42

Fireseek 28, 622 CY
Castle Greyhawk

Almost the full complement of the White Oak Company -- Haruspex Niv, Reed Underbough, Percy, John Grond, Father Langdon, Rom Riverbluff, Vask, and Maximus, plus the henchmen Peter, Herv, Muelara Wynna, Harvard, Biros Frapple, Genevieve, and Gendri, the hirelings Everard and Bella, and the animals Gert the Bear, and the three mules -- were approaching Castle Greyhawk on this wintry day. They had come, to find and kill their first dragon.

 

They were far from the fledgling adventurers they had once been. Haruspex Niv had just joined the Magicians Guild, despite still being a thaumaturgist. Reed was moonlighting as a bounty hunter during downtime, but rising in importance in the New Thieves Guild and was expecting promotion to its Council of Executives soon. Percy was training new workers to replace him at the orphange so he could spend more time on the important rituals and ceremonies of the Unorthodox Common Church of Greyhawk. John Grond shirked responsibility at every turn, reveling in his role as swashbuckler. Father Langdon and Vask, with Gendri, had just come back (though not all together) from Prospero’s house, where Vask and Gendri had been gifted with magic items. Rom had been asked, because of his reputation alone, to become a major in the Greyhawk Standing Army, and was seriously considering it. And Maximus…well, Maximus was still a fledgling adventurer, but he knew he had fallen in with the crowd that would help him reach greatness.

 

The drawbridge was down and they moved in -- but they immediately heard sounds at the high end of the courtyard. Taking the archway stairs to the top single file, they met three guards outside the stables, all strangers. These guards claimed to work for the wizard Eneever Zig, who was busy in the dungeon this same day. The stables were occupied by three wagons belonging to the wizard and there was no room for more…though, after being bribed with a 50-gold piece gem by John, the guards found room for the Company’s cart and two of the mules after all. Everard and Bella would remain with the cart, as always, but because no one trusted these guards, Biros was tasked with staying behind too. Gert was left behind as well; Vask couldn’t bear the thought of endangering her against the dragon.

 

Taking the stairs down through the tower, they reached level 1 of the dungeon and saw no sign of elf sentries this time. They moved past level 2 -- should they stop and ask Gordon the Chef for food first, the people who met Gordon on the last expedition wondered? No, better to have him prepare a celebratory feast for them once the dragon was dead!

 

As they reached level 3, they saw light coming up from below. All 14 of them moved off the stairs to the landing, just in time as Eneever Zig came up, alone, seeing by the magical light shed by the tip of his magic staff. After John identified them, Zig offered them a polite warning -- to stick to the top four levels. Everything below that was his. They said they were on their way to slay a dragon and Zig laughed and wished them luck. All he could tell them about the dragon is that he heard it was green.

 

((My players did a great job of pretending they had no player knowledge of what that meant.))

 

John and Reed, looking at their own copies of the level 3 map, briefly squabbled over the fastest route to the dragon, but the clearest way turned out to be south, over the course of several short zigzags, ignoring all doors and side passages. In this way they quickly reached the trapped hall their orc prisoners had led them to a month ago. They knew the way to the dragon was from this room, but they had never seen the east end of this long hall yet. When they got there (avoiding the magical trap, after enough of them overruled John and remembered how the trap worked correctly), they found three doors -- with no direction as to which one led to the dragon. There was no sound to the north or east, but a low, intermittent rumbling to the south. A dragon snoring? Best to go see and find out!

 

The front ranks began to file through, but as Herv came through, he stepped on a pressure plate that triggered a pit trap right behind him, in the room! Herv jumped forward and avoided it, but Haruspex, Reed, and Gendri all took a tumble 20’ to the floor of the pit. All were moderately hurt from the fall. Reed easily leaped out with his boots, while the others had to be hauled up. Spells were cast and Haruspex quaffed his long-held healing potion and soon all three of them were feeling better, if not perfect.

 

How to get everyone around the pit trap and through the door? It was decided to leave Peter behind here with the mule they had brought down and string rope between the mule and the strong fighters on the south side of the pit. Using the rope, everyone else could pull themselves across over the pit -- and they did.

 

To the south, past a side passage west, was a small room where the Company found a 10’ tall stone idol head and shoulders, just sitting on the floor of an otherwise empty room. John addressed the statue to see if it was magical and would respond, but it did nothing. There was also a door to the north and an open passage west -- and from this open passage came the rumbling of a loud snore.

 

The open passage west soon opened into a large hall, mostly dark, but by their lantern light they could see the head of what looked like a green dragon resting on a small pile of coins.

 

Reed and Maximus moved into the room first, hoping to circle around the dragon, but the dragon was not asleep after all. Langdon drank what he believed to be a Potion of Speed, only it wasn’t. While the magic users hid in the previous room behind the great idol head, everyone else rushed in to surround the dragon. But the dragon surprised them by wanting to parlay. It did not care to fight, it said in the Common Tongue of Man, and they could help themselves to some old treasure in the open room behind it, to the west.

 

John, Rom, and Harvard all went west to check out that room, and saw the pile of treasure within. But they were skeptical and suspected a trap -- skepticism that bore out when Haruspex, who had cast ESP, shouted that the dragon was being deceptive.

 

The dragon had enough of waiting, but before it could act, Haruspex cast his new spell -- fireball -- into the room, centered on the dragon. The fireball only lightly hurt the dragon.

 

The dragon then breathed a cloud of chlorine gas into the corner where John, Rom, and Harvard were. Rom and Harvard when down, gasping for breath until they lost consciousness. John was choking too, but still conscious, for now.

 

Reed, who had been hiding behind the dragon, used his magic boots to spring onto the dragon’s head and “backstab” it in the eye. Now the dragon was moderately hurt.

 

Next was Herv, who delivered a ferocious stab with his magic spear -- and the dragon crashed to the floor, dying! Vask was close to getting in the next blow with his magic axe, but it was already unnecessary.

 

The dragon’s hoard, in this room, consisted of 35,000 copper pieces and 8,000 electrum pieces. But what was in the other room? As Percy, Langdon, and Genevieve began casting their remaining healing spells for John, Rom, and Harvard, Herv -- who felt invincible after delivering the death blow to a dragon -- insisted on going in and searching the suspicious room.

 

As Herv crossed the threshold, a bright flash of orange light lit the space in which he stood, and Herv fell to his knees in the room, in serious pain. When he recovered, he checked the other pile of treasure…and it was substantial. There was 8,000 gold pieces. There were valuable objects of art and jewelry. There was more copper, silver, electrum, some rare platinum pieces, and even a spellbook! There was the gem-studded chalice the dwarven ambassador at Grossettgrottell had told them about. Herv shoveled it all across the threshold from one room to the other over the course of 30 minutes. And then came the time to see if he could get out of the room safely. It did not look like he could; Langdon detected for magic and found the trap on the threshold was still active. Herv was given some rope to tie off on himself, so he could be pulled all the way through if he lost consciousness.

 

He did, so intense was the second burst of pain. In fact, he was dying from it. Vask saved him with their very last healing potion, forcing Herv to swallow it instead of choking and dying on it. Not one live was lost, save the dragon’s!

 

Souvenirs were collected from the dragon -- the remaining eye for Reed, the fangs for John. Percy wanted them to stay and skin the dragon. In the excitement of the moment, no one could remember if the dwarves had asked for the dragon’s head or not. But there was the logistics of getting all this treasure topside still to deal with. Multiple trips would be required, even using the mules. They loaded down the first mule and filled their packs to bursting, and returned safely to the surface. Comically, they pretended to have found nothing of value in front of Zig’s guards, even as their backpacks jingled with overflowing coinage.

 

Unexpected tragedy struck on the way back to the dragon’s lair. While entering the room with the great stone idol, a woman with snakes for hair jumped out from behind the idol and, when John and Langdon saw her -- they turned to stone! Haruspex dropped the monster quickly with a Sleep spell. Vask chopped off the monster’s head and they tossed it into a sack. But how to restore John and Langdon? None of them had that kind of magic. But…they knew there was a wizard wandering about the castle who might be persuaded to help…

 

Back on the surface (with another two mules loaded with treasure), they asked the guards where Zig was. He had gone into the tower, they were told. The Company went in, initially planning to find Zig…but as they discussed it, they realized there could be five levels of unexplored tower between them and Zig, and that was a danger they could avoid by simply waiting down here for Zig to come down.

 

And, 45 minutes later, Eneever Zig did. He was surprised they had defeated the dragon. He was only surprised they had encountered the medusa as high up as they had; he said they swarmed as thick as giant rats on the lowest levels. Could he restore them? Yes, though he did not have that spell prepared today. Would he? Yes, for a price, and he asked a price for each spell he would need to cast. If they gave him the medusa’s head, he would come back and cast the first spell for them tomorrow.

 

“How do we know you’ll return?” Haruspex asked.

 

“You’ll just have to trust that I will,” Zig said.

 

“It would look bad for you if you don’t…”

 

“There is no threat you can make to me that I need fear.”

 

“Not us, but…the Wizard’s Guild might hear that your word is not your bond. And that would not look good for you, would it?”

Readying 1, 622 CY

The Company camped in the shrine to Boccob, on all floors, waiting for Eneever Zig to be true to his word. Would he come back and cast the spell?

 

He did. John was restored. He looked around, confused, but then spotted a statue that looked like Langdon and, slowly, everything made sense.

 

Zig then asked for the dragon’s spellbook. The Company didn’t want to let it go at first, trying to get him to accept the dragon’s corpse, but Zig didn’t want that. Zig took the spellbook, promising to return.  

Readying 2, 622 CY

The Company waited another day, but Zig did return again. They led him down to the stone idol room where Langdon stood. One spell later, Langdon was restored.  

   

They all made it out. And rich!

Session 43

 

Readying 13, 622 CY
The City of Greyhawk

 

While Father Langdon was negotiating with the dwarves over the return of a certain chalice, a few members of the Company of the White Oak decided it was time for another expedition. Reed Underbough and Rom Riverbluff were ready, and they were able to talk their newest recruit, Maximus, into going too. But where? Castle Greyhawk, with such few in number?

 

Reed had another idea, remembering Lord Robilar’s Castle, which they had scouted out in the Menhir Hills months ago. They knew it was overrun with orcs. Perhaps this would be a good place for Maximus to really show what he could do.

 

Readying 14, 622 CY
The Village of Grossettgrottell

   

Grossettgrottell was a good launching point for reaching Lord Robilar’s Castle from. While there, they were openly discussing at the Corippo Inn how hard it might be to find the trails west under the winter snow.

 

Listening to them was a man named Hence. Hence desperately wanted to be an adventurer, thinking it was the quickest way to get rich and start the blacksmith shop in Greyhawk he always wanted. So he approached them and told them he knew the way to the castle and could lead them. The bluff worked, and Hence was able to trade his role as guide for full membership in the Company.

Readying 15, 622 CY
Cairn Hills

The four of them, along with their henchmen Herv, Muelara, Genevieve, and Reed’s newest hireling Ambrosio, and two new mules, had picked a bitterly cold day to start out. Their feet felt numb as they walked. The trail stayed invisible, but familiar-looking hills kept them on the right path. They had never gone straight to the castle before, but they figured they could find it again from the Hidden Vale, which Reed and Rom had visited enough times to surely find again.

 

That night, they camped outdoors. The hills sheltered them from the wind, but the cold was intense. They set fires and bunched together around them. It was so cold, it even kept all the monsters in the hills away.

 

Readying 16, 622 CY
Menhir Hills

Early in the day, they crossed through the long, straight vale that separated the two ranges of hills.

 

Later that day, they found the Hidden Vale, or assumed they had when they spotted the skeletons. The Company had long known that, during the showdown with the vampires, on the other side of the vale from them, their own allies suffered great losses holding back the vampires’ minions. The Company had heard the roll call of the dead, but had never actually seen them - until now. The corpses strewn about came from both sides, some as big as ogres.

 

Among the corpses were seven scavenging giant rats. The rats began to charge at the Company, just as their archers drew their bows (and magic crossbow) and prepared to waste them before they reached the Company. Two still did manage to reach the Company. They attacked quickly, and then tried to move past and keep going.

 

The reason why became clear soon enough, when ten wolves crested a hill and, howling, charged after the giant rats, right into the midst of the Company. The wolves proved a more serious threat, particularly to the fresh blood; Hence and Ambrosio were both seriously injured by wolf bites. Still, the wolves did not last long, particularly against the more seasoned adventurers, and only four wolves escaped with their lives. 

GaryCon XIV Report - pt. 3

 Despite my providing pregens we spent about a half-hour on people’s characters. I also gave them the chance to take on 1st level hirelings, since their numbers were lower than I’d planned on. But maybe that was okay, as it gave them a chance to familiarize themselves with what they were playing (or hiring). After that, with very little background, we launched right into an expedition to the castle!

 

It was interesting to see how they played differently from my regular players. Getting into the infamous castle dungeons was not important to them! They spent time investigating the outside of the hill the castle stood on and found a concealed dragon lair entrance no one had ever found before. Now, they were playing 3rd level characters, so I was plenty worried about this session ending super early! At first they were debating about whether this could be an illusion, but they did the right thing in the end and ran.

 

Next they explored the main keep in the upper works of the castle. They triggered an illusory trick of unending stairs downwards and, when they got back “up” found a pack of skeletons -- nothing they couldn’t handle with some turning. The ground floor rooms were mostly cleared out, so they went up. In the southeast tower, they went up again, to the third level of the tower, and encountered giant spiders. The spiders nearly killed two party members who went up a ladder to investigate, but the adventurers were able to suck the venom out in time and save themselves (second saves).

 

Staying on the second level, they killed some goblins…found the magic sword in the throne room and claimed it (after they nearly lost a Lawful character from grasping the Neutral sword)… found the wraiths watching in the balcony over the haunted ballroom on the first level. They used a ladder from the tower to get down into the ballroom, where the dwarf drank magically nourishing ale, and then fell off he ladder as he was trying to bring food back up for the “king” and “queen” in the thrones. The wraiths were not as appreciative as the party had hoped; the “queen” began energy draining one of the clerics until he went from becoming a priest to an acolyte. The other priest turned the wraiths and sent them flying.

 

They found an armory where they found platemail armor for everyone who didn’t already have some. And then they moved up again! On the third floor they found a study guarded by a giant lizard! They put the giant lizard to sleep, but then forgot about it while they were searching the room and they wound up having to fight it after all. The study had a small fortune in books (plus some other items, but mainly for the books). In reading one of the books, the now-acolyte learned that they would waste away from a curse in a matter of minutes if they took too many valuables from the room -- unless they won a game of chess first.

 

The now-acolyte sat down at the chessboard and his mirror image appeared in the chair across from him. They played and the acolyte was checkmated. The dwarf and one of the elves (the one who’s player made lots and lots of puns) were able to checkmate their duplicates, though, so they were able to leave the room and cleared out all the treasure on multiple trips, leaving it all by the front door downstairs.

 

And they could have left there with a good-sized haul, but they got greedy and pressed on. They found a master bedroom where the floor was covered in all kinds of animal skins -- tigers, wolves, and bears mostly. As the other elf moved into the room, he felt compelled to go lay down on the bed and fall to sleep. As the acolyte moved into the room to retrieve him, the animal skins all animated and attacked. The other cleric thought it was madness to go in against such odds, as there were 12 animal skins attacking, and they were out of healing spells, but the others went in. And started dropping. Three party members were mauled so badly they were dying on the floor. The first elf and the second cleric fled with the hirelings (and the dwarf’s mule), leaving the second elf to enjoy his sleep while the others bled out around him.

 

But for those two, it was a very successful expedition, having netted more than 6,000 gold in treasure!

 

As people began logging out of our Zoom meeting after the game, two stayed behind to ask questions. They were curious about the ongoing campaign and expressed interest in joining. Success!

 

To celebrate the end of the convention, I had pre-ordered Rosati’s pizza for dinner, which I was able to go pick up because I had got dressed for Day 3 of the con. There would be no Day 4; Sunday was set aside for celebrating my son’s 22nd birthday early with his grandpa (we’ll be doing more on his actual birthday) and for (ugh) working out my taxes. But until then…I had a mostly good GaryCon!

 

GaryCon XIV Report - pt. 2

 At 4 I left to go watch “Beyond the Barrier Peaks,” with someone’s idea of a sequel to classic module S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but I wasn’t too impressed and decided I’d rather go back and watch Allen’s game more. Allen’s group completed the adventure and appeared to have a great time. I observed that Allen doesn’t use a DM’s screen, and takes notes directly in his printout of the module, the way I do nowadays too. I stuck around long enough that I was asked to take their group photo at the end.

 

By 5, I was getting tired of just watching. I wanted to have as much fun as Allen’s group! Also, the next events on my schedule to observe were Cavaliers & Roundheads on the big sand table, Divine Right on a big board, and War of the Ring -- and I had already walked past all of them before returning to Allen’s group (I got to see Michael Mornard and Theron Kuntz -- Kuntz, I believe, for the first time -- at C&R). The next game on my schedule was “White Plume Mountain Again,” so I decided to ask if I could join that game -- but, again, there was no sign of DM or players at that table! I did get to see Harold Johnson taking down props at a table nearby, though, and said hi.    

 

I saw down at “Neptune’s Emerald,” which would have been my first experience playing Mercs, Spies, and Private Eyes, but the fourth player showed up at last and I had to vacate her seat.

 

I thought I lucked out when I stopped by “DM Charlie’s The Sentinel” and found “DM Charlie” had just started running that classic UK TSR module. I was invited to play and I was in my first game! …Unfortunately.

 

I should have taken note sooner that not a single other person at the table was masked. Masking was “required” at the convention, but maybe only 40% of the guests were masked, many of the “celebrity guests” were not masked, and there was zero enforcement going on.

 

Worse, all the other players were from the same family -- two fathers and two young children. The boy next to me was about nine and, though he talked a mile a minute, somehow managed to slow our game to a snail’s pace by constantly switching his intentions. He would make bad decisions and the DM, not wanting to upset anyone, allowed for no bad consequences. We got through about four pages of the module in three hours and I was glad to excuse myself for another game at 8.

 

Before 8, I stopped to get some dinner, as I was quite hungry again. I finally bought one of the convention burgers, and regretted it as soon as I bit into it. It was really rare inside, far redder than I normally feel comfortable eating meat. I showed it to the salesman and he was apologetic. He even cut into a second burger, perhaps planning on replacing a portion of the burger I had already eaten, but the next burger was just the same. I’d already spent $6 on that half-raw patty, so I forced it down unpleasantly. Then I ran into Anna Meyer, who maybe wanted to talk Greyhawk, or invite me with her to the wedding she was heading to, but all I could talk about was how awful that burger was.

 

I wasn’t feeling very good about the last three hours when I headed back into the Evergreen room, looking to watch or perchance play “Jakala City of the Dead,” but before I found that table I passed Paul Stormberg running “Lost Crypts of the Fire Opal.” Paul called out to me and invited me to play, perhaps remembering how I had missed out on “Sunken City” that morning. It was a generous gesture, but Paul was already two hours into the scenario and had nine players around his tables. I sat at the neighboring table, took on an unused cleric (that the party did seem to need quite a bit), and struggled to remind Paul to look my way as I held up written intentions for my character on sheets of paper. I made a lot of useful suggestions, but most of the players couldn’t hear me so I had to just wait for them to come up with the ideas on their own.

 

Paul, for his part, seemed a little miffed with us that we weren’t figuring out a puzzle involving a magic statue and was distracted by a phone call he had to go take. He waited for players to shout out their intentions instead of going all around the table and was forgetful, like me, about who’s turn it was in a combat round. Still, he commanded the group’s attention and had well-prepared material. My favorite bit was his new monster (I assume he made it up), the gnarly ghoul, that withered limbs instead of paralyzing. It was not an unpleasant way to end the evening, my first day back at GaryCon, and the only day I would spend there in person. I had to bow out and thanked everyone at 10:30 so I could start the long drive home…

 

Day 2 began at 8 am when I got up and started prepping, at home, for Day 2 of GaryCon and my first day of virtual GaryCon. I was running Monsters!Monsters! at 10 and, while I didn’t tell my players, this was only the second time I’d ever run the venerable Tunnels & Trolls variant and I was nervous.

 

The idea for the scenario had come to me quickly when I was first planning for GaryCon this year and thinking of different ways of running one of my favorite classic modules, T1 The Village of Hommlet. This time, the players would be the monsters, come from the moathouse to attack the village. The idea had filled all eight player slots initially, but one person bailed.  

 

Monsters!Monsters! was not a well-balanced system, and this showed early on, despite my giving the werebear and the rock monster and the ghost character-based weaknesses. The goblin and the orc were continually overshadowed in the scenario, but it was the slime mutant, squarely in the middle, who got killed early.

 

Even split up into two groups, they wreaked havoc on the village, burning almost half of it to the ground and killing Jaroo Ashstaff after a tough fight. They had earlier learned who the Temple of Elemental Evil agent in the village was and the players sicced Lareth the Beautiful on him for a final battle that I was not prepared for, so it took place largely off-screen, with just one big melee round determining who escaped and who died in the end.  

 

The players all said they had a good time. I haven’t heard from any of them since, which is too bad, as there were several really good players among them I’d like to play with again.

 

Virtual events I was interested in were so rare this year that I only had one slot as a player, and that wasn’t until 6 pm. I spent all day in my favorite pajamas, even on Zoom call, just because I could.

 

At 6, I played “Museum at the End of Time,” a Mutant Crawl Classics scenario. I had played Dungeon Crawl Classics three times before, but this was my first time playing this Gamma World-like variant. We had only four players after a couple had bailed on him too. And we hit technical issues right away. Our GM was not aware that Google Meet had a one-hour time limit until we were about to hit it. He invited us quickly to another gaming site that reminded me of Habbo Hotel (I had misremembered it at the time as Club Penguin and - holy cow, I just looked it up and Habbo Hotel is still around!).

  

Most people seem to play ____ Crawl Classics for the “0 level funnel” mechanic of the game, but I seem to be the wrong type of player for that. When I have four weak characters, I don’t get more reckless with them, I play even more cautiously, to keep them all safe. I lost one and the other three saw several more character die. Two hours into the scenario we had already secured enough hi-tech items from the museum to, technically, accomplish our mission, so the rest of the two hours were supposed to be us going around being greedy and trying out hi-tech things that could kill us.

 

And then the weirdest thing ever happened during the game. I went downstairs because I heard a commotion down there and found the rest of the family was tracking the movement of a wild animal in the ceiling! Something, either a large rat or maybe an opossum, had borrowed into the heating ducts from the garage and then got lost and frantic in the ducts, so it was running all over the place in the ceiling. Whatever it was, it was heavy -- when it ran over the vents you could see the vents move under its weight. After a while of this, the critter managed to burst out of the duct work and slide down into a wall cavity and went silent. As of this writing, I still don’t know if it got stuck motionless in the wall and will die in there, or if it somehow slide down underneath the house and escaped.

 

Well, as you can imagine, it was really hard to get into character after that. That rat (or opossum) had been scarier than anything in the game! Worse, there was a new technical issue where I could only see and hear three of the four other people at a time. I stuck around until the end, but wasn’t really playing for most of the rest of the session.

 

Would Day 3 be better? I hoped so, and it all rested on my one and only event for Day 3. From noon to 5, I was running OD&D: Castle Greyhawk! At one time I had filled up with eight players, but a  whopping three had bailed on me. Five people were coming to Zoom to play in the version of Castle Greyhawk I run in my ongoing home campaign...

GaryCon XIV Report - pt. 1

GaryCon XIV 2022

Day 1

 

I raced out the door at 8 am and forgot several things -- my hat, some Kleneexes, Chapstick, and…my vaccination card! I was reminded of the first when I checked my head in the car, the second when I wanted to blow my nose in the car, the third after eating some salty popcorn for breakfast in the car, and the last one once I was in line to register. Thankfully, someone was home to take a photo of my vaccination card and send it to me, or it would have meant a 3-hour roundtrip to go get it!

 

I had come to GaryCon for one day because, while I had intended on attending virtually only, there had been no Thursday virtual events of interest to me. And it felt good to be back at the Grand Geneva immediately. I started seeing people I knew right away, or at least thought I did; someone who looked like Carlos Lising walked past me so fast I couldn’t be sure it was him. And I never saw him again all day to find out for sure! I did run into Josh Popp and Anna Meyer right away, since they were both volunteering at the registration window.

 

I had set an ambitious schedule for myself of stepping in and observing various events for 30-minutes at a time, to minimize close contact. I may be triple vaccinated and wore a N-95 mask, but I was still taking no chances!

 

At 10, I was supposed to drop in on Paul Stormberg’s “Sunken City” (actually Rob Kuntz’s Sunken City, run by Paul), but delays in registration slowed me down, and then I got turned around in the building, having not been there for two years! I had to go outside to reorient myself, and by the time I found the board room I had 15 minutes of scheduled time to observe. Paul had told me over Facebook I could play for 30 minutes and drop out, but 15 minutes was too short a time to bother with, so I watched the players flounder about on rafts, trying to figure out how to retrieve the party member they’d just lost…

 

At 10:30, I was upstairs in the Evergreen room for Legends of Role-Playing. Every year there is a new, exciting display, and this year was one focused on both Chainmail and Siege of Bodenburg, which was fascinating -- mainly because of the Darlene-created new rendition of the Great Kingdom Ur-Map (that I’m guessing Paul Stormberg commissioned?). I want a print and I want it yesterday!

 

Kevin Maurice was setting up a dragon chess board he’d built himself, but I was really there to watch Knights of Camelot get played. I had seen the giant version of the classic TSR board game there in the past, but never had the chance to play or watch it played. I found it fascinating, like a barebones RPG campaign created entirely by random rolls on various tables, and got some ideas for a Hideouts & Hoodlums board game (as if I had time for new projects) from it.

 

At 11, I went to the Swinghurst room for the “Celebrating Greyhawk: a Fandom Renaissance” seminar. Kristoph Nolan was basically recruiting for the Oerth Journal scholarly fanzine, but it was also a chance to see Anna Meyer, Mike Bridges, Jayson King, and most importantly Roger E. Moore, making his GaryCon debut. It would have been nice to have a Q&A with Roger, but Roger’s hearing did not seem to be very good and I doubt that would have worked well. It was great being able to tell him how much it had meant to the Greyhawk fandom when he reached out to us to help with research circa 1997-98…and it was pretty fun fact-checking Kristoph on early D&D/Greyhawk history too.

 

At 12:30, I had left myself a mere 30 minutes for both lunch and the exhibit hall. Obviously that wasn’t happening; I spent most of my next 30 minutes at the Black Blade booth alone, talking to Allan Grohe about the works of Rob Kuntz I didn’t own yet. I finally picked up “Beyond the Living Room” a Legends of Roleplaying adventure, and from CASL Entertainment, module A5 Kill Marquessa! Too bad I never found Carlos again to sign it…

 

Because I always have to buy something from the Kenzer boys, I picked up Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine #285 with the super-cool Steranko Nick Fury parody cover. I picked up my second art print from Darlene. I was going to pass up Bunnies & Burrows 2^nd edition because I thought the hardcover price was too steep, but I couldn’t say no when Zach Glazer told me it was 40% off -- how could I say no? Now I just need to find time to run Bunnies & Burrows again…    

 

For lunch, I was going to grab a convention burger, but the stand I was going to buy it from were out and waiting for more to be sent over from the kitchens. So I went to the Starbucks in the building and bought an Italian sub sandwich (that I had to pick the onions out of - bleah), a strawberry-banana drink, and a peanut butter cookie (spoiler: the cookie was the best thing I ate all con long).

 

I had taken my food upstairs to eat outside the game rooms I next planned to visit, but I wasn’t planning on sitting there long because I had already fallen behind my schedule and would miss the Judges Guild module, Tower of Ulission (which I’ve never played or even seen before). That was when someone walked past and recognized me, even though I didn’t recognize him (which happens fairly often to me, so I wasn’t too surprised). It turned out to be Gary Welsh, an old-time Greytalker I had just recently reconnected with on Facebook. We spent the next half-hour reminiscing about old times on the listserv, or corresponding with Gary Gygax back in the day, and I lost watching Erol Otus run Dungeon Crawl Classics. Interestingly, Gary had a copy of my GaryCon schedule open on his phone, which I had previously shared on Facebook, and had been using that as his own guide to the good events. Both of us planned on watching Darlene run her card game Jasmine in the Evergreen room.

 

Luckily Darlene had found the room on her own (I had given her poor directions earlier in the exhibit hall) and was already getting started with her players. Unfortunately, Darlene is a soft-spoken woman and we couldn’t really hear how to play Jasmine (Gary owns a set of the cards, but I don’t yet). In addition to watching the game, we walked around the other exhibits and cool set-ups for games and discussed them.

 

At 2:30, back on schedule, Gary and I split up so I could head to the Linwood room to watch Matt Finch run “Mythrus Tower.” I have known Matt a long time, but had never met him offline and had only seen him in person for the first time earlier that day when I walked past him in a corridor (I hadn’t bothered him because he was talking to someone else). Unfortunately, there was no sign of Matt or his players at his table. This did give me the chance to go find Erol Otus’ game and make up for missing his game earlier.

 

It’s interesting, the mental image I’ve always had of Erol Otus. Because of his bizarre art style, I always pictured him looking Marty Feldman-like, but he actually looks boringly normal - normal, except for the green pants he was wearing. Erol didn’t seem soft-spoken, but his room was pretty loud, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore than I could hear Darlene. I was really impressed with his DM’s screen, though, which was (naturally) covered with his own artwork.  

 

At 3, I went to my second Greyhawk seminar, “Legends & Lore: What’s Going on in Greyhawk?” Anna Meyer, Mike Bridges, and Jayson King were all there from the last one, plus Jay Scott (of course, since Legends & Lore is his Twitch show), and we were joined by Shawn Hille - none other than Brother Ulrich the Maimed from my ongoing Castle Greyhawk campaign! This was like a sequel to the earlier seminar that let Anna talk more in-depth about her projects. She had been working with professional oceanographers to establish the currents of the World of Greyhawk, and it was interesting how they got them to work and make sense, while the land of the World of Greyhawk is rife with impossibilities.

 

I had planned to leave and come back later to this program, but because I was boxed into the corner and the door was going to be shut, it made more sense to stay longer and not come back. So it was 3:45 when I left to go watch Allen Hammack run the module he is most famous for -- C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness. And who should be sitting at his table but Robert Brandon -- none other than Jolith Rhygar from my ongoing Castle Greyhawk campaign! By now they were really far into the module, facing the medusa. The last time I ran C2, it was a TPK against the medusa, so it was pleasing to see they all managed to survive... 

Company of the White Oak Campaign - sessions 40 & 41

 ((Session 39 is missing because no one showed for that scheduled session.))

Session 40

Needfest 7, 621 CY
The Village of Hawfair Green

Almost every member of the Company of the White Oak had spent the past month, including most of the week-long festival of Needfest, in the City of Greyhawk. The only exception was Vask, who had accompanied Fridswid, Tor Hiertaal, and some other individuals back to Hook Harbor. Thanks to Vask, it had been revealed that Baron Dolph of Cairnway had been replaced with a doppelganger by the Horned Society, and all but Vask had left for Elmshire to see if the Horned Society had attempted the same trick there.

 

Without more information to go on, the Company had decided Castle Greyhawk was their best option for adventure and tomorrow would be their first expedition there of the new year. But first they were in Hawfair Green, where the usual winter crowd was gathered at the Leaping Trout Tavern to hear their tales (both tall and otherwise) of Castle Greyhawk. But this crowd was joined by an unexpected participant when the far-traveling wizard Prospero walked in.

 

Soon they were conversing privately with Prospero, who knew of the threat of the Horned Society, but not if there was any connection between them and the Adversary. Again, Prospero warned them of Petothalraun, the avatar of the Adversary. Of Petothalraun, both communing and contacting other planes could only reveal that the avatar was now somewhere in the western Flanaess – that part of the continent in which the Domain of Greyhawk was. Further, Prospero encouraged them to continue delving deeper into the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. The castle had awoken, he said, for them – everything they needed to deal with the coming danger was in that dungeon, they just had to be bold enough to delve deeper and find it all.  And if they did not all survive…he compared it to separating the wheat from the chaff…

 

Fireseek 1, 622 CY
Castle Greyhawk

 

After walking the 3 ½ miles from Hawfair Green, Haruspex Niv, Reed Underbough, John Grond, Father Langdon, Rom Riverbluff, and Vask, along with their henchmen Peter, Harvard, Herv, Muelara, and Genevite, along with their cart and mules, and Gert the Bear reached Castle Greyhawk. The drawbridge was up, but this posed no difficulty when several members of the Company now knew the magic word that lowered it.

 

First thing, they went to the Shrine of Boccob – to find it occupied by three armed and armored men, ready to defend themselves! The men, Hagrad, Ruran, and Warley, were fighting men and the only survivors of a fledgling adventuring party that had just been devastated by hobgoblins on the first level. So ill-informed were they that they were shocked to learn there was more than one level of dungeon! Langdon warned them crossly about drawn weapons in the shrine and they were apologetic. For the promise of 2 gold a man, the three of them agreed to go stay in the stables with the Company’s cart and mules to guard them, as Everard was not here to do it and no one wanted to spare their own henchmen.

 

With that taken care of, the plan was to go down to level 3 of the dungeon for two purposes – one, to show Langdon the shrine to Boccob on that level they had found during his brief retirement, and two, to find the dragon’s lair. If Prospero wanted them to find weapons enough to deal with an avatar, they would surely find them in a dragon’s lair. Plus, some of them were feeling ready to test their mettle against a real threat.

 

The fastest route down was from the tower stairs. That led to the middle north part of the level 1 dungeons, and from there they just had to proceed a little south to get to the main spiral staircase that led down to level 3 (and below). At the spiral staircase, they were met by six elves with bows out, who seemed only interested in watching the Company. Only when the Company interacted with them did the elves share any news – that the number of elves and dwarves controlling this level was growing and they had the hobgoblins on the run to the corners of this level.

 

Descending to level 3, they first went south to the great hall that contained the Boccob shrine. Langdon could confirm that the symbol behind the altar matched his particular sect. All the non-chaotic party members touched the altar for its blessing benefit (which did not seem to last long). All the henchmen were very wary of the pillars that looked like giants, holding up the ceiling.

 

When it came time to leave, they decided to go single file up a 5’ wide passage north which soon led them into a new room – one filled with snakes! About a hundred vipers were slithering all over the floor of a room that had a glass display case at its center. The Company spent a long time debating tactics to solve this puzzle, but finally settled on one. Rom would pour flasks of oil down onto the floor to drive the snakes back, then someone behind him would light the oil on fire to keep them back. First Rom peppered the snakes with arrows to thin them out between the entrance and the case. The snakes were aggressive, but none of them came close to biting him and quite a few wound up getting burned alive.

 

The case was actually a sealed glass cube with no openings, but its contents could be clearly seen – 100 gems, or at least ornamental stones, plus a gold ring on a little cushion. But how to get to the items? Langdon’s Find Traps spell had already told them that the display case was not trapped, but after transporting the case from that room back to the great hall, they spent considerable time standing over it, debating if there was any way a trap could have evaded detection.

 

It was because they were all so busy that the orcs were able to ambush them (plus, they had seen the party’s light and stayed well back, out of range of Niv’s active ESP spell, until it was too late). Suddenly, 15 orcs were charging into their midst! Thanks to a hasty Sleep spell from Niv, there were soon only 5 orcs in their midst – but Rom, Vask, and all the henchmen had been put to sleep too!  Particularly since John was now a swashbuckler who could make many attacks in quick succession, the remaining five were going down fast when – wave two, with 15 more orcs arrived! Instead of casting more spells, Niv was going around waking people (Gert curled up beside Vask and thought Niv was attacking him when he shook Vask – so Gert shoved him away!), as did Reed, leaving John to do most of the fighting. In the end, a few people were injured, but none seriously, and all but three orcs were dead, who all surrendered.

Two of the orcs spoke some rudimentary Common, but Muelara spoke their tongue and did most translation for them. The orcs knew where the dragon’s lair was and were willing to lead the Company there in exchange for their lives. But first, there was still the glass case to deal with. Just to be extra safe, the orcs were made to shatter the glass, revealing all the treasure, which the Company quickly scooped up. Wary of the ring, no one put it on.

 

Now the orcs led them south from the great hall down a 10’ wide corridor, turned east past stairs going up (the Company had seen these before), and went further east here than before. At the end of the corridor was a door to the south. This led into a parallel east-west corridor, and they took another door to the south. This led to a third parallel corridor, but this time they took it east and then north and then east again. And this took them to a large, unusual chamber.

 

What was most unusual about it was the big “X” on the floor made out of five squares of black stone laid out in the floor, 10’ on a side. In the center square sat a big chest. The way to the dragon was through the doors on the east side of the room…but now the Company was consumed with curiosity about that chest. The orcs said the only safe way to approach the chest was on the black squares – if you touched the white in between squares, you “disappeared forever.” Because none of the orcs were charmed and compelled to tell the truth, they were made to step out on the black squares and retrieve the chest – if they did so, and then opened the chest, they would be free to leave with their lives. So they did open the chest – spewing a cloud of spores all over the chamber.

 

More than half the Company was still cooling their heels out in the corridor, but John, Langdon, and Muelara had all been supervising in the chamber with the orcs. They all rushed out. John and two orcs kept coughing and coughing. The two orcs literally coughed themselves to death. John was only lightly hurt by all the coughing, and finally it stopped for him. The remaining orc was forced to retrieve the treasure from the chest, but all it found was a silver gem-studded ring and a clerical spell scroll. Langdon claimed the scroll at once, which would let him cast Bless, Find Traps – and Raise Dead. Again, no one put on the ring.

 

Now everyone was thinking of leaving the dungeon; the dragon could wait for another day, now that they knew roughly where to find it. En route to the spiral stairwell, Reed stepped in an ochre jelly spread out on the floor! It closed up around him, seriously injuring him with its acidic body, but John and Herv pulled him out quickly and they all ran. This was their second time encountering a blob-like monster on the way to the stairs down here – possibly the same monster! – and they used the same route to circumnavigate it.

 

There was no sign of the elves on the first floor, nor anyone else.

 

Back at the stables, they found one of the three men, Ruran, had lost his nerve and fled the castle. The other two had remained and now collected their gold, and then got escorted safely out of the castle to boot!

 

 

John Grond didn't know it, but after he breathed in the poisonous spores, he had 11 hours left to live. It was then 11 am.

 

By noon, the White Oak Company was done talking to their guards at the stable, being in no hurry to brave the cold.

 

After a 3.5 mile walk, they returned to Hawfair Green at 1 pm. The Leaping Trout Tavern had people there waiting to see them return, but Stout Stanley, the tavernkeeper, was not ready for the "feast" he had planned for them yet, plus more people wanted to be there for it, so it was pushed back to 3.

 

It was at 3:30, halfway through their dinner, that John noticed his lung congestion had not fully gone away. Concerned, he left dinner at once.

 

Concerned for John, people followed out onto the road, where John looked like he was trying to steal a horse. His friends took over negotiating for the rental of the man's steed when John, sensing urgency, just took off on it.

 

It was 10 miles back to Greyhawk, with 1 hour of daylight remaining. He made good time that first hour, crossing 7 miles, but had to slow down at that point, due to the growing darkness and the bitter, below-freezing cold, which made galloping painful for the horse. 

 

With 4 1/2 hours remaining, John reached the gates of Greyhawk - but it was late enough that the gates of the city were closed for the day, and the chapels he wanted were all on the other side. He had to bribe the guards 2 gold to let him in.

 

He knew where he could find a shrine dedicated to the Gnostic Oeridian Patriarchy and forced his borrowed steed to continue on, even though the city guard told him to dismount and walk his horse. The shrine was occupied, but not be a cleric who could help him; they would need a curate who could cure diseases.

 

John showed lots of gold and one was fetched. It took a half-hour for one to come. John was told he would need to pay 400 gold, but what he needed could be done. And so it was.

 

With just four hours left to spare.

Session 41

Fireseek 14, 622 CY
Village of Hawfair Green

With much of the Company of the White Oak tied up with other activities back in the City of Greyhawk (or living comfortably on their spoils and unwilling to brave the fierce winter), only Reed Underbough and Rom Riverbluff, with their henchmen Herv, Muelara, and Genevieve, were heading to the castle. But they were met by two novice adventurers who wanted in on this next trip to the castle.

One was Maximus, a veteran who won his way into full membership of the company on a bet, by out-wrestling Herv. The other was Veronica Flameglow, an acolyte of Genevieve’s acquaintance, and Genevieve spoke up for her character, and that she would be an asset to the team.

A 3 ½-mile march later, they were crossing the drawbridge into Castle Greyhawk. They had brought only one new mule along, a last-minute purchased in the village, and brought the mule with them instead of dropping it off in the stables. The castle was silent as the grave…

Breaking the silence, the companions finally stopped to talk about how they would enter the dungeons, and how far down to go. It was decided to explore more of level 2, and to access it via the stairs from the tower, and then use the central stairwell the elves guard.

As it happened, three elves were on sentry duty at the stairwell. They bowed respectfully when addressed in Elven by Reed and Rom, or when Veronica asked Rom to translate for her. The elves had little news to report about level 1; there were still a good number of hobgoblins eluding them in the corners of the dungeon. About level 2, they reported there were areas in the middle of the level where only orcs would be found, making it an ideal place to test the mettle of the new blood. Maximus, in particular, was eager to test himself against orcs.

The Company took the stairs down to the second level and headed immediately west and then south. There were only two previously explored doors down that way and the Company moved past them into the dark unknown of a long corridor. It turned out not to be too long after all, and ended at two doors. 

Behind the east door was a large-ish room, dusty, uninhabited, yet someone had left a very wide, valuable-looking painting hanging on the back wall. The walls were swept for secret doors while Reed made sure the painting looked safe to take down. Since it did, he had Herv and Muelara remove it from its frame so they could roll it up and carry it, but Herv tore the corner of the painting. There were no other ways out of that room, so they returned to the south door.

The south door led to what looked like an abandoned artist's studio, with dusty easels, but nice-looking rugs on the floor. They took the rugs, found nothing underneath, and headed through a door to the south.

The next room was more art gallery, this time with a single tall painting on a wall of a horse. Rom helped with removing this painting from its frame and they had no trouble this time. There were doors to both the east and south here and they opted to head east after Muelara heard a door slamming somewhere behind it.

The east door led to some short, windy corridors that snaked around a kitchen, and one that someone had just left, since there was a kettle still bubbling in the hearth! Rather than check out the kettle, they raced after who had left, soon finding a group of seven men, unarmed and unarmored, just standing around a lit torch and talking at an intersection of corridors. The men seemed very glad to see adventurers and introduced themselves as belonging to the Order of the Gilded Spoons. Their purpose was to feed adventurers who braved coming this deep into the dungeon, and they had not seen any for some time! Instead, they spent their time feeding orcs, a sort of culinary tribute to keep the orcs from attacking them. 

The orc lair, in fact, was behind a door the Company had just passed while racing after the chefs. The chefs told them to return to the kitchen for a feast after the orcs were dealt with.The orc lair was actually an old game room with chess tables, and the Company surprised five orcs who looked like they were either playing chess or just examining the boards. Muelara could have dropped them immediately with a Sleep spell, or between Herv and Rom they could have mopped up the orcs quickly, but they all hung back to give Maximus and Veronica a chance to prove themselves. Neither of them proved particularly effective in combat, as one would expect of novices, and it was mostly the old guard who finished off the orcs. The orcs, for their part, had very little in the way of treasure, the best being the wooden chess pieces. 

There was a trapdoor in the floor of the room and the Company spent a lot of time trying to open this door, finally breaking most of the orcs' weapons on breaking the hinges off. When they finally pried open the trapdoor - they found it had been a false trapdoor and there was nothing but smooth stone beneath it – and no secret door under the trapdoor to be found. So they left the room through the south door, and right over the concealed real trapdoor. Muelara set off the trap and was impaled on a spike at the bottom of it, while Maximus was seriously hurt by the fall and Herv just lightly hurt. Luckily Genivieve could now cast healing spells or Muelara would have died right there. 

With everyone fished out on the east side of the pit trap, they followed the corridor east, north, and west, and finally came close to the kitchen again. They had passed some ways to go east and north to accomplish this, but tummies were rumbling and people wanted their feast. When they returned to the kitchen, only one of the chefs was still there. He explained that the others had raced off to other kitchens to await them, as their adventure continued. Excitedly, the chef scooped the contents from the kettle into wooden bowls for the Company and they found their "feast" was nothing but rather plain looking porridge. Everyone, particularly Maximus, was suspicious of the porridge, but while they were quietly discussing among them how to detect poison, a hungry Rom was woofing down his bowl. 

Instead of being poisoned, Rom felt better, like he'd just been healed a little. Maximus was the next to eat his bowlful and felt the same. After that, the porridge seemed to lose its potency and it did nothing for anyone else. The chef was quite pleased with himself and said they knew other recipes they would make for the Company in the future. 

Everyone was taken aback when Reed asked for the chef's name and he said he didn't know! None of the chefs remembered their past lives before finding themselves chefs in the dungeon. Reed named him Gordon, and everyone – including Gordon – liked this name. 

Saying good-bye to Gordon, the Company set out again, but Reed was growing increasingly concerned about straying too far from the stairs up, and Maximus, who was still seriously hurting, was not excited about risking worse encounters in the dungeon. So they all agreed to return to the surface, but not necessarily to leave the castle yet…

The tower that was adjacent to, but seemed detached from, the keep, had never been explored beyond parts of the ground floor. They started with the shrine to Zagyg on the ground floor, but this time found it guarded by three warriors, two with crossbows trained on the Company. They were hostile, quick to accuse Maximus of blasphemy when he spoke of Zagyg, but Muelara decided she would end their debate with a Sleep spell. The crossbowmen were excellent shots, though, disrupting her spell with a seriously wounding crossbow bolt, while Herv was hit by the other bolt. Once melee was joined, though, the warriors found themselves easily outnumbered and outclassed. Two were rendered unconscious instead of outright killed, but the Company decided to kill them anyway. They were going to take urns out of the shrine as loot, but they appeared to have ashes in them and they left them alone – but still took the rugs. 

In a nearby storage room, they found more urns. While going through them, they found more ashes – and a small gelatinous monster that popped out of its urn. Everyone backed away, but Veronica remembered how they had all been afraid of the porridge and that turned out fine. The gelatinous monster was somehow cute, in a way. Was it safe to pet it…?

No, turned out to be the answer, as its acidic surface dissolved some of her glove and burnt her skin. Now everyone fled – fled the room, the tower, and the castle!