Month: October 2020

The Company:

• Heinz (MU1)
• Marredorn (F1)
• Jaquet (F1)
• Guillemette (T1)
• Ynes (T1)
• Midja & Nico (heavy foot soldiers)
• Manuel (porter)

Loot:

• Purple heart-shaped bottle
• Brass rod
• Thieves tools

Casualties:

• Midja & Nico — sucked dry by a large malicious cloud
• Marredorn — bludgeoned to death by hunchbacked technicians

Report:

The company scrapes together what remains of their rapidly diminishing funds to pay for their upkeep, resupply and hire a few retainers. Then, they once again set out for the castle, determined to finally return with significant treasure.

Upon arrival, they take the rose garden entrance once more. Their plan is to return to the washroom where they spotted a large glittercloud carrying a purple heart-shaped bottle in its nucleus. Checking the galloping hallway they are relieved to find the phantom horses absent. Carefully, they move to the washroom without encountering any of the castle’s denizens.

Guillemette checks the door and sees the hand swarm and cloud still present in the room, as well as the eerily fluttering linen on lines. The company forms up, kicks open the door, and loose arrows at the swarm of hands. A few more hits later and the hand swarm is vanquished, but the cloud immediately begins to suck blood from the nearest companions. They focus their attack on the thing while Guillemette slides under it to catch the bottle of it drops from the cloud. The thing is destroyed, but the thief fails to catch the bottle. Luckily it remains in one piece. The same cannot be said for the two heavy foot soldiers, who lie dead on the floor, sucked dry by the cloud. They bag the bottle and move on.

The company heads east, and has the choice between two doors. From behind the southernmost of the two they hear the sound of chains, the chopping of wood, and the occasional sigh. Carefully opening the door they are greeted by a man in chains wearing a featureless mask and holding an axe. The room is otherwise filled with a large pile of chopped wood. The man introduces himself as Blérot and begs to be released, but most of the company is somewhat apprehensive at the prospect. However, before anyone can intervene, Marredorn smashes the chain from the wall, freeing the man. A brief exchange develops, in which Blérot admits to a fondness for chopping, and not just wood. The company attempts to recruit the masked lumberjack for the remainder of the expedition, but Blérot requests to be let go so that he can go find a special tree which he’s been very much looking forward to chop. They let him go, and he wanders off into the darkness. Ynes briefly pursues but when Blérot detects her presence she hurries back to rejoin her companions.

The company returns to the hallway and tries the northeast door. They enter another corridor with a door almost immediately leading north. Checking it, they spot a handful of hunchbacked men in greasy overalls tending to a broken-down coil. The room also contains an additional two coils which appear to be functional, another door to the north, and a shaft with rungs leading up into the ceiling.

Guillemette enters the room and greets the men, who react less than favorable to her presence. She tries to win them over but botches the attempt and is rewarded for her efforts with a wrench tossed at her head. Opting to stand and fight, a brutal melee develops in which the company’s fighters use the doorway as a choke point and duke it out with the hunchbacks, who wield ends of metal pipe. Both Marredorn and Jaquet drop to the ground at one point. The latter is saved by Guillemette who feeds him the fortified wine they found several expeditions ago. Marredorn is not so lucky. When Jaquet is revived he enters a battle rage aided by his +2 axe and utterly slaughters the remaining hunchbacks.

The hunchback bodies are looted (they take a set of thieves tools), the room is searched, the functioning coils are deactivated, and a rod is removed from the busted coil. Deciding they’ve had enough, the company swiftly but carefully makes their way back out of the castle, and returns to Tours-en-Savoy.

Referee Commentary:

The players impressed me with their initial approach to the big glittercloud, making good use of crossbow volleys and fighting in formation. Despite this fact, the retainers bought it. Those clouds are really nasty, partly because I run their osmosis drain attack as something to save against, and level 1 characters have pretty shitty saves.

The encounter with Blérot was fun to roleplay and it also has a neat bit of follow-up that can happen next downtime. I look forward to surprising my players with this tidbit. It will reinforce that their actions in the dungeon can have longer term repercussions.

The fight with the hunchbacks dragged on a bit. In part, this was because they kept making their morale checks, but also because I let the players use the door as a choke point unhindered. I overlooked the fact that the hunchbacks could have also tried to grapple them and toss them against the coils. That would have added some neat variety to the scene. But once we got rolling I did not really pay attention to the encounter description anymore, as usual trying to keep the pace of the combat up. Next time when I feel like I need to change things up I will allow myself to take a moment to review the encounter description for ideas.

When the group returned to town they had the bottle identified (a love potion), and they also wanted to try and sell several of their magic items. They are desperate for both gold and experience, which I can understand, but I stuck to my guns and told them there isn’t a buyer’s market for magic items in Tours-en-Savoy, and therefore they also get no xp for the things.

Afterwards however I started doubting myself and considered allowing them to sell items and therefore also get xp. If I would have gone that way I probably would have used the xp values listed in the 1e DMG as a guide. But I decided to drop Gabor Lux a line about this first to ask how he ran it in his playtests. He confirmed my initial impression that magic items do not yield xp nor can they be sold. He also emphasized there is a sufficiently generous amount of non magical treasure in the castle to run a purely xp-for-gold campaign. And so I have resolved to stay the course, and will have a little meta conversation about this with my players at the top of the next session. Basically, the fact that they’ve been having very little luck gaining xp so far is largely due to their strategy and tactics. At some point this should become apparent to them. When they do finally hit the jackpot, the victory will be all the sweeter for it.

The Company:

• Guillemette (T1)
• Jaquet (F1)
• Bartolomea (C2)
• Alina & Benjamin (heavy foot soldiers)
• Lucas (porter)

Casualties: None.

Loot: None.

Report:

We begin the session with some downtime shenanigans. Various loot is sold off to a number of buyers in Tours-en-Savoy. The resulting XP is for the most part dumped into Bartolomea, the newly rolled up cleric. Some funds are spent on the identification of magic items, retainers are once again acquired, and what remains of the company’s wealth is squandered by Jaquet and Guillemette on a carousing spree. The latter promptly loses her newly-acquired +1 dagger to an ill-advised gambling bet. (Groans around the table when that happens, but the players agree it is true to form.)

With town activities out of the way, the company sets off once more for the castle, and gains access through what by now can be referred to as the “rose garden entrance”.

Their first goal is to find the body of Els and administer the last rites as prescribed by the church (better late than never). Trouble is, the phantom horses have returned to the galloping hallway, making what would have been a short walk to the room where they left the cleric’s body, a potentially lethal enterprise. To reduce risk, the party chooses to take a roundabout route, although this does mean braving the menagerie once more, where they previously encountered the huntsman. Timing their crossings exactly they run across the galloping hallway into the corridor leading to the menagerie. They then send Guillemette ahead to ensure the exit from the menagerie is unobstructed. She manages to sneak past any potential threats and finds the north door unobstructed. Taking their cue, the remainder of the company then begins to trundle across the room towards the door. However, several stuffed animals begin to shamble towards them menacingly. The company double times it, and makes it through the door before the animals can get to them. They spike the door shut with a crossbow bolt, and swiftly move on.

When they arrive in the rag-filled room, they are disappointed to find Els’s remains have vanished. Taking it in stride, they head west, crossing the room with the casket from which they retrieved the +1 dagger that Guillemette subsequently gambled away. Taking the north door, they enter a hallway with red plush carpets. At its eastern end they find a vaulted chamber with a fountain shaped like a dragon, gold pieces and gold fish in its water basin.

Bartolomea orders Alina to fish out a gold piece from the fountain, which the heavy foot soldier reluctantly obeys. Thankfully the water does not appear to have an adverse effect. Alina hands her employer the gold piece and asks her to please not order her to do something like that again.

The company proceeds to thoroughly search the room, but is alerted to the presence of something when the temperature suddenly drops. The ghostly apparition of a lady in white, holding her fair-haired severed head in her hands enters their torchlight and proceeds to absentmindedly search for something in the room. A cordial exchange develops between the phantom, who introduces herself as Claudette, and Jaquet. The lady has lost her wedding ring and is looking for it, but can’t remember where exactly she misplaced it. She does recall there being something hidden near the donjon’s torture chamber though, perhaps she should go and look there again some time. The company agrees to keep a look out for the lady’s ring, and the spirit, finding the party reasonably agreeable, departs, but not before emphasizing how she will be very grateful if the company returns her ring to her.

Giving up on the fountain, they head down the carpeted hallway in western direction. They recklessly barge into a room and are surprised to see a wolf-woman dressed in a gown care for six man-wolf whelps who are savaging a life-sized dummy dressed as an adventurer. They swiftly back out of the room and head south.

In a subsequent hallway they find a large closet stocked with carpets. Although they may be of some value they are also unwieldy, so they leave them, at least for the time being.

Turning a corner north, a long hallway stretches before them with several doors on their left hand. The first opens on a nursery, cots gently rocking, propelled by an unseen force, disembodied baby-noises filling the air. The walls are covered by razor-sharp daggers and one kitchen knife the size of a short sword. Furthermore, a door to the south is labeled “do not disturb” and drunken singing can be heard coming from beyond. Slightly disturbed, the company retreats back into the hallway.

Listening at the next door they hear a thundering voice talk about how everything must be polished to a shine, and how brilliant their plan is. The company decides to leave it be.

After another quick listen, the last door is opened, and a strange spectacle greets the company: a swarm of severed hands in pursuit of a cloud with a glowing nucleus, in a room filled with fluttering sheets hanging from lines. The hands are trying to pluck a giant purple heart-shaped bottle suspended in the cloud’s core, while the cloud is lazily zigzagging through the room. Remaining unnoticed, the company makes a note on their maps and once again backs away.

Deciding to end the expedition there, they return to the carpet closet and pull two of the nicest specimens from it. One person holding each end they carry the cumbersome plunder back to the rag-strewn room and ponder how to get them across the galloping hallway without being trampled by the phantom horses. Ultimately, they simply opt to make a run for it, Jaquet in front, ready to bash down the door across. They make it, and head back out through the rose garden.

Thinking they are home free, they are rudely surprised by the emergence of a small army of bandits on the gatehouse parapets, taking aim with their bows and demanding the company give up any loot they took from the castle. Seeing as how they are severely outmatched they drop the carpets and insist that is all they took. Satisfied, the bandit leader allows them to leave. Empty-handed but unscathed, the company begins the trek back to Tours-en-Savoy, bandits mocking them until they are out of sight.

Referee Commentary:

Another fun and satisfying session. Insisting on one expedition per session is working out well, I feel, building in a natural arc.

We lost quite a bit of time to downtime stuff at the top of the session. But I expect this will speed up as we all get used to the new system. I have also resolved to in future immediately handle XP for treasure at the end of a session, to further simplify bookkeeping.

Last time, I allowed myself to become overwhelmed trying to maintain a breakneck tempo. This time around I paced myself, asked for breaks when I had to take in a new room description, and generally just allowed things to unfold at a more leisurely clip. It made for a more fulfilling experience on my end, and I don’t think the player experience suffered much for it. (We hit far fewer random encounters this time around too, which I guess made a difference as well.)

This marked the first time players rolled on the carousing table (I’m using the notorious Jeff Rients classic) and players were shocked to discover failing their save could lead to some pretty dramatic consequences. Nevertheless I expect the lure of additional XP will keep them rolling on it.

The act of dumping almost all of their XP into a newly rolled up character was a bit surprising, and partially a function of the fact that I failed to hand out XP at the end of the previous session, when Bartolomea’s player lost their previous cleric, Els. I think in future I will enforce the rule that only PCs who were part of the expedition that acquired the XP can benefit from it. But for this once, I don’t think much harm was done.

So far, the players have been somewhat conservatively sticking to combing through the north-west corner of the ground floor. I wonder when they will decide a different approach. Perhaps the hint pointing them to the donjon will tempt them elsewhere next time.

The Company:

• Els (C1)
• Heinz (MU1)
• Jaquet (F1)
• Ynes (T1)
• Alina, Benjamin, Midja, Nico (heavy foot soldiers )
• Lucas, Manuel (porters)

Casualties:

• Els — bled to death from a ghost-inflicted wound

Loot:

• Eery dagger
• Crudely engraved copper sheets (9)
• Flint-tipped spears (6)
• Primitive drums (3)
• Stone hand-axe
• Loathsome mask

Report:

After last session’s TPK, the company is joined by some freshly rolled-up PCs, and a generous helping of retainers. Committed to finally acquiring some significant treasure, and not dying in the process, the company sets out for Castle Xyntillan once more. Upon arrival, they decide to enter the castle at the same point as previously, through a side entrance in the rose garden. Their first goal is to check the armoury where the previous party perished, to see if their bodies, and the treasure that accompanied them, is still present. When they prepare to cross the galloping hallway they are surprised and relieved to find the phantom horses absent. They proceed to the armoury and find it still unlocked, and littered with the bloodless corpses of their fallen comrades, save for the body of Michelle, one of the porters. A loud banging from one of the closets is judiciously ignored, and the company begins to strip adventurer bodies of their valuables.

Despite their preoccupation the company becomes aware of something or someone shuffling down the hallway towards them. While they ready their weapons a corpulent priest decked out in valuables appears in the doorway. He introduces himself as Reynard Malévol and lecherously ogles the company’s cleric. An exchange develops and the company and the priest take turns trying to sell each other indulgences at outrageous rates. Ultimately, the priest gives up, bids the company a good day, and shuffles off into the darkness.

The company briefly debates whether to follow and rob the priest, but ultimately decides against it. Instead, they decide to press on. Exploring the galloping hallway further, they soon come across another door. When Jaquet checks it, he is swarmed by animated severed hands. A brief melee follows and the hands are slain with little effort. The room itself turns out to be empty. The company moves on.

Not more than 10 feet further down the hallway they find an intersection. Peering down the north branch they can see the faint outline of what appears to be a motionless bear standing at the edge of what is certainly a large room. They toss a rock at it, and when the thing topples, they congratulate themselves but decide to first explore the remainder of the galloping hallway in the western direction.

The next door opens on a room littered with mouldy rags. One particularly large pile has a sword sticking out of it. When the pile is gingerly picked apart the musty corpse of a dandy emerges, the sword sticking out of his torso. While searching the room, the company is once again alerted to the sound of something approaching them from the hallway. This time around, they are faced by the awful appearance of semi-transparent naked man with an ashen complexion, his body covered in bleeding lash-marks. Els does not hesitate one moment and immediately begins a turning attempt, but fails. The ghost angrily responds by lashing out at her, and opens a deep wound across her face. Retainers and companions attempt to strike and shoot the monster but their mundane weapons appear to be useless. Despite her injury Els continues her turning attempts and ultimately succeeds, she pushes the ghost back into the hallway, and it recedes into the darkness. Although relieved to be rid of the monster, the company must still deal with Els’s wound, which oddly continues to bleed profusely. Staunching the bleeding with rags does not help, and so in a moment of desperation, Jaquet heats a dagger in a torch and presses it onto Els’s face. The wound is cauterised, the bleeding stops, but not before Els has succumbed to the trauma.

Horrified, but also grimly determined to not let Els’s death be in vain, the company once again decides to press on. A door leading to the west is forced open and the company is greeted by a nightmarish spectacle. In the middle of a room stands an open casket, with an eldritch light shining from it, and blood dripping upwards pooling on the ceiling. A number of phantoms are seen dancing around the casket before suddenly disappearing. Benjamin gathers his courage, steps into the room and looks into the casket. He sees a pitch-black outline of a body with a dagger sticking from its heart. He boldly pulls the dagger from the body. The trickle of blood becomes a cascade and a chorus of disembodied voices begin to shout. Benjamin rushes from the room, dagger in hand, while behind him the voices reach a crescendo and then fall deathly silent. At the same time, the eldritch light from the casket is snuffed out and the room is shrouded in darkness.

Relieved and somewhat emboldened they press on. They return to the galloping hallway and open the doorway at its western end. The next room is empty. Once again opening a door to the west, they enter what appears to be another empty hallway. Here they try the first door to the north and are greeted by an awful apparition. An ancient woman, eye sockets crawling with spiders, moths circling her unkempt hair. She introduces herself as lady Odile, and proceeds to harangue and curse the company for having the temerity to enter her family’s castle and insists they leave immediately. Rudely, the company instead decides to attack her, and after a brief melee the crone flees into the darkness.

Discouraged by the succession of empty rooms the company backtracks and returns to the branch off of the galloping hallway at the end of which they spotted the bear-like shape. They move down the hallway in formation and enter a large space. Four pillars are held up by statues of monkeys, and a collection of stuffed animals observe the various entrances. What is more, a man with a horrific black leathery visage, dressed in hunters’ garb, sits in a throne accompanied by a pack of dogs. An exchange develops in which the huntsman interrogates the company’s motivations for exploring the castle, and hints at the possibility of “accompanying him on a hunt”. When he appears to grow bored of the conversation, he blows a horn and disappears, along with his dogs.

Puzzled, and slightly apprehensive of the stuffed animals, some of which appear to sometimes move ever so slightly, the room is briefly explored. Heinz finds that each monkey statue speaks when he stands in front of it: “see no evil,” “hear no evil,” “speak no evil,” and (you guessed it) “smell no evil.” Jaquet pushes the throne aside but finds nothing underneath it.

Frustrated by the lack of treasure, the company forces open the door to the north and enters yet another empty hallway. They take a door to the west and, curse this castle, find themselves in another empty room, except for a bricked up doorway to the south, and the vague sound of drumming in the room’s western section. The sounds grow louder as they near the south-western door. Forcing it open, they are greeted by the curious sight of what appears to be a collection of primitive arts and artefacts. Engraved copper sheets hang from the walls, supplemented by flint-tipped pears, wooden shields, drums and a number of man-sized reed baskets. But the thing that catches the eye most of all is the idol of a hunched caveman hanging over a prehistoric altar.

When they near the idol, invisible entities begin to beat the drums. The sounds becoming louder and louder, before suddenly stopping when they arrive next to the altar. After freezing for a moment to see if a bad thing might happen to them, the company begins to loot the room. The altar is soon discovered to have a removable lid. Inside, a cavity is filled with a resin-like substance. This is made short work of with the heat of several torches, and from the goo emerge a stone hand-axe and a decidedly creepy mask.

Collecting their plunder, the company decide to end the expedition there, and carefully but swiftly retrace their steps, leaving the castle the way they came, thankfully encountering no more of its denizens.

Referee Commentary:

This was a fun but challenging session to run. We had a large party, and I rolled an above average number of random encounters. These were fun to role-play, but at some point, all the improvisation becomes rather taxing. By the time we hit the menagerie and the encounter with the huntsman, I should have called for a break to take in the room’s extensive description at leisure. Instead I skimmed it on the fly, and missed some important details, primarily the fact that the stuffed animals attack on sight. I won’t beat myself up over it, but I will try to learn from it and take it a little bit slower at our next session.

Also, I was a little but puzzled as to what the huntsman’s motivation should be. He’s a bit of an enigmatic figure and neither the room description nor his writeup in the monster list are of much help. But looking through the rest of the module to see where he pops up, I think I am going to consider him a recurring menace to the company, whom the huntsman will start to see as a fun quarry for his hunting endeavours.

I suggested we try to stick to one delve per session for the time being, and I made sure players understood movement rules and how they will be able to move more swiftly through previously explored parts of the castle, which allayed some concerns they had over not being able to delve deeper within the confines of a single session. The main reason I like this is that it simplifies having to handle absentee players, and also makes division of treasure and XP more straightforward.

The company also finally succeeded to bring back some treasure, although a considerable amount is either magical, or does not have a listed value in the book. I’ve decided the primitive artefacts will fetch a small sum from a collector back in town. But they will be more hard-pressed to sell off any magic items if they choose to do so. I’ll probably make it a n-in-6 chance, and for sale value use the XP-values of magic items listed in the 1e DMG as a guide. They also lucked out on finding the remains of the previously killed party back in the armoury. I decided to handle that with a roll as well. Maybe I’ll handle it differently in the future.

The Company:

• Anna (F1)
• Fernando (T1)
• Robain (C1)
• Michelle & Raul (porters)

Casualties: All of the above. That’s right, the session ended in a TPK. Read on for the sordid details.

Loot: None, obviously.

Report:

Resuming the action immediately after last session’s demise of bowman Mattia, the company takes a moment to debate where to go next. Ultimately Anna decides to try her luck once more with the locked door in the galloping hallway. She rushes across, bashes the lock to bits and tumbles into the room beyond. An armory!

While Anna takes stock of the armaments on display, the remainder of the company gingerly crosses the hallway, taking care to avoid the horses. The armory contains a generous amount of weapons (although, to Robain’s disappointment, none of them blunt). There are also four well-oiled chain hauberks on display, and a badly pierced suit of plate. From behind one of two closet doors something can be heard trying to bash it down.

They search the armory for exceptional weaponry, but none can be found. Anna inspects the plate armour, and although it is badly damaged, she decides to exchange it for her chain mail. Robain boldly opens the closet door from behind which no sounds can be heard, and is confronted with a bizarre monstrosity!

Robain immediately smashes the thing in the head with his mace and is surprised to see a glass eye fly from its head, stuffing protruding from the empty socket. The monster turns out to be a stuffed specimen. Puzzled and somewhat amused the company proceeds to investigate the thing and the closet it inhabits.

While they are thus preoccupied, the door through which they entered opens and six gaseous clouds, each with an iridescent nucleus, enter the room and proceed to suck blood from the company through remote osmosis. Horrified at the sight of blood streaming from their pores and flying off to the monsters, the company hesitates to engage.

Robain makes for the other closet, and flings open the door. An animated suit of armour emerges and immediately flies off to attack the armour that is now being worn by Anna. Fernando ducks into the closet that previously held the armour, followed by the retainers. Anna, meanwhile, barely manages to jump into the closet containing the monster and shuts the door in the proverbial face of the animated armour.

Panicking while blood continues to be sucked from their bodies, Robain attempts to push over a rack of weapons on top of the clouds but the thing won’t budge. Fernando takes aim with his crossbow and obliterates one of the clouds. The porters remain in their closet, terrified and near being exsanguinated. In the other closet, Anna begins to shed her plate armour, as the animated plate continues to hammer away at the door.

Fernando pushes over another weapons rack on top of the clouds and manages to eliminate a few more. Robain swipes at the evil things with his mace and deals some damage as well. But the clouds slowly but surely continue to suck blood from all the company’s members. The porters begin to collapse.

Having removed the plate armour, Anna flings open the door and dexterously sidesteps the animated suit. It flies into the closet and proceeds to assault the discarded plate in the corner. Fernando proceeds to fling daggers at the clouds. Robain succumbs to the clouds’ attacks and collapses.

Anna emerges from the closet and begins to bash away at the clouds as well. The two remaining companions persist for a while longer, eliminating clouds left and right, but ultimately are overwhelmed. Both Anna and Fernando fall to the armory’s floor, as the last of their blood is drawn from their bodies and consumed by the evil, killer clouds. Thus ends the company’s first expedition into Castle Xyntillan.

Referee Commentary:

Well, there you have it, the first honest-to-god TPK of my refereeing career. When I rolled this encounter I did not expect it to be quite so deadly. But a number of factors conspired to produce the regrettable fate of our player characters.

Classic D&D characters are indeed quite squishy. The party was rather limited as well, with only three 1st level PCs and no combatant retainers. Upon reflection this should have been reason enough for the players to terminate the expedition and return to town. Furthermore, the players found themselves in a cul-de-sac, with the only escape route leading past the clouds and through the hallway with the racing phantom horses. Despite this, again in hindsight, they should have probably still risked running for it, because they were squarely outmatched. The fact that the clouds’ attacks can only be averted through a save (effectively circumventing AC) also probably made a bit of a difference, although the players rolled very well on their saves throughout the battle. So it goes, I guess. We finished the session rolling up new characters.

The joke with the stuffed monster was lost on my players because most of them haven’t been playing classic D&D for that long. It still sort of worked as a puzzling oddity.

The moment when the animated suit of armour emerged from the closet and proceeded to attack Anna produced more than a few smiles around the table. It’s this kind of serendipitous mayhem that CX appears to be engineered to produce. I absolutely love those moments and can’t wait for the players to return to the castle to once again try their luck.