How a party of Level 1 adventurers beat a fucking vampire

So I decided to run a quick game on the discord, thinking there should be more low stakes 'just for fun' mess around games on the server. There's a lot of hijinks you can get into in an hour! We tossed around some ideas and decided to run Knave. I had a half-finished dungeon that was burning a hole in my brain, but i couldn't locate the file, so I generated a random dungeon on Donjon and familiarized myself with it while the players rolled up theirs characters.

I don't enjoy reading other people's play reports, because I find them tedious. This is my attempt to write one I would want read (short, snappy, not getting bogged in deets)

ALL CLUTCH, XX NO FUDGE

pretty much like this

THE CAST:

Osse > Odio, Chaotic Peregrine, spear, gambeson, helmet PROPER PREPARED

Feirsteax > Asgelasgus the Wizard, INT 15 cultist, mutilated, neutral, Spells: raise dead, masquerade. the only one that can read

DustyHalo > Joris of Boris, neutral, ropeless whelp (pullies, grappling hook, no rope) 

Taha > xáos!!!11! brigandine, helmet, spear, perfume A BAD DUDE WITH A MEAN TUDE

MARCHING ORDER

Single:
Osse
Feirsteax
DustyHalo
Taha

Double:
Osse, Taha
Dusty, Feirsteax

SET UP: Party locked into terrible death pits for crimes they may or may not have committed, dungeon extends all over Domzwolek. Left to fair as they will or die trying to escape in the name of justice.

Bottom of stairs, two paths. Listening: Stinky & dripping one way, quite 'nother. Follow the quiet around windy passage.

Find door w/ fanged face near handle - poke with spear CHOMP! Acid fangs. Open door. Medium room w/ rubble. N stone door w satyr, s plain wood door, e 2x2 ft portcullis tunnel.

Osse climbs in small tunnel, finds niches w baby skeleton, rummages and finds 9 gold & gem. Explores further, spooky eyes in hole. Backs out, party uses rubble and tar to brick up portcullis.

As their working orcs come in thru north stone door. Party makes a bunch of bold attacks and runs them off in one round. Routed! Joris/Dusty makes a parting shot and kills 'nother.

Follow the fleeing orcs into next room, they disappear into secret door. Party starts exploring the room. it's so big their noises echo. Asgelasgus/Feirsteax sees a worn out old mural and stars contemplating it. Orcs return thru secret door w their buddies and start hurling jars of oil. Party wins initiative and makes some smart attacks, Bow and Spear, Asgelasgus hurls dagger in the midst of studying wall. orcs fall dropping torches & oil, incinerating themselves.

Not pictures: lots of groin shots

Asgalasgus finishes inspecting mural, finds this:

Giant froglike mawed creature with whirling razor teeth, people being hurled from ramparts of castle into maw, shredded like garbage disposal, limbs and blood everyhere, but their spirits are flying up to heaven where a giant with a smiling sun face is peaking out, welcoming them into his arms. He recognizes it as a mural dedicated to the Dawnbringer, the most popular religion in Domzwolek. Being a cultist he is disgusted by the heretical sun god religion and spits on the mural.

someone said: "if only i could be so grossly incandescent"

Party crosses over charred corpses into an even HUEGER room, truly cavernous. Joris of Boris finds refuse, old cooking fires, piles of rotting furs. Inside is a letter, gives it to Asgalasgus to read. and I quote:

"To my dearest. Please accept this small token of our love. One day I will return to you." within is a ring w red gem. Asgalasgus puts it on, feels a spring breeze rush over him, followed by a warm glow of nastolgia, followed by a hollow emptiness which remains. "Nope, not magical ... I'll just hang on to it"

Next party inspects rope hanging from ceiling which leads up to mezzanine. Joris helps Odio/Osse climb up rope. boot crunch on mezzanine, no torch - can't see. Joris ties lit torch to rope, Odio carefully pulls it up.

Floor littered w bones. Two statues flanking a sarcophagus of black metal. One gold the other silver. Both statues of babes with bat wings holding swords. Odio tries taking a sword from silver but hand freezes to it. Thinking quickly Asgalasgus takes off the ring and puts it on Odio - the warmth thaws his hand and he releases. Joris uses their pick to push the sword out of the hand of gold and picks it up w/ strip of cloth. Warm, brandishing it releases sparks. Touches the two swords together CRAASHHHH!! Barely makes a dex save to avoid melting along with the swords - puddles cool into hard sheets, one silver one gold.

Next check out sarcophagus. Asgalasgus recognizes evil runes as undead language. Team tries to open Sarcophagus. black mist erupts out MUHAHAHA FOOLISH MORTALS

A VAMPIRE EMERGES! lucky shot knocks him against gold statue - burns his flesh! Party gets lucky with good initiative rolls throughout fight, but quickly find out their mundane attacks do nothing. Vampire backhands Taha's head off, which goes bouncing around the room like the ball in Arkanoid, slumps to the ground.

YOU DIED

Asgalasgus casts raise dead to make a skeleton but vampy takes control of it and sends it back at him. Asgalasgus distracts skeleton while Odio makes valiant effort to shove vampire into statue again but he's rooted in place.

Joris tries to get gold disc to hurl at vampire but slips and knocks the wind out of themself w a fumble. Odio winds up for another shove, but vampire backhands him, nearly kiling him, but not quite.

Asgalasgus uses masquerade to turn into copy of vampire and commands skeleton to 'attack the imposter!' stupid skeleton is duped and goes after vampy w harmless swipes - mundane attack. Vampire is distracted by the ploy and loses initiative

Odio tries to make a save to get up and shove vampire again, but fails and collapses onto sarcophagus to hold himself up. sees something glint inside. Joris spends their turn slowly collecting themselves. Asgalasgus dives into sarcophagus to retrieve the thing, smooshing his face and lips all over a nasty mummy body. a silver dagger shaped like one of the sexy bat-winged ladies! def magic as fuck.

vampire goes DBZ mode and backhands Odio killing him,

YOU DIED then punches the skeleton, bones flying everywhere with a crash like a bowling strik

YOU reDIED?

Asgalasgus goes to town swiping at vampire w magic dagger, but vamp is teleporting away from the attacks like instant transmission.  Joris calmly picks up gold puddle throws it like a discus at the vamp, who just happens to teleport away at the last second. Vamp teleports behind Asgalasgus, grabs him & BITES sucking out most his life and healing from the earlier burns. While vamp is busy stucking out Asgalasguses' juices, Joris runs up, grabs the dagger, and stabs it into the vampire's brain. Vampire reels back, spraying black mist and shrieking.

Vampire says 'enough fooling around! Time to show you my true form!' starts transforming, face becomes beastial, giant bat wings erupt from his back, his limbs grow long and lanky, body covered in fur.

Asgalasgus comes to, grabs gold puddle and smashes it against vampire. More burning and shrieking! Vampire down to 16hp. Vampire makes attack stabs with knife hand spearing Asgalasgus straight through the chest, heart stuck on end of claws, pulls heart back through and bites it like an apple.

YOU DIED

Joris of Boris the ropeless whelp is last one standing, takes knife and dives behind statue to hide. Vampire pops around 'BOO!' Joris tries to stab him but vamp teleports behind them, tries to give 'em the same knife hand that did in Asgalasgus but vamp fumbles! Joris rolls aside and vamp's knife hand spears into the statue, which freezes him in place and starts burning him terribly. Vamp starts trying to rip arm off to escape. 

Joris makes sneak attack on unaware vamp, C-C-C-CRITICAL HIT with the magical vampire-killing dagger, right in the heart. Spewing black smoke vampire melts into puddle of ectoplasmic goo, destroyed with a weapon designed just for him.

WOO HOO! Joris of Boris glows up! A part of level 1 adventurers managed to kill a vampire!

Here's the loot Joris recieved (rolled on vampire treasure table):

a piece of jewelry worth 900gp

    4 pieces of jewelry worth 1000gp each

    a piece of jewelry worth 1600gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 1700gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 1800gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 2000gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 3000gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 4000gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 6000gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 8000gp

    a piece of jewelry worth 9000gp

    Potion of Human Control

    Curse Scroll: Transportation 1,000 miles, random direction

    Curse Scroll: Transportation to another planet

    Scroll of Protection: Undead

    Spell Scroll (Protection/Evil, )

Pictured: Dusty messin up this vampire real quick

Here's the fanfares:

Osse: Holy shit you guys actually did it, what a knock down drag out slugfest!

DustHalo: we did it

Taha: Hail Joris o'Boris!

Vilecult: the 99th level welp

Osse: it'll be like going from Gothic 2 to Gothic 3, a paradigm shift glowup 

joris in the first adventure? dumped into a dungeon left to get smoked

joris in the second adventure? dumping *us* into the dungeon to get smoked

Feirsteax yea insane critcal fumble on the part of the vampire saved us only joris made it out alive

DustyHalo: he thrust through Asgelasgus and pulled out their heart before I hid behind the statue and waited for them to come at me, then they rolled a 1 and got stuck in the statue before I was able to drive the magic dagger into their heart and slay them

had like 9 health and hit them with 10

Vampire Stats:
8 HD, 27hp, AC 17
Str 17/+7

Dex 16/+6

Dmg: 2d8 claw
Bite: Stun, d6 life drain per round
Treasure Table F

The sickening putrification of live birth (play report 2 & citycrawl rules)

Great Demon Eyes & Flight of the Glistening Wyvern
2/12/2020
On our next game Charlie couldn't make it, so I had Jordan and Anne roll up throwaway characters to explore a dungeon randomly generated by Wizardawn (the same deadly dungeons generated for the Fellowship of the Bling games)

Anne & Jordan find themselves in the blistering northern wastes, in a small cleft between two high ridges. There's a watering hole in the middle and the stone walls narrow to a point of suspiciously flat rock. The pair search the rock and find a removable brick, inside which is a switch that opens the entrance.

Beyond is thick with cobwebs. Walls are dark green stone carved in shapes of demons. East is big demon door. West door is smashed into cobweb filled hallway. They lit up torches and as they entered a curving formless shape shot out from the shadows of the western hallway and chased Anne, who ran back to the safety of the light. The formless thing hated light, avoided it, and squeezed itself under the demon door.  Cautiously they go west down the hallway.

In the hallway they listen and hear nothing, then proceed further into an immense hall with stone columns shaped like coiling cobras. They eek further into the hall, watching their steps and pass another pair of columns. As they pass between them a lumbering glutton covered in long hair dragging a stone club lopes from the shadows and demands treasure for passage. Jordan refuses, so the lumbering glutton picks him up by his ankles and starts shaking him.

Anne sneaks behind the creature whilst he's distracted and shoots him with her bow. A critical hit, the arrows pierces the back of the creatures skull, killing it. The huge body topples over and Jordan barely rolls out of the way. Inspecting the corpse they discover the wound in its brain is beginning to heal. Jordan hacks the glutton's head off.

They head further eat and pass over a fallen column. Beyond is the lumbering glutton's nest, full of trash, with a blackened firepit and pieces of human bodies. They spend time searching the remains and find a handful of copper groats.

At the end of the hall they find a massive stone door barred by a dolomite slab. They aren't strong enough to lift the slab so they spend 30 minutes hacking through the chalky stone with their weapons, slightly damaging Jordan's longsword.

The din brings on an attack from 5 starving wolves. The pair manage to shove the door open wide enough to slip through. Three wolves get through also before they get the door closed behind them. The wolves leap to attack and the pair enter battle.

A wolf leaps and tears out Jordan's throat. At this point we remember I had them roll 4 characters for the adventure, so I let Jordan enter his second character right in the middle of the fight. The two continue fighting, wounding two wolves. The wolves teeth bounces off the restless duo's leather armor. Then Anne takes out a flask of oil and sets the wolves on fire. They fail their morale check and run off into the darkness.

The two inspect the room, finding a jammed wooden door to the north. They leave the door and head south through an open doorway. Their torches burn out so they light new ones.

In the southern room they see a pair of glowing eyes high on the eastern wall. Jordan moves in to the middle of the room and is instantly vaporized by lasers from the eyes. Jordan takes over Anne's secondary character.

Down to their last characters they are more cautious. They edge around the room and find the eyes are really rubies set into a 12 foot tall brass statue of a demon, surrounded by glowing runes on the floor. The runes create an invisible barrier around the statue. They edge around the barrier, staying close to the statue, and find a switch on the other side that deactivates the barrier.

Jordan climbs on the statue and pops outs the gems, as big as fists. As he does a horned serpentine head slithers out from a collapsed hole in the ceiling, curved teeth dripping with venom.

The pair take off running to the north, the creature flies out of the hole, held aloft by two huge batwings, a pair of eagle-like talons hang below it, it's tail a ball of dripping spikes. The creature is swift but clumsy, the pair are able to make it to the stone door and force it open.

They slip through and begin running across the hall. The flying devil smashes down the stone door and soars into the air, smashing into a column and crashing to the ground in a pile of snapping teeth and rubble.

Anne and Jordan are able to make it back to the entrance and escape.

I let them transfer the rubies and groats to their main characters, retiring the surviving throwaways, netting them 619 XP total.



They spend the rest of the game back in Darkstone. They talk to Lady Elizabeth, the lead ex-adventurer, and she puts them into contact with a real estate agent named Toadly, a diminutive man (a mere 24 inches tall) with a pencil thin mustache, greasy blond hair parted down the middle, and dapper frilly clothing, riding in a one-man chariot pulled by an elven eunuch.

The pair ride alongside Toadly as he shows them various dilapidated manses in sundry disgusting and leper-infested neighborhoods. Eventually the pair settle for the one with the most rooms, in an up-and-coming block facing the putrid river. Toadly is willing to drop the price from 1800 to 1100 if they do a job for him.

Toadly's rival Meglordenstein has been giving him trouble long enough! The tiny real estate agent wants them to break into Meglordenstein's house, smash up some stuff, steal some stuff, raise some mischief, make him realize that he's got enemies and that he should watch himself....but without leaving evidence that Toadly was behind it.

They wend the session with Anne declaring she wants to spend 100 groats filing the paperwork to get the floorplan from the assessor's office. Jordan does a number of jobs with Lady Elizabeth to increase his standing and make a few extra groats.




The Miracle of Birth & Bob Humungous Rips a Guy's Hand Off
2/19/2020
Bob -- Level 1 Dwarf Thief (Jordan)
Rowan -- Level 1 Elf Thief (Anne) Elvish mutation: Apish hands for feet
Kraig -- Level 1 Elf Magic-User (Charlie) Elvish mutation: Bony head crest

This game Charlie is able to join us, so the pair fill him in on what's what. Anne passes her Wis check so I give her an accurately (but messy) map of the Meglordenstein's house. Then she spends an extra 100 groats to roll two checks and ask two questions, which I answer with one word ("How many traps are there?" "3", "how many guards does he have?" "1"....They take this as a sign that Meglordenstein is an idiot for only having one guard)

Jordan rolls and finds that he did 6 jobs for Elizabeth over the last week, so I have him roll a save for each stat. He fails half of them, so I award Bob 75 groats and a -2 penalty to Wis for the session.



Before we get into the swing of things it's time for the party to give birth!

They head back down to the muckmen's lands to get what advice they can. The king of the muckmen (whom they aided by assassinating his political rival) is flippant, insulting, and unhelpful. They manage to squeeze a bit of information from him. Namely that muckmen like to attack and eat each other's babies and that muckmen are terrible parents. The king renounces any support for the rearing of the hybrid muckmen/elves and muckmen/dwarf about to be born.

The party goes into labor for 13 hours as the babies tear their way out of their backs. Rowan & Kraig succeed their Con saves, but Bob fails, rupturing his penis (taking -1 Con for the session). The king's apothecaries then use their advanced remedies to heal the party in short time.

They are now the proud parents of 2 foot tall disgusting flat-faced stumbling mutants. Rowan carries her in her backpack. Bob puts his on his shoulder and gives it a knife. Kraig ignores his for the rest of the session.

Before they leave Kraig asks the muckman king to teach him more spells. The king laughs and hands him a giant bloodsucking leech. Kraig hands the leech to his baby.




After much deliberating and discussing the floor plan the party still can't come up with a plan, except to somehow find their way to the Study (which they don't realize is on the third floor) so I urge them on to at least check out the house.

It's been snowing heavily the past two days, so there's over 6 inches of snow on everything. Shovelmen have been working round the clock to clear the main streets, but everything else is packed. Nobody is out and about. At this lattitude there's only 5 hours of sunlight during Winter, so they use this to their advantage.

Nobody sees them on their way there. They find the manse: surrounded by sculpted hedges and iron sconces. They push open the front gate then decide it's better to look for a back entrance.

They slink through the shadows to the back of the house and find a small service door. Bob hoists himself up and peeks through a small window finding a kitchen. They decide not to go in there. Rowan climbs to the second floor and peeks in the window, finding a flicker of candlelight shining between two plush curtains. She climbs onto the nearby roof and drops a rope down for Bob and Kraig to climb up.

There's a central tower on the roof here, topped by a stone cupola or watchtower. Bob climbs up, Rowan follows him, Kraig tries but falls 10 feet taking d6 damage and rolling on the death & dismemberment table. He falls onto his face, crushing his nose, bruising his eye, and knocking out several teeth. This has the miraculous result of increasing his Charisma from 5 to 9.


 Bob finds a trap door in the cupola with a handle shaped like a silver hand. He listens at the trap door and hears a man cough, as well as the rustle of paper. He tries to open it but the handle springs to life and grabs his arm. Thinking quickly he snatches the potion of giant size from his pack and chugs it, growing 12 feet tall, bones cracking and clothing/equipment tearing free from his body until he becomes large enough to fill the cupola with his girth. Rowan barely squeezes in and climbs onto his shoulder.

Bob tosses his shredded clothes and equipment down Kraig. Kraig is out of commission and begins to crawl his way gingerly off the roof.

With a jerk Bob rips the trapdoor from its hinge and smashes his way into the floor below.

By this time Kraig has made it to the ground. The chefs from the kitchen run out to see what all the commotion is. Kraig acts confused along with them.

Humongous Bob, broken penis swinging freely, drops down into the second floor, where he is temporarily blinded by the darkened room, and a man wielding a sword springs to the attack! The man's strikes are quick as lightning but fail to scratch Bob's girth! Bob attempts to grab the man who deftly ducks out of the way. Rowan jumps from Bob's shoulders, attempting to Merge With Shadows, but fails, instead rolling into cover by a small statue.

The man attacks again, his glowing sword glittering and clanging against Bob's supernaturally tough skin. Bob grabs the man and picks him up, rips the sword from his hand (taking the hand with it) and hurls him against the wall. The man takes 3d6 damage, fails his Save VS Paralysis, and collapses to the floor unconscious.

Rowan finds demonic looking book on a pedestal and uses her cloak to pick it up without touching it. Bob opens a nearby door and enters, finding a strange helmet hanging from the ceiling on thick wires. Tiny curtains with pull cord line the walls. He opens one and finds a large scorpion. He begins to feel is body throb and knows that his potion's effects will wear off soon so he rips the helmet from the ceiling by the cables and the pair exit through the roof. Before they leave he stops to bellow "THIS ONE'S FROM TOADLY!!!!"

Bob lands on the ground with a thud, digging into the soft dirt half a foot. Then he turns on the stunned chefs and flicks one across the lawn with his finger, before suddenly shrinking down to normal size.



The three exit the property and run smack into a number of guards coming to investigate the disturbances. They detain the two suspicious elves and naked dwarf. Kraig casts sleep and knocks everybody out, then slaps his comrades awake. They run for it. Since Kraig isn't carrying his baby I declare that he loses it, and if the get back to safety he can roll to see if it miraculously reappears.

Smack into more guards. They run down a side street. Rowan tries to find a flask of oil in her pack but trips. They outrun some guards.


Citycrawls
At this point I start using the Citycrawl rules from Last Gasp. I use a grid and sheets of paper to simulate the streets/alleyways, using red dice for their characters and white dice for the guards.

Each round I use the same order:
0. A player does a roll-under Dex check & pursuing guards to theirs. The winner has the highest number without going over their Dex. Players rotate clockwise starting from the one with the lowest Dex
1a. Roll for Streets/Alleys and complications and place sheets representing buildings on grid
1b. If players win they gain one "step" on the guards. If the guards win they reduce the players "step" by 1 and appear on the board (I throw white dice representing the guards randomly onto the grid)
2. Players declare their actions
3. If there are any guards, those guards make their actions.

If players make it to the edge of the board we continue with the next section.

The players were either trying to make it back to the Ravenloft Inn (They knew it was South-east, and they knew they'd recognize the area when they got close, but they didn't know exactly how to get back) OR they had to gain 3 "steps". If they were brought to -1 "steps" they'd get forced into a combat with the guards.

I made a map of where the inn was in relation to the players by writing the word RED with all the letters connected to sort of look like streets, then I threw a couple dice on there. The south-east one was the inn, the northern one the players. Each new map they entered was an intersection, with main streets decided by the map and alleyways decided by throwing a d4.



It was a blast and I highly recommend giving this a go sometime. It made the city itself a dungeon, with obstacles and choices. Players had to guess their way back in the direction of the inn, cleverly avoid guards by dipping down alleyways, and use their surroundings (including the Z axis!) to their advantage.


Eventually they found a manhole cover and climbed down in to the sewer to wait out the chase. They sat down there for an hour and I threw two encounter checks, both were clean. They were safe.


Toadly was excited to hear all about it. Jordan shushed everyone and played it off like a regular ol' prank instead of a near disaster, and they sealed the deal on the house, and kept all the treasures.


 Safetly back at the Ravenloft in Kraig decided to read the book. Doing so caused his flesh to mutate and become rubbery and indigestible, making him immune to acid damage. They could've sold it for 100 groats but decided to keep it.

They lay their heads to sleep. Then Kraig rolls a Wis check to see if his baby survives and crits. His mutant baby shows back up at their second floor window carrying 19 groats in a sack and a leech full of blood.

I award Kraig 19 XP

Wizards & Wingnuts (play report 1)

Somebody translated/adapted my rules for Tales of Mordhearse into French. Like a RaLaLy long time ago and I'm just now showing creds because I am a forgetful jerk. elf games.

This is a write up of my last  few games, more to jog my own memory that for anyone else. If you like long-winded play reports read onnnnnn....





 Started up a new campaign on Tuesdays with two players from my last campaign (my girlfriend 'Monday' and my sister 'Anne'), both are very familiar with my games, and two new people (girlfriend's teenage brother 'Jordan' and buddy from work's husband 'Charlie').

Charlie has played only 5e and left his last game because A. they were dicks and 2. only wanted to play super-power shoot-em-up style dungeons. He was stoked when I told him Level 1 characters in my games usually die in one hit.

Jordan has played a few solo one-shots with me. Dyson's Goblin Gully and a bit of Tomb of the Serpent King. If you only have an hour to teach someone how to play Get Killed games go with Goblin Gully.



On the first game they all met up at a bar to RP being new-hire sellswords at a goldrush town yaddayadda. They got drunk, scoped the sick statue of Tyr riding a wolf in the chapel, goofed around, then witnessed a dude come back alone from the dungeon carrying a magic sceptre. Adventurers surged out of the bars and crowded around the guy cos almost everybody that's gone down the local dungeon has died. Town guards hauled him off to the Lady in Charge. PCs nearly get into a fight with town guard trying to get more info about the guy.

Jordan: I tell him "oh yeah? What's he gonna do?"
Monday: Dude.
Anne: Don't!
Me: He steps to your face and brandishes his mace. His plate armor glistens. "Get out of here. Now"
Monday: This guy is gonna kill you.
Me: She's right. You're gonna fucking die if you fight this guy.
Jordan: I say "C'mon man, do it. Hit me"
Charlie: I grab him by the arm and drag him away.
Monday: I grab his legs.


Then they decided to leave down and go to the dungeon. It's Caverns of Thracia. They find mutilated corpses hanging from trees by ropes made from vines on the way there. They don't take this as an omen.

 They split up to investigate the ruins and get ambushed by Tribals. Tribals use every tactical advantage against the PCs and get them totally cornered. PCs manage to survive long enough to kill one of the Tribals, who then fail their Morale check and run away. Players admit they thought they were fucked and descend.

None of the PCs matter because they all got killed by the ambush in Room 20. Jordan lights a flask of oil and Charlie gives a brimstone sermon on top of a pile of skulls while everybody get cut to ribbons.
All except Anne's character who sprints out of the flames and makes it to the surface.

Session ends with everyone laughing and rolling up new character for next time. Phew.




Next game I decide to restart the game world and change the tone. I didn't like the cartoonish adventure-time style world I had built the first time around, and wanted something darker and more based in reality. This time I give them the low-down: The town is an outpost on the edge of a jungle, the Caverns are there, you're hired by an ex-adventurer to map it and bring back treasures. GO!

The dungeon is a half-day away. The PCs leave late and end up camping out. They choose a watch order. I roll checks every two hours at night. They get 2, 1, 1, 4 so we end up roll-playing a ton of encounters, including city guards and friendly gnolls. The last one is with some bandits who pretend to be adventurers wanting to take the PCs to a 'secret entrance', which is total bullshit but the PCs buy it.

The secret entrance is an ambush. Jordan, once again, steps up to the bandits, who have the team completely surrounded.

Jordan: I get in his face 'C'mon dude!'
Anne: Don't!
Monday: You're gonna get us killed.
Me: The archers point their bows at you.
Jordan: I grab him by the throat.
Charlie: I lean in to the nearest bandit and say "I don't know this guy. Can I just give you my money and leave?"

 A melee ensues. Jordan dies. Charlie dumps all his stuff out on the ground, buying Anne and Monday time to run away. The survivors slink back to town defeated. Session ends.

Jordan: Man, we still haven't seen a single piece of treasure!
Me: You have to survive long enough to find it! What part of 'you have 4 HP' do you not understand? Don't pick fights you don't need to!

To add insult to injury I'm charging the PCs 5 silver per night at the inn and each game happens a week apart, so 35 silver per session. Monday decides to have her character stay at the homeless camp.



Monday asks if she can port in her character from our last campaign which used Knave, since they did lots of trans-dimensional travel it's theoretically possible her character would end up in this world. Seeing that the players obviously need some kind of boost I allow it.

This character is Garnet the Pirate (Level 2). She picks Thief for her class, since its the closest thing to her character vision. Garnet is kitted out with an emerald snake skin cloak, a smear of Skeleton Jelly on her tunic protecting her heart, a Scroll of Minor Transformation and potions of Treasure Sight and Ghost Clone (converted spells), a single drop of poison to kill 50 men, and a quad-barreled wheellock pistol.

The mythical Last Campaign took place in and around the Tombs of the Serpent King. Monday is pretty attached to this guy and really doesn't wanna let her die.



At this point I can't tell if my players are idiots or I'm doing something wrong, so I take to the OSR Discord to ask for advice. They say losing characters every single game is abnormal. I get the suggestion to send the PCs with an "Obby the Rat" type character who knows the tricks of trade, grease, caltrops, 10 foot pole, the works. Give the PCs an idea of what a successful adventurer looks like.

So I do exactly that. Next game the team meets up with Monday at the bum camp and "Obi the Rat" appears, a tiny fox-faced human accoutered with vials of acid, sais, grappling hooks, and pouches all over. PCs immediately take to calling him "Obi the Rat Kenobi". He's got a job he needs extra muscle for: Some goblins ambushed adventurers returning to town with a cartful of treasure, slaughtered them, and took their swag back to their nest. Let's go smack up goblins and get treasure! The PCs jump at the chance for actual treasure although they aren't sure if they can't trust Obi after the bandit thing. I make a mental note to roleplay my liars more blatantly.


Pulling double-duty as a pseudo-PC I quickly realize my players problem: they don't plan ahead. We hash out a plan to assault the cave. Obi's initial plan was a terrible one--start a fire and snipe all the goblins that run out--the players veto it because they don't know how many goblins are in there. They elect to peek inside and find themselves on a ledge (near the entrance of one of my favorite Dyson maps). Down in the den the goblins are distracted being goblins (but wearing kingly jinglies like mink hats and bejeweled finery).



They sneak past into the first hallway just inside and find a wardrobe tipped on its side against the wall and a mat of rotting furs carpeting the floor. Obi stops and wonders aloud if this is a trap. Charlie's Kraig the Elf Mage makes a Search (2) and discovers a 10 foot pit trap with spikes and a decayed goblin corpse hiding under the mangy carpet. This takes 10 minutes so I also make an Encounter check (2-spoor): They hear some goblins coming down the hallway ahead of them, bickering over who's hat is bigger.

Thinking quickly Kraig and Jordan's JoeyJoe the Dwarf Thief climb inside the wardrobe, Rowan isn't here because Anne couldn't make it. Monday doesn't like the look of Garnet's Merge With Shadows roll, so she climbs under the furs and hangs from the ledge of the pit. I have Obi Merge With Shadows.

The goblins both stop, one on each side of the pit, to investigate because they notice the trap's been messed with. Jordan rolls out and shoves his goblin into the pit, Obi knifes his in the back. Garnet lets herself drop down to harvest the bits of finery off the goobs. I roll a Surprise check for the goblins in the den behind them to see if they notice the noise (they fail).

The team moves forward to scope out the next room. This area is far enough away from the entrance that it's too dark to see (AKA I suddenly remember I need to account for lighting). JoeyJoe and Kraig who have Darkvision narrate what they see to the humans.

Inside is an oxcart of treasure and a pompous goblin king on a pile of skulls wearing a turban the size of his whole body being fanned with palm fronds, in addition to two goblin guards and some various servant running about. Garnet has experience with goblins before (the booger goblins from TotSK) and tells the team of the time she was goblin king. Sez goblins are stupid and easy to trick. JoeyJoe decides he wants to cover himself with a cloak and march out pretending to be a goblin from another tribe bringing offerings to the goblin king. This is supposed to distract the goblin king long enough for the rest of the party to loot shit from the ox cart.

Obi points out that he has a Scroll of Web to use in case things go badly.

The goblin king doesn't buy the ol' blanket-over-the-head-pretending-to-be-a-goblin trick at all and has his guards grab the intruder. A test of wits and wills happens between the goblin king and the captured JoeyJoe in which the goblin king decides JoeyJoe must prove his loyalty by drinking from a cauldron of goblin transformation. JoeyJoe hesistates. Garnet, thinking quickly, uses her scroll of Minor Transformation to turn herself into a huge goblin pope replete with huge hat and crosier.

In due time a melee breaks out and Obi uses his scroll of Web, which turns out to be a scroll of incinerate-everything-in-the-fucking-room.

The team skedaddles out the door and is met in the hall by the goblins from the den area. They shudder in fear at the sight of the goblin pope giving the team a moment to form battle ranks. They launch missiles on the approaching goblins, dropping several, then clash into melee, where they cut a swath with a bunch of lucky rolls.

The team gets out safe and sells their junk, bumping them 1/3rd the way to level 2. Obi takes his cut and vanishes. They make note to return and finish clearing out the goblin nest later.

So the Team (now) is:
(Anne) Rowan the Elf Thief -- Level 1
(Monday) Garnet the Human Thief -- Level 2
(Jordan) JoeyJoe the Dwarf Thief -- Level 1
(Charlie) Kraig the Elf Mage -- Level 1