NDT Session 10: None more black

 Island of lost dreams

The party quickly dispatched the remaining skeletons and healed themselves up.

The only thing of interested in the room was another ladder leading down to a lower level. Aiimir grabbed the ladder and suffered an electric shock, which also caused him to fall to the lower level.

The rest of the group successfully made their way down without injuring themselves, revealing a passageway to another door. No sounds could be heard so Aimiir, not learning from his earlier mistake flung open the door.

A large black chamber was revealed. The blackest room they had ever seen. In front of them was a large black mirror that showed a distorted reflection from which a winged stone creature emerged. Simultaneously, a poison dart trap was triggered by the door opening causing Aengus to fall asleep.

The gargoyle proved to be a tough opponent and managed to kill Aimiir before Rurik could wildshspe into a snake and constrict it. Rurik, Glimmer, and eventually awoken Aengus managed to destroy the gargoyle. Glimmer retrieved Vlack’s two-handed sword from Aimiir’s corpse and used it to smash the mirror, which seemed to lift the curse on the island.

The apologetic Pixies gave the party some healing potions as recompense for the trouble they had caused whilst cursed and promised to make amends with the elves.

Back on the mainland the group decided to head south to continue the goblin hunt instead of north to help the gnomes. One of the elves lead them to the edge of a petrified forest where the wolf-skulls were said to live.

To be continued….

DM notes: I had decided that with only 4 wounded characters, a single gargoyle would provide enough trouble to them, which proved to be the case.

Aimiir’s player was rather foolhardy and unfortunate with death saves (a natural 1) so a new character will be joining next time. Along with hopefully the return of Snake and possible Namfoodle. 

NDT session 9: Island in the Dreams

 Dymrak Forest

The party woke, slightly shaken by the shadow attack but continued following the wolf tracks, which were growing fainter with the passing days. Droop suggested that they seemed to be heading into Red Blade territory, which confused the party slightly.

Just as the party was losing the trail they came across a group of three Elves. They said they could help the party find the wolfskulls in return for a favour. They were slightly reticent about what was troubling them but eventually revealed they had been attacked by pixies.

They elves the party to their camp on the Lake of Lost Dreams. There was an island in the lake that was taboo to their tribe where the pixies lived. The pixies had stolen a valuable statue from the elves. It turned out that the elves had been given the statue by the gnomes the party had messages for.

The elves and the party built a raft and the party (minus Droop who was left with the elves) sailed to the island. On the way they were attacked by pesky invisible pixies but fought them off.

On the island the party found an old building, possibly a temple to an unknown god, the stolen statue was outside but  a ladder down to a lower level was discovered where a clattering sound could be heard. Exploration revealed a room of skeletons, which a combat was begun.

To be continued

DM notes: pixies with daggers turned out to be real glass cannons with dex 22 and advantage from being invisible meaning they almost always hit and caused loads of damage before they were killed.

I vastly reduced the number of skeletons as 5e clerics lack the repeating turn undead of BECMI clerics.

Vampires: the blathering

 Inspired by a comment from The Guvnor on The Gaming Tavern, I’ve been thinking about Ravenloft and The Known World aka Mystara. Although this post then rambles off in a totally different direction. Probably too much caffeine.

There are two regions in the known world where Vampires are said to be prevalent - Glantri and Karameikos. 

In both cases, the vampires seem to have been introduced in the Gazetteers. Glantri didn’t seem to have much in the way of a description before then, apart from Castle Amber and the odd mention in other modules.

However, a province ruled by vampires fits as part of the country and indeed you could easily set Curse of Strahd there with only minor tweaking.

Karameikos on the other hand is an odd beast. Vampires fit in quite well with the cod-eastern-european culture. But very few published adventures set in the country have them. There’s everybody’s favourite Goth Hobgoblin*, King Vlack in Nights Dark Terror. There may be actual vampires in other adventures but on the whole Karameikos is a bit of a low-level adventurer place for tangling with Vampires. Lycanthropes, there’s loads of, right from the original description of Threshold. vampires, not so much.

So what’s the point of this blog then? I don’t know. Except… maybe there could be a better Known World!

There are strong thematic links between Glantri and Karameikos… but they are nowhere near each other. So in a better known world they would be much closer. 

Glantri also has similarities to Darokin so that would be nearby. That’s is the Byzantine empire so that could be the other way. Just get rid of all the slavery stuff *shudder*. Ylarum and Ethangar would be beyond that.

Hmmm, so basically, I’ve come up with a plan to just put all these places in medieval Europe. Averoigne could actually be part of the known world** and all the racist bits could be lost in translation.

So anyway, I seem to have started a new series of posts on the theme: things that I like that are actually rubbish.

* go on name another 

** the known world needs more weird horror. 

NDT session 8: Bat Country

 Dymrak forest

The party had a tough fight against the vampire bats whose ability to paralyse wrecked havoc on the party’s frontline fighters.

The party finally prevailed but had no time for a breather as the bat’s owner, Vlack the hobgoblin, appeared riding a white wolf along with a few hobgoblin guards.

Aimiir remained paralysed but a moonbeam spell from Rurik and archery from Aengus and Glimmer badly wounded Vlack who attempted to flee leaving the other hobgoblins to cover his exit.

Glimmer ignored them, chased after Vlack and killed him with a single shot. Unfortunately this enraged his mount (a winter wolf) who return to avenge Vlack by using its icy breath to bring down Glimmer. The other hobgoblins fled so Aimiir, who had finally shaken off the paralysis, was able to revive Glimmer, and the party weee able to kill the wolf before it could cause more damage.

A search of Vlack turned up his nice looking Greatsword with a fine gem in the handle, some other gems in a pouch but no other useful information.

The party then decided to resume following the goblin tracks southwards through the forest.

In the second night, when Aengus was on watch he spotted a black shadowy form approaching. He was able to raise the alarm and wound the spirit but was damaged by its weakening touch. The party were hampered by its abilities to hide in the shadows but a moonbeam spell from Rurik finished it off.

DM notes: The battle against Vlack and his bats was very closely fought. Aimiir’s player kept failing his paralysis saves and Vlack would probably have brought him down if he hadn’t decided to flee instead. 

Amusingly, my most novice player, who didn’t know what the Winter Wolf was, said that it could probably bring down the badly wounded Glimmer by breathing on her, just before it did that.

On the other side of things, I rolled terribly for the Shadow’s stealth when it approach the camp, which probably saved Aengus from additional strength drain.

NDT session 7: Blood on the tracks

Sukiskyn, Dymrak forest

From questions the refugees and Droop the goblin it seemed that a number of lumber camps and homesteads had been attacked by goblins over the past few days. It seems they had been under the leadership of a hobgoblin called Vlack who kept vampire bats.

Despite the morose situation, Pyotr’s clan held a feast to celebrate the victory over the goblins, the return of the horses and also to welcome the visitors to the homestead. Glimmer played a tune on a hunting horn but the residents were more entertained by Rurik’s hilarious dancing and Aimiir’s failed magic tricks.

A morose and slightly worse-for-wear Pyotr ask the PCs to try and rescue his brother from the wolf-skull goblins offering the party half of the proceeds from the sale of the horses if they succeeded. The refugee Gregor, former lumber camp boss, also asked they the check up on Kalanos the (former) boat captain who was last seen at the camp hiding from the goblins several days ago.

The next day, a surprisingly not hungover party left the homestead to investigate other goblin attack sites to the north. They passed by one destroyed homestead where no clues or survivors were found before heading into the lumber camp. Another scene of destruction was found and standing amongst the corpses was Kalanos. He ran off screaming into the woods not responding to the party’s shouts. Fearing for his health they followed but he attacked them. The party subdued him and determined he seemed to be suffering some form of PTSD so resolved to return him to Sukiskyn where the clerics might be able to cure him. First they investigated another lumber camp which had also been destroyed before returning to Sukiskyn. 

As the last known sighting of the Wolf-skulls was at the site of their battle with the Vipers so the party headed there the next day. However, on the way they met a band of refugees from another homestead. It seemed that the busy goblins had attacked there after defeating the Vipers so the party diverted to that location. 

The party picked up the tracks of the goblins at the homestead and were led on a bit of a goose chase through the forest. At the end of the day they spotted a group of vampire bats approaching.

GM notes: I’ve lost track of the date in the game already, I’ll update when I’ve done a count-back.

NDT session 6: The tender hearted goblin and the snake

 Thaumont 9th, Sukiskyn, Dymrak forest

The party awoke soon after dawn to find Pyotr and Taras in conversation. It was agreed that the party, accompanied by Taras should track down the Viper clan goblins who had  stolen the white horses.

The tracks of the horses leading away from the homestead were obvious but the party noticed that there were some wolf tracks heading in that direction as well. Snake also saw a few Hobgoblin tracks in the woods although the party had not encountered any thus far.

The party followed the tracks of the horses for a number of miles before they came to a large clearing where a battle seemed to have happened. They just had time to take in the dead goblins and horses when some scavenging beetles decided to attack them.

The party defeated the beetles easily but during the battle a goblin jumped out of a tree as if to escape. Snake called out to it, and the goblin was fascinated at meeting a snake lady so went to talk to her. 

The party determined that some of the viper clan had escaped with 24 of the horses, the rest were dead. The goblin, Droop, said she had hidden in the tree when the Wolf Skull goblins had attacked the Vipers to punish them from running from the siege. The viper’s king had been killed along with many others in her tribe. Then the wolf-skulls had ridden off and the beetles arrived just after.

Droop said that the remaining Vipers were going to a horse lady to sell the horses. The party took her along as they went to meet this trader.

Late in the day they arrived at Fyodorll the half-elf horse-trader’s camp. She had a corral where the white horses were now safely ensconced. There were no goblins (apart from Droop). After some negotiations, it was agreed that the party would retrieve the money she had paid the goblins (50gp each she claimed) and then they could have the horses back. The party rested up to head to the goblin lair the next day.

Thaumont 10, Dymrak forest

It took most of the day to reach the viper goblin lair. At first it seemed deserted but it seemed the tribe had retreated further into the caves to a more defensive position as they were still scared of the Wolf Skulls. The goblins were impressed by the Snake-Lady and some fast talking/threats from Aimiir, so eventually it was agreed that the party could have the money back (only 360gp- 15gp each horse). Droop would accompany the party while Snake stayed with the goblins for a while as a sign of good faith.

Thaumont 11th

The party returned to the horse trader, who was persuaded to accept the 360pg she had actually paid for the return of the horses.

Thaumont 12th

The party returned to Sukiskyn with the surviving horses. In the meantime, 4 men had arrived, refugees from the lumber camp upriver which it turned out had been attacked the night before Sukiskyn had. They said that Stephan, Pyotr’s brother had been at the camp and been captured along with some others, including some of the crew of the boat that had brought the party upriver. The captain of the boat Kalanos had hidden in a tree but had not been seen since.

Meanwhile, Pyotr and his family started to prepare a feast to welcome the party properly and thank them for their aid so far.

DM’s notes: I decided to change the horse trader part because as written it’s a bit crap. I thought it would be funny to have the Viper goblins treat Snake the Yuan-ti as a hero. Also, Snake’s player won’t be available for a bit so it was handy to have an excuse for her not to be there for a few days.

I’m not entirely sure where the party will go next as they have a number of options.

NDT session 5 Hide and seek

 After a unplanned long break…

Thaumont 8th, not long after midnight, Sukiskyn

(Aimiir, Glimmer, Rurik and Aengus and were the active characters this week)

After the excitement of the battle the previous session, Darya noticed that her youngest son Matvey had disappeared. He could not be found in the main building but a search revealed that the back door had been left unbarred.

The party members were worried that goblins had broken in so went into the courtyard behind the house to look for clues. Glimmer noticed some fresh child footprints heading either to the stable or forge.

The party decided to check the forge while Aimiir guarded the back door. Glimmer did not spot any signs of him in there but something seemed a bit odd to Aengus.

It was only when Rurik suggested looking in the stables that they realised that there were no sounds from the horses who had been making noises off and on all night.

It seemed that Matvey had decided to go and calm the horses… and also see a goblin if he could. The party returned him to his mother who then proceeded to spend the next two hours berating him for his stupidity.

Some time later, the party heard what sounded like a woman screaming in the forest. They spotted a figure in a yellow dress being dragged off by goblins. Pyotr declared it was just a goblin trick but Darya was upset as she has a friend who has a yellow dress.

Aimiir, who had been itching to take the fight to the goblins, decided to lead the party in a rescue mission. With the aid of a fog cloud they reached the forest but were surrounded by red-blade goblins. The fight was going badly, Glimmer was knocked unconscious and the others decided to retreat. Except for the wounded Aimiir who decided to challenge the goblin king to a duel, which the proud goblin accepted. The fight lasted a while before Aimiur emerged triumphant and the rest of the goblins fled.

A brief search revealed no sign of a woman, just a discarded dirty yellow dress that had most likely been stolen. Pyotr gave the party a ‘told you so’ look but was also impressed. Irina healed Glimmer and the party rested.

The wolf skull goblins also decided to make an early exit (after the casualties they suffered the previous session) so the party slept until dawn…

DM notes: this was a tricky session for me as there was little guidance in the module for what happens if the party falls for the decoy. The party were a bit foolhardy but were also plagued by bad rolls for them and good rolls for the goblins so were in real danger of a TPK. I had already decided that the goblins would capture the party by preference but I wasn’t sure how to progress things after. Possibly run Treasure Hunt or the slaver modules. Or maybe dump them on the Isle of Dread.

Luckily, the Red-Blades are to be a proud tribe of warriors so the king had no real choice but accept the challenge. Even then the battle had more misses than I’ve seen since I last played WFRP. I’m slightly sad I didn’t get to run the concluding battle of the siege but it was good fun and the players seemed happy with the conclusion.

They’ll be a short break before the next session so it’s quite good we can start a new phase and not be in the middle of a battle.