The Monastery of St. Gaxyg-at-Urheim

About ten years ago (has it really been that long?) I drew a map for James Maliszewski over at Grognardia. At the time, there was a bit of an effort to create a "crowd sourced" megadungeon that used contributions from a variety of volunteers. Being a bit of a map geek, I drew several that James was pleased enough with that he shared them with the world at large. 

If you hadn't noticed, after a long hiatus, James has started posting again over at Grognardia. He also let me know that he wanted to do something with one of those maps I drew all those years ago. You can find his musings here. 

As a thank you, I thought I'd share another map that I drew for my own version of St. Gaxyg-at-Urheim. It briefly showed up in my Lost Colonies campaign very early on when Hamlen lost his beloved spiked club down an underground river. That river led to an underground waterfall which is at the bottom of the map. The club was found, some orcs were felled and then the party went off on one of their many tangents. Enjoy!

 

Rinn's Journal Part 4

Thirdday, 7 Februa

O God, help me! Penael is dead.

Fourthday, 8 Februa

It always surprises me at how cathartic a funeral is, especially the one we had for Panael. Rufus specifically thanked me for taking such good care of Panael’s body. Given the fate he faced had the Thanati worm taken hold, things could have been much worse. I prevented more pain. That these people have suffered so much to take comfort in death is amazing.

Now that I am past self-pity, I have begun to realize that Panael sacrificed himself that I might live and that as such, I owe him and his people my life and all that I am. Through him, Isten has finally made me comfortable about this calling for this city and these people.

We can no longer call where the hobgoblins and spiders are a “lair,” there is a far larger complex below than we ever imagined. When we followed what Cuinn called “heavy traffic,” we found a huge room with what amounts to river running through it. There was a bridge crossing the flowing water in the middle of the space and on the other side was an encampment of hobgoblins.

Morivam promised that he could incapacitate several of their number with a spell, so we decided to charge. Unfortunately, these hobgoblins were combat veterans and organized themselves quickly. Panael took a spear meant for me and as a consequence opened himself up to another. Despite Panael’s sacrifice, Morivam’s spell was too much for them and the few that remained fled.

We tried to to pursue, but the passage they retreated down proved to be a maze of natural caverns and any chase through them was deemed too dangerous. While I chopped off Panael’s head with his own sword to prevent the Thanati worm from taking hold of him, the rest of our party took stock of what the Hobgoblins had managed to smuggle beneath the city.

There were enough weapons to arm a large raid including saddles and horse tack branded with the sign of a wolf howling at the moon. There was even a long dead corpse armed with a falchion and suited in a bronze breastplate. I surmise that these items may very well have been booty from a raid either from some other group inside the city, or perhaps from before the hobgoblins slinked into Redwraith.

Given the wounds and casualties we suffered, it was decided that we retreat for now.

Fifthday, 9 Februa

The others have continued their raid into the complex. Given the loss of Panael, I could not bring myself to join them. At the moment, I am the only real protection the faithful have here in Redwraith. We decided to take the hobgoblin’s equipment and use it as an emergency stash for the church itself. Blaise and Mirela helped me to secure a large number of bricks and mortar. I have spent large amounts of my time, with intermittent help of various members of the church, to start building walls around the sunken courtyard in front of the church proper. At the very least, we will have a better defensive position and someplace to retreat to in an emergency.

I must admit, however, that I find such simple work to be restful for my spirit, if not my body.

Sixthday, 10 Februa

I am beginning to worry. No one has returned from the raid on the spiders and the hobgoblins. I did give Cuinn one my healing potions in case someone got hurt since I would not be there to minister any wounds. Still, what is taking so long?

Rinn's Journal Part 3

Firstday, 5 Februa

The others left me to pray today. They go to scout out the area they think the spiders are with the intent that we will raid their lair. We hope to rescue Holton before they carry out their threat to eat him (if, indeed, they haven’t already). Besides which, Morivam's curiosity has him suspecting everyone in the bishop’s murder and he figures that I should get to know “my future flock” (as Cuinn smilingly calls them).

I must admit, it has been so long since I have had the time to just sit and pray to my heart's content. At times like these, one remembers how important prayer actually is. My calling is here. Now. I reminded myself that letters still needed to be sent to Fr. Valinor and the Bishop of Trisagia. While I may very well end up being asked to minister to these people, that decision is not mine to make. In the terrors of yesterday I had placed that burden entirely on my own shoulders. In prayer, Isten has graciously lifted that burden onto Himself. Thanks be to God.

After gathering myself (or, rather Isten picking me up off the floor, if I am honest), I spent time talking with Panael and meeting what remains of the Church here in Redwraith. Panael is indeed a paladin, tasked with assisting and guarding the bishop. He is carrying a lot of guilt for “allowing” the bishop to be murdered. When he explained what happened in the aftermath of the battle, I understand now how an opportunity arose for those that wanted the bishop dead.

Under the necromancers, every citizen of Redwraith went through a rite of passage in which they receive what is called a “Thanati Worm.” It is a painful experience, I understand, as the necromantic creature buries itself into the base of the neck. Once there, it is impossible to remove without killing its host. While it does feed from those who receive the worm, recipients heal much faster than normal; however, they are immune to magical healing and magical damage takes more time to heal. Once a person infected by these vile creatures dies, they rise as undead unquestionably dedicated to the defense of the city.

Panael explained to me that most of the older generation of Istinites who converted (like himself) went through this rite and in order to avoid becoming undead, it is the practice of the local Istinites to chop off the heads of their dead (killing the worm before it gets a chance to works its heinous magics). In the aftermath of the battle, this task was left to Panael. It was while he was making sure his Istinite friends did not become undead that the bishop was killed.

There is also a younger generation of Istinites that have been hidden away from the Necromancers and thus do not have the worm.

It begins to make sense why the Church is so hated in the city. What might be understood to be a civic duty — taking the worm and allowing the worm to turn you into a bulwark against the city’s enemies — are eschewed by Istinism. At least now, with the death of the necromancers, our young no longer have to fear being discovered.
Speaking of which, this is all that remains of the Church in Redwraith:

• Panael the Paladin
• Grik the Apothecary who runs the Sick House
• Rufus our oldest member who cleans the temple
• Phaedra a mother of two whose husband died in the battle
• Harpax and Isidore Phaedra’s children
• Fides a widow who grew up in Headwaters and her daughter Aisle
• Tancorix a young man who works as a message runner
• Alasdair an orphan who never new his parents and adopted by the bishop
• Blaise a peddler in trinkets, and husband to Mirela

I don’t see why any of these lovely and hurting people would ever contemplate murder.

Secondday, 6 Februa

Holton lives! We raided the hobgoblin and spider lair in the wee hours of morning and managed to get one of the vile creatures to lead us to where Holton was chained to the wall guarded by some kind of ape. The creature also led us to believe that there is an unnatural breeding program going on underneath the city and we mean to stamp it out. First, I must attend to not only Holton’s wounds, but our own. Most of us are recovering from the strange venom of the spiders, which brings with it spams and paralysis. Fortunately, its effects are temporary. Isten, give us strength to rid this city of this evil!

Rinn's Journal Part 2

Fifthday, 2 Februa

What a vile and horrible place Redwraith is! I desperately want to go home and just spend my days mixing ingredients to make salves and medicines. Why I am here I do not know.

I will admit that, while I was terrified as we approached the city, some of my fears gave way to awe when we came upon the main gate of Redwraith. We had heard rumors that a giant beast had attacked the city, but I had no idea how huge the thing was until we saw the skeletal remains still poised to break down the walls of the city.

Its mouth is now used as the main gate and a horse drawn wagon can easily fit through. The bones of the creature now provide some shade and shelter to a tent city filled with merchants shouting out to customers and trying to sell them all sorts of things I had never imagined, let alone set eyes on.

Morivam inquired one such merchant about a dagger he had squirreled away in the back of his tent. I was quite taken aback when I saw that the weapon was forged steel. The man rightly had an asking price of 100 gold coins for such a fine and rare weapon.

Once, when I was a child, a friendly dwarf traveling through Headwaters on his way to the Bronze Citadel was kind enough to show me a small ingot of steel. He intended to make enough money off it to “make his son,” what ever that means. Since that day, this dagger is only steel I have ever had the privilege to see.

Of interest (to me at any rate), the merchant tried to convince Morivam to purchase the weapon before the Dwarves did, because they were buying up all the steel they could afford. How on earth did so much steel suddenly show up in Redwraith?

I was so intrigued and, dare I say, excited that I completely failed to notice that some of the City Guard watching the gate were actually undead. It wasn’t until we found the Lost Wyvern Inn (evidently the only Inn in town that survived the battle) that I realized the true horror of this place. The Inn actually had raw brains on the menu for its undead clientele and my meal was served to me by an animated skeleton. No wonder the citizenry of this place didn’t think it macabre to sell its wares in the shadow of a dead thing.

Lord, please tell me why Fr. Valinor insisted on me coming to this horrid place. I really just want to go home.

Sixthday, 3 Februa

This trip has been very revealing about my companions. Morivam is insatiably curious. Now that we have arrived in town, he is constantly asking questions and getting into conversations with complete strangers. He even insisted on getting a room so that he could study some of the items we found in the gnoll camp without interruption.

I have known Cuinn since I was a child. He always seemed to be a gruff sort of person that you would want on this sort of venture, but not really someone you would sit down and eat dinner with; however, he is a surprisingly gentle soul. He was the first of us to realize the extent of the danger I was in as an Instenite cleric in a town filled with undead and he made sure that not only if I was okay but that he had my back, as it were.

Tenel took one look at the food and service of the Lost Wyvern and noted that there was a serious business opportunity here in town. He figures that some good old fashioned halfling food and hospitality could radically change the way these people look at food and service.

I am afraid that my first impression of Holton may very well have proven correct. He has disappeared on us. He probably lost himself in the crowds and is gone forever.

While Morivam studied and Tenel kept watch, Cuinn and I decided to chase down a piece of information the yellow mage picked up in one of his conversations: there is a sick house possibly run by Istenites. We are looking for a person named Penael.

The northern part of the city is in ruin. Evidently, that was the only flank that the invading army had any kind of success. I must say I almost felt sorry for these people. The Sick House was cobbled together from one of the buildings that still had most of its wall intact. A make shift roof of oiled canvas sheltered those within.

Inside we found a number of beds occupied by people struck by disease or recovering from what looked to be magical wounds. Both Cuinn and I have skills at healing and we very quickly offered our assistance. There was a young man by the name of Grick who seemed to run the place and he was grateful to have another pair of hands.

Cuinn and I spent the day giving comfort. On one of the more severe cases, a young girl who had burns on much her body, I tried to use my healing magics. They did not work, but Grik took notice and scribbled a note which he secreted to me while clandestinely showing me that he wore an Istinite Wolfhook. Had we found the Church? Could we finally get in touch with the Bishop so that I can go home?

Seventhday, 4 Februa

Lord, will the horrors of this place never cease? Why do you try me so? Is this why you called me to this place? To be surrounded by this savagery everyday the rest of my life? Why me, O Lord? Why me?

I must make apologies to Holton. I thought basely of him. When we made to follow the map Grick had given me to find the Church here in Redwraith, we were put upon by those same talking spiders that we encountered on our way here. They informed us that we had two days to bring them an elf otherwise they would eat “our Elfsie spy.” The poor soul must had been abducted the moment he went wandering alone. To boot, Cuinn has informed us that he believes hobgoblins have infiltrated the city and he thinks he knows one of the places they are hiding. But, Lord have mercy, this is not the worst of it.

The bishop is dead. Murdered in his own chamber.

The Church has been decimated. Only a dozen of them survived the battle. Like everyone else in the city, they manned the walls. Unfortunately, the Istinites were largely on the northern wall. So many were killed on the day of the battle. Have they even had a chance to properly bury their dead?

Penael, a paladin it seems, was left as the defacto head of the Church and when he learned of me, he praised God that a cleric was sent to the Church in Redwraith to lead them into the future. Cuinn actually smiled at that and whispered in my ear “This is what we call a field promotion.”

Truly God, how can going from happily taking care of the sick in Headwaters to living in constant terror be a promotion? Why me?

Rinn's Journal Part 1

Fifthday, 25 Janus 1143

Today the initiates were very excited when news came from town that a yellow robed mage was visiting Headwaters. I must confess that I was rather giddy myself. My own interest in alchemy always had me curious as to the differences between my hobby and the arcane. Had I lived closer to the influence of the Mage’s Guild I might have chosen a different vocation.

Imagine everyone’s surprise and delight when the mage himself showed up at the monastery with a letter of introduction asking for an audience with Fr. Valinor. Lord forgive me, but my curiosity got the better of me and I went to see the man himself as he waited on our kindly village priest.

Despite being travel-worn, he seemed a rather respectable fellow whose ruffled appearance could not hide what many would consider to be a handsome countenance. The most striking thing about the man, however, was the owl that so calmly sat upon his shoulder. There was a majesty and intelligence behind those eyes I had never seen in an animal. It made me wonder if the rumors of mages having magical animal servants were true.

Lord, forgive me for eavesdropping, but I managed to overhear Fr. Valinor exclaim something about his friend Tarlo as he was glancing at the letter and leading the yellow mage into his chambers.

In our excitement at such an event, many of the initiates (including myself, I am afraid to say) were speculating why Fr. Valinor had chosen Cuinn to be the yellow mage’s chaperon. The half-elf had long abandoned the path of an initiate to help the Rangers of the Order of the Archangels patrol the area for any humanoid incursions. Were they planning some kind of expedition?

Why, Lord, couldn’t I have been chosen?

Sixthday, 26 Janus 1143

Why, Lord, did you have to listen to my prayer?

I have been asked by Fr. Valinor to accompany Cuinn and the yellow mage to Redwraith on a fact-finding mission. There was a great battle there a few months ago and no one knows what is happening now. When I protested, Fr. Valinor insisted that it was time for me to get out and see the wider-world before I settled down into my lab and take my vows. When I insisted that I was still needed because of the disease that still afflicted the camel herds, he reminded me that we had plenty of my elixirs in storage. He even insisted that I take one with me!

O Lord, please let me see beloved lab again. I promise I will watch my tongue and not let gossipy excitement get the better of me ever again…

Seventhday, Janus 27 1143

The monastery is abuzz getting our supplies ready for the journey. We must carry all of our own equipment and food, since the camels are not healthy. This doesn’t seem to bother either Cuinn or the yellow mage, whose name I have discovered is Morivam. He hails from Trisagia and has the habit of finishing my sentences, as if he knows what I am about to say. It might seem rude, but he has never misconstrued any of my intentions.

Our band of explorers has picked up two additions. Tenel of the Delver Clan will add his sword and halfling expertise with a sling to our endeavor (which makes me feel slightly less anxious about the coming days); however, I cannot say that I am happy about a mysterious fellow who only showed up in town recently. His name is Holton and despite having a chronic cough, boasts that he know the wilderness area around Headwaters well.

Lord, forgive me for being suspicious, but I have heard rumor that a bandit crew was recently put down by the Paladins of the Order but one or two managed to escape. I wonder if that is not the real story behind this fellow.

We leave tomorrow early. I must admit, the part of me that isn’t terrified is rather excited.

Thirdday, Janus 30 1143

Oh, what a terrifying and exhausting three days this has been! After an feet-stinging first day of trudging through the hill country north of Headwaters, Cuinn asked me to take the second watch, considering I was used to getting up in the middle of the night to pray. Not long after wiping the sleep from my eyes, I realized that there was movement all around the camp, beyond my ability to see clearly. I woke Cuinn, knowing that his elven blood allowed him to see more clearly at night than I. He quickly roused everyone from sleep and insisted that we retreat post-haste.

Just as I began to realize that we were in danger, arrows came raining in from the sky, and we heard a battlecry and the sounds of metal on metal. It took me several moments to realize that two of the arrows had hit their mark, both into the back of poor Tenel. Thank Isten he was still breathing, but he was in no shape to move. If he were to survive, we had to make a stand, at least long enough for me to use my magical healing.

I did not see what happened next, but when I had done my work on Tenel and he was back from the brink of death, there were several sleeping goblins around us and I heard the sound of several more retreating into the dark.

Unsurprisingly, Holton was ready to slit the creatures throats when Cuinn and (surprisingly) Morivam stayed his hand. It was decided that we would disarm the goblins and then put as much distance between us and them during the rest of the night.

When the sun rose, it revealed to us a camp of gnolls punishing a group of goblins (were they the same that attacked us the previous night?) They did not spy us, so it was our turn to rain missile fire. One was felled, and the goblins turned tail. As the gnolls charged, Holton appeared behind one and managed to kill it with one well-placed thrust of his blade. Their charge thus blunted, the rest fell easily to our own blades.

Realizing we were still not safe from the roving band of humanoids, we wandered far and wide looking for a defensible piece of ground we could use as a camp and some much needed rest. Cuinn reported that he had found something suitable, but it was already occupied (something about leaving a hippogriff mother alone being the better part of valor).

Now, finally, three days on we are weary but watchful in a rocky recess of a hill overlooking a small valley. Lord, I have never been so tired in my whole life. Thanks be to Isten that we all live to tell this tale…

Fourthday, 1 Februa

Lord, give me strength! If I thought the last several days were frightening, I was sorely mistaken. Cuinn noticed movement ahead of us today, which turned out to be three giant spiders. This was a strange sight. Not that no one hadn’t heard of the existence of such creatures. On the contrary, they are quite common in the jungles south of Headwaters. Seeing them out in the open, so far north concerned us all. The half-elf warned us that these creatures were known to be surprisingly intelligent, so when they split off in three directions, Cuinn was not only not surprised, but surmised that they might be circling around to flank us. We decided to follow the trail of one that veered of to the East.

We came upon the creature clinging to a rock face. I was not prepared for its size: the abdomen was likely five feet long, but then it began to speak! It accused us of spying on them for the elves, noting that he could smell Cuinn’s elven blood. Fortunately, it seemed uninterested in a fight unless we insisted on one. We were able to convince it we were not the spies it suspected us to be.

None of us were prepared for the realization that these creatures were intelligent enough to have language. Knowing that they also appeared to be going toward Redwraith has us all worried about what exactly we are heading into.

5e and The Lost Colonies

When the current party I am GMing created its characters, I had yet to get my hands on the core books and was operating solely with my reading of the Basic version of 5e. As such, I limited the choice of classes to the archetypal four found in Basic: Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard. This made my life easier and, as I explained to my players, all of the other classes are really just variations of those four classes.

Having now read the PH and getting a better handle on both the system and the classes I have come to a rather surprising conclusion: if I were to do it all over again, I would have limited the class choice to three, but not the three one might expect.

I say three, because when I first started the Lost Colonies campaign world so many years ago that is exactly the number of classes I allowed (plus the race-as-classes of B/X). I got rid of the thief and wanted to see what the game would feel like with only the three classes of 0e. It worked surprisingly well. When new classes were introduced, it happened organically because of events within the campaign.

I also intellectually like the conceptual and mechanical balance associated with the three classes: Fighters fight, magic-users use magic and clerics are something in between (which, in practice, leaned more towards fighting than magic). This balance, however, does not really exist between the three core classes in 5e. While fighters still fight, the differences between clerics and magic-users have been blurred so much that it is hard to tell the difference without seeing the mechanics behind the special effects.

Thus, the three classes I would use in 5e to emulate that 0e feel I was going for when I first began using the Lost Colonies are:

• Fighter
• Paladin (in the place of the cleric)
• Warlock (in the place of the magic-user)

In the Lost Colonies, all clerics worship the same god. I don’t need different Domains to represent different pagan cults. The paladin better represents a monotheistic set-up. They also don’t get their spell-casting abilities until 2nd level, just like B/X and 0e. In addition, they have fighting skills like a fighter, but don’t have as broad a choice nor are as good at them in the long run as the fighter is.

The warlock is the best D&D representation of the idea that arcane magic is a dangerous thing. It also is the closest I have ever seen D&D get to one of my favorite magic systems — the Elric RPG where demons and elementals were bound into items in order to get magical effects and spells. In addition, this also is a really good analog for the idea that pagan clerics are really magic-users dressed up to look religious.

Obviously, the various patrons for PCs would have to be tweaked else the cleric (paladin) and magic-user (warlock) would not get along very well. My initial thoughts are these: The Summer Queen/Winter King (a variation of the Archfey patron), the Dragon Kings (ancient metallic dragons, which could be a variation on the Great Old One) or the Celestials (archangels, which could be a reverse variation on the Fiend). Since these arcane casters have cantrips and can be really good casters at first level, they are much better at casting than clerics (paladins) who get no cantrips. Thus, it better cements the cleric (paladin) as a tweener whose magic comes from a much different source than the magic of the magic-user (warlock).

For those who want to play a thief, I will provide a background called Thieves’ Guild which will provide all the skills and connections necessary to play one, while still being one of the three core classes. Ironically, this set-up probably does a better job of emulating Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser than any version of D&D ever did.

In the same vein, for those that want to play a barbarian, bard, druid, ranger or monk I will provide a background which will encompass all the skills and backstory necessary to play one.

BTW this is yet another reason I think the background mechanic for character creation is such a brilliant idea. I get to have a much simpler version of 5e by limiting it to three core classes and players can customize these three core classes to emulate all kinds of cool characters without hardly any mechanical shenanigans.

Saintly Saturday: St. Athanasius the Great

Today is one of the Feasts of St. Athanasius the Great, who is also celebrated on January 18 with St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Let me get this out of the way: I love this man. As one might expect from someone who has written blog posts entitled Saintly Saturdays I have relationships with many of the saints, and many of them are special, formative and important to who I am; however, if there is one saint who has had more influence on who I am, how I think about God and how I read Scripture, the one that comes to mind is St. Athanasius.

One of the central players in the Christological controversies of the 4th century, Athanasius was only a deacon when he attended the First Ecumenical Council as an aid to the Patriarch of Alexandria. This did not stop him from influencing and convincing that Council to adopt what would become known as the Nicean Creed (which is an inaccurate translation historically, conceptually and linguistically — it should be known as the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith).

He would go on to not only become the Patriarch of Alexandria but THE defender of the First Ecumenical Council. At times, he stood alone against the world, spending seventeen of his fifty-seven years as bishop in various exiles. Several times he escaped the clutches of imperial soldiers intent on placing him jail or even executing him. One of my favorite of these escapades sounds much like a story told of an RPG party getting out of a tight spot.

During the reign of Julian the Apostate, soldiers seeking his execution were in pursuit of him as he fled down the Nile on a boat. When Athanasius realized he was being chased, he had the boat turn around and calmly head down the river towards his pursuers. When they caught up with him, none realized who he was and when questioned as to the whereabouts of Athanasius, he responded, “He is near.” This caused the soldiers to rush away past the bishop in hot pursuit of what was nothing.

At the center of the controversy was (is) two seemingly contradictory experiences of God. One is best summarized by St. John Chrysostom in his Anaphora:

You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same

The other is described by St. Peter in his Second Catholic Epistle:

He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (1:4).

All of the various heresies throughout the history of the church have tried to explain this apparent contradiction away by minimizing or ignoring one of these experiences. The Orthodox Church has always insisted on both.

St. Athanasius was one the first in a long line of Church Fathers to wrestle with how the Church has always experienced God as both intangible, etc. and tangible, etc. He did so by differentiating between the being of God (which is ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same) and the activities of God (in which we can partake of His divine nature).

To this end, he scoured Scripture to find what he called παραδείγματα (paradeigmata) which is the root word for the English word paradigm. He found that whenever there was a simile or metaphor that referred to God, it would do so in a consistent manner for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

For example, the Father is fountain (Jer. 2:13), the Son a river (Ps 65:10) and we are said to drink of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 1:13). His point is that the Trinity is one in being, but distinct in the activities of the three persons. The Father cannot be a fountain if there is no running water (the Son) or if we cannot drink of it (the Holy Spirit). Remove any one of the Trinity from this paradigm and you are no longer referring to the same God that is found in Scripture.

I find this use of paradigms to be extremely useful in terms of inserting a Christian/Church-analogue into an FRPG setting. One can cast the Trinity in terms of paradigm:

Father = source of the metaphor
Son = the embodiment of the metaphor
Holy Spirit = the means humanity participates in the metaphor

So, to use the example above, a fountain is the source (Father); the river the embodiment of a fountain (Son); and we participate in the fountain by drinking of it (Holy Spirit).

Thus, it is possible to insert a Trinitarian understanding of God in a simple way that is not only interesting, but also feels just alien and familiar enough to fit in even the most Sword & Sorcery-influenced settings. For example, I use these Trinitarian paradigms with the Christianity analogue in my Lost Colonies Campaign.

The source (Father) of the metaphor is Law. The embodiment (Son) of Law is Crown or King. The means by which humanity participates (Holy Spirit) is Citizenship or Righteousness. Thus, the three persons of the Istenite Trinity are as follows:

Nomos (which roughly translates as Law)
Isten (which roughly translates as Crown or King)
Thikeosyni (which roughly translates as Citizenship or Righteousness)

In the Istenite’s understanding of their trinitarian god, the second person of that god, Isten (the embodied Crown or King), became incarnate in order to serve and protect his people rather than seek power. In this way Isten is an ideal king and therefore embodies the first person of god, Nomos (Law). Istenites participate in Isten through the third person of god, Thikeosyni (Citizenship or Righteousness). In doing so, Istenites become embodiments of Nomos as well.

All one has to do is choose what concept or title of God you want to emphasize in your campaign and then plug in the source, embodiment and means of participation and you have a taylor-made trinitarian analogue that adheres very closely to the way St. Athanasius argued for the Orthodox understanding of God.

Saintly Saturday: St. Artemius of Antioch

Today is the feast of St. Artemius of Antioch. During the reigns of St. Constantine the Great and his son Constantius, Artemius was a prominent military leader. When Constantius was emperor, Artemus was sent to Patras to retrieve the relics of the Apostle Andrew and to Thebes of Boetia to retrieve the relics of St. Luke. In return for these services, he was made viceroy of Egypt, where he spread and strengthened the faith.

Constantius was succeeded by Julian the Apostate (a regular character in these Saintly Saturday posts). The new emperor had rejected Christianity and wanted to restore paganism to the Empire. In his zeal, he had two bishops of Antioch tortured and killed for refusing to forsake Christ. While this persecution was taking place, Artemius arrived in Antioch and publicly denounced the emperor. This, of course, enraged the emperor and Artemius was subjected to heinous tortures and thrown into prison. Eventually, once Julian realized he was not going to change the saint's resolute mind, he had Artemius beheaded.

If seen through the lens of a D&D character career, the story of St. Artemius primarily takes place in the mid- and high levels. His quest to retrieve the relics of Sts. Andrew and Luke are akin to wilderness adventures. He had to cross the Aegean Sea in order to get to Thebes of Boetia (which is in Greece, not Egypt) and then trek across to the other side of Greece in order to get to Patras (and might even have had to cross the Gulf of Corinth). Having returned with these prizes to the emperor, his appointment as viceroy is the equivalent of building a stronghold. His conflict with Julian, then, is akin to the end game, where high level characters are dealing with larger political issues.

Though I do not spend any time on the boards, nor have I paid much attention to the play tests of Dwimmermount, I have caught wind of a level of disappointment with both the format of Mr. Maliszewski’s project and the dungeoncrawl in general.

I have to admit that I really don’t understand either of these sentiments. Dwimmermount was explicitly an experiment in doing a megadungeon cleaving as close to the rules of OD&D as possible. Due to the nature of that ruleset, this naturally requires far more creativity from the Referee and a much larger emphasis on exploration. Personally, these are exactly the two things I love about the game. As a player, some of the best sessions I have ever had involved nothing but exploring ancient ruins with nary a hint of combat. As a Ref, I love dropping hints of the backstory of why there is a megadungeon in the first place and seeing the light go on as these hints get pieced together into a greater understanding.

Of course, I have found that a successful campaign (in which I include Maliszewski’s original Dwimmermount) includes a wilderness exploration component, as looking at the life of St. Artemius through D&D glasses suggests. From personal experience, however, the key to making the megadungeon work (as opposed to a series of location-based adventures scattered across a wilderness) is to tie that wilderness exploration to the backstory of the megadungeon.

I’ll give two good examples. When Maliszewski ran Mr. Raggi’s excellent Death Frost Doom, he tied it to Dwimmermount by having the history Cyrus Maximus intertwine with the history of Dwimmermount. It added to the mystery and story of Dwimmermount. In my own Lost Colonies campaign, my players have ended up both on a spaceship and on an alien planet. The first had the Two Swords, which Dn. Goram was sent to retrieve and return to my megadungeon and the latter had a gate that led to the bowels of my megadungeon. Each of these adventures added to the mystery and backstory of my megadungeon.

In other words, the megadungeon (when used creatively) can be the backbone of every aspect of the typical D&D character's career — the initial dungeon delve, the wilderness exploration and the end game. Having personally seen this happen, it not only can make a campaign sing, but something that you want to go back to over and over again.

Lost Colonies Session 57

Personally, one of the philosophies that I accept when it comes to running a successful campaign (from both the perspectives of someone who runs a campaign and one who regularly plays in a campaign) is allowing the players the opportunity to earn what they want out of the campaign. This requires the ability to listen to the players and to integrate what they want into the fabric of the campaign.

I preface this post with this statement, because my players were all really excited, pleased, thrilled and any other positive adjective you can think of at the end of our last session specifically because I listened and allowed my players that opportunity.

The last time we left our stalwart adventurers, the party had gone back to Redwraith in good faith, taking the bodies of the slaad that they had hunted down as they had promised. When faced with several possible choices as to what to do next, the party could not ignore the fact that they had found two keys of a set of four that would open a massive door inside the Black Tower. They had to know what lay beyond.

The majority of the session, therefore, involved a systematic exploration of the rest of the Black Tower, in search of the other two keys. The newest member to join the group was killed midway through the session (that’s three characters in two sessions for the poor guy) as he decided to venture too close to a pool that everyone knew was home to a gigantic, mutant octopus. The irony of it is that the party had decided to mess with the pool rather than try to deal with a section of the dungeon entirely submerged in water — which is exactly where the final key lay hidden.

The battle for the final key proved to be the most exciting because I misread a monster description and Dn. Swibish managed to roll a successful Turn check. The party managed to attract the attention of the key’s guardian, a type of underwater mummy that would kiss its victims and send sea water rushing into their lungs. I rolled damage every round, when the players should have gotten saving throws; however, I also figured that once the creature was killed, the drowning would stop (which, according to the saving throw version wouldn’t happen). So, it all balanced out in the end; however, it also meant that the party had to gang-tackle the mummy in order to prevent it from escaping so that they could kill it before party members drowned (if it had not been for a couple of well-timed CLW spells, two party members would have died).

Having successfully procured all four keys, the party then prepared itself for a massive battle with whatever foul evil lay behind the door. Unfortunately for them, they did not bother reading all of the script inside the pyramid which would have told them exactly what was behind the door — a direct connection to the Negative Plane which was the final step in transforming oneself into a lich.

After describing what lay beyond the door and the fact that there were a pair of very loud bangs that followed, I started counting. I got to about ‘5’ when the confusion wore of my players faces and they all screamed “RUN!” At this point, I instructed the party to show me where they were gong to run. Had they taken the most direct route out of the dungeon, I would have allowed them a chance to escape; however, this is not what happened.

Rather, they got to witness first hand the destruction that they wrought. Due to the fact that there was a rip in space and time that was sitting right on top of the dungeon of the Black Tower, opening a gate directly to the Negative Plane was catastrophic for the immediate area. The two were attracted to each other like a pair of magnets and their collision wiped clean a great evil that had stood for over a thousand years.

The party got caught in the shock wave and was hurtled through time and space. At this point, I drew up a quick table of various places in my repertoire that they could end up in. A couple of our players have been asking about running a sci-fi campaign (something no one seems interested in actually running). Since I have already introduced the idea of space ships to my campaign, there were some sci-fi options on the table, one of which was the result of the players' roll.

Thus, the session ended with the party waking up to find themselves inside a metal room in an entirely alien environment, to the great delight of the table.

Lost Colonies Session 56

As life has been less demanding of late, I have had more time to get together with my regular group and play. Unexpectedly, they wanted to run a session of Lost Colonies this week and I got to improv an entire session off the top of my head and had an absolute blast.

The last time we had a session (back in June), the party had gotten distracted from its pursuit of the slaad and his frogmen cavalry and lost two characters as a result. They did, however, survive a couple of combats within the bowels of the Black Tower they had no business getting into in the first place.

It is here that I have to admit something about the Black Tower. I have never mapped nor keyed this dungeon. Given the proclivities of my group, the Black Tower was never much of a priority until my players suddenly made it so (“Oh, crap — they are actually going to go in!?”).

I armed myself with three things:

1. A purpose for the tower itself — therein is the ability to transform oneself into a lich.
2. A really cool map.
3. An inspiring collection of monsters (The Tomb of Horrors Complete [THC]).

One of the things that I adore about the THC is that there are a whole slew of “themed” monsters — blood, sand, cold, clockwork, fire, etc. I was thus able to immediately determine that each “level” of the dungeon had a theme — each related to the concept of death and necromancy. I settled on sand, blood, cold and water.

Since the map itself suggested that there were four keys scattered about in order to open up the sphere at the center of the dungeon, I figured that these keys were necessary to get to the same location — where one could choose to become a lich. The instructions would be on the sand level inside the pyramid. Thus, the slaad was looking to take advantage of the location and secure himself some serious undead power before moving on to conquering bigger and better things.

What was left was riffing off the themes in order to make memorable-looking rooms that the players could interact with. I used a combination of fiat and die roll to determine where monsters and treasure were (sometimes the geography suggested an antechamber with a guardian in front of a treasure horde). When it was time to have a monster show up, I simply leafed through the pages to find whatever themed monster suited my fancy at the time and ran with it.

All-in-all it was a tremendous amount of fun for all. I got to be pleasantly surprised by the dungeon — I had no idea going in what was there until my players got there. My players got to experience a combination of a cool map, cool monsters and the creativity they inspired in me. I heard on more than one occasion “That’s so cool!” and “I’m stealing that for one of my dungeons!” (which I heartily endorse).

Some highlights:

• The blood level was coated in a layer of blood except for one particular area which appeared clean and dry. At the center of this area was a ginormous blood suckle bush (tree, really) to which I gave max hit points and double the number of attacks. My players don’t know this, but they really dodged a bullet here. My die rolls were really bad.
• In the cold level was a room half encased by ice. Inside the ice was a warrior guarding a treasure chest. I really enjoyed this for two reasons. First, it was really inspiring to my players. They got really creative about how to get to the treasure. Secondly, a die roll entirely transformed the room. The players cast Detect Magic, so I had to roll to see if the treasure horde had any. It did. The resultant two items changed the warrior from a passive guardian to an active one that (due to surprise) put some serious hurt on the party. The other item is a bane weapon.
• The first key that the party found was encased in a column of ice. What they didn’t realize was that the interior was hollow and full of flammable gas.
• One of the guys in our group has really earned himself a reputation for having his characters die on him (he is on character number eight in our AD&D campaign). Some of this can be chalked up to the fact that he is a newbie. Increasingly, however, the dice just seem to hate him. He lost two characters this session. Both times, he died because of residual damage (other players set off an area effect trap/spell) that on average should have been survivable. Both times, however, he failed a saving throw and my damage dice were just absolutely nasty. Fortunately, he has developed a really good sense of humor about the whole thing. He doesn’t even name his characters until they actually survive an entire session.
• The players found the slaad and the resulting combat was a lot of fun. The reaction I got from my players was truly precious when my first two actions were to use Power Word Stun and Gate in another slaad. But, as happens, the dice favored the bold and (while seriously hurt) the party managed to fell the two beasts without any casualties.

The party exited the dungeon with the bodies of the slaad to take back to Redwraith in order to help the city’s morale and demonstrate their good faith (having told the city that they would kill the slaad). The session ended with the realization that the party is currently being pulled in several directions at once (just the way I like it):

• The gate that now stands open over the Black Tower is incrementally getting bigger.
• There are still heinous things crawling around inside the Black Tower itself.
• The only means that the party has to control the gate is on the petrified figure of Ahkmed.
• Dn. Goram has urgent need of the party in the Elflands.

Saintly Saturday: Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles

Today is the Synaxis of the Twelve Holy Apostles: Peter, Andrew, James & John the sons of Zebedee, Phillip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Jude the brother of James, Simon & Matthias. As I have mentioned before, the word Synaxis means gathering. It refers to the gathering of the saints associated with a feast, and is celebrated the day after that feast. Yesterday was the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul — the Paramount of the Apostles. Therefore, today the Orthodox Church gathers together the Twelve.

The word Apostle means The One Who is Sent. In context of Christianity, of course, one is sent to preach the Gospel; however, in context of RPGs of every genre, the PCs can be sent by a Patron to complete a specific task. These tasks, of course, can have world-affecting consequences.

The Twelve, as is well known, travelled all across the known world (and beyond) founding local churches as they went. Since ancient times, local churches would trace the linage of their bishops to the Apostle who initially founded their Church. For example, Rome goes back to Peter, Constantinople goes back to Andrew and the Malayalam-speaking Christians of south west India go back to Thomas.

In context of an RPG campaign, such a wide-spread and long-lasting effects require a long-running campaign world that persists enough for players to have multiple characters in multiple games/campaigns. To anyone who regularly reads my blog it will be no surprise that, like most gamers, I am very much susceptible to Gamer ADD. My imagination flies off in a myriad of directions at the slightest provocation. If, however, I allow Gamer ADD to preoccupy my actual gaming, I would never experience the joy of past character action affecting current PC play.

If there is one old-school product that caught my attention more than any other, it would be the original Rogues Gallery. Therein, I found all of these fascinating characters that obviously emerged from actual play. Now, I do have my own collection of favorite characters that I have played over the years. Unfortunately, they all exist in separate worlds, genres and rules. Indeed, my youth was dominated by Gamer ADD impulses and I never really got to experience the reality depicted in Rogues Gallery. That is, until now.

Through forces that I don’t completely understand, a great deal of patience and focus on my part and a willingness to forgo all of the various opportunities to pursue supposedly greener pastures, my Lost Colonies campaign persists despite sporadic play, a changing cast of players and my own inadequacies as a Referee. As a result, there are now a Rogues Gallery of characters that populate a single world and that affect our current play.

Even in death, the original group of PCs looms large and the menagerie of characters that they left in their wake makes my Lost Colonies campaign live in a way that I could never have accomplished on my own. The fun part is that it is this very Rogues Gallery that keeps me coming back over and over again. I look forward to the way new characters will not only interact with what has come before, but what they will leave in their wake. I only have a finite amount of time to dedicate to actual play, and continuing this campaign has a far greater pull than any new fancy toy that might briefly take hold of my imagination.

In other words, continued play is something I have always aspired to and have oft wondered if the rewards were as great as I imagined. I can now attest that yes, indeed they are.

Lost Colonies Session 55

This is a session that actually happened prior to my resent bouts of health issues, so you will excuse me if this is brief and lacking in a lot of detail. I had originally delayed writing about it because it was one of those highly emotional sessions that I had not yet come to terms with.

After playing a key role in the Battle of Redwraith, the players decided that ridding the area of the rogue slaad and his unit of giant frog cavalry was the highest priority of all the various things they could do next. They tracked the unit back to the Black Tower and the now wide open portal. It was at this point that they got greedy and paid for it.

Rather than focus on the task at hand, the party wanted to use spells like Detect Magic and Locate Object in order to find any thing of interest from the sea of dead bodies that now littered the landscape. The only problem was that the spell casters came prepared for battle, not detection. It was therefore decided to camp in order to get a different set of spells ready to scour the bodies for treasure.

During the night, a basilisk found its way through the portal. Two party members, including Ahkmed, failed their saving throws and were turned to stone. The creature was eventually felled, but everyone at the table realized that of the core group of characters that had been played at the table for the last several years, only Dn. Swibish remained.

It was decided that Hornet — Ahkmed’s Living Sword — would leave the group in search of a mage of great enough power to cast Stone to Flesh or otherwise find a cure for the petrified state of the two characters. In the mean time, the party buried the two six feet under, using the logic that this was the best way to preserve the two in the long term until such time that they could be cured.

This meant that two players had no characters to play, the party was in pursuit of a monster and was in the middle of nowhere with no easy access to NPCs or other simple ways to get new PCs integrated into the group. It was at this point that my players came up with their own creative solution to the problem. One rolled up an elf, the other rolled up a cleric — but they requested that the latter be an elf trained by the now retired Dn. Goram.

As you might recall, I struggled with the idea of allowing elves to be clerics when the party started various building projects in the Elflands. I was rather ambivalent about the idea — but my players so enthusiastically embraced the concept that I just couldn’t say no.

As a result, the two new characters are elves sent by Dn. Goram to find the party in order to bring them back to the Elflands on urgent business. They came by giant eagle (something Dn. Goram has access to) and we had a fun complication as well as new characters added to the party.

The session ended with several harrowing combats as the party pursued the rogue slaad into the depths underneath the Black Tower. The party found themselves slightly out of their depth, but with coordination and creative play, they managed to wriggle out of a pair of possible TPKs.

The session, therefore, began with a serious loss and ended with a very real high brought on by surviving a pair of battles that the party probably had no business getting into in the first place. I hated to loose Ahkmed, but his death only made the survival of the party at the end of the session that much sweeter. It is one of the things that I love about old-school play. The death of a character — even a high level one — can actually make a session better.

Now, only if our busy summer schedules can allow us to get together again to play, I can get back in the swing of things.

Lost Colonies Session 54

I have to admit that my players took me completely by surprise during this session. When we had last played, they had agreed to scout out in detail the army currently massing around the Black Tower. In preparation, I had mentally mapped out several possible courses of action so that I was at least nominally prepared for it. As seems to happen every time I invest this kind of prep time, however, my players came up with something completely different.

They had long been very uncomfortable with the necromancers of Redwraith. They understood that they did leave people alone and that they did check any potential power that spewed forth from the Black Tower, but the idea of fighting necromancy with necromancy was repugnant to many of them. Even Dn. Swibish, who had was from Redwraith and wore a thanati worm given him by the necromancers was tired of running from them, their false accusations and their assassins.

As such, they saw the impending battle as a perfect opportunity to assassinate the necromancers of Redwraith. By their estimation, the army at the Black Tower was no match for the full force of the Redwraith army. So, they set about baiting Redwraith into attacking the army at the Black Tower and then ambushing as many necromancers as possible in the confusion of the battle.

The first step was to go to the dwarves of the Brass Citadel south of Redwraith to hire some sappers. The players took full advantage of the mistrust that the dwarves had for the necromancers to get them to help in pulling off their scheme. Through a cocktail of various spells, the players snuck the sappers in place to take out the various obelisks that created the mass Protection from Undead field around the Black Tower. They then went to Redwraith to report that the field was down.

Of the seven necromancers that sat on the council of Redwraith, four marshaled the city’s army, while three stayed behind to bolster the city’s defenses. The players decided to ambush these three. It was at this point that the players got really lucky. The necromancers had a magical system to monitor the city from their tower. Thus, they had a decent chance to see the ambush coming (even given their focus on making sure the defenses were sound); however, the roll I made indicated that they were taken completely by surprise. When they had planned the ambush, the players did an excellent job of putting all their magical options on the table and that first surprise round was devastating. Despite getting off a Dispel Magic and a couple of summoning spells to try and cover an escape, only one managed to get away.

By then, the players realized that the battle around the Black Tower hadn’t gone as planned. The machine at the center of the Black Tower camp had been destroyed. It had been keeping a tear in space and time somewhat in check. With the machine destroyed, the tear became a portal and a third army came pouring through. It was a group of several hundred toad men led by a slaad and anchored by a titanic frog-like creature writhing with multiple tentacles covered in spikes.

This turn of events took everyone by surprise and both the forces of Redwraith and the army around the Black Tower were crushed. The players soon realized that this horror was making its way to do the same to the city of Redwraith. Thus, they quickly covered their tracks, and then introduced themselves to the leaders of the remaining Redwraith forces as the agents that had taken down the obelisks. Needing as many swords on the walls as they could muster, the general was willing to ignore some of the holes in their story and the session ended with a massive battle as the toad men assaulted the city from several fronts.

I gave my players a couple of choices. First, I let them choose which scale they wanted to play out the battle. They chose to play it out at the character level and let me decide what happened at the larger scale based on their level of success. Second, I let them decide which of the fronts they wanted to take:

• Protecting the archers on the wall that were tasked with taking out the titanic frog-like monster.
• Dealing with the slaad and a group of toad men cavalry mounted on giant frogs.
• Dealing with a group of toad men spell casters.

They chose the first and did a magnificent job. Things got a little dicey during the first couple of waves because their initial set-up was not as effective as they expected it to be, but they made some in-battle adjustments to their line and they managed to keep their archers virtually unscathed. As a result, the big frog thing died under a hail of arrows. In the mean-time, a group of dwarves from the Brass Citadel aided in the battle by assaulting the spell casters, protecting that flank.

In the end the only flank that did not do well was the one with the salad and his toad men cavalry. Due to the successes of the other flanks, however, the salad was forced to retreat.

At the end of the battle, the players realized that they had four problems on their hands:

1. The is now a portal that allows slaadi access to their immediate neighborhood.
2. There is a rogue salad along with some toad men cavalry at large.
3. One of the Redwraith necromancers is still alive and will likely seek revenge.
4. The political situation in Redwraith is in chaos. The council of necromancers is gone. The bishop died in the chaos of the battle. The dwarves of the Brass Citadel are making demands based on the key role that they played in the battle that saved the city. All the primary leaders within the military of Redwraith were killed at the Black Tower. As a result, there is a huge power vacuum.

Lost Colonies Session 53

This session was one of those that got thrown together at the last moment. As a group, we want to get to play as often as we can with Dn. Goram’s player before he heads off to his graduate studies. Therefore, when there is window for him to play, we usually try to take advantage.

As a result, Ahkmed’s player was unable to come at the beginning of the session because he had made previous plans to see The Avengers. Interestingly, when he finally showed up to ask what had happened, the answer given by some of the players was, “We haven’t accomplished much today.” Indeed, much of the session was spent wandering lost through wilderness and even this only resulted in two combat encounters — the only combat of the whole session.

However, we all had a great deal of fun not accomplishing much. This was a session where the vast majority of the time was spent roleplaying where lots of discussion happened at the table in character. In a way, this was a very necessary step as the campaign has opened an entirely new chapter.

Up until this session, the campaign largely revolved around the desires and goals of Hamlen and his brother Dn. Goram. While Ahkmed has been a huge catalyst for many things evolving in the campaign, he has done so happily tagging along with the two brothers. Now that Hamlen is dead and buried and Dn. Goram is retired, the group needed time to figure out who they were, where they were going and why.

With Gillek reincarnated as a troll, the party was not particularly keen on having him as the de-facto leader of the party. It was thus decided that Dn. Swibish, being the highest level cleric in the party, should take the reigns. This was also, in part, an experiment by the players because Dn. Swibish’s player is now the most experienced of our youngest players.

It was thus decided that they would head north and investigate all the hubbub surrounding Redwraith. As I stated earlier, this did not go as planned. There was an encounter with an ogre mage (which the party mistook as some kind of orc) and was hilarious due to the extensive use of charm spells. There was also an encounter with large spiders (which talk and love elf-meat). This also was entertaining due to the fact that despite happening a couple years ago at the beginning of the campaign, the first encounter with these type of spiders was memorable enough to get a great reaction from my players.

Raine, the half-elf thief, was bitten and failed his saving throw and therefore had 1d4 turns left to live. At this point, Dn. Swibish got roundly criticized for not having a Neutralize Poison spell at the ready (something Dn. Goram always made sure he did). Therefore, there was a discussion about what Raine wanted to do. He had three options:

1. Die and get reincarnated.
2. Die and get raised by the now NPC Dn. Goram.
3. Get turned to stone prior to dying and hope that the party finds a Stone to Flesh spell at some point in the future.

Surprisingly, he chose the latter.

Needing a new character, he rolled up a rather pathetic set of scores, and decided to give a shot at playing a half-orc fighter named Gog. He entered the picture as a slave of the Dwarves at the dwarven citadel north of Headwaters (which the party eventually did finally find). A lot of fun was had as this new character was introduced into the party.

Eventually, the party was able to contact the bishop of Redwraith and scout out the environs of the Black Tower. Here is a summary of the information they managed to gather:

• Redwraith was not always ruled by necromancers. In the days when the area was a colony for the Empire, Redwraith was established with its own bishop. The necromancers came to power when the magic-users of the city decided to fight fire with fire when the Black Tower arose and attacked the city with an army of undead. The Redwraith necromancers have been obsessed with making sure the Black Tower stays destroyed ever since.
• Since Dn. Swibish is under a sentence of death for conspiring with the necromancer Xerxes (someone the party is convinced they killed, but have no evidence — he was eaten by the dragon in a bag of holding), the bishop of Redwraith has been marginalized by the leaders of the city. Things are so tense now, that if he makes a misstep, he may himself be accused of being a Black Tower spy and executed.
• The Black Tower is surrounded by six obelisks etched in glowing runes that the party recognize from items used by the Sons of Cyn. They emit a magical shield which is, in essence, a giant Protection from Undead spell, making it impossible for the Redwraith army to attack the Black Tower.
• There is an army gathering around the Black Tower, all within the confines of the Protection spell. It is largely made up of local goblin tribes led by ogres and a black-skinned type of goblin the party encountered beneath the castle in Trisagia many moons ago.
• At the center of the protective ring some kind of structure is being built. It was of similar appearance to the machines the party saw in the brain lasher city.
• The party also caught a brief glimpse of someone wearing a golden mask working on the machinery. This coincided with a very brief opening of a portal where the machinery was being built.
• Ahkmed has been slowly working on translating a manual on the mining and use of Azoth (aka liquid magic). His endeavors have resulted in the discovery that the mining of Azoth has a tendency to create tears in the fabric of time and space. Therefore, machinery is required to contain these tears so that they don’t become catastrophic. It was here that the party realized that the Brain Lasher city was an Azoth mining colony and that they had, in fact, destroyed the machinery that kept their tear in check. They began to wonder what kind of consequences this was going to have.

The session ended with the party convincing the necromancers to give them some scrolls to aid in scouting out the Black Tower camp in detail.

Lost Colonies Session 52

Some of you may have noticed that I have not made a session report since February. This is because my group hasn’t played my campaign in a couple of months. This is in part due to my busy schedule in the Spring (one of the reasons you will never find me participating in the A-Z challenge), but it also has to do with the fact that the player of Dn. Goram has decided to pursue a post-graduate degree and will be leaving us in a scant few weeks. Therefore, we decided to allow him to dictate his preferences for his last few months of gaming with us.

These two factors conspired against playing my campaign until now — not that my campaign was not part of the plan, but he has been our GM for the Pathfinder game my group plays in addition to Labyrinth Lord. We all decided to allow him enough time to get what he wanted out of the campaign. Fortunately, we also wanted to see him get a chance to retire Dn. Goram before we all said goodbye (for now).

Beedo over at Dreams in the Lich House has been meditating upon the issue of the 15-minute wilderness encounter. He was wondering whether or not it is problematic that higher level characters can go nuclear on a wilderness encounter and thus move wilderness encounters away from the traditional resource management game associated with dungeon delving.

As I said in the comments of that particular post, I understand wilderness adventures to have a different set of resources than dungeons that need to get managed, and therefore don’t see the 15 minute wilderness encounter day as a problem. This session is a classic example of this type of resource management and the kinds of problems that need to be solved.

We spent a goodly amount of time bringing everybody back up to speed as to what was going on in the campaign world (especially after being away for so long). I enumerated several rumors/possibilities for adventure that the party then chewed on for quite some time. Though not entirely relevant for this session (as you will see), I list them here because they may be important for later session reports:

• Dn. Swibish received a “friendly” letter from an assassin sent by Redwraith to kill him. They (mistakenly) believe that he has not only grossly neglected his duties, but has aided and abetted the necromancer Xerxes. The note informed Dn. Swibish that the assassin had been recalled to Redwraith because an army of the Black Tower (the sworn enemies of Redwraith) was beginning to mobilize. Dn. Swibish was given this information in hopes that he would prove his loyalty to Redwraith by doing his duty by fighting against this army of the Black Tower and thus make his impending assassination unnecessary.
• The former Winter King paid Ahkmed a visit. He informed the dwarf that there were members of the Winter Court that had fled rather than face their former ruler and make a choice to either die or give up being an elf to become a Melltithian. Should any be found, Ahkmed was asked to kill them.
• In addition, the former Winter King asked to speak with Hornet, Ahkmed’s sword. She was given the opportunity to become a Melltithian herself. With Ahkmed’s consent, she did. In turn, Ahkmed was asked to seek out other Bane Weapons in order to allow the elves within to make the same choice.
• Ahkmed had been building an underground house in Headwaters. Unfortunately, all construction has stopped because an inter-dimensional portal has been uncovered. It randomly opens and closes. When something walked through and attacked the workers, the house was sealed shut until further notice.
• The party found out that the elf that they rescued from the Toadmen is a member of the Winter Court.
• One of the items that the party found in the lair of the Toadmen was an egg. It hatched. Fortunately for the party, it was Grak who claimed the egg, because he had convinced Fidgewik that he no longer needed his ring that protected him from petrification. This likely saved Grak’s life because what emerged from the egg was a cockatrice.
• Coleman the fighter is the proud owner of a boat (this is how he chose to convert is gp into xp). The captain he hired is an experienced merchant and has offered to begin making trading missions on behalf of his employer.
• The bishop of Trisagia sent a missionary to the Elflands to supervise the construction of the church Dn. Goram commissioned to be built there. As a result, several members of the Summer Court have converted, including one that was about to go through the ceremony to become a member of the Winter Court (because the vegan diet of the Summer Court was no longer able to give her any nourishment). As a result, she chose to die a natural death — something not seen in the Elflands for over a millennia. When the Winter Court found out that this choice was due to the new Istinite Church in the Elflands, they became very upset. Already shaken by the loss of their king and many of their most senior members, tensions in the Elflands are very high.

It was this latter situation that interested the party the most, because they figured they could smooth things over in the short term by returning the rescued elf, thus restoring a member of the Winter Court thought to be lost. Indeed, this did ease things in the Elflands quite a bit.

The party then decided to go back to the abandoned monastery and search for the Well of Chaos when a wilderness encounter entirely changed the complexion of the session. My random tables determined that a green dragon had recently decided to lair in the area. The party saw it flying overhead and proceeded to try and get its attention.

Unfortunately for Gillek, they succeeded. He failed his saving throw and was immediately killed by the breath weapon. Before the dragon was able to unleash another cloud of chlorine gas, however, Grak threw his cockatrice at it. Amazingly, the dragon failed its saving throw.

This is where the resource management of a wilderness encounter became important. Suddenly, the party had several competing needs:

1. Getting Gillek reincarnated (he specified reincarnation rather than raise dead because his whole career has been about taking dangerous chances — like getting the attention of a green dragon).
2. Getting a group of dwarves to cut the now petrified dragon into pieces so that they could be reassembled as a statue in the town center of Headwaters.
3. Finding the lair (and therefore the treasure) of the dragon.

All of these required a different set of resources — the most important of which was time.

The rest of the session was spent planning on how they were going to spend their resources to get all of these things done (and then how to safely transport the treasure once it was found). For my part, this was really interesting and highly entertaining. There were a couple of other encounters that forced the party to defend their goals and their resources. The 15 minute nuclear blast that took out a dragon not only didn’t take anything away from the game, but added a whole bunch of interesting complications.

Gillek, by the way, was given a choice of rolling on the reincarnation table from LL or from the 1ed PH. Had he gone with LL he would have come back as a gnome. Instead, he is now a troll.

The session ended with Dn. Goram gaining enough xp to reach name level, at which point his player handed me the character sheet and declared that Dn. Goram is officially retired. As a result, for the first time in the campaign, there is now an NPC cleric with the ability to Raise Dead.

Saintly Saturday: St. Theodore the Soldier

By Orthodox Christian reckoning, today is the first Saturday of Lent. The Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar to figure out when Pascha (Easter) is, unlike the Western churches which use the Gregorian calendar. Thus, Pascha and Western Easter can fall at radically different times (there have been years when my Protestant friends are celebrating Easter and I am just beginning Lent). This year, the two calculations are off by one week.

On the first Saturday of Lent, the Orthodox Church commemorates a miracle of St. Theodore the Soldier, a martyr from the third century. Some fifty years after his death, the emperor Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363 — a former Christian who tried to reinstate paganism as the state religion) wanted to create an uproar among the Christians. Therefore, he had the city-commander of Constantinople sprinkle all the food in the various markets of the city with blood offered to idols during the first week of Lent.

St. Theodore appeared to the Bishop Eudoxius and informed him of the Emperor’s plan. He then ordered the bishop to inform all Christians that no one should buy any food from the markets, but rather eat boiled wheat with honey (a dish called kolyva). As such, Orthodox all over the world make kolyva today in remembrance.

Whether it is kolyva, fasting, big feasts or the bread and wine that becomes the Body and the Blood, food plays a very large role within the rhythm of the Orthodox Christian life. Thus, even though it can be a bit fiddly, I can’t help but think about how food affects my RPG worlds through culture, trade and even politics.

In my Lost Colonies campaign, through character action, there are two food items that Headwaters will be known for — camel cheese and stirge (of all things). The former is due to the cheese factory Pawnshee financed, coupled with the party bringing a female camel and giving it to the father of Dn. Goram and Hamlen. The stirge will become a local delicacy once Fidgewik the Toadman (now “Gnome”) finds a decent supply of stirge meat.

Both of these imply a culture surrounding these foods. Stirge can’t really be domesticated (can they?) therefore whatever supply must be hunted. As camels become numerous in order to deal with the demand for camel milk, how much will they displace cows and horses? Personally I find these thought experiments fascinating and they make my campaign world come alive — because of food.

For another example, I used random tables from the Ready Ref Sheets from Judges Guild to determine some normal flower and fauna for various regions of my version of Averoigne. One tree that kept coming up again and again is the sassafras. Thus (in contrast with the regions around it), the most common alcoholic drink in Averoigne is root beer. Due to the preponderance of sassafras trees, it is something that the common folk can easily make themselves and can be sources of local pride. Drinks like wheat beer and wine are understood to be either drinks of the aristocracy or of foreigners. Want to reveal yourself as an outsider? Order a glass of wine at the local tavern.

It doesn’t seem to matter much and it is fiddly, but thinking about food and its cultural, political and economic impact on a campaign world can really bring a world alive in a way that ignoring food or treating it abstractly cannot.

Lost Colonies Session 51

Having successfully slain the water hydra, which made its home in the lake which the party had to traverse in order to get to the toadmen priests, our stalwart adventurers hunkered down, expecting that their recent victory would garner unwanted attention. The ensuing battle happen in fits and starts and was greatly aided by a tactic used by Ahkmed the Dwelf to greatly reduce the morale of the toadmen.

Ahkmed decided to play the part of a fire demon by pouring oil all over himself and then lighting the oil on fire, taking full advantage of his Ring of Fire Protection. He made his appearance by jumping down onto a group of Toadmen, gutting one of them and then claiming to be their doom. The subsequent morale check was horrendous and the battle went in a rather slap stick direction from there.

As a side note, Ahkmed has had to wear a small leather bag on one of his fingers since the party dimension hopped onto a space ship because he touched something super-sticky. The bag was his way of dealing with the problem. Little did he know that all he had to do was pour oil on it to make it go away. Therefore, I had a very good laugh when I informed Ahkmed’s player this and that this was first time that he had mentioned pouring oil on any part of his body for almost twenty sessions.

The party then pooled resources to swim into the caves where the priests were supposed to be. Ahkmed continued his charade, which worked well on some of the weaker toadmen, but the spell casters managed to hold there own, and a few party members (via some well timed Hold Person spells) Fortunately for the party, they managed to prevent the priests from opening several cages with rabid toadmen tadpoles and stirges. Things might very well have gotten ugly indeed.

In the end, they managed to defeat all of the spell casters, coming away with a nice haul of potions. One of our newer players learned the lesson that throwing a magic weapon in the middle of combat (especially when an opponent might be immune to non-magical weapons) is not a good idea. The party also learned that Fidgewik is an excellent cook. He convinced everybody that strirges could make good eats and proceeded to roll a natural 20 to see how delicious they actually are. He was instantly hired by the party to be the head cook of Fedorsha’s tavern back in Headwaters (where stirge may end up on the menu).

The session ended as the party realized that by pooling spells, several potions that they already had in their possession as well as those that they found with the toadmen priests, they had enough fly and levitate effects to take a vertical shaft into dungeon territory they were more familiar with. As a result, everyone happily returned to Headwaters where Fidgewik eagerly took up his new vocation.

Lost Colonies Session 50

When we last left our stalwart adventurers, they were still in shock over the death of Hamlen (who went toe to toe with a demon in order to save the rest of the party). The thrown room only had one entrance, so they quickly barricaded themselves inside in hopes of being able to rest and heal, because, despite finishing off the demon thanks to the heroics of Hamlen, most of the party was in a very bad way.

Unfortunately, Ahkmed found a secret door behind the thrown and the party was forced to reconnoiter the passage that lay beyond. Fortunately, it merely led to small subset of rooms unconnected to any other part of the dungeon, and this included both a treasure and a map room. Their rest was briefly interrupted by a pounding on the door and a demand to see the king, but using some knowledge gleaned from the map room, they managed to talk their way out of having to fight right then and there.

That knowledge included the following:

• The language used on the maps and various correspondence is that used by the Cyn (a name the party learned for those who wear the golden masks while in the Brain Lasher city).
• There was some kind of trade going on between the toad men and occupants of levels immediately above and below.
• There were prisoners, one of which was an elf (though they did not know if they still lived).
• There were priests among the toad men.

It was decided that the party would first free the prisoners (if they were still alive) and then deal with the priests.

Using the maps that they found, the party made quick work of the guards and managed to free three prisoners:

1. Thog the Dwarf, a former PC that has been a slave of various factions within the megadungeon since the early days of the campaign.
2. Aldros the Elf who has evidently been experimented on, because he has severe amnesia and isn’t very good at learning spells.
3. Fidgewik the toad man. 

This is where the session really started to take off for me, because I had a complete blast playing up all three of the prisoners, especially Fidgewik.

The poor toad man was the unfortunate recipient of magical experimentation gone wrong — he turned to stone during what passed for night in the dungeon. He was imprisoned to keep him isolated from the rest of the toad men in case the affliction was contagious. Gillek the Gnome had on his possession a ring labeled “stone” in Dwarvish. He knew it was magical but had yet to figure out what it did.

Therefore, he decided to see if the ring was a protection against petrification by giving it to Fidgewik. His instinct proved correct and Fidgewik enthusiastically declared that he was no longer a toad man but a gnome. The rest of the session saw the toad man trying to mimic the gnome in all things. For example, Fidgewik assumed that a trident is a gnomish weapon because Gillick primarily uses the magic trident he got from the Water Naga outside the underwater city. Of course, Fidgewik insisted on using a trident himself.

Most of the session was taken up with interviewing the prisoners as well as feeding, healing and equipping them. The session ended with a combat with a water-hydra guarding the underground lake which led to the demesne of the toad men priests. This combat went extremely well for the party. They had learned of the hydra’s presence from Fidgewik and were able to prepare and execute a battle plan, which included using a pig carcass to draw the hydra out of the water and into terrain that better fit the abilities of the party. The liberal use of missile weapons and a goodly amount of bad rolls on my part saw the party make short shrift of the beast.

Next: the party braces for a clash with the toad men priests.

Lost Colonies Session 49

I have not had a very good couple of weeks in terms of gaming. I’ve been ill, the Pathfinder campaign I am playing in hit a major speed bump which probably should have resulted in PCs killing each other and when we re-started the Lost Colonies campaign, the session ended with one of my favorite PCs permanently biting the dust. Though I am an advocate of lethality in my games, I do not necessarily relish in killing off PCs, particularly ones that have had a large impact on my campaign world.

When we last left the party, they had managed to escape certain death in the Brainlasher City by jumping through an inter-dimensional portal which they then managed to destroy. Unfortunately, they found themselves deep beneath the earth in one of the lower levels of the campaign’s megadungeon.

As the party explored, they came upon what amounted to a drug factory. Fungus was being grown and processed to create a highly addictive additive to food stuff that had been shipped across the inter-dimensional portal to help keep the Brain Lasher’s slave population under control. The party efficiently moved through this section, cleared it and then destroyed the facilities (though not without Raine, the party Thief, getting herself addicted).

As they continued to explore, they found the lair of the creatures responsible for the production — toad men. They talked their way into the lair and met with their leader. Unfortunately, the players made a miscalculation and revealed that they were an enemy of a toad men ally and a big fight ensued. Things went rather well for the party until a demon showed up. At this point, Hamlen realized that several party members were unable to have any real effect upon the fight, so he went toe-to-toe with the demon so that the rest of the party could escape.

Considering, he did extremely well — so much so that the party was eventually able to finish it off. In the end, it came down to an initiative roll. Sadly, the demon won and Hamlen was slain. Dn. Goram cast a Speak with Dead spell to determine his final wishes. He distributed his goods among the rest of the party and, being satisfied with his life and his death asked not to be raised.

As I said, this is how the session ended, and (at least for me) was a real downer. I really liked Hamlen and what he had become for my campaign. His death may very well have long term consequences, if for no other reason than I want his influence to continue.

Lost Colonies Session 48

A question that one might ask me (a minimalist when it comes to preparation) is how do you prepare entire Brain Lasher city in full knowledge that your players may take one look at it and run very far away? Indeed, it is a question I have been asking myself. My solution (besides answering some broad questions): draw a sketch of what the party might see looking at the city from a distance and hand it to my players. They had freed one of the Mongrel Man slaves who, though unwilling to accompany the party into the city, was perfectly happy to answer any questions the party might have about what they were looking at.

What ensued turned into an hour-long conversation/planning session. Every spell, scroll, potion, wand and one-shot device was put on the table. They brain-stormed attacks, entry routes, escape routes, rallying points, distractions and goals. As the planning proceeded, there was a very dangerous look that I recognized in the eyes of my players — a look that said, “This could work.” By the time they were ready to act, even players who had started the evening trying to convince everybody to retreat were on board with the plan and ready to play their part.

The focal point of the plan was a tower that stood grotesquely at the center of the city. It seemed biological in nature, with four feet that twisted around each other into a support for four vein-laced globes. At its base was the portal that the party was interested in finding. This, in turn, was surrounded my miles of machinery maintained by the mongrel men slaves. The feet of the tower pulsed as the energy produced by the machines and the portal flowed upward toward the globes. This giant biological machine was both where the majority of the Brain Lashers lived and where they refined that energy into pure azoth.

The party figured that if they could take out one or two of the leg supports of the tower, the whole thing could come crashing down. Depending on how the denizens reacted, they had several options on what they could do in the chaos. But first, they created a distraction by getting the resident flailsnails to stampede (as much as flailsnails do stampede). Using a cocktail of spells and potions, they set charges with any and every combustible devise/substance that they owned and fired several spells into the charges to get them to go off.

The flailsnails slowed down the reaction time of the natives which allowed the party to continue guerrilla attacks against a group of Brain Lashers who were pooling their powers to try and prevent the tower from falling. This state of confusion did not last long, however, and the party soon found themselves surrounded by Brain Lashers and some of their demonic minions. The party was in no position to retreat anywhere but through the portal; however, in their final push to escape, the Brain Lashers tasked with keeping up the tower were so decimated that the tower came crashing down just as the last of the party dived through the portal. Surprisingly, despite the desperate situation, only one corpse needed to make the trip — Ahkmed’s henchmen Kavella the Elf. The rest were beaten and bloodied, but alive.

The destruction that followed destroyed an entire section of the city, including a good amount of the machines designed to keep the portal stable. Thus, the party had effectively cut off pursuit. Of course, they were now trapped on the other side, which is where our session ended.