[Session Report 10 - 10/14/24] Return to the Crypt

A zombie waiting patiently in a sarcophagus

    On the 1st of Midyear, the first month of summer, the party left Dragonwrath to further explore the areas of the crypt beneath the ruined church that they were unable to explore beforehand.  After 2 days, they arrived at Badwater and encountered a thief attempting to flee after stealing some gold coins from a merchant.  Hag, the fastest of the group, chased the thief down.  The thief pulled out a dagger and threatened the young magic-user to not step any closer should he wish to keep is entrails inside his body.  Hag tried to talk the panicked thief down, asking him why he stole the money.  After the thief explained that he had stole the coins to buy some food, Hag offered him his own gold in exchange for the merchant's.  The thief accepted and Hag returned the coins to the merchant and the thief went on his way.

    After a few more days, the party reached the ruined church and descended the staircase into the crypt.  They turned right after doing a bit of scouting and came across a room with a single sarcophagus in the center, with the lid opened.  Along the walls were several shelves with urns.  The corpse of a cultist lay motionless on the flagstone floor.

A zombie biting the neck of Ermer the Dwarf.

    Ermer the dwarf decided to inspect the sarcophagus and saw a decayed corpse inside, wearing a silver crown.  Stricken by greed, the dwarf reached into the sarcophagus and grasped the crown.  Immediately, the corpse inside the casket jolted up, surprising the dwarf, and sinking its rotted teeth into his fleshy neck.  Ermer screamed in agony and fell dead.  The zombie rose up out of his burial chamber and the party's cleric quickly held out his cross and invoked his Lord's name "In Ohm's holy name, I rebuke thee!"  Unfortunately for the party, the cleric's faith was tested and came up short.  The zombie was unaffected.  Trusting in his blade instead of a deity, Gobas the elf leapt forward and drove his sword into the zombie's skull, killing it.

    After searching the room some more, the party moved onward and explored a few other rooms.  Some time had passed and they began to hear whispers, not wanting to stay around and see who or what was the source of the whispers, the party went back to grab their companion's body and left the crypt.

    Once they reached the surface, they buried Ermer and the cleric performed last rites.  After they rested, they started their journey back to Dragonwrath.  After a few more days, and narrowly avoiding 2 roaming lions, they were greeted by the gatehouse guards that welcomed them inside the town of Dragonwrath where they'd be able to sell their treasure and rest.

[Session Report 9 - 10/13/24] The Cult of Zellek'ur

The Ruined Church

    The adventure started in the town of Dragonwrath with the party resupplying and listening to rumors.  They heard more talk about the strange group of men that had come to town a while back and decided to search Attercop Forest in the hopes of locating a ruined church, which was the likely base of operations for any nearby cult activity.  The party gathered their belongings, donned their black robes that they had commissioned from the town's tailor and headed out into the wilderness once again.

    After a few days, the party arrived at the village of Badwater, a small settlement located just on the edge of the Swamp of Dread and nearby to the Attercop Forest.  The party, relieved to be able to sleep in a bed, stayed at the local inn for the night before continuing their adventure.  On the 1st day of the Summer Festival, they left the village and could see the edge of Attercop Forest where they encountered a group of mounted men-at-arms traveling along a trail that led out of the forest.  Our heroes could see that the leader was likely a local lord due to his appearance so they quickly took a knee, to show respect to their superiors.

    The nobleman took notice and introduced himself as Sir Brufen, son of Lord Branif of Dragonwrath.  He asked the party what they were doing and they explained to him that they trying to hunt down a group of cultists.  The nobleman was pleased to hear this and bid them good luck on their adventure saying "By the light of the flame, you shall succeed in your quest" before leaving.

    Finally, the party found the ruins of the old church within the Attercop Forest.  They steeled themselves and entered the once holy structure.  The room was dark and the only light inside was a ray that shone through a hole in the ceiling which highlighted the dust that filled the air.  The party of adventurers lit their torches and continued to explore.  They walked past rows of pews and came across a door at the back of the room.  It was rotted and easy to open.  The party entered and descended down a set of stone stairs cautiously into the crypt.

    Ermer the Dwarf and Gobas the Canny scouted ahead and led the party down the eastern passage.  They came across a medium-sized room with 4 black robed cultists collecting bones from the many piles stacked along the walls.  The cultists were surprised so the adventurers explained that they were "new recruits" into the cult but were never given a tour of the lair.  Drebb the cultist, fully believing their lie, offered to take show them around.  The party, glad that their disguises worked, asked to see the store room so that they could drop off some of their gear.

    Along the route to the storage room they had to enter a guard room.  Drebb opened the door and was prepared to take the party further when a guard asked who the new guys were.  The situation was explained but he remained unconvinced and asked the party to state the pass phrase to make sure that they were legitimate.  The party members blanked and their ruse was up!

    After a few brief rounds of combat, several cultists were dead and one attempted to retreat.  Not wanting him to sound off an alarm, Hag the magic-user, rushed after the cultist and tackled him to the ground.  Hag, who was unarmed, resorted to bludgeoning the cultist to death with his bare hands.  The party then collected the bodies and dumped them into the various crates and barrels within the storage room, which the fleeing cultist had ran away to.

    Not long after, the 3 cultists from the ossuary room came across the party questioning them why Drebb hadn't returned, until they noticed the blood stains on the stone floor.  The adventurers first tried to accuse the cultists of being imposters but that failed.  Then they tried to come up with a lie but the cultists weren't fooled.  Peter and Kratos made quick work of hacking down the religious zealots and this time the party took care to not only hide the bodies but clean up the blood stains as well.  They then searched the room and swapped out their damaged robes for some fresh ones they had found in a crate.

    The party came across an altar room where a group of 8 cultists were preparing the space for a sacrifice.  The leader of the cult quickly asked the party to identify themselves and speak the pass phrase, since he didn't recognize them.  Now that they knew the pass phrase after having accused the cultists of being imposters, the party answered "I am Zellek'ur."  The leader, figuring that Ton'chor the Acolyte, a cultist infiltrator of the Church at Dragonwrath, had been productive and recruited more converts.  He ordered them to get the guards in a nearby room to bring the young girl they had kidnapped to him for the sacrifice.

Sapheera

    Once they reached the guard room, they kicked down the door surprising the cultists and Hag cast Sleep on them.  Then they made quick work of slitting their throats and found the key that one of the guards had on him.  The party made their way to the room where the girl was being kept and explained the situation to her.  After looking around for a bit, they grabbed Sapheera and went to the altar room in order to confront the cult leader.

    Once again, the party busted open the door and surprised the cultists.  They immediately rushed the leader and his underlings were unable to respond since they were sitting in the pews awaiting the sacrifice.  The cult leader was killed and the cult's morale broke, causing the remaining 7 members to flee for their lives.  The party, not able to catch up to them decided it best to leave so that they could return Sapheera back to the safety of her family in Dragonwrath.

    The party arrived back at Dragonwrath on the 6th day of the Summer Festival where they were celebrated as heroes for returning the young girl to her kin.  The party outed Ton'chor as an infiltrator and brought him, along with his ally who he had given up upon further interrogation carried out by the town's guards.  The next day, the party joined in the celebration of the Summer Festival and enjoyed a well earned day of rest.

[Session Report 8 - 10/12/24] The Redfang Hideout

Kratos dealing an excessive amount of damage to kill a lowly 2 HP goblin.

    The adventure began on the 15th day of Second Seed, with the party resting in town, resupplying, and gathering rumors at the local tavern, The Bottomless Tankard, where they learned of strange activity occurring within the Attercop Forest, likely connected to the strange group of black robed men that had come to town a number of weeks ago.

    Not really interested in dealing with the cultists at this time, the party decided that they wanted to further explore the mountain caves that they had fled from just a few days ago.  They left the safe walls of Dragonwrath and set out for adventure.    On day 19, the party got turned around while exploring the mountains and ended up seeing some rocs fly overhead that thankfully didn't take an interest in their small group.  The next day, as they were getting closer to their destination they saw a sizeable retinue men on horseback.  The party thought it best to stay low and hide and were able to evade the strangers.

    Now the party was at the cave entrance and were eager to see what treasures awaited them.  They entered cautiously, not knowing how many goblins (or any other monsters) were in this cave system.  As they traveled, Sir Peter fell down a pit but as it was the only way forward, the party dropped down into the pit and they climbed out on the other side.  Eventually, they came upon a group of 8 goblins that got the drop on them.  After a few rounds of combat, Gotas the Elf was killed, 2 goblins were dead, 2 asleep, and the remaining goblins surrendered.  In a rage, Kratos executed Gotas' killer and the rest of the goblins were bound.

    Kratos and the dwarf both spoke with the goblins to see if there were any traps, treasure, or other goblins that the party should know about.  Quickly, the goblins explained that their leader Gribbnuk, an exiled son of the tribe's chieftain, was in a nearby room along with his 2 wives.  The party gathered the goblins, with the intention of using them as a bargaining chip, and walked to the leader's quarters.

    They met with Gribbnuk and a deal was made.  In exchange for letting the goblin prisoners leave, the party would be given the goblins' treasure (3,000 sp and a single gem).  Soon, the party was on their way out of the cave and headed back to Dragonwrath.  The travel back to town went by fast and on day 23, they were once again greeted by the welcoming gates of civilization.

[Lore] Worldbuilding Part 2: The Gods!

    As I mentioned in earlier posts, the people of the Great Kingdom belong to the Church of Radiance which is a universal, monolatrous religion centered around the worship of Ohm the Almighty. The Church also canonizes many saints, particularly martyrs, who are prayed to for assistance and guidance by followers.

    Ohm is a Lawful and jealous god among several, but his powers are greater than any god the people of the Great Kingdom has ever encountered so they elected to worship him alone, while still acknowledging the existence of "lesser" gods. This insistence is one of the causes of strife within the alliance between man and demi-human. While the Great Kingdom does claim that their god is king of all others, the fact that they are able to accept the existence of other gods allows for alliances to be made with other cultures and races that follow different Lawful gods. Still, the clerics of the Great Kingdom are encouraged and commanded to spread the faith and convert as many people as possible.

    The Church holds honesty, selflessness, fairness, obedience, compassion, justice, and keeping your promises as virtues. While most followers are human, they are (mostly) accepting and encouraging of nonhuman converts. They strive to do good and help their fellow brothers and sisters. Their holy symbol is a cross, often made of wood or precious metals. The cross symbolizes Ohm the Almighty and his outreaching arms that protect all of His followers.

    Unless stated otherwise by the player, human characters are all assumed to be members of the Church. The Church of Radiance has a strict hierarchy and canonizes many saints, whom followers are expected to pray to for guidance and help. Player character clerics must choose (or create) a patron saint to dedicate themselves to. A saint might have a different holy symbol than the cross but a cross will always suffice. Each saint has at least one domain and can be invoked against certain things (such as plague, death, famine, etc) in times of need. Characters can also donate money, in addition to being a devout follower, to the Church in the name of their patron saint in order to gain a blessing (such as a +1 on saves vs death) from their patron saint. Characters are only allowed to have a single patron saint (and therefore only a single blessing) at a time and it should be rare for a character to change their patron saint, although they are allowed and encouraged to pray to any and all saints.

List of Saints & Blessing Rules:

In order for a character to receive a blessing, they must donate at least 10% of their level XP cost in gold coins, per month and follow the teachings of the Church.

St. Omes the Old, forced to take iocane powder, patron saint of elders and hermits, invoked against death, poison, and plague. (+1 to Saves vs Death Ray and Poison)

St. Zernmet the Pious, burned within a wicker man, patron saint of elves and magic users, invoked against magic wands, witchcraft, and heathens. (+1 to Saves vs Magic Wands)

St. Yorrana the Merciful, stoned to death, patron saint of dwarves, invoked against paralysis, turning to stone, cave-ins, and greed. (+1 to Saves vs Paralysis and Turn to Stone)

St. Arik the Bold, beheaded, patron saint of men-at-arms, justice, and bravery, invoked against dragon breath, cowardice, and impotency. (+1 to Saves vs Dragon Breath)

St. Erazell the Pure, killed by the iron maiden, patron saint of women, chastity, and the family invoked against rods, staves, spells, and demonic possession. (+1 to Saves vs Rods, Staves, and Spells)

St. Moldvay the Wise, burned at the stake, patron saint of clerics and children, invoked against the undead. (+1 to Turn Undead)

St. Zeb, exiled into the wilderness, patron saint of halflings, travelers, and reformed thieves, invoked against getting lost, banditry, and restlessness. (-1 to Lost Chance)

Other Gods

    The various tribes and clans of humans and humanoids worship too many gods to count.  If a player character wishes to be of a tribal ancestry, they are free to create their own god(s) as they desire.

    The elves worship several celestial, musical, and nature based gods.  The dwarves worship gods of mountains, smithing, gold, axes, and alcohol, etc.  Halflings don't really have organized religions but will generally make offerings to whatever spirits are in the area.  Again, player characters are free to design their own gods if they play a demi-human, but even a player-made god should fit thematically with the general domains already listed.

    In the next post (hopefully), I'll have a way for characters to call upon their gods and goddesses in their time of need.

[Lore] Worldbuilding Part 1: The Campaign Area & Political Divisions

The Wild Reaches (aka Outdoor Survival)

    The campaign area is set in the wilderness region, known as the Wild Reaches by the people of the Great Kingdom, which is the most dominant, Lawful human realm. The Wild Reaches is a vast area of largely untamed wilderness with a handful of Lawful settlements scattered around. The region is mostly populated by tribal humans, savage humanoids, and plenty of monsters. The majority of "civilized" people come from the Great Kingdom who go out into the wilderness in order to protect the realm of mankind. There are some areas within the Wild Reaches that are occupied by some non-hostile (towards humans) demi-humans, but they aren't super common. It also helps that the ruler of the Great Kingdom, King Grognard, in an effort to incentivize the taming and settling of the wilderness, has granted titles and land rights to any person capable of building and maintaining a stronghold.

    There is currently an alliance between the Great Kingdom and some of the various demi-human realms within the Wild Reaches however, there are some demi-human settlements that aren't so friendly to humans. Even within the alliance, tensions exist due to a variety of reasons (racial, religious, territorial, etc) but the alliance is still maintained because each member realizes that their chances of pushing back against the forces of Chaos is significantly higher if they work together.

    The people of the Great Kingdom are generally Lawful, good natured, and honest folk. While generally good, people of the Great Kingdom are also wary of outsiders due to the dangers present on the frontier. Despite this, they will let outsiders enter their gates if a tax is paid upon entry as well as if some questions are answered. The same can be said for the demi-human settlements although some of them might have stricter policies, such as requiring a member of their race present within a party to act as an escort. The average man in the Great Kingdom stands at 5'9, weighs 175 lbs (1750 cn), and has brown hair and eyes, as well as a fair complexion. Other skin, hair, and eye tones exist but are less common. The official religion of the Great Kingdom is the Church of Radiance, a monolatrous religion whose members view Ohm the Light Bringer as the most powerful deity. In the next post, I will elaborate on the Church of Radiance but for now I'll leave it at that.

[Lore][Homebrew] Gods and Saints

St. George slaying a dragon

    In order to incentivize characters interacting with the Church in my setting, which I will go into more detail in a future post, I thought it might be cool to give patron saints specific domains that directly tied into game mechanics like turning undead and saving throws.  Originally, I was going to keep the gods and saints fairly distant from the player characters but when I was creating some saints I had remembered the stories about St. George killing dragons and thought that a devout follower of his would likely get a bonus on saves vs dragon breath.  That's when I edited my saints to directly tie into game features and mechanics.

    Basically, how it's gonna work is that a character, of any class, can select a patron saint whom they can pray to for assistance.  The actual mechanical benefit comes at a cost though.  Characters are expected to not only be devoted to their patron saint (you know, following their teachings and actually roleplaying your character's beliefs) as well as a payment in gold of a value equal to 10% of their XP cost.  The donation to the Church would be a monthly thing and the price only goes up as the character levels up so a 1st level cleric who's devoted to St. Carr the Vampire Slayer would only need to pay 150 gp per month to the Church in order to get a +1 vs turning undead (or maybe turning vampires specifically).  

    I might also add specific requirements for each saint that is somewhat independent of the religion as a whole.  Right now all I have for a code of conduct is a set of commandments (given to humanity on a golden scroll) but it could be fun for saints to have their own little objectives.  St. Carr the Vampire Slayer might require his followers to never leave an undead... alive.  I'm not sure the right word for that but basically he could have a rule where his followers HAVE TO kill any and all undead they come across and if they don't, they'd lose the blessing.  This could make for interesting religious orders but it could be a bit much imo.  I'll have to work on it some more.

    I want to keep the blessings useful but also somewhat minor.  Basically I want them to just be in the background as something that's kinda cool and useful but isn't too complicated for players to the point of making them disinterested.  That's why I feel that a +1 bonus to a saving throw or something similar could be a cool mechanic, plus it encourages the players to interact with the setting's religion a bit more.  One thing I find really lame is when a player chooses to play a cleric simply because they think the party needs a healer as opposed to actually wanting to run a character who is devoted to god(s).  To me, a cleric should be similar to Sister Rebecca in the Moldvay Basic example of play.  They've sworn an oath to their deity and are willing to take a stand, even against their own party members, to stay true to their beliefs.  From what I've seen, a lot of clerics (and paladins) are all too willing to turn a blind eye to the evil committed by their fellow adventurers because they don't want to cause any friction or conflict.  Clerics, imo, should be some of the most annoying people as well as some of the most beloved people by their party.  Sure, it might be frustrating riding with a cleric when all you want to do is kick in doors and kill monsters but you'll be glad they're with you when you come across hordes of the undead or if you need your burial site to be consecrated so that you don't end up rising up again.

    Currently, I'm still fleshing out my starting saints (players will be able to make their own and I'll make more as the campaign progresses but I wanted to have a handful of options for players to select from to start off with) and once I'm done with them I'll make a post about them.

[Homebrew] Cyclops Race-as-Class

Krull

    Inspired by one of my favorite science-fantasy movies, Krull, I decided to make my own cyclops class for B/X based off of the cyclops character Rell.  I used the BX Options Class Builder to determine the XP requirements and feel that it turned out pretty good, hopefully you think so too.

Rell the Cyclops