Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Building Bhakashal – Session Report

Strap in, this is a long one.

My Thursday group started back in September, they were originally booked for 6 sessions to learn how to play and run the game, but they decided to keep me on for the year. We had our penultimate session last night.

They started the campaign as agents of Quin Faal the Iolite, a powerful Bhakashal Lord at House Quannar. Faal is the patron for two of my groups. One of Faal’s closest allies in the House (Bamal the Boastful) betrayed him, stole a powerful magic sword from him and fled. Faal sent the party to retrieve him. They met Bamal and decided instead to throw in with him and betray their patron.

I have no idea what inspires players to do this sort of thing, but they ran with it. For the last year they have been secretly helping Bamal with two tasks as part of his machinations against Faal, while avoiding discovery by their patron. 

First, the island where Bamal hides has a small dungeon complex hidden in the forest. The complex is a maze, and it had four “anchors”, rooms where magically bound monsters that represent the elements are kept. It ends up the maze is a magical prison which uses the magical elemental essences of the bound monsters to create a magical cage. Bamal was studying the maze when the party arrived on the island and accidentally freed the four monsters that were anchoring the magic of the place, a shocker, a firedrake, a hoar fox and a carrion crawler (lightning, fire, frost and earth).

The party released the monsters, so one of their tasks was to replace them with other elemental avatars. That has occupied multiple sessions, as they needed to bring back live creatures to use in the maze.

The second task related to swords.  Bamal planned to capture Quin Faal and imprison him in the maze complex, but to do so he was going to enlist the aid of a Marilith Demon (a type 5 demon). Quin Faal had obtained the demon’s amulet and was keeping it in the warlock’s tower of House Quannar. Bamal knows the exact location of the amulet. He plans on summoning the demon, offering her the location of the amulet and giving her 6 magical swords as a gift for her to go into the tower, regain the amulet, and bring Quin Faal back to the island maze prison where Bamal plans to entrap him.

Over the past year of play the party has retrieved three powerful magical swords, Bamal has found two, so they have 5 of the 6 swords needed.

Bamal used divination magic to find the location of another powerful sword, in the lair of a pair of White dragons living in a mountain cave on a small island nearby. The party went to the dragons and attempted to deceive them. The spun a story about there being an underground complex on their island that they couldn’t enter, with a massive treasure hoard. They asked the dragons to use their breath weapons on the entrance to the complex to freeze it then they can shatter it and gain access. They claimed they only wanted the magic sword, the rest of the loot would be for the dragons.

The dragons, who had lived on this island and hunted on nearby islands in the long chain for a hundred years, were aware of the island that the PCs were describing and decided to fly there and access the complex without the PCs. This was a useful reminder to the players that intelligent monsters are a bit more of a challenge.

Fortunately for the PCs one of them had a two potions of Polymorph Self she had been sitting on for months, and another had the spell. They polymorphed all three of the PCs into birds that flew faster than a dragon and beat the dragons to the island.

They created an illusion of an entrance to a dungeon complex in front of the caves that they and Bamal lived in on the island. They sat in wait with Bamal and the two Bhakashal Warlocks they had converted to their cause, Kanai Grith the Hessonite and Bham Veen the Mercurial, as well as the Mercenary Reit Layl and the Phantasmist, Boylea the Silver. Reit was the captain of the Wyvern, Boylea was the ship spell-caster, while transporting the party the Wyvern went down, the two have stuck with the party as Layl looks for a new ship.

The dragons saw the “complex” entrance from the air and landed a short distance away. The party, concealed by illusion, gained surprise on the dragons.

Then it all fell apart.

Kanai Grith and Bham Veen both had Evard’s Black Tentacles as a memorized spell, they decided to double cast the spell upon the dragons. They had done this a while back to great success and the party was anticipating the same.

Both warlocks failed their casting rolls, and their spells fizzled.

Ref – “Standing close to each other, you both take out a tentacle from your pouch and wrap it around your fingers, clutching it like a pair of brass knuckles, you cover that hand with the outstretched palm of your other hand, and recite the words of the incantation, staring at the general area of the dragons to target the spell’s effects. You move your cupped hands in a circle, as if stirring a pot, and whisper the words of the incantation in unison. When you finish you pull your hands apart, but instead of tentacles emerging from the ground around the dragons, the tentacle in your hands bursts into blue flame and falls to ashes, pushing your hands away from the hands of your fellow caster. It was as if the spells were cast to the same place and bounced off each other.”

Bamal cast Fire Shield on himself, anticipating a breath weapon attack.

The PC warlock cast Reduce towards one of the dragons, but it made its save so the spell was ineffective. While this was all going on the party PC fighter and Reit went into the caves to retrieve two of the powerful magic swords that the PCs had collected for Bamal, hoping to use them against the dragons. That was a last-minute decision that saved their bacon.

That was the end of the surprise round, and the dragons were unharmed.

Then we rolled initiative.

The dragons only saw the illusory entrance to the complex and magical effects emerging from that entrance, they had no idea the party was there. But they did see a pencil thin beam of energy shoot from the complex entrance, and there was a disturbance in the air around them (the miscast Evard’s spells).

Initiative was rolled.

The party PC warlock went first and cast Dimension Door to get behind the dragon, she took the party thief with her.

Then the dragons attacked.

They did what you would expect, they used their breath weapons against the complex entrance hoping to either destroy it outright or make it possible to shatter the entrance and stop the magical effects coming at them, and so they could get in. One dragon was adult and 6 HD, the other was old and 7 HD, so that’s 30 HP and 42 HP respectively.

 This instantly slayed the NPC illusionist Boylea the Silver and the NPC warlock Bham Veen the Mercurial, while reducing Bamal the Boastful to 2 hp. Bamal got lucky as he had the Fire Shield up and running. The two fighters emerged from the cave with their swords, to see two dead party members frozen solid, their patron apparently on fire LOL, and two other party members weren’t anywhere to be seen. They panicked and charged the dragons.

The first dragon used Charm Person and charmed the party PC fighter, convinced her to stop and attack Reit. She was planning to use the PC fighter as a bargaining chip to get the rest of the party to capitulate.

The other dragon breathed frost on to the ship captain, he made his save and dodged the worst of it.

At this point the PC thief who was brought along with the Dimension Door finally got to act, she pulled a “Crom” and backstabbed the dragon. 10HP damage, x3 for a backstab and the dragon died on the spot.

REF - “You leap forward and drive your sword into the dragons back between its wings, the sword bites deep and strikes the dragon’s heart, running it through and slaying the beast instantly.”

She had just one-shot a dragon!

That rendered them all speechless for a minute.

The PC magic-user tried to use Reduce again but failed the casting! We go multiple sessions with no failed castings, and in this session we had 3 for the PCs side.

Madness.

However, slaying the other dragon broke the charm and the fighter was released. They needed to capture one of the dragons to use in the maze complex, so she dropped her sword and changed to her Rod of Smiting as a weapon. She charged forward and struck a solid blow in an attempt to subdue the beast. I performed the calculation, ratioing the damage she did against the total HP of the dragon, and this yielded a 16% chance that the dragon would be subdued.

She rolled the dice… a 16 on the nose.

There was a lot of screaming at that.

On the nose.

REF – “Your head cleared of that buzz of enchantment magic, you drop your sword and run towards the drake, it is transfixed on its dead companion for a moment, and in that moment you bring your Rod of Smiting down in a sky-to-Earth blow that smashes the beast on the side of it’s head. The dragon stumbles two steps to the side, shakes it’s head, and collapses to the ground, flattening it’s body and burying it’s head in the grass, obedient.”

Dragon subdual is an old school mechanic that the players adored.

The dragon was subdued.

They led the dragon to the maze and Bamal magically imprisoned it, providing the third of four elemental “anchors” for the complex. The last component is a sandman (for the “earth” monster) and the magical prison will be complete.

They then went back to the dragon’s lair and looted it, obtaining a few magic items, a lot of coin, and a powerful intelligent magic sword (the real prize), Dakam the Crimson. They came back to the island. They now had 6 powerful magic swords to give to the demon, a +4 Defender, a +3 Vorpal Sword, the intelligent sword Koslanth the Righteous, a Sword +2 Nine Lives Stealer, a +3 Blade of Skarak and the final weapon, Dakam The Crimson.

All they need to do now is to capture and contain a sandman and the magical maze prison would be complete. Next session, assuming they get the maze up and running, Bamal will summon the demon, reveal to her where Quin Faal is hiding her amulet and give her the magic swords in exchange for bringing back Quin Faal to the maze so Bamal can imprison him there.

 

Observations

This session was so awesome. They lost 2 party members to the dragons but managed to slay one and subdue and capture the other. They learned that dragons are killable but very deadly, but for a low initiative roll the party PC magic-user and PC thief would have been killed as they would have been hit by dragon breath weapon and neither had the HP to survive even if they made their save.

One dice roll was the difference between life and a TPK

They lost a treasured party member, Boylea the Silver was a party favorite, a phantasmist that didn’t do big damage but saved their bacon a few times, they loved interacting with her, we did a lot of RP with Boylea, she even sketched portraits of the PCs (all illusionists in Bhakashal are artists) and taught them a few card and dice games (you don’t spend time as a shipboard caster without learning how to gamble!)

This whole campaign sprung from the PCs going off script and deciding to betray their patron. I didn’t suggest the idea, but I didn’t push back against it either. Spontaneous decisions like these are the lifeblood of an exciting, immersive sandbox style game.

The cherry on top is that the patron they are betraying (Quin Faal the Iolite) is the patron for another gaming groups of mine, so if this plot is successful, Faal will cease to be a patron for this group, something that will have an impact on the shared world that all of my groups play in. My Saturday group (Quin Faal’s other group) has just recently merged the two branches of the Bhakashal Brass Blade Guild (thieves guild) by slaying the previous guildmaster of the Raosk branch.

Player decisions impact the game world.

But perhaps the most awesome aspect of all of this is that our table is a “no fudging zone”, I don’t run a story focused game where I tweak results to “serve the story”, instead we roll everything in the open. When they were rolling initiative they KNEW that if the dragons went first they were done. They knew how much damage they could do.

You can’t script that kind of excitement.

When the two NPC spell casters failed their casting rolls (both had casting odds in the high 80’s, when they failed back-to-back there was much shouting) they were reminded that I don’t fudge things to save favored NPCs and help out the party. If I rolled behind a screen and fudged regularly they would think I made both of the casters fail their rolls for “dramatic effect”, instead they got the dramatic effect KNOWING that it wasn’t something I did, it happened because the dice made it happen.

So much digital ink spilled on the problems with “binary pass-fail” mechanics in games like D&D, but those pass-fail mechanics create the dramatic reversals and successes that get my players screaming at the table. When that 16% chance was rolled with a 16, while standing in front of a dragon that would have killed the PC in one shot with a breath weapon attack.

She charged something that can one shot her and brought it to heel with a single blow.

EPIC, and BTB first edition AD&D.

The player of the thief was another good example. Her family has been experiencing challenges this year, and the game has been a real life-line of distraction. When she tried the backstab I wasn’t expecting her to kill the thing in one shot, and I knew that it would turn around and either rip her to shreds (she didn’t have great HP) or breath frost on her and that would be that.

But as I remind myself regularly at the table, the key to running a sandbox game is to trust the process. Don’t interfere when you are tempted, instead let it play out and respond to that. It’s radically freeing as a referee. I used to get hung up on whether or not to change something because it was “bad” for some reason, now I just let the game happen and we roll with it.

And this one was a corker.

Building Bhakashal – Sandbox Style Open World Gaming

I’ve been running sandbox style open world games for about 15 years now, and I’ve noticed that there are a lot of misunderstandings about how this style of game works. I thought I would say a few words about them here.

Sandbox style open world games have two primary features:

1 – Agency: The players can do whatever they want

2 – Consequentialism: The referee’s adjudicates the game world’s reactions to the PCs actions

The hardest part of running games like this is that the referee doesn’t control what happens, the players do. They direct the action, not the referee. It took me a while to unlearn the habits that made it difficult to allow player freedom of this kind.

What are some of the misunderstandings around sandbox style play?

Here are my top 10.

1.        It’s completely random, every session requires the referee to improvise something new

Every time the players interact with the game world they create reactions, they gain allies and enemies, and their actions have ripple effects that impact future games. So, when you sit down at the table it isn’t a “blank slate”, instead the previous actions of the party will have created opportunities and challenges for them in the current session.

2.       It’s “zero prep”

Though sandbox style gaming is less prep, no gaming style is “zero prep”. The referee has to keep track of what happens in every session so they will know what the context is for later sessions. In addition, the referee will still have to prepare encounters and environments for the players. If the players decide to go to the Temple of Sogog the Dark then the referee will have to prep the Temple of Sogog the Dark. It is also extremely helpful to have a setting of some sort to draw upon, whether you run a sandbox style game or not, and you will have to familiarize yourself with that setting.

3.     You will be caught flat-footed and unable to run sessions because your players pivot in an unexpected direction

One important rule of sandbox style gaming is this: you only have to make it to the end of the session. If the players make an unexpected decision, like going to the Temple of Sogog the Dark, then you have a few options:

a.        They have to get to the Temple of Sogog the Dark, that takes time, and will often get you to the end of the session

b.       The referee has any number of “consequences” from earlier play to draw upon, say a disgruntled former enemy that escaped death at the hands of the PCs can show up before they get to the Temple

c.        The referee can start to describe the Temple when the PCs arrive there, revealing only what is needed for immediate play. When the session is over they can create the Temple for exploration in the next session. The ref will have to record the decisions that they make so they can incorporate them into the actual Temple when they create it. I’ve done this so many times I’ve lost count. PCs tend to move slowly when exploring new areas, aware of the dangers that unwary adventurers can face. Just jot notes on what you tell the players so you can keep things consistent.

d.       As an option of last resort, you are welcome to say to the players, “I wasn’t expecting you to do X, I don’t have anything prepped for that and I don’t think I can improv this right now, let’s break and we can pick up next session.” There’s no shame in calling a session early as you aren’t in the head space to improvise. I will add that in 15 years of active sandbox play I’ve never had to do this. But it is an option.

4.     You can’t use modules or preprepared materials

Sandbox style gaming calls upon the referee to pivot and follow whatever the players choose to do, but that doesn’t rule out using modules or any other pre-prepared materials. Sandbox style gaming just means that the players can choose to leave the module/adventure at any time they like. I regularly sprinkle pre prepared modules into our campaigns, and they work well.

5.     Because there isn’t an overarching, planned out plot, and the referee isn’t telling the players what to do, the players will get bored

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, having an overall planned out plot allows the referee to drive the game forward, and it can certainly be a hook to draw in players, you don’t need this to interest players in the game. Players are invested in sandbox style games because they maximize agency and consequentialism. Player actions and the consequences of those actions drive the game, so they have an immediate and visceral stake in what happens at the table.

6.     Because the game is not planned out by the referee, the players will get stuck

I was initially worried about this, since I didn’t have a plan, maybe the players wouldn’t know what to do. However, the game world doesn’t just sit there, inviolate, while the players stand around doing nothing. Just existing in the game world is dangerous, this isn’t Papers and Paycheques after all. Monsters lurk all around, nefarious factions work in the background, old enemies resurface. Even if the players had no idea what to do something in the environment would prompt them to action sooner or later. I haven’t found this to be an issue; players always manage to come up with something to do!

7.     Improvisation is hard, so the referee might not be able to come up with a response to player actions

Improvisation is a skill, so this is a real concern, but there are some straightforward solutions. First, if the referee can’t decide between options, they can simply roll dice to choose between them. Second, if the referee can’t come up with an option, they can listen to the table talk amongst players and riff off of that. I’ve “stolen” the explanations that players have floated at the table more times than I would care to admit, inspiration can come from anywhere! This concern transcends sandbox style play, every style of play will have to respond to player actions, so it isn’t really a concern specific to the playstyle.

8.     Improvised sandbox games won’t have the depth or atmosphere that pre-planned adventures have

I used to worry about this one a lot, if I’m riffing off player actions at the table, as opposed to keeping the players on track to go through a well-prepared adventure, won’t they miss out on something? What I’ve discovered is that players often miss the “cool” aspects of your adventure and end up engaging with the things you find the least interesting or important. The sheer number of encounters that end up “on the cutting room floor” due to player decisions is wild.

Not only that, but you can still (as mentioned above) use published modules and adventures with all the detail and atmosphere you like in a sandbox style game.

9.     Players will waste too much time deciding what to do if they aren’t actively directed

This particular concern is group specific. There will be groups who like to debate options and are indecisive, as well as groups who are decisive and focused. But in either case, if the players can’t make up their minds the consequentialism of sandbox style gaming and the dangers inherent in the setting will get things going soon enough.

10 . Because the referee hasn’t created an engaging overall plot, “BBEG” and deep planned out connections to the various player backstories, the game will be less engaging

One of the greatest tragedies of modern TTRPG gaming is the idea that the campaign has to be connected up to the tragic backstories of each player in order to have them invested in the game.

In my experience, a sandbox style game that stresses agency and consequentialism the players are deeply engaged, as they are dealing with the consequences of THEIR ACTIONS. Yes, a big plot element (“THE END OF THE WORLD”) can create engagement, but allowing players to drive the action creates it’s own powerful form of engagement. It also creates immersion, as it mimics the real world, where actions have consequences.

I’m sure there are more, but these represent the most common complaints I’ve seen about sandbox style gaming. I'll make another post about the advantages and disadvantages of the playstyle. 

 Building Bhakashal - Session Report

It's been a while since I updated with a session report. Session reports get next to no engagement, so I stopped with regular reports a while back. Having said that, we had a session that helps to show what happens when you play in a factionalized setting, so I thought I would share.

Since September of last year my Sat group has been gunning for a big dog, the Guildmaster of the Raosk branch of the Bhakashal Brass Blade Spider's (Thieves) Guild. In Bhakashal if you want to advance to become nobility you need to achieve a sufficient level AND to complete an important task for the faction you want to join. In this case the party was trying to either kidnap or slay the existing Guildmaster of the Raosk branch of the Brass Blade Spider's Guild and replace them with someone allied with the city branch. There are two branches of the Guild, one in the city and one in the Raosk. They have been split for years, and reuniting them under one leader has been a long sought goal of the city branch of the guild, that has connections with the Noble House of the party's patron. 

If they pull this off, it will be their ticket to becoming Lords and Warlocks of House Quannar.

Unfortunately, they made enough noise in the process that the guildmaster found out they were coming. I handle these sorts of things with rolls. The party started by asking questions about the guildmaster, known as the “Red Arachne”, that didn't trigger an immediate reaction, but they kept asking indiscriminately. Then they attempted to gain the confidence of one of the Red Arachne’s close associates (the merchant Maur Hogelin) by having the party mercenary (fighter) and spartan (monk) try to get jobs as Hogelin's bodyguards. That didn't work out as well as they had hoped. 

They raised suspicions, how was I to model the Red Arachne’s response? I decided that the Guildmaster would have the party tailed for a while, to see if they were worth concern or not, and determine who they were aligned with. Every threat in the setting is worth investigating as there are many factions in play, and any group of PCs could potentially be aligned with powerful foes.

Every session I would roll a chance that a PC would make the tail in the crowd, the assumption being if they were being followed there was a chance that one of the PCs might notice the same NPC appearing nearby on multiple occasions. The odds were pretty low, 1 in 20. Two sessions ago they spotted someone in the crowd that they had seen several times before, unfortunately they were fleeing and couldn’t stop to investigate. 

Every session I also rolled to see if the trackers would attack. At some point the Arachne would decide that the party’s machinations merited a response. I know that many DM's like to schedule out these things rather than rolling, but for me, not knowing makes it exciting. The idea was as the party did more and more notable things under the Red Arachne's noses, the odds of a response increased.

That response happened in this Saturday’s session. 

The party was waiting in the city for Maur Hogelin to return, they had received the approval of their patron to bring Hogelin in on their machinations, and use his connection to the Arachne to get access to the Guildmaster. Hogelin was back in 3 days, so they had 3 days to kill. They could have left the city for a spell, but decided to stay and take care of some housekeeping tasks.  

I rolled a 1 on a d20, that meant the trackers would reveal themselves, tasked with bloodying the party’s nose to warn them off, and grabbing a PC to question. They ambushed the group while traversing an alley on the way to the market (the alley in question is circled in red). The Bhakashal open air market (to the left in the picture) is substantively big, and they had a few things to purchase.  

As an aside, in Bhakashal, like in AD&D, dragons can be subdued. Essentially if you assert dominance by beating them in a fight, they treat you like a pack leader, until a time that you show weakness, abuse them needlessly, or put them in danger while avoiding it yourself, then you roll to see if they flee or attack. Dragons are also intelligent, so they very quickly determine if they are being dominated and abused by someone weak, and will take bloody vengeance when the opportunity arises.  Young dragons make good pets for Brave mid-to-high level NPCs who maintain discipline, as long as they aren't abused and the owner appears powerful, they will serve reliably. 

The trackers of the Red Arachne were a trio of 7th level chitin (insect folk) mercenaries, they had brought two young red dragons (2 hp per die, 9hd creatures, so 18 hp total) with them to slap down the party. They shouted to the party from the rooftop, there were 2 trackers there, each holding back a young red dragon, a third was hidden away at one end of the alley. 

They shouted down, “You search for the Red Arachne, you court death!” 

Then they released the dragons, they plunged into the alley from above, initiative was rolled. The  party Seer (priest) decided to cast a 4th level spell with a long casting time. The Garudin (bird-folk) Slayer (ranger) flew up to try and wound the dragon’s wing on a last second pass. The party Mercenary (fighter) prepared to meet a dragon with his bardiche. The dragons decided to not get that close, and did a strafing run, both spewing fire. The Seer failed both saves and was burnt down to his bones by twin infernos. The Slayer was moving so only had one save to make, and made it. Making a save doesn't mean no damage, it means half damage, and if he was reduced to below half his total HP he would have to land...  

The mercenary, on the ground, made both of two saves and took damage. One of the trackers up above threw a javelin of lightning that arrived next. That missed, hitting a nearby wall explosively.

One dragon pursued the slayer, the other looped up to come back for another dive. The slayer was faster than the dragon, and decided to head over the tents of the nearby market, gambling that the dragon wouldn’t pursue him there. The mercenary ran to the charred body of the Seer to retrieve any magic items that had survived the breath weapon attacks. 

It was a bold move. 

Then the dragon who had looped up landed on the mercenary’s back, claw, claw, bite. After attacking and lifting the mercenary off his feet it dropped the mercenary and flew up to loop around again and finish him off. The mercenary rose and staggered down the alley, bloody and bruised, and smashed full shoulder in the door to a building in the alley. He ran inside before the dragon could loop back around and was safe from breath weapon or physical attack. 

He ran through the room to the next door and through a hallway to the other side of the building. No one met him. He emerged with the dragon nowhere to be seen on the North side of the building on the right, on the street that led directly to the market. Unbeknownst to him, one of the three trackers was behind him in pursuit. 

The Slayer was now over the market at a height of around 60 feet (the yellow line follows him from the alley to the market), garudin flying overhead were not at all unusual, but when the young red dragon barreled out from the nearby buildings and over the market there were screams.

The dragon pushed hard and caught up to the Slayer (Bhakashal has aerial pursuit rules), landing on his back and grabbing him with claws, pulling up and veering towards the city wall. The purple line traces their trajectory together. The Slayer stabbed up at the dragon but couldn’t get past its armor. They just cleared the wall. Several arrows flew in their direction from soldiers on the wall. Two bounced off the dragon’s scales, a third just missed the slayer. Both of his hands were free, but his wings were damaged.

He drank a potion of stone giant strength he kept on his belt and stabbed again, this time piercing the dragon’s hide and doing enough damage that it began an uncontrolled dive. The slayer asked if he could direct the dragon's course towards the river and try to spin them around so the dragon was underneath him. He had just imbibed a potion of stone giant strength, and Bhakashal has a system for resolving “feats”, it uses multiple saves based on task difficulty.

We decided that the slayer had to make two saves, one to target the river, the other to spin the dragon around. The dragon was sub-adult, 20’ long, and unable to fly at this point, so the PC hauled on alternating arms to twist it mid flight, hoping to flip it over as it plunged. He made both saves, and crashed into the river with the dragon beneath him taking the brunt. I ruled that each successful save halved his damage from the fall, the damage was 10d6, so it could have easily been fatal if not for the saves.

The dragon’s appearance led to screams and the attention of the ward patrol, the bloodied mercenary ran down the street to the marketplace, stumbling out just as the ward patrol arrived. This happened during the early evening at a busy time in the Bhakashal market, a Ward patrol is rarely far away, particularly when the crowd starts to make noise. A justiciar showed up, grilled the mercenary, and the patrol pursued the dragon, having seen it go over the wall. 

The party Seer was dead, the slayer and the mercenary, the party tanks, were beaten and bloodied. The slayer couldn’t fly. The city watch claimed the fallen dragon, and only close questioning by the Justiciar convinced him they were the victims and thus should not be punished for this breaching of the peace. 

They also now know that the head of the Brass Blade Spider’s Guild knows who they are and can have them trailed or attacked at any time. They had split the party, leaving their warlock, a Spartan (monk) and a Thaumaturge (thief/magic-user) behind for this trip to the market, and it was almost a TPK for those who were there. They were lucky the mercenaries gave up the chance for surprise in order to announce their doom at the hands of the Red Arachne.

This is, BTW, a VERY Bhakashal thing to do, announcing your patron before slaying someone on behalf of that patron is entirely in setting behavior!

Taking the fight to the market was a smart idea, it made the trackers leave to avoid tangling with the patrol. In this case the player realized that his foes might not want to have to deal with the interest of a Noble House in their affairs. My players are good at reading the factional implications of their hijinks.  

The city provides a backdrop for this sort of combat, open rather than constrained by dungeon walls, on land, water and air, in urban and wilderness spaces, and involving ward patrols and Justiciars (local law enforcement). 

The dynamics of a fight in the city are very different.

Also, they left the Seer’s body behind, which means either the Ward Patrol will find the body and someone from that Ward might decide to investigate further, or their enemy may arrange to access the remains and have necromantic magic used to learn the party’s secrets. Bhakashal is a factionalized environment with divination magic, you leave bodies behind at your peril!

One of the advantages to rolling for things like this is that I don't know when they are going to happen, so I don't accidentally telegraph what's going to happen. I genuinely believe that this makes the campaign more immersive. When everyone at the table is surprised, when I don't have to worry about giving away what will happen BECAUSE I DON'T EVEN KNOW, the game feels real. The world feels independent of the PCs and out of my direct control as well. 

In my experience, this is one of the best sources of immersion in the game, and it has paid off handsomely. 

The player of the slain Seer did not have another active PC (3 of the 5 players run multiple PCs), so he decided to roll up a Bhakashal Beastial (druid) as his next PC. Beastials have a lot of power in Bhakashal as it's a tropical setting surrounded by wilderness where the city is completely grown over with foliage. 

Beastials are badass in Bhakashal!

RIP to Haeral Vorek, Seer of Vekka, god of the waters, consumed by a conflagration of dragon fire while pursuing the downfall of The Red Arachne!

Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Image by Tooth Wu - Artstation - https://www.artstation.com/tooth

My Thursday group did not meet this week as the players all had a school commitment.

My Saturday group meets biweekly, and this was their week off.

My Friday group has been poking around the Bhakashal underworld on a quest, they have to slay 4 illithids and use their blood to inscribe a teleportation circle.

Easy peasy.

They had spent several sessions gathering intelligence and planning their attacks. Previous Session Reports:

1 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report-my.html

2 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/12/building-bhakashal-session-report_6.html

3 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2025/01/bhakashal-session-reports-three-of-my.html

They had their first encounter with an illithid last session and it didn’t go well, they found out that mind flayers have magic resistance, and that wasn’t to their liking. They almost abandoned the project, but a reaction roll from a mind flayer changed things. The first flayer they tried to kill, Sogogg Brot, stopped them cold. I rolled for encounter reaction when he caught the party warlock, and it came out relatively positive.

I interpreted the roll, Brot reacted positively to their scheme to kill four mind flayers as he had a number of rivals he wanted removed, and they all knew him and his agents. A group of “useful idiots” from the overworld were perfect for his purposes. If they succeeded he would have four fewer rivals, if they failed there would be 5 more dead overworlders.

Win win for Sogogg Brot.

To start, he decided to give the PCs an advantage and see if they could pull off a kill, if so, he promised them more aid with the second attempt.

The advantage the flayer gave them was knowledge.

There was an Illithid, Yigeth, who was young and particularly violent and cruel. He had tried to overthrow a more powerful flayer and was beaten. His punishment was to do the lowest of the low tasks in Illithid society, "harvesting". He would round up “lowlies”, e.g., non-illithids who labored for the mind flayers in their city. Those he gathered were either directly made into slaves or they were taken to have their brains eaten! Yigeth was muscular and walked around bare-chested with a long kilt, his body openly tattooed. He would sometimes terrorize laborers but not harvest them, just for the cruel fun of it. Others were beaten and dragged away to a terrible fate, all in front of the others to maintain fear and control.

A real piece of work, and their first target. 

DM as Sogogg Brot – “Yigeth wanders the tent cities of the laborers, strutting about with several of his bodyguards, he will terrorize the laborers until he finds a group he wants, then he will have them netted and beaten. While he does this he wanders through the busy camps of the laborers, hundreds of them all around. They leave him alone as they fear his power, so here he is unlikely to be scanning minds, giving you a unique opportunity.”

Essentially, Brot gave them an advantage, their target was more likely to be surprised if they attacked him in public in an area with few if any other mind flayers around. Yigeth fit the bill. 

So they decided to go for it.

They disguised themselves as itinerant laborers who were in the camp looking for work, they pitched a tent and slept there while waiting for the flayer to show. In the last session he showed up and was terrorizing the locals.

The party cast various spells on themselves from inside the tent, the flayer was several hundred feet away, working his way through the crowds with his Ettercap henchmen. They figured they can’t cast spells at the creature, but they can cast on themselves. They buffed up the strength of several party members when the Necromancer cast Strength upon them (Necromancers get a few alteration spells, ones that alter the body, which makes sense as they can animate the dead). The party warlock cast The Terrifying Arms of Brugg the Cruel on the party Myrmidon as he was their best fighter.

He had 4 arms to attack with now.

He then downed a Potion of Frost Giant Strength, and the party Myrmidon and Spider approached the flayer and his guards. There was a huge crowd all around them, so they got fairly close without event, even though one of the flayers guards was scanning the crowd. They got very little resistance when they did these culling runs, as the flayer scared everyone, so they were on the lookout but not super vigilant.

When they got close enough I decided that a surprise roll was necessary. Only one of the guards was looking in their direction, so they had a chance as he might look away for any number of reasons.

We rolled, and unfortunately the dice did not cooperate.

So, when they bolted forward to attack, the henchman that was scanning the crowds spotted them and shouted out.

Things moved fast.

We rolled initiative, and the luck gods smiled this time, they got to act first.

The party Warlock cast Power Word Stun on one of the guards, took him out directly. The party Necromancer finished the poor fella off while he was stunned.

The party Spider tried to backstab one of the other guards, but rolled terribly, no luck.

The party Gyre (essentially an earth bender) had a rapid fire succession of rocks fly at another one of the Ettercaps and finished him off. Recall that this is a party of 7-8^th level PCs, they can do decent damage when the situation is right.

Then the party Myrmidon attacked the flayer.

He had 4 arms, so he got 2 attacks, he was wielding a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. With the Potion of Frost Giant Strength adding to his numbers, he was +4 to hit and +11 to damage with the sword, +3 to hit and + 10 to damage with the dagger.

He rolled one regular hit and one critical hit. The regular hit was a rolled 2 + 10 for 12 points of damage, for the crit he took double damage, rolled a 3, doubled to 6, added a bonus of +11 for 17 points of damage,  totalled to 29 hp damage.

I roll for monster HP on the spot, flayers are 8HD creatures, I rolled 34 hp.

Ref – “The flayer turns as its henchman shouts, too late though, as your blades arrive before it can react, your dagger slices through its side, spraying a vile ichor into the air, your sword drives through it’s shoulder and out the other side, its whole body shudders as you pull the sword back, twisting it as you wrench it out.”

In Bhakashal the first hit you take that reduces you below half your HP gets a Jack turned over, and you are then -1 on all rolls, -3” to movement and a 1 point AC penalty. The

The flayer responded with a psionic blast. Given the way the party was laid out, the blast hit the Myrmidon, the Spider and the Necromancer. The Spider and the Necromancer failed their saves and panicked, fleeing the scene screaming in total horror.

The Myrmidon shrugged it off.

That was all in round 1.

We rolled initiative at that point:

Warlock – 3

Gyre – 6

Myrmidon – 5

Mind Flayer - 2

Then we ended the session.

When we get back next week the mind flayer gets one attack before they get to respond. Barring terrible luck, at least one of them should survive the next psionic blast and be able to slay the thing, it only has 5hp left and any one of them could end it with one shot. Hell, even the party warlock could shoot his crossbow and finish off the creature.

Given the way they are spread out only two of them could be hit by the blast, meaning that their odds of winning are pretty good. If so, they will have to get the body and get out of there before any other flayers show up. I will also have to roll to see if any of the laborers around them get involved, I will weight the roll such that they are more likely to help, they all loathe the flayers, hell, this sort of thing could inspire a revolt!

Alternatively, the locals are pretty beat down, so they might just slink away, and there is always that ONE GUY in the crowd who thinks that he can curry favor with his oppressors by turning over wanted men…

But that’s for the dice to decide. One way or another, they have made their presence known, and in a place like this that’s not good. If they manage to slay the creature and Sogogg Brot sees that they can deliver, he will give them another advantage to use for their next target, who will be better protected, particularly now that the party has made themselves famous by slaying a flayer in public.

After several sessions of intel gathering and planning, things are about to get real.

Big fun.

 

Building Bhakashal - Session Reports!

 Building Bhakashal - Session Reports!

Three of my regular games started up this week. I’m going to try something different and I will review each here rather than doing them separately.

Giddy up!

 

Thursday Game

This is my theatre kids game, they are all new to D&D, the party consists of a Spider (thief), Warlock (Magic-user) and a Mercenary (fighter). Their first task for their patron was to retrieve the thief who stole one of his magic swords. They found him on an island and have decided to throw in with him and work against their patron

The first half hour of the session was logistics, they decided to hire me on for a regular game, the initial plan was 6 sessions only, so we had to work out some things.

Previous Session Reports

1^st and 2^nd Session - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/10/building-bhakashal-session-report.html

3^rd Session - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/bhakashal-session-report-we-had-our.html

4^th Session - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report-new.html

5^th Session - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/12/building-bhakashal-session-report.html

 

On to adventure!

The Warlock they decided to throw in with stole a sword from their patron as he is collecting powerful magical swords to give to a demon as part of a binding pact to get that demon to perform a service for him. He came to the island to find another sword that was supposed to be hidden there in a maze. He was studying the maze, and discovered there were four monsters imprisoned there who were the magical “anchors” for the place, and that it was actually meant as a prison for otherworldy beings. A sword was there as the former occupant died leaving the sword behind.

The PCs unintentionally released the anchor monsters, exposing the sword for them to take. They eventually confronted Bamal (the Warlock). He was pissed, they had messed with the maze, and released the monsters. They parlayed with him and convinced him not to slay them in exchange for giving him the sword (a +4 defender). He put them on probation, assigning a huge (med sized) spider to watch each of them until he trusted them.

This session they were continuing to help the warlock, he had instructed them to slay the carrion crawler they released from the maze, which they did. He then told them to find the Hoar Fox they released, they did that too, giving the fox to the Kobolds. Now they were sent after the firedrake and shocker.

Their first move was to take Bamal to the kobolds, he wanted to recruit them to help him, but they had been opposed to him in the past, his hill giants had slain a few of them. The Hoar Fox was a peace offering, so they were neutral now. The party brought Bamal, they joined the kobolds for breakfast, and they talked business. Bamal made some concessions to the kobolds, and they agreed to be his eyes and ears. The party was part of the negotiations, the kobolds had wanted the giants slain, but Bamal wasn’t ready for that, he instead promised they would be safe, and that he would eventually slay the giants at a time of his choosing.

The party spoke for both sides of the negotiations, and eventually they came to an agreement.

To find the monsters they were after they got the kobold hunters to report back on where they had seen the creatures on the island, if at all. The shocker had crossed over to a smaller island about 800 hundred feet away in the ocean, the firedrake had ended up at the end of the island, in an area inhabited by a green dragon. 

The party’s alliance with the kobolds had provided rich dividends in information.

In the after conversation, conducted in a language the kobolds didn’t understand, Bamal revealed that he was collecting magic swords to give to a powerful demon, that was all he revealed, but it got their attention, Bamal was attempting to enter a deal with a Marilith with the gift of magical swords.

They went to the far end of the island and tried to spot the shocker, but no luck. Then the party Saan (lizard man) Spider (thief) swam to the far island to search for the shocker. The island was small, but she moved slowly to avoid being surprised. She eventually found singed trees and grass suggesting the shocker had walked to the center of the island and then walked out again towards the ocean.

She swam back, checking for sea-devils all the way (they were told Sahuagin were in the area), and rejoined the party. They went to the kobolds for food and rest, then headed out that night under a full moon to find the Firedrake.

They went to the end of the island with the dragon, where the firedrake was supposed to be staying, and hunted and slayed a deer to use as bait (that required waiting 2 hours in a perch, gaining surprise, and shooting it). They took the deer deep into dragon territory and found the firedrake, it was feasting on a wild boar, so it was not interested in the food they had brought and just attacked them.

The party warlock was fast on the draw, hitting it with a Reduce spell, this shrunk and disoriented the creature for a round, and the warlock then cast Sleep, and that was that.

They bound up it’s muzzle and took it immediately to Bamal who cast a Charm Monster  spell on the creature.

Mission accomplished.

They slept the night, the next morning they went to the beach to watch for the arrival of the Wyvern, the ship they had arrived in, which was now heading back to Bhakashal. It will pick them up and take them back or leave them there if they haven’t been able to find their target. They will have to decide if they will head back empty handed and say they couldn’t find him or send the ship back with a message that they need more time and wait for the next scheduled ship to pick them up. Either option has the potential to alert their patron to their betrayal, so they will have to think it out.

We stopped there.

The ship is arriving in the late morning, unbeknownst to the party, in the afternoon another ship will arrive from city with two warlocks from their patron. This was their first mission for their patron, Quin Faal the Iolite, and he didn’t trust them completely. So he sent two warlocks to meet them on the island, either to help them find or defeat Bamal, replace them if they were all dead by Bamal’s hand, or if they were up to anything, bring the hammer down.

Next session, we will see what they can do!

 ********************************************

Friday Game

My Friday group are veterans, high level now, they are trying to get into the upper echelons of House nobility by establishing a teleport circle in the underworld so they can teleport creatures from there to Bhakashal. To do this, they found the instructions for making the circle, and they have to slay four mind flayers and drain their blood to make the ink to inscribe the circle. If they can pull this off, their House will benefit immensely.

Last session reports: 

https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report-my.html

https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/12/building-bhakashal-session-report_6.html

They finally isolated a flayer with his retinue, a warlock and two ogre henchmen, but were unaware of the fact they have magic resistance. A failed spell led to a confrontation and the flayer learning their plan from the party warlock, who teleported away back to their base (a tent in the market of the Illithid city where they were posing as potion merchants, as the party Myrmidon (Bhakashal fighter/alchemist) could make potions. The other party members fled.

Friday we started from there.

The flayers Yeth Hounds corralled the fleeing PCs back to him. After reading their minds. an encounter reaction roll had him offering the party a deal, he wouldn’t slay them and eat their brains, and in exchange the flayers they would kill for their magic circle would be his rivals. Flayer society is fiercely competitive and an outside group like the PCs would give him an edge. He offered them information on where to go to get their first victim, and if they were successful, he would give them magical aid to get the rest.

They had to prove themselves.

So they agreed, and headed back to the illithid city. They did not have encounters on the way back, and they found the party warlock in their tent, resting. Several of the party members went out to gather information on their target.

The party myrmidon had slain a mobat while out, he brought back the head of the beast and made potions out of it. He managed to create 3 potions of Feather Falling. He then cast further spells upon them (Myrmidons in Bhakashal have a list of 11 spells, all of them are potion related) that turned them into gaseous form. This enhances their power for a random parameter of the potion.

While he was up to that, the party was planning their attack on the flayer they were told about,  Yigeth Caln. Yigeth is a younger flayer, he betrayed a powerful flayer and his penance is to be given the most demeaning task, to  go out amongst the non-illithid groups in the city and recruit slaves/food. Yigeth focuses on busy areas where the non-illithids hang together. The illithid city is located in a huge, incredibly deep (around 2000’ deep) underground cavern, this cavern has multiple columns of stone that fill its space from top to bottom, and carved into these columns are caves.

One particularly large column has a central core surrounded by a circular cave, with periodic small columns within and around the edges. This is the location of the main Illithid city, there are multiple large estates in this column, and several market areas spread throughout. All of the other columns are either private estates or enclaves of various underground groups (e.g., there is one enclave where only Malu (fish folk) live).

There is also a large column where the laborers and hunters all stay, it is filled with tents and large markets, open fires and spits, gambling groups, etc. The lowest of the low, those who do the physical work for the flayers, are here.

Yigeth recruits by coming to this column, finding people to harass, telling them to come back with him, and if they resist, his Ettercap henchmen throw nets on the targets and beat them with clubs and haul them off.

The party was told to attack the flayer when he was harvesting as he would be distracted, and very unlikely to read their minds and know they were attacking. In large crowds their ESP was less likely to warn them.

So they went to that column and posed as itinerant workers, dressed in dirty robes and brought a tent to pitch, posing as outsiders from the caves looking for work. They were unusual for the underworld, but human slaves were common enough that human workers would not be out of place, the other party members who weren’t human stayed in the tent.

The two party humans went out into the crowds to find out more about the flayer, as he visited regularly, they figured the locals might know a bit. They target a pair of Ettercap hunters, they offer them coin for information about the flayer. Their “story” is that they are new here and they have heard rumors of a flayer who comes to this camp and takes away people. They ask when he comes by and what he does, and they offered small coin to the Ettercaps as payment.

I rolled an encounter reaction and they shared what they knew, that he came regularly, that he started fights where he could as he liked hurting people, and that he usually travelled with henchmen. Then they threw away the paltry coin, laughed and walked away.

While they were talking with the human party members, the party thief pickpocketed one of them, fleeing with some jewelry and coins in a pouch, neatly sliced off of the Etttercap’s belt.

Boom.

They returned to their tent, at one point they saw an elaborately dressed lava mephit fly by, leading a pair of hell hounds on leads, and complaining loudly that the flayers had no taste in music, and demanding someone sing a song!

No one in the party offered to sing, I was heartbroken.

They waited for a few days, gambling and talking with the locals. The Ettercaps they pickpocketed showed up at one point, fortunately the thieves were in the tent at the time, and the Ettercaps didn’t recognize the party warlock when he was out and about.

Then the flayer arrived.

The party cast various spells on themselves from inside the tent, the flayer was several hundred feet away, working his way through the crowds with his Ettercap henchmen. They figured they can’t cast spells at the creature, but they can cast on themselves. They buffed up the strength of several party members when the Necromancer cast Strength upon them (Necromancers get a few alteration spells, ones that alter the body, which makes sense as they can animate the dead). The party warlock cast “The Terrifying Arms of Brugg the Cruel” on the party Myrmidon as he was their best fighter.

He had 4 arms to attack with now.

They are planning on a distraction then an attack, or waiting until the flayer is engaged with victims to attack, they are hoping to hit hard and fast and take the flayer out before any brain-melting occurs.

Bold plan.

We stopped there.

 ********************************************

Saturday Game

My Saturday group is playing the long game, also trying to break into the upper echelons of their House, their task is related to the thieves guild. Their house controls the city branch of the guild, one of the house Lords at House Quannar is the guildmaster for the city branch. The Raosk branch is independent, and House Quannar wants to run it too.

So, they have sent the party to either eliminate and replace the existing guildmaster of the Raosk branch or to “bring him in”. One part of the party has spent the last few sessions getting ingratiated to one of the Raosk Guildmaster’s allies, a steed merchant named Maur Hoguelen. They posed as bodyguards and attempted to get in his service.

The party fighter refused an ESP on his person, one of the conditions Hoguelen put on hiring him, and the party monk’s mind resisted the ESP done on him. Hoguelen was suspicious, and sent them away, vowing to look into their identities.

The party Spider (thief) tried something more direct. He went to the Raosk and attempted to find a contact to join the thieves guild directly. Last session he found someone and was told to return later to see about joining.

Previous session reports for details:

Report 1 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/09/building-bhakashal-session-report.html

Report 2 – https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/10/building-bhakashal-session-report-my.html

Report 3 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report_24.html

Report 4 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/12/bhakashal-session-report-splitting.html

 

We started with the party Spider and his contact.

The PC went to the designated area and eventually his contact arrived, along with another person. His contact was a chitin (insect folk), the other person was a Saan (lizard folk).

His contact decided on a task for initiation into the guild. The Raosk branch focuses on physical crime, kidnapping being a prominent one. In Bhakashal kidnapping is done to dishonor an opponent, to show they are weak and vulnerable. Kidnapped victims are NEVER harmed, to harm the helpless is the ultimate dishonor. Instead, they are usually stripped of weapons and station markings and left in the public square, hands tied, or otherwise dropped somewhere embarrassing.

The initiation task was simple, a city guard captain, Ugaam the Steel, a malu (fish folk) Mercenary from House Horn (crest: black turtle on green) was giving their contact a hard time. He and four of his henchmen appear regularly in a Raosk Chimera House called the Phinsil’s Tail. The PC Spider was to bag the captain and deliver him to his contact, they would take him back to the city humiliated.

So, the thief went to the Chimera House and waited.

Ugaam arrived with his henchmen, Ihji, Waas, Pira and Sethik. Ugaam uses a naginata and mace, his henchmen use tridents, javelins and nets.

The party Spider waited for a time and cast a spell.

Now, a brief aside.

Normally casting a spell is obvious, you move your hands strangely and speak odd words, so casting in public gets attention.

However, the party Spider isn’t actually a Spider, he’s a multi-class Spider/Warlock. He has a spell called “Khostin’s Vermin Throng”, which summons 1 giant rat for every level of experience, he’s 7^th level, so he summons 7 giant rats.

Thing is, the material component of this spell is a small silver flute that you play to summon the rats.

Someone pulling out a flute and playing it in a busy tavern would not seem unusual. This is a Chimera House, where patrons take small portions of potions mixed with drinks and get the initial sensation you get when you sip a potion that suggests what it can do. So he cast the spell and summoned the rats, directing them towards the guard captain and his henchmen.

All hell broke loose

The Chimera House was full of fishermen, mercenaries, traders, hunters, etc., so they didn’t all flee, some did, others took out weapons, others looked around to see if there were more rats, and the captain and his henchmen took out weapons to try and slay the rats as they swarmed towards them.

While all this was happening, the PC began to slip through the crowds to get behind the target. This required a surprise roll, which was successful.

In position he shattered a bottle over the captain’s head. In Bhakashal to knock someone out you strike them with a blunt object, if you get a critical you knock your opponent out, and you do half damage.

He was successful, but one of the henchmen saw the whole thing. The PC acted fast and shanked the guy, zeroing out his HP, and he collapsed to the ground unconscious.

The other henchmen were attacking giant rats.

The PC cast Darkness against the back of the bar, to cover the exit.

He picked up the captain and slung him over his shoulder.

He fled towards the darkness, hoping to get free before the henchmen saw him.

He was successful in this, however, on his way out I rolled a d12 to check something.The guildmaster knew the party was asking about him, so he put a tail on them to see what they were up to. Every time they had an encounter I rolled to see if their tail was there, and if a PC noticed them. I had rolled about a dozen times before this over several sessions, this time it finally came up. The tail, a Chitin mercenary, had watched them for a while.

As the PC fled with the body over his shoulder, he saw the tail and recognized him, e.g., recognized that he had seen this guy several times over the last few days, always at a distance and just looking around.

He disappeared into the darkness, then out the back of the tent. He now had a body on his shoulder, and the henchmen would soon be outside looking for him. The tent they were in is shown below, he came out a flap in the back with the body

I immediately rolled to see if anyone on a neighboring platform saw him, nobody did at this point.

Now the PC scrambled, how do I get away with this body? People were streaming out the front of the tent, and eventually the captain’s henchmen would come out too.

The Chimera House is circled in red, the area between the Chimera House tent and the tent to it’s left was comparatively out of sight, it was nighttime and dark, so he dumped the body there and fled to find his contact several platforms over.

He gambled the henchmen wouldn’t look between the tents in the ark.

That gamble paid off, the henchmen did not see the captain unconscious in the darkness between the tents.

The PC arrived back with his contact, who was travelling with a Saan (lizard folk) phantasmist named Yorkun the Ambergris and four other chitin henchmen. They ran to the tents to grab the body. They got to the body and the phantasmist cast a spell making the body look like a trio of tightly rolled carpets, bound together. They walked away with it over their shoulders.

The guild contact then left with the PC, telling him he was “in” and agreeing on a time to meet to go to the next step.

While we were doing this, the other players left the room. It took about half an hour, and when they came back they had no idea what had happened.

That was cool.

After the Spider’s solo encounter, we switched to the Spartan (monk) and Mercenary (fighter) who had posed as potential bodyguards. Recall that their potential employer wanted to have his warlock cast ESP on them, one demurred and the other couldn’t be read. So he sent them off.

Now, as a referee I have to play the NPCs. Given that this guy is powerful and connected to the thieves guild, how would he treat two potential personal bodyguards, one that refused an ESP spell and another that was immune to it? A personal bodyguard immune to ESP would be handy, but the whole thing smelled bad. I know it’s bad, but the NPCs don’t, so how is this modelled?

I decided that he would be suspicious of anyone wanting a bodyguard role, as they would have direct access to him. He had them checked out, and their informants told him they were from House Quannar as they claimed, but that was all they knew.

Smart NPCs don’t make stupid decisions, so I decided that Maur went to the Temple of Bhammak and got one of the Seers (Bhakashal priests) to cast an Augury to determine if taking the PCs on as bodyguards would bring “weal or woe”.

If the PCs can do it, why wouldn’t the NPCs?

In this case, as they were planning on kidnapping the guy to get him to give up the identity and location of the guildmaster of the Raosk branch of the thieves guild, it was definitely “woe”.

So, he decided to have the party slain.

He had his agents contact them with a bogus story: someone in his organization wanted him dead, he had a trusted ally seek out evidence, and found it, a poisoned dagger planted in his house during the party the PCs had attended, for later access by an assassin. That ally found the PCs, gave them the dagger and a map to Maur Hoguelen’s “villa” in the marshlands. They are to take this crucial evidence to Hoguelen, and he will discuss their new jobs.

Instead, there is an ambush waiting for them in the location noted in the map.

They took the bait, the party warlock and priest met up with them and they planned on travelling to the villa in two groups, the Spartan and Mercenary (the two posing as bodyguards) would head out, and a few hours later the priest and warlock (using a copied map) would follow. The Spartan and Mercenary would find a safe spot to hide nearby the villa, set up camp, and wait for the Warlock and Seer to arrive. They would then head out, just the two of them, to the villa and see what happens.

The trip to the “villa” had two encounters. The Spartan and Mercenary were attacked by thornwood vines, but managed to flee before being damaged thanks to the vine missing its first two attacks.

The second encounter was with the Seer and Warlock. They were attacked by a pair of anhkhegs that sprung out of the ground sixty feet or so ahead of them on the trail they were following. The Warlock attempted to cast Rope Trick to escape. The party Seer took out weapons.

The larger of the 2 anhkhegs charged the Seer and struck with their mandibles, giving him a good gash across the chest. His return attack was ineffectual against the beast.

The smaller of the two spit acid against the party Warlock, disrupting his spell and searing him on one arm.

That was the first round.

Initiative was rolled and the PCs went first.

The Seer dropped his weapon to cast Cause Serious Wounds on the large anhkheg. As it happens he had never cast this spell before, only Cure spells.

Set the scene, the Seer stood before a savage 20’ long anhkheg, slavering mere feet from him, towering over him, mandibles open. He reached out to touch the beast. He needed to roll a 14 to hit.

He rolled a 14 on the nose.

Then he rolled damage, 2d8 + 1, he rolled double “8’s”, and the beast took 17 hp damage, lowering it to just below half hit points in one touch.

“You strike the beast on the side of its head, dark necromantic energy flows through you, draining the lift from the creature as it writhes in agony”

That was cool.

The warlock cast Magic Missile on the smaller beast

“You pull out four glowing spikes of energy from your forehead in sequence, each time flicking the spike towards your target, the sizzling purple spikes cut through the air, swerving around the larger of the anhkhegs and the Seer and home in on the smaller beast. The four slam into it in rapid succession, each time a shock of energy sparks as the spike hits the creature, and it hisses in pain.”

A morale check was rolled, and the beasts fled.

This was a big win for both PCs, the Seer had been rolling badly lately, and the Warlock had too, so they were both pretty impressed with themselves, and justifiably so.

They met up with the other party members at the camp. They could see a curl of smoke in a distant forest, and they decided that the Spartan and the Mercenary would approach the villa with the dagger they were meant to deliver. The Warlock and Seer would wait behind at the camp, and the Mercenary and Spartan would report back.

The Mercenary and Spartan continued on, but when they turned into the clearing where the villa was to be they found this:

There was a roaring bonfire

There was a trio of 7’ tall algoids standing at attention

There was a trio of Saan (lizard folk) mercenaries

There was a short Emberi (human) sitting on a floating disc of energy, a small winged creature on his shoulder, he wore no shirt and his body was covered with runes. This was Gholgak the Charoite, a 6th level Emberi Fabricus Inquisitor Warlock from House Dhom. Gholgak owed Maur a favor, and his job is to kill the Spartan and Fighter as they pose a threat to Maur.

Gholgak ordered the Algoids to approach the party and stand between him and them.

He told the party that Maur knows of their ill intent and they will not leave this place alive.

At that point the party fighter screamed to the far off Seer and Warlock to help them, then they turned to flee.

The algoids are slow but went in pursuit.

Gholgak cast The Sinister Smoke Serpent of Illyig the Corpulent, they had a fire going to power the spell, and a snake-like column of smoke came from the bonfire, streaking through the night air to come crashing down on the fleeing PCs.

The Spartan made a saving throw and managed to jump out of the way of the descending column of smoke. The fighter was less fortunate, the column of smoke enveloped him, and he dropped to the ground choking and coughing.

We stopped there.

 

Three sessions, three different scenarios, three different groups of players, varying degrees of success, but all were exciting, risky and unpredictable. All involved factional play, all were deeply imbedded in city politics and attempts to gain power.

Adventure awaits!