Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Home game session tonight, big fun. 

Last session on the way to capture a dragon, the party had a random encounter with a trio of giants, a lucky roll gained them surprise, the party fighter charged on on his horse and lanced one for ridiculous damage

Lances in 1e are very powerful. Add missile fire from their henchmen and the rest of the party and they took down two giants, losing two henchmen (pasted by rocks), and the last giant fled. They followed it back to its lair and drew it out, finishing it off at the cost of 2 more henchmen

We roll for treasure live, giants are treasure type D, they rolled silver, gold, jewels and magic (only a 15% chance of magic in this case, they rolled an 9). They got around 21,000 gp worth of loot, Eyes of Minute Seeing, a scroll of 3 illusionist spells (no illusionists in the party) and three potions, Speed, Heroism and Treasure Finding. They traveled on to find their dragon. The next day they met a group of Yalan (snake men) hunters, but the reaction roll was positive and they passed by without incident, after swapping stories and asking about the dragon.

They traveled to the dragon’s territory, they were looking for a very young bronze dragon that the party thief wanted to subdue. They wandered the forests looking for it and found it sleeping in a tree. The player of the thief had asked about getting a dragon for his PC. His PC hired a hunter that knew of a dragon in the woods to the north of the city. He was conflicted about having to essentially beat it into submission. That’s the rule in 1e. However, he asked if he could treat it like a wild horse.

ME - “You mean ride it for long enough until it lets you ride it kind of thing?”

HIM - “Yeah, like a horse”

I thought about it and decided that I liked the idea, particularly for a good aligned dragon. The table voted and it was passed, this is now a way to subdue a good aligned dragon in Bhakashal.

I love on the spot house rules like that.

ME - OK, here is what you are going to have to do. To break this very young dragon you have to ride it for a total of three rounds, if you can stay on that long, it will accept you as it’s master. Each age category up you have to stay an additional round. So an ancient dragon would require 10 rounds of riding to break them.

Each round you will save versus breath weapon, DEX bonus applies to the roll

If you fail, that means it has thrown you partially off, and you must then save versus death or plummet from the dragon, STR bonus applies to this save. 

This is how it went:

Thief made CW roll to climb the tree, and a surprise roll to sneak up on the sleeping dragon, he succeeded at the first, failed at the second, but a thief gets their Move Silently or Hide in Shadows roll (as appropriate) if the regular surprise roll fails.

This one he made, so he had managed to jump on the sleeping dragon’s back!

The dragon is very young, about 8’ long, so it can only carry a med sized human with no armor or equipment, so he dropped his backpack and weapons before approaching (he wears no armor). The dragon sprung from the tree and flew off, trying to throw the thief off. 

Now, he rolled his first save, versus Breath Weapon (the agility save)

He failed that

ME - The dragon springs out of the tree when you jump on it, rolling over in the air as it does, and you start to fly off it’s back”

THEM - Lots of screaming

Now he has to roll his saving throw versus death, he makes that one.

ME - “As it pitches you over you manage to grab the front leg of the dragon and haul yourself back up”

THEM - Much shouting

Round 1 up

Round 2 - He fails his first roll.

ME - “the dragon does a nosedive right down, heading to the ground a fearsome speed, and you pitch forward off it’s back”

He rolls his save versus death and makes it.

ME - “As your legs lose grip and you pitch forward you manage to grab it’s neck and squeeze, keeping you mounted.”

THEM - MUCH MORE SCREAMING

Final round. He MAKES THE SAVE

THEM - MUCH LOUDER SCREAMING

ME - “The dragon pulls up at the last second, hoping to send you flying, but you grab on tightly with legs and arms and you feel it stop pulling away, and it slowly flies to the ground and lands, sitting calmly beneath you.”

Me - “OK, here’s the deal, if you let it hunt, heal it when sick, treat it well and spend some one on one time with it EVERY DAY, it will stay loyal. If you harm it, abuse it emotionally or otherwise, bereate it, and don’t heal it when it is damaged, we will reroll for submission. Also, the “companion” rule in Bhakashal applies, if you want it to participate in combat it can die, if you don’t want it to then it generally disappears when danger happens and reappears when it’s over.”

We all agreed to that, and they headed back to the city. It was a 4 day journey. They had an encounter in the daytime on day 2, they came upon a manticore and surprised it, so I told them it was feasting on a slain deer. Since they had surprise they opted to give it a wide berth. 

Then on day 4 nightime (the last check) they rolled up 6 Cifals. I rolled it was  clear moonlit night, and no surprise was indicated, distance was 150’ when they saw each other. The watch woke everyone. I described them as “amorphous creatures, about 8 feet tall and vaguely humanoid”. They had no idea. 

I rolled to see what the Cifal would do and they advanced on the party across the marshes under full moonlight, half lurching as they moved. Because the lighting was good at 100’ I decided there was a 2 in 6 chance someone might make out that they were a collection of swarming insects, not just amorphous figures. They made the roll. I randomly rolled and one of the henchmen noticed

ME - “Jagal shouts, ‘they are made up of insects, hundreds of them!”

Thief Player - “Hey, there are 16 of us (between PCs and henchmen), we all have torches, let’s light them all up and see if it scares them, I’ll bet fire is one of the only things that will hurt them”

Magic-User Player - “Edged weapons and arrows probably pass right through these things”

So they all take out torches and lit them. There is nothing stated in the monster entry about fire, but as fire harms insects, I decided to make it an encounter reaction roll with modifiers for the fact there were 16 of them with torches.

Party thief - “Can I tear my sleeve, dip it in oil, tie it around a sling stone, light it on fire and shoot it, and my two henchmen are going to throw oil on the plants and light it on fire, to have two fires burning near the party.”

ME - “Hmmmm, you have a slingshot, so make a saving throw versus breath weapon to shoot the stone it without burning yourself, otherwise you take 1-4 damage”

He made the save and made the shot, firing a flaming bullet into one of the creatures. There were two fires burning in the grasses, and 12 others held up torches. Finally, the party magic-user cast dancing lights, adding even more fire to the scene.

I rolled the encounter reaction, and they decided to flee. That was some fast thinking.

They finally arrived at the city.

Now, the group had just completed their third successful adventure since we restarted the campaign and they last leveled. They had accumulated a lot of wealth and XP, however, they hadn’t had the opportunity to train. In Bhakashal, if your 0-level henchmen survive 2 or more sessions you have the option to make them able to level. 

The bonus is they level with you, adding a lot of power to your PC, and giving you an instant replacement if your main PC dies. The cost is that they take XP shares. The party discussed it and decided that all 11 henchmen were going to become leveled. The PCs took on the henchmen when we started back, so they all had varying amounts of XP over the minimum for their level when the campaign started up again. All of them leveled up, and the henchmen all shot up to level 2 each. 

Training cost were brutal, and drained a massive amount of their wealth. However, they are all now 5-6th level, and they all have 2nd level fighter henchmen. A total of 15 party members.

Woof.

Then each PC leveled up. That was fairly straightforward except for the magic-user. He got a level up spell, and they exchanged the illusionist scroll spell at their patron’s noble house for a magic-user scroll spell. These sorts of trades happen because House phantasmists (illusionists) will sometimes find a scroll with magic-user spells they can’t use, they can sell them or trade them. Because the party approached a higher level phantasmist, they took a loss on the exchange, for a scroll with a 2nd, a 4th and a 6th level illusionist spell, they were given a scroll with a 1st, 3rd and a 5th level magic user spell. They also get their “level up” spell.

I allow PCs to ask for a type of spell, but the individual spell is randomized, or they can randomize everything. In this case the player wanted to try to get only utility spells, as the party had decent damage output already.

So we rolled, he got the following 4 spells:

Morshoggoth’s Magnificent Mount 1 - Homebrew spell - summons one of a giant frog, a giant alligator or a giant lizard (caster’s choice) to act as a mount. He succeeded on his “to know” roll for this one.

Thessalin’s Emancipatory Enchantment - Allows the magic-user to cast spells while moving on a mount. Spell casters normally have to stop their mount completely to cast spells. I love that he rolled these randomly and they are completely complementary. Made his “to know” on this.

Fun.

Alarm -  from Unearthed Arcana. Failed his ‘to know’ on this so it stays on the scroll for a one time casting.

Magic Jar - Made his roll on this one. In Bhakashal you can memorize a spell of higher level than you can normally cast, but the trade off is that ALL spells require a successful roll to cast (based on your “to know” percentage), and if that roll fails, there is a 5% per level of spell cast of having a harmful effect on the caster. 

Trade offs.

So that was that, he had three new spells, two of which were home brew, and one of which was higher level.

Badass.

Finally, the party paladin summoned his special warhorse, but in Bhakashal the “warhorse” is a giant lizard, much cooler, it can swim and climb walls. He named it “Kolroque” - Demon Slayer.

Also Badass.

We broke there, next session they will approach their patron for a new job.

Fantastic session, 2-½ hours all in, and everyone had a blast.