Building Bhakashal – Session Report

We had our third session for a new group this week. I was approached by a group asking if I could teach them how to run games. I decided to spend 4 sessions just running the game for them, and 2 sessions discussing how to run games rather than playing them.

They have been sent to a remote island to retrieve a renegade warlock who stole from his powerful master. Last session they discovered that kobolds (with axebeak mounts) lived on the island and they established an alliance with them. Rather than fight them, they shared a meal with them, exchanged some goods and information, and learned a lot about the denizens of the island. When we finished last week the party Spider (thief) barely escaped being eaten by an intelligent plant, we picked up from there.

A reminder that this particular group has asked to be taught “how to run a game”, so I will gloss a lot of what happened with comments about the process of instructing them about the play of the game.

First thing after slaying the plant the player of the party Mercenary (fighter) suggested they should look around the plant for loot that “may have been dropped by former victims”.

This led us to have a discussion about “lairs”, e.g., how if a monster or animal flees combat, one option is to try and track them and find their lair. In this case they were lucky as the monster in question is stationary. They spent some time digging into the ground around the plant and looking through it’s guts and found some gold coins, but nothing else.

The kobolds had told the party where the warlock they were searching for had been spending his time, so they had an idea of where to look. I told them they had a 1 in 8 chance of finding what the warlock was working on, and a 1 in 12 chance of an encounter, check both every turn.

They knew there was a green dragon in the area, so they were a bit tense about that!

After an hour of searching they hit paydirt, finding a door made of metal bars with a lock hidden behind some trees and brush. They saw that this door led to a rough-hewn corridor that descended into darkness.

Their first dungeon!

They found the door was locked, so the thief got to try her skills for the first time. She took out her tools and spent a turn finessing the lock, and it opened!

Then they descended.

However, they put the party fighter in the lead, she was a human, and had no infravision, so she could see about a foot or so ahead and that was it.

This produced delicious fear!

They decided to go without torches at this point as lighting torches in the dark would make them easy to spot.

I informed them of the dimensions of the corridors, and the party fighter, who had a really long bastard sword, asked if it could be used in a confined space.

They were starting to get the idea, the environment determines the constraints, so you have to ask questions or find out the hard way. I told them that the game has “space required” stats for all weapons, so we consulted the tables to see.

The dungeon was a maze, so they got out a piece of paper and began to map to keep track of where they were going. I suggested just doing lines for corridors and keeping it simple.

As it happens, they made choices that led them to the center of the maze. That was pure luck, as there were many branching paths that could have led them to traps or to monsters, but instead they arrived at the central room.

There was a pool full of black, metallic liquid in the center of the room, surrounded by 8 statues of warriors, all of the statues faced the pool. There was a low, ambient red light in the room that cast no shadows. For some reason the ambient light freaked them out and they insisted on lighting a torch. They asked about the statues, and I told them they would have to investigate them. They walked over to the pool and dropped a coin into it.

“The coin disappears from view as soon as it goes under the water, swallowed up by the black, metallic liquid.”

That they did not like!

They went over to the statues. They found that each statue had the same symbol carved into the stone at their feet, it was three lines within a circle. One of them asked if their character would know what that means.

I told them that their thief had a read languages percentage and could try that to see if the symbol was familiar, but it came up blank. Then I mentioned that Warlocks in Bhakashal are also sages, so they should check to see if the party warlock had a relevant area of knowledge.

It ends up her major field was “signs and symbology”, LOL.

So, she had a chance of knowing what this symbol was, and she rolled it at the table.

Huzzah!

The symbol meant “bound”

That got them talking.

They decided since the statues were all facing the pool, and they all had the same symbol on them, that they were likely binding something in the pool.

Then the question became, “should we try and free it, or get out of here”.

At this point I told them that there are spells that can help with situations like this, Augury, Contact Other Plane, Legend Lore, or they could consult a sage, or they could talk to the kobolds and see what they knew. But they didn’t have any of those spells, there were no sages on the island, the party warlock’s area of expertise didn’t help, and (although they didn’t know this) the kobolds knew nothing.

In short, they had to decide for themselves.

That produced some conversation, they were convinced that they should have SOMETHING in their toolkit that would solve this conclusively. I informed them that this isn’t the way the game works, sometimes you have what you need, sometimes you have to wing it. They were insistent that I should just GIVE them something that would help them out. They even said that their warlock having Signs and Symbology as her major field was something I did on purpose to help them with the symbols in this encounter.

But as I told them, I drew the three PCs for this adventure out of my file folder at random, it was just luck. This was a great opportunity to discuss how, in the kind of D&D that I run, and in old school D&D in general, the goal is to make due with what you have, not for the referee to give you what you need when you need it. That way, as I told them, when they win its because of THEM, and if they lose, it’s because of THEM, not because I tweaked things either for or against them.

So, after a long conversation, they decided to try and free whatever was in the pool. Since there were 8 statues that all had the rune on them, they figured destroying any one of the statues or runes would be enough to break the binding spell.

As it was.

The party Mercenary bashed one of the runes until it was marred.

Then, the ambient red light intensified and dimmed over and over, and a shadowy form rose from the pool. It was humanoid in shape but made of shadow stuff.

That produced a gasp of surprise.

“At almost the same time as the creature emerges from the pool, you hear four distinct noises, you can’t place their exact location or distance, but their sound carries through the confined spaces, you hear what sounds like roaring flame, some sort of slithering noise, a crackling sound, and the sound of wind.”

They weren’t sure what that meant, but they panicked! Still, the shadowy form was their immediate concern.

In Bhakashal, monsters don’t just attack every time, instead, you roll to see what would happen.

If you freed a shadow from centuries long binding, what would it do first? Would it attack those who freed it? Would it be so hungry that it attacks the first thing it sees? Would it be so desperate to be free of it’s prison that it flees immediately to avoid being bound again? I farm out decisions like this to the dice. I announce the options, “On a 1-3 the creature attacks you, on a 4-5 it flees, on a 6 it hovers and watches you”

Then I roll in public, a 4.

“The creature leaves the pool (the black metallic water having disappeared as it emerged), as it does so it becomes a shadow that moves across the floor, as if cast by a body that isn’t there. It travels to the exit opposite the party and disappears down the hallway, all the while screeching what sounds like the word, ‘free’.”

By now they are learning a key aspect of the style of play that I’m promoting, namely that it tries to create a degree of impartiality, the referee sets the odds, but the dice decide the outcome.

As soon as the shadow fled I told them this,

“The sound of slithering and wind gets softer, receding into the distance, the sounds of roaring flame and crackling, however, get louder.”

At this point the party fighter goes over to the pool to see what is there now that the water is gone, and she sees a sword! She grabs the sword without hesitation, and they decide to book it as fast as they can.

At that point I go round by round, they flee, and every round I tell them if the sounds are getting closer or further away. I have a map in front of me, I mark off the requisite number of squares each round they flee and the requisite squares for the two monsters that are heading their way (two monsters chose to flee the maze, two to head towards the center).

The noises were getting closer as they fled, they didn’t know what was coming, and they were freaking out. One of them was scouring her character sheet for spells or items to help, another was just panicking.

Then, one of them decided to ditch their torch so whatever was coming would home in on that and maybe miss them entirely.

They were thinking beyond their character sheet, excellent.

The way the maze was laid out and the way they ran they managed to make it out of the maze before the monsters go to them, and they slammed the gate shut, locking it behind them. They proceeded to a nearby standing of trees and watched. A firedrake appeared first, it bashed it’s head against the bars of the door to no avail. Then it directed it’s fire breath to the door.

Then the Hoar Fox showed up.

The two looked at each other but did not attack. Then the Hoar Fox breathed on the bars, making them icy cold. They alternated until the bars shattered and set them free. I rolled to see what they would do, and both fled.

Then the shocker emerged (the carrion crawler, the sources of the slithering sound, remained in the maze), it saw the party, I rolled, and it headed towards them to attack.

“A humanoid figure, apparently made up of lightning and the source of the crackling sound you heard, approaches you.”

At this point the party warlock decided she was going to cast one of her spells, Sjin’Saar’s Corrosive Decay. This spell, like a Fireball in geometry, causes ferrous metals to corrode instantly upon a failed save.

The player asked me, “How would this spell impact a creature made of lightning”

And that was great opportunity to discuss another aspect of the game, at the table rulings.

The rules don’t cover everything, so sometimes you have to figure it out on the spot. In Bhakashal, the recommendation is to collaboratively come up with possibilities and vote on them together. Everyone has to agree to move forward. A few options were discussed:

1.        It would do nothing

2.        It would do half damage

3.        It would destroy the creature utterly

4.        It would knock it unconscious

5.        It would temporarily disrupt the creature

We voted and settled on 5, and the Shocker flickered in and out of existence several times. I then made a morale roll, and the creature fled.

At that point they decided to go back to the kobolds and compare notes. They found their mounts, which were tied up a distance away and being attended to by the warlock’s henchmen, and they rode towards the kobold caves. When they came out of the forest, I told them this,

“As you emerge from the trees  you see a startling sight, four kobolds, mounted on axebeaks, are surrounding the shadow which fled the maze ahead of you.”

At this point they were enamored of the kobolds and wanted to help, the Warlock and the Spider were hesitant to attack for fear of hitting an ally, but the Mercenary just sneered and charged, her recently discovered sword in hand. As soon as she held the sword and charged to attack, she became aware that the sword was magical, and could either aid her attack or her defense, at her will.

Unbeknownst to her, she had found a +4 Defender!

She chose to put all of the magical mojo into attacking.

Before she could reach them the shadow attacked one of the kobolds, I described it as follows:

“The shadowy form collapses to the ground and slides across it, two dimensional as it moves swiftly across the grass, when it reaches one of the kobolds it reverts to humanoid form and passes through the mounted figure… and the kobold screams, changing into a shadow.”

They instantly understood the implications, each victim of the shadow could become another shadow, and they would be outnumbered in short order.

The Mercenary arrived, she swung her sword and hit the creature, almost splitting it in half. The shadow tried to attack her and missed.

She pulled on the reins and came back around for a second time, this time she rolled a critical, and opted for two attacks. The first attack finished off the original shadow, the next attack finished off the second shadow in one strike.

Her dice were on fire, and they were all very happy about it.

We stopped there.

It was a great session for learning, we covered a lot of rules and situations that will come up regularly at the table, and they saw how much of the process is farmed out to the dice. They also discovered that you don’t always have what you need so you have to improvise, and that some problems aren’t amenable to what is on your character sheet.

What they don’t know yet is the guy they are after is dead, slain by the hill giants that live at the other end of the island. I think they are going to head there next, where they will quickly learn that thrown boulders are extremely deadly!

It will be epic.

 

Building Bhakashal – Session Report – Intelligence Gathering

My Friday game resumed this week. We took a long hiatus after last year because my players all had commitments in September and October. This is my longest playing group; they have been at it for 4 years now. They are all 7^th – 8^th level in experience.

Before I get to the session report, I should do a brief recap.

When you hit 8^th level in Bhakashal, you are on the cusp of being able to become a patron, at 9^th level you transition to domain play and become a Bhakashal Lord, Warlock, High Priest, etc. and start taking direct part in city politics. But to get in you need to do more than just get to 9^th level, you have to do something big for the faction to get their attention, to convince them you are a worth addition to the faction’s upper echelons.

They decided last year to enter the Bhakashal underworld to find their big thing. Once there they would establish an outpost for their Noble House and trade with the locals. Then they got there and found their first underworld city, filled with Togmu, Malu, and strange spider people. They formed a friendship with a local merchant, sharing their idea of opening up trade, and asking if there were any in the city who would be interested.

One thing led to another, and they decided that they didn’t want to establish a regular trade, they wanted to do something bigger. There were monsters here that had never been seen in the upper world, so they would capture and kill these monsters and take them back to the city, where they could be used to create new spells and magic items.

This was a far, far more important advantage to bring to their House.

But then someone got clever and asked if it was possible to create a teleportation gate of some kind, AD&D has teleportation magic, and this would allow them to bring back monsters faster than the several month long journey it had taken to get there.

Bhakashal is an open ended sandbox style setting, so the answer isn’t “yes” or “no”, it’s, “how do you want to do that?”

How to make a magic teleportation circle?

They took a few sessions figuring that out, but essentially they had to find someone who had the knowledge, and eventually, after gathering as much information as they could in the city and getting nowhere, their party priest used a high-level divination spell on a scroll to ask the higher powers where they could find what they needed. They had been saving this scroll all year, so it was a big deal to use it.

But it paid off.

The spell told them of a powerful warlock who lived in the underworld, he had a collection of tomes that included one that detailed circles of this kind. Find him, find their solution. That led to a two-week journey, where, ironically, they lost the party priest to a trio of carrion crawlers led by a hunting party of underworld Malu hunters.

They eventually found the wizard, who was a blind Yalan (snake man) who had given up his sight for various magical powers. His companion was a giant, intelligent slug. The slug “saw” for the warlock, and in exchange it was taken care of. The party decided to be friendly to the guy and it ended up he was pretty lonely in the underworld, so he agreed to help them out in finding the information they needed, in exchange for them agreeing to stay for 2 weeks and keep him company.

That gave them access to the tome that had the details on how to make a teleportation circle. There were a number of mundane components, and a design they had to make exactly right, but part of the process of creating the magical ink used to mark the circle was to slay four mind flayers, drain all of their blood, and mix it with the ink and several other ingredients (including Volt blood and ground up phase spider brains).

So that sent them off to look for an Illithid city in the underworld. Several more weeks journey, where they lost one of the two party warlocks to a trio of Umber Hulks, led them to the Illithid city. Dhargana, the illithid city, was located in an immense cave, the cave had columns of stone in a huge empty space, each column was hollowed in places to form huge caves. There was one gigantic column that held the majority of the city, and many smaller columns that held private estates. The mind flayers city existed to house the infrastructure, servants and slaves they needed to support their bodies while they explored alternate planes and realities with their minds.

At that point they had to make some decisions, as infiltrating a city of mind reading illithids wasn’t going to be easy. The city did have other races there, Vorunn (spider-folk), Emberi (humans), Togmu (frog-folk) and Malu (fish-folk) were also in the city, but the majority of Emberi were servants, laborers and slaves, and the Malu and Togmu were fishermen, hunters and mercenaries. The party would stand out as  a motley collection of overworlders (they had, for example, a Rakasta), so they decided to set themselves up posing as a renegade alchemist and his retinue, fleeing from an enemy in the overworld, wanting to set up shop in the Illithid city.

This was possible as the party has a Myrmidon, in Bhakashal, Myrmidon’s are fighter/alchemists, whose limited spells all work on potions. They also have a spell that allows them to combine the relevant components on the spot to make a potion. The Myrmidon carried a number of potions with him and could make more with various ingredients he had collected on their journey or harvested fresh.  

That is where we broke for the summer, with the party having just dropped coin to pay for a large tent from which to run their potion making business, and plans to figure out how to waylay an illithid or two…

Cue to today’s game.

We did some recap then dove right in. They decided to do business for a few weeks and see what they could learn talking to their customers. When you do stuff like this in game you can either abstract it totally (set then roll the odds of discovering something important), or you can role play it out at the table. The former can be handy, but also dull, the latter can be too time consuming.

Bhakashal’s random encounter system works for this sort of thing perfectly.

You roll for random encounters 4 times a day, at different odds, from morning to night, 1 in 12, 1 in 10, 1 in 8 and 1 in 6. With these odds, on any given day there is a roughly 40% chance you will have an encounter. Over two weeks, that means, on average 5.6 encounters. 

We rolled 8.

For each encounter, as the PCs were at the tent most of the time (they had a sleeping area in the back), the encounter had to happen there. If anyone went out and did anything, then we would roll to see where it happened if the party was not all in the same place.

Note also that the party dealt with the public more than 8 times, as vendors they would see discussion and business with many people, but only 8 of these  are “encounters” e.g., we role play them out at the table. The other visits are abstracted, and I can generate the “revenue” from those visits, if any, abstractly with a roll.

 

Encounter 1 – Day 2

Malu fishermen came in wanting something a potion of Sweet Water, during the conversation:

– “The squid-heads, they meditate all the time, that and eat brains!”

Fact this is based on: The illithids spend most of their time lost in their minds, they return to reality to eat brains and conduct affairs

 

Encounter 2 – Day 4

Thieves tried to enter the tent from the rear and encountered party members in their private section, all were sleeping but one, the party phantasmist. He heard them moving around then cutting the tent, he cast an illusion over the sleeping party members of a gigantic, coiled snake that covered the space taken up by 3 sleeping bodies. I rolled a reaction, and the thieves made off.

 

Encounter 3 Day 7

A group of Malu city guards came by the tent, they started off being vaguely threatening, making comments about outsiders and such, then they said they had heard they were hiding a monster in the back. The party showed the guards the empty space willingly, showing no evidence whatsoever that a giant snake had been there, and they left.

 

Encounter 4, Day 10

A pair of Malu hunters came in to sell animal parts to be used by the alchemist, but the price offered offended the Malu (the party gets a big negative mod to encounter reactions as outsiders) so they got angry and attacked. The party Spartan (monk) took them down weaponless and they fled. I rolled again every day to see if they came back with friends!

Encounter 5, also Day 10

A Togmu fisherman/hunter came in looking for pure salt, as the salt he normally uses to kill certain vermin infesting his catch is “dirty” and causes other problems. During conversation:

“Squidders are homebodies for sure, except for Sogogg, that crazy tentacle head is leaving on Haitam, probably hunting with the Fish-heads again!”

Fact this is based on: The illithids rarely leave the city, with few notable exceptions, one being Sogogg Brot, an Illithid that has spent time running with the Malu hunters in the caves

 

Encounter 6, Day 12

A Vorunn necromancer came into the shop, she needed a Potion of Longevity for experiments, during the conversation,

“No, the old-ones would never eat my brain, they only consume the minds of the lowest, I am more valuable to them intact”

Fact this is based on: The illithids eat the brains of slaves, servants and laborers at their leisure, otherwise they eat brains of criminals (anyone breaking a significant law is just taken to an Illithid and their brain is consumed) and random creatures captured in the caves.

 

Encounter 7

One of the party members spent the day travelling the city, and while doing so he had an encounter with a passing NPC, the PC was looking at animals that were being sold as “guard dogs” and he encountered a trio of Ettercaps, in the underworld Ettercaps interact with other groups, they are primarily hunters. The Ettercaps noticed him looking at their unique silk gear (nets, bolas, battle sashes), and started a brawl with him. Fortunately, it was the party monk, and he managed to drop them all in different ways.

 

Encounter 8

A Malu merchant came to the tent looking for a Potion of Healing. The player asked me if they could look at the monster parts they had collected to see if they had ingredients for that potion, and I told them it was so poorly lit they would need an artificial light source, so they lit a lamp.

During the discussion:

-            “Close your curtain, that fire is blinding”

Fact this is based on: The whole city is low-lit with softly glowing striated rock and flights of luminescent insects that swarm and fly through the air, as a result all of the regular inhabitants are used to extremely dim light and are light-and fire avoidant, and you rarely see fires anywhere.

If we had rolled one more encounter the city guards were going to return to ask about the monk, as he had been involved in two altercations now, both of which were seen by others.

They talked about their intel and decided to try and nail the Illithid leaving the city, he would no doubt be with guards/monsters/henchmen for protection (Illithids don’t travel alone), but less protected than he would be on his estate.

Then one of them brought up that they didn’t really know what mind flayers could DO, e.g. their powers, just some things about what they were doing, e.g., their activities.

So, to the market they headed, the plan was to pinch a servant/slave and interrogate them, surely the slaves and servants would have seen the illithids use their powers before, likely on one of their peers. They would know things.

How do you model ambushing a target in a crowded marketplace?

I told the party to come up with a plan. They said they would spend the time walking around the market and looking for opportunities to waylay someone in an area where they wouldn’t automatically be seen.

OK, I decided to model this too.

Every turn they had a 1 in 8 chance of finding a servant or slave in a situation where they could talk to them unseen while in the busy market. Also, every turn there was a 1 in 12 chance of an encounter. We rolled them simultaneously.

After an hour (6 rolls of a d8 and a d12), the d8 came up.

“You see an illithid noble riding by on his Xixia with his retinue, four burly Malu bodyguards, a large, leashed lizard of bright green hue with multifaceted yellow eyes, and a trail of Emberi slaves, each carrying a large bag on their backs. At the end of the line is a Saan, the first you have seen here, who is spotting the overstuffed bags for spillage as they move along. At once he is distracted by something between two large tents, and bolts in towards it. You have an opportunity and spring into motion, running towards the Emberi between the tents”

Now, a word about magic in Bhakashal.

The party warlock has memorized Power Word Stun as one of his spells. In Bhakashal, a warlock can memorize any level of spell. When cast, there is a chance of spell failure, and of harm to the caster. The warlock had been using this spell a decent amount, as it wasn’t lethal, and it worked well.

So when he rushed in, with the party Gyre behind him (Gyre’s in Bhakashal are raw magic users, benders, they can manipulate their particular dominion, the party had an earth gyre, essentially an Earth bender), he decided to cast Power Word Stun on the poor hapless fellow, rather than risk tussling with him and getting hurt or him getting away.

He rolled his casting odds, 82% chance of success.

95 was rolled.

The spell failed.

Failed spells have a 5% chance per level of harming the caster, 7^th level spell, 45% chance.

22 was rolled.

The warlock uttered the words of the spell and was stunned into unconsciousness on the spot for nine rounds.

This is why I love probability-based mechanics; he knew this was going to happen, but he never knows when, and each time it does happen,  there is such a gap in between that it spooks him.

I find the balance perfect.

The Gyre saved the day, when the Warlock was trying to stun the guy, the Gyre manipulated the dust and dirt  on the ground to either side of them and made a thin dome to protect them from view. In the already low light environment between buildings, it was already dark, but this would stop those who were used to low light from seeing anything.

I rolled to see what the slave would do; he cowered in fear.

The Gyre then cast a second spell; this time he used his ability to bend a metal bar into a binding for the slaves hands.

He told him that they weren’t going to hurt them, the slave looked on in confusion.

The party Gyre spoke to him in Togmu, all of the slaves knew some Togmu through their dealings with hunters and farmers, and he told him that they were looking to find out what the “Squidders” could do, as they wanted to harm them.

This produced a very positive reaction, the slave detested the illithids, so the slave asked, “If I tell you all I know, will  you let me free?”

The party was sceptical, they felt he would go back to his master and tell him of the threat, hoping to curry favor.

“If I go back to him he will read my mind, know of you, slay me for leaving his presence and then be on to you, I have no desire to die, let me flee, I can leave the city and take my chances in the caves.”

They debated this and decided on taking the information. This guy was an illithid slave for a year now, so he had seen them doing things many times. I counted up the “facts” about illithids from their description, and rolled for four of them that the slave would know. I figured the illithids would freely use their powers around slaves, so it wasn’t unreasonable that they would know things, they rolled the following:

1.           “They can read minds, but not all the time, only when they focus” (ESP)

2.           “They are not strong, but they can subtly manipulate your mind when you try and strike them, minimizing the blow” Flayers have decent Hit Dice, Hit points are not all physical, it’s left to the referee to interpret, this is my interpretation.

3.           “They can overpower your mind” - Domination ability

4.           “They can slip out of space then slip back” – Probability travel

Importantly, the slave had no knowledge of their magic resistance, so the party does not know that.

They gave the slave some coin and a dagger to defend himself and let him leave, knowing every second he was with them the odds of the Illithid noticing he was gone and would come after him increased. They then waited for the party warlock to wake and fled back to their tent.

They formulated a plan; they would try and ambush Sogogg Brot when he left the city in two days.

They still have to find him to track him when he leaves, and they don’t know what sort of party he will be leaving with, but they figure one flayer outside the city is far easier to bag than one on it’s estate or in full public view.

We stopped there.

It was a largely information gathering session, but in addition to gaining information, they tend to build anticipation, the players are thinking about their adversaries, the threats they face, and how to cheat death. Because we integrate information gathering into the encounter system, it combines both bookkeeping and role play in an entertaining way

Next session will be down to business I think. 

Building Bhakashal - Organizing the Blog

I've been at this blog for a few years now, and it struck me that for someone new to the place it would be daunting to find topics of interest.

NO MORE!

I have organized the Blog topics into three categories:

General Topics

Bhakashal Topics

Session Reports

General topics are just my musing about D&D and gaming not specific to Bhakashal

Bhakashal topics are for those who want to learn more about the setting

Session Reports are both pre and post Bhakashal

Note the entry: Product Summary - May 23, 2021

This contains a high-level summary of the setting for anyone not familiar, and is probably the best place to start.

Certain topics come up more than once, so there will be a degree of redundancy, but there is plenty to dig into here.


Dweller of the Forbidden City Blog – General Topics

Abusive DMs
July 2,2019

 
Adding Flavor to your Game
April 11, 2020

Alignment
February 19, 2020
May 1, 2020

Bards in AD&D
April 15, 2023

 
Character Investment
January 6, 2022

Character vs Player Knowledge
December 2, 2020

Colonialism/Race
August 11, 2019
April 28, 2020
May 1, 2020
August 17, 2020
August 18, 2020

Consent & Troubling Content
September 11, 2023

 
Consequences and Campaign Play
June 16, 2020

Corporate D&D and the Hobby
December 11, 2022
January 16, 2023

 
Critiques of D&D
March 8, 2020

Customizing the Game
June 28,2018
Oct 11, 2020

 
D&D Combat
July 10,2018
September 18,2019
January 1, 2019
May 10, 2020
July 2, 2022

D&D and Film
March 16, 2023

 
D&D as a Game
August 9, 2021

D&D and Horror
December 24, 2021

 
D&D and Morality
January 22, 2023

 
D&D Online
March 31, 2020

D&D and Violence
May 8, 2022

 
Damage System Variants
Jan 23,2019
June 5,2019

Death
February 11, 2020
August 27, 2021
December 4, 2021
March 27, 2023
July 17, 2023

Description and the DM
March 31, 2021

Authority/Adversarial DMs
July 23,2018
May 25, 2020
November 24, 2020

DM Tips
March 12, 2020
September 17, 2020
April 26, 2021
April 17, 2021

Does System Matter?
November 19, 2019

Emergent Character Building
February 27, 2020

Emergent Properties of Gaming
December 15, 2020
August 17, 2021
June 29, 2022

Experience Points in 1st Ed AD&D
July 3, 2021

Exploration
June 27, 2020
May 25, 2023

Faction Play
July 19, 2020
April 30, 2021

Game / Adventure Design
February 3, 2020
February 18, 2021
February 23, 2021
September 6, 2023

Game Fiction
July 16,2018

Game Mechanics
October 14, 2020
November 15, 2020
February 10, 2021

 
Games within Games
April 30, 2018
February 5th, 2020

 
Genre Play
May 14, 2018

Henchmen
June 20, 2020

High and Low Magic
February 6, 2020

Hit Points
July 18, 2020

Honor Amongst Thieves

August 30, 2023

 
House Rules
February 25, 2020
March 26, 2020

July 4, 2020

Liminal D&D, Between Adventures
May 28, 2020

Magic Items
June 9, 2020
September 8, 2020

 
Magic-Users and Tactical Dominance
Dec 27, 2018

Narrative Focused Gaming
July 16, 2019
March 17, 2020
September 9, 2020
November 2, 2020
September 26, 2021

Old School Gaming
August 17, 2021

Perfectionism
February 11, 2022

 
Player vs Player Gaming
December 16, 2019

Playing Against Type, Evil NPCs
August 26,2019

Playing it “Wrong”
July 8,2019
January 28, 2020

Power-gaming
November 30, 2020

Predictability and Opacity
January 30, 2021

Priests in D&D
March 10, 2020

Psionics
March 24, 2020
June 10, 2023

Published versus Homebrew Adventures
November 7, 2021
May 14, 2022

 
Randomization / Random Encounters
July 31,2019
February 17, 2020
September 20, 2020
September 27, 2020
October 18, 2020
January 23, 2021
April 29, 2021
May 5, 2022
November 19, 2022
March 5, 2023
May 27, 2024

Religion and D&D
April 23, 2020

Risk and Immersion
May 14, 2021

Rules and Rulings
February 9, 2020
May 20, 2020

 
Running Campaigns
March 20, 2020
May 17, 2020
November 29, 2020

Sandbox Play

September 8, 2019
September 10, 2019

 
Spells
September 6, 2020

Social Role Play
January 24, 2020

Stars Without Number
February 2, 2020
March 4, 2020
March 15, 2020
March 28, 2020
April 14, 2020

Teaching the Game
April 24, 2022

The Power of “No”
February 4, 2020

Treasure Distribution in D&D
May 15, 2022

 
Urban Crawling
February 29, 2020

Waterborne Adventures
February 15, 2022

 
Why First Edition AD&D?
February 1st, 2020

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Dweller of the Forbidden City Blog – Bhakashal Topics
Alignment
February 5, 2021

 
Armor
November 30, 2021

 
Character Classes
February 7, 2021 – The Conjuror
February 17, 2022 – The Necromancer
March 1, 2021 – The Vox
March 14, 2021 – The Warlock
March 15, 2021 – The Spider
March 29, 2021 – The Gyre
April 10, 2021 – The Jinx
April 24, 2021 – The Caveral
April 28, 2021 – The Beastial
May 4, 2021 Thaumaturge
May 6, 2021 Spellbinder
May 8, 2021 Phantasmist
May 12, 2021 Seer
May 13, Mercenary
May 15, Slayer
May 16, Theurgist
May 17, 2021 Justiciar
May 18, 2021 Spartan
May 20, 2021 Chimerist
May 22, 2021 Warlock

Character Creation
January 1, 2022 – Mugloss Grewl (Seer)
January 2, 2022 Aaramos Griven (Beastial)
January 3, 2022 Omalo Brome (Cavaral)
January 4, 2022 – Vin Bhas (Chimerist)
January 5, 2022 – Jimnir the Garnet (Warlock)
January 6, 2022 Bruk Imosst the Azure (Conjuror)
January 7, 2022 Xalak Pheer the Sardonyx (Gyre)
January 9, 2022 Jajemi Halameer (Justiciar)
January 10, 2022 Chambrace the Tayl (Myrmidon)
January 11, 2022 Calligaster Naukan (Necromancer)
January 12, 2022 Lorndov Breen (Phantasmist)
January 13, 2022 Bosk Tughlarn (Slayer)
January 15, 2022 Brother Clane (Spartan)
January 15, 2022 Ukreeth Sonem (Spellbinder)
January 17, 2022 Bhama Togul (Spider)
January 18, 2022 Donlin Wistfall (Thaumaturge)
January 19, 2022 Cassindra Loke (Theurgist)
January 20, 2022 Virridin Jamu (Vox)
January 21, 2022 Ngai Eyona (Warlock)
January 22, 2022 Mitrax Toma the Bold (Mercenary)
January 23, 2022 Rizzal Tarwan the Opal (Phantasmist)
January 24, 2022 – Rondam Kliss (Mercenary)
January 25, 2022 Joggekulan the Quick (Spider)
January 26, 2022 – Brother Jothin (Spartan)
January 27, 2022 Ulane Ryba the Grace (Myrmidon)
January 28, 2022 – Micerine Daj (Jinx)
January 29, 2022 Liath Mossun (Slayer)
January 30, 2022 Mharal the Ivory (Warlock)
January 31, 2022 Toru Quarn “The Scarred Man” (Mercenary)

 
Character Generation - General
December 10, 2021

Characters and Role-Playing
May 3, 2023

 
Combat and Weapon Criticals
March 10, 2021
June 15, 2021
August 30, 2022
November 14, 2022

Comparing Spell Casting Classes
July 25, 2021

Curses
May 17, 2022

Deities and Religion
December 29, 2021

 
Described Damage
June 1, 2021

Encounter Creation
May 4, 2023

 
Example of Combat
February 27, 2022
March 7, 2022
March 27, 2022
June 23, 2022
November 9, 2022

 
Factions and Patrons
December 21, 2021
June 16, 2022

 
Firearms
May 25, 2021

Game Balance
June 14, 2021

 
Game Design
June 8, 2021

Games vs Stories
March 22, 2023

 
Grappling
April 4, 2022

 
Healing
July 10, 2022

 
High Level Play
September 21, 2024

 
Hirelings and Retainers
August 12, 2022

 
Hit Points
April 17, 2021
May 10, 2021
June 11, 2021

December 7, 2021

 
Illusions

July 29, 2021
May 21, 2022
Improvisation

June 5, 2021
February 29, 2024
May 24, 2024

 
Initiative

March 9, 2021

Languages
December 30, 2021

Level Advancement
February 6, 2021

 
Magic Items
March9, 2022
May 21, 2023

Marshlands and Raosk
June 6, 2021

Marshland Villages
March 21, 2022

Money
September 7, 2022

Monsters 

March 22, 2022

Mounted Pursuit Rules
March 19, 2021

Mounts
February 1, 2022

 
Multi and Dual Classing
March 17, 2021

Outdoor and Urban Pursuit Rules
March 20, 2021

Picaresque Gaming
April 12, 2023

 
Plant Monsters
February 28, 2022

 
Playable Groups
April 19, 2021 - All
August 18, 2021 - Urdyll

Product Summary
May 23, 2021

Prominent NPCs
July 30, 2021 - Hurna Gamelin
July 19, 2021 - Amankal Tivorin
July 14, 2021 - Illyig the Corpulent
August 1, 2021 - Daal Maglin the Moldavite
December 12, 2021 - Brackwith Mune
December 12, 2021 – Ynir Freyil
December 27, 2021 - Penwith Quoral
February 24, 2023 – Kani Grith the Hessonite
May 12, 2024 - Haegemal the Heliotrope

Prophetic Dream Engine
May 30, 2021

Random Encounter Tables
February 21, 2022
June 8, 2022

 
Saving Throws
December 1, 2021

Session 0
May 17, 2021

Setting Background
August 29, 2021

Solo Play

May 3, 2022

The Sova (Bard)
June 25, 2023

 
The Underworld
June 4, 2023

 
Time Management
April 27, 2022

 
Traps
November 4, 2021

 
Travel
March 31, 2023
April 27, 2023
November 14, 2023
December 3, 2023

 
Weapon vs Armor Class
March 16, 2021

Wounded Warriors
March 6, 2022


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Dweller of the Forbidden City Session Reports
March 31, 2020
April 2, 2020
April 5, 2020
April 12, 2020
April 28, 2020
April 29, 2020
April 30, 2020
May 1, 2020
May 2, 2020
May 3, 2020
May 5, 2020
May 7, 2020
May 8, 2020
May 10, 2020
May 11 , 2020
May 12, 2020
June 19, 2020
June 28, 2020
July 1, 2020
July 3, 2020
July 6, 2020
July 9th, 2020
July 16, 2020
July 18, 2020
August 7, 2020
March11, 2022
March 16, 2022
April 27, 2022
June 2, 2022
August 23, 2022
August 24, 2022
August 26, 2022
August 26, 2022
December 6, 2022
December 24, 2022
February 3, 2023
February 27, 2023
June 14, 2023
January 11, 2024
June 12, 2024
June 22, 2024
July 5, 2024
August 30, 2024
September 11, 2024
September 30, 2024
October 25, 2024
October 27, 2024

 

Building Bhakashal – Session Report

My former Wednesday group is now a Saturday morning group, we play bimonthly for 3 hours a session. We had our second session today. This group has been with me for 3 years now, and they have reached high enough level to enter what is traditionally called “domain play”

In Bhakashal “domain play” actually starts at 1^st level, as you are associated with a patron and a faction, but when you hit 8^th level you are now ready to enter the upper echelons of your faction, in the case of the party, they were affiliated with House Quannar, and they were deciding on a “big move” they could try to get the attention of the House nobility.

Last session they decided to get involved with the Spiders Guild (thieves guild). In Bhakashal the Guild is split into two, the city branch and the Raosk branch. They have an uneasy truce, but the city branch is run on the sly by a Lord of House Quannar, the PC’s house. When Quin Faal told them this, they became privy to “nobility” level information, the identity of the “Black Arachne”, the guildmaster of the Brass Blade Spider’s Guild, is pretty secret. Now they know something about them, Quin Faal was trusting them with key information. House Quannar has influence over one branch of the Guild, but not the other.

So, they decided their “big move” would be to reunite the two branches of the guild by either swaying, kidnapping or slaying the leader of the Raosk branch of the guild, a Chitin named Kalantros (the “Red Arachne”).

Last session they spent 4 weeks of game time doing “bookkeeping” tasks, from potion creation to sage research. Some of them also spent those weeks in the Raosk gathering information, trying to find out anything they could about the Red Arachne so they could come up with an idea of how to get their attention and gain an audience, or find out enough about them to be able to pull off taking them out.

They decided they would present themselves as looking to get a spot of prestige in the Guild by getting the attention of Kalantros. So, they asked questions about him and paid bribes to people trying to find out how to impress the guildmaster and get recruited.

It was an interesting move.

However, role playing out each and every conversation with an NPC where they asked about Kalantros would be too time consuming, so we telescoped it with some rolls. They spent coin every week, and every week I rolled to see what “intel” they got on Kalantros. They heard a few rumours they discounted, for example that Kalantros was really a powerful demon in chitin form, as they didn’t give them an ideas of how to turn that information into something actionable.

They spent 4 game weeks asking around, and on week 4 they hit a piece of intelligence they could act on. Maur Hoguelen, a wealthy Bhakashal merchant has maintained a stranglehold over the sale of mounts by breeders in the marshlands to vendors in Bhakashal. Mounts are incredibly common in Bhakashal, and Maur is the middle man between the hunters who bring in wild creatures to use as mounts and the vendors who sell them.

Everyone goes through Maur.

 

What the party found out was that Maur did NOT pay tribute to or interact with the Raosk Spider’s Guild, even though he did business with hunters in the marshlands who operated out of the Raosk. The Red Arachne would love to get a cut of Maur’s business, as mounts are not used in the Raosk, so they are a business the Red Arachne’s guild normally gets no part of.

The party decided that they would try to kidnap Maur and present him as a gift to the Red Arachne, giving him control over Maur’s business. A major feather in his cap. This would hopefully get them access to Kalantros, or his trust, and they could go from there.

I was impressed, it was an actionable plan, and it showed that they were thinking in terms of big moves, not just securing loot or slaying monsters.

The next part though, was brilliant.

How to get to Maur?

They discussed this in the abstract, and came up with three options:

1.        Find one of Maur’s agents and work them

2.        Work their way up in Maur’s organization to get to him

3.        Find Maur himself directly

This group has been with me for 3 years, they understand how the game works, and how faction play works. 3 years ago, they would have went straight for Maur, Maur has an estate, heavily guarded, where the party could try to get him. It would be risky, and tough. They asked if he ever had parties at his estate, him being crazy wealthy and powerful, I said yes. They tabled that as a possibility later. They considered finding one of Maur’s agents but were unsure if that would be too obvious.

Then they decided they would try the slow and steady route, to get into his organization and work their way up.

I was impressed, they were taking the most strategic route, the longest route, to getting what they wanted, patience, planning and care.

How were they going to join the organization?

They decided that since Maur purchases wild creatures from hunters, creatures that are captured and domesticated, they would enter at the bottom, join a hunting party sent out to capture wild mounts and bring them in. I had not planned for this, I expected them to go straight for the guy or find one of his top people, and of course they came up with a different idea.

A hunting they would go.

They found a few of their contacts and asked around about hunting groups that find and capture potential mounts. They found one that was advertising for new recruits (it’s a dangerous job). Then they surprised me again. When approaching the hunters of the party members said to me, “Kalantros must know about us, we asked a lot of questions and paid a lot of bribes, so he knows there were 5 people who were asking questions and wanted to get into the guild and impress him. So only some of us should go on the hunt, if five turned up together that would raise flags.”

They were thinking about things from the perspective of Kalantros, a guildmaster at the center of a web of thieves and informants.

In fact, after the 2^nd week of asking questions Kalantros found out about the party and has three of his agents tailing them around the city. I roll periodically to see if anyone notices them. Nothing so far. So, unbeknownst to them Kalantros will likely know that they joined the hunting party.

Four of them joined a hunt to capture potential mounts. I opened up the Bhakashal setting manual, and we rolled randomly to see what mounts they would be capturing, and I rolled Raggam (giant boars). Giant boars are BEASTS, 7HD, 7 foot tall at shoulder, they are the size of small elephants, favorite mount of warriors, renowned for their aggressiveness, a captured Raggam could fetch from 300-500 gp.

Thing is, I had no idea how you would “capture” a Raggam.

I made up something on the spot.

The hunting party consisted of 5 Togmu and 5 Kutya hunters, a Saan hunt leader, and 15 “haulers”.

Their technique was to track a herd over a few weeks to learn their patterns, then ambush them when they are in the right area. The hunters generally travel with a spell caster who distracts or drives off a single Raggam, then they surround it, and while two or three hunters and the caster keep it at bay with spears/spells, the others throw ropes over top of the creature, each rope has a weight at each end, a metal loop. They then slip a large, hooked spike through the loop and hammer it into the ground (much like tent pegs). Once three ropes are thrown over and secured a giant boar is pressed to pull away, and one of the hunters hits the Raggam with a poison that knocks it cold for a few hours.

They then find any other Raggam who haven’t fled completely (Raggam are aggressive, so a few usually stick around), the spell caster usually helping to corral or hold them, depending on what spells they have. Using this method, they will bring in 2-3 Raggam per hunt.

The party presented themselves as hunters, they were honest and said one of them was a priest, and he was automatically hired on, healing magic is helpful. Two party fighters hired on as is, and the party warlock offered his magical services. Unfortunately, the hunters already had a warlock, he showed up late, a tall chitin wearing a colorful leather kilt and with bright feathers for a collar and much jewelry. The hunting party leader (a slayer) told the party’s warlock to shove off, the party’s warlock made an issue of it, so the leader told the two to fight each other to see who would get to join. The party warlock took out a pinch of sand and cast Sleep, the opposing warlock cast Stinking Cloud. Fortunately, the party warlock’s spell was faster and it put the opposing warlock to sleep before his spell culminated.

That won them over to the hunters, who found it hilarious.

They discussed compensation, the total take for the haul would be divided amongst the 29 people involved in the hunt, 11 hunters, 15 “haulers” (they helped to remove the Raggam when they have been captured) and the 4 party members. Once divided into 29 equal shares, spell casters would get 3 shares, exceptional hunters 2 shares, and the rest is then pooled and divided amongst the regular hunters and haulers equally.

They organized themselves into teams and headed out on mounts of their own (a giant lizard, or “Gess” for each). They had obtained permission (through payment) to hunt in the territory of House Omsan, which was a 1-day journey. The dice were sleepy, and it passed without encounters.

On the way there they discussed strategy. The party suggested using their Seer’s (Bhakashal priest) Speak with Animals to corral the Raggam to an area where their Warlock could cast Web on them, which would hold them long enough to be tranquilized. Then the haulers are called in and they take them away.

They found their herd at night, in a watering area surrounded by tall grasses (an area chosen by the group’s Slayer for that reason). There was a small, forested area to the north of the watering area that would work for the Web spell. They had left their mounts with the haulers and moved in, it took them an hour to get into position as they moved exceedingly slowly to avoid detection, and I rolled a few times to see if the herd noticed them and were spooked or not. Raggam are not easily spooked, and although they did notice one group of hunters, they ignored them as the were far enough away.

Then the party Seer approached the herd and cast Animal Friendship, and began speaking to one of the herd, telling them that there were juicy tubers and flowers in the forest, ready to be eaten. The beast then headed to the forest and called out to the others, who fell in with them.

The party Warlock was in place near the forest and once they were in position between stands of trees he managed to cast Web and snag three of them in a line. However, they began to push through the web very quickly, snapping the strands, which surprised the party  and the hunters, so they rushed in to tranquilize the beasts.

3 down!

The rest of the Raggam saw this happening and fled, but there were other groups of hunters and party members waiting.

The party Warlock cast a pyrotechnics spell, smoking out a fleeing Raggam, it paused long enough for the hunters to throw three ropes over it and trank it when the smoke cleared.

With the Speak with Animals spell still in force the party Seer used Command to get one of them to “sleep” and it crashed down into a deep slumber. They roped it and tranked it easily.

Then one of the party fighters decided to have fun. He was waiting in a tree in the small, forested area, when one of the Raggam peeled off from the three that were caught in the Web he dropped from the tree on to the beast and attempted to rope it. I gave him two options, one would be to whip the rope around the bottom of the neck of the beast, it would wrap around twice then he could pull back on it, but it might hit him in the process. The other option would be to form a “u” shaped loop and throw it forward, then pulling back on it if it made it over the head. Both required a critical hit to be successful, but the former, in addition to potentially hitting him, would be more secure than the latter. He opted for the whipping approach and rolled a successful crit, managing to harness the beast. While he pulled back and the beast tried to buck him off, his fellow hunters tranked it.

One of the other beasts had seen this and charged in to defend it’s pack mate. The fighter decided to try and jump from his beast to the charging one. He managed to land that jump successfully, and to rope the second beast! Unfortunately, it bucked him off, flying through the air to crash to the ground. The other hunters moved in with spears to distract it while the fighter got back up and engaged the beast directly, menacing it with his pole arm and holding it at bay. One of the hunters managed to trank it while this was happening, and it went down.

Then the party made the only major strategic error of the session. The party Warlock wanted to “beat” the fighter’s total, so he cast a powerful Monster Summoning spell. In Bhakashal monster summoning scales with level, and it summons monsters from the local monster population, so you go to the random encounter tables for the area, select off all of the monsters of the designated HD and roll between them.

The Warlock summoned a red Slaadi.

It easily dealt with  Raggam when the Warlock commanded it to use its ability to cast Power Word Stun on the beast. Then it was sent away, loping off into the marshlands under a haunting moon.

8 raggam captured, more than a regular haul!

The Slayer leader took out a horn and made three long blast on it, the “haulers” then came to the hunting party, it took about a half hour. The haulers had large carts that were being pulled by Gess. The tranquilizers are calibrated to knock out the beasts for about an hour, at which point they wake, stunned and pliant, and the haulers corral them in to a cart and haul them to a waiting barge.

Sometimes they don’t manage to properly dose a beast (the delivery mechanism doesn’t penetrate deep enough, the beast it larger than the dosage can cover) and it emerges from the stunned state and tries to escape, but I rolled, and the hunters had done their job, there were no issues. They had to re-tranquilize two of the beasts as the extraction took longer than expected, they only had two carts as they weren’t expecting this many Raggam, and they had to go back and forth several times.

At one point I rolled a random encounter as the extraction was taking a long time and it came up with a pair of alligators, they saw what was up and noped on out of there!

They could only fit 6 of the Raggam on the barge, so the party seer agreed to ride them back to the city by using Speak with Animals on them to get them to be cooperative. He was 8^th level and could cast the spell multiple times to reinforce the compliance. The Warlock rode the other beast and had spells to use if needed as well. They headed back to the Raosk, where the beasts were delivered to a domestication farm where the Raggam would be trained before being given to vendors to sell.

The party was extremely popular with the hunters. They had taken a lot of the risk, and more than doubled their usual haul of beasts. The way the shares worked was invariant, the spell casters got a triple share, and the party fighter a double share, but that still left a significant profit for the individual hunters and haulers. As the loot didn’t divide completely evenly, they gave the excess to the party Warlock as a thanks

That’s where we stopped.

Observations

The players have embraced the idea of high-level domain play in Bhakashal. They have accepted that there will be different challenges, and different goals, and they are committed to doing something big.

This sort of patience was unheard of when we started, for better or for worse they wanted to achieve their goals instantly and see their efforts rewarded without delay. Now they understand that some goals are “big picture” and require a different kind of focus.

The only strategic error they made in this session was to summon the Red Slaadi. As cool as the thing was, they essentially waved a big red flag, a warlock that powerful wouldn’t go out on a regular hunt. Bhakashal has a powerful honor culture and system of repute, “slumming it” like this is unusual behavior. Of course, the hunt leader is happy to take advantage of a “down on his luck” warlock, but he is going to draw a lot of attention to their effort by doing something like this and will likely be talked about.

The Red Arachne already knows they are asking about him, and he may soon also know that at least one of the people asking about him joined a mount hunting party and is fairly powerful. However, the people he had tailing the party restricted themselves to the Raosk and the city, so they won’t know the details of the hunt. The Slayer leading the hunting troop isn’t disposed to share the information, he will want to take advantage of this situation for as long as he can.

Nothing is certain.

What the Arachne finds out and when, and how he responds, will be determined by dice rolls, so even I don’t know how this will turn out.

What I do know is that the party is all in on the high-level domain play, and is working towards pulling off a job that, if successful, will unite the Spider’s guilds under the House Quannar banner, make them legendary, and make a solid case for them becoming Bhakashal House Lords and Warlocks in House Quannar.

It’s going to be epic.

Building Bhakashal – Session Report - Learning to Play

A few months ago, I received an unusual request, rather than running an ongoing game for a group, they wanted me to teach their kids how to run a game. We had a few phone conversations where I explained that they could just get the books, watch a few “actual plays” online, and off you go. The parent indicated that it would be easier with this particular group of kids just to teach them how to play.

I decided on a 6 session “course”, four days of actual play with pregenerated characters, and then two days of “behind the curtain” discussion on how to build and run a campaign.

I rolled up pregens for the players so they wouldn’t be coming into a first-time game with extensive backstory characters that they would be too invested in to lose. We had a discussion about character death, so everyone was on the same page. I explained that there were several modes of play, social interaction, travel, exploration and combat, and that they could switch between them as they liked. They didn’t need to use “accents’ or talk “in character” all the time, but there would be times when they had to be in character.

I ran them through a “one shot” adventure I have used many times.

They were given a task by a Bhakashal warlock, a magic sword had been stolen from him by another warlock, and he knew where the miscreant had fled, to a small island a few days away by sail. Rather than risk dishonor, he approached the three PCs and asked them to go find the guy and bring him back with the sword. The PCs were given a berth on a ship heading out past the island, they were dropped off there and had 6 days before the ship returned in the other direction to pick them up.

The party was three PCs, a thief , a warlock and fighter, the warlock had three henchmen as well.

The Warlock was described as “a short bald man with a “V” tattoo on his arm and a ring with a ruby in a pair of claws”

They spent 4 days on the ocean, so got to experience the rolling for weather and random encounters setting the rhythm for the trip. They did some socialization with the crew, joining in on a dice game, losing several rounds then winning one.

It never ceases to amaze me how much players love “games within games”. After losing some of their coin to the crew they were popular, LOL. They used the popularity to ask if anyone on the ship had been to the island. I rolled for that live. One of the crew members came up positive, so I came up with two things that he knew about the island to share with the party. The first was that the waters around the island were frequently filled with Sahuagin.

That was fun as I had the sailor describe how they approach the ship and crawl up the sides at night to toss sailors overboard and drown them then eat them. I also shared that ships in waters known to have the sea-devils will sail with lanterns hanging over the side near the water, as the Sahuagin detest light, being deep sea creatures.

The second was that the sailor had landed on the island to find fresh water when sailing by last year and barely escaped a herd of axebeaks that charged out of the forest. This is why social interaction (governed by encounter reaction rolls with modifiers) is so important, it is a key to unlocking information about the environment.

They had an encounter on day 2, it was a passing merchant ship, this gave me the opportunity to let them know that many encounters will be like this, only leading to combat or any sort of involved interaction if the party wants to engage. For example, if the party had fought a sea creature and the ship was damaged and floating listlessly, a passing merchant ship would be a godsend. But in this case they just passed by each other.

There was also an interesting role playing encounter later that day. The player had noted that the deity her character worshipped was not one that she liked. So I told her, ‘it’s your PC, you can change who you worship if you like’). They learned that the PC is theirs to play as they like, any aspect of their personality, beliefs, anything, can be changed. Sometimes there will be consequences (e.g., if the player was a priest and wanted to switch gods) but in most cases it’s up to them. The PC is directed by the player.

They had another encounter on day 3 at night, it was cloudy and dark and they sailed into a “Sargasso” field when passing between some mid-ocean islands, the green mass sucked at the ship and slowed it to a third of it’s speed. They were trying to hack through the weeds with blades lashed to long poles when the Garudin (aaracockra) bandits hit from the skies. They had a lair on one of the small islands in the cluster, and they used the sargasso patch to attack passing ships.

This was their first experience of combat. They saw the surprise roll, fortunately they were not surprised, a keen-eyed sailor spotted them before they arrived. That meant that the ship board combatants had the opportunity to attack with missile fire or spell. Fortunately this was early enough in the evening that everyone was awake. One of the PCs was praying with the priest who was travelling as a passenger on the ship, the warlock and fighter were discussing how to explore the island.

They were learning things about combat at every turn, the diving Garudin were vulnerable until they reached the party, as they were effectively charging so took a 2 point AC penalty. They learned that approaching enemies are vulnerable to missile fire and spell until they arrive.

The thief and fighter and a few of the sailors shot crossbows/bows (only 3 of the 20 sailors had their crossbows in reach when it happened), and they learned that wounded aerial foes can be taken down if their HP goes below half, and they took out a few of the bandits. Two sailors were grabbed and flown into the air to be dropped in the ocean, so the party warlock cast a spell that improved the accuracy of the missile fire from the fighter’s bow and she shot both of the bandits, doing enough damage to cause them to drop their sailors. One hit the deck and broke his leg, the other dropped into the ocean but was retrieved before he drowned.

The bandits then rolled morale, so the party learned that you don’t have to destroy all of your foes, just enough of them to give them a bloody nose and have them flee. The bandits were driven off, and the party was now a big favorite of the crew as they had saved a few of them directly and drove off the bandits. I let them know that this would contribute positively to any future interactions with the crew or the captain.

The next day was without encounter, and they arrived at the island. The only thing they knew about the island was the axebeaks were seen in the southeast end. They considered the topography (the island had a peak in the middle, and was ringed by a dense forest, they couldn’t tell if there was anything beyond the forest) and were trying to decide where to land.

Something neat happened, the quietest member of the group, who plays the party fighter, suggested that they land on the north side where the peak would block off visibility from anything on the other side, it was also away from the known location of the axe-beaks.

I smiled, we had a tactician at the table, and they were playing a fighter.

Sweet.

The decided to skirt the bottom of the peak and go around it to the other side. They scanned the peak as they went, looking for caves or movement, judging that the warlock they were after might have set up camp in a cave.

I let them know it was very slow going, these were wild forests, and a remote island. However, they did discover  a few animal runs as they travelled, and wondered if it was the axebeaks who made them.

When the skirted the mountain they made a surprising discovery, the interior of the island was grasslands, with extremely tall grasses filling it almost completely, it appeared the island was ringed with forest but the interior was all grassy. The grass came up to their necks.

They also saw caves on the side of the peak, about 6 of them, and milling around outside the caves on the landing was kobolds and axebeaks. From where they were they couldn’t see details, so the Warlock sent up her familiar, a small lizard, to investigate.

I was impressed, many groups I have run would have started to attack the kobolds on sight, or would have threatened them, or something else aggressive. They waited to see. The familiar got in close enough to see that the axebeaks had riding gear on them, and the kobolds had hunting gear.

Then the kobolds noticed them in the grasses.

I rolled an encounter reaction roll for this. The island is in the middle of the ocean, but ships occasionally pass by, many don’t stop but every once in a while one does hoping to snare fresh game or fresh water, as the island is large enough for both. So the kobolds are not completely unfamiliar with people showing up on the remote island. Once or twice a year sailors will show up, and the kobolds have traded with them on occasion, and had a few skirmishes.

I rolled their reaction and it was mildly positive, they outnumbered the party 5:1, and had the advantage of familiarity with the terrain, so they were confident and had positive modifiers. They called out to the party in Togmu (frog-folk, the only language other than their own that they knew), fortunately one of the party spoke Togmu, and they learned the importance of little details like this on your character sheet that seem like fluff.

They ask the party why they were there.

They discuss what to do, maybe the kobolds are in league with the guy they are to get, maybe they aren’t, they explicitly talk about the fact that the island could have other monsters that the kobolds like or dislike. They decide to risk it as the kobolds didn’t immediately attack, and they say they are here to find a wizard and they describe him.

They talked for about 10 minutes or so in character, these are theatre kids so they did like hamming it up, standing up and showing how they were standing or how they were gesturing while their characters talked to the kobolds, I could see they liked the back and forth.

The kobolds invited them to break bread and share a meal.

I’ve seen many group refuse this sort of offer from NPCs before, “They will poison us”, “it’s a waste of time”, but they eagerly agreed and in short order were sitting and eating fish and fruit around the fire with their shaman.

The conversation was fun, they asked a lot of questions because they wanted to learn about the island, so I had the shaman ask them a lot of questions about the outside world, and about their professions, the ship they came on, etc.

They ate it up.

They learned that the warlock had indeed arrived on the island about 6 weeks ago, he met the kobolds but just warned them off and threatened them to not interfere with his work, then disappeared to the West part of the island where there was a young green dragon that lived in it’s thick forest. They avoided that end of the island because of the dragon, but they saw the warlock again 2 weeks ago when he passed by their caves and headed to the far eastern end of the island.

Two hill giants dwelled there, they occasionally attacked a lone kobold or wild axebeak, but otherwise didn’t bother the kobolds as they were numerous enough to be a challenge. The kobolds hated the giants, but left them alone as they deterred outsiders by throwing rocks at passing ships that got too close.

So now they had to decide what to do. The kobolds were neutral, they wouldn’t go to the west end of the island as they feared the dragon, but they would be willing to help the party if they decided to go to the hill giants, as they wouldn’t mind seeing them dead.

The party decided to head to the west end of the island and see what the warlock was trying to find or doing, then to head to the east end if nothing came up.

They waited for the afternoon heat to let off and headed out. They entered the forest and began to look for evidence of the warlock’s activities. There is an entrance to a small dungeon on the west end of the island, the kobolds haven’t encountered it since the dragon deterred them. There used to be an adult green dragon and two young dragons here, the adult and one of the younger ones were slain by the giants after the adult was wounded by a rock slide on the peak, so the kobolds hadn’t gone in this area at all.

The party had odds of finding the entrance per hour of searching, 1 in 6 odds each hour. There were also 1 in 8 odds each hour of a random encounter in the woods. They decided to spread out a bit but not too far, so they could hear each other shout and see each other from a distance. They spent 6 hours searching and finally a 1 came up on the encounter die. I rolled an encounter with a killinth plant (a Bhakashal monster).

There was no surprise, but the PC lost initiative, and the plant managed to wrap a tendril around her leg and start dragging her forward, she was dragged 5 feet. She shouted out and took out her sword, trying to hack off the tendril.

We shifted into combat mode.

Her fellow PCs reacted when she shouted, the warlock cast a spell that enhanced the range of her missiles, and threw daggers at the thing. She missed, and nicked the PC (the thief) on the shoulder.

Friendly fire rules noted!

The fighter charged in and spent her action moving.

The thief swung with her sword while being dragged that first 5 feet and missed!

Round over

The creature dragged her 5 more feet.

The warlock threw two more daggers, one hit, one missed. The hit did minor damage to the creature.

The thief swung and missed again!

The fighter arrived off a charge, +2 to hit and if they were successful, double damage from the charge!

They missed too.

Now, you could see the thief player was realizing things were going poorly, she was now right in front of this thing, was going to get her in close and do something horrible, and she had been unable to do any damage to it.

New round

The magic-user started to cast a spell that shot a quarrel of acid, the fighter took another swing, and the thief dropped her sword and took out two daggers instead.

Initiative was rolled.

The plant belched out spores at the thief, she was standing right in front of the flower. She thought she was dead.

“You get a saving throw, roll a d20”

She rolled a 14, her saving throw for breath weapon was exactly that.

“The plant spewed spores but you ducked down beneath the spray just in time.”

There was a lot of loud screaming after that.

Then she drove the two daggers into the vine, one missed, but the other was a natural 20, and a critical, so she severed the vine completely.

That had her dancing around the table.

Then the fighter swung her sword, a hit! The flower had 10 hp left, she did 10 hp damage on the nose (2-12 for a bastard sword against large foes with a +2 damage bonus), slicing the thing completely in two at the stalk.

They screamed at that too. I had a chat with the parents later and apologized, “D&D gets loud”.

We stopped right after that.

I pointed out that one of the reasons why I roll everything in the open, including monster hit points, is that I want them to know that their failures and successes are because of their actions, not me making it happen to make it dramatic. They also discussed how the thief had thought that she was going to die in that encounter, her heart was pounding as it unfolded.

That lead to a discussion of why I prefer to have a deadly game, even if that means losing a beloved character.

That’s two sessions in, they have a sense of how travel works, they have had a few combat encounters so the understand friendly fire, missile weapons against charging foes, charging, initiative, surprise, basic combat mechanics and the speed and lethality of combat (each combat was only 2-3 rounds long), they have learned to interact with NPCs to gather information and form alliances, that all environments hold the possibility of dangerous, neutral or helpful encounters, and that planning ahead is very advantageous.

We have two more sessions of play before we tie up and discuss things. I’m hoping they find the dungeon so they can experience a short dungeon crawl (this one is a maze). The warlock they seek is dead in the hill giant’s cave right now, they don’t know that, we’ll see if they manage to find him!

I’ll report back after the next session.