Building Bhakashal – Session Report - Domain Play

My Thursday group is knee deep in domain play mode, last session they executed a task to pay back a Lord from their House and head of one of the House factions, Umani the Onyx, who had voted in their favor and helped them gain full control of the newly united thieves guild. Umani wants to gain control of the trades guilds for House Quannar, and the guilds were up in arms about a pair of dragon turtles who have been attacking their ships coming in from the coast. The PCs agreed to deal with the dragon turtles as a favor to Umani. They were successful dealing with the dragon turtles, and they found their treasure hoard.

Treasure hoard’s for dragons are wild, they found huge amounts of coin (we rolled at the table for the contents of the hoard, and they scored big time on the coin). Unfortunately, the party warlock was strangled to death by a cursed magic rope. Fortunately, they managed to get his body back to the city where it was placed in the healing pools and restored to life.

Bhakashal nobility has its privileges.

They then set to spending some of their loot on various things.

The party Spider/Warlock (thief/magic-user) swapped spells with another warlock from the House, gaining the spell Morshoggoth’s Evasive Lanyard (this spell temporarily turns a regular rope into a rope of climbing).

The party warlock, recently revived, swapped spells with another warlock from the House, and gained Massmorph in return.

One of the party fighters had special arrows made with meteorite steel and adamantine arrowheads, burning through almost all of his share of the loot from the dragon turtle hoard.

This all took a week to sort out.

When they were lower-level PCs they had a patron, now they are patrons themselves. They have taken on a mid-level party and send them on assignments. They had sent out their party 3 weeks ago to try and secure some green dragon eggs. When they send out the party, I total the HD/levels of all their foes, adjusting for special abilities and advantages, and I total up the levels of their party, create a ratio, and roll to see if they were successful or not.

As it happens, they were not successful and lost 2 party members in the attempt. They returned at the end of the week of activity by the PCs to report on successfully finding the dragons and learning about their lair, but failing to capture the eggs. The PCs gave them all a small stipend for their limited success, then recruited two new members and sent them back out again. Deciding on tasks for their party, celebrating their wins and lamenting their losses has become a source of endless entertainment for the players.

At this point they were at loose ends, the thieves guild was recently reunited under their watch and authority, they installed their chosen leader as the new Red Arachne and put down an attempted coup. The day-to-day operation of the guild was the Arachne’s purview, they were mainly interested when they needed the guild to do something for them, or when there were problems that the Arachne wanted to hand off to them.

To simulate this process, I roll every session to see if a problem has “come up the ranks” to them, and this session one did. Bhakashal has a system for generating tasks for patrons and other high-level nobles, I used this system to generate a “problem” for the guild that the PCs were asked to solve. Villages in the marshlands hunt, fish and farm, but a select few of them also harvest monsters for some product they can produce. Three villages in House Westrill territory (Kacin, Russwood and Muga), have figured out a way to crystallize the venom from water spiders. They have village slayers who capture and breed the water spiders, and there are artisans who collect the venom and crystalize it. This crystalized venom is made into small, marble sized spheres that can be used as a material component in a Laysinath’s Globe of Respite spell (Bhakashal’s version of Leomund’s Tiny Hut). With this special crystalized venom sphere, the spell lasts twice as long and protects against insects as well as giving environmental protection.

The villagers have been selling these small spheres to select clientele in the city, word finally got around to the thieves guild, and the Red Arachne decided they wanted to corner the market, becoming the exclusive client of the villages, and reselling the spheres (at a hefty profit) to city warlocks who would want the spell for use when travelling in the infernally hot and bug-infested Bhakashal marshlands, and those who would cast it for their wealthy masters.

What the party does not know is that a warlock from another House, Teeshaka Onos of House Ain, has approached the villages, hoping to get their House exclusive access to these spheres.

The party decided they would go to the villages and negotiate on behalf of the guild in person, rather than relying on proxies, and without letting their House affiliation be known to the villagers.

Before they went they spent some time deciding on what sort of deal to set up with the locals. They discussed how much they could sell the crystals for, and how much they would pay the locals for them. They discussed distribution, and whether or not they would place any guild interests at these villages for protection. The villages were also in a rival House’s territories, so they discussed how to handle that, and whether or not they wanted to try to, “flip the territory” for House Quannar from House Westrill, knowing it could create a rift between the Houses, and a new rival.

The discussions have changed in domain play, but the passion and enthusiasm have not.

The trip there was 2 days, primarily by boat then a short trip across the marshlands.

In any given session there can be events related to past actions by the party. Case in point, in taking over control of both branches of the Brass Blade Thieves guild, the party had taken control from Riyan the Raze, a faction leader at their house. Riyan was now out to get the party, but too canny to confront them directly. Instead, she has tasked one of her allies in the House, a powerful wind Gyre named Ghanglor Terrik, to teach them a lesson. Terrik will be showing up at some point with an air elemental under his command to cause some chaos.

I rolled at the beginning of the session to see if Ghanglor would be showing up or not, in this case he was a no-show, but eventually the roll will cash out and he will show up, potentially at a very inconvenient time…

The set out in the early morning, when passing through House Klis territory in the afternoon during the downpour from an intense summer storm, they met a House marshland patrol, fortunately House Klis is an allied House, so they showed their colors and passed without incident. They had another encounter on day two with a hunting party from House Destwiller, but Destwiller was neither a listed ally or enemy of their House, and the House alignments were not conflicting, so the reaction roll was unmodified and came up high enough that they passed without incident after a brief discussion asking the hunters about dangerous creatures in the area.

They managed to find the village of Russwood and entered, asking to speak to the village elders on behalf of the Brass Blade Guild. The “official” cover for the thieves guild is that they are a trading guild, though some know the truth.

The village was primarily populated by Jugyi (turtle people), and one of the party was also a Jugyi, so he did the negotiating. Unfortunately, that was when they found out that someone had already approached the villages asking for an exclusive deal. They spent some time discussing the situation, until the village elders decided that they would invite the other party to a meeting, and both sides could state their case.

In past years the party might have tried to force the issue with threats of violence, or plan to ambush the other interested party when they arrived. Time and some gaming wisdom, combined with a  new focus on domain play, has smartened them up. They know they are powerful, but now using power threatens to draw the attention of rival factions and even rivals within their faction. Alliances are proving more useful. I was proud of them.

That’s when we broke for the day.

So far Bhakashal domain play is running like a top, generating tasks is easy, either entirely new tasks or events related to their various inter and intra factional rivalries. There are NPCs within the House that want to challenge their authority and pay them back for decisions that don’t align with their interests, there are NPCs at rival Houses and other factions that work against them. There are also allies within the House, both temporary and more involved that are willing to work with them to reach mutual goals. The setting, combined with the actions of the PCs, does most of the work, I just have to keep track of what’s going on, roll dice, and see how it unfolds.

Big fun

Building Bhakashal – Session Report – Dad’s Game – Tamoachan!

All of my gaming groups adventure in Bhakashal, and their primary adventures have been urban and wilderness. The classic dungeon delve is less common in my game. I run a campaign for a group of dads (fathers of my kid’s friends), and I realized over the break that they hadn’t done any classic TSR modules, nor had they done a proper dungeon crawl.

So, I fished out a module I’ve been dying to run again, The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

It is really the quintessential TSR dungeon, it was originally run as a tournament module, your progress through the Shrine timed against a gas that would kill you if you stayed too long.

Tamoachan is awesome for many reasons:

1.        It has unique monsters

2.        It  has traps

3.        It has environmental threats

4.        It is totally dark in most rooms

5.        It is damp and fetid, filled with brackish water, mud and caustic lime

6.        It has many hard to open doors and secret doors

7.        It has cursed items

8.        It has a unique Aztec/Mayan inspired motif, right down to the names

9.        It has “permanent” traps that can block off sections of the dungeon

10.   It has an illustration booklet with awesome old school art

The module feels claustrophobic, wet and rotting, the PCs wade through mud and water, giant slugs crawl on the walls, as do huge spiders the size of a man.

When the PCs moved through the shrine, I described what they could smell, hear and see. Dungeons gain their power in part through atmosphere, its my job to describe what they experience.

Many people complain about boxed text, but the boxed text in the module is superb, it makes sure to describe the spaces in such a way as to give the atmosphere of the environment in each case.

 

Reading out this description to the players produces such a visceral reaction, the glowing trails on the walls, the brackish water, the cracked braziers in the water, the description of – something – the hint that it might be leaving that strange trail on the walls...

When they arrived in the first room (in my version of this, they don’t fall in, they find the hole and crawl in), I described it as smelling like decay and death, wet, close, miasmatic, rotting. They heard dripping water, the low thrum of shifting air currents through the ancient structure,

Their light source was a bullseye lantern, as the shrien is entirely dark inside of most of the halls and rooms, their two bullseye lanterns were their only light source, and they shone like a flashlight, lighting up a cone rather than a globe, so they would shine it around and I would describe what they saw, but I would also regularly remind them that outside of that cone of light, it was pitch black.

Knowing that their vision was restricted that way terrified them, as things could come out of the dark.

As an aside I'm always bemused when people say "D&D can't do horror", watching the terrified looks on my player's faces, the urgency to their reactions to even minor threats, the murmurs and whispers at the table, they were absolutely scared. When they were sealed off by a trap and realized they couldn't leave the way they came in... D&D (or AD&D in this case) can definitely do horror.

The party Thaumaturge (in Bhakashal, a thief/magic-user) earned her keep, she was checking for traps at every door and in many hallways. She managed to set off a pressure plate trap in an early hallway and sealed off the passage. Every door and hallways produces fresh fear.

Not only that, but cautious exploration takes time, and you roll for encounters every turn. The players found this horrifying, normally you roll 4 times a day for encounters when travelling, once a turn is a lot in comparison. Early on a huge spider appeared on the ceiling as they were investigating a hallway for traps. Lucky surprise and initiative rolls led to the party warlock blinding the spider, then the party fighter impaled it with a javelin. The fighter has a girdle of hill giant strength, so he one-shotted the thing with the javelin.

That was awesome.

The best part of that encounter was that this party is on average 6^th level, a huge spider is not a big threat, but they were so disturbed by the per turn encounter rolling, and it crawling along the ceiling in the dark, that they kind of freaked out about it. We underestimate the amount of raw fear that the unknown creates, and the degree to which knowing that monsters can show up at any time puts them on edge. Every time I took out that d12 they would all breathe in and look shaken.

Delicious.

They had an encounter with a talking crayfish and giant crab, thanks to the party Seer (cleric) they can speak with animals, and I had the opportunity to role play a centuries old sentient crayfish and crab team. The crayfish was demonstrative, waving around his limbs and shouting his answers to questions. The crab came to life after a strong positive reaction roll from the crayfish, when the “boulder and stick” stood up and spoke to the party they almost fell out of their chairs!

I also don’t do “voices” in regular play, but something about the adventure called on me, and I had the crayfish speak in fast, high sentences, and the crab spoke in single words using a harsh, guttural monotone. That was fun.

They negotiated their way past those two creatures and continued on.

Another awesome aspect of the session was the mapping. I have printed out an oversized version of the dungeon map and laminated it for my use, but the players are manually mapping the dungeon as they move around.

The difficulties of navigating by your own hand combined with the uncertainty of being in the dark and the regular per turn rolling for encounters has upped the tension significantly. It’s a great reminder that a perceived threat can produce as strong a response as a real one.

They were so tense that just the description of a green mass on the wall had them throwing oil and torches to burn the thing before it could attack them. They were convinced it was a green slime (it wasn’t) and that it was mobile (it wasn’t), and they were very eager to burn it. However, burning oil on a foul green algae creature in a closed dungeon environment led to thick black smoke filling up the room and blunting the only source of light they had (the bullseye lantern), as well as making it difficult to breathe for a while. When I rolled for random encounters as the smoke coiled around them, blinded, and the green algae creature shuddered and hissed as it burned alive, they were terrified!

They encountered the nerid as well. She managed to ensorcel one of the PCs, who just wanted to enter the water to be with her! The other party members held him back, and one used his trident of fish command to try and control the electric eel in the water that was in the service of the nerid. hat enraged her, so she roiled and boiled the water, harmless but it further freaked them out, as they had no idea how powerful she was. They eventually pulled their charmed colleague out of the area and went to explore another branch of the dungeon. The artwork really sold these encounters to the players, the languid nerid waiting seductively by the water, old school art is so evocative, and they loved all of it.  

They have only had three fights so far, the first with the huge spider, the second with the algae creature, and the third was with the slug on the wall (mentioned in the boxed text above). Two of the party fighters dropped into the water unexpectedly in that room, when they hit the water the slug turned its head and noticed them. That freaked out the party as they didn’t know exactly what this thing was or what it could do. I decided it was a spitting slug like the version in the monster manual (just smaller) and it spit acid at the two fighters who had dropped in the water. Fortunately for PCs in Bhakashal, they do not wear heavy armor, as the setting is infernally hot, this meant they didn’t have increased odds of drowning.

The party warlock and the party thaumaturge both cast magic missile, one from memory, one from a scroll. Describing how the missiles corkscrewed through the air, each time lighting up the whole room for a brief few seconds as they unerringly tracked their target, was awesome. They finished it off between the two of them. 

They haven’t found any loot so far, its been mainly terrified stalking, constantly checking for traps and wandering monsters, while delving deeper into the shrine.

When we finished I rewarded them by covering up my laminated large size version of the map and leaving behind only the rooms they had been through. Next session I think I will switch it up and slowly reveal the map as they move along, that’s good fun.

Everything about the session was terrific, the players were on the edge of their seats the entire time, every threat they faced was terrifying, and so far it was a giant spider, a crayfish, a giant crab, an algal mass and a giant slug. Monsters associated with death and rot, bugs, slime and crustaceans, primitive, basic things, all housed in a damp, fetid temple, crumbling and decaying all around them. They can’t see all around them, and they are constantly terrified of what might appear out of the dark.

And they haven’t even encountered the gibbering mouther!

We all have busy schedules and have only been able to meet once every 6 weeks or so, but they were insistent that we should get together as soon as possible, they want to explore!

Big fun.

Building Bhakahsal - Session Report

I run a “dads” game, and we had a session last night. I decided to write it up in detail as it exemplifies a Bhakashal session, it highlights the travel rules, it demonstrates how game play works in a shared world setting with multiple player groups, and it shows how the factional politics of the setting can drive adventures. 

This one had it all.

They were fresh off a victory in the Bhakashal arena, where they defeated Mitrax Toma the Bold, a Lord of House Omander, his henchmen and several of his warlock allies. It was a nail biter, but a combination of smart tactics and good rolls saved the day, though the party did lose 1 PC and 4 henchmen in the fight. Like most of my groups, many of the players have more than one PC, and the player that lost a PC had an alternate and didn't want to roll up a replacement, so we got right back to business.

Mitrax, two of his warlock allies and two of his henchmen were slain in the arena fight. One enemy warlock and one henchman were spared by the PCs and left, dishonored. 

Bhakshal arena combat rules state that a defeated but spared combatant cannot issue an honor challenge against the victor unless they commit another offensive act, so for now the losers leave with their tails between their legs, hoping for revenge another day. These rules also state that combatants killed in the arena, no matter their status, cannot be brought back to life. 

You die in the arena, you are dead for good, magic and status notwithstanding.

Since the PCs fought as a group they did not get Mitrax’s title, but they did get his property and magic items, a small windfall that included an estate in the marshlands where he bred mounts for his personal henchmen and loyal soldiers.

All my groups play in the same game world, some even in the same Noble House. My dad’s group is part of House Quannar, where my Thursday group is now nobility. The patron for my dad’s group is Umani the Onyx, leader of a different faction in House Quannar. Umani wants to curry favor with the head of my Thursday group’s faction, Quin Faal the Iolite. Faal was the patron for my Thursday group PCs for 4 years, as they are now nobility he is no longer their patron, though he is the leader of their faction in the House.

The Thursday group PCs are interested in getting a foothold in the territories of other Noble Houses, and it ends up that one of the “spoils” of the defeat of MItrax, his estate, is in House Omander territory. The property became theirs when they defeated Mitrax, and all but a handful of his men left the property and its collection of sterling mounts. Umani asked the PCs to go and secure the estate before bandits or monsters from the marshlands moved in. He also thought it would be good for them to leave the city for a few days, as they were now enemies of House Omander having defeated a prominent House Omander Lord. 

Umani wants to offer the property as a base of operations to the thieves guild inside of House Omander territory, as a favor to Quin Faal, elevating the status of their faction in the House. The PCs discussed it and decided it was a good idea, so off they went. It was a 5 day journey through the marshlands to get to their destination, part on the road, part on a barge on the Sklar river. 

One of the aspects of Bhakashal that I’m most proud of is the travel rules, they make excursions like this awesome. Bhakashal travel rules structure random encounters while traveling using regular daily rolls with frequency based on time of day, weighted encounter tables based on terrain type, and encounter reaction rules that govern how encountered creatures react.

Choice of route impacts the frequency and kind of encounters you can have, travelling the road is different than travelling through swamps or on the river, both in terms of the speed of travel and the types of encounter possible. Importantly, NOT EVERY ENCOUNTER IS A FIGHT. Random encounters are ENCOUNTERS, which can be anything from a passing group of farmers off to market to an owlbear. 

The tables are weighted to reflect this. And they work well.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Roll based on time of day (1 in 12 - morning, 1 in 10 - afternoon, 1 in 8 - evening, 1 in 6 - night).
2. If an encounter comes up, roll for distance between parties
3. Roll for surprise
4. If surprise does not come up, both parties see each other, roll encounter reaction
5. If necessary, roll initiative

Their first encounter was on the road about 2 days out from the city, at night (between sundown and midnight). So that means there were 6 rolls with no encounter beforehand. The way the odds are set means that encounters are not constant. They can go multiple days without encounters or have multiple encounters per day. 

The important part is that encounters are NOT PREDICTABLE, Bhakashal does not assume that a game day is “wasted” when there are no fights on that day.

Distance between parties was 150’, and surprise was indicated on the monster, in this case a spirit naga, so the party had a chance to react first. They decided to move on, and added another 150 feet of distance (the distance they can travel mounted in a surprise round) before the naga noticed them. They were mounted and far enough off so it couldn’t catch them, charm with its gaze or spell cast unless they approached, and they decided against this. 

Even when you roll a monster encounter, subsequent rolls can make it such that there is no fight. Still, the referee’s job is to make even an avoided encounter engaging, so I described it like this:

“A distance away in the swamp beyond the road you see a large snake, perhaps 15 feet long,illuminated in the moonlight. It is scaled black with crimson bands, halfway standing like a cobra, and you see, much to your horror, that it has a HUMAN HEAD which is turned away from you. You spur on your mounts, deciding to avoid this evil creature, and as you ride off the grotesque beast suddenly senses your presence, its head turning slowly in your direction, ruby red eyes smoldering in the darkness, a foul hiss emanating from its maw.”

They avoided the beast, but they were suitably freaked out. Something they see but don’t actually fight can leave more of an impression, as it plays with their imagination. They all found the encounter to be disturbing, even though it was a “miss”.

On they traveled, and when they reached the river there was a village where you could charter a barge to travel downriver. Mounts are extremely common in Bhakashal, and barges big enough to carry them are common (one of the reasons why barges are more common than boats on the Bhakashal rivers). They commissioned a barge and headed downriver in the early afternoon.

They had another encounter on day 4, this time on the river. In this case the party was surprised by a giant gar, it struck their barge and two of the togmu poling the barge fell into the river. Togmu (frog-people) can swim, but the gar bit one in half before it could get back on the barge. 

In AD&D there are “niche” magic items that have special powers that don’t come up that often, one is a Trident of Fish Command. The party Mercenary (fighter) had one and had yet to use it, so he was chuffed when he finally had the chance. Using the trident he drove off the gar and kept the party from having to deal with a creature who would have been a formidable opponent in the water.

Well played.

They eventually reached their destination and set off on their gess (giant lizards) towards the estate. A 10 mile journey turned up no encounters, so they arrived and surveilled the place using the warlock’s familiar (a blood hawk). After satisfying themselves that the estate hadn’t been taken over by bandits or overrun by swamp monsters, they moved in.

Two House Omander soldiers had stayed behind when the estate changed owners, and they were expecting the party to show up eventually. Much to the party’s surprise, there was no hostility or violence, the soldiers understood that they had won Mitrax’s property in an arena duel, if anything they were impressed that they managed to slay him, and one of them guided them around the estate, showing them the mounts in the outdoor pens, and touring them through the house. The party was pleasantly surprised to discover that Mitrax had an extensive personal library of books on House Omander history and military history, as well as an extremely well stocked map room with detailed maps of House Omander territories as well as territories of other Houses that Mitrax was hoping to flip. These were extremely valuable finds.

They also discovered that Mitrax had a secret cellar meeting room, magically warded to prevent scrying, where he met with parties he did not want discovered. They were very excited about that. None of these things were magic items to use in combat, but all were extremely valuable in the factionalized setting that is Bhakashal.

While they were touring the facility with one of the soldiers, the other soldier stole one of the mounts and fled. They tried to track him down to no avail, and they aren’t sure what he will do, but they turned in for the night happy with their acquisition.

The next day they left and headed back to the river, travelling several miles downriver to find a village where they could commission another barge to return to the city.

They had one encounter on the river, but it was a doozy. One of the great things about the fact that I have always used random encounter rolls is that there are monsters that I’ve never used in game before. 

The Verme is one of those monsters, a 18+ HD giant fish! 

In this case there was no surprise, and the party saw this massive 80’ long beast moving through the water towards them!

The party Mercenary took out the Trident of Fish Command again, expending a charge to take control of the creature, but it made it’s save (an 18+HD creature saves easily) so it couldn’t be commanded, but it also couldn’t approach closer than 10’ to the weilder.  However, the barge was larger than that, and it could easily smash into the barge and send the PCs and bargemen into the water, where it could pick everyone else off.

In this case the party Seer (cleric) cast Speak with Monsters, and attempted to convince the creature to leave them alone, he told the Verme that they meant it no harm, and that they were poisonous to eat. 

There are no specific rules for this, so I decided on a modified encounter reaction roll, with a small extra bonus as the Seer worshipped the god Vekka, god of lakes and rivers. 

The roll was successful, and the Verme passed beneath them, all 80’ of it!

That took their breath away.

They continued home, their last encounter was during the afternoon on the road one day out from the city, with a group of rakasta hunters. They talked for a time, swapping some stories and sharing a meal, then passing on.

When they arrived back in the city they reported to Umani the Onyx, and made arrangements to send some House Quannar regulars to man the estate to protect it against intruders, and they discussed offering it as a base for the thieves guild in the marshlands as a gift to Quin Faal the Iolite and the PCs from my Thursday group.

End of session.

This one had factional politics, social role play, travel, random encounters and exploration. No actual fighting, but they had a grand time. 

People often assume that D&D is all about fighting, and that random encounters are just unpredictable violence. 

These people are missing out…