Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Home game session tonight, big fun. 

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

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

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

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

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

HIM - “Yeah, like a horse”

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

I love on the spot house rules like that.

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

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

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

This is how it went:

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

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

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

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

He failed that

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

THEM - Lots of screaming

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

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

THEM - Much shouting

Round 1 up

Round 2 - He fails his first roll.

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

He rolls his save versus death and makes it.

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

THEM - MUCH MORE SCREAMING

Final round. He MAKES THE SAVE

THEM - MUCH LOUDER SCREAMING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They finally arrived at the city.

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

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

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

Woof.

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

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

So we rolled, he got the following 4 spells:

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

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

Fun.

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

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

Trade offs.

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

Badass.

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

Also Badass.

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

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

 

Building Bhakashal - Kanai Grith the Hessonite

Every once in a while a NPC in the game takes on a life of their own, this guy, Kanai Grith the Hessonite, became one of those notable NPCs in our home game. 

Art by Chris Seaman

https://bluemoonrising.com/artists/chris-seaman

Kanai is a warlock from Bhakashal, he has taken up with a pirate for a time to return an honor debt, he encountered the party when they sought to retrieve a pair of religious artifacts the pirates had stolen from a temple. In the ensuing naval battle the party managed to damage his ship, but he also managed to deal significant casualties to the party’s crew by extending the range of his archer’s shots using Ammon Marr’s Projectile Extension, and use of a Phantasmal Force that misled the PCs and almost cost them the fight by having them slam into a rock outcropping and sink their ship. Fortunately the PCs had hired on some Malu (fish-folk) sailors that were in the water and saw the underwater portion of the outcropping that was concealed by the illusion up top

Little pieces of the AD&D magic system really reward you here, the players weren’t expecting a caster that wasn’t an illusionist to have illusions, so they were far more vulnerable to his use of illusion after they saw him casting regular warlock spells 

When the party damaged his ship they tried parlay, mainly to save the rest of their crew, and the pirate leader, Kuga the Brazen, wanted to avoid the loss of more crew after losing his ship. The party came to an agreement with the pirate, and they celebrated with a feast. Well, at the feast, the PCs had SO MANY QUESTIONS for Kanai Grith, they wanted to know if he had ever been to the city, he revealed his House tattoo and told them he worked for House Klis. It was no secret after all, Bhakashal warlocks fear nothing!

Kanai is a sage (all Bhakashal warlocks are sages with a major and minor field and two areas of specialization in their major field) in Fauna, specifically Reptiles and Amphibians, so the PCs asked him a lot of questions about the ocean monsters they had encountered recently. It always fascinates me when PCs get interested in lore. Sometimes they seem utterly uninterested, and the next thing you know they are interrogating an NPC to find out everything they know about the Plesiosaurus, which had been encountered recently

You can’t plan for stuff like this, it emerges spontaneously from role play. If you place an NPC that has knowledge that a PC should, on paper, be interested in, they will often have no interest whatsoever. But if you place an NPC that has some esoteric knowledge about something fairly useless you can be sure your PCs will suddenly become INTENSELY INTERESTED in that useless thing. A good sandbox referee develops the ability to “read the table” and take advantage of those occasions when they see a spark of interest that can be spun into good role play.

Grith’s personality is listed as, “Perceptive, diplomatic, scheming”, so I played him that way. When discussing issues I would make perceptive comments on his part (I’m the ref, I know everything, so that’s pretty easy). I had him resolve a dispute between sailors during one conversation with the PCs and he made observations about the crew and those the party encountered that showed he was aware of rivalries and vendettas amongst his crew.

He accompanied the party as they sought out a replacement ship for the one they sank, part of their deal with Kuga the Brazen, in exchange for the religious artifacts they wanted. On the way to return the artifacts and secure a ship, they stopped by an island for fresh water and their ship was swarmed by four Tanystropheus while sailing up a river. The creatures climbed on deck and were engaged by the party using missile fire and spells. Several sailors were slain by the beasts when they tried to directly melee. All the while Kanai Grith was casting a spell surrounded by his three togmu (frog-folk) henchmen. At the end of the round it culminated, and six glossy black tentacles emerged from the water and attacked the dinosaurs (there were three left by the time his spell cast). The tentacles scooped up the creatures and dispatched them.

This made Grith popular with the crew, and even more popular with the PCs! They wanted him to join the party, and the party warlock was even discussing sharing spells. It’s hard to tell what makes players gravitate to particular NPCs, some they ignore, some they love. Kanai Grith the Hessonite definitely goes in the “love” category. He adventured with them for several sessions, I played him as arrogant but clever and always willing to back up his boasting. At one point a high level fighter thought to taunt the party in a public place.

Kanai was having none of that, he had his three henchmen engage the fighter with missile fire while he cast a monster summoning spell, then he took out his sword and called out the fighter. Bhakashal warlocks aren’t as good at combat as fighters, but they aren’t inept. And Kanai is an arena warlock, different warlocks do different things for their Houses, Kanai was an Akhaada Combatant Primus Warlock for House Klis, this means he regularly fights (using claw, sword and spell) in the arena in Bhakashal.  

Since Akhaada warlocks fight regularly in the arena, they get the attack bonus of a mercenary of equivalent level with a single weapon of their choice, and gain the mercenary’s ability to make a saving throw versus any critical combat effect. They still have worse AC and fewer HP, so they aren’t invulnerable, but they are frequently underestimated. As it happens they were not in Bhakashal when this happened, so the fighter taunted the warlock without realizing a taunt could not go unanswered.

Kanai went two rounds with the fighter, who tagged him once, before the Algoids showed up. They attacked the fighter en masse and beat him almost to death. Grith left him on the street with a reminder not to run his mouth, or question a Bhakashal warlock’s bravery.

In one session he used his Tippling Ring to drink a group most of a group of bandits under the table while the party kidnapped their leader for ransom (to hire a new crew for his new ship). 

The deal of the parley was that the party would find a replacement ship for Kuga, they used their payment for retrieving the artifacts to purchase the ownership of their current ship, and gave this to Kanai to take back to Kuga. The party also spent their own gold to hire his new crew. That gave me the opportunity to have Kanai cast Tanner’s Prowess Assessor to pick that crew from potential recruits, getting a better cut of sailors for his new ship. After about 5 sessions Kanai parted with the party, for the next 8 months or so of game time Kanai and Kuga’s new ship, the Brass Boar, will be an entry on the random encounter table, if pirates are rolled, then there will be a 1 in 8 chance it’s them. 

The important part about running an NPC like this is to ensure that they don’t direct what the party does. Kanai never suggested courses of action for the party except to make demands that made sense to his position and faction, for example demanding that the party replace his ship. How they do that is up to them, and if they do that is up to them, so they have agency. 

In cases when I had him take the initiative in the moment it was always in character and related to his factional alignment and his stated goals. So for example, when the party was insulted in the street, for a Bhakashal warlock that’s pretty clearly something that won’t be ignored. But to be clear, even THAT I diced for, he might have let the insult pass, there was a very small chance, but once I rolled, we were committed. If you are playing a powerful, arrogant and intelligent NPC, they can’t sit back and do nothing, but they can’t run the show either.

It’s also important to avoid having the NPC give the PCs intel all the time, they can’t be omnicient, they have to be surprised sometimes too. The referee is for all practical purposes omniscient, so it's important, IMO, to randomize a lot of the NPCs' decision making to compensate. I regularly come up with lists of options for the NPC that all seem reasonable, and dice between them. Sometimes that means an NPC will cast a spell that has no impact, e.g., the NPC cast a spell on an illusion thinking it to be real, the ref knows it’s an illusion, but the NPC does not. Sometimes it will mean they have nothing to do in a given situation because they are equally stumped with the party. 

There is too much temptation to run a NPC as a self-insert, so to make them successful in the game you need to make them part of the environment, and randomize as much about their decision making as possible. And you have to let them die. Kanai has 20 hp, that’s not a lot. There were a number of cases where all that saved him was a fortuitous dice roll. It’s wild to see how the players would shout and scream about those rolls, they didn’t want him to die!

The payoff is immense. A well played NPC brings the game world to life, this one was only around for about 5 sessions, but his contributions outlast him. They also make for powerful deaths when it happens. Both NPCs and henchmen deaths have had great dramatic impact at the table because they feel real at the table. 

It’s a kind of magic

Building Bhakashal - Session Report

My Wednesday group had a new player join yesterday. The party had been sent to spy on a powerful warlock who was opposed to their patron, Quin Faal the Iolite. Faal suspected the warlock, one Hoak the Red, of plotting against him (he was right!). So the party headed out to the forest where Hoak was hiding and attempted a surprise assault to either capture him or kill him. The dice, however, weren’t having it, and they did not manage to get surprise, instead, they alerted the guards.

Zero level guards aren’t really a challenge unless they happen to get a lucky critical or they grapple and overbear individual party members. Still, as soon as the party was discovered the alarm was raised and Hoak was alerted. Hoak appeared with a charmed mustard jelly at his side, surrounded by soldiers. Now, just for context, the party are 6-7th level, and there are 7 PCs. 7 mid level PCs are nothing to sneeze at, and they could have started something. But they chose not to.

Instead, they parleyed with Hoak, unfortunately for them Hoak had an ESP spell, and he used it to discover why they were really there. 

Ouch.

What to do?

I use encounter reaction rolls in situations like this. I add modifiers based on their actions and the interlocutor’s charisma, and we go from there. I got a “positive no action” result, so I had to interpret that, why would Hoak not just blast them? I decided that Hoak was pleased that Faal was sending out minions to check on him, that meant he was afraid and Hoak had the upper hand. But rather than slay the party outright and “tip his hand”, he was open to other options

The party suggested that they would report back to Faal and tell him that Hoak was not plotting against Faal, instead that he was exploring the forest for magic items rumored to be hidden there. It was a plausible lie, but Faal might have ways to check.

I came up with a list of three “positive no action” options, kidnapping the party for ransom, buying their loyalty from Faal, or sending the party back to tell their “lie” and see what happens. 

I diced and Hoak decided to go with the party’s plan. 

He had an ESP spell, so when they returned he could determine if they kept their part of the deal, and he insisted that one of the party stay behind as collateral. They discussed it and agreed to leave the party phantasmist (illusionist) behind, as he would have the best chance of escaping if the opportunity arose. 

They set off back to the city and managed to pass 12 consecutive random encounter checks! I love it when this sort of stuff happens, they feel like they are favored by luck as they made that many checks!

They spent a good half hour debating whether or not to lie to Quin Faal. Faal is their patron, and generally trusts them, so they could likely lie without being caught on the spot, but sooner or later Faal’s many informants and magic scrying would likely discover the deceit. The argument was eventually resolved, they would tell him everything, and hope that it went over well. This is in itself a big change, in the early days they would have tried to kill him in his own tower if he got upset at them, now they knew better.

Faal reacted by telling them that Hoak was clearly a threat, and that they needed to neutralize or capture him. So then we had another problem, if they went back to Hoak he would read their minds and discover the subterfuge. So the party and Quin Faal strategized, they suggested that Faal call out the warlock in open combat in the arena. I decided that, given the honor culture of Bhakashal, Faal might like this option, so I had an encounter reaction roll to see what he thought of it.

It gave me a “negative, no action”, so Faal dismissed the idea, “I will not call him to the arena until I know what he is plotting, if I slay him there I will not be allowed to use sorcery to speak with his shade, and I don’t look forward to flushing out his spies.”

They came down to two plans, one was suggested by Faal (me), the other by a player. Faal suggested that they return to his base with a white dragon he had polymorphed into the form of a small gekko lizard. When they return to Hoak and he went to use ESP the party priest would cast dispel magic on the gekko, transforming it back to a white dragon. Hoak would be pressed by the dragon while the party attacked from a distance. This was a variation on a gambit used by my players years ago. 

The players plan was to pretend that Faal was so enraged that they had backed off from Hoak and come back to deceive him, that he slayed them all in a rage. They were to be transported back to the forest by a small group of House soldiers and the priest. There several of the guards would go and meet the new party member, a bard, and wait for a signal. The NPC priest and the party priests would cast feign death on everyone, then the NPC priest and guards who witnessed the spells would leave, signalling the other guards and the bard to appear. The other guards would depart, leaving the bard to deliver the bodies. 

The bard had been only told to deliver the bodies, he had no knowledge of the plan, he was just told to escort the bodies to Hoak. He believes them to be dead, and is supposed to persuade Hoak to accept their delivery as a sign that Quin Faal is taking him seriously. Since he knows nothing of the plan, he will pass an ESP reading, and he will read a prepared statement from Quin Faal, while that is all happening, the party will regain consciousness and attack. Or at least that’s the plan. Both plans had strengths and weaknesses, I will say this, D&D players know how to strategize! 

The lads came up with lots of possible problems in both plans, and of course asked good questions, “Will my body have bleeding wounds and such with Feign Death?” “Will the warlock not think it’s funny that we are all dead and don’t have the signs of being killed?” LOL, the spell doesn’t specify any of that, just that you are in a “... cataleptic state which is impossible to distinguish from actual death”. So, would you have wounds? We discussed that one for a while. Pretty much every session I have ever run has one of those questions, one of those “the rules don’t specify so you have to decide” questions. In many ways these are the lifeblood of D&D, and the variances from table to table make up much of the flavor of the game.

So they decided on the feign death plan. They then traveled to the forest. This time the dice produced a random encounter with a Shen Lung dragon while they were on the river. It gained surprise on them, and set the water around the boat on fire, demanding tribute. The party doesn’t know what Shen Lung dragons can do, and they were worried that it would be too tough to take out quickly, so they asked what the dragon wanted, it demanded magic items. 

Somehow, they decided to acquiesce.

I was honestly expecting a fight or at least parley, but they wanted to get on with it, so they gave the dragon a scroll of 3 spells, oil of slipperyness, a +1 spear and a +1 dagger. The dragon left, sated for now, and they continued on. Next session they will be at the forest and execute the plan, we will see if Hoak is deceived, and if so, if they can take him in a fight. 

Interestingly, they have zero idea what spells Hoak has, other than something to control the mustard jelly. One of the keys to making warlocks intimidating is the Bhakashal spell allocation system. Rather than picking spells and “optimizing” the choices, spells and magic items for NPCs are randomized. This gives them tactical opacity. It is extremely important to realize that not knowing what your opponent can do is a huge disadvantage, one that, IMHO, can give your opponent an edge that is equal or exceeds the edge produced by optimization.

So many of the decisions made by the party (to not fight Hoak initially, to not deceive their patron) are informed by their respect for warlocks in the setting. They get it. They understand that a high-level warlock is extremely deadly. They assume that NPCs are a threat, so just starting a fight is not always a good idea. This leads to a lot of parley, characters and NPCs engaging in discussion with positive or negative outcomes. And this allows players to get creative. 

Good times.