Building Bhakashal – Session Report

My Friday group had a few rough weeks as different members came down with the same pneumonia, they are all friends in real life, so it passed around the group. As a result we have had a few sessions where only one person could make it, and they prefer not to play when that happens. So we have been doing some bookkeeping. I have redone all of their character sheets, and used some of that between play time to clarify aspects of their magic items, abilities and spells that they were not clear on.

You’d be amazed how often players don’t bother to read their spell, ability and magic-item descriptions. Part of that is my fault, I am perfectly happy to answer questions about any of that stuff, so they assume I will tell them if they don’t know. Not all of them of course, some of my players read the rule books between sessions and know everything they can, but that’s not the case for them all.

This week were all back to the table and fighting fit.

The party is attempting to slay and collect the bodies of 4 mind flayers. They need mind flayer blood so they can build a teleportation circle. They have the book that tells them how to build the circle, the other ingredients necessary to make the ink for the inscribing circle, and they have found an underground illithid city, so they have plenty of potential victims. They just need to get a few illithids, and that’s proving to be a challenge. Mind Flayers are no pushovers, and they are in a WHOLE CITY FULL OF THEM.

It was one of those interesting inversions, they spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to find mind flayers, they eventually found out that there was a mind flayer city in the underworld they could go to.

Perfect, right?

Then they got there are realized:

a)      They weren’t mind flayers, and in a city of mind flayers, they would stand out

b)     There were a lot of mind flayers there, all of whom can read their minds

Sure, there were non-flayers in the city as well (slaves, servants, laborers, merchants, traders, hunters, etc.) but the adventurers stood out as “overworlders” as well as “outsiders” and “armed to the teeth” non-flayers, who were comparatively rare.

They figured a way around that, a clever way IMO. One of the PCs is a Myrmidon, a Bhakashal fighter/magic-user, but in this case a fighter/alchemist. Myrmidons can create potions, and these are high level PCs, so in this case the Myrmidon can create potions from the appropriate fantastic ingredients (basically monster parts) with a spell, rather than needed a full laboratory.

So they decided to pose as a travelling alchemist and his retinue. They purchased a tent in the market area and started making and selling potions using the various monster parts that the Myrmidon had collected over the last few weeks of adventuring.

Flayers in the city live like wealthy Roman lords, on huge estates where they indulge their pleasures, eat brains and explore other planes in their spare time. They don’t “enforce the law” on rabblerousers, they use non-illithid troops for that. So the party had a visit from the local guards at one point, but some banter and a bribe got them to move on.

Now they had a cover, and they had managed to get information on a mind flayer who left the city on a regular basis. Most of the flayers stay in the city, but there are a few that travel around the underworld. One of those flayers, Sogogg Brot by name, was leaving in two days to head out of the city and to another city a week or so away for some nefarious purpose. This was an opportunity to get access to a flayer when it wasn’t in it’s estate and well protected.

They bribed one of the hunters who had travelled with Brot before to find out information about how he traveled, and discovered that he stopped off at a water source about a two day journey from the city to water his mounts, they were going to wait for him around there.

They left a day before Brot was going to leave, and had 2 days of travel through the underworld. That’s 8 random encounter checks (4 per day).

I find random encounter checks fascinating, particularly if you let the dice dictate the result rather than fudging to ensure there is an encounter. Sometimes they roll 4 checks a day for several days and get nothing. Other times they get multiple encounters over consecutive days, or even on the same day. Because we roll everything in the open and the odds are announced, they know that any encounter is random, pure luck (though the odds vary by time of day, and there are things you can do to reduce odds of an encounter).

So, when it happens, they react to it. When the parents came by to pick up the kids one of my kids mentioned that the players, “screamed like crazy three times during the session”.

They screamed each time we rolled an encounter.

Never let anyone tell you differently, players LOVE to roll dice, and rolling dice in the open is even more exciting. Random encounter checks are a highlight of the game, not something that “wastes your time” on the way to the real adventure.

Rant over.

Travelling through the Bhakashal underworld is a spooky affair, lighting is limited to certain luminescent mosses, striations of luminescent metals in the rocks of the cave walls, and luminescent insects that swarm around in the air, lighting things then leaving them in darkness. However, the underworld is also an enclosed space, even if the caves are considerably large, sound doesn’t disperse as much or get carried away on the wind as much (there is air movement, but not as much as above ground). So you tend to hear things before you see them, and they are often closer than you realize.

They set out and in the first 6 hour block they had an encounter right away (1 in 12 odds, encounter during hour 3). They were on a trail, all mounted, when they came upon a field of 7’ tall flowers, above which were a quartet of giant bees that had just finished with the flowers.

We rolled for surprise, no surprise for either side.

AD&D restricts encounter reaction rolls to encounters between parties that can communicate with each other. In Bhakashal you roll an encounter reaction roll for every meeting between the PCs and any NPCs/monsters/animals. In this case I rolled to see what the bees would do when they saw a party of 5 humanoids riding giant lizards. It came up neutral, so the bees buzzed off. There was a brief discussion of trying to slay a bee for monster parts, but they decided to stay on point.

The next encounter check was negative. The third for day 1 was positive. Two in one day, that was notable.

This time it was mobats. I forgot how BIG mobats are, 12-15 foot wingspans, and they have a fear cry that can mess with your party.

Fortunately for everyone there was no surprise, but they were very close.

“You have seen no trees in the underworld, but here the fungi grow as tall as trees, and for the last half hour or so you have been following a trail through a mushroom forest. As the trail bends slightly to the right three huge shapes swoop down from above towards you.”

The mobats were only 30 feet away when the party noticed them, diving directly towards the party Myrmidon, Gyre and Warlock. The Warlock had time to cast Power Word Stun, and took out one of the mobats instantly. It was, however, diving directly for  the Warlock at the time, so he had to roll a saving throw to avoid it crashing into him. That was successful, however, and it crashed into the ground, damaging itself so badly it would not be able to fly away.

The second mobat screeched as it dove towards its prey. Two of the PCs were in the AOE and had to save or experience fear. They both made their saves. The party thief spurred his mount and rode forward, swinging his sword on the way by at the second mobat as it dove towards the party Gyre, he managed to tag it with a decent strike, not enough to make it unable to fly, but enough to reduce it to almost half HP.

The Gyre caused a cluster of rocks to spray at the descending mobat (the party is travelling with an earth Gyre, essentially an “earth bender”, who can do things with rocks  and earth, in this case causing a spray of stones from the ground to strafe his opponent), this finished it off and knocked it off course to slam into the ground harmlessly.

The third mobat was heading towards the party Myrmidon. A few months back, the Myrmidon had a magic sword forged for him. He paid BIG coin to have a blacksmith make the finest sword possible using meteorite steel. He then brought the heart of a white dragon to be used in the forging of the sword. He paid BIG coin to have a Bhakashal warlock in his House cast Enchant an Item on the sword and after a series of rolls he had a +1 Sword of Ice, +3 against fire creatures, Special Powers: x2 to damage against fire creatures, and cast Cone of Cold (at 6^th level power) 2x per day.

He had been itching to use the Cone of Cold ability, and this was a perfect opportunity. He activated the cone and it hit the mobat full on, freezing it solid (doing enough damage to slay it instantly). However, there was now a giant bat, frozen like a popsicle, barrelling directly towards the Myrmidon!

He failed his save, and the frozen bat slammed directly into him, knocking him to the ground and doing substantive damage.

The encounter was a reminder of something though, the party made almost all of their saving throws. At lower levels, they failed almost all their saving throws, but now that they are all 7^th level and above, that’s changing.

Many people hate binary pass fail mechanics, they like “failure but a consequence that moves things forward” or “success with a cost”. I prefer pass fail mechanics as they help to make clear how experience and power matter in the game. As characters level they get better saves, so they save versus these pass/fail effects more often. In essence, they EARN their improved prowess through risk taking, experience and smart game play (if you don’t play smart, you don’t survive!), not because the referee saves them when it “feels right” or the game gives them an out  “to move things forward”. They feel like badasses because they ARE badasses, they’ve earned it.

Word.

They chopped off a mobat head and camped down to sleep and rest their mounts. There were no encounters while they slept, and they headed out for day two of travel.

The next encounter happened when the party was sleeping on the second night. This time they were on a plain of tall grasses, something they hadn’t seen much of in the underworld (something indicative of water sources, unbeknownst to them). I rolled for the encounter on the random encounter table and I came up with a minotaur. There were no mazes around, so why would this creature be out and about?

 As a referee your job is to make the dice make sense, so I decided that this minotaur was part of a cult, it was surrounded by 8 cultists dressed in grey robes that worship the god Nareen, Bhakashal god of darkness, rebirth and knowledge. Each cultist carried a candle holder with a candle that burned with a low blue light. The minotaur carried a huge axe and was cowled so it’s eyes were covered. Nareen is often depicted with an axe (the axe that the god uses to cut through the daylight and bring on the night), and the cultists revere the minotaur, a creature that can navigate a maze and wields an axe, as an avatar of the god of knowledge. The cult maintains a maze that they use for sacrifices, and they are travelling to a settlement in the underworld where they will find their next sacrifice to bring back to the maze for slaughter. I randomly determined that the cultists were a mix of Saan (lizard folk) and Rakasta (cat folk).

Freeform riffing off of the setting to explain random encounters has to be one of my favorite things to do at the table.

The party thief was on watch when this group of cultists approached. He saw a dim blue light in the distance. Once they were about 100 feet away they could make them out. He couldn’t tell what the minotaur was other than very tall, the cultists looked normal humanoid sized.

He called out to them, greeting them, assuming them to be pilgrims of some kind. He spoke to them in Rakasta, his language.

One of the cultists responded in Rakasta, “Do you follow the Axe?”

Nareen is often referred to as “the axe”, so they were asking if the party worshipped Nareen.

The party thief wasn’t sure what this meant, so he kind of panicked and answered,

“We follow the hammer”

That was unexpected.

It just so happens that there is a Bhakashal god named Bhammak, a god of knowledge and artifice, who wields a hammer. I rolled to see how the cultist would interpret the PCs statement, and they decided that the PC was saying they were followers of Bhammak. Bhammak is a god of a similar domain, and the followers of those gods are generally aligned.

LOL, dumb luck!

So, the cultist asked the PC to approach them.

Honestly, I didn’t think he would do it. He hadn’t woken up the party yet, they were all soundly sleeping (I did roll to see if the exchange was enough to wake them up, but it did not). For some reason he decided to walk towards them alone, between the gently swaying long grasses of the underworld, while bird sized luminescent insects swarmed above, and the dull blue flames of their candles flickered.

Players, you can never predict them.

I made an encounter reaction roll, the PCs were (apparently) followers of an aligned god, and they had made no hostile moves, indeed, they were displaying an inordinate degree of trust. The roll came up positive, and the lead cultist cast a Bless spell on the party thief as he stood there in front of the group.

He couldn’t see much of the minotaur, but decided not to try and see more.

The cultists praised Bhammak and Nareen, moved their candles around in ritual circles, then moved off into the darkness to head to the village to extract their tribute in the form of a sacrifice.

Most of the party slept through the whole thing!

Encounter reaction rolls transform the game. Changing encounters from guaranteed violence to a range of possibilities, from violence at one end to alliances and aid at the other, makes for a far more interesting game, and makes travel matter much more. It also gives you opportunities to flesh out the game world and introduce flavor.

Big fun.

We stopped there for the session.

What the party doesn’t know is that the flayer they are after is a bit of a non-conformist, he is one of the few that leaves their city (most flayers are content to eat brains and explore other realms ethereally), and he isn’t particularly enamored with his fellow flayers. So if the party approach him with their plan to slay 4 flayers, he might just be interested in helping them to do so, as he can eliminate some rivals that way without having to wear it.

However, they may just go in guns blazing, if they do that, it will be interesting, the flayer doesn’t travel alone (quite obviously) and no one in the party is currently aware that mind flayers have 90% magic resistance.

It will be interesting!

Building Bhakashal - Session Report - Infiltration

Building Bhakashal - Session Report - Infiltration

My Saturday group are hovering on the cusp of domain play, they are near the level required to become Bhakashal nobility, and in order to gain that coveted status, you need to do two things:

1.        Reach the requisite minimum level (7^th is the lowest where this is possible). Level in Bhakashal translates directly into the repute mechanic, in short, you gain in reputation as you level up, and this directly impacts things like encounter reaction rolls. So, to be considered for nobility at any faction, e.g., a Lordship at a Noble House, you have to be at least 7^th level, which means you have to be known for your prowess.

 2.        Perform a task of importance to the faction in question. This has to be something significant that will get the attention of the faction, something important to it’s goals. Alternatively, you can defeat an existing noble in the faction and take their place. In either case, your action will create instant enemies and allies within the faction, as some people in the faction will resent you for performing the task, or some will resent you for taking out an ally.

The party decided to go for performance of a task for their House, House Quannar, and after deliberation settled on trying to get to the Guildmaster of the Raosk branch of the thieves guild (a chitin named Kalantros the Sly, or, in his role as guildmaster, “the Red Arachne”). The guild has two branches, one in the city (the Guildmaster is a House Lord at House Quannar), the other in the Raosk. Their House controls one branch of the guild but not the other, so bringing in (or taking out) the existing leader of the Raosk guild would be a MAJOR coup for House Quannar.

Ambitious, the way it should be!

If you want more detail than that, the first two session reports are here:

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

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

Today’s Session

The party was trying to get access to Maur Hoguelen, a wealthy Bhakashal merchant who 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. However, mounts are not used in the Raosk, and despite the fact that the hunters all go through the Raosk, Maur does not pay tribute to the Raosk Thieves Guild or deal with them at all.

So, to get to Kalantros, they are going to get to Maur and deliver him to the Red Arachne to convince him to let them into his organization, then go from there to either recruit him (get him to consider merging the guilds), capture him (to force him to merge the guilds) or slay him and take over the guild (or give it to someone from House Quannar).

They started off as hunters and joined a hunt for potential mounts. They used their abilities to help and were very successful, so the hunters took in a huge payoff from their hunt. The party used this to get the lead hunter to give them the name of the person he reported to, who works for Maur.

One step closer!

An encounter reaction roll led to the hunter giving up the information (they had just made him a big bag of coin), and they were off to the Raosk.  Maur Hoguelen has a representative who spends time in the Raosk, recruiting, gambling and drinking, a 7^th level Malu (fish-folk) Spider named Golusk Haik. Haik hangs out Raosk either at the platform fights (d6 1-2), wandering the tents looking for recruits or snooping (d6 3-4) or in Shalsea’s Burden(d6, 5-6), a tent tavern on the Eastern platforms. He travels everywhere with two ogre henchmen who are completely loyal, Beryt and Gryn .

The party decided to split up, half would go to the fighting platform, the other to Shalsea’s Burden.

The party has two heavy melee types, the party mercenary (fighter) and the party spartan (monk). The fighting platform in the Raosk is a bit different than the arena in Bhakashal. Here most fights are unarmed, but there  are no rules other than no magic and no weapons. You can of course use a magic item if you like (e.g., Bracers of Defense), but if anyone suspects you of using magic there are extreme consequences. There is a low-level warlock there to cast Detect Magic if there are suspicions.

They introduced themselves to the bet arranger and made wagers on themselves (you can only wager on yourself to win!). They knew they were likely to win on the platform, although there were some leveled NPCs that fought there, odds were they wouldn’t encounter as many of them, so they were rightfully confident. The goal here was to get in contact with Haik and try to get him to bring them further up the chain.

The mercenary went first, he was paired off against a large Jugyi (turtle folk) bareknuckle brawler.

The platform was lowered and bets were taken, Jugyi, Kos Kos Kamma, was a local favorite. They circled each other for a bit then Kos Kos charged the PC. They clashed in the middle of the platform, the big Jugyi missed his shot and the PC landed a solid hit on his soft stomach. Kos Kos tried for another roundhouse and managed to clip the mercenary on the shoulder.

They split and circled again. The crowds were shouting at the PC, Kos Kos was popular here, and some merc from the city wasn’t going to be well loved.

Next round was shorter than the first, Kos Kos tried to slam into the PC, hoping to knock him down with his greater bulk, but to no avail. He missed the PC, who managed to roll a critical and stun his opponent, long enough for a second attack, which finished him off.  A solid blow to the jaw sent the big Jugyi to the floor. At which point, the mercenary picked him up and walked him to the edge of the platform, sending him over to the marshy ground below.

This is the Raosk, nobody cared, LOL!

They wanted to maintain the image of being badasses, willing to do what it took and merciless in the fight.

Money was exchanged, threats were shouted, and the Jugyi was dragged off the platform.

Unfortunately Golusk Haik was not at the platform to see that fight.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was arriving at Shalsea’s Burden, it was a tent tavern, strewn with pillows and stations peppered throughout with differing libations at each, a beer station, a cider station, a wine station and a liquor station. The party wandered through looking for Haik, but no luck.

Back at the platform the party Spartan (monk) was ready to go. He was itching for some hand to hand as his hands were formidable weapons. His opponent was a lanky chitin (insect folk) with wicked looking claws and a missing right eye.

Unfortunately for the chitin, a 7^th level Spartan is not there to play. A single strike from the party Spartan led to a critical and a stun.

And that was that.

The crowd ROARED for that, and the players did too, but Haik did not show up.

They decided to sit the next round out, and a pair of burly Saan (lizard folk) appeared on the platform and proceeded to beat the stuffing out of each other for 5 minutes, until one of them landed a kick on their opponent’s head, finishing him off.

The party members at Shalsea’s Burden then started to wander the platforms looking for Haik.

Back at the fighting platform, Haik finally showed up. The Mercenary and Spartan then went to the platform together to have another fight, this time against a pair of Kutya (dog-folk) mercenaries. These guys weren’t as high level as the two, but they were pretty close, and thus more of a challenge.

The mercenary and one of the Kutya got into it right away, trading blows in a flurry. A few bad rolls by the PC and a few good ones by the NPC started to promise a different outcome, but in short order the PC had managed to send the Kutya flying and then finished him off on the ground.

The Spartan and the Kutya was also a short fight. This time the poor unfortunate Kutya decided to try for a  grapple, on a Spartan.

Grappling and open hand combat is WHAT THEY DO.

The Spartan managed to get this guy in a choke hold almost immediately, and he held it until his opponent blacked out.

Again, money was exchanged, and the crowd shouted their approval.

At this point the Spartan spotted Haik, and decided to approach hin.

He approached the Spider, framed on either side with a big, bulky Ogre.

He name-dropped the hunter who had led them on the outing to capture Raggam in the wild and told the lanky Malu that they were looking for other work in the organization.

At this point I had to decide if Haik was interested or not. He did recruit in the Raosk, but it was most often to find mercenaries willing to go on the hunt. Hunts are dangerous and “cannon fodder” mercs are a great addition to a team of seasoned hunters. He also recruited for other roles, as he was a trusted associate of Maur. He had just seen the two PCs make short work of some big, strong local favorites, and in a particularly ruthless manner. They were clearly good to fight without weapons if needed.

So I rolled an encounter reaction roll to see how they would react to the idea.

I rolled a natural 100, ENTHUSIASTICALLY POSITIVE.

My job as a referee is to interpret this result. Why would Maur’s recruiter be interested in a pair of platform fighters? Well, they just bare-knuckled a bunch of big, powerful fighters with ease, so…

“I am looking for a few warriors that can fight without weapons as well as with them. My boss needs muscle that can defend him even in areas where you can’t bring weapons. You two will fit the bill nicely. Show up at Maur’s estate in two days, he’s having a party, I’ll introduce you and see if he agrees with me or not.”

And, just like that, they had another lead.

There was another interesting development for this group. For all of last session and all of this session, the groups thief/magic-user has been researching a spell while the other PCs were out working to infiltrate Maur’s organization.

Bhakashal has rules for researching spells, but few players have been interested. This particular player had decided, after the group slayed a giant scorpion; to collect part of the scorpion’s tail and research a spell based on it as a component. The process takes time, so he took his character out of the group, holed up in the library and laboratory of their House, and researched a spell.

The process for spell research in Bhakashal is as follows:

The referee and the player collaborate to determine the particulars of the spell. One of the important things to note is that spell levels are a general indication of power, but there is considerable variance both between and within levels, so level assignment is to a degree flexible.

The general process is to have the player decide the basic impact of the spell based on the special component being used. All spells require a special, fantastic component to create them, this component is used in making the ink that is used to pen the spell. Magic is sympathetic, so, to create a new spell that allows you to, for example, paralyze victims with a touch, a ghoul finger might be a good choice of fantastic component. Once that is done, spell parameters can be determined by comparing this spell impact to the impacts of existing spells and finding the closest equivalent.

So, let’s say the PC wanted to make a spell that allowed them to move faster, the most obvious comparison would be the 3^rd level spell Haste. The new spell, call it “Faster” would then be calibrated with respect to Haste. So, for example, if ”Faster” only increased movement rate but not attacks per round (as Haste does) then Faster could be a 2^nd level spell, or if it was also a 3^rd level spell, then perhaps its casting time could be less, it’s duration could be longer than Haste, or it wouldn’t have the aging impact (Haste ages you one year every time you use it). 

In general spells have many parameters, AOE, range, casting time, components, effects etc., and the referee and player can juggle these until the new spell is in the desired relationship with existing spells in respect to comparative power. THIS IS NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE, nor is it meant to be. One of the greatest appeals of the AD&D (and Bhakashal) spell system is that it has exceptions like this, magic is to some degree unpredictable and unquantifiable. The presence of exact statistics for spells is to aid in their use in a game, not an indication that magic is an exact science. 

In some cases, the proposed spell from the player will end up being pretty close to an existing spell, at this point the player may want to simply research the existing spell and pen it rather than a new spell.

In other cases, the referee and player may have trouble finding roughly equivalent spells to compare to. This will be a rare thing in most cases, the AD&D and Bhakashal spell tables are remarkably robust, and cover a lot of ground, but even within these well defined limits there are almost limitless variations possible, so comparisons are fairly easy to find.

Once all of the parameters are agreed upon by referee and PC, the odds of successfully researching a new spell are the same as the odds of casting one:

(the PC’s Chance to Know Each Listed Spell from the PHB) less (5% x the level of the spell to be created).

This process requires 5 weeks of research, - 1 week for each point of INT bonus. The research will culminate in a scroll copy of the spell. If the roll fails, there are harm odds as per regular spellcasting (e.g., 5% per level of spell).

If the attempt is unsuccessful, the researcher can opt to try again, they must wait 24 hours and then can reroll at the same odds. The Warlock can try a maximum of 5 times (the initial time and 4 more), if the last check fails the spell is not possible for that caster to research. Alternately, each additional week of research adds +5% to the odds and gives a new roll, max 20% bonus. If the researcher has help, take the average of the INT scores for all who are assisting, add this value in % as a bonus to the base odds of success, and use this for the researcher’s chances. Overall odds of success can never exceed 99%. The odds of researching an existing spell are the same as the odds of researching a new one, +5%.

There is a 1 in 30 chance for each day of work that there will be an encounter that could interrupt the process. The referee will come up with a list of potential encounters (e.g. a rival attacks, a thief breaks in, etc.)

We spent the last 15 minutes of the Saturday session ironing out the details of the spell, tweaking various parameters to calibrate the spell to existing spells, and then to roll to see if the PC was successful. There was one failed attempt, and the PC chose to try again 24 hours later rather than do more research and improve his odds. His second roll was successful.

This is the spell he researched:

Rikan the Silent’s Scorpion Sting (Alteration)

Level: 3, Casting Time: 3 segments, Range: 0, Duration: 5 rounds, Area of Effect: 1 target per 3 levels, Components: S,M, Saving Throw: Neg.

Rikan the Silent’s signature spell allows the warlock to give a weapon the ability to paralyze a target with a successful strike. The spell is active on the Warlock’s hand for 5 rounds, if not discharged before that time it expires. Any weapon touched will have the ability paralyze a target hit by that weapon, for a duration of the caster’s level / 3 in rounds (e.g., a 3^rd level caster could give a sword the ability to paralyze a target it strikes for 1 round). At most one weapon per 3 levels of experience of the caster may be so enchanted. Paralysis effects are subject to a saving throw, with a penalty of -1 for every 3 levels of experience of the caster. The material components for this spell are a scorpion tail and iron dust, the caster holds the tail, dusts it with the iron, closes their fist on the tail, closes their other hand on the fist, holds them together for the duration of the casting time and then pulls them apart. The palm of the hand that held the tail will be a shimmering silver until the spell duration completes.

We meet again in 2 weeks; I will have his spell printed out on a sheet to represent the scroll copy of the spell that the PC gets at the end of the spell research process.

Big fun.

Building Bhakashal – Session Report – New Players

I have been running a game for a new group of players, the first two session reports are here:

https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/10/building-bhakashal-session-report.html

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

Their first session had them arrive on an island in search of a warlock, Bamal the Boastful, who had stolen a magic sword from his employer, a Bhakashal warlock and patron named Quin Faal the Iolite. At the end of that session the party had met a group of kobold hunters who lived on the island and befriended them, then they went searching for the warlock. Near the end of the first session they had a harrowing encounter with a Killinth plant, the plant almost consumed the party thief, but fortunately the party fighter managed to finish it off handily with her bastard sword. The next session saw them exploring an underground maze and releasing its inhabitants on to the island (unintentionally of course…)

Last night’s session had them meeting up with the kobolds again.

As an aside, I have run this adventure many times, it’s my default one shot adventure I use to introduce people to the setting, its short but can last longer depending on how it is played, and it is self contained (an island) which simplifies things a bit. It is interesting to note which groups befriend or at least parlay with the kobolds, which groups ignore them, and which groups attack them. In pretty much every case, the group who ignore or attack the kobolds do badly, the groups that befriend them do well.

Make of that what you will.

Because the kobolds saw them kill the shadows and save their hunters, they were welcomed with open arms and invited to join the kobolds for food. That led to some conversation about the island, and questions about the short bald man. The kobolds were sure that the giants had killed and eaten him, as they hadn’t seen the warlock for weeks. That got them talking about the giants.

The kobolds didn’t like the giants, they periodically ate kobolds or axe beaks, and they harassed anyone who came to the island. The players were already starting to show that they understood how to leverage their resources in the game. One of them pointed out that the kobolds might be willing to help them if they agreed to get rid of the giants for them.

That’s the stuff.

The players proposed exactly that, and I rolled an encounter reaction, it was cautiously positive, so they agreed to lend the PCs a few of their hunters as long as they agreed to finish off the giants. Further conversation revealed that the giants were most often sleeping during the heat of the day, so midday was the best time to go to the giants if they wanted to catch them unawares.

So, that day at noon they set out on axebeaks and giant boars towards the east end of the island and the giant’s caves.

I told them that since they were traveling with the kobolds, their odds of encountering a monster/animal on the way were reduced from 1 in 12 to 1 in 20, as the kobolds knew the island extremely well, and the odds of encountering deadly killinth plants was zero, as the kobolds knew where they were.

They learned another lesson, speak to a hunter/guide or someone familiar with an area and you can adjust your odds of an encounter downwards.

They approached the giant caves through the forest, and when they arrived at the forest’s edge I rolled to see if the giants were up or not. There were 5 in 6 odds they were sleeping it off, 1 in 6 they were up.

I rolled a 1.

The two giants were outside the cave in the merciless mid-day heat.

As the ref, I had to figure out why there were there. It is instructive to see how you can do this sort of thing by essentially creating a chain of connected events/actions.

I have run this particular island adventure dozens of times, and to keep from getting bored with it I randomize some things. In particular whether or not Bamal the Boastful is alive or not. Sometimes he is dead, having been slain by the giants, sometimes he’s alive, having made a pact with the giants (whether through force or spell).

I rolled at the beginning of the session to see, and Bhamal was alive. I decided that, in addition to being on the run, he was on the island to investigate the maze. The maze features four creatures, a carrion crawler, a hoar fox, a firedrake and a shocker. Each are imprisoned in a room in the maze, when anyone enters those rooms the creatures attack the intruder. But the real purpose of those monsters is their essences, fire, ice, lightning and paralysis. Balancing these four essences binds the shadow at the heart of the maze, and the shadow conceals a powerful magic sword.

Bhamal wants the sword, as he is collecting powerful magic swords, the one he stole from Quin Faal and the party is here to retrieve and the one in the maze are just the latest. He plans on making a gift of 6 powerful magic swords to a Type V demon named Ukimmar (type V demons have 6 arms) in order to form a pact with the demon.

He has been studying the maze and trying to figure out how to extract the sword but leave the maze intact, as he suspects it serves another purpose based on his study of the runes and sigils therin.

The party knows none of this, and at this stage he doesn’t know they broke the maze, released the monsters, and have the sword he is looking for.

I decided that Bamal has a crystal ball. He scrys the surrounding oceans periodically and if he views ships coming by he sends the giants to the beach to lob rocks at the ships. The giants think this is to sink ships so they can loot them, but in actuality it is to scare them off and for the sailors to report to others that the island is dangerous and to be avoided.

Bamal doesn’t want to be interrupted in his work, nor for Quin Faal to find him.

So that got me to explaining why the giants, who the kobolds said were most often sleeping during the hot daytime, were out of the cave. I decided that Bamal had sent them out and they were heading to the beach to lob rocks at a passing ship.

 

Each giant picked up a large bag of rocks and marched to the forest towards the beach. The party saw them walk away and looked at each other, what to do now?

A quick conference produced the following plan (remember that the don’t know if Bamal is alive or dead):

-            The magic user would send her familiar to follow the giants and see what they were up to, she, her giant boar mount, her henchman and one of the kobold hunters would wait at the forest edge. In Bhakashal a magic-user can see through the eyes of their familiar.

-            The party fighter headed into the forest opposite to the magic-user, climbed a tree and waited with her bow by what appeared to be an animal run to hopefully bag a deer or a wild boar, she wanted to offer the giants food and try and either trick them or at least buy them off.

-            The party thief, along with one of the kobolds, headed up to the giant’s cave to check it out while they were gone.

The thief and kobold entered the cave, however, Bamal was IN THE CAVE. The giants occupied the vast back area of the cave, Bamal had a corner of his own near the front where he stored his tomes and did his work on translating the runes in the maze and figuring out how it worked.

First I rolled to see if the party made enough noise on the way in to alert Bamal to their approach before they entered the cave. In Bhakashal anyone can sneak, but depending on how you are dressed (e.g., if  you have heavy armor on) there are modifiers. Base odds are 2 in 6. Every PC rolls these odds to try and sneak up on someone. A thief, however, is better at sneaking, so if their 2 in 6 roll fails, they can roll their appropriate thieving percentage, in this case move silently.

Both made their rolls, so when they entered the cave it was a straight up surprise roll to see if either side was surprised. The party was expecting the cave to be empty. We rolled and Bamal was not surprised, but the party was.

So they entered the cave and saw the short bald man.

There was much shrieking at that point.

However, he got one free action against them due to surprise.  

I rolled to see what his reaction would be. He obviously doesn’t get many visitors, but the thief had specifically said she was not going to have her weapon in hand, and the kobold is native to the island.

I’m a firm believer that nothing is “obvious”, just because intruders show up at your doorstep doesn’t mean you instantly fireball them into oblivion. Bhakashal uses the encounter reaction table with modifiers. So you can certainly put a strong negative modifier so fireballing you into oblivion is a more likely option, but it is never certain.

I believe in this for three reasons, one, all of the best fantasy and sci-fi stories I have read have scenes exactly like this, where the “bad guy” doesn’t just attack for some, often esoteric reason, it’s virtually a trope, and I have always liked it.

Secondly, it keeps things opaque to me as well as the players, I like to be surprised.

Thirdly, it can often lead to interesting results.

In this case I rolled a mild negative interaction, which in game terms meant that he wasn’t  going to attack, but he wasn’t going to sit there and let them attack him either.

Bamal spoke one word an a pair of giant spiders scurried around from the shadows, these are size L spiders but the party hadn’t noticed them in the split second since they entered the cave. The two spiders scuttled over to the PC and the kobold, stopping a few feet away and bobbing up and down, ready to leap.

Bamal - “No sudden moves, they are easily upset, fairly hungry, and carnivores”

The party stayed still.

Bamal - “I don’t get a lot of visitors, why are you here?”

Thief – “We are exploring the island”

Bamal – “We?”

The thief smiled.

Bamal – “This island is fairly isolated, few come here to ‘explore’, mostly sailors who stop to find fresh water or game, are you a sailor?”

Thief – “Not exactly”

The thief was not being aggressive, she was at a disadvantage, and the story about exploring the island wasn’t that unusual, adventurers are known to explore remote locations. But Bamal also knew he was a wanted man, and was expecting that at some point Quin Faal would send people to find him.

Bamal – “Did Quin Faal send you; I was wondering when he would find me.”

At this point the players burst into discussion about what to do, be honest with the guy, lie like crazy, or bolt.

They decided to lie.

Thief – “We are just explorers, the island looked interesting.”

Bamal – “Did you arrive today?”

Thief – “Yes”

Bamal – “There is a ship passing by today, but it hasn’t arrived yet, I’m positive there aren’t two ships passing by today, which means you are lying”

Bamal isn’t stupid, and ships don’t pass by that often, he scried one on the way earlier today, that’s why he sent the giants to the beach. But he knows it hasn’t passed by yet, so the party was lying to him. At this point the thief was panicking, she had been caught in a lie and was at the mercy of a warlock with no reason to keep her alive.

Delicious

Thief –“Alright, I’ll level with you, we were sent to find you, but not to slay you, just to bring you back with the sword you stole.”

Bamal – “Quin Faal wants me alive, how quaint”

Thief – “We can just leave”

Time for an encounter reaction roll, every time the conversation leads to a potential decision point for the NPC, I call for one. This one was mildly positive. I had to now interpret that, why in the world would Bamal be positive towards agents sent to retrieve him?

Bamal – “Oh no, you can stay. The only conversation I get around here is from those two giants, and they are as dumb as a bags full of rocks that they carry.”

Bamal was a bit lonely, being on this island for months was enough for that. He wanted conversation and news of the world outside. For that he was willing to let the party live… for now.

Thief – “Why are you here?”

Bamal – “in part to hide from Quin Faal, but also to explore an underground maze on the island, I hope to discover how it works and extract something from it”

Thief – “Ummmm, er, ahhhh, yeah, we released the shadow from the maze and the monsters inside fled.”

At this point I needed to determine how Bamal would react. His goal was to retrieve the sword in the maze without disturbing the overall maze ecology, as he suspected the maze served a greater purpose. The party had disturbed all that. So, there was a LARGE negative modifier to the roll.

I rolled, and the result came up as negative but not actionable, I decided he was angry, but he also wanted the sword, and if he slayed the thief on the spot there was no guarantee he would find it.

Bamal – “YOU RELEASED THE SHADOW! I have spent months studying that maze, MONTHS, and you have undone my work in a day. WHERE IS MY SWORD?”

Thief – “My companion has it, outside”

Bamal – “We will go outside together and retrieve it, immediately.”

The thief nodded and turned to leave, and Bamal following after summoning forth two further spiders from the shadows and having them surround him as he walked.

The thief made it out of the cave before Bamal did and had a few seconds before he emerged from the cave. She frantically waved at the magic user and indicated for her to flee.

She cast Dimension Door and transported herself to the forest before Bamal emerged.

However, her mount, one of her bodyguards, and the kobold were still there.

Bamal came out of the cave and saw them by the forest edge, he stood outside the cave and took out a wand, holding it in his hand.

Bamal – “Retrieve my sword immediately”

The thief went to the other side of the clearing and entered the forest to find the party fighter, she caught her up, and got her, reluctantly, to agree to giving up the sword.

It’s a +4 Defender, she’s not keen to give it up.

They emerged, and Bamal watched them like a hawk. She and the fighter arrived and they presented the sheathed sword, handle first, to the warlock.

He took it and stared at them intently. The players had a quick conference between the three of them.

And then the party thief did something I didn’t expect.

Thief - “Quin Faal sent us here, but we are not his allies, this is just a job. We would be willing to work for you instead.”

Oh my, betrayal! Of a Bhakashal Warlock and patron no less! The point of this job was to impress Quin Faal so he would take them on as their patron, instead they were throwing him over for Bamal the Boastful.

In the last five years of patron driven faction play I have only had this happen once.

And now twice.

Thief – “Come over to us, we have decided to join Bamal”

The party magic-user emerged from the woods and walked to the group.

As always, when something like this happens, I roll for it. The party had been non-aggressive, they gave up the sword, and they revealed their hidden party member. On the other hand, they did come here to kidnap him and steal back the sword.

The roll came up enthusiastically positive.

I decided on the spot that Bamal realized that slaying the party members would not put off Quin Faal, so he needed to buy time.

Bamal – “When does Quin Faal expect you back?”

Thief – “the ship returns in four days to pick us up”

Bamal – “You will send a message back to Quin Faal, tell him to have another ship stop here in approximately two weeks, as you discovered an underground complex, fairly extensive, and you haven’t been able to find me yet. That gives us two weeks and four days without being disturbed, so I can plan my next move.”

The warlock then turned to the spiders, he spoke to each in a tongue none of the party members had ever heard before, then pointed to each party member in turn. One by one the spiders moved towards each party member, bobbing beside them and clicking their mandibles.

Bamal - “Each one of you will have one of my spiders beside you AT ALL TIMES until I am comfortable you are to be trusted.  I can also scry you at a whim to see what you are doing if you are not in my presence.”

He then reached into his robes and took out a horn and blew two short blasts on it.

Bamal – “the giants will return shortly, I will tell them to let you be, but they are remarkably stupid, so your best bet is to interact with them not at all.”

We stopped there.

 

Observations

I have run this scenario many times, sometimes Bamal is alive, sometimes he is dead, but this is the first time the party has found him alive and betrayed their patron to join up with him. I’m always fascinated by this sort of thing, Quin Faal is a powerful high-level Bhakashal warlock, crossing him earns you an instant, deadly enemy.

Why?

Who knows, but this will mean that, going forward, things will be fun!

Bamal is not a patron, he is a high-level warlock, he may be contemplating coming back to the city and becoming part of a Noble House, he may want to slay Quin Faal, dishonor him, or something else entirely. I will muse on that. I will also muse on how the kobolds will take all of this, they were expecting the party to take out the giants.

The players had a blast, this was not what they expected either! I love that everyone at the table was surprised by how this turned out. It may be some time before we return to the city, and I’m excited to see where this goes.

I got my second surprise of the night when the players told me that they wanted me to stay on as their regular referee and continue to run games for them. This was supposed to be a 6-session gig, and then I would be done.

Naturally I said yes.

I now have a fourth regular game to run, one home game and three others.

Right on.

 

 

 

 

Building Bhakashal – Session Report - Factional Play

My current home game is meeting about once a month, we played last night.

The campaign branched off from an earlier one that had my son, his friends and their dads. The kids dropped out when school started as they have hit an age when playing D&D with your dad isn’t as cool as going out with your friends.

But the dads wanted to keep playing.

When they started off on their own I initiated the campaign with a task for their patron, Kamerli the Ivory. Kamerli had an associate, Bhomar the Bronze, who had a tower in the marshlands. Kamerli hadn’t heard from his associate for a time, and he sent the PCs to investigate.

The resulting sessions have been a case study in how in Bhakashal, a factionalized sandbox style setting, once you seed the game with an adventure, grows entirely on it’s own. I don’t have to do anything but react to the PC’s actions, there is no need for me to map out long term goals or some “overarching narrative”, the back and forth between the game world and the PCs drives it all.

This session was a perfect example of the joys of factionalized play.

The full details of how they got to today’s session are available in previous blog posts:

Session 1 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/06/

Session 2 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/08/bhakashal-session-report-my-after.html

Session 3 – https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/09/building-bhakashal-home-game-session-3.html

In summary, they went to Bhomar’s tower and found out that he had been petrified by a basilisk, after that, bandits took over his tower and were using it as a base to raid caravans passing through the area. That was the “hook”. However, rather than having them just be random bandits, I used the Bhakashal setting details to situate their actions. Bhakashal is a factionalized setting, so you can either have completely random encounters without any connection to the larger game world, or you can connect these encounters up to factional rivalries. When you do so the resulting sessions are rich and rewarding as they are fully embedded in the game world.

So I decided the bandits were there as two Bhakashal nobles, Mitrax Toma the Bold and Calligaster Naukan, both of House Omander, had hired them to raid caravans in the area.

Why would they want that?

The marshlands around Bhakashal are the former territory of an evil empire, filled with demon worshipping sorcerers and foul priests of death cults. That nation collapsed years ago, but the marshlands are filled with ruined temples, old warlock towers and areas of foul, corrupt power.

In Bhakashal, the various Noble Houses have territories in the marshlands. They are responsible for patrolling and protecting these territories from monsters and the depredations of bandits and raiders. In exchange for this protection, the Houses get first refusal on any items or areas of power found in the marshlands. The locals don’t want this sort of magic, they believe it to be inherently dangerous (and they are right!), so they are generally willing to let the Houses have what they find as long as they fulfill their end of the bargain.

However, this is not an asymmetric relationship, the Houses cannot occupy land or otherwise displace or harm anyone in the marshlands, and they cannot build settlements of any kind. The villagers have the power of the marshland Saan black dragon riders behind them, and are a faction of their own, equal in power and treated with respect by the city factions.

There was a site near one of the marshland villages in a House Rostus territory, that site was the location of a former death cult temple that had crumbled to dust hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of sacrifices were made there, and foul, evil acts committed. As a result, the area is cursed, and a source of significant necromantic power. The locals avoid it, but Calligaster Naukan wants access to it as he wants to build a temple there and harness it’s power, while building a personal army of skeletons from all of the dead to use against his enemies.

As this area was in House Rostus territory, the first step to doing this was to keep House Rostus from discovering the area and laying claim to it, for whatever purpose they chose. They might want to purify the area, to harness it’s power, there are many options. Calligaster didn’t want that, so he and Mitrax hired the bandits to raid in the area to dishonor House Rostus in the eyes of the local villagers. The bandits taking over the warlock’s tower was a coincidence, but it drew the attention of the party’s patron, Kamerli the Ivory, and thus drew the party into the web.

Naukan has been in negotiations with the Spellbinder from the nearby Yalan village of Golta, Jijam the Harrow. Spellbinders are Bhakashal shamans, they gain their power by speaking to the dead and asking spirits for favors. Naukan won’t take what he wants by force, even someone with his nefarious goals won’t break the ancient covenant between the city and the marshland villages. Jijam is reluctant, he speaks to the spirits of the marshlands, and they have told him that the area is evil, and that nothing good will come of harnessing its power. Naukan has been wooing Jijam for months now, trying to convince him to get the villagers to agree to him building a temple there.

So, our first session had the party finding the bandits in Bhomar’s tower, routing them, and getting the bandit’s Thaumaturge, Maglane the Malachite, to turn against them. They found out that the bandits were being paid by Mitrax Toma the Bold to raid in the area, but they didn’t know why. Mitrax and Calligaster are allies, but at this point they didn’t know of Calligaster’s involvement.

When the party reported this to their patron, he wanted to know why Mitrax was doing this, the area was House Rostus territory, Mitrax was from House Omander.

Something was afoot, and the party had stumbled on to it.

The next session had them finding the routed bandits in the city and recruiting them (they had failed Mitrax and were looking for new patrons).

The party and Kamerli conferred and decided to rattle Mitrax’s cage a bit, to force his hand, to do this they would try and kidnap him. In Bhakashal kidnappings are honor crimes, the target is NEVER harmed, that would be the height of dishonor, harming a bound captive, but they do get generous ransoms, and the victim is dishonored, which leads to their isolation and a loss of power.

They successfully ambushed Mitrax in transit, he wasn’t forthcoming with any information, but he generated a healthy ransom to Kamerli. They figured this would force him to move before he was ready and reveal his hand, as well as his allies. In this case, Calligaster Naukan paid the ransom, revealing to Kamerli that they were allies. This wasn’t necessarily a secret, all in House Omander knew of their alliance, and a few outside knew as well. But this cemented it.

Knowing this, the party and Kamerli conferred and decided the best way forward would be to go after Calligaster next, but not directly. Calligaster had an apprentice, a 6^th level Necromancer named Pholl the Gaunt. They asked around about Pholl and bribed a local hunter to find out that Pholl was making forays into the marshlands regularly, going to sites of former battles so he could animate the dead from the swampy ground.

They followed Pholl to one of these sites, the necromancer took along a black dragon, Haekomarl, who was indebted to Calligaster and served him. The party confronted Pholl in session 2, took out a number of his guards, and managed to turn the dragon against him. The dragon slayed Pholl, and in exchange the party agreed to slay Calligaster, ending the debt between necromancer and dragon, and freeing him.

The party used Speak with the Dead to gain further information from Pholl, specifically,

“Calligaster wished to dishonor House Rostus so the village of Golta would refuse their protection, denying them access to their territories.”

So after the last session they knew who was behind the bandits, and what the bandit raids were supposed to do, discredit House Rostus to keep them out of the area.

So what was in the area, and why were Calligaster and Mitrax interested in it?

That all gets us to last night’s session.

The party did not destroy Pholl’s body, they left it behind to rot in the swamp. Unfortunately this meant that Calligaster, after Pholl was a few days late reporting back, would have sent operatives to find him, and would retrieve his body and use his necromantic powers to communicate with the slain apprentice and find out about the party’s involvement. As a result, I rolled every day thereafter that Naukan would send something, an assassin, a monster, etc,, after the party. I rolled a 1 in 30 chance on day 1, then 1 in 20, then 1 in 12, etc.

They decided next task was to figure out why they wanted access to that area.

Their first step was to go to a sage that knew something about the area. They found a Chitin (insect-folk) sage named Yeehl Bantag Lon, an expert in Yalan history, to determine what was important about the territories around the Yalan village. The rolls came up and they hit paydirt.

They found out that worshippers of the death god Evok had committed atrocities in their temple there centuries ago, and that this was now a cursed area of great necromantic power.

They decided to go to the village and see what they could do there.

It was a two day journey to the Cairan forest where the village was located. They travelled on the road to get there, the weather was challenging on the second day of travel, during heavy rain surprise odds change, high winds impact missile weapons, and heavy rain at night impacts viewing distances. Fortunately no encounters happened during the storms.

When they reached the forest and approached the village they were challenged on the way in, they identified their House, and I made a reaction roll that came up negative. A negative roll has to be interpreted, I decided it was that the party identified as House Quannar forces, but the soldiers that travelled with the party (the former bandits) did not wear house colours.

The party thought quickly on their feet and said that these were “personal mercenaries” and that they were not flying House colours as they were there on clandestine business.

It was the perfect in setting explanation, so I gave them a bonus on the next reaction roll, and produced some knowing laughs (complete with hisses) from the Yalan guards. They were led in. My players are now familiar enough with the setting to be making good calls like this.

They asked to speak to the village Spellbinder, they identified their patron and their House. This was a gutsy call. The Spellbinder was initially reluctant, House Quannar (their House) was aligned with House Rostus, and the villagers didn’t like House Rostus because they had been unable to stop the Bandit raids.

They told Jijam that Calligaster was interested in the area near the village as it had necromantic power, and that it would be a threat to the village.

Much to their surprise they were told by Jijam that he had met with Calligaster many times, was aware of what he wanted, and that so far he had refused to persuade the villagers to cooperate with Naukan. This was a learning moment, they expected the Spellbinder to be a simplistic marshland villager, but he was instead smart and savvy, and focused on protecting his people and the villages in the area.

Calligaster had claimed that he had sent in “personal troops” to dissuade the bandits from attacking the villages, so they were overall neutral towards the necromancer. Now that the party revealed this new information, they were hoping to sway Jijam the Harrow to their side.

Jijam was hesitant, something that surprised the party, but then they made a bold move. Bhakashal is an honor based, martial setting, bold moves get you respect, or lead to your downfall. In this case the party fighter suggested bringing in the bandit leader, Rojmi Yin, who was now working with them.

Bringing in the bandit leader that had been harassing people in the area was audacious, it could have infuriated the Spellbinder.

I made a reaction roll to see what would happen, and it was strongly positive.

Their boldness was appreciated, being honest about their alliances, and showing that their source of information was genuine, won him over. Jijam now knew that Calligaster was playing him, and he sided with the party and their patron.

This is how factional forces shape the game at the table.

In return for their information, Jijam told the party that Calligaster visited the cursed area in the forest on gibbous and full moons, Jijam had consented to this as long as the necromancer did not disturb the dead there while he visited.

They spent the night in the village then returned to the city and their patron to convey what they had learned. As Bhakashal is a factional environment, the discussion with the patron was an opportunity for me to pull back the curtain a bit. Surprisingly to the party, Kamerli revealed that he wanted access to the cursed area for himself, for a number of reasons:

-            to have it cleansed by powerful priests from the temple of Vekka (the temple associated with House Quannar)

-            to use Speak with the Dead to gain important information from the hundreds slain there, the knowledge possessed by the dead from the long-lost nation that lay beneath the soil of the marshlands was a direct conduit to items of power of interest to Kamerli’s House

-            to cede interest in the area to his allies in House Rostus (Lord Kammershorn and Warlock Tairnay the Sphene) now that the village was aware of what was going on and likely willing to work with House Rostus again, this would cement his alliance with them and indebt them to him

-            to share his knowledge with house Omander, there are some in that House who are rivals to Calligaster and Mitrax, and this would indebt them to Kamerli

In short, the party had brought their patron key information that would give him advantages in the fractious factional environment. The party has been successful in their last two tasks, so Kamerli discussed with them about next steps. They came up with three options, to try and take Calligaster by surprise in his tower, to go to House Rostus with information and get help from them or go to the village and wait for Calligaster to come to the cursed area.

They were leaning towards the last option, and the party Seer (priest) decided to cast Augury and ask if they should wait for Calligaster in the village or not.

Smart play. The bones were rolled and they came up “Weal”, and as a gibbous moon was upon them in a few days, they decided to go back to village and wait for Calligaster to come back for a visit and ambush him.

They travelled back to the village, the only encounter along the way was with Chitin Shepards, moving a herd of wild boars along the road.

Calligaster flew to the area on a Worra (giant bat) with a  pair of ogre bodyguards.

The party had been using sentries watching the skies (Jijan let them know that Calligaster flew to the site)  and spotted the Necromancer as it happened to be a clear night when he flew there.

Bhakashal weather rolls can influence so much of what happens at the table.

We rolled for surprise, as my players have learned, surprise can be the difference between success and failure, between a short and long fight.

They got surprise, waiting until he was descending on the giant Worra.

The party’s new ally, the Thaumaturge Maglane the Malachite, cast Charm Monster on the flying beast, she did not have any way of communicating with it, so she couldn’t command it, but it would not harm her or her allies while the spell was in effect.

The party warlock cast Magic Missile, if he had done more than half of Calligaster’s HP in damage he would have been dismounted by Bhakashal rules, but it was not enough. Still, it rattled his cage.

The party priest cast Spiritual Weapon, the Bhakashal version of Spiritual Hammer, and a shimmering, dark blue trident, the weapon of his god, Sithasial, god of oceans and travel, appeared in his hand. He threw the trident (outdoor range 90’) at the Necromancer and did enough damage to reduce him below half total HP, so he was dismounted.

That produced an interesting rules question.

According to the rules, when you are surprised, your attackers all get one action against you before you get to act in the next round (in AD&D that can be more than one action, Bhakashal simplifies this to one action only). So, technically, he could not do anything as he plummeted to his death.

However, AD&D rules also say you should always have a chance, that’s the whole idea behind saving throws. And I put it to the players, if your PC was knocked off a high spot in a surprise round, would you want to be able to react in some way, or would you accept that you were just going to plummet to your death?

When stuff like this comes up I put it to the table to decide, knowing that the choice they make at the table can come back to haunt them later.

They decided Calligaster should get a saving throw versus death to be able to cast a spell, it just so happened he had Feather Fall.

I roll in the open, and Calligaster Naukan , 7th level Emberi Scribus Maker Necromancer, House Omander, plummeted to his death screaming in a lost demon tongue, landing with a sickening crunch.

So many referees would have saved Calligaster in some way as he was the “BBEG” for this adventure, and this encounter was over in a round. This is one of the reasons why combat in many D&D games takes forever to resolve.

That’s not the Bhakashal way, the party was smart, formed alliances, gathered information, planned out their actions, and thanks to a helpful surprise roll, won the day in short order.

That’s a win.

The Worra wasn’t going to attack the party thanks to the Charm Monster spell, so it flew off back to the city with the confused ogres on top.

Then the party used Speak with the Dead on Calligaster. His shattered jaw made sickening grinding sounds as he answered their 2 questions.

“What were you going to do if you gained control of the cursed ground?”

“Necronaut, I would build a temple to enhance my power and raise an undead army from the hundreds of years of bones below”

“Why were you doing this?”

“I wished to move against several powerful Lords and Warlocks in House Omander, and a personal army of undead hidden in the marshlands would be my secret weapon.”

They stripped his body of magic items, the party warlock has Iessalon’s Revelation of the Enchanted, Bhakashal’s version of Identify. It worked on Calligaster’s wand (a wand of metal and mineral detection), but was unsuccessful on his ring. They found two potions, a potion of clairaudience and a potion of Black Dragon control. He also had a scroll with Forget and Magic Jar.

Having learned from their experience with Pholl the Gaunt, they chopped of Calligaster’s head, burned his body, and took the head back as proof of death.

Badass.

There were no encounters on the way back to the city, and they shared what they had learned with their patron.

This was big news. They knew of Calligaster’s plans, they had information of value to House Omander, House Rostus and to Kamerli directly. They had humbled Mitrax Toma the Bold and slain his ally, dealing him a severe blow (and gaining a new enemy). They had repaired the relationship between House Rostus, the village of Golta and their Spellbinder Jijam the Harrow, and the village is now positively disposed to the party as they revealed to them Calligaster’s deception, giving them another ally. Kamerli could now decide how best to use the information they had gathered to his advantage, and as Kamerli’s star rose in the Bhakashal firmament, so the party would rise with it, as his allies.

Also, the party has fulfilled their bargain with the Black Dragon Haekomarl, so when he shows up at some point to check on them, they can stand tall. And they have a potion in their back pocket if the dragon still wants to betray them.

 

Observations

What makes this all so layered and engaging is that the factions of the setting frame everything that happens. The PCs aren’t just “fighting monsters and bandits”, they are casting their lot with factions in the long game of interfactional rivalry.

It’s exhilarating as they are always faced with the possibility of those more powerful than them taking an interest in their demise. They make enemies and allies as they move through the game world, and these relationships drive the action in new directions.

It’s also important as raw power isn’t really the deciding factor, the party fighter made a lot of great suggestions in this game, his largest contribution in this session wasn’t his sword arm, it was things like cutting off Calligaster’s head and burning his body so he couldn’t be brought back. Old school play rewards smart players, not smart characters, and Bhakashal is old-school to the core.

Encounter reaction rolls were key to this session, in so many ways. Factional affiliation impacted those rolls, who you are aligned with matters. Factional alignments mattered to, as they decide which factions are allied with each other, and thus influence those encounter reaction rolls.

One consequence of this is NEITHER THE PART NOR I KNOW how things will turn out when the party interacts with groups in the game world, and this gives the game an extra layer of excitement and unpredictability.

It was also clear that social interaction was a big part of the tension and risk. When the party was talking to Jijam the Harrow and he revealed that he knew Calligaster you should have seen their faces, they thought that he might have been ALLIED WITH Calligaster, and they may have put themselves at the mercy of an ally of their foe. What if Jijam was only pretending to be uncertain about Calligaster, would he betray them once they left? What if he decided to attack them, they were in the Spellbinders house, the seat of his power, surrounded by 200 or so Yalan villagers, many of them accomplished hunters. The fear was delicious. 

Surprise rolls were also important as a game mechanic, they proved decisive here, and the party will eventually fall foul of them, which could lead to unpleasant results. They are now experienced enough to realize this, and after this sessions easy victory over Calligaster one of them pointed out, “That could be us next time, we got lucky”.

Exactly.

It is, of course, not JUST luck, but luck is always a factor.

They also got to see that I don’t “save” my precious NPCS, they know the game is fair and transparent, that their actions won’t be nerfed by a DM who wants to ensure that ‘the story is dramatic.”

Knocking Calligaster from that Worra to his death was dramatic!

It was also a reminder that information gathering (sages, informants), alliance formation (Jijam the Harrow) and divination magic (Augury) were key elements in their success. Indeed, it is telling that in Bhakashal, the party Seer used NO healing magic in this session, but divination magic was crucial to their success.

I’m a firm believer that game design influences play, if you create a faction-based setting where the party will face foes well beyond their power, alliances and information will become very important, so information gathering divination spells are a key tool in the divine caster’s arsenal. I suspected that this would happen over time, and it has.

It is also instructive to observe that one of my primary roles at the table is to INTERPRET dice rolls, each time I rolled an encounter reaction, I had to decide WHY it was the way it was, the dice just give you a result, you must contextualize it, and Bhakashal's in depth factional setting gives you the tools to make those interpretations in ways that drive fun, unpredictable and engaging play. I was as surprised as the party, and had as much fun as they did discovering how things were going to turn out.

I know most design features are player focused, but this referee focused impact is important too. I ran this game at the end of a full day where I had given a 3 hour lecture right before the game, and we gamed for 3-1/2 hours (from 8pm to 11:30). I could have kept going for hours more. I'm running four current campaigns, and the ease of refereeing in a factionalized sandbox style setting is apparent, since the setting + player actions do the heavy lifting, I can run multiple campaigns easily. 

It took them three sessions of 3-1/2 hours each to unravel this mystery, and it all spun out of me deciding that the bandits they were going to face in their first adventure were working for one of the factions in the setting.

I couldn’t be happier, Bhakashal is working as designed and creating a rich playing experience, and the players had a blast.

Mission accomplished. When Bhakashal comes out soon, you can partake of this glorious feast of gaming goodness.