Building Bhakashal – Session Report

My dad’s group is on a roll, we have met for four sessions of 3-4 hours each, session reports here:

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

Session 2 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/08/

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

Session 4 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report_21.html

TLDR – They discovered a plot driven by a Bhakashal Lord and Warlock from House Omander (Mitrax Toma the Bold and the Necromancer Calligaster Naukan) to get access to a cursed glade in the marshlands. The party killed Calligaster in the last session, decapitating him and burning his body, returning the head to their patron, Kamerli the Ivory.

*****

So far the group has been successful in every task they have performed, they have uncovered the plot session by session, and they have done so with clever play and judicious use of magic. Before the session I did some homework and determined that they were eligible for leveling. The Bhakashal system is goal based, not XP, monster or loot based, you compare the relative difficulty of the encounters versus the success/failure of the party, calibrated by class (like AD&D, different classes level at different rates).

So, we spent the first half hour leveling everyone up. In Bhakashal, as in AD&D, some levels bring a little, some a lot, and different classes get differing advantages as they level. As it happened, the party warlock (magic-user) was leveling from 5^th to 6^th, which meant their saving throws and “to hit” rolls improved, as they did for the party Seer (cleric) and Mercenary (fighter). Hit points were rolled, new spells were given out, even a new weapon proficiency slot.

And the party mercenary hit the sweet 7^th level spot, and graduated to 3/2 attacks per round.

Righteous.

Players LOVE levelling up. I know there are advocates for games that don’t involve levels, but its hard to argue against the joy players get from the process. Notably the party Seer (priest) now has access to the whole list of 4^th level spells. He was pretty excited about that.

Once the bookkeeping was out of the way, they were on to adventure!

They went to the tower of their patron, Kamerli the Ivory, Kamerli is a tall, thin Emberi (human), dressed in dark red leathers, his hair is a lustrous black and his all-white eyes lack pupils. Kamerli received the PCs and revealed the head of Calligaster Naukan, kept on a pedestal near his fountain. Kamerli had the Seers of Vekka (each House has a temple associated with it) using Speak with Dead on Calligaster to divine his secrets.

On a side note, Speak with Dead has been getting quite the workout in our game, because the target has to answer truthfully, the party has learned to use the spell to interrogate recently slain foes.

Smart.

Calligaster’s spirit has given up many secrets, and Kamerli presented the party with a few options on what to do next. Kamerli doesn’t assign tasks, he collaborates with the party as they have proven quite successful. The options presented were as follows:

Go to the underwater city, Calligaster had line on supply of squid ink for scribing spells, squid ink is one of the most important components in making spells, so it is highly valuable. Securing a supply is a big thing. Calligaster’s potential suppliers had stopped communicating recently, so the party could go investigate that. If they choose this option they might run into the dragon Haekomarl who they encountered earlier. Haekomarl was heading to the coast to hunt and was going to come back to the city to see if the PCs honored their bargain (I rolled a 1 in 20 chance of this each day), so if the party headed to the coast on this task I was going to change the roll to 1 in 6.

Retrieve the body of Fon Jallor, an agent of one of Calligaster’s rivals, Haegamal the Heliotrope, Jallor was slain on a House hunt recently, his body dragged off by a monster. Haegamal wants the body back so no one will retrieve it and use necromantic magic on it to learn his secrets. The party could retrieve the body and offer it Haegamal as a favor in exchange for an alliance with Kamerli against Mitrax.

Calligaster had discovered the location of a powerful magical tome, the Book of Makaramaj, located on a nearby island off the coast. The party could retrieve that.

Break into Calligaster’s tower. As a House Warlock (terminology clarification, Noble Houses have nobility, either spell casters or warriors, the generic term for a House warrior Noble is a Lord, the generic term for a House spell caster Noble is Warlock. Calligaster is a Noble House Warlock, but his class is Necromancer), Calligaster has a group of apprentices below him. They work (and some live) in his tower. The party has slain Calligaster and one of his apprentices (Pholl the Gaunt). So, the head of the snake has been removed. Before they have a chance to regroup, Kamerli suggested the party enter Calligaster’s tower and retrieve a powerful magic item, a Rod of Iospha. Kamerli wants to give the item to the Temple of Iospha to gain favor with them, in order to cement an alliance with House Xandal (the temple of Iospha is affiliated with House Xandal).

Make deal with Mitrax Toma The Bold. This was an interesting suggestion, Mitrax was kidnapped and dishonored, and his primary ally in his own House, Calligaster, was now dead. There are rivals within House Omander that are now planning to move against Mitrax at his time of weakness, so he might be ripe for an alliance. This might lead him to ask for fight in the arena to restore his honor. On a side note, I rolled every game day a 1 in 30 chance that Mitrax might demand an arena fight to restore his honor anyway.

The factions in Bhakashal create an almost endless variety of adventuring hooks based off of PC actions, when combined with divination magic and old-fashioned investigation, the PCs were presented with more options than they could even engage with. Some DM’s struggle with coming up with “adventure hooks.”

Bhakashal refs are swimming in them.

They decided on the raid, break into Calligaster’s tower.

To do this the first task was surveillance.

They travelled to the Ward of House Omander and checked out Calligaster’s tower during the early evening when the streets were active. It was a corner building near the canal, close to a large commercial building (the two were connected at the top by a foliage canopy, many buildings in Bhakashal are so connected). The party warlock has a familiar, a blood hawk, it flew around the building and discovered that there was a giant spider on the rooftop (many rooftops are guarded by monsters/animals in Bhakashal).

They retreated to a tavern nearby and the party warlock had his familiar perch near the tower and used his familiar’s eyes to watch the comings and goings. Of note was a figure that approached later in the evening. He was dressed in reflective silver robes (the moonlight glinting on them) and was flanked by two large Ettercap bodyguards. He approached the tower, and the doors opened for him (telling the party that the doors were being watched by people inside).

At this point something wonderful happened, the party waited until about 2 in the morning when the tavern closed up. They went to an alleyway between the tower and the nearby commercial building, and the party warlock cast Rope Trick while the party Mercenary (fighter) and the NPC Thaumaturge (thief/magic-user) kept lookout.

The party Seer (priest) and Warlock climbed into the Rope Trick extra-dimensional space, and he cast Divination.

Divination is one of those spells that is rarely used in game, it is a bit specific and the AOE is very defined, so a lot of players ignore it. In this case the spell was a gold mine,

“The spell gives information regarding the relative strength of creatures in the area; whether a rich, moderate or poor treasure is there; and the relative chances for incurring the wrath of evil or good supernatural, super powerful beings if the area is invaded and attacked.”

This was a necromancer’s tower, so the answer to the second question was “rich”, the third question was “the chances are relatively good” (as the Necromancer’s tower held a number of powerful supernatural beings like demons in captivity, if they were released…)

The first question was one of those cases where the referee has to improvise on the spot.

How do you indicate, “…the relative strength of creatures in the area” in a meaningful way that doesn’t give away too much?

It ends up that AD&D has a mechanic that ROUGHLY and APPROXIMATELY does this for you: Hit Dice. Though there are exceptions, the higher the HD of the target, the more powerful they will be in terms of special abilities/spell like powers, attacks, that sort of thing. The equivalent for NPCs is level. So, I quickly made a notation for each floor of the tower, and then wrote down the HD/Level of every living thing within.

The players didn’t know whether or not the creatures indicated were NPCs or animal/monsters, nor did they know WHERE within each floor the creature was located, but they knew what they were up against in a general way, which floors were more populated and had the greater threat.

People really sleep on divination magic.

There was a discussion about whether they should try again another time and hope for fewer threats to be present (e.g., come back when fewer warlocks are in residence), but they were eager for the challenge, so they decided to go in.

I swear that AD&D and Bhakashal were built for breaking and entering, the whole session was fire.

The party warlock cast Levitation multiple times, which allowed all of them to levitate upwards. I rolled to see if anyone in the tower or in the surrounding area saw them. There are Ward patrols, passerby’s, people in nearby buildings, and the city’s “Long glass” network (a series of towers manned by Ward soldiers and equipped with telescopes, they scan the wards for trouble). If they had done this during the day I wouldn’t have bothered rolling, they just would have been spotted, but they were doing this at around 2:30 am, so I distilled these possibilities as follows: 1 in 6 chance of being spotted per turn of being near and outside the building.

They made it to the roof of the nearby commercial building. From that distance Maglane the Malachite (the NPC Thaumaturge allied with the party) cast Charm Monster on the giant spider, which failed its save. They crossed over to the tower roof and saw four runic circles on the floor, a throne with a table beside it in the middle, and stairs leading down. Before landing on the roof, they cast a Find Traps spell and scanned the whole roof.

They found a magical trap on ground around the throne and on the stairs. They then avoided the area around the throne and cast a Dispel Magic spell on the stairs. This negated the magic on the stairs for a round, and they went down quickly.

About a turn had passed since they cast the Divination spell, so there was a chance that the warlocks on the 4^th floor had moved since it was cast. I rolled for that, and they had not moved from their location.

The party then decided to do something I had not seen coming. A few sessions back the party had picked up the spell Guards and Wards on a scroll. Someone had the bright idea to cast it now, on the tower, to cause confusion. As a side note, I roll for all spells and magic items randomly, so this was not planned by me. What they didn’t know was that one of the warlocks in the tower had Guards and Wards in a ring of spell storing, and a protocol to cast it if anyone broke into the tower.

However, the warlock with the ring was not there at this point.

Delicious confusion.

The party cast the spell, and it got freaky. Multiple doors were covered by illusion and hidden (I rolled randomly for that), all doors were Wizard Locked, all stairs were filled with webs and all corridors with fog. The Thaumaturge (who was casting the spell) targeted two areas on the 4^th floor for stinking cloud spells.

The fog and webs were not visible to the four warlocks on the 4^th floor, they were in a room and didn’t see the effects. However, the guards on all the other floors noticed things, mist, webs and certain doors seemingly disappearing. A captured crimson ape in a cell began to howl when the door to their cell apparently disappeared. Several people were locked in their room without knowing it.

Now, the guards know that when these things happen this means that there are intruders in the tower. However, they also knew that the warlock that had the ring with the spell, one Zimmerlin Suel, was not in residence. The guards on the 2^nd and 3^rd level didn’t know if he had perhaps arrived on the first floor and they didn’t see it, but the guards on the 1^st floor knew he wasn’t there, so something was up. The warlocks on the 4^th floor knew that Suel was not there, but perhaps he had just arrived and triggered the spell.

Guards started shouting, and after trying the door and seeing it was under the impact of a Wizard Lock spell, one of the three warlocks in the room on the 4^th floor cast Knock on the door to open it. Unfortunately for them, and unbeknownst to the PCs, they had placed one of the Stinking Clouds in front of their door.

While this was happening, the party moved to the stairwell they had just come down, now filled with webs, and the Thaumaturge cast a Burning Hands spell to set fire to the webs, she then did the same to the stairs going down so they could leave.

Unbeknownst to the PCs, one of the warlocks trapped in the room behind the Stinking Cloud had that spell as well, and in Bhakashal if you have the spell in question, you can cast it on the manifestation of that spell as a counterspell to neutralize it, the mechanics work like Dispel Magic.

The PCs ran down to the 3^rd floor and cast Locate Object to find the Rod of Iospha, locating it in a room on the south side of the floor.

In Bhakashal warlocks are free casters, they can cast a given number of spells, of any level, per day, rather than a fixed number of spells per level per day.  Upstairs, the Warlock attempted to break the Stinking Cloud spell again and failed!

A guard on the 3^rd floor rushed towards them and the party Mercenary intervened, dispatching him with a gladius to the neck, killing him instantly.

The PCs were unceremonious at this point as they were in a rush, and they smashed down the Wizard Locked door to the room with the rod. Inside there was a runic circle around a pedestal with a small chest on it. Rather than risk the room, the party warlock, who had just obtained (and successfully memorized) the spell Telekinesis as his “level up” spell, used it to move the chest from the pedestal to him.

Smart.

The warlock upstairs tried to neutralize Stinking Cloud  again… and failed!

I roll in the open so I can’t “fudge” results like this, I know many DMs who would because they resent it when their NPCs don’t get to succeed, but I have grown to love the chaos and unpredictability that this brings.

The party fled up the stairs to the 4^th floor again, all the while hearing the guards and a warlock from the lower floors trying to smash down the Wizard Locked door between floors.

Chaos!

The party bolted across the floor to the stairs to head out the way they came, unfortunately, the warlock on the 4^th floor, Moon Abithin (he was the warlock in the shiny silver robes that the party spotted entering the tower earlier), finally managed to dispel the Stinking Cloud. He exited the room and soon after the party emerged from the stairwell.

I rolled for surprise, and neither side was surprised.

We then rolled initiative.

The party mercenary was the first out of the stairs, he tied with Abithin, so the moment he released his net from his hands to throw at the warlock, the Slow spell culminated.

I really love Bhakashal’s initiative system because of things like this. The net flew from his hands as he, the Thaumaturge and the giant spider slowed down, covering Abithin, preventing him from spell casting until he got free.

Yisen Khas, a Yalan (snake-folk) phantasmist had emerged from the room when Abithin cast his Slow spell, he now cast Color Spray on the party as they emerged from the stairwell. The spell blinded the Thaumaturge and the party Seer (priest).

The only member of the party who wasn’t impacted by either spell was the party Warlock, who then cast Magic Missile on Abithin, doing decent damage but not slaying him.

We stopped there.

 

Observations

MADNESS.

It’s times like this when all of the fiddly little rules on timing (initiative), distance, saving throws and such come together in a magical way. It looked like chaos on the outside, but all of it was governed by clear rules that determined what happened when, and sequence is KEY to resolution. What spells take effect first, the area of effect for those spells, the distances involved between combatants, the open rolling, all of these features mean that combat is chaotic, messy, unpredictable and fun.

Every time someone argues for simplifying the rules I remember crazy sessions like this, sure, you can just arbitrarily rule what you want, but what emerges from the cocktail stew of rules at the table is far, far more fun and rewarding. I also LOVE that I randomize everything, so the party having Guards and Wards and the NPCs using that spell when the tower is breached was completely unpredictable and produced sweet confusion.

The opponents in the lower floors of the tower are confused about what is happening and at least temporarily restricted from coming up. What the party does not know is that there is a third warlock from that room that turned invisible and is moving around the room to cast a spell at them. They know there is a third warlock, but not that they are invisible.

Big fun.