We're back, after a lengthy hiatus from writing as I concluded my undergraduate studies I have returned to begin documenting my games in the written word once more. The Dschungelberg Campaign came to a close, and now it is time to explore new avenues. We will be dialing back from the encroachments of the Supplements that arrived at us just defaulting to AD&D and returning to OD&D in the form of Dragons Beyond, though this time we are not permitting the arrival of the d20 and the Alternate Combat System. We will be using Chainmail as rigorously as possible (Though many say this is not possible!) and exploring the "Lowest Fantasy" setting ever put to our table. Effectively just medieval, with magic and fantastic elements intended to be as infrequent, uncommon, and deeply evil as one might see in the Howard Conan stories or Arthurian myth. The players will all be playing fighters for the foreseeable future, though magic will be accessible to some of them on account of the ELDRITCH and VILE nature of their assigned factions. While the factions (and campaign map) were primarily generated using the AD&D DMG, I have "massaged" the results to integrate well with the Shucked Oyster by Black Lodge Games as well as a Lamentations of the Flame Princess module that I will be revealing at a later date (We love surprises!).
I've written this introductory paragraph in advance, so I will now step away from my computer and get ready to run the session. Things should be interesting, I have sent out the last relevant faction sheet and I look forward to seeing how things will all shake out.
THE RESULTS ARE IN
This was super cool. I had three players, all of whom have already received their faction/patron-level dossier for this campaign. We did a brief rundown of the key details about the part of the map their characters would be calling "Home Base"
1. The city-state of Aberlin was their home, with 2000 urban residents and some 3-4000 rural peasants in the surrounding area
2. The king, Elgar, is seeking to establish permanent trade with the city of Galurgan on the uncivilized side of the river. This has been slow going, as the road crews have to deal with constant raids by local clan chiefs and bandits who do not want their territory to be civilized.
This was all the detail that they really needed, and after rolling up characters, purchasing equipment, and hiring men-at-arms, "The Herdsman" were ready to take on some muscle work for the crown. There was talk that a group of bandits had taken to raiding the road crews building a road from the north bank of the river to the city of Galurgan, and the merchant's guild was offering a 200gp reward to anyone who could deal with this for them. They rowed across the river in search of trouble!
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| First session in "Fantasy Ontario" and the adventure is about a stalled-out road crew. Some jokes write themselves. |
THE CREW
Jonathan the Once-Herder: A hapless farm-boy roped into seeking adventure by his friend Jean-Marc. He rolled three 1's on his starting gold (for 30 total) and could barely afford weapons, let alone armour. His player is playing King Elgar of Aberlin (Riddled with Senility) at the Patron Level.
Dab the Charmer: An ambitious and handsome fellow, character details are sparse for now but he did hire 10 Light Foot to accompany him on the mission. His player is playing Prince Edric of Aberlin (Valliant knight of virtue and the only legitimate son of King Elgar) at the Patron Level.
Francois Jean-Marc Marseilles: A Yurjan man who spent his adolescence working the farms and militias of the Yurdish kingdoms. He hired 5 Light Foot to come along with him, and this player is playing Garfunkle the Wise (A Shucked Oyster character, enthusiastic occultist and probably the smartest man in town) at the Patron Level.
THE JOB
The Herdsman arrived on the north bank of the river Yurd at around noon, and after asking for some details from the road crews, learned that the bandit attacks had been occurring generally at the "End of the Line", the furthest developed piece of road. The players decided that rather than tromp about the woods looking for bandits, they would set up an ambush and watches at the end of the road, near the road workers, and wait to be attacked. Two more days went by with no sign of the villains, and Dab had run out of rations to feed his men-at-arms (There was no money left after equipment to get a full week of rations for his 10 men). A fortunate reaction roll with the road workers saw the crew on the receiving end of some shared stew and beer, and on the third day north of the river some bandits appeared. Five men in chainmail carrying axes stood at the end of the road.
"If you do not surrender now, Pierre here will run and call for reinforcements!" Cried one of the bandits. In a straight fight this would have been a risky situation, they were much better equipped than the spears and lack of shields among the men-at-arms of the herdsman, and the three PCs, while more dangerous, had as few as 2 hitpoints before death loomed over them. Fortunately for the PCs, they had the advantageous position and won initiative, allowing them to close the distance and hit the bandits from both sides in a brutal flanking manouevre. This was the first combat of the evening and despite the players still being very shaky on the rules of Chainmail it went very quickly, with only one man-at-arms lost on the side of the players.
They spent some time trying to track back to where these bandits had come from, and after a few hours they found themselves on the receiving end of an ambush, just 30 yards from where the bandits make camp. 5 more heavy footmen along with a leader in plate with a mean-looking morningstar appeared in front of the party, and 5 archers appeared in behind, ready to pepper the unprotected rears of Francois' men. The bandit leader demanded their surrender, but this was not to be, and combat once more broke out.
We got a tie on initiative, so everything happened simultaneously. Dab took his men in a charge directly against the heavy foot and the bandit leader. Francois directed his men to veer 45 degrees into the trees, out of the firing zone of the archers, and about-faced himself, hoping his plate armour would save him from the archers. Jonathan also about-faced to stand alongside Francois. The archers fired, but didn't land any hits. Then the melee with Dab and the bandit leader (And their attendant men) was resolved. It was messy, Dab had the advantage of first strike against the bandit leader, as his spear was more than 2 weapon classes higher than the bandit leader's axe. Despite this, he missed (His spear was not well-suited against plate). The bandit leader failed to land a blow, and in the second round of combat also failed to take advantage of first strike now that the distance had been closed. In the second round of combat, Dab slew the bandit leader with a single spear-thrust. As this duel was playing out, their soldiers were exchanging blows. All said and done, Dab lost all but 4 of his 9 remaining soldiers, but the morale of the heavy foot broke with the death of the leader and Dab's men were able to take pursuit, killing all but one of the remaining bandits (Who promptly surrendered and was taken prisoner).
Over on the other side of the combat, Francois, Jonathan and Francois' men-at-arms made short work of the archers, who were too close to risk changing face and running, so they drew daggers and closed in to melee. Francois lost a soldier to these long knives, but none of the archers lived. The players interrogated the prisoner to get the rest of the way to the camp, which they found had no more enemies in it, and commenced to looting from the stores of loot taken by the bandits. A total of 3000gp worth of jewelery, baubles, gems and coinage was taken. This would have been enough to level all three of the fighters (Dragons Beyond, the OD&D clone I am using, has fighters hitting level 1 at 1000 xp) HOWEVER both Jonathan and Dab have negative modifiers to their XP gain. Poor Jonathan has 6 strength, resulting in a -25% modifier to all incoming experience.
Carousing at the Shucked Oyster was the only means of getting that last bit of XP needed to push Jonathan and Dab over to level 2. The party made their rolls, and we got our first results on the carousing table. Both Dab and Francois rolled "Said something nice about Ulric the Despoiler, killing the vibe" and had to roll a random patron of the oyster they had made an enemy of, both getting Ulric the Despoiler.
"The two of you go on and on about how pleasant Ulric the Despoiler is, and the people get so irritated with you that they leave, locate Ulric, and start harassing him, throwing stones at him, etc. The poor man begins to resent you for drawing this unwanted attention to him"
OVERVIEW
This was great. The fatigue and morale rules of Chainmail are taking some getting used to. One player remarked that it was proving tricky to get his head around because it is simultaneously different from his expectations as a D&D player and different from his expectations as a wargamer who learned on modern rulesets like Black Powder, Bolt Action and Warhammer. The structure and mindset of 70s American wargamers was truly a unique and precious thing, may it never pass from the earth. Looking forward with great eagerness to the next session (October 2nd) when hopefully more of the regular group will be in attendance. The first round of patron orders for this campaign are due on September 28th, one week before the first Braunstein (October 5th). I spent a good deal of (enjoyable) time laying the groundwork for this game, and I look forward to seeing how this first month of player activity jostles, disrupts and modulates this initial static "snapshot" of the gameworld.
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