Filling in some missed reports - Lake Region, quick session 2 summary + session 3.
Okay I think I missed a couple sessions being uploaded to the blog but I've shopped them around the discord circuit, so here's the AAR for sessions 2 and 3. These happened before the last post.
- Nomad M-U 1
- Clovis, Fighter 1
- Goatsworth, Thief 1
- Nissa, M-U 1
- Relimi, Cleric 1 and four 0-level horsemen (nomads with mail, bows, lances, and longswords)
In session 2, the party spent a lot of time bumping around in the wilderness, then accepted pay to go and clear some demon cultists out of barrow-mounds. They reached the mounds, slew two exterior defenders, and we ended the session there.
Session 3 opens at the burial mounds; one is open, the other sealed by a slab. The party lights a fire at the open one to clear the works below the mound, seals it with the slab door, and waits. Twenty minutes later, when it burns out, they descend into the burial chamber, tapping with the ten-foot pole, which fails to reveal a spiked pit. Two PCs fall in - Clovis (fighter) and the Nomad (M-U.) Both are killed. Goatsworth the Thief climbs through the pit, avoiding the spikes, and the party tosses the burial chamber. Finding nothing but stone arrowheads, they press on through a crack into an apparent dead end in a cave filled with stalagmites. They search the stalagmites, find some crawlspaces, and send the thief through to investigate one; he finds a room with three skeletons and an unnaturally cold black obelisk. Holy water and a Magic Missile through the crawlspace dispatches the skeletons without incident. They find boat-like rock piles in here, too, and buried among them some 150 GP worth of walrus ivory - the party's first Actual Treasure! They carry it out to the pack goat in the stalagmite cave.
The thief continues his reconnaissance, finding an underground lake with firelight on the other side. He slinks around the shore until he can get an unobstructed view of the light, seeing in silhouette on the far side a man with a beast's head - a gnoll! It fires two arrows at him, he eats one in the leg and books it. A tense moment passes with the players huddled in the obelisk room. They hear their goat die and decide to flee deeper into the burial chambers, then emerge from the other barrow and circle around to their original entrance. There's an exchange of fire between the horsemen and some bandits, which the horsemen win, and the party retreats for the night to let the surviving magic-user copy Sleep from the other one's book. In the morning, the party descends afresh, slinking around, finding some loot, and managing to attack the gnoll and his two surviving retainers from behind, killing them all.
Final treasure was about a thousand GP worth of assorted Stuff (mostly ivory) and 18 +1 arrows from the gnoll, which was then split with the horsemen; they came out with a bunch of arrows (which they elected to keep, rather than sell) and 100 GP each. Not bad, not great; there's a Decanter of Endless Water behind that slab, which will be quite valuable whether sold or kept. Very good tactical play from them - excellent flanking, scouting, and ambushing. Damn shame about the pit trap.
A few sessions down the line, I think this adventure overall probably ran a little light on treasure. Going to try beefing up loot take going forward. Otherwise, I really think that this campaign so far has had some Rock Solid Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
RUNNING MILLIWHACKS:333