ACKS Session 18: Marn Comes Back Into Style!

Session played on 05/12/21 taking 11 days. Party can make downtime requests and adventure on and after 05/23/21.

 Foreword

tfw you've read "Successful Adventures"

There is a section in the 1e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook called "Successful Adventures" that you are not an #elite player unless you have read and internalized it. Modern players would probably title the section "Successful Sessions" since it's really about what it takes to make a single session work out best for all the players. It's not concerned with overarching campaign concerns much at all. My players have internalized this bit:

"Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advise usually means the difference between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective, and wandering monsters are something which stand between them and it."

The party traveled a very long way this session. With three sites along the way which may have been profitable and/or dangerous. They kept on walking! Could they have left an easy score behind? Perhaps. But their MISSION this session was to "get to the city of Cyfaraun and delve its sewers to save Marn (PC Mage Level 2).

And that's just what they did.

Session Report

The party geared up in the small town of Siadanos. Much of this was handled before session during downtime so the pre-session planning was short, about 10 minutes. The plan was to go north along the Auran roads, pass through Turos Quell (a small keep) then on to Cyfaraun (the "Capital of the Borderlands"). The part had a weird map of Cyfaraun that was tattooed on Marn's severed hand that was magically delivered to them about a month back. It purported to lead to where he was trapped or captured or something.

A couple hours into the trek the party spotted an old lighting felled tree just off the road near the Mirmen river. There was some debate if it should be investigated but the party chose to walk on by.

The next day the party noticed a big circular hole in the ground on the eastern side of the road near a small forest running along the road. More discussion by party members before, yet again, they chose to walk on by.

Seeing a theme?

The third day of travel saw the party catching glimpse of a cave along the river. From about 40 yards out they noticed the opening and pondered if a monster (plus cash and prized) could be lurking in it. They chose to walk on by! Except...

As they were passing by a smallish brown and blue dragon flew from the cave and moved towards the party. Daria (PC Bladedancer Level 4) dropped 200 gold pieces to hopefully tempt the beast and the party chose to continue northward. They shuffled their marching order a bit to put the stronger martial PCs to the back of the group in case the lizard attacked them from behind. 

At this point some of the players were becoming anxious and possibly bored with all of the avoidance of seemingly interesting adventuring opportunities. Temur (PC Barbarian Level 1) was a brand new PC for this session and a player who only appears to game infrequently. He and I have discussed, with others included, how infrequent players can serve as a bit of a wild card to throw the campaign a curveball when its becoming too predictable. This same player already tossed many curveballs into my campaign with his now deceased thief Jack Filcher; who accidentally sent a massive dragon to attack town and helped burn down a brigand camp (but get nearly all attending PCs killed [including himself]) in the meantime. 

So Temur wanted to fight this lizard. Big time. His player was less concerned with the long term consequences or the death of a few legacy PCs. #omeletmakermindset 

Temur wasn't the only want chomping the bit for battle. Gaius (PC Fighter Level 3) was also ready to spur his light warhorse towards this young dragon.

Cooler heads prevailed and the Caller was mostly playing cautious so the party kept trying to move away from the possible threat. The dragon, for its part, merely barked and circled around the pile of gold Daria dropped, seeming to state "yes I will take this, it's mine". 

As the party got further away from the lizard, two more young dragons flew from the cave and began to wrestle and fight over the pile of gold. The caller said "phew", as did the other cautious players. I'm uncertain Temur and Gaius were relieved or still wished they'd have rode the dragons down.

Turos Quell. Opa!!

A few hours later the party met an acolyte (NPC Cleric Level 2) who was traveling south on pilgrimage to Siadanos. The party advised him to not go north for fear of the dragons. He stayed in the party's camp that night and set off the next morning southward. The party arrived in Turos Quell early the next day.

Perhaps the players will return to those three points of interest they passed on by. Perhaps NPC parties or Domain rulers will address them? Or perhaps the threats found in them are large enough to change the dynamic of this section of the regional map. Only time and Real D&D play will tell. 

On Turos Quell the party stayed a day to rumormong and rest. They learned that the nearby Viamir Swamp was nigh impossible to traverse on foot, but the Legate had skiff boats to patrol it. Such patrols were rare now, what with the Fort short staffed. Peasants were certain an evil mage was gathering lizardmen together in the swamp to build him a new tower and he was certain to be a major local problem soon. The party filed this information but they GOAL was to keep going north along the road to get to Cyfaraun.

It took them a few days to travel north from Turos Quell to Cyfaraun just as night fell. They found a decent in in the Plaza District and some rumormonged over drinks. Laru (PC Thief Level 1) chose to hit the street and rumormong. He's originally from Cyfaraun with some Guild connections and he hoped to be able to find a Guild contact. He succeeded; coming across a Thief whose disguise was as an old ragged beggar.

Cyfaraun: Plaza District

He gave Laru directions to the Emporium, where the party wished to go the next day, directions to the Sand and Bones Guild hideout/front "The Silk Pony Inn". It's in the Festival District near the Arena. Yes this setting is Fantasy Rome so Arenas and Gladiatorial Games are common and frequent. Laru's contact whispered to him close "come back to the Guild sometime I'm sure they'd love for you to do some more work, kid".

The next day the party meandered through the big city of Cyfaraun. There are various approaches one can employ when doing city adventures or city crawling in D&D. One school of thought is that you need no details at all, just a general feel, and you riff off of that as players need shops or points of interest. Another approach, as seen in The City State of the Invincible Overlord, is to detail EVERY street and shop and players crawl across this like a dungeon. (I'd link you to a PDF you could by of this product but Judges Guild was 'cancelled' in 2020 because it's owner did a little boompoasting on the f4cebook and angered all the weirdos in the osr.) 

ACKS' adventure The Capital of the Borderlands goes with something in between. Buildings are rolled up randomly as players need them, building a few blocks on the fly if you need to zoom in. Such as if players ask "what kind of stuff is around this intersection". Major locations like the Arena or the Emporium are already placed and keyed up. But if the party simply wants to get from point A to point B the DM is advised to have them go very slowly to not get lost. Once they've made such a trip one time they can move more quickly. etc. Random encounters, which are city themed of course, are made about once an hour of travel. It took the party about four hours to get to the Emporium. The only random encounter was with some bards and their "manager" on their way to perform at the Emporium. PCs decided this didn't interest them.

They followed their weird tattoo map, looking for street names on the map until they got to an intersection with a sewer grate. Whilst investigating this a rolled a random encounter of a draft horse slipping its wagon and barreling angrily down the street, its owner chasing it saying "stop muh horse!" Temur tried to grab the reins but got knocked over, busting his lip open on the sidewalk. The rest of the party let the beast run by. Laru had Donny Keebler (PC Elven Spellsword Level 1) and Temur help him wrench the trader's wagon over top of the sewer grate so Laru could go down and take a long with less chance of being noticed by locals. 

Down he delved. It looked like a sewer and it stank. The party parked their own mule cart over the entrance and proceeded to all go down together and delve the place. They had to march single file if they wanted to stay on the walkway on the edge of the sewer tunnel and not get in the disgusting sludge running down the middle. The stench of the shadowy place gave many of them headaches (-1 to attack and damage). 

Cyfaraun

They followed their map southeast until some fat larval grub things with swinging black arms crawled towards them along the ceiling of the sewer tunnel. Nasty! The two weird creatures got many attacks with all their tendrils and paralyzed a few of the PCs. But the attacks did no damage and the monsters' only chance to win the battle was to paralyze everyone. Didn't happen and the creatures were dispatched.

Daria used Cure Light Wounds on Donny Keebler to cure his paralysis since Donny has the "Summon Beserkers" spell and she thought they might need it. Temur was still paralyzed and they just carried him down the sewer tunnel.

Eventually the party came to a cesspit that looked like it used to be an elven gazebo or something. It was becoming clear this "sewer" used to actually be an elven city that the current city was built on top of. Evidence of elven was still topside, since the city was conquered from the southron elves by the Aurans just a few hundred years back. Donny shed a single tear "what have they done to our city!" He noticed the cesspit had been cracked and there were stairs leading down deeper. The hand tattoo map said "go down and to the right" to get Marn back. So down they went. 

going down!

Sewer sludge was pouring down the stairs so the party hugged the walls, eventually up ahead they heard the buzzing and crawling of thousands of insects in an alcove just off the steps. Should the swarm turn hostile it could be bad for our heroes. So Mandonio (PC Fighter Level 3) tossed a Military Oil, unlit, at the swarm. Then tossed a torch at it. He had a feeling the stench of methane in the sewer could be extra flammable and he was right. The oil, combined with the stench, caused an explosion which eradicated the swarm of insects but did blow back up the stairs a the party. Having advised the party to get further away, only Mandonio was singed by the flames. But it hurt pretty bad, despite his Save VS Blast succeeding.

There was no treasure found in the insect alcove so the party kept descending the stairs. They came to a natural cavern with hallways going southwest and southeast, the sludge traveling both paths. There was a huge circular stone crypt door on the western wall. Yet the room itself was full of many of the insect swarms they just blew up and some big weird lobster things that were feasting lazily on the insects. Time for molotov cocktail round two!

Mandonio tossed three unlit oils all around the room before distancing himself from the room. There was no feasible way to throw a torch into the room without being just at the threshold and the party was loathe to get blown own from such a close proximity. So Donny Keebler cast "Summon Beserkers", bringing four bloodthirsty jutlanders before him. He gave two of them a torch and told them they would surely ride into Valhalla, shiny and chrome, if they ran into the oil slicked room and set if off. "Witness me!" they all said before running down the sludge soaked stairs.

The explosion shock the dungeon with dust and pebbles tumbling down the walls from the party's safe position of the stairs. Bugs and Beserkers were no more. The party set to opening the crypt door, which was very heavy indeed. It took them a few rounds to muscle up and get it to roll out of the way. 

It revealed a 20 foot long hallway leading into a crypt room. Advancing into the room was stopped short as a weak floor gave out from under the front rank and Gaius feel down ten feet into a natural hallway. That's when the animated skeletons choose to advance from the room and onto the party, attacking. 

The fight was pretty easy and all the skeletons were destroyed in a few rounds. Gaius spent the fight complaining about the cheap trap and calling the DM a cheater much to my despair. 

The walls of the room had many burial alcoves since the Chaotic chthonic cults all bury their dead rather than burn them, as normal civilized Lawful folk do in the ACKS assumed setting. Eventually they found Marn laying in one of the crypts in a weird alcove like a modern morgue, with steel table that rolled out and a toe tag on him that said "congratulations you did it!"

It's unclear why Marn's supernatural (demonic) patron, The Man from Another Place, put the mage there. Marn elaborated very little that The Man didn't want to help him when he asked his patron to get him out of his jam whilst imprisoned by the green dragon Ferigno. 

Marn was fire walking with this guy...

They re-attached his hand which magically (divinely?) clamped back on and escaped the dungeon and sewer. No random encounters on the way out.

Afterword

There was very little treasure and experience gained in this session. Yet the party accomplished their goal. I'm sure emotions were mixed among the players on whether they'd have been better off to engage with one of the possible Lairs along the road north or delved deeper into the sewer dungeon. I have no strong opinion either way, except I wish I could have taken a couple of PCs down before the night ended. 

One must agree, however, that the Party had a lazer focus on rescuing Marn and they accomplished the goal. XP or not, Elite Level Play was achieved!

Surviving PCs Present

Daria (0% XP bonus) Level 4 BladeDancer: 115 XP gained. Total: 9,309

Captain Donny Keebler (5% bonus) Level 1 Elven Spellsword: 121 xp gained. Total: 1,583

Gaius (10% XP bonus) Level 3 Fighter. 127 XP gained. Total: 6,375

Laru Scribewll (5% bonus) Level 1 Thief: 331 XP gained. Total: 1,530 [LEVEL UP TO 2]

Mandonio (10% bonus) Level 2 Fighter: 127 XP gained. Total: 4,639

Temur (10% bonus) Level 1 Barbarian (Skysos): 347 XP gained. Total: 347

Surviving Henchmen

Gwenael (Level 0 hench to Daria): 57 XP gained. Total: 628

Bard the Bowman (Mercenary Bowman to Daria): 409 XP gained. Becomes a Veteran Bowman

Arty the Artillerist (Mercenary Artillerist to Daria): 409 xp gained. Becomes a Veteran Artillerist

Deceased:

Dama (L1 Venturer) played by RR.  Current total xp: 75. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Darius LeVay (L1 Assassin) played by JB. Current Total XP:451. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Donald the Guardsman (L1 Fighter) played by MP. Current Total XP:570. DECEASED. Intra-party justice in Session 3.

Felix (L1 Thief) played by Nicholas. Current Total XP:431. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Hektor (L1 Paladin) played by Moai. DECEASED. Cause of Death: goblin warg rider throat removal surgery in Session 2

Leonidas the Inquisitor (L1 Cleric) played by RR.Current Total XP:498  DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Mard the Mage (L1 Mage) played by Nicholas. DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Yolo Baggins "My friends call me Swaggins" (L1 Gnomish Trickster) played by J. DECEASED. Paralyzed and eaten by ghouls in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Jack Filcher (L1 Thief) played by C. DECEASED. Shot full of arrows by Inthorn's brigands in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Swoleous Maximus (L1 Paladin). DECEASED. Captured then drawn and quartered by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Damianus (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Captured and beheaded by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Bucky (L1 Barbarian). DECEASED. Became a illegal pit fighter during his downtime. Had two bouts to the death, winning the first and losing the second. Was killed by Young Jack Sparrow who sashayed into the ring, drank rum, and mogged on Bucky before putting a dagger into his ribs, killing him. This happened during downtime between Session 17 and 18.

Alexa this is so sad play "big pimpin'" by Jay-Z