ACKS Session 29: Return of the Blister [How to Use Dungeon Modules in Real D&D]

This session was played on 08/18/21 wherein the PCs adventured for 5 days. Needing one day of rest afterwards as per ACKS rules the PCs can make downtime requests and play in sessions starting 08/25/21.

Session Report

The party set out from Turos Spen with most of Team A in tow. Daria (PC Bladedancer Level 5) was still recovering from her Mortal Wound back on Session 27 so would not be participating. Their intention was to return to the Blister of Doom; the low level dungeon in ACKS introductory module The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. 

Why would the higher level PCs of Team A return to what appeared to be a level 1 dungeon, you may ask? The discussion on the voice channel was how much of a failure Session 28 was: the party of Team C misfits and level 1 lads never even ARRIVED at the dungeon in question. The players wanted another shot at returning but this time with a better chance of arrival and a higher chance of success. As you'll see in the session report they did indeed have a better go of it. 

Another reason the players wanted to return is they felt they were seeing evidence of the evil inside the dungeon growing. This is a dungeon that was introduced in session 1 with the Legate of Turos Tem offering a solid 2,000 GP reward to "remove the threat". Real DND, brosr dnd, uses real time. With session 1 having taken place on November 8th of 2020 that means this dungeon has been in the world for 9 months. That's 9 months that, whatever festering evil might be lurking, could be growing in strength.

Now, I'm not confirming this to be true but some of the players seemed to believe it to be so. BriarWhisper (PC Elven Ranger Level 3) was particularly convinced that the mass throngs of beastmen in the Viaspen Forest was due to the "Blister of Doom" casting an evil aura over the forest. 

Who knows! But the point being that real dnd allows for this sort of emergent storytelling through random encounter tables and Patron play. Stay tuned for an upcoming session report and perhaps a special report of Patron play (mass combat?) to see how perhaps the PCs indeed saw the signs and predicted a growing beastmen and monster throng threat. 

But for session 29, the PCs left Turos Spen and were able to arrive at the dungeon with no difficult random encounters. They were travelling with Crassus's (PC Venturer Level 2) 50 or so mercenaries so one can assume most random encounters with smaller numbers of creatures chose not to approach the PCs and their private platoon.

Blackmoon (PC Assassin Level 1) and his Player were Calling tonight.

They trekked into the dungeon and made their way through level one and towards the evil obelisk pyramid thing they raided back on Session 22. They passed by the corpse of the leprosy dragon that Mandonio (Deceased PC Fighter Level 3 and Petty Hero of Turos Tem Legature) helped kill alongside Gaius (PC Fighter Level 4). Inside the pyramid were spiral stairs going down to level two of the dungeon. 

At level two the party explored a man made cave system of hallways that were intersected here and there with natural caves and caverns. They ended up taking on quite a few beastmen and monsters and I'm going to give the hits.

The first combat was with some hobgoblins that wandered up behind the party while they were listening at a door. Neither side was surprised by the hobs got a fast enough initiative score where they were able to charge at the back rank of the party, including Allbright (henchmen to BriarWhisper, Level 0) whose arms and legs they chopped off with rusty halberds. Gaius took a hit in this combat for like 5 damage I think but the party had no further problems ending the hobs.

Next they traveled deeper into the dungeon and heard some big humanoids wrestling and laughin down the hall. BriarWhisper snuck up and found two ogres wrestling and acting up. They had no clue the elf was there so he took a sniping ambush shot at one of the ogres for big damage that left the ogre reeling but not dead. BriarWhisper then fled away and back to the main party wherein the PCs set to receive a charge from the ogres. This sort of "kiting" stuff happened a few sessions back, as I see it alot in my face-to-face campaign, so I have a House Rule wherein I roll a Reaction Check to see if the monsters in question chase the sniper and run into the party's spears around a corner.

Smarter combatants are unlikely to do so as I give them a bonus to the roll. Dumb brutes like ogres? Very likely! Well, they fell for it this time as well.

As they charged down the hall at the party Blackmoon made a perfect throw hitting one of the ogres with military oil directly in his eyes and killing him. The substance splashed across his friend who also took damage. The final ogre ran into some spears taking big damage but not enough to fell him. He got one attack with his apparently magic sword with a cobra hilt on the PCs but missed. The party then surrounded and killed him before he attacked again.

Two ogres killed with no damage taken. Amazing! 

In the brutes' smelly lair at the dead end of a hallway the party found 1,000 GP in some ratty old sacks.

Turning back east in the dungeon the party explored down a natural hallway finding some weird centipede things at a dead end protecting their nest of trash and corpses. I didn't see any good reason for the PCs to attack these things but they charged in and took the creatures down without any major injury to themselves. There was 50 gp and a silver ring among the corpses the vermin kept in their home.

Later the party listened at a door and BriarWhisper declared there to be a handful of gnolls behind it. Well the party hates gnolls so they busted the door open and went in for the kill. Gaius decided to hold the front line at the door alone with Odrum (PC Explorer Level 1) behind him with halberd for reach attacks. That turned out to be a near fatal mistake for Gaius as four of the gnolls charged across the room with spears, two successfully landing attacks. In ACKS spears do double damage if set against a charge or if charging at least 20' before landing an attack. So Gaius too 2d8x2 damage. 28 damage I believe. Gaius fell to the floor convulsing and possibly dead, blood spilling from spear strikes.

The rest of the party was able to fell the gnolls and check Gaius's body. Xanthus (PC Cleric L2) was prepared to call on the power of Istreus to heal the former Legionnaire but it turned out to be unnecessary. Gaius practiced #dicemastery and #simplyrolledhigh on his Mortal Wounds check. He stood back up with 1 hit point talking of visions of his fallen comrades; most especially Mandonio who told him in the vision that Gaius needs to "finish the job".

The gnolls had 50 gp among them. The party grabbed it up and decided it was time to escape the dungeon since Gaius could no longer fight until he rested for a day. On the way out of the dungeon some hobgoblins on level 1 got the drop on the party but, instead of attacking, demanded the party pay them 50 gp or the hobs would charge the party's back rank in attack. Odrum and Blackmoon agreed to simply pay the ransom and escape the dungeon to fight another day.

There were no random encounters in the wilderness trek back to Turos Tem and the party stopped there for the night.

Afterword

Among the #BroSR there is a great deal of discussion about whether dungeons serve any purpose or whether adventure modules should be used at all. My stance on the issue is mixed. 

Firstly it's important to note how my players feel about dungeoneering. They've done plenty of overland stuff that many in the brosr swear by. They've mostly enjoyed themselves marching around the wilderness with mercs and henchmen looking for lairs to topple and treasure maps to follow. After this session, however, all the players were in good spirits. One player mentioned "it was nice to just delve something and have a clear threat we could address".  Another player mentioned sarcastically "wait did we actually find some treasure and get XP?!" This is in reference to the fact that the Party's overland travel treks have led to some XP from killing monsters but the Party's success at finding treasure from such treks has been less than stellar. 

He also mentioned that it is much faster to deal with multiple encounters in a dungeon than during overland travel, the session was more funner and less stressful. Things move faster and players are engaged more quickly with new scenarios than with overland travel and random encounters of same. Some players simply prefer dungeon crawls to wilderness crawls. Which is fine. Real D&D can accommodate all legitimate play preferences., 

This is the best argument for the use of dungeons but not necessarily dungeon modules (products). 

As far as dungeon adventure modules are concerned (products) I think most DMs would be better suited to simply make everything up as they go from scratch, dungeons included. Jeffro's claim is that adventure modules themselves encourage bad play to such a degree that a DM will never advance in skill. That the modules encourage DMs to simply chain adventure modules together and call that a campaign.

That most certainly is NOT a proper D&D campaign. Yet it is the sort of D&D campaign most DMs offer and most Players have experienced. So sad. There is a better way!

Perhaps you got a sense of it above in my session report? The players have ignored this Adventure Module for about 2 months of play and haven't attempted my VERY FIRST HOOK much at all for about 10 months of play. In 29 sessions they've only been inspired to tackle the intro hook maybe a half a dozen times.

This is how you use an adventure module. I simply have a MODULAR LOCATION that exists in the world and the players are free to ignore it or focus on it as their whims strike. This is why early TSR DND adventures were called "modules" and not "adventures". These days "adventure" is the marketing word of choice because the product provides the DM with a plot or "story" to force onto his players. Bad form!

Notice how my players have imagined their own story out of this dungeon. To them it's a source of dark power that is casting an aura onto the forest. They are blaming some random encounters with large throngs of beastmen in the forest on the dungeon. So in their campaign canon their PCs have decided to cleanse the problem. The module itself doesn't offer that "story" it merely offers a location with hallways and denizens with their own simple goals the DM can riff on.

Riff I have!

I will reveal here that the PCs are right on some level. I made special random encounter tables to reflect the way in which the Viaspen Forest is different than a standard fantasy forest. This table is influenced by whatever is at play in the "Blister of Doom" dungeon. Including the disgusting akira monsters of last session!

Patron play also has an impact on a dungeon. A Patron might decide to delve a dungeon to farm materials for a magic item, for instance. Or he may have heard of a particular NPC in the dungeon he'd like to form an alliance with or make his henchmen. Perhaps a patron would go to a dungeon and look to recruit all the orcs in the dungeon to act as a unit in his army and go on military campaign with them across the wilderness hex map.

One ACKS module explicitly states how long before the main bad guy(s) of the main dungeon can be ignored before they exit the dungeon and begin a military campaign across the region; and what their goals are. Elite level #brosr DMs would do well to give this particular monster army to a Patron if and when it departs the dungeon looking for bigger and better things.

I can neither confirm or deny any of those things happened since my players might be reading this. But the point is if you have a MODULAR dungeon and use Jeffrogaxian Timekeeping, all these things are up for grabs. If the dnd product you purchased demands certain "story" elements happen then you can't really do the above, Real D&D would interrupt the product's carefully planned story or "scene". 

In conclusion, you should only use D&D Modules that are truly modular. All of the ACKS official modules are such. Additionally, you should only use such modules if you have mastered Real D&D that includes Real Time Timekeeping, Patrons, Downtime, bespoke Random Encounter Tables, and improvisation with yours (and your Players') own ideas.

I hate to say it (truly) but Jeffro is right.

Most DMs are not good enough at their craft to use modules and deliver a Real D&D campaign worth playing. The modules will stunt their creativity and smother the campaign before it has a chance to grow into something the DM and players are passionate about. Before using an adventure module ask yourself if you are truly a dungeon master or are you a dungeon amateur? If the latter, make up 100% of your own material. Your mastery will grow in the attempt. If the former, feel free to use some modular materials to SAVE PREP TIME, not to replace a real campaign.

Peruse my old session reports and follow the #brosr tag on tw1tter on tips for becoming a true dungeon master. You too can #WinAtRPGS !

Surviving PCs Present

Blackmoon (0% XP Bonus) Assassin Level 1. 273 XP gained. Total: 785

BriarWhisper (5% XP Bonus) Elven Ranger Level 3. 287 XP Gained. Total: 7,406

Crassus (10% XP Bonus) Venturer Level 2. 300 XP gained. Total: 1,608

Gaius (10% XP Bonus) Fighter Level 4. 300 XP Gained. Total: 10,454

Garvin the Nutless Wonder (10% XP Bonus) Mage Level 1. 300 XP Gained. Total: 300

Odrum (5% XP bonus) Explorer Level 1. 287 XP gained. Total: 287

Xanthus (10% XP bonus) Cleric Level 2. 300 XP gained. Total: 2,364

Surviving Hench Presnet

Surero (Blackmoon) 137 xp gained. Total: ???

Horse (is an actual horse) (BriarWhisper) 0 xp gained. Total: ???

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.

Broll Wolf-Eater (L1 Barbarian). Current total XP: 1079. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Brother Franklin (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Decapitated by a mad cultist of a Lovecraftian slime thing in Session 19.

Felix the Elder (L1 Bard). Total XP 825. DECEASED. Captured by mad cultists and fed to a Lovecraftian slime monster in Session 19.

Templar Flavius Africanus (L1 Cleric). Total XP 7. Killed by the claws and beak of mad harpies in Session 19.

Xendi (L1 Explorer). Total XP 6. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Yllmeeton (L3 Shaman). Total XP 4,563. Bludgeoned by the corpse of a bowmen by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Longinus (L2 Assassin). Total XP 2,036. Had his face ripped off by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Mandonio (L3 Fighter). Total XP 4,779. Charred to a leprous crisp by diseased Dragon breath in Session 22.

Corydon (L1 Joker). Total XP: 0. Burnt to a crisp by chimera breath so thoroughly his corpse wasn't even fit for the crows. Died with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. that's life and as funny as it seems... some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream... In Session 25.

Donny Keebler (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP 2,238. Had his legs burned completely off by chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Marina (L2 Fighter). Total XP: 2,204. Burnt into ash by a chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Gundro (L2 Gnomish Trickster). Total XP: 2,575. Had his mouth and tongue bitten off by a lizardman ambusher in the dank sewers below Cyfaraun in Session 26.

Polydoros (L1 Fighter). Total XP: 0. Had his legs ripped off and eaten by Akira monsters in the dark canopy of the Viaspen Forest in Session 28.

Alexa this is so sad play "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins from the "Footloose" Official Motion Picture Soundtrack

ACKS Session 28: Team C and the Akira Monsters

This session was played on 08/11/21 wherein the PCs adventured for 4 days. Needing one day of rest afterwards as per ACKS rules the PCs can make downtime requests and play in sessions starting 08/16/21.

Foreword

Repent and believe in the Gospel.

Session Report

This session, due to time compression in the previous session, the Players were unable to play ANY of their main PCs. This thrust Laru (PC Thief Level 2) into the role as party leader; his player also ran as Caller for this session. Every other PC was level 1 and most were completely new as of this session. 

This is the sort of thing that happens with Jeffrogaxian Time Keeping. Players are thrust out of their comfort zone of running one "spotlight" PC and given an opportunity to try different PCs and Classes. It also gives them more shots at rolling ability scores where they might come out with some really superlative numbers. Or not. I'll speak more to this in the Afterword.  

The party started out of Turos Spen again and surprised me by having the goal of returning to the ACKS  introductory dungeon The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. You can check out my review of the dungeon module here. 

Why go back to a Level 1 Dungeon? Well for one, the main PCs were unavailable and every PC except Laru was level 1. Additionally, the Players were convinced the evil inside the dungeon was growing as they hadn't done anything to keep it in check or tamp it down since Session 22 back in mid June.

Real Time Gameplay gives NPC bad guys time to do things when the PCs are off on other missions and goals. It also has a weird bizarro effect of the Players feeling similarly to the PCs. When the PCs haven't addressed a threat for over a month that means the Players haven't either. This campaign approach makes it easier for the Player to get into the PC's mindset about the movement of the world.

Laru set off with Team C (or as some were calling it "Team B Minus") en route to Turos Tem. There was only one major random encounter along the way: some thugs who set up a "toll" for unfortunate travelers along the road. Well I rolled these thugs got surprised so their hiding spot to jump out and ambush the PCs was quite bad. The PCs used their surprise round to attack the thugs. Laru had the party launch arrows first then charge some of the horse riding PCs at the 3 thugs. 

The PCs' rolls weren't great and there were alot of misses including Ashitaka (PC Elven Spellsword Level 1) who was going to get a big charging hit on the thugs with his lance from the back of his red elk. But missed. Groans all around the table.

No PCs were seriously wounded and the thugs were all killed. Kortes (PC Explorer Level 1) used tracking to figure out where the thugs' camp was. He found some tents a quarter mile or so away next to a small pond. PCs found some footlockers in the tents with 2,000 silver pieces total. The PCs stripped the thugs of their Plate Mail Armor (a pretty big score tbh) and outfitted some PCs and henchmen who couldn't find or afford Plate Mail back at town.

Team C passed through Turos Aster and shopped for military oil, horses, and armor with fair to middling success. It was interesting watching the Players return to the sort of scrounging for supplies with this low level party similarly to how their main PCs used to do early in the campaign. 

The second leg to Turos Tem didn't include any random encounters. They quickly scoured the Market for adventuring supplies like military oil, horses etc, again but then set off into the Viaspen Forest towards the Buried Temple dungeon. Or what the Players call "The Blister of Doom". 

It would take a little over a day for the party to reach the Dungeon and it was during the one night of camping where things went very very wrong. The random monster? AKIRA CREATURES!

I rolled a random encounter during the camp and the creatures rolled Hostile and got Surprise on the PCs who were on watch. I was sighing to myself that I was likely to kill multiple PCs before they even had a chance to wake up from their sleeping when I reviewed the PCs who were on watch.

Ashitaka, who was on watch, has a +1 to being surprised so he actually had time to warn SOME of the PCs and wake them up before the monsters converged on the PCs. This one little ability Elves get likely saved at least on PCs life.

The monsters were like bags of flesh with human and beastmen arms, eyes, teeth etc roiling around in the bag of skin and mush. They quickly rolled their way into the midst of the camp and chomped and slapped octopus style tentacles at Dolores (NPC Henchwoman to Laru Fighter L1) and Polydoros (PC Fighter Level 1). Both were knocked below zero hit points and possibly dead.

Ashitaka cast Protection from Evil and was right in assuming the monsters wouldn't be able to approach too closely to him due to them being Evil incarnate or summoned or whatever. All the sleeping PCs woke up and huddled close to Ashitaka to keep from getting attacked without their armor on. They went to stand over Dolores so the monsters couldn't approach while they attempted to bandage up her wounds. 

The monsters instead ate Poloydoros, ripping his legs off and swallowing them whole while the party protected the henchman instead. The party debated if Ashitaka should drop the Protection from Evil shield and then they attack the monsters. The big heavy fighter types were putting their armor back on but it would take a while. Some PCs were certain the monsters could be defeated but, iirc, the Caller wasn't convinced. While they debated their options the monsters roiled around the camp and ate all their horses. Ashitaka's red elf was safe as he assured it was in the bubble of the Protection; clearing having more value to him than Polydoros.

The PCs eventually did kill one of the three monsters.

Once all the horses were eaten the two remaining monsters decided to roll off into the forest. Kortes and others took chase but the monsters succeeded at evading the PCs attempt to follow them into the viney forest at night. 

Once they were safe from the disgusting beasts the PCs attempted to revive Dolores and realized if she wasn't healed up to 1 Hit Point within 24 hours she'd die. Her abdomen had a horrible wound and was bleeding out fast. Laru (the Caller) decided to double time the party back to Turos Tem at night and save his henchwoman. Polydoros's body was collected to be properly burned in a pyre back in Turos Tem as well.

Priestess Genelen (NPC Priestess Level ???) healed Dolores for free since she is Friendly with Laru. But Dolores would need 1 week of bed rest to adventure again. The Hospital at Turos Tem took her in until she could get back on her feet.

At this point we were only 2ish hours into my normally 3.5 hour sessions. I ruled it wasn't really feasible for the PCs to regroup and make another sortie to and into the Dungeon within a time frame for myself and others to get to bed at a reasonable time. A second sortie would likely take at least 2 hours, if not 3. So I informed Players they were free to log out for the night safely "parked" in Turos Tem. Other players who might be interested in shopping in the town or talking to NPCs could do that instead. We'd do that for an hour or so or until we ran out of steam.

My game dedicates too little time to dealing with NPCs during session time so I thought this might be a nice change of pace. IMO, it was indeed.

PCs went to the Travelers Inn to drown their sorrows on a failure to not only delve the Dungeon but to even ARRIVE at said dungeon. While there they met up with Centurion Animal Mother. He was in Turos Tem from Turos Spen for reasons I won't get into here. Let's just say the Patron of Turos Spen decided to sent help to the Patron of Turos Tem, unsolicited. 

I honestly can't imagine me having this same thing happen if both Legates were simply NPCs. I'm seeing Patron bad guys played 1,000 times more deviously that I'd ever play them and Patron good guys played 1,000 times more honorable and action oriented than I would ever NPC them. 

Get Patrons in your campaign NOW. It's worth it.

So anyway Ratface (PC Thief Level 1) decided to pick pocket Centurion Animal Mother. His first attempt went find and he grabbed a couple gold pieces and this fancy knit cap. But then he got greedy and wanted to attempt to steal Animal Mother's prized Magic Axe "Sickle Cell". 

Ratface failed by more than 14 so he was caught. Animal Mother attemped to apprehend the thief until Laru calmed the Centurion down. Animal Mother likes Laru already for something the adventurer did back at his Keep. That didn't stop the Centurion from sucker punching Ratface in his rat face. He was knocked out cold and caught before hitting the floor by Lord Zyklon (PC Elven Spellsword Level 1) who decided to drag the thief outside and beat him more to a pulp. I never figured out why except for maybe Lord Zyklon is just a jerk? idk.

The Ashitaka tried to go rob the soldiers' payroll from the Turos Tem quartermaster. He stood outside the cage leading to the counting room and tried to convince the Quartermaster that the Legate wanted him to store his (Ashitaka's) hawk familiar. The Quartermaster wasn't really buying it. There's basically no elves in town but the Legate sends this guy with a hawk? Ashitaka decided he'd have his hawk fly through the bars and attack the quartermaster (maybe to get the key?). But, upon threatening the quartermaster, Ashitaka lost initiative and didn't surprise him. The elf decided not to press his luck and cast Jump to escape town across the rooftops. I used the wilderness evasion rules to decide if the town's guards mustered quickly enough and were able to run the elf down in combat and apprehend him,

The Patron of Turos Tem was pretty angry about all these hijinks and, during downtime, came to yell at Laru about the behavior of his party members. Real players then discussed what the punishments should be (if any). Real social wrangling was done by real humans about murderhobo behavior, in real time. 

Get Patrons in your campaign NOW.

After Ashitaka's hijink it was getting late so I called the session. 

Afterword

Do players enjoy being "forced" to play backup PCs? I got the feeling many of the players in this session were sort of phoning it in. "Who cares if this dumb backup dies?" mentality. Which is fine. The normal Caller stated outright he needed a break from Calling. He used this session to sort of decompress and play a new PC "with his id" and not worry so much about herding the cats of other PCs and gameplanning. Seems cool that my campaign can be approached multiple ways even by the same player.

Other players, however, do seem less interested in moving around from various PCs. I noticed players going through great pains to utilize downtime to assure they'd have their "main PC" ready for a session. Or skip a session if their "main PC" was unavailable for some reason. 

Mr Wargaming doesn't call this a problem but an opportunity. Some players truly do enjoy having multiple PCs. I had a ball running multiple PCs in Jeffro's 1e Trollopulous campaign last summer. 

Multiple PCs lets you try out different classes you wouldn't normally try and different aspects of pulp gameplay you'd never think to explore. Real DND is a pulp fantasy generator system. You can use your backup PC as an opportunity in this way and a pawn in your various goals.

If such an opportunity doesn't interest a player he is free to take sessions off to wait for their "main PC" to be ready. Or maybe play with less gusto if they are given "the opportunity" to run a backup PC. Players have the choice to approach the game in the ways that interest them.

I advise you the reader to DM with Real Time in such a way as to provide players a campaign world that necessitates and/or allows backup PCs. The players who don't like it will come around or not spoil the fun. And some players who never even considered it will have a great time indeed. As will you.

God bless.

Surviving PCs Present

Ashitaka (10% xp bonus) Elven Spellsword Level 1. 35 XP gained.

Kortes (0% XP bonus) Explorer Level 1. 32 xp gained. Total: 32

Laru (5% xp bonus) Thief Level 2. 34 XP gained. Total: 3,093

Ratface (0% XP bonus) Thief level 1. 41 XP gained. Total: 41

Temuulen (5% XP bonus) Barbarian Level 1. 34 XP gained. Total: 34 

Lord Zyklon (10% XP bonus) Elven Spellword Level 1. 35 XP gained. Total: 35

Surviving Hench Presnet

Dolores (Laru) Fighter Level 1. 16 xp gained

Iresha (Laru) L0 hench. 16 XP gained.

Maro (Laru) L0 hench. 16 XP gained.

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.

Broll Wolf-Eater (L1 Barbarian). Current total XP: 1079. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Brother Franklin (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Decapitated by a mad cultist of a Lovecraftian slime thing in Session 19.

Felix the Elder (L1 Bard). Total XP 825. DECEASED. Captured by mad cultists and fed to a Lovecraftian slime monster in Session 19.

Templar Flavius Africanus (L1 Cleric). Total XP 7. Killed by the claws and beak of mad harpies in Session 19.

Xendi (L1 Explorer). Total XP 6. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Yllmeeton (L3 Shaman). Total XP 4,563. Bludgeoned by the corpse of a bowmen by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Longinus (L2 Assassin). Total XP 2,036. Had his face ripped off by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Mandonio (L3 Fighter). Total XP 4,779. Charred to a leprous crisp by diseased Dragon breath in Session 22.

Corydon (L1 Joker). Total XP: 0. Burnt to a crisp by chimera breath so thoroughly his corpse wasn't even fit for the crows. Died with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. that's life and as funny as it seems... some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream... In Session 25.

Donny Keebler (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP 2,238. Had his legs burned completely off by chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Marina (L2 Fighter). Total XP: 2,204. Burnt into ash by a chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Gundro (L2 Gnomish Trickster). Total XP: 2,575. Had his mouth and tongue bitten off by a lizardman ambusher in the dank sewers below Cyfaraun in Session 26.

Polydoros (L1 Fighter). Total XP: 0. Had his legs ripped off and eaten by Akira monsters in the dark canopy of the Viaspen Forest in Session 28.

Alexa this is so sad play "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins from the "Footloose" Official Motion Picture Soundtrack

ACKS Session 27: A Dragon Named Ferigno [Fog of War in 1=1 Time]

This Session was played on 08/04/21 wherein the PCs adventured for 12 days. They need 1 days of rest per ACKS rules and thusly may make downtime requests and play in Sessions on and after 08/18/21.

Foreword

Because of my use of Jeffrogaxian Time I debated when I should write and release this session report.

The PC's adventured into the future beyond next session's scheduled date of 08/11/21, meaning any info I put here could become known to Patron players or competing PC parties who shouldn't know about it until sometime into the future. Jeffro's Tw1tter Trollopulous Freakout Thing (JTTFT) ran on nigh 1 to 1 time hour by hour. I have near as many Patron players at this point but I tend to run my Patrons' actions week to week. So if the PCs take major world shaking actions 13 days into the future, what do? 

I've decided to release this blog when competing PC party (parties) and Patron NPCs would generally become aware of what happened.

But this brings up a bigger issue about Real Time Gameplay. Fog of War! In this foreword and the session report I will help teach you, the reader, how to implement and run Fog of War for 1=1 Timekeeping. Knowing how thick you want your Fog of War is an important decision for a DM. He must consider what kind of world he's running and what sort of access he wants his players to have to info. Is your world one of mystery and madness or one of order? This has a major impact on the feel of the game world and how the players interface with gameplay.

JTTFT had very thick Fog of War and I endeavor to make the Fog of War in my own campaign a bit less opaque due to the nature of the world I'm running; it's more orderly. I'm not running a (fake) news feed because my setting is one of antiquity. Also, I'm assuming a campaign world that doesn't have news reports at all, but slow moving rumors. The rumors are a bit more reliable on the whole since they are moving through trustworthy parties, not primarily through those attempting to trick one another. My game region has a line of legionnaire forts with nigh perfect roads between them. It's an orderly place.

I enter the rumors into the campaign chat room channel for #story or #hooks depending on whether or not there's reason to believe the PCs (or Patrons) can GET PAID by the info. #story is for my Storygamers and #hooks is for my elite Gameists. Real DND can accommodate all Player types!

Because the Auran empire's roads are quite fantastic between the civilized locations, I've decided that BIG EVENTS (such as a Patron Wizard who attacked a major temple in a major town) become well known around the Borderlands within a week or less. Smaller info things like a gang of trolls raiding a Legature take a bit longer to get around to other towns since that sort of thing is pretty frequent. If a Patron (or NPC) has a situation where he's putting out the call for adventurers that also takes about a week for news of the opportunity to get to the other towns. ACKS rules for finding henchmen and hirelings takes about a week so I figure Patron's looking for adventurers would hear the call in about the same amount of time.

Too much reliable information can be a drag, as well. This isn't a video game with a quest log. As with all real dnd there are false rumors (Breeyark!). Certain patrons or even PCs may certainly (and have?) pay bards etc to put out false rumors. Players may plan for a long time (like this session) based on what they think is happening. Invest a great deal of money and preparation into a plan that doesn't fit the threat. But if the plan fails, it fails much bigger. The emotional investment of a failed or successful plan, then, becomes greater. As such, the game matters more to the players since the time planning had a real impact; for good or ill.

A while back PCs were certain there should be some sort of Pony Express running messages around the Borderlands so they could send messages to their far flung PCs and backup PCs. It seemed fair and, thanks to ACKS' outstanding economic rules, I whipped up something pretty easily. PCs and Patrons can hire a man with access to a fast riding horse to carry a message, and the wherewithal to brave random wilderness encounters across the roads. The rate of availability is the same as a basic Navigator. So small towns may only have 1 guy a week willing to carry a letter, bigger cities have many more. Standard ACKS stuff. 

OFC none of this means the letter(s) will actually reach their destination. One random encounter roll per 6 miles crossed is quite a bit. Alot can go wrong. If The Postman fails to Evade a particularly nasty encounter, no message arrives. And the sender will likely never know.

There's more to say on all this but I'll get on with the session report and use it to give some more examples of best practices I've found for Fog of War. Read on and you'll better understand the Dubs Method of Elite DM play.

Session Report

The main party, "Team A", was adventuring out of Turos Spen this session. They spent the last two weeks of downtime hiring a bunch of mercs in Cyfaraun and traveling with them to Turos Spen to get in position for this session. It set up an interesting downtime situation with the Patron that runs the Legate of Turos Spen: Drakon. He initially told me he'd force all private armies (like those PCs tend to schlep around with) to camp a half day away from his Keep. PCs were pretty annoyed when Drakon's Centurion came out to intercept them in the field with some cavalry and insulted their intelligence, hygiene, and general appearance and informing them of Drakon's will on this. Crassus (PC Venturer Level 1) went straight past me to his private chatroom with Legate Drakon to ask for an exception to this rule. And got it!

Crassus gets along with Legate Drakon whereas the party's actual Caller and Leader, Daria (PC Bladedancer Level 5) doesn't get along with the man AT ALL. Real interaction with real humans roleplaying has had a major impact on my campaign in many ways, and this is just one example. We're better storygamers than the storygamers. 

So the party was ready to move out of Turos Spen into the Viaspen forest. Problem is they couldn't decide on what goal they wanted to attack. They debated for about 40 minutes over whether they should go straight at a Gnoll Lair they discovered like 6 weeks back with all their troops. Daria's player pointed out that, with her as the General of the PC's militia, the army had a terrible leader. Daria is dumb as a post. As such, the player was convinced the PCs needed very good recon before attacking the Gnolls with Mass Combat. 

They debated calling it off and instead heading back to the initial introductory dungeon the campaign began with. That got some traction with the more cautious players in the group but the idea was eventually scrapped. The least cautious player was Gaius (PC Fighter Level 4) who wanted to take ALL THE TROOPS and attack the Gnoll Lair head on immediately. This was eventually agreed upon and about 70ish mercs led by the PCs departed Turos Spen headed for Viaspen to look for the Gnolls.

I forgot to mention, Briarwhisper (PC Elven Ranger Level 3) scouted the Gnoll encampment during downtime and discovered the beasts had departed. He had no real luck on tracking them so the Players weren't certain where the warband went. In session the party decided to troop out to the palisade the gnolls formerly lived in and try again to track or maybe get lucky by seeing a patrol or something.

It took a few days to get out there. I ran alot of random encounter checks which took too long, especially since none of the random creatures I rolled up had the gall to approach or attack the massive patrol the PCs were leading into the forest.

"Hey Gaius how many of
the troops should we take?"

However, I rolled up a random encounter of a small gang of gnolls around the time the PCs came upon the abandoned gnoll lair. In my mind I used abductive reasoning to decide these guys came back to grab some supplies or a trinket they had left upon their departure sometime back. They got Surprise on the PCs so I ruled they saw the PCs ridiculous formidable army coming and got the hell out of dodge a while before the PCs arrived. "Hard to hide an army," one player said later.

This meant, however, that the Elven Ranger had a better chance of tracking something when he tried again. And he picked up the tracks. The chase was afoot. (The Oracular Power of the dice wins again.)

The party decided to leave their infantrymen at the gnoll palisade and take off on horseback with their cavalry units to hopefully catch up to their hunted and perhaps be able to scout around the large forest more quickly. About a day later the tracks led up to a new gnoll palisade with what appeared to be the same warband populating it.

In the center, however, was a strange teepee some 60 feet into the sky built out of local trees felled or ripped from the ground. Leaned up against something or upon eachother they looked like a skyhigh collection stacked for a massive bonfire. BriarWhisper and Blackmoon (PC Assassin Level 1) snuck up for a look and noticed briars and brambles some 20 feet high were surrounding the massive teepee of logs in about 30 yards in either direction. A lair of some beast or another tribe of beastmen? More gnolls inside? 

BriarWhisper, Blackmoon and their two respective henchmen posted up inside a couple of trees near the structure with plans to watch it for about two days. The cavalry were attempting to hide about a quarter mile away with a line of signalers to speak down the line to the main force upon what the scouts saw. The players had set up an elaborate series of whistles or bird calls they were using to send secret word down the line from scouts to main host. They went on and on about how many whistles meant what and I zoned out and pondered "Twin Peaks: The Return" for a while.

Eventually they were done chattering and I had to decide what all this meant. Well obviously this big teepee thing was home to Ferigno the Green Dragon. Would he notice the army moving upon his lair? Would his toadies the gnolls? Well, dear reader, I already rolled a Recon check and yes the Lair did see the cavalry coming. What would they do? Well that would depend on if a very smart dragon was awake to make the strategic decisions. I checked the ACKS monster entries for Ferigno and there was a 60% chance he was asleep at this time. Rolled. He's awake. Uh oh.

What would Ferigno do? I made a Reaction Check to see if he'd be Hostile (aggressive attack) or Neutral (stay put in the palisade). Rolled: Hostile. 

Ferigno the Green Dragon climbed out the top of the felled tree teepee and perched to peer around. I made some checks to see if he noticed the Party's scouts in the trees. He didn't. So, since I decided he was being aggressive, he took to the skies to find the main host the party was running with. 

The scouts sent their elaborate whistles down the line to warn the cavalry to RUN. They did, fleeing east back towards where their main force of infantry was about a day away by horseback. Ferigno saw them and caught up with them and Mass Combat was ON.

ACKS Mass Combat from Domains at War is pretty simple when running something like this. Each army gets a simultaneous amount of attacks based on their participating units and try to roll a 16 or better on a d20. The number of rolls they get is called Battle Rating (BR). The party's cavalry added up to about 6 BR but I ruled, due to the cavalry fleeing and Ferigno merely doing a passing flyby for the first phase of combat, the party could have BR based only on their units with ranged weapons. This left out the party's medium cavalry. The players rolled their BR's and got a couple of HITS.

I rolled 20 BR worth of d20s for Ferigno. I got so many successful hits (7 I think?) that ALL of the party's cavalry units were wrecked and injured to the point of no longer being able to fight.

more like Ferig-swole amirite

One interesting thing about ACKS mass combat, however, is that if one army only has one unit you only have to make one successful hit to remove them from combat. This helps gameify why a big powerful beast like Ferigno would keep a host of toadies around for warfare. It also explains BARD THE BOWMAN. Real DND is Tolkienesque. If his gnolls were with him Ferigno could have tossed them in front of the party's attacks and removed the gnolls from mass combat instead.. Then got another round of TWENTY attacks on the good guy army. 

In this case, however, the party made a couple hits so Ferigno made his swooping pass on the party's army, killed nearly everything in sight, and decided to head back home. The Party's army hadn't drawn dragon blood but Ferigno was a bit tuckered out I guess. Time for a nap. Catch you nerds later.

The Players were pissed. Things got heated on the mics among them of which I'll say nothing further. Was I happy about it? No (yes). 

Eventually the party decided to gather up the scouts, their injured cavalrymen, and stumble back to the abandoned gnoll palisade to collect up their infantrymen. The session was getting long but the players didn't want to end on an L. They decided to leave their injured cavalry there and march back to Ferigno's lair and attack the place head on. BriarWhisper sent his pet owl flying off north to hopefully bring a message to an elven fastness some day or two away, asking for their help in the assault.

Oh my.

It took about two days to travel through the forest with 20 heavy infantrymen (and many other sorts) in tow. They posted their forces outside the gnolls' palisade with the shadow of Ferigno's briar covered lair upon them. The commander of the PCs' archers commanded them to fire on the gnolls as a distraction so a infiltration party of PCs and henchmen could sneak over the walls on the other side and drop in on the beastmen. This group succeeded on all their sneaking checks and my roll if the distraction was distracting enough. And climbing checks. 

Blackmoon then set a section of the wall on fire on the opposite side of where most of the gnolls were in battle stations to defend their home. The players wanted to use this as a distraction to get close enough to open the gate for their army to breach the palisade and attack more successfully. I rolled: success! 

The gate was open and Daria charged the party's infantry and bowmen at the gate before the jackalmen could close it again. Breached! Charge!

The PCs led the charge and initiated something ACKS calls Heroic Forays. These are when a mass combat zooms in on Player Characters or Major NPCs with normal DND combat. The results of the combat are then applied to the BR of either side of a Mass Combat before the BR attacks are made vs eachother.

it was precisely like this

The PCs wanted to hit the Gnolls chief and shaman but the gnoll leadership went gungho as well and went hard at the PCs heavy infantry. The front lines slammed into eachother with the PCs maneuvering the battlefield trying to find targets of opportunity as they could. Most importantly in the first round BriarWhisper took a successful bow shot at the shaman before he could cast a spell, fizzling it to much player celebration. Daria charged her warhorse through the front ranks of the gnolls to try and get to the leadership hiding behind them. She overran a few gnolls but was hemmed up in the scrum of gnolls who began to slice at her with sickle bladed halberds and scratch and maul at her horse.

Gaius waded into the battle on his horse wielding his magic sword and taking many of the beasts down. It wasn't until he got to the gnoll champions where he was hemmed up and unable to cleave them down easily. 

Blackmoon and his henchman took pot shots with their bows where they could find an opportunity. 

The Heroic Foray took a long amount of game time and about 6 rounds of combat. About two rounds in the gnolls were able to stab and scratch at Daria getting her to exactly zero hit points. Daria's player ruled that Gwen (Hench to Daria L1 Fighter) waded into the scrum to grab the reins of Daria's horse and pull her out. I made some checks and Gwen succeeded. Xanthus (PC Cleric Level 2) healed Daria once she was extricated from combat, raising her chance to survive a Mortal Wound after combat. 

In hindsight I should have made morale rolls for ALL the units in the PCs' army since their commander, Daria, had fallen. I didn't. Live and learn!

Near the end of the combat Gaius was taking quite a few halberd slices from the gnoll champions, bleeding everywhere. He got down to 1 hitpoint and decided to retreat from the battle. BriarWhisper, hiding up on a wall away from the scrum, took shots on the chief and champions to discourage them from taking chase on Gaius.

Gwen, after helping Daria, waded into the combat to help the party's light infantrymen deal with the gnoll champions that were cleaving through them like wheat in a field. Eventually, however, Gwen caught a gnoll halberd to the leg and it was chopped off completely. Her screams couldn't be heard of the mass battle surrounding her. But her body was pulled out by Xanthus I think,. before the gnolls could eat her.

At this point the PCs decided to depart the Heroic Foray and allow the mass combat BR rolls to commence. I made morale checks for the gnolls to see if they gave up or fled or something. No. 

One round of Mass Combat had the PCs getting enough successful hits for the gnolls to be overran and they fled into Ferigno's lair behind them. The PCs army took one hit in this round and the heavy infantry were whittled down as they pressed the advantage. Bodies laid everywhere among the leather gnoll tents and cooking pots of vile meats. 

Once the gnolls fled into Ferigno's lair it looked like some strange looking goblins covered with vines and moaning like zombies were exiting the lair to continue the battle. PCs decided the night was late and this might turn against them. They had their army extricate itself from the palisade and depart the field. The vine goblin things didn't take chase. 

During the 10 minute mass combat rounds I ruled the PCs men (or PCs) could grab up all the gnoll heads they killed to turn into Legate Drakon for pay. Sorry reader I forgot to clarify this mission was attempted due to a Patron putting the PCs up to it. Cash for gnoll heads: simple mission. Easy money.

The session night had run longer than this blog and we were all tired. The players decided to head back to Turos Spen with all their injured forces so their men might recover and Daria and Gwen could begin resting from their Mortal Wounds. Daria would need a week with her minor leg injury and Gwen would need two with her leg amputation (not minor).

I made random encounter rolls for their trek back home and nothing hit. Lucky for the PCs since a few of them were pretty hurt and about half of their army was beat up beyond use.

The treasure and XP payout wasn't major but it wasn't zero. The players deemed the night a success because they learned more about Ferigno and his lair and the sorts of things he had been up to in the Viaspen Forest since they last encountered him. So this brings me back to my Fog of War discussion.

Afterword

Look, I know this blog has gone on too long. If you want to tap out and close your browser window, I won't blame you. I'll bully you but I won't blame you.

The players pierced the Fog of War on the gnolls by scouting during downtime. They had no idea the gnolls had moved but they knew where they weren't. It was a pretty big downtime investment and cost BriarWhisper his previous session wherein his player had to run a backup PC. 

Our primary Caller had this to say about the session and op: "[this operation] was the result of 6-8 weeks of planning for a mission [we] thought would take 3-5 weeks, accomplished in a single night, but questionable calls were made because I overestimated the strength of the gnolls". Another player said "there were a lot less gnolls than we thought". The caller retorted "I knew the rewards were going to be low [...] but we took the gig mostly in the basis of establishing a good rapport with the player patron (he means Drakon) [...] who basically negged us into taking the gig". 

This is why you need to start using Patrons in your DND campaigns, people. I'm still laughing that the PCs felt tricked into doing the mission to appease a Patron lol

My take on this is the Fog of War still had them (the Caller, at least) a bit confused until the players could put eyes on the target. They did that in session. After this session they know a great deal more about Ferigno's set up and could possibly use that information in the future. Session play is still the best way to pierce the Fog of War, imo. 

I will let the player of the wise cleric Xanthus sum up the session and Fog of War:

"Nothing ventured nothing gained. It was a fun risk despite the lack of reward". Amen, Cleric.

Surviving PCs Present

Blackmoon (0% XP bonus) Level 1 Assassin: 191 xp gained. Total: 512

BriarWhisper (5% XP bonus) Level 3 Elven Ranger: 147 xp gained. Total: 7,266

Crassus (10% XP bonus) Level 1 Venturer: 268 XP gained. Total: 1,308 [LEVELS TO 2]

Daria (0% XP bonus) Level 5 BladeDancer: 291 XP gained. Total: 13,666

Gaius (10% XP bonus) Level 4 Fighter. 154 XP gained. Total: 10,308

Xanthus (10% XP bonus) Level 2 Cleric: 154 xp gained. Total: 2,218

Hench:

Allbright (hench to BriarWhisper): 70 xp gained. Total: ???
Gwen (Daria Hench, Fighter L1): 70 xp gained. Total: ???

Surero (Blackmoon hench): 70 xp gained. Total: ???

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.

Broll Wolf-Eater (L1 Barbarian). Current total XP: 1079. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Brother Franklin (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Decapitated by a mad cultist of a Lovecraftian slime thing in Session 19.

Felix the Elder (L1 Bard). Total XP 825. DECEASED. Captured by mad cultists and fed to a Lovecraftian slime monster in Session 19.

Templar Flavius Africanus (L1 Cleric). Total XP 7. Killed by the claws and beak of mad harpies in Session 19.

Xendi (L1 Explorer). Total XP 6. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Yllmeeton (L3 Shaman). Total XP 4,563. Bludgeoned by the corpse of a bowmen by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Longinus (L2 Assassin). Total XP 2,036. Had his face ripped off by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Mandonio (L3 Fighter). Total XP 4,779. Charred to a leprous crisp by diseased Dragon breath in Session 22.

Corydon (L1 Joker). Total XP: 0. Burnt to a crisp by chimera breath so thoroughly his corpse wasn't even fit for the crows. Died with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. that's life and as funny as it seems... some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream... In Session 25.

Donny Keebler (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP 2,238. Had his legs burned completely off by chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Marina (L2 Fighter). Total XP: 2,204. Burnt into ash by a chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Gundro (L2 Gnomish Trickster). Total XP: 2,575. Had his mouth and tongue bitten off by a lizardman ambusher in the dank sewers below Cyfaraun in Session 26.

Alexa this is so sad play "Helm's Deep" from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack