Post-Session Report: KotB Session 08

Session Date: 2018-11-17

Another short session, but this one we pushed it a little to round up the delve. It was time to try and clear the "evil orc" lair. The PC's where the usual Knight, Amazon and Cleric and it included among other things:

* Two failed rolls for crippling, one critfailing for the two allies which made them unusable for the evening.

* Successful and effective Silence-spells

* A falling net trap which caused some problems

* Some gruesome scenes with pregnant berserk orc woman

* A naked orc leader, also berserking and crippling the Amazon's right arm.... twice!

* The Clerics healing really came into it's own for the first time, it was always nice but this was the first time they depended on it to win a battle.

* A human woman was found in the orcs common room, she was filthy and spoke only broken human.

* The biggest loot hoard in a single session thus far I believe, in part due to two good random rolls on the DF8 Jewellery Table

After the game a numbers of rules questions surfaced, the major one regarding "unjust" penalties to healing-spells for multiple casts. I've not decided if I will houserule it in some way yet but for the time being I will leave it as is.

Writer's Dodge: Progress Report

A month has passed and the thirty rooms I planned on finishing during this time was more like fifteen. To my defence I have started working again after being on parental leave for a half year so I was kinda expecting progress to not reach the levels I had initially hoped. I've counted 22 rooms completely finished with about five more partly finished of around 50-55 rooms in total. Four lairs out of nine now have descriptions which also takes some time to finish that I had not initially accounted for.

I'll check back in another month with another progress update. If I have 40 rooms finished by then I will be pleased. Then I can push to finish this project until the end of November. Hopefully my playtest will be just about finished by then aswell.

New Player coming aboard!

One of my current players will probably be away from the game for an extended period so I decided to invite another player. We've been playing together on and off for almost ten years and he will play an Amazon (Barbarian template) which I have named Joan the Warrior Princess, we'll see if he decides to keep that name or not.

Play Session 03, KotB 03: A dark encounter

This was also a little shorter session and quite heavy on information gathering.

Boerge the Beef, Human Thug, 257 points
 - Sture the Stone, Human Guard, 63 points
 - Benny the Bee, Human Weapon Caddie, 63 points
Amore son of Casanova, Human Duelist, 254 points
Father War, Human Cleric, 253 points

We started off in town with a short recap of what happened to Father War while the others were away trying to book a table at the hobgoblin restaurant. There had been a festival to the god of light in town (it was real world Easter during last session) and that was the reason he couldn't join the party to the last delve but had to attend some ceremonies instead. He also was a bit sick from being bitten by rabid rats so there was a wierd episode where he was holding mass for the people of Northern Gate, reciting a verse of pure inspiration while having a high fever, swaying the crowd to an almost exstatic state and then suddenly waking up in his bed in the chapel: cold, sweaty and feverish.

After they had sold the loot Sture was immediately off with his share to do some gambling, returning after a day or two asking for more but Boerge was intent on keeping half of his share for him as a future big payment which he sulkingly accepted.
The party used some holy scrying to really make sure that the ornate platearmour that they found during last session really was the commanders (they're 99% sure), then they had a fairly long argument about what to do with it and decided to keep it in the pawnshop/bank in a sack for the time being, trying to get a better deal on returning it (the commander hadn't promised them anything yet beside his gratefulness).
The day after giving the exotic-looking chainmail to the beggar-elf, a mystical message was left for Ernst which urged him to seek out the "old man of the forest" for answers to what's lurking in the Caves.
Then they were once again called up to the commander, he wanted an update on how they were doing, he had heard the rumors running around the tavern that they had returned from the caves with a cart full of loot. They made a fairly bad work of avoiding to arouse suspicion of the above mentioned plot (none of them are much of the talking type) but the commander didn't pressure them, he actually even offered 20 gold coins for returning the armour fast (he really needs it for a banquet he's holding in two weeks times). He also told them his guards had captured an orc in the woods that the PC's were free to question if they liked, but sadly the bloodythirsty, orc-hating Boerge just saw this as an opportunity to get some targetpractice with his flail so no new information was gained (none of them are the interrogating types either).
Before heading back towards the caves Amore was presented with a book by a shady-looking woman outside the tavern which he after some haggling decided to buy. It was magically sealed but Father War managed to temporarily dispel the magic. It was a diary of some kind from an inhabitant of the Caves, it's last entry was a few weeks old and said that the writer "Was heading back to the academy for further studies of the obtained items" with a reminder "to bring more jewellery for trading next time" before the dispel magic expired and the book slammed shut, nearly trapping War's fingers within.

Now off to the dungeon again, this time intent on taking care of the cursed ground problem on the way there. When they arrived on dusk the first day a large treetrunk had grown up in the center of the ash-colored piece of earth, without leaves and pitch black as if it had burned. When they walked closer they saw a body, charred and blackened by soot, impaled on a branch with arms held out in front of it, palms toward the sky. Father War fainted while the others attention was drawn to a ravens croak behind them, on the edge of the cursed area. Boerge didn't wait for it to react but started unleashing maces upon it while it transformed into a human shape, hitting the semi-translucent shape over the leg while it materialized but then stopping when it held up it's hand in front. The shape was of an old woman wrapped in dark robes, urging them not to go near the Caves because of the unspeakable evils within before disbanding into a pack of ravens shooting for the sky. At the same time they felt the ground under their feet move and hands started grabbing them from beneath as they had to drag the unconscious cleric out of the cursed ground while fending of two undead gnolls charging them. After taking care of them they waited for Father War to come to and decided to exorcise the ground which made the tree and body dissolve and both it and the ground peel of and take to the sky like the remains of a burned out book meeting a gust of wind.

When arriving near the caves, they did their usual routine of failing strategy and perception rolls and just headed straight for the goblin-entrance again, this time with the cleric falling behind and tripping as they ran down the hill, he hurt his leg but quickly healed himself and continued while the gnoll-camp started preparing to give chase on the lone prey but in the end they all made it safely into the caves. They immediately noticed a poorly concealed line of rope hanging across the roof of the entrance cavern, from the hobgoblin entrance to where they spotted the bear during last session but decided to let it be for now. They continued down the middle opening instead towards where the goblins came out of and found a room to the side filled with sawdust and (by goblin standards) fine quality carpenters tools lying about but nothing of value apart from that. They heard some shuffling of feet and following it found a staircase hewn out of the rock further down the main cavern. To keep a little of the element of surprise they decided to charge and met up with about six goblins preparing for battle in the first room down the stairs. Some nice acrobatics and sword-skill from Amore while Boerge was doing his trademark jaw-shot routine with his flail made the goblins a fairly easy work, with goblin spears and swords managed to get one or two hits in but only minor damage was made and easily healed up.


We decided to start next session outside the dungeon to keep the game moving. We're all still pretty new on the combat-rules (especially my players) so I think they're fine with things moving relatively slow from the start. 1 xp was awarded for exploration and MVP went to Boerge for his attempt to pry more money out of the commander's armour quest.

Play Session 02, KotB 02: A visit to the Hobgoblin restaurant

After finally finding a date which most of my players could attend they set off for another delve, this time scheduled for a whole day instead of just a half like last time.

Boerge the Beef, Human Thug, 253 points
 - Sture the Stone, Human Guard, 62 points
 - Benny the Bee, Human Weapon Caddie, 62 points
Amore son of Casanova, Human Duelist, 250 points
Honest Ernst, Human Ranger, 253 points

First off, I took a moment or two to let Amore account for his actions during the week that had passed since the rest of the party last saw him (he missed the first session so I thought I'd give him a chance to present himself while the other two were occupied with spending the XP they recieved last session). While the rest of the group gathered some minor quests and rumours in town and then set off to scout the caves he basically set off on a path of seduction, starting off with the tavernkeepers daughter. When she agreed to take him on a walk and show him the keep surroundings he snubbed her to spend the night with a warrior woman named Steira that he met on the caravan. On the next day he finally met with the keep commander like Boerge had done the day before and among other things promised him not to touch his daughter. Then he went to the travellers inn to look for Steira again but got the attention of the stableboy Godrick who after some flirting took take him for a romantic ride on one of the stables horses outside the castle. Amore was careful not to take it further though for the time being and kept his distance to all of them until the party came back.

When they were back from the first delve a week of rest was sorely needed for Ernst though who had hurt his arm in a brawl with some rats, after a few days he also got down with the sewer rot which was swiftly cured by Father War who in turn he got sick and could not follow the party out on their second delve. They gathered a few more more bits of information about the Caves but not much they didn't already know. When they left the first time the rain was pouring down and they quickly decided to go back, rest another day (paying another $20 upkeep each) to see if the weather was better the next day, it was! They decided to use the same campsite as they had done the last time but when Ernst scouted it out he was spotted by a couple of undead that seemed to be guarding the place. Not wanting to take any risks or get into any unneccessary fights they decided to set up camp a bit further down the road instead.

The next day they walked for another few hours, camouflaged their wagon about an hours march from the Caves and set Sture to guard it and then walked the last hour. Ernst failed his Observation-roll and saw nothing out of the ordinary down the slopes of the old stripmine. Boerge critfailed his Strategy-roll which resulted in them running straight down the slope to get to one of the south side entrances. Ernst fell on the way down but didn't hurt himself, a few surprised gnolls at another entrance about twenty yards away growled and stared with beady eyes at them as they ran by.

Inside the entrance a cavern opened up with further openings in all directions. In the mud covering the floor at the entrance to the cave footprints of small, humansized and big humanoids could be seen. From the left opening there was steps carved out in a slope leading downward, the party started down but turned around when they heard noice coming from the middle one, they also heard a snoring, growling sound from down the steps similar to the ones in the owlbear cave. Back in the entrance cavern they met a group of goblins on patrol which they made short work of: Boerge smashed a face in with his flail, Ernst pierced the throat of another with an arrow, a third one hacked down by a flurry of blows from Amores shortswords. The rest of the goblins broke and started fleeing, one of them got shot in the leg but two were heard running down a flight of stairs further inside the middle cave. Now the party went back to the steps they'd started down before they were interrupted, on their way down a sour odour was spreading and when they had Ernst peeking inside the opening at the end of the steps the only thing he noticed was the contour of a sleeping bear beside piles of tattered cloths and animal bones. They decided to let that particular cave be for the time being and headed back up towards the entrance.

Goblinfight starts, cave entrance is to the left.

Instead of following the fleeing goblins they noticed a skull of a humanoid hanging from the wall in the third opening which proved to be a passage with additional skulls leading to a robust door without a lock. On the door was a message written in broken common: "Welcom! We woud lav to hav you for diner.". The group failed to read this as anything else than an invitation to a restaurant, possibly even giving away the food for free and ensthusiastically knocked on the door and a wierd conversation ensued (Disadvantages such as No Sense of Humor, Honesty, Gullibility and Overconfidence doesn't help in these kinds of situations).

Throught the door a dark voice asked in passable common:
 - "Ha many?"
 - "Four"
 - "Av' you booked reservations?"
 - "No..."
 - "Am sorry, we only av' room fer two at the moment, you other wait outside."
 - "Okay"
 - "Wa' name shall I put you on?"
 - "Boerge"
 - "Mkay, come in, ba only two o' ya, okay?!"

A bar was lifted on the other side of the door and it was unlocked and a large hobgoblin opened and let Boerge and Benny in and barred the door behind them. Around this moment Boerge and Benny finally realized that it might be a trap and told the bouncer politely that they wanted to leave again, he refused and told them to move on in to the cloakroom to get their weapons and armour checked in. When Boerge tried to force himself out he shouted "Guards!" and another two hobgoblins with crossbows pointed at Benny showed up from the "cloakroom". Benny convinced Boerge it was useless to resist and they started giving away their weapons while commenting on the bad service of the establishment. Meanwhile Amore and Ernst heard the commotion from the other side of the door and knocked again, the bouncer unbarred and unlocked the door, inched it open and asked what all the fuzz was about. They asked if they could at least see the menu while waiting but he told them to wait for their turn and slammed the door shut but forgetting to lock and bar it. Ernst took a peek inside and now realized that Boerge and Benny were being taken captive and decided to engage the bouncer that had turned back to face Boerge.

The bouncer was taken out quick with two consecutive bodkin arrows in the back from point blank range while a disarmed Boerge took a bolt straight through the hand of his shield arm, crippling it and continuing through the chainmail into his abdomen, ouch! Before he had time to fight back he took another blow to the same hand from a dogslicer while Amore ran straight through the pack and made short work of the other crossbowman (first his three hits barely made a scratch, then we realized he'd forgot to add bonus damage to his shortswords from Weapon Master which resulted in an unconscious hobgoblin instead). The guard with the dogslicer held his ground well for a good five turns using a shield and incredibly good active defence rolls to enable two guards behind him throw a few spears, none finding a target though. When his shield finally broke he was put down and the fight ended with the crossbowman who shot Boerge begging for mercy but recieved none, his face was duly slammed in by Boerges flail.

Boerge put his shield back on and recieved some quick treatment on his hand from Ernst, Benny had to use Serendipidy to find a used first aid kit in the room since noone in the party had brought one. After inspecting another closeby door (it was locked), they started discussing just taking what was on the guards (which wasn't much more than their weapons basically, they had a few gold coins though) and leaving, I was nice and informed Boerge about his Forced Entry-skill which he made instant use of, forcing the weak door open and finding the Hobgoblin Armory, all of a sudden there was more loot than they could carry in one go in the form of weapons and armour that seemed to be pretty much all human-made, the prize item being the commanders lost Plate Mail! Just as everyone had entered the armoury the inspect the goodies they heard shuffling from further down the corridor, they just managed to get into formation again before another two hobgoblins came at them, they almost immediately drove them back though and when Boerge gave chase he was met with a volley of bolts coming from another guard room at the end of the corridor which he just managed to dodge before diving back into the corridor for safety.

Corridor in the center, barricaded, The fallen bouncer lies by the entrance to the left.
The PC's stand in the armoury with hobgoblins on guard on the upper right side

After that it was late and they decided to barricade the corridor and carry with them as much and as valuable loot as they could carry. They managed to salvage a total of three crossbows, three chainmail shirts which seemed a bit special though noone knew exactly what it was (all the players insisted it was probably mithril), the plate mail and a couple of swords of different kinds. Nothing much happened on the way back except that they went through the forest instead of on the road for the first day and Ernst failed a navigation-roll which made them spend almost a whole extra day getting back. Outside of town they once again met the sickly elf begging and threw him the copper coins they hadn't bothered counting. Inside town they sold all the weapons and one of the chainmails to the armourer who couldn't see that there was anything special with it. Amore asked if any of the other two fit him and one of them did (he has pretty much the same frame as who they were made for so I let it fit him on a five or six on 1d). When the beggar-elf was shown the last chainmail his eyes filled with tears and he explained that it is elf-made and was worn by one of his lost elf-companions when they tried their luck at the caves a few weeks before. He asked if he could keep it and the party first hesitated but then gave in to his teardraped elf-eyes and gave it to him.

Even though they didn't manage to salvage more than maybe one fourth of everything in the armoury the loot was still much better than last time, earning all PC's present three points each and another one from exploring. I also rewarded another point to Ernst player for her roleplaying in getting past the hobgoblin entrance which was a bit wierd but great fun. MVP was also rewarded to Ernst player.

GURPS Resources: Gnolls and Kobolds

As most people who try their luck GM'ing GURPS knows is that it can be really hard to find good resource-material so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you want a particular monster or NPC in your campaign. Some material can be found in different GURPS sourcebooks but it's usually in the form of "templates" or "lenses" for you to build your NPC around which can be really tedious for something that you only plan to be a fodder-fight or townsperson but you still want to have balanced and somewhat fleshed out characteristics.

The Gurps Repository is a good place to start if you just want a random monster. The entries are a bit varied in terms of quality but sometimes it's nice to just pull a monster straight of the web.

One site I found the other day is Michael Amos' Gurps Page that has some really thought through material on Gnolls and Kobolds in a format that I really appreciate, there's also a small dungeon writeup for each of the races. Since both races feature in the Caves of Chaos I think this is excellent material for someone playing that particular scenario with the GURPS or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy ruleset. I ended up using some Gnoll spear-throwers and Macemen straight away for a nightly random encounter which wasn't much trouble for the PC's, mostly due to these Gnolls being really supersticious and on the edge which I will get to in my Session Report that's coming up soon.

Hello fantastic world!

Hello Dungeon Lovers!

My name is Muggi and right now I'm in the process of splitting the map of the Caves of Chaos from the Gary Gygax 1979 ADnD-adventure The Keep on the Borderlands into four floors and adding and changing a bit here and there for use against a group of four delvers hopefully sometime in the near future, characters are made and the first real playsession is scheduled in a few weeks time. I'm hoping to post parts of their journal alongside my own accounts as the Dungeon Master.

Ruleset will be GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and characters are 250-point standard delvers. "Why GURPS?" you might ask? Well I've always loved GURPS for the way it incorporates character background and personality in the character creation process through mainly disadvantages but it is also to an extent reflected in the advantages and skills one chooses. It's even better with Dungeon Fantasy where the classes have a pretty congested set of options to choose from which ensures that players pick traits and abilities that are relevant to the kind of character they're playing.

The other thing I'm psyched about is the tactical combat that will be a big part of the campaign. I've always wanted to learn the GURPS rules properly but it's always been the 100+ pages of combat rules that have prevented me from taking the final step over the line. This time I'm going to really try and bring the players along for the journey and make them get involved in the rules and thereby learn them better myself.