Ashes of Angels, Final Wrap-Up

We ran our final session of Ashes of Angels a couple of months ago. While not the longest campaign I’ve run, 12-plus sessions is a pretty healthy run for me these days. The campaign started as a Lamentations of the Flame Princess game and transitioned to Dungeon Crawl Classics near the end. The conversion was pretty easy and injected enough interest back into the campaign to keep it running for a few more months.

Everyone enjoyed the campaign, but what ultimately ended it was my desire to move onto new games, settings, and genres. Specifically, after a couple years of bleak horror games, I’ve grown weary of nihilistic “the world sucks and you suck too” campaigns. My players, I could tell, were starting to grow bored with the constant character attrition. They want a chance to grow attached to the PCs for a while. I grok that.

Our last session revolved around resolving “Intrigue at the Court of Chaos.”  I’m not going to go over the whole thing because that module is mostly just a series of riddles and puzzles. It’s very good and very weird, but to recap all the events would be boring and spoilerish to the module.

Some highlights, though:

• The PCs all readily agreed to work for the various Chaos Lords that approached them in their dreams. Belinda the Serpentblood, of course, tried to charm the agent of Law.
• Madeline the Gravedigger apparently knows how to speak Enochian and was able to decipher the angelic script on the Bull of Law’s horns, sparing the PCs a fight.
• The party did a good job of figuring the puzzles, although the rainbow liquids and cradle of clay puzzles proved to be harder than expected.
• Liberal use of flaming oil and black-powder bombs made short work of the party’s Lawful clones.
• The race back to the Chaos Rose while running away from the Crystal Guardians devolved into a slapstick farce as the PCs kept stealing the Yolkless Egg back and forth from each other mid-comnat.
• Garritt the warrior burned all his Luck and was bodily taken to Heaven by the Crystal Guardians where Jack Chick’s Giant Glowing Faceless God personally cast him into Hell.
• Back in the Court of Chaos, the fight over the Egg continued until someone fumbled a roll and dropped the Egg, breaking it open and causing the entire Court to collapse. The surviving PCs managed to step thru a rip in space-time back to Berlin.

Afterwards, we as a group decided to step away from the campaign and try some new things. We played three sessions of Mothership that went very, very well. Many of my players had never tried a percentile-bases system before and they loved how easy it was to pick up. Mothership’s a helluva game.

Ultimately, though, we decided as a group that our next game should be something totally different in tone and setting. So instead of semi-historical horror-fantasy we’re shifting to optimistic space opera—Star Wars! I’m pretty excited about it, and my players are all stoked about their competent and (semi)heroic new characters.

Acadecon 2019--Games I ran and Played

This past weekend I went to Acadecon in Dayton for the first time. It’s a smaller con, a few hundred attendees maybe. I spent way too much money on the (admittedly nice) hotel, but the con staff were all friendly and the whole thing seemed very well organized, which is more than I can say about a lot of cons of this size (BASHcon).

I had registered to run two Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures, and I signed up to play in a few other games over the weekend. This is how things went.

Friday afternoon I ran “Sanctum of the Snail” from Crepusucular #1. Not surprisingly, I can pretty much run this game in my sleep. I had three players—one who had played DCC a few times at cons, one who had played DCC, like, once, and a third who had never played DCC but had heard stories about its unique and deadly experience. All together they had 12 zero-level zeds ready to run through the funnel.

I don’t get a lot of TPKs as a GM. Perhaps my hippy-dippy upbringing has made me soft. But this session wound up a total blood-bath. Things looked pretty promising for the players at the start, when they all got initiative over the Sharkboys and raced through the sanctum door to relative before the monsters could attack any of them. Things went down-hill quickly after that.

Post-game, when I shared the dungeon map and went through the adventure a bit, one of the players quipped “Wow, we really did take the path of most resistance!” Through no fault of their own, they missed every weapon cache, armor stash, magical benny, and treasure pile. Gong farmers fell like cordwood, the party split up, and the “replace your PCs here” room was avoided. Blorgamorg was never encountered.

The swarm of 1hp floating skulls were the worst menace. The fragile little monsters chewed up the PCs while bad dice rolls prevented the heroes from landing blows. The last three survivors managed to make it all the way to the Snail Sorceress’s bedroom, but breaking down the door created a lot of noise that attracted Chaos Slug Men. These wandering monsters were the death stroke for the party. All hands lost.

And yet! Despite that, the players all had fun. They knew DCC’s rep, they knew what they were getting into, and they had the proper DCC experience. Good times all around!

I didn’t run anything on Saturday, but I got to play in three different games. All Out of Bubblegum is one of those one-page mini-RPGs you find on Reddit. This one was about playing 80s action dudes. It was very silly and fun, and run by one of the guys from the Critcast podcast (which I will have to check out now).

Also, a gift from Chris Lauricella!

Later, I got to play Shadow of the Demon Lord for the first time. I’ve been meaning to try it out for some time. The adventure was a pretty linear—take this evil artifact to the obelisk and destroy it—but it did a good job of demonstrating the system and setting. That’s what I want from a demo game! The GM was also engaging and system-smart, so kudos to him.

My last game on Saturday was Worlds in Peril, run by another of the Critcast fellows. Worlds in Peril is a “Powered by the Apocalypse” superhero game. I love PBtA games, and I love superheroes, but I’ve never found a supers RPG that I really loved. I’m not sure this is it yet, but I like how “Bonds” worked a lot. I still have to find a group to play Masks: A New Generation with.

On Sunday, my Leopard Women co-conspirator Leighton “Laser Ponies” Connor came up from Cincinnati to play. We had a power-brunch at Waffle House, then went back to the con to do some “Saucer Full of Secrets.” “Saucer” is the zero-level funnel for LeopardWomen of Venus. I’ve run it once before at Gencon, while LC has ran it a couple of times himself at various cons. LC would play some zeroes in this session, but he’s very good at “fading into the back” and letting the other players run things. All together, I had six players with 18 zeds in total.

The adventure started with the gathered zeds receiving their mission from Forecastle J. MacBeth, leader of the Humanoid Coalition and my favorite NPC. The party needed to cross through the dangerous jungle to a crater where an alien spaceship had crashed 72 hours previous. They were to salvage what they could from the saucer and find out what had happened to the previous retrieval team.

The trek across the jungle was treated like a dungeon, with paths connecting to various clearings. No need to overwhelm new players with wilderness-crawl rules right out the gate, I figure. The party encountered a shrine to Fantomah, got the jump on some Martian scouts, fought a deranged Flying Saurian, and avoided the deadly Venusian Bees. Little-to-no casualties at this point, thanks to luck and sound tactics.

When the party arrived at Gorgon’s Gorge, things started to turn. Three giant flaming claws smashed, squeezed, and burned several members of the party before they were destroyed.

Eventually the party found the wrecked saucer and set to exploring it. The radium miner’s geiger counter let them avoid the ruptured core at the center of the craft. The Martian cafeteria seemed promising until mutated slime puddings dropped from the ceiling killed several of their number. The sadistic surgical robot the oversaw the bio-lab also managed kill some of the players before getting scrapped. The Martian barracks were the most deadly of course, as a cadre of Martian pikemen and gunners winnowed down the PC party. When they party eventually decided to examine the saucer’s power core, the co-mingled monstrosity that was once two members of the original team killed several more PCs (It had three attacks!). At long last, the PCs managed to rescue the two survivors from the original expedition and were able to call in MacBeth for an extraction. Of the 18 level-zeroes that started the adventure, only seven made it out alive. That’s what I call a good funnel adventure!

Acadecon was fun, and if Dayton’s in your travel zone, you should consider checking it out. My only real problem was that it was the first convention in a long time (maybe ever?) that I attended by myself without buddies or family. That makes for some boring downtime. If I go back, I’ll certainly need to bring company.

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Ashes of Angels: Sessions 11, 12, 13 (We Change Systems!)

Between getting Draugr& Draculas finished and fulfilled, getting Leopard Women of Venus ready for public announcement, preparing for Gencon, getting Patreon underway and getting the new website set up, I haven’t had a chance to keep up on my session reports like I should have. We’ve had three sessions of Ashes of Angels since my last report, and there’s big some significant changes in both system and atmosphere. I’m going to touch on that and the hit the highlights of the last three sessions. After that we should be all caught up!

The big change is that we switched systems from Lamentations of the Flame Princess to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I ran LoftFP with a lot of house rules—some I made myself, others I stole from Cavegirl, 10-Foot Polemic, and Jeff’sGameblog. After 9 sessions I stepped back and looked at all the house rules I had added:

• Rules to let characters survive at 0HP.
• Rules to let fighters do cool fighter things.
• Rules to remove spells-per-day restrictions on wizard and clerics, with magical backlash for failures.
• Luck mechanics.

It occurred to me, all the rules I was adding were a subconscious effort to make LwoV more like

DCC, all while DCC was sitting right there on my shelf looking right at me. I also realized that what I really like about LotFP isn’t so much the system itself (although I do like it) but the adventures that go along with it. I think Scenic Dunnsmouth and Blood in the Chocolate will work just fine with DCC.

So we made the switch. We converted the PCs to DCC characters and continued the 17th Century campaign with no major changes in the narrative. My players have mostly enjoyed the switch. Non-fighters now actually hit in combat occasionally. Spellcasters feel like powerful (or at least useful) wizards. I even found a homebrew DCC adaptation of the Alice.

The tone of the campaign has also changed, but that was a more gradual change, and I’ve mentioned it before. I originally intended this game to be a bleak exploration of apocalyptic Europe with death and despair everywhere. I’m just not wired that way, and the campaign has slowly morphed into a Roger Corman-esque costume dramedy with goopy monsters and comical peasants. I wanted A Field in England and I got The Raven. Honestly I’m happy there.

So here’s what’s been going on:

Our “Heroes”

Belinda: Serpentblood 2 (re-skinned Elf), Midwife

Mortimer: Alice 2, librarian

Garritt: Warrior 2, soldier

Jacob: Cleric 2, cultist of Balor

Medline: Thief 2, grave robber

NPCs

Ana Fischer: Witchy henchwoman, devotee of Lucifer, Wizard 1

Ekans and Arbok: Belinda’s doggos

The PCs decide that they need to take care of the Demon of Hegendorf before the witch hunters arrive. Of course, the witch hunters show up at the Abbey the very next morning, just in time for breakfast.

Meyer is a member of Der Hexenhammer, a powerful inter-faith coalition of witch hunters that the PCs have run afoul of in the past. Meyer is fire-scarred with a mad look in his eye. He’s armed with a blunderbuss and several fire-bombs. He has six men with him and two dogs. (Warrior 4, 6x 0-level men-at-arms, 2x 2HD dogs)

The PCs convince Meyer that they too have run afoul of witches and demons, and are eager to help the witch hunters. Jacob’s “Crazy old man to crazy old man” talk with Meyer helps seal the deal.

After breakfast the party heads out with Meyer’s crew for the 5-hour trip to Hegendorf. Before they leave, Mortimer sneaks into Meyer’s wagon and sabotages all his guns.

Half-way to Hegendorf, the PCs launch their surprise attack. Several of Meyer’s goons go down in the first round. When the goons fight back, several of their guns blow up in their faces. Jacob uses Word of Command on Meyer, telling him to “run!” The witch hunter spends the next several rounds running away from the conflict. Blades and bullets cut down the rest of Meyer’s crew.

Meyer finally breaks free of the Command, just in time for Belinda to hit him with Charm Person. The party easily convinces the charmed Meyer that his crew were really in league with Satan, and he’s lucky they were there to save his life. They take the charmed with hunter with them to go find the demon.

The party makes camp about an hour outside of Hegendorf, deep in the woods. Their plan is to lure the demon out then ambush it. Garritt makes some scouting rolls and finds a good kill-spot with several trees and boulders for cover. Belinda uses herself for bait. Madeline helps disguise her as a young girl, while Belinda makes some witchcraft rolls to mix up some demon-attracting poultices.

They wait, and around midnight they hear the weird theramin-sound of the demon’s wailing, and spot the eerie green witch-light of its glowing crystalline body.

Suddenly the demon is among them, appearing right beside the tree where Garritt was hiding! The fight is on! The PCs pelt the demon with arrows and bullets, but have trouble getting through its crystalline hide. One of Meyer’s fire bombs goes wide and light a tree on fire. Garritt uses his Mighty Deed of Arms (yay DCC!) to crack the demon’s armor, making it easier for his companions to land blows.

At last the demon is slain! Belinda takes one of its claws as trophies and proof of its destruction. The rest of the body melts into a puddle go radioactive sludge that sprouts deformed fungus in the tarry mud. “Let us all kneel and give thanks to the Lord!” shouts Meyer in triumph. The witch hunter kneels and prays his thanks, and the party uses this opportunity to hit him with two backstab attacks, one critical hit, and two normal attacks—just mercilessly beating him to death. It’s just goddam brutal.

The party makes their way into Hegendorf, where they tell the remaining villages of how they slew the demon, and how poor Meyer the witch hunter died a heroic death. “But the demon devoured his body, so don’t bother going to look for it.” The PCs are lauded as heroes, and there is much celebrating.

Eventually the party returns to the Abbey of St. Agnes and their loot cache in the hidden cellar. They are stunned to discover that a trio of Molemen have dug up into their hiding spot from the Veins of the Earth. The subterranean diggers are going through their loot! The party doesn’t stand for this, and the Molemen are brutally slain. (“Poor little guys were having a dungeon adventure and wandered into a treasure cache. Then they failed their wandering monster check and you guys showed up. TPK for those poor Molemanic adventurers.”)

With their stash-space compromised, the party decides to pack up and head south towards Berlin, where they can take care of some “city business.” They take a few days to recover, then pack up their wagon with their money, the Lucifer Mirror, the Baleful Spear, and other treasures.

It’s three days to Berlin. On the second day they are accosted by bandits and a fight ensues. Ana calls out to Lucifer to protect her (casting Invoke Patron, currently using Sezrekan as a stand in for Satan), and she is instantly teleported away.

The fight is brutal, but short, and the bandits are soon defeated. Mortimer is pretty badly battered, but the rest of the party comes out of it okay. Belinda sacrifices the surviving bandit to the Lucifer Mirror and finds out that Ana is somewhere in Berlin. Jacob heals Mortimer's wounds, and the party resumes their journey.

After another day of travel, the party bribes their way through the gates of Berlin. The city is currently occupied by Swedish forces, and has suffered greatly from the War. One-third of the city has been destroyed and half the populace is dead or gone.

Belinda uses some of Ana’s spare clothing to give her scent to Arbok, and sets the dog loose to go find the missing witch. After a short while, the party is reunited with their henchwoman, and they all go off in search of lodgings.

While Ana’s been slumming about Berlin the past couple of days, an attractive young man gave her a handbill for a puppet show called “The Court of Chaos.” Ana is excited about going, and the rest of the party is interested in attending as well.

Midnight finds the party in a deserted part of town, entering an old abandoned opera house. A garish puppet theater has been erected on the stage, and the party are the only people in attendance. As the strange shadow puppets begin their act, the building shakes, hellish light shines through the cracks in the walls, and the party experiences a sinking feeling of vertigo. The walls of the theater fly apart and the party finds themselves on an obsidian island in a sea of blood surrounded by misshapen demon giants. They have entered The Court of Chaos!

Ashes of Angels Sessions 9 and 10, plus Mid-Campaign Assessment

I’m a bit behind on my session reports, and the last two sessions have been kind of light on plot, so I’m going to try and keep things to bullet points. After that, I’m going to mull over some thoughts on where the campaign is, where it’s going, and how well the system is working for us.

Our Heroes
Belinda Kage: Serpentblood 2, Midwife
Madeline: Specialist 3, Grave-robber
Mortimer: Alice 3, Librarian
Gerrit Liddstadt of Worms: Fighter 2, Soldier
Jacob: Cleric 2, cultist of Balor

NPCs
Ana Fischer: Witchy henchwoman
Ekans and Arbok: Belinda’s doggos

Svetlana: Innkeeper's least-horrible daughter

Session 9

• The party returns to Kotstadt and prepares to return to Pagan’s Well to dig out the collapsed tunnel.
• They hire two laborers, the brothers Kolin and Rolf who claim to have “dug the finest latrines from here to Berlin!”
• J’s new character, Jacob, joins the group. He’s a secret cleric of Balor—and old man in a rough brown robe and an eye patch. He hides his holy symbol in his empty socket. Dreams have lead him to Pagan’s Well.
• Back in the Well, the party discovers a large bloody handprint on a wall. It wasn’t there before. Madeline feels like there’s something watching them in the dark and mist. The diggers are spooked, but a big pile of coins convinces them to stay.
• They clear the tunnel and discover a round stone door carved with one-eyed skulls. The door rolls away easily.
• Beyond the door is a burial chamber. Seven partially-mummified corpses with rusted armor and weapons and shiny gold torcs. One corpse clutches a large and sinister-looking spear.
• Belinda grabs the spear, and of course the pagan corpses (draugr) rise up and attack.
• The fight goes very badly. Jacob’s leg is badly injured, and Rolf dies. Kolin's morale breaks and he runs away, disappearing into the misty tunnels of the Well. The party isn’t landing any hits. It’s time to retreat. Jacob flings his lantern, lighting one of the draugr ablaze.
• The party retreats from the crypt. The round door is harder to close than it is to open, but they manage to seal the tomb once more.
• Back at Kotstadt, the clearly-injured party faces a lot of questions as to what happened. The diggers' father is very distraught and wants to know what happened to his sons. The party lies, and tells the villagers that they were looking for treasure in a (fictional) cave, when the roof collapsed, crushing the brothers.
• The villagers (who are, remember, all very stupid) believe the party, but the diggers’ father insists that they go and dig out his son’s body. That’s when Kolin stumbles back into town, raving about monsters, the walking dead, his murdered bother, and the party’s witchcraft.
• The party explains that Kolin has clearly gone mad with grief from his brothers’ death. Again, the villagers believe them, but there’s still a bunch of unrest. Father Hrothgar, the burly-but-friendly village priest mollifies the situation. “These are troubled times, and misfortune can break a man’s mind. Let’s all go to bed. In the morning we will take our visiting friends and a dozen stout men to go retrieve Rolf's body from this cave and ensure a proper Christian burial.” The rest of the villagers approve of this idea.
• The party decides to skip town in the middle of the night before the villagers discover their lies. On the way out, they run into the innkeeper’s least-horrible daughter, Svetlana, who is obsessed with Belinda. They agree to take the girl away with them.
• The party plots a circuitous route back to the Abbey of St. Agnes so they can retrieve the Lucifer mirror.
• On the road, they come upon the village of Grossbeck, which has seemingly been abandoned.
  
  There are no people or animals to be seen, the homes are still intact, but most of the furniture and possessions are missing. A large black monastery lurks on the hill above the town, with an ancient cemetery at its base.  Hooded figures can be seen at a distance, entering the monastery doors. (I stole this entire set-piece from The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart.)
• The party finds an abandoned inn to spend the night in. Around midnight, they hear the monastery bell toll thirteen.
• In the morning, the party decides to explore the cemetery, hoping to find a passage to the Ghoul Market.
• Inside an old crypt, they discover a secret passage beneath a statue of St. Drogo (patron saint of the ugly and deformed, true fact.
• The underground passage splits in two. One passage continues towards the monastery. The other bears the white-ankh mark of the Ghoul Market! The decides to continue towards the monastery for now, hoping the monks there might have knowledge of the Market.
• They encounter and easily defeat a giant albino spider. Jacob fails to harvest any venom from its fangs.
• The passage terminates at a secret door that leads to the basement hallways of the monastery.
• Session ends.

Session 10

• There are several doorways in the torch-lit hallway. To the left, the hallways slopes downwards and out of sight. To the right are several doors, which they choose to investigate. One leads to a privy with a dead monk at the bottom of the cesspool. Another leads to a laundry room. One leads to stairs going upwards. And another leads to a pantry full of rotten and worm-ridden foodstuff.
• They go back down the other way. A short flight of stairs leads to an iron-barred cell with casks and chests visible. Two robed and cowled figures hold antique longswords and guard the door.
• The party lusts for that treasure, so they attack! The faces of the “monks” are revealed to be
  
  rotten and gray with clay-like flesh and moldy beards, like something out of a Spanish-Italian horror movie!
• The monsters are tough! One claws Garrit, and his muscles freeze up, paralyzing him. The undead monk continues its onslaught and chews Garrit’s shoulder down to the bone. Belinda’s Shield spell protects Madeline, who puts her pickaxe through the monk’s head. Blades and bullets finally put down the other monk.
• In the treasure vault, the party finds a chest full of 1000 silver thalers, a gold chalice, a couple vials of holy water, and a glass reliquary that seems to hold the blood of St. Drogo. The party packs up and leaves, declining to explore the rest of the monastery.
• Spending the night in the abandoned inn again, the party hears someone (or something) lurking outside in the darkness. In the morning they find six sets of sandaled footprints. They decide to leave the abandoned town.
• The part cuts cross-country to make their way through a small neck of forest before they make it to the Abbey of St. Agnes.
• Making camp in the forest, they are approached by a group of eight orphans, refugees from a village to the south. Belinda and Ana determine which of the orphans are first-born (for later use). The party will take the children to the Abbey with them, hoping the nuns will take care of them.
• On the way to the abbey, the party is attacked by a large bear. Garrit is struck down, but is not killed. After a desperate fight, the PCs manage to put the beast down.
• They arrive at the abbey the next day. The place is on lock-down. Sister Catherine guards the door with a large musket. Garrit is taken to the infirmary.
• Things haven’t been good in Hegendrof since the PC’s left. Old Man Hagan’s house burnt down, and a demon haunts the city, killing people and livestock. The witchfinders have been called in and are expected in the next few days.
• The party goes to the shed they rented from the nuns, where they stashed the Lucifer mirror, to consolidate their loot and ask Lucifer some questions. They take the Nihal, the brattiest of the firstborn orphans with them.
• Belinda casually shanks Nihal and asks Lucifer where they can find a Writ of Protection to let them safely enter the Ghoul Market. Lucifer tells them they can get one from Baron von Winter, representative of Dracula, in the Black Forest. The party has their new travel destination!
• The party drags Nihal's body to the woods so they can blame his death on the roving demon. They go to report the boy’s abduction to the nuns.
• The nuns are horrified. Doughty sister Catherine (fighter 1) grabs her musket and insists the PCs help her find the body.
• Of course, they run into the demon itself while out in the woods. The demon looks like a giant protein crystal atop five scaly legs. It glows with an alien light. Sister Catherine opens fire and the PCs run away. They hear the sounds of combat, but don’t look back.
• Mortimer the Alice voices his Exasperation, and the PCs find the grown-over door to an old abandoned root cellar from a long-destroyed building. They hide there for several minutes until they are certain the demon is gone.
• When the PCs return to the abbey, Sister Catherine is there, badly wounded, but alive. She said she was able to drive away the demon with a vial of holy water she always keeps on her. The nuns are grateful that the witch hunters are only a few days away.
• Party performs charity work around the abbey. Mortimer gets adopted by a three-legged, wall-eyed sheep. Mensch, the insane eunuch from the Pale Lady adventure, decides Madeline is his new best friend. ("Can he hold a sword? Then he's in!")
• The PCs move Lucifer and the rest of their loot to the hidden root cellar, figuring it will be a more secure location.
• Session ends.

Treasure from Both Sessions

• Ancient war spear with a bone shaft wrapped in man-skin and a head of meteoric iron. 
• 1000sp
• Gold chalice worth 500sp
• 3 vials of holy water in silver vials
• Blood of St, Drogo
• Miscellaneous mundane goods salvaged from abandoned Grossbeck

Mid-Campaign Assessment

I’ve played in a number of sandbox games, and I’ve greatly enjoyed them. This is the first time I’ve run a pure sandbox game, and honestly, I’m not sure my home group is the right match for the style. They aren’t bored, and everyone seems to have a good time, but the party wanders a lot and leaves a lot of half-finished jobs and fractionally-explored sites.

I think a lot of this comes from the horror setting. We had similar pseudo-problems with the Silent Legions game. My players are smart and genre savvy, with good survival instincts. But there’s a fine line between “playing smart” and “missing all the cool stuff.” The party has fought a lot of humans and animals, but not a lot of monsters (Pale Lady notwithstanding). I put some fun, goopy monsters in the Pagan’s Well and the Black Monastery, but the PCs bugged out before they encountered them.

I have laid down a bunch of plot hooks and breadcrumbs for about six different modules. I’ve been trying to rely on my players’ own curiosity, and trying to avoid the whole quest-giver “hey I got a job for you” thing. I may need to rethink that. No railroads, but maybe some road maps.

Let’s talk systems. This game started as Lamentations of the Flame Princess game with a bunch of house rules. I’ve added even more house rules as the game has progressed, mostly to make the PCs more adaptable and survivable. At this point, it doesn’t really resemble LotFP, but rather a mulligan stew of various B/X based games. From what I’ve seen the DIY/OSR scene, this isn’t unusual.

I like lethal games. I pitched this campaign as a lethal game. But I think some of my players might be getting frustrated. Maybe not so much with the lethality, but with how ineffective they are in combat. I know old-style combat is supposed to be swingy, but that draugr fight in Pagan’s Well took five rounds before anyone scored a hit (the draugr only had AC like leather armor and 2HD). After a point, swingy becomes tedious. I’m already taking on some rules to address this. I’ll post those later.

This all sounds negative, but I’m still really enjoying the game, and my players are still having a good time. I really enjoy playing all the terrible villager NPCs. We’ve just been in kind of a slump the past couple of sessions. If they stick to the plan to go visit Baron von Winter, that gives them a solid goal. He can definitely give them the old “If you want this from me, I need you to do me this favor” thing, which will lend some much-needed structure to the game.

Burn the Witch-Hunter! [Ashes of Angels, Session 8]

This was a relatively short session that mostly revolved around trying to cure Mortimer’s illness. He was only one failed saving throw away from death, and the players were getting pretty frantic. Julius’ player wasn’t with us this session, so we didn’t get to introduce his new character.

Our Heroes

• Belinda Kage: Serpentblood 1, Midwife
• Madeline: Specialist 3, Grave-robber
• Mortimer: Alice 3, Librarian
• Gerrit Liddstadt of Worms: Fighter 1, Soldier

NPCs

• Ana Fischer: Witchy henchwoman
• Ekans and Arbok: Belinda’s doggos

After returning from Pagan’s Well, the party wakes up the next morning in their rooms at the Happy Woodsman. Madeline, Mortimer—the three characters who has splashed around in the filthy black water at the bottom of the warchief’s well—were all required to make posion saves. Only Mortimer failed. The unfortunate librarian woke up oozing black tarry discharge from every pore and orifice, plastering his bedsheets (also, CON and CHA damage).  

Belinda and Gerrit tried to convince Svetlana (the innkeeper’s least-horrible daughter, who is also obsessed with Belinda) to keep their friend’s illness a secret. But villagers are going to gossip, and soon the entire town new that one of the visiting adventurers was sick. Rumors of plague begin to spread. Kerney the innkeeper considers tossing the party out of the inn but is mollified when the party gives him a good pile of silver, more than enough to buy out all the rooms in the inn and pay for new linnens to boot.

The rest of the villagers are fairly easy to talk down, because, again, they are all very stupid.

Gerrit and Belinda spend the rest of the day hunting for herbs in the woods (the parts they didn’t burn down) trying to mix a remedy for Mortimer and manage to put together a poultice that will give him a bonus to his next saving throw. (He needs to succeed at two saves in order to throw off the illness.)

Mortimer makes his save, and his condition doesn’t progress, although it doesn’t get any better. The party’s feeling pretty confident, and the villagers are less nervous.

Unfortunately, the next morning Mortimer fails his save (even with the bonus) and gets worse again. Mortimer is down to 3 CON and 2 CHA at this point, and things are getting dire. The party questions everyone they can in the village, trying to get information about any kind of healer folks might know.

On my list of rumors, I have an entry that there’s a folk healer in the marshes near Keil whose touch can cure the sick, so I decide to feed that to the players. Keil is only 8 hours south of Kodstadt, so the party (including Mortimer) decide to head to Keil with all due speed. Ana, still upset about losing her arm, stays behind. The witch tells Belinda that she’s realized that the Transylvanian Hunger spell can restore her arm, but it would probably require her to kill someone. Belinda tells her to behave while they are gone.

The ride cross-country to Keil is uneventful. About an hour outside of Kiel, they run into a man with a mule cart and pet bobcat. The man introduces himself as Simeon, a practitioner of the thaumaturgical arts on his way to visit and professional associate of his. He was ready to stop for the night in Kiel, but witch hunters are there right now, getting ready to string up some root-worker and a few other non-desirables. He decided it was safer to skip town while the getting was good.

The party rolls double-sixes on their reaction roll and convince the wizard to come with them. They all hate witch hunters and ask Simeon to come help run them out of town and save the accused. Simeon happily agrees, eager to show those self-righteous witch-burners what’s what.

The party stashes their horses and Simeon's wagon in an abandoned barn and creep towards the village. Belinda and Simeon keep their distance, while Mortimer and Madeline stealth towards the town square, where there seems to be something important going on. Simeon casts invisibility on Gerrit, and he slips into the village square as well.

A large crowd of filthy, sick, and hungry-looking villagers gathers around a large cross erected in the center of the village square. A large gallows platform, obviously of fresh construction, is art one end of the square. Four people stand upon it with nooses around their necks: Brother Timothy (the folk healer), Frau Shulz (the midwife), Sandra (a teenage girl), and Fletcher (the poison maker). Before them all, walking on a long roll of cloth to keep the mud off her boots, is Isadole Spence, the witch hunter. She is a severe-looking woman with a long skirt, high boots, a big hat, and a whip and pistol on her hips. She’s accompanied by four well-armed goons.

Isadole Spence, Witch Hunter (Specialist 5)

AC: 14 (Leather); HP:20; Morale: 10

Stealth 3, Sneak Attack 3, Search 5

Sword +2 (1d8)

Whip +2 (1d3, save or become entangled)

Pistol +2 (1d8)

Goons

AC: 13, HD: 1; Morale: 8

Sword +1 (1d8)

Musket +1 (1d8)

Isadole paces back and forth in front of the gallows, reading off the list of the condemned's crimes, quoting the gorier parts of scripture, and generally doing the whole witch-hunter thing. Madeline and Mortimer position themselves behind cover with their guns and crossbows, while Gerrit makes his way to the witch-hunter’s nearby wagon and finds her keg of gunpowder. Gerrit constructs a makeshift fuse and chucks the burning keg into the center of the crowd. It explodes, killing several villagers and causing the big cross to fall over, crushing a small child. The crowd panics!

Mortimer and Madeline open fire on the goons while the goons unload their muskets on Gerrit, thankfully missing. Simeon casts Summon and calls up a fungus demon. Sadly, he fails his control check, and the demon turns on him. (This spell will work properly at some point, I’m sure. As it is, Belinda has convinced herself to never use it.) Belinda cast Charm Person on Isadole the witch-hunter, who fails her save. Gerrit shoots dead on of the goons on the gallows.

With the guard dead, Madeline makes her way to the gallows platform and starts to free the condemned. Garrit engages one the goons, sword-vs-sword, while Mortimer’s crossbow bolt takes out another goon. Belinda makes her way through the panicked crowd calling for “help” until Isadole can see her. The charmed witch-hunter moves to her side. “Don’t worry, my dear, I won’t let any of these filthy peasants touch you!” Isadole says as she uses her whip to drive away the rabble.

Simeon's pet bobcat leaps into the fray to protect his master from the fungus demon. The large cat’s body ripple like water, and suddenly it becomes wolf-sized brain demon! Simeon's bobcat was a bound and shapeshifted demon this entire time! It’s a tense demon-on-demon fight, but Simeon and his familiar come out on top.

Garrit finished off the last goon while Madeline frees Brother Timothy the healer. The charmed Isadole is so distracted that she doesn’t notice Belinda placing her crossbow under the witch-hunter’s chin and pulling the trigger. The bolt shoots clean through her head, pinning her cool hat to a tree limb above.

The witch-hunters are defeated, and the villagers have scattered. The party leads the folk-healer out of town while Garrit loots the hunters’ wagon.

The grateful healer, a portly old man with a white smock and broad straw hat, introduces himself as Brother Timothy. He lives in a small cottage in the swamp, and his family has been providing medicines and physick services to Keil for generations. But sickness and famine hit the village recently, and as soon as the witch-hunters came to town, the villagers betrayed him, along with the midwife, some poor innocent girl, and the local poisoner. “Well, they might have been right about him. Still, how’s that for gratitude?”

Brother Timothy is more than happy to heal poor sick Mortimer. He rubs some moss on his chest and plants a few leeches on his face while chanting the Lord’s Prayer, and just like magic, Mortimer’s illness is cured! They ask Brother Timothy is he’d like to return with them to Kotstadt. Since the villagers betrayed him and Isadole and her goons burnt down his house, the folk healer thinks that finding a new home isn’t such a bad idea. The party says their goodbyes to Simeon and his familiar, and make their way back to Kotstadt with Brother Timothy and a chest-load of loot from the witch-hunters’ wagon.

When they get back to Kotsadt, Ana has a fresh new arm hidden under her cloak, and Gorst the huntsman hasn't been seen for a while. 

Treasure Gained

• Gold crucifix (200sp)
• 2 vials of holy water
• 500sp in gold coins
• Isadole Spence’s journal

Into the Pagan's Well [LotFP: Ashes of Angels session 7]

I have been super busy with the (successful!) Draugr & Draculas Kickstarter and other projects. We’ve actually had two sessions of Ashes of Angels since my last actual play report. I’m going try and put them out pretty quickly, one after the other.

In this session, the party descended into the Pagan’s Well, which just so happens to be the mini-dungeon to be included in Draugr & Draculas. So, don’t tell me I never playtest anything.

Our Heroes

• Belinda Kage: Serpentblood 1, Midwife
• Madeline: Specialist 3, Grave-robber
• Mortimer: Alice 3, Librarian
• Julius Cervantes: Fighter 2, Ex-witch-hunter (dead)
• Gerrit Liddstadt of Worms: Fighter 1, Soldier

NPCS

• Ana Fischer: Friendly witch
• Ekans and Arbok: Belinda’s doggos

After tearing the grate out of the well in the previous session, the party erects their pavilion tent over the well to protect it from the weather and hide their activity from prying eyes. Ana stays topside while the party climbs down on secure ropes.

The bottom of the well has about a foot of water littered with thousands of copper coins. A statue of a raven, stag, and wolf rest against the walls. A bricked-up doorway stands between the stag and raven. Madeline leads the efforts to carefully remove the bricks and reveal the foggy passage beyond.

The hidden chambers beneath the well are cold and foggy, limiting vision to less than 20 feet, even with lanterns. Julius determines that the construction predates the Romans. The first tunnel ends in a T-intersection. The left-hand passage doesn’t go very far before it comes to a collapsed section. It will take several hours to safely clear away the rubble before they can pass. They decide to save that for later.

The right-hand path leads to an open chamber with a large trough of blood running to one of the walls, ten feet long by five feet wide. A carved image of one-eyed Balor (an evil god of old) leers above the blood trough. The blood seems distressingly fresh. Probing with the trusty 10-foot pole determines that the trough is about eight feet deep. There seems to be a 4’x4’ opening in the wall underneath the blood. No one seems eager to take a dip in the blood yet to check it out.

There’s another passage exiting out of this chamber, but the party decides to go topside and double check on things before continuing.

When they get back topside, Ana seems very nervous as she scans the treeline with her crossbow. “There’s someone out there…” she says.

Suddenly, there’s a “thump” on the top of the tent, and the canvas begins to burn. Someone’s thrown a flaming torch onto it! The party quickly exits as the expensive new tent goes up in flames. Immediately, they are assaulted by crossbow bolts coming from some unseen assailant in the trees. They immediately assume it is the weird, one-eyed, burn-scarred woodsman they met last session.

The party desperately scans the underbrush, trying to spot the sniper. Ana casts Summon and conjures a crystalline demon that she utterly fails to control. It turns to attack her and slices of her arm in one hit!

Madeline finally spots the shooter in the trees and calls out his position. Half the party opens fire on the shadowy form, while the rest try to get the demon away from Ana. Garrit hits the sniper with a solid arrow strike, and the assailant disappears back into the woods. The combined efforts of the party manage to take down the crystal demon while Belinda stabilizes Ana.

Garrit is not at all happy with the creepy trigger-happy woodsman, so he decides to burn down the forest. With the tactical application of a few burning oil flasks, the patch of light woods quickly goes up in flame. Alfred Pennyworth quotes are made.

The party returns to the village of Kotstadt and its stupid, stupid people. The Kotstadters wonder what started the forest fire.

“Do you guys know about that creepy guy that lives in the woods?” the party asks.

“You mean Madman Murphy?” the villagers reply. The party is not happy that no one warned them about this guy.

“Yeah, he did it. He worships Balor and set the forest on fire to appease his evil god. Also he cut off our friend’s arm.”

“That bastard!”

“Yeah,” says Garrit, “We should form a posse to go get him!”

None of the villagers are eager to do this, except fierce Father Hrothgar, the local priest.

Hrothgar grabs his old blunderbuss and he heads out with Garrit and Julius to find Madman Murphy, ideally in a part of the forest that isn’t on fire yet. A few hours and a couple of successful checks later, and the trio come upon Murphy’s shabby, secluded lean-to. Random fresh blood splatters indicate that the hermit is around.

Julius steps into a bear trap, shouting in pain and giving away their approach. Murphy fires upon them with his crossbow again. Father Hrothgar fires his blunderbuss, which misfires and explodes in his face, knocking him over, but doing no great damage. Garrit knocks out the supports to the lean-to, trapping Murphy under the old hides. Within moments, the trapped lump of Murphy is peppered with arrows. The evil hermit is dead. Looking trough Murphy’s belongings for treasure, they find a crude wooden idol of Balor, the rune-carved skull of Murphy’s father, and a bowl of hallucinogenic mushrooms, which they bring back for Belinda.

This is Ana. I don't blame him.

Everyone returns to the village for some much-deserved rest. Before going to bed, Julius, the former witch-hunter, goes to Ana to yell at her about summoning demons. Ana doesn’t feel like dealing with him and casts Charm Person upon him. Julius’s player makes the choice to play it as though he’s madly in love with the witch now. Fair enough. Ana tells him to leave and go to bed.

“Can I go to your bed?” he asks.

Ana considers for a moment. “Yeah alright,” she finally says, figuring that sex will certainly help seal the charm spell. She’s had a bad day, anyway, what with losing an arm and all.

The next day is New Year’s Day, and the party spends the day celebrating with the townsfolk. We roll on the carousing tables. Garrit makes friends with a travelling smuggler and later gets beat up after losing at cards. Madeline gets mugged. Belinda barely avoids marriage to one of the innkeeper’s horrible daughters. Mortimer and Julius manage to avoid complications.

The next morning, the PCs head back to the well, leaving Ana behind to rest and heal. The forest is now a smoldering wreck, but the well seems intact. They climb back down and make their way through the foggy passages. They still decline to explore the blood trough and make their way to the next chamber.

This room has a large, circular stone cap on the floor, like a big manhole cover, with an iron wheel in the middle of it. Belinda, Garrit, and Julius step onto the cap and turn the wheel in hopes of opening it (the wheel is very rusty and takes a combined STR of 20 to turn it).

The wheel does, in fact, open the cap, which flips 90 degrees and dumps all three of them into the 100-foot shaft beneath. Belinda and Mortimer, safely away from the capstone, watch with bemused horror. Belinda and Garrit make their saves manage to make their saves and catch themselves on the edge of the shaft. Julius isn’t so lucky. The plummets for 50 feet, gets lacerated by the crisscross of rusty razor-wire strung across the middle of the shaft, then falls the final 50 feet to crumple dead at the bottom of the shaft.

It was Julius’ player’s birthday, by the way.

Madline climbs down the shaft to retrieve her companion’s body and (more importantly!) to examine the stone coffin at the bottom of the shaft. She carefully removes enough razorwire for people to rappel down the shaft, then gets to examining the coffin.

The coffin sits in several inches of filthy black water but doesn’t seem to be trapped. She calls down Garrit and Mortimer while Belinda stands guard at the top. The three splash through the nasty water (save vs poison!) and bust open the casket. Inside is the decaying body of an ancient warchief. He wears gold braces etched with wolves, and his golden burial mask sports a large ruby! This is the biggest treasure haul the party has found  so far, which means it’s time to bug out and return to the village for now.

Graveyard

Julius Cervantes (Fighter 2)

Matthew, now an insane three-legged tree frog (Outlander 1)
Tranquilo (Fighter 1)
Hector (Alice 1)

Treasure this Session

Two gold bracers carved with wolves (1000sp each)

Gold burial mask with a single ruby eye (1000sp) 

Educated Goats and Creepy Wells [LotFP: Ashes of Angels session 6]

My current LotFP game was set up to be a sandbox game, meaning the players decide where to go and what to do. The players also set the pace. The result of this means that so far, with six sessions under our belts, the PCs have been on, like, one actual “adventure” (The Pale Lady). Maybe one-and-half if you consider the initial escape-the-dungeon mission from Session 1. Maybe more if you count the excursion to the Ghoul Market, which I consider more as an exotic shopping trip.

And while unexpected, that’s fine! My players are all having a good time. And while there’s been little in the way of the traditional go-to-the-place-to-kill-the-thing-and-take-the-stuff “adventure,” things haven’t been boring. They’ve traveled to interesting places and interacted with interesting people. At the end of every session they’ve learned more about the world, made new relationships, and developed plans for the future. They aren’t just “playing house.”

Another unforeseen effect of this is that the theme and atmosphere is a little different than expected. I originally planned this campaign to be a grim-dark trip across Bleak Europe with a backdrop of war, plague, and famine. It’s shaking out to be more of a mixture of folk horror, Roger Corman, and Hammer horror movies--quiet villages full of eccentric weirdos, superstitious peasants, and Ingrid Pitt country girls. That’s also fine, because I like all of those things. I should probably remember to make life in these villages a little less pleasant, though. Everyone’s far too happy and healthy. There’s a war going on after all.

With that said, our last session was mostly a lot of travel, going from village-to-village, meeting some people, and having random encounters. One of my players was sick, so the rest of the players decided to follow up on some side rumors rather than go straight to the next adventure site.

Our “Heroes”

• Belinda Kage: Serpentblood 1, Midwife
• Madeline: Specialist 2, Grave Robber
• Gerrit Liddstadt: Fighter 1, Soldier
• Mortimer: Alice 2, Librarian

NPCS

• Ekans and Arbok: Belinda’s dog and puppy
• Ana Fischer: Witchy henchwoman

After the unsuccessful burglary in Hegendorf, the party decided to lit out of town as quick as they could. Their ultimate goal was to get to the Pagan’s Well, somewhere south of Neubrandenburg and supposedly full of viking gold. They plotted a circuitous route that would take them off the main roads but bring them in contact with a few small towns and villages.

Things started off well, but quickly turned dire when an unusually bitter blizzard blew in from the north. Even with heavy winter coats, several of the party failed their saves and took Constitution damage. They saw the lights of a settlement in the distance, but with the snow and dark, they couldn’t determine how far away it was. They decided it was best to hunker down and weather out the storm. The game suddenly turned into a Jack London story, as the party hunted desperately for firewood, tried to erect their tents against the wind, and futilely built snow caves in the dry, non-packing snow. Eventually they managed to get enough shelter put together to survive the night, but two of their horses died from the cold. At least now they had fresh horse meat to supplement their hardtack.

As unusually cold as it was the day before, that morning was unusually warm, and the party had to slog through piles of slush and mud to make it to the next village. Merhold was a fishing village that sat on a river between two lakes. The townsfolk were suspicious of strangers, but the PCs ingratiated themselves a bit by spending money and volunteering to help shovel out the village streets. The party bought rooms at the Broken Fang inn to recover from their travels and the blizzard. Gerrit was finally able to find a gun to replace the one he lost in Hegendorf—a surprisingly fine arquebus of Molemanic construction from Goldberg.

While spending the night in Merhold, the party heard a very interesting rumor. A farmer in the village Lischt (to the north) had a cow that gave birth to a goat that could speak like a man. This talking goat also had the gift of prophecy! The party decided that Lischt was certainly going to be their next stop, and already started formulating plans to steal the talking goat.

They headed out the next morning. About mid-day, the party ran into a trio of men, obviously deserters, though they couldn’t tell from what army. The men were hungry and cautious, but they were more willing to talk than fight. The PCs gave them a few bits of hardtack, which the deserters eagerly accepted. With a brief exchange of information, the PCs told the men about the village they had just left (which, for now, had no military occupation). The three men warned the PCs that Neubrandenburg had been overtaken by Swedish soldiers. The two groups parted ways peacefully.

After another day of travel, blessedly free of snowstorms, the PCs arrived in Lischt. A shoddy, hand-painted sign proudly declared the village “Home of the Fantastical Talking Goat!” Clearly the rumors were true. The party made their way to the Green Mug inn to get rooms and ask where to find the goat. That lead to this memorable exchange:

• Me (the GM): You enter the inn, the woman running the place, Widow Frammen, comes to greet you.
• Gerrit: Is she cute?
• Me: What? No… No, nobody would ever call her cute. But she has a certain presence about her. A distinct pride. Every line in her face, every streak of gray in her hair speaks of hardships endured and triumphs wrung out of tragedy. She’d make you---any one of you—a fine wife and partner.
• Gerrit: So she looks like…
• Me: Like Maude-era Bea Arthur.
• Gerrit: Never mind.

Those callous louts don’t know what they missed out on. A successful businesswoman with her own land and strong opinions. Together they could have made that village a kingdom. But it was not to be…

Anyway, the party made their way to Terwilliger's farm. There they met Isaac Terwilliger and his two sons out chopping wood. “Are you here to meet my wonderful goat?” he asked. The party said that yes they were. “Excellent! I will send my youngest boy to the barn to prepare the goat. He must make sure the animal is in the right sort of mood to speak to strangers! We will just wait here a few moments while he does this!”

The party chatted with Isaac while his son ran off to the barn. After a few minutes, Isaac he said the goat must be ready now. He took the PCs’ silver pieces and led them to the goat. Inside the barn, a back stall was draped with purple cloth and incense filled the air. A painted lantern filled the barn with pink light. A goat with sparkling blue horns stood in the stall, lazily chewing on a boot. “Oh hello there!” said the goat, in a squeaky high-pitched voice. The PCs couldn’t see its mouth move, what with the boot and all, but it spoke with surprising clarity. “Who comes to me seeking the words of prophecy? Simply put more silver into my bucket, and I shall look through the mists of time to answer your questions.”

Farmer Terwilliger looked proud of his goat, and eager for the party’s silver. His oldest boy looked bored. His youngest son was nowhere to be seen. The players looked both disappointed and amused—a careful balance of reactions that I live for as a GM. The PCs gave a quick glance around the barn, while they stood there, watching the goat poop. The couldn’t see anyone hiding, but Gerrit was pretty sure he heard someone shuffling around the hayloft over the goat, and someone spotted what looked like a can of sparkly blue paint. In the end, they thanked the farmer and left without asking the goat for any prophecy.

The next day found the party back on the road, heading east towards Neubrandenburg. Not to far out from the city, they ran into a small train of brightly colored wagons. The peeling paint on the side of the lead wagon proclaimed this to be the Great Thespian Collective, a troupe of traveling actors, musicians, and other performers. Several of them seemed to have been recently wounded. Indeed, they had recently been run out of Neubrandenburg. The conservative Swedish occupiers have been driving actors, puppeteers, and other “undesirables” from the city. The party sympathized with the troupe and spent the afternoon with them, sharing a meal, trading gossip, and making sure the actors' wounds were attended to. Belinda and Ana spent some time talking to the troupe's resident magician, one Doctor Jupiter, an actual practitioner of real magic. He was able to give Belinda some tips on how to use powdered faerie horn (from the Pale Lady) as a reagent for the Summoning spell.

Eventually the parties split ways, and the PCs headed towards Neubrandenburg. Seeing that the gates were heavily guarded by Swedish soldiers examining every traveler and cart entering the city, they decided the skip the city for now and head west towards where they hoped the Pagan's Well could be found.

After another day of travel, they came upon Kotstadt, the village supposedly near the Well. Kotstadt's main industry was pig and sheep raising, and the village certainly smelled as such. The PCs made their way to the Happy Woodsman inn and tavern, where the patrons were all well into one of the bawdier verses of “She Loves my One-Eyed Monster,” a much beloved drinking song. The hostler Kerney and his cousin-wife Zelda were all happy to tell the party about the old Pagan's Well. It was a well known source of good luck for the village, and young couples often pitch pennies into its depths for luck and large families. Of course, no one would ever dream of climbing into the well to see what was at the bottom. That was bad luck! Why, the last people who tried to do that 50 years ago were never seen again, and it brought plague to the village.

Such dire warnings didn't deter the party, and the next morning found them traipsing through the light woods a mile south of the village, looking for the Pagan's Well. Before they could find the well, however, they ran into a mysterious and creepy man with one eye, dressed all in filthy leathers and collecting hallucinogenic mushrooms. When asked about the Well, the man said “Some things is best not looked into. And bad things happen to those what do. If'n I was you, I'd go pitch my pennies, then leave the well be.” The party assured him that they'd take his advise under consideration. The strange woodsman nodded grimly, then disappeared back into the shadows and underbrush.

With only a slight feeling of foreboding, the party continued their search and eventually found Pagan's Well. It was a large and ancient structure, waist-high, eight feet across, and covered in moss and lichen. About ten feet down, the well shaft was blocked by a rusty iron grate set into the stone walls. Belinda used her Unseen Servant spell to tie ropes around the grate, while the rest of the party lashed the other ends of the rope to their horses. With a few minutes of equine exertion, the rusty grate was wrenched from the shaft walls with a cacophonous shriek of metal, knocking down one side of the surface well in the process.

“Well,” I said, you've got a clear path to the bottom now, but anyone in these here woods is certainly aware of what just happened.”

And that's where we stopped!

XP and Rewards

No combat and no treasure found, but 90 XP to each PC for travel, finding new places, and surviving the snowstorm.