Here is the write-up from our second session of our Back to the Basement AD&D (2nd Edition) campaign. Spoiler Alert: There are potential spoilers below the break for the module, Under Illefarn…although significantly less than in the first session. There are also potential spoilers for the adventure, Ashtar’s Temple, from Dungeon magazine.
This write-up is from RJ, who is playing Tycyn. My GM comments are in [italics and brackets] as usual.
[When we last left our heroes, two of them–Davos and Kethenor–had ridden ahead of the party while the rest were just leaving The Way Inn (the village not the inn). Delora had ridden off to The Way Inn (the inn not the village) and was coming back looking quite angry.
Davos and Kethenor, at the end of last session, had come across a lone traveler on the road who politely informed them that he was there to rob them. One of them recognized there would be robber as the relatively notorious bandit, Jocko the Wily. When they balked at the idea of being robbed, around a dozen archers stepped forth from the bushes and trees bordering the road. That is where we stopped…only Todd and Mark actually knew what had happened with Davos and Kethenor.
Unfortunately, Todd ended up having to work and would be about an hour late and Mark was sick and couldn’t make it. So both of the players that I kind of needed to start the session with were going to be missing. So I had to dump the general direction how I thought things might go and things just kind of developed as we played. I had decided that Jocko and his band would have a base in some ruins a few miles away from the road but that was about it. I had already started populating some of the Daggerford area locations so that helped.
We picked things up with the group leaving The Way Inn.]
We were about to leave The Way Inn and head back to Daggerford with Meldar the trader and his group. Delora, his daughter, had headed back to the Inn and said she would catch up with us. Just as we were leaving the village, Delora galloped past and yelled for us to wait here for her to come back. She galloped away from us in the direction that Davos and Kethenor had gone.
Meldar told us to wait and we all discussed the merits of waiting versus going after Delora. The potential dangers that she might face on the road were nearly balanced by concerns of facing the her wrath. After twenty minutes, we convinced Meldar that we should continue on. Somehow, during our discussions, my lack of riding skill came up and Meldar settled upon a solution that would spare him from Delora’s wrath and still let us go after her. He slapped the rump of my horse; I barely held on as she galloped away.
I eventually got my horse under control and waited for everyone to catch up with me. When they did, Meldar slapped my horse and sent me careening down the road. Once I got my horse under control again, I decided to stay well ahead of the group and Meldar. It was safer to risk Delora’s wrath rather than risking a fall and breaking my neck.
After a bit, I stopped and waited for the others. Merrick soon caught up and let me know that Delora had been taken by bandits. As we rode back to the others, Merrick explained that an arrow flew from the woods a short ways back and struck the wagon. A note was attached which read, “Meldar, I have your dahter. I want a ransim of 500 gold or she dies.” It was signed Davos & Kethenor and a piece of Delora’s hair was enclosed. The others had already gone back to The Way Inn. I think most of us believed that the note was a lie although I think we all also had a brief moment where we thought it might be true.
After joining forces with Hannah and Dory, we headed back out to the spot where the arrow struck and began to look around. Hannah, having spent most of her life in the woods around Daggerford, quickly made out the many tracks we had found. They led deeper into the woods and Hannah pointed out both footprints and prints left by horses. As we began to follow the tracks, Hannah noticed that it looked like someone had also been dragged along the ground.
A mile or so in, Hannah signaled us to stop. As I got off my horse, Hannah pointed to a tree up ahead. Two legs were sticking out from behind it, like someone was sitting and leaning up against the tree. As Dory kept the horses quiet, Merrick and I circled around from opposite sides and spotted the rest of the body, hooded and tied to the tree.
Removing the hood, we discovered that it was Davos! He was gagged and the new bruises on his face showed that he had continued to excel at making new friends. Davos explained that Jocko the bandit had ambushed he and Kethenor and took their horses and belongings. After a short debate, we decided to untie Davos and noticed another note that had been stuffed into his leather jerkin. This one was from Jocko! It stated that if we continued to follow them, he would kill either Kethenor or Delora. It also explained that Jocko did want 500gp for Delora and another 250gp for Kethenor. The note claimed that archers were positioned in the trees nearby and anyone that continued to follow would be killed. We all looked around nervously but spotted no archers. Hannah pointed out that Jocko had a bounty of 250gp for his capture or death.
Davos explained that he had convinced Jocko that no one would pay a ransom for him. He also had head-butted Jocko and, generally, made himself a nuisance. So it wasn’t long before Jocko punched him and left him tied up where they had found him. The note also explained that we were supposed to return to the spot where the arrows struck the wagon with the gold at dusk.
We decided that we should go back and tell Meldar this new information and to dissuade him of the idea that Davos actually did abduct Delora. After we passed on this new info to Meldar, we suggested that he hire more men to go after Jocko. The old coot actually thought we meant that he should hire different people to retrieve his daughter!
[While it is common in older versions of D&D for party’s to hire henchmen and hirelings, it isn’t something that the groups I played with did much back in the day. I also didn’t want to get away from the idea of the player characters being the militia. The idea that Meldar pay for it after he had already hired them to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening combined with some comments about getting some cannon fodder clinched for me that we wouldn’t be going in this direction.]
Once we straightened things out, Meldar went out to his wagon. He went under the tarp and we could hear a lock being unlocked and the chest being opened. Suddenly, a voice shouted out, “Delora! The chest is open! Delora! The chest is open!” Meldar come out from under the tarp with a satchel and handed it to Hannah. It was, or so he claimed, full of healing potions. Looking inside, Hannah saw a dozen or so small flasks, each emblazoned with a bloody dagger on the blue field…the arms of the Duke of Daggerford!!!
[I had already decided what was in the chest and that included healing potions. So Meldar offered them for use by the party but he wanted any unused ones back…I think he made some comment about how angry Delora was going to be about him giving them away. Plus, a 0-level party going after some bandits could use a little ace up their sleeve and a dozen healing potions is a pretty good ace. Surprisingly, they didn’t split them up at all. Hannah held on to all of them.]
Happy to have the potions, the five of us…Davos, Dory, Hannah, Merrick and myself…headed back out. After reaching the spot of the ambush, Hannah began scouting ahead as the rest of us are not skilled woodsmen and make considerable noise. She came back and led us forward a bit before telling us to wait as she scouted ahead again. After a few repeats, Hannah tells us that she found some ruins, one larger building flanked by two smaller buildings. Four bandits were leading a fifth, hooded figure, out of the main building. She thought that the hooded figure might be Kethenor.
We decided to set up an ambush. Leaving the horses about a half mile away, we hid along the trail that we had been following. Hannah went ahead again in the hopes of determining whether the hooded figure was Kethenor and whether or not the bandits were bringing a prisoner with them. The plan was for her to come back and let us know before we sprung our ambush.
[I believe the saying is something like no GM’s plan ever survives meeting the player characters. In this case, the opposite held true. By the time the PCs had set up their ambush and Hannah had gone ahead again, the bandits had made fairly good time. Hannah had to quickly hide in the woods to avoid being spotted and so ended up behind the bandits instead of being in position to run ahead to let everyone else know who was coming.]
I had the lead position in our ambush and I heard someone approaching. It wasn’t Hannah but instead the bandits! I wasn’t sure what to do so I stayed hidden. The first bandit passed me by and then another. The second bandit was leading, by a rope, a hooded man. A third bandit passed but the fourth must have seen me because he shouted, “Ambush!”
We quickly fell upon the bandits. They were armed with swords and bows and were probably more skilled than we with their weapons. If we didn’t push our surprise, they would probably slaughter us. I thrust out with my spear, just like Sergeant Dep taught, but I missed. Dory started slinging stones from her vantage in a tree and, I think, Hannah came from behind the bandits slinging stones as well. The next thing I know, Merrick had nearly sliced one of the bandits in half with his big, unwieldy sword. We quickly took down three bandits and the fourth turned and ran. Merrick and I gave chase and, after the bandit shot an arrow at us, we caught him and killed him. We survived our first fight!
The prisoner turned out to be no one that we knew. He claimed to be a farmer who had been abducted by Jocko. Jocko had told him that he was going to be released a short distance from the road but if he didn’t want his family to be killed, he had to do something for the bandit. The farmer was told to wait at the road, collect a ransom at dusk, and return to where he had been released with the money. The man was clearly terrified of Jocko. We gave him directions back to the road and told him to head to The Way Inn. He gladly fled, fortunately in the direction we had indicated.
I suppose that the bandits might not be carrying much in the opinion of an experienced warrior but gladly we took their bows, arrows, swords, and daggers before we hid the bodies off of the trail. We then headed towards the ruins that Hannah had discovered. We tethered our horses a short distance away before heading to the crest of the hill. Down in a valley, we saw the ruins.
The larger building appeared to be in better shape than the other two. We circled around the valley to see if we could spot anything. All we saw were a few doors and openings in the buildings. We decided to approach from the back of the buildings as there were some tall bushes that would shield us from view.
I almost stumbled into a large hole near the edge of the bushes. Hannah took a look at the hole and pointed out some rather large animal tracks around it. And I mean large! Hannah guessed that it was probably the den of a giant weasel…a weasel larger than a man! We quickly moved away and headed the other way around the bushes.
From the edge of the bushes, Hannah sneaked up to the main building. She peeked into one of the many openings in the building’s wall and immediately dropped to the ground as an arrow flew out of the opening. We all ran to the building and gathered around a side door. We charged in and found four more bandits waiting for us in a very large room with an opening leading off to the front of the building. Fortunately, they were not nearly as skilled with their bows as I had feared. We quickly moved to engage them to take away their ranged advantage.
As we fought, we heard the sound of a horse come from the front room. Jocko galloped out the front door and escaped before we could give chase. The last thing I remember was being shot by one of the archers and slipping, I assumed, into my last sleep. I awoke to Hannah giving me one of Meldar’s potions. I guess the old man was honest about the potions. Our enemies were dead and Jocko was gone.
We decided to look around. A door in the larger room opened…opened without any of us opening it! It lead to a small room but there was no one within. It did contain a stairway leading down but it had been blocked by an overturned and large armoire. We yelled down for Kethenor and Delora but heard no response so we started to explore the rest of the ruins.
I checked the building to the north of the main building. [Yes, they split up.] It looked like an old barracks that had been overgrown with plants. A dagger hung on the far wall. I moved down and checked another door at the opposite end of this building. Inside, it looked like an old barn or stable. Two other doors were within. I checked the farthest and found a rat’s nest. Not just normal rats but rats the size of dogs! I quickly closed the door and cut off their hungry chattering. The other door led to an empty room that had a rotten odor.
We gathered again and headed to the southern building. Merrick went in first while most of us remained outside. I heard a door open and then the shattering of glass. This was followed by another door being opened and quickly closed. Then a third door was opened before Merrick let out a short shout.
The next thing I knew a bizarre creature that looked like a cross between a bat and a mosquito flew down at me. [Stirges…or, as Todd put it after the battle, the bane of 1st level characters.] It pierced me with its long nose and grabbed on hard with all six of its clawed feet. I tried to pull it off but it held tight.
Another attached and I could feel myself growing weak. Davos looked to be facing a similar situation but, for the second time in the last few minutes, I lost consciousness. When I awoke to the administration of one of Meldar’s potions, Hannah told me that Merrick had had a similar experience to mine but that Davos had not survived the attack of these creatures.
[Before the stirges attacked, Merrick had checked out a couple of rooms in this building. One of the rooms had various tools and scalpels scattered about. A glowing globe of light was affixed to the ceiling. Merrick tossed a scalpel at the globe and it shattered, the light going out. The next room he looked in appeared to be old living quarters of some type and had two stirges hanging in it. When it was apparent that he had awoken them, he closed the door as the stirges made a strange call. The next room he looked in had awake and active stirges that attacked him. Two other stirges answered the call of the first two and flew out the holes in the ceiling to attack Davos and Tycyn.
Davos was quickly reduced to 0 Hit Points. That’s when we remembered that death in 2e is at 0 Hit Points. So we made a quick house rule to have death at -10. Then Merrick hit -10 and we changed the rule to be negative CON. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that second house ruling especially since the party kept separating…for no real reason…rather than staying and working together. I’ve already decided that we’re going with death at 0 Hit Points but if treatment is administered within 3 rounds, you stabilize and survive.
RJ left off out what happened next. The party decided that finding the prisoners was the most important task at hand. They left Davos’ body in the yard and headed back to the room with the stairs. Once there, the door opened for them and then closed behind them once in the room before opening again. Merrick and Tycyn lefted the wardrobe away from the stairway and a cold wind blew up from below.
That’s where we stopped for the evening. Todd quickly rolled up a new character and we’ll see about working this new character into the game soon.]
