Griffin's Nest 3 presummary

We had a really good session tonight. 10 players showed, and 1 died. Many goblins were killed, and more were routed by their own actions...
Full summary tomorrow.

Mord Mar - Session 2 at the Griffin's Rest

Tonight's session had the same characters as last week, plus one more. Here's the adventurer list:

Red - Human Ranger
Tharum - Elf Thief/Magic-User
Firban Brighthand - Halfling Thief
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf Fighter
Boris - Dwarf Fighter/Thief

and the new character:

Seed - Human Fighter

The group started in town, looking for some things to spend their loot on from last session. Each of the original party members bought a Potion of Healing. Tharum to Mighty Minions and picked up a henchman, a female human magic-user, named Moira. She agreed to join the delve for a 10% share and 1 spell of her choice from Tharum's spellbook. (She chose Web at the end of the adventure.)

The party listened to several rumors, the most notable were: "magic no longer works in the Citadel," and "the hydra prefers elf flesh to dwarf flesh." (Both were heard by Tharum.)

The party decided to take the Forge Road northwards to the Citadel. Along the way, they saw a gray bag sitting in the middle of the road. Checking it on all sides for traps, Firban decided to open it. And was bitten to 0 hit points! A bag of teeth had found its way to a major road, and got a victim! Boris stepped up as his little friend fell, and shredded the bag. 8 gp were found. Radovan healed Firban and they were back on the road.

Soon they were approaching the Citadel from the south. It was supposed to be a quick stop, to make sure that magic worked. Well, that was not the case. They approached the entry under the castle wall, Seeing doors in both west and east sides of the entryway, they investigate. 

The door on the left is locked, but not trapped. They spend some time checking it out thoroughly, going so far as unlocking the door. Firban accomplished this task, and watched it re-lock itself immediately. A crowbar was tried, to no avail.

Meanwhile, the owlbear noticed them trying to get into the door. Fortunately, they had a ranger in the party, and were not surprised. A combat ensued. The owlbear lasted 2 rounds, only landing one hit on Tharum. (Missed bear-hug damage by 1. 😒)

As the party is taking pieces of the owlbear (head, steaks, feathers are things I remember for sure,) a group of three apes make their presence known. They all stood a head taller than the humans, and carried 7' long stone spears (all stone, including the shaft.) Moira had the very rare spell "Comprehend Languages" memorized (a fortunate coincidence and a DM Fiat, all in one!)

A round of hilarity ensued as Khazgar, Seed and Moira can understand the apes, but cannot respond. They attempt several gestures, but the apes could not understand. Eventually, the groups separate with no hostilities.

The party resumes their door messing. This time, they do some checking, and open the east door. Khazgar steps inside, and gets attacked by a ghoul! He (for the second session in a row) is paralyzed! The party otherwise makes quick work of them, thanks to Radavan rolling 20 on 2d10! Further into the room is a desk. Overall, the treasure in the room is 1 silver key, 2 gems, and a 1000 gp necklace.

They take the silver key and try it in the west wall door. It works! Inside is a room with 8 black ants. They shut the door, leaving the ants to their machinations

They move through a double door at the far end of the ghoul room, and enter a strange almost z shaped room. A door to the left, and a few more doors in the further compartment were noticed. In the further compartment, 8 dwarven skeletons could be seen. As they approach, they see a tripwire separating the skeletons from the party. Seed throws a few rocks at the skeletons, but nothing seems to happen.

As they are figuring out what to do, they listen at the near door, and hear bones moving around. They decide to send Radovan and Boris into the room near the skeletons. The skeletons turn their heads to look at Radovan. 

"Why do you disturb our rest?"

"We seek to return the dwarves to their homes." 

"The taint of this mountain will never be washed away. That is a fool's errand."

A few more words were exchanged, but that's the most important bits.

They decide to check the door nearest where they entered instead of pushing through the dwarf skeletons. Again, not trapped or locked. Seed opens the door, and gets blasted by a ballista, pinning him and Boris to the wall.

Combat ensues with the skeleton with an axe. The skeleton casts a spell on the next round! Mirror Image and movement. The party shoots a few arrows and take a couple of swings. The skeleton wades into combat, attacking 3 different party members! The party attacks again. Seed breaks loose and runs toward the exit. The skeleton wins initiative, and casts Sleep! This leaves Seed (at 1 hp after the ballista, Khazgar (who moved to load the ballista) and Tharum as the only members standing.

Now, here's a note about Seed's player. He is my eight-year-old son, Hanson. He was forced to make a choice, and I presented it like this: "You have 2 choices, be the survivor, or the hero. You can get out the door, and live. But, all of the treasures you have gotten so far (except the silver key) are on the other characters." He chose to stay and fight.

Khazigar awakens Radovan and Moira with his next actions (one in movement, the other in melee.) Tharum awakens Red. Meanwhile, the skeleton misses Seed. (Hero indeed!)

The party finally drops the skeletal fighter-mage. At this point it was 9:00, so we called it a night. They took the ballista (500 gp) and the fighter-mage's axe (an axe of spell-storing named Heart-Killer, or Heart-Slayer or something similar. The dwarven runes on the axe are ancient and impossible to translate exactly.)

A few DM's notes:

I felt bad for Tharum's player tonight. He chose Sleep as his spell, and never had the chance to cast it. He expected either a) to hit the goblins, or b) to go back to the Lords' District. Unfortunately, they ended up in the undead section of the citadel.

The owlbear (and the skeletal fighter-mage) rolled very poorly. There should have been more blood. But, that's why we roll the dice.

Everyone seems to be having a blast with the gritty style of S&W. They have quickly gotten used to the round robin style combat and the lethality of combat. 

We are approaching level 2 for at least Firban. The others have more XP to go, but I would bet most of the single class characters hit 2 next week. 

The bag of teeth. 

The ghoul room. Post ghouls. The rats on the left represented ants. 

New adventures, Same Mord Mar

Griffin's Rest Mord Mar Session #1

After the break, I have finally revamped a lot of Mord Mar. This was in anticipation of running the megadungeon at my FLGS, The Griffin's Rest. We had our inaugural game this afternoon. I missed one player (not realizing he was there for the game - Sorry, Farber! Next week!) We had 10 registered on the site, but 6 showed up (plus the player I missed).

We did character generation (see this post) and I plopped the wanted posters onto the table. Now, keep in mind, I expected them to go for the low hanging fruit - goblins. That went awry quickly.

Here's the character list:

Human Ranger (name unknown)
Elf Thief/Magic-User (name unknown)
Firban Brighthand - Halfling Thief
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf Fighter
Boris - Dwarf Fighter/Thief

Khazgar was quickly the defacto leader, and he convinced the party to look for the Opalaxe Clan's axe.  This brought the party quickly away from anything I had planned. (The joys of a sandbox game!)

They headed down the teleportation hallway toward Forge Road. A wandering monster check brought them face to face with a returning party. These adventurers warned the party that the giant rats were "very active" today. They talked about the bear-owl, confirming it is still in the Keep's central area. No, goblins haven't been active. Probably because of the bear-owl thing. Pleasantries were said and the groups separated.

Nothing else happened on the way to the Old City. On the Forge Road, they take the first right available and head into the Lords' District. The road here is quite different. It is 10' wide instead of 30'. It has a ceiling about 20' tall. They follow the road, and find "paths" staggered on both sides of the passage about 45' apart. (On each side of the road there is 90' between "paths.")

They listen at a few, and choose the 7th one (630' down the road). They follow the path to a 50' square carved "cavern" with a golden colored door at the far end. Before entering, they search and find a pit trap. The elf notices a secret door at the bottom of the pit, about 4' tall. They open it and find a stairway that winds down into the darkness, but heightens back to 10' quickly.

They decide to check the golden colored door first, and find it untrapped, and easy to open. Inside they see a doorway on the left wall, a stairway up straight ahead and a closed door to the right. Khazgar enters and notices a statue on the left wall. Approaching and inspecting it, he sees a holy symbol of Bashiel Ashmouth and some runes under the symbol. He fails his save, and falls over.

Firban steps in to help him, and the statue's head follows the halfling around. Eventually, the group gets Khazgar out (with the help of Boris.) Radovan inspects the runes and also becomes paralyzed. The statue's head follows any non-dwarf in the room, apparently too.

The thieves here something BIG stomping around upstairs as the paralysis wears off. A huge statue comes down the stairs and the party flees, shutting the golden colored door behind them. The statue blasts the door off the hinges and pursues. The party flees into the secret door at the bottom of the pit, assuming that the giant statue would not fit. They were right.

Following the stairs (which were carved by dwarves, but not master craftsmen like the rest of the stonework seen) leads them to a room with an open sarcophagus, and an altar (again to Basheel.) The elf notices that there is a secret door behind the altar. Khazgar inspects the sarcophagus and skeleton inside, and finds an axe matching the description of the Opalaxe Clan's. He grabs it, after hitting the skeleton's skull. This triggers something appearing in the corner. It looks like a flaming skeleton.

Combat ensues, and Khazgar is dropped. The human ranger is able to finish the flaming beast a few seconds later, after taking a hefty blow himself. Boris inspects the sarcophagus closer, and finds that there is a secret compartment under the skeleton. Meanwhile, Radovan heals Khazgar. Boris pops the hidden compartment, releasing a green gas into the room, and those in its range make their saves. 250 gp, 200 sp and 2 gems are hauled out.

Meanwhile, Firban has figured out how to open the secret door. It opens into a similar room, with a larger altar inside. There are also 8 skeletons standing inside. They decide to leave for the day, with their new treasure. They make their way back to the pit trap, and see that the statue has re-entered the house, and replaced the door (it hangs askew, but has covered the doorway.)

They rest for 2 days, and head back to finish the room with the skeletons. People take turns crossing the threshold, only to find that a magical darkness doesn't let those in the room see. But, the people outside can see in.

They worry that the skeletons will attack, so they lasso the skeleton nearest the altar, dragging it out, and making the altar begin to glow. It does not animate. Instead they find it was bound with mithril wire(!) and begin to unwind it. They repeat the process with the other skeletons, but they each collapse instead of getting drug out.

Thinking the threat is contained, the Elf MU-Thief steps into the room again, finding that the light from the altar allows him to see. He finds a secret compartment on the altar, and an Iron Cobra attacks from within. He flees and the party makes quick work of it.

Khazgar decides to smash the skulls of the skeletons, and they all begin to coalesce in the room. They shut the door and flee. As they do so, the skeleton they pulled out magically moves toward the secret door and begins beating on it.

End of Session


We had a lot of fun. I wasn't prepared for them heading in this direction. But, we all had a blast. The players got a real good taste of what megadungeon play feels like. Everyone had fun, and I expect them all back next week! I love sessions like this.

There will be a signup sheet for next week up sometime tomorrow in the FB group and on the website. Look for it.

*EDIT* the axe they found was not the Opalaxe clan's. It was a +1 axe, which is now in use by the party.

Wanted Posters

The Citadel, it's a changing

As you know, I am prepping for a FLGS game of Mord Mar. The beautiful thing about this is: I get to update the game, based on playtesting from other campaigns. Well, the whole Old City is getting a face lift.
1st up: the Citadel. Instead of a monolithic structure, it is becoming four towers, with a courtyard in the middle. The courtyard is surrounded by walls. Some of the portcullis from the roads will be open, and some closed. The Transitionary is at the center of the courtyard. (This is the main stairwell between levels.) Goblins still control one of the towers, but the others need to be discovered through play.
Each tower is three levels tall, and 60' square. Some may have basements, cellars, attics or other non-symmetrical levels. The walls connecting the towers are two stories tall and 20' wide. Inside of these walls were once bunks, weapons lockers, a few offices and other guard necessities.

2nd in line, the Old City itself. The map has had a total re-working. All of our favorite places are still there, but they are (probably) in different places.

More to come!

Griffin's Rest Character Generation

I am going to start running Mord Mar at the FLGS, The Griffin's Rest next Tuesday. This post details how we will create characters. We use the Swords & Wizardry Complete rules.

Step 1: Roll Stats

Roll 3d6 (3 6-sided dice) 6 times, then assign as you see fit to the following:

Strength: This stat primarily affects combat and carrying power. Note: Only FIGHTERS gain a damage modifier from strength (this does not include rangers, or paladins.) All classes do gain the TO HIT modifier.

Dexterity: A dexterity of 13 or higher gives a +1 attack bonus to ranged MISSILE combat (this does NOT include axes, daggers or other THROWN weapons.) A dexterity of 13 or higher also gives a +1 bonus to AC. FIGHTERS with a  15 (or better) dexterity gain a Parry ability.

Constitution: A Constitution of 13 or higher gives a +1 HP per Hit Die. (So a ranger with Con 14 would get +2 HP at level 1!) Constitution also determines how likely a Resurrection Spell will work on the character.

Intelligence: This stat determines the number of languages and spells that a character may know. It also determines the highest spell level magic-users can learn, as well as their likelihood to understand a new spell found.

Wisdom: A wisdom of 15+ grants a bonus 1st level spell to clerics. Any character with a wisdom of 13+ gains a 5% bonus to all XP gained.

Charisma: A charisma of 13+ gives a 5% bonus to all XP gained. It also determines how many Specialty Hirelings the character may have. (Specialty Hirelings are NPCs that have a class, and may accompany the main character in the dungeon.)

Step 2: Choose a class.

Assassin: A specialized thief, who can use poisons. (Humans only)
Bonus starting equipment: Assassins may choose 1 of the following: 2 flasks of oil, 2 holy water, charmed garlic or wolfsbane to have in their beginning equipment.

Cleric: A warrior-priest. Clerics cast beneficial magic, and may cause undead to flee from their presence. (Dwarf, Half-Elf, and Human only)
Bonus staring equipment: 1 holy water and a silver holy symbol of the cleric's deity.

Druid: A devout follower of nature's ideals. A 2nd tier physical fighter, with a wide range of 2nd tier spells. They gain a wide array of natural abilities like determine if water is clean. (Humans only)
Bonus starting equipment: 1 scroll case and a sprig of holly.

Fighter: A pure warrior, with an understanding of all weapons and armors. (Any Race)
Bonus starting equipment: any weapon of the player's choice and 20 arrows (if applicable to the weapon)

Magic-User: A spell caster, learning the arts from tomes and knowledge. Magic-users have a wide array of utilitarian and offensive spells. Magic-users are the weakest toe-to-toe fighting class. (Elf, Half-Elf, Humans only)
Bonus starting equipment: spellbook, and 1 scroll case

Monk: Monks may not be played.

Paladin: A holy warrior, dedicated to fighting Chaos in all of its forms. They gain a myriad of abilities to help them do this, including a healing touch and increased saving throws. (Human only)
Bonus starting equipment: 2 holy water

Ranger: A warrior, with the ability to track. Rangers are rarely surprised. Eventually rangers can learn both clerical and magic user spells. (Humans only)
Bonus starting equipment: short bow and 20 arrows

Thief: Masters of stealth and cunning. Thieves can hide, find and remove traps, pick locks and climb more effectively than other people. They can also unleash a devastating "backstab" attack at appropriate times.
Bonus starting equipment: thieves' tools, small sack

Step 3: Choose a race

Dwarves: The stout, bearded subterranean dweller. These are the people that built Mord Mar. They gain a +4 to all saves vs magic. Dwarves notice changes in stonework easily. Dwarves may see in darkness 60'. Dwarves may only reach 6th level as a fighter, and 5th level as a cleric. Dwarves may begin play with both the fighter and thief classes (distributing XP equally between the classes.)

Elves: Elves, immortal pointy-eared forest dwellers, can see in the dark 60', cannot be paralyzed by ghouls, and can find secret doors easily. Elves may begin play as fighter/magic-users, or fighter/magic-user/thieves.Multi-class fighters may attain 4th level, and multi-class magic-users may attain 8th level. Elves cannot learn spells beyond 5th level. Elves cannot be raised or resurrected.

Half-elves: A cross-bread between elves and humans. They can see in darkness up to 60', have an easier time of finding secret doors. Half-elves may begin play as Fighter/Magic-Users or Fighter/Magic-User/Clerics. Half-elves may reach level 6 as fighters or magic-users, and level 4 as clerics.

Halflings: Short, friendly folk, modeled after the trademarked hobbits. Halflings gain a +1 attack bonus when using missile weapons, and a +4 to saves vs, magic. Halflings may only advance to 4th level in fighter.

Humans: Humans have no special advantages or disadvantages, except the ability to be any class.

Step 4: Gain equipment

Each character begins play with one weapon appropriate to their class, 1 set of armor appropriate to their class (excluding plate armor), 5 days of dried rations, 2 waterskins, backpack, and bedroll

Each character may choose one of the following packages:

Package 1: shovel,  5 candles, crowbar, 10' pole, hammer and 5 iron spikes, 5 torches, flint and steel, 2d10 gp

Package 2: flask of holy water, 5 pieces of parchment, 1 quill, 1 bottle of ink, flint and steel, hooded lantern, 3 flasks of oil, 1d6 gp

Package 3: block and tackle, 50' hemp rope, 5 pieces of chalk, 2 small sacks (15 lb capacity), bullseye lantern, 2 flasks of oil, flint and steel, 2d6 gp

Step 5: Determine spells

Clerics and Druids may memorize any spells of the appropriate level of their choice
Magic-Users begin with the minimum number of new spells per their intelligence. The player chooses one spell that the automatically know, and the remainder are rolled randomly (using the M-U's chance to understand.)

Step 5: Delve into the world of Mord Mar and have fun!

Mord Mar Update

As I type this, I am preparing for a new campaign. This new campaign will be in the style of Gary Gygax's home campaign, and run at The Griffin's Rest. This will be a hard reset to "default" settings. The events of past campaigns will show up as time passes, allowing other groups to experience the timeline freshly.

It is going to be an episodic campaign, with about 4 hours of delve time per session. I will be using the Swords and Wizardry rules set, as it is simple. This will allow us to maximize the time at the table, not spend a whole session on one scene.

I am excited about this new project. It is moving closer to getting Mord Mar into a publishable format. In the downtime, I have figured out several of the problems that Mord Mar presents. For example, the Old City is mapable, but not really keyable. The solution to this problem is pretty novel. I intend to name about 30%-60% of the buildings. I will include generic floor plans for common building types (homes, businesses, mushroom farms, etc.) It will be up to the individual DMs to flesh them out.

Mord Mar has grown and changed in the 5 years I have been working on it. But, it has been for the better every time. Now I hope a whole new crop of gamers enjoy the old style of role-playing.

Expect more news on Mord Mar soon. I intend to start running in the next couple of weeks and to put up play reports. In the meantime, look for the Silver Bulette Blog. I have shifted everything not Mord Mar to there.