Sunday, September 23, 2012

Two Elves and a Cleric Walk into a Cave

Ran the second group session of my Labyrinth Lord game, set in my home-brewed, Hertugdømme av Glitrende Merkelig (google translation of "Duchy of the Glittering Strange". The name is a nod to the absurdity that is the sparkling vampire).

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Euprhates and Lenny, carrying the reliquary of the gonfalon of St Moschauser, followed Radgar (the secret agent for a chaos cult ) to the cave Radgar and the bandits (who had raided the caravan on the previous session) were using as a meeting place.

Inside, the party walked into an ambush. 

Unbeknownst to the party, the high priest of the chaos cult had sent four armored men (chaos knights) to dispatch Radgar and retrieve the reliquary. To the high priest, Radgar would be too identifiable, having spent considerable time earning the trust of the bishop of the Temple in order to become responsible for the gonfalon's safety. His ability to convey the reliquary to the temple without encountering problems with the law of the realm was too questionable. 

Radgar went down early in the fight(which was something I had not planned on). But, the players took no damage and handily defeated the attackers through a combination of a sleep spell and some big damage rolls with their swords. 

Radgar's death was the cause of some concern. Without him, the party felt they had no way to achieve their goal of going to the cult temple, and consequently, no way to unleash the "god of chaos."

Fortunately, I had the forethought to create a map of the region for the players that Radgar would have on his person (figuring he would show it to the players to plot their journey). So, when they searched his body and found it, they had the idea to visit the village of Visby and and either find someone who could do the the summoning or make the journey northward to the temple and present the gonfalon to the cult high priest.

After looting the bandit treasure and trading their own armor for the much cooler jet black armor and black cloaks of the chaos knights,  the party high-tailed it out of the caves to the clearing where they had left the stolen wagon. The two draft horses were unhitched and pressed into service as mounts and the party set off to find a campsite, as sunset was fast approaching.

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2 comments:

  1. So what happened next?


    -- Jeff

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    1. Hi Jeff,

      Unfortunately, it was a very short session, so that's where it ended. Hoping to get in a game on Tuesday evening. The next session will likely be all travel as the party makes their way towards the small village of Visby. I'm a touch anxious as to how and if the party will interact with the various location based encounters and wandering monsters they're likely to cross. Plus, I'll be trying out a travel mini-game I found on another site (http://recedingrules.blogspot.com), that gives players a chance to balance the risk of getting lost against the risk of an encounter.

      -John

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