Blackmoor Campaign pt. 3.

[William]

During the session on Saturday the 10th of February my players continued their exploration of the ground floor of the abandoned Keep. This time they made their way into the western rooms of the Keep which contain the living areas for what were the guard Dogs of the Keep, the religious ceremony areas, and in the most south western section the offices for the chief soldiers plus the cells for the prisoners. They have yet to discover a doorway leading to a spiral staircase which makes its way up to a turret for firing missile weapons. The turret contains longbows, quivers with arrows, plus arquebuses, gunpowder, match cord, and firearm shot.

During their exploration they came across a Grey Ooze in what looked like a wet, dripping, wash room (it wasn't wet, it was the Ooze). There was also an area with a number of Yellow Moulds with, unsurprisingly, a collection of skeletons with abandoned armour and weapons. The players wisely left these areas be, though in a deserted religious area they managed to miss a magical Ring of Plant Control (containing an emerald worth 2,100 g.p.) which will be useful for some of the overgrown areas on the next floor, where plants have grown due to a landfill of earth collapsing into the ruined Keep from the sides of The Northern Downs. Also, in an area that had partially caved in they came across a lair belonging to a family of giant-ish Centipedes, of both lethal (poisonous) and non-lethal varieties, who attacked thinking that their lair was under threat. Luckily the PCs managed to destroy the Centipedes without any fatalities from either hit point loss and poison, but they were badly wounded and had to make their way outside for safety and healing, vowing to spend the night camping in the grounds of the Keep with the horses and Abbie Meggary.

There were no encounters whilst camping, though they wisely always had someone on watch through the night, taking shifts of 2 hours at a time. The following day (in the campaign) they continued with their search of the ground floor, and they have now managed to find the secret treasury which contains a collection of gems; rings (non-magical); 2 necklaces; one armband; and one brooch. All of this treasure was very portable when carried between the three of them and worth a good few thousand g.p too! Unfortunately they still have not found the Ring of Plant Control, but I am hoping that they manage to do so in next week's session. There was a wandering encounter with more Rats, and they stumbled upon another Crystal Statue guard who was stationed to stop intruders from making their way up to the first level of the Keep. Luckily the PCs had already managed to find a stairway way up to the first floor the previous campaign day, so they wisely fled this encounter for elsewhere in the Keep (the statues cannot move as fast as the PCs, and they are enchanted with orders to make them stay within a certain distance of where they are stationed).

The session closed with the PCs vowing to make their way up into the first (and final) floor of the (ruined) Keep next week. The PCs made their way back outside again to rest and camp with Abbie Megarry. We finished for the day at this point and made arrangements to meet again at my place next Saturday (the 17th of February).

Bill

[merias]

Sounds like these are going great! What rules are you going to use for the firearms? I know Oubliette magazine had some firearm rules for Labyrinth Lord in one of the issues, but I have never seen any other rules for them in the fantasy genre.

[William]

Yeah it's going well, something that I'm obviously pleased about. They have taken to OSR gaming quickly and possibly prefer it to 5e (but don't quote me on that).

There are rules for firearms in Jonathan Becker's "The Complete B/X Adventurer", though they are the only thing in there which completely grabs my attention. Other than the firearms rules it seems a bit like "Adventurer" is a compilation of ideas that didn't make it into "The B/X Companion", although it must be mentioned that "Adventurer" is far from being rubbish, it's just not as good as "Companion".

As far as I can remember there were some rules for Arquebuses in the 2e Player's Handbook, but I haven't played 2e for years and I don't have any burning desire to return to it, other than to make some use out of a select amount of campaign and adventure material (I played 2e in Lankhmar whilst at high school).

I've never seen Oubliette magazine. I'll have to check it out.

We played again on the 17th and I will have a write up of it posted over the next few days.

Bill