The Campaigns Just Keep On Going

A few updates on how the AD&D campaigns I run (updates on the Champions campaign soon, I hope). I’ve been averaging 3 sessions a week since about Thanksgiving so its been too much to relate!

The last year has been dominated by lords and travel with plenty of adventure on the way. Seven new domains were founded in the last 3 real world years/ 4 game years and the lords and ladies of them are busy with construction, settlement, scouting, clearing, and the rest. Adventurers still form ad hoc parties and gallivant all over in search of wealth. Some standout from this flurry of activity (just stuff I happen to think of).

Owen, the Serene Mage, used genies and alliances with their lords to build the walls and fortress of the city of Rosewood in a day. His henchmen are busy with construction as he shuttles back and forth to the Seven heavens doing spell research.

The Rill Valley, a long-settled, heavily-populated area, finally has a local lord, a Prince-Bishop. Artisans and magic from distant Yashima helped him build his fortified abbey in just a year.

Not far away another Prince-Bishop conquered and cleared the Storm Coast, long a haven for pirates, and turned their ports and forts into his own, The two powerful clerics are now allied in defending the East and South from bandits and pirates.

The paladin nicknamed Clint has finished his fortress in Freetown and has been waging war against bugbears, giants, and giant spiders for 3 full years, now, all while slowly fortifying the passes through the Black Mountains.

The new Marchioness of the Briars has finally, finally! cleared the Briars and established fortified towers at key points. Her own stronghold is still under construction.

In the Stone Hills the barbarian Brigit has finished her massive hill fort and her fiercely loyal Hawk Keshi followers now guard her realm from all interlopers while her tolls on the Hill Road already make her rich.

A group of adventurers stumbled upon a rich trove of money and powerful magic. After leaving and dividing the spoils they learned it was an emergency store made by the wizard Lohr, a disquieting fact because lohr is a figure of fear, even myth.

Lohr, once called the Doughty is now called the Despised, Kingmaker, the Traitor, Father of Witches, the Thrice Betrayer, Kingbreaker, Warmaster, the Mage-Tyrant, and Treacher.

Legends say he sleeps under a hidden mountain but will one day return. Some tales say he will come in a new body, young and hale.

Other rumors are that his nature will be purified and he will return as a hero to defeat evil and grant his own soul rest.

The jazzbanding (there are no ‘parties’, just characters, so they form up and split apart frequently) has been insane in Blackstone and it can be hard to explain how 5-6 players with 3-4 characters each that go off on their own with henchmen or form a group for a specific mission ebb and flow. Recently highlights, no particular order.

One adventurer was able to locate and survive locating the lair od a very old green dragon with quite a bit of loot. Because of time and travel constraints the PCs available with attack were all 4th-7th level with the henchmen averaging 2nd, not optimal. The players used a combination of stealth, magic, and so on to get very close and then the Conjuror Summoned waves of monsters to assault the dragon as the PCs flanked and attacked the fell beast.

It was a very intense battle that left only 1 PC above single digit hit points (and the loss of the lone henchman brought along) but the loot was tremendous.

One PC was traveling solo with henchmen when the ship is was a passenger on was attacked by pirates. He just managed to prevail and capture the pirate ship and then get it to a Good port. Rather than sell it he instead repaired it, staffed it, and set off to acquire pepper for trade to use the profits to finance spell research.

Now other PCs are involved, mainly in using the ship to track down the various clues needed to locate a treasure hoard left by a powerful pirate over a century ago. Trade took a back seat to adventure very quickly.

And in one of the most amazing sessions I’ve DMed in over 46 years a party of 1st level characters killed two fighter lords!

The Setup: A party of 6 1st level PCs was looking for a lost city when they stumbled upon a full Orcish tribe setting up in said lost city, obviously preparing to start raiding the Human frontier. They decided to scout out the place and learn everything they could for hope of more reward when they report it to higher-ups. They did some long-range surveillance, closer scouting, and son on, determining it was a fairly large force. An encounter with an orcish patrol and the following skirmish left them with a lone orc survivor they interrogated to lean - the orc chief had a powerful magical scimitar, theywas an allied tribe of ogres with a fearsome warchief, and the orc chief’s cousin was a very powerful shaman with a powerful magical staff.

More scouting resulted in the party convinced that the staff summons elementals and them wiping out another patrol. Realizing time was running out (the orcs would miss those patrols soon) the mage/thief used his disguise skills and captured gear to do maybe the craziest thief mission I’ve seen - sneaking into the camp to get into the chief’s base!

The thief speaks orcish and was careful to avoid as much interaction as possible and made it to the rear entrance of the ruined mansion turned HQ and learned the shaman had requested wine. The thief grabbed the ewer and followed the servant back to the shaman’s quarters, quietly backstabbing said servant by the door and hiding the body before going in. He served the wine to the shaman, who was studying maps and looking out at the terrain through a window and then - the thef filched the staff from a nearby gear rack.

Quote from another player “Betting your life on a 50/50 thief ability check is pretty bold!”

He wrapped it in a drape from a nearby room and left, grumbling about ‘taking out the trash’ before fleeing the town. Just as he got back to the party the orcish camp exploded into activity like a kicked ant hive as the loss of the staff was discovered. Patrols scattered inn all directions and the obvious chief of the ogres ran out super fast - obviously wearing boots of speed.

Then the accidental ambush happened. The party cleric used Entangle which slowed the ogre as he got close. The entire warrior component dog piled the ogre and beat on him with great fury and lucky rolls as the not-a-thief mage pumped in Magic Missile. It took four raounds and two of the party warrior types were mangled, but they brought down the Ogre chief who was a 9th level fighter equivalent using the 2e rules.

Meanwhile the dozen ogres of that sme chief were following him as fast as they could. In a stroke of insight they realized one of the party fighters was a half-ogre so they slapped the ogre chief’s gear on him, the mage/thief disguised him a bit and then everyone else hid as the ogres arrived. The PC pretending to be the ogre chief claimed the orc chief tried to have him killed and swore vengeance as they ogres followed him into camp. Once there the PC in disguise led the ogres directly to the chief and then cried out

“The betrayer! Kill him!” to the ogres, triggering a surprise segment. Once that was over the PC used the boots to flee as the fight went down. In the end the ogres did kill the orc shief (9th level fighter equivalent) but the orcs cut down all the ogres, too. In the confusion the party fled for civilization.

Since then the PCs have all leveled up and learned that the shaman is now chief.

Far to the west a small group of two PCs and their 6 henchmen were looking for a lost mansion of the Emerald Empire that had been buried in the ashfall of a volcano. After a long overland expedition with encounters with the odd creatures of that region they found the right place - that was being excavated by dwarves and juju zombies!

A rather tough skirmish sprang up with running battles, juju zombies firing siege weapons at PCs, and two invisible thieves stalking each other through the forest before the PCs prevailed. What followed was more excavation then exploring the sprawling mansion buried for over a century.

After battles with khargra, giant mason wasps, and more (spread over 3 sessions, total) they located the wealth of the lord of manor and were able to make it back to civilization.

There was a fair amount more, but I think this give you an idea.