Dwarves! Goblins! Bandits! Advanced Campaigning in the King's Field

 The West King's Field

    Over the week I've played several sessions of my fantasy campaign. Due to the events of the RPG and wargames I've ran there are now many different moving pieces in my game world. I'm going to give an update in what's going on in the West King's Field in this posting. Thank you for reading! 

Schwarzstein Keep [6/12/100 - 6/18/100]

    While the party of RPG characters I run out of the village of Backwood to the south are on down time I decided to create another part of characters based out of the keep named Schwarzstein to the north of the Hessar. I used the module B2: Keep on the Borderlands, written by the legendary Gary Gygax as a base for this location. It's a module I'm fairly familiar with so integrating it into my campaign world was easy. I decided to model this party as a guild of adventurers named the Schwarzstein Hounds. I started to feel that the scope of the campaign was starting to exceed what is offered in White Box S&W so I chose to convert my campaign to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons [with the use of the Old School Rules Reference and Compendium edited by Matt Finch]. As per the guidelines given in the Dungeon Master's Guide, I took notations on this guild concerning the employees, the adventurers affiliated, upkeep costs, and a yearly tax owed on the guild hall they operate from. 

    The patron/guild master of the Hounds is a retired 9th level fighter named Siegbert. He hires would-be adventurers under a contract providing lodging, training, and jobs in exchange of 50% of treasure earned on said adventures. Other than the patron the guild hall is ran by two clerks, a scribe, and two guards. I rolled up three characters (fighter, cleric, and thief) to start out with. 

    Their contract was to deal with a group of raiders who had been terrorizing merchants on the road to the keep. I used Scarlet Heroes to run through an urban adventure about investigating the whereabouts of the raiders. It turns out that some of the raiders were turncoat guards who were plotting a prison breakout. My characters uncovered the plot and were able to find out where the raiders' camp was located and with reinforcements from the castellan's men, they assaulted the camp and took raiders prisoner. The guild got a share of the treasure recovered as payment and got in good favor with the castellan. 

The Moat House Raid [7/31/100]

    At the raiders' camp the Swazian soldiers discovered a map which pointed to an abandoned moat house in the nearby swamp as a base of operations for the bandits. Due to their excellent performance in the last adventure, the Hounds were hired to investigate this. With an addition four men-at-arms they stormed the gate and was attacked by a giant frog monster. The thief Ludwig von Mausborg slew the monster and they rushed past the moat house's broken gate to catch the fleeing bandits by surprise. Sigusmund the fighter led the charge against the bandits but was taken out by a bullet fired by one of the bandit's flintlock pistols. The bandits who chose to fend off the party then took our Khurasan the cleric and the remaining men-at-arms, leaving Ludwig to fight off the bandits who had not barricaded themselves in the next chamber. 

    Curiously, one of the bandits was betrayed by his brothers-in-arms. They barricaded the bandit out of the chamber- effectively leaving him for dead while the rest gathered their treasure and escaped on boats. Ludwig was able to make a sneak attack on this bandit and knocked him out for further questioning. 

    The raid was a loss for the party. The bandits were able to flee by boat up stream before Ludwig could bust into the next chamber. Ludwig took the bandit to the keep for questioning. The bandit had no issue giving out the information he had. In return, the castellan showed mercy, and allowed him to join the Hounds as a mercenary. Thus, Alexander the fighter joined the campaign. 

Malborg Castle [8/5/100]

    I got heavily invested with learning the Chainmail Medieval Miniatures rules and played several battles concerning the [human] army from the kingdom of Ogre, who had been stationed to protect Backwood village against whatever chaotic force was springing out of Malborg's dungeon. By playing out 3-5 unchronicled battles with just the vanilla rules [even though fantasy figures were used], I feel like now I have a really good grasp of that rules system and how it can be incorporated to fit hand-in-hand with my RPG system which is not an easy thing to balance out. Part of the reason I switched to AD&D is because AD&D allows you to do just that- scale your RPG stuff to wargaming stuff with little work or conversion [just a change of mindset really]. 

    Eventually the wizard of Backwood had enough of the sorcerer's army and sent my party back to Malborg to vanquish the sorcerer. So, they did just that. They marched throughout the first floor of the dungeon until they reached the lair of Malbus the Terrible. Malbus was a 4th level magic-user who was backed up by several goblin henchmen who held the party back at the door to his lair as he enganged in a duel with our magic-user Paladis. Geoffry the knight fought through the goblin resistance which gave Marbin the cleric the opportunity to breach into the lair and melee Malbus right before he could pop off an invisibility spell and escape. They then took the sorcerer's treasure and began their exfil from the dungeon. They were attacked by a group of dark elves who had waited in the shadows for the adventurers to walk out with the treasure. Paladis would be assassinated by a dark elf's crossbow bolt before the other party members could avenge him. With their hit points low they decided to grab Paladis's map of the dungeon and bolt out dungeon before they ran into any more trouble. 

    The treasure and exp gained from the adventure bumped the two characters up to around level 5 which is a great thing, but time needs to pass in order for them to be playable agian as per AD&D doctrine. So, with the money they got from the raid they bought a plot of land and are now overseeing the construction of a homestead within Backwood's territory, which will set the characters back until 4/7/101.  

The Dwarf Fortress of Hrardven

    It was at this point that I decided to design another dungeon that my Hounds could delve into. There's mountains 3 miles north of the keep so I decided to created a long-abandoned dwarf fortress [or so the humans thought] with treasure to uncover inside. Instead, the fortress was a battleground between the resident Blue-Teeth goblin tribe and the dwarves who sought to reclaim their long lost home. Similarly to how I came up with the record for the Hounds, I created a record for the goblins and dwarves. To start, the goblins were 236 in number who were led by their chief named Sharp-booger. Sharp-booger has 7 worgs he keeps as pets and five goblin guards [who fight as gnolls]. They settled into Hrardven in the year 20 and have lived there ever since. Besides a giant cave lizard that Sharp-booger had to slay in the year 66, they realtively thrived here. That was until the rightful dwarven heir Thaim Lord-dwarf [fighter 6] and his retainers consisting of his brother Gatsu Prince-dwarf [fighter 4], Marvn Loud-dwarf [fighter 5], Orin Ruby-dwarf [fighter 5], Thatelch Beer-dwarf [fighter 3], and Urkal Sad-dwarf [fighter 5] came to the dungeon in the year 40 along with a warband of 163 dwarf warriors. Ever since the two factions have been warring in the mountains for control. 

    8/14/100 would mark the day of the Battle of Skinny Bridge. The battle got its name because of its location, a rickety-slim bridge which connected the two halves of the dungeon together. Sharp-booger led his bodyguards, 18 goblins, and 3 worgs over the bridge in an attempt to capture a few chambers of the other side. Thaim Lord-dwarf would take 9 of his warriors to defend the bridge. This is the commotion the Hounds heard as they entered the dungeon that day. They chose to west instead of east where the battle was happening and ran into a dwarf guard. The guard mistook them for mercenaries Thaim had hired and the party decided to play along. The dwarf led them down a secret corridor and to the office of Urkal Sad-dwarf, who offered them a gemmed silver amulet [worth 2,400gp] and a silver-gold braclet [worth 900gp] as a reward for helping push back the goblins. The Hounds were low on money so they did not hesitate to accept the offer and joined Urkal to reinforce his king. 

    A few dwarves and goblins would die in the battle, but what was more key is that Ludwig got a backstab off on Sharp-booger and assassinated him. This caused the goblins to break morale and flee back to their side of the dungeon. Thaim took the commandeered the bridge and took it back to his side, ensuring that goblins could not easily cross the threshold. 

    

    A large feast was held at the dwarven mead hall to celebrate the victory of the Skinny Bridge and the death of the goblin chief. Impressed with their performance at war, and at Alexander's ability to beat him a mead chugging competition. Thaim opened an account with the Scharzstein Hounds, and sent Banain Thoughtful-dwarf [ a 1st level dwarf cleric with 18 wisdom] as his representative to the guild. And thus, I gained a new party member. 

A Rising Threat

    One last major event would be chronicled on 8/11/100. With the evil sorcerer vanquished, room for a greater evil was made to flourish. Within the deeper depths of Malborg Castle rested a demon lord named Baalroch. With the seal of Malborg broken, Baalroch unelashed an army of orcs from the dungeon and throughou the surrounding Black Forest. Feeling bold, he launched an attack on the fields of Backwood where his orcs faced the soldiers from Ogre, and nearly destroyed them before being pushed back into the Black Forest. Baalroch is satisfied with controlling the Black Forest for now but time will tell when his next assault will be. 

Chaos Reigns in the King's Field!

 War in the King's Field?

    Chaos has begun to reign throughout my campaign setting. For the first time in a while the peace in the Western King's Field has been broken as a consequence of certain events which transpired in my last few game sessions. The events which brought about this will be described in this campaign report: 

The wyvern is dead! Malborg's seal is broken! 

    Ser Geoffry the fighter acquired some new allies on his journey. One of them being a new party member- a cleric named Marbin. Together they assembled a small force of crossbowmen to claim the bounty on the wyvern of Malborg. They mounted a successful sneak attack on the beast while it rest atop a ruined tower. By scaling the walls and jumping on its back, Geoffry was able to slay the monster as Marbin led the crossbows to hit their targets true. They brought the severed head of the wyvern to the tavern in Backwood for all to see.

 

News of the wyvern's defeat travelled to the taverns and guild halls located within the King's Field. The rumor piqued the interest of none-other than the inheritor of the long-forgotten keep- Paladis Malborg, a novice wizard. He came to the village of Backwood to meet with those who had slain the wyvern and presented them a map of the dungeon beneath Malborg Castle [the first floor of it]. Record of what is inside the dungeon and how far deep it goes was lost to time over a century ago, but if they were to band forces then they could uncover the mystery of the castle and recover its lost treasures. The adventure would be risky for the fledling adventurers but the potential gold and glory with achieving such a task would plant their names into history eternally. The fighter, magic-user, and cleric formed the Malborg Marauders, a league of adventurers with the prime goal of spelunking beneath the ruins. 

Swazian Incursion

    Patrols hurriedly stormed on horseback to the office of the worshipful mage of Backwood with a frightening report. An army from the kingdom of Swazia was spotted marching north of the Hessar river. Although the mage was granted autonomy of the West King's Field, the accords agreed upon still placed the region under the protection of the king of Ogre. Thus, the mage of Backwood took command of the Ogth soldiers stationed in the region and met the Swazaians at the crossing of the Hessar, where after a short round of futile parlay a battle would take place. 

Missile file would mostly be exchanged by the two sides from across the river while calvalry counter attacks would be contested on either side of the Hessar. Although Swazian infantry would make an attempt to cross the river, they would be taken out by Ogth archers. With the core of their forces defeated, the Swazaians retreated back north to gather their strength while the mage of Backwood took the opportunity to reinforce his position south of the Hessar and prepare for another offensive. The Swazians had not yet made their intentions clear, but all now know that war has come to the King's Field. 

Monsters of Malborg

The Marauders were on their way to Malborg when they had been ambushed by the walking dead! Suddenly, several bodies had risen from the ground. They were the bodies on long dead soldiers of Malborg Castle. Marbin used his cleric abilities to keep the zombies at bay- but a clear observation had been made. With the wyvern no longer holding back the horrors beneath the castle ruins, chaos was allowed to leak onto the surface and cause havoc across the King's Field. 

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a Deep Sleep

The Marauders traversed the first level of Malborg Castle. Fortunately, they found most of the ruins beneath to be empty with a few scraps of treasure left behind. What caught them off-guard however was the emergence of a level 2 magic-user. The sorcerer was accompanied by six goblin body guards. He claimed to be an apprentice of the sorcerer who lives beneath the castle and that he had just awoke from a deep sleep. He then gave no further details. After deducing that the adventurers were here to steal the lost treasure, the apprentice beckoned his goblin minions to attack. The sorcerer used a charm spell to place the cleric under his command and had him attack Paladis while the fighter was distracted with the goblins. Paladis was able to get the better hand over the sorcerer this time, which forced him to flee deeper into the castle, leaving his goblins for dead. The charm spell had lifted from the cleric, and he regained his senses. The party was left weak after the attack and they began their extract from the dungeon. They ran into a group of elves who attacked them, which forced them to flee even faster. Thankfully, the dice allowed them to escape with their lives and treasure this time...

West King's Field Campaign Report #3

 

World Building and Dungeon Delving

    What you're looking at is a draft of the campaign map I made last night. I tried not to go super detailed but I wanted to give myself enough of an idea of the area so I can begin planning war games primarily. A week ago I made up a wargame army using the Chainmail Medieval Miniatures rules but I've yet to design a scenario for them. Nevertheless I have an idea of the world I'm playing in now. 

    I decided to play something fairly lite and fun today. I broke out my dungeon tiles and used those to quickly generate a dungeon for my fighter to explore in. Note that the dungeon generated is not the main dungeon of Malborg Castle as that is still under threat by the Wyvern. Instead of going after the Wyvern initially as I did with my last character, I want this character to level up at least one level and find a few ally NPCs along the way before trying to storm the castle. 

Encounter #1- The Dwarf Fighter

The first being my fighter encountered was a dwarf fighter walking my direction from a long corridor. On the reaction table I rolled a positive reaction so I knew that the dwarf would not attack me. He warned me of a giant spider who is waiting for its next meal down the hallway and that going down that way would be suicide. He was a treasure hunter like me. He tried to take this route further into the dungeon but towards the north he encountered a few unfriendly skeletons which would have been a challenge by his lonesome. Now that he had found me, he wanted to join together to clear the way of the undead so that we both could venture past the giant spider. To this, I agreed. Although he had good armor on, he didn't have many hit points (that being a roll of 2hp). With an agreement to split the treasure gained 50/50 we pressed to the north to face the undead. 

Encounter #2- The Undead

The bodies of long-ago slain warriors littered the chamber to the north. As the dwarf and I entered we saw the bones begin to swirl around violently until they began to join together to form three skeletal warriors who armed themselves with battered, rusty weapons. This encounter looked scary but with some strategy it wasn't so much to handle. We pulled back to the narrow hallway so that we couldn't be easily overwhelmed by the skeletons who outnumbered us by one man. Having lined them up we hacked and slashed at them until they all crumbled into dust. I took a pretty bad would which brought me down to 2hp. Thankfully, my dwarf friend had some healing supplies on him and was able to restore most of my lost wounds.

Encounter #3- Ghouls

This encounter was really scary to come across. I've always struggled against ghouls in these OSR games because they are extremely powerful against low level characters. In some systems, ghouls can straight up murder your character with one failed saving throw. In White Box, however, they can paralyze you for 3d6 rounds if you fail a saving throw against them. It also doesn't help that they are 2HD monsters so they can be quite meaty. There were three ghouls to slay. Thankfully, I rolled low on their hit points so we were able to take care of them and I passed the saving throws needed to ensure that my character would not fall to paralysis. I could see why it would be so dangerous for a solo adventurer to traverse this dungeon. It was wise to team up with that dwarf. I don't know if I would have survived without that magic armor I won in the jousting tournament. 

Encounter #4- Dark Elves

Once again, another TPK waiting to happen. The two dark elves can surprise their enemies on a 1-4 result of a d6 roll. Their swords and crossbows are also coated with poison which could surely kill a level 1 character in just one hit. However, these elves had bigger fish to fry. I rolled a positive reaction on the reaction and worked out that they had come to this dungeon to slay an abomination to their race- a drider who had taken up a lair here. They hired the dwarf and I as extra muscle for their assault on the monster and promised us the drider's treasure. It was either be their meat shields or die by their hand right then and there, so the dwarf and I agreed to join them. 

Encounter #5- Drider

    We walked south down a hallway and reached a door that led to the drider's lair. The dark elves came up with a plan to sneak through the shadows into the lair and rain paralysis arrows on the drider- immobilizing it so that the dwarf and I could rush in with melee weapons and drain its 24 hit points with free attacks. The plan kind of worked. With the drider paralyzed the dwarf and I rushed in and chipped away a lot of hit points from it in the surprise round and the round that followed. However, the drider's paralysis faded and with one attack it killed my dwarf ally (I wanted to make him into a player character but that was the fate of the dice). The dwarf would be the only casualty of this fight, and my character would walk away with 30 gold coins paid to him and a bunch of exp for slaying a high-level monster. I thought maybe there could be much treasure and exp earned by working with these dark elves and I offered my services further. However they wished to part ways with my character after the battle. Therefore my character Geoffry returned home to the village of Backwood to rest and meditate on his most recent adventure. 

West King's Field Campaign Report #2

 Knights Tournament 

   

    For this game session I decided to play around with the jousting rules from Whitebox with the outcome of a tournament determining who shall be my next player character. I don't have much scenery to create a tournament yard in miniature form so I decided to do the whole thing with pen and paper minus the last two bouts of the tournament. Those last two bouts are a two versus two "sudden death" [they only knocked each other out] elimination fight and a final duel against the black knight of Ogre [an animated suit of plate armor +1]. 

The Prize

 

    The prize for this tournament was the black knight's magical armor. The armor is made of a dark steel. The runes within it allow it to fit like a glove to whoever binds to it by defeating it in single combat. The armor feels weightless to the one who wears it. The helmet is inscribed with a haunting face. Statistically, it counts as plate mail +1 and provides an AC of 17. It's last owner was a famous knight by the name of Grainwald who donated it to the lord regent of Ogre after he retired from the adventuring life. Before that there is a legend that the armor was forged by one of the sorcerer warlords who gifted it to his personal bodyguard. For seventy years the armor took on a life of its own and dared any knight to try to claim its power.

The Lists

    Two teams of knights were created for this tournament. The first few matches were elimination bouts of jousting atop light war horses. Each combatant's AC was 16 and their lances dealt 1d6 damage. When a knight's hp was reduced to 0 they were considered knocked out and unable to continue. Otherwise, a point would be scored if a hit was landed. After three bouts the one with the most points scored won. You can see the results of this stage of the tournament below.

The Team Fight

From team 1 Tidfe and Sige faced off against Geoffry and Hardu from team 2 in an arena-styled battle. Once again, no one was fatally wounded in the battle but it was fierce nonetheless. Hardu was knocked out very early on in the match which left Geoffry to fight off both knights for many rounds. By the grace of the gods he was able to overcome both knights and score a victory for his team. His real challenge was about to begin. 

Dueling the Black Knight

    Geoffry had one last challenge, and that was the tournament's prize itself- the armor of the black knight. The animated armor had 2HD and an AC of 17- which proved to be quite the challenge for a level 0 character, but Geoffry had courage. The two battled for little over a dozen rounds with neither wanting to give any ground to the other but at the end of the day Geoffry would prevail over the armor and bind to it. As the victor of the tournament, Geoffry claimed his prize of plate mail+1 and after a night of drinks and celebration he found himself at the strength of a level 1 fighter. As the sun broke over the horizon of the West King's Field- Sir Geoffry rode off towards adventure. 

The West King's Field Campaign Report #1

An Introduction

     This is the first game session for my new fantasy campaign, which takes place in my personal setting of West King's Field- which is an untamed frontier of wilderness just beyond the reach of the Kingdom of Ogre. I will be alternating between tabletop RPG and miniature war gaming rules to flesh out the campaign and will tell the stories of the campaign's events through this blog.

 

Humble Beginnings 

    To start off playing in my world I made a level 1 fighter using the rules from White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game. White Box is a remastering of the original Dungeons and Dragons rules powered by the Swords and Wizardry engine. It's by far my favorite RPG rule set and comes closest to what I desire out of a tabletop RPG. The fighter's character sheet was as follows:

I like to use a note card to keep track of my characters. It makes it a lot simpler to manage than a whole character sheet and can easily be discarded when no longer needed. I usually keep track of game notes this way too. The front I use to write down a character's stats and, on the back, I keep track of their inventory. 

Low-level Adventuring

    I am strict when it comes to playing games by their written rules, or at least making modification to rules when needed and sticking to them. Therefore, in order for my fighter to become a hero, he's going to have to survive his backstory. I didn't put too much complication into getting my game started. My fighter found himself in the village of Backwood, the last footprint of lawful civilization west of the Kingdom. There was a large bounty of 90 gold coins on the head of a troublesome wyvern who had nested at the nearby ruins of Castle Malborg.  To try to face the wyvern alone at such a low-level would-be suicide, therefore I was going to need the help of mercenaries to back me up. In order to get some coin, I decided to explore a small cave not far from the village to see if I could loot some treasure from the goblins rumored to be living there. 

    This is the map of a cave I quickly drafted up. I created it with a few random dice drops to give me the basic shape of the cave and filled it in using some terrain dice I have. Since this is a low-level, one-page "dungeon" I didn't think to put much detail into it besides what the randomized tables would give me. Firstly, the tables were not kind to me, as a ghoul was waiting for me at the entrance to the cave which chased me off. Thankfully I came across a level 2 magic-user NPC in the forest who was willing to help me out for some treasure. We ventured into the first chamber in the cave and fought off some tough gnolls and took their treasure- 180 gold coins which we split evenly. After I got back to Backwood I hired some mercenaries to help me kill the wyvern. 

 The Wyvern of Malborg Castle

    Legend has it that Malborg was one of the castles magically constructed long before the crowning of the first king of Ogre when sorcerer warlords battled endlessly with legions of summoned monsters for control over the Overworld. During the time of the campaign [1st day of the 4th month in the year 100] Malborg is nothing more than mysterious ruins. A wyvern was found nesting here by a pair of explorers who nearly lost their lives trying to flee from it. The image is a close representation of what my fighter and his soldiers would have seen as they approached the ruins. 

        The wyvern is a 7HD monster with 24 hit points, an armor class of 16, and poisonous tail which it would use 60% of the time to kill a foe. My strategy was to continuously volley missile fire at the wyvern to constantly chip away at its health while I led the charge with my halberdiers to engage it in melee. My plans didn't work as well as I hoped because the wyvern first targeted my missile troops and made quick work of them, forcing my melee fighters to play catch-up in order to deal some damage.  

    I had a real chance to slay this monster but sadly the dice would turn out of my favor once I got the creature down to 4 hit points. Long story short, my character was killed along with most of my mercenaries. The rest of the mercenaries lost their morale and fled back to tell the tale in the dimmest corner of the tavern back at Backwood. Such is the way of things in White Box.