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.
No comments:
Post a Comment