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AMADI SENDS LETTER VIA GRIFFON EXPRESS RE: SESSION 12

LETTER TO KORUN (FORMER MENTOR)

Korun,

It has been months since I left Furthermoor City. My journey has been difficult, but recently it has turned for the better. After weeks of traveling by night and sleeping in the wilderness to avoid the patrols, I made it to Talbot. There I met some fellow travelers who did not instantly see me as a servant. We have spent this last week seeking our fortune. Talbot is not unlike Furthermoor City, filled with corruption and ignorance, but no one here knows me or my past. My band of misfits have just killed a giant spider and gained more gold than I have ever seen! But gold is not what I seek; I have recently gained knowledge from the family who pioneered this township many years ago. I pray this knowledge will help me realize my destiny and reunite me with my family. Please send them my regards and let them know I will see them soon.

Amadi


*Griffon icon is lifted from a place in Virginia.

TOWN DESIGN: PART 1 - ESTABLISHED RELIGION

Note: I use the simple OD&D & Moldvay Basic alignments of Lawful, Neutral & Chaotic; so while T1 uses the more complex 8 alignment system, I will only mention this if it's totally necessary...

Within the village of Hommlet the lawful generally attend the Church of St. Cuthbert, the neutral follow the Druid of the Grove, & some chaotics are secret servants of the Temple of Elemental Evil.

There are approx. 29 households/shops/farms/living quarters in Hommlet. Two of these have folks of different religions under the same roof; however, for now, I am assigning that place to whatever the owner is. Likewise, I am focusing on those that live in Hommlet, not those that are staying @ the Inn temporarily & as for workers in a camp, I am not guestimating their wives & offspring, etc. Of the 29 households/shops/farms in Hommlet, 38% follow the Druid of the Grove, 31% follow St. Cuthbert & 3% are secret agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil. That leaves roughly 28% that subscribe to no religion @ all.

Furthermore, there are approx. 188 people that live in Hommlet (above exception also applies here). Split this way, we see that 44% follow the Druid of the Grove, 25% follow St. Cuthbert, 3% are secret agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil, & 28% subscribe to no religion @ all.

The simple reason for the increased percentage of Druid of the Grove followers by body is b/c those that have lived in Hommlet for most or all of their lives tend to be followers of the Druid & have large families. On the other hand, 56% of the households that follow St. Cuthbert are "newcomers" to Hommlet, having moved there within the last two years. One description even goes as far as saying, Having come to the village about two years ago, this family is considered as "outside" folk, and will be until their beards grow gray.... 33% are more dug into the community & of course 11% are keepers of the church.

Of the 28% that do not align themselves w/ organized religion, it is interesting to note that most of them are either loners of the community, or seem to have had tragedy in their lives (widowers, spinsters, simpleton, etc.), here's an example: These people do not follow any religious persuasion, so they are excluded from most village functions; ironically the other slice of this percentage is made up of military leaders & other hubs of the community. While these folks work w/ & may be friends w/ the church & druid leaders, they are not followers of either faith.

Overall, Hommlet is a fairly neutral place; so much so, that even the first listed followers of St. Cuthbert are said to be lawful neutral. Lawful good characters are rare in this town. But this is what makes Hommlet unique, as well. The main thing is to realize how organized religion strengthens T1 (could it even exist w/o it?) & how this approach can be used in designing your own village. Though the evil/chaotic element in Hommlet may be slight percentage-wise, it is sneakily powerful & challenging once perceived. In a game world that revolves around the tension between Law & Chaos, established religion boils it down to the community, which helps create suspense, intrigue, mystery, etc. for town adventures once players get to mingling.

[for other parts of series click "town design" label below]

SESSION 12 - ONE STIRGE, ONE CLERIC & ONE PEDDLER

In that the party battles the Stirges - becomes cordial w/ a Lady of the Faith - Mends a bridge & kills a Spider for ancient coin - Reads about Eric Talbot - Wanders north & into an outgoing peddler - Onward into the hamlet of Avalon...

PARTY CAST:
Leif, elf ranger - LE
Djarel, cleric of Dawnbringer - RM
Telal, thief - JT
Amadi, magic-user - MN
Rowan, cleric -JB
Gnolan, charmed gnoll - NPC
Mellon, freed gnoll - NPC
Magus, dwarf - MIA

ENCOUNTERED NON-PARTY NPCs:
Stagger Lee - traveling salesman

So around 7:20 PM, on the 15th of Hummingbird, the party is attacked by 3 STIRGES as they try to re-enter the tree... Battle ensues & though Melon Gnoll takes some stirge sucking, the party offs them fairly easily, locating a number of gems in place of the stirge eyes, 3 gems in all: 2 avg sized yellow diamonds & 1 large, chipped, ruby.

The party funnels back into the tree as darkness totally descends & finds a female cleric bedding down, but amiable. She introduces herself as Rowan, & is apparently following up on leads regarding Eric Talbot, a legend of faith in some parts. The party quickly briefs Rowan on their intentions & before long Leif is locating the secret door to lead them back into the tree, they then head back up the staircase over the water, & after an elaborate plan, are able to cross to the other side, over the 2, now awake alligators. On the other side they move up the unsearched staircase to the NW & Leif takes a mad hit from a wrecking ball swinging down after sprung from the stair.  But Telal notices a HUGER SPIDER as they begin to notice the webs, scrolling up, not used to company lately, it is somewhat surprised, the party goes & goes until it spins around & drops & Djarel races up w/ Kumiss & finishes the spider off. The party finds mad coin spread about the edges of the room, deep through webbing & dust...  1100 cp, 3000 sp, 7000 gp, 2000 ep... The party camps out in the room for the night & Amadi reads Eric Talbot's journal aloud. The beginnings tell of Eric's turn into a were-crawfish, & the struggle & his finally leaving Talbot altogether; it then mentions this stronghold he found & as well an old town just north, near where a battle took place between the Crawfishmen & the Groundhogmen called Avalon. The remainder of the book details different battles & it ends in a cut-off way, vs. any resolution or breather entry.

The next morning the party leaves the tree & heads back to the road, leaving the 2 gnolls w/ Magus, Amadi instructing Gnolan to guard the place, etc. They started heading north toward this place called Avalon until they came across a roving peddler w/ mule & buggy, heading south. Goes by the name, Stagger Lee. After propositioning his adventure wares, he flashed a few strains of weed @ the travelers, some Flying Cloud & some Lizard's Lunch. Amadi was interested in the Flying Cloud, but the price was too high. Amadi was able to haggle Stagger down to 400 gp for 2 smokes. Stagger kept sayin, "You may only see this once in a lifetime." Off to Avalon they went, entering the hamlet around 8:45 AM, a boarded up place to the left, a place w/ a swinging door to the right, some noise coming from it, The Smoking Leprechaun.

9 AM, 16th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Avalon, Furthermoor

TOWN DESIGN: ENTERING HOMMLET - INTRO

WARNING: this post ended up being more of a background than actually about "town design" hence the "intro" in the title; however, I felt it appropriate to come before what comes after, so I left the title as is...

I have mentioned this before, but the first time I ever played D&D I was seven-years-old & my fighter PC, Kron*, wandered into the town of Hommlet. I vividly remember the green cover of the module & the removable grid-papered map of the town, that the DM, who was nine (a neighbor), laid flat on the carpet to show me where I was. It took a bit of investigating, but I pinned the module down (T1: The Village of Hommlet) & bought a copy via eBay five years ago. I also remember the yellow-colored character sheet I used (another AD&Dism). That said, I dont recall seeing any other books @ all that day. My main recollection is that I found a horn of some sort (perhaps a Horn of Valhalla?) in some farmhouse & I remember John rolling 2d6 time & time again after I would tell him what I wanted to do next. The game left a huge impression on me.

But when I returned home, I was in for a strange surprise. "There's this game I played that I really want called Dungeons & Dragons," I said to my mom. "Where did you play that game? You are never to play that game ever again, you understand? That is a bad game," she said (or something like that), as if I'd just told her I'd been doing drugs & wanted her to buy some for me. I was confused & bummed (a mood mix I would grow accustomed to around this time in my life). Quite simply, I was a child of the Satanic Panic. The way I can date this rather precisely, in retrospect, is that the following Christmas, I received the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Intellivison Cartridge released in 1982 (I guess this was to appease my wishes for the real game). I also recall the Mentzer Red Box coming out not long after my interest in owning the game, due to my circumstances, had waned a bit. The one RPG I owned within this era was the Indiana Jones one that TSR put out in 1984 & it sucked. It didnt even have character generation rules. I never played it.

I mention all this for a number of reasons: 1) I am surely a bit of an anomaly within the OSR community b/c while I played early D&D mishmash a few times in the early 80's, I did not actually own the game, or play D&D or RPGs that much as a kid & 2) my interest in old school D&D comes from modern boardgaming w/ my girlfriend (now wife) & its bringing to mind that stunted desire to play D&D in the early 80's vs. any disenchantment w/ current versions of the game or modern pen/paper RPGs in general... So, as you can imagine, after perusing copies of Moldvay/Cook grabbed via eBay in 2007 & about to start up a campaign for a few friends using B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, stumbling upon the OSR blogosphere was both exciting & enlightening.  Google+, ConstantCon & FLAILSNAILS have only made it moreso & then finally there's 3) I felt that throwing this info out there would help you understand a) where I'm coming from, and b) give a solid foundation for my interest in T1: The Village of Hommlet, specifically.

I've been working on a number of towns in Furthermoor, so I felt like it was as good a time as any to do a thorough examination of T1. If you wish to play T1 one of these days & never have, I plan to give proper spoiler warning & will try not to include spoilers @ all, unless truly necessary. My plan is to zero in on specific design features that help Hommlet come alive during play, as well as highlight other peculiar/interesting things I notice in the process.

*I cant remember exactly how the name Kron came about, though I do remember I thought it was cool b/c it sounded similar to Tron. Perhaps I suggested Tron & John met me halfway w/ Kron? The reason I suggest this possibility is that "Kron" is an actual name in the Greyhawk setting, i.e. the Kron Hills, which are mentioned in T1 on pages 2 & 7 & sit just west of Hommlet.

SESSION 11 - SLEEPY OWLBEAR, SLEEPY ALLIGATOR

We had three playas back into the norm game tonight:  LE w/ Leif the elf ranger, MN w/ Amadi the m-u & RM w/ Djarel the half-orc cleric - extras were the gnolls, Gnolan (charmed) & Melon (freed), as well as two MIAs this week, Telal the thief & Magus the dwarf... ANYWAY, the quick & dirty:

3:40 PM, there's a door down the hallway, looks carved into the inside of the tree here, Telal takes a good while to check it out & eventually gets something to pop in the moldy keyhole & then nudge the door open.  The party finds a groggy & confused owlbear inside, the room is about 30' x 30' circle, 12' high ceilings, they notice a ladder going up into a hole in the ceiling across the room.  Leif casts Speak w/ Animals & starts trying to parley w/ the owlbear.  The owlbear isnt having it however & becomes hostile, but doesnt attack.  After much talk, Leif presents an offer that they could bring the owlbear an alligator to eat if he'd let them pass.  The owlbear agrees to the offer, reluctantly, & begins dozing a bit as the party goes about making this happen.  The gnolls & Djarel are sent to retrieve one of the alligators, & luckily, they are all still asleep.  They manage to secure one w/ ropes & drag it to the owlbear's lair in about 45-60 minutes...  While the owlbear dozed, the party waited @ the door & looking around the layer noticed what looked to be a throne carved into the wood on the wall across the circular room/// when the alligator finally makes it, the owlbear attacks it w/ gusto, hacking, hugging it to death, then beaking out large chunks of meat; the party moves around the room toward the throne where Melon spots his two bags of silver, they grab them, then examine the throne where below, in a hole behind cobwebs, they find a small chest, they then grab a statue of a paladin from a table nearby & then book it up the ladder, all while the owlbear still worked on his dinner...  Atop the ladder they come to a room where a hole leads down into dark, or a window to a staircase they can see; first trying the hole, they go down a bit w/ a rope, but then come back & exit the window & down the staircase, out of the tree & into the plain.  There in the grass they inspect their findings, busting open the chest, they find two books:  one a journal of some sort, quick glance shows Eric Talbot's name on the front page, then the other is a larger tome that seems concerned w/ understanding the universe, also, in a corner, is a tuft of Spanish moss.  It is 6:40, the sun setting, so the party decides to enter back in the hollow branch they entered the tree in earlier; however, as they reach the branch, & Telal goes in w/ rope, plus the two gnolls, 3 stirges appear from nowhere, perhaps in top of tree, or somewhere else, swooping down on them...

7:20 PM, Friday, 15th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Talbot, Furthermoor

MOOR'S END - 3

In which respects are paid to Devedos @ the Church of the White Widow - Locals of Moor's End take notice of Kruger's burning shop - The party returns to the Caves at sundown...

PARTY CAST:
Gileegan, hobbit thief - MN
Jin the Cautious, monk - RM
Farley, dwarf fighter - MF
Renfro the Regarded, magic-user - MIA
Mattie the Mournful, cleric of the White Widow - NPC
Link, neanderthal - NPC

ENCOUNTERED NON-PARTY NPCs:
Brother Lennox - Church of the White Widow
Random townsfolk on street

Feeling a ripple in the Order of the Guiding Star, Jin the Cautious arrives in Moor's End just in time to help Gileegan, Renfro, Mattie & Link transport & bury their friend Devedos @ the Church of the White Widow. Brother Lennox performs the ceremony & the party donates 30 gold to the church. It is a solemn affair. So much so that Gileegan is moved to remind the party why they were first called here: to help the church locate the diamond spider that was stolen & moved into the caves @ the edge of the moor. After the ceremony the party walks for a bit down the strip of town, many townsfolk coming out & watching the smoke envelope Kruger's shop. The party asks one man what is going on, & sure enough, he simply confirms the rumor that Kruger's place is up in flames, etc. Renfro assures the party that he has discretely hidden Delilah (Kruger's two-handed sword) under a bed in the common room of the Forgotten Worm Inn. As darkness descends, the party decides to return to the caves. Jin wishes they had a fighter among them, & as if the Guiding Star was listening, the Furthermoor Adventure Express (FAE) screeches up & out tumbles Farley the Dwarf, eager to join the party for a crawl.

It's around 8 PM by the time Mattie is locating the secret entrance to the cave, the party moves into the narrow cave single file, Link, Farley, Jin, Renfro, Mattie w/ lantern, & Gileegan in back. After a bit of weaving through narrow cave passages, they come to a dead end, where they search around for a good thirty minutes, but notice nothing, they then search the walls as they backtrack when Link signals back that something is there ahead of them...  A goblin has turned around, walking away from them.  Gilleegan pushes through & sneaks after the goblin & backstabs it, easily taking it down. He searches the body to locate a small pouch holding 11 sp & 1 gp, also in the pouch is a scrap of paper w/ something in goblin written on it. Jin reads the note: MARKET, 16TH DAY, BEFORE SUN, OUTSIDE CAVES - the party backtracks a bit more then moving south & coming to the room they previously fought the giant rats, the opened chest on the ground.  They are reminded of Devedos.  They pass the room & move west where they come into a circular room, about 15' in diameter, cave room w/ a large cone of white rock in the middle of the room w/ smooth rounded bottom. Gilleegan pushes the rock & it teeters a bit, then sways & then stops back in original position. Farley pushes the rock harder, noticing that it is chalk.  W/ the harder push, when tottering, the base reveals a gap below where they notice something shiny. They use Farley's crowbar to hold the chalk over to where they are able to pull 300 sp & 30 gp from below. Farley chips off some sizable pieces from the top. Others follow suit. Farley crushes some into a dust & puts it in a pouch. The party moves on, traveling west, the cave corridor growing a touch wider, they come into another similar cave room, about 15' in diameter. There is a pool of dark liquid in the western third of the room, surrounded by a thin strip of cave. Jin probes the water w/ his staff, & about 2-3' down the staff pushes into something. He tries jiggering it out, but nothing gives. He decides to simply step into the water & reach down for it. He pulls up two bags filled w/ silver, 250 sp each. The party redistributes the silver from the soaked bags & decides to move into the northern passage which narrows & winds a bit until it narrows to almost 2 feet wide & then opens into a fairly massive, compared to what they have seen up to this point. Also, this room, though still "cavey" shows signs of construction/manipulation. It is a sizable room, about 30' wide in places. Two passages lead from the room, to the NE & NW, & between these passages are two closed door on the NW wall. Also, as the party moves into the room, they notice about 20 large, clear bubbles floating about the room, moving slowly & erratically. Farley moves to one of the bubbles & pops it w/ his rope. Nothing seems to happen, the bubble just disappears w/ little noise or effect. Farley then goes about whipping around half the room until only about ten bubbles remain. Moving closer to the doors, he finishes off the rest of the curious bubbles & the party focuses on one of the wooden doors that is stuck shut. After numerous tries, Jin does a cartwheel & kicks the door open. They move into a narrow cave passage & into a small 10' cave room beyond where lining the walls & ceiling is a strange, silver fuzzy growth of some sort. Farley scrapes @ the growth w/ his crowbar & suddenly finds himself holding a solid, silver crowbar. For the next thirty or forty minutes, the party goes crazy on turning various items to silver & while this is going on, Farley takes watch down the opening when he notices a Giant Gecko slithering in he throws his electrical spear, kills the Gecko, then chops its head off & throws it @ the silver mold therefore now having a solid, silver Giant Gecko head. W/ all their new silvery stuff, the party moves back out into the large room & then goes to work on the other door. Farley busts the door in & doing so hears some rattling & then sees a skeleton w/ a sword quickly moving his way down a narrow passage. He holds his shield up & tries to keep the skeleton at bay but takes one stab, 3 damage, in doing so. The party then, one-by-one takes turns as they kill one skeleton @ a time, everyone crucial, Gil, Jin, Link, even Mattie, until theyve destroyed 4 of them, Farley doing in the last, removes its skull from the rest of the bones & takes it into the silver room & turns it to silver. In the main room, Jin & Gilleegan relax & split one of the mushroom caps that Devedos found in the Jungle Room...

10:40 PM, Thursday, 14th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Moor's End, Furthermoor