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In which the party fights a series of horrible bugs in ruined bathrooms and recovers a surprising haul of magic items. They find barely any money. |
A Week In Town
After a week spent scrimping and saving in town in order to afford their rooms at the Golden Unicorn (Eveningstar’s 2nd-best inn) that Trigg needs to recuperate, the party is back on the trail towards Starwater Gorge and the Haunted Halls.
Tansybell got some part-time work in the inn’s kitchen to cover her expenses, while Sassaran went to camp by herself in a stand of trees off of the High Road. Old Dolf blew through his pocket money halfway through the week and then philosophically returned to sleeping in haylofts, scrumping, and bothering people for money, which is more or less what he did before.
I got my OSE town prices from Carcass Crawler #2, which also has a Wood Elf class that I decided to use for Sassaran – the main trade off here is getting the Fighter’s attack bonus and an additional +1 to-hit with ranged weapons in exchange for losing turn undead.
Now that the party has alerted the kobolds and opened the portcullis, I’m using a d6 wandering monster table, where a 1 indicates a kobold patrol and a 6 the hunting owlbear.
I’ve also decided on a solution for the empty rooms: I’ll roll a random room from the upper level of the adventure module B1 In Search of the Unknown, with a 50% chance to contain treasure and a separate 50% chance for a monster from the relevant tables at the back of that book.
Modeling their behavior on my old high school friends’ exploration method, the party’s goal on this delve is to double-check the areas they’ve already been to before braving the obviously dangerous doors in Area 8.
THE LOG
TURN 1 – A3: Forechamber.
A careful search reveals the secret doors.
TURN 2 – A6: Guardquarters.
The party surprises a patrol of 5 kobolds out scouting the newly slime-free chamber. The party’s recent experiences do not encourage negotiations, and they decide to attack while they can.
TURN 3 – Combat
Sassaran opens the combat with another (!) critical hit kill. Trigg and Gimwort grimly dispatch two more. The remaining two kobolds break and run, surviving a flurry of free attacks at +2 to-hit from OSE’s unforgiving retreat rules.
Gimwort restrains the party from pursuit, reminding them of the crossbow trap.
TURN 4 – A6 and A7: Privy.
The party loots the bodies of 4 sp and 4 cp. “Drinks are on the biters tonight!” crows Old Dolf. Meanwhile Eldred and Sassaran double-check the privy.
Sassaran detects the pit trap under the broken seat and probes an odd square hole with her longsword, disturbing the lock lurker nesting inside.
TURN 5 – Combat
Surprise! The enraged lock lurker flies out and stings Sassaran.
Here I paused to read the creature’s monster entry at the back of the module and make a few changes. The lurker reads like the result of a DM who really wanted to get a specific result and ended up arguing with the players. What Greenwood seems to have wanted here is a save-or-die bug, and he wanted it to hit and then kill a player-character. Reading through the stat block you can practically hear him answering annoyed “Ok, but how..?” type questions as you go, like the fact that the lock lurker’s sting “can pierce any armor” or that it can sting 40 + 2d4 times per day without running out of venom (why bother rolling, Ed?). The sting itself deals 1d4+5 damage and has a hilariously overcomplicated paralytic venom.
I kept the lurker’s juiced up statline but gave it the OSE killer bee’s sting instead (1d3 damage, save or die), which ought to be enough for persons of taste and culture. Maybe the +5 damage is meant to threaten an AD&D character who won’t be killed until -10 HP, but for Old School Essentials’s dead-at-0 it’s actually more arbitrarily deadly than a saving throw.
For my own aesthetic sense I also decided that the lurker looks like a treasure bug from Delicious in Dungeon.
TURN 6 – A7: Privy
Gimwort collects the lock lurker’s body, hoping to salvage the creature’s valuable venom sacks. Dolf and Sassaran fish four identical-looking potions from the lurker’s nest. Eldred theorizes that these are potions of healing, but Sassaran declines to test one.
TURN 7 – A4: Guardquarters
TURN 8 – A5: Privy
Alert to the possibility of toilet-dwelling bugs, Trigg and Gimwort enter the chamber, backed by Old Dolf holding the lantern and his new hand-crossbow.
TURN 9 – Combat
The waiting spider’s hissing and bubbling alerts them to its presence mere instants before it drops from the ceiling, sinking its beak into Trigg’s neck (simultaneous initiative, spider did not gain surprise). The Fighter fails his saving throw versus poison and will succumb to the deadly venom in one turn! Trigg and Gimwort strike heavy blows and are able to back the beast into a corner, holding it at bay until Dolf shoots it dead. Not bad for a guy whose best stat is a 10! Old Dolf is turning out to be a worthy companion.
TURN 10 – A5: Privy.
Trigg staggers against the wall, his spider-bite purple and swollen. Eldred takes a desperate gamble and feeds him one of the identical, unmarked potions at random: three are potions of healing, and one is an elixir of health. I gave him a 1-in-4 chance of picking the elixir and rolled a 1.
Note: I'm realizing as I transcribe my notes here that I mixed up "rounds" with "turns". The entire fight lasted for three rounds, and Trigg should've died from the poison in round 2. I've already played through delve 3 with a live Trigg, and I believed that I was reading the rules right at the time, so I'm not going to retcon his death here. I'm not really bothered by this result in any case - the dramatic rescue by blindly picking the right potion on the very brink of death was very cool, and could have easily gone another way if I'd rolled differently.
TURN 11 – A5: Privy.
The party searches the surprisingly large privy cavern. The dung heap “may contain treasure,” and after two lucky rolls on both the oracle die and In Search of the Unknown’s treasure table, Old Dolf uncovers a shirt of glittering silver mail! Meanwhile, Tansybell discovered a beautiful longsword wrapped in a rotting green cloak and buried under some rubble. Reverently, she presses the sword into Trigg’s hand.
TURN 12 – Retreat.
A happy (if somewhat shaken) party returns to Eveningstar.
THE TALLY
Delve Time: 2 hours
Enemies Slain:
3 Kobolds: 15 xp
1 Lock Lurker: 175 xp
1 Huge Spider: 25 xp
Treasures Found:
4 sp: 0.4 xp
4 cp: 0.04 xp
3 Potions of Healing and
1 Elixir of HealthChainmail +1
Sword +1/+4 vs reptiles
Yield: 36 xp each. Old Dolf keeps the money.
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