State of the Star

I say, I say, the Eveningstar, that is...

My Haunted Halls of Eveningstar solo game is sort of back after a long hiatus. Most of that delay is just down to personal and work stuff, plus doing different things with my hobby time. But I think some of it is because the solo game is (for me) in a bit of a lull. It’s the kind that periodically happens to regular RPG games too – I have a lot of interesting ideas for future places the campaign could go, but right now getting there feels like a bit of a slog. I think there are two main elements contributing to that.

1) The Cast Is Very Big

Managing the game’s huge cast has mostly been one of the joys of a solo game, because it feels like something that would be hard to pull off in a regular game. On the other hand, managing three separate D&D parties takes a lot of time, and it feels to me like it’s pulling the focus away from the main PCs. It’s time that feels difficult to avoid as well, because everybody is on a separate time scale. With characters in the early middle level range and no magical healing, the main cast can go weeks between delves if they want to enter the dungeon at full HP. The Silver Daggers, on the other hand, are all low level, and 1d3 HP per day can see them back on their feet pretty quickly. Ivy, with two clerical casters and the need to move fast and break things, falls somewhere between the two. Using Errant’s abbreviated NPC dungeon crawling procedure was meant to speed all of this along, but as the situation for the NPC parties has gotten more complex I’ve felt the need to slow down and play out their sessions individually. I thought that Ivy’s plotline would resolve itself fairly quickly with an exciting attack on the town, but after her most recent session that feels like a doomed endeavor. She’d get wiped out pretty quickly by Eveningstar’s defenders, and her options for acquiring more troops are limited. At the same time she’s going to run into supply problems if she doesn’t move soon, and I’m not totally sure how to handle that.

2) The Haunted Halls Is A Boring Dungeon

Don’t get me wrong, I think it has some great touches. Ed Greenwood gives the module a nice French Vanilla fantasy flavor. But it’s big, it’s boring, and the treasure placement gives level advancement a very weird pace (especially since I’m not using AD&D’s experience awards for magic items). There are too many layers of secret doors gating off the cool stuff, and I’m not crazy about Greenwood’s puzzle and trap design. I’d like to move the PCs on to more interesting adventures, but it feels wrong to leave the Haunted Halls unfinished and unresolved. It’s in the campaign’s name, after all. Still, as grateful as I am to the module for inspiring the tone and events of what has been a very rewarding experiment in solo gaming, at the moment the thought of clearing the rest of the Halls feels more like an obligation than anything else. 

What’s To Be Done?

With normal, in-person RPG groups, the answer is usually to just keep plowing through it because even bad D&D is still hanging out with your friends. That might still be my solution here too, but I don’t want it to be the only one.

If it becomes clear that Ivy can’t attack the town soon, then I may move her offscreen for a while and use her warband as the basis to populate a dungeon. I could replace the forces in Hommlet’s moathouse or the castle in B12 Queen’s Harvest with her troops, maybe devising some method to simulate attrition and experience gains among the survivors. Having sworn not to return to Eveningstar until she can do so with fire and sword, her only real option besides an attack is heading north into the Stonelands and establishing herself as a bandit queen. That could be a fun campaign in itself, but it would massively balloon the game’s scope at a time when I’d like to narrow it some.

I think I’ll draw up a roster for total wandering monster populations in the Halls and start marking defeated enemies off of it – X living statues, Y curst, and so on. I’ve had a rough outline for populating the so-called Killing Keep, the kobold fortress that connects to the Halls, for a while now and I think I’ll go ahead and finish that as well, since I’ll need a total kobold population for the Halls and the module makes it seem like they mostly live in the Keep and send guards and patrols down into the Halls. If the PCs start tackling that area, then getting some faction play into the mix could liven up the Halls a bit as well. I may also implement some element of time pressure for clearing them. Emelda is roughly 8 weeks pregnant at this point, so she may know by now. That alone might be enough for Trigg, with a baby on the way and the Sunbold Farm nearly 2,000 gp away from “Functional”. I might do something with Lady Winter as well – maybe if words gets around to her about the magical moving frescoes in the throne room she might want to hire a team of skilled artisans from Molehill to retrieve them for her castle, and would want the Halls cleared out enough for them to work in peace.

If I ever tie up the loose ends around Eveningstar, I’d like to send the PCs into the Stonelands for some Dragon Magazine mini-modules, and maybe B5 Horror on the Hill. I also plotted out a journey for Sassaran and Taravol’s adventures that would take them into O2 Blade of Vengeance, an elf-themed solo module. Maybe get the whole gang back together again for one last job after they’ve each killed a dragon, or send them north for the linked series of Viking-themed Dragonsfoot adventures called Her Dark Majesty (Where the Fallen Jarls Sleep, Beneath Black Towen, Stormcrows Gather, and Mistress of the Ghost City). Of course, I may stop playing long before then, and in-game events could take things off in quite a different direction. We'll see!