AD&D Session 1: Violence Breeds Violence

At long last, after years of preparation, I have finally begun my AD&D campaign in earnest. Though there were several failed launches in the past, I have now gathered a group of great players, and look forward to gaming with them for a long while to come!

Rejected titles: We're Architecture Tourists, Come in Peace, Leave in Pieces

The Party

Norbeth Yelfiel, elf mage/thief with a periwinkle wide-brimmed floppy hat, played by Finn

Akiva ben Moshe, beetlefolk fighter with a short ponytail, played by Ali

Occam, goblin fighter with a greathelm, played by Anne

Innus Entus, goblin cleric/fighter with a bishop's mitre, played by Cao Linh

Ingvar Duram, human cleric with an extravagant tricorn hat, played by Jackson

Eileen Longtail, human soldier

Tork Longtail, ratling scoundrel

Casualties

None

Loot

Auspicious roast turkey

Assorted goblin equipment

Bottle of fine beetlefolk blood-brandy, 25gp

The Game

• We set our scene in Beegrove, population 80, a benighted town two days off the king's road, where the Scarlet Candle inn and tavern does brisk business for one reason alone: it is within walking distance of Stonehell. A pit of iniquity, built decades ago by a tyrant to imprison dissidents and conduct horrifying experiments upon them. Though the tyrant has long since been overthrown, the liberation of the prison was incomplete: too many prisoners dug too deep, and many refused to return to the surface. 
• Now Stonehell is a magnet for bandits, goblins, and all sorts of other monsters, whether as a hideout, hunting reserve, or a staging ground for attacks upon nearby human settlements. And there are no shortage of brave souls willing to enter in order to quell the evil within, and to take treasure from its depths. 

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• So this yet-unnamed group has gathered within the Scarlet Candle inn and tavern to make a toast. Innus Entus makes a toast to survival, while Akiva toasts to 'cash money.'
• Akiva is joined in his toast by a young woman with a crooked nose, Eileen Longtail, a warrior who wants to join the party in their journey. Norbeth is alarmed that someone was aware of their secret plan... which was a secret to nobody in town whatsoever. 
• Seeing her enthusiasm, the party was more than happy to let her join. At that moment, a ratling, Tork Longtail, stomps in and begins arguing with Eileen. The innkeeper fills in the party that this is her adoptive brother; she was abandoned in the hills as a child, and was found and raised by a ratling family until she was too old to fit in their burrow. They're rather protective of her, and disapprove of her adventurous ambitions. 

Party: "We have met the main character and must protect her with our lives."

• The party is steadfast, and Tork announces that he too will join the expedition; he is, after all, the only person in their number that has actually traveled to Stonehell, albeit as a porter and never actually entering the dungeon. 

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• The party leaves the hamlet early the next morning, just as the townsfolk are preparing for the feast of St. Quiscal the Decapitated, a joyous late spring affair whose festivities, for reasons lost to time, involve draping a large wicker donkey with flowers and vines and marching it into the town square to be immolated. The villagers send the party off with a roast turkey in honor of their auspicious day of departure. 
• Though there was a heavy rainstorm two days past, the day is brisk, breezy, clear and sunny. They are accompanied partway along the road to Stonehell by Ser Olmar, the young lord of Beegrove, off to try his hand competing at the qualifying tourney a couple days north in Bowerness. 
• A long dirt road snakes through the hills and past a dank marsh toward mountains of red stone, and finally leads into a narrow box canyon blocked off by a forbidding curtain wall; this wall and gatehouse, however, has long since been sieged and abandoned, and the party has no difficulty moving through. 
• Thick mist blows from further down the canyon, and though the party sees various odd structures, they do not stop to examine them. They make a beeline for the entrance to Stonehell proper, a great stone archway carved with ominous verses leading to a spiral staircase that descends out of sight. The chamber is marred by a great deal of graffiti, much of it written using the common script but in the language of dragons. Ingvar, something of a polyglot, translates one piece as 'clean up trash, dumb humans' and the party wonders for a while at the ambiguity therein. 

Ali: In five sessions we're going to get blindsided and the DM is going to say 'aha, that graffiti was written at dragon height!'

• The party descends, and in response to a variety of possible exits in the first room, commit themselves to a pattern of exploration: north first. This plan is immediately challenged by the discovery of a draconic-language sign reading 'Da Dragon's Den' pointing west, but they persevere. 
• They discover the work of previous expeditions, are watched from the darkness by the glowing red eyes of what they gather are kobold work crews, and discover a strange altar before a colossal stone head with crystal eyes and mist emanating from its maw. Their curiosity is drawn by a draft of cold air, which leads to a chamber filled with the dusty remains of bones and rusted armor and weapons, beyond which is a locked stone door marked carved with the iconography of the danse macabre. They prove unable to open it quietly, and neglect to spend quality time with a crowbar and possibly alert everything on the other side. 
• As they turn away from the door, they realize that the cold, stale air is once again coming from behind them. As best they can discern, it originates from a spot near the center of the room. Occam decides to pry up a flagstone and as he does so, feels a cold hand upon his shoulder. 
• The rest of the party sees a ghostly figure manifest behind the fighter. All but the two clerics flee in terror: Occam west towards the locked door, the rest of the party to the south and west. Innus and Ingvar hold fast, and seeing that it is not hostile, attempt to commune with the specter. It wheezes out 'I remember' and 'Look for the vizier' before it disappears. 
• Once the bulk of the party recovers from their fright, they find themselves in an unexplored area... and spy torchlight coming around the corner. Akiva steps in front of the others, zweihander held out, but the alarm is unnecessary; they encounter another beetlefolk, Meryre, who is part of an expedition examining the unique architecture of Stonehell. They exchange information, and Meryre warns them that there is are numerous goblins to the south, warring among one another, the Festering Wound clan and the Wolf Gang. 

Source

• Shortly thereafter, the whole party is reunited and touches base: further poking the flagstones near the cold draft does not cause the ghost to return. 
• They venture south, and in their exploration encounter a group of humans... dirty, bedraggled humans with a wild light in their eyes, hunched over a choking fire roasting sad little pieces of meat. They spy the goblins in front of the marching order and go to their weapons. A sign of peace on the part of Akiva stays them from immediate hostilities, but they still demand food. The goblins took Kolbar, and they will have recompense. The party realizes these mad humans have mistaken the party for the Festering Wound goblins to the south. After some deliberation, they offer a day's rations and book it out, unwilling to get into a fight with no promise of reward, even with a slight advantage in numbers. 
• Further south, the party is surprised by the Festering Wound goblins... but in a stroke of luck, with goblins leading the party in front they are fooled into thinking the party are reinforcements from elsewhere in the dungeon, accompanied by well-beaten slaves. The goblins, each of whom has a distinctive, never-healing wound on their body, inform the party that there's a crew of beetlefolk nearby, and encourage them to go kill and enslave them as well. 

Party: Are we sure we want to do that? After all, violence breeds violence.

Goblins: VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE! VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE!

Party: Stop, that's not a good thing!

• Occam and Innus agree, and the party sets off to meet the beetlefolk, whom Akiva is able to convince that the party means no harm. They find that the beetlefolk have stationed themselves in a chamber with fascinating architecture, not least a secret door through which they have been spying on the goblin outpost the party just passed through. The two groups scheme together, and come up with a plan.
• The party returns to the outpost, beyond which they know are more goblins who may be alerted by an alarm. So they position themselves near the alarm gong, and are ready when the beetlefolk launch their attack. 
• Norbeth tears the gong from its post and cushions it to prevent it from sounding while the remaining party and the beetlefolk surround the goblins. In a stroke of luck, the goblins are surprised for two segments, and are quickly cut down. Innus and Norbeth take one captive with a command spell and Tork slays the last with a well-aimed sling bullet to the forehead. 
• Now, as the party takes a prisoner and loots the bodies, with the goblin allies unaware of anything wrong, they stop to consider: what are the next steps? What will they do with their prisoner? And how much further into the dungeon are they willing to go? We shall soon see, in next week's session of Cascabel!

Takeaways

After anticipating the start of this campaign for so long, actually playing it almost comes as a relief. Though I knew these players well and had confidence in my system knowledge, I was still beset with doubts. What if the jump from L5R/5e to AD&D wasn't to their liking? What if I couldn't run it effectively at the table? What if I had lost my touch?

I'm pleased to say it all went well despite those doubts. Character creation was done with within a couple hours, and largely went smoothly, except for the realization that certain crucial pieces of data were missing from my homemade PHB (namely some equipment weights and prices, and the ranges/lengths of weapons). The spread of ability scores was wider than I had expected: one 18 and one 19 (!), as well as a 4. The players rolled with it admirably. One noted that it was fun rolling ability scores in order, and wound up playing a fighter, not their usual cup of tea. We also got good use out of JB's old Random Headgear tables, just like in Castle Xyntillan. 

The group got into their characters pretty quick, took well to Eileen and Tork (after a couple campaigns with this lot, I think I know what kinds of NPCs they end up liking), and were enthusiastic about getting into the dungeon. It was a little wobbly at first, but after some adjustment they got into the groove of things. Though we only had one short combat at the end of the session, it good good responses, especially the speed. AD&D combat rounds take 1 minute in-game, and their resolution out of game isn't much longer! Stumpian 1d6 initiative also worked out without much need for explanation at the table. 

In terms of tone, this session was generally on the lighthearted side: my sessions have always been at least a little tongue in cheek, and since one of my favorite things at the table is fun NPC interaction, I tend to lean into some of the more ... absurd elements? Not sure if that's the right way to put it. Time spent in play was short, around two hours, but I do feel like plenty got done in that time. 

This is my second time running a megadungeon, and unlike Castle Xyntillan, this one actually does have factions! The party has only scratched the first level, yet they've already encountered two, heard of a third, and had intimations of a fourth. The appearance of Meryre the beetlefolk was a random encounter, but by serendipity it happened in just the right place. The fun of running megadungeons is all coming back!

I feel that the surface region around Stonehell may have overwhelmed the party... or rather, I overwhelmed the party by listing so many save entrances and features all in one go, such that they decided to ignore all that and head directly for the dungeon proper. Or maybe they really did just want to get underground ASAP. I guess I'll figure it out.