The House of Pestilence (oh, and No Artpunk III) is Released!

Over a year from its original announcement, the No Artpunk III contest has finally borne fruit. The NAP III anthology is now available on itch.io at a PYWY price, suggested at $7. All proceeds go to the Dutch Het Aidsfonds charity. 

In addition to a rather star-studded list of contestants, including the first part of Gabor Csomos' upcoming Xantal of Dreams, Coldlight Press' Ben Gibson with the ambitious mass-combat dungeon Descent into the Cairn of Night, the redemption of ShocktoHP (the guy who did Wavestone Keep) in The Taking of Icewyrm Hold, Jonathan *sigh* Becker's revamp of Dragonlance in Dragon Wrack (created in just one month!), and the grand champion, the elusive C. Dantes and his #1 winner, The Ivory Islet (which I am currently reading, it is AMAZING!), you can also find, in pages 397-434, my own #2 submission. 

THE HOUSE OF PESTILENCE 

Available now for... free, if you want it. Designed to slot right into an AD&D 1e underworld campaign, an ad-hoc sequel to D3 fully detailing a rogue drow fortress and its environs, with a party of stout pregens, new magic items, and a couple of new monsters. No muss, no fuss, no art budget and no formatting magic, just badly hand-drawn maps and a word processor. Dear god, it's like actually being at my table!

Plus, you know, a baker's dozen other really good high-level adventures for various old-school systems and retroclones. At least one of which is much better than mine. They're also there. 

Variant cover by squeen

House of Pestilence Playtest 2 Session 2: The Daemon You Know

In the last session, five mighty masters of the universe met in the drow citadel of Erelhei-Cinlu, traversed the underworld, and finally arrived at the threshold of the House of Pestilence, an exiled drow house turned to the worship of the daemon lord Anthraxus. They came into conflict with the House's guard dog, a wicked mage named Eastler and his umber hulks, and forced his surrender. The party seeks immortality, and it lies within the deepest recess of the House. Will they be able to make their way inside and find their quarry, or will they be forced to fight? Join them to find out...

The Party

Stribor, the Devil of Bukosevač, human bard 11 played by Cao Linh

    Helefres, Magician of the Far Shore, human mage 11

    Tork, the Tower and Key, ratling thief 12

Shirin the Wastrel Empress, human mage 12 played by Finn

    Sisiphre, Who Has Tempted Death, elven mage/thief 10/11

    Skour, Night's Justice, human assassin 11

Haught Taupik the Blood Sword Emperor, elven fighter/mage 7/11 played by Ali

    Aodhan the Reborn, human druid 12

    Soo Meri, Elder of the Moonstone Sect, human monk 10

Casualties

Probably everyone

Loot

Purchased from the auction:

    Purple ioun stone (5000gp bought for 13000)

    Silver Serpent Armor (10000gp, brought for 14000)

Taken from the Umil-Da vault:

    Ring of protection +6

    22kgp in gems

    18k in platinum bars

The Game

On the second day...

• Where last we left off, the party had arrived at the doorstep of House Umil-Da, fought its outer guardians, and reached a truce with the wicked wizard Eastler. In exchange for his advice in gaining the compound, they helped him fake his death and escape servitude, with both Celine and Liu Feng joining him in getting the hell out of dodge. 
• Following Eastler's directions, the remaining party pressed forward through the winding tunnels and reached an ornate steel door bearing the image of a welcoming goat-headed daemon. They announced their presence, and the party's roguish members felt a prickling on the backs of their necks: they were being scried.

You again!

• Pale mist filled the tunnel, and out of it stepped a fiery infernal steed bearing a rider clad in mail and bearing a wicked black lance. The party called to parley, and (primarily thanks to Stribor) managed to convince the drow warrior that they had been extorted by Eastler and fought back, but had no hostile intent against the House of Pestilence. By carefully avoiding (most) direct falsehoods, they secured safe passage within. 
• Beyond the doors lay a great and high cavern lit by a globe of glowing ore hanging from its zenith, with great exotic gardens of violet grass and a high-walled fortress bathed in the perfume of night-blooming flowers. The party remained at the entrance for some time, gave the guards their expected 'gift' and took up the glowing-green cloaks of foreigners and their visitor passes. Soon, a drow servant named Malrux came to welcome and guide them. She pointed out the House's many delightful and gory features, and conducted them into the fortress proper. 
• After leaving behind their riding lizards, the party came to a great marble altar of Anthraxus, before which guards, bugbears, and slaves alike prostrated. It became clear that the entire cavern was bathed in a foul aura which interfered with non-evil priests. The party did likewise, and were permitted to pass further inside. At the visitors quarters, they ran into one of Shirin's old rivals, the archmage Neroë and his two apprentices, Orbix and Snake-eye. 
• After lobbing insults back and forth at one another, the mages depart for the bazaar, while the party accepts Malrux's hospitality and visits the menagerie: a great hemispherical pit in the ground riddled with caged exotic beasts, from albino lions to chimera, velociraptors and intelligent apes, even a colossal purple worm and a crippled hollyphant. 
• They elected to visit the bazaar next, boiling over with all the most exotic merchandise purloined from realms infernal and supernal, but most intriguing was the auction house. Within, they found Neroë's apprentices, a pair of mind flayers, and a huge, drunk demon, all bidding on items presented by a night hag. The party outbid the mages for both a purple ioun stone prized by Shirin and a magical bracelet which could expand to cover the wearer's body in plate mail. They manipulated the mages into overbidding for a gem of true seeing, and afterwards spotted the apprentices worse for wear, likely paying the difference with magic items of their own, and noted that the mind flayers had certainly also been bidding up prices in exchange for a cut. 

The ultimate fashion accessory

• After the auction went on hiatus, the party sent their sneakier hirelings to follow the other guests. Tork and Soo Meri followed the mid flayers to the gate of the compound's inner palace, where a high-ranking male drow with an acid-scarred face allowed the illithids entry. Sisiphre and Skour, meanwhile, followed the apprentices, though they split up on the way back to their quarters. Sisiphre followed Orbix to the drow servant quarters, where he was greeted by a pair of servant women. She was prepared to stop following when she heard a scream cut short, and sneaking invisibly into the quarters, spied the unconscious mage having a foot-long black centipede inserted up his nose: thereafter, the drow woke him up and told him in no uncertain terms that if he disobeyed the matriarch's commands, the centipede would melt his brain from the inside. 
• After reporting back to the party, Shirin and Haught Taupik met Orbix on the path back to the visitor's quarters, and further blackmailed him into helping them get access to the inner palace. 

On the third day...

• After recuperating somewhat, the party awoke early to view a sacrifice and celebration conducted by Thirza, the matriarch's eldest daughter and heir. They gained some insight into the feuding factions and royal family: the younger daughter Xalyth, a powerful warrior spurned for her inability to call upon infernal powers, the elder son Crovad, a great hunter who was evidently half drow and half something from the pit, and the matriarch's reclusive consort, the mage Iuzekar. 
• After the gory sacrificial ceremony, the party was unexpectedly approached by Thirza herself, who engaged Stribor to come to a party in the palace and entertain the court with some songs. They enthusiastically agreed. 
• After wandering around the gardens and visiting the bazaar again, 'evening' led them to the celebrations in the outlying manor of Knight-Commander Schezalle, the matriarch's second in command. After some verbal sparring, Stribor entertained the partygoers with two new songs of his own composition: 'The Devil Came Down to Umil-Da' and 'Hedge-Maze Improvisations.' Between Stribor's great skill and the magic of his golden fiddle, he was able to charm many of the guests including, by incredible luck, Knight-Commander Schezalle and Xalyth. Schezalle even offered him a pick from her curiosity cabinet: he picked a black dog statuette, which he found was a figurine of power.

Wrong one!

Stribor: Every devil needs his hound.

Shirin: That's not a saying. 

Stribor: It is if I make it one. 

• As the party wound down, Haught-Taupik wound up n conversation with Xalyth and, remarking on their shared love of violence and greatswords, as well as their mutual frustration with cowardly scheming, enjoined a duel on the Umil-Da training grounds for the edification of the young drow soldiers. 
• In the course of that duel, both opponents got a critical hit on their first attack, with Xalyth narrowly resisting the Bloodsword's lifestealing curse, and Haught-Taupik suffering under Xalyth's experienced feints. They called the duel after the first round, with HT and 5 hit points and Xalyth at 1(!). Both refused healing by the matriarch's handmaiden, and Haught Taupik snuck off to the bazaar to chug (suddenly overpriced) healing potions. 
• At the same time, Shirin is secretly approached by Iuzekar, who asks to buy the purple ioun stone off of her in exchange for various treasures, including a selection from his research library. Though tempted and cautious of refusing a drow noble, Shirin finally declines.

On the fourth day...

• The party fields invitations by both Thirza (inviting Stribor and Shirin) and Xalyth (inviting Haught Taupik) into the palace proper for private meetings. Thirza gives her guests the run of the place, taking them up to the little-trafficked second floor, where waits a tiny, cramped shrine. Stribor and Shirin stepped in at her urging, and her soon covered in crawling and flying pests of every kind. Then a flea crawled into their ears, and spoke directly into their eardrums with the tiny voice of a daemon lord: Anthraxus himself, offering the two of them power in exchange for serving him in mind, body, and soul. 

Most certainly a bad enough dude

• At the same time, Haught Taupik was invited into Xalyth's private chambers, containing only basic amenities and a weapon and armor rack. But then the drow unveiled a hidden niche, filled with documents and plans, all plotting the assassination of Thirza. Xalyth offered Haught Taupik payment and great favor in exchange for helping her carry out this plan. 
• When the two groups reconvened on the second floor, something had changed. Shirin had exited the shrine without any changes, but Stribor was... greater than he once was. At the same time, Thirza was bowing to him and accepting his orders. It turned out that, as part of converting to Anthraxus' servitude, Stribor had been offered power, wealth, and a boon of his choice. For that boon, he asked Anthraxus to give him authority over Thirza. Seeing the difference in power between these two servants, the daemon lord agreed. 
• At the same time, Haught Taupik had accepted Xalyth's deal and the two were now acting in concert... only to find the situation had suddenly changed. 
• Thirza summoned the matriarch, who looked at the bard that had taken away her heir with contempt, but with Anthraxus' order opened up the fortress' vault. Stribor took away a great deal of wealth and magic items, and had Thirza guide the group up to the (formerly) forbidden third floor. 
• Thirza guided them past the many security mechanisms: a space-warping pillar guarded by a twelve-headed hydra, a demiplane of rot and pestilence, an illusory village guarded by dancing daemons, and then a hidden stairway descending for miles and opening into the peak of a ziggurat in a colorless world choked with thick, gray muck. 
• At the center of the ziggurat was an egg-like stone, and sitting upon the stone was a scrawny, hairless man with a midnight-blue body and a massively oversized goat head: the Seed of Pestilence, the divine shard of Anthraxus taken sentience and form. As the party prepared to fight, they found that Stribor and Thirza did not join them: having vowed to serve Anthraxus in mind, body, and soul, he had brought the party here to feed the Seed. 
• That was when Stribor got a nasty surprise: the Seed offered the other intruders a chance to join it, help it break out of this demiplane, and become its high priests once it attained its full power independent of its progenitor. 
• And... that was when the session ended. Had we continued further, a showdown between Shirin, Haught Taupik, Xalyth, and the Seed vs Stribor and Thirza would have broken out. I expect that Stribor and Thirza would have lost, but the remaining party would probably still try to kill the Seed, and would likely lose. I'll never know for sure what would have happened, but the upcoming session will be a parallel-universe boss fight with the whole party to calibrate the difficulty/practicality of this encounter. 

Takeaways

With that, the main playtest of the House of Pestilence winds down, with another session to test out the final boss to come. Once again, I'm somewhat struck by how quickly it was possible to get to the end (though given how I expect the fight would go, it likely would not have been a victorious ending). Taking command of Thirza was an outcome I did not expect at all, but made sense in context; in fact, it worked even better than the players expected, since she is one of only three characters with the means to safely traverse the demiplane. 

One of my goals with House of Pestilence was to create an adventure location that, in addition to being a high-level one-shot (which is what these sessions tested), could also be integrated into a campaign world. Obviously, it's easiest to work it into the D3 underworld, the locations even have hex coordinates meant for that map, but you could also plop this down in the Forgotten Realms or any homebrew world that already has the drow in it. 

Despite being designed as a high level adventure, I think it also functions as a much lower level encounter if we assume different PC objectives. Evil characters in particular can interact with it as a refuge, as a source of great wealth and magic, or as scheming sometimes-allies. It can exercise influence upon an underworld campaign well before the players are powerful enough to defy it directly. 

To that end, the fact that playtesters didn't see much of the content and did sequence-breaking is not a downside. It tells me that the open-ended design is working and players were able to make plans within its structure. 

I am somewhat concerned about the very light loot the playtest groups recovered. Group 1 got almost nothing at all, and group 2 acquired what they did through (mostly) above-board means. Rest assured, there's a great deal of treasure in this module, but most of it is either concealed or out of the way. Groups like these, which were laser-focused on completing their respective objectives and on not offending their drow hosts, didn't go out of their way to find treasure. 

On reflection, I don't think this is much of a problem. The major prize at the end (as of the playtest 2 revision) is much bigger than almost any amount of xp if the GM actually runs with it, and has the potential to completely change the campaign. You know, I should probably add a warning about that up front. However, the fact that group 2 didn't pick up treasure on their way over meant that they couldn't buy very much at the bazaar or auction. Once again, I don't think this is much of a problem, at that point it's on them. Players who want treasure can definitely find treasure here.

The one thing I wanted to tets but didn't was the degenerative curse in the demiplane. The characters bypassed it thanks to Thirza, but as a result they didn't even know it was there. The version of this curse I wrote in the original submission was, on reflection, pretty much unusable, and I was hoping to figure out just how bad the revised version was, but no dice. 

Another possible weakness of the playtest was that I wasn't really using the document as a regular GM would at the table: with so many revisions, I've got the damn thing nearly memorized, and outside of the actual monster stats was able to mostly run from memory with the text as a prompt. A regular GM is going to be reading from the page and trying to construct an understanding of it mostly in the moment, and I wrote the text with that in mind, but this form of playtesting doesn't effectively test that. In particular, there were places where I knew the situation, but wanted to refer back to the exact phrasing I wrote down, and couldn't easily find it in my own text. Those parts have to be fixed in the last revision. Testing your own stuff is essential, getting someone else to test it goes the extra mile. In the future, I would like to go the extra mile. 

------

Thank you all for reading and coming on this journey with me! I'll be writing up a much shorter post about the final test combat we did a while back (this post has been heavily delayed, but I've now come into some free time) and within a couple of weeks we will be right back to our adventures in Cascabel! Until then, have an excellent week!

House of Pestilence Playtest 2 Session 1: The Road to Immortality

Last time I playtested House of Pestilence, we found that killing a pseudo-lich was not as hard as expected and that it was possible to speedrun the module. Now I have returned, running my regular party through the module from the beginning, with a new premise, which I shall replicate below. 

The world you know is an arena for powers that lie beyond mortal understanding. Each of you: hermit masters, archdruids, sorcerer-kings, and witch-queens, stand close to the peak of human power. But the more powerful you become, the clearer it is that there is an unbridgeable gulf between mortals and immortals. Between powers and principalities and your meager flesh and blood. 

Until now. 

One of the most powerful evil gods, triumvir of Hades, lord of the pestilent land of Oinos, the daemon lord Anthraxus, has a secret. Hundreds of years ago, he cut out a shard of his divine power and hid it in the material plane. There it has taken root and flowered. Anthraxus plans to consume it to bolster his own divine power once it has fully ripened, but if you were to take it for yourselves, it would pave a royal road. Deities of every plane would burst down your door offering gifts and boons in exchange for it. And if you were to consume it, you could become gods in your own right. 

Here is what you know: the prize is hidden deep underground, in the domains of the drow. It is protected by House Umil-Da, drow aristocrats who turned away from the worship of Lloth the spider-queen, were banished from the drow capital, and found new offices under Anthraxus’ wings. Their headquarters, the House of Pestilence, attracts the wealthy and powerful from the material world and the lower planes alike, bartering for the rarest and most valuable treasures the infernal realms have to offer. It is very secure, and very dangerous, but if you can infiltrate it and gain entry to the deepest part of their palace, you can steal the prize from under their noses. 

 

Are you a bad enough dude?

Thus you five, sharing neither creed, country, nor alignment, each bringing only two of your most powerful and trusted lieutenants, have allied. Whether to take it for yourselves, offer it to your patrons, or simply deny it to your enemies, this grand prize calls to all of you. How long this alliance will last is another question. You have one shot at immortality. Don’t waste it. 

The Party

Liu Feng, The Fool Drifting on the East Wind, human monk 12 played by Jackson

    Kore, the Vision of Temperance, human illusionist 11

    Vindictus, the Hand-Chopping Judge, beetlefolk fighter/thief 9/11

Stribor, the Devil of Bukosevač, human bard 11 played by Cao Linh

    Helefres, Magician of the Far Shore, human mage 11

    Tork, the Tower and Key, ratling thief 12

Shirin the Wastrel Empress, human mage 12 played by Finn

    Sisiphre, Who Has Tempted Death, elven mage/thief 10/11

    Skour, Night's Justice, human assassin 11

Celine, le Sphinx du Averoigne, elven druid 13 played by Anne

    Carter, the Hermit Underhill, ratling thief/illusionist

    Saumur, the Hangman of Orscea, goblin fighter 11

Haught Taupik the Blood Sword Emperor, elven fighter/mage 7/11 played by Ali

    Aodhan the Reborn, human druid 12

    Soo Meri, Elder of the Moonstone Sect, human monk 10

Casualties

None

Loot

Information

A treacherous ally

The Game

On the First Day...

• The party, all of them lords upon the surface world, convened in the underground citadel of Erelhei-Cinlu, the capital of the drow, city of diabolism and debauchery. In the Greencloak Boarding House, an institution catering to surface-dwellers traveling through the underworld, they acquired information: rumors about the House of Pestilence, and secret maps showing the way. 

By Tomas Giorello

• Several of their number indulged in moondrops, small colored pastries baked with amphetamines, and in various alcoholic concoctions with spider venom. Liu Feng established that he did not own a shirt. 
• After purchasing supplies through the Greencloak's factor, they set out on their riding lizards under the radioactive moonlight, across the velvety purple river and out of the Vault of the Drow. 
• They made good time down the Slaveway and then turned at a little-used intersection, crawling through caves and tunnels until they reached a great cavern, the outline of haphazard buildings and fungal farms backlit by the ghostly glow of a geothermal vent. This was Seeker's Shanty. 
• A patrol of raggedy soldiers, drow and duergar and various other underworld species, met them and established they were only here to trade and then pass through. They learned that the House of Pestilence lay in the tunnels beyond, and that the shanty was populated by three groups: first, the myconids led by the Great Decomposer; second, the cultists seeking transcendence through their mind-melding spores; third, exiles, criminals, and assorted riff-raff claiming asylum and working under the auspices of the myconids. 
• Liu Feng and Haught Taupik visited a myconid leader, High Lecturer Weoga, as it delivered awe-inspiring metaphysical lectures to an enraptured crowd. Awe-inspiring... but totally without philosophical substance, in the Blood Sword Emperor's estimation. 

Shirin: I don't care to learn what mushrooms know about life. 

• Meanwhile, the rest of the party searched for information about the House of Pestilence, and landed at the oversized, barricaded door of Grismolt, a colossal cave troll. He was a former war-slave to House Eilserv, and fought against House Umil-Da prior to his escape. Their battle tactics followed from the drow noble playbook, but the party learned a good deal more about the path to the House, especially about great monsters with fearsome glowing eyes that still struck fear into the colossal troll. 
• After a short delay to top up their supplies, the party pressed on, and soon reached the Singing Caves. Their maps and notes had warned them to wait until the singing had begun and ended: otherwise they might be stuck traversing the caverns when it began, and they would surely die. 

On the Second Day...

• So they waited, making camp amid the stones. After a time, they heard the singing: more like a colossal whistle, joined by another voice, and then another. It continued for hours, but always just slightly off-key, maddeningly incomplete. At the climax, the singing itself sounded as frustrated as they all were, and suddenly ended. 
• They then picked their way through the caverns, many dozens of limestone pockets from the size of a cottage to a goose egg: some of the passages between the caves bore pick-marks, and all those were just wide enough for them and their riding lizards to pass through. 
• They rushed through to the exit without delay, and continued following their notes. Along the way, they discovered a gap in the rock, apparently created by a recent earthquake, from which a gentle, soothing scent emanated. A small handful of party members squeezed through, and found a strange scene: the scent blew from a pool of water, gently glowing. Above the pool hung a stalactite, with a charred human corpse nailed to it by 22 silver spikes. 

Haught Taupik: I want them to do that to me when I die. 

• Feeling wigged out, they left the cavern untouched, but when Vindictus (who was holding up the rear) emerged, he screamed 'Ghost!' and started running. Hearing phantasmal moans nearby, the party joined him in flight. 
• Putting distance between themselves and the ghost, the party soon reached the entrance to a network of swiss-cheese caves riddled with fungal forests: the Undernesse. All their maps ended here: they would have to search around and find the way to the House of Pestilence by themselves. 
• Liu Feng and Soo Meri interrogated the surrounding fungi, and learned that several kinds of two-legs wander the area: one of those are furry and stink, and come from the southeast. The party determined that these are likely bugbears, servants of the House of Pestilence. 
• In searching them out, the party encountered a clan of pech living in an upside-down pyramid, who warned them about the rulers of the Undernesse: the Lady Tempestuous and Lord Tectonic. They also came across a camp of sycophantic deep gnomes, clearly terrified, who advised the party to follow the path and take the next cave on the right.

Source

• Finding such a cave, Liu Feng and Vindictus sneak in, and find it scattered with offal and the bones of both rothe and humanoids. Within is a six-legged monster, somewhere between a cat and a bear, slumbering. They turn back, but find another one, even larger than the first, entering the cave behind them, but the pair are able to escape and are not pursued for long. 
• Though distrusting the advice of the gnomes, the party pressed on, and among crumbling slate shelves did in fact find a tunnel leading away from the Undernesse. Their lizards waded through the dank secretions of luminescent algae, until they reached a steep, uneven chimney. They picked their way up slowly but surely, and reached a flat landing with a tunnel stretching forking before them. Their lizards acted strangely, yet still further they pressed. 
• Before they knew it, they were surrounded by hulking beetle-like figures with glowing golden eyes, blocking off several tunnels! A cackling voice spoke directly into their minds 'Surrender to House Umil-Da!'
• The party did not do this. 
• They swung into action, meeting the monsters in melee. Several took injuries, and Haught Taupik in particular suffered a pair of nasty bites, but numbers and magic were in their favor: with one tunnel webbed up to block entry and the monks throwing stunning fists, the party eased the pressure. The hulking beasts focused their baleful gazes on several members of the party, but all managed to avert their eyes and keep fighting. The battle turned when Haught Taupik scored a critical hit on one opponent, draining its lifeforce with a single thrust.

The Bloodsword: Blood for my master! Blood and souls for my master Haught Taupik!

• With the battle turning against them, the remaining monsters attempted to flee, but they could not outrun Liu Feng and Soo Meri, who swiftly cut them off and pounded the survivors into the dirt. Aodhan and Celine healed the most seriously wounded, and the party heard the sound of a tunnel collapse from the right fork. They searched the tunnels and found a blocked-off passage, which Vindictus, even further empowered by a spell of strength, began to clear by hand. 
• Then the party heard a voice speak into their minds once more. "Cease! House Umil-Da will strike you down if you continue!" 
• Vindictus did not stop. 

Wait, let's talk about this

• The telepathic voice began pleading, and the party opened parley. It just so happened that these were not the forces of House Umil-Da proper, but a wizard, Eastler, and his umber hulk minions contracted to guard the entrance from those who trespassed without properly declaring themselves. Just then, he had sent a telepathic message to his superiors requesting reinforcements against the party, but had been refused and left to his fate. 
• They cleared the rubble and the two groups came face to face. Eastler offered information on the House of Pestilence, and asked the party to help him fake his death in order to escape his contract; by pretending that Eastler had exceeded his duties and attempted to extort the party, they might still be able to enter the House diplomatically. However, the drow were already preparing their defenses, and little time remained to put this scheme into action before their scouts made their way into the tunnels...

The session ended there, with the party hatching a plan with the treacherous wizard. Will they be able to deceive the drow and infiltrate the House of Pestilence, or will it go down in a storm of violence? Find out in the next session!

Takeaways

This party was pretty focused on reaching the House, and as a result missed a bunch of stuff along the way, especially in the Undernesse. Indeed, there is no loot for this session! I wonder if that will continue: the promise of immortality might be enough to get them to give up on treasure. 

I screwed up the combat a little bit: not only were all the players supposed to be mounted, part of the battlefield was a layer of sticky moss which... I totally forgot to apply. Speaking of, the combat was considerably slower than usual, with each round taking around 15 minutes: mind you, there were 15 characters on the player side and several umber hulks opposing them, but I was surprised by how much time was taken up just rolling attacks and damage. Maybe I was feeling the time more keenly than the players were. I expect combat will speed up a lot more once the players get more familiar with their characters and all the options at their fingertips. 

Alas, nobody in this group has read Elric, so everything about Haught Taupik outside of his silly name is going over their heads!

All in all, I feel that the session went well, though I wonder if I was rushing the scene in the Greencloak too much and didn't give enough description or space to act. Though maybe the party wanted to get on with the adventure. It's really striking me how different a game can be depending on the players and the overall attitude of a table: this one is generally jokey and goal driven, not prone to distraction and not too driven to roleplay. I want to run this module again for other groups and see how they interact with it differently. 

House of Pestilence Playtest 1: An Unexpected Speedrun

Starting in May, I began designing an entry for No Artpunk III, which I finally submitted a month ago. It got a good review from Prince, so now I'm revising and playtesting it in the hopes it will be included in the NAPIII anthology later this year. This is the first playtest, a rather abridged one which I did online last night via the OSR Pickup Games server. Lots to learn from it, so here we go!

SPOILERS for House of Pestilence below!

The Party

Valeria, Sovereign of Sighs, Paladin 11, played by Luke

    Soo Meri, Elder of the Moonstone Sect, Monk 9

    Thryn the Sun-Blessed, Cleric 10

Haught Taupik the Blood Sword Emperor, Elven Fighter 7/M-U 11, played by Malcolm

    Kore, the Vision of Temperance, Illusionist 11

    Helefres, Magician of the Far Shore, M-U 11

Stribor, the Devil of Bukosevac, Fighter 7/Thief 9/Bard 15, played by Shea

    Ko, the Stone of Kushiel, Fighter 9

    Aodhan the Reborn, Druid 12

Liphindor, Hierophant of the Cathedral Severe, Cleric 12, played by Rune

    Vindictus the Hand-Chopping Judge, Dwarven Fighter 9/Thief 11

    Saumur, Hangman of Orscea, Fighter 9

Casualties

None

Loot

Larvae and unholy symbols (purchased)

Gem of Seeing (stolen)

The Game

• Deep in the Underdark, a dozen masters of the surface world met. They were not united by creed or country, but by a common enemy: the dark wizard Vas Arghul, whose ambitions to lichdom would soon come to fruition, and would become a great threat to all their domains. 
• They knew that the would-be lich was down in the Underdark, and had a mission of his own: kill the high priest of a drow noble house dedicated to the daemon lord Anthraxus, the House of Pestilence, and take her still-beating heart to the court of Orcus. This would be their best, and last, chance to catch him outside his stronghold and put an end to him. 
• So they journeyed through the underworld, convened at the drow citadel of Erelhei-Cinlu, and set out on their journey. Through many miles of tunnels and subterrene wilderness did they travel, and soon they arrived at the threshold of House Umil-Da, the House of Pestilence. 

Doc Savage - Land of Always Night

• This is where the game properly began. Past a miles-long, winding tunnel, their lizard mounts splashing through pools of fungal secretion, they came to the foot of a wide chimney, leading up out of view, filled with crumbling stone shelves. Kore conjured an illusion of the same chimney, but quiet and empty of intruders, and the group made their careful way up the shelves. 
• As they crested the top of the chimney, they heard the sound of falling rocks below, and their lizard mounts stood to attention; the party was on guard, but no more came of this. 
• Before them now was a cave mouth, dark and bore-smooth. Stribor palmed a stone of continual light and scouted ahead alone; past a nexus point, and noting several instances of mossy fungi on the cavern floor, he heard a loud scraping upon stone from the caverns beyond, and caught sight of something large turning the corner and fleeing back through the tunnels. 
• He returned to the party with this information, and the whole group followed his trail. Tossing a lit torch over the suspect fungi, they illuminated the silhouette of a great beetle-like creature, the size of an ogre, that clung to the wall. The creature fled their show of force, and shortly afterwards, they felt another consciousness touch upon their own.
• "Who goes there? State your business in the name of House Umil-Da."
• Stribor opened negotiations with the telepathic being, whom they soon learned was Eastler, formerly a wicked mage of great renown upon the surface, who disappeared many years prior. The bard suggested to Eastler that a mage of his renown could benefit from a 'change of leadership' down here, and offered to help him return to the surface in exchange for his aid. Struck by such an audacious offer (and Stribor's natural 00 reaction roll), the mage invited them to his nearby sanctum. 

Source

• Another of the great beetle-creatures, which they now identified as an umber hulk, and which had been behind them the entire time undetected, escorted them. They found a dank cavern with a dozen hulks, and the ghoulish mage welcomed them with half-rotted meat, which Valeria politely sampled without fear of disease. 
• With a great deal of flattery and innuendo, the party won the wicked mage over to their side, and learned a great deal about the drow house and its procedures. Though they had little intention of actually helping Eastler, they led him on and put him to good use. They also traded gems for demon larvae and unholy symbols, preferred barter items within the House. 
• In short order they left the sanctum and were escorted to the very threshold of the drow stronghold, a great door embossed with daemonic imagery and topped with plastered skulls. They knocked in the advised pattern, Soo Meri determined that the party just got pinged with clairvoyance, and they were met on the other side by armed drow guards who demanded to know their business.  
• Well-advised by Eastler, a quick bribe of larvae and a request for audience with the drow nobles got them through the door. Beyond was a cavern, a mile long and a third of a mile wide, lit by a sphere of radioactive ore in psychedelic reds and golds. At the back of the cavern was a high-walled fortress, and a path of shining moonstone pebbles led to the gate. Some further bribes got the party information on recent guests: a human mage and his apprentices, a demon from the court of Pazunia, and a pair of mind flayers. 
• The party also knew that their enemy would recognize them even if they did not recognize him, and likewise resolved to disguise themselves. The drow did not find it objectionable or uncommon to take on a temporary identity within their domain, and so they took on new personas: Haught Taupik became Caald, Valeria became Hysperia, Liphindor became Rodni, and Stribor became Fennic the Clean (who was distinctly dirty). 
• After a short wait, a cloud of mist sprung up on the path and resolved into a rider upon a demonic steed, flanked by drow and bugbears. The guards sprang to attention and saluted 'Warden Triel'. Stribor did the same, while the rest of the party stood stoically. 

Tony DiTerlizzi

• This high-ranking drow inspected their auras, and found only Stribor's to be pleasing. She instructed the guards to hand the new guests visitor passes and cloaks (which glowed lime-green under ultravision) and recommended that they visit her bazaar... and mind their business otherwise. 
• The steed and rider dissolved to mist once more, but left behind a drow servant, Malrux, who answered their questions and provided all the hospitality the drow had to offer. The party deduced that their quarry was likely disguised as one of the guests, and wanted to make for the bazaar, where they would mostly likely be found. However, there was another stop first. 
• Past the gardens of violet grasses and exotic flowers, past fungal trees and vineyards fed by the blood of mangled slaves, through the great steel doors of the compound embossed with scenes of wealth and luxury, they found an open-air shrine. A huge bust in verdant marble bore the visage of the daemon lord Anthraxus, and slaves and bugbears knelt before the shrine at varying distances, offering their prayers and slop upon the ground. Malrux requested that the party pay obeisance to the House's patron and make a small offering. 
• Stribor alone knelt enthusiastically, the rest only reluctantly. While the others made offerings of larvae or gems, Liphindor alone neglected to make any offering, shamed enough by this profanity. 

Bugbears: Look that one isn't making an offering. 

No, don't you see, he's offering his dignity!

What a delicious offering!

• Near to bursting with humiliation, the party continued into the compound, past the cave-homes reserved for guests, and straight toward the bazaar, covered in patchwork fabrics like the wings of innumerable bats. Underworld creatures hawked wares from dozens of stalls, but they spied none of the guests. However, Malrux directed them to a tent at the center of the bazaar, woven from coins. A further bribe to the guards there, who just wanted to make sure the party was wealthy enough to partake of the goods within, won them entry. 
• Within were two mages, a huge, inebriated demon with a vestigial arm sticking out of its abdomen, and a pair of mind flayers, engaged in a bidding war over a glowing violet gem. Only the auctioneer, a night hag, was happy to see new bidders enter the tent. 

Sold! To the tentacled gentleman

• The party held back from entering the bidding, through the gem, a violet ioun stone, was quite tempting to several party members. Instead, they set about examining the bidders. The two mages, Snake-Eye and Orbix, were apprentices of the great mage Neroe, who was back in his guest chambers. They wanted to pick up a nice gift for their master, but the mind flayers kept bidding up the price and egging on the demon: the bid had swelled past 13000gp. 
• Valeria's fine-tuned sense for evil confirmed that both the night hag and the demon radiated supernatural fear, as would be expected, while the mind flayers, mages, and items did not. This ruled out the demon as a suspect. Stribor became quick friends with the mages, and offhandedly badmouthed Vas Arghul in their conversation. 

Stribor: he doesn't take apprentices, he doesn't keep up the traditional of evil wizardry, it's a disgrace.

Snake-Eye: Absolutely, so gauche. 

Orbix: Not that we'd say that to his face. 

Snake-Eye: We would never say such a thing to the World-Scourge's face.

Orbix: But still, very gauche.

• Haught Taupik noticed that one of the mind flayers was simply standing, making only small movements, while the other was involved in the bidding, and its tentacles twitched every time Vas Arghul was mentioned. 
• They had their prime suspect. The ioun stone went to Snake-Eye, at a final, eye-watering price of 20000gp, and the auction took a break. However, the party noticed one of the other items available was a gem of seeing, and they swiftly hatched a plan. 
• Stribor made a show of desiring the gem while Valeria exited the tent and dropped her disguise. With the gem next on the auction block (starting at a dreadfully high 25000gp!) she came back in with great fanfare, and declared she absolutely must have this gem, for with it she could unveil the imposter among them, the dark wizard Vas Arghul!
• Stribor, still disguised as Fennic the Clean, played along. The suspect mind flayer entered the bidding, but with all the party's spending money behind her, Valeria kept bidding up. That mind flayer left the bazaar, muttering about how we wouldn't be party to such a farce, but the other one, which until now had been almost entirely still, took over the bidding seamlessly. The party decided that this one was an illusion, but changed their minds when it won the bidding at 40000gp, and physically took the gem. 
• By this time, the party split; several party members tailed the suspect mind flayer, while several others stayed in the bazaar. In this latter group, Liphindor bumped into the mind flayer, and the gem of seeing went skittering on the floor. The mind flayer picked it up and left, but it was one of Kore's illusions! The real gem had been pickpocketed by Vindictus, who had taken a potion of invisibility.
• Now possessing the gem, the party sped after the other mind flayer, and through the gem Vindictus saw that it was actually a human silhouette under a hat of disguise. This was Vas Arghul, without a doubt! 
• He was out in the open, still believing himself disguised, on the path to the guest caves. They wondered how to negate his disguise and show his true nature to others, but Helefres realized it was a very simple process. She just got close enough, and knocked the hat off his head with an unseen servant. 
• The would-be lich turned on the party in a fury, knowing his cover was blown. Initiative was rolled... and he rolled dead last. 
• Everything went poorly for Vas Arghul after that. Kore's color spray and a bungled save knocked his first effective action back to segment 10 (!), Aodhan's fire seeds blew him away, and the party's warriors closed in. With Haught Taupik, Soo, Ko, Saumur, and a still-invisible Vindictus all crowding around him, the best he could do was unleash a cloud of smoke and begin fiddling with his magic bracer. But another nasty initiative roll pushed him back, and Liphindor's scroll of holy word defeaned him (as well as Stribor, and vaporized some nearby drow), drastically damaging his ability to cast spells. 
• The final word was Stribor's animal summoning II, which summoned a group of boring beetles that tore the would-be lich to shreds.

He never even got to cast a spell!

• Alas, not all was well: a beeping emanated from Vas Arghul's robes as he died, and several of the characters, plus the beetles, were caught in a blast of light. When they came back to their senses, they, along with Vas Arghul's corpse, found themselves on a salt flat under a crimson sky, punctuated by dessicated blue trees with fleshy, purple fruit. A huge castle, rolling toward them on wheel over the salt flat, was preceded by the cackling of hyenas and gnoll outriders: they were on the 422nd layer of the Abyss, the domain of the Gnoll Prince Yeenoghu, and nobody heard of them after that. 
• Though the rest of the party, still on the material plane, was doubtless in great danger since they had just killed several drow as collateral damage, we ended the session there. 

Takeaways

Hoo boy, where to begin. 

House of Pestilence includes both the drow noble house itself, as well as several underworld wilderness areas a la D1 and D2 prior to it. For this playtest, I elected to skip past those and start the players right at the threshold to the House proper. Since Christmas is coming fast and I'm busy as soon as January starts, I didn't expect to have another playtest with this group afterwards. That said, I didn't expect them to find and defeat the wizard!

While the adventure has been in development for quite some time, the hook with the wizard is much more recent. I think I added it a week before submission. My intent with it was that an effective party could accomplish this goal with much less risk by infiltrating and treating this as a social/investigative adventure, rather than spamming fireball and getting subsequently dogpiled by a few dozen drow. That turned out to be the case, but not quite how I expected. This party managed to accomplish the main objective within a single session, without engaging with most of the location! At the same, time they got quite little in the way of loot, especially since the wizard's body got shunted to another plane. 

Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. If you strip out this objective, the rest of the location remains, and there's still lots to do, lots of intrigues and plots and treasure and exploration; but players ought to have some inkling that it is there in order to decide whether they want to go after it. 

I expect I'll revamp the hook; maybe taking out the wizard is just one part of the goal, and non-evil parties still have some reason to take assassinate the matriarch (other than the usual reason one would have to fight against the drow as a neutral/good party). Not sure, will have to give this more thought. 

The actual fight with the wizard was also much easier than expected; none of them took a single point of damage! I don't think this is the fault of the adventure, but a combination of luck, strategy, and the way I ran it. Vas Arghul was loaded down with powerful items and spells, but it takes time to activate them, and spells can be interrupted. Had he rolled better on initiative, they would have been fighting him, plus a half dozen umber hulks, in the dark, with a wand of force. But he got unlucky, and got overwhelmed. Should I update his items to add something which can open up some breathing room in situations like these? Maybe. This too will take more thought. 

All said and done, I felt the session went quite smooth, and the playtesters had a good time of it. Out of all of us, only one had prior experience with high-level AD&D. My CX game only really went to around 6th level, and the other playtesters have managed to get to 4th in the course of their current campaign. A fair amount of play, especially in that combat at the end, was spent looking up the details on spell effects; luckily, CTRL-F speeds that up a good deal, and I already had my improved spell descriptions at hand. 

Still, picking up new characters at high level, especially when you haven't gotten characters to that level organically before, definitely feels stilted. In the absence of a group of veteran players it's unavoidable, though it's a good reason to not design for higher levels in the absence of a high-level group. 

Since most of the session was exploration and social interaction, the much-vaunted issues with high-level play didn't get a chance to pop up. 

Alright, I think that's all I have to say about the playtest now. I hope to do another round in the coming months with my in-person group, and that playtest will hopefully be longer and more complete. Until next time, have an excellent week!

Playtest Call: House of Pestilence

I must apologize from a rather lengthy absence from the blog: a whole lot of busy crunch time, travel, and now a lingering head cold have kept me from finishing up the latest session report, let alone other posts. 

However, there is good news: besides my actual AD&D game, the business keeping my RPG-related energy hostage was my contest entry for No Artpunk 3, the House of Pestilence. After months of work and refinement (I'll probably make a whole post documenting the process) the beta draft was complete, an AD&D adventure for levels 10-14, following directly from and further detailing D3: Vault of the Drow. 

There's HOW MANY drow?!

The praise is rolling in...

House of Pestilence is not just good, in that it preserves the energy and strangeness of the original D series, while shoring up some of its weaknesses, it is in fact downright great... an open-ended location in grand style... a caravan of delights ... lavish, complex, and multi-faceted.

-Prince of Nothing

This looks delightful, but I am a sucker for nostalgia, and this definitely conjures to mind D3.

-JB

Intimidating and exciting...

-N. Alexander Peter

But to become all that it can be, it must be playtested!

While I expect to playtest it in person once my group meets up again in January, I would like to have more players and eyes on it. I'm currently organizing an online playtest via the OSR Pickup Games server, right now for evenings GMT, but an American-time playtest in January is also likely. 

If you can't make the time to playtest but would still like to look at the module and give feedback, you can comment below or message me on Discord at nroman1938. 

I hope to see you there and hear from you! Until then, have an excellent week!