grodog's Greyhawk Campaigns Updates

Life in the real world has been full of strife, chaos, madness, and the bat plague of late (to quote Gabor Lux!), so our escapism has been into the World of Greyhawk. 

 

Castle Greyhawk - The Boys over 4th of July Weekend

Fathers Day AD&D gaming coupons redeemed from the boys meant a return to the dreaded halls of grodog's Castle Greyhawk! =)

Unfortunately for the dungeon's inhabitants, the PCs plowed through most of them, then retreated back to the City of Greyhawk for healing.

The boys discovered a new entrance to lower levels via a trapdoor, but upon banging around on nearby barred doors, the PCs stir up more orcs, who sounded the alarm gongs, and began pursuit!

Spooked, the PCs bugged out via a secret door (seemingly unknown to the orcs), only to encounter a pair of shriekers in the main entry/exit hall, who in turn attracted a swarm of 20 kobolds. That engagement delayed their departure sufficiently long for the orcs to catch up, which is where we left things off for lunch....
 

The dragon mini (one of my favorite sculpts!) is a stand-in since I don’t have a black dragon that currently has attached wings, but you can never go wrong with Tom Meier’s work 🙂

The boys met this same dragon IRL several years ago, and fled from it quickly (they were particularly awed by it yelling at them, and the ranks of lizard men in front of it and charging in the PCs' direction!). 

This time they were prospecting the dungeon level with a wand of metal and mineral detection looking for more loot, when they happened upon it by chance 😉

 

Henry's Underground Mansion - 5 July 2020

Nominally set on an uncharted island in the Nyr Dyv, Henry's Underground Mansion mega-dungeon got reopened for business over the extended July 4th holiday weekend as well.  

His older brother Ethan and I delved into new portions of the second level that we'd not previously explored, and after running into some trouble there, encountered a red dragon while on our way back to the surface for some R&R!  

Thankfully, we managed to extract ourselves from the red dragon and high-tail it out of the dungeon.  The orcs that we'd recruited to assist in the battle with the dragon, however, didn't fare quite so well....

 

 

Castle Greyhawk - The Virtual GaryCon crew - 18 July 2020

I ran my Saturday night Castle Greyhawk crew last month and will return to it again this coming weekend (I cancelled the in-between session due to work insanities; this game began as a spur-of-the-moment virtual GaryCon 2020 event, and has continued since, although we missed the past few sessions). Only 3 players were able to attend, so they decided to seek out some mercs to beef up their numbers. Unfortunately their regular MaAs weren’t available, having taken on some caravan guard duty between Greyhawk and Dyvers when the PCs didn’t employ them for the past month of game time (we hadn’t played since 23 May!). 

So, they picked up a down-on-his-luck half-elf F/MU named Melkor who had been robbed by bandits when returning from Castle Greyhawk, and decided to see if they could help him recover his missing gear, including his spellbook.

They ran around in the city checking in with the Thieves Guild (possible lead/info, for 50gp that they didn’t pay), picked up an Amazonian Priestess of Heironeous at the local temple (Carlos is playing a Keeper of Daern), and checked in with the City Watch for news and possible bounties on bandits (30sp a head for a captured bandit).

They then returned to the scene of the crime to investigate around a bit, and then killed some time hanging around in the first outer ward of the Castle, figuring that the bandits were hitting adventurers on their way back to the City from the Castle. While there, they encountered a group of NPCs exiting the castle, and favorable reaction rolls and some diplomacy assured an easy “nothing to see here, move along” response. The players and the PCs seemed both to have been impressed by the NPCs’ use of an ogre as a porter, and noted the Bakluni holy symbols/raiment of two of their number; they were lead by a female mage named Kelurrin and her brother, another mage; a priestess of Zuoken, and a figure sporting robes of Istus wielding a spetum also stood out to the eye*.

After some further escapades, they tracked the bandits to a lair at the foot of the Castle’s tor, and attacked, capturing 5 and slaying 6 of the group of 12-15-ish foes. The session ended with them preparing to descend into the bandits’ cave to plumb its depths, where they hope to find Melkor’s missing spell book and some more loot. 

* Appearing in one of my contributions to the Saving Throw fundraiser zine for Jim Kramer.  Guy Fullerton and I were recently emailing about fixing some errata and getting the print version of it finalized.
 
This was the session summary written by James Hochmuth, who plays Eric the Thief in the game:

All,

Saturday night's game was fantastic!  We went into overtime and Allan's ability to keep the game focused with imagery, details and characters meant that the time just flew by without actually noticing how late it was!  Thank you for the extra time Allan!

Thank you for hosting the game Carlos on your Zoom account!

A short recap:

Josh is roleplaying Haj, Half-Orc Fighter
Carlos is roleplaying Corin, Human Paladin
I am roleplaying Eric, Half-Elf Thief

The three of us met up to head out to Castle Greyhawk, as it had been a month since our last visit with the giant crabs.  We discovered that our reliable Men-At-Arms were not available, out with other work.  But their Sergeant recommended someone else we could ask to accompany us.  We met at the inn Melchior, a Half-Elf Fighter Mage, who had been waylaid a week past by bandits on a return visit from Castle Greyhawk.  He had lost most everything to the Bandits, including his spellbook.  We decided that we would help him get his spellbook and belongings back from the bandits and he would offer his services to us in return.   After doing due diligence in the City, Eric asking the thieve's guild if the book had been pawned, Haj asking the town guards about bandit activity and rewards, and Corin seeking the help of a Cleric to accompany us.  We, as a group of five characters head out to hunt for the bandits and make our way to Castle Greyhawk.

We scout the terrain looking for possible ambush spots, look over the area that Melchior was ambushed and eventually head into the outer walls of the Castle, to have "Lunch".  It is what adventurers do right?  Have lunch inside Castle greyhawk!  It was in hopes that we would then either find the Bandits moving about the area, or lure them out to attack us when we leave injured after several hours within the walls.  However a mighty group of adventurers were exiting the castle as we were leaving.  When I say mighty...  They had an Ogre as a porter.  We parlayed with the group, ensuring our safety as they left the castle and headed back to the city.  We watched them travel into the woods and lost sight of them with no obvious signs of bandits pursuing them.

When we decided it was time to head out and see if we could convince the bandits, should they be watching, that we were easier prey and ambush us we made our way back towards the city.  Later on the road we ran into the fallen bodies of bandits, having been foolish enough to attack the previous party with the Ogre.  This gave us an opportunity to track their movements as wounded individuals had fled.  With some time we discovered their hideout in some woods and prepared our own ambush.  In the end two bandits fled and we took prisoner five individuals and learned that they have a cave not far away where they keep their loot, guarded by others.

As we make our way to the cave, we see that the entrance has been disturbed, presumably by the two bandits that fled the fight.   We enter hoping that what we seek, the spellbook, is still deeper in the cave.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I enjoyed this session and look forward to others!

Respectfully,

James Hochmuth

Wichita Greyhawk - The Now-Virtual Crew 

Our other "regular" local game also got skipped the previous weekend due to work insanities on my party, but I hope to get us back on track the following weekend, too.

In the meanwhile, I started working up a detailed drill-down hex map for the central Flanaess surrounding the Nyr Dyv, which should keep me occupied for another two or three decades or so.

Bill Silvey's Monday Night Greyhawk Campaign - 20 July and 10 August

Our characters, after one beating too many, have decided to take a break from Bill's version of Castle Greyhawk (I suppose I should post some updated maps from our explorations there sometime, too!), and are pursuing a vision quest in the Abbor Alz, where a sage informed us that a legendary magical ring of invisibility might lie.

Here's a summary of that session, from Steve Smith, another player in the group:

Played in DungeonDelver's game on Monday, and it's heating up. In the previous session the party went to a sage looking for hints/legends of lost treasures that might contain a ring of invisibility, to add to our capabilities. We got a lead on a ransacked dwarven stronghold in the Abbor-Alz, and agreed to map and info gather for the sage while we were there. In that previous session we inflicted some blunt force trauma on the goblins and looted the chief's rooms before retiring with our encumbering gainz back to the men-at-arms and base camp.
So this session we were heading back to finish of the goblins and map the place, but of course in the day lost the remaining tribe had pepared some hasty defenses. Looking to find a way around them rather than waste hp on the strong point, we took another path and encountered a subterranean pond that we crossed on small boats. The next chamber was filled with mushrooms to the right, and ahead to the left there was another path that looked like it might circle around to a backdoor into the goblin area...but it seemed like there might be a crevice beyond the mushroom stand.

Checking that out we found some stairs heading down. That seemed more interesting, so we took that route. Halfway down we found a heavy bound door with dwarven runes conveying a warning to let what is beyond rest, lest unleashing a terrible force. The paladin of Wee-Jas detected for chaos and received a strong ping back from beyond the door.

We left it alone, at least for the moment, and continued down the stairs.
The stairs finally terminated in a deep underground cavern paved in cobblestones. It was far larger than our light sources would outline, and as we prepared to find the boundaries the group was ambushed by a group of displacer beasts! The heavy infantry out in front traded blows with the beasts, while the two illusionists in the group plumbed into their bags of tricks. My illusionist took out a viper carcass preserved in a bottle of strong brandy and, using an improved phantasmal force, began "stretching" it into a Conan-class serpent, throwning it among the cats in the following round - hoping (sort of) that these beasts would be familiar with/wary of gigantic snakes. The other illusionist cast a phantasmal killer spell at the cats.

The spells successfully wrecked havoc with the cats and broke up their attacks, causing them to break and run the next round. One died to the faux-bite of the viper, the phantasmal killer spell was likewise deadly, and the infantry scored more kills with their back attack bonuses.

With that resolved, we found some ruins farther up the cavern and investigated one, finding some inscriptions in the walls in old suloise, telling us they'd succumbed to some horror unleashed by themselves. That was the end of the night.

Looking forward to next week.

This is what I wrote after we played last night (10 August 2020, and I missed the 3 August session due to continuing work insanities):  Two weeks ago we discovered a lost city of ancient Suloise deep under the Abbor-Alz. It dates from the time of the Great Migrations, and our PCs were chased from it by a shoggoth! My paladin of Wee Jas will attempt to commune with the Ruby Queen to discover how to restore this site to her people....


I'm enjoying the many games, even if it's a bit hectic to juggle at times, along with the work insanities (which seem to be increasing in frequency rather than abating, as I reflect on this past month of gaming).

Allan. 

Renovating the Monastery - Recasting the Classic DMG Dungeon in Greyhawk - Part 1

Wichita Greyhawk Campaigning

I ran the unnamed sample monastery dungeon from the Dungeon Masters Guide for my eldest son's after-school AD&D group a few years ago, and I've repurposed it as one of the starting points for the new Wichita Greyhawk campaign that kicked off last month.  

I've compiled the bits and pieces about it that I've discussed over at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse forum and Scott Gregg's Doomsday Games forum:

1. Background
2. Maps - Wilderness Environs 
3. Maps - Dungeon Levels
4. Keys

I'm detailing #1 and #2 in this post, with more info to follow on the updated, revised, and expanded dungeon maps and keys later. 

Below I dig into plenty of spoilers for the sample dungeon, so if you are currently playing through it, you should stop reading now. 


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Background

 

I've decided to leverage my continued interest in the sects and cults of Wee Jas for my background to the DMG Monastery dungeon in the Wicihta campaign.  This necessitates some changes to the original sketchy background from the DMG:

• The slain abbot becomes an abbess
• The fire opal becomes a holy relic of Wee Jas, perhaps in part reflecting her vanity
• The lower level needs a new rationale from how I'd originally conceived it, and I'm thinking it may be tied to the Plane of Shadow now, but am still noodling on that:  perhaps the shadow influences are what, in part, lead to the near-total destruction of the monastery, and if so, it seems likely that the destruction was meted out by other, more-orthodox sects within her faith (this aligns well with my depiction of the relationship between the primary and heretical sects in my Castle Greyhawk level)

Some other changes are related to the broader picture of the historical record of Greyhawk, too:

• The fen that surrounds the monastery was caused by the subsistence of the ground due to the deleterious effects of the cult of Elemental Evil a decade ago
• The EE cult's origins will tie back more closely to Dyvers and Wild Coast (as hinted in T1), but the DMG Monastery will not be a significant part of that network as I've previously used it (it will however still have some ties to there, via the brigands)
• I think I'm going to insert an octych piece in the dungeon somewhere as well....

Wilderness Environs Maps

 

I've been sketching out the larger campaign environment on and off for awhile now, and spent some time over the past few weeks building it out further.

I began with the larger regional level for mapping out roads, smaller-sized settlements that don't appear on the Darlene Greyhawk map, etc.:

Kron Hills, Gnarley Forest, and Welkwood environs -
map by grodog

On the above map, each large hex is a single Darlene Greyhawk hex, so 30 miles each. The smaller hexes within each are 5 miles each. 

The hex with the DMG monastery dungeon is one hex north of Narwell, in hex # I4-93 on the Darlene map grid location system.  Then I use our single-hex sheets to drill down into each campaign hex; the single hex sheets have three layers of hexes, which break out like this in scale:

• Layer 1 = large campaign hex = 30 miles
• Layer 2 (6 medium hexes per large hex) = 5 miles
• Layer 3 (6 small hexes per medium hex) = 5/6 miles = 1466 2/3 yards/4400 feet

Greyhawk hex I4-93 -
detail map by grodog

I haven't started to color the above map yet, so it's probably a bit faint....  

Then I drill down to a detail view using the 5 mile hex as the large scale on the same hex sheet template:

• Layer 1 = 1 large campaign hex = 5 miles = 1 medium campaign hex (layer 2 above)
• Layer 2 (6 medium hexes per large hex) = 5/6 mile
• Layer 3 (6 small hexes per medium hex) = 244.4 yards = 733 1/3 feet

Detail within Greyhawk hex I4-93 -
map by grodog

The small hex that the monastery ruins are part of is now 244 yards across, and sited on a hilltop that measures about two full hexes in area (the smallest hexes), which feels about right for the complex size as I envision it.  

The small-scale (colored) hex map shows the subsided fen round the monastery hill (which I've not decided whether to color in part with forest or to leave "cleared"), and some other forested areas on higher-ground in its immediate vicinity.

Next up:  the ruins of the monastery site, as well as the dungeon levels and keys.

Allan.

Greyhawk - Setting the Wichita Campaign in Motion

Last Sunday, 26 January 2020, we created characters (some both of two, some just one of two since they had create PCs at TsunamiCon in October) and began to adventure in our local Wichita Greyhawk campaign. 

The players created the following first-level characters---two each, since I wanted them to have backups in case PCs are turned to stone, killed, or otherwise out-of-action for awhile:

• Brad - one new PC:  Verdure, a female half-elf druid; 2nd PC TBD
• Brian - one new PC:  Varis, a half-elf mercenary for hire (assassin), who is being played in preference to Melisor, a human magic-user (who delved my Castle Greyhawk at TsunamiCon)
• Henry - one PC:  Vilador, male human magic-user, who also delved Castle Greyhawk at TsunamiCon; 2nd PC TBD after I figure out if we're doing children in the game or not (I'm leaning toward yes)
• Jeff - one new PC:  Hagrid, male dwarf fighter/thief; 2nd PC is Oberon Canorbe, human cleric of St. Cuthbert; Hagrid and Verdure split the costs for Fang, a wardog
• Jon - two new PCs:  Danger Ranger II, male human ranger; 2nd PC is Slim Bandicoot, human thief
• Vince - one new PC:  Lugh, male human ranger; 2nd PC is Seriat, human cleric of Obah-Hai

Several other players participated in the TsunamiCon events, but weren't able to attend on Sunday's kickoff, so I'm still waiting to see where the mix of regular and semi-players settles out.

After creating PCs, the players opted to explore through the ruined monastery dungeons from the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, which I've set on the southern verge of the western side of the Gnarley Forest:

Darlene's Greyhawk map
from the 1980 Greyhawk Folio

The PCs began in Ellorn, a small mining thorp north of Narwell, on 26 Fireseek 576 Common Year (CY).  (I'm using Clay Luther's Greyhawk calendar, if you're curious).  They heard rumor of the old monastery of Wee Jas, with its fabled fire opal never discovered during the siege that laid the site low in ages past.  More-recently, the lands around the monastery were caught up in some of the elemental chaos from the Cathedral of Elemental Evil on the western side of the Gnarley---some of the land around the monastery subsided, and a fen now surrounds much of the tor that the monastery ruins sit atop. 

With the help of a local guide, A'zor'an (a Balklunish hunter/trapper/furrier), the PCs found the ruins.  While advancing across the fen on the raised causeway, Hagrid the dwarf slipped and fell into a pool sufficiently deep to submerge him completely as an edge of the track crumbled; this also attracted the attention of a fast-moving fen spider, that rushed the PCs in an attempt to find its next meal.  They were not surprised, but were somewhat divided between those above on the causeway, and Danger Ranger and the guide below attempting to help pull the dwarf from the mire.  The characters were able to wound the spider and drive it off without it causing any significant harm to them, although they were a bit surprised at its ability to skim quickly across the water's surface, as well as when it dove underwater and swim away out of sight. 

After driving off the spider, the party began to explore, finding a pair of intact structures in the center of the pile:  a well-building, partially open to the elements (in its construction, not due to it being ruined), with a large stone well-cover intact atop the well-shaft.  Lowering Hagrid the dwarf into the shaft via ropes revealed that it a strongly-flowing stream about 40-50' below, rushing with cold water and no significant space for breathable air to allow PCs follow its course.  The players returned the cap to the well, and marked it carefully with chalk to show whether anyone else moved it in the future.

The other building contained a stairwell down into the dungeons below.  Lhou the ranger determined that tracks showed some booted traffic going in and out of the second building, and Verdure the druidess employed speak with animals to learn from a mouse on site that other "giants" would move into/out of the ruins with some regularity. 

Dusk fell, and while preparing to camp, the PCs saw a large group of figures moving across the fen, along its edge and parallel to the ruins.  Hiding themselves, they were able to observe a large body of humans (more than 50), from which a smaller group of 10-20 split off and crossed the causeway.  They marched right up to the ruins, and met with a group that emerged from the stairwell building; the leaders of the two groups conferred for several minutes while 8 of the motley crew (seemingly bandits) went below and did not return.  The characters were not able to overhear much of the conversation, and chose not to engage either group, given the larger force just across the causeway.  

And that is where play concluded for the day.   The next session should be next week!

Allan.

New local Greyhawk Campaign in Wichita - 26 Jan 2020 Kickoff!

New in-person Greyhawk campaign to begin on Sunday, 26 January 2020 at Hero Complex in Wichita, Kansas, at 1pm CST!  Estimated stop time 5-6pm. 

In honor of the upcoming 46th anniversary of the first publication of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm kicking off a new AD&D 1st edition campaign set in my version of the World of Greyhawk.  

Previously discussed at https://www.facebook.com/groups/111904705646730/permalink/958413074329218/ and with some introductory steps taken at TsunamiCon in October 2019, this session will mark the campaign's official start.

No previous experience with AD&D 1st edition or the World of Greyhawk required:  newcomers welcome! :D

Allan.

grodog's Events at TsunamiCon 2019: Greyhawk AD&D and Aliens: This Time It's War

At the 11th hour this week, I decided to submit events to run at Wichita's TsunamiCon, our sixth annual gaming convention.  Details on the events appear in my post to the TsunamiCon Facebook group, but I figured I'd share the details here as well:

The events are listed at TableTop.Events, and here are the details:

• Introduction to World of Greyhawk and AD&D 1st edition:  Create new characters for AD&D 1e, learn the basics of play, and explore grodog's infamous version of Castle Greyhawk. Players new to Greyhawk or AD&D 1st edition welcome! Bring your graph paper, dice, and a healthy dose of paranoid courage! 1e character sheets will be provided. Prizes awarded!
• This will run on Saturday from 1-5pm, and 7-11pm.

 

• Aliens: This Time It's War!:  Celebrating 40 years of Alien, this is "The Reactor" level from the classic 1989 miniatures skirmish game. Players control Colonial Marines trying to escape the alien nest that has awoken around them! Fast-paced and very deadly, rules will be taught. In space, no one can hear you scream!
• This will run on Sunday from 9am-Noon, and 1pm-4pm.

I've been discussing the kickoff of a new multi-group Greyhawk campaign in Wichita for the past couple of months, and hopefully this will provide a good opportunity to introduce Greyhawk and AD&D to new and interested players!  If you're local and interested, the main discussion is in our local Wichita D&D group in Facebook.

Allan.