Progress Report - Horror on the Hill

I love the Jim Holloway art from this era of Basic D&D

We missed a lot of time with this campaign!  Several of the players are die-hard Eagles fans (go birds), and there was a run of late afternoon games on Sundays or Sunday nights which displaced RPG game nights, so I think we've only played 2-3 times since October when I last checked in on this campaign.  Our cast of characters has reached level 2 and has explored most of the surface ruins of Horror on the Hill and about half of level 1 of the dungeon.

Here are the characters:

• Skargold (half-orc fighter)
• Glo (dwarf fighter)
• Barlow (halfling cleric of Ord)
• Ithior (elf wizard)
• Malad (elf thief)

In Shadowdark, ogres are level 6 monsters, so one of the most dangerous surface encounters was with an ogre (rolled as a wandering encounter) which forced the players to retreat, put down caltrops as cover, put doors between them and the ogre, basically use good tactics to create distance and let them injure it at range before closing to melee when it was weaker.  There are some old school goodies in the module like a hidden sanctuary in the monastery with a magic fountain, and several characters got stat boosts drinking the enchanted water (2 ended up paralyzed for half a day).  Sleep took care of a barracks of humanoids, and then they were down some stairs to the dungeon.

Sleep is proving to be highly effective in a scenario featuring humanoids under the Shadowdark magic system.  Shadowdark is "roll to cast" instead of using spell slots, so if a spell is successful, the caster can try it again in a future encounter.  A few lucky spellcasting rolls and even a 1st level wizard can deploy multiple sleep spells, although it doesn't scale to affect higher level creatures like the classic sleep spell.  The players have rescued a dwarf prisoner, Gareth Ironhand, who was being forced by the hobgoblin king to make weapons for an army the hobgoblins are trying to raise (pictured above - I love the Jim Holloway art of this period in TSR).  The players have promised Gareth they're going to put an end to the threat.  They've also learned the hobgoblins revere a "fire boss" deep in the hill called "Rhazgar", an allusion to the dragon on the third level of the dungeon.

Magic items are fairly bland in old school adventures - lots of shield +1 and sword +1, for instance.  A simple hack I'll do is generate some possible cultures that could have generated the magic item in question, just to give it a modicum of flavor - it's not a well-made shield, it's an archaic shield with a double eagle crest that dates back to the Thyatian Empire, and appears good as new.

I'm running this B5 Horror on the Hill in Karameikos, part of the Mystaran "Known World" setting from the BX and Mentzer sets, so here's a simple table of nationalities for use as above:

Magic Item Flavor:

1. Ancient (Blackmoor)
2. Rockhome
3. Alfheim
4. Old Traladara
5. The Empire (Thyatis)
6. Glantri
7. Karameikan (elvish made or royal court/military)
8. Monster-Crafted
9. The Church
10.  Independent Wizard (Bargle et al)
11. Alphatia
12.  Distant land (Vestland, Ylarum, Darokin, etc)

In this way, they haven't found just a shield +1 or mace +1, but the aforementioned Shield of the Empire or a holy weapon that belonged to the Great Church of Karameikos.  It's low-effort but goes a long way to adding simple flavor to otherwise uninteresting treasures.

At this point I've probably refereed 10 games of Shadowdark between the two campaigns - enough to have a feel for it.  There are a few things I don't like about the system (not fatal flaws, but irritants).  I'll have to put together a gripe post, grognard means complainer after all.  Nevertheless, the system plays really fast at the table - very simple to adjudicate and run combats.  Obviously all OSR systems have this attribute; Shadowdark leverages unified mechanics based on 5E that make it even simpler to operate than the beloved Moldvay.  One of the biggest departures is what I alluded to above with sleep - by dropping Vancian magic, casters can sometimes go on a heater and punch hard.  A cleric (er, priest) can heal the whole group with a series of successful cure wounds spells, or the wizard can put the party on "easy mode" when facing off against goblins and hobgoblins by spamming sleep.  Maybe I'll do a "the good, the bad, the ugly" kind of post on Shadowdark in the near future, because there's a lot more to say.  I'll finish by saying both groups of players have given it an enthusiastic two thumbs up; I know they're enjoying the games and appreciate the system.

Enabling Curse of Strahd as a Sandbox

One of the most important things I needed to do for myself to simplify Curse of Strahd (COS) is related to the book's presentation.  It's presented as a sandbox campaign, with a full-sized hex-crawl wilderness map (the Valley of Barovia), a full-sized dungeon (Castle Ravenloft), and then 12 other adventure sites comprising villages, smaller dungeons, or wilderness sites.  The issue I've found is there's a lot of text in the book, making it too easy to overlook critical information that acts as connective tissue between locales - ie, the plot hooks.  I see that as the #1 job of a sandbox referee - making sure the players have opportunities to learn things about the game world so they can make meaningful decisions about what to do.

I broke COS down two ways - the first was by settlement, what are the most important nuggets of information they'll learn at each location that could lead to further adventures.  I also organized the plot hooks by adventure site, to identify what are the ways characters can get pointed at a particular locale.

Here's an example: one of the locations is a werewolf den far to the west.  Players could stumble upon it if they crawl hex by hex.  The werewolves kidnap children in the valley, make them fight each other, and adopt the survivors into their werewolf clan to become werewolves.  There's been a recent power struggle between leaders in the clan (with the former leader now imprisoned beneath Castle Ravenloft).  Unless the players stumble upon the werewolf den, there are scant plot hooks that point to it.  They could meet Emil, the deposed leader, while exploring the prisons beneath Castle Ravenloft... although by the time they're exploring the castle, they're probably out to kill Strahd and not interested in a werewolf side quest.  The only other clue pointing to the den is if they have a random encounter with a werewolf in the wilds and are able to interrogate it.

The werewolf den shows up in the "tarroka readings" the referee can use to scatter various helpful items around Barovia and randomize the campaign.  In the original I6, everything is contained within the castle, but in Curse of Strahd, helpful items (including a potential ally) are split between the wilds and the castle.  One of the werewolves appears as a potential ally against Strahd (the enemy of my enemy...) and the werewolf den appears as a location where a quest item can be placed.

It wasn't obvious on first read-through that the touchpoints leading out to the remote werewolf den are so tenuous, or dependent on random chance.  If the referee wants to ensure the players learn about its existence, they may need to add an explicit plot hook to a location.  Perhaps the wolf hunters in the tavern of one of the towns (Vallaki) could be a good option for rumors about a vicious werewolf clan in the western wilds.

Anyway, I'm sure you get the point, dear reader - until I went through the book and organized the plot hooks, I wouldn't have noticed how prevalent or scarce are some of them.  The information pattern creates a likely "flow" through the campaign.  Here are my notes organized by site on plot hooks that are over and above the ones from Madame Eva's tarroka reading.

BAROVIA

• Death House
• Learn about the Durst Windmill (now Old Bonegrinder)
• Tavern
• Madame Eva's camp
• Vallaki is a safe city (Ismark and Ireena)
• Wizard of Wines (wine is scarce - added by me)
• Church
• Krezk Abbey is safe and holy
• Mad Mary
• Daughter is in Castle Ravenloft
• Night Hag Peddler (Morgantha)
• Strahd has a secret at Amber Temple
• He has an enemy at Argynvostholt
• Madame Eva has a Vistani camp
• She and her sisters are at the Durst Windmill (Old Bonegrinder)
• Strahd
• Invitation to Castle Ravenloft

VALLAKI

• Tavern
• Wine is scarce - visit Wizard of Wines
• Possibly cross paths with Rictavio (Van Richten's tower)
• Wolf Hunters may be aware of the werewolf den (added by me)
• Kasimir
• Quest to visit Amber Temple
• Luvash
• Needs wine - visit Wizard of Wines
• Town Rumor
• The ruins of Argynvostholt

KREZK

• Needs wine from Wizard of Wines Winery

WIZARD OF WINES

• Can learn two additional quests, Yester Hill and the ruined village of Berez

ARGYNVOSTHOLT

• Learn about the Amber Temple
• Quest to Castle Ravenloft to retrieve the dragon skull

WANDERERS

• A revenant can reveal Argynvostholt
• A werewolf can reveal the werewolf den

There is a lot more information in the book and additional side quests and smaller incidental sites to investigate, but the items above represent the major ones.  If you want to make sure your players hear about the Amber Temple, for instance, as it's one of the more important dungeons, the people who know about it are the night hag in Barovia (or at Old Bonegrinder), Kasimir the elf outside Vallaki, or talking to the ghost of the dead dragon at Argynvostholt.  I find this kind of "cheat sheet" helpful to ensure I don't overlook critical information about the sandbox.

The general flow of the adventure I've perceived is characters get many future plot hooks during their start in the village of Barovia, with one the most accessible and reasonable things being to get out of town and go to Vallaki; the next most likely destination after Vallaki is the besieged Wizard of Wines winery, where they can learn about two additional quests involving Yester Hill or the ruins of Berez.  There are plenty of side quests between Barovia and Vallaki, including visiting Madame Eva, Old Bonegrinder, getting caught up with the mayor of Vallaki's madness, fighting off vampire attacks in Vallaki, traveling with Ireena in tow and keeping her safe from Strahd,etc.  Some of these are best represented as events -  having a list of events off to the side to "keep the world in motion" is the next cheat sheet to build.

One thing my players do to stay organized is they use a shared Google sheet for posting marching orders, party treasure, game notes, screen captures of handouts, and plot hooks.  I like their approach and it should work well keeping track of all the things they can do during their "Holiday in Barovia".

All of this advice is system neutral; Curse of Strahd was published for 5E, I'm converting it to Shadowdark, and it seems like you could do the same for any OSR game.  Shadowdark and 5E have similar wealth expectations, making that piece of the conversion easier.  We did our pre-Christmas game last night so next post I'll log our adventures in Barovia to date.

Curse of Strahd - for Shadowdark

I started running a game with my neighborhood gang for Horror on the Hill, a classic module from the 1980's.  Meanwhile, my high school group voted to do Curse of Strahd.  The high school gang was formerly "The Pillories", the party that played Lamentations of the Flame Princess over the past year and recently wrapped their campaign.  Originally we were going to do a Call of Cthulhu next, but I wanted to get some more "drive time" with the Shadowdark rules set, and we talked about several different campaign ideas.  They ultimately picked Curse of Strahd.  Curse of Strahd (COS) was originally written for 5E, but don't hold that against it, and it seems like it will work fine using Shadowdark rules.  We're 3-4 sessions into the campaign, but this post is about the conversion process and getting the campaign set up.

There are a  few good 5E campaigns that lend themselves to a retro style of play and sandbox gaming - Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Tomb of Annihilation, and Rime of the Frostmaiden, for instance.  Curse of Strahd occupies a nearby place - it’s a little verbose and almost wants to be a plotted or scripted scene-based campaign, but it's also set up as a hex crawl in the valley of Barovia, with Castle Ravenloft and several dungeon sites.  There's a small cottage industry in the 5E crowd of converting Curse of Strahd into a full-blown scene-by-scene adventure path, but it seems easy enough to go in the other direction too, and bring to the foreground the sandbox elements and player agency.

As written, the campaign suggests gifting experience levels to the players as the players wander Barovia and do stuff - it's more exploration focused than the scene-based milestones that show up in adventure paths, but doesn't go all the way towards an "XP for Treasure" mode like I'd want in a retro sandbox.  The first thing I wanted to figure out was how much experience the campaign gives out naturally if you tried to run it as an XP for Treasure campaign.  It was a little tedious, but I tallied the treasure finds from the hex-crawl locations and dungeons.  I also assumed characters will get to go carousing several times, as XP for carousing seems to be a default assumption of Shadowdark, and fits one of the themes in Curse of Strahd - Barovia is dreary, and wines and spirits are one of the few things that bring joy to the dismal landscape.  The total XP in COS a little light - there's enough XP for a party to get to level 6 if they "collected most of it" which we don't necessarily want to encourage.  So the XP will need a little juicing - either adding treasure to locations where it's sparse or nonexistent, increasing the reward amounts, and/or adding some boon or quest rewards for major accomplishments.  Shadowdark doesn't use a 1gp = 1xp basis; the game uses an abstract system where treasure hordes are worth either 1xp or 3xp, and legendary items are worth 10xp. I've seen where referees use a 5xp category for major hordes and I think that change could be effective at increasing the campaign's overall XP.  One thing I'll mention - the actual gold piece counts found in a 5E adventure are right in line with Shadowdark's recommendations - which is somewhere around 1/10th the amount of treasure you'd see in an old school game.

Sly Flourish has been running Ravenloft as a Halloween one-shot the past couple years and uses 5th level PC's for Ravenloft (the original I6 was for characters levels 4-6) so I imagine 5th-7th level characters would be fine for the finale of COS.  It won't take much adjustment to the campaign's XP to ensure player characters can get into that range before they head to Castle Ravenloft for the final confrontation with Strahd and the brides.

If you're familiar with Curse of Strahd, you'll know there are several meaningful accomplishments the characters can do along the way that could represent XP moments:  lighting the holy beacon of Argynvostholt, discovering Strahd's secret at the Amber Temple, finding the lost Arabelle (Madame Eva's heir), restoring the Wizard of Wines Winery, and so on.  Shutting down Old Bonegrinder or rescuing children from the werewolf fighting pits in the western caves could fit as well.

Regarding monsters:  there are online guides on converting 5E monsters to Shadowdark, so that wasn't hard to do.  I think I ended up with about 40 converted monsters in the monster document I made.

The last piece to prepare for sandbox play was to have clear notes on plot hooks and connections between non-player characters, locations, and what the players can learn.  There are 14-15 places to explore in the valley, and varying amounts of NPCs to meet in each location.  In an adventure path, the author will dictate patrons or events that push the players from scene to scene; for the sandbox, the players have the agency, they're the ones doing the pushing, and the referee's job shifts to making sure they have the opportunity to get enough information to make meaningful plans.  The hardcover of Curse of Strahd is text-heavy and verbose; I found it helpful to make an outline for each location of which nuggets of information can picked up at each locale or NPC.  There's a natural flow to the campaign, with the opportunity to engage in side quests and detours depending on player preference.

And voila - that's how I've turned Curse of Strahd into a retro style sandbox.  I'd be glad to post the quest outlines or monster conversions if there's interest.  Otherwise I'll get some game reports rolling on how we've done so far.

The Pillories Have Been Death Frost Doomed

Herein lies the tale of our abrupt and terrifying end to Death Frost Doom.  As if it could end any other way.

When we last met with The Pillories, their halfling, Remi Knotwise, had crawled through an air vent and landed in a hidden part of the dungeon, the tomb of an undead horror (the Exalted Inquisitor).  After realizing he was trapped in the tomb, and taking some horrendous internal and psychic damage from the Interrogator's questions-from-beyond-the-grave, he quaffed his potion of gaseous form and flew out of there (leaving all of his stuff in the room).

Over the course of a few game sessions, the players scrounged for clothing for Remi amongst the crypts.  Allister tried to use ESP on the jelly monster guarding the "well of souls" to find out its secrets, and went temporarily insane when he was assaulted by the anguished thoughts of all the souls trapped within the creature.  Instead of whacking the creature and continuing past it, they decided (once Allister recovered) they would follow Remi's path through the ceiling tunnel and go whack the Exalted Inquisitor instead.  The undead Inquisitor was whacked.  Remi collected his gear, the magic user "knocked" the door, and the players found themselves in a new part of the dungeon, the tombs of the "Greater Repugnances".  They made the fateful decision to go left.

Left brought them to the Tomb of the Blessed Afflictor, the undead commander of the legions buried within the mountain.  He appeared as a long-robed skeleton lord sitting on his throne, leering at them.  He showed off his freaky undead mind-powers by telekinetically slamming the door behind them so they were stuck in the room with them, horror-movie style.

Maximus, the name of the undead general, wanted them to swear an oath, first requesting him to raise his undead army, and then a promise from them to guide him to a large mortal city.  in return, he would swear not to harm any of them, directly or indirectly.  These oaths would break the powerful magic keeping him trapped within the mountain.

The priest, Father Blackburn, was first to speak - "We will never serve you, monster!"  His henchman, Geoff, drew his sword.  The undead lord hoisted Geoff into the air with a lift of his hand after Geoff failed a saving throw, and with a flick of the wrist, sent Geoff telekinetically smashing into the far wall with a sickening thud.  Geoff died instantly (he was only level 1, after all).

Initiative was formally rolled, and the monster went first - sucking Blackburn into his grasp via the telekinetic force pull, and telling the others it was not too late to stand down before he killed their priest.  The rest of the players froze!  Intimidated by the undead lord, they watched as Blackburn continued to squirm and resist, denying all the monster's overtures towards capitulation, until the thing grew tired of dialogue with the rebellious cleric and drained the life energy out of him!  It may not have been a glorious death but it was well-respected by the others, as Blackburn's player perished while staying strong for his ideals (knowing this was the campaign finale).  What a dramatic moment - this is why we play these games.  Remi, Yuri, and Allister each took a knee and agreed to help the undead lord escape the mountain.

Time seemed to distort as a nightmarish delirium descended on them... the monster escorted them to the Crypt of the Testifier, where supernatural oaths were spoken and sealed.  The jelly monster at the well of souls was ordered to dissolve, releasing the anguished souls of the dead.  Maximus's undead army was reformed.  The players reeled as if in a living nightmare when they beheld the legions vomiting out of the crypts.  The hungry dead from the frozen earth above them clawed their way out of the soil and rampaged down the mountain and into the high vales and valleys, overwhelming clan holds and besieging the village of Langholm.  These were the anguished victims of the cult, now turned into free-willed ghouls and hungry dead, desperate to eat the living.  There would be rumors for weeks to come, spread across Scotland and Northern England, of a strange plague across the northlands, causing its victims to waste away while infecting them with a horrible form of cannibalism.

Maximus ordered his army to fortify the mountain and close the passes, awaiting his return.  He needed to learn about this new world in the year 1630.  He collected the skin and clothing from Geoff back in the dungeon, consuming Geoff's likeness so he could pass as human once more.  The monster was pleased the characters would be taking him to York, a place he knew from Roman times when it was still called Eboracum.  He didn't mind that the characters claimed the campaign's "MacGuffin", a book of esoteric lore and knowledge that was on an altar by the Well of Souls.  Maximus had larger goals now.

The campaign ended when the group once again passed under the medieval gates of York.  The players felt the supernatural bonds of their oaths dissolve as they crossed the threshold to the city.  Maximus made to disappear amongst the busy streets, pausing briefly to look back at them over his shoulder and smiling from behind Geoff's stolen face and skin.  "Be seeing you."  He winked before flipping Geoff's hood over his head, and melted away into the crowd.

I'm not sure this is truly the end of The Pillories, but what a glorious and horrible way to part ways with our erstwhile heroes.  This group is going to undertake a gothic-themed Curse of Strahd campaign next (converted to Shadowdark), and that will keep us busy for some time.  Maybe I'll have The Great Virginia Disastrum read by then, and that could be our next LOTFP foray, a fun-filled trip to colonial Virginia.  But first, a nice vacation to Barovia.

 Be seeing you.

Horror on the Hill - New Maps and a Report

My youngest son's football team had a "bye" this weekend so I had some extra time Saturday and put together a few maps for our Horror on the Hill Shadowdark game.  ("Horror on the Hill" refers to the old TSR-era adventure module B5 The Horror on the Hill).

First up is Guido's Fort - a frontier stockade sitting across the river from the ominous "Horror on the Hill".  I put a small frontier settlement outside the fort, some fisherman, hunters, and loggers, along with a trading post, the Lion's Den Inn, and a stable master who supports also supports the fort.  I have some character sketches for them; since the stable master is a retired sailor (pirate), he could be a source for the rumor that leads a party to hunt for the Isle of Dread.  I'm thinking if this campaign sticks a little while, a classic Karameikan adventure like The Isle of Dread or Night's Dark Terror could be a nice follow-up to Horror on the Hill.

Guido's Fort for B5 Horror on the Hill

Here's the original wilderness map for Horror on the Hill - it might be one of my least favorite maps in the early B-series canon.  It needed something different.

Blech

At least for now, I've gone with a fun style reminiscent of a theme park map.  Maybe I'll do a Keep on the Borderlands map in this style at some point too.  I've lost some of the cliffs and elevation, so I may take another go but this made me chuckle and I had fun with it.

Horror on the Hill - theme-park style!

Here's the path the players have taken the first couple of games.  They cleared out a nest of killer bees (1), avoided a steamy geothermal cave (2), scouted an encampment of hobgoblins and avoided them (3), fought some ghouls in the graveyard (4), and then began exploring the ruined evil monastery on the top of the hill (5).

The trip to the top

We're enjoying Shadowdark so far - it feels like an OSR system, with a heavy focus on exploration, XP for treasure, and survival horror.  Player characters are very soft at level 1 and damage is flat, so the risk of TPK is ever-present.  Fighters are good, magic is powerful but unpredictable, and people drop to zero hit points a lot.  The "downed rules" do give the party a round or so to revive a dying character, which is both a little forgiving but creates a logistical challenge for the other players, so I'm enjoying the effects.

More to come on Shadowdark, but first I'll show how we wrapped our Death Frost Doom campaign.  Salut!

Making Karameikos Great Again

I started a second game a month or so back with one of my older gaming groups running Shadowdark.  We had all ended up at the same end-of-summer barbeque, started talking about games, and realized several folks in the old guard wanted to give Shadowdark a try.  I had recently become enamored of the rules as well, and so the idea for a new campaign was formed.  This is basically our first game report.

Shadowdark reminds me a lot of Moldvay BX.  Maybe because it's like what a BX version of 5E should have been?  The game embraces simple classes, simple action resolution, and dungeon crawling.  The Shadowdark community claims you can run classic BX style modules with the system mostly as is, only adjusting the treasure down a factor.  I was drawn to the idea of seeing how it handled classic modules from the 1980's that we haven't run before.  Thus germinated the idea of running B5 Horror on the Hill in my favorite setting from that era, the Grand Duchy of Karameikos*.

One other thing we talked about was running a "gauntlet".  Shadowdark borrows some ideas from Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), including starting with a pile of 0-level characters, putting them through a horrendous situation, and the survivors get to pick classes as level 1 characters.  In DCC it's called a funnel, in Shadowdark it's a gauntlet, but the concepts are similar.  One difference seems to be in DCC, each player will run all 4 of their zero-level characters at once, so a 5-person table will have 20 peasants trying to survive the funnel.  There aren't a lot of published Shadowdark gauntlets, but the mind-set seems to be each player runs a single character at a time, and the back-up zero level guys are off-camera in reserve (depending on the fiction of the gauntlet).

I decided to use the gauntlet as the lead-in to Horror on the Hill and make it part of the same nexus of events.  In B5 Horror on the Hill, a remote outpost (Guido's Fort) sits on the near side of the River Shrill; across the river sits an ominous fog-shrouded hill with the rising threat of the goblin king in the dungeons below.  I took a gauntlet called Cry of the Stingbat and hacked it up.  In my version, goblins are sneaking across the river at night to kidnap traders and homesteaders and throw them down a huge hole to feed a colony of "stingbats" (stirges) which assail the inhabitants of the fort at night.  The players start as a group of such victims, needing to escape a fairly linear dungeon before dawn when the flocks of stingbats return home and kill them.  They also found and killed a few goblins hiding out near the entrance; the goblins were carrying foul-smelling smudge sticks and stink bombs that immobilize the stingbats and let them manage the horde.

I can see the appeal of running a zero-level gauntlet.  Characters die left and right, which allows for some gallows humor, and story quickly emerges around the exploits of the plucky survivors.  We ran a strict time clock on the gauntlet night, and the added pressure kept things moving briskly.  Finally, there's a useful community generator at shadowdarklings.net that quickly makes a page of zero-level characters fully equipped for game night.  It's all very convenient.  My players had doubts, but now they're believers - I'm sure we'll do a gauntlet every chance we can when starting a Shadowdark campaign.

Ultimately, the zero-level traders, soldiers, and homesteaders returned to Fort Guido after their ordeal in the stingbat hole; they let the fort commander know about the stingbat horde and turned over the stink bombs and smudge sticks so the garrison could take care of the monsters in the daylight.  Having tasted dungeon adventuring, the group promised to reform back at the Fort as level 1 adventurers and take the fight over the river to the goblins - and hopefully get rich and powerful along the way.  Game 2 involved poking around the Fort, collecting rumors from the tavern and talking to the local "old timer", and finally hiring a boatman to ferry them across the river.  They agreed the boatman would return in two-days time at the agreed upon spot for a pick-up, so the players are carrying just enough food and water.  We honestly didn't get too far in their exploration of the hill after game 2.

I have a range of opinions on Shadowdark - I want to give it a few more game sessions (and maybe even try it with the other gamer group) before rendering official judgment.  It's definitely a vibes game that is laser focused on evoking an old school dungeon crawling vibe, while embracing a lot of modern mechanics from 5E and DCC.  I've had great fun; I don't know if it will displace BX (or even needs to).  I also signed up to run a few convention games as Shadowdark in a couple of months to get more drive time with the rules.  More to come on that front.

I still need to build a map for Guido's Fort, it's not provided in B5.  However, I did put together a new map for Karameikos.  This will sound a bit sacrilegious to fellow Mystarans (?), Mystara-philes(?), but the old 8-mile-per-hex style of the Trail Guides was leaving me a bit cold so I made a custom map (above).  Halloween is coming up, and Karameikos is described as a misty, wild land with dark forests, haunted moors, and foreboding mountains, like something out of Eastern Europe.  Maybe I could put the hidden valley of Barovia in the Black Peaks or Cruth Mountains in time for a Halloween one-shot?  It seems like it could work.

* Apologies for the lame title, when your country's politics are as ridiculous as ours, you've got to find a way to laugh about it.

The Pillories in Death Frost Doom - The Crypt isn't Empty

Our cast of characters continues to explore Death Frost Doom (DFD), but the ending of last game session was perhaps one of my favorites.  First - about Death Frost Doom.  In the early OSR period (pre-2010), this stood out to me as an adventure that took D&D style gaming in a new direction.  Once I started running a game with my old high school friends, I knew this was an adventure that we'd work into the campaign, especially because they like the horror genre. In DFD, the players explore an ominous dungeon full of catacombs and the creepy trappings of a long defunct death cult.  The tension builds as they continue to loot crypts but aren't finding any monsters - but they know something bad is going to happen at some point, they just don't know how and when.  Last game ended with the first bad thing.

The players were in a kitchen in an area of the dungeon dedicated to priest quarters.  They found a hidden air duct in the ceiling that led to a 3' square crawl-space.  The party's halfling, Remi, asked for a boost - he felt some cold air coming down the shaft and wanted to see where it went.  He lit a candle and crawled through the duct, discovering a long vertical shaft that seemed to go up and out - cold air was coming down the shaft from the surface.  But the duct kept going forward, so he kept going.  The other characters called for him to come back, but Remi said he'd be fine.  In the dim light of his candle, he could see the duct opened into the ceiling of another chamber, and it looked like some kind of crypt was down below.

He yelled back at everyone to hang tight while he dropped down to check out the room.  (Mind you, he had no rope or similar gear - once he dropped himself down into the next room, he had no way to get back into the duct).  "It'll be fine", he said, "I'll find my way back one way or another".

The lid of the stone crypt was carved with a relief of a gruesome tyrant standing on the skulls of victims; he passed by the sarcophagus to see if there was a way out of the room before looking into it any further.  Yes!  There was a door out.  Unfortunately, it was barred from the outside.  Why would someone put a bar on the outside of a crypt, as if to keep something in?  That's when he heard the grinding of stone behind him, as something with a grip of iron slid aside the lid of the sarcophagus from the inside and sat upright.  That was the cliffhanger ending of the game night, with the mummified remains of the cult's "grand inquisitor" jerkily lurching towards the trapped halfling and his little candle.  The mummified inquisitor began to interrogate him with a sepulchral voice from beyond the grave, while the other players watched on in horror.

It turns out Remi has been carrying a potion of gaseous form with him since very early in the campaign, so he's confident he'll escape the crypt of the undead horror if he wins initiative, and that's why he was so nonchalant about the risks.  The tension at the table eased a little in anticipation of next game.  But the players are now boggled with the idea that the sprawling dungeon is not entirely quiescent, and there are dark horrors waiting for them, lurking in undiscovered tombs.

By way of reminder, here is our cast of characters, The Pillories:

• Reverend Blackburn - L4 cleric
• Remi Knotwise - L4 halfling
• Allister - L3 magic-user
• Yuri - L3 elf
• Henchmen - Wood (fighter), Toby (specialist), Geoff (fighter)

Other events since last game report included discovery of endless catacombs, filled with thousands of mummified cult members - warriors, priests, commoners, and even children.  There have been traps and curses, including the cleric, who fell victim to a spell that saw him inscribing a tattoo of the death cult on his own forearm while caught in a mindless frenzy; he learned to his horror that he can longer receive the benefits of his own healing magic.  They also discovered the source of the ominous susurrus sound that permeates the dungeon, but quickly retreated when an ooze-like monster crawled out of a well to defend the spikey plant growth that was producing the sound.  They know they'll need to defeat the ooze monster and hack through the spike growth to reach their goal, but decided to double back and finish exploring some other areas and confirm there wasn't another way around it first.  This is how Remi ended up crawling through an air duct to the tomb of the inquisitor.

I had great fun running it, and I'm looking forward to the next installment.