Session 15: Down the Thundhr River

 Oh yeah! We finally have a river session! And a very eventful trip. So it takes a week by riverboat to get travel down the Thundhr River to get nearest piece of civilization, Rivertown. Glomm the Jeweler lets the party use his main riverboat for the trip. Because we use the 1:1 real time rule from OD&D and AD&D 1E, the players know that if they make the round trip back for this session, that their characters will be out of play for at least three weeks. They have no problem with this. Every day and night, I roll for an encounter. So by the time they get to Rivertown, they have a potential of fourteen encounters. On their trip down their, they only had three.

1. The first encounter nearly spelled disaster for our group. I rolled on the random tables in the back of the book and came up with a dragon. Turns out it's a Sea Dragon (due to it being on a river). Not sure how to determine it's alignment, I rolled a d6. 1-2 would be Lawful, 3-4 Neutral, 5-6 Chaotic. I rolled a two. Disaster was averted and the dragon, named Harley, quickly let them know that he was friendly and was making his way up the river to find a place to lair (he's a juvenile). Harley even let the party know of a possible river pirate ambush a few miles down. They told him that he should stop by Wirrow Warrens before making his way into the underground mouth of the Thundhr, which is somewhere inside the Old Bastard. He thanked them and went on his way.
2. The next night they encountered a lone cockatrice. While the foul bird was quickly dispatched, he did turn one of the crew into stone.
3. The night before sailing into Rivertown, the party encountered Billy, a merchant making his way to Woodshome. His wares? Ivory tusks. The party was uninterested and sailed on by.

Finally at their destination, the party disembarked and made their way the recommended The Green Warthog Tavern & Inn. Their stay at Rivertown was a short one, only two days. While bar hopping, they did hear some juicy rumors including a kidnapped maiden, the local thieves' guild The Orange House, a gang called Billy's Boys, and a group of assassins called Red Fingers. Plus, they even did some gambling with some shady dwarves. They didn't encounter anything worth of note in bustling city and managed to pick up a couple of slaves. Slavery in The Red Frontier, at least in Lawful areas controlled by man, are overseen by the Church. Slaves can be bought, usually criminals, orphans, debtors, etc. but the buyer is put under a contract. After so many years, usually seven, the owner must let the slave go, or be able to join his master's house. Laughing Fox and the party arrive to the slave market dubbed The Helping Hand and bought three slaves. A criminal named Sharpeye, another criminal, this time one from the local military, and an orphan child. With their purchases complete, they head back up to the river. They purchased the services of the one eyed Captain Rowdy and his smaller riverboat (Glomm's boat was more the size of a small galley). Their seven day journey back proved to be more eventful. They had six encounters!

1. The first night out, they were waylaid by five gnolls in a canoe. With Boldvay using the Horn of Blasting, they managed to kill most of the horrid creatures. The last one was soon finished. Unfortunately, Sharpeye was severely wounded. He was quickly restored in health. They only found 2,400 copper pieces among the gnoll corpses.
2. The next night, they encountered another party making their way out of a smaller river that emptied into the Thundhr. Some of them were wounded, but were helped by the party. They told them that they had killed twenty lizardmen on their way out of the abandon castle that laid to the west. After the quick discourse, they soon went on their way.
3. Two nights later, the came across a bank of swans floating in the river. They quickly flew off but not before the players thought that they saw swan maiden turn into a swan and fly off.
4. A few nights later they came across a group of tiger beetles making their way to the boat. Using the Horn of Blasting once more, plus using old fashioned bows and arrows, the managed to destroy the water bugs. But the beetles took their toll and killed Laughing Fox's newly acquired slave, Sharpeye.
5. Day 17, the party came across a small group of mermen. They were peaceful and traded with the party. They also gave the party some information about a large force of hill giants and neanderthals that arrived at a large lake in the east.
6. On the morning right before their arrival at the Bloated Badger, they came across a five headed hydra. This was a long and tense battle, but the party pulled through, and managed to kill the river monster. 

So yeah, a very eventful trip. One that makes me wonder how many have run river crawls before. While there was no ship-to-ship combat (those river pirates never showed up) it was pretty easy to run. And very deadly yet very exciting. Great session and I'm looking forward to running more water based  adventures in the future!

TOTAL XP: 

(0%) = 160 XP

(5%) = 168 XP

(10%) = 176 XP