Happenings and Going Ons in the Red Frontier Part 2

These events took place during August thru October of 2022

While the Urgak and Wier were preparing to fight against the forces of Law, the players were busy making their own plans. Using the Eagle Eye treasure found in Cahn's treasure hoard, Boldvay cast levitation and invisibility on Mark the Thief to have him fly far into the air to spy on the forces of Chaos to the east and southeast. He managed to see a large force getting ready in some ancient city on the coast of Crystal Lake. Made up of hill giants, neanderthals, green dwarves, bugbears, iron golems, a dragon, and many others. It was more than enough to wipe out Pottsfort and the surrounding areas. And towards the east, Mark saw the burning fort of the Knights of Chic Fa'lar.

Lord Commander Roggett commanded most of the civilians to seek shelter in the Power Station with a company of his troops and some mercenaries for protection. He and most of his troops decided to stay and fend off the oncoming armies. Zappos, the eccentric wizard, decides to use the Black Eidolon for the upcoming battle. Boldvay decides to summon two efreeti to aid the forces of law. He also decides to the scroll of summon undead legion. The only problem is finding enough corpses for such a task. Zappos approaches him and tells he know of a place where he can contact a being who lords over another domain. A being who could aid him with supplying with such a force. But doing so is dangerous, and could very well cost Boldvay much. Boldvay doesn't hesitate and asks Zappos to lead him to such a place.

Zappos, using his teleportation mirror, takes Boldvay to a small secluded lake in the southwest. They arrive at night and it's cold. Boldvay can hear whispering in the back of his mind. Zappos uses words of power to summon the DM of Brovenloft, Moundshroud of the Mists. 

Anyway, Boldvay and Quirkus soon set out to the north shore of Crystal Lake before Wier's forces can get there. Quirkus, in the crab mech, casts invisible, uses the control dragon potion and takes possession of one of Wier's dragons and manages to destroy some of the Dark Lord's forces. Boldvay then meets Wier and the rest of his forces at the northern shore of Crystal Lake while Quirkus gets out of sight. The powerful mists Brovenloft emerge from the woods just north of coast. Through the mists, a large army of undead make their way to the invaders. Ghostly tendrils and envelops the beached army. In no time, it kills the remaining forces and takes their souls and Boldvay to it's fog-drenched realm.

 

Wier then returns to the ancient city and realizes that his remaining troops found an underground bunker containing a cache of ancient, future tech weaponry, including nukes and a stargate. Wier's player, who is also a patron in both in Dubzaron and Brovenloft, will surely put such weaponry to use in those campaigns! I'm sure this in no way will come back to bite me in the ass (it does)!

With Boldvay gone, the Efreeti were no longer under his control, and decide to burn down most of Pottsfort before leaving. The Lord Commander declares Boldvay a wanted man. Another thing, between making a deal to destroy an undead army, and allowing the efreeti to run destroy Pottsfort, Boldvay's alignment changed to Chaotic. 

Soon some of the players travel to Brovenloft themselves. I don't know much about those adventures as I only ran two sessions in that setting. The first the players had to drive a tank from Boldvay's fort to aid the force's of Eddie. Not much happened other than encountering some giant snakes and hippogriffs. The next session though proved to be game changing to Brovenloft itself. 

They meet up with my patron there, Reverend Hopkins. Hopkins gives them the idea to nuke the Brovenloft city of Dublin due to him thinking that the Irish there were going to become a major threat later on. Two of the players gleefully accepted the mission and managed to out maneuver angels sent by the Pope himself and ultimately kamikazed themselves by flying the nuke, which was powerful Tsar bomb originally found in the Red Frontier, into the city of potato demons. This was hilarious! I used a combination of grenade throwing rules from AD&D 1E with this website. It was a hit and proved to be devastating. Not really sure what happened afterwards but it was fun. Eventually some of the players, and Boldvay himself, managed to make it back to the Red Frontier. And that's it for now!

Frontier Bulletin 20: A Trip to the Haunted Castel Part One

Laurentius (Cleric), plus his Henchman

Boldvay (Magic-User), his 3 Henchmen, and Slave

Mark (Thief), 2 War Dogs

So with only two players this session (one playing both Boldvay and Mark), and with not much else to do, our team decides to follow up the lead for the search of the Black Eidolon Manual. They sought the aid of Zappos to teleport them to the Castle Xyntillan, which is located on a hill in a swamp northwest of Rivertown. He happily obliged and and charges them the friend price of 350 gold for the whole group. They knew to expect a gang of snakemen, but didn't know what else might be waiting for them in the long deserted castle. Oh, and for this session and the next, I'll be putting Melan's excellent fun house module Castle Xyntillan to use. Also, check out his blog here.

"Wait!", I hear some of you shout. "The BROSR is against the use of modules!" This is mostly true. Most modules or "adventures" are nothing more than premade stories that are the antithesis of what D&D is about. Older modules, and some newer ones are simply that: modular. They're like legos, just something you can plug into your game with no fuss, no muss. Unfortunately, most DMs use models as a crutch, instead of not making their own adventures, dungeons, etc. Also, a lot of modules aren't playtested or are just crap. Castle Xyntillan on the other hand was playtested for two or three years, is totally modular and even comes with a local town the players can visit if you want to use that. It's also a "funhouse" type of dungeon, which is something I normally wouldn't care for, but this one caught my eye. I usually find them to be too silly, but I noticed that Xyntillan seemed to lean more into the Hammer gothic horror, which was a big seller for me. Plus, I bought this before I got into the BROSR and I figured, why not put it to use in my game?

So back to the session. Zappos teleports them into some bushes in front of the castle and the party begins their search. They begin by scouting around the mote of the decrepit keep, and finally take the main road into the structure. The adventurers find themselves in the courtyard and eventually head into the northern of the two ruined gate towers. Inside, they open the door that leads into a hallway. Making their way north, they find another door and before trying to open it, they put their ears to it and listen. On the other side they can hear two snakemen "talking" to one another. They head back a bit, grab a rock from the rubble, have Boldvay cast Silence on it, and hold on to it as they open the door (it was unlocked). They surprise the two snakemen, and quickly take them down. This room was another tower, the so-called Garden Tower. They quickly find another door on the right that lead back into a semi-secluded part of the courtyard. Walking around, they find rose vines growing along the path. It became obvious that flowers were trying to attach themselves to player in order to slow them down. (I read this wrong. In the book, it's the hands of rotting corpses that the rose plants feed off of that try to trip up players. Still though, it worked out.) Realizing what was happening, they set fire to the roses and the plants shrunk back to the wall. The party soon made their way to opposite door. Before trying the door, they looked through the window beside it and saw the inside of a hallway and not much else.

They door was neither locked nor trapped and the adventurers made their way safely into the hall. They soon heard sounds of heavy galloping on the other side of the wall to their north and east, and decided to go through the door in the middle right of the hall. The party make they're through a room with rotting banners, another with a violent whirlwind, and finally, a room just north of the one with the whirlwind. Inside they could hear a woman singing as she was putting up bloody linens to dry. Turning around, it was revealed that she was werewolf! Instead of the attacking her the party decided to parley with her. She responded in kind. They asked her about the snakemen and where they might be located within the giant keep. This seemed to aggravate her and she quickly let them know that the serpentmen were intruders here and have been causing problems. The wolf-lady told them that the snakemen were located in the very northwestern tower. She soon gave them directions to get there, to be careful of one of the undead members of the house and his monstrous menagerie in the north, and that she would also tell the two dream horses (the cause of the loud galloping) to settle down so that the group could get through.

They gave her their thanks as she led them back to the hallway with the dream horses. She yelled to the fantastic mares to stop and told the players that should hurry to get to the other side before the horses started again. Our adventures quickly made their way through the hall and noticed bloodied and torn corpses of snakemen and the two "horses": one a violent storm cloud, the other a burst of light. They made their way to the left door. Not long after, they caught six more snakemen unawares, and with surprise, three backstabs from the thief, and other attacks, quickly killed all but one of the vile serpentmen. not knowing the full numbers of the snakeman and thinking they might not be able to avoid the undead hunter, they decided to head back and leave the castle grounds. They managed to snake their way back through the various halls and chambers, and soon found the teleporter that lead back to Pottsfort. After returning, they told Zappos what they found, and left the snakeman there to be interrogated by the wily wizard.

Session 6

 A few weeks back I dropped in a hook about a young boy named Byrne who had gone missing while fishing on the southern bank of the Thundhr River. Byrne also happens to be the son of the local cattle rancher Bran Drover. This last week, Lord Commander Rogget received word from Bran that he received a letter from the bandit Ruthless Bill detailing that he has Byrne in his possession, and demanding a ransom of 5000 GP. That letter also contained one of Byrne’s little fingers, and a bloodied dagger that Byrne received from his father on his birthday. For this session our adventurers, now considered local folk heroes due to their exploits against the wolfmen, decide to help Bran get his son back.

They head to Bran’s ranch, and greeted by his men. Bran himself tells them about the letter and it’s grizzly memento. He tells them about how Ruthless Bill and His Gang have harassed his ranch, his cattle, and even his men. The rancher lets the party know that he believes the gang’s hideout is somewhere in the Lowland Hills about a day west from his ranch. Bran doesn’t think Ruthless Bill has many members in his gang and probably wouldn’t pose much of a threat if they were caught unawares by an unknown group. He devises a plan where he will send out three men to deliver the money at the set location, while the party is making their way stealthy to the hideout. By only sending only three men, this leaves Bran with nine men to help him defend his ranch in case Ruthless Bill decides to make a visit.  

Ruthless Bill!

The party sets out the next morning and make their way through the northwestern area of the hills until the find two men on horseback. They attack the men, killing one instantly, while the other was thrown from his horse. He’s tied up and integrated. He gives up that the boy was back in an abandon mine. The party heads out, with their hostage guiding them, all the while expecting Ruthless Bill and most of his gang at their hideout. They arrive and see only two men guarding the entrance. Laughing Fox locates two wild boar, and puts them under his control. He tells the boars to attack the men. While one boar is injured from an arrow, it doesn’t stop him or his bacon companion from attacking, killing, and then feasting on the men.

Rumbo and the party came down, and they knocked the door loose and let the boars run in and cause mayhem after commanding them not to attack the boy. Except they didn’t find Ruthless Bill or his gang. It seemed Ruthless Bill did indeed take his most of his men to wreck havoc upon Bran’s ranch and cattle. They untied the boy, told him who they were, and proceeded to head back to his father’s. But before they left, they let the boy cut one of their hostage’s fingers off in retaliation, and let the hogs have him.  

 They missed Ruthless Bill and his men on their way back, though they did see some sort of optical illusion in the hills, like the Flying Dutchmen. Arriving, they saw some of the barns burning, blackened corpses of cattle, and Bran trying to get things settled down. Seeing his son, he gave him a hug, and thanked the party for their help. He also told them how only one of his men came back injured from the drop-off point, with the other two being killed. With that, the players ended the session at Bran’s ranch.

But we’re not quite done yet. Earlier in the week I finally brought in patron play. What’s that you ask? Well, the quick version is that it’s allowing an outsider party, probably someone who would like to play in a regular session, but not able to due to conflicting schedules, to run an npc or npc faction of the game. This eases the burden for the DM, but also has the potential to make the campaign more dynamic. There’s a good chance that someone controlling the npc or faction will make decisions and think of things that the DM will never think of. It’s pretty cool if I say so myself. So what does this have to do with this session?

Well, simple. I gave control Ruthless Bill and His Gang to a patron to see how their actions would effect the game. Not only that, but during the session, I was also in communication with Ruthless Bill’s player and was able to see how he would react to the players in real time. Really amazing! Patron play is great, and adds another dynamic layer to the whole game. But one that’s not really new, but sadly forgotten. Patron play is derived form Braunstein, a sort of proto-rpg from before the days of D&D, and one even played by Dave Arneson, co-creator of said D&D! It’s great, and the BROSR has not only brought this technique back into play, but like everything else we do, are using it and other forgotten rules to lead the charge in playing D&D the way it was meant to be played!

 Players & their XP total:

Rumbo Battlecock (10%): 44 XP

Laughing Fox (0%): 40 XP

Stonewall (5%): 42 XP

Henchman:

Mysterious Anon (formerly Man With No Name): 40 XP

Session 4

"It's best to let sleeping dragons lie." 

Before we begin, I need to make a correction to the last session. I was under the impression that Laughing Fox had the two goblins as his minions and they went with him back to Pottsfort disguised. That’s not so. Instead, he had them stay at the Old Bastard, acting as spies for the party. With that out of the way, let’s see what happened during this session!

We start out with the group finally opening the golden metal chest found all the way back in the first session. Glomm, the dwarven jeweler, was able to make some keys for the ancient dwarvish chest, one for each latch. There’s four latches in total; one on each side of the chest and they have to be opened at the same time. The group gathers around, with they four square like keys, and manage to open said chest. It hisses open, but not trapped! With the top off, they find three items: a black spike wrapped in golden tentacles, a map, and a gold ring with an onyx kraken with golden eyes. The onyx seems to glitter, like as if it’s made of stars. The ancient map shows the Devil’s Spine, in most of it’s foreboding glory. They see a skull like mountain at it’s southern western edge, Glomm thinks this is the Old Bastard. Sprinkled about the range, are several square blocks. This astonishes Glomm, as he didn’t realize there were so many Dwarven Blocks among the Spine. Or even on the other, northern side of the vast mountain range. They see a lake on the opposite northern side of the mountain, which seems to be dotted with ancient human cities along it’s coasts. But what captures the groups attention is the kraken symbol in the middle of the north eastern section of the vast mountain range. The symbol is just as black as the ring, but above it is a giant red X. Glomm has no idea what to make of it, and has never heard of a black kraken. He tells the group to maybe ask some of the native tribes, or perhaps go down to Rivertown and see if anyone knows about the strange symbol. With that, the group decides to open the wooden chest they found last session. Managing to unlock it, they find inside three potions and two scrolls. They’re unable to identify them at the moment.

Though a smaller group than that of the previous week, our four adventurers decide to head back out to The Old Bastard. Once there, Rumbo, Stonewall, Laughing Fox, Kazzik, and a new henchman, Nickos the Dwarf, decide to head back to the four chambers containing the escape tunnel found last week. On there way, the come across three orcs. They aren’t in a talkative mood and proceed attacking our party. An orcish arrow knocks out Nickos down to zero hp. He falls down, unconscious. The adventurers soon wipe out the orcs with little effort. Searching the orcs, they find that two carry a strange insignia: a black leg, with blood coming out of the top. Stonewall’s player has leave early, and takes Nickos back out to the wagon, and finds some healing herbs to stabilize his wounds. The rest of the group proceeds with their plan.

Getting to the escape tunnel, the party realizes it’s not a steep drop, but slopes under the stream they heard on the other side. The decide to send Laughing Fox’s spirit animal, a monkey named Buska inside the tunnel and to explore the other side. After a couple of turns, he comes back and tells Laughing Fox that on the other side of the tunnel is small stone chamber with set of stairs on the opposite wall leading twenty feet up to a door. Buska also mentions that the room is cold and the smell of dragon is coming from the other side of the door. Hearing this, the group decides to go down into the tunnel and check the other room out themselves. Getting in the small stone chamber, they realize that door on the stairs is actually a secret door, at least on the other side. They open the door slowly, with each side opening towards them. Rumbo and Buska peer inside and see large chamber, about fifty feet from floor to ceiling, and almost a hundred feet squared, except for the southwestern portion being cut at an angle. The two also see a large hole in the ceiling about thirty feet wide, with sun light pouring in. Inside, it looks like part of the underground stream was diverted and spills out into the chamber, making pond. Or did, as it’s now frozen, with a small glacier that rises about ten feet in the middle of the room. On that glacier, they see a sleeping, very young white dragon, with it’s small hoard of treasure. Looks like they found Whisper. About the frozen room, they see skeletons, and even the frozen corpses of goblins standing about the glacier.  

With this discovery, our players quickly decide to send in Bushka and for him to steal some of the loot. He goes, and a couple of turns later, returns with pack full of fifty gp, three gems, three rings, a scroll, and necklace that resembles that of the sun necklace found back in session one, except the medallions are silver, and the large middle piece is that of a moon, instead of a sun. With this haul, they decide not to take any more chances, close the secret door behind them, and make their way to the plaza in the middle of the level. They get to the plaza safely. Looking at the large stone door with the faces of the sun and moon carved into it, they realize that mouths of the celestial objects are actually slots, and adding two plus two, they place the large medallions into their matching slots. The door glows around it’s edges, and rumbles open about ten feet in the middle, revealing a forty-five degree angled hallway. Once more, they send in Bushka. 

He comes back reporting that the hallway is about sixty feet and leads inside a large cavern, with walls in the middle of the chamber with braziers with green, glowing fires lighting the vast room and a soft music playing within. On the western opposite side of the northern middle wall, sees a large man made pool, with land on the other side with stairs going down. In the north eastern section, Bushka sees a smaller chamber with some steps leading down to an altar with a statue of a large woman. He mentions that there may be a few smaller chambers in the southern part of the cave. With the session almost over, the group retrieves the necklaces out the mouths of the doors, and head back outside of the dungeon. On their way out, as they are leaving the middle of the intersection, the western hall becomes cold, and they see a ghostly figure floating their way, telling them to stop. Or at least they hear that in their heads. The group doesn’t listen and run out of the dungeon, with the ghostly voice echoing in their heads, saying “I’ll see you soon...” With Nickos wounded, they head to their secluded spot, and rest a full day and arrive back to Pottsfort unharmed four days later.

While light on loot, the party agrees that the session was a success with the information regarding that they found Whisper, what kind of dragon he is, and managing to open the large stone door and seeing some of what was inside. Sometimes success isn’t determined by the treasure found, but also by important intelligence that’s gathered.

Players:

Rumbo Battlecock (10%): 634XP

Laughing Fox (0%): 554 XP

Hazzik (10%): 634 XP

Stonewall (5%): 7 XP

Henchmen:

Lester: 0 XP

Nickos the Dwarf: 7XP

What's the BROSR?

It should also be said that this blog is a BROSR blog. What’s that? Well what sets the BROSR apart from the regular OSR, is that instead of shilling you regurgitated rulesets that fill your bookshelf never played, or modules that go unused, we’re about actually playing the damn game as it was meant to be played. The BROSR was started by a tight nit group on twitter, including the legendary blogger and author Jeffro Johnson. And that usually means showing that the older editions, especially the ones written by Gary Gygax himself actually work as intended when run RAW or Run As Written.

For most of us that’s the classic AD&D, for others, we’re willing to use other rulesets by applying near forgotten rules and techniques to achieve the same thing. We also adhere not only to the writings of Gygax but the pulp fantasies that inspired him, especially those found in the immortal Appendix N of the 1E DMG. But that’s not to mean we exclude outside sources. We’re humans after all and that means other things will influence our games, knowingly or not. We do this to show that these rules actually work, what results that come from following them, and show everyone that it’s possible to get the best game they can run or play! Finally, some of us aren’t against using modules, or at least modules, but realize most Dms, especially new ones, should stick to playing by the rules and see how the game grows organically by seeing what adventures the players come up with through their actions.

And then there’s the player side of the BROSR! We not only wan the DM to become the best that he can become, but for the player to achieve ELITE LEVEL DOMINANCE! This is achieved through power gaming. What I mean by power gaming, I mean for the players to take charge of the table, to set goals for themselves, and to be willing to accomplish said goals. For YOU to DRIVE the game. Don’t let the DM railroad you. Don’t agree to play along in his failed novel. YOU the player MAKE the game! Take risks, but don’t be stupid about it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Realize that you are more than your character sheet. Accept that death can and will come for you. This game is about YOU! Play smart, play brave, play ELITE! And remember, YOU CAN WIN AT D&D!

What's this all about now?

 

My original idea was to use OD&D, but since this test session was kind of spur of the moment, I decided to use the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System or ACKS for short cause I already knew it, or some of it due to play in bdubs1776 most excellent game. It can be found over hear: https://bdubsanddragons.blogspot.com/. It’s a great system, and probably the best of the OSR rulesets. It’s based off the old Basic versions of D&D, but pretty much surpasses those. It has the tools needed to design the setting from the ground up, including rules for economies and mass combat. There’s more to it, but I highly recommend you check it out. It also combines some elements found in later edition of D&D, like proficiencies, which are a combination of skills and feats. Though unlike those versions of that game, these are optional but also never feel like they get in the way of actual play. And unlike the B/X version of the game, this is less horror pulp, and more gritty sword & sorcery similar to that of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Though that’s not to say it’s not a horror game, it is essentially D&D after all.

But what house rules? Do I use them, and if so, how many?

Not many, as I’m not the biggest fan of making a bunch of house rules. One should play the game as written first, and only make rulings and house rules for things the game doesn’t cover and maybe a few that emerge from actual play and that suit your setting. With that said, there are two rules I’m starting with out of the gate: 1) to switch from individual initiative to that of group initiative. This isn’t as much of a radical change than one may think as D&D from it’s first edition to that of even 2E all use group initiative. It’s faster and meaner. And I like it a lot. 2) mostly that not all races and classes will be available. This is mainly due to The Red Frontier being a homebrew setting, and at the moment I don’t see the need or want to use those that are tied to ACKS in game setting, Auron. Not a bad setting mind you. I dig the late antiquity vibe with a pseudo late era Roman Empire in decline setting it goes for. But I really want to do my own thing. Mainly I’m inspired about the earliest of settings: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, the Wilderlands. But also that of Rick Stumps own setting Seaward. Go check his blog out: https://harbingergames.blogspot.com/.