For the past few months, I've been playing in a megadungeon campaign set in the excellent Nightwick Abbey, using Old School Essentials. One of my fellow players has been documenting our delves so far on his blog, but, as he's unable to play at the moment, I thought I'd fill in temporarily to continue the documentation of our delves into the abbey. Hopefully these play reports will help give people and example of what old school style RPGs look like at the table.
Session 28 - 1st of September 1391
This Week's Victims Adventurers.
Cherwe (Cleric 1)
Liminal Space (Changeling 1)
Sotar (Cleric 3)
Blossom (Thief 3)
Gaius (Magic User 1)
Verinka (Changeling 1)
Neighborly (Dwarf 1)
In the Village
There are two new hirelings available: Gumpert, a fanatical cleric who wishes to cleanse the Abbey and requires no payment to go into it (though he gets a half share of XP) and Timo, a woodsman. We decide to hire them both and descend into the abbey. At this point, we've explored what we think is most of level 1 of the dungeon, and we decided to explore more in the western half of the level in an attempt to visit some of the remaining unexplored areas.
Down into Nightwick
We have a choice to enter Nightwick by either the western or eastern tower (or the graveyard - which is a generally bad idea) and take the western tower. As we headed towards the deermen pits, Liminal hears the sound of a baby crying and sees a flickering light past a door. Sotar wants to investigate this, but the rest of the party deems it too dangerous and we stay on our planned path.
We continue on to the trash room where we had previously fought some "manimals" (this is where it will be revealed that I rarely pay attention to things' actual names). The room remained empty from the previous week and we still could hear the faint sound of deermen through the door to the north. We elect to avoid them and head to the pits through the pit trap south of the trash room.
The Deermen Pits
Upon opening the door to the deermen pits, the party finds robed figures already there, painting obscenities around the room in what is either red paint or blood (this is Nightwick - it's definitely blood). Though one of the sees us, it looks as if they're content to leave us alone and so we close the door and make a plan to set up a barricade down the hall to fight them from.
As we're putting this plan into action (and as the party is spread out down the hallway), the robed figures burst through the door, ready to attack. Timo is killed instantly. Mach (a longtime hireling) is also killed, but manages to take out one of the robed figures with him (we use side-based initiative, but when there's a tie, we have simultaneous combat - it makes for great moments like this). Sotar casts protection from evil so that the figures can't attack him directly and blocks the hallway with Gumpert the Fanatic while the rest of the party retreats behind them. Gumpert is heavily wounded but strikes down the last robed figure and we're free to go into the room. Blossom listens at the door beyond it and hears the sounds of a wounded deer and a crying baby. The next room is empty but has three more doors - west, north, and south. We hear deermen to the north, see and flickering light past the door to the west, and hear and see nothing to the south. We go south.
Inside the room is a single, giant anus.
The Anus Room
"God, why did I make this room?" the DM exclaimed.
The party decides that this is something that Mayfly the wizard would be interested in and vows to bring him back here. We shut that door and open up the door to the north. All we see is a long hallway and hear deermen somewhere in the distance. There's a rhythmic nature to their sounds - it almost sounds like a hymn. Going down the hallway, we come to a T-junction and see several more doors in the hallway. In the first one we explore, we find nothing but rotted meat. The second room is a potato storeroom with torches still lit in it. With some expirementing, we discover that when the torches or potatoes are removed from the room, they instantly decay - as if the effects of time don't apply to them while in the room but instantly catch up the moment they leave.
At this moment, a group of awful rat-crow hybrids stumble upon the party in the hallway and attack. We kill them without much fuss and decide to turn back and leave the abbey for the week.
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| Our map after session 28 |
Session 29 - 8th of September 1391
Neighborly (Dwarf 1)
Liminal Space (Changeling 1)
Blossom (Thief 3)
Sotar (Cleric 3)
Gaius (Magic-User 1)
In the Village
Three new hirelings offer up their arms: Benish, a peasant, Waker, a woodsman, and Mechtild, a (wo)man-at-arms. We hire Mechtild to beef up our offensive capabilities.
Down into Nightwick
We decide to continue our exploration of level 1. We've discovered at least two ways down to level two at this point, but with mostly level 1 characters, we don't feel confident about our chances down there. The party returns to the Anus Room. As long as we have mapped out our destination and can trace a path out to it, we can basically "fast travel" to a spot in the dungeon, unless if the DM rolls up a random encounter along the way. This helps up make the most of our session each week and rewards up for good mapping.
Into the Anus
We debate diving into the anus. Gaius, his player not feeling too attached to a brand new character, decides to crawl down into it. We tie a rope to him to pull him out, but, quickly, the acidity of the bodily fluids involved sever the rope. Gaius crawls down for ~30 minutes, until the party above decides that it had been long enough and Sotar stimulates the Anus with his 10' pole (oh god why am i typing this) and Gaius is ejected out, having found nothing.
The party goes west, past the Anus Room and see two flaming toddlers made of stone. The first one coughs up black ash and oil and induces a coughing fit in Sotar, incapacitating him. Ticze, one of our longtime hirelings, lands a solid hit in the meantime. The next round, Heyno and Sotar each kill one of them, ending the fight.
Goblins
We're presented with doors to the north and west. We hear nothing to the west and the sound of a woman crying to the north. We head west, hoping its safer. We find goblins in the next room and we decide we can take them and rush in to attack. Neighborly's arm is broken with one hit and he's killed with the next. Gaius is, too, killed by a goblin, but the party wins the fight, in part due to Mechtild's +2 strength bonus. With the party's numbers so reduced, we decide to leave the dungeon at once.
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| Our map after session 29 |
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